18 - The M______ - Or a Basis for Comparison

 ©Miriam A. Mason

My father was always asking me to "compare and contrast." It was his song, along with how to argue. So here, I will do as he asks and compare our family to that of a neighbor family, the M______. 

The M______ were the family that lived in the huge mansion house on the corner. There were 5 kids from my brother's age to my age. 4 girls and the youngest was the boy who my dad tried to teach Latin to, my age. They left their back door open at all times so that all the neighborhood kids could just come over and hang out, play, build, create, imagine, play board games, it was all there and at the ready. 

Source: http://www.facebook.com

It was that wonderful house that made me love life. There were years they did a carnival for all the neighborhood kids. Their father built us all a clubhouse, and built the kids a full sized puppet theater with footlights and overheads, and so many other wonderful toys. Their basement was a maze of fabulous junk to climb through and discover. Whenever I was at the M______'s house, I always wanted 20 children of my own, to have the laughter, creativity, music, science fiction, Halloween haunted houses, carnivals, puppet theater, homemade bands, adventures, and activity going on at my house all the time, every moment to be filled with that sort of fun. 
 
When I got home, that feeling changed. Our house wasn't full of laughter, you had to be quiet because dad had to work. It was solemn and adult. Jokes could not be played affectionately on parents (although I managed to pull one over on my mom once). It just wasn't done. You could read, play in the backyard in their garden, or go out and away to the M______'s house. The choice was obvious. I spent as much time at the M______'s as I possibly could. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

The M_____s were very musical, almost all of them played at least one instrument and played it well. J____, the mother, would be playing Ragtime beautifully, her face raised into the air lit up with a smile across her lips, and the music would sing out through their huge mansion of a house. I'd dance to it, and I'd sit for hours curled up by their piano and listen to them play, especially A____ (about 4 years my senior), who was gentle and brilliant and composed pieces that were so beautiful, I could barely contain my joy at hearing them. A____ taught me the most basic beginnings of music, which is still a huge love in my life. One of my favorite musicians alive today reminds me of A____ M______, and I curl up in the same way and listen in awe of her, too (see Imogen Heap).

Source: http://www.imogenheap.com/

Photo by Miriam Mason

At a recent concert with friend Sarah (left), me in the middle and Imogen Heap is on the right.

 
At my house, big brother was never in, or accessible, although apparently, he played guitar some. And dad occasionally brought out his sax and played, but only jazz and only from a certain very narrow period of time. And he was relegated to play the same few things over and over again. I guess they spoke to his soul, but new things can be nice, also. I'm actually saddened by my father's limitations around music. He really missed a lot of wonderful amazing music out there because he was so narrow with his own choices. I played piano at our house. I had lessons, and eventually convinced my mother to take me to A____'s teacher, an old German woman in the Berkeley Hills, who gave me real classical music to play instead of the simplistic stuff my former teacher had. My mom used to play when she was a girl, but mostly, our piano sat dusted and perfect and quiet, unless I played it. And when I played it, I wanted to play my own music, which my father did put up with, unless he was working, and although every single moment was under his objection and subject to instantaneous criticism. 

I mostly focused on classical, though, because it made my parents happy. 

Picture by Maggie Rebhan

 
(My dad had this bizarre belief that popular music like rock and roll had an agenda that was deliberately marketed at young people to move their emotions. Like this was a bad thing. And that any emotions evoked by music should be evoked either by classical or 1930s jazz, as if these carried absolutely no agenda of their own. It was a very strange way to argue against my choices, and my sibling's choices, while defending his own as "real music." This was more than just a generation gap.  This was literally being stuck in one period without the ability to move forward.  To me, his ideas were just more of those enforced arbitrary limits.  I am grateful that all sorts of music speaks to me, and that as music evolves, I am able to enjoy it.  There is some really great new stuff out there!  Amazing talent, people my dad would write off without a second thought.)

Not so at the M______! Lot's of people participated in music, played.  It felt so rich and authentic and joyful, not forced or coerced or with a set of expectations attached.  Once, K______ created our own Monkey's band.  We made wonderful instruments to join in the festivities, tambourines and drums, and homemade cardboard and rubber band guitars, easy stuff for all the kids who loved to visit the M______'s house and to play along.

Every Christmas, they brought in a tree that was at least 40 feet tall (okay, creative liberty, it could have been shorter than that, but I was very small, and that tree looked *huge*) and made the whole house smell wonderful. And everybody gathered around for days before Christmas at the M______ watching and helping as they baked mammoth batches of cookies and goodies for the neighborhood party they would throw on Christmas Day. It was the best of parties ever. My mom made mulled wine for it every year and I'd sneak in as many glasses as I could, because it was fun and so busy, nobody noticed. 

At the M______'s, serious fights were rare (I recall only one in all the years of knowing them).  They certainly did argue a lot, but it was amicable and they found a lot of solutions to conflict on their own.  I never recall anybody being pushed out of any of their games ever. Play and pretend were enormous, and it was at the M______ that I was allowed to dabble in a love my father never approved of: television, especially science fiction. 

The M______ didn't practice television limits and so I got to see all the great shows that were forbidden at my house, "Lost In Space," "Voyage To The Bottom of The Sea," "Mission Impossible," on the rare occasion "Dark Shadows" (although I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night if I watched that one), and yes, even my all time love, "Star Trek." I fell in love with the entire genre at the M______'s house. At home, I got one hour a week of television and the shows I could pick from were my parents' selections. Eventually, my father let me watch reruns of Star Trek every night, and my parents and sister would sneak down and watch it with me, even though they never copped to enjoying it. In fact, my father, in his usual timber, was full of criticism for it.  Amusing that he later watched the followup series' too.

I saved this postcard from my first convention for years.  I may still have it.

It wasn't shameful to enjoy things at the M______. At Halloween, their mom would buy T____ a huge bunch of great haunted house gadgets and dry ice. The house would be transformed every year into a super spooky mansion and even indoor tours were created. One year I helped T____ stuff a whole dummy of his father's old clothes and it was set outside next to a pot filled with dry ice and running water, and many kids wouldn't even go past the dummy to get upstairs. Let alone stay long enough for the rubber spider to drop on their head when they rang the doorbell. 

The M______ never minded if you played on their huge property. And when I felt completely hopeless and depressed as a child, their big property had secret pathways and hiding places that were my secret places of inner peace, where I could cry real tears I could not cry at home without being punished or ridiculed.  I remember watching my tears falling into the dirt and soaking in at the edge of their house more than once.  I'm not sure they ever knew.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

One incident at the M______ particularly stands out. I was walking in the back door and the mother, J____ was standing there by the pantry. I smelled the M______'s house as soon as I walked in, a favorite smell of all. And suddenly, without any warning, J____ swooped me up in her arms and squeezed me in a huge bear hug and kissed me several times on the cheek, and said "I just LOVE you!!!" And then she put me down and so I could go off to play.  I had never had that happen anywhere before.

My parents never once did that. Love was not spontaneous or demonstrated in this way in our household. Love was, unless they were in a good mood about something in their own lives, to be earned via approval. 

To this day, I make sure I give my kids lots of enormous unexpected hugs and squeezes with kisses and I tell them I love them! How did I get so lucky to have someone like each of them in my life? Because it's true. And if you don't tell someone that, especially a child, they will really never know if it's true. Hugs are good for the body and the mind, and there is now science that backs this up. 

Source: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=47807

It was like being in full color life at the M______'s, and it was all shades of subtle dimmer damped-down colors at my parent's house. I had many things to keep me busy, I had toys, and books and limited access to a TV, and a back yard. But I was lonely for the one thing I didn't have, genuine unconditional love and acceptance for just being myself. 


To this day, I remain deeply grateful the M______ were in my life.  When I think of my childhood, it is they who I miss the most.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-archer/gifts-the-gratitude-exper_b_582207.html

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