Since Friday, I cannot help but think of this damn rowboat. Part of me seems to believe that it is in that rowboat that it all happened.
There, smack in the middle of the lake. Far away from searching eyes.
Alone with my grandfather. Unable to escape.
Micha is asking me to remember, but I still can’t manage it. For the moment, there is only the rowboat. I remember that it was painted grey and that grandfather always called it the Verchères, after the company in Verchères that builds beautiful big rowboats.
I remember that I played cards with my grandmother. We played canasta. I seem to remember that my brother played checkers with my grandfather. And that I also played checkers with him.
I try to remember him. I remember a man who had blue eyes. They were very blue. He had white hair and his face was red, due to small broken veins on the surface of his skin. I remember that his right hand was missing the ends of his fingers and they had no nails. He had cut his hand on an electric saw at the Mill where he worked. It was all healed, but they were strange to look at.
I remember the sunroom and that the windows had an incredible number of little squares. I remember the beach. I remember the rowboat, but I do not remember being in the rowboat. I do remember that my grandfather touched himself constantly.
I do not remember being afraid of him. The only real memory is the one in the car. We were probably driving to where my grandmother is buried. Perhaps this was the trip to her funeral. I remember that my grandfather, who was sitting in the front, kept singing dirty songs.
There is this memory, too, when I was ten or eleven. He moved to a new city after he got married to a big woman with white hair. I did not like her. That is all.
I do not think I even went to his funeral.
I am not certain of these memories. How am I ever going to find the truth in all this?
My grandfather died at eighty-two years of age. My grandmother was sixty-four when she died.
Mar. 8, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt lots of pressure on my lower back and on my middle back. The back of my head feels like I was hit from behind.
Mar 15, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt…not much going on except my head (forehead) hurts and tingles.
Mar. 17, 1999 (Computer Journal)
Fifty-five
So it is my birthday Saturday and I will be fifty-five years of age.
I would never have thought that being fifty-five would be such a good place to be. I have come to like myself some, if not as much as I should.
At the moment I am healthy
At the moment I am happy
At the moment I have a great job
At the moment I have no serious financial problems At the moment I feel privileged
At the moment I have a loving son
At the moment I am not alone
At the moment I feel loved
I feel loved because I have come to recognize that I have guides.
They are my dreams. They have led me to find a healer right here in Ottawa. There is love, a universal kind of love. The kind without co-dependency, without mirror image, without ego. We were told that next Tuesday will be our last group meditation. That will be the end of that, I suppose. Nothing is forever.
This journey that started in October 1998 has been quite an adventure. I was driven. I wanted out. I wanted to quit. I could not quit. I am glad of the darkness and the light, the fear and the trust. I wished for angels and teachers and guides, and I found them.
I know there is still that unfinished business, but I think somehow, someway, I will remember. It is no longer a question of whether or not it happened. I know now that it did happen. Soon I will be in the second part of the journey. I do not know if Hell will be there to guide me beyond the black, but I have to do this. I no longer have the choice for I have gone beyond the point of turning back. I cannot say how I will feel when I remember, but I would like to believe that I will recognize the truth that makes you free. The dream of the blue pickup truck holds the promise of great creativity.
Strange as it may seem, now, at fifty-five years of age, I want to live. Not just live on the outskirts of my life, as I have always done, living but constantly wishing that I was not living. I am so very glad to be alive. I want to believe that, whatever is in store for me in the
next twenty years or so, I will always be glad to be alive. These past fifty-five years I have journeyed with several nasty companions. They were despondency, despair, sadness and melancholy. Now when I turn around I do not see them anymore. I hope they are gone for good.
It would be fine with me if I were now to travel with joy, creativity, humour and vigour.
Gaping open for years and years, the door into darkness has been shut. Miraculously, a door leading into the light has been opened.
Enough already!
March 19, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I feel lots of fire flowing in my spine.
April 7, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I feel my lower back tingling, itching. My right leg was cramping; almost asleep. My right foot and toes are numb.
April 10, 1999 (Computer Journal)
Little Micha, Dialogue 2 (Bradshaw exercise) Me: Micha, I’ve finally come to talk with you again. We have not spoken in quite a while and I have learned so many things since then. I know now that I am not Paul’s daughter. Poor man. Mom told me that she had an affair while he was stationed in Nova Scotia. She gave me the name Marcel Lebrun.
However, I don’t quite trust her. You know, Mom told me something a long time ago; I must have been thirty. Then I did something stupid and went and told Simon. That was not the right thing to do.
Mom never spoke of it again. What is sad about all of this is that when she gave me the name, it felt as if something was not quite right. In 1974, she had mentioned in a drunken state that the man who was my father was Jewish. I don’t see anything Jewish in Marcel Lebrun; what do you think?
Micha: I have always suspected I was not Paul’s daughter. I always had the feeling that Mom used to hate to look at my face. I must be a constant reminder of that mistake in 1944.
Me: You can imagine how you were a constant reminder that you weren’t his daughter. More so, that man without scruples must has been fairly well built, as I am heavy and tall. According to Mom, he was Paul’s best friend. I do not like that man at all. My birth father was screwing the wife of his best friend. And I bet it wasn’t the first
time. He was working at a hotel while Paul was in the war overseas.
I think he was spineless. I do not like that man; no, not at all Micha: I understand now why Daddy doesn’t love me and isn’t at all concerned that I’m in a convent.
Me: I asked Mom if Paul knew. She said that she had never openly mentioned her betrayal, but that she believed that Paul suspected.
What a shameful story. I am very ashamed of who I am.
Micha: I have always known it and I am ashamed. I hate myself because I am a bastard child. I would not be surprised if the nuns also know this. No wonder they keep sending me to the chapel and that I’m being watched as if I were possessed.
Me: I don’t know what to say. You’re right. Even if I feel dirty and ugly, she’s so old now that to hate her would serve no real purpose.
Please don’t be upset with me. I know I should show anger and be very upset, but I am not. The years have made me wishy-washy.
Please don’t hate me. We have so much to talk about. There are so many things that we must discuss. I am now fifty-five years of age and I have forgotten many things, but you, you’re only eight years old, and you must remember many things even if you don’t talk about them.
You must remember the vile things Grandfather did. Mom does not speak about it, but I am convinced that she knew. I think that deep inside she feels that she managed to live with her pain, therefore I should be able to live with my pain.
Tell me about Grandfather will you?
Micha: You’re asking a lot.
Me: Talk to me. I sense that you know something. It’s been months now that I’ve been trying to remember and I can’t seem to manage it. I want to remember so I can put an end to this. Please help me.
Micha: What do you want to hear? What atrocities to you want me to tell you? You must remember all by yourself. To tell you will get you nowhere. If you must remember, then think of the rowboat.
Me: I try and I try and I can’t seem to manage it.
Micha: Keep trying. Think about it. He used to take me in the rowboat and there on the lake, far from everyone’s eyes, especially Grandmother’s, he would do things that hurt me. Remember how he used to take hold of me at the bottom of the rowboat.
Me: No, don’t say anything more. Even if you gave me the full details, I still would refuse to believe you. I will keep trying to remember. Micha, don’t cry. Do not cry. I know there is no one to hold you in their arms and dry your tears. It is the same for me.
Often, after a session at Hell’s centre, I feel the need to cry while someone holds me in their arms. But there is no one; not for me, not for you. Keep up your courage, I will get there, even if I must travel all by myself. I will get there, and then you and I, we will cry in each other’s arms, and then, perhaps, we will heal our pain. Wait for me.
April 16, 1999 (NSA journal entry after adjustment) Today I felt…Why do I get this way? Cold. My head. Who is banging on my head?
April 17, 1999 (Dream)