It is well known

we as human beings

are layered

in almost all aspects

of our lives.

What one sees,

hears and experiences

on an everyday basis

is only a tiny petal

of our wholeness.

When one’s

early memory life

reveals states

of fear and trepidation,

bursting from

acts of anger,

breathing  in

an atmosphere of anguish,

despair, depression and

some sense of being overwhelmed,

some petal buds

waiting to open

stay curled

and closed.

 

I am not sure when I may have been open, or how long I stayed closed. All I recall is that I see a room with me alone in it even though I am one of four or five children at this time. The experience of being closed to the world is evident in how I recall my situation. I know I have an older sister as she walks with me to school for the first two first-grades and second grade.  I have younger siblings but somehow I don’t recall playing with them;  I just remember lots of diapers, lots of crying, lots of noise.   I began to stutter sometime around ages 4-5. At age five  I am not allowed to continue first grade after six weeks due to crying spells, and I cannot express my thoughts without stuttering. I sense that something is wrong with me and the world I am in.

A few incidences come to mind:  me being thrown against a wall for something I did (about age 4),  my younger brother at age five took his 4 year old brother and ran away from home… he was gone for quite a few hours and found down by the airport; and a neighbor woman,  when my mother wasn’t watching, handing over peanut butter sandwiches to us kids over a wall that separated our houses…. gives a glimpse of this early time. I do remember having a Raggedy Ann doll given to me by someone, a doll that became battered just by virtue of having been tossed around by all of us. Somewhere I heard the word “bankrupt” and knew that it was not good.  I recall having the mumps and being excited that I might actually have ice cream.  This is one of my earliest memories of my father being in the house with us

I don’t remember much of what my living quarters looked like except that the houses we lived in were very small, all children sleeping in one or perhaps two rooms; and everything seemed to be filled with grime. When I was six years old, there were already six children, a set of twins came a few years later.  We were poor with little to no assistance, and growing up in the desert and dust of Tucson, AZ it seemed as if our clothes were always dusty and dirty. The recession of the late 50’s-early 60’s made it hard for my father to find work as a carpenter and my mother was attempting to keep up with diapers and meal preparation.  It was not a scenario of marriage or family that either parent envisioned and as time passed, we children came to know we were essentially by ourselves.

I don’t recall when we moved, but we did move to a new house and a new school where I would begin first grade again. The first time I remember my grandmother was a visit to her home in the desert.  Some spirit found its way through the curled petals enough at this time for me to say to her that she did not have to worry about me, that I would not flunk first grade again.

School now begins in earnest.

 

SaceanCarol