ESSIG JANUARY 2 0 1 6
G.G.
4 - 13
Suniva SNOWE
14 - 19
Lauren BIHR
20 - 27
Elena ROBIDOUX
30 - 37
C ONTENT © 2016 ESSIG INC.
kala SUMMERS
40 - 43
marshall PARKER
44 - 49
amanda Burns
54 - 61
dani Fleischer
64 - 69
yolanda Williams
72 - 75
frank Dinicola
44 - 71
f r a n k l y
SPE AKING
“I woke up one morning in a small room on a half deflated air mattress. In my closet, I had two pairs of jeans, two hoodies and a superman tee shirt.
On the opposite side, perched
on a rubbermaid container, was an old tube television someone gave me as a gift.
This was all I owned. this was all
I had left.�
G.G.
Two years earlier, I watched my mother dwindle away from cancer. The last words I had spoken to her were “I’ll make you proud.”
I lied.
The next morning, I went to the liquor store, picked up a case of beer and
didn’t stop drinking for two years.
I woke up each morning, went to the fridge, cracked open a drink and kept at it until I went to bed. In any picture that was taken of me during those two years, I’m either holding a beer or something stronger. I was working as a standup comedian at the time which made it easy to fuel my habit. I could drink while I practiced, while I wrote my set, while I hung out at whatever bar or club I was performing, and even while I stood on stage making jokes about being an alcoholic. In fact, sipping on a drink while I made those jokes made the audience laugh even harder. My apartment became a place to be; everyone wanted to come over and party. I invited them with open arms because it usually meant they’d bring alcohol and I’d save a dime on my habit.
One night, a few friends hung out in my living room while I decided, in a drunken stupor, to take a few of my late mother’s pain medication. Within half an hour, everything started flashing. I was coming in and out of consciousness as if the world was a strobe light. And all I thought was
,
I wasn’t suicidal. But in that moment, the thought of it seemed okay. More than okay. It seemed like something I should follow through on.
I went to my late mother’s dresser, pulled out her bottle of liquid pain meds, and dropped two doses on my tongue.
I woke up the next morning unable to remember anything, but one of my “friends” had videotaped me rolling on the ground, mumbling incoherently.
My family pushed away from me. My sister refused to speak to me. My ex girlfriend thought I was poision..
I was completely alone I drank..
I started buying cheap Vodka and mixing it in two liter bottles of soda. It would last for a while and costed way less than the massive amounts of beer I was consuming. A short while after, I stumbled on some money. Six hundred dollars in an alcoholic’s pocket can’t pay a lot of bills, but it can keep him drinking for a while. Or so it should have, but
it was gone within two days.
On the second night of spending, my ex-girlfriend walked into the bar. When she saw me, she instantly winced with anger. I just kept drinking. Eventually she came over to me, and instead of yelling or complaining and saying how terrible I was, she simply said,
“You’re going
to kill
yourself.
Stop it.”
And I knew she was right.
She started sending positive messages and checking up on me regulary. This was a girl who hated me. She had no reason to waste an ounce of her energy, but she chose to anyway. She was just one of those people that had a big heart and didn’t want to see anyone suffer; even an enemy. One night, I just wanted company and asked her to meet me at a bar. Although she wanted nothing to do with my drinking, she agreed anyway. As the night went on, she listened as I cried, whined and made excuses. And when I was done, she convinced me to stay with her while I detoxed..
I don’t know why I accepted so easily. Maybe it was because someone gave me a chance, and that was something that never really happened before. So, I did it. She forced me to drink tea and lemon water while sweating and shaking in agonizing pain. Slowly, the poison left my body. Through my hallucinations, crying, screaming and panicking, the only thing that truly terrified me was imagining how to survive without being drunk.
During my detox, I called my sister and asked her if I could stay with her for a while. She lived with her husband in the middle of nowhere, and I figured it would be a good time to be around nothing. To be alone and get to know the sober version of myself. For the second time in only a few weeks, someone with every right to hate me put aside their anger and put out a helping hand instead. I stayed with them for some time while I was building myself back up into a normal person. For a while, it’s just about getting through the days.
When you’re ashamed
of the past and afraid of the future, you have to
somehow teach yourself to
stay in the moment.
I let myself get used to me. I learned to be okay with myself. I learned to even like myself a little. I started going for walks through the scenic parts of town and sitting by the water I later called “the apology pond”, where I’d say I was sorry to everyone I hurt. My sister’s neighbor had a chalkboard she’d put up with inspirational quotes on her front lawn. I made sure to read them every day and somehow, they always seemed to relate. I helped my sister’s husband work on their porch, install new doors and re-screen the windows. It felt good to build something for a change, instead of destroying everything. At the height of my drinking, I couldn’t go to a movie theater because the thought of two hours without a drink seemed impossible. Now, a year after the day I woke up in that empty room, everything is different.
I’m far from the person I used to be but I still have a long way to go. I still struggle with average life situations and I still find my addictive personality peeking out, clinging to anything it can get it’s hands on. But I continue to keep my head up and take one day at a time. My one year AA chip feels nice dancing along my fingers in my pocket and I continue to be thankful for each day that I wake up sober.
I’ll tell you what, though, I don’t know what I would have done without those people who hated me. I wonder how many people have been convinced to get
could help,
if only they had
“These seemingly cruel kids were making a social statement rather than a personal one,
& by ill chance, it happened to be at my e x p e n s e . � SUNIVA SNOWE
accomplish any of the other goals that make up the mainstream idea of a “normal” existence. Everyone else was moving forward, while I was stuck in a cycle of failure and wasted opportunities. My bullies were enabled by or have I been made one? various circumstances: Parents Before the bullying, I vaguely who wouldn’t or could not go remember having been a natural through the hassle of finding a performer. As a little child, I would do new school in a less convenient handstands and acrobatics in front location. Teachers who must have of sunbathing strangers at the beach judged that if I wasn´t suicidal the because I wanted their applause. situation couldn´t be bad enough Whenever my mother had friends over for for intervening. The young me tea, I would march into the living-room that dreaded being an irreparable and bestow my own version of Junglemisfit, had passed this shattering Book tunes upon the visitors. diagnosis on to my adult self. When people asked me what I Maybe the personality wanted to be when I grew up, they were I was given - be it by nature or informed about my career-to-be as a pop- by nurture - contributed to the star. My love of the performing arts still problem: my taste and interests lingers on, yet nowadays my inclinations were unlike those of my peers. I are clouded with fear and doubt, so I was able to read before other kids tend to neglect them. More often than my age, preferred classical music not, I have chosen self-defeat over selfover children’s songs, zoology over realization. Barbie dolls. My family was cross By the time I graduated from high cultural and I grew up bilingual. school and was expected to transition into All these could have been omens independence, I found it overwhelmingly of an outstanding future - in difficult to pick up a phone and have someone else, someone who didn´t a simple conversation, make basic life feel internally crippled in an decisions, engage in relationships or undefined, incurable way.
I can only hypothesize over why I was bullied at school, or the impact it’s had on my biography. Am I naturally an outsider
Maybe my individualism was a red flag for dominant classmates aiming to assemble a flock of followers. Whoever was unfit to join the hoard was to be subdued. In order to belong to the clique, potential members needed to affirm the leader´s position. For them, bullying me was part of their admissions exam into being “cool”, nothing more.They might not even have cared enough to dislike me. These seemingly cruel kids were making a social statement rather than a personal one, and by ill chance it happened to be at my expense.
They did succeed in hurting me. Yet, at the same time, they too were abused. They let themselves be manipulated and may not even be conscious of it today, as adults in charge of themselves. What has become of them?
Back then, it was but a small satisfaction to get rid of them by means of their own academic demise. One by one, they fell behind, repeated grades or had to switch schools. I have healed, or at least am working on it. I still hate phoning people. Still have trouble - and avoid - being the center of attention. Still dread group-activities and am horrible at networking. I fight invisible battles where others are finding enjoyment or swiftly climbing social and professional ladders.
However, rather than playing the victim, I attempt to reap the blessings. I listen more than I talk, observe more than I meddle and enjoy working creatively by myself and in silence. I am able to walk away from toxic people, and don´t mind taking lonely stances. I am not ashamed (anymore) of progressing in small steps. The trodden path is of little appeal to me. I am not the person I started out to be. But maybe I can still be someone just as good. There´s no more futile squeezing myself into unfitting molds. Instead, I am gradually de-cluttering the inventory of psychological contraptions I have been torturing myself with, feeling a little bit lighter with each departing item.
There is gold underneath the crust of dark sediments. It remains unharmed in its essence and is patiently waiting to shine in the sun. I want to find and honor it. Maybe it will even be of better use now than it would have been in the grip of an impulsive youth. I am hopeful to receive pleasant surprises.
“Are you Chasing the Sun or Running away from it?”
LAUREN BIHR
said my dad in the café armchair beside me. His kind eyes were glassy with tears. His florid, bearded cheeks housed warmth, wisdom, and today, great grief.
He continued,
It was the dawn of October 9th, 2015. The air was impossibly crisp in downtown Petaluma, California, where the historic brick buildings began to glow, painting-like, as the distant sun smeared fiery pigments on a canvas of hushed blue. Dad and I converged in the street, both on our way to Peet’s Coffee and Tea to check emails, to write, and to weep. With four dollars cash – the perfect amount – he bought us each a coffee, and we settled down in the far end. We received the news the day prior. It happened on October 1st in the shadows of Market Street, San Francisco. An unsuspecting pedestrian on a night walk came across an unmoving male figure lying on the sidewalk. Feeling an upsurge of responsibility after gathering he was barely alive, the passerby called 911. Paramedics rushed to the scene and spent ten frantic minutes fighting to revive the young man. They lost. At 9:55 pm, my brother,
David Benjamin Bihr,
was pronounced dead. He was 28 years old.
The city slept. Another morning broke. None of us had any idea. The tide of everyday normalcy receded unusually far back as a tsunami of grief rolled up silently before crashing into a colossal, roaring breaker that would soon swallow our
horizon. It was a sunny day one of the last times I saw David. I rolled in on my bike to see him playing his guitar buoyantly in the middle of a residential street in our hometown. I came to drop off several pairs of shoes to replace the threadbare ones he wore. We talked for the better part of an hour. At one point, he had me cracking up. He had a signature way of articulating deep, universal insights in whacky, esoteric phrasing. I wished I could stay present with him, but I needed to rush off to finish some work. He didn’t pick up my signals that our conversation needed to come to a comfortable end so I could leave, however regretfully.
I said for about the fourth time, to no avail. He kept rattling on.
I laughed,
I felt bad; we were sharing such a sweet exchange. He paused for a moment, cast his gaze to the sky, and replied airily,
I will ponder the meaning of this quote for a long time to come.
I’m saddened by what addiction did to my brother, but I love who he was. He embodied two things that most of us are conditioned to ignore.
and In this age, we are constantly sold visual representations of our overabundance.
We keep buying into the idea that we have need for things beyond the bare essentials, and it seems the more we have, the more we fear losing what we have gathered. This collective addiction to consumption distances us from the notion that nothing we have will last. Even our very bodies are on loan to us. To be at peace in life, we must be at peace with death. David embraced and accepted impermanence, even before drugs entered his life. As for presence, the way
most of us bombard our schedules speaks for itself. Truly living a life of total presence is now the exception, not the rule. Most of us cannot even fathom what it actually entails. To be at peace with moving on in time – whether from one moment to the next, or from life to death – we must first be fully present in exactly the moment we are in.
David lived and breathed the moment, and he accepted the notion that all things must go on. He zeroed in on death everywhere and feared it not. He lived day by day. And he was a misfit in these ways. He would eventually find solidarity in the streets. When David’s schizoaffective disorder set in at puberty, the world suddenly felt like a riptide of chaos, and getting high was an escape to a serene sea, instead of the other way around.. The insidious whisper of addiction suggested everything would be tranquil for him if he kept using.
To him, to get high was to be ejected out of the churning undertow of life in a sick society and swept into the placid waters of presence beyond, where death and life were married and being present came effortlessly.
Just one more drag, one more bowl, one more pill, one more line, one more syringe… one more overdose, one more overdose, one more overdose.
Though a life of addiction is certainly a form of death-while-living, it seemed a realer narrative for David because it acknowledged impermanence and presence in a way the world around him did not. It seemed a more honest alternative to hover just above death and feel present, rather than to live for future goals and notable successes, as if life’s end would never come, which is what he felt society asked of him. He was not afraid of death so long as he could feel present each moment while here. If only he had gone about it another way.
This Anthropocene Era involves more fear of loss than can be ignored. The collective fear of death – of our possessions, our resources, and ourselves – has driven us to hoard and cling to that which gives us life in such a way that we have ironically sped up innumerable degeneration processes within the biome. Addiction is one of these degenerative processes. There is no question a life of addiction is largely a choice, and that it is a destructive process by nature. But it is useful to consider the view that the rampancy of addiction is a mere symptom of larger societal imbalances. And, let’s face it, we all have our addictions. Of all the addicts I know and love, the homeless ones all seem to share that certain intimacy with impermanence, and the common ideal to live life moment-by-moment. They have an unrelenting desire to subvert “The System” in order to take on the vocation of simply existing. They do this even if it means a life of chosen poverty and, for some, captivity to substance.
addicts Could we be refusing the antidote to their condition? What if we were less gripped by fear of loss, and more connected by presence? Would fewer of us escape into addiction? What if there was a larger place in society for the weary and wounded who need to heal and just be without condemnation for wasting their lives, which oft leads them toward substances that lay waste to them sooner? Perhaps as we embrace impermanence, fewer of us will exemplify death-while-living. Perhaps as more of us turn toward presence, fewer of us will be tempted to escape in order to feel here. It may bring us back to greater balance to stop spurning degeneration in any of its forms, and to move through these times of loss without such overwhelming fear of it,
To bow to death as life’s suitor invites us to be present enough in the fullness of a moment to be at peace when that moment passes away. To embrace presence, we must embrace impermanence. To honor life, we must honor death.
When I think back on the day I delivered David’s shoes, I weep inwardly that I was under the influence of fearing the loss of time, rather than remaining present to love him until the moment passed naturally, at which point we would have both felt it and let it go. “Okay, you’ll be home soon, right? We’re doing the nine o’ clock call to tell Rosalie,” my father asked after snapping his iPad shut and standing up from the armchair. My cousin would be next to hear the news. “Yeah,” I replied, “See you soon.” He whisked out of the café and was taken by the autumn air.
As he passed me on the other side of the window, I turned my head to catch his face,
despite life’s generous helping of indelible turmoil.
He was looking straight at me, wearing a smile. I smiled back. For a moment, it could have been any other bright morning, made heavenly by the impossibly crisp air, the flaming horizon, and familial love. I stopped for a moment, just to let my eyes go soft and remember that smile of his. David had the same smile. And yeah… You gotta go on.
So I plan to be here fully until I do.
“There simply is no pill that can replace
human connection.
There is no pharmacy that can fill the need for
compassionate interaction
with others. There is no panacea.
The answer to human suffering is both within us and between us.�
“I could never have
because my mom would get too ELENA ROBIDOUX
The kind of drunk where
you groan in agony, break dishes and look as if you’ve mouthwashed with blood. this was just something that happened, sort of like a spell that activated once Oprah ended and the sun went down.
I don’t remember an exact moment I found out. It wasn’t through one of those momentous revelations where a light bulb goes off and suddendly everything makes sense. On the contrary, it was an accumulative and gradual revelation. One that I’m still coming to terms with.
My experience with alcoholism has been episodic. There was the time I came home to my Mom screaming and hurling spaghetti at the pantry door. “Food fight!” I thought to myself, reaching into the pot, grabbing a fistful of al dente noodles and giggling as I’d watch them stick to the ceiling and eventually inch their way off. Or the time I went downstairs late at night to get a juice box, only to find her lying on the floor, topless. I remember her speaking in tongues that night and rolling around on our booger-colored rug like a sedated epileptic. Too young to conceptualize the situation, I joined in, believing it to be just as harmless an impromptu fire drill. There were times when the two of us would sit outside on our screened-in porch and listen to the sound of summer cicadas and the metronomic squeaking of our wooden glider. We’d rock back and forth while she’d sip on her wine and tell me stories about her childhood in Massachusetts. Sometimes we’d sit in the kitchen by candlelight with Tarot cards and eat out burnt grilled cheese sandwiches. We’d always dip our fingertips in the hot wax and wiggle them around once the globs hardened pretening to be aliens. I loved these moments, probably because they are some of the few memories I’ve shared with my Mom that weren’t invalidated by booze. The ironic thing is that they were, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Almost every morning growing up, I’d come downstairs and find a chipped teacup from our China set on the coffee table, still with a thimble’s worth of crimson liquid at the bottom. I remember the first time I sniffed the cup. Curious, I upturned the vessel and waited as the drop slid down the rim and landed in my mouth. My body tensed at the taste and I spit up almost immediately into the nearest heating vent. I remember wondering why anyone in their right mind would willingly drink that bile. I didn’t know what alcohol was. I doubt many eight year olds do. In sixth grade, everyone took a class called “Life Skills”, the skills referred to resisting temptations of drugs, sex, and lipids. The class was instructed by a man named Mr. Murphy, and he was the happiest bearer of bad news that I’ve had the pleasure to know. He told us about the effects of tobacco and carb-heavy diets on the human body, the realities of addiction, depression and adolescent suicide, all the while smiling like the man displayed on the packaging of Brawny paper towels. It was in Mr. Murphy’s class that I first found out what alcohol was.
I learned that it was something people drank at parties or when their parents weren’t home; that it prevented a person’s ability to operate machinery or form coherent sentences and walk a straight line. That it was something bad. When I looked up the meaning of “alcoholic”, it was defined as:
As I got older, I began realizing more and more how my Mom was starting to fit the description. I became hyperaware of how early she started drinking (4:00PM), how often (every night) and how much (a lot). Every Tuesday before I took out the recycling, I would count the number of empty wine bottles in the bin. When we went to the grocery store, I’d notice when she would give me an item to find so that while I was gone, she could make a pit stop in the liquor section.
I started finding liquor bottles hidden in odd places around the house like behind Fluffy’s litter box and under the sink with the old pots and floor cleaner. At night she’d become more belligerent, staggering into walls and banging aggressively on the piano like a ticked-off Bach. One night she smacked my Dad across the face with the leg of a chair slicing his forehead wide open. I read online that the best way to confront an alcoholic about their addiction was in a way that was “non-accusatory.” Some people recommended taping baby pictures and post-it notes of written messages to the front of their wine or vodka bottles.
I remember searching through over five photo albums looking for the right picture, finally deciding on a shot of Mom and I at the beach. I was sitting on her lap in a red one piece and an over-sized sun hat, sunburnt badly on both cheeks. She’s looking at me in the way someone does when they love someone so much, they forget where they are - they forget themselves. I taped the photo around the circumference of a bottle of Merlot, along with a flashcard that expressed how concerned I was about her. I placed it back in the fridge and waited for her to confront me about it. Nothing about the note was ever acknowledged. I found shredded neon bits in the trash the next morning along with apple cores and old microwave dinners.
I remember the circling of red and blue lights as they bounced off my bedroom window. A neighbor heard my Mom screaming and called the police. I was sixteen at the time and started smoking weed in my room to numb myself to it. It was easier to get high than to keep convincing myself that I could fix my Mom. All the years I spent my time waiting up for her, hiding car keys and dumping her wine out in the backyard behind our maple tree had only earned me a series of nicknames, which were limited, but not exclusive to: sociopath, cunt, traitor, bitch, dumbass, worthless, and Satan. In the morning, everything that had transpired would’ve been forgotten altogether: I would be greeted by my Mom pacing cheerfully around the kitchen in a sweaty nightgown, putting on a pot of watery coffee and offering me a plate of Eggo waffles. After the police left, I took another rip of my bong and watched the milky smoke cascade like streamers above my head and slowly dissipate into nothing.
By some miracle I finished high school with decent marks. At my graduation ceremony, my parents sat at opposite sides of the bleachers. When the last name was called and hundreds of hats and gold and maroon balloons were released into the air, I felt nothing but indifference. I remember my Mom and I went out to lunch afterwards to celebrate. We both sat in silence as we robotically dipped pieces of bread into a plate of olive oil and red pepper flakes on our table. I remember looking at her and wanting so badly to say something like “I couldn’t have done this without you” or “I’m really going to miss you.” But that would’ve felt too phony.
The truth was,
I didn’t know the person sitting across from me anymore. The following month Mom drove me up to Vermont and helped me unload all of my stuff into my cramped dorm room, the same room where I’d later crack my first beer.
Before she left, I looked around me and saw so many mothers and daughters embracing; shedding big, anime-sized tears.
All my life I had been trying to form a connection with my Mom like the ones I was seeing now, one that would warrant the same kind of reaction. I thought back to that photo of us on the beach, which now felt so distant, so submerged. And that’s kind of what alcoholism does. It submerges.
When we hugged for the final time I cried just as hard as everyone else, not for the Mom that was about to go,
“ All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Some smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.� Mitch Albom
“The burden isn’t in suffering through all the
&
abuse neglect, it’s in
Remembering it.”
My father is easy to remember because I have very few memories worth keeping. Imagine you’re about to doze off while laying out under the sun on a cool day, when you hear a child screaming. Maybe it’s your child. Maybe it’s not. You can hear it as clear as you hear your own thoughts, but you do nothing. Imagine that and you can understand a small piece of his shame. Thinking of him is similar to the feeling of a paper cut. These cuts seem superficial, and although they aren’t deep, they can still be bothersome. They can bleed and they can sting, and then leave a scab to be scraped up to be agonized over once again. He is the fool coursing through my veins.
KALA SUMMERS
My mother has only recently become a torment to my memory. She was a powerful fixture in my life for so long, the glue that held us all together. It turned out we were all better off when we weren’t together. She has an unmatched talent for projecting delusion. Her world is not her own reactions or choices, but the actions of others toward her.
Her daughter’s death wasn’t her fault, but her fault was in letting it become the death of her. She is the ultimate victim and master I was meant to have running through my veins. Growing up with parents who are addicts is like living in an urban legend. You can tell your story and admit horrible and disgusting things, but it doesn’t seem real. Not just to other people, but even to yourself. Questions like “What does your father do?”, or “What does your mother think?” made my stomach curl and my mind go blank. Since I was a kid of only seven or eight, all that ever existed for me was motherhood. I had to make sure my siblings were fed, bathed and brought to school. Some people would try to help, but they’d never stay long. It’s hard to commit to an awful situation when you don’t have to, or if the creators of the situation don‘t allow anyone to.
I can’t remember the Christmas everyone talks about, when my parents were momentarily clean and my grandpa dressed up like Santa Clause. living in a tiny travel trailer by an abandoned warehouse and eating food my father brought back from a dumpster outside a restaurant. I was around the same age for both events, but only one is seared into my memory. The burden isn’t in suffering through all the neglect and abuse, it’s in remembering it. Although it sounds awful, the best thing that ever happened to me was when my mom relapsed two years ago. Everything around me shifted and my past began to lose its grip on my present. There was nothing good left to justify everything that’s happened or the mistakes they made. It freed me from the obligation and responsibility from it all; my parents, my siblings, how we lived, the way we acted towards one another. A necessary selfishness took over.
I realized that I couldn’t control anything around me, and it wasn’t my place to make decisions for my family members. Though slowly and with some difficulty, I stopped projecting my emotions and judgments onto them.
Pain is like a virus; it empties your body and tests the strength of and your heart and immune system that must survive it. I don’t resent my parents or harbor them any bad will, and a part of me does, to this day, love them. They haven’t passed away, but they are gone from my life; by choice and by circumstance. All I can do is send love and positive intentions their way when I think of them. I am not a product of their fear and anger, or of their tormented realities that birthed me. I am not the ghost they left behind. I am no longer the scared little girl waiting for them to come home.
I brought to them. I am the comfort and tears of joy they had when they held me. I am each and every that was once whispered to me. I am the memories that bring warmth to their hearts and the ray of light in their darkness. I am born of those connections where love and light once were.
I am born of a master and a fool,
and I am grateful.
t r u t h is I don’t know anyone “The
that hasn’t either been
s u i c i d a l involved in a domestic dispute or battled with
a d d i c t i o n
MARSHALL PARKER
My mother is a beautiful person that’s had to deal with the hardest of hard. October 17th, 2015 was her birthday. It was also the day she got arrested for her crack cocaine addiction. Since I came into this world on May 30th, 1992, I’ve always known we sort of lived a bleak existense. When I would visit my grandmother, there were flowers blooming, birds chirping, and a smiling face with a sense that everything will be alright. It was the type of place you’d find a pie cooling in a window sill. I’d go back home to a small apartment in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. As the only little pale white boy with black hair and blue eyes, I stood out like a sore thumb. Even so, I got along fine with the neighborhood kids and learned a lot from all of them. Learned my first words, had my first kiss. My first memories are from that raggedy little apartment. My dad screaming at me in a drunken stupor, telling me I was just like my mother. He was angry because I was laying on my bed in the opposite direction than normal. I remember crying before the memory shatters and I can see him in the back of a patrol car, handcuffed and kicking at the glass of the windows, neck veins bulging out and my mom with her arms crossed and smeared makeup.
One of my first memories from that apartment had to be my first experience with loss. My mom had just gotten out of the hospital. She had ‘Get Well Soon’ balloons in her hand and let me hold one. It wasn’t long after we got outside that I let the balloon go, regardless of the warning she gave me to hold onto it. I remember feeling helpess as it began to float away. It was her balloon that I let go, and I could never get it back. I recall balling for hours from my first sense of failure as I watched the balloon get higher and higher, disappearing into the sky. Like that balloon, many things in my life have drifted away from me into the unknown, and I am helpless to get them back.
My father is in prison; my mother is in county jail. My grandfather in a deep depression over the loss of my beautiful grandmother. My brother’s far away and my sister no longer speaks to me. I am alone in this world. I used to think I was an artist; I used to think I mattered. Lately I feel like I am useless, but I am all I have left.
d e a r
m a r s h a l l , I’m glad that you found this magazine, because I’m going to drop some frankness on you right now that I think you really need to hear. And I know that you know this deep down inside you, but Marshall, you cannot give up on yourself! It seems that the world around you is falling apart, but you are only just beginning to start your walk down the road of life. At 23 you are in a prime position to do any number of things, so here’s the first step I want you to take: let’s figure out what you want to do with yourself. Do you want to go back to school? You seemed to use school as a place that made you feel connected, that gave you friends and things to work on. If I were you, I would look into grant programs. Many people, especially on the lower-end of the monetary spectrum, can qualify for full grants to go to college. You may even be able to qualify for a housing loan, which would give you a place to stay, food to eat, and people to meet. Go back to find out more about yourself, with intention of learning how to express your feelings and turn them into something that can help or inspire someone else.
Maybe you’d rather go to work? Well shoot, at 23 you’re young enough to get into almost any field. If I were you, I’d look into jobs that will let you travel. Maybe the military has never crossed your mind, but it’s a great place to go if you’re looking to make a great deal of money alongside an exceptional addition to your resume. Working will give you a sense of comradery with the people around you, and will give you money to start working on your art again. It will also let you actively begin to pull yourself out of the position you’re in, and let you move closer toward the place you want to be. Maybe you just want to find a place where you can be yourself, away from everything you know? The only thing that keeps you where you are are the anchors you’ve placed into the places and people around you. It’s not easy to move from the place you live, but it is possible, and in your situation I’d almost argue that it’s necessary. Find somewhere to go, get a job, set a goal, save your money. The power to change your position is yours alone, even more-so now that your parents are out of the picture. And I know you’re worried about your siblings, your grandfather, and your parents, but Marshall, you need to take care of yourself. Especially if no one else is willing to do it.
This letter has proven to me that you’re thinking about changing your situation. While I feel bad for your parents and your grandfather, you don’t need to spend the most vital years of your life worrying over them and trying to make their lives better.
and whatever that means, you have to have the courage and strength to act on.
Thinking you have no opportunity, or that you’re stuck, is just something you’re going to have to get over. Go get educated, get a job, start learning a skill and develop yourself into someone who can give that “everything is gonna be alright” attitude to the people around him. There is so much left to fight for, and you’re in the perfect position to do it. Now, get out there and make something of yourself. I’m counting on you!
frankly
E
v
e
r
y
day was a search for a place to sleep at night & a meal to fill my stomach.� AMANDA BURNS
My mother and father were already split up by the time I was born in Fort Worth, Texas. I spent the first four years of my life in the middle of an intense custody battle and a few weeks before my 5th birthday,
for the last time. By the end of the visit, my parents ended up literally fighting for me, each of them pulling one of my arms. I didn’t know at the time, but my dad won full custody. Since the custody battle started, she’d only come for holidays so I was led to believe that she just stopped coming. Luckily, this was around the same time I started school, which quickly became my Haven.
After my mother left, my father started to become abusive. He ‘d become very violent when I didn’t maintain his demands for extremely high grades or a perfectly clean house. Growing up, I often held back from making friends so I wouldn’t have to risk anyone coming close to my father. His drinking became more frequent and eventually led into the first time he made a pass at me. It was also then when I began drinking and using marijuana.
continued
The first person I told the truth about my abuse was a guidance counselor I worked for the previous year. Shortly afterwards, I was then taken into foster care. My first home was a Hispanic family and the dad would make me work all around the house, on the roof, and pay me $0.50 a day. They would receive $2,000 a month to take care of me and wouldn’t let me have the essentials. They would give me dinner, but refused to give me any snacks as they would their children. My next foster home was a woman who had just recently received a baby as a foster kid, and didn’t want to do anything with me, since I was too old. She would leave me with a black woman named Mama T, and take this baby all over the country. That was fine with me though, because Mama T was the best foster mom I had while I was in foster
care. While I was at Mama T’s, I ate well, and was treated like family. I was taken away when CPS found out I wasn’t staying in the home I was supposed to. After this, I started staying in RTC’s (residential treatment centers), where troubled kids are put on lock down. This is where I stayed until I exceeded the age limit for care. The only good thing that came from foster care was my High School Diploma. Being able to still study in High School and learn more about art, was what kept me from losing myself in those times. Up until that point, I always had school as my haven, but when I aged out of foster care, I was left with nothing. All of my friends and the people I considered family for the last four years were gone. There was no one to cry out to and I was completely lost.
As the attempts to stand on my own two feet continued to fail, I fell into homelessness. Every day was a search for a meal to fill my stomach and a place to sleep at night. In complete desperation, I called my abusive father, who agreed to take me in for the last time. When I was preparing to leave two days later, he came onto me once again. This time I bowed up to him, looked into his eyes, and actually felt sorry for him. I could see he was dying. He was weak and only a dwindled half of my abuser. He was no longer scary. About two months after my release from foster care, I had the stomach flu and was too sick to find food or shelter. In desperation, I went to the psychiatric center and attempted to become an impatient. Without sufficient reasoning, they wouldn’t let me in. So I decided to cut myself. They
called the police, which resulted in an altercation between me and the officer who arrested me. I was charged for assaulting a police officer and spent the next two years behind bars. The next time I saw my hometown, I was 20 years old. I saw the same people, stuck doing the same old things and getting into the same kind of trouble. And I was homeless, once again. That’s when I decided to have a change of scenery and move to El Paso, Texas.
I started my journey in El Paso as I had left Ft. Worth: in a shelter. The mission was a scary place to be, since it’s at the border of Mexico and the United States. When I’d go out at night to smoke, I could see gunfights between the border control and the people attempting to cross into the country. But eventually, I learned to love El Paso. And when I met Ed, I learned to love El Paso a little too much. The first thing he taught me was how to panhandle and before I knew it, the next seven years of my life were consumed by my crack cocaine addiction. It wasn’t until Ed became abusive that I wanted to find a way out. The moment you join the drug game, it swallows you whole. When I went to rehab, I’d be on the bus ride home and see someone trying to get more. I was trapped in El Paso. No matter where I went or how hard I tried to keep my nose clean, someone was always there trying to get something. And every time I’d get a payday, people would show up trying to help me spend it.
Since then, I’ve moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico.
I’m studying graphic design and hope to write a graphic novel to benefit foster kids and abuse victims. I am the greatgreat-great...granddaughter of the Bard Robert Burns, who wrote Auld Lang Syne.
R e m e m b e r e d
d e a r
a m a n d a Some of the strongest people in the world are those who had to struggle through their lives, and especially through their childhoods. It seems, from your current position, that you are one of these fighters who is trying to prove this sentiment correct. My utmost respect goes out to you for never quitting, no matter how bleak the future seemed to be. You are a fighter, and deserve respect for how far you’ve had to climb to escape the black pit you were born into. Your story is filled with ups and downs, and luckily at this time in the story things are starting to look up. I am truly excited for your prospective delving into graphic novels,
and I hope that you’ll remember Essig Magazine (or at least your good buddy, Frank!) when you actualize this desire within you. Many times, with various people, I have advised taking up a hobby to paint an image of one’s pain so that the world can understand. You, on the other hand, are a shining signal to those who are dealing with suffering, and I commend you for your selflessness when it comes to your own experiences. While art is not something that can take all of our pain away, it is a mechanism to communicate feelings and emotions that are otherwise impossible to describe. And using your gift in graphic
design to do something for others who are suffering is self-less, beautiful, and empowering. In honesty, Amanda, you are proving to be a brilliant person. After a lifetime of suffering you have come to a place where you are learning and growing toward helping others who may have situations similar to the ones you have experienced. You are a light shining from a dark world, and I believe, as long as you continue down the path you are pursuing, that one day you’ll be able to see the bad things of your past turn into the good things of your future. Thanks again for your submission. Stay strong!
frankly
Here’s how change
typically works in my life :
It’s like I’m standing at the top of a mountain and I begin to realize that it’s time to
c l i m b d o w n .
Maybe the weather’s changing or I see a lion charging up. Maybe it’s just the vaguest of realizations that fear has accumulated around me and it’s making me uncomfortable. So I get out my telescope and my tape measure, and I try to calculate whatever I can—the angle of the slopes, the height of the mountain, the rate at which I think I can climb down. I think about the imminent trek downward constantly, and I massage those thoughts obsessively like silly putty, molding and re-molding, sculpting my thoughts into all kinds of scary shapes.
and I wait. So the Universe kicks me in the ass and sends me tumbling down the mountain, head over heels, ready or not. When I finally reach the bottom, I’ve got a mothful of dirt. I am bruised, dehydrated, and not sure where I am. I am now in enough pain to make my way to the nearest triage.
DANI FLEISCHER
A month ago my boyfriend of two years came back from a weekend away with his kids, walked into our apartment and told me that he was worried that I distract him from his responsibilities and that he was failing his kids by being divorced. He said he wasn’t sure about anything anymore except that he couldn’t figure any of it out with me around—he needed “space” to figure it all out.
And there was mykick down the m o u n t a i n.
Our relationship is far from perfect—he struggles with feeling pulled in too many directions and I question whether what he can give me is enough. What we have is messy and complicated and just plain hard. But the love that has come out of the chaos is the real kind—the kind that’s beautiful and generous and ugly, the kind laced with so much fear and so much hope. So despite the sloppiness of it all, it’s always been a foregone conclusion that our love would see us through anything. Except nothing is a foregone conclusion. Anything and anyone can be taken away from you at any moment. That’s not me being dramatic; it’s just the fact of the matter. So in light of that risk, the question for me now becomes, how do I accept that impermanence without living in the fear that it’s all about to fall apart? How do I accept what is happening— hate it as I may— and move forward anyway?
I haven’t found the answer yet— that perfect recipe for the graceful, dignified way to move through a swamp full of fear and heartache. All I know is what I did, and what I continue to do.
I stopped breathing and let the moment flatten me. I yelled at him and stormed out. I stopped sleeping and cried for a week straight. I chopped off my hair. I tried to convince him that he could love both me and his kids at the same time. I cracked a few pairs of his reading glasses in half when I found them in my car. I sobbed to my best friends and let them see me with my guts spilling out, wet and shiny and slippery. I walked around our apartment in my skimpiest clothes. I yelled at him and told him I hated him. I stormed out again. I was blinded by the sharp white light of unexpected grief. And now, a month later, things are different and also, they’re not. He no longer thinks that he’s failing his kids but he still fears that I distract him from his responsibilities. We still see each other but not nearly as much. I’m still crying, though not nearly as much. Here are a few things that Try to convince him of anything. Wait for him to figure his shit out so I can move on with my life. Wish for a magical and immediate return to how things were. Expect an answer anytime soon.
And here’s what I’m doing:
I’m trying to hear what he’s telling me and I’m giving him his space. I’ve moved out. I’m bearing the breathtaking pain of losing the truest thing in my life and of missing my best friend. I’m laughing with my friends every chance I get (admittedly sometimes at his expense). I’m working through the burdens I carry of anger, confusion and fear. I’m writing my ass off. I’m moving forward despite being in the horribly uncomfortable place of not knowing— that purgatory in which you know that real damage has been done and nothing can ever be the same again, but there’s still a chance it might turn into something better. I’m spending time with myself and remembering who I am without him. I’m searching within for some answers instead of out there. I’m trying not to miss him. I’m aching for him. I’m thinking about leaving; I’m deciding to stay for now.
And
doing
all
of
it
so
i m p e r f e c t l y & f e a r f u l l y, but sometimes there are no points for style. is the doing.
Often, the only way to change is to change. the only way to do that is to
and crawl toward
new.
d d
e a
a r n i ,
Change is often viewed as one of the more difficult things in life, but when you think about it, the change is the easy part of change. The true challenge is convincing yourself that you’re ready for that change to happen, and accepting that change as it overcomes your reality. It’s so much easier to fall back onto what is normal and never seek change, but as you’ve stated, change often has its way of finding you, not the other way around. The hardest thing about this, however, is that it makes calculating consequences, options, and safe-falls very difficult. While it may be easy to map out something with clear-cut parameters, change tends to be something that appears from nowhere and often carries along with it many unforeseen aspects that ruin what planning was done beforehand. That’s where the spice of life comes from: that unknown reality that creeps right outside of your door, waiting to overcome you and turn you into something more refined and more complex than you were before.
I’m very sorry to hear about your boyfriend, Dani, but I do think you’ve done the right thing by leaving him to his own responsibilities. I can’t get upset with the man for wanting to spend more time with his children, but it seems to me that there may be more to the story that you’re not being told, or that he doesn’t want you to know. Rather than speculating on this, however, I will focus on the good aspects of loss, and I encourage you to do the same.
Now that you’re alone you have a lot of free time to focus on yourself, and you certainly should not waste this time away worrying about what may or could have been. Instead, take risks, try new things, and get out into the world. You can change your career, take up a new hobby, start going to the gym or meet friends to go on long walks with on the weekends. Now that you are free to be yourself, you can do anything you want, and I want you to try as hard as you can to focus on yourself and not on the issues that brought you here. Whether you like it or not, the winds of change have brought you to this new, exciting place. Now it’s up to you to decide what you’ll do with this new-found freedom. You can choose to disregard it, to hold on to the past and let this new future drown in the tides of what once was. But if you really want to make something out of this horrible situation, turn your sights to the future and realize that you now have options far beyond what you would have ever allowed yourself to have in your relationship.
Love is a complex, mysterious force, and it often drives us to the most extreme situations we’ll encounter in life. Never forget what you learned from your love, especially what that feeling of love is to you. The sad thing is that love has to exist in two directions, and also has to be reciprocated. You can love your boyfriend to the max, but if he’s not willing to find a position for you in his life, you’re better off looking for that next big love. Maybe not today, but some day, you’ll find something just as real, just as visceral and amazing. But the first steps toward that start begin right now, and can only be taken by you. Try to take these winds of change and ride them as far as they will take you, Dani. Some people stay trapped in their pasts, never allowing themselves to truly pursue the futures that have been lined up for them. You are fortunate to have this opportunity, even if it hurts right now. And I know you’ll do your best. Just don’t give up on yourself.
frankly
“You never think about these things actually happening to you. No matter how inevitable that we know death is.” YOLANDA WILLIAMS
When you lose someone close to you, so many emotions arise from the seemingly never ending abyss of pain. Sadness, shock, and emptiness are just a few that describe the inner turmoil someone left behind may deal with. When my mother passed away, anger grabbed hold of me and overtook all my other emotions. I was angry at the reality of her never again being a phone call or half hour drive away. And in all honesty, I was angry at her, too. I felt as if this vibrant, strong, and unyielding woman had given up on life. Unfortunately, the sickness by which she passed from was not the beginning of her downward spiral. As we all do as a child, I saw my mother as immortal, even as an adult and ultimately knowing better, I still thought that way dormantly. It all came crashing down when my oldest brother passed away from cancer. This is when I began to see my mother’s immortality slowly fade away.
I now realize it was an event she was never able to fully grasp nor let go. Other members of my family were able to mourn the loss of my brother and release their pain, but as for my mom, she knifed the pain in her heart so that no one could see it with a naked eye. Even at my brother’s funeral, she was stone faced, frigid and detached from all human emotions. She was slipping into a depression. It wasn’t something you’d normally see or visualize when you hear the word. It’s not like living in a commercial with a magical pill to make everything better. It was a dark, deep depression. It was as though all her joy and her soul had been buried along with my brother and all you saw was the outer skeleton of a woman. She no longer took care of herself or attended to personal hygiene. She spent her days laying in bed with a lifeless stare. It seemed as if whatever I did, I couldn’t help her. I felt hopeless, as if I was about to have an emotional breakdown.
I was trying to bring her back from this sea of darkness as well as dealing with the loss of my brother. I had so many questions that I needed answers to…
So many times I’ve known people who lost a parent or a loved one. I would pray for them and encourage them to heal.. I never imagined actually being in their shoes until now. You never think about these things actually happening to you, no matter how inevitable we know death is. Still, I remember my mother What do you say and where repeating her words again, even as she do you begin? The only thing I knew to do began to lose weight, saying she was was pray and just try to make her laugh. going to beat this. It was something I Laughter is always a healing utensil. held onto for dear life. Until I received As if depression wasn’t enough, my family was informed later on by my mother’s that dreadful phone call informing me that she had doctor that she had Alzheimer’s. I had no knowledge of this disease, butI just knew she passed away. would overcome and beat it. Of everything mymother went through up until that point, I believed it...I just knew that she would pull through. As a family, we made a decision to move my parents closer to my sister and I. This really boosted my confidence because now I figured I could spend more time with my mother and help nurse her back to health. However, as time went one, things got worse and I began to shy away from her out of fear.
I remember that day, the world seemed as though it stood still and was unbearably quiet. Reality began to settle in and my world started crashing down around me. It seemed like I was losing everything from my job, my home, and now my mother, all in one year. The pain was like quicksand and I was left without a hook or rope to hold onto. My emotions were like a rollercoaster. Anger
set in and began to wage war against her for leaving, Regardless of what state she was in, God intervened in my struggle and gave me the strength to realize my anger was unwarranted and it was time that I forgave myself. I’ve accepted her passing in knowing she has joy, instead of pain. Now I’m able to share my story with others experiencing the pain of losing a loved one. Yes, there will be more difficult times than others, but that’s when you remind yourself to take one day at a time. Surround yourself with positive and uplifting people who will stand by your side through the ups and the downs. Remember your lost ones not in the way they left, but by what they left you. Many times I pondered on the laughs my mother gave me and our family and how she was a leader in her community. Let your loss empower you to make a difference. I’m currently in the planning stages of a nonprofit organizaton for helping families and their loved ones affected by Alzheimer’s. I want to encourage those suffering to overcome their pain and remember,