I called myself a tomboy. There, to my mind, was no stigma attached. I just did what I wanted to do. Dresses-flannel shirts, dolls-guns, climbing trees-modeling…it was all the same to me. My poor mother (born in 1926) tried unsuccessfully to to mold me into a proper lady - whatever that is. I can almost pull it off but I’d rather swing a hammer or wield a drill.

In a coulda, shoula, woulda sense, I wish I had known about women in the trades (in the mid-Sixties I never saw/knew any.) Maybe the times were wrong but I can see mythenself running heavy machinery or doing carpentry.

Interestingly enough, my father was a fashion designer. At the age of 21 (1946,) he was a gender bender. And truth be told, my mother could get down and dirty when she wanted to.

So I guess when all is said and done, I was lucky. I was a babe in a box of fabric under my father’s sewing machine while my mom was pumping gas to help our fledgling family.

that’s what childhood is about: discovering yourself and defining yourself. Crafting your own story about yourself, and telling that story, and then changing that story and telling it differently, and then doing the same thing again, and again, and again.

I think the above quote is what all of life is about not just childhood - rediscovery, redefining, and doing it again and again and again.

Thank you for the thought provoking piece you wrote.