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) 

From Alabama to Texas via Arkansas

(Photo: My sister Kathleen on left and me, Maryanne, 1978)

When I was an adult, with children of my own, my sister Kathleen revealed that it was she who told our father where to find me. My sister begged my dad to fetch me from the clutches of Mable, the woman whom my mother had left me with just before I turned 7. Mable lived in Prattville Alabama and that too was a mystery to me until later in life. As mentioned, it was while living with Mable I turned 7 and then experienced my very first sterile Christmas. I was stuck with Ms Mable because my mom had to rush to California to be with her ailing mother. In my heart I was with Mable too long starting from the minute my mom disappeared.

With my sister's prompting my father found me. I had not seen my father since the night he wrecked my mom's big green Pontiac, Sky Chief. Of course, most likely there were several days between the  night Sky Chief died and the day of my parents split up. The night my father wrecked our car was my last memory of my father's arms and face, until seeing him again at Mable's. When my father pulled up into Mable's dirt driveway I became openly giggly and very happy that my dad was rescuing me from Mable. After a huge hug and squeeze from my dad, I threw my first blatantly nasty "I hate you" look at Mable as I ran to the room I slept in to collect my belongings. I did not have much to pack. I grabbed and bagged a few pieces of clothing, which included a pair of brown shoes, a couple pair of under ware, a pair of socks (I don't recall wearing socks much as a child) two sundresses, a pair of shorts and a little shirt and maybe a tad more I really can't recall. I do recall that what I grabbed fit perfectly crumpled up into one paper bag and of course I had on my flip flops and some pants and a blouse. The one thing I did not want to leave behind and that did not fit into my bag was my Chatty Cathy doll that my mom sent me for Christmas. My toy doll had beautiful blond hair and on our first day together I learned that piles of sand in an Alabama yard such as Mable's were not the best choice to sit on and play for they are created by Fire Ants. I literally felt what "ants in my pants" was and it was not fun. Fire Ants are called Fire Ants for a reason; their bite burns like fire. Of course Chatty Cathy talked, but that is not why I loved her. I loved that funny doll so much because "she" was my  friend along with my real friend Peanut. No matter how much Mable yelled, or struck out at me with her long clawed hands, or slapped me with a belt or wooden spoon, or ignored me and made me go without eating, Chatty was always nice to me. Peanut too. Peanut my friend was never mean and Chatty and Peanut made living with witchy Mable tolerable.  I could talk to Chatty and Peanut and both knew how to keep a secret, especially dark secrets. 

 (Chatty Cathy 1961 vintage Google Images)

At first my father took my doll out of my hands and handing Chatty to Mable denied my friend's escape too. I cried. No, I threw a fit. A fit that made it impossible for my dad to leave Chatty Cathy alone with Mable, so into the car I leapt with Chatty in hand and with the slamming of a heavy metal car door I never looked back at "that place" again. I didn't even try to look for my friend Peanut's face outside the car for fear and anger that I might catch a glimpse of that awful mean lady. Safe, I relaxed with a smile in my heart as the car buzzed along the backcountry road heading toward an airport. 

I could feel the slipping away of daytime even through the thick gray skies of winter. The thickness of gray would hide the sun, stealing away most of the sun's light and denying shadows. I did not need to see the sun or shadows because my senses would whisper to me how much time I had until true nightfall. I think that perhaps when you grow with the weeds outside the way I did, you can feel the earth and the sky just like a weed does. I was a weed in the sense of learning to be adaptive to my life's ever changing landscapes and I was developing a tenacious spirit with a strong will to survive. My weedy nature's tenacity and adaptability proved valuable as my years piled up behind me. My sweetest years were over by the time I was 5ish having witnessed the KKK burning a cross that opened the passageway to the reality of the ugly side of the human beast. I began to see that it was not just my parents who could not get along. I was learning people, in general, were not nice. My day began in a hostile place where the word love was never spoken and now, as the grayness of the skies spoke of late afternoon I found myself with my father and also my sister Kathleen and her husband plus another man who was called "pilot" and we were going somewhere far away from Alabama.

(image google images)

I was overjoyed by and overcome by the fact I was with family again. We all stood along side a small airplane that was red and white and the plane had a propeller. I was not a stranger to airplanes being a seasoned military brat so when I was told to jump in I eagerly let my father lift me high into the air and crawled aboard the four seat-er plane. Four seats. There were five of us. The pilot took his seat and my father sat beside as co-pilot. My sister and her husband sat behind the pilots in the only two other seats in the plane. I was put in the back with the luggage. Chatty too, rode in the back of the little plane with me. I curled up atop some suitcases loose like a piece of parcel and Chatty had to stand with her legs pinned by some luggage and she was looking right me. Her face is burned into my memory cells.

Chatty Cathy's face is burned into my head because of what happened in the middle of the night in that little plane that was our ride to Lubbock Texas. I was born fearless. I think many children are. Children are taught fear and the ugly things of life through experience. This night the little red and white airplane taught me a little bit more about fear. The night's skies were dark except for occasional lightening flashes. I remember my sister asking a bunch of questions that made no sense and her husband telling her to shush. I was fascinated by the temperament of the night skies outside the plane and ignored the voices in the cabin. The plane started to make funny noises and then those noises would stop - leaving a big gap of silence that silenced the grown-up passengers too. I put out my feelers and knew that something was wrong and my weedy senses made me feel tight inside as fear grabbed up my legs. Fear spewed all over the cabin from the adults as they began raising their voices. Lightening flash. Chatty Cathy's face would light up and I would see her staring at me coldly in the suffocating silence that would last for a second in eternity. My sister began crying and sobbing something about her baby because at 16, she was pregnant with her fist child. My father being my father was laughing and sharing his bottle of spirits with the pilot and my brother-in-law. Once, maybe twice my father yelled asking if I was okay saying my name in his spanish/gaelic/english drunken slur. Chatty's face would flash with light and I could see the fear in my doll's face.

The plane soon was not making any sound at all and I could hear the outside come into the cabin with us. The invading darkness with lightening joined my sister's crying, my brother-in-law's squeaking, my father's laughter, and the pilot's silence broken only by his radio calls for help. I know what "Mayday Mayday" sounds like and what it feels like from a 7 year old's perspective. "Mayday Mayday please make Chatty stop staring at me and make everyone be quiet", that is what my call for help was. I wanted to be outside of the plane because it was too tight inside once the plane lost its generator. In the middle of the mayhem of chaotic voices and lightening flashes and drops and pitches I began to see a row of blue lights in the distance. We were close to an airport in Little Rock Arkansas. The pilot used the blue lights to guide our plane toward the general vicinity of an airstrip. The little red and white plane was not so gently falling from the dark skies but yet, obeying the pilot. The pilot although a bit under the influence of booze was able to put us on the ground - without breaking up. The landing was not the best but I had been in a louder landing and to me sound made the difference between horrible and terrible. I looked at Chatty and decided we would part ways because she could not rid her face of fear. Once inside the airport the adults regained their composure and rehashed the experience we just lived through. I sat unseen and listened. With the relief of not crashing, everyone's appetites engaged and we dinned on vending machine candy. I ate my first and last Cherry Mash candy bar and drank an RC Cola. The Cherry Mash candy bar was more horrible than being in a plane with no power, looking at Chatty Cathy, in a storm, in the dark of night, over Arkansas.

With the plane fixed and we were all aboard again, we finally landed in Lubbock Texas. Texas is where I became acquainted with dust storms, more unsavory characters, strange adventures, and hunger. My life in Texas began the serious peeling away of my veneer called childhood.

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)