I spent the majority of my childhood in a trailer. In the desert. Surrounded by dirt. And pedophiles.
The evening sun setting was just about the only thing that reminded me that I was just like everyone else...that same sunset was gifted to everyone. Brilliant, bright colors spread across the sky in evening sacrifice was no different for the children who grew up at the top of the foothills of the mountain than in was for me, down in the valley.
I remember the hollow feeling of the flooring each time I took a step. The hard desert ground full of rocks and pebbles sounded so solid under my feet. Then, I'd step onto the stairs...usually two or three that lead up to the front door. I'd open it and step in. Immediately, the sound changed. It no longer felt solid. It felt like all it would take is one hard jump, and there would be a hole in the floor....my feet on the solid dirt a few feet below. The walls and doors were all the same. Like graham crackers, those paper surfaces were mostly made of air.
In the bathroom, the tub would be plastic. The sink would be plastic. There would be a plastic-y film to everything and cleaning it just made it seem more plastic. Understandably, who'd put a porcelain tub in a paper house? It made sense.
Even now, after two bachelor degrees and a professional job, when I visit a place or live in a place or go inside somewhere and the surfaces are that of an upgraded life, it takes me awhile. Its as if somehow solid windows and hard wood floors and central air conditioning are all above my pay grade. Each time I go back to the desert, the paper house with its hollow floor surround and engulf me, as if they've got some sort of power over my worth. I feel drawn back in. I feel like I'm eight years old again, looking up at the hill at the life that I wanted for myself, but had no idea how to get.
I believe it has something to do with the psychology of a caste system. People don't need to imprison you when you imprison yourself. Somewhere in the middle of childhood, we start to make friends, or we attend a birthday party, or we somehow find ourselves in someone else's home. And their bedroom doesn't look like ours. The dishes they eat on and the utensils they use are different...better. More quality. Less flimsy. With the reinforcement of seeing it over and over and over throughout our childhood, we continue to grow under the assumption that things just work out better for the people who live up in the hills. They're funded. There are expectations.
There are also a different set of expectations for the people who grow up in the trailer park.
I don't go back to the place in my mind very often when I ask these memories to arise. They are far too painful. But, every time I step on a hollow floor, there they are...reminding me of how I was shaped so fluidly by those early years. By the rocks. By the dirt. By the dusty trails that would rise up from the earth each time a car would pass by in 100 degree heat. By the pedophiles.
As I embark on my dreams and work hard to get them accomplished, often trying to relax into them just as much as pushing through and doing the work, I look at the porcelain life and in my mind I know that I deserve nothing less...but knowing that in the heart can be another story. Often, my biggest enemy to accomplishing work that serves me is me. Getting on the other side of the psychology of victim-hood can be difficult, but it is liberating. It is really hard for me to stand in the middle of that upgraded life with nice things and nice people, and believe in my heart that I deserve it.
I remember watching the documentary, Food Inc. In it, someone said that people who are poor are poor in everything...education, healthcare, food. Rising above that poverty of money and of spirit can be most difficult because of how we learn to define our worth. We put beliefs into motion that both shape and bind us. We believe we deserve McDonald's when others deserve gourmet. This is why I believe white privilege is so prevalent. The children growing up on the foothills never ever happened to walk into my old neighborhood. Never did I see any of them wandering the dusty streets with broken windows and dogs on chains. Never did they take up residence there. Never did they amble through to water roses dug out in the dirt patches around trailers in scattered attempt to beautify. No...those kids were playing soccer in grassy parks. They were swimming at the tennis club. They were attending the birthday parties of other kids who lived in the hills, in homes with hardwood floors, nice lighting, and porcelain. The last thing on their mind was what was going on in the trailer park down below 20 miles away. It's not that they were insensitive...they were blissfully ignorant to the un-privileged, plastic and paper life just down the way. They did not know what they didn't know, and even today, those children who've grown up to become adults don't have the same internal conflict with nice surfaces and textures. The same is true of our own societal caste system. For someone to think that they understand another's culture, beliefs, or challenges is not only ignorant, it is also arrogant. To think that someone can just get over their past...what they've seen, what they've experienced...and rise up and become something different than what they've learned through repetition and reinforcement applies one person's experiences, principles, and beliefs to another person with a completely different background. I cannot know another's journey by looking at them through my own eyes. It's impossible. Just like someone can look at me and not know that sickening, nauseating feeling that brings back horrible memories that comes with the feeling of hollow floors, the smell of scotch, or porn...I can never look at another person and know what chains bind them.
When I was 14, we moved from the trailer park into the foothills. I spent my high school years in those grassy parks. Then I went on to college and got a degree, then another. But the beliefs that draw me back into bondage are never far at bay. My best friend from those years wasn't so lucky. She died of a drug overdose in her 20s.
I understand the psychology of being raised in the dirt, how becoming a rising phoenix is next to impossible. The internal caste system we create where we identify some people as better than us, and then elevate them above us is almost impossible to break. Beliefs don't just change without a ton of internal work. And, it makes it so much worse when others continue to remind us that they grew up on the hill and we didn't, or that we should just get over it. As a white woman in America, I know I'm completely ignorant to what I don't know. I don't know what it feels like to be marginalized and stereotyped. I have absolutely no clue what types of forces, both internal and external, need to be overcome just to speak out.
As long as we believe we deserve plastic and not porcelain, someone is holding us hostage...and we're the ones who gave them the key. It is time that we stop giving our power away. It is time for those who live on the hill to take a stroll through the desert, with arms open and wide, inviting others to educate us.