Soul Mosaic

Cats

“Yeah, I always hated cats. I’d catch them by the tail and spin them around, then throw them. Sometimes, I’d tie a cherry bomb to its tail, light it, and boy did they run when it went off!”

I couldn’t react as I listened to my father recount this story like it was just a harmless prank. To react badly wasn’t possible, or I’d be in trouble. But I was also a kid, and he was telling this like it was no big deal. He laughed. We laughed.

But inside, I was trying to wrap my head around that story. First, what was so bad about cats that he thought they deserved that? Didn’t it hurt them, especially when the cherry bomb went off?

WHY would you do that to an animal?

His confidant and co-conspirator

Right from that toddler car ride when he molested me, car rides with Dad in later years were no better. In fact, as the years went on, they became a special form of hell.

From my Journal – February 2, 2024

BIRTHDATE: IT’S COMPLICATED

Rebirth in her classroom

I was born in November 1955 at 11:40 pm…
which maybe explains why I always like the quiet solitude of late nights
and even enjoyed working second shift in the hospital lab for years.
But to be honest,
I was actually reborn in September 1969,
at 8:10 in the morning,
on a day in my freshman year at Torrington High School,
in College English IA, 
B-building,
Room 204
with teacher “TD” (as it was listed on my computer class assignment card).
Never have two letters so understated the full amazingness of an individual
or what she would come to mean to me,
and to so many others.

TD — her students either loved her or hated her,
but no one was *indifferent* to her.
She had that effect.

(more…)

Trigger alert – The descriptions here may upset some readers. Please proceed gently.

Who WAS Dick Phillip?

When Robert Louis Stevenson wrote his novella, *The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde*, he had no idea that 45 years later, his character would enter reality as my father.

Dick Phillip. Richard Phillip. Richard M. Phillip, Richard Marshall Phillip…Richie.

Who WAS Dick Phillip…and as an aside, as a kid…and an adult, I always wondered why he preferred “Dick” for a nickname. Except that in his case, it seemed to fit in more ways than one.

To me, who he was varied with his mood and his needs. Sometimes he was so warm and fun, and other times it was like I didn’t exist, or worse. Intermittent reinforcement. Alternate love with rage, with love, with cold isolation, and back to love again. Mix it up until I was so confused and convinced that somehow it was my fault, and if only I could figure out the right things to do, then it would be okay.

As for how he treated others, it just depended on what you were to him, where you stood in relation to what he wanted and needed, and who had the upper hand in the power dynamic between you.

When I started high school and was worried about succeeding in a public school after years with the nuns, his advice was:

“If you want people to like you, find out what they need or want, and give it to them. Then they’ll like you and you’ll look good.”

Even then, I thought that seemed like a cold way to treat people, and being a young teen, I ignored him. But it was his modus operandi in life because he wasn’t looking for friends. He was always about getting something out of an interaction.

If you were outside of the family and had nothing he needed, you were off his radar…except to make sure you weren’t a threat. If you were a family member, at the very least, he would put on enough charm to keep the peace and preserve any future usefulness you might have to him. If you had something he wanted or you could advance his goals, now you had his attention.