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) 

A Snippet of Life in Balboa Panama

Give a child freedom and that child will use every ounce of it and then some! Freedom of body mind and spirit was my blessing early in life at a time when I never thought of not having freedom. I did not even know what the word freedom meant much less understand what it was to not have freedom. I explored and played and lived in my imagination along with living in a world of wonder.

While living in Panama for 3 1/2 years my world was constructed of jungle, reptiles, insects, water, military events, and family. During the day my parents were involved with military life meaning my father was off teaching jungle survival and or drinking and my mom was at the NCO Wives club sewing for theater productions or playing softball. On weekdays my siblings, two brothers and a sister who were, 9 1/2, 7, and 5 years older than I, spent their days suffering body pinches, ruler whacks, and face slaps combined with loving prayer at parochial school. I remained at home with a nanny. As I grew in age my ability to explore and run and mimic airplanes in a nose dive grew also. My nanny did not have to worry about whether I would wander too far because the Panamanian Jungle created a beautiful boundary which I obeyed. The dense wall that separated our stilted home from hungry mouths and venomous bites was created by Mother Nature. Mother Nature wove everything green and vine like and tree like into a living tight knit community of flora and fauna and then glued it all together with the sounds of the jungle's  inhabitants. I knew by instinct that I was not to penetrate the jungle wall and my instinct was sharpened by stories my father recounted to us children. His stories included head hunters he met deep in the jungle and my father would show us kids a real shrunken human head to prove his story was real. I believed my father. I believed the sounds of the jungle. I did not enter the living green wall. 

(http://www.voodooneworleans.com/shrunkenhead.php)

Several times a week my father attacked the jungle wall with a machete. Slinging his machete arm way up over his head he then would drop his arm with a swinging force so hard the green of the jungle flew into the air as did rich smelling chlorophyll laden plant juice. This act of hacking at the jungle was necessary to keep the verdant labyrinth and its inhabitants away from the house. My father became a two legged Army Ant with a purpose. Part of the keeping the jungle away from the house was because of Army Ants and you don't want to be in their path. Nothing that can be dismantled with a their mighty jaws is sacred to Army Ants and the platoon does not like going around anything. I remember my siblings deliberately scaring me with stories of Army Ants carrying little children my size away. I believed them. I still believe them. I still respect the green wall of any jungle and its jaws.

(Panamanian Jungles courtesy of Google Images)

My mom is still upset and angry with Army Ants because of the night they devoured her prized Hibiscus bush. The army left nothing behind that would qualify as beautiful much less a beautiful Hibiscus. As for me? I did not miss the Hibiscus because I had other important business to attend to. My days were spent with my friends not with Hibiscus bushes. My friends were a parrot named Baby, a marmoset monkey named Monkey and a Doberman Pincer named Incus. Sometimes, even though I could run, I enjoyed playing with a baby walker. The purpose? There was no purpose but there was a lot of fun to be had! The walker was like a scooter, powder blue in color with pastel plastic beads to push back and forth and a wooden handle bar. I could get that scooter going fairly too fast around the yard while the parrot clung onto the handle bar screaming, "¡Momma el griterío del bebé!",  "Momma! The baby's crying!" The monkey would jump around nervously from me to the back of the scooter to me to Incus's back screeching, "Hey Parrot, will you shut up!". Incus the Pincer would keep pace just behind the rest of the show and protect me and my friends from anything that may have tried to creep out of the jungle.

(La Porte Baby Walker 1950's)

Being a child demands the use of imagination and the world I lived in made it impossible to avoid the use of imagination. My imagination allowed me to hear the jungle chewing. My imagination helped me see the head hunters peering at me as they clung to trees like big spotted leaves. My imagination helped my speak Marmoset when I needed Monkey to stop pulling on my wisp of hair.  I believe that Baby and Monkey and Incus could hear and see what I did because we would all talk about what we were seeing and hearing, and my imagination would not let my friends lie to me. I had no concept of 24 hour days, I only knew there was daytime and night time. Daytime was when me and my gang played all day only stopping long enough to eat something and then back to pretending I was hunting for sloths, and armadillos and red eyed toads while flying my bomber plane around and under the house. At night, the family was home and life was really different.

I loved my siblings and I so wanted to be a part of their life. I was so happy when they would come home from school because then I could hear all about their day as my mom pumped them for information. I didn't even mind that no one wanted to talk with me, because I was satisfied just listening to what it was like in the world outside of our house. Eventually, I would manage to make each brother and my sister yell at me as I would pester them to play. With so many years between us it was difficult for my siblings to relate to a young toddler such as myself. I wanted their school books. I wanted their model airplanes. I wanted my sister's glass horse collection. I wanted my mom to snuggle and hug and kiss on me and I wanted my dad to show us all his latest prize from the jungle. When my father would return from the jungle he would take us outside to see his latest acquisition of snakes and bugs he had collected. He would teach us the proper names for the snakes and insects and any identifying marks and features.  We learned what was poisonous and what was edible. Yes, we ate bugs and snakes. Maybe that is one of the reasons why today I will try anything because I have tried so many exotic foods in my life.We all would listen intently as my father spoke and demonstrated the "how to's and the what not to do's" because we knew there would be questions asked that had to be answered as proof that we had listened to our latest lesson. My father would say, in Spanish with a Gaelic accent, "look look" and if we were not paying attention we would receive a slap on the top of our heads. After our lessons we would all return indoors for a family meal that usually was accompanied by a heavy rain storm. It rained a lot in Balboa Panama where the average rainfall is slightly over 90 inches and where a 3 minute downpour can sometimes drop almost 3 inches of moisture. We were drenched a lot but that did not matter. Well, getting wet mattered to my mom because the rain would ruin her hair but to me? Nope, just more fuel for my imagination.
I lived so many adventures both real and in the land between my ears by the time I was 3 1/2 if I could have kept a journal I would love to be reading it today!
Maybe, after I get some rest, I will share more Panama with you and maybe I will leap back to Alabama or saunter on over to Mississippi or fly to Texas or road trip you to Arizona with me. Well, eventually I will take you to California oh, and Arkansas too!

(Maryanne Hughes Mesple in Panama 1955)

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)