Squeedunk… weird word, no?
It’s a word I haven’t even thought of since hearing it as a child of no more than five or six. But out of my mouth it popped on a recent Saturday morning. I had headed into the bathroom for my usual pre-meeting “bio break” and, because out cat Fee does not believe in the concept of privacy, she followed me in as the door was closing. As I saw her little head entering the room, I said, “Come on in, Squeedunk.”
Hearing the word in my own voice was nothing less than startling. I’d only ever heard it spoken by my dad. It was a term he used in reference to me as a Little. Where in my memory had the word been hiding all these years, only to pop out randomly as an affectionate greeting to our dear feline friend?
I immediately wondered what the actual meaning of the word was. My initial concern was that perhaps it had some negative connotation like pest, intruder or she who is unwelcome… But that was just my deepest fears showing up, as they’re wont to do when my habitual self - and not my true self who knows better - is at the helm.
I also worried that the word was just a placeholder term because there were so many children in my family (seven, in fact), and that Dad just called us all Squeedunk because he couldn’t remember our individual names off the tip of his tongue. I mean, I clearly remember being summoned as “TriJudBetLin!” a mashup of my four oldest sisters’ names as his mind would scroll through the daughter-roster in search of mine. Some part of me couldn’t help but wonder if calling me Squeedunk was simply a more expeditious manner of addressing “the kid…”
A quick Google search put my mind at ease when, among a strange and varied assortment of definitions, I discovered this one, which I choose to believe is what Dad meant when he referred to me as Squeedunk:
I choose to believe this definition because Dad and I had a special bond when I was very young. I think because I was a straggler who came along last in the family after a 12 year gap of babies, I was more like a grandchild than child to him; he would turn 50 the year I was born. We played board games together; he taught me to play pool and how to keep score when “bowling” in the basement with pins and bocce balls. He taught me to ice skate. He christened the canoe my sisters got him for Christmas, Regina (my given name though primarily only teachers have ever used it), got me a Captain’s hat and taught me to paddle. Bless his heart, he even tried to teach me to swim, but for reasons that had nothing to do with his competence as a teacher, I am constitutionally incapable of performing a proper “crawl” stroke. Despite this character flaw, I remained squarely in the Squeedunk camp in his estimation…
Since rediscovering the word, I’ve been emotionally dwelling in Squeedunk Land, having been reminded of the fact that, once upon a time (or, in keeping with my blog’s name, “once a time a time”), I was a “particularly lovable or pleasing person for whom someone felt affection.”
This emotional space is especially welcomed as it comes shortly on the heels of the urging of a coach to “imagine that your earliest caretakers, at some point, looked at you and were astonished, delighted and amazed at your little presence.” My initial thought… “Nah, not me.” I grew up with the internalized feeling that, in my family I was “just another kid” in a long line of kids. My family had been there and done that when it came to childish behaviors and proclivities I may have exhibited - they found nothing remarkable about anything I did. And that sense of “not being anything special” has come along for the ride throughout my life.
Then along came Squeedunk, though… and I am ready to challenge that long-held self-perception since the word came out of hiding in the caverns of my mind, reminding me that, indeed, I have always been “something special” - a source of delight and amazement - even though my conscious mind would have me, like what I did with the word itself, forget.
I’m left a bit agog at my mind’s capacity to bring forth information, feelings and memories buried for decades - just by cracking open the door with a suggestion that things could be different than I have for decades perceived them to be.
Yet another layer of the onion that is my psyche revealed: I am (and have always been) a Squeedunk, particularly lovable and pleasing.
Who am I to argue with urbandictionary.com - or Dad for that matter?
Very sweet story! And I love that you had that. I looked at the list of things that your dad taught you and could only be jealous--mine didn't have the patience to deal with me. But he did stop my sister from calling me "Mofo."