The day was May 21st, 1979 if dates are important to you. For me they never were. A traditional way in my family to start a story was “remember that time…” in lieu of dates. This effect, characterized by copious amounts of moving and resettling, shaped the essence of my future to come.
So kicking and screaming, my mother said I came into this world. A bright eyed, crying, kicking, wailing healthy baby boy. Moorhead, Minnesota was the place, though I surely don’t call it home. I am told not long after my birth, I was moved quite frequently across the expanse of the western United States.
My first real memories were in the little town of Carson City, Nevada. I remember standing with my father in the parking lot of our condo and the maintenance man in the building asked me how old I was. Thinking that children my age were supposed to hold their fingers up and say how old they were, I held out five fingers and said in my best kid voice “five years old Sir.” I say this now because this is my first real memory in two ways; not only is it one of my first memories, but it is also one of my first memories of doing what I think I'm expected. This belief will come to characterize a great part of my life.
Normal is as normal does, but in the classic sense of the word I had a normal early childhood. My mother worked, so my father, who at the time was working on his PhD in education, mostly raised me. A recurrent “remember when” story in my family is when my mother reminds us that my father used to take me to the University library and baby-sit me while he attended to his studies. My mother, coming home from work said she was often astonished at the vocabulary I used to describe my day, and said to my father “you need to get him around kids his own age!”
Now I laugh at how I am choosing to characterize my life. I’ve heard it called metacognition or the act of thinking about one’s thinking, but to me it’s the story of how I live. How should I present myself? Does it matter how people see me? Is there something wrong with remembering a majority of bad memories [or classifying things negatively], and if yes, then what is it about me that makes me do that? Pragmatically I would like to remember my childhood in a somewhat positive light, so I am choosing to omit some of the negative emotions and thoughts I have about my childhood and address them at a later stage of my life.
So thinking back, not only was my physical being kicking and screaming, but also my mental being. I recall thinking A LOT when I was younger. My parents took me to a specialist because I would rock back and forth constantly, in my crib, on the floor, in a highchair. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is what it would be called in current contextualization, but at that time my parents were told that I have an “active imagination.” And rocking is actually a sign of brilliance. In those days doctors actually used to prescribe coffee for kids to drink, as apparently it calmed them down. So there I sat in my car seat in the backseat of my parent’s car, a hot cup of coffee in my sippy clutched between tiny hands, warming my lap while I listened to hushed murmurs and watched in bewilderment and amazement as the backs of my parent’s heads moved back and forth in conversation.
A boy, his dog, and a crayfish
For reasons I’ll know not, at age seven I was whisked away from Carson City, Nevada to southern Minnesota, where the rolling fields, and bellowing echoes of mooing cows fought for the attention of my senses amidst the pungent smell of manure and hay. It was here amongst the fecund patches of sweet corn my love for nature and animals was cultivated. Because of my family dynamic, I recall spending a great deal of time by myself. My sister, entering her first stages of what would come to be a very tumultuous adolescence, would often furiously storm to her bedroom door and slam it in my face even when I was just walking down the hallway to enter my own bedroom. My brother, forsaking me for the company of his peers, led to me feeling alienated from him. I was a bit of an outcast in my own home. The things I said and the interests I had according to him were as he put it “weird,” and in the bitter and unforgiving game of childhood popularity, I was the benchwarmer of the team my brother was coaching.
I would spend hours by myself, walking along empty gravel roads, exploring ditches and culverts, a boy and his dog chasing the flickering tails of crayfish backing furiously away from an upturned rock, or amusing in delight at the sound of bullfrogs taking flight to the ponds and streams that veined and pooled paths heading to the Mississippi River Valley. It was also during this time that I discovered that the tactile experience of nature was something that I uniquely enjoyed, and engaged in for me and me alone. The smell of fresh upturned Midwestern soil in-between my fingers as I dug through it in search of mealy worms that I knew the stream trout would gobble up on the end of my fishing line. The dull roar in my ear of a tractor in the far off distance grinding hay, or the squish of my wet shoes on the dewy morning grass were all sensations that were mine and mine alone. I had a strong feeling that the land was there with me; an unconditional friend who took my lonely feelings away.
Feeling content with my sense of independent self, it wasn’t until I was confronted with moving again did I reach out for the company of others. My parents asked me at age ten how I would feel about moving somewhere else. It wasn’t even the fact that I couldn’t express my feelings of hurt, or being crushed at the idea of giving up my dog, my lifestyle or even my home, but it was more that I didn’t feel these things at all; for the power of feeling like I need to feel a certain way for others was overpowering all those factors. So for the sake of social convention I pushed all those feelings aside. I lied and said that I thought it would be “cool” to move to a new place.
Here seems a logical place to begin to talk about unfavorable aspects across my lifespan. Dogless and in a new town, I found that the loneliness had come once again. To exacerbate the problem, I found little brown boys are apparently a threat to small town living. I was greeted my first day of school by a playground full of bullies and a school full of oblivious teachers. Gentle hands once used to hook mealy worms to the end of cane poles were now my only defense against brutal attacks in the schoolyard. It wasn’t long before I found myself in the principal’s office. A boy had provoked me while I was on top of the tornado slide. Just about to go down the slide, the boy grabbed my collar and stated “whites go down the slide first.” In my anger I obliged him by sending him headfirst down the side of the slide. I remember hearing the current buzzword of the time told to my father by the principal. He talked about how I needed “anger management” and how I was not adjusting well to the school situation. What made things worse was that for whatever reason my father took this opportunity to wage his personal war against white people that he had started years before I was born.
Before I start with this segment, none of it will make sense without a bit of history about the paradoxical nature of my father. My father, at the time a very black man in his forties, was married to my mother, a very white woman in her thirties. We lived in a completely white community. My father holding a PhD in education, found that even in the 1980’s in America an education did not assure a black man a secure future, and soon found himself a stay at home father, relying on my mother for income, and at the mercy of the very people he strived so hard to rise above.
Much to my misfortune, well intentioned or not, my father took my dealings of my situation to wage his personal war. On his frequent, daily rants about “the man” or whichever random target he chose to take his rage out against he would often use my problems as a paradigm case example, saying “son, YOU are a victim of a system of injustice” though I kept waiting for the Freudian slip of him saying “I” instead of you. What still makes me angry to this day was that my father’s frequent overreactions to the problems I faced only exacerbated the problem, for it alienated us. To truly win the battle he sought to win, showing kindness and empathy to his son would have broken so many of the chains that enslaved him.
At twelve years old, leaving my father to wither in his misfortune and despair, I sought out to find a bit of laughter and levity in my life. I unfortunately found fair-weather friends, who preoccupied with the notions of popularity and praise of the in-group, interacted with me only when convenient, or when the watchful eye of the masses had turned its gaze away from them. One particular image stands out in my mind more than most. The boys I was “friends” with were not allowed to have company over while their parents were not home. So instead of playing outside with me, they wanted to watch television inside their house. So to be part of the group, I had to stand on my tiptoes on top of a milk crate outside their window in order to watch television with them. Yearning for acceptance, like a starving animal I ate ravenously from their maggot infested scraps of pseudo-acceptance, and greedily licked their discarded morsels from beneath the table. If self-esteem were a form of money, mine at this point would have been a bad check with a stamp on it marked insufficient funds. I was lucky that schoolwork was so easy for me, for I think that were it not with all my problems I surely would have failed out of school.
Another move at this point was warmly welcomed, and this time the town was much bigger than the previous. By this point my brother, sister and I had all pretty much accepted that my father was not a legitimate source of help. So when my brother and I missed the bus the first day of school in our new town, my fathers angry lecture (about us missing the bus) in the car ride to school about how my brother and I “needed to grow up and get some balls and stop being so chickenshit,” was drowned out by the sights and sounds I took in of my new town. Thirteen years old and ready for a change, I took to my new town with a renewed sense of vigor.
Hip-hop was the trend in the early nineties, and blackness was the label of cool. Being the only minority at my high school I became the authority on all that was fashionable. From music to magazines, I rocked the best, and the people at my school loved me for it. Along with my social growth, my body began growing like a weed, and being able to play football only helped matters. So there I was, on top of my game, and on top of the world. I wasn’t just in with the in-crowd. I didn’t just go where the in-crowd went. They were in with me. They went where I went. Over dramatizing then as I am now, perhaps as a result of nostalgia from adolescence past where drama was king, I knew it had to come crashing down soon.
Football season over, so I took to my schoolwork to fill the void. Odd as it may seem, knowing the answers to questions in class and wanting to learn are not symbols of status in high school, and no matter how popular I was I could not take the in-crowd with me on this one. All it took was a lust for knowledge, a series of embarrassing events, a few choice words with other popular kids, and word quickly spread through my social network. My cool license was revoked. Back to obscurity I went.
The worlds largest six pack
Being stereotyped and labeled as a minority was of course the bad side of good when it came to being one of few black people in my town. Back then “celebrate homogeneity” was the implicit message on the invisible bumper stickers of vehicles in my town, and while racism was not plainly overt, I still felt alone and unable to connect. Alienated by my parents and schoolmates, feeling quite antithetical, yet still left with a burning desire to connect with people, I provided a prime example of what social theorists would call a “youth at risk.”
I found comfort in the company of friends. We later would call ourselves “the Droogs” after the famous Stanley Kubrick movie “A Clockwork Orange” as we likened ourselves to the criminal lifestyle of many characters in famous movies. Age 15 to 18 was somewhat of a blur and an embarrassment to me, so I would prefer to spare the details. Due to yet another move, La Crosse, Wisconsin was where I spent these years. La Crosse was a city known for it’s many vices, and even as a teenager I partook thoroughly in every one of them. Host to six 30 feet tall cylindrical alcohol-filled structures known affectionately as “the Worlds Largest Six Pack”, La Crosse served as a playground of debauchery for me and my Droogs. My parents either were oblivious or turned a blind eye to my ways, either way they stayed out of my way and I stayed out of theirs. By this time my brother was long gone from the family, having moved out when he was 16 due to constant conflict between him and my father. My sister was still in the house due to her apparent inability to take care of herself and her stay at a rehabilitation center. Due to my delinquent behavior as a teenager and school not being a priority for me during this time at 18 years old I found myself scrambling to obtain a G.E.D. I was placed in a local alternative education program and with the help of many patient and loving souls; I quickly accelerated my way to an early graduation.
My parents soon realized that if they didn’t get me out of the town soon, I would most likely end up as a proverbial statistic the talking heads on headline news shows so adroitly discuss. After several attempts at local colleges and universities and several failures due to my complete lack of interest and motivation, the decision was made for me that I would attend junior college in Ely Minnesota, a small town college far into the reaches of northern Minnesota.
A shift in attitude
It was a new start for me. I got a chance to dry my head out, shake the cobwebs and reconnect with nature. The same boyish hands that once played in dirt, now far more weathered and aged were cleansed in the pure lakes and watersheds of the Boundary Waters area. I looked at my reflection in the water, the bright azure skies illuminating my presence. It was once again okay to be me. I began to make friends, meet mentors who would forever shape the way I think and live, and gain the strength of character to stand up and say that I will not be a victim of my circumstance. And while I had some conflict, I felt like I was finally prepared to face the challenges that lay ahead of me. I served as a role model to others, choosing to be an R.A. and playing football on the schools team. I quickly finished an associate’s degree in psychology and was ready to obtain a bachelors degree. The move back to La Crosse was a questionable choice due to my history there but also a logical one because my parents still lived there and I would be able to live with them while I attended school. True to their gypsy nature, after my return my parents promptly announced they were moving across the country to Portland, Oregon. My mother was still in the work force and my dad still at home and she had gotten a better job offer. I was able to live with them for a short amount of time and then was able to find other living arrangements after the house was sold. While attending the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse, I shone on and rode my wave of success, obtaining a bachelors of science in psychology. I rediscovered a love of education and ran with it. Being so far apart from my parents for the first time was liberating, and I spoke with them as I felt necessary.The recent past
After graduation, I debated starting graduate school immediately or traveling and experiencing more that the Midwestern part of the United States. I did not want to be one of those people who say “I wish I had done that”, or “I was going to do that, but…” so I decided to travel and spent the better part of a year teaching English to children in a small city in Taiwan. Experiencing the great cultures of the east and enjoying life was an amazing experience and while at times I wonder what would have happened differently if I started graduate school immediately, I would not trade the experience for anything. After Taiwan I decided it was time to start graduate school. Having explored my options for schools and even applying at some schools while I was still in Wisconsin I decided to go to Alaska to obtain my masters degree in clinical psychology. Traveling across the western expanse, I drove the famous AL-Can highway blindly to Anchorage, Alaska, to work on my degree. I wasn’t sure where I would live, where I would work or if I would like it but was ready for the challenge. * * * *Anticipated ending
Given the multitude of variables and choices that my future presents, it is difficult for me to hypothesize what I will be doing. If I had to guess, I would anticipate that traveling will be a definite part of my future. Marriage will most likely be a part of my life, though the idea of children is quite uncertain. Career wise I can say that I will most likely change careers several times before I find myself a career niche, though if I follow my parents pattern I will find myself restless after a few years.Depending on how I treat myself and how active and healthy I stay will determine my later adult years. Heart and blood pressure conditions run rampant in my family, but it appears that with my predecessors healthy living and happy homes seems to stave off this effect. I could benefit from some stability and healthy living, and leading my life towards that lifestyle could be beneficial for me.
I also know that certain psychological processes will stay with me unless attended to. Like any human being my abundant neuroses and idiosyncrasies will always follow me where I go. In relationships as well as friendships, I will always have to be wary of being that kid standing on his tiptoes outside of the window on the milk crate, putting myself out there too far for those that may not even appreciate me. Though I am grateful the unique perspective that a life of moving to new places offered me, in my career and home life I have to be careful not give in to urges to leave a place after several years, for I crave a bit of stability in my future life. I know that my desire to not want children comes from a portion of me not wanting a child to go through what I went through, but also my fear of being settled down to a particular area or place. I remember my delinquent years, and am mindful to keep my vices to an acceptable level.
I have no doubt that I will continue my life in a positive and hopeful manner, always looking ahead for roadblocks, speed bumps, and stop signs. I have faith and confidence that I will find my niche in this world, no matter what part of the world I end up in, and continue to live my life to the fullest, being aware of but not letting the past, both the negative and positive aspects of it, stand in my way.
