There are muscle memories lodging within my nervous system that my poor West Virginia farm girl mother never knew she was creating in me. Mom had to step up and just hustle me out the door to muster my strength wherever she needed me to go or do her bidding. There was no coddling in stepping up. My father was the loving parent, yes I might personify him yet my mom said he was finally ready to be a dad. She now needed my loving nature to bolster her fear. I became that partner.
I was told my dad had traveled the country with her when he was a traveling salesman. They had fun together dancing on tables. She only had a g string under her skirt. Wild she was. A girlfriend and she traveled somehow across the country to California themselves from West Virginia. Now she had to grow up and be the sole support of my brother and I at a time when women stayed home and their husbands worked, outside the home. We had moved to a middle class neighborhood and we were to be growing up there together in our supposed family home.
I began longing and painting then writing to capture my thoughts and needs, while looking for how to define myself. Writing and painting was carrying me through my unknown self. I had such strong reactions to my life, yet I couldn’t articulate them. I have heard if it’s “hysterical it’s historical”. I am far too polite to be hysterical, far too blocked, and far too focused on the needs of others. To let loose and be free enough in unrestrained thoughts and emotion found in historian had to wait. This hard wiring often found its way to parts of my body's holdings. My joking humor was to compensate for my inner conflicts. I often find my words and art surfacing tangentially or abstractly as I search for definition. My straight lines were forgotten as I waited and kept looking and longing.
Today as I worked on my recent injury I focused on centering my core and strengthening my legs. When I realized what I was feeling in my legs after being asked was not a simple burn, after I exercised. I knew in my awareness that it was as if my legs were looking for engaging without the strength I needed. Then I wanted to search to make peace with my fear about my legs. I realized my mother had always taken a ruler to my legs. Crying for me had not been an option, I had to be tough. My brother was leaving for Korea for the GI bill a year after my fathers death. I was alone with my mother to face her emotions. I knew I had the same lack of engagement with my tears and fears about my legs. I was a child then and I couldn’t allow myself to cry. with my mothers strength over me. This was a new layer to embrace in my wholeness and my wild nervous system and behavior.
One of my jokes is that I have been playing Football all my life and body without a gamebook. I had my mother's reactions lodged within.
