aum, home, aum

Sometimes, when you gotta go home, you just gotta go AUM.....

Sooooo.....

Very few people but family knew that I made a sneaky trip back home last weekend. I didn't want to be an asshole about the whole thing, but I knew that my time (money, resources, energy, etc.) would be limited since I would only be around for a couple days, and being as one of those days would be occupied with my mother's 65th birthday gala, I just didn't want to over-extend myself. It's a good thing I kept it on the hush, since as soon as the family got a-hold of me I ended up running around like a chicken with my head cut off (look, my mama was raised in W.Va., so leave me be!).

Anyways, those of you who actually know me (family and non-virtual friends) know that my childhood and my relationship with certain members of my family (my parents especially) has always been strained, twisted, surreal, distorted and semi-artificial, but it looked damn pretty. I remember my younger friends even referring to my family as the "Dysfunctional Huxtables".

I don't have the emotional faculties to rehash my youth at this particular time, suffice it to say I went away to school as soon as I graduated high school and I haven't lived at home since then. I've been broke, living in what my best friend so affectionately called 'the deepest, darkest ghetto', but I didn't go back to my parent's house. As it is, I honestly don't even like how it feels going back to that city.

But, due only to the guilt heaped upon me by my mother and siblings, I took a deep breath (aaaaaauuuuuummmmmmm) and spent a night in my parent's house with my mother. It was the 2nd time I had done this in probably a decade or so, and the first time I had done so sober.

Oh, the spirits.

So many of the demons that haunted me from experiences and traumas past had been mummified and enshrined in this huge aging tomb, and they shouted out to me to acknowledge their existence and I was helpless but to face them, see them, and examine them.


You see, my mother is one of those packrats that holds on to pictures, mementos, school books, awards; all these things from her children, all over the house, as her own giant scrapbook testimonial to the wonderfully eclectic mish-mash of children, grand-children, and great grandchildren she single-handedly produced and raised (again, if you know me you know the sarcasm that is flowing from my every pore at this moment. This is her testimonial and monument that she proudly displays to all who will come and admire it.

But while Mommy Dearest is floating about the house chirping "Oh honey, don't you remember taking this picture? I think it was your Junior Prom! You are so GORGEOUS here!"....


....I'm thinking "Yeah, I ran away about a week or so later because you called me a 'dyke who needed help' for having a gay best friend and a whore for sleeping in the same bed with my boyfriend. And I'm pretty sure we were both drunk as hell. But I sure was GORGEOUS."

AAAAAUUUUUUUMMMMMM............

Ooh, sooo many spirits.


Prom glasses (what y'all know about prom glasses!?! - I think my li'l bro, big bro and I went to and collected over a dozen prom glasses collectively; evil little prom whores), trophies, and way too many pictures.

Does Rubbermaid make a container that holds spirits?

It occurred to me that over the years I had created my own defense mechanism by writing my life into stories, prose and poetry; satirizing my struggles to dull the pain. And while I respect, embrace, appreciate and will never abandon my pen as my soul and my bliss, I do realize that sometimes I need to reconnect and reacquaint myself with my reality, origins, and demons. The parts that make up my sum.

Whether I like it or not, even if it's just in my own cluttered and often terrified head and heart, sometimes I just have to take a deep, shaky..... steady breath, and go...

...home...

...aum...

...home.
**********
Some mo':





The home library, where much of my real education took place. My parents weren't very good at hiding their own books on the higher shelves either.... or was it that my brothers and I could climb like a bunch of monkeys...?

Speaking of monkeys....


....this was last my little brother's room, now it's just the playroom. It's also the room my mother uses to showcase her latest child prodigy's accomplishments. She likes to do that, see:


Some of my dance, writing, and speech trophies. Li'l fallen soldiers.


This is a huge poster of Dr. King with a caption that reads "If a man has not found something that he will die for, that man isn't fit to live." up on a mantle beside an old school painting of my dad. These have been up here for years, and being a psych major and already tormented soul I could (and have) read so much symbolism into this. Now I just think it's a kinda cool picture.