Memories | Telling the Truth

Misfit and Misbehaving

It’s the early 1950s. I’m about 11 years old. I’ve just taken my assigned seat in my 6th grade classroom at a private church school. I look around the room and it hits me in the eyes.

All but three girls are wearing matching white skirts with a bold flower pattern around the hem of each skirt. The flower pattern is in five rainbow colors with not one, but two skirts in each color. My two best girlfriends are wearing blue flowered skirts.

Our teacher, clearly caught off guard, says there must have been a fire sale on this particular pattern. The skirts are homemade. Obviously this was a planned event.

I’m mortified. Why didn’t I know about this? My mother is one of the best seamstresses around, and could have whipped one up for me. I try to make it OK in my mind. Especially since only three girls in the class aren’t wearing the uniform. The other two are the least popular girls in the class. Surely there was a mistake.

My two best girlfriends try to make it OK. I wasn’t left out because they didn’t like me. It was because the club had decided there could only be pairs, and I was the odd girl out. Besides, I was at least a year younger than they.

Which wasn’t the full story. Along with the other two misfits, I was a scholarship student. My parents couldn’t afford to pay tuition. It didn’t matter that I was bright, intelligent, interesting, faithful, truthful or any of that.

Things got worse during recess. The club had designated certain parts of the public park (a lovely downtown square in Savannah, Georgia) as their special places. They had rules about who could play with whom during the first part of recess, and where they would meet for regular club meetings during recess.

The following day was a ‘regular’ day which meant the club didn’t wear skirt uniforms to class. My friends talked the club into letting me join as a substitute club member. I would have to have a blue-flowered skirt. However, I could take part in activities in the park only if one of my two friends was absent that day. And I would have to vote the way my friend would have voted. That way the voting wouldn’t be off-balance.

Long story short: My mother agreed to make a skirt, but couldn’t find the same flower pattern. I wore my painfully obvious substitute skirt once or twice before the club disbanded.

In the end, this episode wasn’t about how smart, friendly or truthful I was. It was about white money and white family history. Which is to say the white Protestant pecking order and the subservient pedigree of white hens.

What I now understand:

It’s important to divide white women from each other as early as possible.
This will serve the goals of white male supremacy.
The tactics of divide and conquer are cheap, easy and effective in almost any setting.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Women’s History Month. I wonder how willing I am to refuse being divided in order to change history?

32 Comments

February 21, 2018

hanging out

morning sun
hangs out behind a curtain
of glowing fog

Yesterday was glorious. Foggy and gray at first, before turning into a bright sunshiny day that included tea with a friend in the afternoon.

Hanging out doesn’t come naturally to me. From very early, my parents programmed me to keep my little hands busy because the devil might find work for idle hands to do. In addition, my later commitment to running away on the inside discouraged me from doing ‘nothing.’ The enemy was always just one step or one breath behind me.

So race on I did. One step after the other. With time out only when forced to take it.

The year after I left the dean’s office I had a full year sabbatical. Glorious! I decided early that I wanted to write more. So I began working through Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Fortunately, most of her assignments required that I write.

Unfortunately, one did not. It stuck its ugly neck up at the end of the first chapter, in a list of tasks to accomplish.

Task #1 was to write morning pages first thing every morning. Stream-of-consciousness. No problem. I was like a duck playing in water. Next came

Task #2.
Take yourself on an artist date.
You will do this every week for the duration of the course.

Fortunately, Cameron lists several sample ‘dates’ for the socially challenged who prefer to stay in our little dens. All these ‘dates’ will be fun, silly or even outrageous. If we had to learn how to do this, so be it! I felt awkward and more than silly at first. But then I got into it—for a while.

Big sigh. So yesterday morning I decided to resume weekly artist dates with myself. I inaugurated this by spending the entire day with no agenda except fun things I wanted to do strictly for myself. Which included tea in the afternoon with my friend.

The day was beyond wonderful. I know the sun won’t come out every day. Yet the freedom my body and spirit felt was remarkable.

Finally, for those out there who don’t quite see what the problem is, I’m positive you’ll read this and feel nothing but good-will for the rest of us. If not more understanding or empathy. For which we are grateful.

Elouise♥

5 Comments

February 19, 2018

Am I ready?

Hesitating
My fingers languish
On the keys

Life
Flashes before me
Inviting my company

My heart
Skips a beat
Am I ready?

Dear Friends,

This past week was wonderful. Going through old files and notebooks told me more about my past than I’d remembered. And I didn’t get through everything yet.

Thankfully, my home office is about half transformed! I focused on files and piles, not books and drawers. Breaking my jaw nearly two years ago brought ‘normal’ life to a sudden halt. And the piles began getting larger and larger….

Hidden in all the files and piles, I found several gems. Things I hadn’t read for years. I even read one piece out loud to myself. It was the Sunday morning ‘sermon’ I gave at our last Renich family reunion in 2012. I wrote it so young children in the room would know exactly what I was talking about.

That was the first time I’d ever talked to my extended family about my troubled relationship with my parents. The room was full of family members from at least four generations. I was a trembling wreck after I finished and sat down. I hadn’t yet begun blogging. I just knew I it was time to do this.

Now I’m at another milestone—still blogging, and with the end of my life approaching more visibly than before. ‘The last chapter’ sounds ominous. However, I see an opportunity to write about things I’ve not written about before. Some new, some old. None of it easy.

During the past week I wrote a haiku on most days. I don’t plan to stop that discipline, or writing poetry. I want to let my heart speak to other hearts. I believe that’s what drove Jesus of Nazareth, though some of his words were difficult to hear.

What I practiced giving up for Lent last year is still relevant. This year I’m thinking about it in terms of my writing voice and my desire to let my heart speak to other hearts. I’m using the same litany as my guide:

I let go my desire for security and survival.
I let go my desire for esteem and affection.
I let go my desire for power and control.
I let go my desire to change the situation.

Quoted by Cynthia Bourgeault in Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 147 (Cowley Publications 2004)

As always, thanks for listening.
Elouise♥

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February 9, 2018

Dethroned

The winter Olympics are upon us! So just for today, here are a couple of old photos from my past that tell a bit of a story about my family of one father, one mother and four sisters. Nothing profound, unless you’ve been there and understand the dynamics of being dethroned.

First: I’m the oldest, 10 years old judging by the shape of my body parts. An early bloomer as they said back then. Sister #2 is 8 1/2 years old, and Sister #3 (Diane) is 4 years old. Sister #4 is still a baby. And yes, my hair is in rubber-hive curlers. An attempt to make my hair look pretty.

It’s bad enough to be the first-born dethroned three times by the arrival of baby sisters who suddenly grab all the attention. But to be forced to give up my rightful seat on my brand new adult-size bike when I was 10 years old got my goat. Not that I let it show very much in the photo, but I guarantee you, I’m not happy in photo #2.

Nor is Diane, Sister #3, the youngest in the photo. She has totally checked out of the happy sisters mode and is enduring the shame of having been booted from her larger wheels to this ridiculously tiny baby tricycle. I love her for her honesty. She has her hands defiantly clasped in her lap–not on the handlebars as requested by my father. Sister #2 is being as cooperative as possible, having given up her two wheels for three.

And there I am, boiling with indignation on the inside (yes, I remember this well) but ‘calm’ on the outside, while my mother poses for my father on MY new bike! I wonder what was going through her mind?

Small stuff, you say? Not to me. Which is already more than enough said.

For now, Happy Friday and Happy Winter Olympics! May the best women and men win, and those dethroned be gracious and appropriately distressed.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 9 February 2018
Photos taken by my father, Fall 1953, in our front yard near Savannah, Georgia

14 Comments

February 7, 2018

Living and Loving the Last Chapter

No more unlived history for me. I’m in the last chapter of my life. Which means my last opportunity to live a full life instead of the half-life I’ve often pursued as a good girl/woman.

First, in honor of my mother, I owe myself at least two changes:

I must fall in love with myself. For better and for worse; in sickness and in health; for as long as my life shall last; honoring and respecting myself; cherishing my body and honoring my spirit.

I think of it as marrying myself. Loving myself the way God loves me—just as I am. And the way D promised to love me—just as I am. If I can’t do this, my ability to love my neighbors as I love myself is greatly impaired if not dealt the kiss of death.

I must relentlessly pursue my dream of being a writer. Not past dreams, but my dream for right now. For this last chapter of my life.

All my adult l life I believed in my skills to help others attain their dreams. I did not believe in my ability to go for large dreams of my own. I was ‘too busy.’ Especially when it came to writing. I was busy giving in to fear, disbelief, and the call of tasks needing to be done.

My mother’s later years included several strange episodes during which she lashed out against my father with language I didn’t know she possessed. To my shock, he backed down. I’m hanging onto those few brilliant moments when I believe my mother put her own well-being and her own wishes first and communicated this in no uncertain terms.

I don’t foresee a fight like this with D. I do, however, foresee standoffs with myself for which I’ll need grit and guts.

Second, I must do for myself what I did for all those 15 boys and men I wanted to impress.

For years, beginning as early as 5th grade, I offered them a list of invaluable services. No cost and no contracts. Why? Because I desperately wanted to feel needed, alive, appreciated, attractive (at least not repulsive), and less lonely.

So what did that look like?

A listening ear, empathy and feedback
A sounding board for men’s ideas
Interest in their lives and their dreams
Affection and emotional support
Admiration and affirmation of their importance
New ideas—mine—free of charge!
Proofreading and editing skills
Feedback on how to improve their arguments, their writing, their sermons
Uncounted smiles and nods of agreement and understanding

In other words, like millions of other women, I gave away what I desperately needed for myself.

Ironically, even though these men affirmed me, I didn’t believe them. Not because they weren’t telling the truth, but because I didn’t believe that in the long-run, what I had to say or write really mattered that much.

Today I’m offering and making available to myself the same tangible and intangible services. Yes, I still have D. His love and loyalty are in place. The missing person in this picture isn’t D. It’s Elouise.

6 Comments

February 1, 2018

Haunted by unlived history, #3

Renich Reunion in Newton, Kansas. I’m in back, just left of center. My first cousins as of July 1958 (more on the way!)

I grew up thinking love would heal everything. I also grew up believing no man in his right mind would ever love me enough to marry me.

I wasn’t a flirt or a party girl. Though I didn’t feel ugly, I didn’t consider myself pretty. I was a quiet and diligent student, a budding musician, intelligent, pleasant, and deeply ashamed.

Ashamed of the way my father treated me
Ashamed that most people didn’t seem to want me as a close friend
Ashamed when teams were chosen and I wasn’t anyone’s first choice. I was better than the last choice, but not by much.

I was also ashamed of our family’s social status. Yes, my father was an ordained pastor. No, he wasn’t a regular, full-time pastor. No, he didn’t have a regular, full-time income.

I sometimes thought about becoming a single missionary like some of the women missionaries I knew. That way I wouldn’t have to bother about all that social stuff. Or men.

But then there were those few boys and men who seemed to like me. Sometimes whether I liked them or not. Maybe the love thing could work for me. Maybe I didn’t have to be single all my life. But aren’t there better choices out there?

This was the beginning of my up and down history of secretly falling in and out of love with men. In no way did I want to appear needy, or look like I was chasing after them.

In the early 1990s, as part of an assignment for survivors of sexual abuse, I made a list of 30 men and boys who made an impression on me from childhood.

Then I began studying the list, looking for patterns. Of the 30 men and boys,

16 were romantically attractive to me
15 were men or boys I wanted to impress in some way
14 were artists, poets, musicians, and/or actors
13 appreciated and loved to listen to my piano playing
12 pursued me (I didn’t pursue them)
12 affirmed me as an individual, not as an object of their self-interest
10 were ordained ministers or leaders
6 were employers/supervisors
6 took advantage of me
4 raised fear in me
4 were pursued by me
4 I disliked intensely
4 were ‘soul mates’
3 overtly punished or humiliated me

Thinking about my relationships with these men and boys helped me make large and small changes in my relationships with men. For example,

I changed some unwise habits in order to maintain healthy boundaries as a professional educator and a church member.
I learned to recognize and honor my intuition when things didn’t feel quite right.
I recognized that being an agreeable, good girl woman was getting me in trouble by feeding unhealthy patterns of overwork and exhaustion. Though I made progress on this one, it wasn’t resolved until I retired in 2011.

I’ve written earlier about not having dreams for myself. Big dreams. The kind that orient life in a clear, even exciting direction. Most of my life I’ve lived by lists. Checking off long to-do lists with no big dream at the end. Just more long lists.

I want something better for myself. Today I hear my history with men fairly screaming something I couldn’t hear back then.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 1 February 2018
Photo taken in Newton, Kansas, July 1958 – Not yet all my first cousins on my father’s side.

5 Comments

January 31, 2018

Haunted by unlived history, #2

When I married D I believed I’d found the answer to all my problems. I was ecstatic. Finally I had a life of my own, and a man who would love me and not try to fix me. It might not happen overnight, but eventually I would be my own woman, doing my own thing. And D would love me no matter what.

Two weeks before we married, in 1965, I told D I was afraid he would leave me behind. Here we were, getting ready to marry and move to Boston where he would pursue a graduate degree. But what would I pursue? No, I didn’t have anything in particular I was dreaming about, though someday I might want further education.

In 1973, we ended up in California with two young children, and both of us enrolled in seminary. I was ecstatic. Maybe I would find myself at seminary.

Yet my sense of being on the sidelines of life grew. Especially as D received work-related assignments to travel, while I stayed home caring for our young children and pursuing my seminary studies.

I went through periods of exhaustion, depression, bouts of anger, resentment and resignation. I felt trapped, misunderstood and lonely. Any kind word or smile that came my way, especially from men, was more than welcome, though I felt uneasy about this. Wasn’t I supposed to love D and no one else? And wasn’t his love for me more than enough?

Seamlessly and unknowingly I enacted the script of my mother’s unlived life. Not just a script about still needing love and affection, but a larger script about not having or following my dreams, not believing in or taking care of myself. I was too busy taking care of others.

I didn’t know or believe in myself, or my ability to go after large targets and impossible dreams. When opportunity knocked, my habitual responses were self-defeating.

Too busy to take advantage of opportunities
Afraid to put myself out there for consideration
Disbelief in my demonstrated gifts or potential
Feeling less than qualified
Changing the subject as quickly as possible
Finding out how I might help you follow your dream

I was in trance mode—caught in a waiting-game that feels like being on a train that moves yet never arrives because it has no known station.

I watched and cheered as other women and men pursued their dreams. I wrote hundreds if not thousands of reference letters on behalf of others. Yet never once did I write a letter in support of my dreams. I was living my mother’s unlived life. Doing what I could to support others, and choosing not to pursue anything strictly for myself.

So how does my history with men fit into all this? More to come.

8 Comments

January 29, 2018

evening tide ebbs

evening tide ebbs
gently wipes the beach clean —
an old woman smiles

***

5 Comments

January 27, 2018

Haunted by unlived history

A couple of weeks ago I uncovered buried treasure. I’d stashed it away in a large envelope of notes I typed and wrote out in the early 1990s. The notes were about boys and men who made an unforgettable impression on me from childhood until the early 1990s.

This wasn’t simply a list of names. It was an itemized, annotated, categorized and coded treasure trove of information and reflection under several headings. Men I hardly knew, plus the real world of men I knew all too well.

I didn’t write this out on a whim. It was part of a therapy exercise for survivors of child sexual abuse. A way of getting to know myself better—by way of reflection on men who made an impression on me.

But before getting into that, I want to tell you about something else.

Several days ago I read about the way our parents’ unlived lives make an impact on us. Especially on our internal lives. This means that even though I appear normal on the outside, I can quickly numb out, withdraw, or shut down internally when I’m uncomfortable in a relationship. In fact, I’m skilled at this, even though it’s also a source of anguish.

The next morning I woke up and almost immediately burst into tears. My mother’s unlived life included her unlived life with me. I have no memories at all of my mother hugging, cuddling or touching me affectionately. She was industrious, resourceful, creative, and an attentive caretaker when I was sick. She was not, however, spontaneously or overtly affectionate.

My body and spirit grew up craving affection. I can’t count how many times my mother bent over to kiss me goodnight and kissed the air above my cheek instead. It still gnaws at me. A gaping hole in my heart that makes me wonder whether I was really loved.

I wasn’t simply running away from my father’s unsafe touch and punishing, overbearing, demeaning ways. I was also starving for my mother’s touch, affection, guidance and wisdom. I needed a safe haven in which I didn’t have to impress anyone, or get sick so I could be comforted.

Behind my history lies my mother’s history with her mother, my Grandma Z. One of my mother’s sad mantras was “I never had a mother.” She was correct. Grandma Z ran away with another man and divorced her first husband when my mother was very young.

My mother grew up without being cuddled, hugged or celebrated by her mother. Grandma Z favored her younger son, and treated my mother more like a toy doll. A plaything to dress up and display proudly. Not a little girl to listen to, love, comfort or encourage.

So there I was years later, a young woman. Uneasy in my body and spirit. Needy and pushing away at the same time. Haunted by my mother’s inability to affirm my body and my spirit. I didn’t think anyone would want to marry me. I also thought that having a man love me would heal my heartaches and take away the pain.

To be continued….

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 January 2018
Photo taken when I was 9 months old, 1 month before my father returned from the TB sanatorium; July 1944 in Charlotte, NC

11 Comments

January 24, 2018

buried

buried
beneath snow
life sleeps

Is there an angel in your life? Someone who was there for you at the very beginning when you were most vulnerable? Someone who gave you a gift you didn’t know you had until very late in life?

When I was born, my father had already been flat on his back for 8 months in a TB sanatorium. He came home weak and alive when I was 10 months old. If you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll know my ordained clergy father was no angel in my life. For a quick summary, read Why I haven’t buried God.

When I was born, my mother was living with a young couple and their 8-year old daughter. Hence I lived the first 10 months of life surrounded by my mother and friends who thought I was God’s gift to each of them.

When my father came home from the sanatorium, things changed quickly. Dad was never one to take his duty lightly. It didn’t take long to change the atmosphere, beginning with a push and shove about whether Uncle Ed was my father or not. And, of course, who was now in charge of our little family. My mother or my father. I believe my mother lost dearly in that transaction. As did I.

Eight months after my father’s homecoming, we moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to Seattle, Washington. I took with me the seed of that elusive thing called resiliency. They say some children have it and some don’t.

In my case, I believe that seed was planted in me the first 10 months of my life. By my mother, Auntie Wyn and Uncle Ed, and their only child Grace. They loved and played with me, fed, encouraged and doted on me. I was the most beautiful baby in the entire world. And I got to hear my mother playing the piano, nurturing in me another invisible seed of resiliency.

See the lovely photo at the top? All the important people (except me, of course) are there. My parents are already surrounded by my surrogate family: Auntie Wyn was mother’s maid of honor; Uncle Ed (with glasses) gave my mother away; Grace was my mother’s flower girl.

Perhaps the bond between my mother and me is stronger and deeper than I ever realized.

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Telling the Truth

Tag: Memories

February 28, 2018

Misfit and Misbehaving

February 21, 2018

hanging out

February 19, 2018

Am I ready?

February 9, 2018

Dethroned

February 7, 2018

Living and Loving the Last Chapter

February 1, 2018

Haunted by unlived history, #3

January 31, 2018

Haunted by unlived history, #2

January 29, 2018

evening tide ebbs

January 27, 2018

Haunted by unlived history

January 24, 2018

buried

Tag: Memories

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