Jagged scissors crafts for the outside world

 It was year 10 perhaps, to my childhood, and I meandered along the path of the immigrant-educated-disfunctional-many child household. Broke but intellectual, living alongside wealth and privilege, and always the feeling of being on the outside looking in. The passive belief that others live in a christmas movie, the unspoken understanding that we play along, we dont announce to the world that ours, our life, our family, doesnt fit the mold. It's bad enough what they can see - the messy house, the drabness of our existence in comparison. Later I would encounter a high school friend wandering through my house into bedrooms, remarking and exclaiming about the mess, more mesmerized than criticising. I wince only mildly. 

My first boyfriend and his remarks, I winced more heavily at those. I saw with interest that my sister, close to me in age, seemed less embarrassed, less critical for her to hide our circumstances as much as possible. I would do emergency clean up to the best of my ability if people stopped by. Wipe the tiles of the bathroom floor with damp tissue (remarkably effective for 3 minutes of effort). Gather strewn about items. I would not turn on the light when I came in at night with Peter, the first boyfriend, for fear of illuminating bugs. I think we walked in with my sister who did not think of this, and indeed we saw some, which prompted his winceworthy remark. I'll spare you what he said. 

It wasnt just the mess, or the drabness. It was my dad and his behavior. Mom's way of presenting herself - once in therapy I tried to step into her, embodying,  as an exercise. It was excruciating, experiencing her pain, her overwhelming inadequacy, her sense of shame. But I was proud, too. My mom, my dad, so smart and always teaching me, my excellence in school, my impeccable teenage years. Perfect grades, perfect activities, a nice boyfriend, lots of friends and sincere friendships, no alcohol, no drugs, no succumbing to pressure from boys, always calling the shots for my own body. Any parent's dream. A few times my dad 'expressed himself' around others. The shame of them seeing what I live among. On a rare occasion he drove myself and a friend to a far away camp, complaining the whole way that it was far, that the pebbles on the dirt road were damaging his (not expensive nor new) car. It was tense and miserable. Upon arrival my soft spoken friend says in exasperation, 'he is so annoying'. I wasnt angry, didnt blame her. If anything somewhat curious to see an outsiders perspective. But shamed, too, that this is my circumstance, this is my family, my experience. Why do I deserve a bad abusive dad? Who knows, I am just cursed. Many many years later, I found myself seething at a close friend's bad behavior, and realized at last that it was this feeling of being a target of abuse, of being cursed to be abused, that was underlying my anger. At 40, I knew well enough that no, as an adult, I am not the target of abuse, have not fallen into abusive patterns. The anger at the friend vanished. The shame of my childhood has not, there are many ways to hold on to it, long past the abuse. 

Recently a friend, who works with kids, brought up to me that my gathering people at my very imperfect house - messy, drab, starkly contrasting most of my friends at my wealthy high school - made her feel better about her own imperfect house, to which she avoided bringing people. I sensed, or knew, at the time, that her family also lives with the shame of imperfection. I did not know her well, we discussed minimally at the time, if at all (neither of us quite remember). 

Maybe because this friend works with kids, I was back with the jagged scissors. Year 10 to my childhood. Mom is a math teacher, but she works anywhere she can. Because dad isn't functional, isn't ok. He might work and earn a lot, or he might not work at all. We cant predict. Maybe he will ditch us all together? Maybe he will explode. She has the 5 of us kids, a lot of stress. Mom teaches mostly, whenever and whatever she can. She is an excellent math teacher, but anything will do. 

In this moment in time, she is teaching in a hebrew school, little kids. She loves kids, and has a mess of her own, so we get to be guinea pigs, help her develop the projects for her class. Mom is warm and loving, adoring, fun, wise, with depth and understanding. We are small, and being with mom is a warm feeling, the project development is fun. We cut strips of construction paper with jagged scissors. The kids will write on them perhaps, use them to learn Hebrew. It's fun and creative. Mom is happy and relaxed, and we are as well.

Now she has settled on the final idea and the actual prep work begins, making the pieces for the kids projects. Now it is tense, the environment, the project, the cuts of jagged scissors. Now it is for the scrutiny of the outside world. Even kids of the outside world, they are above us, privileged. For them, all must be perfect. We are not perfect, we are flawed and broken. Foreign. We need to hide, obscure inadequacy as much as possible. We need to cut perfectly. It's not fun anymore, and mom is not relaxed. It is stressful trying to cater to the outside world, in the eyes of whom we are so insufficient. The brightness of the warm, fun activity with mom folds into darkness, into my often-frequented place of shame. 

So it went with mom, with childhood. The brightness and the warmth, the darkness and the fear. The gaping terror and shame, of inadequacy. 

Painting below is (I believe) October 2017. I painted it at a lovely community art gathering in Redwood City, CA, and cried. It could be called perhaps "With Mom"