That was her name. Right now, it feels more like a joke as the entire story, at least the one on Miracle Mile, felt like one big cosmic joke, and I hope I am right, that this magazine I’m working so hard to get into will agree. Just the idea that this totally insane thing happened to me, and a Brazilian-Jewish family was wrapped up in all this. I don’t know where this short story is going yet, as I’m still figuring it out structurally — so it could end on “sex became good.” She was dancing the lambada on a plush white carpet in her holy white bedroom. I was four, coming to sit on the edge of her bed to watch her dance. I had no idea what the words meant. She translated it for me in her angel voice, this woman with the name “little angel” who walked into my life one day and changed it forever. “Now he’s gone away, the only one who ever made me cry.” I snapped. “But this is sad.”
I turned around the living room, as there was always a party, and I didn’t understand it. Everyone was so happy! Laughing, clapping, celebrating, I was so moved so young by the JOY in it. Maybe it began as a sad song, but it ended in an uproarious celebration. It’s southern American, in that, many of these songs are about heartbreak, but there’s rhythm and soul in it. If not, joy. As they were also Jewish, and the Jews attended these parties, of course they did, we honored Jewish holidays in adjacent rooms, ones full of sorrow, and being spared supernaturally. How did we even get out of that one?
But, Nicole, her youngest daughter in ruby slippers, she taught me the steps to the lambada at seven. “You have to learn…” her sweet voice. So sex became innocent in a way. And when I think about the investigation I conducted, there’s much to unpack there, so maybe some of my analysis of my mother can come later. As a final note. I don’t know yet. It doesn’t really matter what happened to me, “very very likely,” we’re all getting molested.
I was moved to discover that sex had a deeper meaning— it was the force that brought all these people into this room. It became good. And, in this room, I commune with the totality of the human experience in this room, where this mother becomes Shiva, even, the dance of fire: creation/destruction, a couplet, a mystery to me. I thought, all that has happened to a person. Unbelievable. What people have gone through. I didn’t see myself as different, special, or separate but rather a part of a whole, but as I went through my life, in the personal domain, I would be seen as this strange “other” person who happened to come from unusual circumstances. People even told me it didn’t happen, which, it did.
I hope, I do, just because I went through such an ordeal, and it hasn’t really let up yet, that the Gods will smile down upon me in my favor and that I’ll get this story out there, as I’ve come this far, even went through a near death experience, and the personal will reflect upon the political at the right angle. “How could my own do such a thing to me?” But if you think about it, project that idea into the political arena, we’re all human beings. That’s what I’m thinking about on my 40th birthday, though it’s technically the next day, and yes, I got through this so-called milestone. This story only caused me more problems. I’m telling you, it was a total nightmare.
I made new friends, said goodbye to old ones, as I went through heartache and confusion around how some people responded to the subject of abuse when I already came from this story.
I suppose that’s one of the areas in this story that I hope to work out and communicate around as I was shocked by people’s reactions and I had to make peace with it. So, some people didn’t contact me on my birthday, and you know what? It was a relief.
Finally, one friend I hardly talk to, she sent me a straightforward message of how I bring magic into the world, happy 40th. I got that in the end, she slipped it in.
My heart was so hurt, I was so hurt by how people reacted that it felt better to let them go. I can’t play patty cake baker’s man right now, that’s my joke. I can’t play “patty cake baker’s man.” Not when I can’t even look at a photo of my parents. I’m also mourning. I don’t know right now if that was a lie, as this woman just decided that it was based on nothing, and no, I’m not in the mood. I do not want to be ignored. If my friend told me that, I would not have responded like any of these people… more or less.
And I hope, I pray I do, that I’ll be understood on this level. But, I’m playing the “everything’s okay” game as much as I can. I’m moving on. I’m not expecting to get any support from anyone in my life. I’m trying not to attach to some future either, the day where “this story” comes out and…? Shocks the world? Interests the world? I say that because this Hollywood screenwriter behaved like that. As if THIS STORY could reach the big lights. It’s just, in that case, why not just make a phone call? You know what I mean? If HE was so desperately interested in it to the point that he’s going to meet me once a week, which was unnecessary… why not make a call?
I wasn’t asking for that, at all, but his approach in “helping me” was 100% about him. Anyway, I suppose I hope this story makes an impact. That’s basically where I’ve come to. I thought it would make a good motion picture, and I hope I’m right.
My friend Liz, the one that I’m spending this holiday with, she held my hand, she was tender with me. I don’t need to talk about it with her, but she treated me like what I said was REAL, and so, I appreciate her.
The thing is, I woke up and went — um, I’m in another family? Why? Why exactly? Looking at Liz’s partner— they, together, though mostly him, because he’s the cook prepared a sumptuous feast for her family, mostly. She went over to his parent’s house to pick up a smoker. This was the relationship I couldn’t figure out. I couldn’t do this. And now, now that I worked out so much, that’s the relationship I want, because that’s family, the one you make, the one who meets you.
Anyway, I’ve come out of 40th birthday feeling very positive. My whole world ended. It truly did. I needed someone like me, and I was nowhere to be found.
I thought I had worked out my past, but that turned out to not be true, even thinking about this relationship I got into with the guru, the plant people, my entire life approach. It was nonsensical. Sure, 500k could fall from the sky, sure, I could have bumped into Sam Mendes, I don’t know, some big time director who said, “you must be in my film,” I do not know how to approach myself as some people, the guru included, men, I should be specific, played a bit of a “star” act on me, that I was a star…in that way. I stood to benefit from THEIR wisdom, when I think my old psychologist would almost want me to wipe them off the face of the earth. Like, do not insult me.
Truly speaking.
Whatever, the point is, I didn’t walk into a hotel room, meet Lenny Kravitz, and launch a career. That did not happen. You know? Not to say that it couldn’t, meaning, a bit of magic couldn’t come into my life and direct me along, it’s just, that’s not what happened. It was the opposite. Just a cast of enablers.
I’m starting over… I worked out my life… my heart is broken, healing, feeling… for others. Probably, if I was supporting someone through this, “like, I believe you,” let’s just start there. If I had that, just that, it would have made my social fabric easier to deal with. But some of my friends made my life harder.
I haven’t told the refugee, of course not, the one I supported through her having been abused by two members of her family, and I most certainly didn’t forget what she said, loosen my grip, like I was there for her, for real. “It’s time to go therapy.” That one was a real fight. One I hope we will see in all its beauty, too, through the Jura countryside. “Bumblefuck,” in her opinion, as I taught her that word. She needed a funny, perfect word to describe where she’s from. “Bumblefuck.”
So I don’t know if I should go into some line of work related to all this, or what. But people’s responses were so crazy to me, generally, that I reached breaking points, for sure.
I’m going to try and reconnect with my joy, you know, this thing I had, and I’m swiping through Instagram wanting to kill everybody in my life…for giving me crap for living my life in a state of wonder, even, for acting as if something wondrous existed in like, every moment. Instagram says: live with wonder. Instagram says: beginners mindset. I chose joy. I tried to. I lost it. And now, I’m going to try and get it back. Except, I have to be careful, apparently, as it attracted “the dark side.”
I’m going to try and see how far I can go, I guess. I don’t know in which direction, as this lunatic guru confused me profoundly. Can’t meet someone at 40? Why not? Can’t meet your best friend at 40? Why not? Can’t reach success? Why not? Why not? Why not? So I’m taking a deep breath, and I’m going to have to hustle, a bit, to find a better job…and I’m still trying to figure out how to fulfill my greatest purpose, as Oprah suggested thinking about it like that, which should relate to fulfillment, and I lost all sense of purpose. And right now, I like entertainment as an arena. So I’m directing my arrow, and hoping, that all this feeling like I kept getting knocked down, like I wasn’t understood, will just be some line I give in a story… that you tend to hear in success stories. Like the story itself put me at a disadvantage, because, because, because.
Life is a series of choices.
I made choices based on where I came from.
And some of those were disrespected — like, my relationship to power as I hated it brought me power players. People do not respect vulnerability, not typically. I had to come to admit some things that are true about the real world, obviously, like, people in disadvantageous situations might be at risk…I was vulnerable, in a way I didn’t expect, and look, I think I am not a channeler, I don’t know why I ended up in this realm of thought… where people channel shit from outside sources when we might try connecting.
Anyway, I do feel good, today, about being 40. I feel good about having the license to let go as I came to wake up to my whole life. Time to work.