The good old days (part 1)

I had to stop driving my car for awhile... my tires got dizzy.

                                                        -Steven Wright

I remember my mother once said to me, “why does everything have to be so hard for you?”.  And I said, “I don’t know, I guess it’s how I learn.” It’s odd because I really hadn’t yet begun my wild drinking and getting high days, so how did I know that?  But it turned out to be true. 

 

Here are just a few stories from the days I was a ‘party girl’ (as I thought of myself); I didn’t get drunk until I was 17, and I sobered up at the age of 31.  I had had plenty of tastes of alcohol before that first time getting drunk, as kids were allowed sips of drinks when we were camping and at other occasions. There it was my mom who was prophetic. I recall not liking the taste of her wine and she said to me “you’re going to like it one day.”  And I did.

 

When I got my driver’s license all bets were off. It was freedom, the heck with rules, time for fun and adventure. I spent a lot of time with kids who were younger than me, taking them places in my car, all while smoking and drinking. We partied at an abandoned ‘haunted house’ in the country where a lot of kids hung out. I went from being a good girl in high school to a wild child, and it was on purpose. I deliberately set out to try as many substances as I could. In the late 70’s there was a local forest preserve where people could hang out, party, and buy or sell just about anything. One day I went through there and bought two blotter hits of acid. I took one, and after a while said to a friend that I didn’t feel anything --  so I took the second one. Next thing I remember I was at the park smoking pot, then I was in outer space. Walking across the grass was a long journey through a shimmering deep blue and white land, with spacemen (other people) waiting at the end. I sat on the asphalt and laughed while they made grotesque faces at me. 

I came down to earth a bit when I was sitting in my car and one of the town’s police officers, who knew me, came driving up. The kids standing around scattered, but not before one left a little container of his marijuana under the seat. The officer found it and wouldn’t believe that it wasn’t mine. He took me to the police station – I rode in the front seat, dazed by all the lights and gadgets. At the police station he showed me the jail cell, the fingerprinting, and he took my mugshot, and gave me the polaroid (which I still have to this day).  He gave me a lecture on how pot can lead to harder drugs, then very dramatically dumped the stuff out into the wastebasket. He made a comment about how this wasn’t funny. I don’t remember too much after that, I know my mother came to get me, whom he’d called, even though I was 18, and she blamed it all on my friends. I knew I was supposed to feel upset, but I just couldn’t.

Some months later, I got into a car accident and totaled my dad’s old car, a beautiful red Plymouth Duster. I was drunk of course, and don’t remember much except that I was taken to the hospital to be checked out. A police officer asked me a few questions, wanted to know if I’d been drinking. I answered honestly; I had been drinking gin and had a few beers. And that was that. I wasn’t charged with drunk driving, although I did have a court date for the accident, which I missed, having no transportation. My license was suspended due to too many moving violations and I didn’t get it back for over twenty years. At that time I was living with a boyfriend, in an apartment building within walking distance of my old high school, selling drugs. 

After six months or so - most of which I don’t remember - we decided to run away to Wisconsin (just an hour or so away), to start a new, wholesome life. My boyfriend and his friend got a car and rebuilt the engine. But there was a problem – we didn’t have license plates. I really don’t recall why we couldn’t’ get them, but we had the brilliant idea to get the plates off the Duster.  We drove to the place where it was impounded late one night, but the guys were too afraid to try to break in. So, armed with a flashlight and a screwdriver, I crawled under the fence, found my poor car, and got the plates off. Not long after my boyfriend and I took off for Wisconsin and that new engine really flew down those back roads. And that is another story.

I had many other adventures in cars, for the short time I had my license, and many close calls. I allowed a boy without a license to drive and took the blame when he got into an accident. I drove drunk many times, wandering around until somehow I ended up in the driveway, I drove while high on acid, and it was like the steering wheel wasn’t real. It really was a blessing in disguise that I lost my license and didn’t try to get it back for years. Living in the city there were plenty of buses and trains, and I did a lot of walking or riding my bicycle. When I did finally try to clear up my record, that accident with the Duster had long since passed the statute of limitations. However, I found out that there was an old ticket for running a red light – but I didn’t remember that. I suspected it may have been my boyfriend with the rebuilt car. This was 1979, so of course before computers and cameras.

During my years living in the city, I was at a punk bar having a good time, I suppose. It was early morning when some man offered me a ride home, and I said sure. He drove extremely fast on Lake Shore drive, and even in my numbed-out state I was a bit alarmed, as he was getting awfully close to the cement barrier. Then he exited and parked at the lakefront. Oh, I forgot to mention, he was talking to someone in the back seat who wasn’t there. As the sun was coming up, he got out of the car and walked toward the lake. I sat there not knowing what to do, if he was coming back, or if I even wanted him to. 

Eventually a patrol car came by, and stopped to see what was going on, as there was no one else around. I explained to them the situation, including how the man had an imaginary friend, so the cops volunteered to take me home.  As I sat in the back seat, I noticed beer cans rolling around on the floor; they asked me if I wanted one, and I said no, I have some gin at home.

Now that I think back, one of the oddest things is why I once again was drinking gin. I was a whiskey girl at heart.

Beyond Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is again made clean."

- Dag Hammarskjold

Once upon a time I had a brother, he was my only brother, the youngest of four kids in the family. Jim. James. Jimmy. He was the long awaited only son, but by the time he came along my parents were tired, busy, and as they had always been, emotionally unavailable. Although I was the second eldest I looked after him quite bit. When I was younger my mother read stories to myself and my sister at night, later I read stories to him.

He was a legend from birth in our family because he was born in the car on the Kennedy expressway. My mother delivered him while my father was speeding to the hospital. Dad was in a panic; she was calm. It was her fourth delivery after all. She was on the evening news and few days later there was an article in both major newspapers, with a photo of all of us at home, Mom holding the new baby.

I like to tell people how he was in the newspapers when he was born and when he died, almost 21 years later.

It would be nice to say there was a good story to tell about his life, but in truth I learned more from his death.

The basics about him are; sometime in his mid teens he shot up like a weed, and was over 6 feet tall. He was good looking, sensitive, mischievous, and very intelligent. He loved other animals but kept parakeets as pets. I think he had a hard time in school, with rules and fitting in. He played electric guitar, a little. He started getting into music at a young age; Pink Floyd was his favorite, then David Bowie, but he had quite a varied record collection by the time he left this earth. I know, because I carted those albums around for years, and still have some of them.

He started drinking at the age of 12, and taking pills sometimes. I remember hearing he was falling asleep in school. You could say we started drinking and getting high around the same time, though not together. His Greek friend would steal Ouzo from his father & bring it over. Our older sister would bring him beer & he’d lower a bucket on a rope to her in the driveway and pull it up to his room. I had been away from home and he got my room when my parents didn’t think I was coming back. I came home for about a year to get myself together in order to move out again, and Jim’s room was the party room, where we would drink, smoke pot and listen to music. Then when I moved out on my own, several years and numerous apartments later he came to the city and stayed with me for a while. His first real girlfriend was a friend of my boyfriend at the time. Perhaps a year later, after going back and forth from suburb to city he got himself a room at a hotel that was an “el” ride from my newest home. We spent a lot of time together, talking and talking – about war, life, nature, what it all means. I got him to listen to Bruce Springsteen with me, and he started to appreciate the lyrics. We had both decided we wanted to listen to the blues more, and went to the Blues Fest together; he held my hand in the crowd. He was my best friend.

July 21 1985. He was at my apartment and I was getting ready for a date with a new guy. We were going to a street fair right near Jim’s hotel I kept asking him to meet me there. He had his own plans though. He was going to go to a pier on Lake Michigan he and he his friend had discovered. At night people hung out at the very end of the pier around a garbage can fire; they would climb to the top of the narrow steel tower to drink and get high. So I went to the street festival and all I could think about was where my brother was and why he wasn’t there. On stage the band was playing the blues, it was Muddy Waters Jr. I kept thinking I have to tell him, he missed it. And I kept looking and looking for him.

Next morning I got a call from my mother. With no preliminaries, she said “Jim’s dead”. I said “no”. My parents had already identified the body. It had washed up on the rocks. I then had to call both of my sisters to tell them the news. My younger sister was living in St. Louis. I had visited her only a few weeks prior, for the 4th of July, and I brought back some fireworks for Jim. Being a typical delinquent in many ways, he liked to light them and throw firecrackers in front of people. I specifically told him not to do that when I gave them to him.

But that was exactly what he did that night. He and his friend Alex, who survived and has told me the only account of the incident I know, were up on the tower drinking cheap wine and smoking pot. And lighting firecrackers, and throwing them down at the people on the pier below. There was one guy in particular who became enraged. He and some friends climbed the tower to beat Alex and my brother up. There was only one way to get away and that was to jump into the lake. Alex said he was yelling at Jim to jump and my brother was saying he didn’t have his glasses; I guess they had been knocked off his face. Alex then jumped into the lake and made it to the beach I don’t recall how he got home but he did not wait to see what happened to my brother.

Alex had jumped into the shallower side of the pier, but my brother was found on the other side, the deep side. We do not know if he eventually jumped, if he fell, or was pushed in. The autopsy showed numerous bruises, including heel marks on his face. My older sister and I didn’t see the autopsy until after the funeral; it explained the thick makeup on his face and why he was almost unrecognizable in the casket. We also visited the detectives and cleaned out Jim’s room at the hotel. The police said they had questioned people who were on the pier that night and no one really knew what happened or were not telling. They did know that the leader of the guys who attacked my brother was a white guy with a lot of tattoos named George. He was familiar to the police, but they had not been able to find him.

My sister picked me up that day we got the news, to take us both to our parents’ house to wait for our younger sister to arrive from St. Louis. Once there, all I remember of that day, of the next few days, was sitting in the dark smoking joints and cigarettes, and drinking. That first night I was sitting in the driveway on lawn chairs with my father. The man who rarely showed any emotion was drunk and yelled and cried and regretted he had been in conflict with his only son. Later, as we sat there drinking Dad said he was worried about me, because I had been closer to Jim than anybody. I said, oh don’t worry about me, I’m happy for him. He got out of this life. I just wish it had been me.

Several years later I had gotten into recovery and was sober for about three years when I met my friend Linda. By this time I had been living by the lake -- very close to that pier. I liked the neighborhood and wanted to be near where my brother had last been alive. I thought maybe I would be closer to his spirit.

One summer night Linda and I were sitting on the beach and, with the pier in our sight, I told her about my brother’s death. When I got to the part about the guy George with the tattoos she said, “I know him”. Not that long ago she used to party with this guy and some of his friends and she knew that they went out on the pier often to hang out, and light a fire in the garbage can. A blond guy with tattoos. She said he was a Vietnam Veteran and he was drug addict. She said she remembered in the summer of '85 he did disappear, left the state for a good long time, maybe a year. She said he was back in the Chicago area, she’d heard, and thought she knew where to find him.

I really only thought about finding him for a moment. What would be the point? This was what I thought, but really it was more of sense, a feeling: Jim was a peaceful kind of guy, in spite of the mischievousness; he’d only been in one fight that I knew of. He and I had talked about the futility of war, especially Vietnam. Then there was George, a Vietnam vet. Jim, with that side of him that liked to push the edge threw down firecrackers, and George reacted, most likely because of post traumatic stress. So if you look at the three of us, I was an alcoholic and addict, my brother I believe was also, and George was a addict. We were the same. Any one of us could have been the other, given the circumstances. Had I been to war and was addicted and someone threw firecrackers I would have been enraged. George could have been he one in recovery. George could have been the one throwing down firecrackers; Jim could have been the person who had been in Vietnam. There have been times in my life, and this was the first, when a feeling has swept over me and, like a fresh breeze, blown away any resentment or anger I might have had. What I have been left with is sweet, clean air.

There was no need to find George, to try to make sure “justice” was done. I know, without a doubt, that he was living in his own hell, not that I wished that on him. My foremost feeling was that, given he was living nearby, perhaps someday he would get sober and I would meet him in an AA meeting. And what I felt, really, about the whole situation was beyond forgiveness – it was, I think, Love.

So there the saga ended and yet it has never ended. I heave never seen nor heard anything about George since that day. Linda did not talk to her old friends anymore. But Jim, well, he’s with me all the time. In fact many days I believe I am living life for the both of us – as best I can. In the beginning I had many dreams about my brother, some were scary, and he was bloated and covered with seaweed. Another type was a recurring dream where he was walking along silently beside me in a field of grass stretching out to infinity on his side – on the right. I was on the left, on the edge of a cliff, below me was a rushing river with a forest on the other side, and there were animals frolicking in water and woods. Jim was speaking, trying to tell me something, but I could not hear his voice.

One day, a few years later, I realized I had not had the dream in months, not since I had stopped drinking. I credited that with helping me to get sober; to choose life. This was what he was trying to tell me. I had gone from wanting to die in place of my brother, to wanting to die because he was gone, and acting in self-destructive ways, to finding something to live for – that had to be some force greater than me. The dreams I still have occasionally – this summer I had them more often, perhaps because I had been grieving - are the best. In them, my brother is alive, and we are talking and hanging out, and it’s as if he has just been away for a while and now he’s back. As if he was never gone.

As for George, if you are out there – I forgive you, and I know he does too.

The Operation and the Quest for Truth: the Beginning

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

~Peter De Vries, Let Me Count the Ways, 1965

I have been a seeker all my life; seeking God, the truth, understanding of myself, others, and answers to almost anything else. Once I had heard the 1970's adage : “Question Everything” it settled into my soul and remained there.

That was a little later though; it hardly seemed like I had any thoughts of my own until late adolescence -- aside from fears, fantasies, and daydreams. For the most part I did what I was told and what was expected of me. I think, now, that I was somewhat depressed even then. As a teenager I always had a sense, in the back of my mind, that I was going to die young. Thus, when it was finally determined that I needed major surgery, my shadowy thoughts were more or less validated. I had scoliosis, a sideways curvature of the spine. Left untreated the deformity would eventually become worse, to the point where the rib cage would be compressed and breathing difficult, perhaps one day impossible.

For several years I knew something was wrong with me, but when I tried to tell my mother she dismissed the notion. One day she finally noticed I was crooked and I began going to doctors. My mother: this was the same woman who would get angry with me for losing so many pairs of glasses - which I had to wear from second grade onward (once I saved up lunch money for months to get a new pair, so she wouldn’t know I had my lost my glasses yet again). I had been reluctant to cause my parents any more problems but once the operation was scheduled Mom was there, every day.

I was in the hospital for almost a month, and in a body cast for nine months - the cast was changed every three months – so that the fusion of my spine could heal. I took this all in stride; I suppose I was glad for the attention, because my mother was always around and my father was the one who drove me to the doctor’s visits. My grandmother called me a “little trooper”. I don’t recall feeling much in the way of physical pain or discomfort, with the exception of an allergy to the bandages.

It may seem odd but I look back on what could have been one of the most difficult times of my life with fondness. Because of my situation I was noticed at home and received some sympathy, although once the next school year started (my junior year) I walked a lot and did almost everything I used to do.

Back to ‘normal’ life after the cast was removed: I had a curvy figure, a new haircut and new clothes and I began to have some experiences with boys. I continued my involvement as a member of the crew for theatre: helping build the sets, running the spotlight and anything I could get involved in (except being on stage).

When did I begin to question everything? I think a few things did enter my mind after the operation but it wasn't until after high school and the beginning of a love/hate relationship with alcohol and drugs that my search for truth really began. I have written elsewhere about this and how I became involved with juvenile delinquents the first time around. My rebellion against authority began in earnest when I tried to think for myself. It was adventurous but not very pretty.

Everyone's life is a fairy tale written by the fingers of God

- Hans Christian Andersen

When I was a child, I had light blonde hair, and my mother called me her “blond princess”. I never felt like a princess though, I had freckles and prominent front teeth for which there was always the threat of braces, and I was the middle sister of three girls –Still, as young girls do, especially those like me who loved to disappear into books, I dreamt of being Rapunzel or Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty one day. I believed in happy endings with no clue of the beginning or the journey ahead.

So when I graduated high school with no real direction in my life I began to drink, use, drugs, and to think about why I always followed the rules or did whatever people told me to do. I began my wild drunken exploring, acid, discovery, questioning years. I also began years of going to dentists, having teeth pulled, root canals, crowns and bridges installed - this has continued until this day. You could build a city with all the effort and money spent on my smile.

The freckles have faded, blond hair has long darkened – now with silver strands, the eyesight has worsened, and the back problems have also. As I wrote about myself not long ago: “There was no prince charming, and she was no longer the blond princess. Her hair had turned to brown, and princesses don’t have crooked spines, root canals, or wear glasses.”

And yet God, or whatever greater power that exists in the universe, is not, I believe, entirely random. This power has indeed created some tales for me to tell. I have to supply the words, and some interpretation.


Will there be a happy ending? Each episode, so far, has had something resembling happy, or at least "OK". I have survived, even thrived. Really, to me it’s been more like a soap opera than a fairy tale. And as such I continue to question the answers I have found – and they always lead to more questions.

Prologue

“God gave us memory that we might have roses in December”

Recently, I was made aware of this quotation for the second time in my life. By the same person. I had forgotten it. I have forgotten many things from my youth; often what I do recall are the small details and nuances of my life…

………. The orange-brown carpet in our house, worn and dirty in certain areas; the chill of the basement floor, the cool sensation of grass under bare feet, the smell of clover, making clover chains, watching ants in the ground march into their tiny craters of dirt. Living in a young suburb, there was nature abundant, including a dirt road that led to adventures of the imagination. There were wild roses in the summer, violets covering the wooded floor; in the tall fields were black eyed Susan’s, Queen Anne’s lace, tiger lilies…

………I remember playing by myself with little dolls, blocks, cars, and creating stories in my mind. I recall crossing the soybean field – one row at a time - as a shortcut to school; breaking in the window downstairs if we forgot our keys, while Mom was still at work. I remember the smell of mothballs at grandma’s house, and the long staircases; the colors and taste of homemade Christmas cookies, scent of pine from the tree; the crisp air of the first cold snap and bright stars in the vast December night sky.

These are elements of my childhood, imprinted in my being. There are other elements, other memories, but most of my interactions with people are blurred -- this in spite of my two sisters, little brother, and family vacations full of new experiences and sensations. Of those trips, the event I recall the most vividly is a walk in a pine forest, the feeling of warm sunshine filtering through, the soft blanket of brown needles underfoot, and a light summer breeze. I had the sense that I was by myself but most definitely not alone – it was pure magic. To this day, I cannot smell pine without feeling a slight twinge of recall, that, coincidentally or not, is the same as the scent of a Christmas tree.

December is the nighttime of the year, the closing down, hibernation if you will, of much of nature. For me, it is a time for remembering and a time to prepare for and celebrate both old experiences -- and new beginnings.

While the childhood memories, like roses in summer, seem bright and colorful, not all my memories are pleasant; many are quite the opposite. Roses have thorns, as it has been pointed out often. I am not going to get into the philosophical reasons why something that represents love can also cause pain. Better minds than mine have tackled these subjects; I have my beliefs and some of them may come out in the course of telling my stories. For that is what I feel compelled to do. Many are quite thorny and have been painful to live through. I am also very aware that others have more dramatic stories; more tragic, painful, and more transcendent.

Yet I can only write what I know. And I know that there are valuable conclusions I have drawn, so far, from these painful episodes. A great deal of what I’ve learned, especially in more recent years, comes from experiences with other people and I will be telling some of their tales as well, where our narratives intersect.

One could argue that it is not good to dwell in the past. I would argue that our stories are all we have, the only valuable thing - certainly the most human thing – that we have to share. I do not wish to dwell in the past but I hope some of my memories may be of use to someone, maybe even inspire others to tell their stories.

I also hope to regain some more lost memories; connecting with my high school friend brought back events and qualities about me that I had no recall of. It has helped to bring that picture of myself and my youth a little more in focus. I think during that time of my life, adolesence, when I began to experience a new kind of freedom, I knew those experiences would never come again and they should be treasured. It is therefore ironic that I should forget the quote I liked so much (so much so that I gave my friend a bouquet of roses, she said) and other events during that time. What is even more peculiar is the source of that saying – J.M. Barrie, the author of “Peter Pan", subject of one of my favorite movies: “Finding Neverland”.

The story of a boy who did not want to grow up! While I cannot say I relate to that sentiment any longer, there was a time when I did not want to be a grown up, no, not at all. I knew it was a frightening world. I would have preferred to stay in that child’s world of little toys and big dreams, fantasy, color, sounds, sights, and smells; the comfort and safety of the small things, the magic in nature and in stories. Yes, I do believe a part of me is still in Neverland.

Thanks to Google, I know I’m not the first to use the Peter Pan metaphor, and certainly won’t be the last. Yet there’s a reason a good tale resonates with so many, for so long. It speaks to a truth. I hope my stories do also, and that the roses will balance out the thorns.