The Uff Ball
(1984-present)
My story
begins on a Friday night at Godfather's Pizza in Omaha, Nebraska. The year was
1984 and I was in 2nd grade. I loved Godfather's Pizza and was happy to be
there with my family. My brother and I played Pac-Man on one of those little
seated arcade box things while we waited for our pepperoni-only pizza.
The second
the pizza arrived, we ran back to the table and started to eat. I got about
half way through a slice when I started to feel sick. It hit me fast and I knew
I was going to throw up. Throwing up was already listed as my least favorite
thing in the world And my biggest fear. I panicked and tried to ignore the
feelings...the acid in the throat and all those lovely things that come with
nausea. I looked at my parents and, as parents, they knew what was about to
happen. My dad quickly grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the booth. We
got as far as the next booth and out it came. I threw up. The two women at this
particularly unfortunate booth looked at me in disgust (or so I thought at the
time), and the contents of my little stomach fell all over the legs of the high
chair of their baby.
My dad,
thoroughly annoyed, said a quick sorry, and continued to pull me towards the
front door. We passed the register and he motioned to the girl at the front to
clean up my mess. Out the door we went and I threw up a little more in the
bushes. My dad appeared impatient and grossed-out throughout the entire event.
I was
mortified. I cried and wouldn't go back inside out of embarrassment. My mom
came out and held my hand while we waited for my dad to get my brother, pay for
the food, and get in the car so we could leave. I was never the same from that
moment on.
Who knows
why some kids are so traumatized by certain events that would be benign to
another? I know if this had happened to my brother, he wouldn't even remember
the story today. To me, it was pivotal. I couldn't sleep that night. I was sad
and uncomfortable in my mind. I always slept with this one very soft Native American
patterned blanket. My brother and I named it the Uff Blanket because the fuzz
that we could easily pick off of the blanket were called "uffies".
That's "uffy" if we're talking one small, singular fuzz ball. The
semantics of the Uff and all its components were truly intricate and
complicated, but you get the idea.
The uffies
had been important to our family for a few years already. It comforted my
brother to put uffies up his nose while he took naps. These small balls of
blanket fuzz would casually balance at the end of his nostril while sleeping. Usually
he would pick only one nostril to insert the fuzz. They are so lightweight that
they would gently sway with the breeze of his inhalations and exhalations. My
mom remembers he would also balance uffies on the top of his nose, and even
sometimes insert them carefully in his ears.
Anyway, back
to THE NIGHT. While I was trying to sleep, I was picking at the uff blanket
with fervor. Nervousness became a part of my life that night. I was so upset
that I ended up forming a ball a little larger than a golf ball out of the
uffies. It probably took me a good four hours.
I was not
cured of my discomfort the next day. In fact, I was so horrified that I did not
eat in a restaurant again until I was in 11th grade. That was nine years. Every
time my family decided to go to a restaurant, they would have to gently break
the news to me. I remember taking deep breaths upon hearing it was a restaurant
night, and immediately I would try to focus all my energy on not throwing up.
Once we arrived at a restaurant, I would sit, drink water, and furiously draw on
the napkins trying to get any thought of throwing up out of my head. I had
panic attacks every time I would attempt to put something in my mouth in a
restaurant, so I eventually gave up. And then I would refuse to glance up to
even see the food on the table. The smells of the food would sicken me. No
amount of concentrating on other things entirely worked to dampen the bad
thoughts.
My brother
figured out that me even hearing the words “throw up” or “vomit” would cause my
gag reflex to kick in. So I of course heard those words a great deal. Luckily,
I could eat in the cafeteria at school, but only if it was food brought from
home. My main goal at the cafeteria however was to make sure I never witnessed
someone else throwing up. And kids throw up a lot. So that wasn’t easy. To this
day, I am unusually sensitive to anticipating when a human being is going to
throw up, and I will bolt out of a place if it appears to be imminent.
Every night
of my life from 2nd grade to 11th grade, I would add to the Uff Ball in bed.
I even persuaded
my best friend Connie to make her own Uff ball, but
I think it was out of a pure competitive spirit that I wish I did not
have....it was a, 'My uff ball is bigger than your uff ball' type of thing. She
gave up "uff ball making" after that one slumber party and very
kindly allowed me to add her mini uff ball to mine. It is nice to think that
her tiny addition is still buried deep and safe inside my little universe of
fuzz.
Me:
Connie:
So this just
continued. My mom at some point informed me that children who do things like
this (she called it “collecting lint”) were often times RETARDED. That was her
word and I apologize for using it today; that word wasn’t really offensive back
then, though I do remember her sort of whispering it rather than actually
SAYING it. I was a sharp little kid, but for a while there, I was convinced
that I really must be retarded if I did things like this, and I somehow decided
I was completely ok with the notion.
And it
continued. I learned at some point I was not at all retarded, but the term most
used to describe me became WEIRD. My grandma and my mom are the only people
besides me to have added to the Uff Ball, most of my family members are
“pickers” of some sort. The first time I heard of Star Trek was when people
told me my Uff Ball looked like a tribble. And it looks EXACTLY like a damn
tribble.
So, I had a
jerky boyfriend towards the end of high school (the only asshole boyfriend I
have ever had.) He made fun of me for not eating in restaurants. I did not tell
him about the Uff Ball. Finally, after enough ridicule and total lack of
understanding, I ate some Chicken Crispers at a Chili's in Grapevine, Texas.
What a way to end a nine-year hiatus, with some Chili's Chicken Crispers.
Anyway, sometimes it really does take a jerk to make things happen. He did cure
me of the fear of throwing up in public, so I guess he was good for something. I
only lapsed back into my fear of restaurants a couple of times since then and
now my panic attacks are of an entirely different nature.
The Uff Ball
was neglected like an old stuffed animal. It was stuck in the back of my closet
and there it stayed. I went to college and started making obsessive paintings.
Paintings with thousands of tiny concentric circles on top of more tiny
concentric circles on top of more and more and more concentric circles. My
professor looked at them, looked at me and asked, "Have you ever done
anything else that might be considered obsessive?" I said, "I don't
think so," and then paused and slowly said, "Well I did form a ball
of fuzz out of pieces of a blanket for most of my life, is that the kind of
thing you mean?" He told me to bring it in so he could see it. He then
told me it was beautiful. For a short moment, I thought it was art and included
it in an installation I made for a group exhibition. It was in a university
gallery with many exits. For 5 nights in a row I worried that someone would
steal it, so the next morning I drove 2 hours to pull it from the show and take
it home where it belonged.
I work on
the Uff Ball when all is not right, but it stays out of my hands for the most
part these days. I do, however, proudly display it front and center in my house
and still consider it to be the best thing I've ever made. It feels like a kid
to me. I judge people who come to my house by whether or not they notice and/or
ask me about the Uff Ball. It hurts me profoundly when someone is a bit
repelled by it.
The blanket
is barely holding together and is marred with hundreds of holes, but it seems
like its mass will be just enough to last me until the end of my days.
Everything that’s happened to me has happened in these sort of parentheses
surrounded by the moments I’m with the blanket and my Uff Ball. My love for
these two objects is stronger than I could ever explain. This is a closeness.
This is a friend. This is alienation and obsession. This is the genesis and the
physical embodiment of who I would become as both a person and an artist. This
is patience and Will and deep sadness. It’s also love and creation and solace.
It is mania as much as it is necessity. And the Uff Ball smells incredible, of
clean laundry and me and of time.
