Heart of Stone

Heart of Stone In the summer of 1963 I experience a steep drop into deep depression. If I recall, it only lasted a couple of days and then I put it behind me. I didn't feel I had any right to be depressed- there was no room for it in my life at age 12. I had two much to do, and my parents were starting to depend on me in ways that were hard to explain but I felt like their torch bearer. I vaguely sensed hopes had been pinned on me, and although my mission was nebulous, I was ready to go the distance for them. The last thing I wanted was to let them down.

Nevertheless that summer was when my inner life took a darker turn, probably for all sorts of reasons that came together all at once during our two month vacation mostly spent on the Ottawa River. As I look back with hindsight, though, it seems incredible that I was not more depressed or that my period of gloom lasted days not weeks or months. In fact, i could reproach myself for not having a total breakdown under the weight of everything that had happened and would go on happening.

It's almost as if, that summer, I developed a steely indifference to my own fate and the suffering around me. Or was it numbness born of amnesia and overwhelm?

On the surface everything was normal. My mother made sure of that. She was always positive and supportive. I had made friends with some girls on the farm up the road from our cottage, and we would visit each other often - their mother would send them with eggs and vegetables from her garden.

I spent lazy days fishing with my dad in his cedar boat with the outboard motor, or swimming and canoeing with my brother in our bay between two sets of rapids. An idyllic and beautiful wilderness before the rafting companies moved in on it. A paradise we took for granted almost as our birthright, our own private piece of eternity.

One hot sunfilled day in July we boated downriver with our cousins to the dam below Calumet Island and spent the day on the beach making sandcastles and fishing for those rubbery inedible clams that left underwater trails in the sand.

I always looked forward to seeing my American cousins, Patsy, Johnny and Ray-- who were the singers and performers of our extended family. Their parents, my aunt and uncle, sang duets in Salvation Army churches and raises their kids with a love of music. On top of which they were natural showoffs and comedians, who seemed to live in a world of constant wisecracking and repartee. To be around them was to forget your worries and troubles -- and become part of a traveling circus that was half religious, half American sitcom.

My mother had been telling me how much in particular she liked my cousin Johnny- who was 15, three years older than me, warm hearted and generous, always making people laugh. She seemed imply that I could do worse than find a boyfriend like Johnny.



***

My bout of introspection might have been due to the fact that on my 12th birthday I had asked for and received a diary. The previous year I had read the Diary of Anne Frank who was my new role model for becoming a writer. I started out ambitiously hoping to write in it every day but soon was overwhelmed by the problem of what to write. My daily life was repetitive and boring-- and on the rare occasions when something out of the ordinary occurred, I was too busy or puzzled or tongue tied to analyse.

My father bought me the diary, which had a light pink plastic cover and a tab with a tiny key so I could keep my thoughts and feelings secure from prying eyes. This suggested to me that 12 year old girls are seething with secret emotions and juicy ruminations. I probably was but lacked the words with which to contain or express them -- but who knows? My little pink diary perished in my bedroom one day a year later in a waste basket fire that must have smelled up the whole house with plastic fumes. What was I thinking? I had read the whole year's entries and found them disappointing but also disturbing -- that much I remember. It revealed me to myself, especially my failures and blanks. I was not a literary genius like Anne-- nor did I have her flowing pen and beautiful heart. Nor was I discovering sex in the attic with beloved Peter.

Not long ago I read the case for Anne's diary being largely a forgery written after the war by her father who published it under her name, reworking her scattered prose with his own insights from hindsight

Oh the irony. If it was her dad, and he faked it post humously -- why didn't I hold onto my first draft so that 60 years on I could read between the lines of my drab suburban life as a teenager swimming against the current of an extremely strange time in history, in the midst of an attack on my family that I couldn't see let alone fathom.

Anne Frank didn't know about the Holocaust even while she lived it. She believed their period of hiding could end any time if they were lucky- with an Allied invasion and a liberation. In the meantime she tried to live her life as a young girl approaching womanhood.

As for me, I was still crawling toward puberty. I must have had emotions. I know I was obsessed with sex and constantly masturbating in bed at night. I had fantasies but they were not about pop stars yet. I don't know who I imagined myself having sex with -- definitely not the boys at school. Possibly with Green Lantern, the comic book super hero I was in love with at the time. Or possibly someone far away, maybe over in England.

My teachers at school sometimes mentioned my speaking with an "English accent" -- where did that come from?

****


My birthday in 1963 happened to coincide with the sinking of the Thresher submarine the day before.

My dad had gone down with the ship months earlier but I was not allowed to know just how deep we had sunk. He would never read my diary and anyway like most men of his generation he had little use for women's writing. "Who cares what women think?"

But secretly he probably harbored a twisted curiosity -- stashed in the bedroom closets of his mind along with the novels of the Marquis de Sade. Philosophy in the Bedroom - when exactly did I read that? It must have been when he was in the hospital or sometime after when we shared a room. I found De Sade's collected works behind the trunk in the corner near the back and speed-read them over a week. He never found out, or did he?

When he came back from the hospital it was supposedly to resume teaching. That's what they told my brother and me. The truth would have been too devastating: the doctors had wiped his memory and he could never teach again. I found the 1963 yearbook for Dunton High School not long ago - under a photo of him with the choir, it states that he left in December due to an "unfortunate illness" and was replaced by a young woman. My dad's career was over but we were not told he became a patient at the Day Hospital downtown. Every day for the next six months he pretended to go to work but really he was still being treated by the medical mobsters at McGill.

Nevertheless his downfall seemed to soften him, at least when it came to his daughter. He made some attempts to be the father I would have wanted: he took me shopping and bought me a ski jacket and had the saleslady dress me up and let me see myself in the full length store mirror, transformed into a young woman.

And two months later for my birthday he gave me that diary. But the Thresher had already gone to the bottom.

One of my first entries was about a dream I had that spring. I was paddling downriver in a bathtub. Oddly that image surfaced not long ago in an account by another patient of Dr Cameron who was placed in a sensory isolation and hallucinated himself paddling downriver in a bathtub, too. But in my dream I came ashore and got chased through the woods by screaming tomahawk-waving Mohawks who pursued me up into a tower where they had me trapped and surrounded until at the last possible second I woke up.

I wrote down this dream in my new pink diary with no idea what it meant, because it was exciting and seemed to predict some disaster to come.

Two months after my twelfth birthday the Rolling Stones released their first record in London and I was there that day at Edith Grove, in my track clothes, abducted from a youth detention centre, probably chloroformed and put in the cargo compartment of an Air Force plane. The only reasonable explanation. My dreams, when prophetic, usually materialize after two months.

It's sad to realize I lived this adventure and had no memory of it when I got home.

It was later that summer that I really hit bottom, and told my mother my heart had turned to stone.


***

My birthday in 1963 happened to coincide with the sinking of the Thresher submarine the day before on April 10. 

Dear Diary,

Today I turned 12 and for my birthday i asked Dad for a diary. I was not disappointed even though I never asked for pink. One good thing: I can lock it and keep the key in a safe place where not even my twin can find it.

Yesterday the US nuclear submarine Thresher sank in the Atlantic off Cape Cod. All 129 sailors on board are missing and presumed dead. The thought of them all sinking to the bottom in slow motion kept me awake last night.

At school some kids were saying the Russians did it. Will there be a war? I hope not since we've been through enough lately.

Mom keeps getting sicker and Dad doesnt talk. There is no way to know what has happened to our . As  we were on a submarine that sank  or went off the radar. Everything that was, has just vanished but we keep on performing our duties as before...  like an underwater crew of ghosts

The doctors took away my feelings and emotions -- and that's what is slowly killing my relationships with everyone 

A thresher is some type of shark.

I look forward to confiding my secrets here in future--

I will sign off now like Anne Frank

Yours,

My dad had gone down with the ship months earlier but I was not allowed to know just how deep we had sunk. He would never read my diary and anyway like most men of his generation he had little use for women's writing. "Who cares what women think?" 

But secretly he probably harbored a twisted curiosity -- stashed in the bedroom closets of his mind along with the novels of the Marquis de Sade. Philosophy in the Bedroom - when exactly did I read that? It must have been when he was in the hospital or sometime after when we shared a room. I found De Sade's collected works behind the trunk in the corner near the back and speed-read them over a week. He never found out, or did he? 

When he came back from the hospital it was supposedly to resume teaching. That's what they told my brother and me. The truth would have been too devastating: the doctors had wiped his memory and he could never teach again. I found the 1963 yearbook for Dunton High School not long ago - under a photo of him with the choir, it states that he left in December due to an "unfortunate illness" and was replaced by a young woman. My dad's career was over but we were not told he became a patient at the Day Hospital downtown. Every day for the next six months he pretended to go to work but really he was still being treated by the medical mobsters at McGill. 

Nevertheless his downfall seemed to soften him, at least when it came to his daughter. He made some attempts to be the father I would have wanted: he took me shopping and bought me a ski jacket and had the saleslady dress me up and let me see myself in the full length store mirror, transformed into a young woman. 

And two months later for my birthday he gave me that diary. But the Thresher had already sunk and was somewhere near the bottom of the Atlantic.

One of my first entries was about a dream I had that spring. I was paddling downriver in a bathtub. Oddly that image surfaced not long ago in an account by another patient of Dr Cameron who was placed in a sensory isolation and hallucinated himself paddling downriver in a bathtub, too. But in my dream I came ashore and got chased through the woods by screaming tomahawk-waving Mohawks who pursued me up into a tower where they had me trapped and surrounded until at the last possible second I woke up. 

I wrote down this dream in my new pink diary with no idea what it meant, because it was exciting and seemed to predict some disaster to come. 

My dreams, when prophetic, usually materialize after two months. 

Two months after my twelfth birthday the Rolling Stones released their first record in London and I was there that day at Edith Grove, in my track clothes, abducted from a youth detention centre, probably chloroformed and put in the cargo compartment of an Air Force plane. The only reasonable explanation. 

It's sad to realize I lived this adventure and had no memory of it when I got home. 

It was later that summer that I told my mother my heart had turned to stone.

***

The beach below the dam with its coarse sand like burning gold in bright sunshine. A perfect day with all the cousins-- ranging in age from 9 to 15 -- Julie, Bill, my brother Sandy, me, Ray, and Johnny --scrambling in and out of the water while my dad in his boat follows the curve of the next island trolling for pickerel.

A perfect afternoon on the lower river, as we called it. The Rochefendu, meaning "melted rock" - flowing crystalline between ridges of granite and shale where veins of mica glisten in the light. 

Watching from the sand, where I came to warm up, I feel a strange disappointment come over me. It descends like smoke, poisoning my mind. I have looked forward to seeing Johnny -- my cousin from Detroit and Chicago. He doesn't look anything like the rest of the family-- his skin tans to dark brown  while the rest of us acquire stripes and patches of pink and white. I'm watching him roll and plunge in the river, swimming farther out into the current than I would ever dare, doing the crawl, the backstroke, sending up spumes as he splashes back to shore and spins around to dive again. He’s like a seal in the water, that streams down over his crew cut hair and onto his shoulders. 

I am angry. I've built up a fantasy around Johnny. In past summers we've gotten along, trading jokes and singing songs around the campfire, playing hide and seek in the woods. He seems to like me, his kid cousin from up north in Canada. Three years separate us. Last summer he taught me to waterski off the dock, steadying me on the skis before his dad gunned the motor and I took off. Despite his weight, he's an expert, a daredevil on skis. 

He has always been chubby-- mostly due to his high sugar diet, the endless supply of cookies and soda pop they bring up in coolers from the States. He can eat several hotdogs on those buns all slathered with mustard and relish, washed down with greasy burgers from the barbecue. 

This year, he is obese. His stomach ripples and heaves above his red white and blue bathing trunks, he's also grown breasts in front, and fat jelly rolls around his waist and back. 

I watch squinting from my spot onshore next to the castles we have built, and I realize I have been lied to again. I will not marry Johnny. I will doodle in the sand until my dad gets back and ferries us home. 

No, I think. I must spring into action. I can't be silent for one more second. 

I pick up a stick of driftwood and find a patch of undisturbed beach on which to write my message to the sky gods: 

"JOHNNY IS A FAT SLOB" 

I have written it and pray God it will have an effect, bring back my Johnny to me, to me. When he lumbers out of the water to pick up his towel, I show him my handiwork. He lets out a howl but he cant hit a girl so he just stares at me like a hurt animal. I look away. I have said my piece, I'm only trying to help him. Surely he'll see the wisdom, the kindly advice cloaked in my newfound blunt honesty. 

"You skinny runt! You little fucking bitch. I hate you! Get away from me." 

I stomp out my message, smudge every letter, so the others don't see but it's too late. My dad is calling us all to get in the boat. 

Johnny never speaks to me after that day. Three years later he will be drafted, join the Marines, head off to Vietnam. A year later he will return to the Midwest, a little thinner, with PTSD, and is never the same. There is no more joking, only claims that America needs a stronger military because "she can't hold her head up in the world these days." He will eat himself to death over the next two decades, at his peak weighing 400 pounds.

But all that remains ahead of us. It's still summer 1963, and the Cuban Missile Crisis is behind us. My dad has now retired, at 60, on a reduced pension, having been brainwashed by doctors, his own Air Force colleagues, in Montreal but he hides his disability well. He is still "Uncle Don" to my cousins who respect him as the eldest of our three dads. He speaks, but rarely. Always with dignity, hiding any confusion. 

I am his daughter, growing up fast in some ways, slow in others. Once we climb the bank to our cottage and our cousins have headed home to their own log cabins a few miles upriver, i have a shower and eat some dinner. Then I take to my bed.

The next day I don't get up. My mother asks what is wrong. I can't bring myself to tell her about Johnny. "Nobody loves me," I intone.

She stares at me with incomprehension. I say it again with solemn conviction. I have just figured out I am alone in this world.

"Of course we love you."

I grope for words to describe the dull weight in my chest. "It feels like my heart has turned to stone." 

She gives me a long, serious look. I tell her I just don't know how to go on living, and I don't know why. 

The following day, I've resumed my activities but she's not fooled one bit.

She's in her chair, and I'm in the doorway. She asks me to raise my arm. She's looking for signs that I am growing into womanhood. No hair there. She sighs. 

After reflection she says, "I think you have an inferiority complex." 

"What's that?" I ask. I already know. 

It's as if she's been talking to psychiatrists. But none of us, except for Dad, has ever been to a psychiatrist. Or so I firmly believe. In fact I know. 

I would remember something like that. Just as I would remember my trip to London and overnight at Edith Grove, two months ago, back in June. The fact that I have no memory of something, means it never happened. Right? 

My mother knows different but she has been warned not to tell me anything. Or as little as possible. Handle with care. Your daughter is an asset, and her future - not to mention the fate of the Free World- depends on your silence. 

My mother is complicit, hoping for the best.