Deborah Bryan
The Queen of Wandering
12 March, 1997

Note:  I neglected to mention at any point in here that I would like my
siblings to remember me as a kind and decent human being, certainly not
the terrorist of a child I once was.  I have come a long way from the
little girl I was.

Who I Am
--------

        A little girl in the back of my consciousness whispers at me when
I am bitter, soothes me when I am angry at the world and its inhabitants.
She tells me that people are mean because they do not understand, not
because it is their wish to speak in harsh tones and with angry words.
She tells me that if I do not understand this, I can understand nothing.
This little girl jumps rope with her young friends in a playground always
lit by the sun, just on the verge of a field where the grass is always
green.  She retains her innocence even as she allows herself to understand
people in ways that those with far less innocence do.
        This little girl will forever wear a purple- and white- checkered
dress.  She bears a striking resemblance to a younger me...
        ...perhaps because she is me.

*

        My father holds a degree but my mother bears the intelligence and
compassion of the two.  Seldom do they seem happy, but I am young and I
do not understand the emotions that cause the silences and violences of
my everyday life.
        It is easy to be happy as a child, to allow the present to wipe
away the past, to be encompassed by the hope of the future rather than
the despair of the day before.  It is easy to see the smile of a friend
and forget the swollen, red face of a mother whose face is punched rather
than lovingly caressed by her husband.
        I had a way with words even then, my father's way of twisting
innocent words into vicious tales passed on to me.  My intention was 
never to cause another to feel pain, but often I would weave words into
promises, leading my younger sister to take the blame and accept the
punishment for some of my heinous tricks.  I would hug my innocent little
sister and soothe her with chickenpecks, hugs and gentle words.  I recall
hugging her, holding her close to me after a particularly vicious 
meeting with my father's belt, trying to convince her that she was lucky.
"See, Rachael, it's all good 'cause he hugged you."
        Our father believed that arms were for beating and hurting, not
for hugging and loving.

*

        I stand barefooted at my mother's side and watch the oranges and
golds of a fire give way to the grays and blacks of smokes behind our
apartment complex.  I looked up at my mother and told her that I wanted
to be a firefighter.  She drew me close to her side and told me that she
didn't want me to ever be a firewoman.
        Two young firefighters died trying to fight that blaze.
        Soon after that fire, my mother, father and siblings moved into a 
large brown house in a decent neighbourhood.  An old woman had lived there 
before us and the house still carried remnants of her presence.  The scents
were old-lady scents and the carpet an old-lady carpet.  The carpet was 
removed shortly after we arrived.  Our father had fallen asleep filling 
the waterbed and the water had filled the upstairs bedrooom, raining 
through the ceiling and onto the carpet downstairs.
        We had not lived long in this house when our father left for 
a year in Greece.  After he returned from Greece, we saw him even less
than we had before his departures.  My mother requested and was granted a
divorce when she was confronted with evidence of my father's lies and 
affairs.  We saw our father as many as three times a year after that -
more if he was married and trying to make a good impression on his new
wife of the week.

*

        My father taught me more than the skillful manipulation of 
words; he also showed me that violence was, could be, a hobby, a means of
passing the time.  Terrorising my siblings could be as pleasurable as
reading and required only one-tenth the patience.
        As I grew into the teenage years that each person must 
inevitably battle with, my illusions and my smile faded slowly away.  I
felt as though I was an alien and in retrospect it seems that I _was_ an
alien.  My journal entries though of my hand are seemingly not of my mind.
        My self-confidence disappeared in high school and I clung to 
people more troubled and angry than I was.  These children who grinned
at my face tore at me with words and the unfriendly accusations of those
who think they know all there is to be known.  My eyes were lined in
black and my soul far more weary than it ever should have been as a
child.
        I did not graduate earlier than my peers because I was a prodigy
but because I was lonely and unfamiliar with the ways of my thoughtless,
affluent peers.
        My graduation was a turning point in my life.  I released myself
from the chains that bound my soul and swore that I would allow myself
to fly.

*

        I have seen poverty and I am convinced that I will someday see
a comfortable level of affluence.  I have a burning desire to save the
world that my practical side finds, though amusing, unrealistic.  I 
have decided that I will work and write for a living and change the 
world in my spare time!
        My attitudes have calmed and smoothed themselves since my 
younger days of anger and rage, but sorrow still washes itself onto 
the shores of my consciousness occasionally, rendering me still and unhappy.
I push my homework to the side and wallow in darkness until my dreams 
force themselves into sight again.
        The optimist in my soul will grin at me as the darkness fades
and will ask me if I will hold for a moment.  I hear screams and then
giggles.  The optimist has locked the pessimist away and is bounding
quickly back to me.  As she grabs hold of my hand, I can see that she
knows that the pessimist is busy even now picking at the lock.
        It does not bother her.  She is looking at the horison.