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)