Easter Bonnet by Tracy Kauffman Wood c. 2008

Hope you enjoy reminiscing with me about the trials of the season. Happy Spring!


At Northeast Philadelphia’s Solis-Cohen Elementary School in the 1960’s, the annual Easter Parade was a rite of spring. From September through March, we students yearned for the day when the new season’s light found us marching around the school auditorium in our Easter bonnets. There were tall Uncle Sam hats and deep bowls of artificial fruit, tables set for ten and tiny jeweled boxes, tool benches and beauty parlor scenarios all balanced on the heads of a collective student body that was 95% Jewish. The coveted prize for our creative efforts was that the chosen people, the kids with the best Easter bonnets, would be photographed by Mrs. Bell for The Chronicle, our school newspaper.
School was an otherwise restrictive place. The creative spirit was subdued in favor of filling our minds with facts. In the classroom, we were required to sit with our hands folded. In the hallways we were admonished to, “Keep your hands to yourselves!” But here was a day when we were encouraged to use our hands to create a bonnet, displaying our creative selves. We revered this day and kept it holy.
For most of the children in our school, Easter and the related festivities, was not about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. We didn’t know from this. Sure, we dyed eggs with food coloring and vinegar, made Easter baskets out of construction paper and fake grass, and greedily inhaled the delightful aromas of jellybeans and chocolate, canceling out every other classroom smell. Who wouldn’t adore these rituals that culminated in a parade?
The problem was it all happened to coincide with Passover, the Jewish celebration of freedom and renewal, observed at home. One ritual of the season was to rid the house of chametz - any leavened bread or food not specifically made for Passover, including the contents of Easter baskets. This heightened my fascination with the world of Easter candy turning it into a guilty pleasure. For me, Jewish suffering meant having to eat the cheap, chocolate-covered jellies that passed for candy at Passover. Why bother when there was a world of pastel, candy coatings to explore?
The Easter basket was not hard to relinquish. The paper was flimsy, the grass messy and hard to contain. The hard-boiled eggs needed to be eaten or they’d rot. So I dipped them into the salt-water tears of our Passover seder. I sang Let My People Go, opened the door for the prophet Elijah and invited all who were hungry to come and eat. But all of the rituals of the Passover meal could not satisfy the saccharine urges of my springtime flirtation.
In this season, my spirit could only be set free by the miraculous arrival of the marshmallow peeps - a local, seasonal product on the shelves of Famous Delicatessen. The soft, sugary pink and yellow peeps chirped a heavenly message to me on Easter Sunday when I was sent on an errand for smoked fish. Squishy and deeply sensual, their birthday cake fragrance was in direct opposition to the briny, deli smell that usually overcame me as I entered the store. You could press on them through the cellophane and they would respond. Once you had a bird in hand, you could bite off the head, (with or without front teeth) clench the sandy sugar between your back molars, and allow a moistened glob to slide down your throat. What an escape from the confusion of the season. I was tasting paradise, while fleeing Egyptians. But this flight was fraught with guilt. They were definitely not ‘Kosher for Passover’. To absolve myself, I decided to create a homeland for the marshmallow chicks and all of their sugar-coated descendants in my Easter bonnet. What a great, sanctioned excuse to experience the forbidden sweets.
I chose a straw hat with a deep, scooped out rim - perfect for a pastoral scene. Feathering my nest with multicolored Easter grasses, I buried the leftover hard boiled eggs from Passover in layers of tangled grass. I pretended that the eggs hatched into hollow, chocolate bunnies - the children of Israel with pink noses. They romped through my hat dodging jelly beans and foiled, football eggs. I taped chocolate marshmallow rabbits with long ears around the circumference of the rim as soldiers to protect their homeland. The peeps, pink and yellow between mounds of chocolate, were set free and in their element. So was I.
A heavenly aroma descended upon me as my mother and brother lowered my Easter bonnet onto my head, come the morning of the parade. They spotted my trial stroll around our living room to make sure I could manage such a large hat. They attached strings
with clothespins on each side for me to hold, so I could keep the bonnet centered. There was a palpable air of excitement in my classroom that morning. My classmates and teacher knew that my Easter bonnet would be a contender.
With our heads covered, we ascended to the auditorium. It was a sunny day and the dappled light from the windows seemed to be singling out, not the brightest nor the most beautiful people, but the art kids - the most creative children in the school. I, and my fragrant, bounteous, and heavy hat was chosen, as were nineteen others. Mrs. Bell placed me in the front-row, center of her photographic composition. Even the chosen kids were admiring the scenario on my head and smacking their lips as we held our positions on stage. Mrs. Bell, looking through her camera and not quite satisfied, asked me to move slightly to my left. I was sitting on my sleeping calves dreaming of fame next year in Jerusalem. She became impatient with my slow progress, put down her camera, placed her hands on my shoulders and in one jerking motion, moved me to the left. Except only the top half of my body moved. My legs stayed where they were, my neck twisted and my hands were not gripping the clothespins of my bonnet. My peeps and all their descendants were cast about in a sudden and violent diaspora spreading across the stage and down the slippery, sloping aisles of the auditorium.
A collective “Oh my G-d!” swept the room. Children lunged for chocolate and chased jelly beans. Teachers were forced back into control mode on a day they assumed would be restful. My sugar-coated promised land went fallow. The more benevolent souls began gathering and returning my candy. Mrs. Bell moved me to the second row, left corner of the picture. I made it into the pages of the Chronicle looking startled. I’d been cast out of the land of milk chocolate and Bit o’ Honey to a border settlement. I ate the scant remains of my hat in the girls bathroom at recess.
The following year I wore a white lampshade on my head with a single strand of black jelly beans dangling from its middle. Simple yet elegant, and very popular with the Agnostics.

This just in!

Good news! My poem 'She who carries' received second place in the Ardmore Poetry Festival. You saw it first here. To read it again, please scroll down. Yeay!

She, who carries

Saigon, 1998

She, who carries the heat and the sea,
is handed to me in a heart beat proud
and strong.Where tiny lungs labor through
time’s phlegmy chest. Rattled breath sacrificing
ying, ying of the ancients,for the comfort
that ah, da da brings. She sings,past the
clutter and our ancestral emphysema.She brings
the heat and the sea, and the promise of continuance.

“Sit up child! Soon you will be a Barbie.”
They prop her up, wipe her nose.

“She, Vietnam?” they ask us.
“Yes,” we submit.
“She’s lucky!”
“We’re lucky!” It’s plain to see.
In our first unbridled cyclo ride,
grappling iron fingers grappling with new life.

Ardmore 2008

She, who carries the heat and the sea,
slender tween sings and sways to a beat proud
and strong. No trace of labor or sense of lack,
as she casts a line toward adolescence.
Deep within her form, like so many flecks of rice,
polished by the ages, her first unbridled cycle
speaks the promise of continuance.

She, who carries the heat and the sea,
seasons her language with salty shards of youth,
melts chocolate hearts in her palm.
Her blood remembers
the heat and the sea,
where generations of fish spawned
generations of family under thatched roofs,
saluting the heat of dawn,
swaying with the tide at dusk.
She carries their blood,
but her memory is free.

She, who carries the heat and the sea,
beholden to no one, breathes
confidence, speaks her mind,
grapples with new emotions.
She will be, what she will be.
But the blood that flows from her
heart to the sea, carries me.
Lucky. Lucky.

White Noise (for Tony)

Oh,
sleeping son
of faded stars, blue
blood rhythms seething.
Ensconced in layers of dusty
sheets, blankets of camphor and
must. Generations of gentiles carefully
coiffed screech to a muted
halt in this black room
with white noise.
When
you shrug, I am
Atlas, robust and red.
When dreams are accessed,
dust must fall. Daily our rhythms
meter, teetering on the brink.
Oh,
who will release
the shudder, the ancient
worry, exposing our pastures
for green. Future is written in
sepia-toned captures of dreams.

Merrie's Threads

Merrie’s Threads


I know a gal named Merrie
with a spirit like... Christmas.
Well, a secular christmas,
big, bawdy, unbound.

She is merry,
living on a thread of hope.
Give her an inch,
she’ll take a yard
and wrap it ‘round those she loves,
tight, and hang on for dear life.

She bargains...
“Dear Life,
I love you, I want you
I have a simple dream for more life-
A house in the country for me and my kids,
to watch them grow and flower.
I love to work, making pictures and money,
so I shouldn’t have to ask any more.
That’s all I ask.”

She tugs for more thread,
and rushes toward the cure.
“You got it, I’ll take it. I’m there!”
She wraps the thread around all that is left of
her four-foot-ten-inch body,
becoming invincible, living on hope,
devouring doubt.

She grows big, bawdy, unbound.
“I’m still here!” she shouts. “I am life itself!
How can this stop me? Can we party now?
I’ll take some more of that!”
She takes till she’s full of hope and nothing less.
Unstoppable!

She’s a girl on a thread so long,
it must be extended from heaven-

Ancestors hard at work,
trimming hours, days, weeks, months,
years off of lives already lived.
They don’t need them any more.
They want her to have them.

She gathers up her hand-me-downs from heaven.

“Schmates,” her grandmothers whisper.
“Zie Gezunt. Wear them in good health!”

Proudly she wears their hugs and kisses,
till they’re worn out.
Then, yanks for more thread
and gets it!

Only heaven knows how long the thread is,
but when there is no more,
there will still be hope-
the worn, warm, comfortable clothing of the soul.

January Post to Remember Merrie

I am dedicating my January post to my cousin Merrie Renee Choder Johnson, who passed away in January of 2007. Merrie left behind her three beautiful children, her devoted parents, family and friends. Our lives are forever changed for having known her.
Her courageous battle to stay alive gave me an appreciation for the gift of life, and for the heroic person she became because of her illness. I have posted my poem, ‘Merrie’s Threads’, written when it occurred to me early in her illness, despite a world of love and prayers, that Merrie would not triumph over breast cancer. I thought ahead to her funeral, and what comfort I might bring. I’m grateful I was able to share this with Merrie on her thirty-sixth birthday, and was able to perform this, receiving a direct infusion from the ancestors, later that year at her funeral.
I am posting her obituary, as well as a brief visual biography. Merrie was a visual person, a photographer by trade, and this would be her favorite part. Photo credits go to the family collection, Tracy Kauffman Wood, Merrie Renee Johnson, and Anthony B. Wood.
Thank you for allowing me to share this with you. I ask if you are able and so inclined, to please make a contribution toward curing breast cancer, whether it be through the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, 125 S. 9th St., Suite 202, Phila. PA 19107, or by
learning about the work of the Center for Advancement in Cancer Education 300 E. Lancaster Avenue - Suite 100 Wynnewood, Pennsylvania 19096 , or any other way you’d wish. Let’s re-enliven, and fulfill the hope that fueled Merrie.

Merrie Renee Choder Johnson 4/7/70 - 1/4/07

Merrie Renee Choder Johnson
4/07/70-1/4/07

Merrie Renee Johnson (Choder), 36, died of breast cancer on Thursday January 4, 2007. She is survived by her three children, Megan, 15, Zachery, 14 and Casey, 9. Also, she is survived by her three devoted parents, Sybil Weinstein, Alan Choder and Dennis Weinstein. She leaves her brothers, Greg (Rae) Choder and Daniel (Alyson) Weinstein and her nephew Joshua.
Merrie fought a courageous and unforgettably determined battle against cancer. She was diagnosed in September 2001, with Stage Three breast cancer. The seriousness of this diagnosis never diminished her positive, hopeful attitude. She was determined to be a survivor. And she did survive with gusto and a boisterous spirit for almost six years. She never gave up hope as the disease ravaged her body. She simply adapted to the changes in her body resulting from constant treatments. She wore her bald head and flat chest proudly to tell the world, “If I can get through this, so can you!” She focused on what could never be taken from her-her love for her family and love for life itself. She became well known to the clients and staff at the Oncology Unit at Abington Hospital because when she wasn’t being treated, she was there to chat, joke and bring treats to the other patients. She was proactive in her treatment and her doctors and nurses appreciated the strength, energy and optimism she brought to their collective fight. In December, the hospital awarded Merrie a grant, so that she could be home with her family for Christmas with the necessary help she needed.
Merrie was an artist and comedian. She and her brother Daniel, would turn family dinners into slapstick farce. Everyone remembers Merrie smearing her young daughter Casey’s face into a plate of food before the toddler could start eating and do it herself. With her tremendous regard for family and art, and her whimsical spirit, it made so much sense that she became a wedding photographer. Her clients and colleagues will remember Merrie Renee as a high spirited, hard working perfectionist who obviously loved her job. She began her career working for Lindelle Studios, and grew her own business for ten years well into her battle with breast cancer. She only stopped working recently when it became physically impossible for her. She was supportive to her colleagues and competitors always giving them referrals when she was not available. Her wedding clients usually ended up as friends. Merrie gathered a community of friends and family around her like water droplets gathering strength and merging on a window pane. She leaves us all with her tremendous spirit full of joy, hope and love.