Outside looking on

Have I always been on the outside looking on?

I remember sitting in the living room with my father and his wife. They were speaking Ladino and I did not understand one word. Well, perhaps a word or two here and there: "cierra la puerta?" She sat in a blue chair in the corner of the living room and puffed on her cigarette, holding it between her fingers in a slim, black holder. I remember she wore gloves when we drove into town to have tea and "a thousand leaves" cakes at Haddon & Sly. I was mostly very quiet. I sat as still as I could so as not to be noticed. I was terrified of doing anything at all in case it was wrong. For I had heard that she had a very large temper. When my father brought me home for the weekend, she would meet me at the door and lead me directly to the bathroom to wash off all the dirt from my mother's house. "Remember to scrub your knees and neck," she would say.

I wrote about some of this back in 2009:

I would sit quietly watching my step-mother closely as she dressed herself with great care, slipping hairpins into the neat roll she created around the bottom edge of her blue-silver tinted hair. After donning her beige colored gloves, we would drive off together into the town for our outing. I cannot remember what we did at Haddon & Sly except for the times we would visit the store's tea-room for tea and cakes - and, usually Mille-feuille was among them. I would sit at the table politely making sure to be on my very best behavior. 

I remember feeling almost as if I was being initiated into some type of aristocratic, sophisticated world meant for other people - everyone else, that is, except me. It was like some kind of lucky fluke that I was even allowed to participate in it for a brief moment. I understood that I would have to keep very quiet, not fidget or make any unnecessary movement in my seat, and eat my cake ever so carefully until each crumb was cleaned off the plate and into my hungry little mouth. I probably could have eaten sixteen of them one after another. They were so delicate and petite, and so completely delicious - expert flaky pastry, creamy custard filling and elegant powdered sugar frosting the top. I was always so proud not to allow one tiniest drop of the powdered sugar to fall onto the table cloth, or more importantly, onto my clothes. My step-mother would have hated that, and I feared her wrath considerably.

I only visited their home for about five years until I was ten years old or so. After that my father told me something had happened and he was no longer allowed to take me there. He never told me the reason why. Perhaps he thought I was too young to understand, or maybe he did not want to hurt me. Nevertheless, naturally, as a child I assumed and imagined it was because of something I said or did. He and I would have to visit in the park, drive out on outings or go to the movies - it felt like meeting a clandestine lover or something.

It would be years until I could visit him in his own home again.

I came from the outside - another life - and she allowed me to intrude for awhile. 

Comments

[tamarika]

Yes, Marion. You caught it! Definitely could not mention that when I went back home ...
What was I thinking? What was I feeling? Hard to remember - but I just kept on receiving messages that I was unworthy ... and those build up.

[Marion Barnett]

Seems like you were caught between a rock and a hard place. Wow! What were you thinking as a kid when you had to go in the bathroom and scrub the dirt from your neck and knees (which is where all kids get dirty if they live a normal life)? Bet you couldn't mention that when you went back home. Yikes! Tough stuff you're digging up here.

[tamarika]

Dear Sky,
Thanks for reading this and especially for your thoughtful comment.

No, I never managed to discuss any of this with my father. He was 55 when I was born and before I could really understand the implications of childhood experiences, he had died.

I am in the process of organizing a memoir, so more will be coming ... I am practising here, so your feedback is more than helpful! I like whetting your curiosity :-)

Thank you ... and good luck on your journey.

[sky]

i felt sad reading this and also very curious about the story you tell. i am glad your father did not abandon you despite his wife's apparent difficulties in accepting his past and a child which did not include her. did you later share with your father how you felt as a child about all of this or what the long term effects of this were? the challenge of worthiness surely had some of its origin here. i would like to read more of this story. maybe you will write it one day. if you have already written more and it is stored in your archives would you please link me?

i am always so touched by what you share and impressed by the hard work you have done and do to better understand the source of your pain and heal the little girl you describe. i know from my own childhood how daunting that journey can be.