I know I've talked about the house burning before. I know that I discussed how it was burned by the KKK, in anger over my mother marrying (or . . . we assume she married him) Cuban. My brother was still very, very small and I think I was sevenish or so. I am fairly sure I mentioned it was on the Fourth of July, and that for years afterwards, I was very uncomfortable around fireworks. In a way, I still am.
Losing the house still hurts me. It hurts so badly because even as a small child, I loved that house. I walked away from the land without a second glance back, giving it all too my brother and step-father. I would have fought them tooth and claw for the house.
But that wasn't to be. The house burned and took my childhood, my dog, and really a great deal of my sanity with it.
I think I've written about this too, but it bears repeating because it is the single most important aspect of what happened that night. So if you feel like I'm summoning my ghosts for self-indulgence, I'm really not. I want to understand and I want to really talk about what happened to me the night the house burned.
There is a moment or maybe more than a moment . . .to be honest, I'm not sure because time stands so still . . . when the house is consumed by the flames, but everything looks like it's still there, like if you could remove the fire, everything would be okay. In the same way that something can be preserved forever in ice, that moment in the flames seemed to capture my home and all of its contents intact.
Also in that moment, as I guess part of my sanity really did slip away, I had this sudden urge to walk into the flames. I wanted to go into them and sit on the porch swing, open my bedroom door and sit on the floor by my dolls, holding them in all of that light and never realize when we melted together and burned away.
I get that what I just wrote sounds like bad goth fiction, but it's very, very true. And in the months that followed, when things were sad and stressful, when I got bounced around from family member to family member, I would find myself letting my mind drift back into that fantasy, sitting on the floor with my dolls as we burned and burned . . . and I would be comforted.
As things continued to get crazier, as mom's husband got more abusive and mom got more messed up, I began to feel my decision to resist the urge to run into that fire was the wrong one. Yes, as a 7-8 yr old, I was thinking that suicide by burning to death was a better option than living my life as it currently was. Several moments of horrible pain versus the constant hell mom was putting me through . . . maybe I was wrong.
And while I can't quite remember, I'm guessing it was during this time that I began cutting myself. Possibly . . . I know the level of emotional comfort is very close between the fantasy about the fire and fugue state I would put myself into when I was jabbing sharp things into my feet.
You know, even now, 30 years later, while I am sketchy on a lot of details, I still vividly remember the beauty of that moment when the house stood in flames. I still remember the way my heart beat, how I was breathing, how everything sounded, and most importantly how my fingertips had just the slightest bit of sweat to them, like they wanted so much to pull me forward.
Sometimes I wonder if I think about that moment every day of my life, if somehow I always go back to it, back to choosing a life of pain over a few moments of pain was the right choice. I wish I could tell you I always think it was . . . but I don't. Depression, panic, devastation, and sometimes even ennui have made me question it many, many times.
In any case, it is the Fourth and I will mourn those lost . . . Mary my baby doll, who wore a white dress and was loved beyond reason. My Malibu Barbie, who had spiffy 70s tan lines and smelled like coconut oil. And Beth, darling, sweet Beth, the St. Bernard who loved me so much. I miss you all, like I miss my tea set and my antique bed and the jade grapes my father gave me.
You were burned and lost to me, taken by bigots into the fires of a house that caused my mother's madness . . . as well as my own.
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