The Fun House

I am four and my grandparents have an object in their yard that looks like a spaceship. It is made of wood and wire with a pointed roof and stilted legs. I often climb inside, shut the door, peer out the wire and wait for take off. My grandparents have confirmed with me that it is most certainly a spaceship but my parents think it’s a birdcage.

I am a teenager. My grandparents sell their house and with it their mysterious ship. I don’t notice. I am occupied by thoughts of boys and grunge music and coffee shops. I am plagued by spirits and ghosts. I have so many frights in the day and in the night. When my chore is to shut in our chickens after sundown, I run and scream down the path through the woods to their cage, lock their door and run with breath held all the way back up. During the day I take walks though my parent’s property and surrounding areas. A dirt road and a creak run side by side through the yard. There are redwood trees and, under them, clover ground cover and thick cushions of redwood needles.

I wonder about spirits in the woods and worry why I can never spot a four leaf clover. One day, while walking through the dry creekbed, I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I am so startled that I let out a blood curdling scream into the culvert that carries water but mostly just my feet from one side of the road to the other. I turn around and around, surprised at my voice, but nothing is there.  

My parents have not taught me any particular religion or spiritual belief or practice and so my fears do not have a particular shape, but they are still very real. I eventually leave home for college, where I learn the difference between the old and new testament, the allegory of the cave and zen buddhism. I am hollow and hungry and lost. My sense of self is as easy to find as a ghost hovering in another dimension. My mind searches around the classrooms, in the library and on public transportation, intent to find what is missing.

I am a new college graduate and have decided that boys are the answer. I admire their minds, I tell myself.  It is so much easier to connect with them than with girls my age. I occupy my time, which turns into countless years, shaping myself into what I think they want me to be. To what they see in me. I center their intelligence, interests and passions over mine. I stuff down my passions when I realize that my talents are mediocre and dull in the shadow of their more important ones. I tell myself that I am progressive and smart because I am able to be friends with boys and then men and they want me because I am special. I believe that I have a special power over them that most women don’t.

I am an adult now, there is no getting around it. I focus on every piece of evidence I can find to remind myself that men think that I am special and different and worthy of their company. I think that my mind is that of a man and not that of a woman. Women are uninteresting and just not relatable. Boring. I roll my eyes at the art of women and prefer male authors and song writers. My boyfriends always have very particular interests and are happy when I mirror them. I do a lot of listening and happily wear the lingerie and heels given to me for valentines day because nothing says love like a plastic thong and blood filled heels.

I still believe that I am on course for a special place. I will know it when I arrive, I think. 

I am no longer young and, now in midlife, catch myself in a window and see my mom. I jump head first into relationships with no idea why, resulting in years of being used, manipulated and lied to. Wait, wasn’t I supposed to be the one in control? I am  the one with the power over men and I have the upper hand, right? This illusion begins to crumble after the final and crushing end to a years-long secret and destructive relationship with an unavailable and manipulative man. I break open. All of my badges and trinkets and knowledge and tangled up wire and rusty nails, come pouring out and are absorbed into the earth.  

I am on long drive with my son. I begin to hear something. I ignore the sound but it returns a few minutes later. It sounds like a song. I pick up the phone and hear a sharp and low man’s voice introducing himself as a cop. His interrogation takes me all the way to a bank. I am holding my son’s hand and my daughter is behind us. The bank employees are all wearing ugly Christmas sweaters as they stand around an open vault.  I see this and everything around me through a fun house mirror. I think that this must be a nightmare. Again, I notice a sound. It’s that cop voice. It has me like a hook. How did this happen? 

My daughter shoves her phone into my face and I read: THIS IS A SCAM. The illusion melts. I end the call. 

The ship has crashed and the pieces are scattered across the universe, each of them alone on a planet or moon. A rattlesnake slithers across the thirsty ground until I grab it and hang it from one remaining rusty nail. 

I walked past the open vault, holding my son’s hand while following my daughter, who guides us past the vault and into the day.