“And here my troubles began”, the opening lines of Maus II my favorite Holocaust graphic novel. As a child I read every WWII book and as obsessed with the camps: the stories of heroines, heroics, humble people who did what they could against every odd evil had at it’s disposal. No matter how bad humans can be to each other, there can still be good in this world; of that I am undeniably thankful to have learned.
Of course, I still have a hard time writing. Extremely hard, as one shoulder sits my hyper self-critical self, and on the other my mother. Admonishing the things I write, the way I write them, and the sin of it all. I look to and fro, to and fro until my head spins off into the nothingness that is self-awareness. So I’ve resolved to write something each day, something that takes the pain of memory off my shoulders and away from my hate.
How did It, my Life start? Well conception, was a bang as you can well imagine. My parents had already broken off their relationship when I was born, and my father didn’t stick around for the birth. He did send flowers, as my mother recalls. I get the feeling that my conception was not just an unfortunate accident, but more of a parting shot from my mother in return for a mercy fuck. I was born with 12 fingers; the traditional sign of a witch they say. Having no magical powers except an innate sensitivity to happiness accompanied by a wacky sense of timing, I instead attribute the extra digits (digitalis, from the original Greek) to a mother’s fondness at the time for fragrant herb. Either way, I was special. I was picked by God, to have the name that means…well it means…I guess it just is. Faith. That’s the name, and the inability to define a word without using the word boggles the mind.
“When I was pregnant with you, God came to me in my sleep”, my mother said.
“It was no dream, he called to me and said ‘This child is special and you will name her, Faith’ and that’s how you got your name!” my mother always said happily. I’ve been meaning to ask her if that was the first time she heard God’s voice, but I’ve been putting it off.
So I was born, with 12 fingers. It’s not really a big deal, as one in every 100,000 people is born with an extra digit somewhere. I had 2 extra pinkies, which really is pretty pathetic. The least God could’ve given me was an extra middle, it would have made more sense with the life that was to come. My father married for his first time two months after I was born. He married the mother of his second child, my dear sister Christina. We’re 11 months apart and enjoy examining the details of “it takes a baby 9 months to grow, right Daddy?” and etc. I of course never mention to Christina that her mother was a home wrecker, what good would it do? Of course it’s how I felt at one time, but now I see my father more clearly.
My mother met Doug as I neared the age of 2. They talked on the phone for hours, as she was a single mother and he a telemarketer. Divorced twice already, she was young, nubile, smart and with a ready made family. I don’t think he saw it that way, but it seems like the smart money was on my mother’s firm body and not her young child. Like many adults I have few memories of early childhood, but the ones I do have are vivid. Seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater, taking a shit in parents bed and being scared to get up from my sticky, wet spot (with good reason), or perhaps the memories of being utterly alone as my mother worked herself into a feverish state of epiphany and ecstasy. I stepped on the crack to break Satan’s back and hid my light under a bushel to keep from flickering out. I lived and breathed my mother and everything she could ever possibly believe. As full of God as my early years were, so too were the memories of moving often and farther away from the place of my birth. Soon, I saw none of the familiar faces I once had. No grandparents, aunt’s or uncles, nothing but me, my mom and Doug. Doug. Douglas. My father for 6 years. And suddenly, I have a hard time writing…
Are some memories too painful to write, too worrisome to the soul and too dangerously close to the heart? If fear can eat you alive, that would be a closer description to the childhood of a Faith. Woe is me, Woe is me…Oh, you’ve heard it all before? You haven’t heard it from me, and as they say the story is in the telling. Hating the stairs reminds me of the time someone tried to convince me to skate backwards at a roller rink, they were coaxing ever so gently but still I went flying into the sweet elderly couple. The paramedics come and yeah, well look I haven't been roller skating since. The older couple were fine, and the older man told me to keep trying – “just go the other way”, he said.
So I write, and try to find the way back to the time before -I did this- or -that happened- to me. Journals speak one thing, while ambitions for clarity and communication effectively done deliver poetry, prose or script. If I could draw, it'd be a graphic novel. But for now this creative non-fiction memoir and manifesto is how I draw me to you. Every comedy has a back story and if you combine the two halves (think drama masks from Jr. high people!) “you can make it happen”. Just look at Mariah.
Please share this, you can even tear it up and store in the pockets of your pants; to keep you bold.