Cypress Street (Ch. 4)

When ever I hear the song "Ooh Boy" it brings me back to Cypress Street.  I was obsessed with that song.

 "Ooh, boy, I love you so. Never, ever, ever gonna let you go. Once I get my hands on yooouuu." 

I put on my own shows, I knew how to do the running man.  Everyone seemed to very much enjoy my performances and I was frequently called into a room to "show off my moves."  The people in the house would laugh and say things like.. "oooooie! Good job meja!"  No one could do the running man better than me...facts of life back then. :)

The people in the house consisted of about 11 men, women and children including my mother and me.  Me and my mother shared a room with a single twin bed in it.  Next to our room was a heavy, middle aged Hispanic woman and her two sons and a daughter who was around my age.  The room across from ours belonged to Rudy, the owner of the house, and his wife.  Rudy was short and Hispanic and the wife was a very thin white woman with dishwater blond hair.  Down the hall was his daughter's room which she shared with her boyfriend.  She was about 17 and obese, her room always smelled like sweat and dirty underwear. 

We all lived together in a crack house. 

It was a one story house painted an obnoxious peach color.  The front yard was fenced in and covered in weeds and dead grass.  Rudy was my mother's boyfriend.  I was never told this, but I came to the conclusion myself after walking in on them having sex several times.  I was afraid Rudy's wife would be angry if she found out, but then one time I walked in and Rudy, his wife and my mother were all naked together....so I figured she was OK with it all then.

I started school while we were at Cypress Street.  I loved school.  We got happy face stickers everyday if we were good.  I would give them to my mom when she came to pick me up and she would put them on the window of her car.  My mother really didn't seem to care too much whether I got a sticker or not, but to me if I didn't get one it was the end of the world.

I hated the end of the school day.  My mother would have to come and sign me out and pick me up.  She was always late though.  I was always the last one to be picked up.  The teacher would let me color and sometimes give me a snack.  Depending on how late my mother was, I learned I could milk the teacher by shedding a tear or two and she would give me another sticker too........I was already learning how to be my mother's daughter.

After school all of us children living on Cypress Street would play house.  Another game we played often was "vacuum cleaner".  We had no vacuum... but the main reason for this game was so that we could find "magic crystals".  We would get a penny for every handful of crumbs and sand we picked off the carpet, but if we found a "magic crystal" we got a bonus.  We liked this game......We spent many of our after school hours looking for tiny pieces of crack in the carpet for our jonesing parents.

I started having nightmares shortly after we moved there and because of one in particular I still can't sleep if the closet door is opened.  When no one is there to tell you there are no such thing as monsters, you just have to shut the door on them so they can't get in.  The earthquake of 1992 hit while we were there.  I remember running through the house in a panic, pushing my mother out of my way so I could get under the kitchen table like they showed us in school.  I had a strong will to survive.  I think I somehow already knew that as a child... the best person to care and look after me was myself.

Today, I am not my mother's daughter. This doesn't even feel like my past, it feels like some other poor child's.  Writing it all down and reading it back almost blows my mind.  Life is so good.  I have been delivered from such an ugly world.  The change starts inside yourself.

California Dreams (Ch.3)

My mother ran away from home at age sixteen to California in search of her own mother who had abandoned her as a small child.  She was actually raised by her father and his mother (Nana.)  I come from a long line of dysfunctional parentage. I believe my mother had dreams of reuniting with her, being taken in with open arms and catching up on lost time.  When she got there she found her mother had built a new life, which included a new husband and siblings she didn't know she had.  Her mother's new life didn't have room for her.  She was turned away.

Years later my mother would run away to California a second time, with me in tow....  After leaving my father we went on an exciting 3 day drive to the West Coast.  I didn't know we were running away.  All I knew was that I got snacks at every gas station and toys at road side tourist stops.  I remember I especially liked this toy ice cream cone I got.  When you pressed a button the scoop would pop off and you were supposed to catch it back in the cone again.  It was pink, I thought maybe it was bubble gum flavor. 

When we got to California we went to live with a man named Jerry.  His house was a ranch style with a long drive way.  I got my own bedroom.  Jerry was a quiet man with blond hair and a short beard.  I think to him I was what you call "baggage".  He never showed me any attention at all and was very cold towards me.  I clung to my mother.  I sought her attention at all times, especially around Jerry.  I felt deep betrayal and rejection at her slightest ignorance of me.  I was very sensitive.   I felt so alone with only my mother there to love me.  When she would leave to go shopping or run an errand I would think she wasn't coming back.  I knew it deep in my heart she had left me!  There was no one there to love me now.  I would shut myself up in my room and cry for hours and make myself sick till she came back.

One night I walked in on her and Jerry having sex.  This was my first exposure to something like this and they didn't stop when they saw me.  They just told me to leave and nothing was explained.  I was angry!  I knew they were doing something that people who "loved" each other did and I was hurt I couldn't be apart of it.  I wanted them to stop, I wanted to get right in the middle so they couldn't touch each other. 

I should mention that Jerry was my grandmother's husband.  I'm not sure how she ended up in a relationship with her "stepfather", but I think her motive behind it was definitely revenge.  My mother was a very spiteful woman.

We lived with Jerry for about a year I think.  I made friends (all boys).  My mother saw no harm in letting me have sleep overs with the opposite sex.  I think it didn't matter to her where I slept over, as long as her and Jerry had the night to themselves.  I remember one of the boys tried to get to me to take off my clothes and get in bed with him like Jerry and my mother were doing.  I didn't want to.  The boy threw a fit and told his mom I was being mean to him.  She called my mom and asked her to come and get me.  I sat there holding my barbie backpack waiting for her with tears running down my cheeks.  As soon as I saw my mom's annoyed and angry face I started to sob.  I couldn't breath I was crying so hard.  I was hiccuping and trying to talk through shallow breaths.  My mother ignored me.  After I got home I told her what happened and she said, "oh stop being a baby!"  She made me play in my room for the rest of the night.  

While we were there I had a birthday where I received a bike that Jerry taught me how to ride.  I received my prize possession then too, a child size kitchen play set.  I remember one time I used Chloraseptic throat spray as kitchen cleaner for my entire plastic stove.  It showed up red and looked pretty.  I realized after I sprayed half the bottle that it smelled funny and I might get in trouble.  When my mom saw it she just laughed.  She told me if I licked it my tongue would go numb.  She watched me as I licked all the medicine off my play set.  Looking back I find this memory particularly disturbing.  

My Father (Ch. 2)

I remember little of my life before age six, and this was the time my mother and father were together.  So I have very little memory of him.  I have made up a past for myself in this stretch of time I can't recall.  In this period of my life I imagine that my mother cooked dinner every night, my father gave me piggy back rides and we had a happy home.  I would rather feel anger at having lost this happy childhood, than the sadness at never having had it at all.  It is easier to direct that anger towards my mother, than to have any blame fall on my father.  My father is my fallen hero, watching over me from above.  Part of me knows there is blame on his part and that not everything is my mother's fault, but it's painful to start questioning the "whys" in my head when it comes to him.

When I was about six years old my father took me on a bug hunt.  We had one of those insect kits for kids with a bucket that had a magnifying glass on it.  We set out on our hunt in an open field with weeds that had grown as tall as me.  I felt as if I were on a safari and in a real life jungle.  He was bent over in a low crouch and held my hand as he led the way.  He turned around smiling and put one finger over his lips telling me to "shhh".  My breaths were shallow and quick and I had a huge open mouth smile plastered on my face.  I wanted to run.  I was too excited to walk quietly!  I followed with my own finger over my lips and my eyes opened as wide as I could make them...  waiting in anticipation for what would happen next.  Then he shouted in a playful voice, "Let's go! Hurry before it gets away!"...  I took off like my life depended on it!  All my pent up excitement and energy exploded and exited through my legs.  I felt like a cartoon character whose legs were moving so fast they were just a blur of circular movement.  I wished there were sound effects, so I made my own, "zzzzzzzzoooommmmmm".  Then he caught me by my waist and spun me around like I was a plane.  He set me down and pointed at the ground and showed me a potato bug.  I thought it looked just like an elf.  It was disturbingly humanoid like.  I couldn't believe bugs like that existed in the world!  We must have been the first to discover this creature!  

After our bug hunt we went swimming, he told me I must have been half fish because of how long I could stay in the water.  I took this as a huge compliment, and stayed in even longer than I wanted to prove just how right he was.  I got out with toes and fingers wrinkled up like a raisin.  The pool had concrete all around it and chairs spread out with umbrellas here and there.  He was sitting down drinking a beer and watching me while he talked to my mom.  I started playing with a giant bouncy ball and I bounced it so high it went over the fence.  I went up to my dad with watery eyes and told him the ball he bought me was lost.  I had a hard time keeping my bottom lip from trembling, but I didn't want to be a baby so I kept my tears from falling.  He looked down at me and said, "Don't cry silly girl, I'll go get it."  Then he got up and jumped over the fence with one hand (super hero style) and came back with my ball! My father was my hero.  I took the ball and didn't bounce it again.

Later that night before we went to bed he got out his Indian pouch and helped me to throw corn meal out for the Myanie spirits for blessings.  Then he gave me a bag full of rocks, he told me each rock called on a certain element of nature.  "The white rock for wind, the blue one for water, and the red for the sun."  He told me if I was cold, I could rub the red stone and I would feel warm, if I was thirsty I could rub the blue stone and I would find water.  It was magic!  I was thrilled.  My father had lots of magic.  We were Indians.  He had access to this special spirit world and could call on them when ever he wanted.  Now I had special rocks connected to this world....later I would use these rocks to connect me to him too. 

 My father below in traditional Native American dress.

Early the next morning my mother would wake me up and hush me to be quiet.  She would help me out the bedroom window and we would drive away from my father forever.  I never saw him again.  It's strange how my mind grasped hold of that last day with him and I remembered almost every detail so clearly.  I'm thankful for that.  I never knew why we left.  I asked my mother years later why we snuck out the window like that and she told me, "because he never would have let you go..." I felt elation at hearing this, I always wanted to hear about how much my father loved me, but I looked back at her with hatred.  There were no answers.  I shed lots of tears over that, and I still shed them now looking back.  I use to wonder if he was looking for me.  I would rub my magic rocks and send him sunshine.  I'd send the wind to whisper my pleads for rescue.  He never came. 

Early Childhood Memories (Ch. 1)

My very first memory is of me and my biological mother making a snowman when I was three.  We were in the middle of a brief stay with her father at the time.  I can specifically remember marveling in the magic of actually "making a man out of snow."  My mother sent me in the kitchen to get a carrot from my Nana for the nose.  I ran in with purpose in my black and white saddle shoes clapping up the stone stairs  to the side of the house.  I was bursting with pride!  I remember my mother being excited too and it rubbed off on me to the point where  I was about shaking.  We just made the most incredible thing in the world... a real life man of snow!  Afterwards we went in the house and my mother told me, "go and give your Nana a kiss," and I remember I wasn't fond of doing this.  She took the cigarette out of her mouth, bent down and gave me a wet kiss right on the lips.  I felt equal parts repulsion and love.  My kisses meant a lot to my Nana and this made me feel important, but I had to endure the bad breath and nicotine saturated saliva in return.  Never too early to learn life's a tradeoff I guess. :)

My second memory is in the same house and at the same age.  I was three years old and running down the hallway in my favorite black and white saddle shoes.  My cousin was chasing me.  I was faster than her and wanted to make sure she was still coming after me and not giving up.. I loved to be chased, but I think what I really loved was being caught!  I looked over my shoulder and when I turned around I ran straight into the TV stand and split my head open.  My cousin ran up the stairs to get my aunt and she called an ambulance.  I arrived at the emergency room covered in blood and scared to death.  I wanted my mother.  I was laid on a table under a really big bright light when I heard her voice.  I scrambled to get up, but the nurses wouldn't let me  They held my arms and legs down on each side.  I became hysterical.  I just wanted my mother... the person I knew would make it all better.. the person who would make my boo boos go away.. the person who loved me. When she finally sat down next to me she held my hand and told me I was a brave girl and she smiled at me.  She was so beautiful.  Everything was OK then.  I was brave and my mother was beautiful.... and she loved me.

Looking back at these earlier memories makes me sad.  I don't have very many happy memories about my mother.  Cracking my head open when I was three was a good memory.  Here is me and my cousin after I got stitched up.

Later in life I lost touch with my grandparents completely.  Then when I was 19 I tried to look up my grandfather using the world wide web.  I called and left messages on 4 different answering machines that were listed with his same name.  "Hello, I'm looking for _____________, I think you might be my grandfather.  Please call me if you are, I'd like to meet you."

I went to meet him for what felt like the first time for me, when I was 20.  He had pictures of me as a little girl everywhere.   He cried and kissed me and wouldn't stop staring at me.  I felt so strange there.  I remembered every single room in his house.  I didn't need any directions to the bathroom.  I knew up the stairs to the right was a bedroom and straight ahead was another bath.  But I didn't know him.  

Memory is a strange thing.  I wish I could pick and choose what memories I could keep and what ones I could forget.  I would keep my memory of making a man out of snow, and I would forget the time when I was 7 and my mother pulled me out of bed at 3 in the morning completely manic and high on drugs. 

She was sure there was a UFO outside and wanted me to tell her if it was really there or not.  She scared me.  "Come here real quick, look out there and tell me you see it!.. Is it there?"  I looked out the window and realized it was just the street light in front of the house.  I stared at her completely confused.  Is this a game?  Is it a trick?  I felt panicky and hot all over my face.  What does she mean?  The street light is a UFO?  I started to cry.  I didn't know what she wanted from me and I didn't want her to get upset.  She started laughing low and deep and it rose higher till she was cackling like a witch.  I peed my pants.  She yelled at me, screamed at me, angry that I had killed her buzz and made a mess.  As a punishment I went to bed in my wet clothes.

I still love my mother.  I always will.  I hate my mother too, and I'm not sure if I always will or not.  The miracle of my life is that despite my upbringing I turned out fairly normal. I'm here to let you all know that your past does not have to be repeated.  You do not have to be your mother's child.  You can choose your own path.  

My Story - (Prelude)

The song Amazing grace should be the theme song to my life. "I once was lost, but now am found." ... story of my life.

Today I am a new person, I can't even relate to the person I use to be, but I do feel sorry for her. It helps me to deal with things if I think this way. It's easier to feel sorry for someone else, than it is to feel sorry for yourself. And I don't. "The Phoenix must burn to emerge"... so I am a new creation out of what was and have emerged into a life full of so many blessings I sometimes feel like I am in a dream.

I don't question the universe for what happened to me. Without suffering how could we feel true happiness, or understand compassion? I am who I am because of my sufferings. I am adaptable, I learned to survive, I am strong, and bright.

"Clay must be happy in the good potters hands"



This is my story.