In April 2022 my brain broke or my soul did. I have forgiveness because she’s extremely mentally sick. And at the same time I feel the full weight of her sickness, her hatred of me. That inevitably would surface enough for me to leave.
Barbara is a mean dog who bit everyone but me, it was only a matter of time before the eggshells I walked on broke beneath my feet. Exposing me to her teeth…. A kimodo dragon whose bite slowly festers until sepsis…..
There is a clarity to my creative vision when speaking of Barbara. A finite decision, yet a balancing act
That relates to my vulnerability of parental figures when I have none.
The reality is I only have memories of my mother to guide me, pieces, stories, photographs that age, smiles of kindness that still hold me in their warmth. I know the love of my mom to be truth. It guides me still.
Mom trained me, that having money must never be spoken about. I closed my lips tight for my life. I am a precious jewel, untouched and sane.
Barbara.
Did she always know? Did she always wonder when she could strike?
She was planning my demise then as I saw her last week, she hated my guts.
Still two years later so thouroughly.
Like a little girl I went to the bathroom to cry. Oh, but I had to for my health… to leave her, I missed her I love her…I loved her…..
She made it clear that I’d never know here again on that Tuesday.
A lifelong friend, it was devastating. But. I need to know. To be strong now.
The girl inside me went to hug her. The adult inside me saw the children’s chairs on the floor, stacked with no children sitting in them.
She was luring in new young parent friends of Noah’s at the party, putting on her charm. Yes, I’d love to babysit voice. Her multiple personalities that I knew/knew so well.
I’m looking with awareness but not feeling anything personally. Her eyes were like daggers on the back of my neck.
On Tuesday she might have been a rock from outer space I could feel her glaring. I felt confusion but also
The reality of an ending. A final ending.
The end of childhood.
As I grew into my adult self she was there compassionately for me. Giving me crystals, holding my hand when parenting got hard. Rays kindergarten teacher etc.
She told me she was guided by ancient women in the cliffs above Israel. That she could feel the ancient land dwellers helping her soul see the light. That she was connected to Chumash spirits.
I can see god, I know god. She’d say…
I felt that these were the beings or spirits she turned too when everything in her life or relationships were ruined by her personality….or insanity. I knew she was sick but not how sick.
She was always at therapy three times a week. Psychoanalysis.
Barbara was a writer, she wrote, her prose and reaching, her desire to be musing over exotic adjectives like diaphanous.
My mother in her drug nightgown…. Diaphanous….
In her own drug addled mind lost in the parking lot of Gelsons.
I’ll see you in 4 hours I’m at gelsons…I’ll see you at home I’m at therapy….
She felt like total shit and embraced it. She had depression and loved to stew in its soup, she was often staring at the wall for extended periods of time. I remember her spaced out. When she entered this state I used to wonder of her childhood. She told me so many stories and I saw her family pictures and she spoke….
This childhood held the most importance to her over everything, she was tortured, she is an artist…. But why? And where is the art? And why does no one love her? I love her.
How is this productive? Something so old. Why is it okay or ramanticised to be crazy?
I prayed and held on to my healthy fatty fish oil vitamin brain. Oh! I’ve been through hell but it’s not
The most interesting thing in life…..
And what was her life? As with most of my moms friends they always seemed to be totally awesome and chill. Accept for Barbara….
And I found out that year about her life as ray went to sleep. Late into the night. She’d tell me and I was terrified.
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Barbara…. In 1997
She must have had a fight with my mother, she gave me a box lined with blue craft foam that my mother used. My mother lined each drawer and gave Barbara this gift. Forgiveness.
Barbara gave it to me. “ when I want to talk to your mom I speak to it”
I felt a protective force of the eucalyptus trees, a sweetness of my childhood I could see Barbara speak to this box about me. How she would psychically as fact speak.
Blue the color of throat chakra the color of medicine Buddha. The color of my mothers eyes.
She gave me this box.
Box. The dead loved ones in my life leaving behind one box.
She told me I could store my childhood in a box and speak to it. What would I say?
Barbara, now is a dead loved one. Or the kind spirit I love still so much in my mind, formative of who I am. Is.
A box, a crystal to speak to. A garnet with churches in Norway her visual language her sight… dead.
There are many ways to look at death and dying. When my mother died I just wanted to sit on Barbara’s front steps with the rocks and the cactus and jade plants and pear leaves.
There under eucalyptus leaves I would grieve in imaginary lands I created as a child.
In this place was a magical peaceful land of childhood. A tree to eat Oreos, a plastic tambourine to play, a blanket to hide in, a culdesac to run away from my mother, run away from Barbara. I would look at the sky and see parachutes the tiny specs of light from dust. The red station wagon was always warm.
In the streets anbove havenhurst in encino so evergreen and seasonless I would exsist in freedom.
In the bresler home I felt timelessness and peace. My voice was its own. I could be a boy and run up a tree.
Barbara knew what childhood should be because she didn’t have one of her own. She let us have the full childhood and I also remember her feeling like she had the power to turn off the fun and wonder like a light switch.
She had a very dark scary side. A suicidal side. A side that wanted to be death.
A side of destruction. In the sweetness of my childhood I would wonder and not want to get to know fully why she was so dualistic. Certain objects certain places had darkness and fear. Swimming pools, plastic chairs, pictures,
A shiny pink feather in the sunlight or a gravestone cold and grey. These are my analogies, with no balance in between.
I love you I will love you forever. She said I’ll know you your whole life. I love you unconditionally.
Now: it’s the truth from her, someone once so close.
I hate you and I loathe your exsistence. You fucked up and I hate you.
The shame is unbearable.
Barbara taught me how to hate people with reason or even to say “this makes me uncomfortable I’m leaving”
She taught me to write people I hate on my shoe and grind their name into the pavement. She taught me to beat a pillow and scream their name with hatred. She taught me to say “fuck ‘em’”
She taught me to energetically turn myself to clay so no one could permeate my barrier.
She said put up your slippery slip!
She knew my secrets, my life, my…. Unknown to me my personal writing.
She always wanted to know more.
She was quick to hate people.
Now she hates me. And I know how she’ll hate me.
Because she taught me to hate. She taught me why and how she hates.
She used to smack the pillows on her bed with a foam batt and scream. She used to rip phone books in half.
My garden she broke the sprinklers and lit my chairs on fire under the cover of darkness as I slept. And why?
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Scary, I was scared. So afraid. I had a reason to be afraid.
Even now two years later I can’t type or speak. It is my fault she’s not in my life. It is my fault for my safety.
Yet.
I still cannot.
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