Fantastic and Amazing

: Disclaimer: I like deflecting the heavy moments with my own jokes and oddities. There is no specific order to this mess, but it’s a mess that is going to bring me so much success, my own head is going to spin right off like a top. Or, stop spinning. I want to hear you scream and yell and clap but most importantly I hope you laugh more than you cry in life, and may your tears be happy ones. I’m telling you my story to inspire you to be true to who you are, and if you have had similar feelings to mine along the way, you are not alone, and I want to love you through it. It’s taken me all my life to get the life I have now, where I am happy and my dreams come true every day, although they may be different from yours, we all use our experiences to become who we are. That is a lot of experiences from such unique and weird situations, from abusive father to a cult prophet that rapes children, to bank robbery to brother dying of Aids. I want to pour out my soul and share it all. I felt I should finally share me, with you. Let me get to the point. I lived in a cult. Everyone wants to know about that, so I will share my weird stuff, and add my own points of view about this part of my childhood in the upcoming chapters. But, there was so much more than just living in cult temporarily as a child before and after foster care. I like deflecting the heavy moments with my own jokes and oddities. There is no specific order to this mess, but it’s a mess that is going to bring me so much success my own head is going to spin. Or, stop spinning. I want to hear you scream and yell and clap but most importantly I hope you laugh more than you cry in life, and may your tears be happy ones. I know it’s hard. I’m sharing my story with you so that you know, I’m loving you through yours. CHAPTER 1. FROM THE BEGINNING A’bovo The truth is my life began with a lie, a con, and a crime. As a little girl I was to be seen and not heard, but I have a voice now, so it’s finally time to stand up and scream. Who are we, if we are not our pasts evolved? These are the scraps of debris from my past, my gathered torn up memories, painfully recreated from memories, journals, photographs, and long phone calls, to share with you the truth, all while also grinding out my technicolored past. I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the mid 70’s. Music like the Grateful Dead brought people together for love, John Lennon stood up for Peace, and Freedom Rally’s popped up across America. And in the middle of a college town, I was born in a hospital, but you can’t prove the birth ever even happened. My birth mom Beverley lied to the Doctors, used a fake name and ID, so that no one could find her. She was hiding from The Rainbow Children, or from my father who had no idea I existed (and still doesn’t). She used the nickname Rose. She inked a single rose into her porcelain skin, so she would be forever inked. Cannabis Amber Dawn. The cannabis is silent. My birth mother Beverley (Rose) named me, and wanted to call me “Mary-jane”. After I was born Beverley put me in an Indian leather papoose, swooped me up on her back and hitchhiked all the way to Dallas, Texas from Michigan with me on her back. The mid to late 70s was a tumultuous time in America. Women, African Americans, Native Americans, gays and lesbians and other marginalized people continued their fight for equality, and many Americans joined the protest against the ongoing war in Vietnam. My mother Beverley, a flower child, finding her way through,surviving her own traumas. She fit in, she stood out. After the umbilical cord was cut, we were on the road. Beverley went to the shop a few times for the atmosphere, and the drugs. It’s where she met Abovo head shop owners, Ross and Patricia, who would become my parents. I had a lot of parents. The Abovo Headshop was located in Deep Ellum, Texas. It was a small shop filled to the brim with colorful neon art posters, incense, candles, psychedelic bongs, pipes, and other paraphernalia. The smell of weed, wax and incense filled the air, music consuming the space Beverley was defiant, ferocious, daring, cloaked in alcoholism and addiction.
The shop was a meeting spot for those who believed in a cause. Sometimes the cause was to do nothing at all except hang out at the shop. Then there were those who had dreams, but maybe not the ambition. Ross, who owned A’bovo had big dreams. He had met Patricia, who had inherited the money to open the shop from her deceased husband, the introduction was made by Ross’s mother Nana. Ross left his current wife, and 6 month old baby, never looking back on them. His new life included this shop, and his new second wife Patricia. On a cold evening, as Ross was developing film and making blown up posters, which the shop was known for, he stayed late and was surprised when regular customer Beverley showed up with a baby on her back, enveloped in a fringed papoose. She was defiant, ferocious, daring, cloaked in alcoholism and addiction numbing her own traumatized childhood. “She sure is a pretty baby” he was quick witted, playful, and everyone liked him that didn’t know him. He grabbed a notebook off the glass countertop and started writing down numbers. “What’s that?” Beverley asked, warming. He would write down all the ways he was going to spend his lottery winnings. He wouldn’t gamble, he said. But he would excitedly explain how he would buy a lot of homes everywhere for all his friends. He was a fantastic and amazing dreamer. When Beverley spoke her voice was deep and raspy, sounding years older than her young 18. She was just coming out of her own shadowed past, unwed with a baby she couldn’t take care of which she carried, in an oversized Indian fringed papoose, on her back everywhere. Hand stitched pockets hid among engravings of flowers, the leather worn sturdy, the soft fur inside enveloping and protecting. Ross knew Beverley from a couple of prior visits to the shop, where she bought a few trinkets. “It’s too cold, I can’t afford heat and they turned it off and..” she trailed off before exhaling her ashen cigarette smoke, eyes a-flashing. “Lemme see,” Ross stuttered, his words full of pauses as he tries to speak quicker than the words roll from the tongue “I’ll call Patricia and ask her.” The bow was drawn, the arrow escapes.
 The call that opened the door of my childhood. Ross dialed Patricia, it rang and range as he waited for his wife to answer. The empty shop was intoxicating atmosphere, thick and warm air, punctuated by Nag Champa and cherry incense. Ross McElroy was friendly, talked to everyone and everyone liked talking to him. He would befriend the illegals, immigrants, radicals, activists and anyone else frittering. “She said “of course we can take her, bring me that baby!” So Ross told Beverley “Well, guess we can take her.” And he rushed back to the dark room in the back of the shop, he was distracted with the development of film. Beverley turns to go, but stops to look past me. I was left on the countertop alone, waiting on my destiny to come back and take me out of the papoose, but under the glass was a selection of new pipes. Rose gave me to a man she barely knew that she had met in a head shop. She laughed in a playful raspy voice, loud enough for him to hear her from the back, “Ross, can I borrow a pipe?..” she asked. Maybe it was celebration of the good news of being without a papoose full now, but either way, he answered “fine, take one” before she escaped me forever. He gave her a pipe, incense and she had previously been given a few other trinkets from the shop. Ross liked giving things away, and had little concept to the value of things. She opened the glass door, a bell rang from the sound of goodbye, and she left. Rose gave me to a man she barely knew that she had met in a head shop. “Can I borrow a pipe?..” he gave her a pipe, incense and a few other trinkets from the shop on her way out. She stumbled down the road, lighting another stale cigarette butt as she looked back, walking swiftly. The chill of the wind smacked her lips, crawled through her long tangled hair, through her nostrils, ears, and she disappeared. Inside the shop I screamed and cried, straining to be picked up and held, filling my lungs with the sting of goodbye. That was the last I saw of my biological mom during my childhood. This was my first resentment and the moment that defined most of my life. I was abandoned for the first time, but not the last. The soul knows when it’s been abandoned. Beverley went to a bank in Downtown Dallas, and stood by a parked pickup truck, looking in the window, observing the vehicle carefully. Her friends are giggling though, and they (man and woman) tease “Hurry up..” but she stood uncertain, looking around. On the back window of the truck, there was a gun-rack, on the seat there were bullets. Somewhere from the depths of her soul, all fear disappeared and she was no longer uncertain. She braced herself, ready for attack, like a unicorn ready to strike a piñata. She broke the window of the truck with a giant rock, glass shards flying like confetti. She stole the rifle, loaded the ammo, and led the way in to the bank, followed by her lover while her friend, a tall Black man, ran to get the get-away car from around the corner, it was time to rob a bank. My birth mom and her accomplice stormed inside the bank, full of madness and robbed it at gunpoint. The female accomplice was also her newest lover, willing to do anything. “Give me the fucking money!” she screamed, demanding the money, her lover girl’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Give it!” she ordered, guns pointed at the heads of the bank tellers who had already had their lives flash before their eyes, fearing the end. “Go, go go!” My mother filled the bag with piles of cash from each teller, her lover grabs the bag and together the women bolt. A car rolls up to the front, halts, they run from the bank and roll in, screeching away. “We got away with it!” my biological mom hid in the trunk with her female lover, making out atop their bag of money. “We can do anything we want with this much money!” They were caught several hours after the robbery, driving the wrong way on a one-way street. My mother and her female lover were hiding in the trunk full of cash, yet they decided it would be better for a black man to be driving the get-away car. The police pulled over the suspicious vehicle going one way, the wrong way. They were all arrested. My mom was an outlaw in the modern day West Texas, robbing banks with a shotgun. Feeling abandoned became innate from the beginning. I always knew that I wasn’t where I wanted to be growing up, and I always knew I was adopted. My life always felt like it was being played as I was living in it. Like my reality had to be thought of as a film for my own survival. I imagine my biological mom the day she abandoned me to be something like this, as I imagine every moment I’ve lived as if I was in a major motion picture. EXT: AERIAL VIEW OF THE WEST-DALLAS, TEXAS-DAY A rainstorm hovers over the skyscrapers of Dallas like a strange black devil. EXT: DEEP ELLUM ART DISTRICT—DOWNTOWN DALLAS-DAY The wet streets are lined with run-down buildings and warehouses. Bohemian-types hurry along the trashy sidewalk. Lightening cracks. I felt as if I missed my mother before I was even born. I have ALWAYS felt a loss for her, which kept an empty space in my soul that could never be filled. There are always silver linings, but the lines for my beginnings were cocaine on mirrors, and pot smoking out sogged by nag champa incense. I wouldn’t be who I am today if she had never left me, and if she had raised me. For some people out here on earth it takes a village to raise a child into adulthood, and for me, that’s absolutely true. So yes, my real mother, my biological mother, my birth mom, left me. The haunting image of my biological mother Beverley made front-page news. She wore a tank top to rob the bank, had long wild hair in her police photo, and the blue wolf eyes that locked eyes with mine in her pictures, they look like mine staring back, despondent. She was put in prison. Her eyes look like mine, a photograph is all I would have of her for the rest of my childhood. Ross had taken me home to his wife, and he and Patricia became my new Mother and Father. Like orphan trains speeding through, reminding me of my ride and where I came from, steel wheels screeching on the tracks of yesterdays Pioneers, I came through this journey for a reason. What must that reason be? What is the reason for any of this, or any of us? CHAPTER 2 THE WHITE HOUSE Ross and Patricia were my new parents. When Patricia was a teenager she was a beauty, but she aged as a mother her plump body turned fat, her big breasts hung heavy, and her waist length hair turned an early silver. Mom and Dad got baptized as members of the “only and only true church”, which was founded by a 14 year old boy; a self proclaimed Prophet Joseph Smith. The inspirational talks at church moved mother to complete faith, and wanted to be among the faithful families, like the Mormon Pioneers of the 1800’s. Brigham Young and his fellow members arrived at the Great Salt Lake Valley and called it home in the 1800’s because an exhausted Young insisted the Mormons settle in a location no one else wanted, and that was the desert of Salt Lake Valley in Utah. MY MOMS BANK ROBBERY There was never a time in my life that I didn’t know that my biological mother had used drugs, robbed a bank and went to prison after abandoning me as a baby. My mom and her two accomplices robbed a bank. The two women stormed inside a Bank, drunk and full of madness while their guy friend waited in the car. My mother had planned it with her female accomplice, who was also her lover, willing to do anything. My mom knew how to seduce a man, a woman, or a joint. The waiting accomplice outside watched for action. Inside my mother was screaming “Give me the fucking money NOW!” She was drunk, high, and desperate. My mothers bank robbery wasn’t original or unique. She was just another person going after their own dreams in all the wrong ways. The only part of my moms robbery that fascinated me was the mini tank top she wore. It makes the whole thing romanticized, she looked like she could have been in a noir film as the “Sexy Bank Robber” so now the stories of this time became a flickering film in my own head. I learned the details of this years later. She had dressed for the occasion, tank and shorts, her long dark hair loose, tangled and wild and she smelled like Nag Champa. “Put the money in the bag!” she continued her task of robbing, and her lover followed with “Go, go go NOW!” Everyone there was on hinge and terrified, including my mom. She glanced towards the lame cameras as she was leaving with her loot. Black and white grain recordings witness the history of my mother the robber and her rag friends in Texas. After bags were stuffed with cash, they bolted out the front door as their getaway car rolled up to the front curb of the bank. They piled in quickly, slammed the door and screeched away before police showed up. They got away with it. Someone suggested that my mother and her lover hide in the trunk so that if the police saw the car they wouldn’t get stopped since they knew they were wanted now. So, they pulled over and the women hid in the trunk with the money and the guns. The shotguns were stolen from a rifle rack off the back of a parked truck found in a parking lot earlier. Finding guns was easy. This was and still is Texas. The car was eventually found and pulled over with the criminals tucked with the money in the trunk hiding. They popped the trunk, found them and they were all arrested. How did the police spot them if the three suspects were not in the car? They weren’t suspected of anything when pulled over. They were pulled over for going the wrong way down a one way, not for being outlaws in a targeted car. But then they heard the girls in the trunk. They almost got away with it. They made front page news of the Newspapers. My mother looked like a dangerous movie star. She could walk right off the newspaper page and straight into a film noir fatale. There was also a picture of the stolen money. Did she plan on using the money for heat? Was she planning on coming back for me? Was it her addiction that made her do it? Was it for alcohol? Was she thinking about me, her baby she had left in a headshop blocks away? Years later in Prison she wrote a letter to the Abovo Headshop attn: Ross and Pat, my new parents. She told them where she had been. She asked if they would raise me, and if they could, to please raise me Jewish, that she learned some Judaism. She signed over parental rights directly to Ross and Pat who had been parents to me for three years by the time she reached out. They had never cared where she went, as long as they had me. They had kept me as their own daughter. The adoption papers were signed directly with no involvement from agency or government. Good or Bad, just like that, she robbed me of having her as my mother. But, just like that she taught me to be fearless. Her eyes are identical to mine, the difference is that I am right here.. mom, and you are only staring back at me from a photograph, and that is all I would have for years. Nestled in a beautiful valley, Logan offers unmatched vistas and geography. Many Mormon families moved to Utah as it’s the chosen land, the place Mormon Pioneers ended after being persecuted elsewhere. The mountains surrounding the valley were full of mystery and I wondered what kind of world lay beyond what I could see. Moving to Utah, the mecca of Mormons, was to create the Mormon Nuclear family, and live happily ever after. We went to church every Sunday religiously, just as guided by church leaders, and my parents were stricter than a boa-constricting snake in some regards, but then they changed their beliefs and stance on things again, and again, enforcing every new thought as law on us children, especially me, Celeste and Aimee who were all close in age. As their faith was wandering while still remaining under the umbrella of the Mormon religion, I was someone with absolute and devoted faith. We didn’t really need outside friends because we all had each other to entertain each other and play games with, but often times we would all fight and be unhappy if we were forced to do things together. We knew how to function together, repressed from the functioning world happening around us. I’d spend hours staring at the mountains, high up to the top I imagined animals up there that I couldn’t see, deer, bobcats, or maybe even some crazy outlaw criminals who left gold buried somewhere. There was a Mormon church every few blocks of the perfectly planned streets of Logan. This place was heaven on earth for many LDS members who were looking for salvation in a college town, as Utah is the chosen place for the religious foundation. Logan was a great place to raise a family, it wasn’t the town that was wrong, it was the family. 
Logan, Utah has a rich heritage in its downtown commercial buildings blah blah blah. Many of the structures existed in the horse-and-buggy era and a lot of them had been preserved and I loved walking downtown and imagining that I was in the old west with horses and buggies while wearing long fancy dresses.
We didn’t fit in. We stood out. My parents didn’t look like everyone else's parents, my mother Patricia had waist length beautiful silver hair that she often braided straight down the back, and they both looked like they needed a drink. As children we were as tangled as our hair. I decided to plan lunch for Mother in bed because it was her birthday, and it would be a thoughtful surprise. I thought it would be nice if we all ate together after making and bringing her breakfast in bed. I loved our family being together, so this was an especially fun surprise. I felt good about it. This was my Mother. I only knew her as memories of my real mom faded by 3, when I was officially adopted. Daddy was meeting with the Church bishop early in the evening. The soft-lit sun disappeared behind snow-capped mountains, and darkness crept in all around us, sucking out all light. A match was struck, as mother lit an Oil Lantern. I loved our old glass oil lanterns, we needed them so often I was glad we had them. Our electricity bill was never paid. Our house was behind on payments and bill collectors had shut everything off. We were overdue on everything. All the money that they had as a couple when they brought me from Texas to Utah, it was now gone, and no future plans. He didn’t want to have to ask again, but Dad wanted to submit to the Bishop so he can get a loan from the church because our electricity was shut off again, and our mortgage was overdue, we had no food but we didn’t care at the time because Mother distracted us by making little cloth bunnies, stitching them up with her needle and thread, she was making presents for everyone. Mother loved to make crafts and was so good at painting, sewing, and writing. I loved reading piles of books from the library. Nancy, Moms oldest adult daughter from prior marriage, was short tempered, especially when there were times that Mother wouldn’t tend her two children Jess and Matt, who were the exact same ages as we were. It’s funny to be an aunt to someone my own age and no one seems to believe it! Nancy wanted us to babysit her kids so that she could go gamble, dance, or go to the bar. Lisa and Lee were Mothers other adult children that weren’t raised with us as they were much older than us, and already out on their own. Nancy was a single parent, and quite close with mother, and she followed the young family with her young children from Texas to Utah. Mom and Dad became members of the mainstream church shortly after I was abandoned at the Headshop Abovo. Mormon Missionaries stopped by the shop and gave the lessons to Ross and Pat to become members. As a baby in a head shop, I had a lot of attention from everyone that came through the door. Mother exclaimed “everyone wants to hold her so much because she’s so pretty, put the baby down so she can learn to crawl!” There had been a couple of collect calls from the Prison, and Beverley asked Ross and Pat to keep me. They did. I had new parents. And they had a new religion. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints two young missionaries sat on folding chairs in front of a glass counter full of dildos and pipes, in the head shop in Deep Ellum. The two young men were like all other missionaries who are sent from home at 18 to serve a mission for two years, inexperienced, naïve, and still working out acne issues while trying to teach about Jesus Christ and what they had been taught themselves. They picked the right shop, they rung the bell, and now they were converting my new parents from carefree hippies to devoted Mormons, and all it would cost is ten percent of all their earnings for the rest of their life. They agreed after reading an awesome free book called The Book of Mormon, a book about Jesus Christ living in the USA after he died. They dunked under water and baptized all their sins washed away. They had found another way to live that would change everything. They had also found information about eternal life after death. Dad smoked a pack of cigarettes a day before converting to Mormons, he quit the moment he learned about the ‘true church’ and they would enforce it. The moment you “learn the truth you just know it’s the truth” Dad said with absolute faith, not allowing any doubt or worries to creep in. He crushed out his burning cheap cigarette before finishing. Lo and Behold, he never smoked again. It was a miracle of unshakeable faith and ashes. He said it was the spirit of the “holy ghost” blessing him to not crave cigarettes or beer ever again. God has a plan for all of us as long as they don’t smoke. Dad could get the Priesthood as long as he is faithful, and not black. That’s how strong his testimony was and how he knew he had found the true church, all thanks to missionaries on bikes, stopping by the shop to give lessons in between blowing up negative prints and selling colorful dildos, bongs, and poster size negative prints from photograph negatives. I washed dishes for Mother that day. It was her habit to never do them, she waited until they would all build up and we had none left before she washed them. I couldn’t wash all of them, they covered all the countertops, tabletops, and some dishes were being packed in moving boxes on the floor. Mother was busy making bunnies and couldn’t be bothered with doing dishes, and besides, they hadn’t been done in months anyway. Mom had given herself a facial for the first time in months as well, and she felt good. Celeste helped tend neighbor children with Daddy while I had company come over, and we played with my broken Barbie collection, enthralled with the life I was creating from them. Later mom and dad played a game of Pig. Scrabble was a favorite though, and they would play game after game, even under the flickering light of an oil lamp, both challenging each other with big words. Mother would grab the dictionary, put her glasses on the tip of her nose and search for the word to prove validity. I don’t know how she knew so many words. “We may be poor, but we know a lot” mom said proudly as she swirled a cup of ice around, sucking on one before spitting it back in the cup. She chewed on a piece, as Dad put the wooden squares back in the velvet bag to shake, so they could play another game. Aimee and Celeste had huge bedrooms and so did I, all of us with our own space. Mother and Dad had their own room, but we all loved climbing in bed with them on cold mornings so we could stay warm. My sisters are so beautiful, blonde hair and olive eyes, they even had mothers dimples and her thin nose, with slight indent right in the middle, like a ski slope, just like a movie star. My hair is brown, long and tangled. I have freckles across my nose and cheeks and I have lightening blue eyes with transluscent pale skin. I’m gangly and underweight, and look like knees, feet, and elbows attached to bones. Celeste and Aimee hold meat on their bones better than I do. But, I am adopted. I am not allowed to talk about it, but I do, and I will again, and again. I had my own room in the corner of the second floor with big windows at the top of carpeted stairs. I left the windows of my room open in the summertime, so my cat Rigazzo could come in and out from the roof when he was locked out. I looked out the window imagining the lives of everyone who passed by. A large truck full of cows pulled up and would park in front of the neighbor’s house for a few days before being taken away to slaughter. I would go talk to the cows, the neighbor was a truck driver and just doing his job, but I cried every time the truck left. I tried one night to climb up on the semi trailers back bumper and unhook the heavy locks to help the cows escape their fate. After much consideration about what to do with the cows once they were free, I had a plan. I could just get them out and guide them towards Willow Park, walking down the street in the middle of the night. Then at the park they could just live and eat the grass, and maybe people who picnic there would share their sandwiches with the free and wild cattle. There was also a small zoo at the park. Without work, faith is nothing more than a spark of light, denied. I believe the universe is full of amazing opportunities, ideas and beautiful things are flying all around in an energy field on the other side where spirits and dead people go, and it is up to us to grab hold of what we believe in, get the strength from praying to the other side, focus on it, work hard towards it, and dreams can come true. I fell off the trailer, unable to budge the door, scratching open my elbow. I tried and tried and tried to pull open their freedom. I prayed for God to give me more strength to open the doors. I just wasn’t strong enough. I wanted to be an adult so I could be strong enough because I didn’t feel strong. I felt delicate but angry. I sat beside the trailer full of trapped cattle throughout the night. I didn’t know how anyone could sleep and stand by when these animals were so distressed. Aimee couldn’t. She watched them from her window too. The animals would make noises, banging on metal as they shuffled in their own shit, wearing burned scars on their furs, stuck within a confined space, afraid, exhausted and dehydrated. They were stuck. I felt so much anger towards being trapped that I empathized deeply with any living being that is not in control of living a full life, I wanted to help them but no one would listen to me and help, and I couldn’t do it alone because I tried. Dad told me the next morning when the truck was gone, our neighbor had complained about us the children being too close to his truck, that he wanted them away from his semi. Dad liked the guy so he said he’d warn the kids to stay back, and he did. I wasn’t allowed to go near the jail on wheels again. I wished for a lot of dreams from behind the glass high above on second level. I wished really, really, hard for them to come true. I didn’t feel like I was living my own life, I felt like it was supposed to be someone else in my place and that I should be with my biological mother. I also imagined what life would be like after I died and went to heaven, would God let me be part of the highest kingdom? I was already planning for the end of the world. I didn’t realize that my world would crumble even more because we were unable to pay bills. As Mother was cutting pieces for a quilt from old wool coats Dad came in, slamming the screen door with his excitement. We were so surprised at the bang that we weren’t sure if he was angry or happy until he finally spit it out and said he had already sold two bottles of Aloe Vera, and that this is really a magical product he would be selling. It’s going to be great. Aloe Vera can cure every single disease, you can use it as toothpaste, you can use it as shampoo, or even to eat for health and to curb hunger. It was the wonder plant, and we were some of the first lucky people to learn about this Dads supervisor said. He was swallowed up in the sales promotion and Dad was now a Forever Living Products Sales Rep. Our Mother and Daddy spent evenings talking and reading, and mother started doing work for the church in exchange for welfare food from them, she worked a few hours every few days when we were on their system. Dad was doing nice things for Mother to show how much he loved her, he bought her a sweet card that he brought home after doing another job at Gossners Cheese. Celeste is in public school but doesn’t want to go anymore because it’s too easy for her. It’s “Chinchy” she calls it. She would of preferred to use her books to carry lost feathers in, or scriptures because she was smarter than everyone around her. While she could excel in all her subjects, Aimee and I would fail miserably. Aimee and I were more interested in making Christmas decorations out of felt, glitter and bright colors. Aimee loved the snow in Utah, so when it started snowing this morning she squeeled “Oh look, He’s answered our prayers!” I had a fever and didn’t want to go in the cold. Dad went out but knocked his face, right into the kitchen (glass) door, cutting his nose severely! He refuses to go to the doctor so of course Mother puts plenty of Aloe Vera on it. This makes Celeste angry, she doesn’t like “hocus-pocus” of things that my parents have picked up and learned from their weird friends, and she said Daddy should go to the doctor to stop the bleeding “Immediately if not sooner” and she demanded they listen to her. She was a fired up bee, ready to sting everyone who didn’t agree with her. But we knew Dad was stronger than most Dads, he was a tough Dad, he was special, he was strong. He can walk anywhere. “He will walk miles to the store twice in one day, and it’s a regular thing!” mom proudly reminded us. She couldn’t go as far, her weight was holding her back from fitting into normal clothing, she had to wear military pants that would actually fit. “You’re just being dumb!” Celeste continued, “and I forbid it!” she said sternly, still unheard by my parents. She was on fire, steaming angry and her face was turning red as she stormed ideas around in her head. My dad would not budge if he didn’t want to, it was all up to him on how the entire day and world would turn out for us. After Dad tells us he’s going to stay right where he is and not go to a hospital Celeste raised her brows and listened to him explain himself, as if she was the parent and Dad was the child explaining what he thought to her. “Doctors never know what they are talking about when it comes to health, hea..heal health okay, drink aloe veraaaa juice and prayers, cause both work darlin, have faith, and our bodies need to stay healthy okay and let’s talk about sex!” Celeste was no longer interested in listening. Mother didn’t look up, busy playing solitaire. “And your bodies are your temples, I told you all that sex is sticking a penis in a vagina to make a baby.” I immediately thought of a problem with this and asked without hesitation “What if you have to pee while you are having to have sex?” It sounded like a bad idea from the beginning, “and no one is going to have to pee while having sex because God made sex. It’s only for after you are married, between a man and woman, and now we’ve had that talk Mother is going to make us some banana splits. Mother?” Mom looked up, bothered, “We don’t have bananas.” My dad continued “or the splits…” Mother stared at him like he was not funny but then we all started laughing and laughing, except for Celeste who stayed unmoved. His jokes were so funny when they were funny. Then he would do tricks with his hands of “where’s my finger, there it is! ” sliding fingers to look like he had cut one in half then put it back on. “this trick right here, it’s one, it scares all the littler’ children” he stuttered “But not,us!” Aimee said. His wit was quick. “Nope, no way, not y’all.” Celeste tried really hard to have faith, exhausted of trying to push a rock up a hill she shrugs with annoyance before she retreats to cleaning the living-room “out of the kindness of My heart” she reminds mother, a celestial halo following her in the sunlight as she flies above us all with her angelic wings. I loved her but could never be her. I have a dirty halo, and I like it that way. Mother thought that Aimee had wandered away one afternoon and she was worried but then found her next door, so she was okay. Allie was so young, but she loved to be independent, and find her own way. I put on another talent show with the other children after Mom and Dad woke up feeling wealthy for the first time in ever. And the feeling wasn’t just from the recent loan the church had given them either. It was because Dad had thought up two new good ideas that are really going to make us a lot of money. The furnace isn’t working again so mom called the repairman. She just got the pocket catalogue in the mail to start selling shoes. She’s going to give the brochures out to everyone and hope to get orders. At night Dad would read the Mormon Scriptures to us girls and on the weekends we couldn’t wait to get the trash cans and bring them back to the house after they were emptied by trash men. Sunday afternoons were a time of Church and then home for relaxation together as a family. Dad is going to an Aloe meeting to learn about the plant and the products Forever Living Company makes from it, and all the benefits it provides and how to sell it in a multi-level marketing program for a hefty start up fee. He might start selling it in bottles. Mom was so thrilled with the idea of a new adventure. She pulled out printed stationary, with flowers and butterflies, paper yellowed and stained with the smell of incense, and she wrote down all of her thoughts, ideas and feelings. Dad would sometimes go to church alone because mom had no stockings to wear because we couldn’t afford them, and she didn’t want to go bare legged. Dad would remind her of how much “Heavenly Father doesn’t care what you wear, as long as it’s a dress!” he’d explain. Mom said she was just fine skipping just one week of church sometimes, and she stayed home reading a book given to her called THE UNITED ORDER by Ogden Kraut. When Dad walked home in the snow from church he hunched over like the wicked witch in The Wizard Of Oz. His back humps, and he walks very quickly. He didn’t appreciate walking to church alone, but Mother kept us home with her during their heated debate. “I love sharing the Gospel” Dad said, still buzzing from church inspirational stories about faith, and prayer and hope, and belief in the unseen. Mother lowered her reading glasses, still reading The United Order Book she said “I want to join an order now but I’m not quite sure what we would contribute.” Dad yanked the book from her hands and started reading it himself. He would investigate what mother had learned to make sure it was truth. The Elder Missionaries from the Mormon church came over regularly so Mom and Dad didn’t want them to see any controversial books that are not from the church. Mother had met a friend who wasn’t part of the LDS Church anymore, Helen Lithgow, and she and Mother shared books on gospel and truths. “We can improve ourselves, we have a long way to go. Read the book of Mormon again and it will help.” Mom told us, but Dad would always out brag her with the amount of times he’s read it “I’ve read it 4 times this year alone”. We had cantaloupe and peaches for dinner at home and Daddy gave mom a blessing by placing his hands on her head, bowing his reverently in prayer and talking to God and receiving testimony of what to say during the blessings. Daddy had a special power that he got from the church, a sort of magic that made his blessings work, a man who has Priesthood can administer these prayer blessings. So sometimes he would have to leave home and go give blessings to other kids in the neighborhood who’s fathers didn’t have the truth and the priesthood. I loved getting blessings because I believed they would always work. They are always really long winded, and as much as I love being blessed, I sometimes wish my Dad would just shut up, get to the point, and stop talking so the blessing could just happen already. Dad liked listening to himself talk. Afterwards, my parents pulled out a card table, it was game time so dad unfolded the four corner legs, then they played bridge. Mother and Dad tease each other because they are competitive. We were happy. I was happy because the heat from the furnace was working, which means the heater was on, so I sat by the vents like a bald cat, hogging all the heat for myself. “Today your dad talked to four people about Melaleuca!” Mom said proudly. We still had our car trouble and financial trouble pretty regularly. “I hope he will really get started on it.” She continued. We sat around together bundled up in blankets in the living room of the white house. The large living room had a big window, and anyone from outside could see our family within, lit only by oil lanterns. I bet we looked like an oil painting. We appeared to be from the 1800’s while the busy world happened around us, but it was just because our electricity was turned off so much that we had oil lamps and knew how to use them well. “We don’t even need electricity” Celeste said. She was logical. She was grinning like a telegram singer who shows up when unexpected. Ross had plans in the Beehive state to attend the University of Utah, they made plans for him to go to school, yet he was still not doing anything to further his education and life takes over with the little things. Dad decided that we also could still love ice cream even if it’s freezing outside so we went out and had ice cream for dinner. Mother thought we should save the money but dad made sense when he said ice-cream is cheaper than going out to eat and getting a big dinner. Stopping for ice cream, all eyes went right at my mother. She chose the same every time, Rocky Road, double dips. We got one scoop but our parents always got two. Being a grown up must be so much fun. Mom and Dad finally took their car to the shop, they said it was 400.00 to fix. But dad tried to repair it himself and he “tried in vain” mother said proudly but he couldn’t fix it. Dad was her hero when he wanted to be. He came home with a new bus that was running that was cheaper than the cost of fixing the other car. He was always bartering, and was really good at it. Dad painted garage sale signs today for our own garage sale but after they went out to sales themselves to look there was a great surprise for Mother. In later years Mother gave Celeste her most treasured gift for her birthday when she had nothing else to give and wanted to give something special, but today it was her special gift; an antique diamond ring that Dad had found at a swap meet. It was so beautiful, sparkling and so big, just like what a movie star would wear. Even though it was expensive he said, “she’s worth all of it” he said, “I sure do love you!” and she joyously put the ring on. Celeste deserved to get the ring later, she was always telling on Aimee and I, and tattle teller gets the prize. We weren’t the richest in town, but we had a lot of love for each other, mother taught us to love your family. Lisa brought over cake and ice cream for Mom and gave her ten bucks. We were still packing. We were getting prepared to leave just in case the bill collectors insisted. Dad built a wooden box to hold tools in. He’s really good with making things. The church brought over delicious chili and with cheese, it was really good. How did they know how hungry we were? I want to be that person in my own life. The kind of person that will notice what others ignore. I want to notice those that fall between the cracks like we were. One afternoon upon returning home, I found a wrapped package sitting on the front porch. My sisters and I ran to see what it was. It was a beautifully wrapped present! I picked it up and we ran inside with it. My mother struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp we had our electricity turned off again. She loosened more ribbon into the oil and the room lit up. I put the box on the table and my sisters and I were wide-eyed from curiosity. There was a small note scotch-taped to the present and it that said: “To Amber From: Someone who loves you” I was giddy and so were Celeste and Aimee.
I opened it slowly and carefully, the wrapping was so like Christmas paper, but it wasn’t December. Inside the box was the most beautiful handmade Raggedy-Ann doll laying atop decorative crinkle paper. She had black-yarned hair, which I felt was just for me because of my own dark hair. How did this person know that I was always self-conscious having my darker hair because Celeste and Aimee had blonde. I wanted to feel like I was a part of the family, not different. I wanted to look like my family, but I didn’t. Kristeen Ann looked like me. She had blue eyes. She wore a dress made out shiny satin with apron and even lacey bloomers underneath. It looked expensive and fancy. I couldn’t believe it.
“Maybe there is a clue somewhere on her?” Celeste said smugly, acting like she could care less. She cared. I searched the doll, but there wasn’t a clue on her other than a heart made from string on her chest. Just a simple red heart, but I still didn’t know where she came from.
To say I was overjoyed by her is an understatement. She was the best thing that could of possibly happened to me. I picked the wrapping paper up from the floor.
“Maybe they wrote a clue on the paper?” Celeste said curiously.
My sisters and I studied the wrapping paper turning it inside out to see if we could find a clue as to who it was from. I folded the crinkled paper as neatly as I could, wanting to keep it because it matched the dolls dress, and because of what it was. “Do you think my real mom left her for me?” “No.”
“ Do you know who it’s from?” “No.”
“Do you think my real mom knows where we live?
“No. And I’m your real mom.”
“I mean my biological mom.”
“No, your biological mom was a drug addict and a whore”
“I know, but...but...the note said they love me, who could it be?”
“I don’t know, isn’t that fantastic!” Dad stuttered as he left the room to get more lanterns.
“I’m hungry” Aimee whined.
My mother told Aimee to go outside and pick dandelions from the yard for dinner. Even dandelions for dinner again didn’t upset me. I didn’t even care if I had to eat dandelions, swallow cayenne pepper or even chew a spiralina pill to stop a growling tummy. I was smiling, laughing and crying all at once with happiness. Everything in my life in the moment felt perfect and whole. I had no idea who gave me the gift, but it was just at the perfect time. I cried myself to sleep often - tonight I wouldn’t.
I held her close. Someone loved me enough to do this for me. The detail of the dark hair stood out, I had dark hair. Someone made it for me. I felt special, I felt proud, I felt giddy. I named her Kristeen Ann. This demonstration of kindness affected me deeply. I always felt different, I always felt lost and uncomfortable in my own skin. I had an empty space that she immediately filled. Her heart was made from cloth, thread and the compassion of a stranger, but because she came as a surprise just for me, she was special. I settled into my army bunk bed that night. We had found the army bunks at a garage sale, which is where we got everything - everything except Kristeen Ann. She was brand new. She was perfect. “I love you.” I whispered to her as I looked out the window and wondered if it really had been my real mom dropping off the present. I watched car lights dance along the wall shadows and I didn’t feel lonely. I snuggled in and slept soundly through the night. My Dad drove us around Mansions Dreaming Big of future expansions He said someday we can all live here But those dreams poof disappeared When it came to the work that needed to happen But instead the old man is tappin (out’) Of being the hero he had wanted to be Because as a kid I just wanted Free (from) Food out of garbage cans From the slap of his hand Social Services heard my demands I told on you I had to That this would not do This is wrong and I am through Abuse to me will never do. Pop don’t hurt, I will turn you in, You locked me up restricted every day But you love Gods And you call my defiance a sin. I know your wrong and I am right Today I’m grown, and I dreame big but Jackbox prizes with cocaine and a swig I reach for the sky, my rainbow is high Sunshine and Skye I say Goodbye To your shattered dreams Because now it’s my turn And I’ll make it my concern To live like I don’t give a fuck But work hard cause it ain’t all luck Daddy had a dream that died today Daddy said Striking Gold aint the only way But it ain’t to bad at all for me Come quick and look at my mansion by the sea I made plans to move to Los Angeles to pursue my dream of being a Movie Star. I wanted to be Elizabeth Taylor, or Marilyn Monroe, or Julia Roberts or any other icon from the time I was a young girl putting on performances for neighbors. However I made no “real plans” to move and I lived in Texas. I loved to perform though. I once stopped a cyclist who was riding by on a bike, and I asked him to watch me do a dance routine. I wrote out parts for my sisters, the neighborhood kids and pets, and directed it, bossing around anyone who would listen for the moment before escaping my act outs. It wasn’t just acting, it was the whole show that I created. I was always the big star though, and I planted the characters around me to act out their parts exceptionally. My younger sister tired once from learning the “Staying Alive dance routine” spinned me around like in the movie before she just tossed me into a bean-bag and ran. “I’m not the boy part!” Aimee yelled, complaining as she flipped me off and ran. “But I’m the star, and she’s the girl and you’re stronger.” I replied, panicked that she was not going to return in time to rehearse more for my backyard show. Looking back at the screen I watched the dancers in the film and I wanted to be them. I watched Travolta lift and swing around dancers like a madman. I wanted to be a star and the VCR tape of this movie just happened to be owned by me even though it was ancient. I danced alone. I wanted to be a famous actress and dancer and singer. Okay, maybe not singer. I learned every part and repeated them in movies. It was one of those dreams I had, but never acted on.I was a drug-addicted stripper living in Texas with a Sugar Daddy who had run out of money, which sent me back to work supporting an older man I didn’t love outside of friendship. Even with him I had to play girlfriend, no one took me as myself without a claim to me somehow, and I needed help. I was difficult, self centered, traumatized, trouble-causing, unrooted, selfish, uneducated, and my mental illness’s had kept me in my dark depression, and under a grey cloud. I was in and out of hospitals from attempted suicides, drug overdoses, and even from being beaten up by a boyfriend so badly that my jaw and mouth was broken and I had lost several teeth in my beating. I had careless sex with a lot of men, did a lot of drugs, danced to a lot of songs in the dark, and cried every night at the end of a run because I knew I wasn’t enough, and I wasn’t living my ‘self thought up’ destiny. I wanted to live a bigger and better life than I had been living, but I was so caught up in the grind of insanity. I watched television interviews with celebrities and imagined going to the same places they went. I had a yellow notepad and wrote down the names of salons the stars went to, where they liked to hang out, and so I could go be part of the magic. I kept pages and pages of notes, my own version of my life-story in a script form, which looked much like “A beautiful Mind” sort of mess, but all led to Hollywood Dreams. My little dog Charlie would watch me do lines of cocaine, then I would cry between my fur ball tearing up a toilet paper roll at my feet, making a mess to match mine. Every heartbeat felt like a challenge. I did not want to be in my body. I wanted to fly away. Every part of my flesh felt raw, and being me hurt. I spread my legs, pointing my clear sparkled stiletto heels to the sky, swishing my legs like windshield wipers while arching my back while laying across the stage. Silent Lucidity by Queensryche was so loud in the Cabaret Royale that I could feel the violins scratch while dancing. I lay swishing my legs while staring at the lights move around like lightening, moving faster than me, they did the swaying for me as I just breathed in deeply, praying silently “Heavenly Father, please bless me.” I prayed a lot when working, but my prayers were as aimless as anyone there. Squeezing my shadowed eyes shut, I sometimes even cried on stage while dancing, but I would pucker my lips, flip my hair, and elegantly crawl to the front of the stage to be loved. I was here to seduce, so I would suck in my flaws with good lighting, and overwork for a dollar bill. Once I danced slowly over a man who watched me in such awe that he came in his pants just seeing me. Another time a man drank my pee, bought my panties, and once I even made enough money to furnish a dorm room, but college was never an option. I had other men buy me alcohol and pay me to talk to them. I listened to them complain about their wives at home. I would study their Rolex’s and golfer tans and I would wish I was the wife at home, but it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t for most of us there working. We had our own codes of conduct, our own reality, and our own fantasies. I would dance, grind, and ride a mans pants like a they were a wild stallion. Sometimes dancers would glance out into the dark, peeking in on other dancers who had their own customers. One look and we sort of just knew where we were, and recognized it. I felt a connection to the other dancers, knowing we were all on the same level. We all cared how we looked, and that was our leading quality, our substance was hidden behind sequenced ballerinas in the dark. We were all beautiful disasters, focused and determined to make our self-insisted quotas for the night. “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”. What the fuck was I supposed to say? “Thank you?” I’d excuse myself and go to the bathroom to do another hit of whatever poison I was high on from the moment. I was only going to strip for long enough to buy a car I told myself at 17 years old, years and years ago. It was now over ten years later, and youth was leaving me. The only value I had was my art of seduction with strangers, the ability to inhale Columbia, and outside looks, which were fading in the dark with age. On the drive home from work one night I stopped and picked up an 8 ball of cocaine from Thamisha. I felt everything so deeply in my life that I would do anything to numb being. I was not much, but I was all I ever thought about. It wasn’t in a conceited way, it was in a survival way. If I didn’t think of my own way to get through life with the tools I had, no one would. No one was concerned about me, and I destroyed every relationship that passed. I went back to the place I was living, a condo with this Sugar Daddy who I resented. I went to my closet and pulled out a suitcase. I filled it with my stripper clothes. An 8 ball, stiletto’s and a g-string is all I needed in life. I kissed my beloved dog Charlie as I was directionless and homeless and wanted her to fly direct when I was settled in L.A., and I got in my old jaguar and drove until the sun came up. I drove to California to be a moviestar in the middle of an all night drug binge. Sometehing inside told me if I didn’t get in my car and just drive I would never dare leave. I would never wake up on time, prepare, plan or schedule a real move. I slept my days away, and did cocaine all night. I was fucked up. My bumper fell off while driving, and I pulled over and put it in the backseat and kept going. I ran out of cocaine half way and while pulled over at a truck stop licking the baggie I had to decide if I should turn back, or keep going into the unknown without any drugs or connections ahead. All I had was the illusion like millions of others who show up with inflated egos, childhood traumas and addiction. I also had no worth. I didn’t know what was ahead in Los Angeles. I was sobering up enough to panic. I kept going, arrived, and have been in L.A. since the infamous 9/11. I sent when I arrived for my dog Charlie. I could not handle being away from her and needed her with me. She spent 17 years with me. I arrived in California permanently on Tuesday morning, September 11,2001. This was the day I arrived in Los Angeles to pursue the big self centric but artistic dream from youth. I only had one suitcase, but I arrived with a lot of baggage. Respectively, the terrorist attacks left me afraid of all the fears my fundamentalist childhood had taught me. I thought California attacks were next and I wondered if I would die. I didn’t care if I died. I hated myself so much that I thought I was a piece of shit nothing. At the same time I thought I was perfect for the role of Moviestar. I had spent the night with an actor I had met at a workshop who said I could spend one night there. I had just over 100 bucks to my name so I went to his house. Yes we had sex. Yes he had herpes and never told me he had herpes until after we had sex and I saw his medication bottle. I was violated, upset, afraid I now had herpes on my entry to Hollywood. Then I was just trying to remember if I had taken the right day of my psych meds. Medication for everyone! His for herpes, mine for psych meds. I was on a cocktail of pills to control my depression and anxiety. But like myself, he had no respect for me. Thankfully after losing my own brother to AIDS I am a condom kind of gal, and I did not catch herpes from Ron. I already felt like I was too late to be a moviestar, talentless, and I couldn’t memorize anything. My reality of the insanity of my move for stardom sunk in. What the fuck was I doing? What do I do, where do I go, how do I start, am I good enough, and do I have to do it with Ron again knowing he’s got herpes and I don’t? I laid on his waterbed full of dog hair and watched the demolition of lives. I felt it was severe but didn’t know how severe. I saw it like it was a movie. A Rambo movie. Twin towers were collapsing and it played over and over on every station and every channel. I was upset about almost getting herpes and having no place to go. There was a feeling of sadness everywhere in L.A. and everyone was crying out loud. I had no idea the reality of what had just happened. I had been in such a fog and so out of touch for so long. I was alone, aimless, and my high was wearing off as America was under attack. My parents had left me here in this group. They were not here. I wanted to stay, more than I wanted to be homeless, hungry, and abused by my parents anymore, so I wouldn't go with them. I did love them. Was I missing them right now? Nope. I was excited. I was ready to make up new routines for the lingerie shows that I was told about, which were just between us and heavenly father. I snap back. The agents look at me. I look at the firearms atop each other. They are put in bags and loaded out of the house, piled up with other evidence of an apocalyptic war. Another officer turned to tell Arvin “Who gave you the right to try on young girls for size?” I warmed up from the outside chill while I waited in a undercover car, buckled into the seat. Music played on the radio of the car. I let the music swallow me as completely as a cassette tape inserted into the player. The song was Chicago- Stay the Night. I am gone, blinded by the blackness of the music. I bite my lip. I am awake and hear the cassette tape play through a mix of songs. My mind isn’t working. A neighbor with a mullet haircut and a Budweiser joins the group of Agents. I wondered where he got beer from, it looked like the beers we had hidden for nervous times. “Man, I saw ‘em buildin secret un-erground bomb tunnels ‘n the flow’r beds ‘n shit.” Someone said. “Check the gardens.” Said someone else as the Police surrounded the beautiful landscape. My heartbeat felt so loud I could hear it. This was bad. The sooner they get me out of here the better. I’m a child of the state that had been missing, and so were my parents. There was no word from them at all. I stare. I stare hard. How many times had I packed and moved ? A lot. I was good at moving. Everywhere. And now everything in my life would be changing all over again, like it had before. I was in a permanent state of living bits and pieces of others lives. Feeling abandoned became innate from the beginning. I always knew that I wasn’t where I wanted to be growing up, and I always knew I was adopted. My life always felt like it was being played as I was living in it. Like my reality had to be thought of as a film for my own survival. Mormon Missionaries stopped by the shop and gave the lessons to Ross and Pat to become members. As a baby in a head shop, I had a lot of attention from everyone that came through the door. Mother exclaimed; “everyone wants to hold her so much because she’s so pretty, put the baby down so she can learn to crawl!” There had been a couple of collect calls from the Prison, and Beverley asked Ross and Pat to keep me. They did. I had new parents. And they had a new religion. EXT: AERIAL VIEW OF THE WEST-DALLAS, TEXAS-DAY A rainstorm hovers over the skyscrapers of Dallas like a strange black devil. I imagine my biological mom the day she abandoned me. EXT: DEEP ELLUM ART DISTRICT—DOWNTOWN DALLAS-DAY The wet streets are lined with run-down buildings and warehouses. Bohemian-types hurry along the trashy sidewalk. Lightening cracks. I missed my mother before I was born, that’s how I feel. That empty space Stuart Little talks about? I had it. That deep hole inside, the God hole that needed to be filled with soul? I had the emptiness. I caught it young. I have ALWAYS felt a loss for her, which kept an empty space in my soul that could never be filled. There are always silver linings, but the lines for my beginnings were cocaine on mirrors, and pot smoking out sogged by nag champa incense. I wouldn’t be who I am today if she had never left me, and if she had raised me. For some people out here on earth it takes a village to raise a child into adulthood, and for me, that’s absolutely true. So yes, my real mother, my biological mother, my birth mom, left me. CHAPTER 2 FOLLOWING FAITH TO UTAH Nestled in a beautiful valley, Logan offers unmatched vistas and geography. Many Mormon families moved to Utah as it’s the chosen land, the place Mormon Pioneers ended after being persecuted elsewhere. If it was good enough for the Pioneers to move here and go through all the hardships along the treck to find the promised land, it was good enough for us. The mountains surrounding the valley were full of mystery and history, and I wondered when looking at them from a distance what kind of world lay beyond what I could see. We knew how to function together, repressed from the functioning world happening around us. I’d spend hours staring at the mountains, high up to the top I imagined animals up there that I couldn’t see, deer, bobcats, or maybe even some crazy outlaw criminals who left gold buried somewhere. There was a Mormon church every few blocks of the perfectly planned streets of Logan. This place was heaven on earth for many LDS members who were looking for salvation in a college town, as Utah is the chosen place for the religious foundation. Logan was a great place to raise a family, it wasn’t the town that was wrong, it was the family. 
Logan, Utah has a rich heritage in its downtown commercial buildings blah blah blah. Many of the structures existed in the horse-and-buggy era and a lot of them had been preserved and I loved walking downtown and imagining that I was in the old west with horses and buggies while wearing long fancy dresses.
We didn’t fit in. We stood out. My parents didn’t look like everyone else's parents, my mother Patricia had waist length beautiful silver hair that she often braided straight down the back, and they both looked like they needed a drink. As children we were as tangled as our hair. CHAPTER 3 THE WHITE HOUSE One day while living in the White House we lived in on Center Street, I decided to plan breakfast for Mother in bed because it was her birthday. I was good with thoughtful surprises! I thought it would be nice if we all ate together as a family after making and bringing her breakfast in bed after letting her sleep in. I was a young producer, trying to balance moving pieces with everything I did. I loved our family being together when my Dad was being nice, so this was an especially fun surprise. I felt good about it. This was my Mother. I only knew her as memories of my real mom faded by age 3, when I was officially adopted on paper. Daddy was meeting with the Church bishop early in the evening. The soft-lit sun disappeared behind snow-capped mountains, and darkness crept in all around us, sucking out all light. A match was struck, as mother lit an Oil Lantern. I loved our old glass lanterns, trusting the lamp oils for light. Our electricity bill was never paid. We were living below poverty level. Our house was behind on payments and patient bill collectors had shut everything off, and we were living inside the shell of the home, cold through the winter. My parents were overdue on everything. All the money that was brought from Texas to Utah was now gone, through faulty spending, and they had no intelligent future plans. He didn’t want to have to ask again, but Dad had to submit paperwork requests to the Bishop of a Mormon Church Welfare system, so he can get a loan because our electricity was shut off, our bills and mortgage was overdue and house was being taken away. The church helped us as often as my father allowed them to, but his relationship with anyone, including the church, was volatile. I believe the church helped for the sake of me, and my sisters. Mother distracted herself and us by making little cloth bunnies as the bills piled up, house went into foreclosure, and us children were hungry and complaining. “Hush, It doesn’t help to listen to you complain.” She said. She sat stitching up cloth bunnies with her needle and thread, because she was making “presents for everyone”. Mother loved to make crafts and was so good at painting, sewing, and penmanship. I loved reading piles of books from the library. My dad would walk us to the library and I would pile a bunch of books into a wagon and take them home to read, returning them the week later to repeat. I loved to read. Nancy, Moms oldest adult daughter from prior marriage, was short tempered, especially when there were times that Mother wouldn’t tend her two children Jess and Matt, who were the exact same ages as we were. It’s funny to be an aunt to someone my own age and no one seems to believe it! Nancy wanted us to babysit her kids so that she could go gamble, dance, or go to the bar. Lisa and Lee were Mothers other adult children that weren’t raised with us as they were much older than us, and already out on their own. I washed dishes for Mother that day. It was her habit to never do them, she waited until they would all build up and we had none left before she washed them. I couldn’t wash all of them, they covered all the countertops, tabletops, and some dishes were being packed in moving boxes on the floor. Mother was busy making bunnies and couldn’t be bothered with doing dishes, and besides, they hadn’t been done in months anyway. Mom had given herself a facial for the first time in months as well, and she felt good. Celeste helped tend neighbor children with Daddy while I had company come over, and we played with my broken Barbie collection, enthralled with the life I was creating from them. Later mom and dad played a game of Pig. Scrabble was a favorite though, and they would play game after game, even under the flickering light of an oil lamp, both challenging each other with big words. Mother would grab the dictionary, put her glasses on the tip of her nose and search for the word to prove validity. I don’t know how she knew so many words. “We may be poor, but we know a lot” mom said proudly as she swirled a cup of ice around, sucking on one before spitting it back in the cup. I’m gangly and underweight, and look like knees, feet, and elbows attached to bones. My nickname is boney maroni, and I hated it. Celeste and Aimee hold meat on their bones better than I do. But, I am adopted. I am not allowed to talk about it, but I do, and I will again, and again. I had my own room in the corner of the second floor with big windows at the top of carpeted stairs. I left the windows of my room open in the summertime, with only a screen which I would remove so my cat Rigazzo could come in from the roof when he was locked out by my father. I looked out the window at the slivering of the moon, imagining the lives of everyone who lived below my perch in the night light. A large truck full of cows pulled up and would park in front of the neighbor’s house for a few days before being taken away to slaughter. I would go talk to the cows, the neighbor was a truck driver and just doing his job, but I cried every time the truck left. I tried one night to climb up on the semi trailers back bumper and unhook the heavy locks to help the cows escape their fate. After much consideration about what to do with the cows once they were free, I had a plan. I could just get them out and guide them towards Willow Park, walking down the street in the middle of the night. Then at the park they could just live and eat the grass, and maybe people who picnic there would share their sandwiches with the free and wild cattle. There was also a small zoo at the park. Without work, faith is nothing more than a spark of light, denied. I believe the universe is full of amazing opportunities, ideas and beautiful things are flying all around in an energy field on the other side where spirits and dead people go, and it is up to us to grab hold of what we believe in, get the strength from praying to the other side, focus on it, work hard towards it, and dreams can come true. I fell off the trailer, unable to budge the door, scratching open my elbow. I tried and tried and tried to pull open their freedom. I prayed for God to give me more strength to open the doors. I just wasn’t strong enough. I wanted to be an adult so I could be strong enough because I didn’t feel strong. I felt delicate but angry. I sat beside the trailer full of trapped cattle throughout the night. I didn’t know how anyone could sleep and stand by when these animals were so distressed. Aimee couldn’t. She watched them from her window too. The animals would make noises, banging on metal as they shuffled in their own shit, wearing burned scars on their furs, stuck within a confined space, afraid, exhausted and dehydrated. They were stuck. I knew what it felt like to be trapped, stuck, and hurt with no way out, and I never wanted anyone to feel what I felt, animal or human. I wanted to help but no one would listen to me. I couldn’t do it alone and I felt frustrated that others around me did not see the world the way I did. Dad liked the guy so he said he’d warn the kids to stay back, and he did. I wasn’t allowed to go near the jail on wheels again. I wished for a lot of dreams from my windosill, on second level of the White house. I wished for them to come true. I didn’t feel like I was living my own life, I felt like it was supposed to be someone else in my place and that I should be with my biological mother. I also imagined what life would be like after I died and went to heaven, would God let me be part of the highest kingdom? I was already planning for the end of the world. I didn’t realize that my world would crumble even more because we were unable to pay bills. As Mother was cutting pieces for a quilt from old wool coats Dad came in, slamming the screen door with his excitement. We were so surprised at the bang that we weren’t sure if he was angry or happy until he finally spit it out and said he had already sold two bottles of Aloe Vera, and that this is really a magical product he would be selling. It’s going to be great. Aloe Vera can cure every single disease, you can use it as toothpaste, you can use it as shampoo, or even to eat for health and to curb hunger. It was the wonder plant, and we were some of the first lucky people to learn about this Dads supervisor said. He was swallowed up in the sales promotion and Dad was now a Forever Living Products Sales Rep. Our Mother and Daddy spent evenings talking and reading, and mother started doing work for the church in exchange for welfare food from them, she worked a few hours every few days when we were on their system. Dad was doing nice things for Mother to show how much he loved her, he bought her a sweet card that he brought home after doing another job at Gossners Cheese. Celeste is in public school but doesn’t want to go anymore because it’s too easy for her. It’s “Chinchy” she calls it. She would of preferred to use her books to carry lost feathers in, or scriptures because she was smarter than everyone around her. While she could excel in all her subjects, Aimee and I would fail miserably. Aimee and I were more interested in making Christmas decorations out of felt, glitter and bright colors. I had a fever and didn’t want to go in the cold. Dad went out but knocked his face, right into the kitchen (glass) door, cutting his nose severely! He refuses to go to the doctor so of course Mother puts plenty of Aloe Vera on it. This makes Celeste angry, she doesn’t like “hocus-pocus” of things that my parents have picked up and learned from their weird friends, and she said Daddy should go to the doctor to stop the bleeding “Immediately if not sooner” and she demanded they listen to her. She was a fired up bee, ready to sting everyone who didn’t agree with her. But we knew Dad was stronger than most Dads, he was a tough Dad, he was special, he was strong. He can walk anywhere. “He will walk miles to the store twice in one day, and it’s a regular thing!” mom proudly reminded us. She couldn’t go as far, her weight was holding her back from fitting into normal clothing, she had to wear military pants that would actually fit. “You’re just being dumb!” Celeste continued, “and I forbid it!” she said sternly, still unheard by my parents. She was on fire, steaming angry and her face was turning red as she stormed ideas around in her head. My dad would not budge if he didn’t want to, it was all up to him on how the entire day and world would turn out for us. After Dad tells us he’s going to stay right where he is and not go to a hospital Celeste raised her brows and listened to him explain himself, as if she was the parent and Dad was the child explaining what he thought to her. “Doctors never know what they are talking about when it comes to health, hea..heal health okay, drink aloe veraaaa juice and prayers, cause both work darlin, have faith, and our bodies need to stay healthy okay and let’s talk about sex!” Celeste tried really hard to have faith, exhausted of trying to push a rock up a hill she shrugs with annoyance before she retreats to cleaning the living-room “out of the kindness of My heart” she reminds mother, a celestial halo following her in the sunlight as she flies above us all with her angelic wings. I loved her but could never be her. I have a dirty halo, and I like it that way. Mother thought that Aimee had wandered away one afternoon and she was worried but then found her next door, so she was okay. Allie was so young, but she loved to be independent, and find her own way. I put on another talent show with the other children after Mom and Dad woke up feeling wealthy for the first time in ever. And the feeling wasn’t just from the recent loan the church had given them either. It was because Dad had thought up two new good ideas that are really going to make us a lot of money. The furnace isn’t working again so mom called the repairman. She just got the pocket catalogue in the mail to start selling shoes. She’s going to give the brochures out to everyone and hope to get orders. At night Dad would read the Mormon Scriptures to us girls and on the weekends we couldn’t wait to get the trash cans and bring them back to the house after they were emptied by trash men. Sunday afternoons were a time of Church and then home for relaxation together as a family. Dad is going to an Aloe meeting to learn about the plant and the products Forever Living Company makes from it, and all the benefits it provides and how to sell it in a multi-level marketing program for a hefty start up fee. He might start selling it in bottles. Mom was so thrilled with the idea of a new adventure. She pulled out printed stationary, with flowers and butterflies, paper yellowed and stained with the smell of incense, and she wrote down all of her thoughts, ideas and feelings. Dad would sometimes go to church alone because mom had no stockings to wear because we couldn’t afford them, and she didn’t want to go bare legged. Dad would remind her of how much “Heavenly Father doesn’t care what you wear, as long as it’s a dress!” he’d explain. Mom said she was just fine skipping just one week of church sometimes, and she stayed home reading a book given to her called THE UNITED ORDER by Ogden Kraut. When Dad walked home in the snow from church he hunched over like the wicked witch in The Wizard Of Oz. His back humps, and he walks very quickly. He didn’t appreciate walking to church alone, but Mother kept us home with her during their heated debate. “I love sharing the Gospel” Dad said, still buzzing from church inspirational stories about faith, and prayer and hope, and belief in the unseen. Mother lowered her reading glasses, still reading The United Order Book she said “I want to join an order now but I’m not quite sure what we would contribute.” Dad yanked the book from her hands and started reading it himself. He would investigate what mother had learned to make sure it was truth. The Elder Missionaries from the Mormon church came over regularly so Mom and Dad didn’t want them to see any controversial books that are not from the church. Mother had met a friend who wasn’t part of the LDS Church anymore, Helen Lithgow, and she and Mother shared books on gospel and truths. “We can improve ourselves, we have a long way to go. Read the book of Mormon again and it will help.” Mom told us, but Dad would always out brag her with the amount of times he’s read it “I’ve read it 4 times this year alone”. We had cantaloupe and peaches for dinner at home and Daddy gave mom a blessing by placing his hands on her head, bowing his reverently in prayer and talking to God and receiving testimony of what to say during the blessings. Daddy had a special power that he got from the church, a sort of magic that made his blessings work, a man who has Priesthood can administer these prayer blessings. So sometimes he would have to leave home and go give blessings to other kids in the neighborhood who’s fathers didn’t have the truth and the priesthood. I loved getting blessings because I believed they would always work. They are always really long winded, and as much as I love being blessed, I sometimes wish my Dad would just shut up, get to the point, and stop talking so the blessing could just happen already. Dad liked listening to himself talk. Afterwards, my parents pulled out a card table, it was game time so dad unfolded the four corner legs, and they played bridge. Mother and Dad tease each other because they are competitive. We were happy on some days. I was happy because the heat from the furnace was working, which means the heater was on, so I sat by the vents like a bald cat, hogging all the heat for myself. “Today your dad talked to four people about Melaleuca!” Mom said proudly. We still had our car trouble and financial trouble pretty regularly. “I hope he will really get started on it.” She continued. We sat around together bundled up in blankets in the living room of the white house. The large living room had a big window, and anyone from outside could see our family within, lit only by oil lanterns. I imagine looked like an oil painting. We appeared to be from the 1800’s while the busy world happened around us, but it was just because our electricity was turned off so much that we had oil lamps and knew how to use them well. “We don’t even need electricity” Celeste said. She was logical. She was grinning like a telegram singer who shows up when unexpected. Ross had plans in the Beehive state to attend the University of Utah, they made plans for him to go to school, yet he was still not doing anything to further his education and life takes over with the little things. Dad decided that we also could still love ice cream even if it’s freezing outside so we went out and had ice cream for dinner. Mother thought we should save the money but dad made sense when he said ice-cream is cheaper than going out to eat and getting a big dinner. Stopping for ice cream, all eyes went right at my mother. She chose the same every time, Rocky Road, double dips. We got one scoop but our parents always got two. Being a grown up must be so much fun. Mom and Dad finally took their car to the shop, they said it was 400.00 to fix. But dad tried to repair it himself and he “tried in vain” mother said proudly but he couldn’t fix it. Dad was her hero when he wanted to be. He came home with a new bus that was running that was cheaper than the cost of fixing the other car. He was always bartering, and was really good at it. Dad painted garage sale signs today for our own garage sale but after they went out to sales themselves to look there was a great surprise for Mother. In later years (note to editor, is “in later years” a good thing in this story, by cutting to the future and the past?) Mother gave Celeste her most treasured gift for her birthday when she had nothing else to give and wanted to give something special, but today it was her special gift; an antique diamond ring that Dad had found at a swap meet. It was so beautiful, sparkling and so big, just like what a movie star would wear. Even though it was expensive he said, “She’s worth all of it” he said, “I sure do love you!” and she joyously put the ring on. Celeste deserved to get the ring later, she was always telling on Aimee and I, and tattle teller gets the prize. We weren’t the richest in town, but we had a lot of love for each other, mother taught us to love your family. Lisa brought over cake and ice cream for Mom and gave her ten bucks. We were still packing. We were getting prepared to leave just in case the bill collectors insisted. Dad built a wooden box to hold tools in. He’s really good with making things. The church brought over delicious chili and with cheese, it was really good. How did they know how hungry we were? I want to be that person in my own life. The kind of person that will notice what others ignore. I want to notice those that fall between the cracks like we were. CHAPTER 3. LOSING the HOME I would like to buy back my childhood home someday, fix it up my own way, make it new and amazing and fresh and clean, and live in it part of the year while spending the other part of the year in California. It would be the home anyone in the family could go use anytime they want. I want it paid and debt free. I dream of taking my own daughter there to live, with my really cool husband and our dogs, and inviting any family who wants to come, even if I am just a dreamer. I would come back to the house every holiday. I would turn it into a bed and breakfast. I would make mom and dad so proud that I could keep the house for us forever. It’s good to dream, it means that there is hope. Without hope there is nothing but if you still have hope, you’ve got something. The White House was the home I felt as home. The home was built in 1900, 2,646 square feet of space we all ran around in, using every part of it, it was an idealic type of perfect, but it wasn’t. To me, it was a mansion and the only childhood home that ever mattered. Verbal abuse can leave lasting scars "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me" -- African Proverb My mother wore combat boots and army pants she had found at a garage sale and my father wore polyester pant-suits topped with a fedora, before fedoras were stylish. My mom was overweight, my dad was thin, and he teased her about it often, which made her cry. I would sometimes catch my mother alone eating M&M’s she had scored.
 Our parents would take us to the Cache Valley Mall where there was an arcade full of entertainment and games. Ross and Pat would get playing tokens and stand together, each with an arm around the others back would play Miss Pac Man for several hours while me and my sisters waited impatiently. We would walk around, pretend to play games, but the tokens were for my parents, not us. My parents had the quarters so they were the ones that had the sword to slay the dragons! We would just waste money if we were to play, according to my dad. So my sisters and I wouldn’t play the arcade games.
 “Look at that darlin, I’m beating you again!” my dad would yell loud enough for anyone around to hear. “Just you wait, don’t press your luck mister” my mother would reply, clacking her false teeth.
 We never had money to eat but they managed to get money to entertain themselves for hours. Everyone needs an escape. I learned the power of entertainment from my parents. They were in a bad situation, but entertainment pulled them out of their world. They didn’t lose sleep every moment from not working a job. Some people use drugs and alcohol, my parents used Miss Pac Man and Chocolate. My parents were excellent players, holding their joysticks passionately as they avoided the ghost while directing Miss Pacman through the electronic maze of fruit. I wanted to play too but my dad would remind us that “When we get rich I’m going to buy each of you girls your own Miss Pac Man machines and then you can play all the time!” When other kids would come play at the arcade with their friends I would try and hide. I was ashamed of the excitement and hooting and hollering my parents displayed while playing together. They loved disappearing into the game. They would kiss a lot, hug, and my father would even squeeze my mother’s bottom affectionately, giving her the giggles. I loved seeing them happy because when they were happy, that meant that Celeste, Aimee and I weren’t in trouble. My sisters and I had bikes that my father bought from garage sales. My dad taught each one of us how to ride a bike by holding the back of the bike, balancing us, and running around the block several times, holding us up, until we could finally feel safe enough to pedal without him. “Trust me” he said as he ran alongside each of us for miles as we learned to ride. “I’m doing it Daddy! Celeste and Aimee and I loved riding our bikes, and we rode them all around the neighborhood after Dad finally let go, he was our training wheel. We would pedal our bikes fast to get to Willow Park, which was just a few blocks away where they had a small zoo, which doesn't fit the standard formula, but has been located in Willow Park since ‘71.
 The caged monkeys dangled from their cages as we all bowed our head to pray long dramatic prayers publicly before eating our sticky watermelon chunks. My father would lead the way bikes to the park carrying a large watermelon in the early evenings, the rest of us would cycle beside him, a family on bikes. He would raise the watermelon over his head and smash it to the ground for us, and my sisters loved watching him do it. I was embarrassed, though I don’t know why I felt that feeling as I had such little time with kids other than my sisters for a time. My sisters would eagerly pick up the pieces and eat our dinner, but I hate the taste of watermelon, the smell of it, all of it. I envied the families around us who had come prepared for picnics with sandwiches, chips and hot beans. I wanted what they had, but watermelon was cheap and one could feed the whole family. “I’m so hungry I feel like I’m dying.” I said during a park picnic dinner of melon. The willow trees swayed in the light breeze. Summers were nice in Logan, we experienced all four seasons there. But, as the seasons changed, so did Dad. Dad bowed his head for a long lecture that he would give us through his prayer. I sometimes felt he wanted to teach us through the prayers he said and blame the lesson on getting inspiration from above, saying things like “…and bless the girls that they will learn how to behave better and.. I would complain that my tummy was growling, and I was for sure going to die I thought, dramatizing my situation out loud the way Dad did when he wanted to make a point. Mother filled a water bottle up with distilled water, garlic, and whatever else she could find and tincture, then gave each of her children forced enemas with them. It was humiliating and I would rather stay sick than have my mother give me an enema but she does, making me lay on a towel on a blanket with my legs to the side. She sticks a sharp tip inside my bottom, I feel invaded and angry. I felt that I had no control or say in any decisions concerning my body. I was the child, she was the mother, but I hated enemas by my mother. “You don’t look dead to me!” my father would reply as he pulled seeds out of mothers piece of watermelon. Her false teeth could crack, so she needs all the seeds out. Dad puts salt on his watermelon. The family at the picnic table next to us had a bag of wonder bread, I focused on it and wondered if I should ask for a piece. “Those families eating all that processed food over there are going to all be sick and full of mucus, and puss and disease in their bodies while we will all be healthy and cleaned out, dammit Amber, eat!” He knew how to spin any situation to serve him. Most nights we had ice cream for dinner becaue it was cheap and good. Besides, “There are children starving in Africa!” Dad said as he wheeled around and gave me such a look that I thought he might hit me. I wanted to pick up the juicy mess, pick out the dirt, ants and grass, and send my slice of watermelon to Africa. I didn’t. I folded my arms with the rest of the family and said a prayer for all the park families to hear how faithful we are. I loved God, I hated praying out loud, and it made me angry that God wanted this. I thought about it, and realized that if I pray on my own God would have to hear me, so if I prayed In my mind he would have to hear me too because he is God, he knows everything, right? I came up with my own variations of what I learned because I had my own beliefs being built and influenced. We finally said “Amen” after blessing the food. As soon as my eyes fluttered open from reverent prayers, I let go of gas, (*Farting, but I wasn’t allowed to use the word fart) and it sounded like a long winded “Meeeooooo!” I was so embarrassed. I tried to pretend like it wasn’t me but how could it of not been, it came right from my bottom, and it was an announcement! “You just let out gas!” Celeste confirmed. We all started laughing and were glad I held it through the prayer. Food for was always scarce. After being unable to hold down a job because of a bad temper, and being irresponsible, Dad would read self-help books on how to be healthy, and how to be rich. We took Spirulina sea algae pills, which left an awful after-taste but helped ease hunger pains. We would take a spoonful of cayenne pepper, followed by a spoon of honey and lemon water. Meat was out of the question, it was “bad for you” and “all mucus” and “not even a consideration” for our family for a moment. The word of wisdom in the Mormon religion is to “eat meat sparingly” which to my father meant that being vegetarian and following everything strictly is what God wanted us to do. . Water from the faucet was forbidden as it was “full of killer fluoride from the government” and so we only drank distilled or boiled water. I loved church welfare, but I hated the taste of the canned bulk goods. I was so grateful for it though. I believe my dad truly wanted to provide, but didn’t quite know how. He didn’t know how to fix up the rusty bus we had, but he always was tinkering with it. He was fed up with anyone who told him how to look after his family, which people often did because of he did so much wrong as a parent. His failures seemed to mock him, which angered him to extremes, and this translated to being angry at the family instead. But, sometimes he would flip in a moments notice, and get excited about something new. He was off and flittering on a new discovery, as if the world was his personal chest full of junk and he was always digging through it to find a treasure. We complained that we wanted a real breakfast like the other kids had, that having a juice only for breakfast made us still feel hungry. “We don’t believe in breakfast, juice breaks the fast.” He said. Fasting is going without food. BREATHARIAN DIET The book The Breatharian Diet was discovered by Helen, who’s always ambitious with the newest age ideas. Both parents would read the book out loud to us later as we pretended to be excited as children learning we were going to try and stop eating food. Breatharians, as they call themselves and now us, claim that food and in some cases water, are not necessary for survival, and that humans can be sustained solely by prana, which is the vital life force in Hinduism, even though we were Mormon. This lifestyle goes along with simplicity and nothingness. I imagine a group of Breatharians flying off into a spaceship. They even sound cosmic, “The breatharians.” Dad said it was no ones business what we did in our family because the child-welfare services wanted to launch investigations into our family, and break it up. We knew that at any moment, we would be found out. So, we listened to our parents, and tried to ignore the pains of hunger. Life is full of drama and tragedy and comedy, and every family has secrets, hunger was one of ours. Dad always had a paperback copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, in his back pocket. The outline of the book wore lines into the polyester, staining a mark of permanence like a wallet would on denim. My Dad knew much of the book by heart, re-reading the plans for success over and over again, somehow missing the part where you have to work hard to accomplish things.Hard work means doing hard things sometimes, and finishing things. Dad was a starter. He thought of himself as a deserving millionaire while we were living in squalor. Mother lit the oil lanterns and we had our dinner of dumpster doughnuts as the lights flickered off the wall. This inspired me. There were candles but we had to blow them out when it got dark so people wouldn’t see that we were living there illegally. He was taking action, and he created the outcome he wanted for his family, just for a sparkle of a moment. Then we blew the candles out. We ate all the findings from the dumpster diving in the dark, laughing at the luxurious life we were living, “just like the millionaires eat, look at this bread, still good” and we didn’t even have to be millionares yet, it was all in the thinking, to grow rich. We had no money after a continuous cycle of my dad passionately self-starting anything he could get excited about, with good intentions, but then there was never the follow through, and he was off to the next big idea. “what we really need is to get you a violin” he said, devising a new plan of making me a famous violinist. That was the plan heralded for weeks. He had ideas, but the racist teachings of old LDS beliefs are taught to those in the underground society where the church abandoned the restrictions against the racism. “The blacks just aren’t as smart as the whites are, they don’t have jobs and they want to rape and kill children, and they are not far in the eternal progression with Heavenly Father. See, they were punished before…” I just kept staring at the black man as he watched my dad pull me by the collar because I wasn’t moving fast enough, out of the store angrily, far from the cursed black man. I wonder if he wanted to help me, he looked at my dad as if my dad was crazy. I wasn’t scared of the man being the lowest on the totem pole of bullshit some racist created and taught my father, but instead I worried that the black man was going to plummel my father in the face with his fist for being so antagonistic! “He’s stoned, and on drugs, you can tell if you look in his eyes close enough.” Dad was experienced with Black people, he thought, and he thought he was friendly and not racist too. He had “met a lot of blacks” when we lived in Dallas and “They used to come to the head shop” he further explained, defending his racism. I watched the dark skinned man, wondering why he didn’t want to leave and just go back to Africa now that there was a chance to go and be free? I was told about slavery, and agreed how awful and wrong it was. So why was Dad still treating a different kind of human being like they are beneath us? He wasn’t even a woman. I wanted to go back to Africa with them. I thought that if I was a slave and forced to live in America, I would want to go back to where I came from once freed. I had no idea of how history really worked, what the plight of slavery really was and how ridiculous my idea was. I just wanted freedom for everyone essentially, and thought that by going on a ship back to Africa, happiness would be found. “Who does God love more, women and children or blacks?” Men were the leaders. Especially white men like Jesus Christ. “I don’t know” dad answered. “I’ll pray about it. I was also being taught ignorance. I believe you can teach someone how to be worse than how they were naturally born, because aren’t we all equal and good? This man was. This particular person, a black man, looked at my father with empathy and pity. He felt sorry for my dad when my dad was the one treating him poorly. My dad stood guard until he left the store and we continued looking at candy we couldn’t afford. “The starting point for all achievement is desire!” Napoleon Hill Why not pray now, why wait? I learned this from my parents. I just don’t make it such a public display. I thought I hated eating a busted up watermelon, but I hated having “life air” for dinner even more. Our family fasted like holy fools as part of the Mormon religious practice, but truly the reason we fasted was lack of food and money. After a few weeks of sun-gazing for nutrients instead of eating them in a lunch, my father busted through the door excitedly carrying a big fruit box full of doughnuts, bread, rolls, and other fruit. He had found the mecca of free food in the dumpsters. We were giddy with excitement and we ate and ate and ate until we looked like Dr. Suess characters, all tummy with skinny legs, and there was still buns left after we were all so full. “Can you believe they throw this out?” mom asked. “I hope we can get more” I said as if I was making the decisions. After Dad discovered that grocery stores throw out “perfectly good” food in their large dumpsters. From that point on, we went dumpster diving behind Albertson’s for “day old doughnuts, jawbreakers, lettace and oranges” I was scared of the mice that I saw once in awhile, but it was not the time to be scared as we had to get in the dumpster, and out quickly so the managers wouldn’t tell us again to stop taking the food from the trash, that it was not for consumption. My father would hoist one of his girls into the dumpster and we would fill boxes with so much food we felt like we were eating like millionaires. We didn’t look like millionaires though. We had tangled long hair, unwashed clothes, dirty from no hygience, but our eyes were clear and sparkled with naïve joy when we indulged in diving for dinner in the dumpsters. The joyful glee I felt when we discovered something perishable was exciting and my dad was always happy that we had “cheated the system” somehow, and live like millionaires do, eating all the expensive foods that are thrown out. We just had to dig and look a little harder for our fine dining, pick out the bugs, banana peels, old cheese and rice. In the beginning, my sisters and I would hide when people saw us jumping into dumpsters, and we had the sort of reactions from other people you may expect, but after awhile the love and reward of day old doughnuts overweighed the shame. My dad was violent. His wit and violence often a millimeter apart. My dad would grab any one of his girls, bend us over and hit our bottoms hard in any public place, which shamed us, hurt us, and taught us nothing other than hate. No one ever said a word to him, but behind the scenes there were people in town who started calling social services. Mother had been threatened with social services before, they checked on us periodically, and they wanted to take us away. It was an abusive house. Ross was the head of the abuse. Maybe he should not hit his children, I hated him and saying these words make me feel sad. No one should hate their parents because parents are supposed to be the solid foundations in our life. “You care too much about what other people think damnit, I’ll tell you what, they aren’t thinking about you, I’ll okay I’ll I’ll tell you what, he, here I’ll give you something to care about…” and he would try and throw things at me, or hit me with something as punishment. I was always afraid of him hitting. I wanted him to just stop hitting me. It was true. “Before freedom is achieved, before one arrives home, first you must be lost, wandering, devoid of hope; first you have to traverse the abyss.” Danny Sugarmen Our only pet as a child was a black cat named.
My dad named him, and told us it meant “boy”. It doesn’t. 
Ragazzo was an indoor/outdoor cat and he was a badass. He would curl up and purr when you pet him. He would sleep in bed with me. He would lay in the sun by the window and lick his paws for hours. But, he would also fight other neighborhood cats, which terrified me, and every time I heard a howling sound, I would run to chase off the intruder so that Ragazzo wouldn’t get hurt defending his territory. I loved that cat. As the cat got older it started to pee around the house, in the piles of dirty laundry amid the mess. Ragazzo wasn’t allowed inside anymore, regardless of the snow and freezing temperatures outside. I would sneak Ragazzo in the house, hide him under my blankets and return him back outside. I remember returning home with the family one evening and Ragazzo was sitting out in the snow in front of the house peeing, as if showing off for my Dad. He still didn’t get to come in. I took blankets outside and put them under the house for him, hoping he would find them. Later I would climb under the house and find ice-cycles forming from the outside wet. In the summertime Ragazzo would sit on the porch and watch the birds make nests. He would stretch out and lay in the sun for hours. Ragazzo our wild house cat wasn’t happy with the new living arrangements and he disappeared after scratching up my arms trying to escape the car as we drove away into the night with him, taking him from the only neighborhood he had ever lived in. We then plucked him into the countryside, in a house full of families and unkempt children, to live outside. I panicked when I noticed he didn’t come when I called for him after we moved into the Lithgow home. I had tried to spend as much time outside with him as I could, playing in the field or out by the Lithgow Barn. But one day, he was simply gone. Our rare and wondrous cat had run away. I walked the fields crying every day for weeks, looking for the lost cat but never saw him again. I remember standing in an open field in the middle of a valley, praying to my Heavenly Father for Ragazzo to come back. I had a bond with him, and wanted to protect the cat from my dad’s angry outbursts, which were terrifying. I knew that I would get out of living without having any power someday, and I wanted to make sure Ragazzo was safe. I always believed there was something more in my life that mattered, and I knew I would never allow anyone to not recognize an animal has rights. I was unable to care for an adult outside cat that had now been thrown among the feral. I thought that maybe Ragazzo was more like me than I realized. He just wanted his freedom. Maybe he had found it and just dove in, leaving us behind. One night when I returned from searching the vast fields in Paradise, my dad sat us down and told us the news. I hated my father so much. He sat Celeste, Aimee and I down and told us solemnly. “A member of the church found Ragazzo hit by a car, still alive and rushed him to the Vet and saved his life!” I love my father so much. “I knew it, I prayed” I said. “He’s clearly not okay if he’s been hit by a car” Celeste said, wit on. “Is he here?” Aimee questioned. He wasn’t. He was in his new house where he lived inside and was loved. After the family that found Ragazzo and took him to the vet lthere was an enormous bill. My dad selflessly gave Ragazzo to the new family as a sacrifice since they loved him, and we were tougher than that, and our cat had a good retirement living safely indoors. I cried and was inconsolable, but it was against my control. We were homeless, lethargic and uprooted so much that staying with another family, five of us piled into one bedroom in a house full of people was better than living outside. Aimee sniffled a lot. I pulled and tugged on my hair, and Celeste would scrawl up her brows, interested. NO MORE PUBLIC SCHOOL When the school year started, I began 3rd grade at Woodruff Elementary School. One afternoon, we had “shot’s day” and everyone was lining up to get their shots. This was the late 70’s, things have changed dramatically since the time of giving children shots at school, but for me it was shot day. I stood in line trembling, tears running down my face as I got closer and closer to my turn. “It doesn’t hurt, and it even fizzes” a lanky schoolboy Jack said. But the spell was already cast, I was so afraid I couldn’t release the control fear had over me. It was my turn. I walked behind a curtain, sat on a chair and then I saw the needle. “This won’t hurt, it will bubble up which is really neat” said the nurse. I looked at my torturer, her eyes bugged out behind bottle glasses. Reality opened it’s gaping maw and swallowed me whole as I tumbled into panic. Suddenly, I bit the arm of the nurse and as she whined in surprise I bolted out of the chair and took off running. The Principal took off after me, but I ran as fast as I could and was out of grasp. I ran out of the auditorium. I ran down the hall and out the front door of the school. I ran blocks and blocks and blocks, all the way home. As Forest Gump would say “I just ran.” I ran up the stairs, opening the screen it slams behind me and I nuzzle inside to my mothers giant breasts. I was crying, and told her it was shot day and that they were after me to give me one. Mother was sitting by the window with a tall cup of chewing ice, which she loved. I was breathless, but she calmly said “Did you hear that Ross? They are giving the girls shots.” Then there was a knock on the door. It was the Principal and Attendant, my dad opened the door and they came in. I knew this was going to be agony, but I braced myself for the return to my destiny. Shots were mandatory, but something shifted in my dad and his anger with the Principal and the school system. She exploded. “She is my daughter and she doesn’t need shots! Does she look sick to you?” My dad yelled at the Principal who seemed to be extremely confused. As the Principal tried explaining why the shots were good for all the kids at school my dad snapped. “Kids are baby goats!” The Principal was confused at my dad’s anger as it turned on so quickly. He was angry and confrontational. My anxiety from getting pricked by a needle faded as I watched my dad challenge the Principal to a fist fight. “Why don’t you just drop dead, over my dead body will you give any MY children government poisons! My mother explained more calmly that they did not approve of children getting shots, mandatory or not, and that I have every right to come home from school during the day any time I wanted to. No one can tell her children what to do except her and she had always told us that we didn’t have to stay in school all day if we didn’t want to. It felt good having my parents stand up for me, especially since getting a shot as a child felt like life or death. I never got immunized as a child. That evening my dad proudly reminded his scrawny tribe of misfits that he stopped the government from poisoning his children, or more. He spit out “I bet the government is giving public school children marks of the beast!” “The devil is trying to trick everyone into believing it is for something they need, and through the government they are marking these, them, they, they…into the …cycle of eternal progression, but those know it all’s don’t know anything. Bullshit, just bullshit damnit!” Dad was stuck with his words, trying to get a point across that he was feeling. He often didn’t use the right words, his language was toxic, and all over the place. We always held our breath until he was finished saying what he was saying, if we interrupted, he would just get louder and louder, like turning up a radio to full blast. You learn to understand what he was trying to say, until we stopped hearing his stutter at all. His stutters would go away for periods of a time. He would tell jokes, pretending to lose his finger in their ears, or flipping out a coin from behind their ears. He liked to joke and tease children, laughing with them. He loved the Carnie children he would see running around our booth while we were traveling with the carnival for months at a time. Carnies were our friends, they knew us because we followed the fair in our own car, set up our own booths at each town. We would sell everything we could from aloe vera bottles to fake cabbage patch kid dolls or plastered statues my dad brought home after working as a coyote on the route from El Paso to Utah. My parents wanted to dominate our world completely without any outside influences. “Teachers are told what to teach you by the government, so they can basically teach you the wrong things, bad things, false things.” Mother said. It was the last year of elementary school for me as I never went back. From that point on, my education had been halted, and traveling carnivals, moving from place to place, living wild and religious, depressed and still hopeful, I always wanted to learn. Observing the behavior of my parents as I grew was something I felt like I was doing from an outside point of view, disconnected. Public school was a place of evil, of worldly influencers who were teaching unrighteous things. Even though they were not educated themselves, they decided they knew all that we should be allowed to learn. “They don’t teach what you need to learn” my father said matter of factually. He said that we needed to know about our Savior Jesus Christ and they didn’t teach that in school. They could of been in fear also, fear of us being taken away by the state social child abuse services We lived like nomads and at school the teachers would inquire into our wellbeing after seeing our whole family standing on a street corner selling fake cabbage patch kids illegally. He was off the grid so the government could “mind their own damn business and drop dead!”and my dad would yell like a psychotic demon if anything they asked anything personal. My dad would make a spectacular scene to get his point out.
 My isolation, dread and disconnectedness kept me insulated within self. Our pet eased my feelings. Ragazzo was the only pet I experienced in my childhood. He was a good cat. I love you Ragazzo and I have never forgotten you. I still would believe secrets that were always trembling on the verge of revelation, even if it takes years. 
I finally learned the fate of Ragazzo was not what I had been told. He was hit by a car on the freeway and died. My dad had found him on the side of the road hit, and left his body where it was and lied to us. He did not have the same compassion I innately felt for a pet. I am glad I didn’t know then what I just learned now - it would of broken me even more. I love you Ragazzo. I am sorry, I wish ..I could of protected you. I was distracted trying to protect myself. Grandiose thinking was normal. My dad would always remind us that we were going to be millionaires someday, even telling us this while digging in dumpsters or living in a tent or with another family. My dad declined government assistance because he believed the government couldn’t be trusted. He could do just fine providing for his family without any help from Satan! Then other times he would apply and we would get to use food stamps, where we would buy a lot of really yummy food, it would all spoil because we had electricity turned off, and we would go back off welfare. “I pay my taxes, it’s okay to get back what you put in, our government is here to take your money okay…and..” he would raise contemptuous arguments, no one wanted to fight against his ego and strong will, but he would pick a victim and unload. He would be the one taking care of his family damnit! “If it’s the last thing I do!” he would defend. He wasn’t going to work hard for it, but he would spin his children into little employees, and off to go we went. We were good salesgirls, but we all hated it. Getting rewarded with things like Ice cream cones at the store with the money we made was so good. Often the ice cream cones came in place of other food for the day. Mom was always crying traumatically so easily, so dramatically and her tears were always right on the bare surface, brimming her eyes ready to explode, I hate her sadness, it made me angry. But then when I couldn’t stop crying over something myself I thought of a way to use what hurt the most to be a benefit in the future “I can be a famous actress who cries on film!” I said to Mother. I was off on another big dream, using my past as a way to escape, and be present, all together now. Crying doesn’t make me stronger it just gives me a headache, and then I start thinking of things all over again and go on and on in a cycle in my brain of thinking and overthinking. Tears were the act of me soothing myself, releasing pain to become analgesic. “The teachers can’t be trusted damnit, I should of done this sooner or later! My dad said, ideas motioning underneath his back slicked comb over. My mom backed him up with beliefs that the school would teach us evil things, we should just keep you at home”. “What are we going to do for school?” I asked, crying because I hated the thought of more time at home. “We can name it strawberry lane, and have school right here in the living room.” School wasn’t ideal in 2nd or 3rd grade but to me it was also an escape from my parents. “Your mother and I are going to teach you what you should be learning,” said my father. “Like how to grow up to follow Heavenly Father and the Holy spirit along your path of eternam progression and be a good wife and a good mother.” His prayers took too long. It’s like the longer the prayer the more God would appreciate it. I thought God would get as bored as I was with the long winded prayers. But, we prayed, and God wanted us to no longer attend public school apparently. I didn’t get that answer, but my parents did. Things like math and science weren’t important in life according to their beliefs because women were to be “God fearing wives and mothers, obedience always”. That was the only role that mattered. When mom and dad first removed us from the school system they bought us some study booklets. I hurt you because I love you.
 Celeste, my sister was always smarter, calmer, and sweeter than Aimee and I. There were times that my mother set up a chalkboard and taught us the words she knew in Spanish. I was a great reader and preferred reading Nancy Drew novels over doing schoolwork. The attempt at structure didn’t last long, but my parents commitment to their decision stuck at any cost. My dad was resentful towards a lot of people, and resistant to any authority over his children. After a couple weeks of home schooling, my sisters and I stopped the bookwork and would just go outside and play instead. We looked for buried treasure, went inner-tubing down the canal, and when we wanted quarters for candy, we went door to door through the neighborhood selling anything we could get our hands on. In the evenings (when we had electricity), we would sometimes watch art slides against the wall. My dad had picked up a projector and the slides from a garage sale. I loved learning about art and was intrigued with their lives. “Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter who visited whores while he was drunk. He was known as a freak” my dad would say. I had heard the word “whore” often, so it wasn’t shocking. Every time I asked about my biological mother. “Your mother was a whore and a drunk” dad said. It had the opposite effect intended because I had a fascination with whores and their images. My dad clicked through, explaining what he knew about each piece. We looked at collections from Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. “See, they don’t teach you about impressionism in school now do they?” We would laugh and tease about how unlucky the children at school were. They were learning skills that were unimportant with a public education, but we had Renoir. My love of art awakened and my curiousity of the artists lives was fascinating. Art history, learning outside the school system. “The pain passes, but the beauty remains” Renoir Mom and dad are inquiring about a Leadership Management Course in Waco, Texas. They may just go inquire further about it. We are all huddled in one room in the white house. We have a small heater on because the furnace is broken, and the house is cold. We write letters and spend time together as a family because it’s freezing until the furnace is repaired. I have paint all over my clothes from painting class I took up the street. It’s not the time to change clothes when it’s so cold so I keep them on. We invited over 29 children for a party in our living room for Valentines Day. The planning was so fun, and Celeste, Aimee and I invited everyone we wanted to. We made cards and decorations to hang, and even had cupcakes for everyone that Nancy brought over to give as dessert. It was such a fun time playing games, then we all exchanged valentines day cards. I think I did the best at creating original art for mine, cut from construction paper, glued with anticipation, and given away with love. Jack from down the block, freckled and on fire, ripped open his valentine I made, tearing the card. I wanted to pull his red hair out! I also wanted to kiss him. A RAG DOLL One afternoon upon returning home, I found a wrapped package sitting on the front porch. My sisters and I ran to see what it was. It was a beautifully wrapped present! I picked it up and we ran inside with it. My mother struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp we had our electricity turned off again. She loosened more ribbon into the oil and the room lit up. I put the box on the table and my sisters and I were wide-eyed from curiosity. There was a small note scotch-taped to the present and it that said: “To Amber From: Someone who loves you” I was giddy and so were Celeste and Aimee.
I opened it slowly and carefully, the wrapping was so like Christmas paper, but it wasn’t December. Inside the box was the most beautiful handmade Raggedy-Ann doll laying atop decorative crinkle paper. She had black-yarned hair, which I felt was just for me because of my own dark hair. How did this person know that I was always self-conscious having my darker hair because Celeste and Aimee had blonde. I wanted to feel like I was a part of, not different than those around me. I wanted to look like my family, but I didn’t. Kristeen Ann looked like me. She had blue eyes. She wore a dress made out shiny satin with apron and even lacey bloomers underneath. It looked expensive and fancy. I couldn’t believe it.
“Maybe there is a clue somewhere on her?” Celeste said smugly, acting like she could care less. She cared. I searched the doll, but there wasn’t a clue on her other than a heart made from string on her chest. Just a simple red heart, but I still didn’t know where she came from.
To say I was overjoyed by her is an understatement. She was the best thing that could of possibly happened to me. I picked the wrapping paper up from the floor.
“Maybe they wrote a clue on the paper?” Celeste said curiously.
My sisters and I studied the wrapping paper turning it inside out to see if we could find a clue as to who it was from. I folded the crinkled paper as neatly as I could, wanting to keep it because it matched the dolls dress, and because of what it was. “Do you think my real mom left her for me?” “No.”
“ Do you know who it’s from?” “No.”
“Do you think my real mom knows where we live?
“No. And I’m your real mom.”
“I mean my biological mom.”
“No, your biological mom was a drug addict.”
 “I know, but...but...the note said they love me, who could it be?” I persisted. 
“I don’t know, isn’t that fantastic!” Dad stuttered as he left the room to get more lanterns. “I’m hungry” Aimee whined.
”Stop complaining” Celeste said “Because we are hungry..”she continued. My mother told Aimee to go outside and pick dandelions from the yard. Mom had recently learned in one of their friends holistic health marketing company that there are health benefits of dandelions and she heard that in some places they eat dandelions because they like them. Our dandelions tasted like cancer, half dead, half sprayed, sprinklered weeds with expired Ranch dressing on them was dinner, and we all had to eat them without complaint, Dad watching us chew like a hawk. Even dandelions for dinner again didn’t upset me. I didn’t even care if I had to eat dandelions, swallow cayenne pepper or even chew a spirulina pill to stop a growling tummy. I was smiling, laughing and crying all at once with happiness. Everything in my life in the moment felt perfect and whole. I had no idea who gave me the gift, but it was just at the perfect time. I cried myself to sleep often - tonight I wouldn’t.
I held her close. Someone loved me enough to do this for me. The detail of the dark hair stood out, I had dark hair. Someone made it for me. I felt special, I felt proud, I felt giddy. Okay, I had never felt happier than I did in this moment. Somebody really loved me. I named her Kristeen Ann. This demonstration of kindness affected me deeply. I always felt different, I always felt lost and uncomfortable in my own skin. I had an empty space that she immediately filled. Her heart was made from cloth, thread and the compassion of a stranger, but because she came as a surprise just for me, she was special. I settled into my army bunk bed that night. We had found the army bunks at a garage sale, which is where we got everything - everything except Kristeen Ann. She was brand new. She was perfect. “I love you.” I whispered to her as I looked out the window and wondered if it really had been my real mom dropping off the present. I watched car lights dance along the wall shadows and I didn’t feel lonely. I snuggled in and slept soundly through the night. __ My dad bought cheap cars that were always clattering with noise, coughing up smoke and constantly breaking down. “I can fix it,” he would say after the cars spit up their last breath. I spent a lot of time sitting in broken down cars roadside with my family. We would argue with each other out of boredom and pinching and hair pulling with my sisters got the attention we didn’t want. My dad would pop his head out from beneath the hood and tell us to “behave dammit!” and if we continued acting up, his frustration with the situation would rise. He had no idea how to be a parent. He had no idea how to function as a normal part of society. All his frustrations would unleash on his family violently. He would come around the side of the car, unleash his belt from his pants and use it on us. Every time I was hit with a belt or anything else I felt pure hate towards him. How can a man I love be so violent towards me, my sisters, and verbally and psychologically abusive to my mother? I knew he was a bully and a monster at times, but like all monsters, there was both good and bad about him. I knew how wrong he was, and when you start truly not respecting your parents for hitting you, they lose the grip they think they are gaining by physically beating you into submission. I knew my fathers’ brutal violence was wrong, even from a young age before it was taught to me that it was wrong to be hit as a ‘punishment’. I know that my dad didn’t know how else to “handle” three young girls, a wife, a family. He was incapable of caring just for himself financially. We often repeat the actions of our parents, but violence, hitting, spanking, swatting, whatever you want to call it, it is something I never did with my own daughter. I never learned lessons from being “taught a lesson” and today I’m a strong advocate against it. LEARNING TO DRIVE My mother would sit in the drivers seat and steer the car down the road while my sisters and dad pushed the car until it would sputter back to life. Sometimes he would leave us in the car and hitch- hike to the nearest gas station for gas, water or parts. It was always an adventure and always full of uncertainty. “I’ll tell you what, I’m the best driver there is, especially in the snow – NOW hold on!!!”
Dad yelled excitedly as he pummeled the large tank of a car through an icy storm. There were no seatbelts, there was just holding on to anything you could to brace yourself. I grabbed the seat. I looked outside at the road ahead of me. I didn’t know how my dad knew if he was still on the road or not, everything was blanketed with snow. “How do you know where the road is, I can’t see it!” I said. “You just know.” Dad answered. “There you go, see I’ll tell you what!!” He went faster and faster.
 We are in Utah and my sisters and I scream out in fear from the back seat. “Ross, this isn’t funny!” My mother said as she held the dash from the front seat. Dad drove like a race car driver, with family hostage passengers. I’m scared too, and afraid of the possibility of spinning out of control and crashing. “Daddy, slow down!” Then we brake. Hard. We are on ice. Our heads bop forward before he pours on the throttle. “This car is so heavy even if we wreck we are fine!” he said as he continued driving briskly. Our car rides through the snow were Dads opportunity to put his driving skills to the test, with family in tow. He laughs through the adrenaline but mom is frantic and intense.
“Amber, you drive!” He spinned into a stop.
My mother and sisters get out of the car quickly, and I climb over the seat and sit in the drivers seat. “How do I do it” I asked. “Very carefully..” My hands gripped the steering wheel and Dad sat beside me and pushed his foot on the gas, smooth at first but then we started going faster. “I can’t hold on to the wheel, it’s shaking!” I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw my mom standing in the freezing snow with her arms around Celeste and Aimee, they got smaller as we drove further away. They got further and further away and I felt like I was going to become the second best snow-driver in the world, after my Dad.
“They are just scaredy cats!” He said. I didn’t want to show that I felt scared too. I was excited that I was driving, and even happier with the individual attention. I steered the car into the ditch. The wheels sputtered snow as we ripped up the fence- post roadside. We were now stuck. I looked at my dad’s expression, expecting him to be mad. He wasn’t. “Good job, it just takes more practice!” Driving in the snow is an art - so is crashing.
“See, there was nothin to be afraid of, I told you so!” he said as the family teamed up to push the car out of the ditch. If you can drive in the snow, you can drive anywhere. I know how we are going to get rich!” My dad yelled as he ran towards us. My sisters and I had spent the evening at the roller-skating rink, swirling round and round on our rented fat wheels. The loud music, the dance ball lights, and other “cool” kids made my sisters and I enjoy the weekends when could afford to go. Dad just got home with printed photos he took of us. I couldn’t wait to see them. I loved pretending to be a model, my dad the famous photographer. He was so good at taking pictures and took pictures of everything. Nancy walked in and looked at the photos of us, and suggested a modeling school we could attend, once we can afford it. I am so excited! It’s in Salt Lake City and it costs money. I want to go more than anything. If I could be a model and be on magazine covers, my real mother would see them and recognize me, and everyone would say how beautiful I looked, and I could take care of my family with all of the money I would make. Everyone would be so proud of me. My photos would be everywhere, and my dad would be known as one of the best photographers in the world. I know that models have to wear skimpy outfits sometimes for magazines, but it’s okay with me. I just want to follow my destiny and if we can get some money for gas to go to Salt Lake to visit the Modeling School, I could have my chance. A few days later, Dad and I were driving to Salt Lake City, our transportation puffing, grinding and smoking the entire way, the mountain trip was hard on the car, but we made it to the city, and to my appointment Dad had made me at the Modeling School. I had dressed up in my best outfit. I wanted to wear my pin striped jeans, but mother said they would want to see my legs for modeling, so I should wear a dress. I wore a dress. It was a special appointment. Dad went in with me and the beautiful woman who was talking to me about modeling had dad curious as to what all this school would teach me. I told the woman at the modeling school that I had one small scar on my knee from falling on my bike, and I had hoped that it wouldn’t stop me from having a career. She smiled and told me to take care of myself because I need to hide my scars. I took that to heart as I pulled my dress over my playful knees. At the school we learned that sometimes models went on Cruise Ships and danced and did modeling shows for the guests. It sounded so exciting, I wanted to dance in my seat as she was talking about it. I kept glancing at Dad, hoping he wouldn’t blow my big chance at success. Finally after all the tests, height, weight, walk, posing, I was told I could attend the modeling school, that I was qualified to take their workshops and lessons! It would cost. All I needed to start was money for more photos, prints, book, classes, lessons, workbooks, and more. It was a modeling class scam, driving in hopefuls like myself, with their parents in tow, then we leave feeling worse if we can’t spend the hundreds to be a “real” model. The prices she started quoting were in the hundreds. I knew when Dad started thumbing through the brochure of opportunities for me, that we couldn’t afford for me to go, even now I was accepted. Dad complimented me on the ride home for how observant I was when I noticed the pretty cows in the field roaming as I stared out the car window. Well, at least I’m observant. That’s a good thing. I wanted to notice every little thing to show my dad how observant I really was. I started pointing out all the things I was looking at while riding. “Look, there’s a barn down there” but the distraction didn’t work. I couldn’t hold it in. I cried the whole ride home to Logan, well almost all the way home. The car broke down in front of a fruit stand along the highway. Dad and I ate strawberries, and he tinkered with the car until we could get it to work the rest of the way home. Our parents would drop us off, but this time my dad had arrived early to pick us up, much to our dismay. My parents didn’t believe that we needed adult supervision and we were hot wired to skate. I was glad they didn’t go skating with us. I was embarrassed. We were rootless and I didn’t want anyone else to notice how poor we were. “How Daddy?” Aimee asked. “Look at this!” he showed us a torn piece of an envelope with the written words: A TOYOTA.
“They already invented Toyotas” I smugly replied, but quickly backed off after seeing his face. This was his moment.
“Any way you put it, it’s gotta be a Toyota. See, if you put an A in front of Toyota, and spell it backwards it still says Toyota. See? Backwards and forwards, anyway you put it’s gotta be A Toyota! I’m going to sell the revelation to Toyota for a million dollars! Even wearing roller skates I jumped up and down and hugged my sisters, “We are gonna be rich!” We were always on our way to being millionaires, and no one could ever try to tell us what to do after that.
“ What the hell, let’s ask them for a million dollars each!” he said as his eyes sparkled bright with hopeful excitement. I was happy that I wouldn’t have to ask the neighbors to borrow an apple or cup of milk so mom can make batter again. I thought of all the things I could do with my million dollars. I could run away, I could find my real mom, I could never be in trouble again.
Dad always had a get rich quick idea. He believed that working a 9-5 job was for “dummies” who didn’t have fantastic and amazing ideas. He was on the brink, always working his ideas and perfecting his techniques by bragging about them to anyone around town that would listen. Selling the white house: The moment a FOR SALE sign was put up in the yard, but then I got busy with a plan. I would go outside and knock over the sign hoping no one would see it and buy the only home I had ever known. Then the next day after it was put back up, I would push it over again after everyone had gone to sleep. I wanted to stay. I didn’t want the family to lose home. The sign was winning, it got attention and buyers, It was a large wooden sign that was hand-painted “For Sale By Owner” with pretty flowers decorating the edges, Mother had added her pretty touch. No. No. no. no. no. My mind flashed around like a pinball. I had demons in the house from abuse that happened there, but I wanted to keep the house, I knew it was something to use as a security, which felt uprooted from the moment of my first abandonment. My mothers artful hand is painting something pretty when, and she’s doing it while losing a home and that’s so ugly. Somehow I knew that once we lost the home, we would never have the same security again. It wasn’t security though, I had already had years of dismay and parental betrayel. I liked our house though, because it was the only one that we spent any time in. I had a deep emotional attachment to the house, and I still do. Dad was dramatic and he was in charge. We never asked what he would do to actually get money from the Toyota people for figuring out a branding slogan, but he never stopped believing that someday he was going to strike it rich. He had several jobs, but never a career several places to sleep, not a home. He would learn quickly how to do almost anything, unless it meant getting along with others who disagreed with him. He never learned how to do that and he was easily bored if he did the same thing for too long. In many ways we were. In some other ways, I would disagree. Today I don’t regret my past, and I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. I want to cover up the unhappiness I had gone through and turn it into happiness. And then the ideas would come! 
My dad would get a handful of dimes and walk up to a pay phone and call “The Toyota People” to get our millions. We were so excited, and I told our neighborhood friend Jessica Shaw that we would have anything we wanted when we got rich. Dad went to his friend Verl and told him the exciting news. Verl said he would pay to copyright the ideas. The second idea was to have recording artists give a short personal mesI at the beginning of a a record, tape or video disk. Verl agreed to present these two ideas for sale for Dad since he doesn’t know where or how to present them. Mother started a slender now program. She’s unhappy with her weight and wants to be thin for when there is money to enjoy. Then Verl found out there was no way to copyright those ideas so finally Dad had the idea to mail the idea to the Osmonds! We had watched the Osmonds on TV and knew they could get Dads ideas to the right people. He figured that they were Mormon and so that meant they were honest, and they were famous, so they could get word to the right people to help make Dad a millionaire for his ideas. In the meantime both of my parents went on a fast (no food) together for his success and courage to present his idea to the Toyota Advertisers. Nancy might know how to make Dad an appointment in Salt Lake, we are all so excited. “You children are so well behaved too” mother said, hopeful. Her undiagnosed depression is on hold today, but is always tumultuous. Her passion for art helps her through the poverty stricken family life. She stayed up all night with Daddy while he talked about his ideas. I hope more than anything in my heart that Dad could tell his ideas to the right people. Getting through the door with ideas is challenging but Dad didn’t even know which door to go through to get to a place he wasn’t familiar with. All he had was the excitement and the overcoming joy that a new idea brings, the next adventure for our family was exciting. That certainty, nothing can stop you, especially if the idea is too big and bright and simple. The next few weeks we lived in that bubble of dreams coming true, not really sure exactly how it was going to happen. Dad would look out in the world and feel like he couldn’t figure it out, chasing his dream, bounding around with family in tow. We felt like we had a secret, and in the evenings my sisters and I would giggle about “any way you put it, it’s got to be a Toyota!” and then laugh and laugh at the simple brilliance of it being the same forward and backwards. Celeste slapped her own knee she was so happy with laughter. Dad signed up for a Milk alternative powder program called Meadow Fresh. He thought that would help get the financial trouble under control. Outside Aimee had climbed to the very top of a Pine Tree. This was a Big pine. Tonight I asked mother to sing “Billie Boy” to me. Everyone told her she was the worst singer they had ever heard, but I loved hearing her sing. You can’t sing and cry at the same time, the words stop coming out, so just singing is a way to stop crying, I thought. Dad isn’t qualified anymore to get help from the church because he has friends that are apostates, meaning they are Polygamists who started their own church cult. I was so proud of him - we all were.
My dad walked to the pay phone every day that week and left mesIs explaining to the receptionists to put him through to the President because he was going to make their company even richer with his ideas. After he ran out of dimes he would call the company collect. They would not accept calls from someone the company didn’t know. “Any way you put it, it’s got to be ATOYOTA.” “Sometimes things don’t happen right when you expect them to, but they will happen.” He promised. I believed him. DENTISTS are bad for you! They poison you with Flouride, and we are supposed to take our children to get poisoned every time they have a cavity? “Bullshit!” my dad said. We weren’t allowed to go to the dentist. We also didn’t go to the doctor when we were sick. “There is no reason to go to the Hospital, a blessing is more powerful than any doctor.” Dad said. A blessing meant a prayer with your hands on top of someone’s head. You should use olive oil too before laying your hands on their head for blessing, and only people of authority in the church. I suffered from resentments towards authority. “Don’t you sass me!” my mother screamed. Sometimes after saying something back that I knew I shouldn’t of said I would feel a strange freeze inside my body, like the iceberg to the titanic. I knew I crossed a line, but only when it was too late. My parents struggled to find answers (or reasons) for so many human dilemmas that are simply a part of living.
Life on Earth had one purpose, to go to Heaven upon death. The camaraderie between a new group of friends who were also seekers of truth helped offset the strangeness of some of the things we learned from our parents new friends. “Can we go outside to play?” Celeste asked Mom. Swiftly my mother reached into her handbag and pulled out a black envelope of velvet. Inside was a pyramid etched on a round glass pendulum, which hung from a small chain. She and my Father had recently learned how to use a pendulum to get answers. Celeste, Aimee and I looked eagerly for an answer. At first there was silence because our mom closed her eyes to pray silently. A prayer in your mind, with your inside words, are they just thoughts and not prayers when it’s not out loud. We were all staring at her like mice peeking out of a hole, waiting for something to happen. “Let’s ask the Pendulum” she said.
“Should the girls go outside and play?”
If the pendulum would swing right it meant yes.
If the pendulum would swing left it meant no.
And in order to get an answer you had to do it reverently.
She balancing the weight from the pendulum between fingers, letting it hang freely.
“Make sure your arm is steady first.” Dad said as he was barely able to contain his interest. “Hold still dammit or it won’t..it won’t work.” He stuttered. “Ross I have it.” she replied in a hush. My father sat down, crossing his arms. When you think that you’re right and everybody else is going to do things wrong it can be a challenge, and for my Dad it was always hard to not control things in his home. There was a time when we had to pick dandelions for dinner. It was another health idea approach but it was really because of the lack of real foods. I appreciated days when we had food from dumpsters, that way we wouldn’t have to pick and eat dandelions. “Should we have dandelions for dinner?” My mother had steady and tanned hands still, holding the pendulum
carefully. “No”. The pendulum would swing left. I was excited to see it really work. My sisters were more excited we weren’t having dandelions again. Picking weeds in the yard for dinner was embarrassing and each of us was sure the neighbors knew we were eating them since we had to put them in a bowl as we picked.
“Should we have dandelions for dinner?” my mother asked again.
Should the girls go to the skating rink? Yes.
Should the girls go to the skating rink? No.
“Let me do it.” my dad snatched it away.
It was always his turn if he wanted it to be. I was fascinated, but afraid because of the reverence and faith they put into it, and with minimal effort, our family all learned how to use it. I always wondered if God could hear me when I was praying to him with my inside voice. I wanted it to work, so I believed. It became a sacred practice. I used buttons hanging on dental floss, necklaces and yarn wrapped around a rock as a pendulum. I always thought my mother worked the best pendulum with the most power she said. When used in the wrong way or to ask questions that we shouldn’t be asking God, the pendulum could “act up” and go slow or fast, it was usually spirits that would guide the pendulum from the other side or reality. If it swung straight up and down, that meant: undecided. To explain how it works, imagine a cassette tape radio as an analogy: The pendulum is the cassette tape recorders speaker. Your body, the antenna, with its many senses, is constantly picking up data (seen and unseen) from the world around you, and God has the ultimate power to give answers. This information is unconsciously conveyed to, stored in, and processed by your intuition, spirit guides, or people “from the other side”. My sisters and I were always reminded of spirits being “on the other side” watching us which was also a scare tactic to get us to behave. The eyes were everywhere sort of scenario, you never knew who was watching, a spirit (dead person) or a live person. I didn’t want spirits to watch me, the thought of them always being around made me feel scared. So, I wanted to respect the pendulum because I thought that when it was used, the spirits were watching. The use of tools for Joseph Smith, the self-proclaimed prophet and founder of the Mormon church used objects to get answers from God, all part of the cultural background in which he was raised. In Joseph Smith’s time (1800’s) many of the frontiersmen believed that divining rods and seer stones could be used to find water, lost objects, and treasures and that God guided certain tools. The ability was generally considered to be a God-given gift and was practiced by devoutly religious followers, and now in modern day Logan, Utah tools were used by my parents to break through to the other side. This was not a mainstream Mormon practice, my parents were already seeking more than what any one person, religion, or cult could teach them. There was an intensity of the pendulum's swing. It was considered a weak pendulum swing to be a "quiet" response and a big swing, a "loud" one. Sometimes if it went back and forth straight, it meant yes or no. The gigantic shadows of a religious prophet of 1800’s cast itself on our entire childhood. His name was Joseph Smith, and to my parents he had superhuman strength, was magical and had the fire of God within. By following the teachings of the 1800’s in a modern day snowy west, our family would carry the unique reward of blessings. So what if it was the late 70’s-80’s? My father led the way for us to romanticize ideas. “Joseph Smith (LDS founder) used seer stones and dousing rods and a pendulum was a modern day version
the Book of Mormon doesn’t refer to the translating tool as the “Urim and Thummim.” The Book of Mormon calls them the “Interpreters” (Mosiah 8:13). My parents believed referring to the pendulum Interpreters as the “Urim and Thummim”—a reference to a device in the Old Testament that was used for divination or for receiving answers from God. At night my mom protected her pendulum in a small velvet bag she carried in her purse.
I believed her pendulum had the most strength because it had a pyramid on it. One evening while everyone slept I got up and went into her purse, took out the pendulum and took it back to bed with me. I carefully slipped it from the velvet and balanced it carefully between my fingertips and asked “Is my real mother going to find me?” There was no swing. I started to feel scared of “evil spirits” but I continued asking the pendulum for answers anyway. I would gamble with my beliefs, trying out new things for myself. “Does my real mother love me?” I whispered to the pendulum. 
The chain started to move, but it could have been my wrist balancing over the side of the bed. 
“Will you at least tell her I love her?” I asked the necklace. It slowly but surely swung to the right. I dropped it out of fear. I was afraid of the people from the “other side” being in my room but I really wanted answers. Luckily I didn’t break the glass pyramid on a chain, and carefully I snuck back to my mothers purse and returned the magical equipment. My parents were always looking beyond the normal Christ-centered energy healing. While this seems strange in modern times, in Joseph’s day many intelligent, educated, and religious people believed that such real powers existed in the forces of nature. However, being God-like was not in my fathers personality. His tongue was vicious and frightening incidents of him screaming and yelling, threatening and lashing out, affected most who knew him. “We are to be in the world not of the world so who gives a rats ass who thinks what of me and when!” my dad would state. I decided I wanted to be of the world, a part of the world, not in a bubble. I wanted to know what was really going on in the world, as a defiance to the small world we lived in. I lived in an environment that at any moment could erupt into rage. It was the sort of thing that would keep me on edge, and resentful. It helped steer the desire to escape.
The trajectory of one’s life can change in an instant when your family temperament is one filled with combustive events. The transient lifestyle of never feeling secure in our environment was thunderous at times but after the years rolled by, we became used to it. Yelling to communicate was the norm. 
 My dad could go from laughing and having a great time together to alarmingly dangerous, depending on his appraisal of the given situation. He was unable to have civil discussions, but both him and my mother would join different groups of idealists. At these meetings my father would let everyone know what he was thinking and if he disagreed he would become impulsively macho, leaning towards bullying. My mother would drift in and out of apologies for him but without him she would be helpless and alone. He was imperative to her survival. “You shouldn’t of done that.” she whimpered when leaving. “Why do you have to..” He interrupted “Well they shouldn’t of been lying, I’ll tell you what, one of these day’s I oughta...by the way, you sure look pretty!” His thoughts jumped from one focus to the next, and he would roar on to the next thing if he felt uninterested. His arguments were blurred between what was really going on and what he felt was going on. There was certainty that he loved my mother, but his words often pierced the love like icicles through her heart. My mom was quiet and often in a state of anxiety and depression over what was going to happen next. She loved my dad. He thought his irrational bursts of angry blow-ups were all justified. His extremes were effortless, and affected my mom deeply. She would try and argue back with him, slamming dad, storming around angry, until she would give in and deflate to cry. We suddenly awoke, and dad was banging on the walls and doors to wake the family. Our eyes peeked out from beneath our blankets like stoned mice, crawling out of our burrito’s that kept us from the cold crisp air. If I kicked my legs up while the blanket is over me, and hold it under my legs on the way down, it will keep my legs tucked in and feet snug. I learned a lot of tricks being cold, poor, and hungry. We had been woken up every weekend for the past three weeks to go to the Swap Meet to sell things that Dad had bought, the meet was two hours away. We alarmingly woke at 4 am, reminded by Dad about the full day at the Swap meet we had planned. I turned over, trying to close my eyes and make him disappear so I could go back to dreaming where it was warm. I was suddenly blinking into the dark as we climbed atop each other to sit in the back of the open pickup truck. Dad had it packed with all the junk and other belongings my parents had picked through to sell at the Swap Meet. We had enough money for gas there and not home, so if we didn’t sell things we would be stuck again, but we had to try. We were all tired of living in poverty. Our tired bodies limp and sleepy, we quickly fell back asleep in the back of the truck until we arrived at the swapmeet by sunrise, just in time to labor for the day. “Everybody out, we’re all helping, that’s you too Amber, get up. Aimee, wake up, Celeste, let’s go darling, mother, damnit , what are you doing, I’ll do that, just hold on a minute!” He would bark orders, we were his family, so we were listening to his orders reluctantly as we slouched. Some learn how to let go of the pains, and learn happiness, others stay unhappy their entire lives. She wrote long pasIs in her journals of all the ways my dad upset her, and how she wished that he would get a job, follow through with promises, and be nice. But then my parents change and become like lustful teenagers, sucking each others tongues off in front of us as we would just look away, and roll our eyes. I would hope no one was staring at us. There were always people staring at us everywhere we were, we were obviously there and there was no hiding us. When we showed up somewhere we would walk in laughing, yelling, fighting, crying, screaming, hair pulling and always in trouble. My parents would get a spark of nostalgia once in awhile, and they would gaze into each others eyes like they wanted to suck their eyeballs out of each others skulls like jaw breakers, open mouth kissing and a lot of petting would follow, my father taking off his fedora hat and dipping my mom like an old swing dancer. My mother was always agreeable to romantic gestures from my dad, the kissing made her act giddy. Mother liked feeling like their relationship could be romantic, when it wasn;’t. Celeste, Aimee and I would “oooohh” and “ahhhh” with scrunched up sour faces whenever they became affectionate, especially if in public. We hated the spectacle of it. Then when we disliked it, they played up the affection even more, as if puppets in our show, entertaining us. It was a scene, one my mother loved to star in. One Sunday, before my parents were excommunicated from the LDS church for affiliating with known Polygamists, I sat in primary. I loved to sing in class because my teacher would always smile at me from her piano bench. I always tried to sing loud and clear. “You have the most beautiful voice!” my dad told me. “Your voice is so pretty you’ve been asked to sing in a wedding!” my mother followed. I wanted to be good at something, stand out and be unique. I wanted to be noticed. I have a terrible singing voice, yet I had been lied into believing it was special. I also loved to perform, and singing in church was my performance. After the song my teacher sat beside me and asked me in a whispered tone how I was doing. “Fine’ I answered.
She had become concerned with my family situation, perhaps my over exposed attempt at attention presented a problem.
“Are things okay at home?” “Yes, everything is good” I lied.
“I think kids should be in school, it’s not very smart of your Mom and Dad.” Situations like these I realized I was part of the family that was being critized. If one of us was made fun of or talked of negatively, it meant a part of me was too. “They are smart!” She smiled, maybe she saw me standing up for them as a sign that everything was fine. “Do you want to join the primary choir?” she asked. “No thank you” I replied without hesitation. One evening when we were snapping beans for dinner “without complaint” and my mom and dad came in. We were clean and bathed, and had shampooed away the desperation we all felt, pouring water we had heated over the stove because the hot water didn’t work, so we were content. Mother entered first “We found such interesting things today from a dumpster, a wind breaker jacket, a lovely rug, water bed frame and a swing set” My dad stuttered out his thoughts and proudly talked about things. Lots of things, and remarks like: “We are going to sell it all in the yard sale, so I’m going to make some flyers about it for you girls to hand out to everyone. My dad turned to Aimee, and a fuze was sparked. “I can hardly believe it!” he started… “Verl said you didn’t listen very well!” he yelled before walloping her with a belt. “we were supposed to pick blackberries for pie, now this.” My mothers plans of nuclear family fun all but sucked out the window. I hated seeing my sisters in trouble, although it was mostly Aimee instead of Celeste. Aimee had come back from spending a couple of days at my parents friend Verls home. Verl often gave my dad money, he laughed at my fathers jokes, and he was polite to my mother. The adults shared the same conservative views, and although Verl was not LDS, he was righteous, according to dad. Aimee would isolate upon returning from Verls house, and Verl would always say something to get her in trouble. Aimee’s troubles were just beginning, her defiance growing. Working for Verl to help out was normal to everyone.
I went to Verls on a snowy afternoon to help him work on his house too. My dad put us to work often, and he was always indebted to Verl. I went upstairs to use his bathroom, and while walking down the stairs he said to me “Why don’t you take your clothes off so I can show you how to be more grown up?” I was so shocked and alert that I must have shown my alarm.
“No, and I am going to tell my dad!” I said.
“I’m calling him to come get you and if you tell him what I said, I’ll tell him you are a liar.” Verl called out after me. I had already taken off out the front door, running into a pasture where horses wandered. I sat in the snow and waited for my dad. I wondered if I would get frost-bite and have my fingers fall off. I got scared that my nose was going to freeze and my tears felt like icicles.
 I knew he would call me a liar but the moment my dad arrived I couldn’t wait to tell him. I ran through the snow, and I was certain that Verl would hear about it from my dad, and I would have redemption from his molestation attempt. “He wanted me to take my clothing off!” I screamed. I was dramatic, fueled by confusion and disgust. “What did you do to try and have him do that?” What? He went on, “You want to wear low hanging belts and makeup and make your hair like that and expect men not to notice?” I was losing an earlier argument about freedom to wear fashion belts, which were the style. “My belt didn’t tell him to have me naked though” I said. “If you didn’t do anything to make him do that, then you better think about what you are saying, that’s a pretty serious lie to tell”. He didn’t believe me. I wasn’t asked to come help Verl at the house anymore, but Aimee was. She had nightmares during adulthood confirming her time there was sickening and abusive. “Righteous Men don’t have those kinds of thoughts unless you make them have those thought’s on purpose.” Dad explained clearly but I still questioned everything. “If they are righteous why can’t they control their thoughts?” Aimee would return from her time at his home, then be in trouble for something she had done wrong while with him. Verl, a predator, called Aimee a trouble-maker, setting it up for her to not be believed should she tell what happened while alone with him. She would be sent outside to “Pick a Switch!” from the apple tree. She smacks it on her hand, throws it on the ground and picks a thicker branch looking to the heavens tearfully. Suddenly we were all in trouble and had branches in our hand from the apple tree. I would bend over as he switches us harshly with the apple tree branch. Ross and Patricia had a lot of heated arguments. Heated conversations where unkind words are thrown out like confetti. “I can’t take much more!” my mom would cry, but sympathy wasn’t given. My dad yelled “All you do is sit around on your ass all day!” when in fact they both spent time going to yard sales, eating chocolate and dandelions, or dumpster diving for day old food and treasures to sell in the nickel saver. But their anger could instantly turn to happiness if they found something for a bargain to re-sell or use. “ Got a computer stool, lamp, video and cassette tapes today!” Mom said excitedly, still wiping tears but remembering she loved getting things. Dad spit out before Celeste asked “We don’t have a machine to play either a video or a cassette tape, it broke so, what are you gonna do with those?” Well “we can make a lot of money with this stuff” dad would smile proudly, his prizes falling to a corner floor where they will stay, unsold, broken, with other unused junk we could sell someday. Ross was offered a job repairing collections from video poker machines. “Dad, please take the job” Celeste mothered over our dad, like a broken halo, sweetly cooing in the delightful thought of him going to work. She was the cherub angel when she needed to be, especially when it meant staying out of trouble, which she excelled at. So because she had some sort of respect from our parents they listened to her even though “children should be seen and not heard” she thought. She went through it too, not as badly, but she went through it. She just shuts it out. “I would if I could stop fighting with mother long enough to get out of this house!” Celeste yelled when frustrated. “You are both jerks!” Celeste screamed at my mom and Dad after they argued about him not working and her being miserable. Celeste was bold. She was doing what she needed to survive when she tattle told on us, because her spirit was surviving this too, Celeste, soft and fierce, but when she exploded, she was determined and hard. Both her and mother begged my dad to employ himself with this job, but he wouldn’t do it. “I can live poor if I have to” mother said, getting in the last word, this time. __________________________ It took me one applause to love performing for an audience, the first audience was my parents, singing when my fingers had been cut off at the fingertips. I entertained them in the Emergency Room as we were waiting on a Doctor. I wanted to ease their fears because everyone around me was in a panic and needed a distraction. Lisa brought both finger-tips on ice to the hospital just in time to have them re-attached. My nail bed curves on two of my nails, and two of my fingers are a little bit shorter but I still have my fingers, thanks to everyone working together, including me, atop my hospital stage. The startling feeling of changing the way you are translated into other worlds while performing, making others the show and forget their daily grind. I wanted everyone to focus on me for a moment and enjoy life and be happy in it. I knew sad, I wanted to take away sad in others. . I wanted mother to not cry, dad to not yell, sisters and other wild kids from parents friends would demonstrate any bit of art we had through my shows. The experience in doing stand up comedy for me today is sharing my biggest hurts, making fun of them, and getting love, laughter, and applause in return. I put on talent shows, making Celeste and Aimee do parts in my shows as kids, and for moments of time they were enthusiastic. “My goodness, you wrote all that part for you and nothing really for us?” I replied with the only possible answer. “I’m just better so I needed more” “Then you can do your show alone.” I wrote Celeste a bigger part quickly. She knew her power, and she used it as leverage. Why is she always so smart, she gets everything she ever wants! This isn’t true, even a little bit, but it’s the illusion I’m under from a child mind. I would write parts for others on colored papers. I would pretend to play piano, dance, sing, and play the parts. It was my circus, and I was trying to lead it, whack it and tame it a little. I thought I might even teach something while performing. Who knows? Up first in my circus, I invited the Lithgow family, because we were often living with them on and off throughout the years, both in and out of different cults. So, they are up first to explain to the audience here, why we are all standing transfixed today? The crowd roars, the elephants salute, the Lions bow, it’s the show of a lifetime. Everyone played their parts beautifully. I felt as confused watching the Lithgow Family break apart, children living with different people, passed out like cards on losing tables. I invited friends my parents had made in their latest invention or pyramid scheme meetings. I invited anyone. I just wanted to have a show. I gave out the scripts. I would try and force the family to watch me perform, dancing, singing, poetry, plays, and skits. I would tell them I needed a quarter for my work. I had the belief that my work was worth being paid for, and even though it was hard to get quarters, everyone could if they worked hard enough at it. If they were investing in watching me perform, so no one could fight. It was beautiful to be performing, and suddenly feel like you get to control the audience because if you are entertaining, they forget what other crap they were thinking about. When I got up there on the porch I could get away from my anger towards my life, and the abuse that I knew I was stuck in. I could be Madonna. What’s harder than being stuck in abuse is knowing how wrong it is, and knowing there is no way out. So, I performed as my escape into the kind of world I wanted to be part of. Living with a verbal abuser as a father and a depressed mother keeps you off-balance. It can be extremely pleasant one minute and bitingly vicious the next. They may lash out in anger or refuse to speak to me for days on end until I don't know which is worse, the words or the silence isolation in a room. Either way, it's all my fault. I deserved whatever treatment I got. Who could possibly be expected to love someone as insignificant and inferior as me, who would want me to be part of their lives? I had to entertain. I wanted eyes on me, and I wanted to be heard, all while trying to disappear from the reality I was part of. Verbal abuse will cause you to doubt yourself, your abilities, your own judgment. Verbal abuse will make you feel insecure and vulnerable, powerless and depressed. No matter how much you try to please, nothing you do will ever be enough to stop the abuse. Acceptance from others is a powerful high. I wanted it. My fathers grandiose way of thinking became an innate part of me. I trusted in my own potential but didn’t immediately learn the tools to follow a learned path towards goals. No goal had a plan, just as my fathers goals didn’t. He wanted to “Think and Grow Rich” and I wanted to overcome my childhood and young adult failures by becoming famous. This made sense to me. If I became famous, my real mother would see me in the movies, or on TV an recognize me. She will see the similarities we have, like matching blue eyes. If I’m famous she will want to come live with me and we can do everything together. I didn’t know what “Everything together” I wanted to do, I just wanted to be with her. I wanted to be saved, held, connected. —————————————————————————————— The governed Victorian cliches of Children being “seen not heard” were contradicted with the “ignore the rules of society” ideals. My parents and the ideals they picked up and dropped along their path were all contradictions. “Love one Another” was taught yet hitting, screaming, insulting was what was reality. Contradiction. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”, mom said, but cleaning and keeping it in order was impossible for her, and for us children since we were never taught to clean. There was never order in any place we lived, if it was in a house it was filthy and cluttered with disorganization. If we lived homeless, with friends, in the car, a storage unit, an empty store, a tent in the mountains, or even on the road with the carnival, we never had order. I don’t remember ever doing laundry, or dishes, or cleaning as a child. I do remember a basement so full of dirty laundry that I could sit on a pile and dig for days and find clothing I never remembered us having bought anything new. All the clothing came from garage sales, and were never clothing that was updated or fashionable. I was humiliated often for the punishing choices my parents made me wear, and I felt shameful of how I was dressed and received by others. I wanted to fit in, and what I had to wear was defiantly not the cool kids kind of clothing. Piles and piles and Piles of laundry, and I can only recall washing our clothing one summer when we had an old washing machine that was working. It broke the first year we had it, which is why my dad had bartered for cheaply. My mother stood at the washer and put each piece of clothing through a roller one fall day. I hung the clothing on a line after they were flattened, and although I was scared of mother smashing her fingers but it was fun to watch. I never learned to do dishes either. We let the dishes pile up until we had no room on any counter or table-top, then if we needed a clean dish, we’d wash out the one we needed. We were messy, things everywhere collected from garage sales. Useless items to clutter the house, unmanaged. My mother’s depression made her unable to care for the house, or her children, and the responsibility of having or needing money haunted her after going broke. The laundry and clothing covered the ground for the rest of the time we lived at the white house. Instead of doing laundry my mother was suffering from what I believe was undiagnosed depression, and my dad was likely bi-polar. I can’t say it as truth, just something I believe. I believe that I learned so many great lessons from my Dad. I loved him. I hated him. I believe the giant shadows of what he wanted in life vs what my parents truly had kept them out of the realities of our poverty. He hated conformity and loved to shock and unarm those around him and she tired of the upheaval of moving around yet was unable to put down roots. He spoke of his own brilliance, yet even when he had a simple job he couldn’t keep it. I wasn’t reassured of anything except that we lived like Gypsies, Bohemians, Transients, Carnies, and laundry wasn’t ever important. If it was dirty, we just found something new at a garage sale, through bartering, or second hand, to wear. It was the foundation of disorganization within all my senses. ———————————————————————————- Now that we were running from the police because Social Services was hunting for us, and my dad had taken us on the run. But we needed a small town again. This is when we moved to the middle of nothingness, the small town of Weston, west of Preston, Idaho, we had become completely off the grid. We continued to not attend public school as the years went by, sometimes we would enroll in a school after being threatened by the state welfare system wherever we were. . Occasionally Celeste and Aimee were allowed to go to school until something went wrong, then they were back to no school also. I couldn’t be trusted to follow the rules, so I wasn’t. That didn’t stop me from having an amazing experience there. I was invited to go to a public school dance by a tall pretty blonde girl I had met while hanging outside. I was so excited because I wasn’t allowed to go to school and Blondie told me all about the fun she had there, the friends she made and she told me there were a lot of cute boys, which made her blush when talking about them. I had spent the night at my new friends house and her mother would pick me up to take me and a few other girls to the dance. This was a big deal. My parents were more than skeptical about me going to a dance because Dad told me that school dances were a place where boys like to “touch girls and do bad things while rubbing up against them, they do that to all the girls at dances.” I begged to go. I didn’t care what they did there, I was young and wanted to go I wanted to be free. While lenient in all the wrong ways, my dad tightened the reins like a noose when he felt a loss of control of me. I begged and pleaded to go, promising to be home early, explaining that we had adults with us, and that I was only going to be with girls at the dance because that is who I was going with. He relented. I had nothing to wear to a nice event so I borrowed a dress from my blonde buddy. “I have about 8 pretty new dresses so you can wear one that I”m not wearing” she stated as a matter of fact when I told her I didn’t have anything nice to wear, and that my parents couldn’t afford to buy me one. I thought about how nice her life must be to have that many new dresses, and even bought from the store new. The only thing my parents bought us new as children were thermal underwear, and one pair for each family member was also a way to not freeze in the Utah winters with the electricity turned off. “Magical underwear that you never get cold in!” Dad stated excitedly the day we each got new thermals. “Que sera, sera cold legs!” my mom said as my sisters and I danced around the living room daring our legs to get cold through our new armor from the cold mountain air. “See, I had a blessing by someone from church and now look.” My father stated as if he had stopped the air from being cold himself. “We have always been special, see that. We are so blessed” he said reverently. That was all I remember getting new, but I’m sure there must have been other new things. Buying new was a luxury we had not experienced often. On the day of the dance I went to Blondies home. I picked the dress I wanted to wear out of her leftovers and put on a long peach dress made of cotton with white bows. The fabric would swing wide when I spun around and I felt so pretty wearing it. Most other times I was huddled under a patchwork quilt mother had made, at home, being yelled at or hit. Right now I was so happy. I loved acceptance. This felt so good. I wanted to never leave her house, I didn’t even care about the dance. She could be a friend? Blondie sat at her mirror and I sat beside her while she curled her hair, then she curled mine. “You should cut your hair like mine is. I did a modeling class and got a free makeover in it” She examined my wild mane. I became nervous as she played with my hair, hoping that she wouldn’t see any lice. I struggled with lice on and off my entire childhood, never able to get rid of them completely. I hated them. “Can’t.” Then came time for makeup. “I’m not allowed to wear makeup, if I get caught..” I said in a hushed tone as she stroked on blue and pink eyeshadow. “The boys wont like you if you don’t look pretty” she smiled. “Besides, just wash it off before you go home. Besides I don’t know why you can’t wear makeup, my mom let me wear it whenever I wanted. Besides, it makes me look so pretty. And as I sat there getting my new face put on, I was beside myself with excitement. Her mom walked in and gave us each a glass of milk. I sipped mine but didn’t like the taste. I wasn’t allowed to drink milk. Milk wasn’t for humans it’s for baby calves. I watched Blondie gulp down her glass in one swig. Her mom was so nice. She was spoiling us I thought. Is she always this nice or only when company was over? I wanted to move in with them. She was allowed so much while my life was becoming more and more restricted each year. I felt suffocated tight. Blondies mom wanted to take our picture. I loved having my picture taken but didn’t want my dad to see a picture, so I didn’t want her to take mine. She nodded as if she was listening, but she was really just focused on chewing her gum. “We are ready to go! Blondie said, blasé to contain her excitement I’m sure. She grabbed her keys. We were off to the school dance, sitting together in the backseat, and after stopping to pick up a couple more girls I had never met, the chatty carful was en route and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have a new friend and to go to a real public school dance. I was a part of the group. I couldn’t stop smiling. Once we arrived I walked in and fell in love with music all over again. The loud beat of songs made the kids happy, and a group of about 15 of them danced in the middle of a sprinkled Gold design auditorium. I felt so good. When Alphaville’s Forever Young came on a boy asked me to dance. He was tall and dangly, wild red hair and freckled. Blondie shook her head with approval and I took his hand to the dance floor. I stood there unsure of what to do but when he put his hands on my hips I looked around and saw that other girls put their arms around the guys neck. I moved my feet, step together step together step together...and step together. I tried to focus on what Blondie had shown me how to do when we rehearsed earlier. The boy looked at me, and seemed just as nervous as I was. I felt my palms getting sweaty and I tried to air them out while still keeping my arms steady around his neck. By the time Madonna’s music started up, I was already unlocked from my dance partner and returning quickly to the girl pack who welcomed me back like a long lost member of a club. “He’s so cute” “What did he say?” “Did you think he was going to kiss you?” The questions kept coming. While we had danced I had held my breath but I felt his warm breath on my cheeks. I was too scared to say anything while shuffling my feet, and he didn’t offer up conversation. We were just two nervous kids swaying awkwardly with the opposite sex as everyone stared. Apparently the boy was popular in school, and a lot of girls had a crush on him and the guys wanted to be him. I felt like a star. I wanted him to be my boyfriend, if only for the attention the girls were giving me over just one dance. On the car ride home Goldie reminded me that I would have to go to public school to have him as a boyfriend. I told her I would be going to public school soon, that I would talk my parents into it. I wiped off my makeup with toilet paper I had stuffed down my dress from the bathroom. I knew I would be wiping off evidence of my disobedience on the way home so I had stashed it to use on the car ride home. I didn’t want to wash in the bathroom in case anyone else saw me at the dance, I didn’t want any questions. Makeup felt serious. “I’ll give you the dress back tomorrow!” I said as I slammed the car door shut and ran up the walk towards our house. I waved as I watched their tail lights disappear in the distance, took a deep concerned breath, and I opened the front door home. “I’m home on time!” I declared, still lost in the magic of the night out. My dad walked up to me, he was already holding a branch from a tree in his hands. I took one look at his face and knew I was found out. I had been caught wearing makeup and now I would suffer the tortuous punishments he lashed upon all of us, especially me. While being punished I always thought of the fact that he wasn’t my real dad, he wasn’t supposed to hurt me, he wasn’t supposed to hit. I always knew innately that what he was doing was deeply wrong and abusive, but I endured anguish. “You never listen to me!” Relentlessly he tore into my flesh with his punishment. “You do whatever you want to do! This is why you don't go to public school. You can’t be trusted. You apparently want to look like a whore prostitute just like your real mother, is that it?” “No!” I cried out in distress. He ripped the dress off of me to get better aim at bare legs. I felt pure hatred for him. As my legs were exposed I wanted to fight, and I did. Another time he enters the bedroom grabbing me, holding me in a headlock before dragging me out of the room and holds me down with force. His eyes turn homicide red as he chops off my bangs completely, leaving chopped bald spots, ruining me with scissors so I’d look hideous on purpose. I looked in the mirror and saw my chopped hair, cut lip and swollen eyes. Then I thought “Mom, do we have the same eyes, has anyone every hurt you bad too mom? It’s okay. It’s okay.” And I would rock back and forth, staring at my reflection. Then I would see Dad, crying hunched over Mother who is comforting him. “Why does she make me do this so much darling? Why?” I was like a trapped animal, unable to free myself from these sorts of insane abuses. He started whipping me with branches, brushes, leather, boards, or belts. His violent beatings were called a simple term: Spankings. These were abusive and dangerous beatings he gave us. I was trapped in someone else’s trauma bag, and couldn’t escape, all the while remembering that he was not truly my biological family, that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be here. That made it feel even more unfair to me every time he hit me, called me names, or shamed me. Very clearly Dad had been abused by his bitch cunt mothe, and I feel no empathy for her. Some people are nasty for part of their lives until they make amends and do better, other people never change and are awful and ugly like an oil syrup, instead of compassionate. Nana was always a bitch. My dads mother Nana, made me stay in the garage when we visited because there is “no tellin’where she came from” since I was a dropoff baby. I wasn’t allowed in the house with the rest of the family because they were biological. As I sat in the hot garage I felt the air on my face from the buzzing fan that was left behind for me to be comfortable as I can be without air conditioning. I drank soda from the outside fridge when no one was in there, and I read romance novels that I had found in the top of a closet when I had gone exploring while everyone was sleeping. I read so many romance novels that I wondered if Nana had read all the books. The detailed sex in the books, full of passion, and explanations of anything I had ever wondered about with sex. I would read a book, then return it and read another, then return it. I read almost every book she had from her pornographic book club. The switch he used would sliver my skin, and he hit so hard my legs would spasm and cramp while the rest of me strained to hold myself up. If I fell to the ground, he would pull me up again, or drag me to a spot where he could aim better. If I ducked, he would hit my arms, my back, and head. He lashed in anger. I tried to fight back the pain I endured as he wailed across the back of my legs with the sharp switch until I was black, blue and welted, and bloody legs meant it worked. The more he hurt me, he gained back control.“I just wore a little” but it didn’t matter. I was held down, sat on and hit savagely with a switch. I was never allowed to see Blondie, or any of the other public school goers again. “The apocalypse is upon us!” my dad reminded me as he stormed away, still angry. “And you will mind me!” I hated him. I fucking hated him. I will keep saying it. I hated him. I hated him so much. How can I be so full of hate, the kind of hate where you want to hurt the person back, get revenge, and hate them, hate them, hate them. Why couldn’t he stop attacking us? The affliction I had over the harsh punishments built resentments towards both parents. If my father ever felt he wasn’t getting his point across he would go harsher, meaner, vicious. My fathers voice was loud, demanding, stuttering, and it frightened me. He would pause often as he spoke faster than his mouth would, so a sort of stutter trudged the words he yelled. Another time of extreme punishment was when he held me down, cut off all of my hair so I would look ugly. Then he forced me to go in public with the front of my hair shaved off to humiliate and humble me from my vanity. “Do you want to be vein, is that it?” he’d yell at the top of his lungs. His voice stuttered as he talked faster than his words would come out, giving him a certain speech impediment that often slurred, paused and stuttered. I was looking in the mirror and studying my own face. I wanted to see my reflection and imagine me older, to create a vision of what I thought my real mother may look like. I was in trouble for it and punishment was always on the edge of any reason. He was furious and explosive. This was after he found me looking in a mirror for too long so his shaming and demeaning was another layer in his punishments and he was ready to unleash pain. I hated him. I hated him. I hated him. What I learned was not a lesson because who learns as a result of abuse? No, we learn to hate our abuser for what they are doing, knowing the abuser has no right to do this to us, yet he was doing it. He inflicted shame upon me consistently, never letting me think too much of myself. Holding me down to cut my hair off in a chunk to shame me. It was so humiliating when he sat on top of me and chopped off my long hair in a hideous bang cut, shaved in the front so I had an extra long forehead, then he would force me to go with him somewhere public, like the mall, library or church, and hold his hand and even though I was crying from embarrassment, he would just twist my arm and make me stay with him, and show everyone what disobedient girls who don’t obey look like. Then he would parade me around like a dog before kicking me back down. Why do I love him? Why had he said I was his favorite, that I was special?”’ Sitting on me. Choking me. Hitting me. Hitting me harder. Breaking my skin. Bleeding now. He’s Embarrassing me. Yelling at me. My disgrace was his control. He said that everything he did was because he loved us so much. Sometimes he would cry after going too far, and we would all hug him and feel so bad that we made him react like that. He would go irate for reasons that I wasn’t prepared for. My sisters and mother would debased themselves and try to say whatever he wanted, just so they avoided conflicts, which would happen regardless. Everyone had their way of surviving the same experience we were sharing during this time. We were in a war zone together as a family, attacking each other, while fighting the rest of the world from within our bubble of protection we created. The hurt was there, every day in one way or other. I felt dread daily. I feared him but loved him and wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted him to be his better self, the dad that was fun and said I was his favorite daughter. He attacked like a predator, then he would torture his prey. and right before the prey gave up and died he taught it how to fly, just to start all over again. So, just as quickly as he became angry, he would become charming again, smiling and making jokes with everyone around him. I could never be nice to him after he beat me, I kept my hate inside, simmering and hidden, like a secret. He was center of the universe in our family, and we all knew it was his temper that was controlling our life. If he didn’t have such a temper where he fought everyone around him, then he wouldn’t be fired from so many jobs throughout his life. After tinkering with a record player he had bought at a garage sale, he put on a PINK FLOYD record, turned it on full blast to “We don’t need no education” and played a broom air guitar, singing along to the music. “Ross, please!” my mom would yell in her victimized war yell. He ignored her, raising his eyebrows as he presses on, super star of his own experiences, meanwhile we all gawked with fear and fascination from the opposite reactions my parents were having to the same thing, which was music playing loud. “There are two ways, the hard way, or the easy way. This is going to hurt me more than it’s going to hurt you!” he would yell, uncontrolled. He wailed the tree branch switch across my skin, striking me like lightening flashes water. Every slash on my skin scarred me with hatred towards his actions. I hated anyone and everyone in the world After he held me down and cut off the front of my hair, short chopped off and uneven, he covered up all mirrors with towels so I would no longer be tempted to act vein. If Dad decided to build up my esteem and tell me I was pretty it was okay, just like a true egomaniac, it had to be about him. If he compliments, it’s true. If others compliment, they are liars, cheats, and sinners. If he can’t be the one giving them, no one should. I ran up the ladder stairs to the attic where I had made a room, fell to the floor and just cried. I was finally making friends and fitting in and every time I started to feel happy with my life my dad would ruin it. We packed up our belongings, it was time to leave again. Whenever dad said it was time to move, mom would humor him and have fun planning all the great things we could do in a new place. There was no real time to plan anything as we usually were moving from getting evicted, thrown out, or asked to not “live” in un-liveable places. We moved often, every time something became a problem for my family, we packed and moved within the moment, no second thought. Dad was the hero saving the day but when he truly was playing the role of villain in my life movie, and at any moment, he could erupt. I was broken, but my defiance unleashed after this. Once in my room I turned on my small AM?FM radio that Lisa had bought me on my 8th birthday as a reward for getting baptized. I loved it, it was bought from a “new things store” and sent to me from Oregon and I treasured the gift. I turned the radio station, adjusting the dials carefully until I reached a station. I wasn’t allowed to listen to FM radio, only AM that was approved. A song started to play and I curled up fetal position to listen to it softly under a pillow so my parents couldn’t hear. An oriental pop styling sound came over the speakers, and the words danced through the orchestra. “One Night In Bangkok” by Murray Head. The sounds mesmerized me. Then the lyrics began and I was in the spell of music. Bangkok, Oriental setting
And the city don't know that the city is getting The creme de la creme of the chess world in a Show with everything but Yul Brynner..... Time flies doesn't seem a minute
Since the Tirolean spa had the chess boys in it All change don't you know that when you Play at this level there's no ordinary venue It's Iceland or the Philippines or Hastings or
or this place!
One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free.... I turned the volume up just a little more. It distracted me from my surroundings and I liked the sound. I turned the knob up louder ...and louder...until I didn’t care about the outcome, I just wanted it to be so loud I could feel the strings of the orchestra vibrate in my soul. My dad burst open the door, but I still heard the song playing through his yelling. I was actually feeling the music and ignoring my dad defiantly. “Fuck you!” I thought, knowing I was playing with hells fire. He had taken everything from me, there was nothing left. I had not considered that he would also take my baptism gift as it symbolized obedience, even though it was a radio. He kept yelling, I listened to the music instead, letting it drown out all sounds of his abusive tongue lashings, the psychological fucks, the ignorant rants, I just heard music while his mouth was moving in slow motion: You'll find a god in every golden cloister And if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me
One town's very like another - When your head's down over your pieces, brother It's a drag, it's a bore, it's really such a pity
To be... My dad yanked me from under the pillow, putting his arm around my neck to strangle, choke, and drag me back down the stairs. He put me in a head-lock, my head restrained under his arm to where I was choking while my legs were trying to keep up with his racing pace, instead of being drug behind through the brush, street tar, and dirt. I’d lose my footing and the concrete would rip my knees open, causing me to try and keep balance while walking in headlock, and enduring the cuts, bruising, and suffocation along the way, which is not including the humiliation I felt. It took my breath away sometimes just to catch it again from the pain of him choking. There was another incident where I had run away and he trapped me in a headlock and pulled me all around town to show people how “Disobedient daughters” are punished. It was humiliating and I would of cried if I was breathing, but it’s an overpowering feeling when you are being publicly shamed while being physically hurt, both stings hurt as bad. “This is Amber, isn’t she so great everybody, and she doesn’t know how to mind me!” he would squeeze my neck harder, and my legs would feel numb, keeping them in a walking motion was hard as I was trying to gasp for air, trying to pull my dads strong grip on me off, trying to free myself from him and run as fast as I could to get away. I was forced to only see the sidewalk but I could hear other people saying things, I heard someone honk at us. I wanted someone to save me, beat my dad up, and get me out of there. I was being assaulted publicly and no one knew quite what to do, and all I wanted to do was stop breathing so it would all end. But, I still kept fighting to survive until we got back to where we were staying. He then locked me in the room, boarded up the windows, told me I was not to leave the room ever, and even had to be escorted and watched if I needed to use the toilet. Losing privilages meant losing all privacy. My dad would watch me pee, give me what I was allowed to use to wipe, let me wipe to show him I used it well, then flush the toilet and go right back to my dungeon. I couldn’t get out of the window, it was boarded and nailed, and even when Dad slept, he layed in front of the door where I was trapped. He went to great lengths to assure that I could not get out and speak to anyone. I was a threat to the family now, the reason that social services would probably show up, which my family was scared of. So they kept me locked in the room for weeks until it was safe to come out and rejoin the life that had continued on around me while my life was on a pause for punishment. I was so afraid of escaping because if caught trying to run away, these were consequences. I always wanted the horrified spectators who would gather around to speculate at my horrible treatment, I wanted them to save me. I was dramatic, yelling “help!” and not letting him get away with my complete submission. I always had a bit of fight left in me no matter how hard he punished me. “She’s mine, I’ll do whatever I want to teach her right from wrong and guide her on her eternal progression!” No one dared to get involved at that moment, but privately there were calls made to social services, child protective services, but they wouldn’t come until much later. Being in a headlock was degrading. I felt powerless. My dad pulled the radio out from the wall, the cord trailing and bouncing off each stair as he drug me down. Once in the living room my mother was sitting in a chair “What’s going on?” she asked. “I’ll tell you what, I caught her listening to the devils music!” he said. “She’s inviting the evil spirit in, just come on in!” he continued. “It wasn’t devil music!” I defied. I was not going to be reverenced, I had become angry and felt strong against my fate. There was no way to escape punishment and as I grew older I tried to stand up for myself through it instead of just accepting it and moving on. I was ready to walk across fire and face what was my other biggest fear, the devil. The fear of the devil lurking right beside you is really the fear of bad things to come, while it still hurts, here on earth. 
My dad threw my am/fm radio against the wall, shattering it into small pieces. He had taken the last thing from me. I felt like he had breathed the last of my air. I felt as if he had restrained me from the whole world, blocked me off from all freedoms, psychologically abusing me and tormenting me with rants about religious voodoo. I felt trapped. I felt powerless, but I knew I still had one thing left. My soul. I was willing to give my soul instead of letting my father win my life. “I have nothing left, I hate you, I hate you, but you can’t control everything, I control something you can’t control!” Dad was pulling his belt from his belt loops to savagely beat me into submitting. I was disobedient and I didn’t honor my parents. Every moment he pulled his belt out or any other weapon like a tree branch, a piece of wood with splinters. I’m going to sell my soul to the DEVIL and you can’t stop that!” I screamed back. I felt afraid of my own words, I felt like someone else was inside of me being stronger than I ever could, I felt afraid of myself. I had tired of the barrage of punishments. I hoped that God knew that I truly didn’t want to sell my soul, I wanted to not be powerless. My parents stopped, this comment struck fear in them I had never witnessed. I became scared of what I said because of their response to the severeness of it. I felt heavy, and wanted to throw up and my body felt weak. I felt the dark doorway of the kitchen, and I wanted to look at an escape but felt afraid of what I had said. I looked, and saw a dark shadow in the doorway. I was certain it was the devil, coming to take me away. I screamed in fear, my body falling out of the chair and to the floor. I was shaking, crying and completely overcome with fear I had never felt. My father got on his knees, and raised his arm to the sky “to the square” in a manner he had been taught at church. ”I command all ye evil spirits to leave us right now, I command you spirits to go to the ocean and stay there! I command you with the priesthood I hold!” It felt better believing my dad had the power to remove evil spirits, I felt afraid and I grabbed my mother and sobbed. I sobbed and sobbed all night long, sleeping in between my parents for a week out of fear that the devil himself would come and take me away if I ever threatened to sell my soul again. The only thing I had left to gamble with was my soul, and I had bargained it for freedom from my parents, but it didn’t work. I clung to my parents like a kangaroo to a mothers pocket. I couldn’t dare use the bathroom alone for fear that the devil would come up through the toilet and take me away, into the fire and depths of a hell that was even scarier than the one I was in. ______________ You can’t take anything else away from me, you have taken everything so I have no control over anything in my life. During the time we were living in a trailer in Eunice, NM my life became so restricted for me during punishments that I would even have to show my dad the used maxi-pad to make sure I wasn’t purposely wasting money by not making sure they were thoroughly used. “Only sluts use tampons” my father yelled, his lean and hardened body tightening. The pads needed to be used to the pulp, they were expensive and “a luxury” until they weren’t. I was becoming explosive like my father, and would challenge him often. “I hate you!” I told my dad after he locked me in our room for days without being able to join my sisters outside. “You just might, but I love you anyway” he replied. He would hum a bit before finishing his thought. “Hating someone doesn’t do you, or them any good, and it doesn’t change a thing.” It didn’t. “As soon as I’m 18 I am leaving and going to go to school!” was a threat I made to him during our heated exchanges. “You don’t need college to learn to be a good wife and mother and serve our Heavenly Father now do you Miss know it all?” That was the only time college was brought up. “We can still listen to Rush Limbaugh almost every morning on the radio from the car” My mom wore her feelings like a wool scarf and she loved listening intensely with Dad to Rush Limbaugh as he spouted of racist commentary, bullying his opposers the way my dad would. “I don’t like him” I told Dad. He said “That’s okay, he doesn’t give a shit about you and doesn’t even know you exist, so he doesn’t care about you either, so there.” “He tells some interesting things that we never hear anywhere else. Mostly Political.” My mother chewed ice like cud, as her and my father had long conversations, debates, and arguments, both conservative extremists. “I found a piano” my dad would shout, excited at an ad in a five and dime paper. “What you really need is a job.” My mother never wanted to be the breadwinner, and working didn’t make her happy. Mom and Dad loved to play scrabble together. Sometimes we would all play as a family, sitting around fidgeting with the wooden blocks while looking for words. We always had a dictionary to make sure the words we were using were real words, just in case of question. They would put together words we had never heard in daily conversation, then look them up to show us the word exists. I don’t know how they knew so many words, but they were both really good players. My father graduated high school in 1963 and my mother in ’53, and their education stopped there. It always took me the longest time to look up words. I would have to go over the Alphabet in my mind, over and over through each letter until I found the word. I felt frustrated while both parents could look up a word in the dictionary without difficulty. “A-haaaa!” my dad said often, fingers pointed, “there you have it!” when mother layed down a word. “A-haaa!” There was a love for the game, they played everywhere we were, and I think a part of them must have felt a sense of home and familiarity while playing and being entertained. It gave them a moment of refuge from their hard lived life. I feel I have a sensitive heart, because when my parents were happy, I felt guilty about my rebellion and independence. I climbed to the top of a bookshelf with a bowl of marbles atop. My inquisitive mind thought there must be more up there than meets the eye. The colorful balls looked like colored candy. I stepped up to balance, the shelf came tumbling down, landing on top of me. My hand was stuck under the weight of the shelf, and I couldn’t break free. The tips of two of my fingers on my right hand were cut completely off. If I hold my hands together the fingers on my right hand are a few millimeters shorter from the accident, but my nails still grow.I was lucky to keep my fingers and had no broken bones. My sisters and I had head lice infestations which was another stigma against us. We were the dirty lice kids who were home-schooled and too skinny. We couldn’t afford to have the electricity on. I doubt it would help. My mother would pick through our hair and find the louse, squeeze it between her fingertips and the body would pop. She would then drop the dead bug into a cup of water for the floating dead. After pulling the lice from our hair, we would become re-infected. It was time consuming, and pulling and tugging at my hair to rid myself of the itching became a twitch. “I’m sick and tired of this dammit, get in the car!” We climbed into the car and drove to the gas station. He filled a plastic gas bucket full of gasoline. “Is that to put in our hair?” I asked. “If you want them gone it is!” I wanted them gone. At home he poured gasoline on our heads and we let it soak our hair for awhile so it could thoroughly kill the bugs. My mother heated up water on the stove to hav a warm rinse out of the gasoline. “That oughta do it!”he said. We smelled like gasoline for weeks and the lice were not gone. Next attempt to rid ourselves of the lice was we went to Natural Hot Springs where the water was hot, even in the cold of winter.
“Indians used to put their tipis by the springs for heat, and to get rid of their lice” my dad taught us. “So maybe it will work for you girls.” The minerals from the water did help us get clean, but the lice didn’t go away. We enjoy an afternoon of splashing around the water. I had been taken to a swimming class once when younger but was so afraid of the water I left crying. My dad decided to throw me into the deep end, and as I struggled and kicked and paddled he would then pull me up for air. “The best way to learn to swim is to just do it!” He threw me back, I sunk to the bottom, gulping water instead of air. He pulled me back up. “Ross will you leave her alone!” my mother shrieked. I was scared and hating him for what he was doing. He was controlling me. I hated this. No one can control me, I thought as I tried to scoot away, clinging to the side. He threw me again, showing mother who was in control of what the children should or should not learn and how these lessons would be taught. “Ross, Stop it!” Celeste and Aimee swam around, kicking and splashing, showing that they could float, avoiding being thrown. Dad finally pulled me to the side of the pool where I clung to the side, breathlessly my dad said “Hold your head back and keep it in the water damnit!” I held my head back, keeping my hair wet to get rid of the lice but I also plugged my nose with my hands in case my father decided to throw me again. I hoped I was drowning the bugs, I felt a violent fear of drowning. “You gotta learn sooner rather than later!” he said as his eyes darted around daring anyone to oppose his authority. Why do those who seem to know the least think they are the authority on so much? This didn’t work Mr. Smarty Pants. This was how I never learned to swim well. I showed him! His olive eyes twinkled as he always felt a pride when he felt like he taught us something his own way. After spending time in the hot springs soaking our heads in the hot water, we all still had lice, but now we just had boiled looking wet lice. Eventually my parents put together enough money by selling something we had collected to buy the shampoo at the store that got rid of the pests with chemicals that worked. I felt like I was a princess when I walked around without lice in my hair. I thought “This is how rich Hollywood stars live, this feels good!” Not having an itch was my boost in a personal lifestyle change. It gave me a moment of confidence, at least until my father would tear it down somehow. Celeste was under the pool water while all the eyes were gawking at me and Dad. Celeste was underwater, frightened and thrashing around, unable to get air as she was drowning under water, where she stayed for a long time. Finally mother saw and closed her yes and screamed out, pointing at Celeste who was then pulled out of the pool by a lifeguard. It was Christmas Day, and our electricity was shut off. This would be our last season in the house. There was a knock at the door. We all ran to see who it was, curious to see who would come see us. Celeste and Mother stayed under their blankets to keep warm, but Dad opened the door to see a bishop from the church, with a Christmas Tree full of Ornaments for us, there was even a bag of toys from Santa who had asked for the Bishop to deliver them. We knew there was no such thing as Santa Clause so we knew when we would get gifts and when we would not. The tree was beautiful, and as my sisters and I tore through the wrapping paper of our gifts I noticed my father had not looked excited like the rest of us. He was ashamed and embarrassed that he was not the one providing this for his children, so he snapped at the Bishop to leave, that he can take care of his children just fine! We started crying, it was our Christmas too and he was taking away something that didn’t even hurt him to let us have. The bishop left, telling us all Merry Christmas and reminding my father to visit him in the Bishops office after church. Dad is forgiven by Bishops over and over again as his anger overtakes him. Had a garage sale. Made 84.0O. “The place gets messier when we’re depressed or when one of us is sick, so there’s plenty to do” mother said to us as if we hadn’t lived our whole life this way. I wondered if she thought we were just idiots, or that she was just in a different world, tucked right underneath her skin. Imagining she was living a different life. I opened my mouth wide, bending my neck back to look up at the sky like a baby bird, waiting for worm throw up or whatever it’s called. I opened my mouth wide because in the middle of eating a snicker bar I realized I didn’t pray over my food and it could actually not be blessed, and it could be poisoned..I didn’t swallow until I said a prayer with my mouth open to the sky to show God where the sin was happening. “This week has been pack and cry and cry and pack.” Mom turned over, uncomfortably sleeping in the empty apartment floor. Finally Celeste and Aimee went back to Lisas house to stay again temporarily. “We didn’t bring the base to the water bed! Mother cried, rolling up tissue to stick up her runny nose. “It was in too bad of shape damnit!” Dad yelled at her angrily. Both angry at the others defects and laziness. They were living in their own hell, created by their own choices. Mother didn’t resent Lisa for not always being able to take our family in off the street. She would not leave her own mother, and honestly couldn’t understand why Lisa would even let them live in their bus for 15 minutes. “I’d insist that they come stay with me for awhile, but we’ve let other people stay with us often so it’s hard for us to understand.” “I did something I never have done before”! Mom was excited. “I bought a lottery ticket. We’ll see.” “we are like roller coasters: up and down in our moods.” Mom said as she chewed cashews that Lisa gave her. “Dad moved the bus to a new parking lot, and it’s quieter” mom said, it was the lot of another job. This one was a cook at a nursing home. “Oh I’m tired today” mom said. “I didn’t get much sleep on the bus last night and it was quite cold and uncomfortable. “We have no real skills” mother said, knowingly. Then she would write a goals list in her journal to refresh and try to not be depressed. Still, The bus was full. Lisa then came and picked mother up to watch television on the last night at her house. She was angry that mother was in this position where she had to be part of it, she was guilty and mad about mom being in this condition. She dropped mom back off at the end of the day to sleep in the bus with Dad. Lisa is trying to deal with it. Mom sat in the bus sleepless from the cold rain and discomfort of living in the bus. Dad went inside the home and did dishes and during a break from working he would bring out Hot Postum drinks and then he brought back “hot stew leftovers from the old folks” until mother felt better. Dad begged her to help him finish cleaning the community kitchen, so she dragged herself inside to clean together. Living in the car made it hard to go to church because mother needed pantyhose to wear, and so Dad would go alone leaving mom in the bus waiting. My dad would walk through a snow storm to go to church, he had so much faith in the teachings, but he still didn’t fully understand all the teachings either. He just needed someone to follow. A faith to guide him to God, and at the time it was mainstream Mormonism again. After running to church leaving family to wait out of the cold winter storm, he finally returned with someone. It was the bishop of the church, he had brought back two sleeping bags and hot chocolate and stayed to visit. The snow had turned to rain, but it was another act of kindness in the middle of a storm. They felt somewhat lifted and finally slept warmly in the bus, if not comfortable all night. While living in the bus a church bishop gave Dad an alarm clock so he could wake up on time to make it to church. But dad was always up before the sun. The bishops wife invited mother over to her home for a shower and shampoo and then make it to conference at the church. Dad was bringing out food to Mother. A sauI sandwich and cup of Postum, or maybe some soup, she loved anything warm to eat in the cloudy cold. Dad checks on mother periodically while working as the bus is parked outside in the lot. The bus was parked at the church parking lot but they were asked to move it from there. Sadly, that was the best real estate they could find, but they moved anyway. Mom and Dad drove up and down the streets in a new town looking at for rent signs in the poor areas. They had a check for one months rent from the church welfare program, so finding a place with no money down, no questions asked. The place was dirty and in shambles. Broken windows and filthy dirt everywhere, all that had to be done is a quick carpet shampoo. The newest landlord had one, so my parents went to work cleaning up the place that should be condemned, and making it another of our homes. There was a fireplace. “We need wood, but Lisa gave us a few logs” Mom said, lighting them. Then moms face lit up and she smiled and remembered; “I saw a double rainbow today-very pretty!” “I hope we can stay” mother said. “We just need curtains, but I like it. Could be really nice!” but she looked bleek. Dad found safety pins for sale today so he bought 10 gross to make barrettes to sell. Meanwhile McDonalds called him for an interview because a phone was hooked up. Going long periods without a phone is such a drag. “It’s so nice to have a phone again” mom said. The pins were never sent, they were stopped on the way over from China without explanation. Joyce sent mom packages of panty hose but they were too small, she also sent mother a ring but the set fell out the next day. My parents sometimes received commodities from the Bishops Storehouse, a welfare program through the Mormon Church. Ross is always irritable at me. Mom said. But we invited the neighbors over with the banana splits we are making (welfare money bought these bananas) and then Dad would give the unsuspecting ice cream eater Brochures to join the church. “We’re going to work on our attitudes, we are all getting frustrated. It must be our lack of money, or worry and stress about not having a job.” Mom said as she watched Dad try and fix the bus. “I’m going to be a model” I told her, starting my own ambitious dreams and ideas “and when I’m famous I’ll buy you our white house back”. Mom played a game of Surfs Up but said she wasn’t in the mood. She was feeling unhappy, often and usually. She knew she was an embarrassment to her children and told my Dad “they seem to be ashamed of us”. Lisa found lice in her children’s hair after our visit. She had stayed up all night washing and drying everything while fumigating the rest of the house, much to her dismay and disgust. Mother knew Lisa got the infestation from us. Any children we were around got lice, and their parents would get angry. Dad grabbed a pillow, a cover, an alarm clock and went to sleep on the floor knowing Mother didn’t sleep well without him. Later years, at 17, I would call my dad for moral support in the middle of an acid trip I went on with some friends in El Paso. He got serious, and talked me off my invisible cliff I wanted to jump off. I did acid again after that, many many times. But, I always felt grateful for my dad being the person he was when I was lost and needed a hand held to get back to reality during my acid trip. Mother was trying her hand at showing she had artistic talents. She tried drawing the border for the “More than Marriage certificates” dad invented and wanted to sell in the newspaper ads. Mom didn’t want to wait much longer for Lisa to do the art work for us because once that’s done we can make some money. Mother worked a crossword puzzle. She wishes she had her sewing machine out of storage. Her eyes are continuously brimful, ready to spill out tears on less than a moments notice. She’s despondant and feels nauseous. She feels like she’s just layers of fat over pain. She was so thin in high school. She’s becoming obese, Dad has lost so much he looks like a skeleton, they look like opposites. Dad rode a bicycle twenty five miles round trip to see a guy about a job and someone from the church dropped off a cake to mother to cheer her up. People around mother can tell she is sad, it’s drawn all over her lines on her face. She really wishes we could get some of our stuff out of storage but now our things are scattered from friends homes, to storage, to the car. Our roots are being tugged. Aimee talked on the phone when she was at Lisas’ house and she lied about it, so she’s in trouble again. Plaid Pantry pays 4.75 an hour so Mom is going to apply. I hope she gets this job. Dad slept in the truck at one of his friends Larry’s so he could leave for Eugene at 4 am for a day job. There’s a flat tire on the bus. Mother is so happy Dad went with his friend in his truck so that he wouldn’t get stuck. Another 72 hour vacate notice arrived on the front door. It was posted on the door, and I wondered how many kids saw the posting if they came over and asked us out to play? Just when we had hope of being able to make payment again because mom said dad is trying so hard, and we are thrown out. The landlord must not want us there any longer and Dad offered payments to not be thrown out, but it was denied. They were tired of us not paying the mortgage for almost a year, utilities were off, we were letting the house fall to apart like Grey Gardens without a tab in town. Aimee ran away and it’s causing mom such anguish because she’s tired of playing games with her. Aimee is under the protection of her friend’s parents, who are telling mom and dad that she isn’t there when they call. I think Aimee is so brave, and I hope she gets to be free. Running away is more than a sport for Aimee and I, it’s our way to get breaths of normalcy in between binges of insanity from our home life which is becoming more severe. Dad told us to all go outside and pick switches off the apple tree in the back yard so he could switch us. “It’s going to hurt you more than it will hurt me” he said. “I might as well just spank you before you do something wrong because I know you will anyway.” We twisted and pulled off branches, each of us wondering who got the branch that would hurt the least. Then Dad attacked each of us with the switches. I wondered if mother felt some sort of satisfaction when we were punished, she didn’t interrupt, turn away, or anything, she just sat and watched. Everyone at the church is involved and so someone from church went and took Aimee clean clothes. Lisa talked with her and Aimee doesn’t want to talk to mom and dad. Dad went to court for the last eviction, we have to move out again. Someone stole the battery from the bus and broke out another window. Mom has ringworm on her hand. Dad let any of us sit on his lap to drive the car so other kids aren’t allowed to go in the car with us anywhere. Dad got a job as a construction guard. He’s feeling low and he feels like he is unloved and unwanted and his little self esteem is on the same boat as mothers. “Dad was tending the neighbor children and lo and behold their babysitter for the night didn’t show up, so he stayed and they paid Daddy 40. Bucks! Mom asked us to do chores. We didn’t. Mom got mad but then Dad went into a rage. Mom tried to calm him down and it made matters worse for her because now he was angry at her. “I can barely stand the site of you!” he screamed at mother, threatening to leave her again, and never come back. “Guess I better change my ways somehow” she sniffed after sobbing again, changing her tissues, shoving another in her stuffed nose. We stopped at 2 or 3 yard sales in the process, looking for bargains. Mom had found out that a woman from church had died. We went to lay a rose down in front of her home, a rose on the doorstep. Dad mowed the lawn. Dad is officially unemployed again so he can go to church services on Sundays. For Family Home Evening we all discussed our situation and preferences of where we want to live. The vote was to go to Texas again, so we would need to leave soon to find us a place to rent there. Dad fell asleep on the floor. He would go first this time he said, and then send for the rest of the family. Aimee begged him to go with him to Texas, she didn’t want to be left in Oregon. Mom cried when she realized Aimee had also gone with Dad to Texas on a whim without consulting her. Mother was co-dependent on her children as a crutch, and wanted us around even if she wasn’t nice to us. Lisas daughter cried, as did the neighborhood children when they learned that Dad had left. “he plays with us and brings us things and does things with us”. They would miss him. While staying at Lisas house dad got in a fight with her because he feels like she doesn’t even like him so he said he was leaving and never coming back! She had offered her home as a refuge, but it was a strain on her. Aimee wanted a pig as a pet but Lisa wouldn’t let her have one while living with her. “I think I hurt his feelings, I was just complaining about how our circumstances have been for the last 15 years.” Mom cried. He’s going to start selling Meadow Fresh for a change. Again mother had tears in her eyes all day, down in the dumps. Mom said “Celeste is such a good girl, has never run away, been rebellious, or given us an ounce of trouble. Okay once she ran off but it was short lived.” Mother put in an application for a job at the Truck stop as a bookkeeper. After she was watching tv she saw a set of pots and pans. After discussing with Daddy they decided to go ahead and order them even though we would have no home to put them in. They had never had any new pans before, and they were so excited to be getting new cookware. It was a luxury never afforded and every penny they had went towards the pans. It’s the small luxuries that matter. “it really irritates me that somehow men seem to be incapable of doing what they say. “ mom griped. “What Good Children! They even helped me snap the beans for dinner without complaint! Dad found some great things in the dumpster and had a garage sale with the items. He is so resourceful. Sold most of the stuff except for the swing set but the manager at work may want to come get it. “You will mix up with the wrong friends.” Mom was sure of it. Daddy walked to the store to get mother ice cream.” Celeste reported. “I think that’s nice.” She felt better than ever with her news. “But what about his fast?” I asked. He had been without food for 24 days or more and mom guesses he’ll be okay but she’s not sure. He’s been having seizures. I can’t take much more! Dad said. I can’t take much more of this! Mom said. And they both prayed to have god remove their obstacles from their endevours so that they would stop quarrelling so often. Mom had a managers meeting at her new job. She wasn’t making her quota but promised to do better. “Will I ever make my quota? Will I ever make a real manager? In fact, will I ever make a real wife? At least 3 to 4 times a day she upsets Daddy. She said it’s something she does well. That, and Cry. I tried to inspire her and told her “You’re really good at both.” I’m crocheting an afgan mom said, daddy said “If that’s what you call sitting on your big fat ass it is!” We were all sitting in the car because we had been living in it. Celeste, Aimee and I would all kick and scratch each other spreading out on the back seat and mom and dad would sleep in their front seats. We would park in the mountains off the main roads so no one would see us. We would build fires, get water from the cold crick, food from the Albertsons in town, and we had sleeping bags, but it was cold, uncomfortable, and we were all unpleasant. Celeste wants to go out with some of her friends at church but mom and dad didn’t have enough gas to drive her down to the church. Celeste called from a payphone for a ride, but her friends had already left. Celeste reminded mother that she didn’t complain when she didn’t get her way. Mother smiled, disappointed that she had missed her fun and would be stuck in the mountains. WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION We were removed from public school, it was a punishment. “In public school they have computer math games.” I said. “Oh, like that would suddenly make you smarter huh? Dad spit out, accusatorily. He always argued with me. I thought that the more I learned, the better I would understand life. I thought if Dad would study other things in the mainstream he would understand more about life too. I knew he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. I wanted to be smart but my Dad would discourage learning certain things that he deemed unimportant to our eternal progression. Men were meant to be the leaders, to be the ones that are smart, and women were uneducated, and were for making babies and being good wives to their husbands. A family from church let us move into a trailer on their property in exchange for Dad clearing the property of trees and underbrush. So now we are emptying boxes, unpacking again. Dad got a paycheck and we all went to the Golden Corral to eat all you can eat steak, shrimp, potatoes, salad bar, and after gorging the troph of food to exhaustion, we all felt sick. “That was expensive and now I feel sorry we ate that” and then we all rested the rest of the day. “Your dad doesn’t recognize my humor” mom said. “I seem to irritate him even when I joke.” She went to go sit in the truck outside for a few hours. The truck didn’t start, so she just sat there feeling lonely. There was a nice warm breeze that was nice though. I imagine mother sitting here in this moment feeling the air on her weathered face. She didn’t know how to create a better life for herself. She blamed herself for his ill treatment of her. Her esteem was low. Mother was bored and lonely in the evenings. She would walk by herself to sit at a nearby lunch table or apartment chair. Mother gave a woman an aloe vera plant she had pulled and potted herself. The woman wrote mother a note telling her thank you and saying that my mom “has been wonderful” which made her feel useful to someone. Mother taped the yellow note pad paper note into her journal pages. Today we started a grape and grape juice only diet. I wonder how long this has to last because I am already hungry. We drove around looking for For Rent Signs. Dad called a few of the places but they all wanted money up front. Moms left thumb went numb. Then her hand. Then her arm. Then the whole left side of her face. She was really getting scared so Dad said he would give her a blessing by placing his hands over her head, and reverently praying for her to feel better through the power of the priesthood he has from church. Mom couldn’t move so she layed down and Dad called the Aloe Vera distributor to see if we could order aloe and some other herbs to help her. Mother said she could feel the blessing Dad gave her working after a few days in bed. She had made a commitment to her heavenly father to eat right, diet and exercise. Dad let her finally go to a Chinese Acupuncturist, but not the hospital as he didn’t believe in them. After being pumped full of tinctures, and other ancient healing practices she was able to finally walk for ten minutes in the evenings with the help of Dad, each day regaining her strength all because of her blessing. “See I was right, she didn’t die, so she didn’t need a Doctor” Dad said , he had proved his epic point. We settled into a new rental home in the middle of nowhere. “I sure hope we can pay the bills, this feels nice” mom said. I always feel hungry because watermelon isn’t very filling for long. But my face looks thinner. Mom “I’m getting worried again, we are down to our last five dollars. I want to go to a multi level sales meeting to try our hand at it again but don’t even have a meager 25.oo to start.” Mother complained. “Maybe we could borrow some money?” Mom and Dad signed up for “achievers unlimited” to sell ancient coins. They never sold any. Mom wishes she could leave the family, especially Daddy because he’s so mean to her. She fights every single day with Dad and not a day goes by that she’s not crying over the hard abusive lifestyle they lived. We lived hard, and mother carried the weight of it. She didn’t need to ask permission to get up and go, but she thought she had no one, and her life was surrounded with failure, with nothing executed but ideas. She was very much in love with the person she wanted Daddy to be. They were both co-dependent on each other so nothing changed for a very long time. Their souls felt trumped, salted, ungrateful and soiled. Lisa sent 25.00 in the mail. Mom bought Hershey bars with it and smiled as sweetness melted in her mouth, letting the feeling linger as long as it could with each bite. The rest of the money was already spent. There were moments one of our parents had a job, but then there were months between those jobs where they didn’t work at all. Dad talked to his friend Steve for about the 4th time asking about loaning us some money against the ancient coins we have but Mother said he got another “put off”. We are all so disappointed as we’ve all prayed so hard for the loan to happen. Dad said he will start a lengthy fast of no food. Mother objected because of his seizures. Dad became angry and yelled “You have no faith at all, not the least amount of faith!” It hurt mothers feelings, but not as much as feeling disappointed because she believed they would get a small loan for food. “We are going to read the journal of discourse out loud to each other darling” Dad applied for a job and got it at the Picadilly Cafeteria. “They wanted to hire him for 4.25 an hour for 30 hour weeks, that would maybe cover the rent and gas only so he turned it down.” Dad applied at WalMart and took the drug test before orientation. He started working the graveyard shift 10 pm to 6 am. When he got his first check it went towards the rent of the new place, which hadn’t been paid since June when we moved in. Mom said that she “Needs a job but doesn’t really want to work.” She is tired a lot because she cries so much and because she is overweight and depressed with Daddy. I would do fine if I had a job. “Big word, if” she said. She teases. Mom worries about Dad even when she sleeps. I wish he worried more about her since he says that she is the love of his life. Dad keeps stopping his seizure medications to heal himself with Aloe Vera, then he has more seizures. Mother wrote letters to everyone she could think of. Her handwriting was perfect from all her practice of ovals and pushpulls, a handwriting exercise. Dad was driving the car when suddenly he started having a seizure, jerking and yanking, frozen stiff, and the car drove off the road, landing in the ditch. Mother didn’t want to drive with him in the car after that. It worried her. “If I just eat enough lemons, it will make me healthy and get rid of these seizures” and he truly believed that he could heal himself from them without prescriptions or medications. We went to the mall and were so excited because Dad gave us some quarters to buy stickers at the Hallmark Store. We loved going to look at all the sticker rolls, there were choices of Hello Kitty, Strawberry Shortcake, and Hearts and Flowers. I wanted them all, so choosing was hard. Tearing off just one sticker at a time my sisters chose their favorites. I picked the biggest shiniest star as mine. Dad asked why I picked the star because he knew how much I loved the other stickers too. “Because I’m going to be a star.” He said “Oh yeah, how do you know that know it all?” and I said “Because I’ve been praying about it. It’s why I’m living the life I am, because someday I’m going to be a star. My dad didn’t think this was a reverent idea, but he shrugged and let it go. It was an “Up yesterday, down today, up tomorrow” kind of scenerio Dad isn’t working. Mom was blaming him for her own shortcomings as she projected venomous victimhood, and blamed my Dad for not being a provider, She had no skills, and neither did he. My dad was overwhelmed and didn’t have the strengths to support, nurture, and lead a family so he took his frustrations out in the worst ways. Dad thought he did things the right way. It was the wrong way, but he had to be right. He was not in charge of his emotions because he didn’t know how to be flexible in his beliefs. However, his beliefs changed when terms changed and he needed his belief system to change. Dad has been thinking about music lately. He asked Mom to type out some of his poems but the typewriter ribbon broke, so he got mad. He said he could of done some really great stuff but Mother ruined it. Mom painted stencils on the wall for someone at church and when she finished they paid her 125.00. It’s not enough to get the electricity turned back on, but it’s a payment. We all got ice cream for dinner, then Mom paid the bill with the rest of her paycheck. Mom is angry that Dad wont look for a job. He has been doing quite a bit of housework, rummaging around moving boxes a lot because he’s not not working “Everything I say is going to happen, will happen.” I said with an inner confidence I had been building slowly pressuring inside of me. I actually believed in it. I just didn’t know how to get to where I wanted yet. I knew I was not going to be with my parents forever, but I had to find my way away. Someone brought a large box of food and left it outside our rental house door. We heard noises but thought to to be a neighbor. The bishop then offered to give a check to the Landlord for a month of rent. Dad sobbed, thanking him humbly. “We sure ‘re blessed” dad slurred, his head bowed and reverent. I watched Daddy be humble, rubbing his hands over and over like he was making a snowball without the snow. He was just gobsmacked. We had to move. Dad was suspicious when people noticed how poor we were, he feared they would call social services on him, so once we were noticed in his opinion, we had to pack up in the middle of the night and just go, driving to anywhere. “At this point it’s just a chore living” mother said, defeated. She hated moving, and we were always on the go, staying anywhere we could. In parks, with friends, in empty stores, and in storage units full of our belongings, we were homeless but tried to remain as normal as we could mom said. Mother was griping at Dad until dad lost control of his speech and couldn’t even think of words such as “cup”. Mom was frightened. Daddy started shaking and heaving, he was having a seizure. “Mom, I wish I could make you young and pretty like you used to be.” I said kindly, hoping to cheer her up. She cried harder. “Mom and Dad went to the temple to get baptized for the dead today.” Celeste said. “What if the dead people don’t want them baptizing them?” Celeste looked at me, arched her eyebrows and huffed “hmmm.” And that was the end of that. “I’ feel almost like I’m going to have a nervous break down and my stomach is just in knots” mom stopped what she was doing, despondent. Dad put in an applicaton to do church maintenance but it got lost in the mail. Mother explained. So now he has to take another one right over to them. Dad gave him a book of Mormon soft cover. We finally were getting church commodities again (welfare/food) so Dad would walk to the storehouse and carry home bags of donated groceries, which was always great to have. It’s embarrassing to always take welfare and donations from friends and strangers, but it’s survival. Mom started painting on a board, reimagining with her acrylic and brush a picture of horses that she had liked from a magazine. Dad had been working for this guy Nolan for a month now but still had not been paid. “I’m not worried damnit, he’ll pay” dad said, sure of himself. “It’s slim pickins around here” mom would remind him which set him off on another flurry of blame for his under achievements. Then mother went to Nolans herself insisting that Nolan start putting together a real payroll so Dad could get paid what he was owed. She was mad. While Mother tried to talk Dad into finding a job that gave regular paychecks he drank 3 cokes and ate 3 snickers bar all at once. Then mother got mad that he didn’t leave any for her. After reconnecting years later I called for advice. I had finally met my biological mother. I took my own daughter to meet her. I even left my daughter with her for a few weeks. I called my other parents Ross and Pat and told them about it out of spite. “I’m going to call social services on you!” Dad finally had his opportunity to threaten me back with his biggest lifetime threat from me. I told him about meeting my biological mother, who was a murderer I told him. My biological brother will come and kill you if you do anything to fuck with me I threatened. He has AIDS and is dying and like you, has very little to lose. I threatened them that they would never see my daughter again. My threats and words were big and dramatic and I would push what I was saying to the very edge, as far as possible. While dad was out buying a lottery ticket there was a call. He was offered 30,000.00 to take a job fixing video poker machines. It would be a steady income and a paycheck that would afford us a roof over our head. “Damnit I am not going to do that!” he fought with Mother, who wanted him to take the job. “I don’t believe that our Heavenly Father would want us to work on machines for the Devil, do you?” Gambling machines are of the devil, lottery tickets were the loophole. He didn’t win. After years living in the white house, we were at the end of our secure home because even though there was abuse, there was a foundation there. It was a home. I wanted to buy the house because my parents arguments had become worse as they fought over losing the house after all their money was put into it. I thought if I had money to buy them happiness, then they would love me even more as a default. Then I started wishing for a way to run away from all the stress that was tainting the home, so I evaluated the height from my window to the ground over the roof. It was always too high to ever take action without risking death, but I tried every idea as a way to escape in case I had to. “Mom was demoted to sales agent again. She can hardly look at anyone in the eye at the office. She has never met the quota. “the managers there act so syrupy” it makes me sick. Once afternoon mother returned home with another recovering alcoholic with two children, who were there to move in with us, in and out. She was only making 50.00 a week at the job. Dad would walk to meet her and walk her home when the car was broken down. Celeste is disgusted with mom and dads unkind arguments. Aimee came home 35 minutes late. Dad was awful to her. He finally softened around 2 am. The entire family will be tired the next morning as it’s never a calm event when Dad goes on a wicked abusive tangent. “There is room for advancement” mom said. I appreciate the fact that no matter what your dad says his prayers every night. Mom is fussing because dad is loaning out money to everyone when he has so little. I don’t understand why mother orders things from Home Shopping Network when we have no home or money. “It’s a bargain and it’s fun.” She stated. Just put Melaleuca on it. Dad called his mother Nana and she told him that if he divorced mom, she would set him up with a teacher she knows. When Dad told mom she said “what gall!” It was Nana that set up Dad with mom while he was still married to his first wife, this was when Mother had some money. “The Gall! Mom and Dad went to go eat at Burger King after the income tax check returns came, and they were going to talk to a prospect who may want to join the church. Aimee finally admitted she had been immoral after being lectured by our parents for hours into the night. After mom and Dad went to bed Aimee walked to the Griffiths house at 3 am. When mom and dad realized she was gone they called the Griffiths and threatened the parents with police if they didn’t return Aimee immediately if not sooner. Aimee doesn’t like mom and dad and wants to leave. “Aimee gets her way nearly all the time” mom said, at her wits end. Mom wanted Celeste to stay home with her for moral support, but she went instead to church. While at church Mom found out that Aimee was actually telling the truth and had not been immoral with the boy, so now mother is crying because she feels awful for being so wrong as a parent. Aimee was punished again for no reason at all. Dads teeth are bothering him. We don’t go to dentists because groceries would be the first priority, and those aren’t afforded.. Mother said she thought she would die the last time we had this kind of trouble. But she didn’t. Sister Garner had talked to mom in confidence telling her that her husband Chuck is really giving her a bad time, even abusing her. Mom advised her to talk to the bishop about it, but she doubts she will. Dad quit the photographic sales job today; he’s made only 15.00. a day and we just cant make it on that and standing on the concrete floor all day hurts his back. Mom kept receiving prospective employer who she sent resumes to. They all say “thanks but no thanks.” She read another rejection letter as the sultry heat brings out the tempers. The car we had borrowed from the neighbors was returned today. They came and got it because they were going to get it serviced, but really they just wanted their car back. Mother pulled out the old typewriter she had found at a yard sale. She put paper in and tried to type out an employment resume, but kept making mistakes, having to start all over again until she was out of paper. “I’m so depressed I can hardly stand myself” mom hadn’t accomplished much and Dad was only getting shifts from 11 AM-7:30. After getting overtime, check was just 550. Mothers face was a waterfront as she did the math of what it took to survive, and what was being made. “I really don’t see much sense in a parade; don’t like them very much” mom said but Celeste was dancing in it and Aimee rode a bicycle. Dad had put two ads in the paper with his idea and not even one response. Mother said that “if we could afford to advertise in a good paper. It would be a risk but I’d sure like to try. I think USA Today would be a good newspaper for our ad. But again; oh well! Ross was irritated so mother sat in the dark listening to the radio alone for the rest of the evening. I wonder if she was listening to her own nostalgia music from high school, maybe she was thinking about who she used to be in high school, when she was beautiful and popular and the whole world was full of opportunity ahead of her. At a garage sale stop on the way home mother bought a paper machie swan. “A woman there insisted on giving me the dollar I needed to help pay for it. It was three and I had two. She was so sweet and why refuse her gift? “It’s hard to do anything when you are depressed” mother said of her self diagnosed disease, but she had no idea it was actually a chemical disorder she was likely suffering with atop of circumstances that made her so unhappy. Mom got a temporary telephone concessions job, commission only. She didn’t make any money there. “Our neighbor took us out to eat three times, then loaned us a juicer to use but we have no fresh fruits or vegetables to use in it.” Mom remembered. Someone did drop off blueberry muffins on our porch though. So we had those. It appeared as if Ross’s gums were receding, and unable to save his teeth, but they remained for the stormy life they were given. Today dad worked on a few things, deciding he would be organized and busy. He fixed a door-knob, window shade pulls, and straightened up before sweeping the floor carpet with a broom as a vacuum, cleaning up the dirty floor. Mom felt awful having no income at all, she shifted through the papers job section while Aimee Celeste and I played in the yard with the hose, creating fantastic fake rain. There were times in different places where mother insisted on taking an art class even if there was no money for food or housing. She wanted to paint. Dad said he wanted to paint to but mother scoffed, annoyed that he would even attempt at stepping into her solace of painting. My mother missed and longed for her own mother often. She would let her mind wander to times when she was popular in high school, then she suddenly shifted into the next task, carrying the pain of her own mothers absence with her. I understood that familiar sting, and I tried to numb it for the rest of my life. “All in all it was not a bad day, except for the fact that Dads’ paycheck was only 90.00 and I have no idea what we are going to do.” Mom said. She took her hair down, long to her waist silver grey and beautiful, and brushed through the years as she fought any hair tangles that appeared, brushing long enough for it to all flatten and settle down before she whipped it back up in a quick bun, putting a stick through to hold it in place. She often wore a hairpiece made out of safety pins, the stick went through holding it in place. She said she could make the barettes easily, and was proud of them. Dad had convinced her that if she were to sell them she could be a millionaire and mother was proud that she had made something that good. I wanted her to feel pride, and as I watched her brush her hair I wished her to feel some happiness too, I felt tired of her depression reflecting her own failures piled upon Dads failures daily. I hated her, I empathized for her, I needed her, I couldn’t wait to be away, but I loved her. Mother was awful for a long time, until she wasn’t anymore. But it was her large breasts and chest that I lay my head on and cried as a baby into girlhood, who had been abandoned, and she was the mom I knew. But, I still could not wait for my escape, which is what leaving felt like. I felt like yelling at the top of my lungs and saying “I told you that you couldn’t do that, that it’s against the law, and that you are not allowed to treat me this way!” I was not going to tolerate the standard they had accustomed themselves with treating me. I was not going to stay and be abused, and I told them how I knew that it’s not going to last forever, and that they would be sorry!” Then I remember crying at social services as I saw my family led away without me, I was safe, I was being left, I wanted to go, I was so glad I didn’t have to go, where are they going, are they coming back, why wont they just be nice and stop doing all the things they think are okay and then I would not mind going home. My mind ticked faster than the clock, but my thoughts were locked inside, and I was unable to say anything, and then they were gone. It was time for me to start my life again. I was going to have some sort of control over my destiny and no one would yell at me, hit me, hurt me and abuse me again I thought. I was finally safe and slept deeply that night in a bunk bed of a new foster home. One of many I would bounce around, like “monkeys in the bed” mother said. If only Dad would change, I would be flexible. He was not willing to put me back in public school, which was a condition of me not staying in foster care. Mom and Dad went to the first hearing after I was in foster care for the cycle for courts. Mom and Dad had argued in court for their rights, never admitting guilt of anything they did to their own children other than teach us to “mind” them and be “obedient”. CPS had too much evidence to let me return home, but they let Celeste return. Aimee was released back to them after 6 months, and after that they stopped showing up to CPS and court ruled meetings and visitations with me. They had skipped town because my dad said he wasn’t going to tolerate other people like the state telling him what to do. BULLSHIT! He yelled, leaving town with my sisters, and mom. My dad was not willing to be flexible and compromise and follow the laws of the state and not abuse your children, and it was obvious that I was singled out because of being adopted. Once Dad found out where I was living in foster care, it was a group home. He wrote me a letter and in it it told me the time and place to meet the family in the car if I didn’t want to be left behind. I snuck out of the group home to be kidnapped by my dad. As we sped down the freeway he started yelling at me for all the problems I had caused tearing the family apart, how it was my fault that he couldn’t get a job, and that I had lied to the state and exaggerated to get my own way as always. “Great, just great, are you happy now?” he yelled. Then he tried swatting me as he had in the past from the front seat, where mom would have to hold the wheel so he could get some good hits in. He wanted to show he was strong by breaking us down. I started to panic and I looked at my sisters who were just crying, horrified. I started screaming for them to stop the car, stop the car, and my dad said “Fine.” He stopped, I got out and they drove off. I watched them go until the tail lights were gone. I was afraid of how I was going to explain this to the group home, but I also feel like I had just escaped losing the last of my teenage years. I was free, and I was guilty but happy at my escape, while feeling betrayed by them leaving me behind to go to another state, future unknown. Dad came home after an interview with Bishop Hawkins and said he was denied a temple recommend. This was something that meant my dad was unworthy. My parents were both stunned. Mother didn’t believe Dad at first, and thought he was teasing. Dad is really upset and unhappy. The bishop told my dad he “hasn’t lived up to his potential providing for us.” “Do you ever feel like you don’t even have a life? Sometimes I do. Mom admitted. After finally leaving Daddy mom stayed with Helen Lithgow at the Jim cult, and she accepted him as Gods Prophet. It started when they both read after church from “Further Light and Knowledge” and they felt they gained so much from it. I really like this music, it sounds like an old negro spirtu8al and its beautiful. Jim Harmston, another self proclaimed prophet had lured my mother in easily. Then Dad showed up and for awhile they read Journals and Discourses. Mom said “The meetings led by Jim (Prophet) have powerful mesIs including how near we are to the end of the world that by then those who have reached the highest ordinances will receive the power to go with it.” Everything he said felt like truth to my mother, who may have seen the faith as her way of having hope. Everyone needs something to hope for, even if it’s hoping to go to heaven when the world ends. To my mother this was a prescription for happiness that she had needed for so long. Jim was smart with his approach to gaining my mothers loyalty until her death, he told mother that she had a calling to teach the 2nd graders in their private group. That gave my mother the feelings of being needed, and also gave her the chance to be charitable and compassionate, by giving back to the community that supports her by teaching what she did know. It fit her. Her financial burdens were lifted as they moved their bus onto the cults property, so she no longer was on the move. She could take her burdens off here and be part of something she could believe in. The children in the community put on programs at their little Brick Store for entertainment. Mother wanted to learn and finally had the chance to grow educationally. She sat in on the classes taught to the older students by other members who are knowledgeable in different subjects that are taught in the public school system. Then both my parents worked in their historians office, and Jim gave them a calling as the church janitors. Every meeting was uplifting, motivational and full of fantasies of the unseen. Once there was an addendum to a blessing Jim was giving to a member. During that blessing he was almost overcome to learn that he had been Caleb, Niphi Son of Lehi, Moroi, Orson hyde in Previous probations. Then when she read another members secret blessing it was really a love story. In a past probation they had been married, and he had been John The Baptist when he was Beheaded. Jesus then took her as a custodial wife. She was Martha. When a man gets a polygamist wife here it’s called a rescue. Helen Lithgow, now divorced from Bill, told mother of her plan to be rescued by Jim. It was all very romantic for Helen and My mother to talk about being rescued and how great it would be. Jim taught that parents must do a better job of disciplining their children and explain the facts of life to them. Apostle Scott Roller has been assigned to enforce if parents cannot. Hearing this Mother felt relief and validation of the way she had raised her own children, with hard discipline. Everyone in the group sat around and wondered who they each were in past lives, and sometimes Jim let them know who they were, and the attendee would sit in awe and wonder. Dad bought candy and cokes again behind Mothers back. She found out and was unhappy and then he got pretty mad at her. Mom had found her own nest to settle in and she wanted all her children to come back to the mother bird and maybe we could all start over. But, she lived in a cult and we had all separated and gone our separate ways, shattered and apart, each of us dealing with our lives in very different ways. The cycles of abuse continues in the communities of cults everywhere, hidden under the mask of God. Jim said “Our Glory comes from exalting human beings, not just in having them. We are responsible and accountable for our children”. Thwack. I am so glad I wasn’t there, but I was glad my mother was. She started saying things like “I felt a witness” when someone said something inspirational. Her and Dad would put on robes when it was time to pray in the new living church of Jesus Christ.Praying in the True Order. Sometimes while I was in different clubs stripping I would stop and call from a payphone and tell them about my visit from Satan I had that was similar to that she had as a child. “Ross and Amber have been contentious all day” My mothers tired troubled eyes watched her children play as she chewed ice, clacking her false teeth in and out of place. If she ever knew relief from worry, I will never know. As a young girl in high school she had worn a long white dress with musical notes made from construction paper cutouts, pinned around the skirt. Atop her blonde locks was a hat with another cutout. She was given the part in a talent show to say the poem “I love music” without singing it because when she sang it was pitched so off, it was like a flash flood coming through, piercing us like prickly pairs. She stood loyal for years behind my fathers fearsome shadow. She suffered beyond words and tears. The “truth” was never honest. We lived in several different religious cults, staying until our welcome wore out with my fathers temper. My memories of the stays were so dark and riddled with shame that I had spent my adult life denying this part of my past. Fueled with an unrelenting appetite for the religiously zealot, my faith in God was tested from a very young age. While being adamant that we do what we were taught with fierce obedience, my parents would then change drastically to new beliefs, abolishing all we had previously had to follow. One of these was a small secretive community tucked within the Bitterroot National Forest. Among the dense tree’s at the foot of the mountains, the Lithgow family was building a new log cabin big enough for four large families. The foundation of the home was built, but it was windowless and without electricity or plumbing. We moved in with the family anyway, it was better than being homeless. An outhouse sat in a clearing surrounded by goats, chickens and building supplies. The families that wanted to join the cult up higher in the woods could stay at the unfinished Lithgow cabin. We used the opportunity while finding out the secrets of the universe. The untapped truth was out there, and each group we joined had a different prophet. So depending on which group or cult we were at, we believed then that THAT was the real truth. Over and over, new truths were unveiled, we were just becoming more righteous so God loved us enough to keep leading us to the truth. “The true Prophet and the truth is here..” Helen Lithgow said. Our family followed their family to a handful of different cults, the Lithgow friendship lamented in the belief that by living in a cult they were special, chosen, and above the law of the land but not the law of God. Yet, Gods laws were always changing for them and they kept finding different new truths. The self-proclaimed prophet of each group had many of the same beliefs, with their own sacred bullshit added. All of our groups had the belief that polygamy was a higher law for the chosen who chose to follow Gods commandments. I was originally taught that one man, one woman should be married for “all time and eternity” and loyalty to each other was Godly. That idea was then scratched and the illegal polygamist marriages were practiced. If you want to make it to heaven, you needed to have at least three wives and be in a plural marriage, and have as many children as you could birth. They were fundamental. What the followers did was follow the laws of their leader instead of the laws of the land. They lived in hiding to avoid religious persecution. My parents liked the underground world where the church had been divided and some members remained underground polygamists and were excommunicated from mainstream mormonism. The “Eternal Progression” It means that suffering and sacrifice go hand in hand with heavenly entry. “The mormons have fallen from the divine truth along the way of eternal progression!” Helen was teaching her latest beliefs to my parents. “The most holy principle is lived here” my dad agreed. My mother liked the provisions of friendships with the other women. Her depression would lighten when she was among the faithful servants in these secret groups, or any groups. She had a handful of husbands before Ross, and loved Ross the most for so long. She believed in the castles in heaven she would gain if she remained unselfish and mindful and loyal, but the cults were putting their wedge between my parents slowly. My dad was always questioning the beliefs too harshly, arguing against each point while wanting his children to stay there and get some free care and friendship while trying to get to the Celestial Kingdom. Being homeless on earth makes it easy to dream of a life in a castle, where no one threw around furniture, cursing and hollering. She believed the peculiar religious zealots, and living in solitude beyond the watchful eye of social services and others was safer for her. She felt refuge. As my parents went back and forth from Utah to Montana, I was to stay and live in the mountains with the Jack Romero family. I was a troubled child but I wanted to live in the place I envisioned the organization to be, a loving place of harmony without discord. I especially wanted to be away from my parents as I was in daily torment with them. It was an icy winter when I arrived to live with the Romero family. My parents had sent me in a green van full of other believers joining the new community. My new home sat atop a mountain slope, covered with dense pine trees, cottonwood and fir. Jack Romero was a gaunt man, his wife Gale thin with twinkling eyes, and Tracey, Gales daughter from a previous marriage, were my new family. Jack, like the other men in the group believed he had been individually chosen by God to keep alive the original laws that mainstream Mormons had discontinued. His inflated ego was fed by living in a group. A teenaged girl, Kathy was also staying with the family. She came into the living room one afternoon as Tracey and I were secretly listening to a cassette tape of Rocky 4 that had made a way in. She had a big bruise on her neck. “What happened?” I was shocked at the dark spot. “Are you okay?” She replied “A big bear attacked me outside, but I escaped.” and then she giggled, looking at Tracey with a secret language twinkling in her eye. “What do you mean a bear?” I was afraid of bear attacks already, but this really scared me. “I’m just kidding, it’s from Jack!” she laughed at me, Tracey laughed too, and Kathy skipped off. “She’s marrying your dad?” She was living there to become Jacks second wife. She was underage. “Yeah I guess” Tracey said, unconcerned. “Am I going to marry Jack too?” I asked. “Yeah I guess.” she said. I was scared. I was there to be married to a man my fathers age. I was not yet a woman, I still hadn’t grown breasts. Later after catching a cold I was being nursed back to health with tinctures and magical potions made from black mollasis and cayenne pepper. I was sleeping a lot. Jack would sit at the edge of the bed and rub my hair from my face. “When I’m in the after-life I am going to be a mighty warrier, I wont have the same body and I will have my own world. Do you want to live in the afterlife with us?” I nodded He kept stroking my hair, my arm, my legs, and became more aggressive. “On earth we are tested, if you are humbled enough to share love with others it show’s your love for Heavenly Father, and as a mighty warrier I will be like a King is here on earth, but in heaven, do you understand?” I nodded. “You need to be tested.” He stuck his grey tongue in my mouth just as his 1st wife Gayle walked in. Noticing she had interrupted her husband molesting me she looked shocked, but then warmed into a timid smile. “Yes?” Jack asked, as if he wasn’t doing anything. “Kathy is ready.” It was their date night, and I couldn’t wait for him to leave and to get his cold long fingers off my skin. He kissed my forehead as a father would to a child, or a child bride, and left the dark room. I told his step-daughter Tracey what had happened that week and she looked away and said “I hate him so much.” Laura, Helen Lithgows’ daughter my age was also living there, and being close to her felt safe. I liked living there because it was warm, I had friends to play with, and the Laura was my best friend. I had known her from our affiliation with the family for so many years, and I wanted to pass the tests I was being given in the midst of this dark forest so I wouldn’t be sent back to my Mom and Dad. I feared being with them and their emotional and physical abuse more than being in the woods molested by a middle aged man. Every time I saw Jack I tried to imagine him as a warrior with a “mighty sword” but all I saw was a weak looking man with a weird shaped skull and a pointed tongue I wanted to avoid, a tongue that lashed out loud-on your knee prayers that lasted longer than I could bear staying down with crossed arms. “In heaven you were in my council of women” he said. “I am?” He smiled, brushing my hair for me. “I’m chosen to know things on earth that only special people can know, everyone wont understand. Do you understand?” I nodded that I did. I knew how to keep secrets, My parents had already started to train us to not tell social services, government, the spies, him, her, them, that, no one…tell no one anything. I knew we were living a life that was breaking laws of the land but if it was cool with God, I was wanting to side on his team. But if I was here too, with the special ones, maybe it meant that perhaps I was special too. Maybe it meant my real mom would find me here because I would be so tuned in to God, that he would bless me with meeting her. _________________________________________________________ “I need you to try and sleep with your hands lower, you sleep with your arms over your head.” I was comfortable sleeping on my side with my arm over my head, another under my pillow on a cold afternoon. I kept getting sick. Gale had woken me up while I was sleeping. I really liked Gale, and trusted that what she said would always be wise. “It’s a signal that evil spirits are in your body and you need to try and keep your arms down so that they can’t stay.” She was sweet and soft in her tone, kind in her demeanor yet sexually overt.”Do you have any questions?” she said as she tucked in the sides of my blanket. It was so cold outside and I was glad to be in a house with a working heater. I hesitated then asked, “Do you want me to marry Jack?” I coughed nervously. She just smiled, which upset me. “I don’t want to get married.” I sat up and I started crying. “You will be surprised at what you can do when you know you are following Gods will not your will.” She giggled, like a tricky witch with a secret. Behind the scenes trouble with me staying in the house brewed. My questions, my defiance, and my apprehension was apparently not going to go away. I was worldly, carnally influenced easily and defiant. I was sent back to Utah to live with my parents again. I was deemed problematic. I was heartbroken to be thrown out of the cult. If you are a young girl, able to have sex and be married and bear a lot of children, you were never the one to be thrown out of the cult. I clearly had demonstrated my independence strongly. The cult in Montana It was not the place for anything positive, but it still hurt to be rejected and given back. I sometimes felt I tested others to see if they truly loved me. This time, Jack was pure evil, and wife Gale was brainwashed, seeking salvation on heaven and on earth. Tracey and the young girls were just that; young innocent victims of a variety of abuses. I loved hanging out with Tracey, Gales daughter. She’s around my age and her red hair and freckles were reminders of her youthfulness we had when, we were still girls. We would sled down the hills, in the mountains hidden cult group, in cardboard boxes, go to square dances where older men would swing girls around like a spectacle. Once when ice-skating a boy fell through the ice. The adults ran and pulled him out of the water but told us that water was controlled by the devil, which was a sign that devil and evil spirits wanted us out of there, and that the evil spirits can control water. At the far end of a brown dirt stained snowy road was a small building, which was used as the “school-house” for children. There was no education taught outside of self made pamphlets to teach prophecies and predictions, as the end of the world was near and there would be no need for math, science or history. It’s emotional cruelty to prevent a person from being educated when it’s available to them. Every year that passed was another year I would fall behind another grade. I wanted to learn what others were learning. Public education is free in America, but it was forbidden for me. I always talked about going to public school, even asking Jack if I married him if I could go to public school? He nodded no. I hated him, his ego head butted against my defiant spirit, but I was naive to how dangerous he really was. I was returned to Utah, so I avoided years of his religious excuses to have young girls in his bed. He was abusive to Kathy and Gale, and Gale eventually left him to join another cult, seeking acceptance and spiritual enlightenment. I always had a strong love for Gale and spoke to her for years during my first marriage, she was still my guide spiritually, even though I had escaped the cult, I clung on hard to others still there, unable to let go. Homemade Lingerie by Amber The rabbit that knocks on the door delivers mystic magic and folklore on the snow where you ski poisoned powder, remember me? As your smile attaches to heaven Innocent laws at youthful seven In those years what were we doing there sirens stop for someone to care In green hours you turned red popped magic cherry bleeding on his bed How did the lace unravel with you Testimony of God, infinate and true And if you were there my red my green Homemade lingerie tears at it's seams The men were the ones that God spoke to, the women simply servants. My parents sometimes would move to Portland Oregon from another “pack up in the middle of the night and move adventures” we had as a family. My mother had three children from a previous marriage, they were already adults by the time I was dropped off at the headshop and Celeste and Aimee were born. I love them, but don’t know them. They popped in and out of our childhood, but there was nothing steady. My mother did like to do certain things. Painting, Crafting, and writing. She mostly cried, ate chocolate bars, and chewed ice while hating her life and complaining about it. My mom loved using her new typewriter for journaling that daddy bought her at a garage sale in Portland, She would type on the loose leaf papers, even while living in the car she used it. But, with small jobs that never went anywhere, ny mother made enough sometimes to get them into a small apartment or room to rent. She felt betrayed having to work while Ross didn’t but she wanted to help out of desperation. As a result of work, she would sometimes build up bits of confidence as well, having money in her pocket from a paycheck from her own contributions brought happiness in moments that she wasn’t accustomed to. My dad started drawing a design for a new idea. “ All we have to do is strike it rich and we can start building this right away, look at this!” my dad squeezed my arm, sitting me down to listen to him. Afraid to look away, I felt a boiling hot feeling inside. I was always afraid of being in trouble. So as much as I liked my dads attention, it was a burden if gone wrong. My dad grabbed magnets, sucking, then opposing when turned around. “I’m going to build a giant skating rink but instead of using ice I’m inventing a rink with magnets, so you can have opposite magnets, one on the floor, one on skates, and you skate on air.” My dad was inventing a way to walk on air. I couldn’t wait to be rich, like my dad would be. “I’m really hooked on Home Shopping Club. I watch and buy as often as I can.” My mother beamed, she was working one of her jobs now while my dad would spend the day making repairs on old cars that would always break down. He bought Celeste and Aimee an old fiero but it didn’t work, so they traded it for a truck they couldn’t drive and so on, so by the end of the telephone chain, no car was gifted to my sisters after all. _________________________________________________________________ One afternoon in the Ogden Cult led by self proclaimed prophet Arvin Shreeve, I was sewing lingerie to sell to the local strippers and we were the child labor and anyway, this woman was one of Arvins lost women, and she came in with the big announcement. “Amber,” she said with a big toothed deceiving smile. “It’s time for you to be with Arvin.” All the girls in the room applauded, like I had won some great prize. They cheered like it was a big celebratory moment. I glanced around the room, looking for Laura to get her nod of approval, as if I was going to make out with a boy at a school dance, She had been there before and she’s a year younger than me, she shrugged at me which indicated I would be fine. We had talked about it so many times, and what the first time would be like for me, we had talked about how gross it was, but that it would be over quickly enough. I was used to imagining myself in a different place. I had a young girls crush on her brother Eric Lithgow. He was my ideal soulmate choice. He was always around and always rebelled against his mother Helens crazy domination of the family. He went to school dances, went to the lake on weekends, and well, yeah, he went to public school. He was the coolest dream guy a school-aged girl could have. Of course he ignored me. So, I wanted to grow up and marry him, not be encouraged to make out with his sister, my best friend Laura Lithgow. I would pretend that I was making out with Erik Lithgow when I was actually forced by the women in the cult to make out with the other women. I was dressed for bed in a home sewn floral lace nightgown. I climbed into a canopy bed next to Laura, she turns the lamp dimmer on low. We talked about what it would be like to have a real boyfriends instead of being forced. “He loves you more” Laura said. I was confused so I told her “God doesn’t love me at all” and she said; “I wasn’t talking about God.” Laura wraps her arm around me, we have curled up and cuddled so often that it’s easy to settle in to sleep. WHAM! The door flies open! I wake up and look. Heavily armed FBI agents loudly bust through our bedroom door. The celestial beams of their flashlights cross our faces, blinding me. Women and children scream around me, I get up quickly, I hear sirens and recognize what’s happening! It’s the end of the world, this is the apocalypse we were planning for, the end of days, we are prepared for this. I’ll try not to be, I’m so scared! There is a stranger coming towards my childhood friend Laura, who is also a teenager like me. I am alert, and breathing heavily. I grab my friends hand. “No one will hurt you.” said an agent urgently. She stood smiling at us, as if she had just rescued kittens from a lake, but if she were to just look around, she would see that everything here is perfect, just like heaven, and we didn’t need saving. “It’s okay.” She could see we were not going to budge. We stood bold. We both knew better than to trust her. “He’s from the outside world.” I reminded Laura, who looked like a very brave squirrel, her tail bushing up as she got mad. So she restrained her anger and started praying out loud instead “The last days! Heavenly Father, please bless us.” Another agent enters the room and asks someone, I’m not quite sure who, if there is anyone else in the room? I sweetly stepped forward and answered. “No. Do you see anyone else in the room?” I stepped in front of the closet where there was a secret hiding room built under the shoes with a trap door escape. I looked towards the closet, then to the agents again. The female agent told the other officers to “Get the children out of here” and they held our hands tightly, and started to escort us from the room to the living room. We are being treated like children, but Laura and I are mature for our young ages. In the food storage hideaway downstairs, several armed agents search through the jars of food, first aid, clothing, blankets etc. An agent moves a panel on the wall of the closet, revealing the hidden room. There are hundreds of massive firearms and explosives lining the walls. “Holy fucking Goddamn fuck.” Next thing I knew I was sitting in Social Services across from my new Social Worker, Mike Westbrook. This man was my lifeline and had control of me too. He asked me where my family was, and I told them I truly didn’t know, that they had left. “You were home-schooled?” he asked, filling in paperwork. “I wasn’t schooled at all. They only teach carnality in Public school and English and Math won’t be important in the last days. School won’t get you into the Celestial Kingdom. RAPE ME I put on sexy lingerie that I had sewn as an assignment for such an occasion. I put on makeup, which I loved to do. I curled my hair. I put on perfume, under my neck, on my wrists, on my tummy the way the older women had showed me. Then it was time to go, I covered my lacey secrets with a beige jacket, so I could look like a normal girl while crossing the street to get raped by an older man. A self proclaimed prophet who manipulated my parents to leave me there with him. They were easily manipulated and vulnerable to bad choices with their ignorance. So, when they told my father I was staying when he told me to get im the car and go with him I took a deep breath and once the sun went down I began a longest short walk across the street to the home Arvin’s was in. From what the other girls had said, I was supposed to glide across the street as if the spirit was carrying me, feeling really light like a feather. I walked slow and sluggishly as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders. I had been prepped by the women in the group for sex, just like all the children were. We played rape in the dark, strip tease, strip poker, and had lingerie shows where the children (us) modeled the skimpy outfits for the local strippers who would buy the outfits for their careers while we tried to lure them into staying as a member. I loved putting on shows as a kid, un-caring about new members joining, I just wanted to perform, and couldn’t wait to do my part and get a small applause for my part dancing, sticking my adolescent breasts forward proudly, applause, applause, stick my little bottom out, “oh that’s so cute” applause, applause. I knocked on the door. Arvin’s first wife appeared, coming to make sure I was in safely. She smiled and waved at a woman across the street, making sure I was still en route to the important rape. I was torturing myself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen, but then I remembered that my fear about Arvin was just the devil talking to me. The air was stifling, and I felt like my heart was on fire. I looked up and down the street, smiling so that if anyone saw me I would blend in. I was becoming so good at earing trust by showing how secretive I could be. My mind flashed back to an incident the week before where she had told me how romantic Arvin was when they were young, how he seduced her by “unbuttoning my blouse one button at a time, then re-butting it up” and how sexy it was. “Hello dear,” she said sweetly, like a grandmother in wolfs old clothing, holding out a big shiny poisonous apple. “Are you excited that you’re going to be really part of our council?” A sister council was a group of women used as sexual slaves, but I didn’t know that. Women running around in their sexy lingerie was normal, and I was used to the art of seduction. I felt like I had finished the workbooks about sexual pleasure, how to pleasure your husband and how to light a fire in his..I knew how to please. At any moment, he could erupt, and that power kept me on my toes. “Um, yeah,” I said nervously powerless. I felt excited, and proud that I had been chosen. I felt that God had finally heard my prayers and this would be a quick sacrifice to get my log term goal, which was to be in a safe place until I could find my real mom. I’m part of the elite family of the group I think, so I could get her on a higher level for heaven maybe. I was brainwashed, but I just kept rinsing, and looking at life from my own point of view, and the experiences I’ve lived in made me this way. If I called the state or social services to come get me I would be put back in group homes or foster care, and I wanted to be close to Laura, Helens daughter who was also there. I didn’t want to be uprooted again. “You have nothing to worry about dear just be sweet and he’s happy,” she said. I didn’t want to disappoint, the attraction that this old man had to little girls was my free ticket to a place to live. I was being sucked into the underworld of cult sex, where it was dark, dangerous, and deviant for adults who committed their acts on children. Arvins’ wife was an accomplice, but his daughter was too. He slept and had sex with his own daughter, so if she could do it I thought. His wife, her mom, continued telling me her story as I stood their hiding lingerie under the trenchcoat. “Arvin is sweet and seductive. On our first date he unbuttoned my shirt slowly and buttoned it back up. It was very sexual. I loved it.” “Sounds great,” I said, smiling for approval, upset and wanting to cry, but happy too, just more nervous than before. I had been groomed for this moment by a pedophile. Wasn’t she jealous that I was going to go have intercourse with her husband, she is his age and spent her whole life with this man Arvin, why wasn’t she jealous? Doesn’t she feel any kindling about the younger Arvin she fell in love with as a teenager, and now she was old and age was tearing away at her body with hanging skin. She was such a loyal wife, so loyal that she approved of her own biological daughter to be with her own father. The sexual deviances were dark, lurking beneath the surface, brewing and festering away at sick fantasies the adults were playing with. His wife, she knew I was a child, not old enough to be without parents. Not old enough to be left in a bedroom alone with her naked rapist husband, I was not the first, or the last. She was steadfast. Her face grew stony, and her little body heaved over, l like a wounded animal. She swirled her wedding band around her bony fingers and they reminded me of an evil witch from fairytales. She ushered me inside, dropping a mouse in the snake pit. The paintings on the walls were all of Jesus smiling. I looked at him, hoping he was taking note of what was going on, making sure God knew I was having faith in him. I was showing that I was going to be loyal to God by letting this happen. I thought I was in charge, but I wasn’t. I was manipulated, the truth of what was happening was crackling around, an invisible energy. “Arvin is down there, expecting you.” She winked and smiled, the folds of her thin skin have a sheen of blue. I got chills, and wished I had on more than lingerie and a trenchcoat over, the fantasy had to be complete with me stripping for Arvin, and I had to have something to take off other than my home made lingerie, where the thin seams ripped away as quickly as my childhood. I looked like a spy child in a giant trenchcoat. God told me what to wear though, speaking through the closest man around, as long as he was chosen and part of the cult. “Thank you,” I replied as Laura, my childhood friend smiled knowingly, which felt weird. She had already busted her cherry with Arvin, she seemed fine with it, shrugging it away. I took another step. The divided stairs made the house look ultra modern compared to the past places we had lived and I liked living in a house. I remembered how much I hated being homeless. My mind wandered but always snapped back to what was about to happen. As I walked toward the stairs guided by my sister council wife, a middle aged woman Shari who had a few wrinkles around her eyes but she was pretty enough, she said: They gave me a new name. Regima. They were trying to change everything about me. “Regima you have a special purpose on earth, you’re chosen to do great things. Well, that was true I hoped. Just not in the way I had dreamed of. What was I going to be able to offer Arvin that was any better than what these woman gave? My troubles shifted from not wanting to be with Arvin to not knowing if I would be good enough for him, how could I compete with grown adult women who knew how to have sex? I was prepared, and I thought I was good at the rehearsing of satisfying another person, even if I didn’t want to. Sharon Kapp asked young children to give her oral sex for practice, and she always had a wicked smile as hen of the roost. The was the power of the spirit – the power to instill so much fear inside me. I didn’t know I was supposed to be scared, but as fearless as I was, what I learned in that room while hidden behind doily lace curtains, I learned to fear the world. It was the power of manipulation and Arvin was a master, the leader of evil. I went downstairs to the den and there he was, sitting on a reclining fabric chair. He was old short and bald and smelled like sweat, grass and fresh dirt. He had been leading the other men and boys through a hard day work in the sun under his landscaping company. Oh, did I mention we sold lingerie to strippers that we sewed? Back to where we were. “Come sit on my lap,” he said, soft enough that I would have to lean in to hear him, another tactic. I stood still. Nothing moved except buzzards in the sky I imagined there. I did. I went and sat in his lap He wanted to pray together, so we prayed together. Arvin prayed for me to have the spirit guide enough through the night and show him she really should be part of the sister council God selected for me. “Amen,” I said together before walking into the bedroom. That sunrise didn’t mark the end of a bad night, but the beginning of my understanding that sex had a power, even if it was an evil one. Sex was something being used as a weapon as timeless evenings repeated themselves as I lived with endless nights where windows and I were covered with home made broken pieces of lace, tucked between sheets full of shameful secrets. I didn’t think of myself as college material because no one had ever even mentioned the fact that I could even go to college, or that I should. I tried taking a GED later, but failed. I tried taking math classes to catch up at a valley college later, but failed. I did find a way through by paying a friend of mine that I stripped with in Las Vegas to take the college placement exams and GED for me so I could at least go on in my education instead of just starting fresh. She passed the GED even after a night out partying. I paid her 10o.oo and asked her “how did you do that so easily?” she looked at me and said “Easy, I learned that stuff in school.” She said, while smoking a lipstick and smudging off her Starbucks coffee cup with “last night old” lipstick staining the lid fuscha. I wanted to go to college but I was different than everyone, and I knew it. I had gaps missing but strong sparkle of intelligent thoughts in other areas. I just didn’t fit in, so I made people laugh, and they liked me. I wanted to be smart, and certainly thought of myself as smarter than the stripper who tested for me, but I wasn’t educated as much as her, and it bothered me that I lacked gaps that I will never fill because my brain won’t learn math, it is too busy darting all over the place misunderstanding and mixing up my numbers, and losing my thought of what number I was focusing on, I just can’t learn math. I excelled in creative things, arts, theater, screenwriting, but I still never had a college, or high school or Junior high or elementary school diploma or degree. But, I am officially but not legally passed high school level. Maybe with the proper education and a handful of confidence given earlier on I could of avoided the cycle of traumatic living. Fuck high school. Fuck trying. Fuck everyone. Helen Lithgow why did you talk my parents into home schooling us, and joining polygamy and everyone…fuck you all, I was so angry. I had to make it on my own, there is no plan, no support system, no place to go and I am aging out of the foster system. I could stay and live another year or two until I was legal, but I was afraid of being stuck without resources to leave if I stayed too long. Learning the get up and run philosophy from my dad was still active. My neighbor and friend Dawn Tingle was on the same page, but she had two parents, a house, education and really great fashion sense with a closet full of brands. I wanted to have parents, but I didn’t like her dad, he was an asshole and a drunk. Dawn butted heads with Phil, her father. “Let’s get out of this fucking shit town,” Dawn told Amber on a dry, scorching hot desert day in Hobbes. Where? Why? With who? “How many places have you lived” Dawn asked me once. “I can’t count, I lost track.” I told her. I remember the memories, not the addresses because sometimes we didn’t have an address. We moved so much so we couldn’t get caught by social services, the “government spies who want to control the world through Satan’s men” and taken away. But I didn’t tell Dawn that. I was learning how to keep my past out of my present. No one would believe me anyway, my truth is crazier than anything I could make up. Dawn and I did all of the coke we could find and spent day and night so high that I barely had time to realize her life dreams was slipping away, partying in a small town where I couldn’t fulfill my destiny, but I didn’t know where to go or what to do. I was aimless. The music, the parties with six packs of beer, the friends, it was all a fun life games for me but I always wanted bigger. I wanted more. I wanted to be a part of. I had not made it as a high school sorority after a vote took place among high school mean girls. I cried for a week over that while in foster care. I had spent the week excited that I had an opportunity because I was pledged in for the vote. I liked everyone, and although I was misunderstood I was always nice to everyone I met, especially the guys. I had friends here, like Sandy the lesbian, who had a red car and laughed like Hello Kitty would if the cat doll actually laughed. Does she laugh? I love her and Chris, her tall lanky girlfriend with the shortest haircut you can have. Life with friends here was fun for a moment. I could pretend I was normal. Blending in was the best feeling ever. And if I stood out, it wasn’t from being embarrassed from depraved conditions we were living in, or the torturous punishments. No one knew where I came from, no one asked. No one thought of me as the abused victim with lice living in the woods, or in a storage unit, or squatting in an empty store. I was free to be young, wild, and free. One time, a group of girls high on acid, took glow sticks, broke them open and rubbed the florescent fluid all over our naked bodies and ran through a dance club. Later that night we did cocaine and ran around the house and danced to the loud music from Janes Addiction or The Cure, blaring their words through the stereo speakers. Music always a part of me now, then the acid took a turn for the worse and then I suddenly feared that the fluid may be toxic – a panic that sent me to the bathtub for the next few hours. I didn’t matter what I used, I was a chemical garbage can. Drugs – it made everything fuzzy enough to get through living it. Nothing around me mattered enough for me to care about much in my foggy account. Once I had leaned into the lifestyle career of being a stripper and I moved to San Antonio to upgrade my place in the world from El Paso to San Antonio, I entered bikini contests at local bars, winning so many times I was banned from participating, partied hard at night and didn’t worry about anything, while worrying about everything. After a friend Bill had died playing human Frogger on the highway in El Paso, the sadness was brief. Drugs took away the pain of hard moments. I could not do hard things, I couldn’t deal with them, I drowned daily, drifting away lifeless without a life preserver. I tried to drink a lot. Quickly though, Jason got tired of providing the fun and games for free. Dawn and I needed money quickly or Jason wanted us out. Dawn was tired of Jason by then so she called her parents and they sent her money to come home. So I was stuck in El Paso without Dawn with me, our adventure was over. I was jealous she had a place to end her runaway, I didn’t, I was on the run from not just my foster mom, but the entire state of New Mexico. I was state property. Dawns parents would always pull through for her, and I was jealous of that devotion, although the state would spend a lot of man power, police force and effort to try and keep me in the system All the running from the government system my whole life and now I was being protected by the state. I had a fresh start. I was not ready for the reality of foster child living conditions, and it was not good. I was so lucky to have landed with Connie Dare who saved my life and was one of my saints. She isn’t saintly, she screams, fights and argues over ridiculous things and rules, but she always acted as if she really loved me like I was her own. I pushed her so far away that I wish she was closer. I wrote her a letter when I returned from Hawaii, sending it to her to thank her for saying yes to the question asked in church. “Can anyone take a troubled teenager who is Mormon, has been thrown out of every available foster home and she is deemed a problem child.” I sounded like a prize, I know. I was being auctioned off, but they clearly could of used better help in advertising me. I would of preferred the truth of “She’s just so sick of being told to do ridiculous things by grown ups, and I am strong willed and I’ll force you to abandon me because I feel like I don’t deserve love and fuck your rules.” One little boy who didn’t want to share his mother or home with foster kids told his mom I was touching him in weird ways. I absolutely did not and I was mortified that he would lie about it. I was removed from the home and he got all his movie collection back without having to share his mom’s attention. I had one interest in boys and it wasn’t the asshole who was being a little shit liar, but a real romance in the local high school. I was holding hands in the hallways, getting rides from, and making out with boys with cars and mullets. I was so happy with my freedom from living in that foster home that I didn’t want to take the little punks mom away. I just wanted to pretend like I was really part of each family, that I was a real family member. I wanted to call the mom, mom. I wanted to call the foster dads dad. I wanted to be part of a nuclear unit, even if just pretend. He wanted no older sister taking space and he repeated what he had been told to watch out for when having and taking in wild foster children because there is no telling where they come from. My case worker Michael Westbrook said that he believed me, thank God. I was horrified and disgusted with the thought of his accusation. I wanted out of there after he said that anyway, so after group homes and many home jumps later, the state said they had no place to put me. I said, call the Mormon church. The church always had hurt me, and I felt they owed me. And, I still had faith in them. I was a foster kid in the state system, watched over by a herd of government workers, all ignoring me together, making sure I am not ignored, and treated like a hurt Pony with a broken leg, they may have just wanted to end my misery but the state made them keep me alive. When we are taken from home we take one suitcase or bag of our stuff. I knew how to pack quick. I had Connie, she was a real mom to me, non biological but even looked like me. I called my foster mom Connie and it didn’t go as well as my friend Dawns call to her home. “I can’t live here anymore Mom,” I cried said, wishing she was my real mom so she would really help. “It was your choice to leave,” she replied as if it was the wrong matter of memory and “I wanted you to stay.” “Can I come back?” I asked. “You are always welcome here, but no you may not come back!,” Connie snapped harshly while contradicting statements sternly. “If you want to come back you have to just don’t you come back! You have to go to rehab, there is no helping you!” I slammed the phone, I was so down and frustrated. Testing her often, I knew she loved me. I could hear it in her tone. She cared. I was a wild cat, scratching her eyes out and peeing on her floor and all she wanted was to not be clawed apart. _______________________________________ I went to work immediately. After my entire life of being was told that it’s a sin to have sex, to being raped and sexualized, to learning my birth mother was once a stripper, so when I put on the lingerie, heels and lipstick as a well trained child seductress, I was just fine as an adult stripper. When I was at the clubs dancing I checked myself in the mirror and felt a connection to the dark side, which made me believe I was connecting to my real mother. I love being around the noise of music, it drowns away those demons that try to crawl back in from time to time. Maybe this was what I was destined to do. I had been sexualized from the moment I could be. I was learning the sexual way of life was just God’s way of preparing me for this career, rather than college where other girls my age were going. . Inside the dressing room, I did my best to fit in, at The Lamplighter Lounge in El Paso, Texas. The girls there rolled their eyes at me and and walked away. I studied the girls who had the most customers, smoked like them, flipped my hair like them and finally became blended into the world, enveloped by smoke and lipstick. I was high on cocaine, and I loved it. With cocaine flowing through her veins, my confidence could not be shaken. I watched as the other girls prepped to hit the floor. One by one they applied makeup and perfume and checked the mirror to make sure their g-strings were properly covering their brown buttons. I was destined to be a stripper. I thought if I was going to be a stripper, it would only prepare me for when I am famous after stripping. I was still focused on the vision of a future in LA on stage and in films, being a comedian and actress, and writer. I started writing notes on napkins in this club. I followed their every move and when it was her time to go on stage she was ready. I walked out of the dressing room in sexy lingerie with my head held high. “Sex” by Berlin started blasting over the speakers. The bass made the ground shake. The bright red lights made the room spin. It was exactly how Amber pictured Hell, but that was ok. I walked on stage and all the lights moved, This was my deer in the headlights and bambi on ice moment, but I had finally made it to a stage with an audience of a few illegals, drug dealers, a husband, a father, a Brother, a Good guy and a really bad guy. They were all there, every night. Back to my childhood again: I stripped for Arvin so many times that she should have been a pro, but when she looked out at the crowd of horny men, howling at her, the nerves took over. Arvin was soft-spoken and sensitive. These men were pigs – sweaty, smelly, hairy pigs. Everything went silent for me. The men seemed to be waving dollar bills in slow motion, as she just stood there, paralyzed with fear. Only seconds had passed by but it felt like a lifetime for me, and I suddenly lost total control and began urinating on stage. It was complete terror. One afternoon I went to a social security office and tracked down my birth mother, Beverly Jean Lee, and a brother Thomas Robison *Snake that I never knew I had. So many nights I had looked out the window as cars passed by the lights dancing on reflections of the glass. I would stare at that and wonder if I had any other real biological brothers or sisters, I wanted to be biologically connected so fucking badly. I found out that my biological mother was still a full blown alcoholic living hand to mouth, a brother who’s tattooed Snake signified his past. He was actually in prison for a shooting spree of attempted murder that he went on after he found out he had AIDS and couldn’t join the air force. He had always wanted to fly, and now he had no wings so he became a dark angel, shooting at a father who was with his son after a road rage incident. My mom and I did meet finally, and It was such an exhilarating thing, waiting to meet her. But after that we would smoke pot together. My biological mother had her own resentments for who I had become. She wanted to pretend in the fairy tale version, so did I so we would party it out sometimes, playing house while wasted. After dating Jason, who I met at a strip club for a month, decides to break up with him because I thought he was blocking my only source of getting money, which was from men. I was trying to hold on to everything and he was hindering me, his Jesus bible talk was like..my dads, but he had great hair, a long beautiful dick and he was violently scripture quoting when preaching Jesus to anyone who wanted to listen. But, it was all just words to me. He got angry and beat me up, knocking me out, The neighbors find me unconscious in the street and the cops find the boyfriend hiding under the bed. The near death experience isn’t enough for Amber to change her ways, THOUGHTS AND LINES TO cut and paste and ADD to this story: Cold in the night air and eerily quiet
deathly desperation
eyes racing over the words without even...
What if they knew?
 Don’t make eye contact with them, jerking me to her side, not bothering to whisper but instead, raising his voice. Hard, scary uncertain life
I realized wildly.
Dysfunctional brand of crazy 
bat shit fucking nuts crazy train
always the underlying paranoia wondering whether i could miraculously escape.
under the radar
selected to go to heaven and reign alongside him as kings once brought about a new world order...blah blah blah.
Involves the brutal destruction of everyone in a giant armageddon showdown and the subsequent building of a new paradise on earth populated by perfect people
Stop running wild and raising cain!
 Are we products of nature or nurture? Look what you are making me do, we do this because we love you, it hurts us more than it hurts you. I hurt you because I love you.
Persistent lingering stench
I’d rather roast in hells fire
He was gawky, scarecrow-esque
became a clown in compensation for my ashamed life.
Doing it as a triumph of Godliness over Satan
Sadistic form of torment
His dark eyes pooling with concern
You sure are beautiful darlin.
Tears turned into wit, and the wit was my escapism.
“You joke like dad, you aren’t funny.” Aimee stated adamantly.
The spell was cast
. For a brief moment, I was burning like the brightest star in the universe. Tears morphed into scathing, sarcastic wit. I wouldn’t give the satisfaction of crying or screaming out, I would become as venomous as the snake that raised me.
Flogging will continue until morale improves
Nobody knows you exist, I could kill you right here and no one would ever know.
Advocate inequality of the sees-the complete subjection of women to their husbands every decision, even if it was completely wrong.
Quietly endured abuse for years.
 Zealousy preachy
I was valued when he took my photograph. I looked inside the lens for escape.
Heinously desperate
I agonized for her.
trembling undercurrent\
She utters another parroting of the teachings “blah blah blah, blah blah.” 
Her face was passive, but I saw danger lurking behind the eyes.
I knew what bubbled below the surface.
She had gone empty and cold
Unspoken agreement
the pain and outrage was too much to keep suppressed
mind control
Car
They were happy to see me when no one else was
Her cherub smile
Desperation and misery to seep through the cracks
We had to of been loved because they said it every day, right? “I love you” parroted by “I love you too.” AND NOW TODAY: *When I returned from Hawaii, visiting my father, who is now elderly (as of this writing), I felt like a child reborn. I was both a child and an adult with my father. I was afraid and yet so strong, fierce and powerful. I was emotionally healed from where I was. Upon landing I could feel the overwhelming happiness and I couldn’t hold in my tears of joy. I was so happy to be home with Brian. I was safe and living a life I created for myself. I loved having a handsome husband to greet me at the airport with one of our four dogs, Athena. I held her close to me, crying into her fur the way I used to cry into my ragdoll Kristeen Ann before she was stolen. I saw my home and thought ‘I love this house.” Because I was finally home, I could exhale. I looked around my home, trinkets and photographs of the life I have had new meaning. I realized how lucky I am, and how far I have come. I was broken, abandoned fearful and damaged before, but I am now living a FANTASTIC AND AMAZING life, and I am IN LOVE with it. I don’t have to numb out my feelings. Going to spend time with my father gave me the opportunity to show my ‘past self’ that still hurt a lot, that ..that part inside of me that I hid from everyone, that she is ok, and she is safe. How fucking lucky am I? I’m writing this sitting in my house in Van Nuys, California. I’m listening to music (7o’s of course), unpacking sand and laundry, playing with my dogs, kissing my husband, dancing. I love my life, I do not regret my past or fear the future, I love so much in this exact moment. What a trip I had been on, and I learned a lot on it. I know one thing for sure, and that is that: ... some things never change, but things always change. Behind the white picket fence of the perfect little house in the perfect little neighborhood in Ogden, Utah was a secret so great that only those who saw the spirit were allowed to know. Inside this seemingly spotless cul-de-sac where the lawn was always mowed and the flowers were always in full bloom, was a lifetime of sin that only God would understand. It was the devil that would keep me out of the highest level of heaven, and the devil wanted me to be afraid of having sexual intercourse with Arvin. The devil wanted me to look at the flaws. The liver spots, the inverted small penis, the grey pubic hair that spiked up taller than the tip. The sweaty smell of mowed grass and sweat. There were three levels of heaven – Celestial, Terrestrial and Telestial – and in order to make it to highest level, Celestial, I would have to push all the evil fears away, and not notice the flaws. Then he undressed, revealing his pasty white under skin, unmatched to his work tanned wrinkled dark face and arms. Step by step Arvin told me what to do, and I felt like telling him I knew what I was doing, even though I had no real experience, because I was a virgin child. “Kiss my penis,” Arvin’d say softly. “Put it in your mouth” said the grandfather to the young girl, barely old enough to have a period. He dropped his crisp ironed pants to the ground, wiggling his frog legs out from the khaki workwear, he pulled and tugged at himself then forced his penis inside my mouth. I didn’t understand why he was suddenly going into a forceful attack on me when I was there to be submissive as taught by the women during our “rape in the dark” grooming games, I wasn’t resisting, I was going to do whatever he said but he became a monster I couldn’t breathe. When it looked as though I was going to choke from him pulling me into his penis without air. Then Arvin would switch positions to penetrate me in every way he could. . “You’re very beautiful,” Arvin said in a soft, soothing voice. “In heaven, I am a king and you are one of my council of queens,” he said. He squeezed my underdeveloped breasts so hard that it hurt and I wanted to punch him. Then I realized just how much I didn’t want to be there and I knew I had no place to go. I could fight, or surrender, and I surrendered. I didn't want to cry, I was more excited it was done. I had made my way into the bed of the prophet, and I felt like I was lucky. My brain had already been washed. He points to the bed, patting it like the perverse man he was. Blank faced I stand, uncertain. I started contemplating the incomprehensible of what was happening, incorporating it into something that wasn’t my reality, I went between the voice I had within and trusted versus the wobbling religious beliefs. My voice tremulously reemerges. “Can I have some peppermint tea, maybe we could go upstairs and have some first?” I don’t like being told to do. But I wanted him to be happy for my own security within the cult, I was a homeless girl, and had nowhere else to go. I was also a virgin. His kind face, and mean eyes conflicted on his face as he stripped off my innocence. The pungent stench of rape filled the room and he slept on his side, sleep had ventured farther away as I breathed in the thick air, staring at the window, and the lacey curtains. I wanted to get up and leave, I was afraid to move, afraid to wake him up. Staying the whole night is a privilege, but so was sleeping because it was always interrupted. His sounds distressed me, he grunted like a fossilized sea whale. He reminds me, painfully, of everything I want to forget. But if I forget it, then I will never be able to have a voice about it. That little girl in me is mad as hell and she deserves this story to be told. Being raped in a cult was my reality, it was as anticipated, and I soaked my body in hydrogen peroxide which was tucked neatly under the bathroom sink in perfect order with other bathroom products, I wanted to get rid of the germs. Then I made myself a cup of peppermint tea. I tried to imagine Arvin as a young teenager, better looking, skinnier, maybe he would look as handsome as the kid actor in Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio. I’m not lost on the imagery of a snake as being adversarial and dangerous. Seeing signs around us always symbolized other things. I saw signs to mean whatever I felt they meant. I was communicating different languages with others around me. My pent up frustrations were wound up tight like a pulled rubber band, then when I went into resentments, the rubber band broke and depression and feelings of entrapment took over. Make sense? Arvin met me and I shut down emotionally, or was it I was born and abandoned and am still abandoned and that is why I am here? Something like that, so I have a right to have abandonment issues. We all have the right to think and feel any way we want, but I didn’t know yet how to let go of feelings and trust in God. I had faith though. Unwavering faith, I thought, but maybe it was already crashing through the ice top. I looked into the sky in the early evenings as the sun would set over the culdesac, I would pray to the stars for someone out there to find me and come get me because I always felt so trapped. I was a child, and I knew being raped by this beady eyed bald gardener who claimed himself a prophet, wasn’t normal, and he knew he would have to manipulate his follower. Arvin felt wrong innately even though every adult in my life was telling me it was just intimate and between Heavenly Father and us. I didn’t get the love I wanted, so my pain was less than the love I craved and felt like I was getting in those rapes in the dark games. *ADD SCENE FROM SCRIPT HERE He was old and sweaty and none of this felt good. She wanted to crawl out of her skin and be somewhere else, anywhere else. She wanted her real mom to come and save her and take her to a magical world where this sort of thing didn’t exist. She prayed, not for it to stop, but instead she prayed she was able to satisfy Arvin. She wanted to do her job well. After a couple of minutes it was over and Arvin rolled to his side and fell asleep. But I didn’t leave. I didn’t run. More importantly, I had nowhere to go. As I lay next to Arvin, staring at the lace curtains without sleeping all night. Later they left me in Utah. I lived in the cult then the FBI raided, then Social Services intervened and flew me with a social worker to New Mexico which was the last known official address of my family, they put me in several foster homes, I was moved around to different foster homes for various reasons but nothing was stable so they put me into a group home which is basically like living in a mental hospital facility, it’s an insane asylum. A house full of young teenagers who have no real home is not peaceful. Emotions run amuck there. Even having sisters who I fought with, I had no idea how to fist fight. I learned how in the group home. I was afraid, and I wanted out. I asked my social worker to go to the Mormon Church and ask them if they have anyone who would take me. There was nothing to lose so my social worker Mike Westbrook went to the ward and spoke to the congregation saying there is a very troubled young girl that needs a place to live, I was described as hard to handle, a runaway, and troubled. One woman raised her hand, Connie Dare. And what a ride I gave that woman for her decision to take me in. She became another mom, another saint in my life. She became family. She is grandmother to my daughter today, and we speak regularly on the phone. I need to see her, it has been several years and I want to do something special for her. She helped raise my daughter and taught me to love because she loved me through my sadness. She knew that the reason I broke her windows was because I was broken. I skipped school because I didn’t understand the work, I had sex a lot because I was raped and felt no value in my body, I broke curfew because being out with friends felt so free. Having a foster mom meant that I could tell everyone she was my mom, and that I was just living with my dad before but now I’m moving here with my mom. Because my foster mom had a lot of my same physical features she passed easily as my mom. I called her mom right away and I loved to test her. I yelled, she yelled back. I tested her love for me to the point of her exhaustion and she gave up over and over but we had already become family, and she loved me until I learned to try and love myself. She hand-sewed a prom dress for me. I played house. I had told no one of my past in the cult. NO one knew my history and so I could be anyone I wanted. I guess I must have decided I would be a popular small town girl with a slutty reputation. I became that. All of my secret childhood was gone, and now I was a young woman. I was free. I was rock and roll. I was deep. I am the daughter she never had. I was more than a foster kid to her, years after 18. There is nothing I can do to pay her back for that time, but she means the world. I still talk back to her sometimes. Because she’s mom. I ran away from there and became a drug addicted stripper, wife, divorcee, and mother. I never graduated, and I had no plans other than wanting to find my real mother. I still wanted to be saved, by her. How, I don’t know, because of the Saints in my life, she never was one. Life is hard, we all have our trauma bags full of dirty laundry, mistakes, accidents, and tragedies. If we learn to laugh through it all, we can all feel a bit lighter, a bit more energized, and most importantly laughter gives hope to people. I want to inspire hope through laughter. I wasn’t always thinking of other people, it used to be all about me. It was all about me because I was so busy trying to take care of myself to survive I forgot about how everyone around me felt. I didn’t care, I just wanted to survive. This often times came across as me being narcissistic, when really I wanted to care more about others around me, I just always didn’t know how. So, we are in this together, that’s who I am. We are going to live in a mansion like MILLIONAIRES! We drove around wealthy neighborhoods with me, and my sisters. He drove us in a beat up car that would die from time to time. He would pop, open the hood, his head would disappear under it, and we would sit under the trees in beautiful yards while he fixed the car enough to drive us a few more blocks down the road. My father wasn’t a mechanic, but he would mend things together enough to run, but not safely. It was always a celebration when the car started, and we would run to get in it to go before it died. I felt like the neighborhood was a great place to be, and I never imagined that I didn’t belong there, even though we were certainly a site. Our hair was never brushed, we wore the same clothes a lot, and we never showered. We looked homeless because we often were. I used to imagine living in the beautiful homes, I watched families coming and going in cars that purred, and I wanted to be in a home that had a maids quarters, and no I didn’t want to be the maid. The reason we were in the neighborhood was that my dad would finish reading one of his many Self Help books like “Think and Grow Rich”, and then tell us we would be millionaires soon and live in any one of the homes we wanted. After our Dad fixed the car long enough to run we drove up and down these gorgeous neighborhoods to pick out which house we wanted to live in. I would choose one then my sisters would argue over which house we should buy when we get our Dad finally made his millions. We spent most of our childhood in and out of different places, from living homeless, to a storage unit to trailer, to small home, to a cult, to foster care. I feel for my Dad. We were never wealthy, and my Fathers dream of being rich never came to fruition. He was a big dreamer and a big talker although he didn’t know the follow through actions to make things happen. He also believed in getting rich quick, which is an American pipe dream. Each big idea he had to make millions became nothing more than an idea. I learned so many valuable lessons. It’s important to know what you want, and to be specific about it. But you have to take the actions towards the goal every single moment of every day; it has to be your passion. My dad dreamed a lot, but worked little towards his dreams. He’s been without money most of his life (he is still alive, living on Social Security), and to this day he will have new ideas every time I call him. “Amber, I’ll send you some Hawaii Postcards from the swap meet okay, people everywhere love Hawaii, they will buy these things up, you can be a millionaire!” I am grateful to my Dad for teaching me through his own mistakes and to believe in things that seem impossible. From cult to Hollywood, this was a lesson I learned. It is okay to dream. But, You have to work hard. You have to do hard things. You can’t just wish it. I am thankful for the people who filled in the gaps and taught me that it is okay to dream and always stay the course towards your goals but that it takes work. Is your ambition as big as your dreams? For a very long time, mine was not. I asked my social worker to go to the Mormon Church and ask them if they have anyone who would take me. There was nothing to lose so my social worker Mike Westbrook went to the ward and spoke to the congregation saying there is a very troubled young girl that needs a place to live, I was described as hard to handle, a runaway, and troubled. One woman raised her hand, Connie Dare. And what a ride I gave that woman for her decision to take me in. She became another mom, another saint in my life. She became family. She is grandmother to my daughter today, and we speak regularly on the phone. I need to see her, it has been several years and I want to do something special for her. She helped raise my daughter and taught me to love because she loved me through my sadness. She knew that the reason I broke her windows was because I was broken. I skipped school because I didn’t understand the work, I had sex a lot because I was raped and felt no value in my body, I broke curfew because being out with friends felt so free. Having a foster mom meant that I could tell everyone she was my mom, and that I was just living with my dad before but now I’m moving here with my mom. Because my foster mom had a lot of my same physical features she passed easily as my mom. I called her mom right away and I loved to test her. I yelled, she yelled back. I tested her love for me to the point of her exhaustion and she gave up over and over but we had already become family, and she loved me until I learned to try and love myself. She hand-sewed a prom dress for me. I played house. I had told no one of my past in the cult. NO one knew my history and so I could be anyone I wanted. I guess I must have decided I would be a popular small town girl with a slutty reputation. I became that. All of my secret childhood was gone, and now I was a young woman. I was free. I was rock and roll. I was deep. I am the daughter she never had. I was more than a foster kid to her, years after 18. There is nothing I can do to pay her back for that time, but she means the world. I still talk back to her sometimes. I always wanted to be famous in a platform that would help others, and now that’s singled out more towards helping others smile and realize they are not alone. They can be heard. Keep running away if you have to, until you get to your own tribe, your own family, your own home, or your own stage. Let your light shine. For me, Laughing is the only way to get through things I’ve been through, how can I not laugh at some of these events, was this really my fucking life? Well, laughing didn’t start out easily, I always had wit but it took a real dedication to loving myself, and my life, to be able to laugh about it all, and laughing takes away the hurt. I love hard. I get mad hard. I fight hard. I am a force for good things like animals, women, and creativity. And yes, today I use stand up comedy and acting jobs in Los Angeles as an escape! . I am still imagining myself as famous every time I perform. It’s okay to not be famous, but if you don’t have hope towards something, you have nothing to work towards. I make my dreams impossibly big so that I can enjoy the rest of the long journey ahead of me. Why Fame? Why not. I think of myself as blessed kind of famous, not the conceited I’m famous way, but in a “I’m so lucky anyone here wants to even see me and hear me!” kind of fame. Fame matters because of the platform I can have to make others laugh, make people get up and try, and know you are not alone. We looked homeless because we were. I used to imagine living in the beautiful mansions, I watched families coming and going in cars that purred, and I wanted a car like it, I wanted to be in a home that had a maids quarters, and no I didn’t want to be the maid. The reason we were in the neighborhood was that my dad would finish reading one of his many Self Help books like “Think and Grow Rich”, and then tell us we would be millionaires soon and live in any one of the homes we wanted. After our Dad fixed the car long enough to run we drove up and down these gorgeous neighborhoods to pick out which house we wanted to live in. I would choose one then my sisters would argue over which house we should buy when we get our Dad finally made his millions. We spent most of our childhood in and out of different places, from living homeless, to a storage unit to trailer, to small home, to a cult, to foster care. I feel for my Dad. We were never wealthy, and my Fathers dream of being rich never came to fruition. He was a big dreamer and a big talker although he didn’t know the follow through actions to make things happen. He also believed in getting rich quick, which is an American pipe dream. Each big idea he had to make millions became nothing more than an idea. I learned so many valuable lessons. It’s important to know what you want, and to be specific about it. But you have to take the actions towards the goal every single moment of every day, it has to be your passion. My dad dreamed a lot, but worked little towards his dreams. He’s been without money most of his life (he is still alive, living on Social Security), and to this day he will have new ideas every time I call him. “ Amber, I’ll send you some Hawaii Postcards from the swap meet okay, people everywhere love Hawaii, they will buy these things up, you can be a millionaire!” Am I am happy that he still believes? I kept him at a distance and had not seen him in several years, over ten. Without work, faith is nothing more than a spark of light, denied. My dad lost his spark a long time ago and it’s sadness on top of sadness. He can smile today though. I believe the universe is full of amazing ideas and beautiful things are flying all around in an energy field, and it is up to us to grab hold of what we believe in, focus on it, work hard towards it, and dreams can come true. It sure beats the time in my life when plates were flying all around. It’s because of his belief in the impossible that I also believed in the impossible; becoming a successful actress and stand up comedian, to make movies, to live in LA, to be married and have a good relationship with my own daughter, to live in a beautiful home and not worry about being homeless, to have food, friends and a lot of fun, to laugh at the past and know that we are all doing the best we can with the tools we have. This is just a part of my cultured life. I am grateful to my Dad for teaching me to believe in things that seem impossible. I am also angry at my father and mother for what they put me and my sisters through, especially Aimee after I left. From cult to Hollywood, this was a lesson I learned. It is okay to dream. But, You have to work hard. You have to do hard things. You can’t just wish it. I am thankful for the people who filled in the gaps and taught me that it is okay to dream and always stay the course towards your goals but that it takes work. Is your ambition as big as your dreams? For a very long time, mine was not. I’m different from them I thought, I am not supposed to be treated this way! My mother would give A mocking glance towards her children as we were striken by our father, and I wondered why she never stopped him. Didn’t she hate it when he was hateful to her? Even though he never hit her, the abuse was emotional. So, was she showing she had control of something in her life? I don’t know why she wanted to open the door to more trouble, she would though, she would tell him of our sins when he got back home from wherever he was. I can’t understand their reality. They were mean and ungrateful and thought they knew everything instead of just being normal. The towns my family temporarily lived in was only happy upon our quick departures. I put the facts of my life in different compartments. I’d been baptized into a cult by a pedophile rapist who has a group of people believing he is the prophet and can speak directly to God. The living room in the house where Arvin raped his prey always smelled like Hot sauce as other women were often canning jars during the day. Sometimes it was apple or peach jarred food for the end of the world storage supply, or other tines it was hot sauce and we ate it with chips when done. So, the smell of the house is of hot sauce and chips. Before Sharon Kapp felt I was ready to play the very secretive game of “rape in the dark” she gave us special drinks. The drink was warm like a tranquilizer spotted with clashing cymbals, swallowed, gulped, sipped, so good. Raising an arrogant brow, smiling with approval. I wander away. His feelings of clawing panic flapping wings, like a caged bird. Doesn’t come in and show things with burning bushes. You know its right; it gives you good warm feeling, warmth. The spirit. That’s how you know you’re doing what you are supposed to be doing with your life. What is my calling on earth? It took years of being told my calling was so many different things that finally I found that a calling isn’t something we all have to have. Just living a happy life can be enough. My calling is laughter, and helping others laugh through their trials. I always start a lot of new things and my focus shifts, sprinkling away like sparkles of dust in the wind. Unarticulated desire to tell him I was smarter than he thinks I am, but I wasn’t I thought. A dissatisfied sigh came from his pursed lips. “You are doing so good, just keep trying” as I continued to gag on his small penis. Lets rip between the layers, let’s rip off the skin I thought as I bobbed off and on. I felt as if I was sinking in scuzz, and body oil, grass and muddy grease and cum . Arvin Shreeve always re-appears in dreams, go the fuck away. Back to the story. In my childhood We siphoned off anything we could sell and as a young teenager I was siphoning off my belief in the insane religious zealots, bit by bit I stopped believing there could be any truth there. I’ve been writing notes of moments I want to remember on napkins, notebooks, and I’ve typed out other stories on used typewriters, before going to coffee shops was a hipster cool thing to do. I’ve been trying to tell my story for a long time in so many different ways. Gathering up soggy napkins where I wrote a memory down in a bar during a party, digging through old journals, telling boyfriends I couldn’t write unless I had an 8ball or dating writers so they would teach me how to get it out. It was in me and needed to come out. I needed my story to have a voice. Maybe it’s my fuck you my life is fantastic and amazing, or maybe it isn’t. But, it’s still my voice being heard, which is more than the way it was, when no one heard me. These are the scraps of debris from my past, they are gathered torn up memories, painfully recreated to share with you my everything, all while also grinding my truth and not having an anxiety attack or nervous breakdown from the regurgitated trauma of my life. The best way for me to get rid of the traumatic feelings long enough to actually try and finish this book is to start therapy again. If you bought this book, it means I finished writing it, so I’m going to celebrate with a cup of coffee. If you are one of my friends reading to give me feedback, thank you! I showed up to meet with my therapist, carrying my Pomeranian dog Athena with me. I look like a cliché, but I’m not.Today my dogs nails are painted, and she’s wearing a sweater with hearts on it. She doesn’t let me get lonely, so I take her everywhere, and most people love seeing her. My therapist welcomed us back, almost in a way I would imagine grandparents would. A “it’s so good to see you, but it’s like we haven’t skipped a week” although it had been two years. I quickly sat on the couch I had spent years sitting on, spilling out my life one moment at a time. I had come into this therapy through a call I had made years earlier, to a suicide hotline. After having a failed attempt at suicide more than once, I knew that this time I needed to call and reach out for help. Today when I sat and comforted myself with tea and agave syrup, a knowledgeable Jungian therapist, and my dog Athena, I knew I was okay. Life goes by so quickly, in a flash we are gone, a sparkle in the sky, having not done what we really wanted to do. I wanted to start living in happiness, not in the past trauma I’ve had put away, then I’ve pulled out, then re-stuffed away again, then pulling my story back out like it’s in a trauma bag, put away in a closet. I only told bits and snips. I’ve been in therapy for over ten years. All the arguments over the years about God had nothing to do with God. The arguing over who was right and who was wrong was not about me. I was in a family with parents that were very sick individuals and I ache for the pain they put us through, and I ache still for the pain they went through in their own minds, because of their own doings. I took two years off my healing from trauma because I thought I was doing okay but then everything changed, when I went to Hawaii to say goodbye to a father that abused me after attending a funeral for a mother who let him years before. Like orphan trains speeding through, reminding me of my ride and where I came from, steel wheels screeching on the tracks of yesterdays memories, it was time to revisit telling the story that had sat ignored, still untold. I had put this part of my life away, and it was back, ready to be explained and told. There are many people who hurt me along the way, and many people I hurt too. His body perfumed with the scent of wet grass his own venom. All the arguments over a God doesn’t make sense, After waking up Aimee from bed my dad gave her a lecture but mother wasn’t sure it would do much good. Aimee had been associating with very undesirable people and mother is so disappointed in her behavior. They kept her up almost all night lecturing her, and when mother tried to get up to go to a job she was exhausted. She had to beg for a ride to work from dad who was still angry at Aimee. Doctors never know what they are talking about when it comes to health, drink aloe vera juice and prayers, both work. Mother is near tears again because Dad got a traffic ticket for having no automobile insurance, they have to pay 165.00; and have to start making 40. payments. The strain was overwhelming. My dad can walk anywhere. He will walk miles to the store twie and its a regular thing. Took car to the shop, they said it was 400.00 to fix, but dad tried to repair it himself and he tried in vain. They had pets come and go, no real attachments and they would get rid of the animals before leaving to the next location. “We don’t really want to do that, we have no choice” mother said, more concerned with friendship bracelets to give away as gifts that she got from the flea market. They took kittens to a pet shop and left them there, both of my parents cried and said how hard it was. They filled a bus full of their stuff, and slowly tried climbing the hill, but the bus had a hard time getting up mountains. Ross went to church alone. “I have no stockings so do not feel comfortable going bare legged.” mother said. Before we left on another move they gave us corn, tomatoes, plums and grapes from their garden and 20.00 cash as well. Mother didn’t want to take the money but she didn’t want to hurt Joyces feelings. by refusing it. “Joyce is one of the very best people I know” mom said of her sister. “We should of warned Nancy last night but then we mentioned it at dinner and found that Papaw had made advances toward Jessica, who is a teenager as well. “We are not sure what to do” mother told Nancy when she complained about the inappropriate behavior of Ross’s father. Verl got dad to apply for insurance or some multi level kind of scheme. Dad took a part time job as a dishwasher at Summer Field, a retirement center. HE also tried a job selling cemetary lots, but said he didn’t feel comfortable doing that. He worked at the morgue so why the sudden discomfort? “I love sharing the gospel.” Dad said. Mother was sitting in the light, reading a book “The United Order” by Ogden Kraut Mom lowered her reading glasses, “ I want to join an order now, but I’m not sure what we could contribute”. Dad is sawing out the grill or something on a piece of newspaper as Mother reads aloud from “The United Order. Dad got a blessing so that he could find work so I feel better. We’ve had lentil soup and cornbread almost every day since moving into this place. I make cornbread for a week or two, making it last. Dads ear is bothering him a lot, so Mother put a few drops of aloe vera in it so he could fall asleep on the couch. Then mother sang hymns for a bit before going to sleep too. Dad got a new “money Tree” brochure from Verl. My parents both tried to convert anyone they came across to whatever their latest religious belief was. First Mormon, then fundamental, then extreme, then bouncing around, in finding the truth, they were always lost. Sometimes we had friends come over wherever we were living, a small house, trailer, apartment, anywhere. My parents would sit and talk to the friend about the church, their truth, and aggressively make sure the new friend understood that being a member of whatever we believed in was important. We were never in a place long enough to bond to many childhood friends anyway. Mom was at the point of tears a lot. Again the manager, or whoever at Britannica put Dad off saying he had to train someone else. Another day he doesn’t get to work.” I don't know what we should do.” mother sobbed. “He did work on income tax returns.” she consoled herself. “That should help but any refund will be six weeks or so a way. She continued “We are wondering what we’ve done to cause our prayers for good work and sale of our bus not to be answered At this point I don’t know!” Dad was studying a Britannica sales presentation when Aimee and Celeste brought their baby sitting money they made tending neighbors children. “That with what we have ourselves enables us to pay half our rent, the electric bill a ring payment and a payment on our Utah Storage Unit!” There was little left for food or bus fare. “If you would just devote your time to starting the Britanica instead of working two more weeks at Summerfield…” Mother said, her disappointment in his choice to go work for two weeks apparent in her tone. Mom has the prettiest handwriting. All the push pulls and ovals made her writing beautiful. Brother Bardi came by and brought over a video tape about being Magaazine Representatives Mother was home alone when there was a knock at the door. Cathy Painter had come for a visit, during which time there was another knock, another friend from the ward, then a third knock. Itw as a child bringing bread “From someone in the ward who loves you” and of course not telling whom. One evening a man mistakenly entered our apartment we were living in where much to mothers surprise and mistakenly walked into the apartment. Realizing his mistake when he saw us all together probably, well he backed up and quickly retreated. “These places all look alike!” Celeste joked, laughing at the man running away, then everyone laughed and laughed as he disappeared. Aimee got a formal out of lay away. Pretty, but immodest. After much begging and big promises Dad let her go to the dance even though she is supposed to be grounded because one of us was always grounded, often all three of us. Aimee gave up 6 church dances for this one. She was gambling for her happiness and freedom with a 6 for 1. Mother sat on her sewing stool and tackle box, organizing the basket. Dad made about five appointments to do Brittanica presentations today. His first ones. Finally! Mother is so proud of him. There was a dance in the auditorium of the church, and mother and daddy went. They danced and it was nice. Mother and Dad are both fun dancers. But they were home after and not feeling so nice because the frustration o not being able to pay any rent or utilities or other obligations. Dads sales appointments are either cancelled or postponed. Instead of making a living as they hoped, they just owed more. The past week mother and dad have been depressed. Dad had worked two days as a home repair contractor, but has not been paid and mother had tended other children a couple of times for free. “It looks bleak” mother admitted. “How’s your day?” someone asked Mother who was slumped over, sitting on the curb waiting for dad to come pick her up, but the car broke down again. Maybe it was the starter this time. So mother replied to them saying “The apartment manager brought us a 72 hour notice this morning stating that we must pay all rents due or move and we have until midnight Friday. Other than that our day was ok.” Mother rolled up her tissue paper into a burrito, sticking it up her nostril to hold the drip that wasn’t going away. She wasn’t shy leaving the tissue in her nose either. “Dads putting plexiglass on the windows of the bus where the broken windows were.” “I asked Ross to ask the bishop for help or suggestions. He most probably won’t” mom said. We started to pack again. We had to move. We have been considering going back to Texas. The visiting teachers from church are going to help us make resumes up, isn’t that great? Yeah, it’s fantastic and amazing dad said, interrupting with a grunt of displeasure. What is she typing? I asked. It’s for the “More than Marriage idea.” she said. “Maybe this time one of his ideas will work! She clucked at the keys, pecking for success that would never come. I thought you were typing a resume out that they showed you how to do. I did, but I made a mess out of it, typing isn’t my thing. What if we move back to…he started his lecture but mother interrupted angrily. “I just don't want to live like this anymore, every penny of spending money having help with the rent and utilities and being behind on all our bills its just too miserable. Once Dad got a job as a cook to ease the strain for two weeks. The management called ad they are beginning eviction procedures. Dad had his first paycheck from the last job but it was ply 227. “Can’t do much with that” mother sniffed while playing a game of Pig with Dad. She was winning but didn’t feel excited while that low. “it looks like a disaster hit from all my packing” mom said, going no place, because with that plan, there’s no place to land. So mother sat in the chair and her and dad started to make beaded bracelets we can sell to people to make money. Dad called the newspaper about his new certificates for “More than Marriage” and mother tried her own hand at drawing the border herself. It wasn’t too bad. Lisa was going to do the art on the certificates and then we could sell them. We spent the rest of the evening eating an entire bag of fudge pops for dinner. Dad always wants to go to yard sales. Never is he searching for anything specific, it’s all about what he can find, not what he needs. It was his treasure hunt, and mother loved doing it with him. The entire family would load up in the bus and go to each sale. After Dad went to court to explain that we should not be evicted because the rent is just too steep and we can’t pay it. they gave us a wee to leave. On the way home from court Dad stopped at the newspaper to enter his ad for his certificates, then he got a post office box too. All that would be needed now was orders and printing to be done. At least we’re beginning Begin, the rest is easy mom said as she drew borders for the certificates that would be ordered. Both Ross and Pat lived with a tension, they had a hard time getting along peacefully. Even if just one parent was upset, the entire house was upset, and someone was always angry and exploding They were packing everything into used cardboard boxes, expecting to move soon. Dad called Aunt Joyce and asked if we cold rent out mothers house and to as for a loan. Today she returned the call at Lisas where the whole family waited for her answer, hopefully. “If she loans us this money, okay, we can all go get ice cream before we leave town” he said as we waited. The call came in, the answer was no to both requests. It’s so awful being in this financial position, I lost the one dollar lisa had given me” mother complained. “It was the only one I had.” “Daddy needs to be in good spirits when he goes out to sell, please don’t make him cross” We loaded up the bus, we unloaded the bus, we loaded up the bus, we unloaded the bus. “I got three more magazine subscriptions!” mother congratulated her small victory. The church relief society left bread at the door again. Dad went to one of his appointments for Brittanica but the man had forgotten about it so he rescheduled. Dad sold his first Brittanica! Mother was so pleased. “I’m so pleased” she said. Dads only sales appointment was cancelled and he made no more calls. Mother was so disappointed but understood how difficult it wa without a car or phone. Then he found out that one of his last weeks sales has now cancelled. “It’s catch up time” mother said. The bus was full of all of our belongings. JD showed up and demanded that we get the box that belonged to him, which was right in the middle of everything. Mother asked him to wait until we unloaded the bus and Dad got in the middle and JD hit my dad in the face four times. Mother yelled for us to call the police. Dad need evern hit JD once. “We tried opening a bank account but have no identification.bso we were refused. I was almost in tears the rest of the day” mother sniffled. We can improve ourselves, we have a long way to go. Read the book of mormon again and it will help. I told my sister Joyce that we’re ovine she ridiculed me a lot I thought but I kept my tongue and didnt snap back at her” mother said. “She sneered at the thought that we might be able to help Lisa. We had cantalope and peaches for dinner. And when there were a few dollars my parents did the same thing. Eating ice cream, reading scriptures and playing bridge. “Today your dad talked to four people about melaleuca!” mom said. “Maybe he will really get started on it” she continued. Visiting with the Elders was normal at the White House. We read Little Women out loud, read the Book of Mormon, said long lingering stale prayers, then it was time to sleep. We don’t need anyone to tend us Aimee said. Daddy gave mother a blessing. Dad gave me a blessing. Dad gave each of us a special blessing. We still have car trouble now and then and financial trouble pretty regularly. We sat around reading the book of mormon out loud. He lives life slow, maybe to save fuel for a broken down ride. There is only so much misery a child can take on, it grows like a poison, getting bigger every day, and it all started so long ago that now it’s too late, we can't handle the results of what my father created. Bury me in pink foam, drown me in cotton, just let me slip away into oblivion, irrelevant. Looked out the old lady curtains, knowing I would do anything the lord wanted me to do. “We don’t believe in breakfast” Juice breaks the fast better. In the nightly ritual of getting on our knees for family prayer my mother prayed “Bless us to develop our Melaleuca into a money making business. Did dance routines with my sisters. After Aimee Celeste and Mother played a few games of Pig, Going to a Priesthood meeting I got the job but Sharon Berry who sits next to me plays her radio so long it disturbs me, so I told her, then she said I disturb her too because I have a bad odor and blow my nose loudly!” THE WHITE HOUSE CONTINUED: My new Mother and Daddy were in Logan discussing their future. I was about eight and I decided to plan lunch for Mother in bed because it was her birthday, and it would be a thoughtful surprise. I thought it would be nice if we all ate together with her after bringing her breakfast in bed. I loved our family being together, so this was an especially fun surprise. I felt good about it. This was my Mother. I only knew her. Daddy was meeting with the Church bishop. All the money that they had was now gone, and they had nothing. Dad wanted a to submit to the Bishop so he can get a loan from the church because our electricity was shut off again, and our mortgage was overdue, we had no food but we didn’t care at the time because Mother distracted us by making little bunnies, stitching them up with her needle and thread, she was making presents for everyone. Nancy, Moms oldest adult daughter from prior marriages) was angry that Mother wouldn’t tend her two children Jess and Matt, so that she could go gamble. I spent time digging through the pile of dirty laundry that covered the basement floor, looking for something to wear as my “Sundays Best” for church. We were Mormons, we went to church every Sunday religiously, and my parents were stricter than a boa-constricting snake, but then they changed their beliefs again, and again, enforcing every new thought as law on us children, especially me, Celeste and Aimee who were all close in age. I washed dishes for Mother that day. I couldn’t wash all of them, they covered all the countertops, tabletops, and some dishes were being packed in moving boxes on the floor. Mother was busy making bunnies and couldn’t be bothered with doing dishes, and besides, they hadn’t been done in months anyway. Mom had given herself a facial for the first time in months as well, and she felt good. Celeste helped tend the neighbors children with Daddy while I had company over, the neighborhood children. I had my own room with big windows, I wished for a lot of dreams from those windows, and I wished really really hard for those to come true. Amother was cutting pieces for a quilt from old wool coats and Dad came in, slamming the screen door with his excitement and said he had already sold two bottles of Aloe Vera, and that this is really a magical plant. Our Mother and Daddy, Ross and Patricia, spent evenings talking and reading, and mother started doing work for the church in exchange for welfare food from them, she worked a few hours every few days when we were on their system. Dad was doing nice things for Mother to show how much he loved her, he bought her a sweet card that he brought home after doing another job at Gossners Cheese. Celeste is in public school but doesn’t want to go anymore because it’s too easy for her. It’s “Chinchy” she calls it. Aimee loved the snow, so when it started snowing this morning she squeeled “Oh look, He’s answered our prayers!” but I had a fever and didn’t want to go in the cold. Dad went out but knocked his face into the kitchen (glass) door, cutting his nose severely. He refuses to go to the doctor so of course Mother puts plenty of Aloe Vera on it. Mother thought that Aimee had wandered away one afternoon and she was worried but then found her next door, so she was okay. I put on another talent show with the other children after Mom and Dad woke up feeling wealthy for the first time in ever. And the feeling wasn’t just from the recent loan the church had given them either. It was because Dad had thought up two new good ideas that are really going to make us a lot of money. The furnace isn’t working again so mom Called the repairman. She just got the pocket catalogue in the mail to start selling shoes. She’s going to give the brochures out to everyone and hope to get orders. At night Dad would read the Mormon Scriptures every night to us girls and on the weekends we couldn’t wait to get the trash cans and bring them back to the house after they were emptied. Sunday afternoons were a time of Church and then home for relaxation together as a family. Dad is going to an Aloe meeting to learn about the plant and all the benefits it provides. He might start selling it in bottles. Mom was so thrilled with the idea of a new adventure. ____ADD THE INSERTS FROM BELOW. I am thinking about my dad tonight living there in Maui, Hawaii, a few blocks from the ocean in a low income retirement community. He has everything a millionaire would in his mind. He has rent that is under 200.00, he can afford to live with his social security check, and his head has been hit so many times from having terrifying seizures on the concrete that he has forgotten about being abusive. As I took care of him after his return from the hospital, after I flew out to help Celeste, I sucked in all my years, and exhaled them on the page, hopefully without my story coming out like a cluster-fuck. I wonder if he noticed the chickens today, or if he went on a walk or if he said anything to anyone at all. He is alone. Celeste lives nearby but has her own family now. I still want him to be happy too more than anything. I am so glad my mom was happy when she died in the cult, where she was finally treated with the attention and security she desperately craved. My sister Aimee just spent a few days living in her van outside my house with her dog Loki. Broke, but not broken, Aimee has hopes of what is going to happen for her in the next town, and she is always on the go, restless and ready to have fun and be forever young. I just read through mothers journals while doing research and putting together the details to my own memories, and suddenly I was stuck in the words of my dead mother. She was writing about living in a bus, cold and homeless, as Aimee currently and often is by choice, and the parallels of Aimee sitting in a van alone wondering where she was going to go next, and mother years earlier doing the exact same thing, but with Daddy adding drama to it. I’ve been so busy looking at the parallels of me and my biological mother that today as Aimee drove off with her dog, a bottle full of vape juice, 40.00, and no real aim I saw my mother in her. Everything Aimee ran away from is partially who she became. She took the good qualities too, being a free person with nothing holding you down also takes guts. She loves music, celebration, tarot cards, crystals, and meditation groups, and I love her just as much now as I did when she was a two year old little doll girl I wanted to try and pick up and carry everywhere as my own. She’s my sister. I feel a very strong love for my family. I deeply love them, so why did I hide away after not reconnecting when foster care (CPS) had taken me away from the home for abuse? Dad painted garage sale signs today, and after they celebrated Celestes birthday with something special. She gave Celeste her most treasured gift for her 17th birthday; her antique diamond ring. Lisa brought over cake and ice cream for her and gave her ten bucks. We were still packing. Dad built a wooden box to hold tools in. He’s really good with making things. The church brought over delicious chili for us with cheese, it was really good. The members know we need food. I was watching Dad prepare this and I felt sorry for him. I didn’t hate him in that moment, I just felt empathy, and tuned in. I saw a good man trying to provide for his family. He was creating a magical moment for us that I will always cherish the memory of. He created a dining room environment in the back of a store that had no toilet that we would later live in. He was still trying to make everything okay. Mother licked the small shiny gold stars, sticking them to a piece of paper. One each, for me and my sisters Celeste and Aimee, and my niece and nephew Jessica and Matthew, all of us under 5 years old, we were close. We had helped the neighbor pick up pecans under her abundant tree. She gave some to us children, and we brought them home with us, but first we stopped to look at horses. Dad works the midnight shift at the county Morgue, so he’s gone a lot. When he gets home we are all so excited to see him, our mother Patricia is overwhelmed tending children, and is suffering from a deep depression, so I would do things to help around the house, like make my own bed. I knew that I was a good girl from as far back as I can remember, no matter how many times I was told I wasn’t. I was Naughty much of the time, and suddenly mother would lash out hard punishing spankings, and while crying and catching my breath at 4 years old, she would spank me again. She did this repeatedly every fifteen minutes, all day long. I had been betrayed by another mother the moment she hit me, and she spiked away my affection for her. The next day she complained to Daddy that I was still being a naughty girl, so he had to spank me repeatedly, which took time away from him sleeping before leaving for church, where we sang with primary children, learned about our savior Jesus Christ, the hippie that started it all, because when someone uses religion as an excuse to let it be okay to abuse young innocent children, I could care less about your reasoning, it’s never alright. I was only a few years old, my legal adoption had just happened, and these parents had already started extreme abuse on me repeatedly, thinking of it as “repeated spanking for disobedience”. Everything around me was bruised and battered as I navigated myself in my adopted family. It was February, Celeste’s birthday month, and she had taken a great nap but I had not. Mother started to complain about us not having enough food storage for the end of the world, and fearing the end was part of the religion they had baptized into, the LDS. Daddy was asleep from working all night at the morgue and I was naughty. I don’t say what I did because even though at 4 years old mother said I have the “memory of an elephant” I knew that things around me were wrong. I was taught wrong and right at church. I got spanked repeatedly for hitting a boy on the head with a toy in the nursery. And now it was becoming harsher, and there was no amount of screaming and crying that would stop the outlandish abuse on us as. I was not yet in Kindergarten when Daddy had to repeatedly spank me for being naughty, and he asked me if it was still hurting, and wanted to know how long each sting of pain was lasting, and in between he would hit me again to make sure that there was no real lapse in the pain continuing without real relief. He was relentless, a bully, and an abuser. I looked at Daddy and I looked at him really sadly and said “you are not a good boy, you hit little children” in between being knocked back down with another swing at the back of my legs. I knew he was not doing what was right, or good, or justifiable, and I was only four years old. I knew more than he knew his entire life in that single moment, I knew what was right, and what was wrong. Mother made fudge for dinner. It was so good, I think it’s one of my favorite things. Sometimes she uses pecans, but walnuts are cheaper so she sometimes does half and half and adds to the fudge. I love her sweet desserts, and she taught Nancy, who taught her children, and she taught us, how to all have a sweet tooth. At the grocery store the register stated that we all looked like such nice children, and mother said “our girls are delightful, so pretty and so smart, I’ve never known another 2 year old that can carry on a conversation like Celeste, and Aimee shows such promise she may top them both!” When we got home Mother was surprised that Dad had bought her a rapidograph pen, but no ink. She didn’t worry about it too much though because Celeste was feeling warm. Mother used the bowl of a spoon as a tongue depressor and found that she has a sore, red throat. Mother prayed to Father in Heaven and she has improved so quickly after the prayer got to God, he’s got a lot of prayers coming his way, so sometimes an answer takes longer to come. Then mother bought new ink for her pen, and it’s scratchy. She can’t write in cursive with it, only print. Dad loves to play with us and is like a grown up child. He came outside today to swing us on the swing set. We always want to be swinging for longer, but he goes as long as he can before his arms hurt. I never want him to push me too hard, so I am always a little bit scared of being pushed. Mother loved talking on the phone when Aimee took naps. I wrote on the stereo with a ‘marks-a-lot’, I almost wrote on the carpet, then I climbed high up to cabinets in the utility room and opened up all the medicine and pills I could find. Celeste watched the pills fall, like rainbow skittles, and she ate as many as she could as I spun around sucking the the pills, eyes closed, like a twirling fairy, until mother found us. She ran to get Daddy and was so scared. Daddy ran as fast as he could to rescue Celeste, who had eaten the most, but we were both saved after he gave us both a rush blessing. After a few hours Celeste and I started to come around, and after spending the entire day asleep, it was already dinner time. Mom thought it would be best for us to just have dinner and go back to bed. The blessing had worked, and we only lost one day while unconscious. It had given mother a real scare. The blessings didn’t work on everything though. Mother had perfect eyesight before but now she needed a new pair of glasses. The ones she used now were clouded and she couldn’t see things clearly through the cracked glass. I watch the birds and squirrels from my bedroom window. There is an abundance of flutter after mother throws out rice and oats for them. Then mother puts all three of us in the tub together with dishsoap to make bubbles, swirls us up, and we play and make bubble crowns and blow bubbles, then we spend the evening in our pajamas mother sewed for all of us out of matching satin floral light blue fabric she bought. I liked them because the color matched my eyes. Then we had ice cream for dinner before bed, and dad did laundry all night because the weather for drying on the line is pleasant: windy, cloudy & warm. Mother has a really strange discomfort and said that she isn’t ready to “leave my children motherless” and she thought that it could be a warning of a pending heart attack. She asked dad for a blessing, but she didn’t want to wake him while he was taking a nap on the floor. He slept on the floor always, never on a bed as the floor always was comfortable for his back. “Today I am really going to try and lose weight” mother said, dad is going to help her after working the midnight shift at the morgue. He couldn’t help her today though because he was stung in the wrist and hand by a wasp, and it was swollen. He refused to go to a Doctor. Mother had a hard time with Aimee because every time Aimee was not on mothers hip, she would wail and cry and cling to her legs to be held. Mother told another woman at the aquarium that “Amber is going through a period of defiance. She’s really hard to handle. We don’t know what to do with her sometimes.” We were looking at the fish, which Aimee liked the most. Outside, at fairpark there was a bridge and I was afraid I would fall in; so I crawled across part way until I could make it. Mother had plans on making fudge for dinner but on the way home their was a retired minister who was having car trouble, So, after a short stop to help him tinker under the hood until the car sputtered back to life, we were on our way home. Aimee was teething and Mother said “It’s hard to see your children suffer. I want them all to be happy.” Mom thinks Dad doesn’t do enough around the house. Dad thinks he’s told by her to to do “too much, damnit!” While they were arguing Celeste cut her lip and her finger with a razor blade. Mother wrapped it up quickly with tissue paper and she lived so that she could go to bed. She didn’t sleep well so Mom and Dad stayed up late for her and played scrabble together as sleet peppered down with no rain outside, until it looked like rock salt. After the rain my sisters and I would run outside in our underwear and lay in the gutter as water fountained over us, splashing us like a fountain, and it was so fun to play. A few years later. “Another lovely Day!” mom said as she sat in the sunlight of the lazy morning”. “Dad went right to the morgue.” She continued talking, sticking bobby pins between her puckered lips. “He has no time for his wife and children today and I’m here alone.” She unrolls our hair after we left tight rollers on our heads overnight as it dried. “It’s beautiful!” Mother was stung by a yellow-jacket right under her eye. She cries so often it’s not known if it’s the pain of the sting or a general unhappiness where problems could come and go and it didn’t matter, the depression remained and Aimee cries all the time and mother can’t wait until she “gets over it.” The Mormon Missionaries come over a lot, the young men from church who are sent out to share the mesI of the gospel, all while going through a growth spurt of manhood, untamed. These young men would help babysit us, wash dishes, and they hung around the house a lot. While they were visiting dad went to the kitchen and went to sleep on the floor. He didn’t even wake up when mother came in to get the chocolate pies she had made for the Elders. Aimee kept repeating my name “Amber” …”amber, amber.” After family prayer, I asked God out loud for pancakes in the morning for breakfast. The next morning mother made pancakes, she said that God told Dad and Dad told her that she should make them even though most mornings mom was bushed. Our neighbors are having financial problems and Mom and dad are giving them a loan for 124.oo from our grocery money, and that’s after the neighbors had borrowed 60.00 before. This was more than the last money we gave to another family in need, but we were in need too. Dad had zero grasp of money, it went through his hands to anyone who wanted it. Mother said she couldn’t do it anymore because it feels like were “taking food out of the mouths of our own children and even going into debt more than we already are. Maybe Ross is right, he worked for it, but that’s when he thought he was getting another vending machine job that he was counting on.” Mom had developed a pretty big headache and Dad was moody now he was out of work again. The car broke down and instead of waiting inside the car he told me to get out, and come look up under the hood. Another car pulled over as I got out of the car and waited as dad went to talk to the stranger who Dad had flagged down. The car backed up, and Dad put jumper cables on the battery of the generous juice donor, and then he told me to put the jumper cables correctly on either the red or blue of the battery in our car. I looked at the task ahead of me and didn’t want to do it, but knew my dad was going to try and teach me something. The man in the other car waited patiently as I slowly put the cables on, without blowing up the world as I felt I would. I got back in the car where mother and sisters waited, mad that I had to learn it. “You will need to learn how to use these when you grow up.” Mom reminded me. “I’m not going to break down” I explained, so I wouldn’t need to learn how to use them. My plans for adulthood were to live better than I was as a child. Dad left to take his ACT test, but before he went he gave me a blessing to help my sore throat and to tone down my actions a bit and for Celeste to be the strongest and good girl to love her family. Mother and Dad got free tickets to go see a Shakespeare Festival show of “Twelfth Night. I cried as they got in the car, I ran outside and said desperately “I’ve got to get in that car somehow!” I loved putting on my own show and going to a festival for Shakespeare was the most delightful thing I could of thought to do. Celeste smiled and waved goodbye as they drove away. I lay by the window, watching the rain scramble across the rooftops. I talk to God “If it stops raining, oray for rain so I can have some more when I get up.” I wake up and mother and dad are fighting already. “All you care about is money!” My dad yelled angrily at mother, she fired back, matching his tone “I do think about our lack of it, but it’s not all I care about! *Add finger tips cut off July 23, I was rushed to the Dr who then sent us off to the hospital emergency room. Lisa left Aimee and Celeste with the Elders who were visiting, I went through a lot, but mom said I was “a love” and she comforted me. In the waiting room while waiting for a Doctor that I was now missing my two fingertips, skin and nail. While standing there fingerless I stood up on a footstool to sing in the waiting room to the others. I sang “ I love Heavenly Father and he loves me”, The nurse came in and gave me a shot to go to sleep but I said “I won’t go to sleep! IT makes me tired, but I wont close my eyes then, I won’t go to sleep! I slept while Lisa brought my fingertips to the hospital. Mother held me in her arms for so long that her arms hurt. I weighed at least 36 lbs, I was always skinny and underweight. That evening Dad washed the dishes, and read to us. Aimee and I played outside in the plastic pool. I pushed Aimee out of the pool, where she hit her head on the cement. I had to go inside. Mother had been watching us and said “Sweet babies; they have such a hard time.” when Lee asked what was going on. Her son Lee visited sometimes. Mother had made a macramé plant hanger for him to pick up for his place. He then gave Dad a ride to look for a new job. Dads car is out of commission and had to be towed to a shop. WE bought curler clips to roll our hair, mother is so good at doing our hair so fast. She twirls hair around perfectly and pins like a professional beauty shop person would. Dad worked as a Coyote, helping illegals cross the border. * Mother is glad we have money again and that Dad has good work with good pay. Soon we will have some debts paid. She is in such a pleasant mood, smiling and without a headache. She told each of her children that we “are all a delight and (she) loves us all, and there are none lovelier” We finally unpacked a few boxes and found the frame for quilt making, it’s large and difficult to navigate all the working bits, but with help from Nancy, Mother puts it together and plans to start quilting but plays scrabble with Dad instead. I was lost today in the mall for a few minutes. Mother found me crying in the arms of a sales girl. I said I didn’t want to be lost and that I “Love my daddy and mother and don’t want to be away from them.” That evening I was sent to bed early for misbehaving, but Celeste and Aimee played nicely together. They are so close in age. Dad might have a job for the day at Trade Mart, he’s waiting on a call. Mother is going to spend the evening preoccupied with painting. She did one that was poor, and one that was fair. “It’s so nice to be able to do these things” Dads brother Uncle JD is in Jail. So mother dropped Aimee and Celeste at his mothers but took me and Dad to the jail to visit. I climbed on the bars, watched the officers TV of the prison halls, and generally ran around having a good time. Mother didn’t get to paint today, and she had planned on it. Dad took the car to the station to have work done. I don’t know what is wrong with it, sometimes things just, stop. That’s a good time for scrabble, so mom and dad played the game into the evening. Mother said we are so sweet after we wanted her to read to us instead of Dad at bedtime. Dad reads out loud to us from the Book of Mormon, or Little Women, and to change things up I suggested that mother “read to us and Daddy can write in your diary.” It gave dad a chance to not read and just practice speaking after to mother, who also ignores his lisp. I wanted to act especially sweet because it was a dreary day. Mom sketched, Dad cleaned up her paint pallets for her. “No more painting until we move!” Daddy had it with the paints being everywhere when we were always in uproot and moving. I don’t know for a long time if we are packing or unpacking in each place we stay. He was yelling, but all that was obvious was his penis, it had fallen out the front of his open paneled Mormon Garments. Both him and mother wore just garments when at home in the summers to stay cool. We saw a lot of everyone often, and always looked away, and pretended not to notice until he did, and put it away. Dad got a new job working at a dairy, so he got new rubber boots and apron to wear. I was going to dancing class and I really enjoyed it, and Mother was cutting up square pieces of blue jeans to make a quilt. Aimee napped. Mother and Daddy have been really cross with each other in the cold and cloudy weather. Later in the evening Mother wrote a dozen letters to everyone who’s address she had in her book, so 12 letters were hand written. “Everyone loves getting a letter in the mail, it makes someone have a better day to know they were thought about.” Later Dad went out early to run errands and mother hurt her wrist giving me a smack. I had poured dirt in Celeste and Aimees hair. Later in the day I cried out that my ear hurt. I had an infection in my ear and some cold in my eyes and nose. Dad bought me some capsules of medicine and I swallowed them. I am good at swallowing and eating things I don’t want to, I hold my nose and just gulp. Daddy went to work at the new job while mother watched me play with a slinky with Celeste and Aimee. Everything was fine until Mom tried to bake a cake. Mother filled the pans too full and they spilled out all over the over and made an awful mess. Aimee tries to sing with motions “The eensie Weensie Spider” and “rock a baby” while I write a talk to give in church. I had been assigned, to write a talk. The adults in our church liked their children to understand and know the doctrine, and giving talks in church is a great way to encourage learning. I took giving talks very seriously, and wanted to give really good ones. I always thought about what my audience, the congregation, would think about what I was presenting. I stood up in church to speak to the crowd and said “I am thankful for my teachers! They help teach me right from wrong” but then I froze and looked at my teacher, who was standing in front of me. I knew the line well but I wanted help anyway. “I gave my first tithing today.” I finished reluctantly. I was not happy about sharing money I had earned doing chores with God. I was taught to give 10 percent of every penny earned, and my parents gave that even when they had less than a dollar. Because we had no working transportation, Dad rented a truck to go pick up our wheat, milk, and honey. Mother wrapped small gifts to send to her family in Texas. Her packages were about the thought not the price, and she reminded us children that it’s always a better feeling to give than to receive. I think she meant that unless it meant receiving a phone line, which she wanted. I love to learn. I absorbed knowledge like a sponge. At bedtime we learned that dad had given his final notice at work so that he could take pictures as a professional photographer instead. “Who are you going to take pictures of” Celeste asked. Dad acted outraged when anyone questioned him, he muttered as if he is talking to himself when he answered “I’ll take pictures of anyone I want to take pictures of and it’s none of your business, you mind your business and I’ll mind mine!” Celeste was too tired to care, and she could very easily shrug off dads variety of emotions, her level of communication was an even straightline. “I’m not tired, mama” she said after her eyelids slammed shut. Mother made dinner, it was a cooked rabbit someone in the church had given mother after learning she heard she had said “food was skimpy”. My mother looked at Celeste as she slept. “She sleeps so beautifully, with hands tucked under her chin. Our girls each bring us so much joy.” The searing sun looked over us as I played with my sisters, outside. Aimee fell out of the wagon, twice! Hurt her head on cement both times. So after that we listened as Dad read “Little Women” to us out loud. “Food is getting skimpy” mom noticed. Dad had to be at a job at 5 AM, helping movers over the weekend. After work, we were all sick. He “administered” blessings to all of the children, each taking a turn getting prayed over with the power of his Priesthood and Testamony. There is someone that is always sick in our family, we all have colds most of the time, ear infections, nausea, we never felt fruitful. Celeste has ringworm, I had a wart on my hand, and we never had coats. I still loved to run out to the snow, and plow through it, disappearing in a mist of ice. We had family plans to see the Nutcracker. I loved to dance and would point my toes and leap through the air like a ballerina. I wanted to be one. Finally, it was our opportunity, a ballet was showing at the University. I was so excited I could hardly wait. I watched as others went inside to sit and wait for the show. We stood in line with other families. “Do you want to be a famous ballerina?” Celeste poked at me. I said “I want to be a famous Amber”.Our turn came and Dad walked up to the ticket counter to talk to the ticket sales agent. He didn’t seem very happy and Dad looked angry, frustrated and embarrassed. He started pacing getting angrier with each step, pointing his finger and yelling at everyone all around us, who just watched him, Gobsmacked. “Bullshit!” yep, this is “Bullshit!” He swirled, and faced us and said “Sold out!” but then the families behind us all went in. We could not afford the prices. On the way home Dad saw a family that had been pulled over on the side of the road and they had run out of gas. Mother had been reading the new Money Tree out loud to us but had to stop because Dad pulled over to help the family in need. “We should always help someone when we see that they need help.” He reminded us before taking the man for gas as both families waited in our broken down cars while the men went to save us. Dad sent me to the grocery store, a long way away, on my own to buy a loaf of bread. I loved it. I felt so free. Mom and Dad were busy writing talks to give in Sacrament meeting at church. I knew how to make sandwiches for Celeste and Aimee. Dad took pictures outside today while Mom exercised by taking a short walk. Dad loves being a photographer and tells us he’s really good at it. He’s taken pictures of all of us and we love to see them. I feel especially proud when he takes my picture. Dad went to pay for his ACT test after mowing the lawn. It was the last of his intent to go to college. He never went back, and it cost him everything. Mom was chosen after submitted as a candidate by Lisa, her older daughter and my older sister, as a candidate for “mothers week” a chance to visit her at college. Mom was so excited and happy, and she walked in to the auditorium full of college students where Lisa was, all eyes were on my mother, hiding under the sheet given to her. No one knew who the person underneath was, and whos mother was going to win, but after sheets were pulled off quickly, the disguise was broken, Lisa shrieked “That’s my Mom!” jumping up and down she ran to Mom and they hugged each other. Mom got pink carnations from the other students. Lisa took her shopping for denture cleaner and chocolate but then the real fun happened when they decided to just have a picnic dinner right on the elevator while it was moving up and down to each floor. They just sat on the floor eating their picnic, in their own world as students walked in and out, going to and from events, socials, and classes. Mom was only there a couple days into her week visit, going to special assembly, art class with Lisa and workshops afterward. Dad called her and told her he wanted her to fly home. Mom still had plans for brownies and monopoly on the floor and movies but Dad needed her. Lisa had to change her flight to make it sooner so mother could come back before her week vacation was finished. She packed and left on the first flight out, and home by midnight. She told us all about how there was food just like in restuarants that is served in the airplane by waitresses in the air. Then Daddy showed us slides of his day without mother where he went on a canoe ride, and camped out. Made mother feel “Kinda down in the mouth” so she didn’t get much done except talked about helping finances by going to work. “Amber is being more obedient-hope she continues” Dad told mother proudly after he took all three of us to the laundry mat and gave her some time away from us so she could calm her headache. We got our tax refund in the mail but mother wanted half of it. “guess I’m too selfish”, but was really disappointed when Daddy wanted her to “use part of my half to pay bills.” She sobbed and cried about it while dad mowed the lawn and ignored her whining. He was used to it, and most of the time it was his fault she was crying anyway. We did get to go ride bumper cars. Later we would get tired of riding any carnival ride because we traveled with the carnival and set up a booth to sell fake cabbage patch dolls, painted faces, tshirts, sunglasses, watches, ceramics, but that’s later. Today mother was ready to spend tax refund money. So first before the rides, mother bought Dad a green 3 piece suit. He put it on and looked like a millionaire. He wore his fedora hat he already had, and looked handsome, and he knew it. His attitude changed, and his disdain for life around him disappeared as he caught a swagger, and strutted around like the Emperor with New Clothes, except he had clothes. I noticed the importance of a nice outfit. Then after we were bumping around, running into each other, a crashing accident, over and over again until someone finally wiped out. I know we got looks, and one night while the moon was out strong, we decided to go inside the store and look around, maybe buying mom some M and M’s. We looked around the isles for mothers special snack, I hoped I would get a bite of it for keeping her bar secret from my sisters. I got a look from a kind eyed African American man, he looked like he knew my secret. My dad stopped me furiously and said angrily “Okay, I want you to be very careful and listen to me.” I was afraid of what was going to happen “Yes sir?” When they were angry we had to use sir and maam or the punishment lasted. My father wanted to teach me a lesson to protect me. “See that nigger over there, see, he’s stoned and he’s on drugs so be careful, they are dangerous”. The man looked at my dad, and he sneered as he walked away, shaking his head at my dad’s insensitive racism. My dad wasn’t racist from hatred, it was a religious thing he was taught. So, racism and prejudice is taught. How you respond to it as you grow in life is your own responsibility. I refuse to be prejudice, and wanted to go hug the man even though my dad made sure I knew I shouldn’t. We spent a lot of time waiting for our millions and I never doubted that when I grew up I would be a millionaire. I used the Albertsons grocery store, a block from the abandoned store, for the bathroom. In the store feet away from our pallets on the floor, we had a camper’s porta-potty, full of our toxins, un-attended for days. “When we strike it rich can we have a bathroom built here in the back of this store.” My mom looked at me “”we would buy this store and so we would be legal, curiously before answering “I don’t know, the lighting back there isn’t very good. “Maybe we could build a bathroom more towards the front.” I lurched forward, crossing my legs to not pee. I really had to go to the bathroom. The stench of urine, and shit made me gag and I couldn’t go to the bathroom very easily without throwing up. If I peed in the porta-potty while living in the store without running water or toilet, someone else’s pee splashed on me, and my parents had no cleanliness level on any respectable level, and I don’t want to be near the porta potty, especially at night. Listening to others go number two right in front of you in a full porta potty made me gag. I would turn away and visualize having my own beautiful clean bathroom in my own house someday. I wanted a better life and I knew it. I did what I had to do. I always ran to the store to go to the bathroom. I hated it if I ran all the way to the store, and had to wait in line for a real shopper to finish while bouncing up and down and holding on to my panties between my legs, hoping not to pee myself. Imagine working at the grocery store and this scraggly looking family that obviously looks homeless keeps using the bathroom in the store throughout the day, every day. We sometimes pulled out some of the things we had stored up in the cluttered and packed store we were squatting in. We sometimes sold ceramics, knick-knacks, old clothes or things we found by someone elses street curb. We sold t-shirts and sunglasses. INTRODUCTION: I’m telling you my story to inspire you to be true to who you are, and if you have had similar feelings to mine along the way, you are not alone, and know that I am here, and I want to love you through it. It’s taken me all my life to get here, where I am happy and my dreams come true every day. My dreams may be different from yours, we all use our experiences to become who we are. That is a lot of experiences from such unique and weird situations, from abusive father to a cult prophet that rapes children, to bank robbery to brother dying of Aids. I want to pour out my soul and share it all. I felt I should finally share me, with you. Let me get to the point. I lived in a cult. Everyone wants to know about that, so I will share my weird stuff, and add my own points of view about this part of my childhood in the upcoming chapters. But, there was so much more than just living in cult temporarily as a child before and after foster care. I like deflecting the heavy moments with my own jokes and oddities. There is no specific order to this mess, but it’s a mess that is going to bring me so much success my own head is going to spin. Or, stop spinning. I want to hear you scream and yell and clap but most importantly I hope you laugh more than you cry in life, and may your tears be happy ones. I know it’s hard. I’m sharing my story with you so that you know, I’m loving you through yours. CULT LIFE Finally we landed in a fundamental religious cult where Polygamy and other abuses were the new norm. Cults are for broken people and my parents were broken. Polygamy (for those who don’t know what it is) is... one dad and a whole lot of moms - one Ken doll and a lot of broken Barbies.
 Cults are really awesome unless you are NOT the leader. I can’t make this up. Life is a story. It is full of chapters. The beauty is that you get to interpret how you want the story to go. Is it a rags to riches story, a successful story, comedic or tragic or perhaps your story is a fairy tale? My life has always had passion for the dramatic and extreme, most of it I didn’t choose, it was just destiny. Nothing was permanent, except the absence of my biological mother. Arguing with my father left a gloomy feeling after, because when he wanted to make a point, he was relentless. He was going to show you he was in control by kicking, hitting, getting second winds of anger and repeating so that he could hear the cries of pain from his children. I can’t imagine provoking that much pain in innocent children, and as kids we were innocent. On a clear morning my parents went out to look at the comet Hale-Bopp, they they were asked to pray at an altar dressed in robes and ask if the comet is a sign of the coming of the son of man. Reports kept coming in from the members that it was “the city of enoch” returning like the comet, she had watched it leave in ancient times. Importantly mother had a spiritual ceremony where she had been told her body would be renewed, strengthened, and she would be able to bear children again. Washed, Sealed, and Confirmed. That Christmas was mothers favorite. On an evening after she was taken by a man who had other wives, she held his hand and another wife held his other hand and motehr was surrounded by a family who all loved her spirit in the home, and treated her the way she had always wished to be, but with us, who she secretly longed for. Her last husband living in the cult she died in gave her a bundle of balloons, which she had never had before and it thrilled her even more than getting a bouquet of flowers and chocolate. After Mothers funereal, where Jim the Prophet used the opportunity to preach his stories to a faithful crowd who had gathered to say goodbye to our mother, I crawled into the hole where she was buried, and marked “I love you” on her cardboard casket with a marker. Mother was called up by her husband and he showed her off to the congregation “Look at her, look at her weightloss” and people cheered for her, she even got a whistle of support. She was feeling the way she had in high school, when she was young, pretty, and free. Jim Harmston did say something that was true. It was after Dad finally left for good, driving away leaving mother to have Gall Bladder surgery, divorce him and find another husband to care for her during her final days. Jim pointed his finger in mothers face and said “I want you to know that you now have the greatet opportunity for happiness that you’ve ever had in your life!” Mother says the work she does for the dead is very uplifting. When we lost our home on Center Street (for not paying mortgage), we moved in with my other extremists, their new friends, the Lithgow Family. They lived in Paradise, Utah. The Lithgow’s were seeking out new ways of life while searching for God. There were three families living together in this home at the time and it was chaos. The Lithgow’s country home was a dangerous place to live for a town-cat, especially outside without survival skills. I begged my dad to let Ragazzo stay inside, but he wasn’t allowed there either. There were other wild cats living outside for Ragazzo to fight over food with. “We don’t know where animals go during our eternal progression, if they go somewhere else, we just don’t know.” My father said one afternoon. “I know exactly where they go.” “Oh yeah know it all, where?” he looked at me curiously. “They go with me, where I go. If that’s heaven, they go there, but if I go to hell, it would be a great hell to be in, and they would go there with me.” I cared about what strangers thought about us as a family, a wild looking family digging and picking through trash isn’t like the Brady Bunch kind of different, it was just weird. I wanted to be normal and as much as I loved diving for food, I hated getting caught by the curious eyes of bystanders. The food was old, stale, and dirty but it provided enough nutrients to survive and put smiles on our faces. I was happy that I was no longer living on “air and sun” even though Jesus himself had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. I asked my father one night if he still believed that the Breatharian diet was the right way to live, and he said “Yes darlin it is, but people have polluted the air so much with cigarettes” so we dropped the practice. Dad was dramatic and if anyone disagreed with him he would become mad, yell and say hurtful things, then remind everyone that someday when he strikes it rich, they would regret questioning him. I regret any argument I ever had with him because you will never win if keeping score. All of the arguments over God doesn’t make sense, to me so if we were taught something as children, it was what was real to us. Changing beliefs was like having an electric charge within you shut off, and a new different battery is replaced and you now have a different feeling or buzz of the spirit. Having the spirit basically means you are feeling good, same thing. If you feel bad, it’s the adversary. Satan. LIST OF manual labor jobs my dad had briefly worked as: Dallas County Lineman
 Central Freight Line Employee
 Roadway Freight Loading Trucks Morgue Clerk (night shift, stayed with dead bodies)
Abovo Head Shop Owner (where he got me!)
Gossners Cheese/Shrivers Cheese
First Class Second Hand Shop (we lived in the back of the shop without a toilet or running water and open only a couple of days, ever) Traveling State Fair Carnivals (Vendor/Carnie) in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Idaho.
 Swap Meet Vendor (sold anything and everything we found/had) 
Coyote (driving over illegal families from Mexico, hiding babies child trafficking in back of a paneled truck) Movie Theater Owner and projectionist (took over from previous owner, but failed to profit) Sold Aloe Vera products door to door
 Sold Watches door to door
 
And in between, he hustled day labor jobs for money, but Dad always reminded us that someday we would be millionaires and that we were the luckiest people on earth.
“We are lucky and blessed” he told us. Mother wanted to be a good wife and believe it, but she was losing faith, and let him know. “Pioneers” by Amber It snowed hours that moment of green bliss Jealousy insanity gone with poisoned kiss Petticoats and long white gowns solo cries goodbye a tongue that tasted bleeding hearts I placed my bet I know the game spirit thunder here to tame date with destiny forever true- Laughing out loud is the final clue.. To love, to God, to tamed heart art.. Cycles continue, like pioneers in a cart __________________________________________________ PAINTING AND DANCING WITH MY MOTHER WHO WASN’T THERE. We both sat up painting our versions of different colors on the canvas. We listened to Air Supply Greatest Hits as we painted, talked, and danced. She was up late from drinking heavy and smoking pot. I was up late after a night stripping, and still going from Cocaine, Vodka, and sips of GHB. Two wasted adult women filling in the blanks in our hearts with paints, music and dance in the way that only us addicted artists could understand. I was on my own in a small Texas apartment. She was in a house in another state, far away but connected by telephone. This was before video calls, and was an actual land-line connection. We each had a canvas in front of us. She would speak into the phone softly, her alto voice raspy from years of smoking. “Amber, do you have crimson blue?” “I don’t but I have a navy and I can mix it.” I replied. She would guide me through the colors I had over the phone, unseen and tell me what to mix to make the colors I wanted. I’d pour turpentine, mix, repeat and mix some more. Then she would guide my brush strokes across the canvas as if she was holding my hands and showing me. I was the little girl and she was the mommy. We played in the colors. “Now I swooped some of that red across and flicked it into the skyline. Try that.” And I would dance, and swoop, and point my toes like I was on a Broadway stage. In reality I was just going through stripper moves while pretending to be in a dance recital. She clapped and said “You dance so good, you are such a dancer!” I turned Air Supply full blast and danced full songs, then I’d pick the phone back up and she was there waiting. We both looked at our own paintings and described them exactly the same. “Let’s dance now!” I would say. “Now swoop your arms up into the sky and fly!” I’d guide her through the most stunning performance a cat has ever witnessed. After hours of playing in the colors and changing the view on our canvas over and over again, we exhausted and finished. The light from the sun started to come through my blinds, morning was creeping in and the birds were alerting me that the moment was ending and it was time to sleep. “Oh Amber Dawn look…just look. It’s done.” She said. “And it’s so magical and beautiful.” I looked at the mess of paints, feathers and beads in front of me, on the canvas, all over me and my cat, the mixed colors of failed combinations smeared from the livingroom carpet to the toilet from bathroom trips to do more blow mid paint or dance. I looked carefully and saw something else there. I saw a beautiful work. It was my work, my reality, my version of what she saw..it was complete and it was a triumph. I had been mentored by the most talented artist, my mother, my own mother, my mommy, mine. I started to cry. “You see it, don’t you?” I asked her, seeking the approval I always craved from the mother I never had. She said. “Oh Amber, I have never seen anything so beautiful in all of my life.” I imagined what her painting looked like. I imagined her hugging me. I imagined her smiling at me. I imagined how beautiful her work must be in front of her. I knew that we had two different paintings, but she had guided me and it was magical. I had a mommy in that moment. This was my version of my mother putting my art on the fridge because she saw something in me that no one else could. She saw me. I saw her. She was the mom who was showing me the way. The little girl who needed her in any way I could get her. Even if it was in the middle of an all night drug binge where I was alone, suicidal, and living in the middle of trauma, and she was divorced, drunk, and broke in another state, and the only way for us was through color and dance littered in the wasted. Our only pet was a black cat named Rigazzo.
My dad named him, and told us it meant “black boy” in Italian. That’s not confirmed. Rigazzo was an indoor/outdoor cat and he was a badass. He would curl up and purr when you pet him. He would sleep in bed with me. He would lay in the sun by the window and lick his paws for hours. But, he would also fight other neighborhood cats, which terrified me, and every time I heard a howling sound, I would run to chase off the intruder so that Rigazzo wouldn’t get hurt defending his territory. I loved that cat. As the cat got older it started to pee in the house so it wasn’t allowed inside anymore, regardless of the snow outside. I remember returning home with the family one evening and Rigazzo was sitting out in the snow in front of the house peeing, as if showing off for my Dad. He still didn’t get to come in. I took blankets outside and put them under the house for him. In the summertime he would sit on the porch and watch the birds make nests. He would stretch out and lay in the sun for hours. When we lost our home on Center Street (for not paying), we moved in with my parents new friends, the Lithgow Family, in Paradise, Utah. The Lithgows were seeking out new ways of life while searching for God. There were three families living together in this home at the time and it was chaos. The Lithgow’s country home was a dangerous place to live for a town-cat, especially outside without survival skills. I begged my dad to let Rigazzo stay inside, but he wasn’t allowed there either. There were other wild ‘outside cats’ for Rigazzo to fight with for survival. Rigazzo wasn’t happy with the new living arrangements and he disappeared. I panicked when I noticed he didn’t come when I called. I had tried to spend as much time outside with him as I could, playing in the field or out by the Lithgow Barn. But one day, he was simply gone. Our rare and wondrous cat had run away. I walked the fields wailing and crying every day for weeks, looking for the lost cat but never saw him again. I remember standing in an open field in the middle of a valley, praying to my Heavenly Father for Rigazzo to come back. I had a bond with him, and wanted to protect the cat from my dad’s angry outbursts, which were terrifying. I thought that maybe Rigazzo was more like me than I realized. He just wanted his freedom. Maybe he had found it and just dove in, leaving us behind. One night when I returned from searching the vast fields, I was told by my Dad that Rigazzo had been hit by a car on the freeway. Someone found him still alive and rushed him to the Vet and saved his life. After paying the bill my dad gave Rigazzo to the kind family and our cat had a good retirement living safely indoors. I cried and was inconsolable, but it was against my control. We were homeless, lethargic and uprooted. My isolation, dread and disconnectedness kept me insulated within self. Our pet eased my feelings. Rigazzo was the only pet I experienced in my childhood. He was a good cat. I love you Rigazzo and I have never forgotten you. *Update
I believe secrets always tremble on the verge of revelation, even if it takes years.
I just learned the fate of Rigazzo was not what I had been told as a child. He was hit by a car on the freeway and died. My dad had found him on the side of the road hit, and left his body where it was and lied to us. He did not have the same compassion I innately felt for a pet. I am glad I didn’t know then what I just learned now - it would of broken me even more. I love you Rigazzo. I am sorry, I wish I could of protected you. I was distracted trying to protect myself. My dad bought cheap cars that were always clattering with noise, coughing up smoke and constantly breaking down. “I can fix it,” he would say after the cars spit up their last breath. I spent a lot of time sitting in broken down cars roadside with my family. We would argue with each other out of boredom and pinching and hair pulling with my sisters got the attention we didn’t want. My dad would pop his head out from beneath the hood and tell us to “behave dammit!” and if we continued acting up, his frustration with the situation would rise. He would come around the side of the car, unleash his belt from his pants and use it on us. Every time I was hit with a belt or anything else I felt pure hate towards him. I innately knew that it was wrong, even from a young age. I know that he didn’t know how else to “handle” three young girls. We often repeat the actions of our parents, but this is something I never did with my own daughter once I was in the drivers seat. I never learned lessons from being “taught a lesson” and today I’m a strong advocate against it. My mother would sit in the drivers seat and steer the car down the road while my sisters and dad pushed the car until it would sputter back to life. Sometimes he would leave us in the car and hitch- hike to the nearest gas station for gas, water or parts. It was always an adventure and always full of uncertainty. “I’ll tell you what, I’m the best driver there is in the snow - hold on!!!”
Dad yelled excitedly as he pummeled the large tank of a car through an icy storm. “Whooohooo!!” He went faster and faster.
We are in Utah and my sisters and I scream out in fear from the back seat. “Ross, this isn’t funny!” My mother said as she held the dash from the front seat. I’m scared too, and afraid of the possibility of spinning out of control and crashing. “Daddy, slow down!” Then we brake. Hard. We are on ice. Our heads bop forward before he pours on the throttle. “This car is so heavy even if we wreck we are fine!” he said as he continued driving briskly. Our car rides through the snow were Dads opportunity to put his driving skills to the test, with family in tow. He laughs through the adrenaline but mom is frantic and intense.
“Amber, you drive!” He spinned into a stop.
My mother and sisters get out of the car quickly, and I climb over the seat and sit in the drivers seat. “How do I do it” I asked. “Very carefully..” My hands gripped the steering wheel and Dad sat beside me and pushed his foot on the gas, smooth at first but then we started going faster. “I can’t hold on to the wheel, it’s shaking!” I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw my mom standing in the freezing snow with her arms around Celeste and Aimee, they got smaller as we drove further away. They got further and further away and I felt like I was going to become the second best snow-driver in the world, after my Dad.
“They are just scaredy cats!” He said. I didn’t want to show that I felt scared too. I was excited that I was driving, and even happier with the individual attention. I steered the car into the ditch. The wheels sputtered snow as we ripped up the fence- post roadside. We were now stuck. I looked at my dad’s expression, expecting him to be mad. He wasn’t. “Good job, it just takes more practice!” Driving in the snow is an art - so is crashing.
“See, there was nothin to be afraid of, I told you so!” he said as the family teamed up to push the car out of the ditch. If you can drive in the snow, you can drive anywhere. The Strip Club Mirror. What do Strippers think about when they are on stage? A lot of people have asked me that through the years. Here’s the answer. Sometimes we don’t think at all, we just go, do the set, get money and move on, but sometimes we do pause and think about things while on our stages above it all. There is so much behind a woman of the night, every single one. We look the men right in the eye, staring down their weakness, which is the seduction of a stripper, which is why they are there. I danced at Prince Machaivelli’s, the castle shaped club on the top of a dirt hill. It could have been a Tuesday, or Friday, every day was the same in the dark and my world started when the sun went down because I was sleeping most of the day, everyday. I remember this moment years later. This is what I was thinking about. I stood at the back of the stage watching a dancer “Happy” slide across the wooden floor, right to the edge of the railing, keeping her footing sturdy as she swirled around in 6=inch heels. She danced slowly and expertly to “Darling Nikki” and I waited my turn as the music and stale cigarette smoke filled the drunken air in the windowless joint. Happy rotated her rib cage and hips, gyrating the air as a short Hispaic man approaches her. I watch him pull out a dollar bill from under folded c-notes. I wonder if the little man realized the Amazonian woman he was tipping was twice his size, and would overpower him if not on the stage. The shadows of her movements peeked through the giant wine reminding me that the location was formerly a steak house. Now it was Prince Machiavellli’s, a club right off the freeway on the West side of El Paso, Texas. I was a foster care runaway who had hitched a 4 hour ride to El Paso from Hobbs, New Mexico. I had no roots, and no family in the normal sense and I was a ward of the state of New Mexico. My emotions and behavior were untamed, and I was like a feral animal without life skills. I felt a dangerous comfort in the darkness and music there, and working with a fake I.D. helped me blend in, far away from outside the mainstreams of society, from the State who was looking for me, and from a foster mother who could never keep me long, I was always running. I was “Deemed a habitual runaway” by the State of Utah, Idaho, Texas and now New Mexico. There are a pile of reasons for the runaways, but mainly I was running away from abuse. I would not be a victim easily, I fought back, I fought and fought and fought..everyone. I squirmed in my g-string panties, the glittered seams tight against my body felt too small. I was new to this stripper underworld, and every new dancer thinks they wont be working for long. I was just ready to make 100.00 after tipping everyone put and the night was young. I was certain nothing was hidden behind the strings up my ass as I heard my introduction. I wondered how many cranberry and Vodkas would it take to get rid of my UTI. I bent over touching the floor to look behind me and make sure my vagina lips weren’t showing. They were, I adjusted the fabric and flipped back up. It’s just ritual. Rituals are everywhere here. “Sky blue eyes and legs for miles, this is Charlie!” said by a bored D.J from the sound booth. I marched up the 4 steps as the entertainer before me exited. Her eager customer who had tipped a dollar and watched her intently, waited and they held hands and walked off in the dark. I would grab the Gold railing on my way up, and stayed holding the bar as the song built up. I arched my back and flipped my hair, staring at the ceiling so my hair tips could swish across my ass. I watched from other girls and I did what they did until I learned my own style. I crawled, I did a lot of floor work like spreading my legs open and swirling one leg and then another in a circle. Being limber made dancing easier. Classical stripper moves were learned through watching the experienced dancers. I could see my reflection on the mirror from the very back of the room, behind the customers faces. I pranced to the front of the stage taking the slowest steps possible while dragging my leg behind me. I always felt sexy. I always felt ugly. I watched my reflection in the mirror. And then I was lost. My focal point was the reflection of myself dancing in the mirror again. There I was. There she was. Sometimes I would just watch myself dance through an entire two-song set without even looking at anything else. I watched other dancers watch themselves as they danced too, especially on slow nights when no one was paying attention to us. The dirty mirrors held so many stories. Other times I would just glance, but the woman in the mirror was always there, understanding and loving me. I watched myself in the mirror gyrate slowly, running my fingers down my body to entice a reaction from any stranger watching in the dark. There was a language barrier between me and mostly Mexican clientele, so I learned basic Spanish to get by, however while dancing the only language was in the music and movement. I was in my own world on stage, and sometimes I would just forget I was there and I would just get lost. I learned that for me, the stage is truly a place to disappear and be found. The stage understands me, it feels me, it holds me. From an outside point of view I was a conceited stripper on stage, admiring my own reflection of heavy makeup, tan glittered skin, teased out hair, all while lost in a melodic trance of the music. I was dramatic when I felt like it, punctuating the drop of my top while arching my breasts, just like all like the girl before me. Same moves, different girl, different breasts. I went right to the edge of the lights, outside of my own boundaries and moved faster than what was truly sexy when I felt anxiety but I slowed again when I looked in the mirror. I was young and inexperienced, and I must have looked like Bambi on Ice as I swayed my hips to the music, still staring at myself down like a lost Evil Queen. What was seen by a customer of me on the stage and how I felt up there are usually two different things. I sometimes imagined myself in the reflection in a bigger fantasy with a real audience watching my sexual dramatis personae- because so far that is all I know, because my stage was someplace far away from where I really was, looking in dirty mirrors in a cheap strip club on the West side of El Paso. Because of my adoption and innate connection with a mother I had never met, I wondered how she must have felt when she had to give me up. I imagined I was she in the reflection, hearing for years growing up that she was a “Whore, a Slut, a Stripper.” Through my adopted father I became aware that I came from someplace bad. I was now in someplace considered bad. I tried to hold the moment sentimentally in my mind, long enough to feel a connection with the reflection, as if I was not her, but dancing beside her, and my reflection was her since this was only in my fantasy. I sometimes would feel a connect, a simple exhale while watching reflections dance. It made me feel less alone. The few men, a DJ, and maybe a waitress watched me with any interest; everyone else was living their own fantasy in the dark, or maybe even swallowing away their sins with alcohol. It wasn’t Star Search, and I was just another young woman with issues, laying on a stage with legs spread for men to tip me for it. Mom. My fantasy was that I was my mother, and I was on a stage dancing and I was oh so so pretty. And then I was I again, and she was watching me and she was oh so pretty. Then reality would come back as a G.I. came to the end of the stage to tip me. I crawled over, like a cat in heat (or with fleas) and pulled out my string on my bikini so the man could slip his dollar into my panties. I was holding out G-string waiting, and he said “no, no no..you need to dance for it.” I was dancing, and have been dancing on the stage the entire time. I took the dollar from his hands without giving him a chance to ask for more puppetry, and stood up, grabbed my top and a few other dollars that had been crumpled and thrown. This was not a “make it rain” scenario with dollars, it was more like a couple hits of “hail” in a storm. I was not an adult woman, I was still underage and in the world trying to control my own trauma. I looked back one more time as the next dancer came to the stage, her chubby customer wears a white cowboy hat and snake skin boots, the outfit of assholedom. I looked again beyond the tables where girls grinding on men giving individual table 10.00 dances. Everyone there had an agenda, including me. I was just naïve to what my agenda actually was. I thought it was to have money to pay rent. I thought it was for long enough to buy a car. I thought it was until I saved up to open a tanning salon, coffee shop, or nail salon. I was uneducated but intuitive. I straightened out the money. I had made 4.00 on stage and I had a light mist of sweat from floorwork. I went to the bathroom while tying my top around my breasts, I hid in the stall, opened the tampon receptacle and unrolled a wad of bloody toilet tissue. I was not unwrapping a used tampon, but my baggie of cocaine I had hidden an 8 ball in to get me through the night. I scooped up a mountain of powder in my acrylic nail, put it to my nose and inhaled fearlessly. I repeated the same to the other nostril before wrapping the cocaine baggie back in stained toilet tissue, stuffing it down where no one would notice it, underneath all the other bloody trash. No one in their right mind would look there for it, (or put it there) and this way I was never caught with it on me, or in my own locker during our Government drug raids. I flushed by using the heel of my stiletto on the knob instead of my hands, I turned and almost had a fall out of the stall. Time for tequila and cheap hands on my boobs get me more table dances, I would not be needed back on stage until the end of the night. I was lost and found. I held back tears as I flipped my hair, whipping it slowly, seductively, more experienced than I should have been while crawling on the laps of strangers who wanted to feel me as they would touch an intimate lover. I wanted to disappear and be a shining star all in the same moment, but mostly I wanted to connect with the ghost in the mirror, my mother I had only heard of. She was there with me when I was dancing, which was the kind of connection I hung on to. I thought about her so much while dancing. Did she dance like me? Did she feel this same feeling when she moved her body for men? Did she think about me ever? Where was she right now, what if she saw me, would she think I looked beautiful? To a customer I was judged, just like every other dancer up there before and after me. I was the stripper, the fantasy, the slut, the whore, the drug addict, the psycho easy girl who ran wild and untamed, balancing on 6-inch stiletto heels and the end of my childhood. We all have our own mirrors, and what we reflect isn’t always who we really are. I loved the way the music felt. I was lost in it. RAZOR BLADE BABY The feelings of depression I'm experiencing are not subsiding. They do temporarily of course, but it's been so long since I experienced that brief moment of happiness that I don't know what it feels like. I feel trapped in my own skin, in my own life, in my own existence. In this moment I feel short of breath, heavy head, and swollen neck. My hands ache of arthritic pains, the same as an elderly woman I'm sure. This fills me up with fears of the future, and more fears of being alone and someday unable to walk. I imagine drowning in my own urine, surrounded by cockroaches and mental illness. I wake in the morning with arm and wrist pains, and lay awake with my eyes closed from the world I want to stay asleep from. Dogs bark to go outside every day, my teenager opens my door with a daily complaint, and my husband reminds me of something else I have to "do" every morning. It's an errand, a task, a bill, a dime-a lie of a life. I trudge my way to coffee, and open the patio door so the dogs can pee on the concrete because I’m too lazy to walk to the grass. I read emails, and try and grab a gulp of hope from one or more of my many inventions, creations, writings, films, projects, dialogues of magical blah-bi-ti-blahs. I'm spitting at this life. It's lonely. It's alone. It's feeling-full, and feeling-less. I went to see an opera with Kevin. He afforded it at my request. I sat in the theatre of cathedral looking golden walled place, watching La Boheme, and realizing the comparisons to Rent the musical as I also imagine..."what would it be like to jump over this balcony" and "would I splatter, and would I stay in the theatre forever as a spirit. I think of Phantom of the Opera, there in spirit too..and I sit back in my seat, wishing for a seatbelt on my thoughts and chair. Then I think of my mother and her spirit. Haven't felt it at all lately. Then I miss Tommy, and I think of his ashes and I want to smother my throat with dead bones, and eat the dry dust. I'm mentally ill. I'm mentally ill. I'm mentally ill, so I wont share my thoughts with anyone, and if I do, I'll laugh it as a joke. I’ll share this with the kittens from adderrall and compiments. They get it, right? Or..oh man my mind just blows. I didn't cheat on Brian, but emotionally I have, just with the thought of wanting someone sexual, fun, adventurous, and athletic. If I ever left, I'd be alone forever you have told me. If I ever left I would be stung by the heart poisons of the world. If I ever left, he would find happiness, I would not. Plus, I'm the asshole that feels like this whole living is "existence-less"- lately. My marriage bed. It's full of tangled sheets from disrupted sleep, from needles on sickness, and hair of the rescue dogs that give me purpose outside myself. It's not a place for passion, and even if there is a quick moment of it, then Brian ends it with getting up to do those dishes, walk that dog, or sit in the living room and watch Tosh, or the other show, the one-the "I can't stand the sound of this show" show...the laughing at the comic with the annoying laugh. Laughing. Who the fuck is laughing, when I've just been baby-wiped clean, and left to read and gasp for asthmatic air within my own anxiety. If I ever cheated I would feel exited and hopeful of something, and be let down quickly with the wreckage of it. I would fuck so passionately I would cry and gasp for air, and taste his blood in the execution of it all. I would outline his tats, and imagine smoke puffs from cigarettes that are invisible, and mouth the words I love you, I love you, I love you. I would look him in the eye, but defy him in my next breath. I would look at him, knowing he is broken too and can't save me. I would want to save him back. I would feel guilt of being dishonest when I'm now the wife of someone. The wife, the ball with a chain attached. It's heavy. Brian. Steady. Solid. Sad. Leaving...someday, they all do. They always do. I had a dream last night that Kevin grabbed my arm and cut it twice with a straight-razor knife while I was hiding from the enemy. I was the razor blade baby. I woke up wanting the slices on my arm, but dreamed of them with pain. He is divorcing his own life, which wasn't the fairy tale either. I compare to my life but not just the things he has now, but the things he had me do. He got me out of my house, he made me laugh, he gave me drama and passion and feeling. I don't have that anymore and haven't had it in a long time. I don't even have many friends. I still have a head on, but waiting for my own king to chop it down, and make it my own fault. I'm damned. I'm in need of shock therapy, damned to darkness, despair, and lady-bugs who want to stab me with sharp shards of that green grass on the other side. This isn't about money. It's about reliving dreams of the past in my heart and head and realizing how deadened they are, how no one cares more than I-nor should they. I feel numb, but need morphine to really phase out of my depression. And now is your time to do your jig, and I'm still here, rocking back and forth mentally unable.. I'm sorry. I had to share. I had to tell, I had to talk. The dogs, they only stare back...