In the late spring of a bitter windy day, I wiped the grits of sand from my face and stared down below to the foggy beach. This would be the first time I’d see flaccid bodies all lined up in a row, bloated and an almost-blue. I hadn’t wanted to watch or even glance a little. I’d wished to run away or at least close my eyes, but I had to see. This was another coming of a dream. Some seven days had passed, seven long days of waiting and wondering who would drown. I knew enough from my past and the way my dreams played out to realize death would be arriving on a Saturday—on a cold, cold Saturday.
I wondered as the workers desperately pressed and pumped on the already dying flesh, why life, or God, or whatever essence gave me these glimpses of future events, wouldn’t also go one step further and allow me to serve some purpose and exist as more than a detached helpless onlooker. Had I had a magic button to stop the dreams, I thought at the time I would have. But then I thought I would have missed the dreams in the way I would have missed my arm, or leg, or eye; the dreams were so much a part of me, a needed part, something I’d been born with which had served me in some sense; even though I couldn’t comprehend the reason, even though I cursed the visions and the following reality, I knew enough, innately or perhaps spiritually, to know the dreams were necessary.
The dreams would serve a higher purpose someday, I was told. Not directly, but in whispers, gentle reminders to be patient, to be watchful, and to wait. I would cry then, in my teens, in the same way I cry now, when the weight of the world is so heavy upon my shoulders that I wish for nothing but silence and the unknowing, to be like the mother across the street satisfied with her scrapbooking and classroom volunteering, and yearning for nothing more than the simple.
That’s what I longed for: the sweet simple.
Those dead bodies below on the beach had been a family, the emptied vessels now covered in black bags on the sands below had been minutes before living tourists who hadn’t heeded the warnings posted at Dead Man’s Beach about the dangers of the ocean currents and under-tow. One boy had fallen in off the rocks, and in response, each family member had leapt to their own death.
I have been terrified of the ocean, ever since the tragedy at Dead Man’s Beach. Add this to the horrific flesh-eating fish dreams I’ve had since I was three, and the time my mother’s boyfriend saw a shark take a chunk out of his best friend. (His friend died.) And I’ve been able to justify not going in the ocean for about twenty-five years.
Yesterday, I overcame my great fear of the sea. As I paddled out into the ocean on my surfboard, I was terrified. I trembled. I almost cried. I almost turned back. But I paddled onward.
I wasn’t planning on surfing at all while visiting Maui. But there I was, regardless of all my fears and misgivings, flat on my belly, in a borrowed, rather-stinky surf shirt, paddling over the waves. And I got up on my surfboard, not once, but at least five times and rode the waves.
They may have looked like little waves to the observer. But to me they were the biggest darn waves of my life.
I’ve realized I have spent much of my forty-some years living on my own Dead Man’s Beach. I’ve been counting my days. Worrying about lurking dangers. Terrified to be happy.
This evening, as I sat in a local bar having yet another fruity rum drink (a new thing for me), the musician played Here Comes the Sun, and I was brought back to a summer day in Oregon, when at the age of nine I was riding in the back of a pickup truck listening to that song. I remember at that age I had an intense feeling of happiness and freedom. It was one of the last times I remember feeling so elated.
Yesterday, when I rode the waves, I returned to that sunny day in the back of the truck. I walked off of Dead Man’s Beach and I found my sun again.
A wise man once told me that he asks everyday: “How can life get any better?”
Compared to my other posts, this is very mature. Part of my journey to wholeness and self-love has involved documenting events of my past. The short stories are a form of art work to me. They feel like art, as they are scribed through strong emotion and creative flow. However, the words are no longer a part of me. The little girl’s experiences are forever lost on the pages I typed.
This is not meant to be sad, but shared as a possible peer into another part of me—the melancholic artist, perhaps. Or a mature woman sharing her truth, so others know they are not alone. I have many pages of similar events, but shall not post on this blog because of the maturity-level. Someday the missing chapters, I suppose, may appear in book form as a collection of many of the thoughts in this blog.
The Sound of Nothing
My new sitter was Jessica Jensen. I called her Jess.
She was much the complete opposite of the obtuse and sedentary babysitter Mrs. Stockman. Jess was a long-limbed, freckled-faced high school freshman with thick reddish-blond hair and a ruddy face infested with whiteheads.
Initially, I wanted to make Jess my best friend, but Jess had different plans. She wasn’t mean or anything. She was actually quite tolerant. However, she was short of being my friend. During our time together, Jess feigned interest in me, in the form of an over curious stare or raised eyebrow, but within a few minutes she was focused on something else, like her fingernails or the person on the other end of the telephone. Nothing I said or did truly seemed to impress Jess. She thought I was smart and funny, and told me so. But her real interest was in her boyfriends and teenage mischief, all of which I was much too young to understand.
Jess was a roamer, and in a way I was her little naïve sidekick. I’m sure it crossed Jess’s mind several times to leave me behind somewhere, but to her credit she always kept me in close proximity. She didn’t know what she was doing most of the time. She was just some teenager from a broken, druggie home, who didn’t know better, a girl who had far too much freedom. We attended movies, where Jess covered my eyes so I wouldn’t see the full screen of naked breasts, and then afterward we’d hitchhike about town, bouncing from one kid’s house to another. Jess was in search of something, maybe an escape or a rush, something to make her forget about where she’d come from and what she’d seen.
I stood by Jess, no matter where she took me, because, like her, I had no choice. Choices are for bigger kids, once they realize they are worth something, once they know their value, once they can look at themselves and smile, liking what they see. Jess and I, we just hadn’t gotten there yet.
I followed Jess into a world that seemed a distant land from the home I once knew with my stepfather Drake. It was a place of no good and ugliness, a world with molding mattresses stretched out under the overgrowth of a beat up magnolia tree, where the backyard fence was bent and broken in all different places, where the house with the peeling yellow paint and exposed boards stank even from the outside, maybe even from the next house over—a raw smell, a dangerous smell that I imagine dogs would whimper and slink away from.
And there, I’d find her oldest brother, or better yet, he’d find me—a long-haired, high school dropout named Rick: a teenager roughened by an absent father and a strung out mother, scraped up all over on the inside like a bristle brush to stainless steel. An aimless boy who roamed a place where beer bottles lined the back porch and stray wild cats, some pregnant, some close to death, slithered in and out of open basement spaces like hairy serpents.
Inside Jess’ house were threadbare couches, half-busted televisions and food, but not the type of food anyone would want to eat, just leftover spoiled junk, crushed potato chips and cookie remnants, and bowls of sugary cereals molding in spoiled milk. It was the type of house that needed to be quarantined, sealed off with yellow tape and bulldozed down, or burnt into smoldering ash. No good was in the house. No good at all.
Rick liked to play doctor, a confusing game wherein he touched me in places a little girl should never be touched. And Jess, he’d do the same to her, that’s what I suspected, though I never said so. I just kept my mouth shut, let him do what he needed, and left, went out and found Jess, like nothing had happened. He never laid himself on me, nothing as crude as that, and he was just a child himself. He didn’t know any better; just like Jess, he didn’t know any better.
I didn’t feel nothing. No pleasure, no guilt, no disgust, felt like I would after playing a game of Twister or the Game of Life. That’s what it was, just another game of life.
One time, in the early spring, I clutched Jess’ hand in her backyard while watching the slimy-brown juices of chewing tobacco seep out the side of Rick’s cocked mouth. “Get the hell out of here!” Rick yelled, fixing his cold-hazel eyes on scowling Jess.
Jess stood her ground.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Rick continued, kicking up pebbles with his muddy old boots and letting loose a wall of dust. “Get the hell out of here!”
“You are an idiot,” Jess said. “It’s my backyard, too.”
“Screw you!”
Jess clenched her teeth. I stepped back and started counting the multitudes of dandelions. At the same time, Rick removed a chipped brick from an outdoor wall.
Jess screamed, “You’re going to get arrested!”
“Mind your own business,” Rick said with a heated gaze, adding more spit to the puddle in the dirt. “Just get out of my sight. Go back to humping your fat loser of a boyfriend!” With that said, he pulled out a dented tin box which had been stuffed in the space behind where the old brick had been. He then opened the box and pulled out a pile of compressed twenties. He fanned out the money, stopping to toss a smirk Jess’s way, and then shoved the box and brick back in place.
Jess squeezed my hand, and shouted again, “If Mother finds out, she’ll kick you out on your ass again!”
Answering back with a stiff middle finger, Rick headed out the busted back gate. “Whore!” he hollered from over the broken fence. “Stinking Whore!”
Jess turned round to find me. I gazed up at her and I thought for a moment she might grab some money for herself. Images of Budd’s ice cream cones and bean burritos danced in my head. But Jess didn’t take any money. She didn’t even go near the brick. Instead she led me inside her house to the grime-covered kitchen.
“Come on,” Jess said. “Let’s get out of here.” She grabbed a hotdog off of a plate and took a bite, then proceeded to chew with her mouth open. My mother taught me to always close my mouth while eating. I watched as Jess’ food slid about, until the hotdog moved to the side of her blushing cheek. “Now, what did you see? You didn’t see anything did you?” She swallowed and took another mouthful. A frantic look crossed her face. She paused between her words to chew. “Because… if you saw… or heard… anything… anything at all… it’s not… true.”
“I didn’t see anything,” I said, wide-eyed and innocent. I started counting with my fingers. I figured there was at least a few hundred dollars in the box.
Jess swallowed again. “Good. Good. Let’s go then. Come on.”
As Jess walked a few strides ahead of me, I could hear her disjointed whispers. A block away, she stopped and turned to me. “Never mind,” she said. “You’re too young to understand. It’s too late, just too late to do anything now.”
Further up the sidewalk, Jess stopped dead in her tracks. Her lacy halter flapped up in the wind. I reached over and attempted to pull her top down. She didn’t notice, and the wind blew the halter right back up again. Her sheer pink bra was showing. I studied the thin material. Jess faced sideways and cupped her hand to her ear. “Listen. Do you hear a police car? Do you hear that?”
I gazed into the crystal-blue of her wild eyes and considered what Jess had said. I didn’t hear anything. We waited without moving, stood still—didn’t move an inch, just like those pill bugs do when they’re playing dead. For a few seconds I believed Jess might well be a bionic babysitter endowed with supernatural hearing. I waited patiently for the sound of the police siren or the sight of a patrol car. I waited and waited, but in the end there was nothing.
I think part of my condition on this earth is my utter fear of human beings.
I don’t mean this to sound negative or like a joke. I seriously think my main issue in my life is PEOPLE. This is a problem. People are everywhere.
It’s not that I dislike people. I love people.
I fear something I love. This love/fear dynamic can be compared to my love of food and fear of expanding the spare tire around my waist and/or my chin line. Though people do not inflate me, they deflate me.
I’m a sponge of sorts, soaking up people’s troubles and holding troubles, and then releasing the troubles; only in the process I get weighed down, troubled myself, and depleted in energy reserves. I suppose part of this current sponge experience is a result of my previous learnings.
What I’ve Learned
I learned through observation that if I acted kind and carefully, people wouldn’t hurt me, usually.
I learned that if I didn’t act a certain way, I would be teased or ostracized.
I learned that some people could find me and affect me no matter how I acted.
I learned that if I shared from my heart, I would be misunderstood.
I learned that if I was me, I could become invisible.
I learned to play games.
I learned to blend in.
I learned better to blend in than to stand out.
But then I longed to stand out.
I longed to be noticed and I longed not to be noticed.
I didn’t know what place was in between my longing.
Where to stand?
Sometimes I became beautiful through others’ eyes.
Through my physical beauty, I gained attention.
Attention that never felt real or pure.
Attention I longed for nonetheless.
My physical beauty aged and youthfulness faded.
I learned that people notice what they want to notice and take what they want to take.
They like a piece or part of me and then when the section no longer serves them, they leave.
They leave the part, and in leaving, they leave the whole of me.
I learned I desperately wanted love, but I wasn’t supposed to ask for love.
I wasn’t supposed to appear weak.
If I wanted love, I needed to appear strong, as if I didn’t want love.
As if I was completely satisfied in being in isolation.
I never understood this illusion of strength in aloneness.
Why people pretended they were not frightened.
Why people pretended they were an entirety, when in truth they were only an ingredient.
I don’t know if there is anything else that permeates the depths of my soul like the fear of people. Beyond the pretending and questions, perhaps my depletion occurs is the energy I pick up. The health symptoms of others I take on, the friends and relatives, and sometimes strangers who visit me in my dreams. Perhaps my fear stems from the humiliation of my youth or the loss of loved ones. Whatever the cause, from wherever this fear was rooted, it remains a tall plant intertwined within my very being. I see sucker plants sticking, prickly burs stuck. I see small specks of blood. I see rough, sword-like leaves stabbing and cotton ball seeds blocking. These are the people stuck in and about me.
I don’t know why. I don’t think I want to know why. But I do wish to change this reality. I do wish to know without question that people are not to fear. I don’t want to think about how to do this. Don’t want a plan of action or a list. I don’t want to try to change things anymore. Trying doesn’t work. I just want to believe. I want to shift. This is my reality. Shifting the fear to love.
I took out a box today from my closet marked: Spectrum Intuitive Teachings, a small box that I’d shoved in the back of my daylight basement closet months ago, without second thought. I was done with my business, my successful business. I had to quit, so I thought, because, I wasn’t doing the right thing according to someone in the world. Just like that I changed my life, believing I should not do what I’m doing.
I shoulded on my self. My fear has led me to should on my self a lot.
I’m still processing my actions. What was I thinking? Why did I change my life to please a stranger I’ve never even met? Why did I compromise? Why did I change?
I have these chameleon tendencies. I was not born a lizard. But I act like one. I change colors adapting to my environment, change appearance in hopes of blending in and not being spotted.
What is so bad about being spotted?
The fear.
And so at the heart of me is fear.
At the core penetrating my every action is fear.
Today, I release this fear.
I choose to transform this fear.
I have no one to fear.
Even though the voices shout loudly: Fear You. Fear Them. Fear. Fear. Fear. I know these are untruths.
I know much of what I learned are untruths.
Today, I untangle the untruths—a giant ball of intertwined string.
I let the untruths spiral out down a long staircase, to disperse, to lessen, to unravel, until all that remains is a long string of blue.
And then, seeing clearly and easily, I snip away at the string.
I create little pieces of untruths.
In my hands I gather the clippings.
The tiny, tiny remains.
I blow with my spirit breath.
Disperse them into the air.
The angels come now.
Take the strings away to their nests in the sky.
Where the strings are used to house the young ones.
The innocent.
The newborn.
The strings transform and serve as comfort and shelter.
I transform my giant core of fear into sheltering love.
Ben stood up straight, his ears crimson, his voice hoarse. “Damn it! How dare you say that in front of a child! What are you thinking? Are you an idiot? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Now, although I was completely mortified and feeling the strong urge, despite my stomach cramping, to crawl under the hospital bed and never come out, I have to say, Ben impressed me. Not in the way a parent impresses you by throwing you a birthday party and inviting all of your friends over to stay the night, nor in the way a child feels proud when a parent attends the school’s career day and knocks the socks or your classmates. No, it wasn’t the type of impressive behavior that summons thoughts of coolness and grandiosity. Ben’s behavior more so brought images of a fearsome bear standing on her hind legs with claws erected to protect her cub. It was a scary image, quite terrifying actually—though none could deny that somewhere deep inside the man who was set upon a blind-rampage, huffing and puffing away at every hospital staff member within his path, that there was at least somewhere hidden a jewel of compassion.
It didn’t take long for Ben to pack up my things, usher Mother and me out of the building, and drive thirty miles across the state to another hospital. Sadly for Ben, by then hospital visiting hours had past and the nurses insisted Ben and Mother leave. And thus I was made to stay in a strange place, miles from home, without a soul I knew, replaying in my head all the horrific ways my death might play out…
This story can be found in the book Everyday Aspergers
Everyday Asperger's 