May 22, 2012
Cannot Relate To My Son
My son is 27 and lives with his girlfriend. My husband and I occasionally go over to visit. I cannot imagine how he feels or what that feels like. He has a mother and father and these days we can actually stand each other. He likes me to hug him. He calls and wants to talk to me. He asks, “Where’s my daddy?” Meanwhile I’m thinking he’s living a life I can’t understand. My father didn’t live with us and when he came to visit he was abusive. My mother was abusive and I couldn’t bear for her to touch me. What he has experienced is so simple and yet so valuable. I helped create something I might not ever be able to fully comprehend. Life can be strange.
November 10, 2011
Sexual Abuse at Penn State
I am so angry because the cover up there reminds me of the way sexual abuse is kept secret in families. Some people know what’s going on but they keep silent in order to protect the reputation of the family. At Penn State they wanted to protect that football program because of all the money it brought in and they felt loyalty to one another. I also wonder about the state of Pennsylvania. Did certain people stay silent in order to keep collecting tax revenue? Well now the secrets are having light shined on them and the roaches are running and hiding.
November 6, 2011
A Tough Few Days
Lately, some of my kidparts have been coming to the present which is good because I have trying to make this happen, but at the same time I am in so much pain and have a lot of rage and anger, which cannot be helped because what happened to me was scary and horrible, but its hard.
I am depressed and I know it but I don’t know what to do about it. Usually if I go for a walk or book search and listen to music I feel better, but it’s not working this time. Last night I went and saw Sweet Honey in the Rock and they were wonderful. I didn’t want to go because I was feeling so low. Even after seeing those fabulous uplifting women perform I still felt down. Today I am going to spend the day burning lavender incense in bed reading and sleeping. If I don’t feel better tomorrow I’ll call my therapist.
September 26, 2011
Library Dad
There’s this man who comes in with his daughter every week. She is about two years old. Of course I think there is no better place for him to bring his daughter. Since I never had any healthy father/daughter interaction I am watching them. He is so kind and gentle with her. I am glad they are there for me to observe. It’s painful to admit to myself how small and innocent I was as a child. I watched the little girl singing to herself and picking up leaves that fall off the trees outside the library. That’s the kind of things I would have done too if I had had the chance. I do it now, but it’s not quite the same.
September 1, 2011
Postings Pictures Of Those Who Receive DUIS On The Internet.
I come from a family of women who mated with alcoholics. My father was an alcoholic and my mother’s father was an alcoholic. My little brother is an alcoholic, so I do realize I would be seeing some family members and/or childhood friends online, but it might shame them if they were featured on the web for being a dangerous drunk. Perhaps some of them would be pushed in to getting help. What do you think?
August 5, 2011
A Lesson Learned At The Clothesline
I’ve always hung clothes on the line. When I was younger we had a line in the basement to dry clothes. Although I do have excess to a dryer, I prefer the smell of clothes dried by air and sunshine, especially sheets and towels.
For the last month it has been crazy hot. I saw on the news the other day that July was the hottest recorded month in history in this state. The second hottest month record was last July so we have been using our outside clothesline. Actually we’ve been using it for over twenty years.
Today I went out to get some things I had hung up and was once again confronted with my son’s bunched up clothes that he’d left out in the rain. They looked like they were put out there by somebody coming down off a huge load of medication and he don’t even have that excuse!
I started thinking “Why does he do this. I have told him a million times not to put those clothes out here like this. He’s been watching me hang clothes practically his whole life and he still.. does what he wants to do. He has freewill.”
I have been struggling with the fact that I am the biological child of my parents. Their blood runs through my veins and I sound and look like them. What if some of their evil rubs off on me or my offspring?
Another feeling I have is shame. I don’t want people to know what kind of horrible people they were.
Many times I have thought, “Oh why couldn’t I have had normal pain-in-the-ass parents like everyone else?”
People, including my son, have asked me why I am not abusive like my parents. I would always think “Well, that’s an easy question. Who would want to be a pedophile, murderer, child pornographer and child prostituter? Not me. I don’t know understand why anyone would want to live that kind of life.”
And yet I still felt that something was wrong with me. When my son was born I began to make sense of things I had always remembered and began to remember what I had forgotten about abuse because he was such a beautiful baby. I didn’t understand how such a person had come from inside of me. I figured out why I felt so bad about myself, but I never got rid of that feeling something is wrong with me.
Those crammed clothes on the line help because I can see that it is true. We are not our parents. My son is not me. We can decide to do things our own way.
That man/boy continues to be a blessing when he is not irritating me. And I feel less shame than I did this morning.
August 4, 2011
Excellent Article By Kim Pearson of Blog Her On Child Prostitution.
http://www.blogher.com/what-we-can-do-stop-child-prostitution-united-states?page=0,1
My biological mother prostituted my siblings and I and I always wondered why no one would help us and make it stop. This article has some ideas on how to start better protecting children.
July 1, 2011
Some Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me And
May Not Want To Know, But I Am Telling Anyway
1. I use hair oil for cooking. Yes it is true. I have kinky hair and it needs to be moisturized on a regular basis. Light olive works very well. It is also very good for baking cookies. I replace the margarine, butter, or shortening with light olive oil.
2. I was a Woman Marine. I am also married to an ex-Marine. I was trained to use an M-16 rifle and it helped me lose my fear of guns.
3. I am introverted in public and extroverted with close family and friends. I always tease and pick with the people I like the most and have to be careful because it leads to misunderstanding.
4. Although I have very short hair and wear little makeup, I am not a lesbian. However, I have decided to be one with people who insist. And I have met lesbians exquisitely made up with long pretty hair.
5. I am almost fifty years old. I know a lot of things, mostly learned from experience. At the same time, there is much I do not know.
6. Needed to add something. I am a large black woman, but I do not enjoy taking care of children. I can do it well when I have to. I do like certain children because of their personalities. For the most part, I can tolerate children for about thirty minutes and then I want them to go home.
June 9, 2011
FAMILY TIES
I haven’t been talking to my family for the past few months and it is not that I am angry with them. I have figured out that I do better when I have minimal contact with most of them. Some of them have not dealt with the abuse that we all suffered and it is difficult to talk to them because I cannot share any of what I am going through.
May 1, 2011
SHAPESHIFTER POEMS By Lucille Clifton
shapeshifter poems
1
the legend is whispered
in the women’s tent
how the moon when she rises
full
follows some men into themselves
and changes them there
the season is short
but dreadful shapeshifters
they wear strange hands
they walk through the houses
at night their daughters
do not know them
2
who is there to protect her
from the hands of the father
not the windows which see and
say nothing not the moon
that awful eye not the woman
she will become with her
scarred tongue who who who the owl
laments into the evening who
will protect her this prettylittlegirl
3
if the little girl lies
still enough
shut enough
hard enough
shapeshifter may not
walk tonight
the full moon may not
find him here
the hair on him
bristling
rising
up
4
the poem at the end of the world
is the poem the little girl breathes
into her pillow the one
she cannot tell the one
there is no one to hear this poem
is a political poem is a war poem is a
universal poem but is not about
these things this poem
is about one human heart this poem
is the poem at the end of the world
