Serpentine (not a pivot)

/ herismeorg / 1 Comment

Well, y’all, I tried.

I am trying still.

But, however, anywho, etc

I do believe that this COVID19 physical distancing has me serpentining, not pivoting.

This is a s-l-o-w motion re-examination of everything for all of us – unless you are a frontline worker, in which case we seriously owe you all this time for you as well.  I feel that I owe it to you to take my serpentine work seriously while you are doing the difficult work of keeping us alive.  You are working so very hard and I am cheering you from my privileged sequestering selfdom.  I need to do more.  Not more.  I need to do better work.

As a full time single parent to a sweet 11 SonHerisme and caretaker for my live-in ill mother, I do have full days, and sometimes nights.  SonHerisme does need school support (he would like more than I currently offer).  MotherHerisme needs some physical support along with bandage changes and medication monitoring (she no longer does any self care outside of toileting and showering, and occasionally needs support there as well).

My divorce was final in April 2016 and by December 2016 my mother was unwell and decided to stay with me to get treatment.  MotherHerisme is very intense with her emotional and physical needs = my ability to unpack, process and move forward from my terrifying divorce ordeal, never had a chance to fully happen.  I am typically super disassociated anyway, making it very likely that I might not have processed regardless. Whatever.  Who knows?

Being at home now and forced to face my own self, this unpacking might be what is happening now.  I am not sure.  Continuing my therapy with my somatic therapist online was offered to me, but I just have not felt sure or comfortable with pursuing that for some reason which has yet to reveal itself to me.  It seems as if it might have something to do with fear – fear of what? I do not know.

Based on the suggestion from a dear Inveterate Optimist friend, I have revisited unpacking myself through re-examination of my immediate environment.  Purging some things.  Packing away other things.  Gifting away more things (ciao Collin Robinson-esque Fiction!).  This is happening in between the caregiving, cooking, cleaning, keeping-the-people-in-this-house-aliving, as well as making masks for a local nonprofit who then redistributes them to local agencies in need (hospital, police, Dr offices etc), and also making masks for friends and their sweet families.

I am not pivoting.

I am serpentining through the things that need acknowledged and around the things that I no longer need to acknowledge or carry.

I am trying.

This is hard.

This is a hard time for all of us.

I wish I could have done this a long time ago.  Being alone is hard. Lonely is one very difficult thing to experience.  Being alone is another heavy layer.

What I am trying to say is that work of fiction is not going to happen.  I’ll write something, but not that thing.  I am unpacking it, keeping the important bits, purging the remainder.  Please accept my apologies if you were interested in hearing that tale.  I can send a synopsis to you if you’d like, and then perhaps you could write that story.

I am aware that there is another story that I have to tell.

It is difficult.

I’ll get there (*fingers and pinky toes crossed*).

What are you doing over there?  Keep healthy and safe!

 

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

 

O.N. – intro (fiction)

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ObservingNormal

The first installment. I had the title Observing Normal, which seems odd now considering our COVID19 not normal.  Leaving it as is for the moment.  The story follows a man at the center of celebrity and obsession, dropping out of his life and creating his own obsessively observed narrative about what he believes is normal only to find himself blindsided, caught up in a far from normal world of assassination.  A few of you may have read some iteration of this a few years ago.  Also heartfelt apologies if it is crap, or still crap. Here it is:

Observing Normal – Intro

“Don’t try to comprehend with your mind.  Your minds are very limited.  Use your intuition.”  Madeline L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

 

If she thought about it, which she absolutely does when needed, she imagines with an ever-present burdened relief, that each of her days appears about the same.  Her hair style, clothing, skin coloring, weight, might differ day-to-day and season-to-season, but most of the movements and patterns repeat themselves almost identically every day.

 

5:30 a.m. wake up, glance at phone, go to the bathroom

5:35 a.m. turn electric kettle on, place favorite mug (solid sturdy white, old timey diner small) next to kettle, drink full glass of water

5:37 a.m. take off pj’s, put bra on from previous day, yoga pants, clean t-shirt and socks, walking shoes

5:40 a.m. walk the dog

6:15 a.m. return home, fill dog’s dish and water

6:17 a.m. turn stovetop on, add coconut oil to pan, grab eggs, bread, salsa, half and half and cold brew concentrate from refrigerator

6:18 a.m. cut hole in center of bread, place bread into pan, crack 1 egg onto bread (yolk intact), drink full glass of water

6:20 a.m. flip eggy toast, turn stovetop off, pour 1.5 oz of concentrate and dollop of half and half into coffee mug

6:22 a.m. slide eggy toast onto plate, stir coffee with fork, lick fork, use fork to add salsa to eggy toast, return unused items to refrigerator

6:24 a.m. place plate with eggy toast and fork on top of refilled glass of water and pick up with left hand.  Pick up coffee cup and vitamins in right hand, turn off kitchen light by striking the switch with the bottom of the coffee mug

6:25 a.m. sit down at dining room table for blissfully solitary breakfast, bring up BBC news app, and eat

7 a.m. awaken sleeping family

etc.

 

Moving in a deliberate dance with her environment; to the left, right, forwards, backwards, holding the pan with a hand-crocheted washcloth to protect herself from the heat, bending and reaching, concentrating and stealing glances at her surroundings to absorb the completeness of each moment.  She is deeply immersed and incredibly caught up in maintaining these patterns.  So much so, that any break in her concentration creates a startling crackley chasm throughout her whole self, felt almost painfully from her brain to her toes.  She has carefully taught herself and now learned to quickly repair these shattering cracks by taking discreet deep breaths and closing her eyes for the briefest of seconds.  If the shock of breaking reverie is felt too deeply that it seems as if the cracks might be physically revealed, she’ll even allow herself a cough, or gentle murmur mumble sound.  If others are present, this might be accompanied by the slightest breath of, “excuse me,” until the crack has been filled with her renewed dedication in pursuit of the next task.  Then she continues her delicate dance.

 

This is her practiced and intentional personal art form and she revels comfortably in it.  She has spent years cultivating these patterns, introducing just enough deviations, planned sprinklings of organized thoughtful chaos, to keep herself in the observed normal range of behaviors and experiences.  She has had enough of not normal in her life.

 

As a young child, from as early as her memory would reach until just before she began menstruating at the precocious age of 9 1/2, she was regularly raped and sexually abused by a close family friend.  As far as she knew, her parents never had any idea.  As an adult, she and her one sibling, an older sister, discovered each other’s shared bond in this experience.  They clung to this bond to define themselves as belonging to each other, as it was a rarity that they shared any other interests or experiences.

 

The consistent dreams she had as a child seem as vivid today as they had then, although she hasn’t actually dreamed them for years.  One dream involved walking out of her back door into a variety of different magical lands – princess lands, dinosaur times, fairy islands etc.  In these dreams, she was always some welcome positive catalyst for justice, change, or helpfulness.  The other dream had her sitting naked and patiently on an open-bottomed toddler style potty stool while tiny workers in overalls climbed up ladders to the inside of her body and cleaned everything out for her.  Some of the workers walked up her outstretched arms and worked on the inside of her mouth too.  They had soft gentle mops and buckets, some of them even wore funny hats and gentle smiles to try and distract her from their necessary work.  It was like being at the Dr’s office, unpleasant, but she knew they were there to help.  She has used this cleansing dream throughout her life to absolve herself of many things done wrong both to and by her.

 

Now at 35 years old, she is exactly where she needs to be.  Her community knows her as married for almost ten years to a humble, devoted, catalog handsome, all-American sports enthusiast who has a moderately successful career as a government contractor actuary.  She ended her own career as an informatics specialist when she became pregnant for the first time.  Both of her full term pregnancies (with a few heartbreaking miscarriages in between) were the result of IVF interventions due to “unexplained infertility challenges.”  Those prolonged rigorous medical protocols proved just the right touch of struggle to develop much needed deeper support networks and connections with local friends.  They both feel blessed to have two beloved children; Eva, age eight, and Edgar, age five.

 

She and her family live in a sprawling ranch style home nestled into the top side of a hill, part of a uniquely sectioned area of town in between more mainstream postcard suburban areas.  Those neighborhood McMansion style manicured-lawn places were too demanding of her senses.  Their Stepford style had her feeling as though everything was screaming at her, hungrily, relentlessly, constantly demanding her attention, depleting any reservoirs of thought, self or strength. leaving her nowhere to look or listen or just to be, without incessant overwhelming noise.  She knows that she cannot survive in this life without someplace to rest her senses in order to concentrate on being normal.  Possibly the only input the realtor and her husband heard from her during the house hunting, was, “The plastic of these places doesn’t appeal to me.  I’d like to see some homes with more character and potential for things like backyard chickens without a neighborhood fuss.”  Here she used her bitchy grown-up sorority girl voice card, which was reserved for uniquely special occasions.  She determined that house hunting fit that criteria.

 

Their two acres seem like much more since they don’t have a clear view of any of their neighbors, due to the curve and slope of the hill.  Looking out her back windows, she can see acres of forest.  Looking out the front windows gives the feeling of living in a tree house with a direct view to the tippy tops of the immense tree line down the hill’s slope.  The children and she spend many hours using their binoculars to watch local wildlife across the hills as if they are in the clouds soaring with the eagles, and in the backyard, playing at being wilderness fairy explorers and wild turkey chasers through the forest.

 

Unlike their adjoining neighborhoods, they don’t have any housing association keeping tabs on their grass length, holiday decorations, or other general curb appeal issues.  Their area is somewhat of a no-man’s land for reticent residents and weekend bikers seeking the thrill of the pitches and curves around the hills.  There are no sidewalks or through convenient access roads connecting one of something to another side of something.  Their neighbors are mostly nameless faces with whom their only connection is the desire to not be bothered unless needed after weather disasters.  Everyone seems to implicitly know who has the snowblowers, gas chain saws, emergency generators and heavy trucks.  When a disaster had hit the area (lingering hurricane weather, thundersnow, thick ice), these people rallied together willingly and seamlessly to clear long winding steep driveways, felled two hundred-year-old oaks, thick sheets of ice etc.  Once the disaster’s destruction was dealt with, almost immediately everyone retreated to their private personal space.  All of the lots were at least two acres, and some were as big as 45 acres.  This situation was ideal for her.  Easy access to the center of town and community amenities, with very little chance of unwanted attention and forced neighborhood communication under the guise of friendliness (her definition of prying).

 

As with most adult women with children, her figure is not as perfect as it had been when she was in college, but is lovely and toned enough to turn a few heads other than her husband’s.  She does not acknowledge any of that attention.  She spends regular time with her family and friends swimming, at yoga classes, mild hiking, playing at local parks with her children, and walking the dog, to maintain a level of fitness comparable to her circle of friends.  At 5ft 5inches, she is taller than a few of her friends, and shorter than a few others.  Her American father’s height at 6ft3 balanced out with her Columbian mother’s petite 5ft frame and reflects in her, meeting somewhere in the middle of their opposites.  Most of her clothes have some give to them for versatility moving between regular daily activities.  In her closet, everything is color coordinated for ease of dressing, with few patterns, but allowing an obvious well thought out and put-together look. Her hair, described by her third grade daughter, is, “blondish, brownish, reddish – with tiny bits of sparkles.”  The sparkle hairs are the white ones.  She does not mind them, too much.  She also does not mind the little wrinkles beginning at the sides of her hazel eyes, but applies extra sunscreen and lotions just in case she might mind them in future years as they inevitably increase.  Looking at herself, she feels numbingly comforted and deeply relieved that she appears as what she needs to – normal.

Fiction Confession

/ herismeorg / 3 Comments

WildHeartofMine

Hey y’all

COVID19 check-in and fiction confession.

How are you holding yourself up?

What are you currently reading?

I have been having the worst time reading fiction. Anyone else?

Around the time when it was a real and present threat that MrexH might murder/suicide us(he didn’t obvs), reading fiction became unbearable for me.  I continue to struggle with fiction on occasion.  Children and Teen fiction do not seem to be a problem.  Not all adult fiction is either.  I am trying to figure out the triggers. In the meantime, I am finding it difficult to choose to read fiction at all because I dread the consequences.

When I hit that point in reading where some switch goes haywire in me, the story truly overwhelms and feels as if it is taking control of me.  I have a difficult time putting the book aside.  I read and re-read the entire book successive multiple times.  This is possibly to desensitize whatever I have reacted to (a habit I have honed over the years for other overwhelms -I do not absolutely know this to be true). I suspect this because at some point, after a few days or weeks (ugh, those are the worst!), as I am re-reading the book for the bazillionth time, I will physically feel an intense wash of relief come over me.  Not orgasmic or anything like that.  It truly feels like a washed relief from the top of my head to my toes.  I can feel the story normalize itself and leave me free.  Until then, I will read the book at the cost of sleeping, eating, drinking.  Regular chores and things surrounding me suffer from lack of attention (minimal required functioning – single parent also caretaking for elderly parent – non-functioning is not an option).  I am irritable when distracted away from the book.  However, reading the book leaves me with heavy feelings of self-loathing and despair.  The book becomes a compulsion.  It feels awful.  It is awful. I deeply wish that I could make this stop.

Sometimes I can force myself to let the book go when I recognize the familiar pattern of falling into the overwhelming-ness rabbit hole.  When I worked in the library world, I could take the book to work, drop it into the bookdrop and walk away.  Neat, tidy, convenient and accountability because I was at work.  At home, with downloadable books, this isn’t so easy to walk away from.

I wish I could identify that I have a problem with mysteries, historical fiction, realistic fiction, dystopian fiction, sci-fi, fantasy etc.  Then I could just avoid that genre. Or if I could identify protagonist/antagonist or situational triggers, that might help as well. Unfortunately it does not seem to be that obvious, at least to me.  I could probably use some fiction therapy.  Or regular therapy. Oiy, my broken brainiac.

Anywho…  I have a problem.  Which is why I have tended towards non-fiction reading for the past 5-7 years.  Currently appropriately enjoying Harari’s works, re-reading some Shakespeare with SonHerisme, mixed poetry, a Washington biography, and constellation myths.  I really want to read Circe by Madeline Miller, but I am, as you may have guessed, concerned and a little gun-shy, so to speak.

I am just coming out of a book spiral.  No title to share with you because I am not prepared for feedback.  I am trying to gently embrace my me-ness and let it be.

Does anyone else have this experience with books, art, movies?

It has also been on my mind that this might be a good time for me to re-open the book I began writing in 2013, just before the imminent dangerous situation in my own life reared its ugly head.

I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime.  How are you?  The entire world is shifting as we all struggle with our center and balance to stay upright.  I hope that you are safe and well.

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

 

I Had to Do It

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IMG_0618

I had to take a break from my brain.

I started Pilates instead.

It has been immensely helpful in terms of waking up my body and recognizing how very disconnected I have been or I am.  The instructors and fellow pilates-ers at the studio I go to have been very patient and helpful and I am grateful to have stumbled into this regimen.

My weight has not reflected this hard work, yet.  But, my patterns have shifted and I am much more steady with all activities.  I even accidentally, successfully, hiked up a very rocky mountain!  (future story)  My muscles are muscling up and my posture has changed for the better.

This weekend also marks the sending of the 191st weekly progress report, regarding SonHerisme, I have sent to MrexH as required by court order in January 2016.

Big number.

I do not mind it so much anymore as it is a component of keeping MrexH at a distance which in turn keeps us safer and healthier.

Life is strange.

I continue to be in therapy.

Currently contemplating joining a weekly group at our local domestic violence shelter.

And how are you?

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

Entitledementia

/ herismeorg / 1 Comment

NEW… Listen Here :

(ɛntaɪtʊldi:mɛnsiʌ) (en-tahyt-l-dih-men-shuh, -shee-uh)

noun

  1. Severe impairment or loss of intellectual capacity and personality integration, causing a person to lay title, right or claim to something or someone, purely due to their own willful ignorance, heightened sense of righteousness, bigotry, racism, misogyny or other inhumane approaches to life.

 

Origin of Entitledementia:

2018 when historically noted in a sweet blog

“Her entitledementia was evidenced by her 10am temper tantrum over autofill not placing the proper passwords into a newly re-passworded  20th shopping app.”

“Her entitledementia allowed her to seamlessly move from ‘I believe her’ to ‘It matters more to me to have this misogynistic rapey screaming judge enjoy lifetime salary and benefits meanwhile destroying women’s and children’s healthcare and well-being, because I’m afraid someone might take my non-existent guns away and force me to be responsible for myself being humane because liberals are super scary and babies making big deals out of nothing.  Drain the swamp! People on welfare should take drug tests’ ….”

Synonyms

Willfully ignorant to the point of insanity

Antonyms

Humane

Warning:  If you know anyone afflicted with entitledementia, please consult your therapist immediately for professional assistance regarding the establishment of strong boundaries. 

 

I’m exhausted

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo

Womenomics 101

/ herismeorg / 1 Comment

Welcome to the basics, class

Humans, humans, humans, listen up!  Until we cease and desist from glorifying willful ignorance over acceptance of facts surrounding human existence, we will continue to reap what we sow.

 

The following are basic human facts (female associated with she/her, and male associated with he/him for these examples, however I do recognize and appreciate there are many gender/non-gendered combinations of humans):

 

We exist because some male parts and female parts connected, reproduced, and were carried by a female for an acceptable gestational period whereupon we were birthed.  ALL OF US.

 

Before a female human carries a potential new human around in her body, she must have begun menstruating.  Female human bodies release an egg every month throughout a large portion of their lives, which then sits and waits for some male to potentially release sperm to be introduced.  Basic reproduction, right?

The reality is that the meeting of the egg and the sperm rarely happens (given the amount of times both are available and released).  So instead, the female human’s body cleans itself out every single freaking fracking month by bleeding.  We bleed out what doesn’t grow into a new human.  Bleed bleed bleed bloody blood.  Sometimes its painful as frick (ovarian cysts for the win!), sometimes we stop it with drugs, sometimes we mother nature it up all over the place and bleed into silicone cups which we then dump out and use the blood as fertilizer in our gardens.  The point is that female humans BLEED every month.  What the devil is so flipping difficult to comprehend and accept this?

STOP taxing menstrual supplies.  They are not items we “decide to buy.” We need to function in society and we, female humans, BLEED EVERY MONTH.  (screaming it just in case you did not understand before this)

STOP punishing 12-year-old girls that need to be excused from class because they are in mind numbing pain from menstrual cramps/ovarian cysts etc.  They are female humans that BLEED EVERY MONTH and the alternative is that they become pregnant asap (hello beginning of time and pedophiles hiding under the patriarchal flag and females dying during childbirth).

STOP punishing any age female human for tending to their basic needs as females, who bleed every single damned month, unless they are pregnant or on prevention drugs (which you don’t want to pay for either).

STOP pretending like menstruation is an anomaly – EVERY female human from the beginning of time has bled every month once she hit puberty until menopause, unless pregnant or dead.

START incorporating your newfound knowledge of females monthly menstruation and behave in a humane way when considering your positions on menstrual supplies, gynecological care, birth control, and shaming policies associated with every human female’s monthly experiences.

 

Speaking of birth.  We have ALL been there – all of us.  You may have had the privileges of not only being birthed, but also of giving birth.  Since the beginning of time, females have been impregnated (by choice or by force), grown an entire new organ dedicated to nourishing the developing human while gestating, and given birth (through a temporarily insanely stretched vaginal canal or through surgery).

All of these things take immense effort and time and have lasting effects on a female’s body and brain.  Why do we continue to pretend that it does not?  Female humans are meant to strongly bond with their baby in order to provide for them. As it turns out, human babies cannot instinctually care for themselves.

Female bodies go through all of this change, growth, traumatic birthing, loss of new organ, bodily nourishing a new human through breastfeeding and strong bonding to protect the human race – and then walk away from the infant at 6 weeks to return to work as if nothing happened?!!?  As if we are still not feeling the effects of our bones stretching to massive capacity in a 24 hour period and then shrinking?  As if we are still not feeling the pull of tender tears or stitches?  As if the future of the human race carried in this tiny package we just expelled from our bodies, no longer needs nourishment?

6 weeks is so arbitrary and has only to do with ill-informed misogynistic men deciding that was when a female could resume her sexual intercourse duties – fyi.  THIS is what we are basing our care for newborn infants on.  Super seriously.

 

STOP being against females birthing and caring for human babies.

STOP forcing females and entirely-dependent-on-adults-for-survival-ideally-in-a-secure-developmentally-appropriate-single-bonding-nourishing-relationship babies to separate prematurely.

STOP pretending as if birth, lack of birth, adoption, fostering, loss of child, miscarriage etc do not affect adult humans.

 

All of you shamers and blamers, LOOKIT HERE:

Humans are having sex, are always going to have sex, and occasionally procreate.  Some humans cannot afford birth control.  Some humans do not have access to birth control for other reasons.  Some humans are forced into sex and pregnancy.  Some humans defy birth control and still become pregnant despite their best efforts.  The access to birth control or abortion is difficult or non-existent for most.  Female humans will continue to become pregnant, by will, inattentiveness, or by force. This is LIFE at its life-iest.  Stop punishing females for being pregnant and giving birth to our future.

When you punish them, you punish our future. 

Nourish the female and baby.  Give them as much time as they need to recover from coming into this world and providing the vehicle for coming into this world.  They need food, water, shelter, clothing, hygiene facilities (toilet, shower, washer etc).

STOP making them come to the pediatrician 2 days after giving birth and waiting with their precious new life in a room full of germs.

STOP making them bring the future of the human race into Social Services to obtain food stamps or other assistance.

STOP forcing dissociation and detachment by institutionalizing infants at 6 weeks old.

STOP pretending like our childcare system is even close to adequate or affordable in order to shame females into “real work”

 

Dudes, if we can afford to subsidize multibillion dollar sports franchises, we can afford to take much better care of our females and the babies they birth.

Humans, sometimes we are idiots and treat each other inhumanely.  STOP doing this.  STOP pretending that just because you are not having the experience, you are on some moral high ground that others should aspire. STOP and check your racism, classism and bigotry if you are tempted in the slightest to be all, “well, they get pregnant to stay on welfare and I’m not giving up my hard-earned money for laziness.” STOP punishing your own future!

START checking on your neighbors, supporting your local domestic violence shelter, finding who needs support at your school and bringing supplies in to your school counselor for them.

Oh yes, and VOTE

Love, Ms. Herisme xoxo

Marry Me (2/2)

/ herismeorg / 3 Comments

IMG_0842

the ending:

BrotherHerisme and I saw our pool buddy in the hotel dining room one evening and pointed him out to ParentsHerisme.  Both ParentsHerisme approached the man and introduced themselves.  He invited us to join him for dinner, and we did.  I recall FatherHerisme getting upset when the man not only encouraged us children to order dessert (absolutely unheard of in my family), he paid for our meals.  As our pool pattern continued, MotherHerisme showed up at the pool one time with a very reluctant SisterHerisme, to watch our play.  The man engaged MotherHerisme in happy conversation, and MotherHerisme became comfortable with him.  The man asked if BrotherHerisme and I could come to his room to pick up a gift he wanted to give to ParentsHerisme from his country.  MotherHerisme agreed.  This incident is when I recall becoming uncomfortable with the man.

 

The two of us went to the man’s room and I remember insisting on standing at the door.  I kept the door pried open with my body, while he brought the gifts to us, rather than BrotherHerisme and I going into his room.  The man kept trying to entice us with candy, the promise of gifts.  BrotherHerisme was upset with me as I adamantly refused on behalf of both of us.  When FatherHerisme arrived to the hotel that evening from work and received the gifts we picked up from the man, there was a note attached inviting ParentsHerisme, no children, to dinner with him.

 

The next day, FatherHerisme insisted on accompanying us to the pool.  We all went down as a family, everyone (except for MotherHerisme who has an allergy to pool chemicals) in swimming suits.  This was highly unusual because FatherHerisme never played with us – ever.  I knew that something was up and somebody was most likely in trouble.  There wasn’t any obvious reason why one of us would be in trouble, but I fervently prayed that it wasn’t me anyway.  FatherHerisme had a terrible temper back in the day.  We all jumped into the pool. BrotherHerisme and I commenced with our usual shenanigans.  FatherHerisme and SisterHerisme started swimming their very grown-upy exercisey coordinated laps (BORing).  At some point FatherHerisme paused his perfect pattern to watch our hooliganisms.  When I came out of the pool, FatherHerisme yelled across the pool, “Jesus Christ! Get over here!”  Well, now I knew.  It was me that was in trouble.

Now was my moment of reckoning for whatever transgression(s) I had committed.  I wasn’t quick enough for FatherHerisme.  He grabbed my towel and yelled, “Get over here!  Move it, young lady!”  My smartass mouth wanted to respond, “but, there’s no running at the pool.”  However, an ancient piece of my self-preservative brain kicked in and I walked as quickly as I could to FatherHerisme.  It’s a catch-22.  I am about to get into big huge trouble,  that in my day usually involved some form of corporal punishment, which begged me to walk very slowly.  On the other hand, if I didn’t move quickly enough to appease FatherHerisme, I would get into big huge trouble, which also, by the tone of his voice, involved corporal punishment.  Dang it, this was big.

When I got close enough to FatherHerisme, he grabbed me with full force, wrapping the towel so tightly around me that I couldn’t move.  As his fingers dug into my arms through the towel and he held me there, his angry voice demanded where my swimsuit had come from.  I told him it was borrowed from a friend.  FatherHerisme gruffly yelled for BrotherandSisterHerisme to get out of the pool, we were going upstairs to our hotel rooms and nobody was allowed to come swimming anymore at this pool.

 

My borrowed beautiful fancy glorious spectacular one-piece perfectly pink swimsuit was completely see-through when wet.  It was as if I was naked.  A precociously developed 12-year-old naïve girl, often mistaken for a 17/18-year-old due to my developed appearance, had been swimming in a hotel pool with a strange adult man while wearing a tissue thin Caucasian colored bathing costume.  FatherHerisme was enraged with me, with MotherHerisme, with BrotherandSisterHerisme, with the kind family who loaned us the swimsuit.  ENRAGED.  I was heartbroken.  After a 3-month stay at the hotel, we checked out two days later and moved into our unfinished home.  Our family dynamic was that none of us asked any questions of FatherHerisme or MotherHerisme. We were quiet and we obeyed.

 

A few years later, MotherHerisme revisited the incident when she was cleaning off the bookcases, replacing an oversized book that had been gifted to her by the man from the hotel pool.  She spoke as if I already knew the surrounding circumstances that occurred.  I had no idea until that moment.  The man from the hotel pool had been grooming me, had been wooing ParentsHerisme as his intention was to marry me.  He promised ParentsHerisme that he would send me to the best schools, the best university, all of my wants and needs would be met and more.  He promised ParentsHerisme that even though we would be married immediately, he would wait until I graduated from High School before the marriage was consummated.  He was in love with my beauty and how clever I was.  He wanted to marry me.  Cultural differences, creepo pedophile, you decide.

 

I can only imagine FatherHerisme’s response in a 5 star hotel dining room with a strict dinner dress code.  The man was immediately removed from the dining room and banned from the hotel.  FatherHerisme made arrangements for us to leave the hotel and move into our unfinished home, no matter what state it was in, as soon as he arrived to work the next morning.  MotherHerisme occasionally still speaks of this incident today, “you know you could have been married and extremely wealthy, but you were only 12 and your dad got very angry.”  Family dynamics *sigh *

 

Thank the sweet G-ds of every land and universe that this is NOT the experience that either NieceHerisme are having!  I have never punched someone out of anger, but if either of my nieces were subject to this, I would absolutely punch.  Back off, man.  BACK the F OFF.  Let them grow into themselves and peer relationship stabilize before you attempt to knock on their door.  Go ahead and ask their permission to take them out for a tasty cuppa when they are 25 or so.  Eyes up here man, eyes up here.

Love, Ms Herisme xoxo

note:  the kind family who loaned us the swimsuit had no idea about the transparency, as it had not been worn yet by anyone before me.  They disposed of it.

also note:  thank you for reading this to the end