When I began therapy, the thought of letting a stranger into my head for examination was terrifying. All I could think of was Maw Sue, going to the crazy house, torture, madness, shock therapy. I waited for the wires to come out and hook me up. I vehemently refused to talk, or budge an inch. I would sit and stare and listen to Doc talk. Sometimes, I imagined her as Maw Sue telling stories and I was at her feet listening and learning. Then, out of nowhere, I agreed to talk but it had to be on my terms. I would agree to the therapy if I could record the sessions. It was for my own personal need. I had never truly felt I owned my own voice—as if by some force beyond me, out of my control, it had been taken, stolen from me and the only way I was going to let words out, from the house inside me, was to put them somewhere, where I could find them. Things in my life, personal and material had a way of getting lost and I wasn’t going to let this happen again. If I recorded the sessions, the words would be accessible and mine. And plus, the recordings gave me a word-by-word analog so I could go back and examine them, try them on, search them out. Doc thought it was a great idea and would help me to know myself, the person I was, or had become, or had left behind.
Once the recording sessions began, I didn’t realize how painful they would be. I felt emptied with no recollection of what I’d just dumped out. It was mass quantities of accumulation held up inside me, stashed and hidden in the house for so long, to speak them from my lips was comparative to pulling off flesh in tiny strips. Excruciating pain. Maddening, leaving me torn, naked and displaced. I played back the first sessions a few weeks later and thought, who the hell is that? Is that me? I’d listen, rewind, and listen again. It was like discovering a new person. At Doc’s suggestion, I transcribed the words into a journal so I could go back on my own accord and read, take notes, observe my progress, or regression. Yeah. There was a lot of regression.
“Willodean. We never get rid of our demons.” Doc said. “We learn to live with them. We endure and suffer with them. We outsmart them, we learn their habits, their weakness, and their strengths just as they do ours. We confront them. In doing so—we know the enemy. We engage them as they engage us. They will not be able to destroy us unless we let them. The enemy learns about you—so you must learn the enemy.”
Doc not only taught me how to live my life, she provided a listening ear. She heard me, gave validation to who I was in the crazy, who I was in the crying, who I was in the enemy, who I was as a child and who I could become as a new woman. I would learn new things every week. When the little bell went off signaling my session was over—I went into panic mode. I didn’t know how to stop talking once I started. I couldn’t find the knob inside my head to turn off. It was then, I learned I had no boundaries. Boundaries? What are they? I didn’t know what they were or that I was supposed to have them. I told her I clearly lived in two dimensions, all or nothing. Love or hate. Black or white. Child and crazy woman. And that was the problem.
The next session we worked on boundaries and balance. Doc made me realize it wasn’t the end of the world if I didn’t get to finish talking. In fact, waiting was a virtue, a powerful tool to establish one’s patience and discipline. I neither as it turns out, but I was willing to work to establish them in my life. Slowly, and painfully, I learned more and more each day. I was hungry for life. My life. I didn’t do everything perfect. I failed numerous times but each was an improvement over the former. I learned from my failures, when all the times before, I would just high tail it and run and repeating the same pattern of failure. Each day was a challenge, and each day I drug myself out of the bed, even when the shadows convinced me to numb it out, I resisted. I would push myself up. Screaming with pain, mindless and frantic, but up. I would walk to my bathroom mirror and speak to the many reflections I saw there. The red lipstick scribbled on its surface. I AM ENOUGH! I am valuable. I am loved. I am special. I am Willodean Hart.
I found Maw Sue’s poems written in my bible and memorized them, or maybe I had never forgotten them to begin with. I’d say the words out loud and pretend I was in the wondering tree, wondering when I’d be whole, complete, seven. Wondering when all my losses would be made lovely. Would it happen, or was it just a fabricated story from a tic-tac hallucinogenic mad woman. The voice critics made me doubt, filling my head with all kinds of stuff. This is my daily life. Since I couldn’t make camp in Doc’s office, the journals became my substitute for therapy. I pretend the paper is my ear to God and I pour out my pain, my questions, and my fears but since then, something has changed. I grow, then hit a brick wall.
***
Doc waits patiently for me to speak. I glance over at the vase in the bay window. It’s filled with gardenias and the aroma has unlocked a door within the house. I feel as if I am speaking for the first time yet it isn’t my voice. It comes out fast, furious. I choke on hard words, deeply hidden things, now exposed and given light. In the process I lose track of what I’m saying, many times, as if my lips are speeding ahead of me. I had moments of pause, to stop, reflect, and catch up with the vocabulary spilling out. Only then, could I feel every letter, every word, every thought, lingering long in their form, engaging their fluidity, their meaning, their intent while I wrapped my arms around them, emerging with them, to study, feel and acknowledge them. I literally chased my words around the room introducing myself. Yes. You are real. Yes. This did happen. It really happened. It was real. All of it was real, all mine, good and bad, black and white, all or nothing, real. My mind went a zillion places that day but stopped to a screeching halt on a thick, choking crumb I could not consume. My lips locked up and my tongue went dirt dry. The gardenia aroma from the vase in the window, drew me in, and suddenly words flow outward, from another dimension, crushing my heart, my soul.
I am standing in the kitchen of our home. The divorce is final but I can’t say goodbye. I fear one more loss, one more heartache, one more meltdown and I will fall off the edge again. I’ll crack and never recover. I have lost so much already—I just—just can’t walk away. I had great expectations, fairy tale dreams, and a futuristic montage of plans, houses, kids, a dog, a picket fence and it came down to this. Stupid damn hope chest. It should have been easy for me to leave but it wasn't. I had an exceed death level tolerance for pain. I hear the ticking of the hell clock, the insidious timekeeper counting down seconds of my life, one slow, morbid, tick-tock at a time. Today is the day. I will leave this home. I will leave this land. I will leave this man. I will not make this bed. I will not live this lie.
Outside our front door of the kitchen, a massive gardenia plant blooms. I called it the Gardenia King because it was like kisses from the King, a heavenly scent, so pure, untouched, innocent, childlike, and free of original sins. Sometimes when I couldn’t breathe in another death stench of my life, I’d rush outside and press myself into the spindly arms of the bush, inhaling every drop of delightful musk. Survive another day Willodean. I’d grab a handful of petals and crush them inside my pillow case or slip them inside my bra, so even if I died inside the marriage, I’d still smell like promises. I’d still smell like hope. The drizzling musk of the King’s kisses would revive me. To get more of my life, I must leave. I will leave this place I’ve know, this terror of comfort, this land, this man—and then what? What shall I do for strength then? What will I do without my king’s kisses? A think of Maw Sue and Aunt Raven. I break off a gardenia stem and press the flower to my cheeks and I hear the king whisper in my soul. “Choose to take the memory with you. It is a part of you. It will make you who you are if you learn from it.”
Suddenly I felt empowered. A door flings open inside the house and the little girl runs free. I freak out a little. Letting her run around is not what I planned. It is downright dangerous. I hear the King’s voice again. “It’s okay. She wants to show you something.” I hesitate but watch her closely. She runs ahead of me barefoot. I feel like I should follow her, just to make sure she comes back. I kick off my shoes and run after her. She frolics through the pasture towards the hill
top.
“Say Goodbye Willodean.” She says, “You must let go. Say goodbye.” She slaps her hand from fence post to fence post rushing past Hawthorne bushes, the tangled brush arbors mixed with an assortment of honeysuckles then down the slope where the steep embankment leads to a creek bed shaded by tall oaks. It was one of my hideaway places when Branson and I fought and I had to get away. The girl is as she always was. Grit and courage. Stars and moons. Faith and hope.
We make a sweeping exit over the land and she makes me untether myself from all elements, objects, and materials I’ve grown attached to. It is a lot for me to take in, the inexplicable gatherings beneath and above—extensions of her and myself. It makes me think of Mag and I, as kids, exploring the clay pits, an abandoned dirt company a few miles behind our house. It was a wonderland of new things, new adventures. I can still hear our feet crunching the sun baked dirt. There is laughter—lots of laughter and then screams. My heart flinches. The little girl glances back at me, wide eyed and frantic as if I wasn’t supposed to remember this memory, and I don’t, except the screams, the terrible screams, and darkness, lots of darkness, and water, trickling water. By this time, the girl rushes over to me, grabs my hand and pull me away. Her warmth removes the fear of unknowns. The feelings disperse and I am only caught up with her as she leads me to a patch of bare soil. Together, our feet sinks into the sod as a final farewell. We are grit and courage. Stars and moon. Hope and faith. It is all I hope to be. Want to be.
She reaches down and yanks a wild dandelion out of the ground. I reach down and get one too. I let it spin in my fingers.
“It’s time to go. But before we leave. Make a wish.” The little girl says. I close my eyes. I make a wish. An incantation of soul and spirit. Grit and courage. Stars and moons. Faith and hope. Seven. I open my eyes and blow a child’s breath. The needle-like slivers detach from the pod and I feel my heart hurt as if they were plucked from it. They swirl and spin in the air like thistle angels, holding our prayers and drifting to heaven to deliver them.
“Dream big Willodean.” The thistle angels say. “Never give up hope. Never.” I spun around to talk to the little girl excited with what I had seen and heard but she was gone. I look everywhere but she isn’t there. A horn blows in the distance and I see my father pulling in the driveway. Indeed, it was time to say goodbye.
DING! The little bell vibrates and lifts me from my dreams, spells or witchcraft, who knows at this point. I am still in Doc's office on the couch, not in the pasture, not dancing with thistle angels or dreaming big.
“That was lovely Willodean.” Doc says. “Quite a change from our other visits. You have done very well. I see such improvement since your first visit. You have taken your pain and transpired it into beauty through a poetic route of storytelling, unlike I’ve never seen you do before. Stunning. Absolutely beautiful. Have you been journaling? Whatever you’re doing, continue. It’s working.” She leans over and clicks the stop button on the recorder.
“It is?” I said startled. I had no idea I was poetic. In the genes I reckon. “Yeah, Doc, I’ve been journaling a lot lately.”
“Good We’ll start up here next time. Say around Thursday of next week?”
“Sure.” I stood up and walked towards the door. Before I left my eyes fell upon the musk dripping from the King’s kisses inside the vase.
“May I have one?”
“Ohhh.” Doc said rushing to get the vase. “Of course. Yes.”
“Oh no. Just one. Thank you.” I spun the stem around in my hand, unaware of the thorns. It pricked my fingers allowing the pain to rise up from hidden places inside the house, inside me. The scented musk rose up wild and free, frosty and pure. I felt as if I was there again. The day I left the man. The day I left the land. The day I left my life. I scheduled another appointment and drove home trying to process all I remembered today. I pulled into the driveway, killed the ignition switch on Annie and turned to get my purse. The flower I sat on the dashboard was now lacquer black, hardened and running with blood. My vision went dark and acrid.
Murder
I was a witness to murder. The slinky slithered down the metal steps making a clink, clink, clink sound. What followed was a blood-curdling squawk from a nightmare I hadn’t dreamed yet. Bawwquawk. Bawwquawk. Bangs and clattering rang out. A white cloud explodes from the other side of the coop till it looked like it was snowing in July. The hit woman of hens rounds the corner, wild eyed and in mission mode. The butcher of beast is wearing a green nightgown with a blue apron. The poultry poacher’s feet are sloshing around in her deceased husband’s knee length rubber boots, two sizes too big, which swallow her skinny legs like a sea monster. To hold them on her feet she walks with a wide gate so she looks like one of those monsters in a B-rated movie of King Kong. She has curlers in her hair wrapped with a yellow scarf. In one hand, an ax, the other hand has the victim in a headlock. Squawking, feathers, mushing sea monsters—it was a pillow fight gone horrible wrong. After a few intense hula-hoop moves, squawking, sloshing and swishing, a violent snap breaks the air and the limp chicken falls to the ground. A swift whack makes it headless. Jesus! Talk about a shit raining. I had never witnessed an execution before. Ichabod Crane and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow has nothing on Maw Sue. I’m pretty sure my life is over after this freakish beheading incident. I would be Willodean, the girl haunted by chickens. To escape the madness I’d write a book called, The Coop Killin' Legend. Mr. Sanders of Kentucky Fried chicken would be a big endorser making it a best seller. Of course, this is in my head where all things go a little loop-de-loop but in the real world, it just got worse. It always gets worse.
Maw Sue picked up the bleeding grotesque chicken by its feet. In my vision, the earth stopped rotating. I stood suspended on the porch while I watched it play out. Her sea monsters let out warning sounds. Slosh, slosh. My heart beat outside my chest and everything was in slow mode. She lifted the chicken up, and threw it through the air. I watched in spiral and gravitate, blood spurting openly out of its neck like a water gun. I had no time to run, no time to react. It landed on my feet and spilled out its fresh blood between my toes. My body was frozen stiff but my insides were a pinball machine, thrashing and bouncing against constricted walls with no way out. The smell reached my nose and I went to wobbling. It wasn’t like when I accidentally killed my goldfish or when I mashed a dying caterpillar covered with ants, to put him out of his misery. It was a different death smell. It reminded me of Maw Sue’s madness, the bedroom, the metallic scent of pennies and the house inside me. I hear the president screaming all over again but I can’t do what he says because I can’t move. My stomach did flip-flops. The tiny hairs inside my nose twitched which put my gift to high alert mode and my defenseless body went to quivering.
“Oh my God!” I screamed.” Yuck! It’s on my feet.” I bounced across the porch like a rubber ball.
“When you get through with your princess fit.” Maw Sue says looking at me awkward. “We have a job to do.” She wiped her murderous hands on her apron. She looked like Mr. Ratcliff, the town butcher, who by the way, enjoys his job, way, way too much than a person should. I’m just saying. Wait a minute. We? How did I get into this?
“I’m not touching that thing.” I screamed at Maw Sue.
“Uhh yes, young lady, you are.” She said matter of fact. “Go on. Pick it up. It ain’t gon’ hurt you to pluck it.”
“Pluck it?” I said disgusted with the thought. Maw Sue looked like a mass murderer waiting on an accomplice. I wasn’t going to oblige. The mere thought made me nauseated, so much a pond of frogs lodged in my throat and made awful noises come from my mouth. Braawwk! Ribbbettt! I was like those dogs that eat grass to induce vomiting.
“What in Sam Hill is wrong with you child?” She spit and adjusted her jaw.
“What is wrong with me?” I said puzzled. “I have blood on my toes and I didn't decide to kill a chicken, today, that's what’s wrong.”
“Pick up the chicken for God’s sakes
. My goodness. Quit throwing a conniption. It’s a chicken.”
Correct. It’s a chicken. A dead, bleeding chicken. The shit raining she warned me of didn’t wait for me to grow up. It arrived early. Maw Sue wasn’t backing down. She pointed to the chicken with a stern look. I fumed, sighed, bit my lip and held my breath as I picked up the slaughtered sacrifice by its cold rubberized yellow claws. My stomach churned like a washing machine. The frogs in my throat rebelled. The pin ball machine inside me went haywire. Ping, pong, ping, pong. I dragged the bloody chicken off the porch, down the steps and pass the shivering slinky. The henchwoman with sea monsters sloshing, was ahead of me, rambling words I couldn’t hear because I was so horrified I was dragging a bloody chicken by its feet.
“Kids, I mean how they gone survive if worse turns to worse?” She turned around.
“Eat what the deer eat?” I said the first thing that came to mind. She gave me a look that was less than desirable.
“Eat what thaa—are you—serious.” Her apocalyptic eyes raked over me. My sarcastic banter did not win her over. I was only repeating what dad told us to do if we ever got lost in the woods.
“Well, one things for certain, I won’t have you standing in the soup line, that’s for sure. At least you’ll be able to kill a chicken.” I'm not sure what it is with old people and soup lines. Papa Hart talked about the soup lines too. I lollygagged behind her, hurling a blob of salvia and part of last night’s supper every few feet.
“Now sit it down right there.” She said. We had stopped in a raw patch of dirt a few feet from the coop. There was angry steam rising from a blue speckled pot sitting on the dirt beside a silver loaf pan. I did what she said and laid the chicken on the cursed ground. My inner dialogue devil was having a field day. I will never be the same. My life is over. Never be the same. My hem-hawing did not phase Maw Sue in the least. It only made her more adamant to teach me a thing or two, as if plucking a chicken was a mandatory survival tactic, some sick rite of passage for all ten years olds.
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