************************************Denial covers the pain of the past * A blanket over the world * Lift a corner * Don't be afraid * Your life awaits you*************************************

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Writing Exercise Submissions: Earliest Memory

I got one, awesome response to Sunday's writing exercise. This week's assignment was to write about a your earliest childhood memory, and to do so in first person, present tense.

Gails entry made me want to pick her up and hold her, myself. I'm glad for the resolution:

Posted by Gail


I am so scared to get up on that wooden box. I am just three years old after all. I see the other little girls giggling at me. I feel different because I am chubby. I love my long wavy hair and rosy cheeks and blue eyes and my Mommy always tells me how pretty I am. Still, I am scared to get measured for my dance costume - a grass skirt to sing a Hawaiian song while I do my tap dance.

The sewing lady called me over, "Gail, it's your turn, c'mon now".

I am chin down and eyes down as I scuff over to the wooden box. I get up on it and I feel sick to my tummy. I feel the tape measure go around my middle and she says "I will have to sew two grass skirts together for her - I don't have one large enough"

I hear all the girls laughing and tears fall down my face. I jump off the box and run outside the dance studio.

Miss Connie, my dance teacher, comes after me. She holds me until my Mommy comes for me. I feel so sad and hurt.

Then, at the recital, I get to do the last dance with Miss Connie on stage - she says I am the best and most beautiful dancer in the class. The other girls aren't laughing at me now.
My entry is from a time when I was fifteen months old. My father left home for a year when I was three months old. He had traveled around the world by himself, leaving my mother home with me, and my two older siblings who were nine and ten when he left. My earliest memory is of his homecoming:


Mommy moved my crib into the big kids’ room. Maybe she will move it back in her room when she’s done vacuuming. I stay on the couch when she vacuums. I even jumped on the couch and she doesn’t get mad cause she so ‘cited. My brother and sister are ‘cited, too. They say Daddy is coming home. I don’t know what that means but it makes me feel ‘cited too. I sing and it sounds good with the vacuum.

Mommy says don’t take my toys out now. The ‘partment’s all clean. I run up and down the long hall in my black shiny shoes. They make a good noise on the wood floor. Mommy is cooking food and I smell it. It makes me hungry be we can't eat til Daddy comes home. That's what she said. I sing a song about Daddy coming home. 

A man comes to the door.
He doesn’t ring the bell, he just comes in.
I stop singing. 
He’s very tall.
I stand behind Mommy.

Mommy hugs the man. My sister and brother hug him, too and Mommy wants me to hug him but I stay hidden behind her. I hang tight to her leg, and look at my shiny shoes.

The man is pulling me off of Mommy’s leg. He’s very strong. I squirm to get away, but he picks me up anyway. I yell and squirm. His face is very close to mine. He is smiling but I’m afraid.
I want my Mommy.
I start to cry.

The man looks angry. He puts me down and lets go fast. 
I fall with a thump on my bottom. I reach up for Mommy to pick me up.
She is looking at the man and doesn't see me.
 *****

Thanks, Gail, for your submission!

There won't be a writing exercise this coming weekend, but I will return to it the following week (June 26th).

Off now to do Wedding errands... what an exciting week!

8 comments:

  1. Loved reading both your & Gail's submissions, Shen! I want to hug both of those little girls!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you both.

    I'm really struggling here, today. I can't stay out of that website I wrote about yesterday. I can't stay away. I don't know what's wrong with me. I talked to C, and I've called her voicemail a few times and she emailed me and said, DO not go back to that site, delete all referrences to it on your computer, and that she fully believes in DID and that it wouldn't be in the DSM if a lot of professional people didn't believe it and she thanked me for trusting her with the information.

    That Jeanette found my personal information. She tracked me down and posted my real name and where I live and the name of my daughter on her website! She has since taken it down, but it was such an aggressive, attacking thing to do. I can't feel safe. I keep going back in there again and again to see what they are saying about me now and everytime it's worse than the time before. Why won't they just focus on their own fucking lives???

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh Shen - what do you mean? Who is tracking you down, That is horrid. How can I help>

    Love Gail
    peace......

    ReplyDelete
  4. That woman I wrote about yesterday, here, tracked me down and put my personal info on her site. She has since taken it down, but what is more frightening is that there is someone else there who won't let up on me and now he has seen that information. I think he is some kind of preditor, some kind of narcisist and he keeps telling me to drop my therapist and that I don't know what I'm doing and it is sickening and I can't stop going in there to see what he is saying. He is sick, it's obvoius he has some kind of agenda. I am trying not to go and look again and again, but I can't seem to stop. I run and errand and then run back again. I run another errand and go back again. Every time he has put up more comments abuot me and it is so hard to ignore it.

    I know this is compulsive behavior. I know it. I feel so
    well
    full of shame for continuing to go in there and I feel as if C is going to be very disappointed in me and if my husband knew what i was doing I would be completely mortified and yet I keep doing it. I keep going in there to defend myself again and again.

    ugh
    sorry.

    This is a lot more than I should be putting in a comment. Thank you Gail. I have a meeting tonight (thank God) so I'm leaving soon. Maybe that will get me back on track.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I can understand how distressing this is for you, Shen and they certainly had no right publishing your personal information! You could probably approach blogger and lay a complaint against her and the other offending party. Other than that, I think C has given you the best advice.. There are far too many things going on in your life without complicating it for yourself. Just do not give in to your compulsion to revisit that site and certainly don't allow yourself to be filled with remorse if you do. You have nothing to be ashamed of! It's normal to feel violated. Hope things get back on to an even keel for you soon! Stay strong, Shen! Big hug, DES xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great stories!!! I wonder how anyone can have memories at 15 months, but if they were traumatic enough, I guess they will make an impact. Very very nice stories!

    ReplyDelete
  7. It was the day my life changed... and I remember it more in impressions than in words. I might not believe it as a true memory, either, if it wasn't that my own daughter has memories going back to when she was 18 months old (when her brother was born, and when she was bitten by a dog).

    Thanks jbt

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment.

Co Creation

Co Creation
We create the life we live

Love your inner child...

...for she holds the key...

...to your personal power.
A lesson is woven into each day.
Together they make up the tapestries of our lives.
~Shen