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<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWell, there it is. Yes, I can see it now. Wow. Who knew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these glamour shots are not my memory of my mother, which took shape in the 1960s after she had six children in ten years, when the beauty parlor became the beauty store, and getting six children fed and clothed was a consuming challenge. I\u2019m guessing that any pride in her looks were superseded her maintenance-free identity as a witty and clever woman, an athlete and a musician. One day she came home from the grocery store and announced that Debbie had \u201clet herself go.\u201d She told me Debbie was no longer one of the town\u2019s beauties. I sensed her delight that her identity as an accomplished and interesting woman was timeless. Beauty was ephemeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My suburban grade school was utterly homogeneous, white, Christian, affluent. I had no tools to evaluate my classmates\u2019 looks, particularly since everyone looked similar and wore the same range of clothes. Some were taller, some had blond or brown hair (one red head was an outlier), but beyond that I was clueless. Sure, I realized that there was a spectrum, with knock \u2018em dead movie star looks stretching off to the right and presumably a circus-grade ugly look on the left. I had heard whispers that Lisa was the prettiest girl in our grade, but I had no idea why. Maybe her thick blond hair pushed her a smidge to the right on the spectrum, but as far as I could tell everyone clustered at the mid-point with minimal deviation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was my status at age 10 or 11, when I arrived at Hillaway, my first sleep away camp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My bunkmate Nancy was unhappy with her assignment in our cabin. She was a returning camper, a few months older than the rest of us, desperate to be in the \u201cOld Timers\u201d cabin, a more prestigious cabin in a plum location on the way to the horse barn. As I looked at Nancy sitting cross-legged in her top bunk, the spectrum of looks crystallized into sharp focus. Nancy did not cluster in the middle, well beyond a smidge. I distinctly remember her angular face, pocky complexion and most particularly her sharp nose and cavernous nostrils. I did not know why Lisa was said to be pretty, but all on my own I could figure out that Nancy was, let\u2019s face it, far off to the left. She did have a singular talent \u2013 her whistle, a loud, piercing whistle that carried across the lake. I thought, maybe she looks at herself in the mirror and thinks \u201cI might not be the most beautiful person in the world, but my whistle makes up for that. I am special. I am an individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wanted that whistle. The entire cabin of girls wanted that whistle, wanted to be as unique as Nancy. I imitated her technique, putting my thumb and index finger in a semi-circle on my tongue. I blew until overcome with dizziness. I slid my fingers around my tongue, adjusted the fold of my tongue and then different combinations of fingers. I was ready to give up. And then it happened. A loud piercing whistle erupted with such force that it threw me back on the bed. Its horsepower, timbre, and general greatness far surpassed Nancy\u2019s. My whistle reverberated through the cabin and ripped across the lake. The other campers cheered. Nancy sulked. She no longer had sole possession of her special gift. I had stolen it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That whistle remains a signature part of my identity. I have used it at sporting events, to hail cabs, to find someone in the Costco parking lot and is the best thing to come out of Hillaway camp. The rest of camp was forgettable, I hated horseback riding, sucked at archery, and didn\u2019t pass the swim test and wasn\u2019t allowed to swim out to the raft. It was worth every penny. I still get compliments on my whistle. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I got home, my mother immediately recognized the whistle\u2019s importance. She was jealous. I tried to teach it to her for the next 65 years, but she never mastered it. <\/p>\nFollow Liza Blue on: I grew up in a gender-neutral household, the only daughter with five brothers. You might have thought my mother would have doted on her only daughter, but she never singled me out with any advice on what it meant to … Continue reading <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"