Taking a break from the present moment (thank god) to offer up the prologue from my memoir for you EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE (still in process sigh) . . . at this moment these special gifts are exclusive for my paid subscribers. If you are feeling it, take the plunge & come sit with me even more deeply 💞 It means a lot to receive support from all of you . . . no worries if now is not the time but I will miss you here in the sanctuary of the love palace 😘
I was born loving and being loved.
An infant geisha, I could never shut up, but I am making a deal with myself that from now on I will only tell the stories of love that I remember.
I’m also making a deal with myself not to be mean. Intentionally.
In the daytime, I was always in charge. When I was 4, I started a flying school in my backyard. We lived in the suburbs then. The children ran on the picnic table and jumped off. I coached from beside the corral I made from the loose benches, where I kept the rest of my students. They listened to me. I was courageous and defiant in the face of adults. I believed in my students. I believed we all could fly if we tried hard enough.
In the evenings I lay awake with the light on. I begged my parents not to turn it off. I couldn’t sleep whether the light was on or off, but it was always better and more distracting from myself to have some kind of commotion in the room. I counted the hours of the night by the half hour sitcoms leaking from my mother’s bedroom across the hall where she lay on the bed eating halvah and pastrami sandwiches. Many hours into the night my father would come home from work. I would whimper a little and he would come in, turn the lights off and sit on the edge of my bed. I remember his voice was kind even though he was tired. He drove in and out of the city everyday, early in the morning and late at night.
I remember another time, when I was much smaller; I would go to sleep before the sun went down. I could hear kids playing in the street below my window. I would pretend to go to sleep right away, and then wake up a little later and scream, like jumping off a cliff, I made myself believe it. My mother would come. I remember saying I thought the house was on fire. These were the things I was afraid of: my parents dying, fire, people turning into animals, the open ocean with no shoreline, the car back-firing, bridges, the dark, sleeping, not being able to sleep.
I remember one time my father came into the room and left an Indian chief headdress next to my lamp. Although I could see him, I watched him in the mirror. The light was on, I pretended to be asleep. My room was pink and white. I could feel his sadness and, as much as I tried to stop it, it filled my small body.
For years the mirror in my bedroom was the only place, a private world where I could look at myself. It was talking to myself in that mirror where I began to consciously teach myself about love. When I looked into my own eyes, I realized I understood.
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