Bury the Weakness

Click here to read about an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction .

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I feel the nudge to write this morning.  Yet, I'm not sure what to write about.

I was reading more of Fred Poole On Writing.  I so enjoy reading his voice, and enjoy hearing it as well.  I hope when I am his age I continue with the enthusiasm and youthful vigor he has for life and discovery.  Perhaps as one is aging and has reasonably good health, perhaps that motivates a person to explore, for death becomes more eminent with age.

Doris is like that too.  She was one of my high school English teachers.  I recently got an email from her; she is headed to Morocco.  Doris lives in a cabin in the foothills of North Carolina.  She volunteers three times a week at the Habitat store.  Her age must be approaching 80.

If I want to live full as Fred and Doris are, contributing to life and society, it begins now.  One needs their health and mind agile to continue trekking.

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I didn't have a spectacular childhood.  What is a moment that stands out in my mind?  There are moments.

Like when I was around five years old and stood in the living room looking out the window in the front of the house, thinking of how very much I hated my father and praying he would die, die, die.  I don't know why, at that time, I felt such deep hatred for him.  It wasn't just anger; it was a hatred.

Up until at least five or six years old I would have temper tantrums.

I had a red Chiclet toy gum dispenser.  It wasn't like a gumball machine that stands on a pedestal but rather it was red and plastic, rectangular, and about twelve inches by eight inches by two inches.  I could hold it in my lap.  I'd load it with little boxes that held only two Chiclet Gum pieces.  I don't remember if I had to put a coin in to get the gum to drop.  I liked it, but not the same way I liked my stuffed animals.  I loved them; they were my friends.  They weren't 'things.' The Chiclet dispenser was a 'thing.'

I tore the plastic machine to shreds one day as I sat on the dining room floor. I smashed it on the floor over and over; I felt so much rage and hatred. I hated it.  At the time I hated them, my mom and dad. I don't need my parents.  I don't need anyone; I can take care of myself.  I will be strong. My mom was standing in the kitchen doorway, which connected to the dining room, observing me until my rage ceased.

I was sad and angry the Chiclet machine was destroyed. It's Mom and Dad's fault it's broken; it's their fault! 

When I was eight or nine years old and at a week-long Girl Scout camp, I wrote Mom a letter to come pick me up. Campers could mail and receive letters at camp; it felt very grown-up like. In my letter I begged Mom to come get me, writing part of my script really large; I think with all capitols. I was so homesick and I missed her and Daddy. I didn't want anyone to know that I was homesick nor the real reason I was crying.  So I faked that I had hit my head on a railing; that got me some attention until Mom and Dad got there.

When Mom and Dad arrived I was embarrassed and still didn't admit to being homesick, though I had clearly and emphatically written to them to come get me.  I don't think we discussed my letter.  I think I told them I had hit my head and that is why I had really written. I couldn't let people know, not even Mom and Dad, that I had feelings of weakness - like homesickness. That was for sissies.  I wasn't a sissy; I was a tomboy.

I didn't go home with Mom and Dad; I stayed at camp.  I had to be strong.  I could take care of myself.

The rest of the week at camp was fun, especially the sliding down the mountain waterfall cascades in cut-off shorts and old tennis shoes.

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