Sipping Life in Non-Lethal Portions

6.

"May you have the hindsight to know where you've been, the foresight to know where you're going and the insight to know when you're going too far." ~ Irish Toast

 The memories, from this time period, that affected Lee on a conscious level were not violent or sexual in nature.  Those memories were either too common an occurance to stand out, or they escaped her understanding, so they had to be put away for another day.  The memories that played on her mind were of a more personal nature.  One memory, she carried for years due the guilt it caused her.  Another memory, she buried deep, even after her horror subsided, because it was not a memory one would share.  And, the last vivid memory, she carried close to the surface, taking it out occasionally to share with others, until the memory would come to mean something totally different.

The memory that caused guilt would seem a small thing to most people.  One nice day, Lee decided it would be fun to push her baby brother along in his carriage.  Feeling important to have such an adult job, she assured her mother that she would take care of him.  Starting out, it soon became apparent that her brother was enjoying himself.  He laughed at the faces she made and clapped at her songs.  After pushing him a short distance, Lee stopped and bent down to tie her shoelace which had come undone.  His laughter turned to tears when she disappeared from his line of vision.  She quickly stood up to comfort him--her reassurance ending his fear.  But, the incident caused an awareness in her.  He depended on her to provide security, and he trusted  that she would indeed provide it.  This caused Lee to feel power over another person.  

Experimenting with her newly-found power, Lee ducked out of sight once again.  Once again, her baby brother began to cry.  Again, she stood up to comfort him, thrilling at her ability to drive fear away.  Over and over, Lee toyed her brother's sense of security--going as far as to force him to watch her walk away and disappear behind a wall.  But this last time, when she ran to comfort him, Lee could not do so.  Her power over him had disappeared.  Her baby brother no longer trusted her.  Realizing this, Lee was filled with shame, and guilt now flooded into the spot inside her that her abuse had emptied of power.

The memory that horrified her involved a rather distasteful subject.  It was not something that usually happened to other children, or if it did, she had never heard of it because no one would actually share such an experience.  One afternoon Lee's mother gave to the oldest brother a fruitcake to share with the other children.  As soon as their mother was out of sight, he decided he would eat his fill and then divide what was left between the others.  The next brother down, seeing his older brother's intention, knocked the cake from his hands. Chunks of cake and bits of fruit flew everywhere.  While the older brothers duked it out, the rest of the chidren ran around the room picking up and eating scattered cake and fruit.  Lee popped a raisin into her mouth  (her favorite next to the coloured cherries), only to find that it tasted strange.  Realization dawning on her as her eyes shifted to her baby brother's diaper, she instantly spat the "raisin" out.  Lee started wailing, mostly because she believed that she was poisoned.   (Later, as an adult, Lee would note that if karma had any bearing, this was her punishment for what she did to her baby brother,)

Running into the room, Lee's mother, used to occurrances of chaos, soon put everything back into  order--except Lee's predictament.  While assuring her that she was not going to die, her mother made Lee a grilled cheese sandwich--her solution to Lee's problem.   Lee could not understand how a sandwich was going to make things right.   Her mother explained that the food would take away the taste left by the "raisin".  Lee continued to cry for her mother "to fix it".  Her mother, at a loss of how to appease Lee, exclaimed, "I cannot undo what has happened."  Her mother's statement stunned Lee, because that was exactly what she expected, and believed, her mother could do.  Although Lee was still in awe of her mother after she realized her mother's limitations, Lee no longer saw her mother as an all powerful god.

The last vivid memory from Lee's time in the projects was of her drowning.  It was a very hot day--hot enough to drive Lee's mother from the house with all her children to a nearby lake. This was a rare  treat for the kids, because their mother rarely ventured near large bodies of water with her children--she could not swim.  Lee could not get over this fact, in light of her knowledge that her mother's childhood home was set virtually on the ocean shoreline.

Arriving at the lake, the children immediately headed toward the water.  Unlike their mother, they had no fear.  While her older brothers swam out to the deep part and her little brothers splashed on the shore, Lee and  her sister waded out until the water reached their waists.  After playing for awhile, Lee decided to venture out further.  Wanting no part in it, Lee's sister went back to the shallow water to play with the little ones.  Slowly, Lee inched forward deeper and deeper, until the water reached her chin.  Then, standing on the tips of her toes, she stepped out just a little further.  She put her head back in the water, so only her face was exposed to the air, and she looked at the sky.  The clouds passing before Lee's eyes created the illusion that she was drifting along in the water.  She was mesmerized by the feeling of weightlessness.  And, although she dimly felt the nudge of the lake's current, she was not aware that her illusion of drifting away had become a reality.

For some reason she could never fathom, Lee was not startled when her face slipped beneath the water's surface.  Peacefully driffting along, she watched the slow movement of the nearby swimmers' legs.  Her eyes followed a fish slowly swim by.  If she held her breathe, Lee was not aware of it.  When it occurred to Lee that her mother would be looking for her, she placidly raised her hand up out of the water and waved.

In Lee's mind, she was not rescued.  She saw, through the distorting surface of the water, a man dive from the dam toward her.  After that, all she remembers is standing by the family's picnic table eating a sandwich.  Reaching up to shoo a fly away, her hand touched her wet hair.  For a brief moment, Lee wondered how her hair got wet--she didn't swim--and then she remembered drifting along in the water.  Shrugging, she turned back to her sandwich.  Her lack of trauma and nonchalance about the event, puzzled and intrigue Lee when she looked back at the memory.  Why did she not panic?  How was it that she felt a sense of peace, rather than terror, as she drifted  beneath the water's surface?  It would take learning to mediate many years later before Lee would gain insight into these questions.