*Self-Taught Reading & Seemingly AWOL Fathers (an autodidact is born)

Ever the precocious child, having begun speaking months before the developmental standard, I taught myself to read when I was three. I used words such as “fascinating” and “interesting concept,” having no idea at the time these words in particular would later brand me the dreaded “different,” preparing early for bullying. I chose a glossy, ceramic plaque, covered in pastel zoo animals as my first teacher. The animals appeared to be holding up a scroll, which was representative of my birth certificate, or really more of a birth announcement. Welcome home, little girl, and cheers to your new life, per various random, smiling animals hanging on a pastel plaque, forever.

Prior to my special birth plaque being fired, Mum had written my birth details on the ceramic scroll in red pencil. After asking her once what it said and receiving a barely pacifying answer my prematurely logic-obsessed brain wasn’t satisfied with, I began conjuring up ways which I could find out, once and for all, the burning question plaguing me. The ever repeated “Don’t ask me again” taught me if I were ever to be curious, to keep my mouth shut and figure it out on my own—a lesson I’d love to say I’d unlearned today, but can’t honestly.

She wrote the details in cursive writing, which posed as quite the challenge for a three-year-old, but I was confident I’d decode it soon, Sherlock Holmes’ style.

With a crayon and piece of paper, I’d draw the letter I had in mind and ask,

“Mama, what is this letto?”

“That’s a C.”

“What does C sound like?”

“It sounds like kuh. Like cat.”

Next day:

“Mama, what’s this letto?”

“That’s an H, like hu, for house.”

I painstakingly went through every legible letter attempting to sound out each one, putting them together like a puzzle. My first major challenge was sounding out the C and H together as they just didn’t seem to mesh. I’d add the other letters, which thankfully seemed appropriate. “Cuharlees” was the sound of the name I proclaimed to be my biological father’s.

Excerpt from chapter three | look at me | Everything’s Hunky Dory: A Memoir

*Steve Moutain

“Let’s play a game! Awe you weddy? Who’s undo my bed?” I yelled out as I jumped up and down on my “big-girl bed”, flailing my blue Beatrix Potter themed bed sheets, causing tiny cyclones amongst the coloring books and assorted messiness sprawled on the floor.

“Nobody.” Julie answers. Such a Julie answer, always years ahead of herself.

“Awe, come on, just twy an’ guess.”

Julie slowly knelt down, hesitantly peeked under my bed and replied with an expressionless freckled face, “A shoe.”

I’m now aggravated beyond belief. She’s not my friend anymore.  I’ll never talk to her again, ever, if she doesn’t try to guess. “Guess a name. Anybody’s name.”

“Your mom?”

“Nooooooooo! It’s Steve Moutain! Steve Moutain is undo my bed!”

I, of course, was referring to my future husband, at least in my dream world of a brain, who’s poster hung over the head of my bed. In his dapper white suit, black tie and handkerchief, and unforgettable green and yellow rubber trout slightly poking its head out of the lapel, he was cupping his hands together, mouth open, as if genuinely exclaiming, “There you are! I’m so happy to see you!” In fact, that is exactly what I imagined him to be saying every time I entered my octagonal shaped bedroom and looked at him hanging there on the wall, so comforting, so loyal, so safe.

“Who’s Steve Mountain?”

It wasn’t until second grade when I insisted on properly pronouncing the word “fart” that I’d begin to pronounce my “r’s” like a real-live human being from planet earth. I couldn’t fault her for mistaking “Martin” for “Mountain” (although, I believed the choice should have been quite obvious).

“It’s not Steve Mountain. It’s Steve Moutain. He’s behind me on the posto! I’m a Wiiiiild and Cwayzay Guy!” My earliest celebrity impersonation, performed unrestrained to no avail.

Julie, apparently, had never seen Saturday Night Live, which was not an optional viewing choice in our home. It was a requirement. I don’t know what kind of standards they were operating on in her home, but I certainly was not impressed. Steve had hosted SNL an unprecedented seven times by the time I turned five, just enough times for an obsessive child to become, well, pretty obsessed with him. He’d also had a cameo in Jim Henson’s The Muppet Movie (another obsession of mine), playing an insolent waiter. I sometimes wonder if I attached to Steve as I would have my real father, who disappeared when I was three.

This was my first time allowing anyone into my little “Steve Moutain” secret world, although thankfully, Julie was such a logical thinker, even at three, it seemed my strange choice in sleeping partner passed right over her sophisticated little head, never to be mentioned again. I blushed uncontrollably - a characteristic I, to this very day, have never gained control of. 

Being five years old, and having the idea that a thirty-seven year old man with white hair and a dashing sense of style and humor was under my bed is probably something I should discuss with my therapist, as most would find it a tad on the creepy side. (I can’t say I would have minded it in my older single days, although I can’t imagine him feeling all that comfortable hiding under there day after day at his age – he has things to do, after all. The man’s a genius.) What was he doing under my bed? Well, hiding, I suppose, until it was time to go to sleep. Then he would crawl up onto the bed, give me a warm squeeze, then fall asleep next to me, making “the dark” not such a scary locale after all. Steve Martin was my comforting, invisible friend.

Either we’re all born with a “type” or my pal Mr. Martin set a precedent for me that I’d take with me in to my adulthood. He had those eyes, the ones that hold a great intensity, as if they are so interested in what is before them that if not for the physiological build of the eyelids, they might jump out and explore, maybe even gobble you up. Jerry Lewis had those eyes, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Jim Carrey, Peter Sellers, and the boy I had a seven-year crush on through junior high and high school (although unlike the others his seemed to dim with age, possibly due to being deemed “Most Likely To Succeed” in the sixth grade yearbook – that’s a rough one to uphold). You can almost read their brains. Creators. It’s as if an entire library lies right beneath the surface of them and I want to dive in through the pupil, make myself comfortable and meditate on each and every word.  The sorrow, the joys, the crushing embarrassments, I want it all, and I can remember I was drawn to those eyes even as a little girl.

Julie had a yellow gingham blanket she affectionately named “Meemers”. Julie refused to sleep without Meemers. Meemers couldn’t play the banjo, tell jokes, nor juggle kittens (at least not with any prowess). Meemers was an acceptable security item for a three-year-old girl. My choice, an accomplished actor/musician/comedian . . . not so much. Though in secret, I was convinced I was the coolest kid on the block and I didn’t need that stupid nightlight anyway, thank you very much. 

  

Excerpt from chapter five | dear mr. fantasy | Everything's Hunky Dory: A Memoir