Little Story #27

The mommie and I didn't do well during my teen years. There was the normal stuff that mothers and daughters go through but it happened while so many other changes were shaking us both. I left home when I was 17, a few days after graduation. The mommie said she cried harder than she had ever cried. I cried too.
And.
I was back in a few months.
I registered at the local community college. I got a job at a upscale hamburger place. I found an apartment with a friend. Then my own tiny studio. And then I got hit by the truck,
And.
I was back.
It's funny when I look back at it but it wasn't funny then. I just could not get my adult life going.
Because the dog had caused me to step into the truck we sued the dog owner. They should have had the dog contained. It felt weird but I wasn't actively doing it. The mommie was. I got enough money to get to San Francisco, which was the last time I left home. I still wandered around with no real focus for years.
When the mommie and I talked on the phone it was always tense. She wanted me to go to college and be a more "normal" person. I didn't feel like I wasn't "normal". Years of tension went by.
We both started watching the soap opera, Days of Our Lives. We could talk for hours about it without fighting. There were good guys and bad guys and a few guys you could argue about but it wasn't real so the arguing felt fun. Slowly we repaired our relationship.
And then she started visiting me with out K. We had lots of time to talk. She bummed cigarettes from me. She ate the candy I kept in a jar. I worried that I was giving her lung Cancer and Diabetes. We had the one on one time we had always had when I was a kid. Things got better.
In some ways they never got to where we might have wanted them. She still wanted me to be something that I just wasn't ever going to be. We had been so close when I was a kid and we never got back there.
Once she told me she realized that she and Grandmom's relationship had become so fractured at the end. She didn't want that to happen to us. That relationship fell apart because the mommie wanted to have her own life, much like I did. I appreciated that she wanted to have a better relationship.
The mommie's dementia was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch. But it gave us a gift. We had a lot of time together. We played. We sang songs. I was the adult and she became the child. It was distorted but very sweet.
And.
Then she was gone.

Little Story #26

When I write memoir the mommie is going to be part of that story. She was central in my life. My dad not as much. There isn't much to say. My maternal grandparents are a big part of my story since I lived with them for so long. It's something I worry about to some degree. In telling my story I'm telling theirs. Is that fair? Maybe not and maybe they'd have something to say about the way I'm telling it. Memoirists are thieves. If you are friends with or related to a writer be prepared to see yourself on a page.
I tried to draw a line at the aunts, uncles and cousins but they were also very central when I was young. We all gathered at Grandma's house on Sundays after church, on holidays. One set of cousins lived across the street for awhile. In my early years the family grew as Uncle John began his family. I felt myself to be part of a big extended family.
And then.
Uncle John and family moved to Maryland. The mommie and I moved into a small apartment. Grandmom fell on the stairs. She and Poppop went into the Methodist home. One of my maternal aunts died. The mommie and I moved to Maryland. Poppop died and soon after grandmom died. The big family gathering up stopped. There were a few attempts but it just didn't work. It was part of a list of things that happened during my preteen and teen age years.
After church we stopped at Islay's and bought a bunch of chipped ham. Islay's was famous for their chipped ham. We bought Wise potato chips and hamburger buns. That was Sunday lunch with all the cousins. Years later the mommie and I tried to recreate it when we were in Pittsburgh.
But.
You know.
You really can't go home again.

Little Story #25

When you work in an open kitchen you're kind of - on a stage. Sometimes the work demands your attention and you forget that people can see you. Sometimes (most times) people are eating and not watching you.
One afternoon my friend and I were working the front of the line. We noticed two young women smiling at us. Were they flirting? Were they about to ask for a job? Finally they walked up to the pass bar and one said - it's great to see women in the kitchen. We smiled and said thank you.
They meant a professional kitchen of course. There was a rather extreme irony in the idea though. Women have been trying to get out of the kitchen and into the work place. My work place was a kitchen and it was (is) male dominated.
In one of my early jobs I washed dishes. The chef was upset when I was hired because he swore a lot and didn't want to stop. One day something pissed me off. I don't remember. Probably trying to get baked on egg white off a poach pan. I launched into a string of invective that (as the mommie might say) would make a sailor blush. The chef relaxed. He got me out of the dish room and onto the line. He fed me the first asparagus that didn't make me gag. He taught me all the mother sauces, which I didn't realize were the mother sauces. He taught me how to roll a quiche dough that wouldn't leak.
I've worked in kitchens all around the country. I can swear in five languages including Mayan. There is a way in which my work life was about learning how to make men comfortable. I didn't really think of that way. I liked swearing. I didn't mind licentious jabbering. I never saw direct harassment. I was really lucky. I worked in many restaurants owned by women and, for the most part, I worked with really nice people. And I managed most of the kitchen I worked in. What ever discomfort men may have felt working for me they hid pretty well.
Professional kitchens are rough and tumble. And yet...
In one place we were doing a game menu for the month. We did a roasted boar and fried rabbit. My coworker was really good at butchery. He'd had an uncle who taught him. His job was to cut the whole rabbits into smaller parts, something we did with chicken daily. The rabbit arrived with their little furry feet still attached. This guy was a really large man with tattoos and piercings. He was a very gentle loving soul but to look at him you'd think he was quite rough.
I looked over and realized his head was down and he wasn't cutting up the rabbits. Then I realized he had tears in his eyes. I said - you OK? He looked up - it's the feet. The little furry feet. And then he walked out of the kitchen.
And then he came back and did his job.

Little Story #24 - 65

In the last month of the mommie's pregnancy she saw some spotting. It wouldn't have necessarily been a big deal but she'd had one miscarriage and was nervous. She went to the (Catholic) hospital where the nuns told her the doctor was there so she might as well have her baby. She's not clear about if they induced. She doesn't remember drugs or labor. She just wanted to go back to sleep and then I was born. I was a month early. I weighted five pounds. The doctor said if I gained weight I could go home. If I lost weight I'd need to be in an incubator. I really wanted to go home.
During the rebirthing years I picked my birth story apart. I'd been kicked out of my first home so I had trouble relaxing into any place I ever lived. In the last month of pregnancy a baby gains weight. I hadn't been able to do that so I gained weight. I didn't want to be in the incubator so I gained weight. I hadn't been able to work my way out of the womb so I give up and wait for help. Maybe all this is true and maybe it doesn't matter. I like thinking deeply and I like analyzing. I like inner work. I think it's important to try and understand why you are who you are. And then it's important to learn how to hold that story.
I heard a story on one of the podcasts I listen to about a woman being taken away from her children. It may have been Nazi Germany or Russia, I don't remember. She looked back at them and said - never lose your sense of humor. For me that story holds the idea that terrible things are going to happen. You're going to experience terrible things. You're going to need to grieve them, rage about them and you're going to need to hold them. A sense of humor really helps.
I am 65 years old. How? Did? That? HAPPEN????? I'm on social security and Medicare. I use a walker. My chin looks like my grandmother's chin. I mean. How? Did? This? Bleepin? Happen? To ME!!!!
You really need a sense of humor.
People are going to say happy birthday and I'm going to smile and say thank you. It's hard to be happy right now. The current administration keeps me in a constant rage. The endless wars in Yemen and Syria. Palestinian apartheid. The news last night made me feel like I was going to explode.
For today I'm going to narrow my focus.  I'm going to go swimming with Gayle. I'm going to get a massage from Guy. I'm going to dinner with Mandy, Jane, DeAnna and Gayle. I'm going to have a martini, steak and fries, a glass of red wine and chocolate cake. I'm going to settle into my senior citizenship. I have no idea what I mean by that.
I guess we'll see.

Little Story #23

For a few years I put bands together and tried to find gigs. Musicians always got paid. I never did. Of all the things that happened in my life, this time of trying to do what I didn't believe I could do - be a singer in a band - this time is hardest to remember. I drank too much. I smoked too much. I did known poisonous substances with abandon. Trying to live the rock-n-roll life style when I didn't always have a band felt foolish and desperate. Every time I did get to sing I felt like was all worth it. Those few shiny moments when I sounded OK. When I wasn't too drunk and acting the fool. When the faces in front of me were all smiles. When strangers came up to me and told me they loved me.
I was always battling the feeling of just not being good enough. I think a lot of creative people feel this way.
There are musicians who work. They work at being better. They work at staying actively employed.  I admire them so much.
I went to New York and studied with a teacher. I did a few showcases with him. I never sang that well in them.
I never made a choice to stop singing. I just stopped. And I mean. I stopped. I rarely sing.
When I had that blue record player stacked up with forty-fives I sang. I sang for hours. I closed my eyes and opened my throat and I sang. I did that through my early twenties. It was like my heart needed to feel that sound. But when I couldn't find my footing in the music industry my heart closed.
I know musicians who are so much more talented than I am and they are working away with out recognition or profit. It's a hard life in many respects.  I don't think they love music more than I do/did. I just couldn't find my way.
Recently I've written about being molested, rejected, abandoned. None of it was as much of a struggle or as painful  as writing about this has been. I don't think I knew it would be.

Little Story #22

When I was in high school I had a girl band with four of my friends. We sang Goin to The Chapel and California Dreamin. We did silly little dance moves. I sang in choir and madrigals. I was in the musicals. I played the queen in Once Upon a Mattress. I wanted to sing.
I'm not sure I have the time line of my musical career down. I know the little bit of time on stage with Mark gave me the courage I needed to put together my own band.
There was a band in town called Fat Chance. I asked them if they'd do a gig with me. I'd open for them with a few songs. We would call the gig Two Tons of Fun! There was a place in the mountains, a short drive from Boulder. I wish I could remember more detail. It was kind of a big barn. I rented it, made posters and sold tickets.
My friend Tom Sayers helped me to put together a band. I don't remember if Bradley Kopp was involved. Bradley was one of the first people who supported me. He played guitar in many of my first gigs. I also don't remember who else played, which makes me really sad.
Fat Chance was touring around and they were tired. If I couldn't guarantee a certain amount of money they were not going to show up. I couldn't. Tom paid it.
Looking back I am aware of how many men were involved in getting me on stage. I am grateful.
That gig didn't go particularly well. I think I only sang four or five songs. I still wasn't sure I could really do it. Put together a band. Book a club. Get people to show up.
The next time I tried was my birthday. Again, Poonah helped. He walked me into the office of a club, The Blue Note. My birthday was on a Sunday, a typically slow night in the clubs. We convinced the manager I could draw enough of a crowd it to make it worth being open. I know Bradley was involved in that band I think Lorrie Singer sang back up. Tom Wasinger may have sat in Poonah might have played bass but, again, I don't remember everyone and, again, I feel sad about that.
Musicians weren't that excited about playing in a band that wasn't - cool. I had a lot of friends. Many of which were musicians. But they didn't think of me as talented or - cool. I have a good voice but not a great voice. It's not strong or innovative. I do have fun on stage. I do know how to pick songs and put a show together.
I filled the Blue Note with purple balloons with silver ribbons. I promoted the gig at the Diner. I filled the club. It was successful and confusing. The fellow I wrote about a few posts back showed up with another woman. (I was wearing a real gardenia in my hair. She had a cloth flower in hers.) (I mean.) (Come on.)
It felt like a dream come true but I wasn't sure how it had. I wasn't sure if it was real.

Little Story #21

When I was in India Baba shaved my head. Many people had their head shaved but not many had it done by Baba. Just before I went to India I'd had a perm. I have a lot of hair. It took three hairdressers and hours to get my hair permed. They weren't happy when I came home with it shaved off. Baba asked if there was something in my hair and I told him. He said - don't do that again. HA!

The head shaving thing was about commitment and devotion. I had a scarf that I bought there, which I wore to protect my scalp from the sun. When I came home I wore it to avoid talking about having a bald head. People thought I was making  a fashion statement. 

I wish I had a picture. 

I  was sort of homeless when I came home. I did a lot of couch surfing. I ate breakfast at the Diner. I wandered from cafe to cafe. I babysat and read Tarot cards for what money I did have. I wore a long draw string skirt, a baggy dolman sleeve blouse, Birkenstocks and that scarf. I was a mass of material moving through the world. 

I really wish I had a picture.

I also followed different bands and musicians around from club to club. Mark Hallman had a band at the time. My friend Poonah played in that band. I haven't seen Poonah in a long time. He wants to be called Rob now. And I understand that but then he was Poonah and it was a name that held his personality. He must have told Mark how much I wanted to be in a band because one night Mark called me up on stage. Me with my bald head and layers of material.
He called a few people. We sang on the chorus of a I'm Looking For a Miracle. So ... we sang I'm looking for a miracle three times. It wasn't much but for me it was HUGE! I remember Poonah hugging me after the song. I was shaking from head to toe.
One morning Jimmy Tuttle came into the Diner. He'd been making a poster and saw a font called Fat Shadow. He thought Mark should call the rhythm section FatShadow because a fat rhythm section is a good thing. I begged for the name and I've been using it ever since.
For me it's about my actual shadow, which is fat. And the use of the word in Jungian psychology to describe the unconscious. There are a lot of ways to think about that. Some call it the dark side but it's also where so much of our story lives. I feel like we can sink into it and find a source of empathy, insight, creativity and fun. So I like to think that my shadow is fat.