This was written 2 years ago when I first got the idea to use my
blog to introduce myself, gain exposure and try to interest people on social
media in my story. I originally intended to write the book myself. I have
many friends on Facebook from Beverly Hills High School, my alma mater, most of
whom I did not know back then and still do not know well. Since many are in
and/or around the entertainment industry, I hoped to find interest, guidance
and after my realization of my limitations, an investor. On both,
Facebook and Twitter I have a number of friends and followers, who requested my
friendship or followed me from various creative agencies, publishing houses and
studios like Disney and Warner Brothers. Some of my entertainment friends
I sought out and they have readily accepted my requests, or followed me back on
Twitter. Given, the vast majority have stuck around, even through two manic
episodes and some, very off the wall posting, and they have been tolerant (or
appreciative) of my passion for politics and frequent posting done to educate
and inform those who don't go out of their way to stay abreast. Presumably, at
least, a few came aboard my network, to follow my progress with this project.
This piece was also my first attempt at dialogue and the reason I
stopped deluding myself that I was capable of the this type of writing. My
story, or my purpose and goal, of exposing my unusual life in great depth, with
no shame, is bigger and better than my writing skills. After I realized that, I
decided I would try to find interested writers to help me and an investor to
finance the project. I am that bad at it. Consider yourselves warned. But, it
does provide another context rich and colorful snippet from my life.
I stopped working on this 6 months ago when I went into a deep depression, following an lengthy manic episode, I recently returned to the project (5/13). Hope to resume, where I left off. I was asked to offer a more complete picture of my mother, a difficult to write post that is taking some time. It is also taking my willingness to revisit more pain and discomfort than I like. Plus, I must attempt to present her in the most fair and balanced fashion even though, we had very few periods when we got along. Even fewer that were quality mother daughter time. So, it is difficult. She is briefly introduced here and as soon as possible I will post what I am now working on.
Characters are a hugely important aspect of any story. She was complex and through her is a clear, albeit, embedded message I want to work with the writers to develop. Primarily, the importance of parenting responsibly and the damage inflicted when it is not done right.
Beloved Psychiatrist, my term of endearment when I write about Dr. Denis Mee-Lee, for my Facebook friends engaged in my life story, came into my life nearly 30 years ago. He has re-parented me in many ways and shown me through his actions and kindness, as well as, by incorporating me into his family, what good parenting looks like.
I also have a Master's Degree from a Marriage and Family Therapy, doctoral program, which I was not able to complete to PhD degree. I also worked for 5 years as a specialized Multisystemic Therapist with adolescents, their families and their systems surrounding, like school, courts, etc. in an intensive, structured and highly supervised program, where part of my job was teaching parents skills required to parent difficult children. I know how important good parenting is. I know how results of poor parent. To many children are brought into the world by clueless parents and do not receive adequate care, much less, parenting to help them thrive and excel. Because their parents don't know the job description or realize the importance of doing well. Poor parents contribute enormously to societal problems. Lack of monitoring for adolescents is one of the most important. We could do better with more awareness. This is a topic of real importance for me to pass on.
Royal Hawaiian
“It looks like Pepto-Bismol.” The Charley’s cab driver lowered his head into the collar of his orange and yellow, aloha shirt in an attempt to muffle a laugh. He had overheard my spontaneous reaction after seeing the hotel for the first time. “There have been a lot of ideas about why it was painted pink" explained the driver, "one story was that during WWII it was used as a landmark for planes, the pink stands out so it is very visible from the sky. But I know the real reason because a friend of my friend is related to the family that built it.”
The driver obviously enjoyed telling us a little of Hawaii’s history and goes on, “This dates back a century ago, at least that is when some of the first families and businesses in Hawaii first got together and started to build the state into a tourist destination. The story involves one medical missionary’s family, the Judd’s and a shipping tycoon’s family, the Wilders. Also the family of a coal barge captain from San Francisco named Matson and the country of Portugal.”
“The hotel was built by the Matson’s as a destination for shipboard passengers traveling to Hawaii from the West Coast aboard one of Matson’s passenger liners that were in operation from 1927-1978." I wondered if all of the cab drivers had to learn this kind of history or did Gerry’s curious mind just innately migrate to this well-informed cabbie.
“My mom traveled on the Matson Lurline ship from California to Hawaii and stayed here at the Royal Hawaiian hotel in the 50’s sometime,” I offered. I had heard her tell the story frequently and she shed her typical jaded attitude and showed some excitement when she talked about it. “My mom spoke of how great it was when the locals would swim out to the ship with flower leis to greet passengers as they disembarked on the dock.” She said that she had especially enjoyed the hotel that I had just equated to a liquid, diarrhea medication.
I had my reservations about shipboard travel, “I don’t know, I’m not sure I could be on the water that long, the plane takes long enough.” I was a complete neophyte to traveling. The only trips I had taken were through states on the way to Boeing plants in Colorado, Washington and California when we moved for granddad’s job. I was 15 years old, with 11 of those years spent with my lower-middle income, working class grandparents. Travel had not been a part of my life. It was a luxury that didn’t fit their budget or their hard working life style. Mother did take me to San Francisco once when I was 8 years old and we stayed at the Mark Hopkins and dined at the Top of the Mark. That was all my travel experience. In contrast, Gerry had taken his kids all over Europe, Hawaii a few times Mexico and they went skiing a lot at different resorts when the kids were younger and he was still with their mom. Our worlds could not have been farther a part.
The driver continued his story, I tried to tune in to listen, but my mind kept wandering. I was thinking about my first stepfather, Warren who took mom to Hawaii on the Lurline. I had seen the picture of the two of them dining aboard the ship. Mom was picture, perfect beautiful in the photo she looked like Marilyn Monroe in her low cut dress and pearls. Warren looked a little creepy and he wore a couple very large rings that the picture seemed to accentuate. He was different than the men in my world in Kansas like my uncles or grandfather and his bridge friends who came with their wives to play every Saturday night with my grandparents.
Warren and mother went to Las Vegas a lot and he was a high roller in Vegas, mom had once explained. I had been to his drive-in theater in Junction City, Kansas. We stayed at his very comfortable, tastefully furnished home on the few occasions that my grandparents would drive the 400 miles from our home in Wichita. There was a gorgeous handyman at the theater that I had a 10 year old girl, crush on. I loved to drive through the theater in his open air jeep, in the daytime when the stalls were all empty. He was really nice to me and I liked to be with him when I visited mom. I never connected with my first stepfather in any meaningful way. He was very indifferent towards me as was my mom who showed far more attention to Warren even though I rarely saw her, his needs came first and foremost. I was just there, so to speak, more of an obligation than a child to love. I spent much of my time, when in Junction City, with the animals. A great dog and cat that slept curled up next to each other. There was some warmth with them while it was chilly everywhere else on those rare visits to mom. I did like to have a little time alone with her , even if it was only helping to make popcorn at the concession stand or serve sodas to the theater customers.
Warren had a beautiful house in Junction City and owned other properties there and a few other cities. I lived with my grandparents in Wichita in a yellow house with white trim that mom had purchased for us. She gave grandfather a yellow, Cadillac convertible with pointy fins on the tail end. It was an exact color match with the house. On grandfather’s salary at Boeing aircraft nothing like that would ever have been possible. It was an odd dichotomy, we never really did fit into the upper-middle class neighborhood where the house was located. That was when I first started to feel very alone and foreign within my own life. Grandma made my clothes and my bike was really old. Other kids couldn’t quite understand when I tried to explain my mother to them. And explain I always did. I wanted to fit in so badly. But, I just didn’t with the privileged kids at my new school after we moved to the upscale neighborhood.
The driver’s voice caught my wandering attention momentarily. He was still explaining the pink color choice for the hotel’s exterior and the early families of Hawaii, “The Wilder’s boy, Kimo and Kinau, his wife were both unconventional, artist types, on a trip to Europe, they fell in love with Portugal, where he painted for many years. Pink houses with blue shutters were common there.” Gerry listened attentively especially after hearing the description of the couple as Bohemian artists with a passion for Portugal. He was in his element and enjoyed this type of in-depth explanation about cultures and people. He prided himself on not vacationing like an American tourist but immersing himself into the culture of the places where he traveled. It had been my idea not his, to stay in the Pink Palace of the Pacific since mother had. And although I was in Hawaii with the 45 year old man that I married when I was only 15, in part, to get far away from her and our chaotic relationship, I still had a fascination with the woman that was now my mother full-time or more accurately tried to be.
We were next in line to pull up to the bellman. The driver still had not reached his story’s conclusion, assertively Gerry asks, “Okay, why pink? Which family built it, the Wilder’s?” With few breaths between sentences the driver continued, “Long story short, Kimo and his wife returned to Hawaii from Portugal and instead of living in the respectable Nu’uanu area, where their families resided, they chose a beachcomber’s life-style on Waikiki beach at Kinau Hale, the Judd’s beach residence, a royal canoe shed of sorts. There was one other part to the inter-family relationships. Lurline Matson, the youngest daughter fell in love with Billy Roth in San Francisco. Her family did not accept him because he was Jewish. However, Kimo and Kinau Wilder had befriended him. Since the families were all friends and respected one another, when Kimo and Kinau stood up for Billy Roth, the Matsons opened up to him and let Lurline marry him with no objections from them.”
The hotel doorman was nearing the handle of the cab to open my door when the driver quickly wrapped up his story, “Billy Roth, now Matson's son-in-law was given the job of developing the hotel. He had seen the pink color of the Wilder’s place down the beach and perhaps even as an homage because the Wilder's had helped Billy to gain acceptance into the Matson family, Billy went to Wilder and said he wanted to use the same color on the hotel. Wilder agreed and Matson went to Sherwin-Williams.” One chuckle of acknowledgement between us all and the door opened with the bellman grabbing my hand to help me out.
I heard only some of the story of pink as my mind drifted to early years. I was trying to keep up with the life I was now leading. Rarely did I speak to people in California of my life growing up in Kansas. I was ashamed of it. My life was less than others I had met in California. If it was possible to rewrite my history, I would not have hesitated for a second. Synthesizing my present life and those earlier times was beyond me, all I could do was deny it and try to forget. I needed to smoke a joint. It had been hours since the last one at home in California. A glass of wine or four also quieted my inadequacies and tempered the confusion caused by my strangely juxtaposed life. The two together guaranteed some internal comfort, at least for a short time. But keeping the demons away was becoming a full time job.
