Freedomain Radio

I Go Back to May 1937 (from The Gold Cell) By Sharon Olds.

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Bump - what do you guys think? vv

 That makes me so sad.  I am at the end of a marriage - a mother to four children.  I wish someone would have grabbed me and told me - as I was the girl in that poem.  Now I am struggling to pick up the pieces of the lives of my children and myself, hoping that their young lives are salvageable in spite of the damage that was done before I knew better. 

Faye:

 That makes me so sad.  I am at the end of a marriage - a mother to four children.  I wish someone would have grabbed me and told me - as I was the girl in that poem.  Now I am struggling to pick up the pieces of the lives of my children and myself, hoping that their young lives are salvageable in spite of the damage that was done before I knew better. 

If you don't mind me saying so, that is a courageous thing to say for a first post. Thank you for that and the trust which comes with it. I know many people here who deserve that trust.

 Thank you.  This poem was my parents.  It was me.  Now, my only hope as I stand looking at the shambles of my own creation is that it will not be repeated once again by my own children.

Faye:

 Thank you.  This poem was my parents.  It was me.  Now, my only hope as I stand looking at the shambles of my own creation is that it will not be repeated once again by my own children.

If I could gently correct, it would be to point out that it was not your creation, rather it was the creation of your learned self, the set of behaviors and beliefs which arose out of a defense against your parents' brutality against you... would that be fair to say, do you think?

 It is in fact true that my parents were unspeakably abusive throughout my childhood, and even into adulthood......my mother until her death, and at that point my father separated himself from my sister and I somewhat.  I recently have made the choice to complete that separation, which has been a huge relief, after reading two of Stef's books.  Yes.  Your statement is fair.  It is also fair to say that my parents were acting similarly because of their own sadly misguided upbringings.  How comforting it is to hope that through therapy (for myself and my children) and through knowledge, there is a chance for this painful cycle to be broken with them.

I remember this poem from somewhere else. I believe it was a movie, but I'm not sure. I remember feeling a lot of anger hearing it. I remember thinking how pointless the text was, and that the past was the past and there was nothing you could do about it.

This time around, I don't feel that anger, or that resentment. But I also don't feel much of anything else. Just a sort of thin, vaporous sadness. Before, I'd thought of my own parents. Now, the image in my mind is faceless. I don't know who the two characters are. I don't know if I want to know who they are - or that they ever should be anybody.

Great poem, Ricky.

Thanks.

 Greg,

I'm glad that you don't feel anger or resentment anymore.  I would be interested in knowing how you feel you got to that point.

It is a terribly sad poem, because the anger is all passive aggressive, and mixed in with a kind of inevitable forgiveness - and hey, was this: used at the beginning of that recent movie about the guy in Alaska - into the wild? It seems familiar...

*THATS IT!*

Into The Wild.

I knew I'd heard it before...

 Man!  Figures it was used at the beginning of a movie about a guy in Alaska - my soon to be ex husband is Alaskan - perfect-yes, I still have the anger simmering.

Faye:

 It is in fact true that my parents were unspeakably abusive throughout my childhood, and even into adulthood......my mother until her death, and at that point my father separated himself from my sister and I somewhat.  I recently have made the choice to complete that separation, which has been a huge relief, after reading two of Stef's books.  Yes.  Your statement is fair.  It is also fair to say that my parents were acting similarly because of their own sadly misguided upbringings.  How comforting it is to hope that through therapy (for myself and my children) and through knowledge, there is a chance for this painful cycle to be broken with them.

Indeed, the chances are very good.

Stef did a very relevant podcast only recently which you might find helpful with regard to certainty in this area:

http://www.freedomainradio.com/Traffic_Jams/FDR_1187_Sympathy_vs_Anger.mp3

 Stef's podcast is unbelievably applicable in this situation.  It is a "roundabout" wondering how much parents should be held responsible for their mistreatment of their children.  It is helpful to remember - parents who mistreat their children are holding these children morally responsible for their behavior.  The parents should therefore be held morally responsible for their behavior as well.

...and much, much more so...