The Past is Always

I am compelled to find things of my past.  The older I get, the more I seek those images and items that remind me of my childhood.  The more I lose the items and the people I once had, the more I long to see them and be reminded of the feelings of comfort and safety and love and mystery and adventure and potential and of hidden worlds where everything that ever was still is.  A nubbly sofa.  A red, round chair.  A green carpet.  Wood ceiling.  Quietly, they wait inside me.  The feelings bubble up and my Daddy is there.  My Mommy is there.  My home is still Home.

Learning the Limits

As a child I learned the limits of my personality.  The limits I had for expression.  The limits I had for patience.  The limits others had for me.  I learned quickly that I should be quiet and think before I spoke.  It took me much longer to actually be quiet, but at least I knew I should.  I expressed instantly and passionately and had my foot in my mouth more often than not.  I learned socializing meant agonizing about it later, so I began to avoid socializing.  I thought I had enormous patience, except with myself, but it turned out I have zero patience with people who are false or who try for attention or who aren't living to the tops of their intelligence.  Others couldn't seem to tolerate me very well.  I learned my personality was too big, too loose, too unpredictable, too weird.

Highlight reels of my social transgressions play at night.  No matter how distant the experience becomes, it replays to torture me.  I try not to add to the reels, but, even as an adult interacting with other adults, it still happens.  Only now, I know instantly when a moment will become A Moment.  Shame, guilt, embarrassment, regret, self-loathing churn in the gyre of my mind.

Obedience

She didn't know how old he was, but he was in school, so he was older and knew things.  He wanted to play doctor in her tree fort, and she loved to play doctor so she went with him.  He had his "doctor's tools", which were a couple of dark grey landscaping rocks from around her house.  She was good at following directions and was proud of it.  She lay down on the wood floor of the fort, only the top of her blonde curls to be glimpsed through the doorway, should anyone look.  Her brother was friends with his brother and they lived just a few houses down.  As directed, she pushed her shorts and underwear down to her ankles and lay still, arms at her sides, while the examination began.

Weird Kid

When I was a kid, I wanted to have some sort of debilitating disease, like polio, so I could wear leg braces and have those arm-cuff crutches.  I drew pictures of myself in a little memo book, the kind small enough for a pocket and with a plastic spiral on top.  I drew myself wearing a numbered jersey, a thing I never owned, legs strapped into braces, arms locked into crutches, and smiling hugely.  What did my therapist think of that when I confessed to it?  She thought it was because I wanted to be pitied and coddled.  I stopped seeing that therapist because that analysis was so very wrong.  I didn't have any psychological training, I was the one who cracked up at work, I was the one who drew myself as a cripple when in reality I was physically normal, and even I could psychoanalyze my childhood daydreams.  I wanted to have a debilitating disease not so I could be pitied, but so I could overcome that disease.  I wanted to be heroic.

Inspiration #6

After an hour, the repetitive music from only served to emphasize Kit's frustration with her failure to clear the final level of the game.  Most Atari games didn't even have "save" points, but one saving grace to Pitfall II was that there was a crossing about midway that meant a death would only take you back that far, instead of to the beginning.  The first half was already so difficult that Kit refused to give up, which would mean turning off the game and losing her spot.  Instead, she cranked the volume knob on the Zenith console far left and played instead to the sound of the black, single button joystick creaking left, right, up, down, and occasional "whoosh" of the boiler.

First line inspiration from "Sea Oak" by George Saunders: "At six, Mr. Frendt comes on the P.A. and shouts, 'Welcome to Joysticks!'"

This story was my absolute favorite from the Feeling Very Strange slipstream anthology.  I would love to see it turned into a short film.
 

Inspiration #2

On the morning of her sixth birthday, Bennie flung open her curtains to reveal a grey bank of thunderous clouds.  The eerie light turned the newly opened late spring leaves an unnaturally dark green with shadows that clung beneath.  The grass glowed.  Bennie felt rather than heard a rumble that made her bones vibrate.  The birthday girl smiled, a sparkle in her eyes that matched the grass.  Today was the kind of day where Things Happened.

Inspired by "The Little Magic Shop, by Bruce Sterling.  "The early life of James Abernathy was rife with ominous portent."  This was one of my favorites from Feeling Very Strange.

How did you develop your sense of morals?

I have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, and I feel shame.  I'm not religious, it's just that the idea fits my situation perfectly.  I know about religious stuff from the old guy who lives on the fifth floor.  He recites, or shouts, stuff from the Bible at me as I walk by on the stairs to my eighth floor walk-up.  I'm fourteen, but I can call it my apartment because I pay the rent.  The landlord doesn't know that, of course.  He'd be obliged to call social services, and they would ruin my ruined life.  It's ruined.  I see it now.  But it's my life.  Sticking me in foster care again, or forcing me into a children's home, would mean I'm not in control.

The Tree of Knowledge has shown me the lousiness of my life.  The first thing eating from that damned Tree showed me was my smell.  I remember getting into a fight with Candy Booger (real name Bourgan) in fifth grade when I actually hit a girl.  I knew it was bad to hit, but I didn't know it was extra bad to hit a girl.  She said that I smelled, and I punched her.  While I waited outside Principal Morgan's office, I tried to notice smells.  The copy machine next to me smelled like warm paper.  The secretary who walked past smelled like acid flowers.  I kept sniffing and, finally, I smelled it.  Piss.  Body odor.  Maybe mold?  God, save me, Candy Booger was right, and I had punched her for it.  Nobody appreciates the messenger.

"272 Results Matching"

Kendrick, Male
Age 1
Sweet, engaging, enjoys his meal times
Makes sounds that resemble words
Unable to sit by himself
In need of a Forever Family
Willing and able
To prepare for any future needs
Help him
Reach
His full potential

Melody, Female
Age 17
Great sense of humor, considerate, thoughtful
Doing very well in the ninth grade
Working on trusting others
Would do well in a single parent home
Or possibly
Two women household
Melody writes,
"I would like to be adopted
And find my
Forever Family"

BLOG NOTE: Inspired by my previous blog entry about foster and adoptive homefinding, I browsed the New York State Adoption Album Photolisting to create this found poetry.  All the words to this poem were taken from the listings of two children who are waiting to find their new families.  Total number of children on the NYS online adoption list today: 272.

How do you feel about gay couples adopting babies?

Most people in the United States have no idea the numbers of children in foster care much less the even larger numbers of children currently freed for adoption.  Nor do people understand the child protective services, foster care and county adoption process.  Unless you are a part of the system, you simply have no clue.

I worked for the Department of Social Services in a unit called "Homefinding".  While I wasn't a caseworker for very long, it was enough for me to understand how much is hidden in plain sight, and how much is wrong with society that the average person doesn't understand.  For example, the prime goal of a children's services caseworker is to keep children with their families.  These people work very hard to assess situations and provide whatever support necessary to get those families the help they need so moms, dads, brothers and sisters can stay together.  The most tragic action you can take is to pull children from their mothers and fathers.  And yet.  And yet there were caseworkers who, upon visiting a home, had to take children without warning, bring those kids in their car back to the social services building, sit those crying/stunned/angry/terrified children in a waiting room and call Homefinding.

In Homefinding, we had a list of all the families in the area who could take in foster children.  It was updated minimally once a day.  There were pitifully few families on the list.  Most homes were already full, and many available couldn't take the kind of children who came so suddenly into care.  The crack-addicted baby with a heart condition, the fourteen year old boy, the family of ten brothers and sisters.  It just wasn't possible.

Halfway through my tenure in Homefinding, they gave me the one and only position in "Adoptive Homefinding".  It was here that I saw the even greater disconnect between reality and what is known.  We have a vague idea that there are children available for adoption.  Have you ever seen the Blue Books?  The Blue Books are thick three-ring binders filled with pictures and descriptions of children emancipated from their birth families, waiting for a new family who will raise them and love them and help them become adults.  Binder after binder after binder, each filled with page after page after page of children.

Here is the most terrifying disconnect:
Family wants to adopt a child.  A baby.  No crack babies, please.  Possible spina bifida?  No.  No disease.  No genetic problems.  Can you guarantee this baby is okay?  Twin toddlers?  So adorable!  But... was the mother a drinker?  Were these kids abused?  Are they damaged?  This child has bathroom problems.  This child poops in my closet.  This child hides food.  This child is damaged.  I need a promise this child will be like my own: perfect.

A child is put into foster care.  A child is only put into foster care when there has been abuse or neglect, meaning keeping the child with his or her family is too dangerous, no matter how hard the caseworker has tried.  This child is damaged.  This child is pulled away and put in a stranger's house.  Caseworkers work very hard to help the birth family become better.  Services are put into place.  Visits are made.  The foster family works with the birth family so the child can go home.  But... the birth family is too dangerous and it cannot be.  No other family member can take the child, so the child stays with strangers.  Perhaps for years.  Perhaps many strangers in different houses in different towns.  Perhaps in a group home.  This child was abused, neglected, torn from home, shuffled around, and, finally, "freed".  Free for adoption.

Is this child damaged?  Yes.
Can you guarantee this baby is okay?  No.
Can you promise this child will grow up and be okay?  No.

But...

But the damage can be mitigated.  These children are humans, and they learn and they live and they love.  There is no baby or child that comes with a guarantee--not even one born to you.  These children were freed from their birth families because it was too horrible to return.  Of course they need help; you would need help, too.

We need to know.  We need to understand.  We need to get a clue.  We are needed.

Is it better to be good or lucky?

Back in the days of dark brown wood stain and harvest gold wall ovens, when I was young enough to be too short to reach the upper cupboards in the kitchen, I would climb up on the Formica counter in order to peer into the shelves that held the best goodies: Ho-Hos, Oreos, Cheerios, and other various "o" foods they made to entice children.

Normally, when I was done perusing the factory-made food choices, I would sit back on the counter and slide the smaller journey to reunite Zips with peel-and-stick linoleum; however, one day I forgot the routine.  I stood on the edge of the counter, having already set down a can of Spaghetti-Os, and wondered, "Do I sit and slide off, or do I jump?"  I couldn't remember.  Both seemed plausible.  Not wanting to delay and risk being caught on the counter again, the scales in my head tipped to "Jump!"  So I did.

I squatted slightly was in mid, irrevocable thrust when I realized this was the wrong choice.  While my brain knew I chose poorly, my muscles wouldn't get the new message in time and I found myself hovering in the air.

How would your best friend describe you?

In Kindergarten, they took the same bus to school, though they didn't know each other very well because they lived too far away to walk to each others' houses.  Louise knew Renee lived in one of her two favorite houses that she saw every ride home.  It sat by a creek and seemed mysterious.  Louise also knew Renee as one of the only kids she knew who wore glasses.  Renee remembered Louise as the girl with an earache.  One ride home from school, Renee saw Louise crying into her school bag and asked what was wrong.  Louise suffered earaches and bronchitis fairly often as both her parents smoked.

Later in elementary school, Louise would remember Renee as The Girl Who Came a Day Late.  It was the day after Louise's birthday on a bright late October day and she saw Renee, now moved to a less mysterious house, but within walking distance, coming down the sidewalk, the largest present she ever saw in hand.  Decades later, Louise would suspect that Renee came a day late on purpose, to avoid the other kids and the party atmosphere.  She would not remember the party, but she remembered Renee, sharing leftover chocolate cupcakes, and coloring together in the Giant Size Wonder Woman coloring book that was Renee's present.  Renee would remember that Louise was careful to make sure she didn't feel bad about being a day late, and she enjoyed the birthday party of two.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be and why?

The nightly cacophony of sirens, thumping, whining music, and shouting were muffled when Lora was finally able to slide home the metal door on the alley side of her squat.  The building was brick and it had been cemented blind decades ago.  The roof was only partially collapsed, but the place was four stories tall, so the upper floor made a good enough roof.  Lora had been lucky to find it still empty, and she kissed her fingers, touching them to the door in blessing, before cranking her hand light.  Her ritual ten cranks would give her enough to add security to the door, though the alley provided much already.

Lora had only squeezed down the alley because she was trying to escape the Yard Dogs, the gang that had taken over her former street and caught her out after dark.  It was tight, and full of garbage, and she prayed it was not a dead end.  Feeling her way blindly, she touched the metal lever for the door.  Hearing the Dogs howling, she was frightened enough to try to move it, and by a miracle, the door opened.  Hoping she wasn't stepping over a threshold through a collapsed floor and to her death from a long fall or a basement drowning, she managed to close the sliding, metal monstrosity and wait, panting, tense, until the morning.

Without any light inside, Lora had to keep risking opening the door.  Eventually, it was light, and she saw where she was.  The building she was in was the oldest, and the brick hulk next door was built right up to hers, without regard to any of the windows or doors already in place.  Her building had been closed for much longer, and nobody much cared to access it, so, they didn't.  The alley was narrower than she had initially thought, and the scrapes on her shoulders proved it.  Adrenaline had allowed her to push though, but in the future, she'd turn completely sideways.  Lora left the mouth of the alley filled with garbage, occasionally supplementing it when it began to look trampled.  The alley was uninviting, and she made it more so, with nasty-smelling bags left near the entrance.

It was the longest she had ever been able to stay in the same place since she was a child, and she warned herself every day not to become complacent.  Lora added rituals to her locking and checking and booby traps and intruder indicators.  She followed her rituals every time she left and every time she returned.  Making her way up to the second floor, she checked her intruder indicators--twine strung, dust undisturbed.  She made sure her "alarm" system was in place--boxes and tin cans, crunchy gravel and thin metal sheets.  Finally, she made it to her nest.

Lora kissed her fingers and pressed them to the room she had made from materials found in her building.  A precious sewing kit had allowed her to create luxuries, like cushions stuffed with old clothing and even blankets.  One patchwork blanket made a roof over her crate and scrap wood nest.  Others lay on the floor or folded neatly in the corner.  Ducking in through a flap, Lora knelt down and removed her shoes, untying the scavenged laces carefully and putting them on her shoe mat.  There was another ritual she followed that had nothing to do with security of her body.  It was, instead, security of her memory and her heart.

Kneeling on her blankets, she removed the coat she always wore.  She had sewn in special pockets on the inside, carrying her memories with her, in case she couldn't come back.  Lora pulled out a grey packet of cloth, and laid it on the cushioned floor of her nest.  Cranking her hand light twenty times, she perched it on a low pillow.  With her right hand, she unfolded the first flap.  With her left hand, she unrolled the packet.  With her right hand, she unfolded the top, bottom, and remaining flap.  Inside were the only connections to her former life: a four-inch real graphite pencil, no point; a tiny piece of a formerly yellow blanket; two, one-inch pieces of red crayon, no label; and a folded photograph, one-inch square.  Lora arranged the items in a line then picked them up one at a time, holding each to her nose, and reminding herself of who she was.

If you could be any type of candy, what type would you be?

Charlotte and her younger brother Daniel, still flushed from the cold air, took their places on the family room floor and poured out their hard plastic pumpkins.  Halloween candy thunked and crinkled to the green carpet and they began to sort.

Daniel still had his Oscar the Grouch mask, but it was pushed up onto the top of his head.  Charlotte's old lady wig itched, but she didn't want to take it off because she thought she looked so cool.  She had been proud to have fooled so many into thinking she was Daniel's grandmother.

Their mother sat at the kitchen table with their father and actual grandmother, who looked much younger than Charlotte's old age makeup.  "Don't eat any before I check it," called their mother unnecessarily.  They had been doing this for too many years not to remember, though Charlotte knew Daniel had already eaten a Snickers in the dark gap between Mr. Grant's and the big white house with pillars.  She had pretended not to notice, but she saw Daniel check the wrapper himself and wasn't worried.

Their father added, slightly more necessarily, "Don't eat too much before dinner.  Pizza's coming!"

Charlotte loved Charlie's Pizza, but she was concentrating.  Three piles: love, like/maybe, yuck.  Charlotte and Daniel finished their sorting at about the same time.  Now the bargaining began.

Pageant Question: What makes you unique?

I didn't learn until after college that my parents worried I might have been brain damaged from a car accident we were in when I was nine.  My brother and I were discussing what we remembered from that night a Chevette had spun out on the snowy road and crashed head-on into our Ford Econoline van.  You'd think the van would have won, but both vehicles were totaled.  This was back in the day when it wasn't mandatory to wear your seat belt, and my brother and I were loose when it happened.

I remember seeing the oncoming headlights, but nothing of the crash.  I was behind the driver's seat, and I hit my head on the metal window divider.  My brother was flung to the center console and hit his knee and nose, but didn't break anything.  I opened my eyes to my brother crying and my mom comforting him; my dad was already out of the car and seeing to the other driver.  I turned to ask what had happened, and when my brother saw me, he screamed.  He thought my face had been smashed in, but it was the front and side of my head that had instead swollen out.  My mom launched herself out of the sliding door to grab snow for my now giant noggin.

Little did I know that my parents would suspect my less than stellar grades in 11th grade chemistry might be attributed to that accident seven years before.  Even worse, though, when my brother and I were reminiscing, I wondered aloud if Mom and Dad had worried I had suffered brain damage.  My parents, who were listening to the conversation, didn't laugh like I had expected.  They exchanged looks.  Looks.  Significant looks.

Pageant Question: You can be a superhero for one day! What is your superhero name and what is your power?

Calvin never thought of himself as a hero.  No, he was just a normal kid who did normal things, like go to school, do homework, do chores, take a bath, go to bed, get up for school and repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  He knew this was preparing him for "the future", but he couldn't see how.  Calvin was very good at doing what he was told, and he knew that superheroes never got told what to do, they just did.  The new kid, however; that new kid was heroic.

Pageant Question: What food best describes your personality?

Spaghetti night meant Ragu meat sauce with thin spaghetti and Lender's garlic bagels, only in this house, they called them "beagles".  A portion of spaghetti was always left to the side in a bowl for Mara, who preferred plain butter to the sauce.  Mara's younger brother ate everything, mixed together.  Dean would even tear his bagel into pieces and mix it into the spaghetti with sauce.  Neither ever wanted to try the red wine vinaigrette salad, and they wouldn't until nearly high school.  "Finger tastes" of Dad's red wine were a must, but only with washed hands.  Finally, all the plates were out, the beagles warmed in the microwave and buttered, the console television turned towards the kitchen table, and Mara waited patiently to ask permission.

"May I?" she finally asked, her hands hovering over her bowl of buttered noodles.

Mom checked that the bathroom door was already open.  "Go ahead."

Mara gleefully grabbed her pile of spaghetti with both hands and bit through the middle, buttering the sides of her face.  Making sure the remaining noodles were back in the bowl, Mara announced, "Be right back!" and she raced off to the bathroom (door open) to wash her buttered hands.

Mom and Dad made eye contact and smiled wryly, while Dean broke his beagle into tiny pieces and dropped them into his sauce.

Pageant Question 15: If I were to visit your hometown for one day, what would we do?

The kids in the neighborhood called them "The Fields", but it wasn't just fields; there were trees and creeks and even small hills.  It was Joelle's favorite place to play, with or without anyone else.  Although it was against her parents' wishes, she would often go out to The Fields to play alone, exploring, spying, listening, imagining, building.  While there were many improvised "forts" in the woods, they were group activities.  Joelle was proud to be building one of her own, and she called it her home base.  It was from this base that she intended to do further exploring.

To a nine year old, The Fields were huge, quite possibly never-ending.  Joelle wouldn't connect the fact that they lived on an island with the idea that the woods could not possibly go on forever when there was a river surrounding their town until she was ten, and by then, she had discovered a secret about The Fields no one else knew.

362

"Every child needs to experience the final loss, Carter.  That's why you're here."  Grandpa Henry's barn was dark in the corners, a single, bare bulb swinging from its cord near the door made the shadows grow and shrink.  Carter shivered in the clothes he threw on over his pajamas when his grandfather woke him.  There was a small noise somewhere in the dark.  "Come on, boy.  You've got to watch."  Carter pressed backwards, against his grandfather's large hand, but there would be no resisting his strong, farmer's push.

359

The early morning sun warmed the cement of the back patio and was starting to dry out the nightcrawlers.  Hannah wrestled the sliding glass door open enough to slip through, being careful to close the screen behind her, as her mom would require.  The patio was still cool on her bare feet, but it was warm enough out that her pink pajamas were enough.  Hannah began rescuing the big worms by tossing them out into the still-dewy lawn.  The day smelled fresh and clean with a hint of earth, which Hannah would always think of as the smell of worms.

354

Among her spiral notebooks, filled with drawings, lists, and taped-in movie ticket stubs was a note from herself.  Lyra had drawn it using colored markers, changing the color at every word and forming the letters carefully.  Some had pressed so hard there were dots in the corners where the markers lingered for a little too long.  In the colorful words was white-hot anger and frustration.

REMEMBER!!!!!!!
Remember what HE did to you with the footstool!
Remember the way you were treated!
Don't forget how he LIED!!!!!!!
NEVER forget and NEVER forgive!!!!!!!

The extra exclamation points were drawn with passion.  There were underlines and multiple colors and circles around capitalized words.  Lyra was screaming at herself from the past, begging her to remember and to hold onto her bitterness.  Lyra felt absurdly guilty: she didn't remember.  She knew the "he" was her brother, and she even vaguely remembered using her markers to make the note, but she had no idea what would have happened with a footstool to make her so angry as to never want to forgive Thomas, ever, for the rest of her life.