I think of my sweet dog, “Bentley,”—rescued; he had fleas, worms, and was eating his poop. I remember when I woke up one morning late to change the papers in his puppy cage, and there he was was poopy all over his sweet face, as if to say after I looked at him with such concern and that queazy feeling that comes from something that makes you want to throw up, “what mom?” what am I doing?” I couldn’t scold him, he had been left in a large room with so many other animals and dogs after hurricane Katrina, a woman was heroically saving. I laughed in that way you laugh at a naughty child that does something wrong, but the kind of thing that is more from not knowing and needing to learn rather than deliberate badness.
I was determined to train Bentley not to eat his poop, but I was in no condition to judge this sweet dog that was getting me up each morning, knowing in my heart that eating your shit oftentimes is lifesaving—Bentley was helping me survive. I was still very weak and was sleeping a lot after being sexually assaulted and having a seizure. I had no idea the hell conspiring all around me that people I had known all my life, including my family, had planned from the beginning of my 20 year marriage. This was not only about my marriage, but had started a long time ago and included prominent people in the community—Judges, lawyers and now these horrible cops that stalked me everywhere making sure I was unable to have a safe place to live. I spent years struggling to find answers, but once some of the missing pieces started to be put together, the whole horrible nightmare was revealed.
As I wander around this old, cool, once elegant house and dream of how I would restore it, so many memories come rushing back. It has this old Hollywood style vintage staircase and foyer that is a beautiful, cashmere color of falling wallpaper and blond hardwood floors that surprisingly survived, while so much else in the house has been destroyed. I imagine filming a movie, it’s that kind of feel. The light moves from the front of the house in an exquisite dance from one elegant window to the next as it reaches the back and opens up into the sunroom and sets there; lighting up the entire room and all the skylights and sliding glass doors—a photographers and painters dream. I can tell what time it is by where the light is in each window. There are no overhead light fixtures in the main parlor, which I find so cool. I’m not one for artificial lighting and found that fascinating.
I dream of an old vintage easel in the sunroom or the parlor, which would also serve as an office—it’s that big of a room and has a nice flow from one section to another and winds around to the dining room that has a beautiful intact crystal chandelier I love. I never thought I would paint again after everything was violently taken, but each day now I get a little stronger and hopeful. Letting go of my Windsor Newton sable brushes I had since college and was saving was so hard.
This old abandoned house that’s falling apart is like the years I tended Bentley and fixed up my old home—an old Victorian. He turned out to be such a sweet dog, so loving and such a comfort through all the devastating losses I was forced to endure. He was put through hell too, which is why it’s so inspiring to see Domestic Violence Homeless Shelters now accepting people’s pets. They are often all a person has. I was that woman after so many people I loved had viciously betrayed me.
I collect rainwater in a garbage can; grateful when it rains—it’s my grey water. It’s beautiful water, not as clean as the water up to my Lakehouse, but I’m grateful to have it; so many around the world don’t have water. Rainy days are cleaning days because I know I have extra water, other days I have to be more careful. All the sinks are broken in the two beautiful bathrooms. There are three; two upstairs and one down. The toilets are also busted. The “winterization” they supposedly did busted the toilet downstairs. I was used to winterizing at our Lakehouse before we started staying there sometimes in the winter, so I know it wasn’t done properly or kept up. I dream of pretty new bathrooms and remodeling. I did so much at my 20yr home and the Lakehouse—I have some idea what needs to be done and learned a lot over the years.
The house like me needs work now. I survived so much, but not without damage. The brutal way this was all done takes my breath away even still and if I’m not careful I can spend the whole day crying if I go too far into remembering all the horrible things done to me. Somedays the memories are overwhelming—pain unbearable that would come in waves and not let up. My grandmother would stop conversations that would veer too far into talk about the land and the Sacandaga Lake NY that she owned, but all taken away after her brother sold it.
I used to wonder why she could not after all those years talk about it, but today I know how painful it is to talk about things so brutal and sorrowful even after so much time has passed. It’s the same for me now to not only have been denied it as a girl after custody went to my mother and I could no longer see my family on the lake, but again, pleading with these judges here all these years later that again deny me what was rightfully mine after 20 years of working, paying for, and fixing up property on the lake—I was again denied by the very same generational Judge family determined to ruin my life again—it’s been a harrowing nightmare.
Our new priest spoke of how we all have our time to be taken out; illness, loss, violence. I get up each day asking why I survived, I was told I wouldn’t, so many people wanted me dead. I imagine they all placed bets like they did at the Stag my ex-husband had betting how long the marriage would last in the same way recently betting if I would survive such destruction of my life, identity, and assets. Abandoned by everyone I knew in a brutal mob of violence, deception, and lies—all planned.
I wake up often in panic and sweat of nightmares and anxiety. The worst ones were in the psych ward they put me in telling me my whole life was a failure. After overcoming so many obstacles this was another war on my psyche that today makes me angry and determined to speak out about the awful doctors and staff there that went along with all these lies; that I had not been sexually assaulted, that my mother was not involved, that I wasn’t a professional, and that I was Schizophrenic. It was all lies to cover up the fact my own mother never wanted me and had always wanted to abandon me somewhere if not for my grandmother. As soon as my grandmother passed, she was involved in setting up my 20yr marriage that would result in the loss of everything I had. My ex-husband and her planning it from the start. They had so much in common; drugs, criminality and I was to horribly learn a sexual relationship.
Not all mothers love their children and mine never did. I stayed with my grandmother all the time after my mother left my father. Only married a year, she had already been friends with a group of criminals that her uncle had involvement with. I was bullied and abused by all these people from the start, but my mother would always play the victim and once they got her hooked on drugs her violent rages never let up. I was to blame for everything she would rage, but today I know she wanted to hurt my father in the same way she despised me. The people she had in her life were deceitful and their success was the result of criminal activity and not hard-work and talent. She had been spoiled and given much, but in the end preferred the violence and drugs these people promised. Parties were constant and they all knew each other, these men that thought nothing of me but a whore to be used. A child with no protection—an opportunity to use.
Today we call these men, “ Traffickers,” but in the nice middle-class neighborhoods here these people and our corrupt court system can still convince others that what they did to me wasn’t trafficking, even though the despicable judge declared the marriage, “null and void,” but not because it was all a fraud, setup by coercion and deception, but because they all alleged I was “mentally ill whore and incompetent.” It was devastating as I found myself in shock pleading for a place to live and my new car and then my dog as they tormented me relentlessly about using him as a, “Bait-dog” before the vicious animal-control woman took him after they locked me up in the horrible psych ward telling me I was “delusional!”
I’ve cleaned the moldy basement, swept all the rooms and removed all the garbage everywhere. I started to wash the porch before I was threatened by a neighbor and had to stop. It came out so nice even though the paint is cracking and peeling and falling off. I tell myself it’s, “Vintage,” some days that works and other days I cry remembering when we sided my 20yr home and then painted the Lakehouse. There’s no money for that now and certainly not with what these men are trying to force on me now—prostitution. $20 blow-jobs don’t buy much. I was told by cops I would only get $10, but after meeting women forced to sell their bodies for sex I’m not so ashamed now. The shame belongs to these wealthy young men from families in the city I went to school with—sons of the “elite.” There is nothing elite about what they are or what they do as they pretend to go home to their wives after a work-day that consists of forcing women on the street—abandoned to sell themselves. These men aren’t, “Hero’s,” but traffickers!
Each day the abandoned house like me starts to look okay. Restoring old houses are labors of love. I feel like this old house; broken, discarded, damaged, but as I work on the house it helps me have compassion for myself.
Bentley learned not to eat his poopy—bless his sweet soul. I was told by Vets they usually don’t stop doing it, but he did. It was only when he got stressed and it was sad because we were being attacked everywhere we went and he was suffering too. He had been born in extreme circumstances and ended up here with other animals fleeing a natural disaster, of course he would have stress. I was sad that my life at that point added to his little life being so full of loss. We were similar like that, kindred spirits on this journey. I remember before my other dog, “Casey” passed away from Cancer—I had to put him down and shortly before that we had gone for a walk, he seemed to know. As we headed home, he was winded and we had to stop. He looked up at me as if to say, “it won’t be long and I will have to go,” but you’ll be ok. All three of my dogs were like that; sensitive, attentive, and knowing. They all amazed me and all came into my life at times I needed a friend, not having any, but they were my dearest ones.
Abandoned dogs, houses, and people, I seem to be collecting them lately. It was always the misfit that attracted me anyway. I read voraciously as a girl and stories of the underdog were what I liked best. I know today it was because that was me. We are attracted to what is similar. So much has been taken and stolen, so much loss, but there is so much to be grateful for. It’s hard most days to even get up, sleeping on the floor is Zen I tell myself. Some days it works other days I curse about the beautiful $800 mattress and box-spring I had just bought or the numerous air-mattresses that I have bought only to have them stolen or damaged after each eviction—there’s been over 18 now in the last 5 years.
Gurus talk of everything being destroyed that is not real—“even my bed?” I ask—yes, even that. It all has to be let go of now. I still struggle with the “why,” but it’s becoming less important as I become comfortable with the loss of so much illusion. Abandoned doesn’t mean not any good. I’m reminded of thrifting, which I love. So often much of what people discard is still interesting, useable and cool. I’ve acquired some really nice things people no longer wanted by thrifting. I remember my ex SIL getting a new refrigerator every couple years, I had often wondered what was wrong with the old one in the early days of my marriage. Today I know there was nothing wrong with the old one or me. She was just wasteful, affluent and thought of me merely as a servant—a “welfare whore.”
Our goodwill store is gone here. I was sad about that thinking I could thrift some items for the house, everyone I know now is successful and wealthy, but so much is not at all what it seems. I’m once again the misfit—abandoned, but I guess I’m getting somewhat good at it and someone has to look out for those little abandoned dogs and old, cool, vintage abandoned houses that are still livable for the homeless like myself. I guess that’s not such a bad thing.
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