Final Assignment (Jim)

Final Assignment 01/08/2005

“Write a one paragraph description of a scene, from real life, that encapsules your writing block.”

I am 13, and fooling around in bed with Mickey, in my upstairs bedroom. We’ve been up there about an hour, when all the sudden my Mom walks in on us. I wanted to be up in my room, in the bright light of day, in my own space, because I was tired of the hiding, the cliffs, woods and his basement. We probably could have continued in his basement undetected much longer.

The look I remember on my Mom’s face was one of complete horror, and then utter rejection. My Mom was so central to my life at that time. I carried the image in my mind, and the conclusion, that I had lost her love, never to regain it, well into my 40's. I can only compare the loss to a child that loses a parent, who then blames themself for their death, whether they are the actual cause or not. A lot of very traumatic things occurred after that, but nothing touches the impact of the horror on her face. After that I didn’t care what happened to me.

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Cliff asked how this scene relates to my writers block. It does because I feel if I fully go after what I really want (in my own space, in the full light of day) I will lose everything.

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I did not reenact this scene however when we sculpted a scene in group that captured our writers block. Instead I tried to depict the typical scene at the supper table, where I sit on one side of Dick, with Tom sitting on the other side of him, and we are jabbing our elbows into his sides. Dick is drawn in as tightly in on himself as possible, hardly able to eat. My Dad stands behind me with his belt off and raised above his head, ready to strike me.

I don’t want you to think my Dad abused us, however. I remember once he threatened to hit me with a belt and followed through on it a few times, but not many, because it had no effect on me, except to intensify my hatred, and my determination to not yield. I’d yell, ‘you can hit me but you can’t touch me no matter what you do, so go ahead, hit me.’ It is the image I remember though.

The group did not realize from the sculpture however that Dad’s wrath was directed solely on me. I drew it down on me, and provoked it. They imagined Tom as a sadistic bully, but really he was more just the alpha male, always demonstrating his dominance. For the group, the main point however was that the focus of the scene was not me at all but on Dick. I said I did that because I felt more like Dick in the scene than me. Which is my craziness. I always concern myself with other over self, losing myself in other.

When I lose myself so in others, due to self rejection (seeing Mom’s contempt), I’m rudderless. In a reoccurring dream I had for years, at near forty years old, I am in a sports car, mashing the accelerator to the floor, hurling forward with my eyes shut.

Losing myself in other was the whole point of dating John Renkin in Chattanooga. I’d go there to live his life instead of mine, to be him. When I’d return, days later, I could barely remember what I was doing, at work, or home. What was important to me. It was lost in the swirling mist. John had been more real to me that I was to myself. My life and person was like a dream, quickly fading from memory, once awake.

I had to break off the relationships with Ty and Scott when I could no longer take care of myself, because I was so wrapped up in them.