Air Waves

January 14, 2013January 15, 2013 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I turn on my hometown radio station almost every morning. I feel comforted hearing the DJ’s voice – a guy who’s been on that station since I was a teenager and the only way to hear the latest songs back then, besides going to see bands, or buying random CD’s to try out, was to listen to the radio.

The station had been family owned since its inception, but was sold, or became managed, by one of the larger market outfits a decade ago, when they tried to make the format more hip by adding a morning talk component with one of the DJs who’s still there, and a guy who did a regular sports spot and was a substitute DJ. The new format was a clumsy intrusion, and didn’t change their listener numbers. The format changed back over to the main DJ within a year, I think. I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did.

I’m glad the station is still there. I don’t have cable, or get any stations on my television, so I turn to the radio and internet for my news.

This morning I turned on the radio and was transported back to the days of getting my son ready for school, the days before I woke in terrible pain every day, the days that I still wouldn’t trade for today unless I could be a different person. Nostalgia colors the past in pastels so often. But my life was harsh in other ways. I was severely depressed, single parenting, in poverty, and don’t know how I got through, but I’m grateful because now is better, even if still somewhat desolate. Back then I was assured that life would get better, I just didn’t know it would take ten years…

Radio is quaint now with our smart phones, tablets, and other electronic devices streaming music and video, our mp3 players shutting us out from collective experience. I don’t have a smart phone and I don’t think I want one. I think there are going to be a lot of neck problems in a few years, and I know firsthand how youth’s disregard exacts payment later. I asked my doctor what causes our bodies to break down over such a short lifespan and her answer was: “Walking upright”.

The DJ is bidding his listening audience a good day as his shift ends and signals the shrinking time I have left to get out the door myself. I realize that tuning into this station most mornings isn’t an unconscious habit, but part of my ancestral drive for continuity – for being part of a collective, even if the mode seems trivial. It’s this DJ, this radio station, that has barely changed from my youth throughout my adult years. I moved from Maine to California, and finally ended up back where I started, and that station remained mostly as is while much around me has changed, indeed, while I’ve changed too.

Holiday Events

December 17, 2012May 19, 2015 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

The town next to me has a theater built in the late 1870s. It has seen several revivals of sorts throughout the years, its most infamous use being when the Renaissance Community – the commune/cult I grew up in – owned it. I spent many days and nights in that theater as a teenager, so it has a difficult history for me, but that history has become less overwhelming since 2000 when I auditioned for my first play at what is now the Shea Theater. Its renovation removed the gaudiness that Michael Rapunzel (née, Metalica) imposed on the once beautiful theater, but the balcony was removed, leaving only a light and sound booth for shows, and tiered rows of seats down to the ground floor of the theater.

The other night, several community groups helped present a large screen showing of: It’s A Wonderful Life, for free, but people were encouraged to bring canned goods or monetary donations for our regional food bank and local food pantries.

I wasn’t going to go, but I wasn’t born when that movie was first shown in theaters, so I thought it would be fun to see on a big screen, even though I suspected I’d be in a largely empty theater. Boy was I wrong! The theater was packed and there were many families in attendance. It was a festive experience to see the film with all those people, some seeing it for the first time, and probably plenty for the last as well. I mean that last part to convey that it’s an outdated movie whose quaint filming and content don’t satisfy a movie going public in the way it might have when it was first released.

After the show, the crowd was told that the pub across the street was serving ‘flaming rum punch’, a drink that Clarence, the angel (second class), tries to order at Martini’s in the alternate world he’s escorting George Bailey through. I decided to go over, and again, thought I’d be among very few, but the pub was crowded, with more filing in after me, and many there had just come from seeing the film. It was a very jovial crowd, and it felt somewhat surreal, like we were all characters from the story somehow. I half expected a saxophone rendition of Auld Lang Syne to play over the pub’s stereo.

The rum punch was just spiced cider with rum, but it was warm and soothing on a cold, dreary night. The people sitting next to me at the bar started chatting with me, and I asked them if they had ever seen the movie before, and they hadn’t. They said they liked it, and thought it was a great idea to offer, and hoped there would be more community events like that. A young woman related that she had always wanted to see the film, but her mother hated it, saying it was too depressing, and turned it off any time it was on television, so the woman just assumed she’d hate it too. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more uplifting than depressing, even if set during the Great Depression and World War II.

It was a lovely oasis in a difficult time, not only for recent tragedies, but for this dark time of year that starts my yearly descent. I hope this will be the year I fall no further.

Enjoy each other, tell those who matter that you love them, tell strangers you’re glad to meet them, be helpful, and kind, and you may receive no heavenly reward, but you will uplift humanity, and I think we can all use more gladness, even if momentary. Peace.

My Grandfather’s Birthday

December 5, 2012December 5, 2012 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Today my maternal Grandfather would have been 129. He died in the Spring of his 102nd year. My mother’s side of the family enjoys longevity, my father’s side, not so much. My mother’s line comes from hearty French-Canadian farming family stock, and my father’s came from Scots-Irish and English fighting family lineage. My father’s side carried the banner of anger and scrappiness, while my mother’s touted ‘get along and go along’. My father’s ancestors were outwardly ill-fitted to society, while my mother’s forebears had more decorum, but certainly had their fair share of dirty laundry, so to speak.

I loved my maternal Grandfather, but never really knew or cared for my father’s father. I remember him being a somewhat grumpy old man with a mean little Chihuahua named, Tippy, who would growl at you if it wasn’t trying to hump you. That dog summed up my father’s side of the family to me. My uncle, Chuck, was a burly man, like my father, whom I barely recall, but I do remember his wife, my Aunt Shirley, who was so kind, and pretty, having what my mother called ‘spanking blue eyes’. She also had long fingernails and would chase my brothers with her hands curled, claw-like, toward them. She was the only good thing about my Dad’s family, as far as I was concerned. I don’t remember my Dad’s mother at all. I think we visited with them twice, that I can remember, because they lived in another state, several hours away.

My mother’s family lived mostly nearby, which is probably why I have such a drive to stay near my siblings and mother as well. I often think about my mother’s family in terms of how we all ‘turned out’. My mother was the last of eleven children, all born in the depression era, five boys and six girls. My mother was the surprise baby, born after my Grandmother thought she was fertile anymore. My mother was born into a hard-working family, my grandfather and several of his sons worked on the railroad, while several others made military careers. The women in the family mostly ran their families, and a few held outside jobs, or pursued passions other than domestic concerns, but they all fared well, mostly.

My mother is the only child whose marriage ended in divorce, the only child who married an unpredictable, angry man, and the only child, that we know of, whose first child was the outcome of a rape, that she was nearly disowned for keeping after being sent to a home for unwed mothers with the express purpose of giving up her child upon birth. My mother stayed with one of her older sisters for a while, and her parents finally relented and let her go home with my eldest brother. She flailed for some time, but found work, and an apartment, and shortly after met my father. He was in the navy, handsome, and fresh out of a hellacious home life, and a disastrous first marriage.

I saw Back To The Future, when it first came out, and I remember thinking that my life would have been so much better if my mother had made a better choice to begin with. Of course, were that the case, I likely wouldn’t have been born, so it was a moot point, but I would gladly not have been born to have spared my mother from my father.

My grandfather was kind to me, and used to call me ‘tiger eyes’. He would also buy me Lucky Charms cereal, a treat my mother would never have approved of, but he also used to give me Jordan Almonds, which I hated, and still do. I enjoyed visits from my Grandpa Brousseau, and vaguely remember my Grandma Brousseau, who died when I was just three. It’s odd that I still feel connected to her even though I never really knew her. I suppose it’s a testament to how much my grandfather meant to me that my grandmother means just as much. My grandfather was kind to me, but he was also strict. One of the first things he’d demand upon seeing us was to show him our fingernails. It was important to him that we keep our hands and fingernails clean. I guess that was his determination of good breeding. Thankfully, we usually had enough warning of his visits to clean our fingernails before he arrived.

I remember visiting my grandfather in the last few years of his life, and he said how tired he was. He could barely hear anymore, and was fairly blind, losing his two favorite pastimes: listening to baseball games on the radio, and reading the newspaper. He said he didn’t know why he kept waking up every day, and that was one of the saddest things to hear.

It’s hard to see someone you remember as robust seeming so frail and lackluster. During my last visit, when I was in my twenties, he asked me to come sit next to him on his bed, and then he asked me to comb his hair. I wish I had the understanding that I do now. I was so embarrassed because it seemed like such a silly request to me then. I’d give anything to go back with the understanding I have now and comb his hair – and he still had a fair amount of hair even at a hundred. I recognize his request as a way to connect with me, but I was too self-conscious then. It wasn’t like when I was eight and would have combed his hair gleefully. I can’t get that time back, and all I hope is that my grandfather’s spirit knows that I understand now, and that I’m sorry I was so awkward then that he took the comb out of my hand and said ‘never mind’.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I love you, wherever you are.

Here’s a video link to a short video shot by one of my cousins when my Grandpa Brousseau was 101: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV-gmdb-w3A

Streetcar Dreams

November 17, 2012November 17, 2012 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

I brought a new character into the play, in my dream, last night – a child. In the beginning of the dream, the child wasn’t known to me, but later she was a girl I have worked with on a couple of other shows. She threw up in the rehearsal space/apartment the cast was staying at, and she threw up on the stage. No one was cleaning it up, and I couldn’t find anything to mop it up myself. I was so anxious about not stepping in it, and of getting it cleaned up before we would be performing that evening.

An old boyfriend of mine was outside in a parking lot, perhaps of the theater we were bringing the show to. He was taller and broader than I remembered him, and was aged several years, as he would be, and I thought, ‘oh, maybe we’ll get back together!’, but when I said hello to him, and asked about his life, he looked somewhat disdainfully at me and told me he’s married, and works for himself.

Houses represent the self, so perhaps this show is helping my ‘inner child’ purge the emotional vestiges from my young life, or perhaps the opposite is true and I need to purge Blanche’s character out of me. No matter what the similarities are, we are not the same. I have options, and I am availing myself of those options.

This has been a lonely experience, but also a gratifying one in learning the lines, and being present to the other actors as best I can, bringing an excellent production to the community. We have two more shows before the run is through, and I am looking forward to re-organizing my life once the play closes.

First Show Weekend Done

November 13, 2012November 13, 2012 / Hermionejh / 14 Comments

The intensity of playing Blanche DuBois is slowly receding, but we have a pick-up rehearsal on Thursday, and then the last shows over next weekend. I’ve been sad that we’ve had a sparse audience, but happy that we’ve got a great show – well worth the $12 dollar ticket price.

It’s been an interesting journey, and I have much more confidence that I can tackle most anything now. I understand Blanche the way I was always going to understand her, but more deeply now. She has much more depth, and even strength, than I’ve heard most people attribute to her, but Blanche is doomed, no matter what.

My dreams keep writing Blanche’s character differently. She has more to say, and isn’t alright with her fate as written. That’s good news, isn’t it? My psyche isn’t willing to resign her to what’s been told. In my mind, she heals in the institution. Her psychotic break isn’t permanent. The beauty of that ending is that I know it happens. People go through horrific things and continue on, relatively intact.

I gave my best performances, and will continue to. I have enjoyed evolving through each night. I find a different nuance to Blanche’s character, or a better way to interact with the other characters. Theater is beautiful because unlike life, you get to do the same thing over and over, and maybe not create different results, but bring something more to each performance.

September 26th, 2012

September 26, 2012September 26, 2012 / Hermionejh / 8 Comments

Happy Birthday to my beautiful son. He is the best thing I have ever done, although I take no credit for his amazing capacities and talents. He is his own person; I just ate well while he was growing inside me, and then made sure I fed him good food, gave him as many opportunities as I could afford, or could imagine, and taught him to appreciate reading, which he now loves. His cognitive intelligence exceeded mine when he was about twelve, but my emotional intelligence stills beats his – hah!

He is bound to fare better in his life than I did in mine, and that is the best a parent can ask for. I love you, my dear boy/man.

Through The Years

April 27, 2012April 30, 2012 / Hermionejh / 12 Comments

My son is getting his first apartment with college friends. I’m pretending it’s not a big deal. I mean, he’s been away at college for two years now, so, it’s basically the same thing. Except it isn’t. He’s had his bed and most of his stuff here, and in three days and several hours, it will all be gone. I’m trying to stay in the moment, and not trouble trouble until trouble troubles me, as the saying goes.

I was in my son’s room packing up what I can until he gets here and pares down what he wants to get rid of. He already told me he’s not sentimental and doesn’t want his old school year books, or photos, or other keepsakes, but I am sentimental, so I’m keeping most of it. He may have a wife and/or children some day who will actually enjoy seeing some of the things from his youth. It isn’t exactly archeology, but it is history, and I loved seeing my ex-boyfriends’ childhood pictures. It’s a way to connect the past to the present and beyond. I so enjoy looking at my Mom and Dad’s pictures of their youth and childhood. Ever since my Dad died several years ago, those pictures have taken on more meaning. Even though I often rail against life, I also revel in life’s complexity and variety. I embrace change as much as I loathe it. I may not like changing all the time, but as long as I have company, it’s really not too bad.

I’ll be fine with this new life passage, I’m just not overjoyed. I also know that many people are overjoyed to have their personal time back when their children get older and leave home, and maybe I’ll feel that way, eventually.

Christmas Eves

December 24, 2011December 25, 2011 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

1989: I spent the evening with Joe; I moved in with him here in Vernon, Vermont, a few weeks ago. I’m happy that there’s snow on the ground so it will be a white Christmas. My brother, Scott, died in October, and I’m sad for my mom this holiday season. I still feel nothing. I don’t know why death doesn’t affect me directly, I guess that’s a coping mechanism.

1990: Our son’s first Christmas. He’s only two months old, so it’s not really a big deal for him, but Joe’s daughter is spending Christmas morning with us, and she’ll be happy to get the Super Nintendo game system with, The Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, and, Donkey Kong, games, and spend time with her brother. Things have not been good between Joe and I, but we’re trying to work it out.

1991: My father and step-mother are visiting from Florida. I’m happy that my father is getting to spend some time with his grandson, although it’s been kind of awkward when they’re here because my mom is spending Christmas here in my new apartment.

1992: I’m in my new apartment in South Portland, Maine. My mom is here with me, and there is a lot of snow this winter, which Austen loves to play in. My car broke down a few weeks after moving in here, and I can’t afford another one, but there’s a bus stop down at the end of the street, and a few of the Bahá’í‘s here in South Portland bring me to run errands once a week. Joe is visiting over the holidays, and it’s been horrible and stressful – as usual.

1994: San Diego Christmas is quite different from what I’m used to. It’s not really warm, about the mid-50°F’s, and rainy, but the air feels different, and I’m not sure I like it. I’m at a 10-day program because I don’t want to live anymore but Tammy convinced me to see if this will help me. I’ll get a counselor, and start an antidepressant, and I know it’s what I need to do, but I feel horrible being away for Christmas.

1996: Back in Massachusetts. My mother is spending Christmas with me and Austen in our tiny apartment. Things have been awful. I’m still not getting child support, so that just makes everything tougher.

1999: It’s been a strange year. I’m wondering if the Y2K thing is really going to screw up computers worldwide – I doubt it. I told Austen that Santa was a real person a long time ago, and his spirit still lives on through all of us. The other kids at school were picking on him for still believing in Santa. He refused to believe me when I told him Santa isn’t still alive. I don’t know if I did the right thing.

2001: I consider this the millennium year, even though I know many people considered 2000 to be the turn of the century. I guess it’s both: 2000 because it’s no longer 19-something, but 2001 because CE started with year 1, so 2001 makes two-thousand years. We’re still here, although a bunch of freaks were trying to convince whomever they could that the world was going to end.

2011: I think my favorite aspect of Christmas Eve is filling my son’s stocking. When he was little, it was so gratifying to see his delight, and share in how fun Christmas was for him. He used to love Christmas carols and we’d sing them together, and now he can barely stand them. He’s feeling so much better tonight, but still coughing a lot. I might watch, It’s A Wonderful Life, but I’m feeling tired, so maybe I’ll just go to sleep. My throat is feeling a bit scratchy, and I hope I don’t get sick too.

This year has been so strange. As I looked back through old diaries and read so much of where I’ve been, and what my life is like now, I appreciate now so much. I don’t care if someone reads my old journals someday, but I sincerely doubt they’d read for very long. I’m just grateful that I’m not as affected by the vicissitudes of life anymore. I also did a great deal of healing work to get where I am now, and will most likely finish that work with my last breath. I’m thankful to be alive, and hope I won’t die until I accomplish most, if not all, of my goals.

Son Day

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I’m so excited to see my son today! I get to have him home an extra day for the Thanksgiving holiday, even though most of his time will be spent with his friends who are also coming home for the holiday. Just knowing he’ll be here feels so good to me, although I know it feels nearly opposite to him. It’s not that he doesn’t like being home and seeing me and his other family, it’s that his life is at school now, with his own group. He told me he doesn’t sleep well when he’s home, and doesn’t know why. I think it’s because he’d rather be in his world. We will always belong to one another, but he has his own life now, one in which he sleeps better than when he’s here…

It made me sad to hear that, but I got over it. It’s not personal in a mean way, it’s just life stages. I had a really different childhood experience, and was separated too early from my mother, after her divorce from my father (which was a very good thing for all of us, but still disruptive and chaotic). My son got to have a healthy, self-directed separation, and he’s so much less emotional or sentimental than I am, so it sucks for me…

We have the same sense of humor and like to talk about a myriad of subjects (when he’s willing to talk), but when he’s home and not with his friends, he prefers to spend his time reading or working on the computer.

I’m doing my best to find common interests to connect with him on, but it’s tough when our personalities and styles are so different. Maybe if he ever has children, we’ll get to re-bond then.

Westward Ho!

November 16, 2011December 1, 2011 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

“I just can’t take it anymore,” I complained to Tammy, cradling the phone with my neck while I finished washing the dishes. “I need a serious change and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, why don’t you come live out here with me and Dean? That way you have a place to stay for a while until you get on your feet, and I’m happy to help out.”

I was quiet on the phone for a minute. “Wow”, I finally said through my tears. “Really, you’d do that for me? You do remember what it’s like to live with a three-year old, right?”

Tammy laughed and said: “Yes, and I miss having a little boy around. Danny wants to continue living with his father in New Hampshire, and that’s been really hard for me, but he’s thirteen, and he has good friends there, and I just have to accept that I’m only going to see him for vacations. I think it’ll be good for both of us if you come live out here.”

“Let me think about it some more, and I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m here for you, whether you stay in Maine, or come out to San Diego.”

“Thanks, Tammy. I love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

“Bye.”

That conversation in March of 1994 changed my life. I had a new option, and while I had friends and some support where I was, I was a single mom in poverty, with no car and only a part-time job that I was about to lose. It snowed over a hundred inches that winter in South Portland, Maine, and I was very close to giving up my son to his alcohol-addicted father, and committing suicide. I had a plan, and I was getting the courage to implement it when chance circumstances re-connected me with a friend I hadn’t talked to in nearly ten years.

Imagining a different life helped make the life I was in a bit more tolerable, and I began preparations to make the move. Several friends and relatives told me that it would be stupid to move so far away with someone I hadn’t seen in so long, even though we had been best friends through high school, and I had a young child to consider, and what was I thinking, dragging him across the country?

The other contingent, whom I sided with, saw it as an opportunity to better myself and give my son a chance at a better life too. As I went, so went my son, type of thing.

I made my decision, and Tammy, who was going to fly back East in July to stay with her father for a few weeks while spending time with her son, decided to drive out with a friend, and bring me and my son back out with them on their return trip.

She had a pick-up truck with a tall shell for the truck bed, which she furnished with a mattress, and I was to sell my beds and other large belongings because they wouldn’t fit in the small trailer we’d rent for the trip back to California. She had a guest room with a bed that my son would sleep on, and I would stay on the couch until I found work and could buy new beds. I sold all of our big furniture, and kept my son’s books and most of his toys, as well as dishes and whatever else could fit in the trailer, because we’d be taking turns driving while one of us slept in the back of the truck. I ended up paying for one night in a motel room so we could have a shower and get a decent night’s sleep.

My boyfriend at the time and I had a rocky relationship, but we liked each other enough to work through issues. He asked me to stay in Maine, but conceded that he didn’t know where he saw our relationship going. The week before I left, he told me he would have asked me to marry him if I didn’t have a child. After he said that, I knew leaving was the right decision. So many choices in my life translated to ‘damned if I don’t, damned if I do’ propositions.

August 4th, moving day: Tammy and her friend, Ann, were to arrive around Noon. I spent the morning cleaning my apartment, and bringing whatever didn’t sell, and I didn’t want, outside to bring to the dump when my friend arrived. My son was upset that most of our things were gone, and he didn’t want to go anywhere. By the time Tammy got there, I was sweaty and irritated, and wondering if this had been such a good idea after all.

It was really good to see Tammy, and Ann and I pretty much instantly disliked one another. She made some remark about my attitude, and I was kind of stunned that this person I barely knew was openly judging me after having worked my ass off all morning, with a crabby child in tow, and no other help. “Fuck you”, I wish I had said, but having a bit more grace than her, I fluffed it off and asked Tammy if she’d bring the junk pile to the dump, while I got some lunch for my son and played with him for a while. She, being a parent herself, was completely empathetic about my state of mind, and told me to take a break, and she’d deal with the trash and help me finish whatever cleaning was left to do later.

It took several more hours than expected to finish up, rent the trailer, and make sure we were ready to hit the road. We left Maine around 5pm, with my son and I in the back of the truck for the overnight drive. Luckily the truck’s motion put my son to sleep fairly soon, but I had too much anxiety, so I slept very little.

We drove through the night, choosing a route through the Poconos, which Tammy later told me creeped her out because Ann had fallen asleep, and my son and I were out of view in the way back – the window into the cab being hidden behind boxes, blankets, and pillows – and she was thinking about the Sleepy Hollow legend, imagining seeing the Headless Horseman as she drove through the darkness, with few other travelers that late. We could have kept each other company, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable leaving my son in the back of the truck where I wouldn’t know what was going on with him, or with Ann, who wasn’t fond of children.

I drove the next morning, our route taking us through most of Ohio, and then down through Kentucky, and finally into Tennessee where we would stay on I-40 for the bulk of the trip.

We stayed in a motel in Tennessee the one night we didn’t drive through. One bane of the trip was automatic flush toilets, which seemed to be installed at every stop we made, and which my son was afraid of, along with any loud, not-easily understood noises, so we had to find rest stops with a Port-A-Potty (or a wooded area) for most of the journey.

By the third day, we were all miserable, and my son was the only one vocalizing it freely and frequently, to which Ann questioned my child-rearing style of just letting him complain. I told her I had learned to tune out most of what he said, and did my best to keep him entertained by imitating his favorite Sesame Street characters voices, while making up stories, singing songs, and playing games, which seemed to annoy Ann, and made it even more pleasurable for me. Poor Tammy was caught between trying to support her friend, but enjoying being with my son, grumpy or not.

I’m sure Ann was most happy when my son and I were riding in the back of the truck, or when she was back there sleeping. I was most happy when it was just Tammy, my son, and I, riding up front. I was driving when we neared Flagstaff, Arizona, and I saw a ‘Grand Canyon, 50 miles’ sign. Ann was riding up front with me and my son, and I asked her if it would be ok if we took a detour as I had never seen the Grand Canyon, and thought it would be a perfect opportunity. Ann said she’d rather not, but if Tammy was willing, then she’d go along with it. The hitch was that I’d have to wake Tammy up to ask her, and I didn’t want to interrupt her sleep, so we continued on into California where Ann took over the driving until we reached her apartment in Ocean Beach.

I’ve always regretted not making a unilateral decision and just driving to the Grand Canyon because I still have not been there.

I was talking to Tammy on the phone the other day, both of us amazed at how much time has gone by, and she suggested I move back out once my son is through college, and I’m seriously considering it.