Insomnia
Accelerated thoughts
Stream,
Surge
At 1am
Nonsensical rapids
of
images and words
Racing heart beats out-paced
Dark corners taken unabashed
Such unhinged leaps of consciousness
Transporting past to future
…in reverse
No finish line of sleep in sight
At 1am
My mind berserk !
Little girl, Little me
Little girl
Me, aged 4
…Little me
Sunshine soaked comfort
Caresses tender, innocence
Salt tainted sea breeze
Augmenting parched desire
An inner thirst
For a want, then unnamed
…Yet secretly possessed
Gratitude exudes
For a pink bunny to hold dear
Your sweetness echoes
in floral strains, near
Such reassurance
In recognition
….A glimmer of me
Caught dancing
between
Shadows of you
Beginnings
A slate wiped clean
Like crisp white cotton
Beckons the Now
To rest upon its’ welcoming folds
A virginal awakening
Giving birth to realisation
Such liberation to behold
In escapement of the soul
Lost and Forgotten
Discharged into the arms of a stranger 
Wearing a government badge
They sent him out into the world
All of three weeks old
“Public Hospital”
Stamped in blue ink
Across the back of his borrowed jumpsuit
Not even a bag
To carry his mother’s milk
Let alone to pack some dignity and respect into
And they said it was okay…
“This is your new home”
They told him
Pointing to the bare grey concrete floors
And the musty, worn sheets on the bed
A frozen pie for dinner
$1.99..is what you are worth
While he watched them eat steak
It was a roof over his head
He should be grateful
And he was reminded so every day…
He dared not move
As they pinned down his arm
For “You have been a bad boy !”
Said the scalding hot water
As he looked the other way
But “..accidents happen”
The perpetrator said
Easier to turn a blind eye
He watched the officials slink away
After telling him he was “okay”
These are the stories of the little ones…
Who simply want a safe space to play
And ‘tell someone whom you trust in’
Is all we have to say
Dreamtime Lore
This photograph has been taken from Digital Photo Gallery of Ted Szukalski
They came with their God and their book
Told him he was outcast, naked and poor
Shunned his tucker, language and lore
Tried to bleach him
With their righteous weapons
Their guns and disease
To scrub and scour all trace
Of what had gone before…
They came, sirens blaring
And took his children away
Filling him with their poison
“It will be better this way”
Yet the cockatoos screeched
a raucous chorus of ridicule
That echoed throughout the land
For the white invaders
Could never extinguish
Spirit’s dreamtime tryst
Between
Mother country
…And this ancient man
Happy Family Holidays
“But we always took her on family holidays !” became the familiar retort espoused by my mother in an attempt to defend her ‘excellent parenting skills’ around the time I finally sought help to leave home. She’d tell anyone who cared to listen… the family doctor, priest, police, social worker, judge…man on the street. She even tried the defense on ME as she barricaded me from exiting the front door on my eventual day of exit from the madness. It was an attempt to paint me as a spoilt, ungrateful teenager; which in hindsight was of course as transparent and feeble as the ice queen was herself.
I had neither the opportunity nor resolve during that period to illuminate those whose opinions may have mattered regarding the truth of what a ‘happy family holiday’ realistically entailed; yet the physical reaction her comment evoked within me was palpable. The inner turmoil in response to her audacity broiled inside each time I heard the defense repeated. My breathing accelerated and the veins in my neck and arms were hit up with intense shot of adrenaline. Yet at that time, even as a sixteen year old I still did not have ownership of the release of expression from my lips. Subsequently they remained in their locked pose, except on the handful of occasions when I simply knew my future depended it. Somehow then, I found the words.
“You’ve ruined my make up !”, she screamed, the accusation sweeping through the two bedroom cottage like the scream of cyclonic wind signalling an encroaching storm. “What have you done? You’ve ruined all my make up”.
I was eight or nine years of age. My parents had agreed that I could invite a friend from school on our trip to the Grampians, a rugged mountain range in the Victorian countryside. I looked at the figure of my friend Siobhan who sat on the opposite bed in the small room we had just begun to settle into after finally arriving following the long car drive. Her small frame shrunk back into the shield of the curtains, surrounded in the late afternoon light that filtered through the ominous mountain ranges surrounding us. The eerie fall of dusk across the vast national park had already set the tone for the first night of our stay. I had tried to shrug it off as my regular “doom and gloom” outlook that must have snuck into my suitcase as I packed that morning. Perhaps it too wanted to have a holiday from the oppression that typically created it, unaware it was hitching a ride with the perpetrator.
Coming to my senses, I quickly leapt up from the bed and stepped into the hallway, urging my school friend to stay put. Poor Siobhan sat frozen with a stunned expression, utterly flawed at my mother’s sudden outburst. I had no idea what I was walking into, but experience told me it was best to try and shield my friend from at least some of the commotion and just get it over and done with.
As I closed the bedroom door behind me, a hand clasped my shoulder and I was spun into the front room of the cottage where my mother had started to unpack her things. I blinked and tried to gather my bearings, unfamiliar with the wooden paneled interior of the holiday cottage.
There !” she pointed towards the dresser where her tan vinyl make up case sat innocently staring back at me with equal amounts of confusion.
“You touched my make up and now look at it. It’s ruined. RUINED”, she screamed hysterically, both hands now upon my shoulders.
My body rocked back and forth to the rhythm of her ranting but my consciousness sat squarely within my head which was spinning metaphorically as I struggled to make sense of her accusations. Whilst I concentrated on anchoring my feet to the floor, as the room swirled around me, I retraced my steps from the moment we had arrived at the cottage. We had all brought various pieces of luggage in from the car, my mother, father, Siobhan and I. Did I pick up the make-up case ? I couldn’t recall. Could it have been tousled about in the boot of the car enabling the contents to end up in the strewn about fashion they now resembled ? Possibly… but dare I suggest it ? I was exhibiting text book behaviour of a victim of abuse at eight years of age by questioning my own actions and sense of responsibility for my mother’s distress.
“But I didn’t touch your make-up!” I cried…then instantly regretted it.
“Don’t lie to me ! You lying, dishonest child” she shrieked as the sting of a open palm reverberated across my face.
I spent the next hour ‘cleaning up the mess I had made’, painstakingly attempting to filter bits of powder back into little bottles whilst Siobhan sat bewildered and most likely quite frightened, in the bedroom. What would I want with your make-up ? I thought to myself angrily as I worked, As if I’d want to paint myself to look like you !
I wonder why my father does not feature in these memories at all. I believe at some stage he emerged from the shadows, by which time the scene had played out and the damage done.
Needless to say, Siobhan was not the only friend to regret agreeing to accompany me on a ‘happy family holiday’. There was more such fun to be had…
(To be continued…)
Riding Rainbows
Little girls 
My growing girls
Your sweet giggles of innocence
Still tippy-toe
Across my heart
Hear my whispers
Kissed gently upon you
Listen for their song
That only silence knows
Keep riding rainbows
My Little Girls
For loves, thrills and adventures
Lie eagerly in wait
Stretch yourselves with courage
(And delight !)
Through the clouds that will float by
‘Til your finger tips come to rest
Upon your horizons
And when your dreams and ambitions
Land momentarily
To catch their breath
Toss me a star
And I’ll join you there…
The Well Within
I always knew
the well ran deep
A seemingly bottomless pit
So dark and hollow
That for such a long time
I dared not look into…
For the vastness scared me
When I peered inside
Having never learnt
There were walls
Called boundaries
With special nooks
That lay within
To tuck away
Little reserves
of love
Just
…for
Me
Ebb and Flow
Like a line in the sand 
You draw me to you…
Each grain of tender energy
Leaves trails
Along the valleys
of breath intertwined
then, exhaled
To settle
Between the ebb and flow
of the gentle, knowing tide
that binds us
Take me too !
My finger-tips came to rest upon the golden door handle supported by a steady hand, delicately placed with all the resolve of a surgeon preparing for the first incision. It was quite a feat actually considering the rest of my body was shaking and I could no longer feel the carpeted floor beneath me. I was aware the slightest movement of the handle would create a squeak and I had not made my mind up yet if I wanted to make my presence known to those on the other side of the door. The internal struggle was creating havoc in every aspect of my being. My lips quivered, sweat ran from my pores and the beating of my heart could not catch up with the pace of my breathing. Thoughts swirled around my head as if my mind was set to a rapid spin cycle. Should I or shouldn’t I? The temptation pulled with magnetic force but the risks involved were also quite prominent in my mind. This could mean an escape…a way out, the voice of hope persisted in my head, Given what’s happening they may not need to much convincing. Yes, but would they really take me seriously?
I can’t entirely recall the events that had lead to my predicament that afternoon as most of the visual memories present as images of the interior of my bedroom. Possibly I had the music turned up in my room to drown out the sounds of physical scuffles and hysterical voices on the other side of the walls. Plus, there were many scenarios in my family experience that were similar to the one playing out before me. This time it related to the youngest of my four brothers Aaron, and the constant struggle he found himself engaged in as he grappled with his intensifying anger towards our parents and his growing acknowledgment of their contribution to the miserable persona that engulfed him.
It is interesting how each child’s personality and specific traits impact upon their experience of survival from an emotionally destructive childhood. Personality impacts upon one’s level of resilience that in turn, affects the inevitable choice to either confront or deny the behaviour. My brother was at last attempting in his own way to confront our parents for the years of soul-destroying torment he had endured at their hands. Tortured by a stutter that manifested as a consequence of the anxiety experienced due to living within an explosive and unpredictable home, ridiculed for his sensitivities and set up to be ostracised by his older brothers, he had a fractured sense of identity that left a gaping hole in his core. I don’t think at that stage he was able to identify the link between the years of their belittling of him and his current state of social isolation and unhappiness, but the anger had risen to the surface and was directed fairly and squarely in their direction. I was glad of it. I was hopeful that in lashing out at them and at the world, he might be steered in the direction of help…outside help that was bigger and braver than anything I at thirteen years of age, could offer.
It seemed that he had already sought that help. And this afternoon’s experience taught me that therapists can sometimes offer rather strange advice. Apparently my poor brother had sought the guidance of a highly respected psychologist who suggested he “have a couple of stiff drinks” before approaching my parents to challenge their behaviour towards him. It may have seemed reasonable to the therapist to offer this type of advice to a twenty year old male but the risk of him taking the recommendation just one step further was indisputable and, I suspect it may have resulted in consumption of more than a “couple” of drinks. During the confrontation that ensued in the living room that afternoon, my parents who were unaccustomed to their authority being challenged, would have looked intently for any signs of influence to my brother’s newly ignited courage and located it on his breath. Unfortunately, this was perfect fodder for their catch-cry claim as innocent victims at the hands of the bullying of their children. And so they dialled 000 and requested the police attend the home as soon as possible.
“Our son has turned on us, he is going crazy and I fear he will attack my husband”, I hear my mother say down the phone in feigned tones of fear and distress.
The presence of three marked police cars in one’s street is not a welcoming look in a quiet middle class neighbourhood. No wonder none of the housewives who regularly witnessed such commotion at number 24 through their lace curtains, ever came knocking at the door with offerings of home baked muffins. As a child my world-view was one based on fear. Every occurrence, every outsider, every belief system or custom that differed from my own, was ingrained within me as having corruptive influences. It took a while for me to understand for those on the outside looking in to my world, the view would have been as scary as hell itself. For almost all, it was in fact too scary, to really want to get involved. I soon learnt there was no hope of rescue by an outsider.
With my ear pressed up to the gap between the bedroom door and the wall, I heard a police officer guide Aaron from the front of the house away from the commotion and down towards the end of the hall way, just outside the door to my room.
“Ok, have you had a couple of drinks mate?” inquired the friendly sounding female constable.
“Well maybe…” responded my brother breathlessly as he tried to elaborate on his distress.
“I can see nothing is going to be resolved here”, the policewoman interjected.
“How about I walk you outside and you head off then?” she offered.
Take me, oh take me too!, a voice inside me screamed silently as my body stood frozen behind the door while my energy pulled violently towards the hallway.
The police had no idea I was there bearing witness from behind the scenes to all that was going on that afternoon. When I had glimpsed their vehicles arrive from behind the heavy curtains that framed the front living room windows, my parents had ordered me to my room. I was happy to comply.
Maybe I won’t need to come out voluntarily. Maybe they’ll come looking for me? Surely they’d want to know if there were any other children in the house?
I stood immobilised as I listened to their footsteps walk back up the hall in the direction of the front door.
Pierced through the Heart
Like a needle
Pierced straight through the heart
Desire
Loss
Craving
…the inaccessible…
Patterns that bleed
Through each year
Each month
Week
Day
Moment
Of the tapestry
That is
My Childhood Story
Those knots
in my stomach
…Stitched so tight
Leave gaping holes
In my core
My sense of love
for myself
So intrinsically linked
With
You
The Lost Children
Whose child ?
Flinches, Winces
Burns inside
Silently screaming
Breathless
Tongue-tied
Whose child ?
Cringes, Shudders
Hides their eyes
Compliantly settles
Guts knotted
Despised
Whose child ?
Nameless, Blameless
Belittled
by a Bureaucracy, blind
To lips pursed in anguish
…Yet no words to describe
Who will protect the children
Society denies ?
Regression Therapy ~ Uncovering my spiritual quest
One of my favourite Buddhist Proverbs, “When the student is ready, the teacher will come” materialized in my life with great clarity towards the end of 2009. Grappling still with a sense of bewilderment at the repetitive nature of the cyclical patterns of hurt and disappointment that were occuring in my life, I sought refuge one afternoon in the soothing hub of my local “Well-Being” Centre intending to seek relief from my anguish through a deep tissue massage. I walked out three hours later without the massage, but with a completely new, somewhat bewildering… but definitely invigorating outlook on the evolving journey that is my life.
During my initial consultation with Paul, the owner of the Centre, I poured out my desire to better understand the purpose behind my presence in this world in order to put an end to the patterns of grief and longing which consumed me. Paul unexpectedly yet gently proposed the idea of embarking upon regression therapy. Having previously explored other forms of transpersonal therapies I understood the concept that the subconscious, memories and ego are interconnected in a mutually influencing web of experience of the Self. I therefore felt comfortable with the objective of regression therapy. Paul’s offer was free of any financial cost but purely a gesture to help me on my course of healing. I accepted his offer with no request for further explanation regarding the process itself, as I did not want to taint my experience in any way. Yet, an element of wariness still waved its’ red flag in the corner of my mind. This is the story of how the session unfolded.
After a period of “settling in” as I lay on the massage table in a candle-lit therapy room, Paul reassuringly guided me towards the following memories:
Paul: I want you to take yourself to your earliest child hood memory
- I am standing in a cot. I am maybe 10 months of age. I am gripping the bars of the cot as I stand looking towards the closed bedroom door. It is painted a dull, eggshell shade of white. My feet are bare and I wear flannelette pants. I stare at the door. Why aren’t they coming ? I am not distressed. Just alone. (The voice of cynicism said as it watched from above “Yeah well, you’ve seem photos of yourself at this age so you have a rough idea what you looked like”.)
Paul: Now I want you to go back even further
- I am looking up into my mother’s face. I see dark brown waves of hair framing her face. I feel her arms supporting me. I am an infant…a newborn infant. I experience a sense of knowing that she is my mother. The surrounds feel clinical.(Again the skeptic piped up “How many images of a newborn child in it’s mother’s arms have you seen over the years ? You know, like in that kleenex commercial..?”)
Paul: From here I want you to return to the womb. Sense how it feels and what it looks like if you can
- I feel myself in a cramped, darkened cocoon. Dark red and blackened walls are throbbing around me. A steady pulsating drone echoes in my ears. (“Yeah, yeah…here you are imagining the inside of a womb as pictured in those pre-natal documentaries”..said Ms.You-Can’t-Fool-Me !)
Paul: Now I want you to move to the moment of conception…
- KA-ZING ! A surge I can only describe like an electrical charge pulsates through my consciousness. This is not a physical, bodily sensation and I continue to lay still in a state of complete relaxation. It is powerful. Awesome. Like nothing I have ever encountered. (The voice of doubt is silent on this one !)
Paul: And from this point, if you can, I want you to go back to before conception…if you can…
- With little effort I am there. I am floaty, formless….I possess no end and no beginning. I am pure energy. A bright shining light engulfs me. Oh the Bliss ! I am riding a wave of blissful Joy and Peace. A warm gentle breeze swirls around me. Suddenly a knowing washes over me that it is time to go forward…into Life. Why must I go ? Why would I want to leave here where all is pure and divine and harmonious ? I am not yet human, not yet a child, but I possess an adult-like knowledge that is warning me of a tumultuous journey ahead. I must have courage. I must accept my path. (By this time the sceptic within had left the building.)
Paul: Now I want you to return to your birth
- I feel myself struggle. Confined and constricted. I feel pain. Cramped and Twisted. A bright white light hits my eyes violently causing me to cringe and flinch and squint. This is not a pleasant arrival at all. No wonder, I didn’t want to be here. But here I was. Here I am. A heavy weight fell upon me.
When we were finished and I had some time to try and configure my now quite scattered thoughts, Paul asked me if there were any themes or messages that struck me from the experience. The first words that broke through the fuzziness still floating in my head, were Courage and Acceptance.
It took some time to come down off the thrill and wonderment of the experience itself but once my feet hit the ground, I began to ponder those two big words and their meanings. Courage….to create the life I do want to live…I choose to live , distinct from the shackles of my childhood. Yes, I can emphatically say I am on that path. And Acceptance…perhaps the acceptance that this is my journey of learning through this life time and there is no point rallying against it by asking Why Why Why ?
I also instantly made sense of an inner thought pattern that has plagued me ever since I was a very, very young child as I looked around at my parents and siblings….Who are these people ? What am I doing here ? Why was I born into this family ? I do not want to be here with them ! I do not belong here ! I do not want THIS life ! Oh yes, now it all makes so much sense !!!
A Thank You Note to Memory
Memory
Oh Memories…
Where do you hide ?
I sense your presence …Lurking
At the corners of my mind
Stealthily I creep
Feel the slowing of my breath
Ready to pounce
When your shadow takes a rest
I blink and you are gone
Trails of confusion
Litter your space
Yet I still feel you in my cells
In my bones
And on my face
You are the most faithful play mate
Of this game that has no end
The rules remain unwritten
Tactics rehearsed so well…
You know I’ll never catch you
And I know …
You’ll never tell
Hope
Hope shimmers
Rays of golden thread
Cleverly interwoven
Between bleak greys and browns
Providing enlightenment
To the fabric of life
Man oh Man !
Men of courage, honour and resolve
Mere fantasies created
Through stories once told
Whilst here stand before me
Boys parading
in grown men’s bodies
Size ten boots
Boast of lands conquered
Yet rolled up sleeves
belie the frayed seams
Of the Self and Soul
…That read like a little black book
Scrawled with every nameable insecurity
With lips pursed
To contain my disappointment
(For no hero exists to slay the troll)
I send another on his way
…Those desert eyes…
To lap at some other oasis of need
No such mirage engulfs my energy
For with the autonomy of every womanly muscle
I must drag forth the resolve
To be my own protector
my own husband
…my own father
Pathways
On tiptoe we tread 
Tentatively tracing
New stepping stones
Before us
Hesitancy seeks to confirm
The offerings
of
Wholeness
With magnetic force
the mystery of possibiliites
Draws us deeper
…Closer
Clock ticking
Heart trembling
To step…
………or to Leap ?
An Open Door
Sometimes 
Friends blow in
Their warm words
Stroking
the skin
Whispers of kindness
Chasing the shadows
Of
Past doubts
That linger
Within
Disquiet
Your silence is deafening
Not even ear-plugs of disdain
Can quieten the echo
That richochets through my heart
Still…
The Jam Sandwich
Sitting next to Georgie on the orange painted timber bench, I squinted through the door way of the shelter shed into the piercingly bright summer sun. It lit up the asphalt of the school yard beyond, then hitting the tar like a yo-yo, bounced off again transforming into a thick steamy haze. I watched the pairs of black school shoes trimmed by white ankle length socks scuttling back and forth outside the door. In the shadows of the steamy haze, they soon morphed to a blur of black and white carried along by skinny limbs; and suddenly I found myself a spectator to a herd of zebras passing by. I chuckled inside at my cleverness as I eased my back into the gray concrete wall, allowing the cold hard surface to permeate through my cotton school dress. I was in no particular hurry to get outside and play, so the school rule that lunch must be eaten in the undercover area before going out into the scorching heat, was one I could be grateful for.
Peering into my plastic lunch box I poked dismissively at the cling-wrap that had already unfurled itself in disgust from two pieces of white bread slapped around bits of soggy lettuce and tomato. To merely look at the slathering of butter that oozed forth from the sandwich and slid insidiously onto the plastic, made me feel nauseous. I glanced into Georgie’s lunch box on the bench beside me and settled on a neat looking jam sandwich, lovingly cut into four equal triangles. I snatched it and ran. Before she even knew what was happening I’d stuffed it into my mouth until I was almost gagging. Jam never tasted so good. The thrill was infectious and I continued this pattern at lunch times sporadically throughout coming weeks until one day Georgie’s mother confronted me in the playground after school. Needless to say I was so mortified that I never did it again.
Over the years the recollection of this behaviour has confused and embarrassed me to the extent that it is not a memory I whip out to display on the mantle at Christmas. Some say ‘time heals all wounds’. It takes more than time to heal a broken spirit. The journey of healing and understanding is long and arduous, but mine has now enabled me to take that school girl by the hand, sit her down under the sparking lights of the pine tree and tell her it is ok and there is nothing to be forgiven for or embarrassed about. Caressing her with loving words that tickle like a string of tinsel placed around her neck, I am thrilled to see a giggle arise from within her at the silly side of it all. I am proud that my understanding can release her of the guilt and enable her understanding that it wasn’t the sandwich she really desired…she would have been content with the crumbs. Oh to have had a taste of just one or two of those emotional crumbs of warm and loving regard from a mother to her daughter, that spilled from Georgie’s lunch box ! Yet despite gobbling up a whole jam sandwich in seconds, there she sat on those hot summer days still feeling the emptiness inside, deprived of the love and affection that carefully prepared jam sandwich so intrinsically represented.
For such a brief episode from childhood to sink so deeply into my sense of self that it required a considerable process of peeling back the layers to absolve, simply highlights the divisive impact of emotional trauma on a child’s sense of self-worth. With all the might of an insidious tumour, the patterns of emotional neglect eat away at the cells of thoughts and feelings that make up the very core of the child’s wholeness. It leads to disintegration of the self involving intense terror and trauma that is often only subconsciously realised. In adulthood it is often replaced by confusion and utter desperation that requires a deep well of loving understanding to slowly be re-built into the centre of self. I emphasise that it needs to be re-built as this well of pure love and acceptance is gifted to us all on our entry to this life, but sadly for many it is cruelly raided by those who lack the fortitude to find more loving ways to replenish their own.
Sweetest Thing
Unraveling inner purpose
Requires exquisite execution
Bravely we must grasp
At
the corners
of those shiny layers
shrouding the Self
And in one delicate
motion
With a twist of Faith
Release the pull of opposites
To reveal the sweetness within
Good Night Papa Bear
“Good night Baby Bear”.
“Night Papa Bear”, I respond as the closing door takes with it the last sprays of golden light that radiate from the hall-way beyond.
As a pre-schooler of three or four years of age, this was the comforting exchange that would end my day. On this note, I would be happy to snuggle into the added comfort and warmth of my soft toy as I drifted into slumber. It was as it should be…a father comforting his child as she relaxes into the knowing that all is safe and secure in her world, with him there to protect her. This was of course, how things were before I had learned to shut my door, turn the music up and suck in my breath.
For a very short period in those early years I looked to my father as a soft, rounded, reliable figure. I recall being perched on his shoulders at a circus, his thick hands gripping my ankles reassuringly as I strain my neck to peer above the crowd. I am Safe… in the knowing he will not let me fall. I feel the pride swell in my four-year old chest as I follow him faithfully up and down the white chalk lined boundary of a soccer field, whilst he yells directions to the boys chasing the round ball within. I am Secure… in the knowing he will not lose me in the crowd. It was as it should be. This was of course, before I learned to hunch my shoulders and shrug out which ever response was expected as he carried out my mother’s business.
Numbness connects these memories of my father. A blank white wall confronts me. I stare and stare but can’t seem to find the detail. I cannot distinguish the surface from plaster, timber or brick…I have no idea if its’ finish is gloss or matt. Impressions of my father have simply become a white-wash of nothingness. Over the years, each experience of betrayal I encountered caused the illusion of my father as an ally to dissipate into a languorous puff of indifference; his role as my mother’s accomplice in the game of manipulation gradually exposed.
On so many many occasions when I needed a voice of strength and authority to stand up for what was right and fair and normal, his silence ricocheted from ear to ear, echoing in my head with voluminous discord. At other times his outbursts of rage literally shook the floor boards beneath me, and saw me scream “Stop it…Just Stop It !”, only to be ordered to my bedroom by my mother. The fear and confusion incited by my view of the limbs of a father and his sons entangled in a violent scuffle on the rumpus room floor, soon transformed to disgust and eventually contempt. As the dynamics between my four brothers disnintegrated, cruelly orchestrated by my mother, I came to despise his placid allowance of her manipulating behaviour that had turned the males in my household into virtual putty.
Interestingly, acceptance of my father’s role as silent conspirator settled easily within me as a young child. I did not struggle against it. Generally, I did not question it, though at times I did ponder how he could adjust to the world beyond our front door …the real world…as an employee and colleague in a high profile company. That he did exit the house every morning to maintain a seemingly well functioning professional persona, made his betrayal of his children even more unforgivable. Yet his incongruous existence did not consume me. I simply grew to see him as a pathetic figure who had succumbed to a life riddled with false premises espoused by an emotionally corrupt woman, that even an eight year old could detect.
When I was around the age of ten or eleven, I witnessed a scenario that cemented my understanding of him as a conscious conspirator in the madness that was our family life. I recall a commotion one evening that lead me to quietly inch open my bedroom door, just enough to provide a view to the top of the hallway. I saw my father standing with his hand on the door knob, a brown leather suitcase at his feet. “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving”, I heard him say. Good I thought Go Go…She deserves it. My mother was on the floor, hysterically grabbing at his legs. Maybe if he leaves, the bars of control that trap us in this existence will melt away freeing us from the poisonous happenings within. Yet I see him pick up the suitcase and retreat back into the front room. Weak I thought, shaking my head in disgust. Yes that’s him…Weak.
Mnemonic ~ Care Bears in the Clouds
The following series of images was created by Jorge Lizalde for his project Mnemonic, based upon a post I had submitted a few months ago titled Care Bears in the Clouds. The project aims to recreate participant’s earliest childhood memory by collating shared videos and images from the web, to recreate the memory landscape.
Care Bears in the Clouds
One of my earliest childhood memories is of being whisked up into the arms of an older brother and taken outside into the backyard of the family home. Here we would sit atop the timber picnic style outdoor table and chat about anything. It didn’t matter what the topic was. Maybe my brother would point to some birds flying overhead, or we would laugh at the antics of the pet dog. Often we would look for Care Bears in the clouds. Though the topic wasn’t important, the ritual was. It served as a distraction you see… and I think even as a four or five year old I knew it, but it was easier just to pretend. For somewhere inside the house, usually in the kitchen or front living room, my mother would be on the floor hysterical and unwilling or unable to pick herself up. My father and maybe another brother or two would take an arm or shoulder each, in an attempt to lift her up and escort her to her bedroom.
Somehow, someone must have been delegated the responsibility of removing me from the scene. Considering I was seven to ten years younger than all my four brothers, I imagine they were well accustomed to the drama but had wanted to shield me from it.
My memories of these instances present in quick, sharp snapshots, like the clicking frames of a camera and usually at angles that just allow for a glimpse around the corner of the dining room wall or behind a kitchen bench, as I looked back over the shoulder of whoever was carrying me towards the back door. It was confusing and scary, but easier not to ask questions and seek out those Care Bears in the clouds instead.
Colleen DuBois ~ Reflections of Me 
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