Tag: Childhood

Widow Home Part II

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

This place was my first fancy meal, in a trailer-turned-Taj-Mahal where we ate steamed whole artichokes dipped in melted butter and T-bone steak. This place was Peggy and me, sixty years apart in age, sitting Indian-style across from one another, in a mobile three blocks from McDonalds hands clasped in front of us in prayer gently singing we are siamese if you please, we are siamese if you don’t please. At that time my voice was so soft it was barely there. And while my vibrant, open, excited child’s-mind could capture these memories I have just shared with you, the reality is that I could not even mutter a thank you. Often one-on-one with Peggy I would freeze. The intimacy of the energy that was with us being too much. Tapping a place I knew little about—the relationship between woman and woman.

Throughout every moment with Peggy, or with Tina, my great Aunt, I felt pampered, like a princess-child. Like I could take on the world. Like I was somewhere else completely. Like I was someone else completely. My higher self. I could rest. I could wake and see magical things. I was in a magical world. Like a girl in a Disney movie. Like a girl on TV, in a normal home, with a normal family. Where things looked good and smelled good and felt good on your skin. Where you were rewarded for your hard work—an orange and crème popsicle for doing the dishes. Where nothing was out to get you.

After two nights or so my dad would pull up out front in the pickup-of-the-week. It would be seven p.m. on Sunday, getting dark, a school night and Peggy would say something about that and arms would raise and for the first time in two days my little white arms would get cold from standing in the sea air watching my dad defend himself, sawdust and oil on his pants and hands, him talking about a late start and needing to finish bucking the alder and I haven’t even sold it yet and I’ve got to go meet the guy tonight, actually and me noticing the blue tarp over the heap of wood in the back of the truck. Peggy would give me a dry kiss on the cheek and though there was a certain carefree comfort I felt with my dad, my eyes might sting with a tear or two as I watched that mobile-home-castle get smaller in the mirror reading objects in mirror are closer than they appear and thinking I sure hope so.

Off-Track

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

Days off
these days
are for
longing
skipping
long walk walking
poetry
bars for breakfast
potatoes and eggs for supper
remembering Grandma Faith
and how it was she who said ‘supper’
loving great-grandmother but hating the
word supper because of all the dirt, red air,
evil stares, soggy tomatoes, oily cups of coffee
and greasy pianos that were my childhood with her

We All Remember (Cabin Kids)

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

We all remember
the running and playing
how we cursed darkness
and dinner bells,
tumbling in at
dusk’s very
last moment
before the sky winks the
day goodbye
catching your breath
before the
closed cabin door
waving goodbye,
Johnny, an unassuming boy
hollering have a good night!
hands-sapped,
knees-scraped,
buttons burst,
braid unravelled
We all remember
our hair stuck
to our foreheads
or long streams of sweat
dripping down, traveling the
length of our nose,
those ninety-degree
summer nights
We remember our
parents saying
I wish I could bottle
that energy and sell it!
before ashing in their
beer can,
white flakes
falling
on a
plate
of
franks
and
ketchup

The Time, Mother

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

The time you changed your name from Darlene to Brenda

The time you gave me a blonde baby doll and told me I had a brother on the way

The time you tied a friendship bracelet on my wrist and said now I’ll always be with you

The time we stopped to pick a rose on the shoulder of the highway…and it came with a bee

The time you made long, dangling hippie earrings–for a living

The time my room flooded and you cried because you felt bad

The time you bought ten hamburgers from McDonald’s and for the first time we all got full

The time we looked at a house we couldn’t afford and we all picked out bedrooms anyway

The time you took me to the Bayshore Mall and bought me an eggshell-colored Easter dress

The time you put barrettes in my hair (I don’t remember it but I saw the pictures)

The time you sang You Are My Sunshine to Cloud and I looked out the window and held back tears

The time you volunteered at my school library and I was embarrassed because of your short, slutty shorts

The time you lit a cigarette, looked at me and said don’t ever do this

The time I stole 2 cigarettes from you and you never found out

The time I realized our hands and fingernails look exactly alike

8:05 p.m. the time you gave birth to me, far too young

The time you failed to meet the expectations of your adopted mother

The time I knew exactly how it felt

The time your dad died and if you hadn’t already lost all hope, you really did then

The time you tried to wriggle your way into societies mold but it just didn’t work

The time you introduced yourself as Moonbeam and it all made sense to me

The time you socked my dad through the pick-up truck window

The time we left you in the dust

All the times you left me in the dust

The time you cried and said you’re sorry

The other time you cried and said you’re sorry

The many other times you cried and said you’re sorry

The time you googled me everyday for five years but never called or emailed

The time you said I’m so proud of you and in my mind I said for fucking what?

The time you said Enough already! and I said Okay

Little Girl Me

Terah Van Dusen2 Comments

Little girl me
wore yellow rubber
gloves Dad bought at
Safeway along with Sun
yellow dishsoap
I would knee-stand
on the vinyl and metal
chair in front of the sink
in front of the small trailer
window looking out on the
ducks and geese and rabbits
in their cages
A kerosene lamp was lit
as the sun went down and the
night would come alive with sounds
Almost every night Dad had me do
the dishes while he would read
to me from the Holy Bible
They were nights I enjoyed
and miss.

Villains Part II–The Rose Tree

Terah Van Dusen37 Comments

old-door-linda-mcraeOn either side of the front door to the inky, smelly, dilapidated mansion were two hedge plants, taller than a very tall man and as wide as our pick-up. Now, hedge smells a certain way. Hedge smells a helk of a lot better than old folk, chewing tobacco and black coffee in oily mugs. I still lean in and smell a hedge whenever I get the chance, whenever I pass one by. I used to walk out of that smelly house and immediately bury my nose in the hedge.

For me hedge smells like freedom. The way a car radio sounds like freedom. The way my own personal set of apartment keys feels like freedom. The way an attractive man looks like freedom, foolishly. The way a cigarette tastes like freedom. I’d edit the illusions but they are my truths. These are the things in which I have identified freedom. Recognizing their traps and tricks, I have let at least one go. But I shall never let go of the rest.

As soon as the bitter note of hedge would meet my little girl nose I knew I was free. Free until dark. When I had to go back inside.

At first, shell-shocked, I would go as far from the mansion as I could. For a while my little bare legs would take me up creek to a bridge where I’d sit and watch the iridescent water saunter on by me. Hunter Creek. My dad was the first to show me Hunter Creek, of course. My dad showed me enough trails enough times thatart2 I knew how get to my Grandpa John’s house on Fizer Road, about two miles away–both by street and by trail. I also knew how to get to the elementary school and to the mouth of the Klamath River. I could probably get to the Mini-Mart too. I knew the best blackberry patches and where to find a mud bog so thick it could pass for quicksand. I told a couple boys in my first-grade class about the quicksand but they didn’t believe me. Boys were always challenging me. They thought I lied about things. The boys would stare at me for a good long while before excluding me from their games of kickball and football and other boy sports. I was always stuck between the boys and the girls but more drawn to the boy games and the boy talk. The playground attendant would tell me ‘you can’t play football ’cause you’ll scrape up your bare knees even worse. Come over here and play with the girls.’ Later I would stop wearing dresses and only wear jeans and stir-ups. As means to play with the boys.

Favim_com-8091

Despite all the special places my dad showed me, places he’d gone to “when he was a boy”, I finally found my special place–a rose tree right in front of the mansion. It was a place where me and my best friend and cat, Kitty Rose, could both go. And dummies never saw us there. Hiding in plain sight, she and I, up in The Rose Tree.

The Rose Tree had a trunk about as big a’ round as my dad and branches as thick as necks. The bark was smooth and dusty. Until I met The Rose Tree I thought roses only grew on bushes. I also thought ‘every rose had it’s thorn’ that’s because I heard the song ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’. So when we first started goin’ up there I would be weary, always looking for thorns. But there just weren’t any. Talk about magic.

I’d watch the old folk walk by, Kitty Rose and I perched at the top of The Rose Tree. The villains would mutter to themselves and look out to the fields, the hillside, the barn. They were looking for something, and I always wondered what. I knew it wasn’t me ’cause I didn’t matter til bedtime.

Villains

Terah Van Dusen4 Comments

It was a big house but it was ugly. The house had inky-colored energy and smelled like old-people ass and chewing tobacco. True stench is thick. When you breathed you swallowed the stench. I had a bunch of male cousins growing up and my one cousin “John Boy” burped and I said “That smells so bad I can taste it!” He asked me, “Can you taste my farts too?” Boys were so gross. At six I didn’t know anyone who smelt worse than my boy cousins or my great grandparents. Fact I still don’t.

I had a special place. In Requa, I spent most my time outside, which nobody seemed to mind. Just had to be in by dark. Ish. I searched high and low for my special place. I knew my bedroom couldn’t be my special place since it was haunted. The inky-colored energy repelled me from that place. Rumor had it a woman slowly died of cancer in there. It was a bedroom Dad and I shared. We both had our own twin bed like we were brother and sister and we shared an old wooden dresser, other than that there was nothing in there. No toys. No photos. At night I would make my dad face me and watch for ghosts behind me. And I would face him and watch for ghosts behind him. Problem was my dad would fall quickly into slumber, tired from work at the road department. “Dad! Dad!” I would say, frightened white. “You’re not watching!”

There were a couple of rooms in the big, cold, inky, smelly, sad-memory-house that I wouldn’t even go in. One room had paintings of great aunt’s of mine that I didn’t really know. The one who lived on the hill behind us and talked to herself and the one who pulled her hair out piece-by-piece and the one who got away and never looked back. The eyeballs of the women in the paintings would follow me. Already an introvert, I didn’t want to be around anybody–even if they were just faces of paint. Hell, the paintings had more personality than the real women did. They smiled more.

Two other rooms had things in them that belonged to my great grandfather–I can’t even type his name out. Wayne. There. I did it. The room had Wayne’s things–rocks, stalactites, harmonicas, old newspapers, all disgusting things that I didn’t want to be around. Things I liked fine on their own but with his prints on them made me head in another direction. If only I could run in the opposite direction of him when I saw him. But I was raised up not to be rude. To respect your elders.

I didn’t want to be rude.
I didn’t want to be rude.

I tried to make the upstairs bathroom my special place but great grandma Faith had a big problem with that. I think she was worried I might drown in there, in the deep clawfoot tub. Drown like my father did. Before he came back to life. I didn’t realize the root of her concern until now. Tragedy upon tragedy.

I realllllly wanted my special place to be upstairs, because the villains couldn’t climb the stairs. But it was really just too inky up there. Downstairs wasn’t an option. Downstairs was a quiet battleground. Even when Dad came home from work I wasn’t safe cause the villains were that good. They were sneaky and I didn’t want to be rude.

What is a Dream?

Terah Van Dusen5 Comments

You know those dreams you’ve had in life that you’ll never forget? I’m not talking about waking dreams (for once), I’m talking about sleeping dreams. For example, when I was about four years old I had a dream my dad picked me up in a hot air balloon and took me to Safeway to so we could buy some dream-mirror-dreams-can-come-true-31082814-900-900ABC soup, which was my favorite meal. Not much happened other than that but for some reason I’ve always remembered that particular dream. But why?

Then there are the recurring dreams–again, when I was just four years old, I’d say from four to six–which was actually a pretty traumatic point in my life–I would have this dream:

I’m in a dark dungeon. I’m lying on my back or my side and there are about five or six little elves running around and climbing all over my body. Above my head is a big roll of lead. Let me explain more: you remember Bubble Tape? They always had Bubble Tape on the rack at the grocery store at the check out stand. It’s like a carpenter’s measuring tape only made out of bubble gum. Yeah. That. So that’s what this big roll of lead is like. The little elves pry my big toddler mouth open, much to my resistance, and insert the end of the roll of lead into my mouth, shoving the lead down my throat. My throat expands and I choke but this goes on for what feels like hours and upon waking faintly taste lead in my mouth, metal in my throat.

I had this dream at least a few times throughout my childhood. I can’t help but notice–now I’m having a dream quite the opposite.

I had one just last night:dreaming-quotes-034

Sometimes it’s just me but sometimes, like last night, I’ll have an audience:

I’m back in Crescent City at a party and a lot of my friends are there–all grown up, having a good time, drinking beer by the river. I’m chatting with one of my male friends when I feel a noodle in my mouth. The flat kind–linguine. I put my index finger up to indicate “just a moment”, a break in the conversation if-you-will and reach into my mouth for the linguine. I grab hold of the linguine and tug. Well, that’s where my dream morphs into this recurring dream I’ve been having: pulling a never-ending mountain of noodles from my throat. The more I tug, the more I pull, the more noodles emerge. And just like in the lead dream–I can hardly breathe. My cousin Cevin and his friends approach and there I am, crouched down by a cedar tree, pulling out and vomiting up noodles, for what seems like forever.

What I appreciate about this new dream is this: it’s quite the opposite of my baby-Terah-lead-dream. Clearly, I’m letting it all out now instead of shoving it all in. For fun, I’ll retrieve my dream dictionary, The Complete Book of Dreams & Dreaming by Pamela Ball and interpret some of the imagery from both of these dreams:

Dwarf (sadly Elf was not available): A dwarf indicates a part of our personality which has not yet been integrated or has been left undeveloped. In a dream a dwarf denotes a part of ourselves which has been left damaged by painful childhood trauma or a lack of emotional nourishment.

art-lipstick-mouth-photography-teeth-Favim.com-349102Lead: The conventional explanation of lead appearing in a dream is that we have a situation around us which is a burden to us. We are not coping with life perhaps as we should be, and as a result it is leaving us heavy-hearted.

Throat: Dreaming of the throat denotes awareness of our vulnerability and also the need for self-expression.

Vomiting: Vomiting is a symbol of discharge and evil. We may have held on to bad feelings for so long that it has caused our spiritual system some difficulty.

I do believe there are connections between our dreams and our spiritual selves. I do believe that if you have, especially a recurring dream, you should pay attention to it and make changes to your life as needed. For example, if you are a man and you dream about a particular woman most nights, you need to explore your relationship with this woman. Or, if you dream about water, water, water, you should visit a spring or a sea–because your subconscious is begging for you to wet her.

Please, readers, share some of your dreams with me. I would love to use my dream book to provide you a little more insight into your subconscious. If you’re into that kind of thing.

Nighty-night. Sweet dreams.

Arizona

Terah Van Dusen6 Comments

Up at the house on the Winchuck River one night it was decided I’d be moving with Peggy to Arizona. We’d leave in two weeks. I told my Dad over the phone and he sounded a bit wounded but he assured me it would only be temporary until he and Lisa found a house. I’m not leaving you. You left me. Remember that, Dad I thought but didn’t say.

Peggy and I went down to the DHS office in Crescent City, met with a social worker named Pam, signed a couple papers and it was a done deal. There was no inspecting Peggy’s house, calling references, or privately interviewing me. You just looked at Peggy and knew she was the real deal. There was virtually nothing wrong with her. She was my perfect temporary guardian. She was my perfect permanent guardian but nobody wanted to go there yet. And I mean nobody. Not Peggy nor me. They talked like it would just be for the school year, but Arizona was hundreds if not thousands of miles away and as soon as we headed south I knew, I just knew the miles were coming between me and my old life. And a good part of me was really, really happy about that. The other part tried to remember landmarks for my runaway escape. Ch-yeah, ’cause that had gone so well the first time..

After a couple days of driving we ended up in Arizona. Peggy recalls what I said when we got there: “Where’s the water? No, seriously, where’s the water?” I found out the water came from faucets and deep underground, not pouring from the mountains like it did back home. We stopped off at an outlet mall outside of Phoenix and Peggy bought me some Levi’s, t-shirts, and a couple of new bras. We drove for another five hours south and finally ended up in what looked like the middle of nowhere. You could look in every direction, north, east, south, west but there was nothing there, just the horizon. We ended up in Sunsites, Arizona. Peggy owned a funny-looking little eggshell-colored house on Geneva Street. Geneva Street had a ton of funny-looking little eggshell-colored houses that Peggy called “stucco”. Stucco was this certain texture the paint had. The houses were boxy and had red-tiled roofs. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice.

School would start in three days. I would be taking the school bus to another town (El-fucking-Frida), where the high school was. Sunsites was initially supposed to be a retirement-only community but they ultimately couldn’t afford to keep the young folk out so it was ninety-percent retirement and ten-percent everything else. There was a ghost town a mile away. The nearest grocery store was thirty miles north. There was no mayor. There was a golf course which was a big deal. Tombstone was over a hill to the west and Mexico was forty minutes south.