#13

I've always been a dreamer. No, literally. I hear some do not dream, or do not remember on waking.

Where do they go - what do they do in slumber? Are they allotted the bliss of uninterrupted repose for several nocturnal hours, while others close our eyes to being thrust into adventures that would rival the best of the best - Ray Bradbury or Steven 'the king' King, et al.

No where to run, no where to hide. Not even in sleep. Sweet sleep when it comes without the dreams. I've always had them. Always.

As a child, I dreamt I could fly. I'd just lift my childish arms from my sides, and a gentle but powerful wind would lift me, and I would soar. Like an eagle gliding high, real high in circles. I was never afraid when I flew. I felt powerful, as if I were indeed soaring over everything in sight that laid below. Mostly I flew over our house and the surrounding fields.

I would circle our house again and again. On rare occasions, since the dream repeated itself many times, my father would emerge from the back door, walk to the center of the backyard, look up and wave as if he was proud. Maybe it was no more than an acknowledgement that I roamed the skies.

Dreams are a language of their own. They speak where our tongues leave off in a manner our psyche understands, though we may not. I do not believe all dreams are meant to be restful and peaceful. Some are mysterious, causing us to spend waking hours to mete their measure.

Or have we simply angered the gods of darkness that is night and our dreams?

Not long ago, I dreamed I woke up in my bed in the house I was raised in. I was very disoriented and confused at first, but the lack of sound gave me confidence that I was alone. Don't we all dream, perhaps not so much in the literal sense, of going home? That piece of me that wanted to must have made it manifest in the dream.

My room wasn't as I'd left it when I left home at nineteen. The lilac walls and billowy white priscella curtains were gone.

The walls were pink. Light pastel pink, as they were when I was small, before they were lilac. Before, as in the beginning of life as I now know it to be. Before the things dreams are made of.

It was spring or summer. I couldn't tell. Things were green, and sweet smelling. The windows were open. Of course! We didn't have air conditioning until after my room became purple, remember? Yes. I am grown, but feel compelled to do childish things, such as press my nose to window screens to gather the scent of the gardenia bushes planted beneath each window. The warmish air releases their sweet odor. I roam the room - looking, touching, remembering each of its contents lovingly. Its a me museum!

I soak myself in.

Convinced I am alone in this dream by silence, I wander down the short hall and go to the kitchen and formal living room, each object viewed causing memories of childhood to flash like a strobe light in my head. I try to take in all I can before unease sets in, as I - on some deeper level of consciousness - feel certain it will. Even in this dream.

I pause in the den, the meeting and living place of the house. A flood of flashes. Christmases. The old water cooler, before A/C. Our first TV set. Staying up late to watch Steve Allen during the summer. Lueanne cutting Ann's hair behind Daddy's chair. My very silly cat picture they hung up, much to my horror, even if it did win an honorable mention ribbon at the state fair. Jim Berber phone calls while little brothers teased and taunted. Mim rocking me in the red chair when I was 3 or 4. The flood. The skunk. The armadillo. Each in itself a charming story of the 50's and 60's in Texas. A great big slice of American Pie...

In your eye, because now I hear voices in Momma's and Daddy's room. Were they there all along, or had they just "awakened" too?

I tiptoed back to the short hallway outside my bedroom. Bryan's door was open.

Bryan is the oldest of my two little brothers, at almost five years younger than me. He was sitting indian-style, as always, on his bedroom floor playing some board game alone. I sneaked in and positioned myself across the board from Bryan, and attempted to speak to him. I tried to tell him of the problems I had suffered at my mother's hands, and I suppose I pressed for confirmation. I whispered because we could still hear Momma and Daddy stirring in their adjacent room. Their room and Bryan's was joined by a shared bathroom.

It seemed the more intent I became on my whisperings, the more intent Bryan became on his game.

Exasperated finally, I hissed, "She really fucked me up!" in Bryan's face.

I apologize for the language. Apparently I am uncouth in dreams.

Bryan, always of a baser nature than I, practically rolling his eyes, said very matter of factly, "She fucked us ALL up."

End of statement. End of dream.

Somehow I had figured because of my ostracism from the family unit, that I had suffered Momma's abusive episodes alone. I had certainly felt alone.

Sometimes the way we feel is not reality, even though it feels as if it is. It's taken me years to acknowledge that. I felt alone until I gained wisdom through researching sexual abuse that enabled me to see the situation as it is instead of through the eyes of a very frightened child.

Skilled eyes could pick each of us out in minutes, I'd bet.

I wonder how many other dysfunctional families suffer every symptom on the dysfunctional list? We were the storybook case, only it was no fairytale.

I should have known by all the prayers prayed for deliverance, that there are no true life fairytales. No. Only damned good stories.

Today I know I'm not alone. I wasn't then either, little house on N.M. road. Well, we certainly learned alot there. Good and bad.

Audrey was abused also. How can I say that when it's only my opinion as I never witnessed it directly? Only by experience.

As previously stated, water was a precious commodity growing up. Early in life, some kids were bathed together to conserve water. First Audrey and I shared the tub, and later Bryan was added. I don't think the practice could have lasted too long though - not enough room. Particularly since Audrey was overweight, even back then.

On this occasion, only Audrey and I were in the bathtub. I seemed to be around five or six, I'm uncertain, but Audrey was/is three years older. We were old enough that Momma seldom intruded at bath time anymore.

At the age of eight or nine, Audrey showed me oral sex in the bathtub. I don't remember her ploy, but she showed me how to give and receive oral sex. I liked receiving best, a small detail then. Sort of like enjoying being tickled.

I never thought a thing of it then. It only happened on two or three occasions. It seemed as natural as being tickled by a sibling, or other horseplay. I didn't care much for it though and voiced concerns, to which the second person in my life told me to be quiet, or we'd both be in trouble.

Audrey could be vindictive also. Once she tricked me into getting down on all fours. Then she quickly straddled me and urinated. I knew she was hateful, but she peed on a Christmas present - a scarlet red petticoat that I loved. She tricked me into eating dogfood (luckily it was the dry variety). She made me pull ladybugs' legs off too. Her idea of fun usually eluded me.

Nevertheless, at what age does one begin to evaluate sex? And when we do, in what terms do we think of it? Aren't our first imaginings rather vaginal/penile?

Then how in the heck did my sister know about oral sex at eight or nine? Even ten? She couldn't have been more than that, or we never would have fit in the bathtub! Audrey was obese early in life, remember? I'd worn her fourth grade Easter dress when I was a senior in high school, in a comedy production. It fit!

Bryan had fared little better, I'm afraid. I found Barbies he mutilated on the genitalia with pins and other things - all debasing in nature. He was very sexual growing up. He and I also had our day. He outgrew me when he was five, even though I was almost ten. I'm still tiny.

Bryan was agressive by nature, and could be cruel to animals as well. Once Daddy made him kill a kitten he had badly maimed.

So you see why I'm thinking I wasn't alone? Another interesting fact is that the abuses stopped with either of two events, you had grown old enough to tell and not be totally discredited, or a younger child took your place.

My abuse stopped with Bryan's birth. No doubt Audrey's stopped with mine. It hurts to consider Adam and Lueanne, the youngest of us five.

Five children. Five lives. Five spirits left marked by what happened, what happens, and what could have been. Quoting Bryan the last time I saw him, "Just trying to keep it all in the family..."

Our nice neat little family, living in an oh so glass house.

No rocks. No rocks please.

We're shattered enough already.

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