Welcome to GoodStoryADay # 1 for Teens

GoodStoryADay Quote:
Today, you have all you need to express, enjoy, and
enlighten the world around you with your creative
mind. - Joycebelle

Your Creativity Is Your Life
By Joycebelle

I don’t know the date, the time or the place.

I was just a young girl entering my teens. We, my entire village, women, children, men, families, old, and young were all huddled together in a boxcar being taken someplace for some unknown reason. There was a war on, but we were not really a part of it, not until now. Now, we were the war.

Clankity, clankity, clankity, the wheels turned on and on, day and night. The metal boxcar creaked and groaned. We swayed to its endless motion and commotion.

It was cold, very, very cold. And the smell . . .

I turned away from it so much that I entered another world. It was a world of make-believe. I know that sounds silly, but I called it my creative world. I did this because I wanted to live. I had a very strong desire to live, and the only way I could live was to find something wonderful to think about.

We arrived at our destination. It was cold, oh, so cold.

Mother, my sisters, and I were taken in one direction. My father and brothers went in another. Eventually my mother and sisters were taken away from me also.

Hundreds, no thousands of strangers were around me. We were held apart from the men and boys by electric fences. I always looked for my father and brothers, but I never saw them among the many blank faces across the fences.

Their minds went first and then their bodies, I figured. My mother had taught me one thing: “Never let them have your mind. It is yours! Keep it. Focus on something good, something you love.”

I loved paper dolls, dress-up, and pretty clothes. Everyday I would design a new dress in my head and then model it as if I were a model in a fashion show. I would describe the dress each day to all the other girls my age.

One day it would be pink organza, long and flowing, with high puffy sleeves and a tight waist. The next day my creation would be a blue-velvet suit with an A-shaped skirt and golden buttons on the jacket.

The next would be a red taffeta evening gown with a huge bow at the waist and a sweeping skirt.

I had imaginary hats, shoes, scarves, gloves, and handbags, which matched perfectly with each outfit. Oh, how glamorous they were! I, of course, was not. I never got to bathe, wash, or comb my hair. My hands looked old, very old. I don’t know what my face looked like. But I could create my appearance in my mind, so I did.

The visions of all the clothes were very real to me and to the girls I presented the pretend fashion show to each day. The fashion shows always took place in America, and I preceded each with a wonderful, glamorous, and exciting shopping trip to select the exact outfit to wear. I would say, “When I Get to America, I am going to buy . . .” and then I would start seeing the clothes in my mind and would describe them in infinite detail.

When I Get to America was my staying power, and the clothes were my creative power.

One day while I was parading in my imaginary gown, I saw a boy across the fence looking at me. Our eyes met momentarily. I was very embarrassed, but I continued with my show.

Then the next day and the next, there he was just looking. When I would dare to glance his way, he looked down just after our eyes met. I must have seen him no more than a dozen times. But his slim build, sandy hair, and deep-set eyes stayed with me. I would have imagined that we were in love, but my When I Get to America dream was set too deep in me to be replaced by love for a boy on the other side of the fence.

Then after a seemingly endless time, those of us who survived were freed and taken back to our home country. We had nothing except our lives, which were very precious to us. I got a job working 16-hour days helping children in a hospital, and immediately I started saving. Little by little my When I Get to America fund grew.

One day I put on all the clothes I owned, packed a bag of food, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and bought a boat ticket to America. There were hundreds of other people like me. Young, old, some families and some alone. I knew no one. I had just turned 18.

The boat was over crowded, the seas were rough, but my mainstay
was . . . When I Get to America . . . Oh, the beautiful clothes I will buy.

After days and days of seasickness, I was very faint. I had paid very little attention to anything until now when I heard something different in the crowd. I heard people crying, but it was not the crying of the sick or the hurt, it was the crying of happiness. I heard shouting, joyous outcries. I head rejoicing and prayers of gratitude. I heard the sounds of hope. People were looking and pointing.

It was America!

The Statue of Liberty was real. There she was before me.

America was real. There she was before me.

New York City was real. There she was before me.

I did not know a word of English, but I had my dream and was living it.

As I clutched the rail to get a solid look at America, I felt someone looking at me. It was the same feeling I had experienced years ago as that boy looked at me through the fence in the concentration camp.

I didn’t want my moment with America interrupted. I had to stay my course. But this time the eyes would not go away. I had to look back.

Much to my surprise, they were the same deep-set eyes, the same sandy hair, the same lean tall frame . . . once a boy, now a man. “It is you,” he said.

I nodded in bewilderment.

How could it be? We both wondered.

“Let me ask you something personal,” he finally had the nerve to say. “What were you doing as you paraded before the girls each day?”

I was too shy to tell him. I just said, “I always started my show with When I Get to America. . .”

“You know I said the same thing. That is what saved me. I would create in my mind a business in America where I manufactured furniture. That is what I am going to do in America.” He talked on and on, off the ramp and into America, a new land, a new day, a new year (January 1, 1953).

And he did exactly as he said he was going to do.

As for me?

I married that man who wanted to go to America as much as I did. And I bought and still buy many wonderful gowns for myself, my daughters, and my granddaughters.

This man, who would not stop talking about what he would do in America and I have now been married for 50 years and have lived a rich, full life in America.

It is all in the mind. Your creativity is your life.

_________________

This story was told to me by an American Airlines attendant, the daughter of the “When I Get to America” girl in the story. Share your stories with others. You never know whom they will bless.

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Enriching the World: one child, one story, one day at a time.