6. A Rolling Nomad Gathers No Moss

Itchy Feet

We moved from the Apartment into a modern multi-level town house. 5 minute walk to sibling school, 15 minutes for me. 3rd grade I had this lovely yet wacky teacher who was not interested at all in teaching the conventional subjects. She preferred to put on skits, which she always gave me the longest part because of my advanced memorization skills. I was a natural.

School was ridiculously fun play-acting all day. She’d take us to her house for cookies and tea and we’d sit about chatting about everything. I couldn’t wait to get there and dreaded going home.

The first time a boy my age told me he loved me but was too preoccupied to care. He grabbed my hand, looked in my eyes and said "I love you baby". Awkward but we got through it, I hope. It probably had a major affect on his life and I've always felt a bit guilty about that. Even as young as I was, I loved my freedom more. It's been a running theme throughout my life.

I had too much freedom but absolutely loved it. No one was looking after me in any meaningful way. Every night after dinner I’d walk on my own to a friend in the neighborhood to watch The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. We'd curl up on her couch, intensely engaged, then I'd walk home at 10 or 11 at night, no fear of someone shooting, kidnapping or sodomizing me. I'd zigzag through the field on the way to my house waking up the grasshoppers, giggling as they popped up around me in the heat of a hot July night, as I ran through the field, free as a bird, breeze through the unlocked front door to the familiar familial noises, reassuring me all was well. Grab a cookie, run up the stairs, put myself to bed and race to school every morning.

My siblings took advantage of my undeniable independence and had me smoking cigarettes and drinking beers by age eight so I couldn't tattle on them. Left alone too many times to count, this time during the neighbor's weekly party but this time one of his guests rang our doorbell, of course I answered and after a little bit of dialog he had his tongue down my throat. I still thank my stars that's all he did but it had a decidedly unhealthy affect on me. This wasn't the first time I'd been sexually abused in my young life and I never told anyone about any of it. I kept it all to myself.

I continued riding horses with Nell during the week after school and on the weekends, I took the train to Winter Park with the Eskimo Skiing Club and earned different colored strips of cloth as you advanced as a skier. The train ride up and back were incredibly fun, hardly any adults about. Meeting kids from different schools you wouldn’t normally meet. No smoking, drugs or alcohol that I know of. Probably the cleanest, purest fun I had.

Soon I started ditching the classes and just took the train to get up there and back. I was getting into hotdogging and gave up using poles. I could do flips and was all over the black diamond slopes. Skiing offered me the same kind of freedom I got from riding horses did but skiing I was truly on my own sole adventure I still cherish to this day.

First trip abroad.

Jackie took us to Acapulco for a short but memorable jaunt. We were all white knuckled from the airport to the hotel. I never left the pool even when she begged I come along for the cliff divers or whatever tourist spot they decided on for the day unless it was the beach.

I was so sunburned my cheeks were bright red and was given the advice from a sibling to my eight-year-old soul, not to use after sun or lotion as they said that would make it worse. No wives tales here, just hopeful wishing my burns would turn to scars. Ice ran through their veins yet I innocently believed them and continued believing they had my best interest at heart as one normally would have of a much older sibling.

Sufficed to say, they didn’t get their way. I rather enjoyed their freak out with every lizard that traversed the ceiling...such a cunt.