Mixing The Identities

Dang it Joel. You started all of this! Wanting the story about the little Indian/White girl. What in the world were you thinking?! Huge hunks are too heavy with sadness; can't lift them; pieces of me buried too deep to excavate; many moments of shame appear as my memory roams the past years. And, then, as he gave the world his memoir, the words of Stuart Scott in a recent issue of Time caught my eye: " I feel repetitive and pathetic and self-centered." So, there needs to be something of interest to say; not just me-me-me twaddle. I guess it doesn't have to be important; just not boring. Boring or maudlin. Maudlin tales are to be erased -- never put before the eyes of any -- and, I'm assigning you the job of editor.

Right off, we've got the first problem. I don't like to talk about myself. I'd rather hear about 'you.' And, I'm a pretty good deflector. The reason can be explained by years of practice. I learned a long time ago how to hide my twin selves from others. Mother taught me the art of hiding. Besides, the White side of me is kind of ashamed; the Indian side of me is not supposed to focus on self. See how confusing it is? People can get all tangled up when dealing with their mixed identities.

Into this land of fences stepped a ten-year old girl who had completely lost her place in the world. Gone were the woods where she could roam free. The terrain was flat; no tress. Nothing but block after block of small houses built by the government for the families of men who'd fought in WWII and returned -- at least to our side of town. The back-from-the-war side of town wasn't separated from the other side by railroad tracks, but by a straight street artery called Tuxedo.  Mother would fight this barrier the rest of her life. As with any good general, she plotted strategies and engineered tactics to push her girls into the life on the other side of Tuxedo.  Her first dictum -- never, ever, were her three girls to tell anyone we were Indian! Those fences, with their invisible gates, were there for good reason.

This land of fences was a place of many barriers. First, we were living in a company town, and, of course, the higher your daddy was in the company hierarchy, the more elevated your position in elementary, junior and senior high school.  Well, elementary doesn't really count because our elementary was on the wrong side of Tuxedo. But, as a bit of Indian luck would have it, we had good teachers and formally entered Jr. High with a solid educational foundation. But, I had a lot of catching up to do, as this was my first start at seeing the blackboard, or stars, or telephone wires.  Only in the land of fences was it discovered I couldn't see. 'Bind as a bat," mother would always say.

As it turned out though, mother taught in an elementary school on the other side of Tuxedo, so she was able to observe, and pick up hints, of what her three girls needed to learn to jump the barrier. A bit of White luck at work here.

Besides inventing the secret we were Indian, mother marched we three girls into one of 133s small bedrooms for a second critical dictum. She pointed to my eldest sister and informed her that she was going to be the prettiest. Turning to my younger sister, mother told her she would be the smartest. That left me. I could tell mother's brain was churning. "Well! What are we going to do with you?" I didn't have an answer, but mother did. "We are going to make you have a good personality. You'll make us laugh." Still to this day, I consider this my job. Make you laugh. The best way -- me making fun of me.

I didn't know quite where to put this bit of information into the telling, and have resisted in doing so. But, it's important. Mother loved her hairbrush. And, it's main purpose was to hit me. My mental video didn't take pictures of her whacking my little or big sister; I was the main target. On one significant day, my little sister did something I considered wrong and I called her 'a little dickens.' She ran and tattled. Mother called me into the middle bedroom where she was waiting with the hairbrush and told me to bend over. Since I didn't think I'd done anything wrong, I promised myself, 'no matter how many times she hits me, I will not cry.' The spanking began. No tears from me. Finally, mother said, 'You'd better cry because I'm going to continue until you do.' I cried. On that day, mother killed my tears. Only one other time in my life have I cried.

I suppose one good thing happened as a result of the move. Before, with daddy gone because of the war, and mother busy trying to earn a teaching certificate, the shuttling back and forth between grandparents came to an end. My White grandmother taught me multiplication tables. My daddy's mother -- how to fear God, turn Him into a very suspicious character, and, eventually, detest the Southern Baptist religion. But, now, we were all together at 133. And, I thought this was good because I had a good personality, would get to see my daddy, touch him, and make him happy. Just to test, one time I crawled into daddy's lap. He jumped up and pushed me away -- told me I was 'too big to do that.' I couldn't figure it out and wondered what I did wrong. The only thing my ten years of living could figure out was I was right -- my daddy was ashamed of me. He didn't like me because I looked different. It was all about the blonde hair and green eyes. If he didn't like me, how could he love me? I was wary of him, and it would be years before I every touched my daddy again. From the start, mother and daddy put me on the outside.

Mother had a third dictum: cut the cord between our White family and Indian family. From then on, we were kept from the Indian side of the family. Only years later would I learn that daddy's frequent absences from 133 were because he went back to Indian Country. There was his Indian family and pretty Indian women. The pile of secrets continued to grow.

It seems as though I lived these childhood/teenage years at 133 in a blur. But, at some level of deep consciousness, I was recording. Internal sensors and monitors were always aware and on alert. Keen listening became an art.

Of course I wanted to belong, was always interested in being accepted by 'the group.' But, once accepted, I was ready to move out and on to the next challenge. I guess you could say I was successful in working my way into 'popular.' But, I could never be what mother wanted me to be....I was way too tall; my feet were too big; my waist wasn't the size of Scarlett's; I was too tomboyish; I bit my fingernails; I wore glasses; my hair just wouldn't behave -- in mother's new paradigm, I didn't mold quite right. I was like the hunk of clay I held in my hand when taking a pottery class many years later. Our instructor told us that from the unmolded clay, to the wheel, to the glaze, to the kiln, no one would make an ugly pot. And, if that unthinkable were to happen, the pot would not be allowed to go into the kiln. My little pot stands as a metaphor for the 133 years. It was ugly.