The People Behind My Eyes

credits AND summary

credits: Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” from their CD “American Idiot”

summary: This is an entry about a memory that I need to erase. It gives a few details about the memory. I losen the grip of the memory after falling asleep with my dog Captain.

We talk about rewriting history. We talk about letting go of the past and moving forward with a renewed spirit that wont let the past repeat itself. We talk, we talk, and we talk. We fantasize; we daydream about blissful moments of walking on the beach and meeting the sun as it arrives. In this imaginary world we can feel the cool on our feet as it rushes from a puddle of nowhere only to return itself to the same wayward, aimless sea. We dream then return to the real world with our issues based on old past experiences. We are told by well meaning people that we can’t re-write history. We cannot erase the past. We cannot change it or lesson the pain that we felt back then. Today, I’m proving them wrong. I’ve tried other ways of healing and failed miserably. Today I’ll rewrite history. Today, I’m editing out one specific memory. I’m rewriting the occurrences of my September’s end. I have to first record my history in order to re-write it.

Parents can often do more damage emotionally than physically or sexually. Frequently the emotional abuse stays with us and burns itself in our memory like a hot iron on a future prize winning bull. It makes its mark and stubbornly refuses to budge or fade. This type of emotional abuse is what will be edited out of my history.

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There’s a little town in the flat of the Midwest where no one ever goes unless they are abandoning their uncontrollable children or in my case, abandoning a child that refused to be broken. For some, staying at the home was a blessing. This flat land once housed orphans of fallen Korean War soldiers and other war children forgotten. I grew up hearing horror stories about the abuses suffered by these orphans. There was no one for them to call to, no place for them to run. They’d escape only into endless cornfields where the wardens would come pick them up and drag them back for a whipping. The children stopped running because there was nowhere to run to. My mother pressed that point; there was pain and no way to escape that pain. If I didn’t obey her I’d be their problem and I’d find myself being dragged from those endless fields into a shed with an angry head mistress. As I heard it, the children were raped and beaten regularly. They lived in small rooms with beds that lined the walls, rats on the floors and child molesters paced outside the doors. If the wardens didn’t hurt the children, the older children would be sure to hurt the younger ones. The food was rancid and dry. There was no happiness in this place. This is where my grandfather grew up but these are not the stories he tells.

My grandfather was taken from his home where his dead parents laid for an unspecified amount of time. He had ten brothers and sisters but most of them passed from the same illness as his young parents: malnutrition. Grandfather’s parents both died before the age of 35 and he has no memory of them, as he is 88 years old to date. He found himself in this orphanage because a neighbor called for assistance for him and his surviving brothers and sisters. They lived on malaises and bread until they were picked up and taken to this flat land home. Because it was 1930 the government required segregation. Grandfather and his surviving brothers and sisters had separate quarters but according to Grandfather, he was never treated poorly because of the colour of his skin. To look at him, you can see the African features, not African-American features, but the ethnic look that makes him stand out from simple mutt Americans. Grandfather told me about the cows and the horses, the cornfields that they played in, the fishing holes and the dances. He was a class clown and had many friends. Grandfather was loved there, which would explain why he has returned yearly since his graduation in the early 40’s. The weekend of September 21st is the Homecoming Dance for the orphans turned Alumni.

As early as I remember my family piled into the Winnebago filled with food, drinks and toys, and headed for the flat land every 20th of September. I recall very little about the ride up or back. My memory does not allow the details, but I would think my first visit was one of anxiety and fear. I’d heard of this horrifying place where children are beaten and raped. Perhaps the only image in my little mind to compare the horror to was the same horror in my own home. I can’t imagine wanting to visit a place worse than Mama’s house. What my memory does serve is a fond recollection of laying belly up beneath the stars next to my sister beside a duck pond. Being a city girl I’d never seen stars so clearly. I knew right then I never wanted to leave. I’d eaten the food. I’d spoken with the “hostages” year after year. I walked their halls, their dorms and toured the schoolrooms. There were no monsters hiding behind the door to the arcade room or to the indoor pool house, the theater, the dining rooms or the dance halls. I saw lost souls but not ones visibly tortured by the staff. I took these images home with me and kept them locked away.

Year after year I was reminded of how horrible this place was and if I didn’t straighten up I’d be sent there. Mama kept a silver box in the bedroom with papers that required a signature for some burley man to drag us out of the house and force us down to the home on flat ground. She threatened expulsion from our home for every offense, actual or perceived. The upset at home was compounded by the mixed messages about this home. Grandfather said it was a wonderful place to grow up. Mother said it was a house where children were left and uncared for. She pressed the point that they were beaten and raped repeatedly and no one cared enough to stop it. This is the place she threatened to send us if we did not appease her. we traveled to the Homecoming Dance every September via Winnebago. We went to see the place where we would be left when Mama got tired of her children.

Summer has come and past.
The innocent can never last.
Wake me up when September ends.

It became a prayer of mine that Mama would leave my sister and me at this home. I wanted to lay on that pond more than once a year. I wanted to walk down the little city streets behind the protective wall from the rest of the world. If it was true, no one could get out, then no one could get in, including Mama. The little streets wound around like a town out of some Old Western novel. The flat land seemed the perfect place to run to, not from.

Wake me up when September ends

There were many memories to flee. There are right now images so close to the surface that I struggled to keep them down. Memories now flooding my present mind are making it difficult to complete my sentences. The need to rewrite history has never been more pressing than now. The need to let September go has never been more urgent than today.
The demand for change, the sound of the alarm will not go unheeded. Today history will be re-written. Working through these issues means future September’s don’t hold the anniversary date of those painful events. These September anniversaries end today.

Wake me up when September ends

It’s September 18th, 2005, and I want to let go. I’ve dreamed of the moment of letting go. Right now, I’m still afraid to dream. I know what the mind can do when it’s allowed to drift but the wind is blowing just right and the day was empty of events anyway. I let my mind go and soon I was sleeping beneath the big oak in the back yard. My faithful companion laid belly up and spread eagle next to me, also deep in a summers end slumber.
My dream went like this:
The frightful sound of sticks hitting the Green Day sliver drum set shocked us all back to the fact that I’d never had formal training in playing the drums. Being ready in 2 days for a live benefit concert would be absolutely impossible. I click the sticks, 1-2-3-4-… but the same cacophony blasted through the set causing the lead singer to toss the mike in utter disbelief that anyone would put a Sweepstakes winner on stage with a professional band at a Green Peace concert. His pitch-black hair matched his eyes and his tone of voice. His played-out punk band leather, hanging dog chains and studs weighed more than his little black headed self. I didn’t offer my observation; I kept my eyes to the floor and wondered why on earth I won this contest when I never win anything at all, ever!

Grief’s tantrums were kept in check by the baby-sitter-executives who scurried to meet the needs of this 90 pound rock star. I wasn’t sure if I should chuck the idea of playing with the band or look inside myself for some miracle that would give me an ear for music. Two days is truly not enough to make me a musician. I thought to myself, what can I offer, what can I give to mark my presence with the impact it deserves while preserving the path of legacy that Green Day is destined to lay? After a brief meeting with the execs it was determined that I should put down the drumsticks and pick up a paintbrush. I had less than 24 hours to prove myself. Time is everything when everything is lying on the line. With the pressure lifted, I no longer had to succeeding at an art for which I had no skill and no interest. This new movement opened the door for personal creativity that climaxed after combining memories of past September’s with the rain, the fire, the pond and the stars.

Opening night the band took the stage before a hyped crowd of black headed, stud toting punk rock fans massed in the tens of thousands. As expected, the silent stage lights exploded with fury and sprayed an opening show that no one would soon forget. The crowd did not follow the lead of the lasers as they returned to their silence only to burst forth with one ray illuminating Grief in the middle of the stage.

“Summer has come and past.
The innocent can never last.
Wake me up when September ends.”

As he began, slowly my “September” banner unfolded behind him. I’d taken the words to his song and dug inside my heart to find my miracle. I used the driving beat of his base and his drums to stamp out decayed visions of old lies and the frightening idle threats.

“Like my fathers come to pass,
Seven years has gone so fast.
Wake me up when September ends.”

I used his voice when I couldn’t find mine. I kept his rhythm when I had none.
“Here comes the rain again,Falling from the stars.Drenched in my pain again,Becoming who we are.As my memory restsBut never forgets what I lost.Wake me up when September ends.”
I watched the old movies of horror and painted them for all to see. They lost their power and their ability to cripple me.
“Summer has come and past.
The innocent can never last.
Wake me up when September ends.
Ring out the bells again.
Like we did when spring began.
Wake me up when September ends.”

I kept nothing to myself, crossed all the forced boundaries that kept me quiet and angry.
“Here comes the rain again,
Falling from the stars.
Drenched in my pain again,
Becoming who we are.
As my memory rest But never forgets what I lost.
Wake me up when September ends.”

Grief’s lights held the whole band in their full glory while sustaining the crowd’s fervor with lyrics of his September’s end.
“Summer has come and past.
The innocent can never last.
Wake me up when September ends.
Like my fathers come to pass.
Twenty years has gone so fast.
Wake me up when September ends.”

I’d never heard myself roar so loudly. I’d never heard my heart so quiet or known my mind to be so settled. But here on the stage with Green Day, I put this past to rest. It was witnessed by strangers, who I’ll never have the chance to meet. But they will never forget the banner that symbolized the re-writing of my September history.

September 21st, 2005—It was over as quickly as it started, the tour came to a close and marked a new un-littered September, a September with possibilities and hope in abundance like turning leaves on fall trees.

Whether awake or sleeping, every September will be filled with expectation and promise. But for now, please let me be. I wish to lay beneath the big oak, beside my faithful companion in a deep summers end slumber.

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