Not Every Story

In the last few years I’ve tried to make more of a go at this writing thing. 

It would be easy if it weren’t for time, responsibilities, life, work, parenting the most amazing Tiny Human ever, general exhaustion, and probably more things I can’t remember right now due to general exhaustion.

It’s almost 2am as I write this. I woke up, didn’t have any coffee until late in the day, had a full and busy day, worked for a few hours, did household chores, and now with the last few minutes I have before passing out to get ready to do it all again I am trying to write words that make any sort of sense. 

I’ve gotten in the habit of making a note in an app on my phone if I think of something writing or project related so I don’t lose the thought looking for a pencil and paper or if I’m already in bed. A couple nights ago I had an idea that I thought was brilliant and would make a great story, novel, Netflix limited series, feature film, and possibly be grafted into the MCU (because it seems like everything is part of the MCU lately). 

Later, in the light of day, I looked at my notes and sat down to write it. I outlined, I sketched characters, I did all the things the podcasts tell me to do when starting a new writing project. I worked on it a little and didn’t like the direction it was going so I changed it up. Same result. After a couple more days of kicking the idea around and attempting different approaches I gave up. 

I may dust it off some day if I need a flash fiction piece or something but I think as quirky of an idea as it is, it’s not right for me at this time. Does that mean I stop trying to write completely? Of course not! It just means I move on to another quirky idea and/or back to a project I’ve already made some progress on and have a solid direction and trajectory. 

So for now, my story of a nice retired couple who buy an RV and drive around to garage sales in the midwest and then go on a Bonnie & Clyde style robbery and murderous rampage will just have to take it’s place on the back burner. 

Christmas 1989

Retail therapy can help heal the past.

Rei Momo, the album by former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne is one of the few specific Christmas gifts I remember getting from my dad. 

Growing up, my mom and the extended family I lived with were pretty religious about some things but not everything. “Secular” music was evil, most popular toys were inspired by satan and came directly from the pits of hell, and books that were not written by explicitly christian authors were frowned upon. There’s a whole other story about a book called “Turmoil In The Toybox” and the time my mother insisted I get rid of all my Lord of the Rings books because they were full of wizardry and witchcraft only to get something from a local christian college about the virtues of J.R.R. Tolkien a few weeks later. Yeah, it was a mess and I have spent more time and money than I care to admit repurchasing some items that were unnecessarily discarded. 

[SIDE NOTE: I bet if I were to ask my mother about the LotR books incident today she would claim to not remember.]

My dad left before I was old enough to have memories of him and before I was old enough to know that there were supposed to be two parents. I guess he did me a favor by leaving before I was old enough to know he was supposed to be there. I would see him every other weekend (when he remembered or lived close enough to make the trip to see me) and we’d listen to all sorts of music that was considered secular and evil by the home folks. He listened to Talking Heads and I liked the music too. He made copies of tapes and taped some of his records and I would listen to them on the school bus or when what I was listening to wasn’t being monitored. You know, the whole “evil secular music” thing.

Rei Momo came out in October of 1989. My dad had it on cassette and we’d listen to it if he remembered to come pick me up to stay overnight on a Friday night. I liked the album. I was sure it wasn’t the same old rock music that my peers at school listened to. No, I was the only one who knew about this and I felt special. In the know. I remember opening the album in a dingy, smoky apartment in Aurora, Illinois on Christmas Eve 1989 and even as I was opening it, I knew it would be tricky to get it in the house unnoticed. That’s a pretty shitty feeling for a kid to have after getting a record they like for Christmas, but it was my shitty reality. 

After I was dropped off back at home the joy of owning my very own copy of Rei Momo lasted all of 15 minutes before my busybody aunt who was the bane of my existence growing up and has faithfully continued to fulfill that role to this day. 

Religion can bring out the worst in people.

He dropped me off probably later than the agreed upon time and I went inside with my overnight bag and gifts. I don’t remember anything else I got that year but I remember that record. 

You know how some memories from childhood stick with you even though they only be traumatic to you personally, not traumatic on a tangibly measurable scale or anything, well, what happened next falls on the first part of that scape - personally traumatic. 

I walked in, said hello to my mother and whoever else was there, and began recount my hours away and what I had gotten for Christmas. Before I knew what happened, Carol grabbed the bag of presents and start to go to the second floor to review them before giving her opinion on them (which to this day I still have no idea why it was so important that she had a say on every fucking thing I did). I heard her walk up the first couple steps and sit down around the corner before starting to rifle through the few presents in the bag. In the time it took me to realize what was happening and what was about to happen I turned the corner to see Carol looking at the liner notes and lyrics and then yell to my mother in the other room, “hey Deb, this isn’t good, it should go out to the can tonight.” And just like that, the busybody struck again and my mother who has a long (and disturbing) history of going along with whatever is the easiest and is the least resistance complied and my brand fucking new record went out to the trash and I was crushed. And betrayed. 

Betrayal is a theme I started noticing the more I started writing these cathartic pieces. 

The same relative responsible for the unnecessary disposal of my original copy of Rei Momo has been problematic for as long as I can remember. It seems odd that a relative who was approximately 18 years older than me would feel the need to be not only antagonistic but also strangely competitive with me. I am only now as I try to put these experiences into words discovering how truly fucked up my family and childhood was. Definitely not normal stuff. 

She’s always been a busy body - injecting herself into social situations and making it deeply awkward by not reading the room - or worse, not caring for anything but her own fleeting feelings. This is the same person that was the reason I had to stay in a hotel for my last week in Chicago before moving to New York in 2016. After having years to do something, she decided one afternoon to talk to a flipper and sell the house and I had a matter of hours to pack and ship my stuff. I didn’t have the opportunity to say goodbye to some Chicago friends because she threw a fit that hijacked the rest of my last weekend before moving and once again, my mother sat idly by, head in hands, and did nothing to stand up for me or intervene. 

The “best” part about religious family members is that even when they treat you horribly or do really fucked up stuff their default is “I don’t remember” or “I pray you can forgive me” or some equally milquetoast response. 

All that to say I found a copy of the album on eBay and picked it up for a decent price and that acts of second-hand retail therapy has become a common practice in working through and healing from my past. 

Into Darkness

I know I’m a writer if for no other reason than I have a massive horde of notebooks I will probably never completely use and I start a new file for every story idea and get about 800 to 1,000 words into a synopsis before I remember some other critically important thing I must do at this exact moment and proceed to completely forget about the New Shiny until the next time I open the program I use for writing and see the last shiny idea looking at me like a one night stand I never called the next day. 

One thing I’ve noticed over the past few months is that when I start putting down words for one of the New Shiny ideas it always starts fun and quirky and positive and upbeat and hopeful and then I have the “what if…” thought and then everything turns to darkness. Murder, betrayal, death, not dismemberment yet but it’s probably coming sooner or later, crime sprees, and other assorted darker parts of society and the human psyche. 

Why the majority of the projects I start take this dark turn I have yet to figure out. Not that there’s anything wrong with horror or dark fiction but since I’ve never been a fan of those genres it always seems a little out of left field to me that in an aggressively normal plot and story line to suddenly throw in, “what is the absolutely most fucked up thing I could do to these perfectly nice characters?”

Maybe I’m taking out aggression or maybe the darkness was always there but afraid to peek out because reality was already fucked up enough. Maybe one day I’ll finish at least one of the projects I have in progress and if I’m lucky the world can read my words and decide for themselves if it’s too dark or nah.

Checking the News

Shortly after I moved to New York my mother and her middle sister sold my childhood home in Chicago and moved to a small town in Indiana. Her youngest sister had just retired there with her husband and their two adult children moved to the same town shortly after. 

It was fine at first. We were in Chicago for a weekend around her birthday and drove down to have lunch. My mother came to New York for her granddaughters birth and then came back for a couple weeks after she was home from the hospital. Totally normal stuff.

She had even bought a ticket to come visit for Joni’s first birthday but covid happened and all travel plans were canceled. 

Fast forward to present day. Things are still dangerous but there are vaccines available for those that want them. 

She does not. 

Nor does anyone she is in frequent contact with. Throw into the mix an elementary school age child who is around every afternoon after going to in-person school and riding a school bus and others of adult age who for no reason other than classic small town dumbfuckery do not want to be vaccinated and I’m pretty sure it will be years before I see my mother again and years before she sees HER ONLY GRANDCHILD again. 

I practically begged her to get the vaccine and answered all of her misinformed notions but she is stuck on what she has heard (from sketchy sources) and claims she is being careful. 

I am hurt and disappointed and I am hurt for Joni. 

For a while I would try to have an idea what was going on in the town where she lives. Try to keep up on the covid numbers and how things were being handled but seeing the stories and how they were written and repeatedly making the mistake of reading the comments from the locals has proven too much for my own mental and emotional well being. Many of the comments are ignorant and uninformed and reinforce my fear that it will be years (if ever) before I see my mother again. 

So in an act of self-care and self-preservation I will no longer be checking the news for the backwards town where she lives. It won’t change anything if I know what’s going on there because she is going to make and have to live with the decisions she essentially allows to be made for her. 

It’s a strange and sad feeling to be an only child from a single parent family and still not be the priority and to feel like you and your feelings don’t matter. It’s a shitty feeling but one I’ve come to live with because it’s not a new feeling and one that I have come to terms with and nothing is going to change. 

I hope Joni gets to see her grandma again before she graduates kindergarten in a few years but right now it’s a crapshoot as to if that will happen.