The days go by in a blur. The rain is beating against the roof, it's comforting. Spring came quietly last week. I miss having my garden. Getting seeds in the mail, planning the different flowers, vegetables, and herbs I will grow for the season. But like everything else, my ex-husband hated my garden. Reminded me each time he cut the lawn, one of the few things he did that helped me, that he hated all the shrubs in his way. "I'll eat anything," he would say when I learned to grow fresh tomatoes, basil, and thyme I used in my sauce. Finally feeling good about teaching myself to cook and enjoying how fresh and good everything tasted. I was told continually growing up how horrible cooking was, but I came to really enjoy it and gardening made it especially nice.
It will be 8 months here in my mother's garage as April starts. I don't go out anymore, not only because of the Pandemic but because the hoovering was intense and so many of my things went missing. Lately, coughing on the door and constant "checks" go on all the time, under the guise of checking the cellar for water, which is right outside the door of the room in the garage. My mother told me recently in no uncertain terms that "she doesn't have the virus!" when I wanted her to practice Social Distancing. So they all cough now by the door and laugh. They had already shunned me for the past 7 months and weren't staying home. I was told violently to "stay in my hut!"
The door has no lock, so slamming the other door opens this one and because they both don't shut properly they all open. This went on all Winter too, sometimes it was so cold I got sick. I never really get sick. I hadn't had a cold since I was in my early 20's, but I can't seem to get over being so weak now. Some of my symptoms are from Menopause, being Jailed, forced into a psych ward and the 2 seizures I had, but the weakness drags on. I know it's also from being confined, it's extremely difficult—it's been 2-years of this kind of hell. I use to work-out all the time, used to running 5-6 miles a week. I can't get any exercise or eat very well, which makes it even harder. I became a Vegetarian in my 20's, but can't use her kitchen or washer. There is no bathroom out here. I was using the bathroom in the house, but the violence makes it difficult. I was keeping things under the bed to keep them cold even after getting sick with diarrhea a couple of times. I never liked meat and after having an Eating Disorder found that eating Vegetarian helped immensely, but with no refrigerator, I'm basically eating macaroni. We had a sump pump when we had our 1-family, so I know how they work. There is no sump pump here. It's all a game to keep me on edge. To keep me afraid, anxious—uncomfortable. To keep fighting about the lies that are coming to light. To keep checking to make sure I know who is in charge. To let me know I have no rights, no lock on the door—no protection or privacy. That even at 56yrs old, I'm still treated less than human, just like when I was a child. The violence is even worse now—the hate more extreme. Food an ongoing problem just like when I was a kid. My ex-husband hated I was a Vegetarian even though I always cooked him a three-course meal that was meat-based.
"I'm not your nigger!" she screamed from the outside. I had asked if she could get me some bottled water. I was trying to go to the store only once a month to get groceries. It was becoming a problem to ask for her car even to do that, so I rarely asked—I knew better. But I had so little water left and the hostility was increasing here each day—it was exhausting me again. After a few moments, she started kicking the door and wouldn't stop. The banging was so bad I thought the door would be pulled off the cheap wooden frame it was hinged to. The whole small room that was built in the garage was basically thin panel boards and started to shake. What seemed like an agonizingly long time, finally stopped as she told me for the last time to go "walk the streets." This was her favorite phrase lately. I was not only lazy but a Prostitute! I sat for a few minutes relieved that she had stopped, but she came back again and tried to kick it in a few more times before she left.
My Mother's violence was increasing and because of the Corona Virus her not being able to "ram around" as she called it, was making her even more volatile than she usually was. I loathed her violence. I spent my childhood being overwhelmed by it—doubled over by pains in my stomach all the time. Once I got to college and could go to the bathroom in privacy, I came to learn about Irritable Bowl and became cured by eating healthy, exercising and practicing mindfulness. I had also by that time had an Eating Disorder—Bulimia. Anxiety would cause me to eat, stuffing down the lack of agency I was denied, but it was also part of the hit or miss, feast or famine that was part of growing up with her. She hated schedules and did what she pleased. She would be anywhere from 2-3 hrs late whenever you needed her somewhere or not show up at all. I learned as a kid that I was to call her only for life or death situations—or else! Once I was on my own, the Bulima also released its ugly grip. Making my own decisions, joining a gym and living away from the abuse healed my need to eat, stuff my feelings out of being prevented from being able to care for myself and eat the way I needed to. A way that I felt good about. A way to protect myself. Food was always a problem and a weapon.
My mother was never one to stay home. She was rarely home when I was a child. She would often be at other women's houses in the neighborhood, visiting, outside somewhere gossiping or fighting. Constantly on the phone, she and her girlfriends piling in a car to go watch people fighting—fights common in the neighborhoods we lived in. I was always glad for those times alone. I hated the fighting, the violence and the crude way these fights would go on—Police invariably showing up. She never wanted to be a mother and told me constantly. "Don't ever have kids," she would say. When I was a little girl, she would beat on me and scream about how "kids ruin your life!" then collapse in a heap and cry to me about how hard her life was after taking her "Nerve Pills." I would, of course, try and comfort her, feeling so guilty. She would eventually calm down, glassy-eyed and docile in her own world. I felt guilty, responsible because no sooner would she be sobbing, but then would be making such outrageous accusations that I often had no idea what was going on. One minute crying and yelling, the next having water-fights around the block with her next new boyfriend, which by this time brought my sister into the world.
The accusations I would come to see were just justifications for the beatings. They never really made sense. I would stammer and try to explain that I hadn't done what she accused and talk to her about what she was feeling—she would then often calm down. It became a ritual, the only way she interacted with me. The accusations were often about things I was supposed to do and supposedly didn't and adult things I had no idea about but tried to help her with. I did all the chores and this would usually get her going. All the males in the house had basic white tube socks. All about the same size. So I would have 3 sets of white tube socks to fold, 6-10 pairs for each of them. Every once in awhile a pair would be missed matched and one of them would make a big deal of how they got another's socks. This would set her off about how I wasn't doing my chores and I was doing it deliberately because I thought I was "so high and mighty!" This was one of her favorite bullying rages. I was accused of thinking I was superior to her. I thought I was smarter and did things deliberately to hurt her and make her life awful, which she told me all the time was all my fault!
She didn't work outside the home, but she wasn't a "Stay At Home Mom!" This was always made very clear at School, if I was ever mistaken about that. "SAHM's" were very different from "Welfare mothers!" I would often accompany her to the "Welfare office." Usually with other kids in tow as she often babysat. It was awful on those days, but not as bad as the days "she went to Court!" We would have to wait for long periods of time at the Welfare office, fill out papers and my mother would be generally in a bad mood about the whole ordeal. I would often be blamed that this humiliating process was because of me. My father left me and went to Florida and that was why she had to go through this whole awful ordeal for me—it was my fault! She had been the victim because he one time looked like he was going to "go after me" and she got scared and had to leave. To hear her tell the story, he had beaten her to within inches of her life. She had only been married a year by that time. I was a year old and she knew how abusive he was and she had to leave. I heard this story for years along with the fact she thought she should have gotten the house. It was my grandparent's house, my parents lived downstairs. I loved going there to visit and loved my father. I didn't really understand as a child why she left or why I couldn't see him, but I was so often accused of being a "high and mighty" that I came to see that I just didn't understand. I was also too terrified to question her. It would take me years to learn that so much of it was an act along with the hatred from these generational Judges that I would have to deal with once again!
"Give him the games back, right now!" she said. I had just gotten to the porch from walking the block back to the house—I was 5yrs old. My father was a block away and had given me a couple of games. I had to turn around and walk the games back. She had been standing on the porch supervising the whole thing. He was waiting to make sure he had some tacit approval from the whole exchange. I could feel my face get red and I started to stammer. The heat of the Summer combined with her demand started to make me feel dizzy. "I said, take the games and give them back to him" her voice icy and threatening. I turned around feeling in a daze—confused. I couldn't cry although I wanted to. I had learned not to cry too much it only made it worse, but this wasn't one of those times. I could feel the tears well up behind my eyes but stuck. I felt like I was walking in a different place. A fuzzy place that I couldn't think in. A place so strange that time stopped. The walk back over the same block I had just came from to my father again became so forboding I thought I would pass out. My legs felt like they wouldn't work as if they had separated from my body—I knew I wouldn't see him again. Only minutes before I had been happy about the games. My dad had smiled and I had smiled too. I had come to be shy with him by that point. I had come to be afraid. Not because he did anything wrong, but because I was grilled—interrogated. When I returned home after visiting him, there were always things that were done wrong. Things I had done wrong. Things were always done on purpose and they were always done to deliberately make her angry.
"You're not allowed to call him Dad!" she said shortly after I had been asked to go camping up to the Sacandaga Lake where he had a camp. I loved camping and being with my Dad and I knew this was going to be hurtful, but by that time I had become so terrified of my mother that I knew I couldn't call him Dad anymore. His girlfriend at the time was so nice and tried to ask me to. She tried to explain how it hurt him. I wanted to tell her it hurt me too, but I was too terrified. I knew my mother would rage at me and if she was in a certain mood—beat me. It wasn't so much the beatings. She was always sure not to leave marks where anyone saw anything and of course, I never told. "The door swings both ways," she would say in that direct forceful way that meant she would do it. "Don't let it hit you in the ass!" If she gave you an order, you dam well better do it or else!
"I didn't put you in a Foster Home," did I? she would often say. So terrified of this one, I did whatever she wanted. I had no idea what a Foster Home was like, but from the way she talked it was awful. Being put in a Foster Home was the worst. I would often see other children when we went to get the free items that were given at various locations from the Welfare office. Free cheese, milk, and bread at various locations around the city. Most children were in far worse shape than me, so I was grateful. My Grandmother had a big hand in that. She made sure to take me shopping and often would buy me what I needed before I was able to work. This often resulted in my Grandmother being shoved, hit or bullied and then later I would get a beating depending on what she bought. Sometimes it was ok and other times it wasn't. I was never really sure. One time, going into a huge rage over white go-go boots I got. I thought I would die that time, her rage was extremely frightening that time and I had to give them back to my Grandmother. It was a huge ordeal with everyone in the house that night.
My Grandmother had such exquisite taste. I loved being with her and going places with her. I felt accepted by her—okay. We were similar in so many ways, my mother would rage that "I was just like my Grandmother!" I was often made to feel extremely guilty and uncomfortable about loving her and her loving me. By this time, my mother had two sons with her new boyfriend and this was often a cause of her rage. My Grandmother wouldn't really argue with my Mother, telling me that she had no tolerance for it. She didn't like that kind of talk and she would tell me to ignore it. It wasn't right, my mother should have stayed married. My Grandmother was generous with them too, but I knew that my Mother's new boyfriend and his family were the source of a lot of tension between her and my Grandmother. Over the years, I would come to see just how horrible these people were, but as a kid, I wanted to care about them. I loved my little brothers and didn't understand all the fighting that everyone did over what was going on. I was told all the time, I was to think of them as my Brothers. "Your all the same!" she would order. I tried all the time, but the lines were drawn.
What I did understand was how my Mother lived just wasn't approved of, but it was never her they took it out on. It was never her that was held accountable—it was me. It was me they took it out on. School was a nightmare. I was often the target of bullies and hate. I got free things, which made me someone whose parents didn't work. Where was my Father? Why did my siblings have different last names? This was an endless point of discussion. I got "Free lunch' made even more unbearable by the separate line you had to wait in to get your meal. It was a hot meal and they weren't so bad, but most of the popular kids had a bag lunch or paid for them with money. I had no money. When I was given money to go to the store it wasn't "real money" like they had, but food stamps. Food stamps were another ordeal whenever I walked the few blocks to the grocery to get milk and bread, which was pretty regular. People would often make comments or give you that look. The slow way the clerk would often have to pull the sheets of orange, purple or green papers from the binder was excruciating. It would seem like forever and I came to hope each time I went no one was behind me in line. Those days were good days. I could just get the gallon jug and the bread and leave. I wasn't subjected to the clerk and some customers talking about me in that way that they would pretend I didn't understand. It was even worse when someone from school showed up, but often where we lived that wasn't a problem. Most of those kids didn't live in a "Flat," but a home.
We also walked to school. Most flats were close to a mile away from school. I walked until I was in high school, by then buses common and the distance shorter that kids had to walk. By then, we lived too far away from the High School. Winters were the worse and walking with my 1/2 siblings was hard—we were always late. I was often called in the office and had to explain why. I took the blame. I was very protective of my mother even after one time taking a ride from a woman who asked each day to help me. It was so cold, I thought my brother was going to have problems—he cried each day. One day, in particular, it was so bad I relented. I could not bare how cold he was—the beating later wasn't so bad compared to how cold he had been. I was in 3rd grade at the time.
My mother would "hit the roof" if I brought her any papers from the school. She was not one of those "PTA mothers!" she would rage. I told myself she was a free-spirit. I loved her and thought of her as brave and living her own life. She would often give me the freedom at times to do what I wanted, but mostly I came to see it was so I "stayed out of her hair!" Other girls had a hard time being able to shave their legs or wear makeup. She wasn't crazy about me wearing makeup and I wasn't allowed to wear pants, take a bath or wash my hair but once a week, but go ahead shave your legs, get birth-control—live your life! Songs like D-I-V-O-R-C-E played on her stereo and Harper Valley PTA, by Jeannie C. Riley.
I sit on the bed in the garage, not sure how long I can sleep on it. It must be from the 1950s, it's going to fall apart, the metal springs pushing through. I wake up in pain most mornings and it is so yellow and dirty I can just cry looking at it—all crumbling. I think of my new $800 Posturepedic Queen-size bed I had just bought, but like all my other things—stolen. Another horrible scheme with the Storage place here in town. 20 years of my personal belongings, including numerous items for my business that was dumped into one of their units, after arrested out of our 20yr home and put on the street. My new mattress was so comfortable after years of enduring a hard mattress because my ex-husband said that is what your suppose to have—everyone does! A very hard mattress for his back that had been injured. The beautiful linen, I had finally been able to buy. It wasn't real high-end, but pretty. I had pretty towels and pillows and the things I never had growing up. Shams, duvets, matching sheets—all color-coordinated. This was after years of working, saving and going without other things. I sat on the bed remebering my home after the years of abuse—finally on my own again, but it would be short-lived! How did I get here?
Growing up with her and overwhelmed I could be in her house again. By this time I had 5 "homes!" All had been fixed up, maintained, paid for—immaculate. I had my grandmother's trailer she bequeath me after she passed. Horrified, my mother had put me on the street after her and her boyfriend's relatives lured me home. When I got married I sold it. I got a decent price, it was like new. I barely lived there for a year before I moved into the 2-family house I thought both me and my ex-husband would pay off and own after we had dated 6yrs—what could go wrong? He had been so nice, so kind, from a "good family"—everybody thought he was a "great guy!"This was to be one of many financial scams I would come to see had been all set up from the start of my marriage. It would take me a while to understand. The shock took time. I remember it was similar to that day giving the games back to my Dad.
He left that day and I never saw him again. By this time I was 5, he had tried quite a few times to see me, but there were constant problems. I always loved to see him and missed him, but questioning anything would bring out the rages by my mother so I learned to be quiet about him. I put aside going to the lake with him, accompanying him to the places he played music. He had at that time been in a successful band and played around the lake. It was something I loved too, but in order to survive, I put it aside thinking one day I would be with him again. That day never came. "You live in the past," my mother would tell me if I asked for validation, support or questioned her version of the story or what went on. Most things didn't make sense in her version of events, but I knew better to question her and over the years put things away. You end up putting so much away that who you are becomes stripped bare. "Just start over," she would laugh. I imagined singing with my dad when I was young. I would look up at him on stage and in wonder dream that one day maybe I could be up there with him. It was all so cool when I was with him. His girlfriend taught me to crochet. She would make these cool hippy afghans. I liked her. She sang too. After the first time coming home and my mother flying into a rage about her I knew I wasn't suppose to like her. "How do you think that makes me look?" she sneered. I had no idea really. I thought it a good thing that his girlfriend liked me. It seemed not many people did. It was to be short-lived because I didn't see her after that last time. I hated hurting my dad like that. I just couldn't tell them the reason why I couldn't call him Dad was because of my mother. I was too afraid of her—I felt ashamed.
I sit on the bed now and know she is not going to get me water. I'm made to feel like 12yrs old again—deliberately. "Walk the streets!" echoes in my mind, around and around I hear those words and can't incorporate them into my psyche. My god, the frightening idea of walking the streets, homeless with no place to go brings back so many years growing up with her. At least for a while, I had my car. Before it was taken recently by the police, I was sleeping in various places in it. The constant anguish and torment of not having a home. Memories now shifting back and forth between her and my ex-husband, both so similar. The constant moves as a child and being told that I should be gratful she kept me at all. The constant moves now—10 evictions in the past 3-years. I learned not to ask her for anything. I learned to not him for anything. If I couldn't work for it then I went without. I did all the chores, cleaned the house, did the laundry, all the dishes, worked constantly to be a "good girl" never bothered her, but it was never enough—I ruined her life. How could I work on so many properties, so many "homes" and be homeless? How could I sit here with no way out of here in her garage after telling my ex-husband for years how I grew up and having a home was one of the most important things. How I hated all the times we moved. How humiliating it was. How there was never enough heat, food or money for things I needed at school. How could I have worked so hard and have nothing now? Everything a scam, everything a game, everything gone—done on purpose with malice and foresight.
The rain has let up. For years I read Codependency books thinking that was the problem. It helped me set boundaries. Boundaries were something nonexistent growing up and in my marriage. There was no privacy as a child and the control in my marriage was similar. I was often prevented from washing or taking a bath when growing up because I thought I was high and mighty—better than everyone else. I would often tell my ex-husband these stories of having to move so much and why I preferred things for our home rather than jewelry or clothes. Why paying off our mortgages and retiring at the Lakehouse we bought was dream come true. But the heavy, sad realization of what they have both done slowly sinks in. Asking my mother for anything becomes a battle. Slowly the lies unravel as the pieces of my life are put back together. As I come to terms with the fact the marriage was set up to use me and leave me with nothing. That I was being made to walk the streets—homeless. That being left for hours after I called for a ride was not because she was so overworked and needed fun and was therefore late, but because she deliberately wanted me to be taken. How so many things make sense now. So many horrible things becoming clear. As the Spring rains of April come, so does the truth of what has gone on all these years. Water has been a problem right along, so has heat. Things circling around and around until we come to know them—once again only better. Rippling out in waves like skimming a rock across a lake. Each wave getting bigger and bigger, connecting to the next one until the rock disappears on the horizon and the Lake becomes smooth again.
It will be 8 months here in my mother's garage as April starts. I don't go out anymore, not only because of the Pandemic but because the hoovering was intense and so many of my things went missing. Lately, coughing on the door and constant "checks" go on all the time, under the guise of checking the cellar for water, which is right outside the door of the room in the garage. My mother told me recently in no uncertain terms that "she doesn't have the virus!" when I wanted her to practice Social Distancing. So they all cough now by the door and laugh. They had already shunned me for the past 7 months and weren't staying home. I was told violently to "stay in my hut!"
The door has no lock, so slamming the other door opens this one and because they both don't shut properly they all open. This went on all Winter too, sometimes it was so cold I got sick. I never really get sick. I hadn't had a cold since I was in my early 20's, but I can't seem to get over being so weak now. Some of my symptoms are from Menopause, being Jailed, forced into a psych ward and the 2 seizures I had, but the weakness drags on. I know it's also from being confined, it's extremely difficult—it's been 2-years of this kind of hell. I use to work-out all the time, used to running 5-6 miles a week. I can't get any exercise or eat very well, which makes it even harder. I became a Vegetarian in my 20's, but can't use her kitchen or washer. There is no bathroom out here. I was using the bathroom in the house, but the violence makes it difficult. I was keeping things under the bed to keep them cold even after getting sick with diarrhea a couple of times. I never liked meat and after having an Eating Disorder found that eating Vegetarian helped immensely, but with no refrigerator, I'm basically eating macaroni. We had a sump pump when we had our 1-family, so I know how they work. There is no sump pump here. It's all a game to keep me on edge. To keep me afraid, anxious—uncomfortable. To keep fighting about the lies that are coming to light. To keep checking to make sure I know who is in charge. To let me know I have no rights, no lock on the door—no protection or privacy. That even at 56yrs old, I'm still treated less than human, just like when I was a child. The violence is even worse now—the hate more extreme. Food an ongoing problem just like when I was a kid. My ex-husband hated I was a Vegetarian even though I always cooked him a three-course meal that was meat-based.
"I'm not your nigger!" she screamed from the outside. I had asked if she could get me some bottled water. I was trying to go to the store only once a month to get groceries. It was becoming a problem to ask for her car even to do that, so I rarely asked—I knew better. But I had so little water left and the hostility was increasing here each day—it was exhausting me again. After a few moments, she started kicking the door and wouldn't stop. The banging was so bad I thought the door would be pulled off the cheap wooden frame it was hinged to. The whole small room that was built in the garage was basically thin panel boards and started to shake. What seemed like an agonizingly long time, finally stopped as she told me for the last time to go "walk the streets." This was her favorite phrase lately. I was not only lazy but a Prostitute! I sat for a few minutes relieved that she had stopped, but she came back again and tried to kick it in a few more times before she left.
My Mother's violence was increasing and because of the Corona Virus her not being able to "ram around" as she called it, was making her even more volatile than she usually was. I loathed her violence. I spent my childhood being overwhelmed by it—doubled over by pains in my stomach all the time. Once I got to college and could go to the bathroom in privacy, I came to learn about Irritable Bowl and became cured by eating healthy, exercising and practicing mindfulness. I had also by that time had an Eating Disorder—Bulimia. Anxiety would cause me to eat, stuffing down the lack of agency I was denied, but it was also part of the hit or miss, feast or famine that was part of growing up with her. She hated schedules and did what she pleased. She would be anywhere from 2-3 hrs late whenever you needed her somewhere or not show up at all. I learned as a kid that I was to call her only for life or death situations—or else! Once I was on my own, the Bulima also released its ugly grip. Making my own decisions, joining a gym and living away from the abuse healed my need to eat, stuff my feelings out of being prevented from being able to care for myself and eat the way I needed to. A way that I felt good about. A way to protect myself. Food was always a problem and a weapon.
My mother was never one to stay home. She was rarely home when I was a child. She would often be at other women's houses in the neighborhood, visiting, outside somewhere gossiping or fighting. Constantly on the phone, she and her girlfriends piling in a car to go watch people fighting—fights common in the neighborhoods we lived in. I was always glad for those times alone. I hated the fighting, the violence and the crude way these fights would go on—Police invariably showing up. She never wanted to be a mother and told me constantly. "Don't ever have kids," she would say. When I was a little girl, she would beat on me and scream about how "kids ruin your life!" then collapse in a heap and cry to me about how hard her life was after taking her "Nerve Pills." I would, of course, try and comfort her, feeling so guilty. She would eventually calm down, glassy-eyed and docile in her own world. I felt guilty, responsible because no sooner would she be sobbing, but then would be making such outrageous accusations that I often had no idea what was going on. One minute crying and yelling, the next having water-fights around the block with her next new boyfriend, which by this time brought my sister into the world.
The accusations I would come to see were just justifications for the beatings. They never really made sense. I would stammer and try to explain that I hadn't done what she accused and talk to her about what she was feeling—she would then often calm down. It became a ritual, the only way she interacted with me. The accusations were often about things I was supposed to do and supposedly didn't and adult things I had no idea about but tried to help her with. I did all the chores and this would usually get her going. All the males in the house had basic white tube socks. All about the same size. So I would have 3 sets of white tube socks to fold, 6-10 pairs for each of them. Every once in awhile a pair would be missed matched and one of them would make a big deal of how they got another's socks. This would set her off about how I wasn't doing my chores and I was doing it deliberately because I thought I was "so high and mighty!" This was one of her favorite bullying rages. I was accused of thinking I was superior to her. I thought I was smarter and did things deliberately to hurt her and make her life awful, which she told me all the time was all my fault!
She didn't work outside the home, but she wasn't a "Stay At Home Mom!" This was always made very clear at School, if I was ever mistaken about that. "SAHM's" were very different from "Welfare mothers!" I would often accompany her to the "Welfare office." Usually with other kids in tow as she often babysat. It was awful on those days, but not as bad as the days "she went to Court!" We would have to wait for long periods of time at the Welfare office, fill out papers and my mother would be generally in a bad mood about the whole ordeal. I would often be blamed that this humiliating process was because of me. My father left me and went to Florida and that was why she had to go through this whole awful ordeal for me—it was my fault! She had been the victim because he one time looked like he was going to "go after me" and she got scared and had to leave. To hear her tell the story, he had beaten her to within inches of her life. She had only been married a year by that time. I was a year old and she knew how abusive he was and she had to leave. I heard this story for years along with the fact she thought she should have gotten the house. It was my grandparent's house, my parents lived downstairs. I loved going there to visit and loved my father. I didn't really understand as a child why she left or why I couldn't see him, but I was so often accused of being a "high and mighty" that I came to see that I just didn't understand. I was also too terrified to question her. It would take me years to learn that so much of it was an act along with the hatred from these generational Judges that I would have to deal with once again!
"Give him the games back, right now!" she said. I had just gotten to the porch from walking the block back to the house—I was 5yrs old. My father was a block away and had given me a couple of games. I had to turn around and walk the games back. She had been standing on the porch supervising the whole thing. He was waiting to make sure he had some tacit approval from the whole exchange. I could feel my face get red and I started to stammer. The heat of the Summer combined with her demand started to make me feel dizzy. "I said, take the games and give them back to him" her voice icy and threatening. I turned around feeling in a daze—confused. I couldn't cry although I wanted to. I had learned not to cry too much it only made it worse, but this wasn't one of those times. I could feel the tears well up behind my eyes but stuck. I felt like I was walking in a different place. A fuzzy place that I couldn't think in. A place so strange that time stopped. The walk back over the same block I had just came from to my father again became so forboding I thought I would pass out. My legs felt like they wouldn't work as if they had separated from my body—I knew I wouldn't see him again. Only minutes before I had been happy about the games. My dad had smiled and I had smiled too. I had come to be shy with him by that point. I had come to be afraid. Not because he did anything wrong, but because I was grilled—interrogated. When I returned home after visiting him, there were always things that were done wrong. Things I had done wrong. Things were always done on purpose and they were always done to deliberately make her angry.
"You're not allowed to call him Dad!" she said shortly after I had been asked to go camping up to the Sacandaga Lake where he had a camp. I loved camping and being with my Dad and I knew this was going to be hurtful, but by that time I had become so terrified of my mother that I knew I couldn't call him Dad anymore. His girlfriend at the time was so nice and tried to ask me to. She tried to explain how it hurt him. I wanted to tell her it hurt me too, but I was too terrified. I knew my mother would rage at me and if she was in a certain mood—beat me. It wasn't so much the beatings. She was always sure not to leave marks where anyone saw anything and of course, I never told. "The door swings both ways," she would say in that direct forceful way that meant she would do it. "Don't let it hit you in the ass!" If she gave you an order, you dam well better do it or else!
"I didn't put you in a Foster Home," did I? she would often say. So terrified of this one, I did whatever she wanted. I had no idea what a Foster Home was like, but from the way she talked it was awful. Being put in a Foster Home was the worst. I would often see other children when we went to get the free items that were given at various locations from the Welfare office. Free cheese, milk, and bread at various locations around the city. Most children were in far worse shape than me, so I was grateful. My Grandmother had a big hand in that. She made sure to take me shopping and often would buy me what I needed before I was able to work. This often resulted in my Grandmother being shoved, hit or bullied and then later I would get a beating depending on what she bought. Sometimes it was ok and other times it wasn't. I was never really sure. One time, going into a huge rage over white go-go boots I got. I thought I would die that time, her rage was extremely frightening that time and I had to give them back to my Grandmother. It was a huge ordeal with everyone in the house that night.
My Grandmother had such exquisite taste. I loved being with her and going places with her. I felt accepted by her—okay. We were similar in so many ways, my mother would rage that "I was just like my Grandmother!" I was often made to feel extremely guilty and uncomfortable about loving her and her loving me. By this time, my mother had two sons with her new boyfriend and this was often a cause of her rage. My Grandmother wouldn't really argue with my Mother, telling me that she had no tolerance for it. She didn't like that kind of talk and she would tell me to ignore it. It wasn't right, my mother should have stayed married. My Grandmother was generous with them too, but I knew that my Mother's new boyfriend and his family were the source of a lot of tension between her and my Grandmother. Over the years, I would come to see just how horrible these people were, but as a kid, I wanted to care about them. I loved my little brothers and didn't understand all the fighting that everyone did over what was going on. I was told all the time, I was to think of them as my Brothers. "Your all the same!" she would order. I tried all the time, but the lines were drawn.
What I did understand was how my Mother lived just wasn't approved of, but it was never her they took it out on. It was never her that was held accountable—it was me. It was me they took it out on. School was a nightmare. I was often the target of bullies and hate. I got free things, which made me someone whose parents didn't work. Where was my Father? Why did my siblings have different last names? This was an endless point of discussion. I got "Free lunch' made even more unbearable by the separate line you had to wait in to get your meal. It was a hot meal and they weren't so bad, but most of the popular kids had a bag lunch or paid for them with money. I had no money. When I was given money to go to the store it wasn't "real money" like they had, but food stamps. Food stamps were another ordeal whenever I walked the few blocks to the grocery to get milk and bread, which was pretty regular. People would often make comments or give you that look. The slow way the clerk would often have to pull the sheets of orange, purple or green papers from the binder was excruciating. It would seem like forever and I came to hope each time I went no one was behind me in line. Those days were good days. I could just get the gallon jug and the bread and leave. I wasn't subjected to the clerk and some customers talking about me in that way that they would pretend I didn't understand. It was even worse when someone from school showed up, but often where we lived that wasn't a problem. Most of those kids didn't live in a "Flat," but a home.
We also walked to school. Most flats were close to a mile away from school. I walked until I was in high school, by then buses common and the distance shorter that kids had to walk. By then, we lived too far away from the High School. Winters were the worse and walking with my 1/2 siblings was hard—we were always late. I was often called in the office and had to explain why. I took the blame. I was very protective of my mother even after one time taking a ride from a woman who asked each day to help me. It was so cold, I thought my brother was going to have problems—he cried each day. One day, in particular, it was so bad I relented. I could not bare how cold he was—the beating later wasn't so bad compared to how cold he had been. I was in 3rd grade at the time.
My mother would "hit the roof" if I brought her any papers from the school. She was not one of those "PTA mothers!" she would rage. I told myself she was a free-spirit. I loved her and thought of her as brave and living her own life. She would often give me the freedom at times to do what I wanted, but mostly I came to see it was so I "stayed out of her hair!" Other girls had a hard time being able to shave their legs or wear makeup. She wasn't crazy about me wearing makeup and I wasn't allowed to wear pants, take a bath or wash my hair but once a week, but go ahead shave your legs, get birth-control—live your life! Songs like D-I-V-O-R-C-E played on her stereo and Harper Valley PTA, by Jeannie C. Riley.
I sit on the bed in the garage, not sure how long I can sleep on it. It must be from the 1950s, it's going to fall apart, the metal springs pushing through. I wake up in pain most mornings and it is so yellow and dirty I can just cry looking at it—all crumbling. I think of my new $800 Posturepedic Queen-size bed I had just bought, but like all my other things—stolen. Another horrible scheme with the Storage place here in town. 20 years of my personal belongings, including numerous items for my business that was dumped into one of their units, after arrested out of our 20yr home and put on the street. My new mattress was so comfortable after years of enduring a hard mattress because my ex-husband said that is what your suppose to have—everyone does! A very hard mattress for his back that had been injured. The beautiful linen, I had finally been able to buy. It wasn't real high-end, but pretty. I had pretty towels and pillows and the things I never had growing up. Shams, duvets, matching sheets—all color-coordinated. This was after years of working, saving and going without other things. I sat on the bed remebering my home after the years of abuse—finally on my own again, but it would be short-lived! How did I get here?
Growing up with her and overwhelmed I could be in her house again. By this time I had 5 "homes!" All had been fixed up, maintained, paid for—immaculate. I had my grandmother's trailer she bequeath me after she passed. Horrified, my mother had put me on the street after her and her boyfriend's relatives lured me home. When I got married I sold it. I got a decent price, it was like new. I barely lived there for a year before I moved into the 2-family house I thought both me and my ex-husband would pay off and own after we had dated 6yrs—what could go wrong? He had been so nice, so kind, from a "good family"—everybody thought he was a "great guy!"This was to be one of many financial scams I would come to see had been all set up from the start of my marriage. It would take me a while to understand. The shock took time. I remember it was similar to that day giving the games back to my Dad.
He left that day and I never saw him again. By this time I was 5, he had tried quite a few times to see me, but there were constant problems. I always loved to see him and missed him, but questioning anything would bring out the rages by my mother so I learned to be quiet about him. I put aside going to the lake with him, accompanying him to the places he played music. He had at that time been in a successful band and played around the lake. It was something I loved too, but in order to survive, I put it aside thinking one day I would be with him again. That day never came. "You live in the past," my mother would tell me if I asked for validation, support or questioned her version of the story or what went on. Most things didn't make sense in her version of events, but I knew better to question her and over the years put things away. You end up putting so much away that who you are becomes stripped bare. "Just start over," she would laugh. I imagined singing with my dad when I was young. I would look up at him on stage and in wonder dream that one day maybe I could be up there with him. It was all so cool when I was with him. His girlfriend taught me to crochet. She would make these cool hippy afghans. I liked her. She sang too. After the first time coming home and my mother flying into a rage about her I knew I wasn't suppose to like her. "How do you think that makes me look?" she sneered. I had no idea really. I thought it a good thing that his girlfriend liked me. It seemed not many people did. It was to be short-lived because I didn't see her after that last time. I hated hurting my dad like that. I just couldn't tell them the reason why I couldn't call him Dad was because of my mother. I was too afraid of her—I felt ashamed.
I sit on the bed now and know she is not going to get me water. I'm made to feel like 12yrs old again—deliberately. "Walk the streets!" echoes in my mind, around and around I hear those words and can't incorporate them into my psyche. My god, the frightening idea of walking the streets, homeless with no place to go brings back so many years growing up with her. At least for a while, I had my car. Before it was taken recently by the police, I was sleeping in various places in it. The constant anguish and torment of not having a home. Memories now shifting back and forth between her and my ex-husband, both so similar. The constant moves as a child and being told that I should be gratful she kept me at all. The constant moves now—10 evictions in the past 3-years. I learned not to ask her for anything. I learned to not him for anything. If I couldn't work for it then I went without. I did all the chores, cleaned the house, did the laundry, all the dishes, worked constantly to be a "good girl" never bothered her, but it was never enough—I ruined her life. How could I work on so many properties, so many "homes" and be homeless? How could I sit here with no way out of here in her garage after telling my ex-husband for years how I grew up and having a home was one of the most important things. How I hated all the times we moved. How humiliating it was. How there was never enough heat, food or money for things I needed at school. How could I have worked so hard and have nothing now? Everything a scam, everything a game, everything gone—done on purpose with malice and foresight.
The rain has let up. For years I read Codependency books thinking that was the problem. It helped me set boundaries. Boundaries were something nonexistent growing up and in my marriage. There was no privacy as a child and the control in my marriage was similar. I was often prevented from washing or taking a bath when growing up because I thought I was high and mighty—better than everyone else. I would often tell my ex-husband these stories of having to move so much and why I preferred things for our home rather than jewelry or clothes. Why paying off our mortgages and retiring at the Lakehouse we bought was dream come true. But the heavy, sad realization of what they have both done slowly sinks in. Asking my mother for anything becomes a battle. Slowly the lies unravel as the pieces of my life are put back together. As I come to terms with the fact the marriage was set up to use me and leave me with nothing. That I was being made to walk the streets—homeless. That being left for hours after I called for a ride was not because she was so overworked and needed fun and was therefore late, but because she deliberately wanted me to be taken. How so many things make sense now. So many horrible things becoming clear. As the Spring rains of April come, so does the truth of what has gone on all these years. Water has been a problem right along, so has heat. Things circling around and around until we come to know them—once again only better. Rippling out in waves like skimming a rock across a lake. Each wave getting bigger and bigger, connecting to the next one until the rock disappears on the horizon and the Lake becomes smooth again.
Sacandaga Lake, NY
Stolen Photograph along with a collection of
20yrs of Photography on the Lake.
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