The 1st Incident

She was sitting on our course linen white couch with the tiny pastel paint strokes that matched the wallpaper in our trailer’s living room, the man started to spank me and then that is it. There are no more memories until some time later, after we moved to California, I’m on the monkey bars at the playground next-door to our brand new beautiful stucco home, hurting my hands and building calluses I could later have fun picking at with my fingernails and peeling off. The metal slide that burned only my calves as all my shorts had to be knee length for modesty. The sand that squished under my tennis shoes.

Faintly, it is there, a 5 second movie clip of my thoughts and actions that typical sunny Southern California day. All my other memories until I was settled at my boarding school at age 13 are 3 second movie clips, jumbled in no particular order. I only know the order by the objects around me, particularly which house we lived in at the time. There is no sense of age, no memories of birthdays, no memories of Christmases, the 3 second movie clips and programs of my memories are not in chronological order as they should be. My brain was irreparably harmed before it fully formed, with pitiful memory capacity. Still alive, due to an unwavering resilience, I embody joy for the life I am able to live.