‘She’s OK. She’s Got Her Coloring Books!’

CHAPTER 2 — from upcoming untitled Memoir

This is the 2rd chapter from my upcoming Memoir.

Here are the other 2 chapters in case you want to catch up.

CHAPTER 2. ‘She‘s OK. She’s got her Coloring Books”

I WAS BORN INTO A JEWISH FAMILY in Brooklyn, New York. My parents were children of immigrants who fled through Ellis Island to relocate in New York.

When I was 3 years old our family moved to Denver Colorado so my dad could open a retail clothing business with his younger brother. It ended up being a chain of women’s clothing stores — similar to Macy’s but smaller. This was back in the days where small retail businesses were thriving.

I had to go with the family. I mean you don’t have much say at 3 years old!

I really don’t have many memories of my very early years except that I was told I was a smiley carefree happy kid. Oh, and I was chubby.

Very chubby.

MY SISTER HATED ME

My mom told me this story that always stayed with me from my childhood:

When I was a newborn my parents proudly brought me home from the hospital and put me in my crib. My only sister Ellen, who is 3 years older than me, walked up to the crib, looked down at me sleeping and punched me very hard in the stomach! Was this a sign of what was to come?

”What did I do to her?? I asked my mom. “I was a newborn baby. Geeeeeeze.”

Mom explained, “Well…Ellen just hated you for some reason from the moment she saw you in your crib.”

How can you hate a newborn baby?

By age 12 Ellen was a serious drug addict. She did a myriad of hard drugs like LSD, cocaine, speed and even heroin, which could have explained her behavior. At the time though, I had no idea why she was so mean.

I recall vividly the dungeon (?) basement where my sister ‘lived’. We had to walk down 8 steep stairs to get to her hippie hangout. Her lair. The stairwell was completely lined with black light posters which were the craze back then — Grateful Dead, to Alice Cooper, to Led Zeppelin. There was a mingled hazy stench of cigarettes, patchouli oil, marijuana and old dirty laundry (Lovely combination!) that wafted in my nose whenever I ventured down those steps, which I tried not to do too often.

I RECALL MY MOM AND DAD arguing about my sister many nights. I’d overhear them whispering while I was laying in my bed. My bedroom was adjacent to theirs so I could hear clearly through the walls, even though they tried to keep their voices low.

“…What can we DO with her? Should we take her to more counselors, psychiatrists..?” My thought was: Maybe an Exorcist…

The movie The Exorcist was popular back then. All the kids were seeing it.

My sister in a way reminded me of Linda Blairs’ character Reagan — but my sisters head didn’t spin around and she didn’t have green projectile vomit episodes, thankfully, but, she scared me was just as scary to me!

I have faint memories of Ellen wielding knives and threatening my parents and memories of my parents taking knives out of her hands. Funny what you remember 40 years after something happens.

I also recall lots of yelling and screaming in my house. My parents were in constant verbal and physical battles with Ellen, and constant battles with each other. Their marriage sucked.

I suppose my childhood was a battlefield and I felt I was in the middle.

When I was maybe 6 or 7 I recall Ellen locked me in my parents bathroom — a lot. She’d threaten, “Don’t you DARE come out until I tell you or I’ll hurt you BAD! I’ll kill you — you little BRAT!! Just STAY IN THERE until I decide you can leave!”

She pushed me into the bathroom and locked the door.

She did speak with such a vile hateful tone so I didn’t dare come out.

I recall sitting in the bathroom for hours sometimes, making up fantasy games to entertain myself while sitting on the toilet — eventually even curling up for a nap on the hard ceramic floor. I made myself at home in there.

Is this normal behavior? Does every older sister do this to their younger sibling? How would I know?

I guess it was normal to me since it was all I knew.

When we are kids we have no reference point for these kinds of things, so maybe I assumed this was normal. I know I tried to stay as far away from her as I could though.

When my parents left us alone quite often, Ellen would begin her terror. She punched me so hard in the stomach knocking the wind out of me many times. I recall it hurt so bad that I dreaded being anywhere near her. I would scream and hold my stomach while she yelled things like BRAT… I HATE YOU!!!

When my parents came home one night after going to a movie I thought I’d had enough. I wanted to let them know what was happening while they were gone, so as soon as I heard their key in the door I screamed:

‘Ellen punched me really hard in the stomach and knocked the breath out of me!!!!’

I don’t recall my parents doing or saying much about it except, ”you two need to get along better…”

The solace in my young life was in playing a lot of games by myself on the kitchen floor. I would sit Indian-style playing games like Jacks, pick-up-sticks, Solitaire, Marbles and Yahtzee, and Barbies by myself — all solo versions.

I also made up some outdoor games to amuse myself like a tennis racket game on the front stairs of our house where I would hit a tennis ball up the stairs then back to myself. Another solitary game I made up was throwing a tennis racket high in the air to see how many times I could catch it without it falling — like a cheerleaders baton — and then how many circles I could make with it in the air.

I was always on our backyard trampoline doing back flips too.

I was pretty darn flexible. Even though I was chubby I was still athletic.

I think my dad might have wanted a son. He didn’t get one. Maybe I was the next best thing though. I recall my dad and I played a lot of games together too.

I was his game buddy.

My dad was an athlete. A champion handball player. His brother, Harvey, was a semi famous Basketball player in college. He was almost a pro, so I probably got some athleticism in my genes too.

My dad taught me tennis and took me with him to the racquetball courts to watch him play in tournaments. I realized I was pretty good at racquetball too, which my dad seemed proud of.

MOST OF MY MEMORIES of my childhood home life also involved me spending a lot of time with my crayons, colored pencils, markers, and coloring books. This was before I discovered the guitar.

I sat on the floor of our living room in front of the TV after school surrounded by art supplies — piles and piles of coloring books all around me, almost over my head! After coloring them all in I arranged them and categorized them into different piles, by style — while watching the after school lineup of shows like I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, Gilligans Island to That Girl. I would get called for dinner during Hogans Heroes and McCales Navy…thankfully.

My parents looked down the stairs at me sometimes when I was surrounded by my coloring books and crayons.

“Ahhh….look! Michelles OK. She’s got her coloring books!”

Was I OK? or was I just trying to escape the reality of my family…?

I GOT MY FIRST DIARY at age 8, with the little key attached. I wrote in it every night excitedly before bed. Locking up the diary with the nifty key felt fun and mysterious to me —It was my own private ritual. The pen was my friend.

I could tell my diary anything and everything . I wrote about my sister and my parents acting weird and yelling (a LOT!) and of course boys who I had crushes on.

I realize now looking back on it that the diary was like a surrogate family member. I felt alien in my family and always thought I might have been plopped down into a family that was not my own. I don’t think I ever felt safe or comfortable enough to talk to my family about my inner angst and loneliness.

(Here are just a few of my diaries from age 8 to 55. I now have over 95 full journals)

FAMILY GAME NIGHT

I recall our family played board games a lot on the kitchen table.

After we all watched the Sunday night lineup on TV including 60 Minutes, All in the Family, Carol Burnett etc. my dad would gleefully pull out the game boards.

I remember during Monopoly my dad and I would both take turns rolling my sisters dice for her. We’d reach over to move her iron or her dog token around the board because her eyes were too glazed —She wasn’t able to focus on the game, obviously.

She obsessively picked at her hair too (OCD?) with both arms up at ear level, elbows out, winding her hair around and around her fingers while staring obliviously up at the wall or — who knows where? (Maybe she was looking for a space ship to come take her away…)

She had quite a big bald spot from all the hair pulling too.

“Ellen. STOP pulling your hair!! You’re gonna go totally bald!!” my mom screamed often.

My dad just glared with disgust at my sister.

“…Ohnoooo. You’re in JAIL ELLEN! You can’t collect 200 dollars?!” I was innocently trying to keep the family game night peaceful and keep up the charade that we were a normal family.

My sister rarely reacted. Drugs will do that to a person I suppose, but at the time I really didn’t know what drugs were.

I had no clue what was wrong with Ellen or what her problem was.

I wanted approval from my parents, like all kids do I’m sure. I must admit I was glad when my dad looked at me like I was ‘smart’. He seemed pleased with me, unlike the way he glared at my sister. He looked approvingly at me during the board games which made me feel he liked me more than her.

I suppose I got the brownie points for being able to move my pieces around a game board which was more than my sister could do.

Overall I was a rather ‘happy kid’ lost in my creative life until about age 12 or 13 when I began to really notice how fat I was.

Ugh.

TO BE CONTINUED…

THANKS FOR READING! contact: [email protected]

add more about Dad and Haagen dazz. Bullied by the kids at school etc.