Safe, Not Sorry | Part 2 of 2
I’m feeling raw today.
Best to start with
A Reality Check Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth
connecting the dots of my life
Tag: Secrets
October 22, 2014
July 21, 2014
Female Bodies and Sex Ed | Part 3 of 3
It’s 1960. I’m 16 years old and I just graduated from high school. I thought you’d like to see how I filled in the gaps between Daddy’s Sex Ed 101 and my graduation.
My Sex Ed 102 Learning Resources with Annotations by Me
*My parents’ everyday relationship with each other. Mother seems to have no voice and no vote. Read the rest of this entry »
March 24, 2014
Sexual Healing at Age 7?
Until the last two weeks, this question never crossed my mind. Now I can’t leave it alone. If the answer is Yes, how can that be? As noted in Unpacking My Suitcase, I’m not yet sexually aware. But I’m carrying an unwelcome load of something in my female body and spirit. Read the rest of this entry »
March 13, 2014
moss-laden oaks loom
moss-laden oaks loom
magenta azaleas blaze
deep south path through woods
* * *
Late summer, 1950
It’s past midnight
I’m asleep with Sisters #2 and #3
Are we almost there?
Mother’s tired voice wakes me up
Nothing but darkness outside
and cobwebby stuff hanging from tree limbs
A log-cabin tavern fades into view
Neon beer ads flicker on parked cars, old trucks
Daddy reluctantly stops for directions
He goes into the tavern.
Are we lost?
No. We just aren’t there yet.
Daddy drives slowly
No street lights no signs
The old road is dark, narrow, mysterious
Mossy oaks loom overhead reflecting
weak rays of yellow light from car headlights
Weary shacks line the road
Unexpectedly we pass grand fenced-in wooded lots with driveways to nowhere
Then modest houses and a few larger houses
The road ends abruptly.
Daddy stops, gets out, peers at the giant mailbox
He turns into the driveway
We’re there.
Deep South
moss-laden oaks, no blazing azaleas
Just heavy humid air, wealth next door to poverty, fiercely guarded secrets
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 10 March 2014
Google image – Springtime in Savannah, Georgia
March 3, 2014
Dear California Grandpa,
Summer 1951
I’ve been wanting to write you a private letter for a long time. Mother and Daddy won’t let me send you letters they haven’t read first. They don’t want me to tell you anything sad or anything about money. But I’m not going to show them this letter. It’s just for you. Read the rest of this entry »
January 6, 2014
The Shopkeeper | Part 2 of 2
This episode in my life was a smelly, rotting stench in me all the way through school, college and my first years of marriage. Even after I told my husband about it, I still smelled the old man regularly and without warning. It was a living, breathing, stinking rotten nightmare.
Despite this, I never wrote it down or reflected on what it reveals about me, much less about my relationship to my parents. I simply tried to put it away and let the past be the past. Done. Over. Finished. Time to move on. Read the rest of this entry »
December 30, 2013
The Shopkeeper | Part 1 of 2
Some things are just plain wrong. No grand theological framework, no appeal to the Bible, and no wisdom of the church or its elders can ever make them right. Read the rest of this entry »
December 27, 2013
Dear Dad,
I need to write this letter to you, but I don’t know where to begin. So much happened to me and in me when I was a child and teenager. I need to talk about this out loud and without shame. The only way I know to do that right now Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 