There is more about the little girl and about the door to the stair-way but I have forgotten.
I am well rested today. This has been a good weekend for working with John Bradshaw’s book, for writing, and for drawing.
Most important, I am relaxed and no longer so terribly tired. I am in better shape for the trip than I was last week.
Oct. 11, 1999 (Computer Journal)
Bradshaw Exercise — Toddler Debriefing
[Note to file: The tapes for these exercises were given to Hell to share with others, and I never recovered them.]
1. Where indeed was Paul? Mom says he saw me for the first time when I was two. What a shock that must have been.
Where was he? I was born in ’44. The war ended in ’45. He then went to Bermuda, according to my mom. And then on to the Dew Line. She speaks of him working as a plumber, but I think I was four or five by then. After the events with my grandfather. I have no idea what my mom did.
2. I do not recall warmth or being held. I don’t really remember anything from that period. Not even the potty training. It is a blank in my memory. A big hole.
3. No. My brother was born when I was five.
NO ONE. I AM SURE.
Did my mother live by herself then? Was it a quiet three years or three years of terror? Was my grandfather there? I know nothing except that her husband was not there, except maybe he dropped in for short stays. He couldn’t have cared much for the green-eyed toddler who looked so clearly like his best friend.
I know now that my mom was a victim of both physical and non-physical violence and of incest. Her father beat her many times with a strap. When she was a young girl, the rules about boys were stringent and she had early curfews. She was adventurous and sexually preco-cious, constantly in trouble.
Dear little Micha,
It’s me again, the wonderful Tooth Fairy. How are you? I have had no communication from you. Please tell me if you are comfortable. Are your needs being met? Are you happy, child? I want you to know that I can make a difference. I visit you from a place of power so I can protect you and take care of you. I want to love you so much and to play with you.
Michelle the Tooth Fairy
Written with my left hand:
Dear Michelle Tooth Fairy,
You look funny when you make faces. I am okay but very alone.
Mom is almost happy with just the two of us. She reads to me a lot.
She sings, too, and plays the piano. I am glad of your company. There
are no children to play with. I have lots of colouring books and paper dolls. I am calm and happy.
Do come and visit often.
Micha
Oct. 12, 1999 (Computer Journal)
Bradshaw Homecoming: Parents’ History
So what do I know about my father (sorry, not!)?
1. He married my mom in 1942. He was in the Navy at the time and it was WW II.
2. He was brave. He volunteered and joined the Navy before he was drafted. My mother once told me that he was already overseas when the Navy came looking for him, thinking he was a deserter because he hadn’t answered the draft notice and his father had thrown it out.
3. He was a plumber. My mom says he’d rather go to the movies than go to work.
4. My mom says that he is not my father. He was cuckolded, poor fellow, by his best friend.
5. I barely knew him. I remember very few things about him. He taught me to float in the water. He spanked me once (I had played with matches and set fire to the drapes). He used to scratch his back on the door frame. He had an argument with Mom.
6. He was home only for a year or two.
7. I liked him.
8. The next memory of him is when I was fourteen. I had asked him to pull me out of the convent.
9. One June morning, I picked up the phone to hear my aunt say, “Let me speak to your mother, your father is dead.” I was fifteen. He was forty-one. He had died of a heart attack.
10. He paid for the convent and my education, so, after the funeral, I went to work full time. No more school for me.
What do I know about my mom?
1. She tells me, time and time again, “I want to live my life.”
2. She had children, but I suspect not one of them from the man she married. When I asked why she hadn’t given me up for adoption, she answered, “I was married then, it didn’t matter.”
It hurt when she said that.
3. She is an alcoholic. She’s only stopped drinking these past four years, after she was operated on for a malignant tumour on her large intestine.
4. I believe she was raped at a young age. She has told me her father had fits of anger and would beat her and the other children.
5. She once told me that she had seen her father raping her then eighty-seven-year-old grandmother. He was addicted to sex.
6. There were four boys there who’d been adopted after their parents were killed in a car accident.
7. She often talks of the village where she grew up. I think she was happy there. But she was unhappy when they moved to Drummondville.
8. She is the youngest of four girls. She was very beautiful, with natural red hair and a natural, beautiful body.
9. As far as I know, she has been smoking since she was eight and drinking since about that time.
10. She went to school and to business college. She is very intelligent.
11. She adored her grandmother. She took care of her and was with her when she passed away.
!2. She pitied her mother, who died when I was eight.
13. She is very vivacious and adventurous.
14. To this day, men are drawn to her like bees surrounding a queen.
Oct. 13, 1999 (NSA journal after adjustment) Today I felt…I don’t know what was going on. Wish it would come out, whatever it is. I have a bad headache and I’m not certain about how I feel. Frustrated; sad. Pain in my belly. Burning, really.
Coughing and more coughing. This is getting to be boring. Cough, cough, cough. Boring.