Columbus Mississippi Dream World

As a child school meant a lot to  me. It was school that nurtured me with consistency. No matter where I lived, school life was the same. Every school had teachers, classrooms populated the same way, the same rules, praises for jobs well done and guidance when there was a lack of understanding about school work. I loved school. I vividly recall a film I watched one day at school and that film told me who I was. What I can't recall is where I was or how old I was. All I recall is being mesmerized by the story of a girl who I felt was just like me. I quietly watched the educational film about the life of the poor girl who finally was able to attend school and it was school that gave her a sense of stability - just like me.  I so related to the girl in the film I cried and desperately attempted to hide my tears when the film ended. Like the girl in the film, I was and still am grateful for the security and the safety that school provided. I learned from her, the actress, that no matter what there is hope and that I was somebody. I was somebody that was still discovering life and as long as I went to school I was going to be okay. That bit of hope melted later in life, but from the time I saw that film until I reached 8th grade I was burning with a passion for education.

(Ben Kimberly Prins (1902 – 1980) Vacation Plans )

Upon arriving in Columbus Mississippi I was enrolled in Caledonia School, K - 12, one of the largest schools I had ever seen. I was a small kid, and Caledonia was a big school and I was always in awe as I would enter the big schools door each school day. Walking into Caledonia School made me feel as if I were walking into a mansion giving me a sense of wonder and awe. I loved Caledonia. Caledonia's classroom's had tall tall windows that needed a special hook on a pole to open and close them. Each day the teacher would pick a different student to open and close the massive windows. I always crossed my fingers while squinting my eyes  while mouthing "pick me pick me" when it was time for the teacher to walk the class rows in search of the day's special window monitor. I must have been picked one day because I can feel the burn in the back of my neck as I looked up, searching for the hole where the hook connects with the window. Once that little hole in the latch was spotted I inserted the hook through the hole and that allowed the pulling of the window open or the shoving of the window closed.  Perhaps it is just my imagination, but either way, I love the school room window memory. Caledonia had massive hallways too, hallways that lead to wide stairwells that lead to the upper levels where the older kids attended the higher grades. Us little ones attended school on the first floor and on the first floor was the hallway that lead toward the cafeteria.

For the first time in years I felt like a princess.  I felt like royalty because I was dressed nicely and I had lunch money! I recall standing in line with my lunch ticket and waiting my turn to be served my meal. Our meals at this school were served to us on thick white glass plates and as I  carefully carried my warm plate filled with food to my seat on a tray, I would grab a napkin and a fork and a spoon and even a table knife!  Lunch room attendants would bring each of us students little glass bottles of milk as we awaited permission to eat. Before that permission to eat was given we bowed our heads in prayer and we were guided in giving thanks for our food. I was very thankful for my food and did not mind letting God know I loved all the food on my plate! I had not experienced so much food at one time, on one plate so consistently. I was beyond thankful. On special days we were served chocolate milk - in real glasses, all frothy and icy cold. The chocolate milk deserved another prayer of thanks. After eating lunch and carrying my plate to the dish washing area, I waited with all the other kids to be excused to go outside and play. If I was still hungry, which I always was, I would get in a line behind the cafeteria with other hunger kids and wait with anticipation for some extra goodies. The top of the dutch doors would swing open and a smiling laughing woman would appear in her crisp white apron and hair net and hand out all the extra biscuits and cookies making sure she gave each one of us a big smile and a wink. At Caledonia, I was served fresh food made from scratch everyday, I no longer sat and waited for other students to share their left overs with me.  In this moment, over 50 years later, I can close my eyes and smell the fresh made biscuits and gravy and chicken and green beans and corn and taste the chocolate milk. I can still feel my chocolate milk or plain milk mustache wet on my upper lip and still feel the anticipation to gobble up every morsel on that thick white warm glass plate. I was an expert at  devouring everything on my plate, everyday. Sometimes, I would bend over my plate, getting my face close enough so I could lick that plate clean! I was not docile enough or tamed enough - yet - to know that to lick one's plate is a bit crass. To me, licking my plate clean meant life was tasting really good in Mississippi.

Photo courtesy of http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/special-collections/food-power-and-politics-story-school-lunch

I loved Caledonia. I loved being in Columbus Mississippi. I loved my new life. I had new clothes. I had new shoes. I had a brush for my hair. I had a clean bathroom with a working shower. I had clean bedding and actual pajamas to wear to bed. I had breakfast every morning, I had lunch every day at school and I had a hot meal at night. Columbus Mississippi was truly heaven on earth.

My wild weedy nature began to thrive. I was ravenous in all ways. I gained weight and my hair began to grow again, or so I thought. My mother would inspect my body after I bathed to make sure I removed the all the days dirt from my ankles. I know I had dirt on my ankles and elbows that must have been at least a few yeas old because while with my father I was leery of showers and tubs because of bugs.  I recall crying one evening in particular when my mom decided to remove the darkened skin from my feet and arms and the removal of years of built up dirt requires a scrubbing that also removes skin. My skin went from being dirt brown crust to brand new fresh red raw skin that throbbed with burning pain. I quickly learned the proper way to bath so I could be  in control of my skin's happiness. I am certain my bath time was the beginning of my control issues!

I remember one day while I was playing badminton with my cousin that my hair was actually long enough to get stuck beneath my arms as I swatted the birdie! I don't know if my hair actually began to grow longer or if the longer hair on my head was merely because it no longer was a matted mess. I lived with knots in my hair for a long time and it was a painful process to remove those knots. Not something I ever want to feel again. Living with my mother was painful, physically painful but that pain was worth it for somehow the burning and the pulling equated to being loved. Little did I know my long hair days were numbered.

My cousin. In Mississippi I re-met a cousin of mine. I remembered her from before my parent's divorce when we were crammed together in the back of the Pontiac traveling across country. My cousin and I were always the ones to be put up in the back window or made to lay on the floor boards. Now we were together in Mississippi. My cousin had also been living a life filled with uncertainty, poverty, a lack of nurturing, and navigating a life filled with monsters - much like my own life before my mom rescued me from my dad. My cousin and I were only a year apart in age and bonded immediately. To this day, she and I are like sisters and I know our hearts are one because they grew together.

My cousin and I played and played and ate and ate and dreamed and dreamed and supported one another and kept one another company. We laughed and invented games and pretty much did whatever we wanted because in the early 60s, children were to be seen and not heard and our duty was to stay outside until called inside. My cousin and I were both little wild ravenous weeds growing fast in the security and comfort of Columbus.  Our favorite game was to go out to a field behind the Restaurant and Hotel where my mom's trailer was parked and where both our mom's worked. We would go out in the field which was part of a tree nursery. The field was where the nursery grew its evergreen shrubs.  Evergreens that are readied to be sold have their root balls wrapped in burlap and we would crawl between the burlap root sacks pretending we were soldiers or wild animals in burlap tunnels. One of favorite sports was to hold the top of a tree to the ground while the other mounted the green beast and upon the count of 1, 2, 3 release the beast for a wild ride! Our bodies would get whipped back and forth and the winner of course was the one who could hold on the longest. I know our thighs bore the marks of the evergreen beast claws that dug into our skin as we strangled the trees with our bodies. We had so much fun. Our lives felt unreal. We both savored the time in which we were allowed to stay in one place for a small amount of time. Happiness can make the days feel like years, so can a broken heart. Here in Columbus, my long long days were stretched out because of a happy, healing, well fed, content, heart.

Evergreen trees awaiting shipment, and Nehi soda image courtesy of Google images

On our after school activities was to go out back, behind the restaurant where the sign, "Colored's"  was and hang out with the folk of color. We were not supposed to do so, but that was where we loved to be. Out back was where all the good music was. Out back was where all the good food was. Out back was where all the laughter and knee slapping was, out back was where everyone danced and sang and whistled. Out back, with the happy people, sitting on the unpainted splintery benches is where my cousin and I loved to be. It was out back in Columbus Mississippi where I learned to love RC Cola with peanuts at the bottom. Behind the restaurant proper is where I discovered Nehi soda too, and loved the orange Nehi sodas the best. I'd open up the big cooler and reach in pulling out a frosty soda pop, then open the lid using the opener on the side of the chest and sit on the splintery benches and chug down the soda so fast the bubbles would grab my throat. Ahhhh, that was so good!

My cousin and I lived like children were supposed to live, for the first time in a long time in our lives.  We took advantage of everyday without thought about anything other than going to school, doing our school work, learning how to dance, and riding trees. Life was as it should be. But, alas, our fun times were coming to an end, but for the time being we squeezed every bit of happiness we could from every second we had.

Columbus Mississippi was indeed a dream world that I am still grateful for.


(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

My Life Preservers

My tales of childhood describe an austere life lacking in so much, yet filled with so much. People ask me often, "how did you not become a drug addicted alcoholic hooker or worse?" I often wonder what "or worse" means, but I am content to not explore that tunnel, especially since I have no objective light to guide my way.  I did and do have happy times. I was happy with my family in Panama and happy in certain parts of Alabama. Later in my adult years I have many happy times that put the word happy off the charts!  I do believe my life was and is as it should be. I alone know what saved me from becoming that alcoholic drug addicted hooker, and I know when I share what my life preservers were and continue to be,  and how those preservers kept me from drowning, I imagine I will get some rolling eyes, some pfffft-s, some agreement, and some disbelief. Oh well, so be it, but then I am projecting and is that not the crux of so much confusion? Our projections? Our expectations? Certainly, I will address those land mines in life - or at least skim by them.

 My first school picture, I was in first grade at Prattville Elementary school. I was loving school and life until I was sent to live with a woman named Mabel. My mom had to go to California and The Alabama Monster agreed to care for me. While living with Mabel my father kidnapped me. 

 Fast forward a few years and here I am, another school picture, and this time I am in third grade. This photo was taken in Mississippi, only a few weeks after my mom swooped in and rescued me from my life with my alcoholic father in Arizona. You can see the difference in my demeanor between the two pictures. Pictures do hold our stories. The first picture I am wide eyed and open. The second picture my eyes have narrowed, my lips tight, and I am closed.

I am now, going to fold time, taking you from Mississippi where I had just experienced being rescued from a life of abject poverty. In brief to catch you the reader up with my story before slipping through a worm hole - Economic poverty was a fact of life while living with my father as was poverty of love and belonging. My father, in all his wisdom, kidnapped me. My alcoholic dad believed he was rescuing me from my mother who had abandoned me into the care of a woman named Mabel. My beer breathed parent, without permission, flew me in a little plane from Alabama all the way to Texas with a brief lay over in Arkansas to fix the plane. I went from a life of beginning to learn of heart ache into a life that was even more confusing and a lot more colorful and worldly. Eventually, I was salvaged from poverty - a poverty that created voids in my stomach, my heart, and my soul. My mom whom I believed was dead, suddenly came back to life and magically appeared one day in front of our little hole at The Brown Apartments. Mom arrived in a brand new, white, Chevy Impala with her prince charming. Away I went into a new life leaving all my few belongings behind. My new life with my mom and her prince was at first magical then slowly spiraled down into a life void of so much - again. The years spent with my mom post kidnapping are filled with many stories that I will eventually write about but not now. With time folded by slipping through a narrative worm hole, I am typing on my MacBook Pro as I sit at my table in a small rented townhouse in Lubbock Texas. 50 + years have evaporated since living in Mississippi and I am now 60. I am happily married, I have 3 grown children and step parent to two. I am entrenched in my creative expressions and work at a local hospital while celebrating life every day.  Lubbock Texas? Yes. The very same Lubbock that was the scene of so many crimes toward my heart - crimes of childhood abuse, abandonment, hunger, molestation, cockroaches, and worse. My conclusion in this moment is this -  none of what I experienced as a young child, adolescent, and teen, was ever done with deliberate intent to hurt me or my siblings. Well, there are some times that yes, I know for certain people did things knowing they were wrong and that the outcome for me personally was not that good, but again, those are stories I may or may not share one day.

 So, here I am a ripe 60 years of age and feeling blessed. I am filled with gratitude everyday for every thing that ever happened in my life and for every person whom I encountered that pushed me to draw upon my faith. I am filled with gratitude that those who gave me the most emotional pain and grief galvanized my spiritual relationship with my God for if it were not for God, I would have pulled the trigger on the gun. Yes, I had a gun in hand one lost day, a day that I am not proud of. Oh yes, another untold story. 

How did I go from "there" to "here" without falling into the traps of darkness that would have carried my body to an early grave and my soul into a limbo of confusion? The offering of Unconditional Love by God. Here go the rolling eyes, the deep sighs, the loss of interest. So be it. I was born into a devout Catholic heritage and in spite of all the shenanigans that screamed ungodly behavior, I was taught about God from the first day I was baptized just before being flown away to Panama at 6 weeks of age. I learned that God loved me, that God was watching over me, and that if I needed anything I could pray to all the Saints who had an inside track with God. I learned that his only begotten son, Jesus, died for me and that in doing so he proved his love for us and he carried away all our sins. I learned Jesus and all the saints were always available for a conversation and for intercession on my behalf. Of course when I was a tiny piece of a person I had no real idea what intercession meant but all the saints and Jesus did it for "me". I talked to the intercessors and the intercessors talked to God  and He would listen. That word intercession meant a lot to my innocence, it gave me hope.  In contrast to the loving God I also learned of a vengeful God that put the fear of eternal damnation into my little mind and I often lived life like a wounded wild bird with my heart pounding so hard my breast bone felt like breaking. I knew God was aware of my errors and would punish me severely. In fact, I spent a lot of time on these knees of mine expressing sorrow for all my sins so that my life would take a turn for the better. Again, I had a lot to learn before I understood what prayer was.  I have been a Catholic, a Southern Baptist, a Buddhist, an Atheist, an Agnostic, a Gnostic, a Spiritualist, and a lost soul. I have been born again and then jumped off the precipice of despair when I forgot God's promise. My life preservers have always been my faith, my hope, my love, my gratitude, and my will. Without those life saving parts of my psyche I know I would have fallen even deeper and would not be here typing on my MacBook Pro at this moment in time.

to be continued ~
Peace

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Domesticating Mary and Other Fun Stuff

By the age of 9 I had lived through so much that I faced my new life in Columbus Mississippi as just another adventure. I would not have been surprised if I was not in Columbus for very long. After all, by the time I celebrated my 9th birthday I was adept at moving, being transient, having no roots, for I had lived in Panama, Pennsylvania, Alabama, California, Texas, Arizona, and now I was catching my breath in Mississippi.  In the short time that I had walked the earth I lived in 9 different homes and attended 3 different schools, spoke English with a true Southern flare frosted with a Spanish accent, spoke Spanish colored with some Gaelic, and a smidgeon of  French learned in the Alabama school system. By the time I was 9 I was very colorful. My mom and her new husband rescued me from a life filled with uncertainty and hurriedly introduced me to a life of predictability. There were new people to get to know like Jim Finley, my mom's husband, and I had to learn who my mom was for I had forgotten so much about her. She still had her red lips, she still painted her fingernails red and white and she still wore her hair up, but I did not know who she was in her heart. My mom had a dream of what our family life was to be like and I had no dream. The weed in me wanted to continue to be my own boss while at the same time longing for and needing guidance. I was in desperate need of tender loving care while at the same time being petrified of love. It does not take long for a child to adapt to their surroundings, and over the course of time since my parents divorce, I had adapted to my ever changing habitats much like a weed adapts to its every changing environment.

(Image found via Google on http://blog.muddybootslandscaping.com/tenacious-r/)

It's true, you know, that humans can be just as wild as the wildest animals in the woods, or jungles, or deserts, or even the swamps. The difference between a wild animal and a feral like person is the wild beast lives in one reality, a world consistent within an environment that stays pretty much the same whereas the tempestuous human spirit lives in two different worlds - one world of performance and conformity and one world devoid of personal rules or boundaries. Due to my impetuous essence my  new life created two worlds within me where I often collided with myself. Those collisions between my wild nature and the domestication attempts caused me a bit of grief with consequences. In Mississippi, I began to learn that there were other types of hazards in life besides being hungry and uncared for. I faced a new conflict, the conflict of living with ramifications of not following rules or receiving accolades for following the rules within a family like structure. These new rules set down by my mother and her husband were not like the comforting rules I embraced at school or at church. My mom's rules poked at my character, my spirit, at who I was when I was in my most wild expression. There was unending conflict inside my immature brain because I had been my own pilot in life for what seemed an eternity and now? - now, there were people in my life who wanted to change the ravenous, beautiful weed I had become into a docile, obedient little wall flower.


To be continued .....



(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

God Listens ~ Sometimes

One moment I am so sick I can barely breath much less interact with life and I fight everyday to find food and companionship. The next moment I am rescued from my tenuous existence by my mother whom I had been told was dead. My next memory in line finds me standing in a J.C. Penny's store being fitted for a coat then I sleep and then like magic, I am standing in the most beautiful little trailer home I have ever seen. I feel as if I have awakened from a bad dream. My mother is beaming as she looks at me and she is talking so fast that I have trouble following what she is saying. It slowly dawns on me that I am standing, once again, in a place that people are referring to as "home". I am home. I am home in Columbus Mississippi and I have my own bedroom and that bedroom is clean.

(http://mobilehomeliving.org/10-great-manufactured-home-floor-plans/)

God did indeed answer my prayers. While living in Arizona I must have worn God's left ear off with all the prayers I sent him begging him to rescue me and my brothers from hunger and the cruelties of people. One night in Arizona, just a short time before my mom showed up,  I prayed especially hard after my father made me go with him to his most recent girlfriend's house for dinner. I felt like a doll on display the way my dad talked to his friend about me and as she listened to him she fussed with my stringy hair. This woman talked at me, not to me. She went on and on about how she would cut my hair and scrub my face and buy me lacy dresses and nice shoes. I listened intently, not moving, barely breathing, trying to disappear but obeying the commands that I sit still and not get up. As I sat in my assigned seat my father's lady friend decided to stop touching me and began to cook hamburgers for our dinner. I was stiff as I listened to her voice. She had the voice of an agitated goat as she brayed and brayed about her cooking abilities. I was afraid to say anything about the pending meal because I hated hamburger, even in the pains of hunger, it took every ounce of strength in me to chew up and swallow hamburger.  I did not like hamburger because it always had gristle in it and gristle did not feel good in my mouth. The lady eventually placed a piece of cooked, ground beef on a plate in front of me and I got a good smell of her alcohol laced breath. I then realized that this is where my father must have been staying lately. He loved to stay for long periods of time with his drinking buddies and this woman cooking hamburger was most definitely one of his drinking buddies. I felt like a trapped bird. I did not know what to do.

(Image from Google, no credit given)

As I sat almost stock still, looking at the disgusting hamburger in front of me I saw a motion outside the window next to the chair I was sitting in. Outside, I could see the younger of my brothers, waving his hands about wildly! I put my face to the window as he did and he pointed at the hamburger. I knew what he wanted, I knew he was hungry. I turned to my father as my brother ducked below view. I asked if we could take some food home to my brothers and my father snapped at me that I was being ungrateful toward his friend who cooked a burger just for me and that she did not have enough food to feed everyone. My dad then assured me that my brothers could fend for themselves. "After all", my father exclaimed with pride, "I taught you all jungle survival so you can make a meal out of anything."  He spoke the truth.  When my father and his friend began to smooch between their drinks making disgusting noises, I turned to the window again and saw my brother had made a little sign that said, "please, I am hungry".  My heart became heavy and I slipped my burger into a napkin and wearing my invisible cloak, I walked ever so slowly toward the door. As I was about to open the door and leave, a hand reached above me, holding the door shut. I looked up into the face of a a drunk woman whose sneer made her red lipsticked lips look like twisted up carnival taffy. She ripped the meat from my hands as my father produced a pair of panties he claimed were mine and shoved them under my nose carrying me by one arm across the room. I was grilled as to why there was blood in my underwear. I had no idea what was being said or why because I was not aware of blood in my panties! I was dizzy with thinking of why my under ware were at this woman's house, why were my under ware under my nose, why was I being yelled at? I suddenly realized that the reason I was even at this lady's house was solely for the purpose of rubbing my under ware in my face.

(Photo by Maryanne Mesplé)

I had no answer to offer about my clothing. I was grilled by my father and a strange woman over and over. Their slurred words of, "why? why? why?!!" smelled of stale beer and cigarette butts. I wanted to run but I had no energy to do so.  I was accused of messing my pants and then with a slap across my face by the woman, I was shoved out the door. Before the door slammed I could hear my father's smirkish words telling me to go home and bath because I was an embarrassing dirty little girl.
I stood outside the torture chamber in a daze. My brother walked up to me and hugged me and together he and I walked home. Neither of us ate dinner that evening. As I grew older, I could imagine why my under ware were soiled the way they were and the explanation is just too much to think about. That night,  when I crawled into my never made bed, I recall almost yelling at God. I raised my voice to a respectable level of intensity and pleaded with God to please send his angels to rescue us!  Atop of my begging pleas I made a million promises that I believed would seal the deal. I prayed and prayed and prayed. It must have been my prayers from that night that got God's attention and God got my mom's attention, and my mom began a search for me and my brothers until she found us - I imagined that that was how God worked and that was how God helped my mom find me.  I was convinced, that God did indeed listen but only if you were super motivated and you prayed super hard while making a million promises of obedience. Plus God expected 100% sincerity which being scared guarantees.

(Poverty Praying Child, image from Pinterest, link to Flicker did not work)

God answered my prayers by sending my mom plus by making Mississippi our new home. I did not miss my father. I did not let myself think of him. I lived in the moment and the moments in my life were filled with amazing wonderful things and events! I eased into having planned meals without difficulty and loved every savory bite served on my plate. I discovered that the strange tall man that had been with my mom to rescue us in his brand new car was my mom's new husband. My mom was no longer a Hughes, she was now a Finley. My mom went by Ellie Finley, no more Eleanor. James a.k.a. Jim I was told was my new dad, my new step-dad. I have never figured out why we refer to our  replacement parents as "step" parents but back then, in Mississippi, that thought did not keep me awake at night. In fact, my nights were filled with wonder instead of metal buttons on an old smelly mattress. I learned quickly that Jim was a fabulous cook! My new step father ran the cafeteria at Columbus Air Force Base and he always brought home sweet goodies that were left over after all the service people were fed. We ate chicken and roast and goulash and mac and cheese! We feasted on grits and eggs and bacon and hot dogs and cakes too! We even went to restaurants on occasion and right next to where my new trailer home was parked, was a motel/restaurant/gas station where my mom and Aunt T worked. I had not had the privilege of eating a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant counter since leaving the 331 Roadhouse. I began to believe that God was going to forgive me after all and I was excited to be alive again.


Heaven. Columbus Mississippi was Heaven.


(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Saved by The Dead

Days disappeared like evaporating rain in the desert behind my little eyes. I was numb to life and did not care about anything other than school, church, and Vangie my one and only friend. Children can and do become numb to their environment when the need to survive is paramount. Survival takes on many cloaks of desperation and my cloak was a multilayer covering of fear and faith. Fear kept me on my toes and faith allowed me accept all the unknowns in my life. My days in Arizona were coming to an end, and in a way I never dreamed would happen. My days playing in the soft desert earth with doodle bugs and searching for woodpecker nest, and racing the wind on my powder blue bicycle, and stealing food, riding crazy horses, and sneaking into theaters, and inviting myself to dance classes and much, much more would soon be over.

(Image from Zillow. Florence AZ, the landscape of many imaginary escapades!)

I remember my last day in Florence as if it were tattooed onto my skin, forever a part of me, never to fade from my memory. I responded to the morning sun's relentless pokes with pent up frustration. I could not take one more sunny beam in my face because I was feeling as if I had begun to melt away into nothingness, and the sun was only making me melt away faster. I was reluctant to get out of bed. I could not find my wild stallion to prance into the bathroom, my big humongous wild horse had abandoned me. I could not find the energy to get dressed, nor energy to run from cockroaches. I sat, numb, on a bare mattress looking out across my doorless bedroom, watching bugs scamper here and there across the walls. I had not been feeling very well for some time, but on this day, I could not fight how my body felt, so I just sat on my bed with no interest in life. It would be almost 30 years before I put the puzzle pieces together and figured out I was ill with Hepatitis A. Not one adult knew I was ill and had been for some time. One of my brother's had Hep A after a camping trip into the mountains. He was taken to the hospital and treated, but no one noticed that I had contracted Hepatitis from my brother. I am proof that you can go unseen, even if you are ill with yellow eyeballs and peeing dark orange. I was not concerned about my urine, what 9/10 year old thinks about their pee? I was not concerned with my eyes because the truth is I never looked in the mirror close enough to see my own eyes. As bugs hurriedly ran between the door jam and the wall one of my brothers walked by my bed on his way to the bathroom. My brother chided me about not getting up and warned me there would be dire consequences to pay if I did not go to school. A warning I rarely received since I always wanted to be at school. Being at school was a far better experience than staying in the apartment all day. Cockroaches were not my most favorite playmates. I was not concerned about not going to school. I was not fearful of my father's wrath for he never did care if I was at school, or not, or home or not. I tried not to interact with my father too much toward the end of my time living with him in Arizona because being around him made me feel ill. His presence created an uneasy sensation in me for he had touched me in a way that made me feel creepy inside. My father touched me like the gas station attendant did, and like the older boy next door did and as he touched me that one time, he was looking at me with one eye open and one eye shut. My father's look reminded me of the cartoon character Popeye, one eye open one eye shut. He touched me looking like Popeye, one eye open one eye shut. I hate Popeye. On this day, a day I was feeling 2-dimensional, I was sure my father was not home and that made my choice to stay in bed a little easier.

(Maryanne Hughes Mesple as she looked while living in Arizona with her father) 

As I sat on my bed like a lifeless rag doll I heard a commotion outside the apartment. There were men talking, and the men were talking rather loudly. Their voices were so loud I became frightened and tried to hide under the bedsheets. I could hear my father's voice in the mix and the voice of a woman too. Suddenly, my older brother appeared in my bedroom and told me to get up and get dressed and to make it fast. His body language and pitch of voice let me know he was not kidding and I knew I needed to do what he asked and in a hurry - there was something terrible happening once again in our lives. I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes I left on the floor the night before and put on my sneakers without socks. With uncombed hair and dirty clothes I meekly emerged from my sick bed, and slowly walked across the living room floor toward the front door where I could see the backs of both my brothers and their bodies were fidgeting in unison. I was confused because I believed both my brothers were at school or at least had been. How long had I been sitting in my bed? Hours must have passed without me even blinking or thinking? I was feeling weak, and faint but I knew I had to be present for what was about to happen.

I pushed against the screened door and as it gave way to my little body with a creak and a moan I stepped outside to stand between my brothers who were much older than I and much bigger. I must have looked like a wisp of a person between them. I watched as my father bellowed awful words  at two policemen. My dad's face was red and waxen looking, he had that one eye open and one eye shut look as spit flew from his lips! Every word he spat out of his mouth was filled with venom. Venom toward the police and venom toward a woman. Why was he using the word "she" I wondered and soon I saw why there was so much yelling and finger pointing and spit flying about and just who the "she" was that had angered my father so. There, standing next to a white car was my mother and standing next to my mom was a tall man with glasses. When I saw my mom I screamed, "Mommy!!!" so loud everyone fell silent and I bolted like a freed wild animal away from my brother's sides toward my mom's open arms! I jumped up landing in her embrace and burying my face into her neck I began to cry. I don't remember much else about what was being said or done but I do recall being put into the back seat of that wonderful clean, brand new white car and leaving Florence Arizona with my mother who had miraculously risen from the dead to save me, my two brothers, and some strange man. I must have fallen into a deep, healing sleep for I have only snippets of recall traveling from Arizona to Mississippi. I went from living in Arizona with my father, to living in Columbus Mississippi with my mother in one brief dream like moment. I truly was too ill to care about much, especially just who that strange tall man was who owned the beautiful white car. I had just celebrated my 10th birthday.

(Image found on Google, no credits given. 1963 Chevrolet Impala)

Mississippi. M I crooked letter, crooked letter I, crooked letter crooked letter I, hump back hump back I. Mississippi. A new chapter to my life with a whole new set of rules for adventure. 

I would encounter racism once again, toward my family and toward anyone who was not "white" even though segregation was beginning to end and all were to be treated equal. Where I lived that was not true. Here is a link that has a great story about Mississippi during the time I lived there.  Just click the highlighted sentence. 

Mississippi, It's like coming home, and for me it was. I was home, with my mother at last.

And what better music to capture a time in one's life than that of the Beatles as they emerged onto the music scene as musical, cultural shaping, giants.

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Arizona Misfits

I never noticed the word dysfunctional ascribed to people until the early 1980s. Before the 1980's, the most derogative word I remember hearing to define people and their families was the word misfits. The expression misfits described people who did not fit into society's neat little wrapper. Societal misfits, like my family, paraded around uncaring of the family being populated with oddballs, eccentrics, weirdos, lost souls, and losers. I was a misfit for certain and a wild one at that! In retrospect I clearly see I exemplified the word misfit blindly as I tried desperately to be invisible. I feel, no, I know, we Hughes'  helped the field of psychology define what a dysfunctional family was for we certainly did not live the life of  Ward and June Cleaver. As a small person, my view of life was, well,  life was just life. Everyone did what was needed to get by day to day, at least I think they did. Some people sustained themselves by having big houses and big cars and wearing clean clothes - color coordinated clothes. Some people simply existed in tiny apartments decorated in filth, scarcely eating, running gauntlets of mockery, and barely breathing out of fear of being noticed - that was me. I simply existed sans any accouterments other than a few pieces of clothing, my body, and my wild imagination that helped me prevail against my environment.

(Image of The Cleaver's enjoy family time at breakfast ~ the perfect family)

My decaying family life fit nicely into a rut christened as poverty and abandonment, two words that hold more meaning than their letters can convey and we Hughes' surfed the bottom of poverty's barrel. I can still hear and still feel judging words voiced by self-righteous souls around me at school, and in town. The spoken knives of people hit hard and penetrated my heart leaving critical emotional wounds, wounds I would not fully recognize nor begin to heal until much later in my adult life. As a child, I learned quickly how to deflect the appearance of emotional emptiness by pretending to not care about what people said. When I felt scared inside by what was happening in my surroundings I could seemingly disappear in an instant knowing it was safer to be undetected - the danger came when I was the center of attention. I had my own special brand of misfit existence and I was motivated by curiosity and hunger.  I was motivated by life into developing my creativity into ways of getting what I felt I needed or wanted. I became a great problem solver quickly, and the fact that I was under the age of ten meant I was a good study of life and of people. I was adept in figuring things out - like how to deal with the lecherous gropings of certain Florence AZ males and how to get invited to dinner and how to ride that forbidden horse and how to get dance lessons and learn to play the piano. All the things I wanted to do were offered for free, or I just invited myself to places where I could experience what I wanted. No money? No problem. No parent? No problem. By the age of 8 I was a very successful manipulator. 

Even with all the entertainment and challenges life provided me with during the day, most of my nights were spent face down in a mattress trying to muffle my deep, heart felt sobs of inconsolable emotional pain. I can still smell the age of the mattress I slept upon as it always was exposed because the sheets never stayed in place. I recall the feel of my finger tip outlining a button holding the mattress ticking down. I would trace the button's surface over and over feeling the button's metal body with thread piercing it and that repetitive act would often put me into a trance of numbed contemplation. I remember my thoughts back then as if they were my thoughts today. I do. I can recall how in the dark of night, imagery zipping across the panoramic screen in my mind. My mental theater reviewed memories of my mom and a life I no longer had. The memories of my mom taunted me with nurturing, motherly hugs cemented into place with bright red lips kissing my cheeks. My intangible ghost of my mother's memory left me feeling empty and emotionally pale as I recalled her leaving me behind in the care of my father - again. Eventually my salty silent heartaches would lubricate my mind enough to allow my heart to slip from a fretful state of scary wakefulness into deep sleep. Slumber gave me peace and I could escape the monsters that populated my little girl life. Sleep was a safe haven. Then, the sun would rise once again brining with it a new day for me up to face, for me to manipulate, and for me to survive. 

( The eyes of Maryanne Hughes Mesple as a child in AZ) 

Each morning I opened my eyes I rediscovered my dysfunctional world was real and sleep would reluctantly dissolve, taking with it dreams of places I could not remember. Eyes open, I'd get out of bed with feet falling uncomfortably into my predictable grooves of life. My routine of surviving my harsh, loveless, exciting, fun filled, hunger pained life, would find me prancing my way into the bathroom like a wild black stallion.  I admired my human horsy form in a foggy mirror while attempting to drag a comb through my unruly feral mane. I announced my wildness to the world with snorts and flips of my hair forward and back, side to side followed by whinnying long neighing sounds! My bathroom antics included hovering over a toilet instead of fully sitting down out of fear that a cockroach would jump on me. Cockroaches were always at the ready to terrorize me when I was alone. My horse entity would often turn into a plane coming in for a landing, a sound I was all too familiar with and a sound I would mimic as I worked hard, grunting red faced, at dismissing my body of used up food stuff. Seems I always was trying to relieve myself and seems everything I ate was was reluctant to leave my frame. The fact that I rarely drank plain water did not help my body's plight. Pretending I was a humongous black stallion or an airplane overshadowed the truth - I was a skinny malnourished ugly duckling girl. I had no clue as to who or what I truly was other than being a scrap of flesh.  Those who may have been outside the bathroom door way back then, would hear the sounds of airplanes and wild horses competing for space and all the while it was my spirit playing in a safe place preparing to take on a new day. I would leave the bathroom imagining I was atop a wild black stallion and I would literally run into my day.

(image from the move The Black Stallion)

While living in Florence Arizona, getting dressed in the mornings for school or play was the same as it had been in Texas. My clothing options were limited. I had an old Brownie dress from the time I believed I could be a Brownie and someone believed in me enough to buy me the uniform. I loved that Brownie dress so much I know I wore it almost everyday. I also had a few other little dresses that were very plain, a pair of shorts, a little blouse and some hand me down socks and a few panties. My socks never stayed up around my ankles, all my socks eventually slipped down off my heels and became crumpled inside my shoes so I chose to go sock free most days. The rubber sole of my shoes was a yellowish colored rubber with bumps for traction and I would often lay on my stomach on the ground, with a sneaker in hand picking out stickers and small pebbles that penetrated the rubber making my shoes not very pleasant to wear. I was laughed at and teased on more than one occasion and eventually I learned to ignore the teasing in the moment and take that pain with me someplace private later in the day. Then, once alone I would announce at the top of my lungs what I was going to do one day when I was bigger and then cry really hard to make sure I did not forget. 

My school classroom was populated with the typical elementary school tables with little chairs that were fun to scoot forward making scraping sounds on the tile flooring. Construction paper cut into shapes of trees and clouds and animals decorated the rooms horizontal space while ABC's trimmed the top of the room's walls. A large chalk board demanded attention as did the maps of the world. The teacher's desk was a beautiful majestic icon of rulership and I felt small and insignificant when called to the teacher's desk for a one on one conversation. During my school days in the small elementary school in Florence, I often lost my attention for what the teacher was teaching and instead would be listening to the outside world filled with birds and clouds and the whispers of desert breezes. The world was always having a conversation right outside the windows where I sat and my  intentional eavesdropping would be abruptly ended by the teacher asking me to repeat what she had just said. I don't remember ever being successful in recounting what the teacher talked about, but I could describe the texture of the clouds and the sounds of birds gossiping about each other. I felt safe at school. I felt useful and needed and protected. I loved school.

Most days, I did not have money to buy a lunch ticket, so I would sit with other kids of my class waiting to be offered the remains of their uneaten lunches, and I was not the only child that would show up without lunch. At least I had fellow peers who knew hunger as I did.  I am positive the school staff noticed, but if anyone did anything about my situation or the situation of other hungry, unkempt children I don't recall anything being done about our plight. I was always thrilled on the days I was successful in discovering change my father had forgotten in his bedroom on his rare visits home. Those days, when I was rich with a quarter or two I would buy school lunch and savor every little bite! After lunch, there was always recess and I would find my special friend as quickly as possible. My one and only friend and I played beneath Pepper and Evergreen trees that were living in dirt so fine it felt like silk to the touch. My friend and I would make pine needle rooms in our houses and pretend life was good and life was good at school and while with my friend. I cherish those memories and I can still feel the fullness of my heart during those moments, those special moments when life was mine to create as I wanted. After school my friend and I attended catechism just like all the other kids who were of the Catholic faith. I was born into Catholicism and Catholicism was my assurance that somewhere up in the big sky above me I was loved.  On the way to catechism we literally would run all the way to a little store that was on the roadway to where our catechism classes were. We would run into the store and speedily buy a Sugar Daddy candy bar or Sugar Babies only to save them for the walk home. My friend would always buy me a candy bar and for that I will always be so grateful. On the way home, after catechism I would always stop at my God Parent's home and visit their old dapple gray mare and share my candy with her, but that is another story for a different time. 

I loved catechism because I learned about God. I learned God did indeed love me and He had rules. School had rules. Home did not have rules. I liked rules. Rules gave me something to think about, something to achieve, rules gave me a certainty that one day all would be okay and rules made me aware that the other parts of my life were missing something. I was absolutely sure all I needed to do was follow the rules, get an A in catechism and in my regular school, and get A's in the school of earth. I had to get A's so I could go to Heaven. Only in Heaven could I have a chance to be saved. I was deathly afraid of the alternative to Heaven!  While in the catechism classroom I felt protected and loved while at the same time I felt wicked and guilty for sins I was born with. I became aware that even my thoughts were sins! My sinful heart plagued me as I tried my best to be the perfect child for God. I loved God. I feared God. At the age of 8 I already knew I had failed God in so many ways. I failed God and therefore must suffer God's punishment -  so said the nuns, so said the priest. I learned I could pray to Jesus's mom, Mother Mary, and that I could ask her to intervene for me by talking to her son and God. With Mary's assistance, maybe I would receive forgiveness for my sins?  I was not sure what all my sins were but apparently God knew and the priest knew. I convinced myself I was living a life solely for the purpose of repenting my sins. I was petrified of wicked black mortal sins and worried about venial sins. If I slipped up and inadvertently committed a mortal sin then there was no saving my soul, it would mean I would go directly to Hell, and not even get a chance to rectify what I had done wrong. If I committed venial sins, as least I could be remorseful and try to be better, try to not be a semi-bad person. I hoped and prayed my prayers would save my sinful soul. Every night I would read my catechism book over and over in an effort to memorize all my prayers. There was always the certainty that I would be called upon in catechism and if I did not know The Act of Contrition or the Hail Mary or the Apostle's Creed, I would suffer the wrath of the nuns and and eventually God! I recited all my prayers over and over burning them into my forever memory. To this day, I can close my eyes and feel the texture of my red catechism book, silky soft from constant use. I can visualize the words telling me about prayer and the importance of confession and penance. I can see the priest, the church, the nuns, my little rosary, my scapula, and I can feel how my heart beat like that of a frightened bird when I thought of God's anger with me. I was taught the meaning of the cross which was a strong visual statement of God's son dying for my sins. I could not understand why Jesus had to be nailed to a cross forever because of people being bad. I constantly dissected my every thought, believing that I was the one person keeping Jesus nailed on that horrid cross and even believed that I somehow was the cause of my mom dying. Seeing Jesus nailed to a cross with blood dripping from wounds creeped me out and scared me so much that I avoided looking at him. I could not stand to see Jesus hanging there, center stage, above the altar - and I swear Jesus was always looking at me instead of looking up toward his father in heaven!

When I could not distract myself with games and school work and memorizing prayers, my misfit, dysfunctional, underdeveloped mind would chew on thoughts of my mom. I would gaze off inside myself trying to imagine my mom in a coffin - dead. There had been no funeral or weeping by my dad or brothers as proof of her demise. The only proof of her passing was my father’s words to me telling me so, and the undeniably painful fact that she had never returned to rescue me as she promised. My father's insistency that my mom was dead convinced me God was a mean loving God, very similar to the people in my life, and I needed to dodge his wrath by being perfect.  I will never forget the last day I saw my mom. Mom and I were standing on the sidewalk in Lubbock Texas at a bus stop waiting for a bus to take us away. My mother was dressed in a gray suit with her black and white heels on. Her finger nails were painted red and white, her trademark, and her lips were fire engine red. My mom always wore her hair up in a french twist and she smelled of fresh hairspray. I was dressed in something obviously but I have no recall of whether I was in a dress or shorts, my only memory of how I looked that day was my hair was cut in a very short pixie and I was missing a front tooth. My father walked toward us, slowly, with a cockiness to his strut. My dad was dressed in his Air Force blues and his shoes were so shiny they were like black mirrors. Upon my dad's reaching the sidewalk where my mom and I stood, he pried my little hand from her hand, and took me away from my mother - again. I cried. My mom stood silent, boarded the bus and I watched her leave through tears of confusion. After that day, I had a hard time remembering my mom's eyes, all I could conjure up was her red lips and her big loving arms. I sobbed to myself a lot but never in front of people because I had no words to express the pain I held inside my little body.  I missed my mother immensely and never spoke of her to anyone. Eventually, my thoughts lessened and my mother's memory only visited me on the edge of time between being awake and falling sleep, as I traced my finger around metal buttons on an old dirty mattress. I would entertain those moments briefly and then I would quickly and reluctantly kill my mom's fading memory again and again so I could sleep and awaken to a new day of survival and play the misfit way.

(Eleanor, my mother)

to be continued ....

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé) 

Welcome to Arizona

The variation between chapters in my childhood is my age and demographics. The central story line of my adolescence remained pretty much the same - neglect, abuse, hunger, creativity, adventure and fun. When I summon my memories, those memories flood my mind like a tempestuous storm that flips through the pages of my life with magnifying recall. Each memory spins like a tornado in slow motion transporting me from one state to another and from one town to another. My senses grabbed at and recorded everything tangible and non tangible, and the winds of change provided me with important information I used to navigate the unknown. My memory is liken to a steamer trunk, impossible to hide so I unpack it, one item at a time in the hopes one day I will reduce it down to a small carry-on. This new unpacked chapter in my life screamed, "Welcome to Arizona!", and assured me the plot to my life's legend would continue without change. Florence Arizona provided me with more eclectic experiences to recall and more goodies for my steamer trunk. 

My recollection of the drive between Texas and Arizona is filed away in my memory files under the tab BORING.  One moment I am in Lubbock crying about dolls that come alive at night specifically to bite little girls and the next moment I am in Florence Arizona. Florence is a small small town in the Sonoran desert. Although the population of humans living in Florence in the early 60s was sparse, some of those humans were family and I learned that even in Florence the word family did not mean much at times.This new episode in life dropped me in front of an adobe structure that I was told would be my home. A different look to the old standard cockroach motel.  My senses gobbled up the appearance and smells of this new island in life named, The Brown Apartments. The Brown Apartments were literally brown and I could taste and smell the brown dust and sand embracing the front door delivering a new flavor of welcome home.  Within the door's frame was a rickety screen slammer that would soon wham and bounce a thousand times as I ran into and out of the adobe shell. The screen on our door was stretched out from too many faces leaning into the partition trying to get a look left and right without opening the door. In addition to the screen being misshapen and lax, several holes in the wire mesh formed gnarly sharp finger traps for curious kids like myself. The dysfunctional screen matched our family's decor perfectly.

(The Brown Apartments image courtesy Google Maps.)

The Brown Apartment's outer and inner framework in the 60's was neglected and looked nothing like the picture above showing how those same apartments look today. The stiff mud shack was boringly uninviting with its flat roof and several doors offering different holes called homes. Each weather beaten portal opened to a living space revealing differing levels of poverty. The apartment offered a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Two bedrooms for five children and two adults was not uncommon for the era nor for the economic standing called flat broke. I did not care about sleeping with other kids. As long as there was a spot for my body to curl into a ball,I could sleep between pushes and kicks from restless feet and bad breath was escaped by burying one's face into the crook of an elbow. I can still feel the texture of the bed's mattress with its blue stripes, white metal buttons, and lump producing springs. Many nights were spent, trying to pop off buttons that my nose or cheek would find because the bedsheets no longer covered the mattress due to the churning of fidgety, sleeping bodies.

(google image no credit given) 

The kitchen had its place in the back of the apartment showing off empty shelves and cockroach nests. Along the rear wall was a door like an escape hatch that exited into a large fenced yard. Wonderful sandy silken dirt dusted the entire backyard which showcased a communal wringer washer with a saggy clothes line companion. That wringer washer and I had several painful encounters! More than once did I dare and tempt fate by teasingly putting my finger tips into the rolling wringer. Once the rolling cylinders gripped my fingers I belted out screams of agony under the force and pull of the wringer as those turning savages squished the heck and blood out of my hands! Fortunate for my fingers and palms, I was rescued before my skin was ripped form my dainty little hand bones. I eventually lost my fascination for the washer's wringer mechanism and went on to challenge life elsewhere.

The Brown Apartments gifted me with another very flavorful memory of a bathroom. My first bathroom recall was a humiliating experience with clothing that I would rather live through twice over than what unraveled in The Brown Apartment's so called shower. 

(Janet Leigh, shower scene from the movie, Psycho, 1960)

The first day at our residence I was told to "go clean up" which meant getting wet in a shower and actually using a bar of Lifebuoy soap. I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothing and kick it aside like shed skin. I step into the pitted and chipped cement shower stall and twist the crusty water knobs in unison to the on position and - nothing. The pipes burp and groan a bit and I begin twisting the knobs left and right, repeat,  left and right, expecting water to flow and still - nothing. No water. Now the pipe like protuberance has my full attention as my upward gaze is intently riveted on the water spout which is void of a shower head. My curiosity was laced with an expanding imagination and anticipation as I rapidly created a variety of stories about burping, strange, arid water pipes. I stood with my face directly beneath the spout, my eyes wide with expectancy, and mouth gapped open when suddenly  a huge cockroach jumps out of the pipe onto my face!!! My screams failed to reach any hero's ears! There was no rescuing me from the monster cockroach that I know with certainty had huge fangs and piercing claws and most likely wanted to take me home to feed her kids! That hard shelled nasty creature inspired me to dance atop hot coals of being creeped out as I slapped my body violently in unison with the shaking of my hair wildly!  As I beat that carnivourous bug off my naked body I transported my tiny carcass out of the shower stall landing onto my shed skin of inside out clothing!  The heebie-jeebies continued crawling on my skin as I wet my face and hair in the sink so could leave the bug hole with the look of being wet.  I did not venture back into that room until the rest of the family cleared the water pipes of all the cockroaches. I still shudder when thinking of this experience!

Time was always irrelevant to me. My clock had four settings, day and night and hot and cold. Today was today. Tomorrow was a fantasy. Yesterday was filed away and entered into my mental log. One day I am living with a house full of people and the next day three of those people are gone. I can't say when my father's Lubbock Texas wife and her children fled Arizona, but they did so life snapped back to being just four Hughes' again. We were Bill Hughes, Billy Hughes, Moe Hughes, and Mary Hughes. I learned I was a Hughes in Lubbock in a very impressive way, so now in Florence I got a kick out of calling myself a Hughes and spelling it for people.  The elder Hughes worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections also referred to as the state prison. The elder Hughes, my dad, continued to drink away his paychecks; some things in life never change. In Florence my dad spent a lot of his semi conscious time in the local bars and taverns or at another drunk's house. By the grace of the graces my dad seemed to manage getting himself to work, but found it to be a challenge to come home. As in the other episodes of my life while living with my father, the three of us kids were very creative and resourceful in caring for ourselves. We had to be overly creative for our lives were void of any parenting. In looking back I can't say what was more traumatizing: living with my parent's constant bickering and arguing and plate throwing and baseball bat threats and screams and angry tears, or,  living a life void of parental nurturing and demonstrated love. My non attentive father made sure Florence was another class room  and he was a grand teacher.  But I diverge! So, my oldest brother spent most his time with his high school friends and with some of our cousins. My next to oldest brother spent his time hanging with his friends too and seemed to always be in trouble. I spent my time either alone with my imagination or with one friend, Vangie. 

I absolutely worshiped and looked up too Vangie for she was truly my first ever friend. I thought Vangie was super lucky because her parents owned a restaurant on Main Street in Florence, AZ. Once in a while Ms Vangie would invite me into the delicious smelling café that her mother used to delight the senses of hungry townspeople and town visitors.

Mrs. Marisacal, Vangie's mom, fixed authentic Sonoran Desert Mexican foods, and I was ever so appreciative for soft juicy tacos. I would pick up the rolled, soft corn tortilla dripping meaty juices and in one bite, stuff the entire taco into my watering mouth.  I must have looked like a hairless, overgrown chipmunk! 

(http://ncschoolipm.blogspot.com/2011/10/insect-of-week-antlion.html)

My best friend Vangie and I loved playing with Mother Nature's fixins'. We dug up doodlebugs with our bare hands, collecting the bugs in any vessel provided by the desert landscape.  We could entertain ourselves in the light of the Sonoran Desert sun for hours conducting Doodlebug races. Doodlebugs are Antlions and are super ugly, harmless, larva. With our  bugs in hand, we would smooth over the silken sands then on the count of 3 release our racers to do what they do best - creating new pits to capture ants for their meals! The winner was in possession of the bugs that made new pits first instead of doodling away their time going in circles! Fun indeed! Along with capturing and racing our doodlebugs Vangie and I would explore the under layer of the desert that never disappointed our imaginations. Vangi and I would on occasion wander over to the Florence graveyard and scare ourselves, and we would cool our bodies beneath pepper trees, and chew mesquite seed pods, and gladden make believe worlds populated with beautiful flying creatures. Vangie told me that one day she would be a nurse, and I told tell her one day I was going to be a horse! I mean if you are going to become something other than a child you might as well make that something spectacular! When in AZ I had no clue as to what being grown-up meant, much less what I would do as an adult. My focus was on play, and surviving until the next day not on thinking about an uncertain future.

When night crept across the landscape, taking away the light of day, my imagination ran wild toward the scary side of darkness. I did not like dolls anymore and so I did not have any fake human to comfort me anywhere in the apartment or in bed. On one of my adventures with Vangie she told me about the monster demon that hid in the velvet black of night and its favorite place to find its victims was at the Court House, on the lawns. She explained how that demon laid in wait for unsuspecting souls accidentally trespassing into the demon's realm and that demon would gobble them up! The court house demon had gnashing teeth that dripped sticky soul catching drool and that demon howled a howl that could paralyze one's body.  That Court House, where the demon hunted, was conveniently across the street from my home. I recall one evening sitting in the living room staring out the barely screened door and I was convinced I was seeing a hideous creature peering back at me through the gnarly sharp holes in the screen. I froze. I did not move, not even a twitch. I knew in my gut if I so much as took a breath, the demon monster cloaked in the dark of night would suck my body through those little holes in the screen and steal my soul! Obviously I was successful in avoiding that soul sucking goblin of the imagination - I think?  Aside from the fear of ghostly apparitions I began to miss my mother fearing I would never see her again. Both those fearful emotions fed off one another, missing my mother and fearing a monster required rescue. I recall crying myself to sleep as I would talk to the angels asking the angelic keepers of prayer to deliver me to my mom. I wanted to feel her hugs and kisses, even though her abandonment of me hurt, I still loved her and still needed her. One day I asked my dad why mommy was not with us, why did she not come back to us like she did in Texas? My loving, caring father, told me my mom had died. My mom dead? That sealed the deal on my already waning ability to share emotions in a healthy manor; I withdrew into a shell that took me half a lifetime to crack. 

to be continued ….. 

(All stories blogged by me are my property and protected under copyright laws. No part may be used or reproduced in anyway without my permission ~ Maryanne Mesplé)