photo by me

I have a friend who keeps telling me that I should write a book about my life. She says that I’ve had a lot of interesting things happen and that she is sure people would read it.

That makes me take a look at my life. Because, after all, it’s just my life. I don’t see it as interesting or extraordinary or as book material. I see it as just something I’ve had to get through in order to get to this point.

What is interesting in my life and worthy of a book?

I had teenage parents who weren’t quite ready for either marriage or a child. I changed the way their lives would be forevermore.

We did travel / move a lot when I was a kid, mostly because my dad was in the Navy. That has given me a strange wanderlust that I can’t ever satisfy the way it requires.

When my dad finally left the Navy, we came back west and lived in San Diego where we often lived off of the proceeds from our swap meet sales.

My parents decided to move – without much money – and we lived in a Metro van for a while. The KOA Campground in Missoula, Montana was home.

We finally got a house – a trailer in a huge trailer park (hundreds and hundreds of trailers). I brought a pony home. We rode bikes over dirt roads daily. We could smell the meat processing plant every day (because it was just down the hill from where we lived). I stuck my tongue to the swings on a winter’s day and remember that event even now, 30+ years later. I hid in the huge sewer tubes that were along the side of the road with a friend and we would read magazines that were tossed aside. We grew a garden and survived off of the veggies in that garden. My sister was born here and my puppies were killed here.

We moved across town to a nicer area. We stole horses to go for a joy ride. I played Life with my best friend Paula. We did cartwheels through the green, green grasses in her yard. She had a Tennessee Walker and I wanted to ride him. Our yard was full of prize-winning irises. My mom slipped one day and hit one of the stakes around the irises and had to get stitches. We had a huge garden and I still remember the sweet taste of fresh, raw asparagus and the overwhelming power of strawberries and rhubarb. This is the place where I had my 7th and 8th grade parties: blacklights, cool music, and more. Someone threw pizza at the walls and I had to clean it. My brother moved into the basement and lived under those blacklights – this after my mom dumped all of his dressers and closets on the floor and told him to clean his room. This is where we fought and my sister had a wrench in her head and I had to protect my baby. This is where I made the pancakes that were as hard as steel. This is where I got good at softball, got my first pair of Nikes, was treated like white trash by girls at school, learned how to play basketball, got on the honor roll, was good at math and science, and where my beloved dog was shot. This is where I babysat a cute boy down the street, rode my bike into a ditch during a blizzard, learned to play the flute, swam in those same ditches and caught crawdads and played on a tree swing. This is where we were when Mt. St. Helens blew and we had to wear face masks to protect us from the ash, where we played basketball in that ash, where we saw a total eclipse of the sun and created solar cookers and cooked an egg. This is where we staged elaborate ice skating shows on our road for our parents. This is where one brother stole the trail bike and tore up the back yard, where the horses behind us ate our fence, and where another brother put a lit match in a gas tank and put the cap back on – and where that same cap blew off, burning the side of his face and his hair and where he first met a fireman. This was the place.

We moved. Homeless again. We lived in our parents’ business, in the loft. We took baths in trash cans.

We moved again. Las Vegas. Totally different world. I didn’t understand the kids here. They were hardened, even in the 8th grade. I rode to school on the back of my dad’s motorcycle. I played softball, basketball, and volleyball. I got stitches when my brother sliced open my leg with a dustpan. My cousin put cicada skins in my bed.

We moved across town. High school. Rich kids. We were poor. I played softball, basketball, and volleyball. I learned about soccer. I played in the marching band and the concert band. I was second chair. I got my first kiss here. And the first time a boy put his tongue in my ear and it was just too wet and it made me ill (I threw up). I had many crushes. The older boy up the street was a major one. I thought he was beautiful. He didn’t see me. The older man across the street did notice me and I thought it was cool that a man found me attractive (it wasn’t cool and it was against the law). I learned to drive here. I became a part of the speech and debate team, the theatre group, student government, and was named outstanding teen in Vegas (only one a month was chosen). I started college while still in high school.

And we moved again. Flagstaff, Arizona. The middle of my senior year. I was bored. School was easy. I ditched for the first time ever. I got in my first car accident (broad-sided by a huge truck). Winters were more like Montana. Had my first boyfriend. He was gay but neither of us realized it at that time. Tried drugs. They didn’t work for me. Had great potential. People thought I’d go far.

And that is only my life until I graduated from high school – with many details left out. The ensuing years are full of peril and sadness, joy and happiness.