Cherub - A Relatively Short Biography

Evening Mood by
William-Adolphe Bouguereau

A Relatively Short Biography

I am a forty year old woman. My trade is massage therapy, my true avocation is writing. Ever since I was little, I knew I was a writer.

One of my earliest memories is sitting next to my Dad’s bookshelf with a stack of notebook paper and a pen carefully filling in the lines with “writing” even though I hadn’t learned to make letters yet. I was a precocious brat child, and still am. I was raised in a grid of desolate suburban tract homes, in a city bordered by a river on one side, and corn and bean fields on the other. It was an industrial farming town, if that makes any sense, with not much culture to offer.

I lived in books, I read and read and read to the exclusion of any of the “normal” things that kids did. I was that weird little kid that made the other mothers nervous. I learned that knowledge and the ability to perceive and curiosity makes most people uncomfortable. When one persists in asking why of those who don’t care or don’t want to know hatred and fear and mistrust fester.

Of course the ignorant taunt what they don’t understand, so I was bullied and ostracized even by teachers who should have known better. I suffered through public education, my anger and confusion grew into a detestation of authority and being told what to do.

I discovered the Dead Kennedy’s, thanks to my mom being impressed by Jello Biafra’s refutation of Tipper Gore and the PMRC on Donahue - she actually went out and bought me a copy of Frankenchrist…my real teachers were Frank Herbert, JD Salinger, David Bowie, and then any punk I could get my hands on.

I discovered The Cure, my Dad heard me listening to Killing an Arab, dug out his old college copy of The Stranger…then I got into all his old college anthologies...This was all before high school. I wrote and wrote, read and read…finally I was out of school, but with no money to go to college. I read Waiting For the Light Waiting for the Dark and felt like an artists who had suffered under communism and when the wall fell and when I could do whatever I wanted, put out whatever I wanted I was paralyzed.

Me and a little gang of fellow outcasts drove and smoked and drank and explored all the seediness we could find…working stupid service jobs and trying to make our lives interesting. We all still secretly kind of hated ourselves, for being gay, too bright…for not fitting in. So we were all on a mission to destroy ourselves so the world wouldn’t have the pleasure of doing it.

Around this time I met Michael. He was about ten years older than me, had a cool job, a cool place to live, cool girlfriend, the most awesome weed, cd’s and stereo. (Hey, I was 19…) He was the first person I’d ever met who could go to ropes in a conversation with me- and he liked me too.

As he introduced me to his world I began to learn that it was possible to live without submitting to the paradigm of American status quo sub intelligence. Through the bondage play I participated in, I discovered that our bodies and minds are miraculous, that even though I wasn’t “normal” it didn’t matter because I was beautiful and valuable and happiness was my birthright.

Even though I’ve not been involved in a sadomasochistic relationship since, my experience has informed much of my evolution since then, I credit my time with Michael with helping me heal the outcast wound and become productive, and help other people through the work I do as a massage therapist.

It’s taken some time to be comfortable in my head and skin, and to trust that just as my heart and hands can heal others, perhaps my poetry and stories can as well. Blogging is a whole new forum, one that I’ve been daunted by, hesitant to put my work out there. Lo- here is Michael once again with a safe open space for us smarties with things to say and feel. My wish is that I can continue to share all manner of my work here, and the people who need it or want it will find it.  

Cherub 

2/2012