Wonelle

Answers

2010-02-17T21:31:00.000-08:00

He was a chain smoking, coffee drinking, horse race gambling, motorcycle riding, cowboy boot wearing, super sensitive, moody, refused medication bi-polar, R&B listening, had a piece of blue paper and two naked men touching fingers on his living room wall, sober for the first time since he was 12 years old, didn't plan on ever being a father guy I met at a Walgreens Coffee shop, someone I called Tom. In the beginning, that is. He wasn't my knight in shining armor. But in the end, he was my Dad.

Questions

2010-02-17T20:39:00.000-08:00

Throughout the years my mother answered each and every one of my questions to the best of her ability. Whenever things were tough with Daddy my mind and aching heart would get the better of me.

Does he know about me? Yes. Does he love me? Yes. Why did he leave us? He didn't leave us, I wouldn't let him stay. Why? It's complicated. Where does he live? Oakland, I think. Why can't I see him? He's not ready to see you. But why? He just can't right now. He drinks. Do I look like him? I don't know, I think so. What does he look like? I don't really know honey, it's been a long time. What does he do for work? I don't know, he used to be a contractor. Is he nice? Yes.

I'd start dreaming of our meeting. Of how we'd recognize each other if we saw each other in a crowded mall. Of how he would be supportive of me, my education, my interests, goals, aspirations. How he'd be my confidant, closest ally, supporter, friend. Of how he'd be the complete opposite of Daddy.

I Met My Dad at a Walgreen's Coffee Shop in a Shopping Mall

2010-01-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

He had blue eyes, dirty blond hair, a sharp jawline and a crooked nose but I didn't recognize him. He wore jeans and a t-shirt with cowboy boots and a baby blue corduroy jacket; his dressy clothes. He was obviously unsure of what he should say to me. So after coffee and dessert, he bought me a stereo.

The fantasies that had brewed for years on end were finally getting watered down.

The Dream

2010-01-12T19:31:00.001-08:00

Something inexplicable jolts me. The physical sensations - pounding of my heart, taste of tin in my mouth, shallow, irregular and rapid breathing are intense.

The blankets lay perfectly positioned atop me as if someone had only a few moments ago said ‘sweet dreams’ and tucked me in for the night. The air, shadows, small jewels of light that dance along the ceiling, down the walls and back up again do not move.

Despite the feelings that pulse through me, I can not fully discern my being; who I am, where I am, whether I am asleep or awake. But I can see and feel that I am lying upon a large cart. It's like the base of the Trojan Horse - with an all wood platform, axles and wheels. On it I am being pushed and pulled along by everyone and no one, in and to a stark white place that is both familiar and nowhere I have ever been.

The panic wells in me. Like a large inanimate object my body does not, will not, move. I am sure that I am dead. The fear settles into relief ever so slightly as I hold my breath and scan the room.

Everything is vaguely familiar. The headboard is at my head, the footboard at my feet, yellow and blue gingham wallpaper to my left and throughout. There are stuffed animals, books, photos of friends delicately placed upon the modern Victorian Princess-Style hutch, all glowing peacefully by the light of the moon. The door is beyond the foot of the bed, open. The hall is there, the linen closet, bathroom, second bedroom. I feel the house, the street just beyond the front door, the town, the freeway beyond, big cities and oceans.

It’s a silent scream that fills only my head and tears at my heart alone. Mommy! I can see their bedroom, visible just beyond the unassuming white eyelet curtains. It would take forever to get to her. As if being poked fun of on the playground, the heaviness of the proposition finds its place in my bones and stills me even further. Left turn out of the bedroom, to the dark foyer. Doorbell chimes and whipping belt closet to the right, front door straight ahead, shadows, mean and nasty, lurking. Mommy. Another left turn to pass through the olive green tile counter tops, over the yellow-orange squares of the linoleum floors. The light from the streetlamp flowing through the Redwood tree and brick columns, illuminating the dining room table with its hideous memories, they're like dancing knives and makes my heart skip a few beats and my legs move faster than before. I had a bad dream. Another left turn to the dark and cavernous rear of the family room that leads to the laundry. The wood paneling is awful, it's like stinky dog shit with extra long coarse black hair strewn perfectly and vertically every few inches along the walls. I’m afraid. Just off of the family room, the smallest room in the house is the laundry and has four doors. One leads to the closet-room that holds the washer and dryer. One to the back yard of the house that I’m not allowed to go to anymore without permission. Really afraid. One to the hot water heater that hisses and slaps at its sides and at me every time I walk by and the yard of the neighbor who, every day, suns herself like she’s a rattlesnake preparing to hunt for her next meal. I need you. The fourth door leads to their bedroom. The hinges almost always squeak. It's so loud against the quiet of the night it's like the squeaks are being projected by a bullhorn and startles me no matter how prepared I am. Travelling down the dark hallway to the room is like being in a tunnel. The smell strange, unfamiliar and not like home. I’m afraid of being alone in the dark. It's an unspoken, if not sporadically enforced, rule: No Children Allowed To Sleep In Our Bed. But mommy, please!

I am still frightened, still unable to will my body into action. My breathing is still labored and the blankets are heavy but in reviewing this vision I have come to realize that everything is exactly the way it always is, has been, and will always be. This house, these people, the entire universe surrounds me and it doesn’t matter. I am alone.

After some time laying with the idea of being completely alone, it becomes clear that while it is uncomfortable, it is also a very familiar feeling. This makes it more palatable than when I woke up earlier. Makes my limbs relax a bit. The only difference is that the alone I am feeling now is in the dark and quiet of my bedroom and in the middle of the night. The alone I'm used to is in the company of many people, in my own home, my family, the people that love me 'the most', or in the only other place I am most familiar - school. The discovery is heavy but freeing. No matter where I am: with my mommy, my sisters, in a room of 30 other children, or on the playground with 300 children, no matter if I'm talking, playing, or running, I'm all by myself, first and foremost responsible for myself. And that means I can do anything - become anyone I want to be - for me.

The quiet of the night and it's shadows are softer now. I watch their slow, sweet dance across the walls. Their delicate movement melts me to the point that I relax enough to know that I should go back to sleep now. Morning will be here soon and I'm going to need all the energy I can muster to protect what's most important in the light of the day.

Then

2010-01-12T07:11:00.001-08:00

After some time laying with this idea of being completely alone, it became clear that it is a familiar feeling. This makes it more palatable than when I woke up earlier. Makes my limbs relax a bit. The only difference is that the alone I am feeling now is in the dark and quiet of my bedroom and in the middle of the night. The alone I'm used to is in the company of many people, in my own home, with the people that love me 'the most', or in the only other place I am most familiar - school. The discovery is heavy but freeing. No matter where I am: with my mommy, my sisters, in a room of 30 other children, or on the playground with 300 children talking, playing, running, I'm all by myself, responsible for myself, the first and foremost protector of myself. And that means I can do anything - become anyone I want to be.

The quiet of the night and it's shadows are softer now. I watch their slow, sweet dance across the walls. Their delicate movement melts me to the point that I relax enough to know that I should go back to sleep now. Morning will be here soon and I'm going to need all the energy I can muster to protect what's most important in the light of the day.

Not Dead

2010-01-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

Note: This post should be read after Perfectly Still

Everything is vaguely familiar. The headboard is at my head, the footboard at my feet, yellow and blue gingham wallpaper to my left and throughout. There are stuffed animals, books, photos of friends and other sparkly décor delicately placed upon the modern Victorian Princess-Style hutch, glowing peacefully by the light of the moon. The door is beyond the foot of the bed, open. The hall is there, the linen closet, bathroom, second bedroom. I feel the house, the street just beyond the front door, the town, the freeway beyond, big cities and oceans.

It’s a silent scream that fills only my head and tears at my heart alone. Mommy! I can see their bedroom, visible just beyond the unassuming white eyelet curtains. It would take forever to get to her. As if being poked fun of on the playground, the heaviness of the proposition finds its place in my bones and stills me even further. Left turn out of the bedroom, to the dark foyer. Doorbell chimes and whipping belt closet to the right, front door straight ahead, shadows, mean and nasty, lurking. Mommy. Another left turn to pass through the olive green tile counters along the yellow-orange squares covering the linoleum floors. The light from the streetlamp flowing through the Redwood tree and brick columns, illuminating the dining room table with its hideous memories always makes my heart skip a few beats and my legs move faster than before. I had a bad dream. Another left turn to the dark and cavernous rear of the family room that leads to the laundry. The wood paneling is awful, like stinky dog shit on the walls with extra long coarse black hair strewn perfectly and vertically every few inches throughout. I’m afraid. Just off of the family room, the smallest room in the house is the laundry and has four doors. One leads to the room itself. One to the back yard of the house that I’m not allowed to go to anymore without permission. Really afraid. One to the hot water heater that hisses and slaps at its sides as you walk by and the yard of the neighbor who, every day, suns herself like she’s a rattlesnake preparing to hunt for her next meal. I need you. The fourth door leads to their room. The hinges almost always squeak as if being projected by a bullhorn. Travelling down the dark hallway to the room is like being in a tunnel. The smell of the space strange, unfamiliar and not like home. I’m afraid of being alone in the dark. It's an unspoken, if not sporadically enforced, rule: No Children Allowed. But mommy, please!

I am still frightened, still unable to will my body into action. My breathing is still labored and the blankets are heavy but in reviewing this vision I have come to realize that everything is exactly the way it always is, has been, and will always be. This house, these people, the entire universe surrounds me and it doesn’t matter. I am alone.

Beautiful Patterns in Cabbage

2010-01-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

Perfectly Still

2009-12-28T07:27:00.000-08:00

Something inexplicable jolts me. The physical sensations - pounding of my heart, taste of tin in my mouth, shallow irregular and rapid breathing – are intense.

The blankets lay perfectly positioned atop me as if someone had only a few moments ago said ‘sweet dreams’ and tucked me in for the night. The air, shadows, small jewels of light that dance along the ceiling, down the walls and back up again do not move.

Despite the feelings that pulse through me, I can not fully discern my being; who I am, where I am, whether I am asleep or awake.

I can see and feel myself lying upon a large primitive wooden cart with roughly shapen platform, axles and wheels. I am being pushed or pulled along by everyone and no one, in and to a stark white place that is both familiar and nowhere I have ever been before.

The panic wells in me. Like a large inanimate object my body does not, will not, move. I am sure that I am dead. The fear settles into relief ever so slightly as I hold my breath and scan the room.

Writers Block

2009-12-03T22:29:00.000-08:00

Lately I find that I am thinking of things about myself and my childhood that I'd rather not recall. On one hand I hear myself say that it's okay to remember, to process, to share. My other inner voice says something much different: 'these are private matters'. Yes, these are the mothballs carefully placed deep in the back of the linen closet with the unused wool blankets, wildly out of date and potentially dangerous should they be handled incorrectly or by the wrong person.

I see the images and begin to craft sentences - as I drive, in the sweet space between the light and the dark of sleep, while people watching. But when I sit with purpose at the computer and begin to write my body becomes rigid. My mind flits from memory to memory with no pause, nothing but a cursory review. The sights, smells, feelings don't appear as words. The sentences aren't there any more. They melt into one incoherent, confusing, jumbled mess. The memories have been buried, tamped down, covered with something almost impermeable - as quickly as they reveal themselves, a switch is turned on to make it all disappear. What is it? What is it? Fear that in reliving it I will become That Child again; helpless, hurt, trapped and angry, with no real sense of self, ripe for a beating of one kind or another...? Fear that you will see me as a grown woman who is helpless, trapped and angry, with no real sense of self. That I will believe - again - that I am helpless to stop a beating of one kind or another?

When did we learn to craft our thoughts as complete sentences - those of us born in the late 60's & early 70's? Seven, 8, 9? Whenever that was, I also realized that pencil to paper would be a good way to process productively all of the things that I had no other outlet for. So, I took all the rage that was inside of me and put it on paper. When I was emotionally spent and able to move on, I put it away. Safely in the top drawer of my desk.

Soon thereafter, my truth was exposed by my mother who had previously dismissed as unimportant, irrelevant, unworthy of discussion, any of my thoughts and feelings on her transgressions against me. She went rifling through my drawers while I was away at school and read my journal - my feelings disregarded yet again - because it was her right as the parent to do so. Upon reading my journal, my rage became hers tenfold - 'you hate me? I'm mean? You wish I was dead?' - my body was instantaneously and for some time that afternoon, the target of her anger.

My real feelings were not to live in perpetuity in her house unless I was willing to risk a beating. And yet, here I am - 40 years old - still afraid of the 'beating' that writing private matters for anyone to read may bring me. I try to remember, whenever I feel my body tightening as I begin to explore or make my experience real to other people through writing, that these are MY private matters, memories, truths. That I am That Child - no different now than I was then: strong, independent, unique and willful. Willing and able to dig deep, push past my comfort zone, to explore and experience deeply so that I can share and gain something ultimately important. Me.

Five

2009-12-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

Note: I'm writing to write tonight. In order to get something - anything - on the page, exercise and editing are not part of the equation.

Walking to school in the morning provided ample opportunity to explore the beauty of the world. Those four long blocks with the creek and front yard flower gardens offered polliwogs and frogs, ladybugs, daisies and roses. Few children walked along the same route in the morning and those that did were much faster than I was so the early mornings were quiet times filled with self guided discovery and much needed solitude.

She found a husband and home for us. No more little apartment, late nights slinging drinks, or limited capacity to manage the toddler pushing her beyond her one-person limits. Her new life meant that she didn't have to work in a bar or restaurant any more or call on others to meet my needs, and she could focus on being a stay-at-home-mom.

But her new family was born of rape, grown in violence, and nurtured by divisiveness.

She must have conceived on or near her birthday. The pregnancy was not likely a happy time as it was forced upon her in the ugliest of ways. Who says that a marriage license cancels out rape?

The new baby arrived nine months later - two days after my 5th birthday and about a week after we moved to our new house - and after considerable time and effort had been spent ensuring that we knew our respective places. He was in charge and she was his pawn. I was lucky to be there and was not part of the family.

I was as invisible as any precocious and inquisitive 5 year old could be; I spent my time playing in the creek, wandering the neighborhood, talking to anyone that would listen, trying to be as invisible as possible at home.

The family next door was large and welcoming and they had a pool. There were three girls, two not quite teenagers, one almost grown and ready to move out, all welcoming. Their teenage brother lived in their backyard pool-house. Away from his sisters.

One day, when the girls weren't around and I had no one to play with, he kept me busy for a while. I don't remember all of the specifics of that day in the pool and pool-house. Or why everyone became suddenly angry with one another. Or why not long after that day a very large fence went up between our houses and I was no longer allowed to 'go play at the neighbors house' as I had been before.

Kindergarten an oasis away from home. The white hair, powdered complexion, ruby red lips and sweet perfume of Mrs. Forward was absolutely gorgeous. Her clothing was bright and bold, sparkly and consistent with each and every holiday for days before and afterward. She hugged and kissed each and every one of us, to tell us that we were smart, special, and wonderful. She challenged our curiosity and urged us to do good.

I always liked school. Swimming ain't really my thing. Sometimes I wonder why I'd rather be alone than with other people.

This is the real work. And (excuse my language) fuck if it isn't amazingly difficult to write it. There are so many thoughts rushing through my head and feelings coming to the surface as I wrote this that it's been hard to focus. It feels choppy and as a result I feel like a 5 year old! I'm angry and taking it out on my husband in the context of having looked at an elementary school for our 5 year old today. He's too young and I want to try to protect him from the real world. I'd love comments on the way that the information is conveyed. Prompts on what to write about next, alternate voice considerations, perhaps an idea for a completely fictional subject?!. Some other work I can do to better prepare myself? Thank you. Be Well, Wonelle

Where To Begin?

2009-11-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

So, I made a deal with myself: I can peruse facebook as much as I want to but can not post any updates to my status until after I've posted here. As the silliness of my life happens, I find myself wanting to post a short sentence there. When I remember the deal that me, myself and I have made, I'm forced to start really thinking.

I'm stuck with where to begin. What to tell. And how to write it. It's a bit scary.

My 5 year old has been reliving his babyhood lately. For the past 6 months or so he's been taking care of "his baby" at school; I'm told that he's working through something and that it would be beneficial for me to talk to him about my babyhood and/or childhood. My initial reaction to rehashing parts of my past was not favorable. And despite the fact that I recently pulled out my childhood dolls and have begun to share the role of "parenting" Melissa, Raggedy Ann and the Sock Doll with my son, I haven't done any real work.

So with less distraction, 5 seems to be a good starting point. Or babyhood. Either seems reasonable.

Of course, I need to figure out a couple of things before I can start to let it all flow out. Like which name(s), place(s), voice to use.

I'm going to simply do what I can to not worry too much about the details of the what or how. The shape of the beginning, middle and end will reveal itself eventually. So for now, I ponder 5 and babyhood.

Blogger vs. Facebook

2009-11-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

I have a story to tell. I've told four people of my secret fantasy of wanting to write a book. You, Tinker, Paulie, & Winkiless.

Here's the hook: I'm not sure how to tell it. Or if you're interested in reading it. Or if I want to tell. Or what the story line should be.

What I do know is that the story line is not pleasant. Or poignant. It's complicated. Pull yourself up from your bootstraps and completely conflicted - to-this-day-not-completely-resolved complicated. Fucked up - keeps me awake at night complicated.

And yet, I wonder if it's not completely mundane.

I tend to spend time perusing and posting on Facebook. A complete time-fuck, that's what Facebook is.

For a while I've been thinking that my story is what I should be posting. In one or two sentences a day - whatever I can muster the time for - but to commit to a daily entry. My Facebook friends probably don't want (need, or can't handle) the truth. Really though - I'm not sure I want to share with each of them. They might not get it. They might be completely overwhelmed. They might misunderstand.

I know; it is a lot.

But you, my friend, you - in your strength, infinite wisdom, tortured soul - can manage.