Running Away

Franz Jüttner (1865–1925): Illustration fom Schneewittchen, Scholz' Künstler-Bilderbücher, Mainz 1905

This week David of Authorblog asks his readers if they have ever run away from home. I think I’ve mentioned before that I ran away a few times. I used to hide under my bed a lot. I liked the frame underneath, it was a spring mattress I think. I remember steal grey rods that I would stare up at, a maze of metal grating, like chicken wire, to support the mattress. I would hide under there and listen for my parents looking for me and smile because I was safe. For the most part, the bed was safe. At least, under the bed.

I once had a child eating bed. It was a hand me down from somewhere. But every time I climbed out of bed it bit my toe. My mother wouldn’t believe me, but then there was the blood evidence. Forensics would have found that the bed indeed was biting me, my mother said I got out of it wrong. She checked all corners for sharp edges, everything in the room. It was months of my toe getting bitten before we finally took that villain out of the house.

There was another time I ran away to Trin’s house and I sat on the floor eating out of the communal bowl with her family. When I was older, a teenager, a friend and I ran off with the circus. That adventure lasted a few days. We had both gone to dinner with a couple of the men that worked there, in ‘the oldest traveling circus in the United States’ before we left to follow them. It wasn’t even like we ran away for the thrill of saying – for three days we were part of the circus. We did it to get away from our families, to try and discover who we were outside the life regimented to us.

However, the number one way that I ran away is now called dissociation. That was how the name Victorya developed. Granted, now it’s just the name to remind me, but on a daily basis I went to this land where I was the sad beautiful little girl with no parents. I lived alone and peacefully in a little cottage and the nice ladies brought me food and there was music, always music. I talked to all the animals and my real mother was Nature, I was her only child. That was the main place I ran to in my life. I slipped out of the burden of being ‘the bratty little ragamuffin’ or ‘bitch’ (the first was my ‘nickname’ in my earlier years, the latter my mother’s ‘pet name’ for me as I hit puberty) and became Sister to Diana, protector of the wildlife, Victorya, The Last. A lot of times I was just ‘the Last’ in those fantasies. A child of enigma.

So yes, I ran away as a child. When I couldn’t do so physically, or realized I would always be caught and dragged back home, I did so mentally. I ran away to a world in which I was always safe, always valued, and always loved.

My Mother's Stories

Painting by Segantini, Giovanni, 1894

I know my mother’s story. Many of her stories, actually. Sometimes they changed, some remained constant.

When people try and explain away behavior they go to the back story – the past affects the future. But beware of using history as an excuse for present actions; we’re supposed to learn from it not repeat it.

She was abandoned. She was given away to a friend down the hall. She never knew her mother lived two doors down.

She was beaten, suffocated, and molested by a drunken grandfather who pinned her to the wall and stuck his tongue down her throat. She had to sleep in the same bed as her “sister” who always peed the bed. Her younger “brother” ripped up her comics and used her coin collection to buy candy.

She was in love with a boy in high school and they decided to skip the prom and get married instead. But then her younger sister got pregnant (at 14) and ‘stole her thunder.’

That first husband beat her and forced her to move furniture while she was pregnant and then after a particularly brutal ‘session’ my possible older brother (She knew it was a boy since conception) was flushed away. His name was Christopher (the child).

They divorced and she threw rocks at his car but had already gotten him a good job with the city that he still has today. She went on to have a fling or two and met my father on the ski slopes.

My father lied to her and stole her violin and told her he was with the CIA. He kept her apart from all her friends and family. He never beat her, but after my brother was born he never touched her either. She knew something was wrong but wasn’t sure what and wanted to stay together for us kids until she realized he was bad for us.

She died on the table giving birth to me. Her soul flew up to the humming fluorescent light and she looked down as the doctor pulled me from her.

She found her real family late in life and she had a real brother and real sister and real nephews (who I found later through the SSDI – dead while his father was in jail). After the divorce from my father she found what she believed to be her real name and took it as her own. She looked through obituaries for family members and went to the funerals when one was mentioned.

She cried when the obituary didn’t include her among the ‘survived by.’

I can’t imagine what the funeral was like – her going in and saying she’s the daughter given away, be my family. But her maybe sister was there and they became friends off and on and my mother introduced her to us as our Aunt but by then I didn’t want any more of her family that she’d present to us then take away as not real family.

When the maybe brother got out of jail he visited and gave her a painting he made.

She was bad at math in school. She once brought home a friend of hers named ‘Pearl’ and her given-to-mama wouldn’t let them in because she was black.

She owned the original Spider-man comic.

She married to get away from the abuse.

She had to put down her favorite dog because it became too protective of her.

She once painted a house with barn paint and it soaked into the wood and became splotchy.

She once owned a craft store and would get paid up to 1000$ for her handicrafts.

I recognize some similarities between her and I. We both yearn for family, but I know I can’t find one in the past only the future, one I actively create. She didn’t learn this. I also know not to repeat the cycle of my childhood.

We’re both creative.

I’m not giving her the time or energy to ‘pretty up’ her stories with fancy rhetoric. They are what they are. Many sounded more like excuses as she told us of the abuse she suffered as a child. Many would come before she went on a rampage – the line “this is nothing like what I got; you want to know about abuse?” was frequent.

I’ll never know the truth, but I know the pain. I know she was pained. She wasn’t in a state to have children, but couldn’t relinquish the power she had over us – maybe the only power she had every known.

Identity Take II

Rose and I were sitting atop the broken down shed that served as our secret hideout. Before us were the spoils of a week spent searching for treasures– a slightly stained white sheet, some Crayola crayons, and the blossoms of Oleander. “We can decorate out new fort!” she proclaimed.

We each picked up the Crayolas, mere nubs, and fingered their waxy smoothness. These were taken from the school bins- they had to be. Neither of our families could afford real Crayolas, using the cheap ones instead, bought for half the price at the thrift store. We pulled them across the linen; our tongues slightly out in concentration. It is not easy to color on thin sheets with crayons.

“What is your real name?” I asked, covering my attempt at drawing a rose with the Oleander. Those blossoms grew more and more beautiful each time we were warned of their poison. Beauty, true beauty, is often fatal.

“It’s Rose,” she said, confused.

“No, what is the name from your parents.” I asked.

“But that’s not my real name. That’s not who I am” she replied. “Maybe I need to ask you what your real name is.”

* * *

Victorya Chase. I have no idea how old I was when I created her as the me I wanted to be. In my dissociative fantasies there I was. Nine-years-old for eternity, but a wise nine. Victorya was strong and brave. She faced life alone but had hope that love existed. Victorya never cried and everyone said she was so beautiful. She had long silky blonde hair, not the mousey brown hair my mother would always cry was too dull and scraggly to grow long.

Victorya Chase, Chasing Victory. The name seems cliché now at times, even if that is what I’m doing. Chasing victory over my past, over my family. But maybe I’m just reading into it. Maybe my young self just thought it sounded really cool, like a super hero, like ‘Clark Kent’. Victorya helped people when she could, but mainly she cared for all animals. Her unique gift was that she could talk to them. They would see her and know they were safe. Bears and wolves would bring their new cubs of spring for her blessing.

The first girl my brother loved was named Victoria. I wonder sometimes if I chose the name because I wanted him to be able to love me again, the way he used to when he was the brave knight and I the princess. Not that I ever let anyone know my secret name. Then it would lose all its power. When we were young, he’d make a moat out of old clothes and heroically carry me across. I’d giggle and giggle and thank him, offering as reward half of my kingdom. He’d settle for a piece of candy and we’d sit on the floor amidst the old laundry chewing on our sweet treat and just enjoying that we had each other. For that brief period of time, when there was no one else, we did have each other and it was enough.

Victorya’s brother was the west wind. He’d blow through and bring her some special fruits from far away lands or news of pharaohs and insects. Sometimes he’d tell her of the awful elephant slaughters in Africa and she’d go there and send all the poachers into a land where they were the hunted. They’d return months later, some missing limbs, but all learning respect for others.

The past was a mystery to Victorya. She knew her father was God and her Mother Nature but nothing else, and this didn’t help her when it came to other people of the land. She was tolerated, but not accepted. Some days to be tolerated was enough. For the most part – what she really wanted was love. She had never even been held, not that she could remember. She argued with God constantly because he had stripped her from her memory. “It’s better you never know,” He said, His eyes turned down. “Trust me, I do it for your own good.”

There are days now where I am so afraid. Every step, every breath brings with it the idea of more wrongs that I committed in the past and those that I can commit in the present. Every gesture, every word brings with it the ability to harm another. I was not put on this Earth to do harm. The shadows surround me at times – I feel them leering at me, waiting for that moment to pounce and drag me back. I fight to keep a light shining, to keep them at bay.

“For the Lord God will be their Light,” “Jesus is the Light,” but God doesn’t walk with me anymore. We talk, we argue, and just downright fight. He is in me, and I’m sure some of the light comes from He, the Father, the true father that aided in my creation, but I have to do double duty to walk in the light that keeps the shadows at bay. It’s hard to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without the rod and staff, but a dream and a hope instead.

Some shadows I’ve befriended. We’ll go side by side like old loves. I’ve made peace with some of the darkness that lies within. Darkness is within everyone, and a part of their beauty.

Victorya had a light so bright that it was visible to all who saw her in her true form. She only showed it on rare occasions, for true pure light frightens people.

Victorya was around until maybe high school, and then she wasn’t needed as much, the fantasy changed. At that time the child inside was starting to recognize the world and voice her fears as the true me, the unification of the childhood and the dissociative fantasy, began to emerge.

The Victoria that my brother loved was a beautiful creature of porcelain skin and raven black hair. She was the main soloist at church and everyone believed that if anyone could make it as a singer, it would be her. He loved her with every core of his being, as did many other boys in the church. When he was finally old enough to date he bought her a flower. Every time he handed her his heart she gave it back in pieces. They dated off and on but it always ended the same way – she said she was too good for him. How could she not understand that she was his dream, his grail? His hope to rise above the muck of his life rose and fell on every note she sung on Sunday, as did the dreams of the rest of the congregation.

That Victoria wasn’t known for being pure though, not later. She fell, her wings cruelly cut and her halo broken before the faithful. Lascivious acts were the least offensive of the atrocities she did to her beautiful body and pure white soul.

But my Victorya remained pure and strong in heart. She became absorbed into my being, recognized for her faithful service in my time of need. That was a fantasy I no longer needed as I began to realize my accomplishments. Now what’s left is the truth of the child I was, and the woman I’ve become. This reconciliation is the toughest, for my childhood is my strongest shadow. That is the one I need to embrace, to allow to weep. I see it sometimes in my dreams and want to run and hold on and tell it to come into the light with me instead of dragging me to the shadows. I want the strength to hold on and not let go. But too often I run, too often I’m afraid as I am with every step I take, that it will be the wrong choice. But I know, somewhere inside I understand, that to console a crying child is never the wrong choice – especially when that child is you.

I chose the pen name Victorya Chase as homage to the fantasy that helped save my life. She showed me what I wanted to become, and that I had the capacity to be one day. I am still too frightened to use my real name in my internet writings. I don’t want to be found by figures of my past until I’ve found that child and held onto her tight, until I feel her hot tears stream down my strong shoulders and she finally feels the wonderful warmth that the light has to offer.

photo of oleander taken from http://www.almostedenplants.com