THE POETRY PLACE

Based on this title, readers may expect a list of poetry.  I wish there were.  Instead, there is a very sad story I would love to share.  Telling this will probably turn my soul inside out, bare, for everyone to see.  This forum was created for these type of things exactly.  So here goes.

My childhood occurred in the 60's and 70's.  In those days, children were seen and not heard.  What Dad said....went.  He was always right.  If anyone dared express an opinion, it was clearly stated that is was wrong, because it was not Dad's opinion. Therefore, there was not a lot of encouragement to think for oneself or express feelings.  We stayed quiet while Dad was watching t.v.  Dad's mood dictated the mood for the entire house.

Dad was a good man, however.  In those days, love was expressed by having a roof over our heads and food on the table.  There were not many hugs, or spoken words of love. All homes in that era were not governed this way.  Some friends' homes were openly happy, humorous and had an aura of ease and comfort.  Unfortunately, this was not my home.

The need to explain my childhood, in a nutshell,  is directly related to The Poetry Place.  Feeling squelched, stilted, ignored, and unloved caused my personality trait to be a very sensitive, sympathetic, shy, backward, pushover.  My private thoughts ran rampant inside me.  I owned them.  They were mine.

Around twelve years old, all these feelings, good, bad, ugly, came to the brim of my soul and it became necessary to get them out.  This is how The Poetry Place was born.

I chose an orange three-ring binder.  Meticulously, purposefully, I thumbed through magazine after magazine and began cutting out letters that appealed to me.  The first page of my creation has these myriad of magazine letters glued to the very center of the page like this:
                                 
                                                         The Poetry Place
                                                                    by
                                                            (my real name)

The magazines gave me a sincere appreciation for photography.  One photo in particular spoke to me.  It was a candid shot of an elderly man with a cap of some sort.  It was a closeup so his face filled the entire page.  The old man's expression captured my heart and it is very hard to explain what the expression represented.  He was not smiling, looked as if he had just wiped his eyes, as his hands were in the frame around his mouth, but not covering it.  Immediately, this picture was cut out and glued to a sheet of white paper and put into this book. To this very day I wonder who he was, what his situation and what he was feeling.  Each and every deep wrinkle on his face had a story to tell. His eyes begged to be listened to.

In a notebook, I began to spill out every feeling, thought, idea that I was unable to share otherwise.  Poem after poem was written, typed by an old typewriter, onto white paper, and magazine photos that matched the poem were glued to the side of the poem. Each entry was like imprinting my heart and soul and I began to feel release...............comfort.....joy......accomplishment.

It could be said this poem book was a journal.  To me it was much, much more.  It was a part of me.  Like my arm or leg.  It breathed and lived just like me.

Eventually, a tragic event occurred around the age of thirteen.  That story will be another post someday.  This event rocked me to the core and I cried and cried and mourned and harbored absolute anger towards my parents.  It was a helpless feeling, hopeless to me, and there was nobody to turn to. This is when, once again, I turned to my best friend, The Poetry Place.  This is the shift from child to teenager in my writings.  Although my twelve year old poems were very "adult" I was still a child.  The tragedy clearly transformed my book, and me, to the next level of youth, no longer a child.  Turning the tragedy into a valid poem did some good for me. It locked the event into a written truth.

As my teenage years continued, so did my additions to The Poetry Place.  I felt, I wrote, I pasted pictures.  Over and over and over.  This continued into adulthood and I carried this book close to me everywhere I moved and continued to add to it, although the older I got the less frequent I wrote.

By the time I was twenty-seven, there were three children, two ex-husbands and a busy life raising my children alone.  There were no entries anymore.  Still, I kept this book close to me, in fact, this book was me.  It represented my soul.  The Poetry Place, my best friend since I was twelve, sat on a shelf in my bedroom as proof that I existed, felt, and thought.

During secretarial school, we were required to give a talk and be videotaped.  It was meant for us to see for ourselves, our mannerisms, our speech, how we portray ourselves to others.  Always, I was more comfortable  behind the camera. I despised pictures because pictures seem to accentuate my flaws. It takes practice, makeup and retakes to get a good picture.  So I dreaded this assignment.

It was important to me to talk about something I was passionate about.  I poured over my soul, The Poetry Place, and decided to talk about the tragedy and share the poem I wrote about all those years ago.

The day of the taping, I went to my place of employment where my secretarial skills could be used by helping the Personnel Director.  How I got to that place is another story in itself.  Let's just say for now, I was doing a damn good job, but, politics got in the way.  That morning I walked into the office and froze.  Literally froze in movement and speech.  One of my secretarial classmates sat at MY desk performing MY duties.  Furious, humiliated, the writing on the wall became very clear. I had been replaced and this was a shitty, unprofessional way to tell me.

Knowing it was necessary to pull off this tape recording on this very day, in front of The Bitch that stole my position, was daunting to say the least.  Leaving work for the very last time, (I quit on the spot), I bawled like a baby until school started that afternoon.  Whenever I get very angry, I cry.  In fact, I cry over everything and have been dubbed "The Family Crier".  It is this raw emotion that is at the heart of my writing, therefore, there is no need to apologize for that. It is a gift.

Obvious to everyone in the room that I had been crying, only three people knew why.  Me, The Bitch, and the teacher.  I came to school early and told my teacher all about it.  Walking to the front of the class in my brand new dress, a black and white beauty that accentuated my tiny waist and made me look like I had a nice hour-glass figure, that actually, was barely there.  The dress made me feel good while I briefly looked over The Bitch's jeans and casual top, feeling vindicated on that issue at least.

Raw, emotional, and true to myself I shared my tragedy with the class and finished my talk by reading the emotional  poem.  The class sat silent for a few seconds.  I drew a breath of satisfaction, because I am very good at reading people and I could tell the class was touched.  As I closed my book the class began to applaud.  This brought on more tears from the shear realization that my life mattered.  The tragedy shared, somehow helped to bring closure.

When the emotions take over, life becomes a blur and my body moves while my mind is not taking inventory of my belongings.  I was sure I held the book close and took it home and laid it on the shelf of my bedroom closet like always.

After I received my Certificate of Completion finishing the Secretarial course, I made a very bad decision.  My "friend with benefits" over the past nine years was at my window late one night.  For this forum we will call him Meany.  Meany had been asking me to marry him for three years. Deep down I knew this was a mistake.  Unfortunately, he caught me at a very vulnerable time of my life.  Raising my children alone, working full time, barely scraping by, suddenly I decided I was tired of being broke.  Marrying Meany would certainly help that situation, I convinced myself.

It happened fast.  He helped us move out of my three bedroom, 2 bathroom condo and move several towns away, back to my hometown.  Marriage changed him immediately.  Instead of "friend with benefits" I had a controlling abusive snake for a husband.  He did not allow me to properly go through my belongings and forced me to throw boxes away without checking them first.  My gut told me this would be a very expensive mistake.

Four months later, he beat me from the front of the house to the back on New Years Eve.  Teetering, reeling at the back door with no shoes or coat, I had a choice to run or stay and get beat more.  My children asleep (I hoped) in the bedroom inside the house.........I knew he wouldn't hurt them.  So I ran.  I ran barefoot in the snow and puked all the way to the police station.  A policeman drove me back to the house, Meany was arrested, and I literally  had a couple hours to pull my children and belongings out of the house.

We relocated to an apartment and somehow my family had removed my belongings from Meany's house to my apartment.  When everything was put away and the children were asleep, I longed to hold my best friend, The Poetry Place.  The search began.  Each location I searched I came up empty handed.  Becoming frantic, I searched more fervently, over and over, looking in places and boxes I know had already been searched, as if more searching would make my beloved book, my soul, appear.

Gone. Lost. My beloved book, my soul, my poems, pictures,..........The Poetry Place......gone forever.  I was devastated beyond repair.  I still am.  It has been twenty-seven years missing.  Right now, tears are welling up, a familiar pain inside my belly, (yes, real physical pain), and the overwhelming loss of my beloved book has scarred me permanently.  A part of me........ missing. Forever.

If anyone ever sees an orange three-ring binder with my soul inside...............I am here.

BUILDING CHARACTER

This post is likely to come out like a baby projectile vomiting, because if I don't write, my head will explode.  SIGH   *takes a deep breath*

As a writer, the decision was made long ago to refrain from reading books because my secret fear was that I would subconsciously absorb others' writing style.  It is vital that my style is my own.  With that being said, a few years ago, I kept hearing this curious hubbub of chatter about Fifty Shades of Gray.  

One day while sitting in my tiny town's corner store table using the WiFi, the Store Lady, saw that all three volumes of these books had been purchased on my Kindle.  It is my Kindle, however, when I won it, I didn't know what to do with it so my daughter set it up and began downloading and reading books.  (The Store Lady is probably thinking, likely story...)   Anyway, one by one, the Store Lady had all three volumes ready to read.  She paused, leaned over the table, looked me square in the eye and said, "Take my advice.  DO NOT read these unless your husband is home".   I giggled and  told her I planned to read them, regardless.   

When I begin a book it quickly becomes my main focus and I get so engrossed that every possible moment is spent reading.  It took me three days to make it through  all three books.  The story is a great one.  The sex is surprising, refreshing and bold.  The characters in the book were my favorite though.  The Cinderella-type....... rags to riches, falling in love with Prince Charming.........ah......I found the story better than the sex, frankly.  Halfway through the second book I began thumbing past the sex scenes and catching up with the fantastical story.  It really is a great story.  Hats off to the writer.  During the third and final book, I can honestly say the unconventional sex was predictable and boring.  On the flip side, the story was captivating, thrilling, suspenseful and I had somehow absorbed these characters into my life as if they were distant relatives.  

Now, I know the book is fictional and that it is irrational to accept into one's life characters from a book that do not exist in real life.  But they are here.  *points to heart*   Inside me.  In fact, all the characters from books I've read during my life, live inside me, to some degree. They are not me, just a part of what makes me.....me.   

Last night I finished a book called MAUDE.  Today, it is like I am a medium and I can feel Maude with me.  I know that sounds nuts, but, I have had "medium" moments and this could be one.  The story is told by a granddaughter about her beloved Grandma.  Maude's life begins in the early 1900's and the reader is taken all the way to the 1960's.  If Maude is here, she is feeling my hug and hearing my thoughts of endearing respect and admiration.  

Some people say suffering builds character.  There has been plenty of suffering in my life. Some brought on by myself, while a different type of suffering,,,,,changed me...the type brought on by others.  The cruel bullies, young and old, the abusive ex-husbands, nonchalant family members by their choice....yes, I have suffered.  However, these experiences have been more about teaching me new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. After the pain, of course.  Sometimes, pain takes a long time to get through.

The character I have built has been by taking on traits of all the unsung hero's, the valiant heroines, the respected survivors of real tragedies. This is my character.  All these people, fiction, real, it doesn't matter, they LIVED!  They live because writers gave birth to them on pages. They continue to be immortal because they thrive inside my heart and soul. 

This is me.  Once an empty vessel, meandering through life looking for a place to belong.  The outside world disappointed me over and over. One day the light turned on and underneath it was a book in my hand. In opening up the pages I accepted character,  after character,  into my soul and we, all of us, continue to be complete today.  One day someone will open a book and it will be mine, about my life, and it is my sincere hope that the reader laughs and cries with me and instills a little of my character into their hearts.