6. September 2009 by CarolesJournals.

Excerpt from Carole’s Journal:

The man I called Bear - another capricorn another father figure I remember thinking

“We are all looking for Charles Manson to tell us what to do”  That was probably truer

than I thought - again looking at myself and all this self-hatred - I kept looking for someone

to follow - Bear had it all the Capricorn, testosterone, plus the mystery of spending time

in jail - What is that appeal? that persona that force I was attracted like a moth

to the flame. I was very hurt, disappointed, and numb by Bear and Susie –

I was emotionally gone - dead. I remember the night I thought I should

walk off the roof of the house. I wanted to die, end it all - I was so disappointed,

sad and confused - I didn’t go off of the roof and the next day I met Bawa.

I have never discussed this night with anyone - including myself.

this is important

At issue was Susie and Bear leaving for California. So now I see Abandonment -

neglect - my doing something wrong to cause them to leave me I felt betrayed -

no support I was miserable - going back to B-town.   R.R. opened a door -

what was I thinking? He was good looking, very bright, he introduced me to the work

I was attracted to the distraction and the glitter - Being in the center of everything.

Big shot ism at its best

Mary’s commentary:

   As if it isn’t crazy enough that my mom thought of Charles Manson as someone to look for to tell her what to do. The way she dealt with it was the real crazy making part for me. I remember watching TV with my mom one night when I was about 13 yrs old, and their was an advertisement for an interview with Charles Manson. It seemed like a big deal and I wanted to watch it. At the time I didn’t really know that much about the man or what he had done. I asked if we could watch it, and my mother went off on one her long tirades about how evil he was and how mislead and easily manipulated those people were. How stupid they had been for following him at all, with her ever present air of “I would never do anything like that, I would never not think for myself, I would never do anything to hurt other people so much”. At the time I was disappointed that I couldn’t watch the interview, but didn’t think that much of her over reaction to it.

   When Frank sent me this posting it put that night in a different light for me. She was deeply embarrassed that she had thought so highly of Charles Manson, and still pissed off that her friends had gone to California without her. I understand not wanting to admit that she was into the Helter Skelter thing. But what really bakes my noodle is that she was so over the top with her judgment of them and herself that she had to change her life story; to admit that she had anything at all to do with them. But that is, after all, how she rolled. My mom changed her facts and even her own experiences to fit her mood or her current philosophies. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not talking about normal emotion growth, like learning life’s lessons, growing through your pain and experiences to become a better person. That’s not what my mom did. She would just change her story. Actually, she would change all her stores to make them fit together. There was no admitting she was ever wrong, or even that she has learned something. Just that she was better then everyone else, or that she knew more than others, or that she had all the answers.

   Now that I’m older, and dare I say “grown up”, I look back at my childhood with so much emotion sometimes; anger, pity, grief. The list goes on. It’s a wonder that I’m sane at all. And I think that ignorance may have in fact been my saving grace. How else could I have come through? I think that if I had known then what I know now; that my mother, the woman who once slapped one her 5th grade students just for “lying” to her, the person who was constantly punishing me and my siblings for lying to her, never really told the truth about herself or her life. I think it would have crushed me. It’s hard enough to wrap my mind around it now with an adult frame of mind. But as child, it would have been too much bear.

Posted in Carole's Journals | 2 Comments »

11. March 2009 by Frank.

An Unmailed Letter. September of 1976

L.,

     How do you expect me to reply to your letter? Would you have me say - Oh, please R. lets fill our house with junk so that there is no possible way to keep it all clean? Yes R. please see that you stay away as late as possible and come home drunker than anyone else to save the souls of those you drink with and that way too you can avoid all of the children almost 98% of the time. Yes please R. give our house key to every drunk you see and please make it impossible for me to even begin to fulfill my duties to my children.

     L, it is no longer feasible for me to be donkey doo mate for others. If R. can see this and I really believe he can then R. can make a choice between living with a woman, wife, mother, friend, and living with a drunken poet. It appears that the drunken poet is in residence and I am attempting to face a life without the man, husband, father, friend whose presence is missed and loved with every fiber of my being.

     But there is not way that I can beg anything from R.. My responsibility must be towards a positive relationship with my children, my family, myself, God, and my work towards finding something higher in myself. It was no longer possible for me to do anything toward these goals in the extreme chaos of Fifth Street.

     My feelings for R. are very deep and very real. It is quite likely that there will never be another man in my life. Certainly we would be with him now however, L, we have not been asked. We have closed no doors and are quite open for any invitation. We are all suffering.

Topical excerpt from another letter from same time period:

     This may or may not be time to speak of R.. My emotional unbalance could not handle the psychotic personalities he was including in our household. To have men crawling through our windows at any hour of the AM, in any condition was very startling to my being. I could not tolerate awoken in that way and then to listen to them vomiting for hours after that was to difficult for me at present, to gain some objective distance from. When we had to discuss these matters that were pertinent to our relationship R. automatically fell into the role of male chauvinist and refused to discuss anything. It is apparent to me that R. and I are together because of an instinctive caring for one another. But that caring without the reality of God had always been a question for me.

     We are all well physically. We are all still in a state of needing R..

We are all Suffering.

     My mom wrote these letters after moving myself and my two sisters out of the city and into the hills of upstate PA to a little log cabin by a stream on my uncle’s family property. My grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins lived less than a mile up the road. I was seven at the time, Gen and Mary were six and two. I had no idea at the time why we moved away from Philly, and out of the house we had shared for three years with my stepfather R.. In reading her letters I now know that he had cheated on her. We spent the entire school year in the cabin before returning to R. and the city.

     In reading these letters I am glad I was such a heavy sleeper at that age, and was not up to hear all the drunks climbing in the windows and throwing up just down the hall from my room all night long. What blows my mind is the fact that my mom would move us all back to that environment. My stepfather was a real charmer when he wanted something. My mom clearly states in these letters how much we were all suffering from missing him. How we all needed him. Mary was in diapers, so who knows how much she missed him. To Gen and me, he was the devil incarnate, sent from the pits of hell with the sole purpose of torturing us as much as humanly possible. I know what true, unbridled hate feels like, as I felt it deeply for this man.

     What absolutely crushes me the most about this particular time of my life was the fact that my mother saw enough pain and suffering from her relationship with this terrible man that she packed up her three children and moved us three hours away from him. Away from the chaotic, fucked up life we had with him. In reading these postings, I am sure you are getting a pretty clear picture of a very painful and confusing childhood. Alcoholism, drug addiction and insanity are not a good mixture for a well-adjusted childhood. This brief reprieve from the torture and insanity was perhaps made the rest more painful. I have searched my memories of that rather idyllic time in my life. Try as I might, I cannot come up with any crazy mom stories from that period.

     I went to school right up the road from the cabin and enjoyed it. I had friends. I played every day outside in the beautiful woods that surrounded our house. I got to see my grandparents several times a week. I played with my cousins regularly. Without my stepfather around, my mom spent more time being a mom. She baked cookies and made candy on the stove. These are my memories of that time. Pulling us away from that chance at freedom was so typical of her. She was a real carrot and stick mom. She didn’t dangle the carrot just out of reach. She let you eat the carrot, and then beat you with the stick for eating it.

     My evil stepfather drank more than anyone my mom had ever met, and that is really saying something. He did more drugs than everyone else. He cheated on her. He hit me and belittled me constantly. He molested my sister Gen every week of her young life. He ignored his own daughter Mary like it was his favorite hobby. My mom rescued all of us from that life. She got us out. We were safe. We were sound. We were surrounded by loving family members. We were living in a beatific paradise. Then, just like that, it was all gone. She brought us all back to the house of pain. And we hadn’t even disobeyed the law. We were not done suffering.

Posted in Carole's Journals | 2 Comments »

24. February 2009 by CarolesJournals.

February 3 or 4, 2006

Condition 2 weeks - strep throat pneumonia - grief based -

anger based - remorse

love ? myself

forgive myself

Why do you put a question mark there? Every time there is a question.

Basically I am cut off from my feelings. love is unknown to me.

at the core. So now I go back to Mom. over the years I have examined my

relationship with her and at times have felt forgiveness. but Now that I am

in this condition I am wondering about how isolated she was - unable to love.

almost like a parasite with my Dad as the host - My sister was the prize

I was forlorn, neglected, unwanted. an embarrassment - no good -

Non Compos Mentis -

I guessed at what I was supposed to be and somehow went on no feelings -

no attachments. numb. I had animals at the farm and briefly one small dog.

Boots -

Skipping ahead - I am going with this parasite idea - I needed definition -

a host a cause I wanted to get away from my family my role my non-existance

I met F. - who was very much like my father

Was I my mother the parasite princess?

Could be

I feel violated by my poor choices - why F., why R., why my poor choice in teachers?

And what about R.R.?

Gennyfer here: F. refers to Franks & my father R. refers to Mary’s father. No idea who R. R. was.

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