By the late ‘90’s I had realized things were not what they seemed.  There needed to be a change, things had gotten stagnant.  Not being very good at self-delusion, I knew there had to be an alternative.  Historically, I had been an imperfect student to an imperfect teacher.

My mom was like the mom in “The Glass Menagerie.”  As a kid, I resented her alternating perkiness and morosity.  Perversely, I guess I resented the perkiness even more.  During my teen years, she’d wake us siblings up early on weekend mornings and make breakfast.  She’d bop around the apartment singing and uttering silly things.  There was disdain in the air, and it was coming only from me, for I thought we should all be depressed.  In my mind, we weren’t “successful,” and I felt a hot embarrassment that would flare up hotter the happier she would get.   As I’d clamber out of bed I’d often mutter, “I’ll rise but I sure won’t shine.”

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Some people are born and grow up in one place, sometimes even one house.  Then there are others who move a couple of times, maybe even to different cities.  Then there’s my family.  We moved around like neurotic nomads from place to place within cities; and then from coast to coast, ricocheting back and forth in ever widening caroms.

Probably the only thing that kept us in the same country is that we never had passports or much money.

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