Thursday, May 6, 2010 - I suppose I was proud of myself for standing up... |
| I suppose I was proud of myself for standing up for Mother, but afterward I was sad about it, tooI just couldnt accept the fact that a basically good person would try to make his own pain go away by hurting someone elseI wish Id had someone to talk with about all this, but I didnt, so I had to figure it out for myself
I came to accept the secrets of our house as a normal part of my lifeI never talked to anyone about themnot a friend, a neighbor, a teacher, a pastorMany years later when I ran for President, several of my friends told reporters they never knewOf course, as with most secrets, some people did knowDaddy couldnt be on good behavior with everyone but us, though he triedWhoever else knewfamily members, Mothers close friends, a couple of policemendidnt mention it to me, so I thought I had a real secret and kept quiet about itOur family policy was dont ask, dont tell
The only other secret I had in grade school and junior high was sending part of my allowance to Billy Graham rolex replica supplies after his Little Rock crusadeI never told my parents or friends about that, eitherOnce when I was on my way to the mailbox near our driveway off Circle Drive with my money for Billy, I saw Daddy working in the backyardTo avoid being seen, I went out the front down to Park Avenue, turned right, and cut back through the driveway of the Perry Plaza Motel next doorOur house was on a hillPerry Plaza was on flat land belowWhen I got about halfway through the drive, Daddy looked down and saw me anyway with the letter in my handI proceeded to the mailbox, put the letter in, and came homeHe must have wondered what I was doing, but he didnt askI guess he had enough secrets of his own to carry
The question of secrets is one Ive thought about a lot over the yearsWe all have them and I think were entitled to themThey make our lives more interesting, and when we decide to share them, our relationships become more meaningfulThe place where secrets are kept can also provide a haven, a retreat from balenciaga yellow the rest of the world, where ones identity can be shaped and reaffirmed, where being alone can bring security and peaceStill, secrets can be an awful burden to bear, especially if some sense of shame is attached to them, even if the source of the shame is not the secret holderOr the allure of our secrets can be too strong, strong enough to make us feel we cant live without them, that we wouldnt even be who we are without them
Of course, I didnt begin to understand all this back when I became a secret-keeperI didnt even give it much thought thenI have a good memory of so much of my childhood, but I dont trust my memory to tell me exactly what I knew about all this and when I knew itI know only that it became a struggle for me to find the right balance between secrets of internal richness and those of hidden fears and shame, and that I was always reluctant to discuss with anyone the most difficult parts of my personal life, including a major spiritual crisis I had at the age of purple fendi bags thirteen, when my faith was too weak to sustain a certain belief in God in the face of what I was witnessing and going throughI now know this struggle is at least partly the result of growing up in an alcoholic home and the mechanisms I developed to cope with itIt took me a long time just to figure that outIt was even harder to learn which secrets to keep, which to let go of, which to avoid in the first placeI am still not sure I understand that completelyIt looks as if its going to be a lifetime project
I dont know how Mother handled it all as well as she didEvery morning, no matter what had happened the night before, she got up and put her game face onAnd what a face it wasFrom the time she came back home from New Orleans, when I could get up early enough I loved sitting on the floor of the bathroom and watching her put makeup on that beautiful face
It took quite a while, partly because she had no eyebrowsShe often joked that she wished she had big bushy ones that needed plucking, like wholesale gucci messenger bag those of Akim Tamiroff, a famous character actor of that timeInstead, she drew her eyebrows on with a cosmetic pencilThen she put on her makeup and her lipstick, usually a bright red shade that matched her nail polish
Until I was eleven or twelve, she had long dark wavy hairIt was really thick and beautiful, and I liked watching her brush it until it was just soIll never forget the day she came home from the beauty shop with short hair, all her beautiful waves goneIt was not long after my first dog, Susie, had to be put to sleep at age nine, and it hurt almost as badlyMother said short hair was more in style and more appropriate for a woman in her mid-thirtiesI didnt buy it, and I never stopped missing her long hair, though I did like it when, a few months later, she stopped dyeing the gray streak that had run through the middle of her hair since she was in her twenties
By the time she finished her makeup, Mother had already run through a cigarette or two and a couple of cups of omega chronograph watches cof |
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