three sisters

Sisters. It took the youngest two sisters 50+ years to figure it out. They had been played against each other by a master of manipulation. What should have been a close, nurturing, loving relationship took on the flavor of artists competing for the grand prize. They learned early on that only one could be the winner. The prize-giver kept both girls on edge, never knowing whether the day - or even the moment - would mean momentary victory or crushing defeat.

The oldest sister had escaped and left the two youngest to fend for themselves. She managed to cross to the other end of the continent - safe - at least for a while. But even from a distance, the master of manipulation kept her vying for the prize.

Maybe individual talents had been developed in response. Maybe the youngest was gregarious and entertaining because she learned early on that this disarmed the master of manipulation. Maybe the oldest developed musical talent and an amazing way with fabrics in an effort to finally gain the elusive prize of permanent approval. Maybe the middle sister developed her brain and her ability to store massive amounts of information in order to impress the master of manipulation. Or maybe they would all three have been this way even if the master of manipulation had not been so. Maybe they would have been the same - only happier.

The master of manipulation still reigns supreme. But the sisters have figured it out. They lost years and years of support and love for one another. But they will claim what is left. They will love each other and care for each other from now until death. It is decided.

big mike

Big Mike strolled over to the side porch and peeked around the corner real quick. Yep, Aunt Maimie was working Daddy's shirt through the roller, getting the water out. At her feet was a big basket full of other just-washed things. If he stepped out now, the next 20 minutes would be wasted hanging out wash.

He eased backwards through the front door of the summer house and walked as quietly as he could down the shotgun hall to the back of the house. If he cut through the copse of pine trees, he could circle around that way and Aunt Maimie would never even know he'd been there. He had something to do that could not wait. The excitement propelled him forward.

quirky

There can be no doubt that I am a quirky individual. In fact, I take great pride on being an individual who lives in an authentic way. When I catch myself "faking" anything, the realization is always accompanied by shame. And, of course, I am human and imperfect, so there will be those moments!

I'm 55. But I can look back over my life and see a pattern of quirkiness. My earliest years (1959-1964) were spent in Japan as the daughter of missionaries. My hair was so blonde that is was almost white. I stood out!!! It was not uncommon for Japanese people to touch my hair and exclaim about how soft it was and what an interesting color. I'm quite sure that I absorbed the message that I did not belong! I was quirky.

My personality was beginning to form during this time. My parents tell me that I had an astonishing level of energy, unlike anything they had seen with their first three children. I would never stop moving all day long and would resist bedtime until finally I would simply collapse from exhaustion wherever I happened to be. I was also an entertainer. A recording of me telling the Goldenlocks story is now lost, but was a hilarious insight into my 4 year old personality. You can hear my oldest sister, 8 years my senior, attempting to guide me through the telling. I keep saying "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in a very dramatic way, making it very clear that it is ME telling this story!!!

First grade found the family in Massachusetts, where my extremely poor English made me an easy target for the cruelties of children. I spoke Japanese fluently, but avoided saying anything because that only led to misery. There was no winning. I was the outsider and would be for all of our four years there.

But if I thought that was bad, I was totally unprepared for the next move to Georgia. My English was fine by then, but any Southern person can tell you that kids how move there from Massachusetts have a whole different set of challenges to face! The Boston accent! The lack of familial connection to anyone there! The inability to identify a hushpuppy! It was murder.

When you're on the outside looking in, the only people who embrace you are other people who are on the outside looking in. So it's no surprise that both in Massachusetts and in Georgia, my circle of friends included other misfits. We were ALL quirky! And together, we helped each other feel normal.

Georgia was my home from 5th grade through 9th grade. In 1973, we moved again to North Carolina. Again, I found myself on the outside looking in. But it was easier. I was learning to ignore people who didn't like me. Instead, I adopted an "I don't care" attitude and used my energy to identify people who DID like me! I graduated high school with a handful of high school friends and a wider circle of friends who were older.

College was easier. There were lots of quirky people there! We formed "The Family", with pseudo-marital and familial relationships that created a complex family tree. But we all loved each other, quirkiness and all!

moon pies

My family moved from Georgia to North Carolina just prior to the beginning of my 10th grade year. The move was quite mind-boggling. In Georgia, I had been close enough to the big city of Atlanta to be exposed to cutting edge music, innovations in the distribution of marijuana and even national and international trends and ideas.

Entering the quiet and closed, rural part of North Carolina to which we moved was like going backwards in time. The people with whom I interacted had very little awareness of the wider world. They would often stare at me with widened eyes as I talked about one thing or another. I was a musician and quickly found a band, which then led me to take up with one of the guitar players. I was 15 and he was 19. His friend sold pot out of his house. He would buy kitchen matches by the case, throw the matches away and pack the empty boxes with pot. When I showed him plastic baggies and suggested a scale to weigh the bags, he behaved as if I had just invented sliced bread. Years later, when I read Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, I totally understood how it felt to have people be in awe of you for knowings things that were common knowledge in the place from which you had come.

One thing I didn't know about was Moon Pies. I'm sure they were sold in Georgia. But in North Carolina, they were iconic. "RC Cola and a Moon Pie" was often mentioned as if it was mana of the gods. There were even songs written and recorded about the duo. But as often as I heard of the two as a pair, I do not recall ever seeing someone consume the items together. Within my own family, we were strictly Coca-Cola loyalists. The one taste of RC Cola I ever had just did not measure up. But I did eat plenty of Moon Pies during my years in North Carolina. They were huge, so one would be a sufficient snack that would stay with you for a while. And everybody's mother kept them stashed in the pantry.

My best friend, Linda, who no longer speaks to me because she is ashamed of our wild teenage activities, had a mother who would greet us as we walked in the door by reciting the entire contents of her kitchen. I can still hear her now. "Are ya'll hungry? I can fix you a ham sandwich. I got some Beanie Weanies. Ya'll want a Moon Pie? I can heat you up some soup. We got chicken and stars or chicken noodle. Ya'll want some Ritz crackers." The list would go on as we sidled past her and into Linda's room, politely declining each offering. "No ma'am. We're not really hungry. No thank you. Maybe later. Thank you, no, we're not all that hungry." Once in her room, we would collapse into giggle fits that would not stop. If the giggles started to run out, one of us would say "I got some Beanie Weanies", and we would crack up again.

My high school years were difficult because I felt like a fish out of water. There was really nobody I felt a true kinship with. (Even Linda seemed provincial to me.) I was unable to keep my mouth shut and would challenge teachers and refuse to be dominated. The great teachers attempted to challenge and guide me. The horrible teachers sought to stifle and punish me. And my classmates were mostly locals who had spent their entire lives together. I was strange and new, which in the south often translates to WEIRDO. Anything that is DIFFERENT is observed, but only rarely embraced. It was a strange three years! Thankfully, my college years were amazing, with a great group of friends and plenty of joyous experiences.

tutus

It was 1995. My best friend's daughter (Caroline) was backstage somewhere with the rest of her dance class, probably being herded like cats in a holding area by desperate teachers straining to contain little girl excitement, which from my experience is prone to burst out in ear-splitting shrieks at the slightest provocation. Jane and I were sitting with my son, age 8, suffering through dozens of other performances in order to see her daughter's group dance. I was in my mid-30's and still a little vain, so I typically only wore my glasses to read a menu or a book. This meant that the little girls on the stage were slightly blurry shapes in various pastel colors. If I squinted, I could make out their features ... a little.

The truth was that I needed to be wearing those glasses all the time, but I wouldn't admit that for at least two more years when I returned from a trip to Williamsburg, Virginia, and was horrified to find that with the help of the dim period lighting of the restaurants, I had tipped between 6% and 35%, leaving behind service personnel who either felt like lottery winners if I had imagined that a zero was an eight or victimized if I had imagined that a six was a zero. Oh well. Sorry!

But on this particular night, yet another performance NOT featuring Caroline was taking shape on the stage. The Tchaikovsky began and from the wings came a line of four rather large girls in the classic hand-over-hand hold that we all remember from every Nutcracker performance of all time. I leaned forward and squinted, thinking they were too old for this recital, trying to make out what I was seeing. I whispered to Jane, "Are those girls? They're kind of big." Jane stifled laughter and whispered back, "It's the adult class." Well, what in the WORLD would possess middle-aged women to don white tutus and dance out onto a stage? I simply could not believe it. I couldn't really see them well enough to confirm what she was saying, so I whispered back, "Are you serious?" She laughed and answered, "Yes!" At that point, my son hissed at me, "Mommmmmmmm, puleeeeeaaase, you're embaaarrrrrassing meeeeee!"

I looked around. People were looking at me. Well, this was my very first children's recital. My son wasn't in any dance classes. He played soccer. They don't typically field middle-aged people during half time of a children's soccer game. So this was my first time experiencing what, apparently, is a very normal thing in the South and, for all I know, everywhere else too. Otherwise normal, adult women sign up for ballet lessons alongside their daughters and granddaughters and they, too, prepare for recital night and perform their hearts out. I SWEAR I did NOT know!!! I'm sure in their hearts, they feel like little girls. Maybe they didn't get a chance to take dance way  back when and they're, By God, doing it now!

By the way, florists make a KILLING at these events. Every parent in the audience had a bouquet of flowers for their darling girl, as if each and every girl was the prima ballerina assoluta of the "company". Having a boy has saved me from making a fool of myself in a white tutu and spending my retirement funds on bouquets of flowers. Thank you, ex-husband Charlie, for the Y chromosome you helpfully donated to the cause.

pass the sugar, please

During my early twenties, I fell in like with a cute mechanic who had the energy of a tornado and was one of the happiest fellows I've ever known. He worked for a car dealership and specialized in that make of car, which made him a highly prized employee. At his slightly dilapidated house, he had a detached garage where he earned extra money working on people's cars. Rolando could also cook! I made the decision to move in with him when my own digs became unlivable due to the fact that my roommate was insane and was bringing home all sorts of trashy men who wandered aimlessly at all hours of the night. I would wake up and find a complete stranger staring down at me.

We were nowhere near the moving in stage of a relationship (and probably never would have been, given our very different backgrounds) but Rolando was not okay with leaving me in danger. He insisted that I get out of there and cheerfully helped me pack and move my belongings. Rolando had a heart the size of Texas, so he was welcoming and sweet.

Larry was one of his closest friends and was even more blue collar than Rolando. He and his wife, Faye, lived in a trailer park. We socialized with them on a regular basis. About once a week, we went to their home for dinner or they came to ours. Larry was a traditional blue collar man, had not finished high school and had very firm ideas about a woman's role in marriage and in the world. He was respectful to me, but I often felt like he wanted to haul off and belt me one for my sassy mouth. .

Faye was also a high school drop-out. She was extremely meek, rarely spoke if Larry was in the room and smiled only after giving a quick glance in Larry's direction to gauge whether it was appropriate. My heart ached for her. I was sure that he beat her, although I had no evidence of that. In one of the very rare moments when she and I were alone, she confided in me that they had been married five years and she had survived four miscarriages. I asked her what the doctors had said about it and she just looked nervous and shook her head. I didn't push. She had other medical issues too, which made her frail. When I found out that she was younger than me, I was shocked. She looked about fifteen years older!

One day, when Rolando and I were discussing having them over for dinner, I accidentally referred to them as "Fairy & Lay". We giggled and Rolando admonished me not to say that in front of Larry. But of course I talked about it when we were all together - and referred to them by the new moniker. I laughed about it as the silly mistake that it was. But Larry was not amused. His face got beet red and he screamed at me, "STOP SAYING THAT!" Everyone got very quiet. Rolando said, "Hey, now," in his sweet voice. Then Larry went outside. Faye sat at the table, frozen. "I'm sorry," I whispered, "Rolando told me not to say anything and I didn't listen." Rolando got up and went outside too.

We were finished with dinner, so I started clearing the table and Faye got up to help me. As we stood in the lopsided kitchen washing dishes, Faye said, "When he was little, the other boys teased him because he liked to draw. They called him a girl." I suddenly understood why "Fairy & Lay" might be horribly offensive, rather than just a slip of  the tongue. I also had a sudden acute awareness that my outspoken nature, while being a natural outcome of being raised by well-educated, liberal adults who encouraged debate, might be painful to someone who had been bullied as a child. What I had thought of as light banter probably sounded like barbed attacks to Larry. He was not equipped to handle a quick-witted debate and I had been abusive to engage with him that way.

That denouement was a hard one for me. In my mind, HE had been the abusive one and Faye was the probable victim. Now I had to confront the realization that I was, in fact, the abuser. Ouch. I dried my hands on a towel and went outside. Larry and Rolando were sitting on lawn chairs, beer cans in hand, watching the sun set over the meadow behind Rolando's house. I walked over to them. They both looked at me. "I'm sorry I upset you, Larry. I was being silly and I should have just shut up." He said, "Yeah, you should have." I waited, but realized I wasn't going to get anything else. That was just his way.

I would like to say that this incident marked the end of my tendency to engage in debates with a razor sharp edge to my words. Alas, I am still that woman. I manage to keep my mouth shut more than I open it, but anyone who knows me knows I have not kicked the habit completely. On my better days, I can awaken a spirit of loving kindness to guide my words and maintain civility. When I manage it, I am always hopeful that the more bitter me has been put away forever.

Rolando used to say to me, "pass the sugar, please," when I was being a little sharp-tongued. It was his way of gently telling me to change course. And it always worked. Sometimes I say it to myself when I feel myself getting worked up over something. I'm not as good at it as Rolando was, but I'm a fairly good imitation.

amahl and the night visitors

As a child, I was required to sit and listen to the Metropolitan Opera (sponsored by Texaco) on the radio every Saturday afternoon. Mother would allow us to read, play quiet games, draw or even lie still with our eyes closed, but we had to be in the living room for the whole opera. Mother did her best to make it exciting. Before the opera began, she would explain the story to us, sing a little of the music for key scenes so we would recognize what was happening when we heard it. She would also tell us a little about the composer and the musicians scheduled to perform that day.

I complained bitterly, of course. No other form of torture was quite as exquisite as the opera torture. I would whine and beg in my most theatrical voice and drag myself into the room on zombie legs, rolling my eyes and sighing heavily. Mother ignored my mini-operatic antics, determined to infuse us with some culture.

Years later, Mother would confess to me that she had originally dreamed of becoming an opera singer when she was a young girl. Her voice was a choir voice, not an opera voice, so she lived her dream vicariously through Joan Sutherland, Leontyne Price, Marilyn Horne and Jessye Norman.

My first exposure to Amahl and the Night Visitors was during this time, although I have no clear memory of listening to it on the radio. Mother had a record of the opera and we listened to it during the Christmas season every year that I can remember. And now I listen to it every year, because I have come to love the story so much. Amahl and I are old friends!

Here is a synopsis of the story:

Amahl, a disabled boy who can walk only with a crutch, has a problem with telling tall tales and, occasionally, lying. He is sitting outside playing his shepherd's pipe when his mother calls for him (Amahl! Amahl!). After much persuasion, he enters the house but his mother does not believe him when he tells her there is an amazing star "as big as a window" outside over their roof (O Mother You Should Go Outside; Stop Bothering Me!).

Later that night, Amahl's mother weeps, praying that Amahl not become a beggar (Don't Cry Mother Dear). After bedtime (From Far Away We Come), there is a knock at the door and the mother tells Amahl to go see who it is (Amahl ... Yes Mother!). He is amazed when he sees three splendidly dressed kings (the Magi). They tell the mother and Amahl they are on a long journey to give gifts to a wondrous child and they would like to rest at their house, to which the mother agrees (Good Evening!; Come In!). The mother goes to fetch firewood, and Amahl seizes the opportunity to speak with the kings.

King Balthazar answers Amahl's questions about his life as a king and asks what Amahl does. Amahl responds that he was once a shepherd, but his mother had to sell his sheep. Now, he and his mother will have to go begging. Amahl then talks with King Kaspar, who is childlike, eccentric, and a bit deaf. Kaspar shows Amahl his box of magic stones, beads, and licorice, and offers Amahl some of the candy (Are You A Real King?; This is My Box). The mother returns (Amahl, I Told You Not To Be A Nuisance!). Amahl is told to go fetch the neighbors (All These Beautiful Things; Have You Seen a Child?) so the kings may be fed and entertained properly (Shepherds! Shepherds!; Emily! Emily; Olives and Quinces; Dance of the Shepherds).

After the neighbors have left and the kings are resting, the mother attempts to steal for her son some of the kings' gold that was meant for the Christ child (All That Gold). She is thwarted by the kings' page. When Amahl wakes to find the page grabbing his mother, he attacks him. Seeing Amahl's weak defense of his mother and understanding the motives for the attempted theft, King Melchior says she may keep the gold as the Holy Child will not need earthly power or wealth to build his kingdom. The mother says she has waited all her life for such a king and asks the kings to take back the gold. She wishes to send a gift but has nothing to send. Amahl, too, has nothing to give the Child except his crutch. When he offers it to the kings, his leg is miraculously healed. With permission from his mother, he leaves with the kings to see the child and give his crutch in thanks for being healed.

The scene in which Amahl leaves with the kings (to go see the baby Jesus) is particularly poignant. It didn't stand out for me when I was a child. But now that I have a son of my own, I feel Amahl's departure in my very soul.

Mother: "Don't forget to wear your hat!"
Son: "I shall always wear my hat."
together: "So, my darling goodbye! I shall miss you very much."
Mother: "Wash your ears."
Son: "Yes, I promise."
Mother: "Don't tell lies."
Son: "No, I promise."
together: "I shall miss you very much."
Son: "Feed my bird."
Mother: "Yes, I promise."
Son: "Watch the cat."
Mother: "Yes I promise."
together: "I shall miss you very much."

I cry every time I hear this part. I know the pain of the mother, letting her child go. And I know the pain of saying good-bye to your mother. But then I imagine Amahl traveling to Bethlehem to visit the Christ child. I picture him standing in the stable, just behind the three kings, waiting for his turn to approach the baby. I imagine his eyes widening as he looks at Jesus for the first time, recognizing the awesome gift sent by God.

Every Christmas season, I look for Amahl in every nativity scene on display. He isn't always there. Sometimes there are no shepherds. Sometimes the shepherds are all grown men. But when I see a young shepherd boy, I always think, there you are, Amahl, my old friend! Am I not blessed to have such a friend?

furry reading

My cat is CEO of a fur production company, my ceiling fan is the distribution center and I am funding the entire operation. It is safe to say that the only thing in the house that is enhanced by the addition of cat hair is the cat. But still he soldiers on, eating his kibble and growing more orange and white hairs, then shedding them so the fan can do its work. I hate to admit it, but he’s stuck with this same job for almost thirteen years. The longest I’ve ever done the same job is six years, so I suppose I should show some respect.

This morning I resolved to read a book. I haven’t been reading books lately. Instead I’ve been playing Bingo on Facebook and watching television shows and movies that I recorded on my DVR. I am now so accustomed to fast-forwarding through commercials that it is agony to watch anything in real time. If I find myself watching something in real time, my index finger hovers over the fast forward key, itching to move things along. I’ll even hit the pause button when I get to the commercials and go do some task. This sometimes backfires on me if I am flipping back and forth between two shows and I forget I paused one, flip over to the other show, then flip back to find that I missed an entire section of the original show. I want to beat myself in the head with the remote control when that happens, but I can usually restrain myself.

Until a few years ago, I had over 1500 books in my house. I read every day and sometimes well into the night if it was a particularly good read. I enjoyed literature the best, but I could also go for the occasional mystery or suspense or even certain non-fiction.  I’ve often been deeply affected by a book, thinking brand new thoughts or feeling things I hadn’t realized I was feeling, or feeling stupid that I hadn’t known something or noticed something. There are a handful of books that have been life-changing.

But a few years ago, I found myself being transferred by my company for the fifth time in six years. I could not face packing all of those books again. Plus, I would be downsizing from a 3500 square foot house in Memphis to a 950 square foot loft apartment in Philadelphia. Something had to give! So I weeded through all of those books and got rid of all but about 150. I know that sounds horrifying to anyone who loves books! But I was careful to pass my books on to true book lovers.

So, why did I stop reading? I was working incredibly long hours and was exhausted when I got home. Facebook was easier and required less energy and thinking. Computer games allowed me to escape. Television was even better because it required no energy AND it allowed escape. There were lapses in my full stop. After I watched the first season of Game of Thrones on HBO, I immediately bought all of the books and read straight through them all. Fantasy isn’t my preferred genre, but I admit that I loved them. I did the same thing with The Hunger Games trilogy after I heard people talking about the books. Again, SF is not my preferred genre, but they were good, though not nearly as good as the Game of Thrones series.

So anyway, a switch was flipped in my brain this morning and I walked over to the bookshelves to peruse what is left of my collection. I settled on Growing Up in the South, An Anthology of Modern Southern Literature, edited and introduced by Suzanne W. Jones. The first piece is a selection from the autobiography of Harry Crews entitled A Childhood: The Biography of a Place. As I read it, I can feel my brain stretching just a bit. It is out of practice, since it has mostly been focused on Bingo games, television remote controls and a level 71 Undead Hunter named Amathyst. (Yes, the misspelling was intentional.) And I have even taken a break to write this.

Since it is late morning, the sun is shining in the window next to my chair. I can see individual cat hairs occasionally floating through a ray of sunshine. It makes me smile. That production factory may have been in operation for almost thirteen years, but I've been reading for over FIFTY years! Maybe I'm not as much of a flibbertigibbet as I originally thought!

bamboo memories

Hand in hand up the spiral staircase,
to where you would stroke my white-blonde hair

and tell me how sweet I was

and how much you wished

you could have a little girl like me.

Then to explain where and how you found me
to my distracted, bickering parents who,
caught up in their own melodrama, 

just sighed in relief to have me back home.

Did they thank you, rorikon?

And all these years later, 

your features are missing from my memory,

along with the painful details of just what you did.
But I remember you.

Oh, I remember you.

In each romantic assumption I made,
and in each failure to protect myself,
your hand continued to touch me

and your reassuring smile corroded my soul.

My skin must have been transparent
because others saw you there in my bones
and snatched me up as their victim,
adding detail to the branding you carved.

With every longing to find THE ONE
who would love me so absolutely,
your vile intentions continued
to burn me and keep me alone.

Late in life now, I still imagine you, rorikon.

But with other unfortunate angels to follow,
I’m sure you’ve forgotten me long since.
But I remember you.

Oh, I remember you.

the louvered door

Comparing notes with other writers is always a source of inspiration. Lately, we've been sharing our earliest recollection of writing and our first self-identification as "writer". I'd never really given the topic any thought, but I laughed when I realized that there WAS an actual beginning for me. And it's all thanks to my Mom.

My Mom was distracted, to put it mildly, when I reached my pre-teen years. She was newly divorced and was, no doubt, reeling from huge changes in her life. We had been a family of six, but in the course of a 12 month period, my oldest brother went off to college, my father moved out of the house and the next fall my oldest sister left for college as well. Then, Mom relocated me (age 9), my sister (age 10) and herself from Massachusetts to Georgia.

And there we were - all trying to recover from the shock of the multiple changes in our lives. My sister's reaction was mostly internal. But I managed to find a group of hoodlums to hang out with and at around the age of 12 began a multi-year effort to put myself in the most dangerous possible positions. This included associating with members of the Hell's Angels, going to late night parties after I was supposedly in bed, hitch-hiking all across the country and some experimentation with drugs. Today, I consider it a miracle that I made it through that portion of my life without having been raped or murdered.

But this post is not about those years. (Maybe later.)

Just prior to starting the 10th grade, Mom relocated us again, this time to rural North Carolina. And once again, I had to find a new group of friends. Although I had put my most dangerous behavior behind me at this point, I still hung out with "hippies". I played guitar and sang in a local rock band, I still smoked pot and I was still fearless, which at 15 should read DUMB. And, like most teenage girls, I kept a diary, in which I recorded my most secret thoughts, which included excruciating details of the moods and dialogue of whatever boy I was admiring at the moment. I kept that diary in a box, under some shirts, in the bottom drawer of my dresser.

I frequently played hookey from high school, sometimes to hang out with friends, sometimes just to hang out by myself at home. To say that I did not fit in at my rural high school was putting it mildly.  At that point I was pretty worldly, having seen and done far more than your average 15 year old. Add to that the ingrained racial segregation at the high school and it made for some unpleasant social experiences. I truly did not want to be there on any day.

One day, I stayed home from school and was sitting in my room playing guitar and singing. I heard a car in the driveway, hopped up to peek out the window and was shocked to see my Mom walking up the sidewalk towards the front door. I panicked and quickly made a decision to hide in my bedroom closet. I got the folding, louvered doors shut just in time. I was squatting in the most uncomfortable position you can imagine. I could just see out through the louvers. To my absolute horror, Mom walked straight to my room, opened the bottom drawer of my dresser, pushed the clothes back, opened the box and removed my diary.

She sat on my bed, flipped through some pages and began to read. It occurred to me that the turning of the pages was to pass the parts that she had already read. She had done this many times, I realized. I sat in furious silence as she read my most private thoughts. My brain whirled. What had I written? What was she now reading? I honestly could not remember.

Eventually, Mom closed the diary, returned it to the box, rearranged the clothes on top of the box and closed the dresser drawer. And, as quickly as she had arrived, she left, her heels briskly clip-clopping back down the walkway to her car. I painfully removed myself from that closet and snatched my diary out of its hiding place to read the whole thing from beginning to end. As I read certain passages, I felt psychic pain at the thought that Mom had read what I had written. I actually gasped and groaned  as I read.

For days after this event, I wrote nothing in that diary - not one word. On Sunday, as fate would have it, the Dear Abby column featured a young girl asking Abby whether it was right for her mother to read her diary, as she had caught her doing. Abby responded that parents should respect the privacy of their children and that her mother was very wrong to violate her privacy by reading her diary. I actually read the whole thing aloud to Mom at breakfast, then looked straight into her eyes and said, "I'm so glad that I have a mother who would NEVER do that to me." Mom did not even blink. That made me even madder!

So I began my campaign of revenge. Into that diary, I began to spin the wildest of tales. I wrote of possibly joining the carnival after meeting "Tim", a carny. I wrote of an opportunity to move to California to study with a swami. I detailed entire conversations that never took place. I described events that had never happened, usually involving jumping off of bridges or balancing on things that could lead to death if I fell. I wrote about shooting guns and learning to fight with a knife. I wrote about males that I had met who clearly wanted to do things to me and with me. These descriptions I would leave open, with a "should I?" ending.

This was the beginning of my creative writing. I wrote for the sole purpose of freaking my Mom out. I remember sitting and thinking, trying to come up with something suitably outrageous. And I would design my words for maximum shock value. It gave me great pleasure to come up with something really good. I would grin and laugh as I scribbled away. And that is the writing process, in a nutshell - trying to think of something really creative and writing it for reader response. The excitement of reading something you've written - and knowing you got it right - is really why we do what we do.

I have no idea if she ever read a word of it. Maybe I showed my hand with the Dear Abby column and she never did it again. Or, maybe she was smart enough to add the two things together and figure out that I was embellishing. Who knows? But it got me writing, which I have continued to do my entire life.

Interestingly enough, my views on the right to privacy changed when my own son started middle school and began to rebel. I told him flat out that it was MY house and that he could expect ZERO privacy. I told him I would be searching his room regularly, that I would read every word that I found and that I would confiscate anything and everything I found in the house that I decided he should not have. I have absolutely no qualms about this approach and highly recommend it as a parenting technique. After all, you need to know whether your child has plans to run off to California with a swami. This will allow you time to register him for band camp in order to circumvent his plans. A trumpet is an excellent diversion from California swamis and other potential distractions for teenagers. You can trust me on this.