Room 109

I had a series of roommates over the semesters, none of which would stay the whole time.  Daria tried twice, but never made it a full semester.  Her seizures were too severe.  She collapsed on campus twice and ended up being put in the hospital, waking up each time in the Psych. Ward.  The Doctors did not know what to do with her.  She would call her parents and they would come and get her out.  I had a roommate who was recovering from Anorexia and had a psycho boyfriend.  She didn’t last long either.  My last semester my assigned roommate didn’t show up, again.  So I lived most of my time in room 109 there by myself.

My first semester there, I had been there about two weeks, when the homesickness, the loneliness, and the feeling of being abandoned just became overwhelming.  I went to see my dorm mother.  She asked me a question I pondered for most of my college years.  She said, “Why are you here?”  I couldn’t answer her.  I didn’t know.  I went to college, because that is what I was told to do.  I had no idea what I wanted in life, and no idea what would happened to me after I graduated.  I fumbled around in the dark, and finally found my way.  After understand the rigors of a life in the food industry and that I didn’t want to run my own restaurant or become a chef, I fell in love with Sociology, mainly because of my professor Dr. Sarah.  When she came in one class dragging an imaginary pink elephant, she had me hooked.  The moral of that story is that even if it not real, and I think it is, it has an effect on all those that interact with me.

It took a while, but I began to make friends.  Many who’s pictures I have, and don’t remember their names, Meg Landry from Abbeville, the girl at the front desk of my dorm from Africa, Debra Fowler and her friend David, and the immortal Gamboa brothers from Paraguay. 

Life on the halls was interesting.  We would all sit in the floor and drink, smoke, eat, and play Skipbo till 2 in the morning.  My neighbors became my friends.  I met my first Jewish person, who lived down the hall.  She converted to Druidry, that was the first time I ever heard the word.  I had nothing to do with that.  Some of the ladies were afraid of bugs and would call me to kill them for them.

Bancroft dorm had a twin, which sat just a hundred feet from it.  It was called Denbo.  I got to know the girls on the first floor there.  Many of them were blind, and several had guide dogs.  I fell in with the ladies.  One lady, Alison and I became pretty close.  She was in my math class, which I was of course failing.  Trying to explain Algebraic equations to a blind person is very hard, worse when you make a mistake.  Many times, if Alison did not have her cane, I would guide her.  She would put her hand on her shoulder and we would walk.

I would read the blind ladies textbooks to them, until they arrived on tape.  One of the ladies had a guide dog.  She had lost her eyes as a child, and had glass eyes.  Every now and again she would look at me and say, “Hey are my eyes straight?”  If they were not, she would knock herself in the side of her head until her eyes were centered.  Weird, but it worked.  She was an awesome crocheter.  One year she gave me a cross bookmark she had crocheted.  I have long since rid myself of all Bibles and Christian things in my house.  But I kept that bookmark, as a reminder of a friend who’s name I don’t even remember. 

When I first went to live in South Louisiana it is a bit of a culture shock.  I had to convince most of the young ladies from South Louisiana, that I was from Louisiana as well, even thought I was not Catholic, did not speak French, and talked funny.  One told me, “Oh you are from up in the hills.”  It never occurred to me that North Louisiana was hilly compared to the flat lands of South Louisiana.  I kept a map in my room of Louisiana and a blown up sections of where I was from.  So I could show people.  Most of them did not consider Shreveport to be part of Louisiana.  

I have talked before about my love for Jeff Foxworthy, who was just making it big about that time.  Jeff, bless him, took the power out of the word Redneck, by helping people laugh at it, we reclaimed it as ours.  This word, that had been used as a slur when I was growing up, and was not said in polite company.  I decided to become the “Redneck Ambassador” to USL.  I even printed up a sign and put it on my dorm room door.  I educated others, on the differences between our two cultures.  It was all very tongue and cheek. 

Now everyone in South Louisiana is Catholic.  Even if you are not Catholic, you are Catholic.  You learn to do all the little idiosyncratic things that Catholics do, from years of training, without even knowing it.  I was riding on the USL bus one day, going to the sports complex.  We passed by church and suddenly everyone, without saying a word to each other, crossed themselves.  It was the weirdest thing.  I had to ask and was later told that yes everyone crossed themselves going past a church, because that is where the Eucharist was held.  The part that is not used, is place in an ornate box.  Because it has already been transformed into the body of Jesus, it is considered holy or sacred.  When people pass by the church, they make the sign of the cross, in acknowledgement of the sacredness of this. 

Other Catholic things crept into my life.  My blind girl-friends in Denbo, taught me to say the Rosary.  Some of them prayed to a particular Saint that their sight would be restored.  When Palm Sunday came, you took a palm home, and kept it as good luck.  I learned to cross myself when I passed the church, so no one would know I was not Catholic and look at me funny.  There is a lot of discrimination there, if you are not, just like I encountered in Ebarb, many years later.  You crossed yourself when a funeral went past.  You took a knee before you got in the church pew.  You celebrated Mardi Gras, whether you were Catholic or not.  Then you gave up something during lent, and ate fish on Fridays.  I never noticed till I came home that most small restaurants that serve lunches,  serve fried fish on Fridays, whether it is Lent or not. 

Most people spoke a little French or their grandparents did.  Their parents would speak in French when they didn’t want them to know what they were talking about.  I learned quickly about the language, although I can’t speak it, except for a few things.  I noticed everyone kept calling me “Chei,” and “Boo.”  I remember calling my Dad and saying, “I don’t know why but everyone keeps calling me Cher and saying Boo, and it’s not Halloween yet.”  My father explained that they were love names.

I learned about Catholicism.  I also learned about the food.  All food in South Louisiana is hot, a holdover from the Spanish, who got it from the tribes.  Hot food makes you sweat, when you sweat you are cooler.  Something you needed before AC was so prevalent.  Even the pizza sauce was hot.  And you never said something was hot, NOOOO!  You always said it was, “Well seasoned.”  I came home with an accent and a taste for hot food. 

Part of the reason I was at USL was I had two aunts who could watch over me.  One was a great Aunt, I think I saw her a few times I was down there.  The other was my Aunt Cathy and Uncle Cliff.  Now follow me on this one.  Uncle Cliff had been college roommates with my biological father, Beau.  We kept in touch with Aunt Cathy and them, after my parents divorced.  They were originally going to be my Godparents.  Aunt Cathy and Uncle Cliff have 4 daughters all with C names.  It was Aunt Cathy and her family that helped take care of me while I was at USL.  You know took me to the grocery store, called to check on me, let me do laundry at her house.

Aunt Cathy’s youngest daughters are identical twins, Cattie and Callie.  They were about 3 my first year in college.  Oh I loved both of them so much, and they loved me!  They were the light of my life!  One of the worst things about leaving USL was leaving them.  I loved going to the store and people thought they were mine.  I got to pretend for just a minute.  They even helped me pick out the fabric for the curtains in my dorm rom.  I was still hurting from things that had happened my senior year, the Brett Incident and my friends not talking to me.  I will always feel that the twins helped heal me, with the immense amount of joy they gave me. 

In the Fall of 1994 I was told my Wesley group would be taking a trip to Saint Louis for an Ecumenical Christian gathering the week after Christmas.  I was asked if I wanted to go.  It was a lot of money and I was not sure.  I was spending the weekend with Alison in her home in Crowley.  We had gone to mass and we were sitting in church.  Now Alison could see light and shadows but nothing else.  I told her I was looking for a sign, to decide if I should go or not.  She said she saw light come from where the Eucharist is kept and it touched me.  That for me was sign enough. 

I left after Christmas and rode with my minister, and 4 of college buddies.  I was the only woman in the group.  It took us 16 hours to reach St. Louis.  I had a wonderful time at the conference.  I even went to the top of the arch.  It was at this conference that I met Mike. 

I tried to balance my relationship with Mike with school.  I had been failing, long before I got involved with Mike, and not for lack of studying or trying.  Although I had graduated High School with honors, I was not prepared for USL.  I would not know for many years that NSU had originally offered me a full ride to school there.  Because I was so dead set on USL, my guidance councilor never told me about it.

There is one more story I want to tell you about USL.  Mike was a music major and told me that most colleges have a choir that members of the local community can sing in.  I joined.  I loved it.  I practiced all semester to sing in one of the local cathedrals.  I missed two classes and was told I had to make it up in a private session with my professor.  It was then he learned my secret.  I can’t read music.  Still can’t.  Years later I tried to have Mike teach me and that failed miserably. 

Twice, my professor told me to hit a specific note, and played it on the piano.  I couldn’t do it.  He told me that he had always heard me something strange coming out of my alto section, but couldn’t figure out what it was.  Turns out it was me.  I sing with others by listening to them, to know what note I should be singing.  He told me I had two choices.  I could quit or I could lip sync our concert at the cathedral.  I chose to lip sync.  I could not let all that work go to waste.  He told me something that has stayed with me.  He said, “All people can sing.  Some shouldn’t.  Your one of them.” 

I lip sang ¾ of the concert, and the last quarter I just sang my little heart out.  What was he going to do, flunk me.  I was already failing and leaving to go to NSU after that semester.  What could he possibly do to me!

I have always thought if I ever made an album I would call it, “Shouldn’t sing.”  I’ve got my music playing while I have been writing this, and another Jimmy Buffett just load up.  Think I will crank this one and sing myself out.  Oh it’s one of my favorites, Bob Robert’s Society Band.

A lady dressed in purple started dancing all alone,

Then she sauntered oh so gently to the vacant microphone.

She sounded like she’s someone who never missed a beat,

By the time the number ended they were dancing in the street.

 

Ilsa

 

 

 

USL

I gradated Logansport High School in May of 1994, which I talked about in The healing power of music.  Within a few weeks I started working at the McDonald’s in Center, Texas.  My town had little work, and what jobs there were, were taken up by others in our town.  I drove almost 30 miles round trip to work there.  Let’s just say I learned a lot about working, and what was legal and what was not.  It was definitely interesting to say the least. 

One of the managers was having an affair with one of the cooks.  They like to make love on the washing machine, when it was going.  He was 18 or 19, she was married with small children.  At night the managers would make us clock out at midnight, then lock the door, and not let us leave until the place was clean, usually till 2 or 3 in the morning.  If you walked out, you lost your job.  The idea was that they were supposed to be done by midnight and the store was to be clean.  If corporate found out that it wasn’t, my managers would have been in trouble.  I had no idea until later that this practice was illegal.  I worked for McDonald’s until a few weeks before it was time for me to leave for USL.

I had an experience there that has stuck with me as I became Pagan.  My manager told me to trust my gut, that money and all things were replaceable, but we were not, to trust my instincts.  If I ever had a situations where we were afraid, to simply back up and get him.  I had a man come in one day, my guess is it was close to Summer Solstice.  He was dressed in a black robe, I think, and had a huge pentacle around his neck.  My immediate thought was “Satan worshiper!” even though his pentacle was pointed up and not down.  I didn’t know the difference back then.  I backed up, and got my manager.  Who served him beautifully. 

As I have become pagan I have thought of this man.  I have no idea who he was, and in 10 years of being in this community, I have never encountered him again.  But I want to apologize for what I did.  Now I see him as simply a Pagan man, trying to get something to eat.  I see myself as the ignorant and stupid one.  I am ashamed of my actions, and hope where ever he is, he would know how that one act still has an effect on me.

In late August of 1994 I prepared to leave for college.  The day I left, we boarded my little Schnauzer, Sugar, at the vet.  She had been acting weird for a few weeks.  To our surprise while we were gone, she delivered 7 puppies, 2 who lived.  We adopted one out and kept the other.  We named her Sissy, she would be part of my life for more than 10 years.  Six weeks after I went to college by beloved friend and dog Texas died.  He was about 10.  Now the vet said he died of Hepatitis C, which he guessed Texas got from eating something dead.  I still believe he died of a broken heart. 

I planned for weeks on what to bring, trying to decide on which books to bring was almost painful.  I took pictures of my family to hang on my wall when I got there.  One of my grandmothers, I don’t remember which one, bought me new linens for my bed.  One of them gave me a small old refrigerator to take me.  My parents drove me down to Lafayette.  My first dorm room was on the 5^th floor of Bancroft.  I put all my things on one side of the room, waiting for a roommate that never came.  When my parents left, and the door closed I had never felt so alone in my life.  I felt like a stranger in a strange land.  I decorated my room and took pictures.  The sound of the wind was very creepy, as was the sound of people I did not know talking in the rooms next to me, and going up and down the halls all hours of the night.  They had no respect for others.  I was there to work, not party.

We were met at my dorm by Rev. Don Ross who was the Campus Minister at the Wesley Foundation for USL.  Part of their ministry was to assist those moving in.  They brought dollies and strong backs.  Bancroft had elevators, because it was 7 stories tall.  I sure missed that elevator when I moved to NSU.  We had to carry everything by hand up stairs.  Not fun.  My father took me to the campus ministry after we finished unpacking and talked with Don a while.  He asked him to watch over me, and that is where they left me. 

I became very active in the Campus Ministry there, for a time, even running an Interfaith Campus Ministry.  I was just trying to get the Catholics, Methodist, and Assembly of God to work together.  It all fell apart when they built a Mosque just off of campus and the Muslims wanted to join our group.  It worked for a while, and then I resigned.  It didn’t last long after that. 

I stayed in my 5^th floor dorm room for a few weeks.  Then I met Daria.  She was from Parks, but she had family in Butte La Rose.  It took her 2 days to convince me she was not a French national.  She asked me to move down to her room on the first floor.  I had no idea that the first floor even had rooms.  But it did, about 9 of them.  They were designed for the physically handicapped students.  Daria had severe seizures.  She was allergic to the medications they had tried to treat her with.  One time she had 7 seizures in one day.  I had experience and knowledge dealing with seizures.  We decided we were a good fit.  So I moved down to room 109.  I would stay in that room for the next two years, until I left for NSU. 

Ilsa

 

*Bancroft and Denbo were demolished in the last few years to make way for a new student housing complex. 

The Brett Incident

I had spent much of my teenage years wanting to be an Oceanographer, like Dr. Bob Ballard.  I even ran my bath scalding hot, so I might prepare for diving in the hot water around the underwater volcanoes.  When I tried to get into LSMSA, see Cold Hands, I had to take the SAT’s.  I began to understand I was smart, but not that smart.  Math is the bane of my existence.  I also began to understand I would have to leave the state to study, something I was not prepared to do.  I did not want to leave my family.  I also did not want to leave the area, go away, build a life, get married, have kids, own a home, and have to give up everything many years later, to come home and care for aging and dying parents.  I am an only child.  I don’t get the luxury of handing it off to another family member.  It is going to be me, doing it all, in the end.  I was brought up to believe you do not put your loved ones in a nursing home.  It is dishonorable and distasteful. 

So I knew I could not be an Oceanographer, although I loved writing, I figured I could never make a living at it, besides I knew I wasn’t very good at it.  I knew people who could write circles around me.  I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mom was working on becoming, and two of my Aunts were already.  I didn’t want to be a nurse like my other Aunt.  I had been training in the wifely arts of cooking, cleaning, sewing, and hand work since I could remember.  My mom always said she wanted to prepare me.  So I thought I am a pretty good cook and I love food, maybe I will be a chef, so that is what I started out going to college to do.  I was also in love with the Frugal Gourmet about this time.

As my senior year approached I began to look at colleges.  My father then stepped in and said, “You may only apply to colleges where I may get to you in less than a day’s drive.”  That sealed the deal, no Oceanography for me.  I remember measuring off the distance and marking my large US map with my compass and setting up the radius.  I decided to apply in state.  I asked, my family, for help filling out the forms for both financial aid and college applications, they refused.  It taught me how to do them though.  I always found it odd some colleges required you send a picture.  What the hell did that tell them about your brain or who you were???  I applied all over the state: to Northwestern in Natchitoches, LSU in Baton Rouge, USL in Lafayette, Louisiana Tech in Ruston, NLU in Monroe, Southeastern in Hammond, and McNeese in Lake Charles.  I got in to all of them.  I was very surprised I got into LSU, but I did. 

I was so ecstatic when my letter came from Louisiana Tech that I had been accepted.  My entire life my father had told me, “You’re going to college.”  I never had a say in it.  I wanted to go to Tech, desperately, like my father before me.  I have always wanted to be just like my Dad.  I still remember going into the living room to tell him.  He held the letter and said, “That’s great, but you can’t go there.  You will have no one to watch over you.  You can go to NSU, where you Mom is attending, and she can watch other you, or you can go to USL where your aunt can watch over you.”  I was devastated.  All that work, applying to all the other colleges, only to be told, again that what I wanted, didn’t matter.  I am sure he had his reasons, but he broke my heart that day.  Still makes me angry to this day.

I thought for a moment.  I wanted to get as far away from my mother as possible, and I knew others from my school were going to NSU.  I was terrified the bullying would continue there, so I said, “I guess I will go to USL then.” 

USL became my battle cry, it became my hope, and thinking of going there and getting away from the daily abuse, which was only getting worse now that Cajun Rink had been added to he bunch, became my refuge.  Cajun helped crank the daily taunts up to 11.  But I was trying so hard to be a good Christian and turn the other cheek, and to do what my parents asked.  But with every word he hurled at me, I died inside.  He even went so far as to paint penis on my car windows, in shoe polish. I am still thankful for the cheerleaders who helped me remove enough from my window, to drive home, with spit and a Kleenex, and held me while I cried.

Into my life came Brett.  He was beautiful or so I thought.  He had this long curly black mullet.  He was of Native American decent, and covered in pimples.  I didn’t care.  I was on him like white on rice.  He was fresh meat and I wanted him.  In my mind he had not been tainted by my tormentors.  So it was game on.  He was from Shreveport.  He was always crying, come to find out his father had recently died.  His mother had remarried.  She and her new husband had moved to Keatchie.  Brett and I became fast friends.  I was always trying to comfort him, rubbing his back and trying to help him through this difficult time. 

As I sit here looking at my annual, I don’t know that we were ever officially boyfriend and girlfriend.  I was invited to a bonfire at his house.  Our parents met and they liked each other.  They encourage us to be together.  I went to a Christmas party at his house, where he danced with me.  He gave me a cassette single of Dwight Yoakam’s “Fast as you.”  I spent hours listening to it, to see if Brett was trying to give me a secret message.  I hate that song now, it reminds me of all of this.

Brett was strange.  He spent hours on his hair and although it was my guess he liked me, he didn’t want to hold my hand, and kissed me only once.  When he kissed me it was not like Adam’s kisses, full of passion and want.  No it was like kissing a rock.  I was confused.  I liked him, was falling in love with him, but he did not seem to reciprocate.  I knew, deep down, it was going to be another one of my one sided love affairs.  I often fell “In love” with a guy and then waited for him to say he liked me, even tried to buddy up to some of them, but none of them ever got the hint.  So it was always on sided.

Brett, me and our families went out New Years Eve to the American Legion Hall dance.  Brett was prone to migraines.  He had one that night.  I would learn later he faked it to get away from me. 

Not long after we were due to give blood.  I talked all my friends into doing it.  It ended up that I could not because had an ear infection and was on antibiotics.  Brett, Sonya and some more of my friends gave blood.  A few weeks later Brett received a letter, or so I was told, that said he had a devastating medical condition.  I wrote him a letter and told him how much I loved him and I would stay beside him through this diagnosis.

Within a few days later I was given a note from him, by Sonya, he said wanted nothing to do with me anymore.  I was devastated.  For once in my life, I thought I had found love.  I have always said the worst thing about all of this, was that for a few weeks, I had hope that I was not this horrible, ugly, fat, crazy monster that everyone told me I was.  When I read his letter, all that hope was destroyed.

It was not just the relationship that hurt, what did the most damage is what came after.  Sonya, my best friend since 2^nd grade, was also friends with Brett.  What I didn’t know, is that many nights that I was on the phone with Brett, she was quietly listening in.  He had called her, before he called me.  I didn’t know until later that she was acting as a conduit to help get him hooked up to another friend, who Brett began dating a few weeks later.

This friend he dated, a few months later, when the relationship was over, turned to me in class and said, “He lies doesn’t he?”  I said, “Yes he does.” 

I still do not know what was said.  I don’t know what rumor was spread, but from the time that Brett broke up with me in January of 1994 until about a month before I graduated in May of 1995, I was basically shunned.  Suddenly none of my friends, or anyone for that matter, would speak to me.  No one would eat lunch with me.  I was treated like a pariah.  My only clue is what one friend said to me one day.  He had the courage to break whatever taboo they had set against me.  He said, “They have told me to hate you and I just can’t do it anymore.  You have always been nice to me.”  And he sat with me and ate lunch.  It was finally over.  He was the first, more would join us as they year drew to a close. 

I cannot tell you how desperate I was.  I cannot tell you how many nights I wanted to kill myself.  How I wanted to jump from the river bridge.  In one swoop I had lost everything I understood.  My people, my tribe, my friends, or however you want to call it.  My sociology professor years later, would call it a “social death.”  When I finally got up the courage to talk to my parents, tell them what was going on and I was suicidal, my Dad said, “Oh It’s just puppy love.  It will pass.”  Twenty-Two years later it hurts, almost as bad as it did when it happened.  At least I now have some understanding to go with all of this.

I stayed friends with Brett’s parents.  I have seen his mother several times over the years.  When I saw her, I told her all that had happened, and she confirmed for me what I had begun to suspect many years before.  Brett was gay.  I now understand what he did.  He used me for cover.  He was pretending to be interested in me to appease his family and hide his homosexuality.  That I could have lived with, and would have even happily participated in it had I known. 

I found Brett many years ago on Facebook, we discussed much of the above.  To say he has a different idea of what happened is an understatement.  He said we were never in a relationship and he never cared for me, that he has always been gay.  I am sure there is much truth to that.  I have known for a long time what I felt for him, was not reciprocated.  I had hoped for an apology, but that will never happened.  Never got one from Sonya either or knew what was actually said about me.  Would love to know now, if someone wanted to PM me, I would be open to hearing it now.  Ten years, after all this, I would see Sonya again.  Who just hugged my neck and could not understand why I was so mad at her.  What a Bitch!

While all this was going on, all I could do was pray and count the days until I would go to USL.  I was in Hell and I had to find my own way out.  I was like Rapunzel.  I was trapped in the tower, no one was coming to save me, I had to cut my hair and save myself. 

There was a young man in my class who came in everyday, with the most beautiful smile.  As corny as it sounds his smile, gave me hope.  Seeing him smile, and hearing him laugh helped me in ways he has no idea of.  I even developed a little crush on him, but my fate was sealed and I was too broken and afraid to try to find love again.  I was leaving for Lafayette after I graduated, and that was that.

I began what I called “Smile Therapy.”  I would force myself to smile, just for a few seconds every few hours.  I noticed when I did so I would feel better.  Turns out smiling releases all kinds of endorphins in your brain, that are good for you.  Slowly, ever so slowly I feel it began to pull me out of the worst of my depression.  The first few weeks were the worst.  I would get two or three seconds and then burst into tears again.  I cried so much during class, during this whole thing, me a woman who hates to cry and used to see it as a sign of weakness. 

A few weeks before we graduated someone told me something I would never have dreamed.  They said, “Melvin has been in love with you for years.  He would have done anything for you.”  I remember sitting in our drafting room, looking at him and just smiling.  I have no idea if it was even true, but it helped me none the less.  And today I regret not doing anything about it.  The idea that Melvin had once loved me, along with my friends smile, gave me comfort in one of the darkest times of my life.  Stupid and corny, right?  I know.  But I love stupid and corny. 

Ilsa

 

 

 

 

 

Cold hands, warm heart, dirty feet and no sweetheart

So my Sophomore year in high school, we were still in the temporary buildings after our school had burned, waiting on the new school to be built.  Some recruiters came around and told us about LSMSA (Louisiana School for Math, Sciences, and the Arts).  It is a college prep school, run by the State of Louisiana, for Juniors and Seniors only.  It is located in Natchitoches on the NSU campus, where the students live.  Here they offer college level classes, and only the brightest kids in the state get in.  These recruiters told us they would be offering a slot to one of the students our school, should we met their entrance requirements. 

Mary and I both applied.  We both desperately wanted a better education, and the chance to learn more, something most of the kids in my school could have cared less about.  To get in we both had to take the SAT test, and go through an interview process.  Mary got in and I was named an alternate.  I still remember the disappointment I felt.  I had lost what I felt could have been a major opportunity for my life, and one of my best friends.

Now I hate to toot my own horn, as I was taught not to, but I am really, really smart.  I think we have talked about this before.  But I was never smart enough.  I wanted, most of my life to be in gifted and talented classes, but I always missed the cut off on the test by a few points.  I was named to Who’s Who every year, was always at least on the Honor Roll and about half of that time on the Superintendant’s List.  But I am an A and B student, never was a straight A kind of person.  I was civic minded and was in 4-H, National Honor Society, SADD (Students Against Drunk Driving), volunteered at the library and nursing home, and  I even tried and failed to form a Library Club.  My Jr. year or so I also rejoined the Girl Scouts, in hope of working my way into earning a college scholarship.  That did not happened, but I had a great time, mentoring those little girls. 

My yearbook is full of descriptions of me as beautiful, crazy, and kind.  I was smart and I reveled in what knowledge I could pick up.  Sometimes my classes were boring, so I brought my crochet, or another book to read.  I still remember reading “Food in History” during the down times in my World Geography class.

My favorite teacher about that time was Mr. Brian Gallent.  He was super cool.  He was tall with glasses and black hair.  He had worked for the Shreveport Journal, and then when it folded became a teacher.  He taught me Civics, World History, and World Geography.  I followed him around like a puppy dog, mainly because he was one of the few persons I could have an intelligent conversation with.  I think he helped really kick my love of other cultures into high gear.  I competed in both World Geography and World History at the regional level (called the Scholastic District Rally) and went to state in World Geography. 

I was one of the first to be enrolled in what was then called Tele-learning.  It was a Fine Arts Class.  We met during lunch.  It was being broadcast from NSU all around the state, and coming to us over the satellite.  It was being beamed not only to us, but to other schools all around the state.  We had a TV, microphones, and a pad we could write on.  Information appeared on a big TV screen of what we were to take notes on.  It was the for runner of an online class.  We could talk back and forth to the teacher at NSU my pressing the button on the microphone, but we were discouraged from talking to the other students.  My favorite thing to do was to talk an old boy from Oberlin.  He sounded like a trucker and was often hard to understand.

So I was smart, funny, being bullied, depressed, often suicidal, being told I was fat by those who loved me, told on a daily basis I was crazy, and very, very lonely.  Now I come from a different error my young friends.  Girls did not ask boys out, or so I was told.  If you did so you were very forward.  You had to wait until a boy liked you and told you so.  That was not part of my world.  I came home at night and talked to Sonya on the phone, helped mom with her homework, did mine, read, often cooked dinner and did chores, some nights I covered up my father with a blanket in his chair, after he had fallen asleep watching TV from drinking too much, and at the end of many, many days walked in my room, closed the door and wept.  Yes I was very, very lonely. 

I watched in jealousy as others around me feel in love, had sex, got pregnant, and seemed to be having a grand time of life.  I am sure all of them had their problems though.  Sometimes I watched as a boy I had a crush on, dated another girl.  If I was asked out, it was always as a joke.  Now you have to remember, in a class of 47, there were only 26 boys, 13 of them white, I was not allowed to date non whites.  No Blacks, No Indians, and No Chicano’s was my father’s rules.  He added no welders to that list a little later.  Of those 13 white males in my class, 4 were my bullies.  Of the remaining 9 or so who could potential date in my class, most of them had girlfriends in other towns or schools.  So to say the pickins were slim I think is accurate.  And to tell you the truth, I think most men were turned off by me because of my brain and my reputation for being crazy.  If the word “Nerd” had existed in my day, I am quite sure I would have identified myself that way.  Sad but true. 

 I even went stag to my Jr. Prom.  My parents chaperoned.  Most people showed up drunk and I remember dancing with a bunch of guys in a group and smelling liquor all over them.  The only slow dance was with my dad.  I would not go to my Senior Prom because of the whole Brett incident. 

Ilsa

Bronchitis

Well hello family, and happy New Year.  This is my first post of the New Year.  It’s January 22, 2016, and I have been down for about 10 days now.  I got, what I hope, is my yearly case of Bronchitis.  I have talked, at nauseam, I am quite sure about my many cases of bronchitis.  Sorry folks, those are just the facts, kind of like my hair is brown, I am married to Jay, and at least once a year, since the age of 6, I get bronchitis.  I have talked to you about this in Blood in the Water, The family secret, and The healing power of music.  

This case we caught early.  I am lucky enough to have a doctor who I can call and say, “I’ve got it again,” and they will call in meds for me.  They have seen me have it enough, and I have had it enough to diagnose myself.  I know what meds work for me and what don’t.  You know you are sick when you WANT to rub Vicks on yourself!

It does not take much for me to get it, and I am always in a preventative phase.  I monitor my allergies and try to take meds if I am sniffling too much or I am congested.  I know that my sinuses dripping on my vocal cords, will cause a sore throat and it is all downhill from there.  I have seen me go to bed fine and wake up with a full blown case of Bronchitis.  It was kind of like that this time.

Jay and I don’t have a lot of money.  There are weeks where I have to ration out the wash powder and the milk.  We get by, and do what we can, where we can.  This year we did not have the $500 to $600, plus the tank rental fee, to fill up the propane tank, that runs both the heater and the stove.  This caused great upset in the family, a few months ago when I first came to understand this, but all is well now.  I am blessed with warm clothes, 2 space heaters, and many blankets.  The children have sweaters and I am always covering them up, checking ears and paws to see if they are cold.  Lots of people have done a lots more with a lot less. 

Every day I worry that I will run out of gas to cook with, but the stove is still going.  Should it run out I have a grill, and a camp stove.  I also could gather fire wood and cook outside.  I am not opposed to such as our ancestors have done that for millennia.  Hell that is still done in many parts of the world today.  Jay promises that he will not let it come to that.  He says when the gas runs out, he will rig up a 5 gallon refillable Propane bottle to our lines, and we will have gas that way.  I trust him, he has not let me down yet.

 Now I am not trying to tell you a sob story to get y’all to set me up a Go Fund me account, or for somebody to lend us the money to fill up the tank.  No even if we borrowed the money, and there is nobody to borrow it from, we, I don’t think, would be able to pay it back.  What a rich person might spend on a dress or shoes, would take us several years to pay back.  Just the facts of the working poor people, I am just trying to tell it like it is.  We will find a solution to our own problems, and I am sure there are layers of lessons the Gods are teaching us here.  I keep thinking of JK Rowling’s writing her first book in the café’s, because she didn’t have any heat either.  Maybe it will help to get my creative juices flowing.

So we have been saving the running of the heater for our freezing nights, and days when I just can’t get warm.  I think it has been on a handful of times since it started getting cold.  Hell we had the AC on Christmas Eve!  We had our first night of freezing the other night, in fear of the pipes freezing, I convinced Jay to turn on the heater, although he said the ones that always freeze are the ones outside.  Pipes were fine the next morning, but we were not.  Both of us woke up with sore throats.  My guess is when we turned on the heater, it blew out all that dust and that’s what did it.  Jay is fine, he is always fine, a day or so later my coughing started. 

I got meds, but still did not feel all that bad, and I went on and did my usual things, just 10 times slower, which is greatly annoying to me.  Despite not feeling that bad, I probably should have gone to bed and stayed there, but guilt eats at me.  I constantly hear the voice of those who said/ say they loved me, now mixed with my own, call me fat, lazy, crazy, and useless in my head.  I know since I don’t “carry my own weight” by bringing home a pay check, I have to work as hard as I can, as much as I can, pushing through pain, depression, and anything else that might try to block what I have to do.  Jay has never, and would never say such things to me, and in truth it has gotten better over the years.  But it still does not seem fair to me, for Jay to work all day long, and have to come home and tend to house, make dinner, and wash clothes.  Yes there are days when I can’t, and I have to ask, but it is not something I like. 

So I get sick and then a few days later Jay starts this project that we have been planning for a while.  We had a hole in our floor in the living room, don’t start me in on why you should never ever buy a trailer.  We decided instead of ripping out all the floor, we would lay ¾” plywood over the top and polyurethane over the top of it.  It looks really nice.  So much better than trying to mop a floor that had broken and missing peal and stick tiles over it.  I have 7 dogs sharing our home and a goat that thinks she’s a dog.  Pee is simply a fact of life in my house people.  You just can’t mop that out of particle board. 

Since Jay and I got together, some 13 years ago now, we will celebrate our 12^th year of marriage in March, Gods willing, I have helped him with every project.  When we built the porch, I helped him carry the 16ft pressure treated posts, learned to use a nail gun, and dug holes (sometimes with a soup spoon) and help add concrete to them.  When we built Bridget’s house, I helped him raise the walls, and then held them in place while he shot it with the nail gun.  Other then paint, which I do mainly by myself, since he hates to paint, I have helped him with every project he has ever done in this house.  From nailing, ripping out floor, putting in pipe, re-running water lines, putting in electricity to somewhere, and cutting insulation. I am a good helper.  I try to think two steps ahead of him, as to what he will need, even if it is just something cold to drink. 

For the first time, this week, I watched him do a project on his own.  I watched him struggle with heavy boards, in and out of the front door.  It broke my heart that all I could do was sit at the kitchen table and watch.  Not make him dinner (although I did help with that one night and spent the next few days in bed after that) not bring him something to drink, nothing, all I could do was watch this beautiful man try to make our lives a little better.  Not only did he do that, but he cooked for me, tended me, and fussed at me to put socks on, go back to bed and encouraged me to sleep all day.  I was overcome with love for him and immense gratitude. 

This has been on my heart for days to write this to you, but I have had no strength to do so.  Finally today the Polyurethane is dry and I have my desk back to write you from.  We have rearranged the living room, now instead of looking at the goat barn, at Kay’s house, and who is coming down the drive.  I am looking down the hill, to Jay’s gun range, what is left of the old circle, and the now blocked path, down to the creek, and the other 11 acres beyond that.  I see lots of trees, some that have fallen down and need to be cut, but Kevin stole our chain saw, you know the one that never did work right.  Joke was on him.  And I see a little Ms. Bridget, who is rubbing her horn on the dead Dog Fennel plants, and standing in the sunshine.  Wonder if this view will inspire me the way the other does.  You know when we first moved out here, we had this area I am looking at, oh about a 40 x 80 section, fenced off for the dogs.  But as those of you who own Dachshunds know, there is no such thing as Dachshund proof fencing.  No matter how we patched or what we did, they kept getting out.  Finally we gave up and just tore it all down. 

I love it here, I never want to leave, my only regret is that I cannot be buried here.  But I promise you I will haunt it!  I just hope it never changes, and remains forested forever with these huge pines and oaks.  Some people look at it and see money and I see an eco-system.

This round of sickness reminded me so much of when I had bronchitis right before I graduated High School, which I talked about in The healing power of music.  I have been working on a project where I was taking all my old CD’s, copying onto my computer, and then transferring them to my tablet and / or Jay’s phone.  Apparently I have 16 Jimmy Buffet albums.  For days, this is all I could do.  It brought back lots of memories.  I cried when I heard Keith Whitley sing, thinking of how we lost him too soon.  I still remember where I was when I heard he was dead.  For some of my generation they lamented the loss of Kurt Cobain, for me it was Keith Whitley.

When I got to some of my country classics and my soul music, I thought about my Dad.  When I would get sick, I would sleep on the couch, with my little vaporizer and Mom would tend me.  Dad would come in drunk as Cooter Brown, and he would teach me about music.  He would play Tanya Tuckers TNT album.  The album folded out and on the inside was this picture of her in bright red body suit.  Then he would pull out his Barbara Mandrel albums.  Mom despised her, something about she was in a car wreck and sued the family of the man who hit her, even though he died and she was rich.  Then Dad would pick up his Barbara Streisand albums and look at them longingly.  He would say, “I love her, but I hate her politics.”  She is a liberal Democrat, Daddy is a died in the wool conservative Republican.   He would inevitable put the record down and not play it.  He would talk about The Temps and The Tops and said he used to argue with Uncle Andy over who was better.  He taught me to love soul music and really all music, no matter the ethnicity. 

My mom loves music too, but with her it was only Rock and Roll and Pop; Elton John, The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Wings, Joe Stampley and The Uniques, and James Taylor.  I had to fight her to able to listen to country music.  “Why do you want to listen to people sing threw their nose?!”  she would say.  We would be riding along in the car and she would ask me who was playing.  Then she would snap her fingers and say, “You ought to know it when it starts!”  But with Dad, he taught me, the world was my musical oyster.

Something else has happened in the last few weeks that I want to share with you.  A friend of mine in middle school I have talked in Friends, named Stacy, lost her baby brother Sammy to suicide. Now those of you who are following along, know I have struggled with suicidal tendencies throughout my life.  But the shock of what this has done to someone so dear to me, and her family, has made me see what damage I would do to my family should I chose to do this.  Also watching Jay struggle this week with those heavy boards has made me realize, if I should leave him, there would be no one to help him with projects.  He would have to struggle to tend to this house, this farm, and these kids, by himself.  I just can’t do that to him.  It’s not fair.  I feel this round of Bronchitis might have just cured me of this tendency.

 As much as I hem and I haw that I don’t do enough around this house, cause I can still look around and see cobwebs and a toilet I need to attack with a toothbrush.  I realize this week just how much I do do, that I have always done, and how much more I have started doing since I got on my new meds.  How much I grieved, not being able to type or even having the energy to pick up pen and paper and write to you.  I still have so many stories left to tell you.  I have to tell you about The Brett Incident, and going to USL, and lots of other stories and I have to finish my books.  I really realized this week how much y’all would miss me, and how much I would miss this life.  What the dead always tell me is how much they miss being alive.  How frustrating it would be to me, to be on the other side and not be able to bring Jay a glass of tea when he his hot, or find his hammer when he has lost it again.  How sad indeed. 

Ilsa

 

 

Homage to Jelly

I took Pippy to the vet yesterday, December 29^th, 2015.  While I was checking in, the receptionist, with whom I have been friends for many years, told me an odd thing happened this week.  She said a Shreveport Police Officer called her on Monday.  She was tracing the rabies tag of a dog that had been hit, in downtown Shreveport.  She said she had moved the dog out of the road, and onto the side of the road.  It was Jelly.  I broke down, cried and made a scene, I am sure.  After almost a year, I finally know that my sweet little smushie face is dead. 

I have no idea how she ended up in downtown Shreveport.  Perhaps she was still with Paige.  Perhaps Paige is now homeless or living in her car.  Our homeless tend to hang out downtown.  Perhaps she gave her to someone, or she ran away.  I have no idea.  All I know, is it is finally over, and I can stop killing myself over all of this. 

For a year, I have cried over Jelly, grieved for her, constantly worried where she was or what had happened to her.  At night I tortured myself wondering if she was cold, or hungry?  Did she know I loved her?  That I cried for her at night?  Was she happy?  Now I know, the answer to some of those questions.  I am grateful to the Officer who’s tiny gesture, has meant the world to us.  It has given my peace.

Jelly would have turned 13 this spring.  You can read about our adventures in Meet Paige  and  Goodbye Paige. 

When I finally told the rest of my pack what had happened, Precious the second, suggest perhaps we should howl for her.  So that she might find her way back to us.  I know wolves do this in the wild.  They howl to other pack members, and sometimes for a lost or dead member.  Perhaps Precious found that memory in my mind.  So we began to howl a terrible and mournful cry, by the time we were done I felt Jelly settle near us.  After 2 years my baby was home, if nothing more than her spirit.

I had already lit my candle for her, burned my incense, and called for Holda to come and retrieve her spirit until I could properly cross her last night.  I felt her happy spirit near me all night, and when I lay down I could feel her spirit kissing me.  I called for Bifrost and on it we rode.  When we entered Holda’s Garden, all Jelly’s friends were there.  Boy-Boy aka Prince, Punka, Precious the first, and some of my living babies, Princess and Sophia, had made the trip with us as well.  She was warmly greeted by all who had loved her.  She was finally safe.  The last I saw of her, she was running off behind the Apple Grove to go and hunt for moles, one of her favorite activities in the whole world.  She was always a great huntress.  I returned to this plane, smiled, and told Jay that Jelly was safe and happy. 

I have lost three children this year, Rebecca, Prince, and now Jelly.  As I write this, it is the last day of Yule 2015.  We know that as Holda and Odin ride in the Wild Hunt, black dogs or hounds bay at their feet.  They are gathering up the dead.  Perhaps Prince is riding with the Hunt and called to Jelly.  Perhaps the whole reason he died, was so come this time of year, he could bring her home.  I have no idea, I am just speculating here. 

We always said that Prince and Jelly were married.  We had caught them making out many years ago, and they did love to go hunting together.  We even have “wedding” and “honeymoon” pictures of them together.  Who knows, perhaps it is just our stupid human mind trying to make sense of things.  Maybe Prince was lonely and wanted her to join him.  Maybe he was rescuing her from whatever living conditions she was in.  That’s probable something I will never know, and honestly don’t want to.  I would just make me madder.

We have no body to bury, no collar to put on my altar, so we have decided to bury one of Jelly’s outfits in Boy-Boy’s grave.  I have already made her an offering on my ancestor altar of this little red and white monkey that plays music.  It plays, “I like to move it, move it.”  She loved all toys, but in particular ones that sang or danced.  I have kept this little monkey hid all these years, so she would not find it and destroy it.  It seems like a fitting offering I think.

Ilsa