from Ashram to Center

When I think of my time in Poona, I barely think of adults in my life at all. It's like the Charlie Brown cartoons, you know they are there, but you can't ever see them, and when you hear them, it's "mwah mwah mwah MWAH mwah...". For me, life was all about me and all about running wild with my friends and having a good time. My parents had a lot of gatherings at the house with other adults, but I barely remember any of the particular adults. Jason was there too, he had taken sannyas before he arrived in Poona and was now known as Madhav, but he had his own life at age 11 and I rarely had anything to do with him.

Bhagwan had gone "into silence" not long after we arrived in Poona. When previously he had given daily lectures in Buddha Hall, a large open auditorium surrounded by "far out" birds - they shouted a constant cry of "farOUT farOUT farOUT" -- he had decided for reasons unknown to me that he would no longer speak except to his most trusted advisors and would instead sit for silent "satsang". For me, this meant i didn't have to sit still for an hour during a lecture and could run amok at all times. For most adult sannyasins, it meant sit silently with eyes rolled back into heads, look divine and stricken with intense love and devotion and occasionally laugh or cry hysterically.

This time was short lived, though. Our forever in Poona lasted roughly six months and we were all informed that the master would be moving to the States to start a commune there. My mom and Madhav packed it up and moved to a temporary commune in California called Geetam. My dad and I went back to Long Island to deal with the last of our things and figure out the next move.

Bhagwan settled in what was know as the Big Muddy - overgrazed sheep farming land in Central Oregon. It was about 45 minutes drive from the nearest town - Antelope, OR population around 50 total, i think. My dad was summoned as one of the few people to be allowed to live at the Commune there - renamed Rajneeshpuram - I wasn't. I was sent to Geetam to live with my mom and brother. I was not happy about it.

There were about 10 kids in Geetam, none of whom I had known in Poona. I made friends quickly however, but I was not given the same freedoms I'd had in Poona. I could not come and go all day, I was made to attend school with the other children, and there were other frustrations as well. The worst agony was the new "lover" my mom took. He was a cold serious tall lanky Brit named Akul. At Geetam, the kids all lived together in a kids house and most adults lived in tents on platforms. I would often spend the night in my mom's tent only to wake up to them writhing around in a sleeping bag. I detested Akul. Each morning upon waking up, I would punch him in the nuts.

He took me pretty well in stride, now that I think about it. I mean, here he was dating this woman with two kids, one of whom was barely around - Madhav had discovered his sexuality and was getting it on with various Commune women - and I was a little brat trying desperately to get kicked out of Geetam so i could go live with my Daddy at the Ranch (the sannyasins all referred to Rajneeshpuram as "the Ranch"). He never raised his voice to me or even tried to get me to like him, really. He just took his daily punch and went on with the business of sleeping with my mom. Oh well.

Friends, lovers, and not-so-nice people

My life in Poona was great fun for the most part. I made some friends my own age, I made some grownup friends, I ran around the city in rickshaws. With my friends, we scammed people for candy cigarettes and then "smoked" them while sitting on top of the motorcycles that were parked outside the ashram.

One of my closest friends was Virochana - he was 4 and a half but I'd known him from New York. We were the only two kids at the Center in New York, so we'd been through a lot of the same things together. Our tormentor was Jonas, a year older than me, and a real redheaded, freckled, mean bully. He used to follow us around and tease us about being boyfriend/girlfriend and dare us to go have sex.

One day, i said, "fine!" and i dragged Virochana to a hiding place I'd discovered in the roof rafters of Miryam, the workers' cafeteria. We took off all our clothes and I made him lay on top of me while Jonas watched. Nothing happened. I made Chana (what we called him) go up there with me a few more times, but finally decided the whole thing was futile and I didn't really hang out with him much after that. I think he was pretty reluctant to hang out with me, probably the whole sex idea disturbed him a little, as did my enthusiasm for it.

One of my best friends was Garima. She also didn't go to the school, so we ran wild together at the ashram during the day. One evening, we went to see a play that the school kids put on. It was a fantastic rendition of Peter Pan, complete with wonderful costumes and song and dance. Garima and I loved it so much, that the next day, we had a grownup fashion some wooden swords for us and we ran around all day fighting each other with them, singing at the top of our lungs, "we are the pirates, we are the pirates, we are the pirates of the RED SEA!"

Jonas was jealous of our playtime and our nice swords. He hid behind the marble wall that ran the length of the ashram and jumped out in front of us, yanking my sword from my hand. He didn't want to play with it, he just wanted us not to play with it, so he ran around flaunting it while we tried to wrest it from him. When we finally got close to him, he threw it on the ground and broke it with his foot. Asshole.

Another of my good friends was Mouna. She was an Indian girl whose family lived inside the Ashram. She was the first person in Poona to invite me for a sleepover. I was thrilled. At home, we packed up my overnight bag and my dad went with me in the rickshaw to the Ashram. I was going to sleep at the ashram! In a sleeping bag! There weren't even going to be any grownups there, just us with Mouna's older sister, Karuna, and her best friend, Gitika.

The thing was, that while I was an independent little runabout during the day, I was daddy and mommy's girl at night. (My mom and Jason had arrived in Poona about a month after we did - and we all moved into a nice apartment in a complex called "the Mayfair" on Boatclub road.) Each night, Daddy would tell me a story and tickle my back. Mommy would give me a bath and play games with me. They would tuck me in and say goodnight. I was used to it. As soon as it got dark at Mouna's house, I totally freaked out. I cried and whined and I wanted my mommmmy!

Karuna and Gitika agreed to bring me home, so Mouna went back to stay with her parents and I climbed into a rickshaw with the teenagers. We went to Boatclub road and climbed the steps to our apartment. The lights were out. Nobody was home! I hadn't thought that maybe my parents might use this night of freedom to go out and do something fun as adults. Of course I had assumed that they were fixtures at home, probably even more upset that I wasn't home than I was. Oh no!

So I went back with Karuna and Gitika, but then we couldn't find Mouna! We looked all over, but it seemed she had gone to bed already so I spent the rest of the night with them. I had a blast! They treated me to ice cream and played games with me. They took care of me in a way that a big sister would and then they put me to bed. The next morning, I got to eat with them at Miryam, where residents and workers ate, and they brought me to my parents. All was well.

Not everyone was my friend, though. There were a couple people I had battles and feuds with. Asha was the Ashram bitch. We hated each other with a poisonous venom, but we never got that close to each other. Of course I've already mentioned Jonas. But there was one, even worse enemy. Her name eludes me, but we had several run-ins.

She was a hulking brute of a girl, Italian and way too big for her age. She had a smaller Italian boy sidekick that followed her around and did her bidding, but he didn't scare me too much. She was one of those people who resent you for anything that you might have and hate you for anything you might not. For me, it was my smarts. (smart-ass?)

I was with my friend Nevedita, and we were just hanging around. I noticed a sign posted in front of a shop about where to wait, it said "cue here". I was laughing about the misspelling when mafiosa showed up. I told her that queue was misspelled, and told them how to spell it, which she took as her cue to beat me up. She had her little sidekick hold me still while she grabbed my arm and twisted a little bit. I said, "doesn't hurt!"

She twisted more.

"Doesn't hurt!"

A little more.

"It DOESN'T HURT!"

At which point, i saw my dad watching the whole scene. He was standing there in his mexican poncho, looking bigger than his actual amoeba-ridden body was. As soon as I saw him standing there, I broke out into sobs, broke free and wrapped myself in his poncho.

I could be strong-willed and fiercely independent. But I was also first and foremost a little kid.

School of the flies and working girls

The ashram had its own school for its own misfits. Imagine a school full of children dressed in shades of red, unkempt and barefoot. Children who for the most part had never been given limits or rules - either because their parents thought that was the right thing to do, "the divine child should be free in his innocence, man!" or because their parents were too busy bettering themselves in encounter groups (beat each other up and bash pillows), primal groups (scream and discover why your childhood is to blame) or other meditations to know what their kids were up to throughout the day. These kids were wild. They were mean. They were in control. At least that's how i saw it on my first day at Hem Hira, the school. (I did think it was cool that we mostly shared a name)

There were some crafts and reading and some sort of loosely held lessons going on, but I didn't know anyone and I didn't fit in. I didn't like it. I had loved my regular old Huntington Elementary school with its orderly story time and free time for me to read, its crayons and paste. This wild free-for-all did not suit me at all. I attended school for exactly one day.

My Dad, on the other hand, was recruited to be one of the teachers. So after that first day, Daddy went to school and I went to work. I went to the ashram and found myself a job. I was a runner for Sushila, a loud haughty jovial and very loving woman who had been best friends with my mom when they were children. They rediscovered each other quite by accident at the ashram in Poona years later. Susie and Marci shrieked with delight to discover they were in the same place together, as Sushila and Premrup.

Sushila was the boss at the groups department, the department that oversaw the aforementioned groups and meditations. It was my job to be the runner, or messenger. Sushila thought i was delightful, and always introduced me as her friend, Hira "6 going on 36". I took that to be a great compliment, I was her compatriate! It was my job to deliver messages from her department to anywhere else on the ashram. It was a great responsibility, but there were few messages to deliver, so mostly I sat around in the office, making up stories and drawing pictures for my own books. The books I wrote were a perfect indication of the crossover between my old life and new one. Things that move: motorcycles, cars, school busses, and rickshaws. Diseases: chicken pox, measles, amoebas.

I did get a message to deliver every now and then, and depending on who it was for, I was either thrilled or terrified. I loved going to the main office because Vidya was there, and she adored me and often gave me sweets. I was terrified to deliver messages to Teertha, the pious, self-absorbed group leader, one of the high mucky-mucks in Poona. He didn't seem to like children, though he had a daughter slightly older than I was, and he took himself very seriously. Also, I had to deliver his messages to Lao Tzu, where Bhagwan lived, and I wasn't allowed in, so i always had to deliver it through a gate, which was intimidating, to say the least.

After some time, I did make some friends among the children, mostly others who didn't want to go to school, and I had an independent life inside the ashram gates with my own job and responsibilities. I had my own life and I loved it! By day, I was grown-up and busy. At night, I went home with Daddy and was still his little girl. What could be better?

Lord of the flies and other vermin

After a few days in Poona (since re-spelled Pune in the great re-spelling revolution in India that also re-spelled Bombay to Mumbai), I felt quite at home. Well, at least I was getting used to my new home. Daddy and I checked in to the Hotel Dreamland. Let me just start by explaining something about Indian naming conventions.

The more elaborately delightful and regal a name sounds, the more pleasant, clean, or resplendent, the more you can assume that it's a complete shithole. They have taken wishful thinking, applied it to advertising, and added little creative embellishment on the side. Another thing to note is that over the many years we went and lived in India, my Dad never remembered this little fact and thought, "hey, maybe this won't be as fabulous as it sounds."

Years later, when my family returned to India in my teens, we arrived bleary-eyed and exhausted after an 18 hour flight from the states in the Bombay airport. A sketchy hotel "employee" approached us promising us a lovely stay in a lovely hotel not far from the airport. I tried to talk my dad out of it, but to no avail. We stayed at the King's Hotel. Sounds nice, no? It was a pretty horrific, cockroach-infested stink-o-rama.

The following year, I returned once more with my father. This same man approached us even more enthusiastically in just as deep of a middle-of-the night. I tried to talk my dad out of dealing with him, but he told the guy we didn't want any crappy hotels. The "employee" gets on the horn yelling (in English, of course) that his customers don't want any crappy hotels! They want a nice clean hotel! My dad buys it and we are installed at the grandiosely named Imperial Palace. Even better! No no! Even worse, if you can believe it. Not only were there holes in the dingy sheets and cockroaches emerging from every smoke-filled crevice, but the lightbulbs were either blown or on the way, crackling and dimming. The piece de resistance was the telephone. It was missing the cover over the mouthpiece and reeked, and i mean REEKED of cheap men's cologne. It was absolutely amazing. But again, I digress.

We were living the Dreamland Hotel. I'm not sure if this was a permanent plan, or just a longterm solution to lack of funds and/or planning on my Dad's part. In any case, the Dreamland Hotel was a seedy flophouse in Downtown Poona, about ten minutes rickshaw ride (and no, these are motorized, three-wheeled scooters, not wicker packs on the backs of overworked Indian men) to the Ashram in Koregan Park. The room we shared at the Dreamland Hotel was the first of our insect and rodent-infested abodes. I didn't hate it at the time, though I imagine my dad did, he's not so crazy about vermin.

We did have one run-in with an insect, if you could call it that, that borders on horror-movie-slash-comedy scene. I went to the bathroom one fine morning for my daily ablutions. Crawling out of the toilet was the most incredibly large centipede. One end of the critter was ordinary, if large, but the other end divided into two fully-functioning heads. It was monstrous. I shrieked and dum-daNA in came Superdaddy to the rescue! I have this distinct memory of my father being simultaneously heroic and terrified as he chased around this very speedy bus-sized animal with a trashcan clad only in his underwear. I'm not sure if he ever dispensed with the animal or if the creature escaped, but I do know that I felt safe and sound after that, despite the accommodations.

And we're off!

In 1981, my family decided to move to Poona, India to live on the Rajneesh Ashram. We were packing it all in and going there forever. At least most of us were. All but David, who had some legal problems at this point, had been arrested for theft and at age 17 was battling all this and the guru who was taking his family away. He and Jason had both become sannyasins by then as well - David became Vedaprem and Jason became Madhav - but when we decided to move to India, it was decided he would stay behind alone and he became angry and denounced the whole sannyas thing.

The official title for deciding not to be a sannyasin any more among sannyasins is known as "dropping sannyas". David flushed it down the toilet. Literally - he flushed his mala down the toilet. I'm not sure how that worked, but that's how the story goes.

I was excited to go to India, it sounded fun and new and I am all about fun and new. I was horrified at leaving David behind. I loved him so much and we were very attached to each other. Every time we would greet, he would give me such a big hug that i would fart. He would laugh and then he would threaten to squeeze the farts out of me again. I squealed with delight and ran away. He was my hero.

But leave we did. And I didn't see David again until I was 9.

I went first with my dad, but left Madhav and my mom behind. I had given Madhav a killer case of chicken pox that entered his throat and lungs, so they had to stay behind a little longer so he could heal and they could take care of some other business. I've always considered that to be payback for all the torture he'd dealt me my whole life. After that moment, I felt we were even, and that part of our relationship was over.

Daddy and I went to spend a week in London and then on to Poona, India. I was so excited to see the world and meet all the new people i was meeting and I was incredibly anxious to start our new life. It all sounded so fabulous! In London, I met some of my Daddy's old friends and then he taught me to play chess. My dad prides himself on the fact that he's never "let" me win at any game. Suffice it to say that as proud as he was that i learned to play chess at age 6, i never got beyond knowing how the pieces move and what they're called and i have never, ever beaten him at a game of chess.

Finally, it was time to go to India. We climbed aboard our Pan Am 747 and flew for what seemed an eternity. I made a new home on that plane, the stewardesses all loved me and gave me extra playing cards and little plastic wings and fun paks. After 12 hours or so, our plane landed in Bombay. I peered out the window with glee and impatiently bounced up and down trying to get out. We climbed down the stairs and were hit with a wall of Indian air: Pollution, piss, cowshit, curry, sweat, and death. I jumped into Daddy's arms and began to cry.

"I wanna gooo hoooooome."

In Betweeners

Those two years between four and six were a checkerboard transition between the old life and the new one. I still went to preschool, I started kindergarten, made new friends, learned to read, and did all the regular kid things.

We also had quite a busy sannyasin life. The most important part of being a sannyasin for me at that stage was the weekly Friday trips into New York city to the main sannyasin center for sufi dancing. I adored sufi dancing. The music was usually flutey-pseudo-spiritual in nature and there would be lots of whirling.

But at the end, for the last hour or so probably, the New York sannyasins kicked up their heels, raised their arms to reveal their hairy armpits, and cut a rug to Bob Marley, the Beatles, the Stones. It was so much fun! I would dance and dance and dance until i collapsed into Mommy's arms as she dragged me half asleep to the car where i slept, exhausted, the whole way home. I looked forward to this all week long.

Usually, I would drive in with my parents and I would be so excited that I would refuse to nap even a little bit. One day, I was at home alone with David and his best friend Davy (we called him wavy Davy since he was so flaky, and later he became a sannyasin, got a new name - Dayananda - and I would still taunt him with the wavy Davy moniker. But i digress....) and they were smoking a lot of pot.

My brother thought it would be funny to hold me down and blow pot smoke into my face to see what would happen. Of course, this was only after I was admonished to never ever tell mom or dad. I agreed, being five and completely worshipful of him, he knew he could trust me. Well, bong hit after bong hit, I was completely stoned. All that felt like to me was completely exhausted - like someone was sitting on my whole body holding it down and I couldn't move even a muscle.

This was a Friday, so shortly my Dad came home to pick me up and take me into the City. He loaded me into the car whereupon I fell asleep immediately, and stayed asleep for the entire hour and a half ride into Manhattan. I woke only when we pulled up to the Center and Daddy hoisted me up out of the car, commenting over and over again on how remarkable it was that I was so tired.

"You must have had a BIG day today! I can't believe you slept so long!"

I smiled quietly and conspiratorily to myself and agreed with him.

Look at me! I'm a sannyasin!

I was four years old. Everything novel is cool when you're four. I got to change my name and proudly correct anyone who continued to call me "Julie".
"My new name is Hira. You can call me Hira. It means diamond. The first part, Prem, means love so I am a love diamond!"

It was fun to dye all of my clothes red, pink, and purple. And I had that pretty necklace! When my parents came back from India with my new name and all the accoutrements, I was thrilled. They also drilled into me the importance of caring for my necklace, using my new name, and wearing the colors. If I didn't do all those things all the time, I was no longer really a sannyasin. I took this very seriously.

When I was about five, I started ballet lessons with most little girls in the western world at that age. I was so excited. I LOVED to dance! Daddy took me to the studio for my first lesson, dressed in my tights leotard (pink, of course), and I was dying to get going. We walked in the door and there were all these prim little girls, hair in tight buns, sitting quietly on chairs with their hands folded across their laps. I leapt down out of my father's arms and into the dance hall spinning wildly and dancing about. Hey, I thought this was dance class!

I looked forward each week to my ballet lessons. I never really made any friends there, none of the girls talked to me all that much, but it didn't bother me a bit. I had plenty of friends elsewhere, I just wanted to dance! One thing that was difficult, though, was wearing that mala. With 108 beads, it was very long, about down to my belly button, even with the smaller kids' locket. When I was a little older, i learned the trick of putting it over one shoulder, wearing it kind of like a bag, the way the sweaty grownups in Pune would do when they did dynamic meditation or encounter groups.

Anyway, I finally decided it would be OK to take the mala off once in while when i really needed to, like when i was dancing. I took my mala off, carefully put it, well, somewhere, and went off to dance. After my dad picked me up and took me home, i realized it was gone! I looked everywhere and finally remembered that I must have left it somewhere at dance class... We went back to look for it, but we couldn't find it anywhere. I was so ashamed. I had one responsibility in life - to be a sannyasin - and i had blown it.

The mala did eventually turn up, but i don't remember how or where. All i remember is the tremendous feeling of guilt and responsibility i felt i had blown. I knew my parents would be disappointed. I don't know if they were disappointed or how it all ended. All I know is that it did end, i had my mala, and everything went back to normal. I know Rajneesh is not an organized religion, but hey look at me! I had all the appropriate guilt of a good little catholic girl!

Later that year, I wanted to wear my favorite blue dress. It was important to me. That's what i wanted and that was that! There was no talking me out of it. My mom sat me down and told me that it was fine for me to wear the dress, but that i must then give up my mala and new name and go back to being Julie. I was ecstatic! I could wear whatever I wanted and all I had to do was go back to how things were before! Hurray! So for the rest of that year until I was almost six, I went back to being Julie and wearing blue dresses.

Young life with family

When i was very young, I knew we were different from most people. I regarded these differences in terms of tangible things, like food, toys, etc. While all of my friends were eating froot loops and cocoa puffs, we were only allowed cereals with little or no sugar, no preservatives, and no artificial colors or flavors. The raunchiest breakfast cereals in our house were rice krispies or cheerios. Mostly I ate kasha with yogurt or fruit compote. While my friends had Star Wars action figures and guns, I had only stuffed animals and other nonviolent toys.

There were the intangible differences, too. My parents had intellectual friends over all the time and they had very serious discussions after they thought i'd gone to bed. Usually the discussions included words like "manipulate" and "fascist" and "agenda". I had no idea what those words meant. Their friends thought I was great. Like everything i said was divine and fabulous in its childlike innocence coupled with precocious wit. At least that's what i thought.

I was different.

And yet, while I secretly worried about our family's weirdness all the time, I really enjoyed life with my family for the most part. I was the baby of the family and my dad's only, so really I was spoiled. David took me with him on his illicit excursions often because he knew i could keep a secret. My mom loved me from the ground to the sky, through the clouds to the sun, back down again and so forth. I danced around the living room every day singing at the top of my lungs "DA DOO DA DA DE DOO DEE DA DOO". Jason was the bane of my existence. Once he discovered that while it wasn't right to beat up a girl, he could torture her with psychological warfare: tickling, farting, namecalling, etc. It was a family.

Every Sunday we would have bagels and read the paper (I couldn't quite read yet until i was 4, but I would fight over the funnies with my brothers just the same, and then move my eyes side to side like i could see they were doing to pretend). I drove around a lot with my dad and played games, watched Saturday morning cartoons with my brothers, went to the beach with my friend Jesse, and lived a somewhat ordinary child's life within the realm of our weird family.

When I was 4, my mom discovered Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Before I knew it, she sent away to become a disciple. She got a new name, once Marci Strieker - now Ma Premrup (all women were Ma this Ma that, men were swami this and that). I immediately renamed her "prempoop". Not only that, but she started wearing all orange and a mala - a necklace of 108 wooden beads and a locket with Bhagwan's picture. My dad thought she was crazy at first, then slowly but surely came around. He sent away for his new name - from Donald Bluestone to Swami Sarvananda "sour banana", of course.

Our house was soon filled with orange dye, orange clad people, and tapes upon tapes of Bhagwan. When he spoke, his voice would trail off at the end of each phrase or sentence with a swooshhhhhy exhalation. We three kids went around the house constantly mocking him and applying this affectation to all of our requests: can pleasssssssssss have some macaroni and cheesssssssssh tonightssssss? Get your asssssssh out of the bathroomssssssssssssh alreadysssssssss! and so forth.

My mom went off to Pune, India to get up close and personal and do some groups. My dad soon followed, but not before i had a chance to beg and beg and beg to get a new name and mala too. Some kids ask for puppies or horses, but no, not me! I wanted to be a sannyasin! Please, can I, please please please!!! I wanted a new name and to run around in orange clothes. And oo that necklace! It all sounded like a lot of fun.

They promised to ask on my behalf when they went to India. I waited 5 weeks (staying with family friends) with bated breath. I daydreamed about what my new name would be. I invented lots of beautiful names for myself, mostly floral in nature: rosa, rosulie (my name was Julie), daisulie, and on like that.

Finally, they returned. They came with a message, that I could be a sannyasin, but that i had to be responsible and always wear the colors, now expanded to include reds, purples, and maroons - "shades of the sunset", and the mala and to use my new name: Ma Prem Hira. Hira. That was my new name. I think my brothers had the hardest time switching to my new name, but of course Jason came up with "hira there-a everywhere-a went to bed in her underwear-a".

Second day

My family had always been on the odd side. My dad was a pinko-commi-historian-professor who always wanted a baby. He was married to a woman who seemingly couldn't have children and that's when he met my mom, a recent divorcée with 2 boys. She was wild, brassy, beautiful, and wanted him. So what if he was married. He fell in love, went back to his wife, and after a little "coaxing" on the part of my mother, he left wife #1 to be with mom #1.

My mom was, as I said, a wild, brassy, beautiful woman - also: brilliant, driven, and angry. After spending a fun summer with my dad, roaming the country high on acid, almost getting arrested on the Canadian border, they settled in to Long Island, where my dad was teaching. She quickly became pregnant with me and my brothers came to live with my parents. She was a therapist and started her practice and they went back to a regular life. Later, she used her brilliance and anger to become a lesbian-feminist-activist and formed a women's group that met in the house. David was 9 - already also very angry, delinquent, and adolescent in many ways. Jason was only 4, a sweet, shy, emotional boy who always wanted to be someplace else.

When I was born, David loved me dearly. He took care of me constantly and while he drove most everyone else away, he cherished me and I grew to worship him. Jason was another story. David had always beat him up, tortured him, and generally made his life miserable in ways that only a mildly sociopathic older brother can do. When my mom informed him she was going to have a baby, he was ecstatic. Finally, a younger brother he too could torture and maim! Finally, it was time for payback!

When i was born, my dad called home to tell them the news. "Jason, it's a girl! You have a baby sister!"
"Oh, rats."

First blog, yo

I'm getting started on my memoirs - i thought to call it something along the lines of "better red than red" - heh. Not sure about that. I'll start from the start and I just want it to be my life - my REAL childhood and growing up stories against the backdrop of Rajneeshpuram and all that business. No history or research, philosophy or spirituality, just MY story. My memories. It's funny. It's real. Now i just need to figure out who will play me in the movie, right?

My memories start at about age 2. They're hazy and each significant story just sort of punctuates the haze. As i progress towards 4 and 5, the haze is filled in with more and more insignificant memories until about age 6, which is when i can remember EVERYTHING (sorry folks).

Age 2, daddy was a teacher at college and he would bring me to his office from time to time to hang out before dropping me at the college day care. He had one of those horrifying monkeys with cymbals that crashed away sitting above his desk on a shelf. That thing totally freaked me out - i made him move it and under no uncertain terms turn it on if i were in its presence. What sadistic asshole invented that terrible toy?!

I loved day care. The teacher, Sylvia, loved me, probably because i was cute and smart (i'm not sure at what age being cute and smart becomes a liability, but at age 2, everyone loves the smartie) and she called me apple, because of my giant red cheeks i guess. I liked her, I remember singing songs, and having a couple friends (both boys - grownups would always ask about my boyfriends and would get all giggly and weird, and i never understood why).

I was always annoyed when grownups would talk to me like an idiot - like hey, i'm a kid, not a moron. Guest teachers and helpers would come in each day - they were probably students - and they would explain in great repetetive detail how to color, how to put toys away, how to eat my snacks, for gods' sake and I always had this feeling that they were WASTING MY TIME! Lets get going already!

Anyway, I went happily through life at ages 2 and 3, going to day care and waiting anxiously for daddy to pick me up every day. Each day he would be done with his day and would come and pick me up, always one of the first to arrive, and i would yell and scream and drop everything and run over to him "daddy daddy daddy!" He must have loved that.

One day, I had an accident. I had been doing so good and hadn't peed or pooped in my pants or in bed for some time. It wasn't even a thought, really, any more. But this one day, something happened, i got excited or laughed a little too hard or had mexican food for lunch, anyway, i pooped. In my pants. I was horrified! Daddy would NOT like this. To be honest, I didn't really like it, but i didn't want to tell anyone, it was too embarrassing.

So I went around for the rest of the day with this weighing down my pants and worrying about what i was going to tell him when he arrived to pick me up. I didn't want to disappoint him or mommy or david. We'd all been working so hard! Thus my first lie was born. I had a whole story. I knew it was going to work, i just knew it. I had traded pants with my friend Matthew. He pooped in mine and then we traded back at the end of the day. It was foolproof.

When my dad came to pick me up, instead of rushing over to greet him as usual, i skulked over slowly, head hanging low. He was concerned, "what's the matter, sweetie?"

All I could get out was "somebody poopied in my pants."