The Horror Movie That I Lived Through, Memories of Mother

My father was working in Lake Tahoe helping build an apartment complex that he would co-own with a group of investors. My mother and I had been up to visit him. We’d returned to Berkeley and received an invite for dinner at my Aunt, Uncle and cousins' house in Orinda. I always enjoyed visits there. My three cousins were like sisters to me, especially the oldest, Helen, with whom I was close.

We had a nice visit including a big dinner prepared my Aunt Elsa who seemingly had magical powers when it came to meal preparation. We returned home and as it was Summer I looked forward to the coming days and hanging out with my friends. I was about eleven-years-old.

But as soon as we got home my mother started angrily yelling. I don’t remember the specifics of what she said other than, “I hate those people,” in reference to those we’d just visited. I made a particular point not to recognize or remember exactly what she said in such states as if to do so would make them them real and her mania something real.  

I was torn to pieces when she started raving. I’d been enduring such horror for as long as I could remember. One never gets used to their mother raving like a lunatic. You just want it to end, you want to be left alone. You can’t bear the horrible sound of your mother’s voice in such unprovoked, unreasonable anger. It was an affront to normalcy. Ugly. Cruel. Heartbreaking.

Sometimes her ravings were directed towards a wall or a lamp but on this day, though she wasn’t “speaking” to me, I was in the direct line of fire. She even followed me into my bedroom. There was no escape. Mom was so close that covering my ears did no good, nor did playing a record on my little turntable. How I could have used noise-cancelling headphones!

It was amazing how long she could go on without succumbing to exhaustion or without her powerful voice cracking. (Odd to remember that her elocution and diction was so perfect.)

That day I had to take it, she’d invaded my space and there was no getting her out. I’d have rather taken a physical beating, it would have made more sense.

After I don’t know how long (time is an odd concept in such circumstances) she stopped and left my room. I immediately forget that anything out of the ordinary had happened. What else was I to do? Dwell on it? I never cried, I never brooded, I never grew philosophical and I never told a soul. I wanted to put it out of my mind. I wanted to live in a world where my mother was normal or dead. 

No one else knew. My mother could turn it off when others were around, at least until I was about thirteen when she could contain herself no longer and the demons came out in front of my father and later others including my older brother who’d left home for college a few years before.

But for now it was our little secret. I couldn’t imagine saying to my father, “sometimes when you’re not home Mom starts raving like a loony bird, screaming and yelling and saying foul things about any and everyone.” No, that would have been impossible. At least for me. So it was my burden to carry. 

I don’t know this for a fact but I’m relatively certain that later than night while I slept Mom came into my bedroom and put the covers back on me because I had a tendency to kick them off at night. Sometimes I was aware of her presence. It was weirdly comforting. The next day she would have done the chores around the house and made sure I had a nice dinner. I never went without a meal and Mom never neglected the laundry, dishes or anything else. That was for later years when she’d added heavy drinking to the mix.

The next day I would have gotten out of the house early and connected with friends. I’d have not thought about the previous day for one second. I had a remarkable ability to compartmentalize. The awful scenes propagated by my mother were in a box. 

Only when I returned home would I dread my mother. As I approached the front door I would have been full of trepidation. I never knew what was on the other side. Would mom be “normal”? Would she be raving? Maybe worst of all she would be perfectly fine as I entered the house and found a snack and sat in front of the TV only to start raving and raging after I’d gotten comfortable. It was impossible to completely relax when I was growing up. I could never be sure what was next.

Thankfully she could and would turn it off when others were in the house. Then I was protected. How I hated it when my father went to work in Tahoe. I had no protection. Once he was back the nights, at least, were safe.

It was about two years after the evening described above that it all came tumbling done. Mother could contain the beast no longer. Dad and later my brother were exposed to her lunacy. She coupled this with moving out of the master bedroom and denying my dad any manner of affection. She also went on wild spending sprees, buying junk mostly. Jewelry, a chest of drawers we didn’t need, expensive knickknacks. My poor father was devastated. His world had collapsed underneath him. He could make no sense of it. He tried gamely to tell me it was menopause — something I’d never heard of. But I wasn’t buying it. I knew she was nuts and had been for as long as I could remember. Even at this point I said nothing to my father about how this was no new condition but merely something she could no longer control.

Then she started drinking. Bad got worse.

My father and I went to see the family doctor. He said that absent her being a threat to herself or anyone else we could not commit her. Well, she was no physical threat but she’d done a fair amount of damage to me in ways that still manifest today. PTSD forever.

You can imagine how I welcomed high school graduation and escaping to a college that was hours away from Mom. I spent the rest of her life avoiding my mother. Who could blame me? 

I’m occasionally visited by the awful memories of my youth (as well as the many good times I had). I still don’t cry over it. I’ve talked about my mother to a string of psychiatrists and therapists and counselors over the years. The fact that some have been skeptical of my story has compounded the pain. I’ve written a lot about mom too. Who knows how much it helps? It all happened, it’s all over and it was all painful beyond words.

I don’t generally watch horror movies. I lived through one.

Writers Block, Musings on Death, Two Films and Loved Ones Gone

His Three Daughters

My latest struggles with writing cause me to wonder if it’s all over. Is my mind starting to fade? Is this the beginning of the end? I used to be able to put a thousand words on paper with ease. I could conjure a piece of fiction upon request. I could sit down for hours and write only stopping occasionally to stretch. Is that gone? Forever?

Here I search for a topic. Many flit through my brain through the course of a normal day. But they don’t alight and I can’t grasp them. 

Grasp.

Why do people say, exempli gratia, I’m going to grab lunch instead of I’m going to grasp lunch? It makes as much sense.

(There has been — unnoticeable to the reader — a long pause sense the preceding sentence. The writer again is unable to find the next line, or any line, the next thought, or any thought.)

Finally…..

I am preoccupied with death, specifically my own. (This, by the way, is no way to go through life, better to enjoy each day, one day at a time and all that.) In any event the last four movies I've seen have dealt with death to one degree or another, in fact two of them were specifically about coping with the death(s) of others. These two films were All of Us Strangers (Haigh)and His Three Daughters (Jacobs). Strangers I saw initially in January during its theatrical run and again Saturday via Hulu. Daughters is a brand spanking new release now on Netflix. Strangers is a difficult film to capsulize but suffice it to say it is the story of a man dealing with the death of his parents which occurred many years before when he was twelve. There’s another critical element to the story but discussing that would be a major spoiler. Mourning periods can last a few days, months, years or a lifetime. People process the deaths of loved ones in myriad ways. All of Us Strangers explores one person’s delayed means of coping and gaining a sense of closure. It's an unusual film in the best possible sense and is highlighted by a great performance by the brilliant Andrew Scott.

His Three Daughters is about a father at home in hospice surrounded by his three grown daughters who are ostensibly there to aid in his transition from the living. While Dad is the raison d'etre for their presence there is much more to the story than that. The sisters are not terribly close, there are old wounds, resentments and misunderstandings — a dying parent adds another layer of stress. The film has been -- aptly -- called a chamber piece. Most of it is set in a New York apartment and most of the screen time is occupied by the three daughters wonderfully realized by Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne. None of them are acting, they are embodying characters in such a powerful way as to make a potentially depressing story enthralling.

When my mother died I was nonplussed. I’d had very little contact with her for the previous twenty-five years. She was a paranoid schizophrenic who’d made my childhood….not perfect. I shed no tears upon her passing.In the years that followed  I posthumously forgave her and grieved not her death but her life. God how I wish fate had been kinder to her and thus to me.

My father’s death was a different matter. It was slow and we had plenty of time to prepare. Sixteen years later I’m still processing it and dealing with feelings about him. I’ve written a lot about him and he will be the topic of a talk I’m giving at a Finnish Independence Day celebration in December. He is something of a hero to me though I recognize his flaws all too well. 

I’ve had to suffer the premature losses of most of my close friends, two of whom died within a few months of each other, both unexpectedly. It was not long after my only brother had died too.

I miss them all and it’s interesting to note how frequently they and my father appear in my dreams, always alive and well. It’s impossible to accept the permanence of the death of a loved one. It’s natural that we talk and hope of seeing them on the other side.

A former student of mine, who I see from time to time because he’s best friends with one of my nephews, suffered the death of his son last Christmas Day. The day before the boy was to turn six-years-old. That’s an unimaginable type of pain, probably the worst there is. Life is so cruel that the internal question why most constantly be asked, if never answered. 

But we the living owe it to ourselves to cherish everyday as best we can. That’s quite simple in principle but for someone such as myself who suffers from occasional bouts of horrid depression it’s not manageable. I guess one has to do the best they can.

Well I’ve at least given lie to the notion that my writing is dead. I’ve completed this later in the day after starting in the morning but it still constitutes a decent bit of writing, particularly given that I taught a class, graded papers and planned a lesson in the interim. I’ve also been wracked by depression. Completing this helps. Thanks to anyone who read this far.

As a Landmark Birthday Approaches, I Ponder Life and Ask Questions

On Wednesday I’ll be celebrating my 70th birthday. Goodness me, I’m old now. 

I have accepted with grace all previous birthdays. I took bows for my 60th and even wrote a countdown to that day on this blog. Hell, 60 wasn’t even retirement age, I wasn’t even a  senior citizen yet. Now I’m a goddamned old man. Worse than that I’ve crept — run? galloped? hopped? — a lot closer to the end of my time here. How much longer do I have? Given that I live in the United States I could be gunned down tomorrow, if not later tonight (thanks NRA). Cars careen onto sidewalks, trees fall on pedestrians, sudden earthquakes send buildings tumbling down on passersby, alien invaders zap civilians with killer rays (okay that last one is a bit of a long shot). The point is there are zero guarantees as to how long we’re going to stick around. I had two of my healthier friends die of pancreatic cancer, not to mention a couple of students who weren’t even 21 when they died from other forms of cancer. On the plus side I’m healthy. I work out regularly, walk a lot in between and maintain a healthy diet. I’ve had nicks and bruises and colds and the flu but nothing serious in my first seven decades. My father lived a healthy 91 years before the toll of a freak fall claimed him a year later. My mother was 81 when she died which is remarkable given that she was mentally ill, smoked and had a mostly poor diet. My grandmothers stuck around for long lives but I’ve already far outlived both grandfathers. For that matter I’ve outlived one helluva lot of famous people. Just for starters: Jack Kerouac, John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Adolph Hitler and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, James Dean, Amelia Earhardt (presumably), Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Billie Holliday,  Napoleon and Sylvia Plath. The list, as they say, goes on.

I just googled “what percent of people live to be 70” and the first answer I saw was 43 which is a ten point increase over the beginning of this century. So I’m in the minority (if I make it to Wednesday). Nice accomplishment but let’s shoot for more. 

Seventy years. Do you realize how many times I’ve urinated? (Speaking of which, try counting the number of different places that you’ve peed, it’s impossible, there’s a lot). I guess no one really wants to contemplate how many times anyone else has taken a whizz. Jesus, how many tacos have I eaten? How many apples? How many gallons of water have I drank? Why aren’t there statistics on these kind of things that are readily available to us? Maybe in the future. What was the coldest day I’ve ever experienced? What was the hottest? How many different students have I taught? How many teachers have I had? How many sports events have I been to? Dear god that would be a very large number indeed. Basketball games alone. How about movies? How many have I seen? Which have I seen the most? I could name a score or more that I’ve watched over a dozen times like It’s A Wonderful Life, Duck Soup, Manhattan, Goodfellas, Christmas in Connecticut, Casablanca and more. How many hours have I spent staring at the TV (while it was on)? How many of those hours were wasted like when I watched Hogan’s Heroes re-runs when I was 18 years old and how many of those hours were well-spent like when I’ve watched Breaking Bad or Monty Python’s Flying Circus?  How many books have I read? (I’ve written five.) How many books have I started but never finished? How much time have I spent “on” a computer and how much of that time has been wasted and how much productive? How many miles have I walked? How many women have I — maybe I won’t go there in this post, besides I know that number. How many times have I stubbed my toe? How many airline miles have I flown? How many colds have I had? How much snot have I blown out of my nose? (Sorry about that one.) What’s the closet I came to dying? What famous person did I walk by but not notice? What famous person did I walk by before they were famous? What’s the closest I’ve been to a murder? How many children do I have? Wait, I know that one…two. I also know that I’ve only been married once and since I got it right that number can be etched in stone. How many hours of music have I listened to? How many different pairs of shoes have I owned? How much money have I spent? And how about a breakdown of how that money was spent. I can’t imagine how much I’ve spent on housing, clothes, restaurant tabs, booze when I was drinking, books, movies, sports events, high end call girls (the answer that one is zero). How many people (women, generally, I presume) have secretly loved me? How many people have hated me? (Besides school administrators.) How many of my former students remember me fondly?

Bigger question: has it been worth it? Simple answer: God yes. Despite suffering from occasional depression being alive has been great fun. I had a marvelous time throughout my twenties and loved being a new father and for that matter an old one. Teaching has not been without its horrors but for the most part it’s great fun and I’m told I’m good enough at it. I’ve seen great athletes, great games, great teams, great moments. I’ve written some insightful, entertaining pieces and at least one book that a lot of people have enjoyed. I’ve enjoyed spending the last 39 years with the love of my life. Talk about luck! My children have made me enormously proud. I got to play sports and coach. I had some unforgettable moments in both roles including scoring the winning goal in my soccer team’s California state championship victory when I was 16. I’ve also met some truly interesting, funny, thoughtful, brilliant, unique people. It’s been a great ride. This despite the fact that I’ve made some horrible blunders and terrible decisions and done some incredibly stupid things. I have a lot to regret but so much more to celebrate.

I constantly fret about the inevitability and finality of death but know that it’s better to enjoy the one thing we have for sure: now. 

Now is okay. I’m doing fine. No need to rue the past nor worry about about the future. Not when there’s the present to enjoy. Not an original idea, I know, but worth remembering. Think I’ll do that.

Death, Existential Angst, Aging Are All Discussed in a Surprisingly Upbeat Post

The author as a young father

You don’t have to think very hard to realize that our dread of both relationships and loneliness, both of which are like sub-dreads of our dread of being trapped inside a self (a psychic self, not just a physical self), has to do with angst about death, the recognition that I’m going to die, and die very much alone, and the rest of the world is going to go merrily on without me. I’m not sure I could give you a steeple-fingered theoretical justification, but I strongly suspect a big part of real art-fiction’s job is to aggravate this sense of entrapment and loneliness and death in people, to move people to countenance it, since any possible human redemption requires us first to face what’s dreadful, what we want to deny. — David Foster Wallace

There was a time that I didn’t think about death. I was young and morality was a vague concept. It was something that happened to other people in other families in other circles. I knew my father was going to die someday though at times I doubted even that. He seemed indestructible in the same way I’ve often thought of myself recently. He’d gone on so long and stayed so healthy that it was almost impossible to imagine a world without him. Eventually a freak fall did him in but not until he was past ninety. 

I’ll be seventy on my next birthday — less than six months from now. Have I got another twenty good years? What guarantee is there that there going to all be “good”? I suppose I should adopt a one-day-at-a-time mantra as one learns in twelve step programs. I should be enjoying the hell out of today, it being all I’ve got. I spend too much time in the past often re-living bad moments. Those times I did the wrong thing, failed to say the right thing, didn’t see what should haven been obvious, made the wrong choice. If you’re going to live in the past, stay in the happy moments, those times when everything was clicking, when you seemingly had it all together. They existed and they were good. Why wallow in past miseries?

I’m adopting a new program — actually a revitalization of an old one — in which I assign myself writing 500 words a day — minimum. It’ll be good for me. Good for my writing, good for my brain, good for my soul. 

Writing used to be a lot easier. Nowadays I need a topic and a damned good one at that. I also need to be in the right mood in the right place with no distractions. That’s ridiculous. You’ve got to be able to write under any circumstances. Still, maybe 500 words a day is overly ambitious. But I’ve got to try.

I remember coming home when I was a kid and hesitating at the front door before opening it because I didn’t know what awaited me on the other side. What was Mom going to be like? She could perfectly fine doing her cheery June Cleaver bit, asking about my day. Or she could be a raving loon, yelling at light fixture. If it was the latter would she break character for a minute to acknowledge me or would she go on nonplussed or would she turn her ravings toward me? It was the uncertainty of the moment that was so horrible.

The hesitation was always momentary. I had to face whatever music was playing. If it was really bad I’d retreat to my room or quickly make a u-turn and go outside. Thankfully I had a vivid imagination and could lose myself in it. Reality was too difficult to bear.

It was a difficult way to grow up — boy that’s understating it. I normalized it. I knew none of my friends were going through the same sort of shit but I also knew I was better off not thinking about. How did this affect me? What peccadilloes of mine can I attribute to this bizarre and horrible upbringing? Did it lead to my alcoholism? Did it lead to my crankiness? My anxiety? My panic attacks? My variously mistrusting or overly trusting people? My misjudgments? How exactly did it fuck me up? Who would I be today had my mother been perfectly sane? 

Perhaps the more important question at this point is: why trouble myself with these questions? I’ve done the whole therapy bit — many times. Better not to look back and wonder. Better to look ahead and wonder. After all I’ve got a new novel that I finished that I believe is quite good. There’s much to look forward to including another European vacation in the spring. 

Tomorrow will mark thirty-six years clean and sober. It’s amazing that I’ve been a sober alcoholic longer than I’ve been alive as anything else. I can barely remember what intoxication was like. I’ve got a sense of what having a bit of a buzz going was like. I’m a lucky man to have gotten sober when I did — just weeks before my wife found out she was pregnant with our first and just as I was embarking on my teaching career. Lucky.

I’ve got blessings to count. I’ve got bright days ahead. Depression can go fuck itself.

Ronstadt, Free Stuff, My Mom, Gym Machines and Jerks

Linda Ronstadt

I know that people have different taste in music and I respect that but I also think that if you don’t like Linda Ronstadt there’s something wrong with you. I also imagine it’s been discouraging for young female singers to hear Rondsadt. How many, upon listening to her sing, have said, “fuck this,  I’m out.” Must be a lot. Her brilliance doesn't need a documentary to be obvious but there is one nonetheless called Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice which was in theaters last Fall and was aired on CNN recently. It is also available on DVD. What comes across is not only a supreme talent seen from her early years to the present, but a perfectly charming and delightful person. She was a brave performer who sang in many different genres, all successfully. There are interviews, a lot of concert footage and the story of one of the singular performing artists of our time. The best thing I can say about the documentary is that has inspired me to listen to her more often and it has increased my appreciation for her.

Most anytime you walk more than a block or two in a city— and you often needn’t go that far — you’ll see an old computer, or clothes, or books or kitchenware or — well, the list goes on —  by the side of the road. People don’t throw things away or donate them to goodwill anymore, they leave them for others to pick through. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Or woman for that matter.
What I find interesting is how often people will leave a sign next to the discarded items that says, “free.” This is really helpful. How often have you noted junk on the sidewalk, seen something that interested you and said, “I’d really like this but I’ve no idea how much it costs,” then looked around for a salesclerk to help you out? It can be damn frustrating. But when there’s a sign telling you that everything is gratis, your worries are over. Thank you people leaving junk on our city streets, for providing this information

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of my late mother, Gertrude Marie Hourula (nee Kurki). Her first name, Kerttu, sounds much nicer in Finnish. I’ve written about mom before, particularly in this blog post. The poor woman became a paranoid schizophrenic in adulthood. She went untreated and it ruined the remainder of her life (she lived to be 81) and shattered my father’s (remarkably he recovered and re-married). I have permanent scars from my childhood with her. It was a terrible tragedy for all concerned. In the years since her death the decades long hatred I felt towards her (I was a victim of emotional abuse) has gradually dissipated and against all odds I have forgiven her — realizing that she was a victim too — and I've managed to occasionally think of her fondly, remembering some of the lucid and loving moments she had with me. This change in my attitude toward her has been a good thing for me but in truth the anger has been replaced by depression. Thinking about her as I have today has made me sad and what makes me sad often, as today, triggers my depression. Life is harsh.

Earlier today I was at the gym where I had — as usual — an excellent workout. Except for having to tolerate the idiots who think gym time is really yak on their cell phone time, I love my visits to the gym, which come every other day. However one thing that annoys and amuses besides cell phone users (when did phone conversations become so important?) is a feature of the stair masters and treadmills I use. They all have TV screens on them. Fair enough, some people like looking at a screen when they’re exercising (personally I think it’s a bad thing to do as it breaks the mind and body connection you should have while exercising and it can in no way enhance your workout). I of course do not watch TV while working out and when I come home I do not work out while watching TV. But the strange -- and aggravating -- thing about these screens is that they try to decide for you. The second you get on the TV comes on, you turn it off, then when you’ve entered all the pertinent information  and start to move, the TV comes back on and so you turn it off again and then what happens? It pops right back on as if to say “you don’t seriously want to work out without looking at me, do you?” So you turn it off a third time. If for some reason you have to pause during the workout the TV comes back on when you resume — “surely,” it is saying, “you must want to watch me now.” No, I don’t, I really don’t. I swear I don’t. Who designed these machines to be so persist and why? Irritating.

Speaking of irritating, I have the misfortune of knowing  a person who can best be described as…let me see I want to be careful here, I’m going to go with total jerk. Although complete asshole would do nicely. Mind you I'm acquainted with many, many other people and about 95% of them are either fantastic people, nice people or perfectly tolerable people. This dickhead is none of the above. I’ve never met a person who was so cynical and negative and had such great difficulty conjuring up pleasant things to say about any topic or failed so miserably to observe basic social niceties.  Recently — for a second time — he felt compelled to go to great lengths to convey his disdain for the sport of soccer (as you Yanks call it). First of all, no one asked. Secondly, why? What is the point? He knows full well that I am a huge fan yet feels compelled to deride the game. Again, why? He even quoted a friend of his (he has friends?) who had said, “soccer is sport for people who hate sports.” Mind you, soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Literally billions follow it. But we are dealing with that nasty American combination of ignorance and arrogance combined with dickishness. You may toss in hypocrisy too because my loathsome acquaintance asserts that he roots for the US Men’s National Soccer Team. Of course. The US is full of people who don’t understand the game and even hate it but root on the national team with boisterous chants of U-S-A!

Here’s a tip if you do not like a sport, particularly because you are largely unfamiliar with it and grew up playing and watching other sports, shut the fuck up about it. Accept that while you don’t like it others do and leave them alone about it. Thanks for letting me ventilate on this topic. 

Wherein the Author Recounts the Horrors of his Childhood

Yup, that's me.

There's a starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
There's a starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie
- From Starman by David Bowie

When I was a child I could often hear my mother yelling in the other room. There was no one else in the house but me. But she’d been screaming at someone using an ugly, angry voice. Sometimes she’d yell directly at me, although she was really just yelling in my direction. I was only rarely the target of her ragings and never for anything I’d actually done. I’m pretty sure  that I didn’t exist to my mother during her psychotic  moments. I would plug my years or turn on my record player or the TV full volume. Today I’m hyper vigilant and noises of all kinds bother me. Mom would sniff a lot and never seemed to blow her nose. Now when I hear people sniff it drives me up the wall.

The insanity stopped the second my dad or my big brother would come home. It wasn’t until my early teens that she could hold it in no longer and would rave regardless of who was home. I’ve told people this and many have been highly skeptical about my claim that from my earliest memories until adolescence my mother could turn her insanity off as simply as a spigot. Facing that skepticism has been one of the worst things I’ve gone through in my life.

My mother was schizophrenic, although never formally diagnosed. To the best of my knowledge she never underwent a psychological exam nor talked to a counselor. Ever.

I’ve successfully blocked out a lot of the particulars of my mother’s insanity. But I’ve never been able to shake how it felt, the overall terror. It was a constant drumbeat. Growing up I was used to it and at the same time every second of hearing her ravings was like being slapped across the face. I was formed into an adult living in that dichotomy. I was a happy child, I was a miserable child. Everything was great. Everything was terrible. My mother put me through hell, but my dad was an angel. Emotionally I clung to my father. He was kind and loving and fun. Nothing was enough to make up for what my mother did to me, but dad did his best. Yet in my teen years I rebelled against him and most of what he stood for. After all it was the Sixties and change was everywhere and living in Berkeley I was ensconced in the middle of so much of it.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.
- From Old Man by Neil Young

When my father realized the truth about my mother he was, not surprisingly, devastated. His perfect world was flipped upside down. But one of his responses was to take extra care of me. This was no mean feat for two reasons: he was already a superstar father and I was doing things like trying to grow my hair long, opposing the war in Vietnam and listening to rock music. In all three cases quite the opposite of what he would have wanted. Still our bonds were firm, especially because of sports. He not only came to all my soccer games, but he came to all my practices. Meanwhile he took me to sports events of all variety: football, basketball, baseball, track and field, boxing, soccer and ice hockey. He was my best friend. My mother was my worst enemy.

I went off to college at 17 and in no time at all I was using and abusing drugs and alcohol. The booze, in particular, kept me sane. I had a lot of hurt stored up and it was bound to manifest in strange ways. The booze was a social lubricant that allowed me to be fairly normal in social situations and downright charming when I wanted to be. Sobriety I could handle provided I knew when my next drink was. Of course there were times when I took far too much of my medicine. In my sodden mind getting too wasted or suffering a hellacious hangover was always a small price to pay for the benefits of being high.

Even before I got sober there was trouble brewing in the form of panic attacks. Lucky me suffered (make that suffers) from a particularly virulent strain that is to the regular panic attack what the atomic bomb is to dynamite. I wouldn’t wish these ten megaton panic attacks on anyone no matter how awful a person they be. I am fortunate that none have ever occurred when I had a ready means of suicide at my disposal or I’d be long dead.

While I was drinking, the panic attacks, and the much more frequent problem of the fear of them, could easily be treated by alcohol. Once I ended my relationship with liquor the panic attacks became a much greater and more frequent threat. Enter pharmaceuticals. Since my condition was (is) so rare it took awhile to get me on the right medications. And when I say awhile I mean over 25 years. In the mean time I went through a cornucopia of meds. Some were not effective. Some were highly effective but with unpleasant side effects such as feeling like a zombie. One of the worst side effect was from a med that gave me horrible rages. This is not good look for a middle school teacher nor for a father. Fortunately I was off the stuff quickly before I did too much damage. (I did make one daughter cry during a rage and went way overboard scolding a student and got written up for it.) In addition to disbelieving accounts of my mother’s ability to turn on and off her rages, people have questioned my panic attacks. Many dismiss them as normal experiences, even enlightening ones, that I certainly need not take meds for. Others suggest I exaggerate and still others say that they’ve had many such attacks themselves. In 12 step groups I’ve been accused of trying to make myself different, a sure path to slipping back into using. These comments have frustrated, depressed and angered me. It is difficult not to be believed or having your pain dismissed. Rarely is one’s physical torments similarly dismissed, but when it comes to emotional anguish, everyone fancies themselves an expert.

No one knows what it's like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
- From Behind Blue Eyes by The Who

I still deal with the aforementioned hyper vigilance. My most effective means of dealing with it is by having headphones with me during my commute. In addition to sniffing, gum chewing, people yakking on cell phones and many other sounds drive me up a wall. While the hyper vigilance is almost certainly a direct result of my upbringing there is less certainty about depression. I’m bi polar, although in the past three years I’ve spent far more time depressed than normal or manic. The depression has been a constant companion, which is odd because it was never invited and won't take my broad hints to please leave.

Yes I see a psychiatrist. I’ve seen various shrinks since I was 16 with decidedly mixed results. Fortunately the doctor I’m seeing now is probably the best of the lot. And yes, I have benefitted from a 12 step program too.

My life has not been easy to live. But I here hasten to add that I am enormously lucky, grateful and satisfied with it. I’m proud that despite my ongoing psychological torment I’ve had a successful marriage that is now 30 years old. I helped raise two daughters who are excelling as human beings and who I couldn’t be more proud of. I am — if barely — a functioning member of society and have been a teacher for 33 years. And while my emotional state has been a constant source of trouble, my physical health has been excellent, as evidenced by my recent ten mile run, and the regular clean bills of health I get from my physician. On balance I’ve done okay.

I still think about my mother. Several years ago, after decades of loathing the woman, I forgave her. She was not at fault. I’m sure at no point did she ask to be schizophrenic for purposes of tormenting her youngest son. Nonetheless I still re-visit those horrors of childhood (generally not on purpose) and mostly I think of that poor little kid I used to be. Whether at five, eight or eleven. I want to hug him and tell him everything will be all right. I want to tell him that it’s okay to cry, even if it’s just once. I want to reassure him that mom’s insanity is no reflection on him. I want to tell him to remember in the future to take it easy with the medicines of his choice. I want to tell him that someday he’ll meet and marry the woman of his dreams and it will be wonderful. More so than he can possibly imagine. I want the poor kid not to suffer. I want to protect him. Rescue him. Love him. He didn’t deserve to be exposed to a schizophrenic mother. He got a tough break to start life. What I really want to do is tell him I’m proud of him. He’s tough.

Oh My! The Topic Today is S-E-X But it's all Pretty PG-13

My birthday was three months ago which means this is the anniversary of my conception. I don’t remember it, of course, I mean that was a long time ago. I don’t even remember my birth so I can hardly be expected to recall the night — or day — that my parents made love and created me. I was never grossed out by the idea of my parents “doing it” as most young people are. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I actually saw them “doing it “once. I think I was about ten years old. It was a Saturday morning and I was looking for more sugar to put on my cereal (can you imagine? I mean it was certainly some sort of artificially sweetened cereal to begin with). I was sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons as was my want on Saturday mornings.  The sugar bowl was nowhere to be found so I figured that my folks had it with them in their bedroom as they enjoyed breakfast in bed with coffee. My dad always put a spoonful of sugar in his coffee. So I innocently strolled into their room only to find my father atop my mother. I had a vague sense of what was going on but, of course didn’t want to think about it too clearly. It’s no big thing as a kid to ignore what’s right before your eyes.  My parents noticed my presence. I’ll never forget their contrasting reactions. Dad greeted me with a huge smile and asked, “what can I do for you, sonny boy?” My mother kind of growled, “what!?” with a frown. I indicated the sugar, took it and got outta Dodge.

This was not long before my mother’s insanity totally overcame her and she couldn’t maintain a facade of normality in front of anyone. She moved out of the master bedroom and I’m pretty sure there was no more nookie for my father. It was the most understandable thing in the world when a few years later he had a few affairs and eventually divorced mom and took up with a much younger woman who, as he told me, “did everything” in the sack.

My father was always very frank with me about sex. He dispensed advice including that in order not to climax too soon I should think about pushing a wheelbarrow as was his practice (I’ve gone with thinking about baseball, if you must now). He also told me that he and mom had enjoyed a healthy sex life until she went round the bend. Of course it’s unfathomable that he would have spoken so candidly about sex with a daughter — if he had had one.

It’s remarkable how much time people spend talking and thinking about sex. From my understanding this is mostly a male phenomenon. It’s not just fun, it’s so central to how we feel about other people. Men and women are different about sex and I’m sure this is something you’re aware of. Sex gets wrapped up into a lot of things. Primarily, of course love and relationships. Both those that have been time tested and those just beginning. Of course sex is often used in very bad ways like for power and revenge. It can also be used for comfort. Some people are addicted and I’ve met a few. Like any addiction its not healthy. It perverts a beautiful experience by making it a compulsion.

(I was a regular attendee at a 12 step meeting which, for a short time, was frequented by a gorgeous young woman. It was impossible not to glance in her direction every now and again and I wasn’t the only man doing so. We were all discreet and respectful about it. But one time she spoke and mentioned that in addition to alcohol, she was a sex and love addict. Wow. My jaw dangled a bit — I’m human — and I noticed several other men with their mouths agape. I suppose it was kind of funny. However years later I became good friends with a gent who was in recovery for both drugs and alcohol and sex and love. I told him the story I’ve just here related. He said that what she did was a no-no in the sex and love recovery community. You’re never supposed to tell anyone outside the group and she knew exactly what she was doing. She was messing with us. He said he’d done the same at various times. Live and learn.)

One of the interesting things to me about sex is that it can simultaneously not live up to expectations and be a wonderful, fantastic, amazing experience. I don't get that, but it's true.

Some people have sex with people who are of the same gender. Good for them. Whatever makes you happy. The odd thing is how objectionable some people find this. Imagine. The activity two consenting adults engage in behind closed doors being a matter of concern to a person because of their warped interpretation of a religion. I just don’t get that. The people who get bothered by other peoples’ sexual habits are often themselves people who do not believe in premarital sex. Talk about stupid. One of the biggest problems with sex is how so many people — usually for religious reasons — try to stifle the natural desires people have for it. Some people even get uptight about masturbation. Seriously. Talk about victimless. There’s no chance anyone is being coerced during masturbation (is there? I don’t think you can force yourself or pressure yourself or get yourself drunk to do it.).

Then there’s prostitution. Boy has that gotten a bad name. Logically it makes no sense whatsoever that its not legal. In fact it would make more sense for it to be legal. Legality would make it safer from pimps and STDs and think of what the government could rake in on taxes.

Thanks to the internet you can watch sex anytime you want. This is called porn which is short for pornography. Here's the first definition of pornography as provided by my good friends at Merriam-Webster: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement. Doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way. Most of what you can see is staged but it's still sex. A lot of is kinky and appeals to specific fetishes and unfortunately a lot of it debases women It’s a shame  that so many men enjoy seeing women depicted as sluts and bitches. I don’t really know what should be done about it or if its even worth thinking about. Perhaps the best thing society can do is create a culture in which women are not called ugly names, not hit, not demeaned and not objectified. The last one is a tough one because it's quite natural for a man to want to look at pretty women. It just is. But then looking is one thing, acting on it is another.

I love women. I married one and had two as children. I like hanging out with the women at work because they are nicer, warmer and more nurturing than men. There might still be wars if all the world’s leaders were men but I’m guessing there’d be less. A lot. I do hope that women keep us men around. We are functional creatures. We come in handy for certain tasks, can make good sex partners and we’re pretty good at sports.

Anyway, its time for me to celebrate my conception. Can't believe no one sent a card.

From Newborn to Little Boy, A Great Ride

Mom, big brother and I. I'm the baby.

The world marches forward! Why doesn't it turn around? -- Arthur Rimbaud.

What have I done?

It started innocently enough. I was a baby. First I was a new born. Of this I have no memory so I can only imagine what it was like. Going from the comfort — if rather cramped conditions — of the fetus into the bright lights and sharp sounds of the outside world must have been traumatic. I assume I calmed down considerably once I was held and got to suckle at my mother’s breast. I further assume that sleep was highly desirable and early on I took advantage of the boundless opportunities to snooze.

There are pictures of me at a very young age. I seem happy enough. I was certainly small, I fit comfortably into the arms of fully grown people. Often I was being held by my mother or father or a grandparent or an aunt or uncle or even my big brother. What a luxury to have a big brother to guide me through those early years. Though six and half years older than I, he was no adult so could better relate to my circumstances. In any event I was forever being held by one person or another and imagine that this was not entirely unpleasant. When you’re a baby people tend to be forgiving of your faults. You can cry or defecate or spit up and no one minds. More than simply being held I was being loved and cooed at and pampered. This included being fed. Meals were not only provided but I didn't have to so much as lift a finger. I was also bathed and I could perform bodily functions anywhere anytime and no one blinked. They even cleaned me up afterward. Who doesn’t love being a baby? What a great way to start life!

Eventually I began to walk and have thus far in my life have continued the practice. Indeed I am confident in saying that I probably walk a lot more than most people, especially in today’s highly mechanized society. Soon after getting comfortable with walking I commenced to running. Doubtless at first this running was neither particularly fast nor long in duration but it was — as they say — a start. In later years I would run at a fairly fast clip and added distance to my runs as well. Today, for a man of three score and two years, I run quite fast and quite far. But enough braggadocio, back to my formative years.

Along with walking came the power of speech. I’m sure this was a mixed blessing for those in my company because as a young person I tended to overuse the gift of gab. On long car rides my brother would offer me a quarter for a set period of silence. In those days a quarter had a fair amount of buying power, especially for a youngster. You could purchase two comic books and a candy bar with two bits. Nonetheless this enticement was not enough to keep my big trap shut. I babbled ever onward.

I also early on developed the ability to entertain people, particularly through humor. I was a natural comic and I took to having an audience as a fish does to water (if my meaning here is unclear the reader should note that fish very much like water and are hard pressed to live without it). I was a source of amusement to my family although I think my poor beleaguered brother grew weary of my act rather quickly. Along with a propensity for comedy, I could be downright obnoxious. My brother was a gentle and kind soul but I remember him picking me up by the arm pits, digging his hands into my skin and perfunctorily dropping me. Based on my hazy memories of those days I can safely assert that he should be assigned no blame for such actions.

Being a toddler was rather a fun time. I had no obligations, school was still a ways off and I was too young to be assigned chores but I was ambulatory and enjoyed the attention of elders and was befriending others of my age group including some cousins. Life seemed like a pretty good deal. My father was my absolute hero. In my eyes he was the picture of manhood, impossibly tall and handsome and rugged but loving, kind and playful. He was, as the sports cliche goes, the complete package. Big brother was also a boon to have around. When I wasn’t annoying him he was playing with me and providing early instruction in the ways of the world.

Mother was a different story altogether. She had natural maternal instincts and attended my daily needs as well as any other mother could. But she was also losing her mind and when alone with her I’d be subjected to her angry arguments with people who were either not there or didn’t exist in the first place. There were rantings and ravings that clearly did not fit anywhere in the spectrum of normal human behavior. But until I was about 12 she could turn it off as soon as anyone else appeared. I managed to put her aberrant behavior behind as soon as dad or brother came home. I became adept at forgetting.

You might be getting an idea now that my childhood was a rather mixed bag. Indeed it was. When alone with mother life was a living hell. At other times it was an absolute joy. I had a knack for having fun. Being a creative, clever and imaginative young man, blessed with a nimble body and good health to boot made me an ideal candidate for a happy childhood. I played  games of all variety: re-enacting a Civil War battle, scoring a touchdown, a rousing game of hide and seek. Meanwhile I had no trouble in school. I abhorred math but did passingly in it and shined in other subjects. If anything I didn’t find school challenging enough. It all seemed rather slow and pedestrian, the teachers were uninspiring and many of my classmates were dullards. I longed for more. (I digress to share this memory: As a wee lad I understood that eight plus seven equaled 15 but thought it rather odd. Eight and seven put together just didn't seem like they should end in the numeral five. Meanwhile nine and four equaling 13 made perfect sense and of course who couldn't appreciate the sanity of ten and four totaling 14? I the same vein I still maintain that the city of Cologne should be in France not Germany and that the city of Stasbourg belongs not in Germany not France. I strongly urge the cities be swapped or the names exchanged.)

Escapes were always coveted — especially given mom’s highly erratic behavior — so trips out of town were appreciated as were visits to various members of our extended family. Lacking those opportunities I found escape in movies, TV shows, books and my own imaginative play. My imagination was so rich that I could have a jolly good time while all by myself. No friends about? No problem. I could always invent them. An early childhood friend of my own invention was named Macaroni. Later I made up sports heroes, the greatest was a basketball star named Horatio Kumquat. He was 6’5” and had curly golden hair and was a veritable one man team.

Friends were welcome too. Finding someone who saw parts of the world the same way I did, who liked the same games and stories and shows seemed a miracle. To share ideas and laughs and insights -- even at a terribly young age -- was to me a gift. One that kept giving. Play had another dimension when it was a cooperative effort, there was so much more that two or three or more could do than one could manage alone.

Ahhh, great runs and jumps and skips and leaps and twists and turns and loud laughs and joyous shouts. "Going out to play" was a great delight in the world and one could do it most every day. Even school days were punctuated by recess and were over by mid afternoon. Saturdays were a positive blessing especially as they began with a few hours of TV cartoons with the likes of Bugs Bunny cavorting about. Sundays were marred by the obligatory trip to Sunday school but even there my imagination was tickled by some of the stories we were read and told. After that a full afternoon of unbound glee lay ahead. Playing was the best.

Babyhood seemed a distant an embarrassing memory when I was a child. To paraphrase the bible:  When I was a baby, I spoke as a baby, I understood as a baby, I thought as a baby; but when I became a little boy, I put away babyish things. 

My Mom, The Tragic Story of a Horrible Wonderful Woman

Mom holding me with my brother looking on.

So I was about 13 maybe 14 years old and walking down the street with a friend of mine after school and he kind of pokes me and asks, “isn’t that your mom?” On the other side of the street walking in the opposite direction is my mother and she’s having an animated argument — with herself. I don’t remember who the friend was but he had the discretion not to remark on my mother’s behavior. As it was I felt…actually there are no words over four decades later that I can conjure up to describe that feeling. The cliche is that you felt like digging a hole and crawling into it. I never really felt like that in those situations. I say situations because that was not the only such occurrence involving my mother that I suffered.

Anyway the moment passed. It always did. It had to. You can't dwell on that kind of pain. Not when you're young. You've got to move ahead, forget as best you can and live your life. After all she was going to be there when I got home. Maybe in the midst of a manic episode, yelling, cursing, accusing. Or perhaps she'd be drunk, slurring her words swaying between overly solicitous and openly hostile. Then again I could luck out and she'd be fairly lucid just a little bit daffy and I could ignore her and pretend that I had a normal if somewhat eccentric mother.

How I despised her. She had robbed me of a normal childhood. She had taken away that safe harbor that should have been my home. The base from which I would gradually venture out into the world. It was forever ruined by this woman and her paranoid ravings at people who were not there.

My mother was posthumously diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. 

Starting as a teenager until I was in my 50s I sat in various psychiatrist offices recounting life with mother.

A few years ago I forgave my mother. This was a posthumous pardon. Now I write about her all the time. And today for the first time I write: “I love you mom.” I also write her story.

Gertrude Marie Kurki was born on February 2, 1920 in San Francisco to Finnish parents. A few years later the family moved to Berkeley and a few years after that her sister Mildred was born.

My mom grew up during the Depression but her father had steady work and they never wanted for anything. Mom once told me that “hoboes” sometimes came to the house for handouts and, provided they went to the back door, grandma would give them a bite to eat. Mom was an excellent, attentive student and participated in various school and church-sponsored activities.

In the Fall of 1938 she enrolled at the University of California. Again she did well in classes and was a member of various clubs and organizations. She also attended football games and was a fan of the Cal football team from then on. She took me to my first Cal-Stanford Big Game in 1964.

Mom graduated from Cal in the Spring of 1942, less than six months after U.S. entry into World War II. She was accepted at Columbia University where she went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Speech. But before that she served her country in the women’s naval and coast guard reserves.  A trip home to Berkeley on leave in March of 1944 was noted in the local paper.

It was while in New York at the end of the war that mom met my father, Aimo Hourula. Dad was a native of Finland who had fought in the Russo-Finnish Winter War and then traveled the world in the merchant marines. Timing is everything, virtually all his time at sea was during the war and he was on two ships that were strafed by German planes and was at the helm of one that was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Arabian Sea.

My father had earlier met Mildred on the West Coast and, knowing he was based in New York where her sister was, she gave him my mom's contact information. My parents had a whirlwind romance that culminated in marriage on the day after Christmas 1945 in Baltimore. Mom was 25 and Dad would turn 30 in a few weeks.

Nine months later they moved to Berkeley and stayed with my grandparent’s until they got a place of their own. Dad quickly got work as a carpenter, a trade he practiced successfully until his retirement 35 years later.

My brother was born in 1947 and I came along in '54. In those days a carpenter made fully enough to raise a family, especially as dad always had work. To my knowledge Mom never did anything with her university degrees. Mom was a housewife, though she was also active in Ladies Aid through the Finnish American Lutheran Church in Berkeley that she attended. I don’t recall Mom being particularly religious, nor attending church regularly. That was more my grandmother’s thing.

Mom was also interested in politics and was a staunch Democrat who refused to read Hearst papers. I also recall that she was a poll worker during the 1960 election.

My mother was an attractive woman, with blonde hair, blue eyes and a slim figure. She was always healthy. I never remember hearing about her having any major physical illnesses or injuries. Through the mid 1960s she had a wide circle of friends, many were kin of my dad, others were old friends or relatives from her side of the family and still others were old classmates. She attended class reunions and regularly went out with my dad. They were forever going to one gathering or another, or out to dinner, or to parties or to ball games or camping or on ski trips. Mom danced, skied and enjoyed life. She was a chatty and articulate woman, opinionated but never overbearing.

She was a good wife and mother and housekeeper. Our place was always clean, there were always meals ready on time and she made a point to come into my room every night to put the covers back on me while I slept because I had a tendency to kick them off. I was aware of her doing this the last night I slept under the same roof as her, even though at the time her mind was quite far gone.

As I grew up, everything was great in our family, especially for my brother and my dad. My mom had started slipping away from reality not long after I was born. Maybe even before, it's impossible to say. My brother and dad didn’t know a thing about it for another 12 years or so. I grew up with it. Well into adulthood I reckoned that I was somehow responsible for her insanity and even beyond that I was sure that the same fate awaited me.

One thing I’ve learned about being an abuse survivor is that many people don’t believe you. My story is particularly hard to swallow. I never once told it to my brother or my father. I have thought many times about why I kept it to myself. I really don’t know why, but I did. They’re both dead now and I’m glad I spared them the details. It wouldn't have done any good anyway, the shock they went through was enough. Many doubts have been expressed about my story of being the sole audience for  her ravings,  even by some psychiatrists. I've flat out been told I must be mistaken.  I understand the disbelief. It's incredibly insulting but I've learned to shake it off. What can you do? Is not my problem if a person doubts me.

Mom and Dad in New York.

My earliest memories of my mother include her having angry arguments with people who weren’t there. Sometimes she was using a normal voice but just as often her voice became ugly. I never for a second thought that what Mom was doing was normal. But it also never crossed my mind to tell anyone. I just grew up with it. The good thing and bad thing was that she stopped once anyone else came home. To everyone else on the planet mom was perfectly normal. Unlucky me. No wonder I was so attached to my brother and father, they unknowingly protected me.

Her psychosis gradually grew worse and her rantings and ravings became more pronounced and more tinged with paranoia. I remember once when my father and brother were working up in Tahoe Mom and I were invited to my Uncle’s house for dinner. I think I was about 11 at the time. We had, as was generally the case at my Uncle’s, a grand time. I had three female cousins who were like sisters to me. But when we came home my mother went ballistic. She screamed at me about how horrible “those people” were how much she hated them and that we were never going back. It went on for quite awhile and even though she was looking right at me, I plugged my ears. Mom didn’t seem to notice. Another time she cornered me in my room and raged. The words were coming directly at me though the intended audience was non existent. I finally picked up a shoehorn with a long strap and hit her with it on the arm. She stopped, looked at her arm and after a few seconds continued. Another time I finally just screamed at her to shut up. This stunned her into silence. For maybe half a minute. Nothing I did stopped her for long. Only the arrival of another family member would make her stop.

It was at about this time that Mom added drinking to the mix, so to speak. Alcohol variously made her better and made her worse. But ultimately it made her unable to control the timing of her outbursts. Finally she acted out in front of my father and brother. I felt awful for them. By this time my brother had moved out and it was on a weekend he was visiting that he saw mom in all her horror. He cried himself to sleep that night. I don’t believe that as a child I ever cried about my mother insanity. It had always just been there.

My father was crushed. Especially when Mom moved out of their bedroom and refused to go out with him anymore. All those outings Dad enjoyed, he now had to go to alone. Mom even refused to go to her own mother's funeral. My brother pleaded with her to go. I'd long since stopped caring what she did.

Naturally we had to stop entertaining. When someone did come by there was the awful risk that Mom would emerge from her room and rant at them or at us or at the heavens. She also started spending money recklessly. My father's perfect American life was collapsing around him. He didn’t know what to do. Neither did my brother. Me? I loved my dad as much as any son has ever lived his father, but I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the house.

When I did move out and go to college, Dad was left at home with a crazy wife. The first time I saw him after leaving home was at a soccer game I was playing in. He looked like an old man. My heart ached for him.

Eventually Dad faced the fact that his wife was not going to get any better. He started seeing other women. He met a divorcee who was about 20 years younger than him. She knew a good thing when she saw it and talked him into going to Reno for a quickie divorce followed by marriage to her. My Dad was married to her until his death.

Once I was away from mom I stayed away. I saw her occasionally but usually only when it was unavoidable. Once my Uncle invited her to Thanksgiving when my dad was out of town. To my shock she came. Mom got very drunk and started yelling at everyone. I had seen it coming and had gotten very drunk myself.  I still mark this as the worst day of my life.

Mom would call me over the years. I’d sometimes indulge her for a minute or two before begging off. If, as was often the case she was slurring her words, I hung up immediately. She left long rambling nonsensical messages on my answering machines. Every syllable she uttered made me wince in psychological torture. My acute hypervigilance to certain noises is directly linked to the sound of her voice during her manic phases.

I avoided mom like the plague. My late brother was a saint and he looked after her until she died in 2001. Somehow she had lived to 81 despite all her drinking. Also, when Mom had totally gone off the deep end she had taken up smoking, which I believe she continued to the end. She used a long cigarette holder which to me made her look like a rather poor Norma Desmond impersonator.

My mother ruined my childhood and caused me irreparable psychological damage. But over time I came to understand that it was not her fault. Mom was mentally ill. You could no more be angry at a person for contracting cancer. She never planned to go crazy and the fact that for so many years she manifested her behavior just for me…well, I’m sure that the sane conscious part of her mind had nothing to do with that. Mom loved me. I know that. I was just unlucky.

I’ve been sorry over the years that I lost out on having a normal mother. But more than that I’ve been sorry that I lost out on that particular normal mother, the one who gave birth to me. My brother had a lot of fond memories of her that I quite envied, I only got to know her a little bit. I would have loved to have heard more stories from her about the Depression, football games at Cal, my grandparents and also to have heard her share opinions on politics and cultural issues. I'm sure that had I had a normal relationship with her I might have avoided some of the trouble that marked the first half of my life.

The biggest loser was of course Mom herself. At some point in her life she became something like half of her real self with demons possessing the other half. And it got worse from there. Today schizophrenia (if that is in fact what she had) can be treated with medication. Back then the best she could have hoped for was probably shock treatment, heavy drugs and perhaps institutionalization.

She didn’t have a chance.

I’ve always thought about my mother a lot. But it's different now (for Christmas I asked for a Columbia University sweatshirt which I received and wear everyday to honor her). When I think of Mom it is not with anger or depression but with a yearning to have known a perfectly sane and sober version of her. It’s a hopeless, fruitless feeling. But its all I’ve got.

With great thanks to my friend Germano Maccioni who encouraged me to write this. Grazie.