So much here, so much pain, so much loss of the needed tools for life, so many things to learn with your own void, struggle and determination. This story itches my own heart, pulls me in. Different experiences, but the pain and loss is there.
Memphis…A place to grapple with, a place hard to revisit😔
I am faraway in my other country. There was a British novelist told a popular fictional story a while ago, opened with the line, something like, 'The past is another country'. Your line 'her miasma of ill will' reminds me that the metaphor in the landscape where we live now comes in summer with a distinct chill under the door, with more than a hint of grief in a churchyard, as it did during the first covid lockdown.
I am struck by the story of you youngsters' sincerity, your listening to the churches round town. I am not sure of an exact parallel but we/me/ from school similarly 'moved with the times' in a London suburb late 50s England. The religious landscape had very different features from America, but the instinct seems to have been of the same kind, even for me coming from a very different starting point than yours. Turning to anthropology and history however feels insufficient. That you lend the strength of imagination to goodwill, draws us in where fiction cannot go, or something like that... in a potent landscape.
You are deep waters, Philip and once again I am delighted by your thoughtful note. Thank you for making time to add something so carefully considered, winding, as it does through a darkling landscape. Love thinking about that sentence, "The past is another country" dropped in here by a fellow who begins his note; "I am faraway in my other country." And your "in a London suburb of late 50s England." tells me that you've been swimming in these deep waters for many decades...How grateful I am that you're here...
Ooooff!!.... David, that was an initiation into another world of living as a step child, but of a loving Step Mom and good Dad, but having an Evil Witch for a Momma instead. Like Cinderella and 101 Dalmations all rolled into one! But also a story of a boy who had the silent, intelligent courage to find some salvation for himself in a community with families who had good values, whilst at the same time to cleverly and consistently make Momma at least feel some guilt by you attending that church and then making her feel she must take you and pick you up as her 'real' obligations to her boy. A glimmer of a real Momma in there somehow, despite her renegade and unacceptable activities in her wider world.
It is so often said now it seems, that we 'choose' to come to this Earth to complete those tasks we didn't do before, or to put right a life we led on the wrong path before and in that process we might suffer, yet we might also learn. Hopefully! And yet so many seem to come back and create yet more pain and havoc, seemingly both for themselves, and those they choose to bring along with them and then leave!
However, in the little time I have read your Substack David, I think, no, I feel, that you chose to come here to show us all a life path that might once have been like walking through cactus thorns and nettles for some time but through that you have found the wonderful path of joy through the slipper orchids and wild heathers of life to share with us all, in your words and photography, your own beautiful wider world that transcends that of Momma. ☮️
I am humbled, Sally, by your most generous seeing of me. Most of us don't get to experience that very often, and it is affirming though a bit intimidating. Thank you for such generous eyes. Your notion of choosing to come to this Earth to complete tasks we didn't do before or put things right is intriguing and may be the case, but I wonder if with just a slight tweak of thought we can change the lens so that we see the courage it would take to 'choose' a life where we play the villain character in order to help create the tribulations that others need in order to live out their victories, and perhaps our own understanding of what such failures and sadness actually feel like. Actors agree to take on these roles all the time in order to make fascinating movies, which simply would not work without someone willing to play the screw-up or the hateful bad-guy. I've wondered if perhaps those transiting here who add such cruel twists to the stories of others are in fact the bravest souls because they came here and agreed to play horrible in order for the storylines to have a proper tension. In a world of infinite possibilities and karmic lifetimes it would be fascinating to agree to come play the bad guy for one pass through, no?
I'm so touched by your generous reader's senses and willingness to explore along with me.
Throughout the cruel and twisty details of this chapter, the actual feeling of 'Gotcha, Momma' satisfaction you pulled forward into this chapter made me strangely exultant for a moment or two. Bravo!
I listen to it all---you running the SDA godless gossip gauntlet; all the ways your heart was tied up tight, constricted; so many events trying to smother you, and I just say it again, louder---Bravo!, to your feelings. Bravo!, to finding connection wherever you were in your journey, to finding something a little bit powerful in all the complicated irony...
'Gotcha Momma' satisfaction is my koan for the day, Toni. What an amazingly succinct way of describing such a complex riddle. There is always a sort of tightrope balance to be found in trying to tell some of these stories, not because I'm afraid of being seen, motives and all, but because I do not want to feed any sort of 'poor me' victim-think while trying to tease out what really was going on there in some of those weedy patches in my past. How to get to the truth without leaning into victimhood or making excuses, or trying to give myself credit for being a better human than I really was at some former passage.
And yet, how sweet to have one who has read carefully each of these roughly stitched together stories feeling strangely exultant enough to offer up bravos. Thank you. Truly.
And also your 'godless gossip gauntlet.' Damn girl! That's some kinda kickass alliteration!
I know your story must be painful to tell if you dip back to that age when you became sharply aware of ironies and contradictions. I feel for the teenage boy easily embarrassed for and by your mother and caught in a tension of love.
Struggling to reconcile with God, and your mom, as a child, put you in a vulnerable position in many ways.
My husband David’s grandmother, Roxie was evil, and treated her son, my husband’s father Chuck abusively .
Chuck married and had five kids, including my husband David.
Unfortunately Chuck’s tormented past, left him incapable of understanding and ever knowing love until he had grandchildren.
My husband’s reality of family shattered early in life. His mother, a severely depressed woman, and his alcoholic father, left David’s heart, and soul numb .
David went to church as well, as a child. There he received acceptance, community, love, and courage to live out his life in peace, and stop the cycle of abuse within his own family.
He still struggled with many things in in adulthood but died believing in God, and letting go of things he can’t control, and choosing love over bitterness.
I don’t know why life has the duality of love and hate in this world, but I believe in a loving God who has all the answers we don’t fully understand.
Grateful you choose love David. ❤️
As an Ordained Minister, and human being, your story affected me. It was an echo of my husband’s past.
Thank you for sharing this very painful part of your life with others. We all need to get it out there.
I love it when a ship appears on the far horizon out of nowhere bearing news and questions, and stories from afar. Your recent appearance on this storyteller's horizon feels like a gift. Thank you for such a careful read and for making such generous time to wade in with notes, but also with glimpses from your own life experience and your husband's. It means a great deal, this sort of shared risk taking, pulling on certain threads and having others choose to pull with you. In previous chapters/stories I've worked back through tales I was told to try to understand the origins of the 'evil' you name with your David's grandmother, by trying to look one of my own grandmothers in the eye... We all have reasons for our scars and limps, and we all have choices that can still conjure a beautiful life out of utter chaos. How wonderful that we may choose...
Love this! I also love that we as teenagers went to a bunch of different churches in town to see what there’re preaching. Lo & behold it was nearly identical to what we, “the chosen ones” were hearing. Agnosticism was not far behind…🤣
Some of the brightest memories of high school, Sheila, when you and Reg and Greg and I took our world religions class seriously enough to go and sit in all those different worship settings, really listening and trying to understand. Asking questions and refusing to look away. What a gift that sort of curiosity shared, and the conversations that unfolded. How dear you all are to me, still.
Odd as it may sound after a chapter like this one, Tom, I kinda lean into that runaway approach that serves you, as well regarding 'church' tales. Which creates a certain tension when trying to reach back and understand, and claim the truth of what happened and why. At that stage of my life, the promises of forgiveness and acceptance held immense power to a kid who needed both desperately. But it still feels a little uneasy to try to stand fully behind the kid of back then, fearing that if I advocate for him too well, it might seem as if I still hold those hopes and beliefs in the same regard. Another lesson for this older, 'been there' storyteller. To get to any sort of relationship with the truth, you have to inhabit the moment and remember how to see through yesterday's eyes... We are all just trying to learn how.
Thank you for trusting enough to wade past certain trigger words. You are a mensch.
What a touching story David. Children hope parents will act better than their awful impulses that compel them to hurt rather than protect. Scarred as we may be we are survivors who have a special empathy for life. It shows in all the work you do.
So much here, so much pain, so much loss of the needed tools for life, so many things to learn with your own void, struggle and determination. This story itches my own heart, pulls me in. Different experiences, but the pain and loss is there.
Memphis…A place to grapple with, a place hard to revisit😔
I am faraway in my other country. There was a British novelist told a popular fictional story a while ago, opened with the line, something like, 'The past is another country'. Your line 'her miasma of ill will' reminds me that the metaphor in the landscape where we live now comes in summer with a distinct chill under the door, with more than a hint of grief in a churchyard, as it did during the first covid lockdown.
I am struck by the story of you youngsters' sincerity, your listening to the churches round town. I am not sure of an exact parallel but we/me/ from school similarly 'moved with the times' in a London suburb late 50s England. The religious landscape had very different features from America, but the instinct seems to have been of the same kind, even for me coming from a very different starting point than yours. Turning to anthropology and history however feels insufficient. That you lend the strength of imagination to goodwill, draws us in where fiction cannot go, or something like that... in a potent landscape.
You are deep waters, Philip and once again I am delighted by your thoughtful note. Thank you for making time to add something so carefully considered, winding, as it does through a darkling landscape. Love thinking about that sentence, "The past is another country" dropped in here by a fellow who begins his note; "I am faraway in my other country." And your "in a London suburb of late 50s England." tells me that you've been swimming in these deep waters for many decades...How grateful I am that you're here...
Heartening, David, connection across deep water.
Ooooff!!.... David, that was an initiation into another world of living as a step child, but of a loving Step Mom and good Dad, but having an Evil Witch for a Momma instead. Like Cinderella and 101 Dalmations all rolled into one! But also a story of a boy who had the silent, intelligent courage to find some salvation for himself in a community with families who had good values, whilst at the same time to cleverly and consistently make Momma at least feel some guilt by you attending that church and then making her feel she must take you and pick you up as her 'real' obligations to her boy. A glimmer of a real Momma in there somehow, despite her renegade and unacceptable activities in her wider world.
It is so often said now it seems, that we 'choose' to come to this Earth to complete those tasks we didn't do before, or to put right a life we led on the wrong path before and in that process we might suffer, yet we might also learn. Hopefully! And yet so many seem to come back and create yet more pain and havoc, seemingly both for themselves, and those they choose to bring along with them and then leave!
However, in the little time I have read your Substack David, I think, no, I feel, that you chose to come here to show us all a life path that might once have been like walking through cactus thorns and nettles for some time but through that you have found the wonderful path of joy through the slipper orchids and wild heathers of life to share with us all, in your words and photography, your own beautiful wider world that transcends that of Momma. ☮️
I am humbled, Sally, by your most generous seeing of me. Most of us don't get to experience that very often, and it is affirming though a bit intimidating. Thank you for such generous eyes. Your notion of choosing to come to this Earth to complete tasks we didn't do before or put things right is intriguing and may be the case, but I wonder if with just a slight tweak of thought we can change the lens so that we see the courage it would take to 'choose' a life where we play the villain character in order to help create the tribulations that others need in order to live out their victories, and perhaps our own understanding of what such failures and sadness actually feel like. Actors agree to take on these roles all the time in order to make fascinating movies, which simply would not work without someone willing to play the screw-up or the hateful bad-guy. I've wondered if perhaps those transiting here who add such cruel twists to the stories of others are in fact the bravest souls because they came here and agreed to play horrible in order for the storylines to have a proper tension. In a world of infinite possibilities and karmic lifetimes it would be fascinating to agree to come play the bad guy for one pass through, no?
I'm so touched by your generous reader's senses and willingness to explore along with me.
Thank you.
Throughout the cruel and twisty details of this chapter, the actual feeling of 'Gotcha, Momma' satisfaction you pulled forward into this chapter made me strangely exultant for a moment or two. Bravo!
I listen to it all---you running the SDA godless gossip gauntlet; all the ways your heart was tied up tight, constricted; so many events trying to smother you, and I just say it again, louder---Bravo!, to your feelings. Bravo!, to finding connection wherever you were in your journey, to finding something a little bit powerful in all the complicated irony...
'Gotcha Momma' satisfaction is my koan for the day, Toni. What an amazingly succinct way of describing such a complex riddle. There is always a sort of tightrope balance to be found in trying to tell some of these stories, not because I'm afraid of being seen, motives and all, but because I do not want to feed any sort of 'poor me' victim-think while trying to tease out what really was going on there in some of those weedy patches in my past. How to get to the truth without leaning into victimhood or making excuses, or trying to give myself credit for being a better human than I really was at some former passage.
And yet, how sweet to have one who has read carefully each of these roughly stitched together stories feeling strangely exultant enough to offer up bravos. Thank you. Truly.
And also your 'godless gossip gauntlet.' Damn girl! That's some kinda kickass alliteration!
Thanks for the grinning chuckle.
Sometimes there is more kinetic energy between the child and the terrible parent than with the more competent parent. More curiosity. More compassion.
Good lord, Mare, ain't that a pregnant sentence!!!
So much kinetic energy, though I've never quite thought of it that way. Bravo.
And thank you for such a thoughtful reply.
Thank you for not kicking me out of the club. :-)
I know your story must be painful to tell if you dip back to that age when you became sharply aware of ironies and contradictions. I feel for the teenage boy easily embarrassed for and by your mother and caught in a tension of love.
Only a fool would kick you out of the club, Mare. Ain’t gonna happen on
My watch.🥰
Thank you! A safe place to be myself. :-)
David,
Your mother failed you!
Struggling to reconcile with God, and your mom, as a child, put you in a vulnerable position in many ways.
My husband David’s grandmother, Roxie was evil, and treated her son, my husband’s father Chuck abusively .
Chuck married and had five kids, including my husband David.
Unfortunately Chuck’s tormented past, left him incapable of understanding and ever knowing love until he had grandchildren.
My husband’s reality of family shattered early in life. His mother, a severely depressed woman, and his alcoholic father, left David’s heart, and soul numb .
David went to church as well, as a child. There he received acceptance, community, love, and courage to live out his life in peace, and stop the cycle of abuse within his own family.
He still struggled with many things in in adulthood but died believing in God, and letting go of things he can’t control, and choosing love over bitterness.
I don’t know why life has the duality of love and hate in this world, but I believe in a loving God who has all the answers we don’t fully understand.
Grateful you choose love David. ❤️
As an Ordained Minister, and human being, your story affected me. It was an echo of my husband’s past.
Thank you for sharing this very painful part of your life with others. We all need to get it out there.
Kelly🌼
Good morning, Kelly.
I love it when a ship appears on the far horizon out of nowhere bearing news and questions, and stories from afar. Your recent appearance on this storyteller's horizon feels like a gift. Thank you for such a careful read and for making such generous time to wade in with notes, but also with glimpses from your own life experience and your husband's. It means a great deal, this sort of shared risk taking, pulling on certain threads and having others choose to pull with you. In previous chapters/stories I've worked back through tales I was told to try to understand the origins of the 'evil' you name with your David's grandmother, by trying to look one of my own grandmothers in the eye... We all have reasons for our scars and limps, and we all have choices that can still conjure a beautiful life out of utter chaos. How wonderful that we may choose...
https://davideperry.substack.com/p/portia-the-fear-shitting-cow
Thank you for such thoughtful notes. I am most grateful.
Love this! I also love that we as teenagers went to a bunch of different churches in town to see what there’re preaching. Lo & behold it was nearly identical to what we, “the chosen ones” were hearing. Agnosticism was not far behind…🤣
Some of the brightest memories of high school, Sheila, when you and Reg and Greg and I took our world religions class seriously enough to go and sit in all those different worship settings, really listening and trying to understand. Asking questions and refusing to look away. What a gift that sort of curiosity shared, and the conversations that unfolded. How dear you all are to me, still.
I’m prone to running whenever that word “church” makes an appearance in a story but this time I stuck around and I’m glad I did.
Odd as it may sound after a chapter like this one, Tom, I kinda lean into that runaway approach that serves you, as well regarding 'church' tales. Which creates a certain tension when trying to reach back and understand, and claim the truth of what happened and why. At that stage of my life, the promises of forgiveness and acceptance held immense power to a kid who needed both desperately. But it still feels a little uneasy to try to stand fully behind the kid of back then, fearing that if I advocate for him too well, it might seem as if I still hold those hopes and beliefs in the same regard. Another lesson for this older, 'been there' storyteller. To get to any sort of relationship with the truth, you have to inhabit the moment and remember how to see through yesterday's eyes... We are all just trying to learn how.
Thank you for trusting enough to wade past certain trigger words. You are a mensch.
What a touching story David. Children hope parents will act better than their awful impulses that compel them to hurt rather than protect. Scarred as we may be we are survivors who have a special empathy for life. It shows in all the work you do.
I'm so very grateful for your thoughtful, curious heart, Terry. One survivor to another, thank you for such affirmation.