Sunflower Stories
©by Noreen Braman
(written as Noreen Manfredi)
"The books crouch
in the corner
their blackness casts a
shadow
that reaches across the
room.
Even with my back
turned,
I feel their ominous
presence.
My own words,
from long ago,
can no longer remain
hidden."
I didn't start keeping a journal because I understood the therapeutic
value of writing. I didn't even know that putting thoughts on paper was a
marketable skill. Back when I was a silent, moody adolescent at Churchill
Junior High School, a friend and I began writing to each other utilizing a
coded language that only we understood. Based on a combination of real words
and made-up words, we soon became fluent note-writers. We kept these notes in a
binder, and recorded all the events, major and trivial, of our lives. Although
confiscated more than once by unimaginative teachers, the topics our school-day
messages were never revealed.
Most of our correspondence centered on my family, and my ongoing battle
to try and make sense out of chaos. Writing in code gave me permission to
express my true feelings about my alcoholic parents, their treatment of me, and
the misery I felt as a 13 year old social outcast. Soon, the notebooks were
filled with notes by me, to me.
I tried, for a while to get someone to listen to me. In my journal I find
entries about the school nurse, and my frequent visits to her office. I read
them incredulously, not remembering ever being that desperate for a sympathetic
ear. I am also struck by the cold response
I received, and thirty years later, my face grows hot with embarrassment.
Without my books, I might not recall today how my stepfather hit me so hard
that I lost consciousness and wet my pants. His threat to leave me behind in a
trailer park while the rest of the family moved into a new home might have
faded. And possibly, I may have come to believe that the night my mother chased
me with a scissor and burned my sister with a cigarette wasn't all that bad.
If I read on, I find that most friendships hinged on my ability to shield
my friends from my real life. On several occasions, someone I considered a
close friend tells me to stop talking about my family; my confidences are too
depressing. I began to think of myself as the rock in the Simon and Garfunkel
song, touching no one, with my books and my poetry to protect me.
"Mist parting - or
is it cigarette smoke
faces behind
young innocents
Who robbed their
cradles?
half-filled glasses
left,
the child tastes and
vomits.
If only the adult could
so easily purge
the slaughter of
childhood."
My parents' lack of interest protected my journals from discovery long after the secret language had been discarded, and made me feel secure enough to write uninhibited. Storing my emotions between the covers of composition books kept me from becoming completely invisible. Since then, no one has ever read my journals, although I've tried several times to arrange the entries in some sort of sensible, publishable order. Each time, the terrors of long ago come back to life and I can hear my mother's voice, slurred and hoarse, raised in fury. I can feel my stepfather's hands around my throat, closing tightly and lifting me off the floor.
"The eyes
how the eyes could
frighten
even the voice
would terrorize.
the look, the sound,
and no escape.
no reasons either,
being the child was
reason enough."
Those nightmarish images consistently creep into my writing. Fear of my
mother's eyes created dark poetry, and unanswered pleas to God for help led to
stories where insensitive, egotistical authority figures suffer tragic losses
and painful deaths. At a writer's conference, someone compared my work to
Shirley Jackson, sending me to the Public Library for a marathon summer of
Jackson reading. While best known for her short-story "The Lottery,"
Jackson was also very successful writing endearing anecdotes, columns and books
about family life. Her work thrived like a sunflower plant, with roots in the
darkness, and blossoms always turned to the light. Although I cannot remember
who exactly made the comparison, I will be forever indebted. It was as if, my
own dark work had suddenly been brought out into the sun.
Recently, I completed a short story about a mother staying at a hospital
with a sick child. Somewhere during the writing process, the mother began to
control the direction of the story, haunted by memories from her own childhood
as she sits powerless by the bed of her son. She recalls how, as a child, she
summoned the vision of a mythological creature to her side for protection. It
was a memory from my own childhood, long buried.
"Through the
window, the young girl could see the horse clearly as it galloped alongside the
car. With little effort, the horse kept pace, hooves barely striking the
shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike. The luminous white color of his coat and
the dazzling brilliance of his snowy wings almost blinded the child. It was,
after all, the winged horse, Pegasus, who shadowed the station wagon. The girl,
oldest of the three riding in the back seat, struggled to stay awake. She knew
that if she fell asleep the magic would be broken, Pegasus would disappear, and
danger would envelope the family."
At home, I was expressionless, forbidden to show anger, unwilling to show
hurt. I never had the chance to talk about things that mattered to me, never
allowed to voice an opinion. Because there was no one at home to talk to, it
was my notebook that I turned to express my feelings about what I was studying
in school, who was tormenting me on the school bus, or what boy broke my heart
long before I ever went out on a real date. I recorded, in detail the night
that my stepfather woke me up and made me go out to the family car to drag my
drunken mother into the house. I helped her into the bathroom, where she
promptly fell and wedged herself against the closed door. In my notebook I
wrote that she spent the night on the bathroom floor. During my teenage years the pages were filled
with threats to commit suicide or leave home, and the conclusion that no one
would notice, either way.
Despite all this, my later journals are covered with collages of upbeat
images, flowers, castles, sunshine and jokes. I practiced elegant penmanship
and used bold, vibrant colors. During long, lonely school vacations I kept
track of songs played on the radio, and began writing an epic fantasy that is
unfinished, but still fermenting, today.
The books cover almost 30 years of my life. With some silent stretches
there are still entries about my future husband, the births of our children and
some of our best and worst marital moments. Like Shirley Jackson, my writing,
too, is a garden of sunflowers, stretching from darkness to daylight.
A long time ago, at an ACOA support group meeting, someone told me that your past makes you what you are today. Fulfilling a wish to change what has already happened would also mean monumental personal changes would occur; changes that would create a different person. So, I've come to accept the journals, and what they represent. Slowly, I've begun to make peace with those terrible memories. The writing that I kept private has grown into a marketable skill. I've learned to write happy while still maintaining enough raw emotion to put up a good fight on the editorial pages. The popular culture that passed me by in the 60's and 70's has been fuel for nostalgia pieces that serve as little journeys of discovery for me, and my poetry has reflected this growth.
"Now I shall sing
mournful hymns
joyous love songs
in the hope that she
will hear me,
she always hated silence.
Now I shall sing
without fear
without doubt
in the hope that she
will love me,
I always hated her
silence."
The written records of my life serve as a tangible and bittersweet reminder of where and who I've been. Like a night sky constellation, the books form an unchanging pattern that consistently guides me through the shadowy unknown. So until I'm sure that they have served their entire purpose, I think I'll keep my journals right where they are, close by so I am never out of touch with the past that continues to mold my future.
