QUAIL MUTTERINGS #56.  Family Dirt (August 2019)

When I was a kid, during the 50’s and 60’s, there were a lot of things that people didn’t talk about. Or was that just my family? Such as the reason why I had to get on and off the school bus at a stop where we didn’t live, or my mom’s childhood traumas – which she never shared with my sister and me, or our severely dysfunctional home life… This guarded mode of communication was simply our way. I remember hearing, and believing, the grownups talking about so-and-so having to get counseling because they couldn’t buck up and cope. It just meant that they were weak in the head. This talk mostly came from my relatives in the deep south – rural Mississippi, where we “vis’ted” every summer.

Things finally came to a head for me in 2003. My mother died too young from a brain tumor; the Cedar Fire burned all of our houses and possessions to the ground; and a teenage daughter rebelled tumultuously, ripping my already ravaged heart out of my chest and shattering it into a million pieces. Guess who was weak in the head then.

At this point, it wasn’t a choice. Words poured out onto pages and pages which eventually became a memoir. I’d had idle thoughts about perhaps someday writing a book about dance, when I was too old and feeble to do anything else. But this force welled up inside me and took over. It blew everything right out of the water: the secrets, the discrepancies and the half-truths. Evidently, sweeping things under the rug only lasts so long.

Since that time I’ve learned, and practiced, some other coping skills which allow the dirt to filter and move on through. Dance, of course, is great therapy. Between the pulse in the music and the exhausting physical demands the dirt begins to shake loose and sometimes, if you move fast enough, you can escape the majority of it landing back on you and finding its way into your pores again. I love hiking out in nature and breathing that fresh air and mindfully taking those steps required to rise above the toxic haze.

Family dirt seems to require more than what exercise and meditation can provide. It gets embedded under your fingernails. This is true for both the literal and figurative kinds. It needs cleaning out from time-to-time – regular maintenance stuff. And that includes cutting into the quick sometimes, even if it hurts. Hopefully, before we have to dig too deeply, we can attempt to utilize loving speech and carefully chosen words to help loosen the firmly packed darkness, in order to continue to get along. And no, it’s not perfect, nothing really is. We’re all just muddling through the best we can – each with our own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Our own families see the worst of us, but we need them as our safety net, to be ourselves. This also means that we must also provide this for them.  Hopefully, we don’t blow it too badly and those around us will be somewhat forgiving. As parents, our job is never really done. Damn, do I always have to be the grownup here? Sometimes we have to lift up the carpet and see what dirt is there, and actually do something about it. Talk, walk, meditate, dance, journal…

But please don’t slam the door on me simply because I was the one to rip off the bandade. It was barely hanging on anyway, and the dried blood was crumbling all over. I’m sorry, but someone had to do it. And, of course, this is only my point of view. I can only hope that sooner or later you will tell me yours.

Chi Varnado is working on a new MG/YA series about a dance studio. Her memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire and her children’s book, The Tale of Broken Tail are available on www.amazon.com. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, can be found on www.chivarnado.com. You can follow us on www.Facebook.com/gnomewoodcanyon.