WEBVTT - The Goofy Ring 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:04.840 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. This 0:00:04.880 --> 0:00:09.600 episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion as advised. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.600 The morning after I confronted my grandfather, I was home 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.800 alone at my parents house, standing in the kitchen. Early 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.360 summer light streamed in through the window over the sink. 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:27.080 I could see the old tire swing, its rope now free, 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:32.199 and then starting to rap. The phone rang. There were 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:34.640 no words when I picked up, only his labor breathing. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.479 He'd done this before, calling the house and just breathing 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:43.520 when he heard me pick up. Hello, I said hello. 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.280 I was ready to hang up, but this time he spoke. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:53.400 I'm an old man, he said, I'm going to be 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.600 dead soon. I need your forgiveness to go to heaven. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:02.360 Do you forgive me? I remember the phone ringing. I 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.960 remember the light through the window and the black plastic 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.640 receiver smooth in my palm. I remember the sound of 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.440 his voice wavery and grap and old, and the way 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.800 my skin pricked and my heart started to hear it. 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.680 I remember his question, I have no memory of how 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:27.160 I answered him. That's Alex Marzano Lesnovitch. They are a memorist, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.280 author of the lambeda award winning the Fact of a 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:36.080 Body and assistant professor at Bowdon College. Alex's story is 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.720 a braided one, each strand weaving around the other to 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.560 make something stronger than its parts, a strength that comes 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:48.600 from looking closely, even when looking is scary, especially when 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:52.000 looking is scary. I'd call this a story that is 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:56.160 the triumph of spirit and intellect over silence and secrets. 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.800 I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.239 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:21.400 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. I grew up 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.679 in New Jersey. It was a bedroom community for New York. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:28.120 All around us there were these these markers of people 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.080 trying to make a new story over the one that 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:31.720 they had grown up in, over the one they had 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:35.600 left behind. So I remember when my parents brought home 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.240 matching cadillacs. We had this house that was kind of 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:43.000 falling down around us that they forever rebuilding. They had 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.400 bought it really cheaply when the family who had lived 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.000 in it prior had moved out, and they had moved 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.360 out because the rumor had it of an accompted murder. 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.639 We moved in and they sat about trying to remake it, 0:02:56.000 --> 0:02:59.240 and interestingly, I think trying to remake it in ways 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.240 that sometimes looked older. So my father, for example, had 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.399 these Victorian flourishes added to the house, to the woodwork, 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.680 even though they weren't part of it originally. And so 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.520 it was this landscape of remaking, a reinvention of the 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.160 idea that it was possible to reinvent oneself and get 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:20.959 away from the past. And that was a really heavy 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:24.600 and beautiful idea as a kid, right like you're living 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.360 in some ways in a grand story. There were always 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.400 living in a mythology of like the big house and 0:03:30.440 --> 0:03:34.160 the big family and the big parties, and there was 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.160 real beauty to that, and there was real complexity. Mm hmm. 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.080 I love the idea of these Victorian flourishes and the 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:45.640 idea of remaking a house but remaking it to look 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:50.520 older rather than classically remaking a house to modernize it. 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:55.000 It's almost like somehow that feels very metaphorical in terms 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:57.560 of your story itself, because it's like, I don't know, 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.720 somehow attaching pieces of history or I'm just sort of 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.480 picturing it like a Wes Anderson movie. I mean, I 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.520 gotta say it felt very left Anderson. And when I 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.440 look at it now and then remember when they were 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.520 redoing the hallway, for example, they had all us kids 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:15.800 pick out things that were important to us and place 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.640 them in the framework of the house, and then we 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.440 would work with boarded back up. So it was all 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.480 with this idea of we will live, and we will 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.680 live through history. We will be a story in the future. 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.360 There will be some family down the line that uncovers 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.440 us and wonders about who we are. If there is, 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:36.719 they may be a bit sad to discover my goofy 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:43.120 ring that was my prized possession of. Could there possibly 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.640 be a more apt and beautiful metaphor than a child's 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.960 goofy ring? A prized possession buried into the framework of 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:57.200 the house. Alex's family's home contains many secrets that are 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:02.359 quite the opposite of childhood innocence. Many years later, Alex 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.840 and their mother have a conversation when there's a good 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.719 chance the house is going to be raised torn down 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.240 to make way for a new development. Alex says they'd 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.640 like to drive the bulldozer, and their mother says, no, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.600 I get to do that. Tell me about your mother, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.159 the mother that you grew up with, not your mother today. 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.320 I mean, I have so much respect for everything she 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.159 pulls off. Her parents didn't want her to go to college. 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.640 They didn't feel a woman had to go to college, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.760 so she would sneak out to go to college, even 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.840 though she was living with them. She went to college secretly. 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:40.279 They didn't even know until unmost she graduated. She'd almost 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.680 graduated when they found out. And she continued this kind 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:47.000 of determination. I think my my love of words and 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.000 my love of stories comes from her. She taught me 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.680 to read well before I went to kindergarten, you know, 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:55.760 well before we were learning to read a bit of 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:00.000 a I think we're both quite stubborn and so um. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.400 I apparently didn't speak to her the first day of 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.040 kindergarten because I came home very upset that she had 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.680 never told me that there were capital letters. She only 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.120 taught me the lower case letters, and I was so upset. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.000 Aar and I said, you never told me there were 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.239 big ones. But I think that way she made it fun, 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.880 you know, she made learning a real adventure for us, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.159 and UM, I suspect she was quite bored at home 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.880 with us a bit. She loved it. But also when 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.000 I look back now, I sort of sense a mind 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.559 straining for like wanting to be out in the world 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:36.720 tackling things, because she did teach us so much and 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.160 also had some fun with her power as someone who 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.760 could teach us. So, for example, she taught us the 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.839 word candy meant as a matter of definition, bananas dipped 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.480 and playing yogurt, and so I vividly remember the first 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:54.560 time I went to like a classmates house and the 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.960 classmates mothers that, would you like some candy? And I 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.240 was like, no, not really, I don't really like candy, 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.279 and the expression on my classmates spaces, you know, and 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.440 then realizing, oh, but that was that was quite a 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.080 powerful moment because I realized, all right, like words or 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.800 what we say they are, this is all a system 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.080 of meaning that we are constantly making um. And then 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.920 when I was I think about twelve, maybe younger, she 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.200 went to law school and by that point there were 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:28.280 four of us kids at home, and she went full 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.720 time to law school during the day and brought us 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.520 with her sometimes, and so I kind of grew up, 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.840 you know, as a kid, the things that make impressions 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.240 on you are not what would seem right size to 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.400 an adult, but rather you know the things that that 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.520 stand out is like themb text in your world or 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:47.760 in your landscape, or shift your understanding of the world. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:50.800 And for me, it was a couple of things. Being 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.400 at law school with her was the first time I 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.160 ever saw a woman in a suit and understood that 0:07:56.200 --> 0:07:58.720 a woman could be a professor, that a woman could 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.360 teach her, the woman could have this session of authority. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.000 It was also the first time I encountered macaroni and 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.120 cheese the way the rest of the world, as the 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.840 rest of the country makes it, and not the way 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.080 my family makes it, which is a very distinctive way. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.040 And how's that after the banana dipped in yogurt? I 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.000 need to know? You know, the way we grew up 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.000 with mac and cheese was just like you make it 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.360 so that the pasta is like fresh off the stove, 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.360 and you dump it into a metal bowl, and my 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.400 mom would yell, stir, and all as kids would like 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:32.400 be positioned around the bowl, and one of us would 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.640 dump in a load of shredded cheese, and another world 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.840 would dump in some milk, and another would would would 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:39.520 dump in a little bit of I can't believe it's 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.240 not butter, and all you would do was just stir madly. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.680 And then mostly it was cheese. It was like almost 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:47.959 equal parts macaroni and cheese. So it's just like a 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.760 melted cheese extravagant that it was like goodlier than pizza. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.040 But it definitely wasn't that like creamy mac and cheese 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.840 sauce the people make. So we got to the cafeteria 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.000 and I just remember being stunned, just utterly done by 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:07.720 whatever the substance was. So those two and then sitting 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.000 in one of her law school classes and having a 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:15.320 professor talk about a hypothetical and call it that a hypothetical, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.800 which is how law is taught, which is how you 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:20.840 know I was taught, well, eventually when I went to 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.240 law school, where you spin out a second alternate facts 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.480 and you talk about the way president in case law 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.320 could apply to those tacts. But I remember sitting in 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.960 that classroom and feeling like, you know, they just said 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.480 this fancy word, but I know what that is. That's 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.640 a story hypothetical as a story, And so it was 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.280 really the space of storytelling. And she would read to us, 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.000 She read to us every every night, so many stories, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:50.600 and you know, gave me adult books the minute I 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.800 expressed interest in something with chapters. You know, I think she, uh, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:10:00.160 she worked really hard to we make the word all 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:04.320 that she wanted to be in a world of ideas 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:08.080 and a world of words that she had been very 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.080 forcefully told was not to be hers when she was 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.000 a child and when she was a young adult. And 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.480 so I think she really made the world she wanted 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.120 to be in and made a world for herself to enter. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.079 And what about your father. My dad was a man 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.080 of dreams. He wears his dreams on his sleeve. My 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.760 mother wears her dreams more privately. I didn't talk about them, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.040 but my dad wears his dreams and his stories on 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.400 his sleeve. He is a very enthusiastic man. He's always 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.600 the life of the party, and um wants to be 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:43.320 the center of attention. And he's very much a story teller. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.840 And um, he too was a lawyer, and he would 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.640 often tell us stories about his childhood, whereas my mother 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.520 never did. But he would always tell stories about his childhood, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.480 and he was always falling in love with something new, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:03.240 and very enthusiastic. I'm a very enthusiastic person. I would 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.080 probably trace that back to him. So when I was 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.199 a kid, you know, when he fell in love with opera, 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.240 it wasn't just that he fell in love with opera, 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.960 it was at suddenly he was periodically wearing a tux 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.720 and there was opera always playing through the house, and 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.640 there were posters about opera and whatnot. Then when he 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:24.320 fell in love with country music, there was Garth Brooks 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.079 all the time through the house, and he bought the 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.040 tractor for the backyard, and all of a sudden he 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.760 had big belt buckles and um, cowboy boots, even though 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.480 we lived in New Jersey. Then Cole Porter and so 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.440 literally a white dinner jacket, Cole Porter playing through the 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.720 house at all times. And of course the cuisine would shift, 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.120 the cuisine of the house would shift. Um. So I 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.600 think it's like ideay invention and of chasing maybe multiple 0:11:51.640 --> 0:12:05.040 lives within a lifetime. We'll be right back within this 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.680 family life filled with books and words and music and magic. 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.959 Alex and their three siblings, the four of them form 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:18.160 a neat and tidy family. Everything fits together snugly, exactly right. 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.920 They sit around the dining room table, the six of them, 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.680 a table built for a family exactly this size, no more, 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:31.960 no fewer. But something shimmers in the air, something not 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.280 quite right. Alex can't put their finger on it. It's 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.040 just a feeling. But then one day, while they and 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.760 their twin brother Andy are outside playing, Alex is witnessed 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.280 to one of those indelible moments that shifts their understanding 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:51.080 of their family. I think in child could be often 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.960 remember those moments that shift our understanding of the world, 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:58.400 that opened up a new layer. And for me, one 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:02.160 of these moments was the house was built in such 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.320 a way that there was a window in my parents 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.880 bedroom that you could look out in their bedrooms in 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.000 the second floor, and you could look at that window 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.199 and you would see the whole landscape of the backyard. 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.600 And there was a tire swing back in the yard 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.040 hanging from this the old tree, and we would plan 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.080 on it all the time. But there was this day 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.920 when my brother flung himself through that tire swing and 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.480 his body went limp because he was playing. I mean 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.040 I was standing not far from him. I knew he 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:35.960 was playing. That's what we were doing. He was just 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:41.360 going to limp and play. But my mother came running 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:45.080 from the house barefoot, her bathroom trailing behind, you know, 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.000 the ties of her bathroom trailing behind her, just wailing, 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:55.680 and my dad caught her. He caught her and then 0:13:55.720 --> 0:14:00.240 steadied her, and she kind of flung herself into his arms. 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.880 And it made such an impression for so many reasons. One, 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:07.600 I had really never seen my mother cry. My mother 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:14.320 was always very composed, very controlled, very polished. And my 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.600 father was the emotional one. I think now we would 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.080 say that he was suffering from a pretty profound depression 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.160 at the time, but he was the one who I 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.200 was used to seeing pride. I had never seen her 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.000 break apart that way. And of course there were things 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.040 that I barely remembered but must have retained sort of 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.280 an imprint on my memory of the fact that my 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.600 brother had been very sick when we were growing up. 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:43.720 He and I were born three months premature, and we 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.280 were triplets, and my sister had died when we were 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.520 several months old. And it was one of those things 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.600 that exists in the shadow of your mind as a child, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.400 where sort of you know, but you don't know, but 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.400 you know, but you don't know. But certainly no one 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.480 ever ever ever spoke of it, nor did they speak 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.680 of how sick my brother had been as a kid. 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.800 He was in three commas before we were seven, And 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.400 I do because I look back and think about it. 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.040 There are all these moments where we would be sent 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.480 off to relatives or someone would appear at the house 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:18.320 to take care of us, and he would be off 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.360 in the hospital. Again. They kept a bad pack for 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:24.920 the hospital at all times, and there were just many 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.640 moments when he was near death. But in that way 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:34.000 that my family sort of approached anything difficult with always 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.440 we would just never again speak avail. We would pretend 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:39.680 that it never happened, so it would sort of all 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.400 those incidents would kind of get It's not that they disappeared, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.480 but they sort of disappeared in the landscape of my memory, 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.880 like they retained like this shadowy presence. And that moment 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.320 when she came running, I think it's certainly looking back, 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.720 the first time that I can recall realizing that they 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.640 were grappling with grief. But on it was something that 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:04.080 we never spoke about again. We never acknowledged, you know, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.480 what had just happened was weird, but you certainly couldn't 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.200 say anything about it. But I think when I look 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:12.600 back and I try to look for the traces of 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.560 what made us right the way that I think often 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.800 with memory are often telling a story about what made 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.640 us what promis here. That's one of the places I 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.760 see that trace of grief showing up. I see the 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:29.080 residue of grief channel. Yeah, I'm so. I'm so interested 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:37.160 in that liminal, shadowy place where the things that we 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:44.240 know but can't allow ourselves to think live. And it's 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.800 shortly after the moment where your mother comes running out 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:53.360 of the house wailing that she actually tells you this 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:59.720 one time about the third triplet, Jacqueline. It seems like 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.920 it's the first time that you're given a name. And 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:05.159 one of the things that really struck me is that 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.840 you're right. I already knew you know that there was 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:14.120 this strange chore feeling that someone was missing. And that 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:18.840 speaks so much too, the ways that your family and 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:23.000 so many families, in an attempt to just move on 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:30.359 or have things be fine or better, will just push 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.320 something into a corner or under the rug where it 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.800 inevitably does not remain. I mean, eventually it does not remain, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.240 but that that moment really struck me that way, thank you. Yeah, 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.000 I think absolutely, it inevitably does not remain And I 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.160 I think about that so often in teaching. I constantly 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.560 tell my students to pay attention to what's emerging, to 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.800 what's showing up, to what's poking through, to what's trying 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.760 to materialize, trying to make it self known and bring 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:02.399 itself into language. And I think we live in a 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.439 society where that's also such a major aspect. You know, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.560 what is showing up that we don't talk about, what 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:10.760 is showing up that we're trying to pretend isn't there, 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.800 what wants to make itself known, And so much of 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.919 life is negotiating what we're willing to acknowledge versus what 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.199 lies beneath the surface. Yeah, I mean the tagline for 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.720 this show is the secrets that are kept from us, 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:25.720 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:32.640 keep from ourselves. Yes, well said, but there's another very 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.080 different kind of massive secret also buried within the walls 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:41.879 of the house. Alex's grandfather, their mother's father sexually molested 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.879 both of them and their sister from the time they 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:49.200 were three years old. You know, like so many families. 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.040 Mine had a lot of hidden abuse in it. My 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:57.480 earliest memory of my grandfather of using me, I think 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:00.440 explace at age three. That's about what we can figure 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:04.359 out from where I remember the objects in his house being. 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.000 And it continued on until I was age eight, when 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.920 my parents found out about it because my sister had something. 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:16.280 She had money that they asked her work came from, 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:19.040 and she said, oh, my grandpa gave it to me 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:21.360 for sitting on his lap. And they started asking questions 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:25.879 and realized that we were all being abused by him, 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.120 All the assigned female births people in my family were 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.479 being abused by him, public kids, but at every stage 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.840 it was hidden, you know, the kids who were being abused. 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.000 We didn't talk about it with each other. My sister 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:44.320 and I we shared a room, and we certainly we're 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:46.200 in the room when the other one was being abused, 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.520 and so we certainly knew about it, but we never 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:50.960 spoke about it, at least not that I recall. I 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.720 have pretty strong memories from that whole time period, and 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.000 I don't recall us ever speaking of it. And when 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:03.159 they found out about it, what they said was, you 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:07.040 can never talk about this, And I think they believed 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.720 that they were protecting us. I think they believed, you 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:11.520 know what they what they tell me now is that 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.680 they were told by a psychologist they consulted that maybe 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.359 if they pretended that it had happened, it would go 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.520 away for us. There's so much of that kind of 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:33.040 well meaning but unbelievably poor, psychologically damaging advice that parents 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.960 got from medical professionals at a certain time, and you know, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.639 in history that's not really that long ago. Yeah, I 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.080 hear constantly how common that was. Um. I will say, 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.040 the first five months of my book without in the world, 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.560 I got at least three emails a day from people 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.840 who have been abused. And I have never done a 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.359 reading without having someone tell me their story afterwards. It's 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:03.720 so common. It's just so incredibly common for queer people 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.440 who had sometimes thought are targeted more, perhaps because they 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.159 maybe perceived a difference of children or what have you. 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:16.160 So it's just very very very common and very very 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:18.760 common to have it be covered up. And I think 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:20.400 that was one of the things that broke my heart 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.639 most working on the book, but then also in the 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.800 aftermath of its publication, was just how alone everyone feels 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.399 with their secret, and yet how incredibly not alone everyone is, 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.639 and that it's something that I deeply believe if we 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.800 spoke about it more, the prevalence might decrease, right. I 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.040 thinkfully believe that the only way to stop this inciety 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.480 is to actually start talking about it. And so the 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.480 secrecy hurts the people who've been through it, but also 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.080 sort of keeps it going. That's been one of the 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:58.359 big things I hold heavily in my heart. Alex is 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:02.200 an adult attending a big family party when they overhear 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.800 their father saying regarding their grandfather's abuse. Oh, Alex is 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.520 the only one who remembers that. It's essentially a kind 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.400 of gas lighting. Like if they're the only one who 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:18.159 remembers it, then did it really happen? When there is 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.720 no doubt that it happened. In fact, Alex has a 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.360 memory of their grandfather saying to them on Halloween, I'm 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:32.400 a witch and someday I'm gonna get you. There's so 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:38.600 much in your story about the negation of the abuse 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:44.640 and what it does to the memory. Part of why 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:46.920 that scene with my father at the party was so 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.560 striking was that no one had previously denied that the 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.119 abuse happened, and it was a shock to hear him 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.040 denying him. What was the timeline on that? How old 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:00.239 were you when when I was in my twenties when 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:03.159 that happened. So it went from silence and we're not 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:05.679 going to talk about this, and grandfather is still going 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.640 to be in our lives and we're going to kind 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:13.480 of pave it over two then a kind of hunting. Yes, yeah, 0:23:13.640 --> 0:23:16.280 I mean, my family didn't deny that it happened. They 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.280 just denied that it should hurt that it happened. They 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:22.639 just denied that it should have any effect. Or it 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.840 was very much if this bothers you, that is your problem, 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:31.040 your fault. And so my father saying that the party 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:35.120 was such an escalation of the denial where it was like, wait, 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:39.280 now yours and either to even happened, how because he 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.480 had abused my sisters as well as myself and also 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:44.560 another cousin or I didn't know that at the time, 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:48.120 there was enough of a chorus of voices that none 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.760 of us had to doubt ourselves that it happened. And 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.119 when I finally did confront him, my grandfather, when I 0:23:55.160 --> 0:23:59.240 was eighteen, he immediately acknowledged that he had abused me, 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.000 he just denied that it was a problem. Well, any 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.080 any quite a matter of factly says it happened to 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:10.760 me too. Yes, he did say that, yeah, And I 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:15.520 think that was my family style was more to say, yes, 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.359