The Summer of Nakey

So many people and stories didn't fit into White Trash Rising (available on Amazon and Kindle). I don't know if there are enough bits and pieces to fit into another book, but I am trying to sketch it out. Here is a chapter about the first summer after my divorce. Let me know what you think!

In the summer of 2006, when I got divorced, Lilly was three and a half years old.  Within two weeks after Bowling Ball left us, Lilly was talking more than ever in Headstart, talking endlessly to me and playing independently in the fenced yard.

            We lived in a ghost town on the side of a mountain.  The yard was fenced, and the entire village had fewer than 200 people.  Lilly liked to play outside with the neighbor’s little boy, a fence separating them as they passed mud pies and toys back and forth. I would have the windows open and the gates locked, so I could do housework and listen to Lilly.  Lilly talked, sang, and narrated every step as she played outside.  The only break she seemed to take was to come into the house to go to the bathroom.

            “Mama, I want a pee-pee like Michael’s,” she announced, coming out of the bathroom.

            I had four nephews, all farm kids.  I knew instantly what had happened.  The two toddlers, choosing to take a potty break, had stopped playing.  Michael stood up and peed outside, and envious Lilly had to walk to the house.

            “Why do you want a pee-pee like Michael’s? I asked, purely out of curiosity to hear the answer.

            “So that I can pee on the tree, but I want boobies like you have so that I can have a tattoo.”

            Desperate, I bit my lip.  I wouldn’t, I couldn’t say the words that came to my mind. I held back the impulse to say, “Honey, with a set of these, you can get all of those you want.”  Instead, I explained to her that she was a girl and would never get to have a pee-pee like Michaels.  Sad but satisfied with the answer, she went back to playing.

            A few weekends later, I discovered that Lilly had solved the pee-pee issue.  I had sat down on the couch, watching the Jackson Pollack carpet drying, when Lilly came into the house with a slam of the screen door.  She marched past me, her eyes narrowed and her lips in a tight line.  I didn’t dare ask; I recognized the look of anger on her face.  A few feet away from me, Lilly paused on the wet carpeting. 

            “I am never pooping outside again!” She announced in anger and marched off to her bedroom.

            I sat on the couch, unsure how to respond.  What could I say or ask in response to that statement?  It was apparent by the word “again” that the damage was done.  Do I get up and look outside? No, that was a landmine I didn’t want to deal with now. 

When she was fifteen, I asked Lilly, “Did you get caught pooping outside the summer you were three?”

Lilly denied any knowledge of the incident and to this day proclaims innocence.  That summer, I avoided the backyard until long after the snow had fallen. I let the grass grow, the weeds thrive, and I kept my shoes clean.  I rested easily, knowing that Lilly was an honest child, true to her word, and would never poop outside again.

Lilly quickly learned how to turn on the hose and the sprinkler that summer.  Her favorite chore was moving the sprinkler for Mama. I quickly became frustrated with the wet clothes lying on my bathroom floor.  Lilly loved playing in the water but hated being in soaked clothes for the rest of the day.  Soon, my bathroom was piled knee-high with her wet clothes. It was time for a reckoning for that tiny little tyrant that ran my life.

“Lilly, Mama is tired of washing too many clothes.  If you want to play in the water, you need to put on your swimsuit, then you can change back to your dry clothes when you are done.”

I could see her reflect on my directive with her serious expression.  Lilly hated baby talk and would automatically dismiss any comments she felt were childish and disrespectful.  The greatest insult to her was to call her “baby.”  My request was considered and passed muster as an adult-to-adult request.  Problem solved, I congratulated myself prematurely.

The first Saturday of wearing a swimsuit went well.  Lilly put on her swimsuit and went outside to play in the water.  It was a beautiful summer day, and as I cleaned, I drew back all the curtains and opened the windows.  The design of my small house meant that anyone driving by on the nearby road could glance over and look into the kitchen window, see directly down the hall, and into our bathroom. In a small house on a corner lot, this meant doors and curtains had to be shut for privacy.

I heard Lilly come into the house and walk towards the bathroom from where I was folding laundry. 

“Changing,” she called out to me.

“Good girl,” I answered, hearing her go to her room and get her play clothes.  I walked into the kitchen, opening a drawer to put away kitchen towels.  I glanced to my left and looked down at the hall. 

In the bathroom, door wide open and directly in line of sight of any passerby, sat my daughter.  Lilly was completely naked, sitting on the toilet and humming a tuneless song to herself as she swung her little legs.

“Lilly, what are you doing naked with all the doors and windows open?” I asked as I frantically pulled down the kitchen blinds.

Lilly looked at me with a scowl.  Obviously, she had put up with enough of my shit lately and needed to draw the line at my inane questions.

“You don’ need to be gettin’ all up in my bidness.”

“Well, if your 'bidness' is being naked for everyone in the world to see, then it is my business,” I told her.  

Sighing dramatically, Lilly got up and got dressed, going back out to play. I was stumped.  It was cute, but I didn’t want to condone the smart-aleck response. But was it really a punishable offense?  Was it even a ‘talkable moment’?  What were the unforeseen consequences if I let it go?  I needed some real-time parenting advice.  I didn’t want to screw up my kid.

Joss had twins, a little over a year older than Lilly.  This meant she had already worked through most of the parenting issues before me and could talk me through them.  I called Joss immediately.

“Joss, my baby girl just told me I ‘don’ need to be all up in her bidness. What do I do?”

Joss, the intelligent and thoughtful friend, was no help at all.

“Honey, I have no clue what to do.  I’m thinking of calling Angelina Jolie to see if she wants to adopt a couple more black babies to have as accessories.”

We compared horror stories of my toddler and her preschoolers.  We decided that nothing Dwight had taught us in behavioral management and modification classes even touched on what it meant to be a parent.  Like an A.A. meeting, our telephone call ended with the acknowledgement that we were powerless.

With unpaid bills, utility cutoff warnings, payday loans taken out in my name without my knowledge, and bills for items I didn’t know I'd purchased, I was overwhelmed. As a single parent, I had to hold it together for Lilly; I was all she had. I would have spent my days in anxiety and tears; instead, I spent them in frustrated laughter, for it was “The Summer of Nakey”.

The swimsuit compromise lasted only a few days.  It became a waste of precious playtime to go inside and change.  However, Mama said she was doing too much laundry.  Lilly put the problem together, added one plus one, carried the two, and decided that she would strip naked to avoid getting her clothes wet.

The following Saturday after the “bidness” issue, I was doing my usual busy work around the house to keep my mind calm.  Lilly was outside, and I could hear her singing and talking with Michael as he played in his yard.  Then I heard a loud, insistent car horn honking.

Curious about the noise, I looked out the window.  A car was sitting at the stop sign next to our yard, and there, facing the fence and waving to the car, was a totally naked Lilly. I grabbed a coat from the closet by the door and ran outside.  Wrapping Lilly in the coat, I scooped her up in my arms to carry her inside the house.  The car was complete with a family: a mom, a dad, and a backseat packed with pre-teen children.  The parents were laughing as they waved at me and drove on.

“Lilly,” I said as I sat her down, “You can’t be naked outside.”

“But you told me not to get all my clothes wet, and I wanted to play in the ‘sprinkers’.”

“Then put on a swimsuit!” I told her firmly.

I made a critical parenting mistake.  First, I didn’t get a promise out of Lilly not to be outside naked.  Second, I didn’t provide a detailed description of the consequences Lilly faced if found naked outside.  I stupidly believed that if I, the parent, said something, it would be done. I was wrong.

I tried everything.  I punished her by making her stay inside for half a day after I found her naked outside again.  That was more punishment for me than for her; the whining and complaining broke me.

I told her that she couldn’t be outside unless I were with her. This meant I sat on the steps as she played.  Nothing got done inside, and my anxiety grew to a feverish peak as my mind raced. 

I needed a telephone, not only for work but also for safety. Lilly was still a medically fragile child.  I had been left with a telephone bill of just over five thousand dollars.  Bowling Ball’s girlfriend was in another state, and it was still the time of long-distance charges and out-of-network charges.  I arranged to make payments with the telephone provider, the only one available in that rural community.  It seemed we were fine for a few weeks, then my telephone would suddenly be cut off.  I had to call from work and re-negotiate the payment plan each time a new employee saw my account.  No utility bills had been paid since January, and it was now mid-summer.  I was making payments but hovered dangerously close to being cut off.  Winter would begin in a few short months, with my check going toward the outstanding bills, then how would I buy fuel oil for the furnace? 

Bowling Ball was ordered in the divorce decree to pay all bills incurred from January to June of that year, but he had made no payments.  I was getting calls from the loan company about the car he had taken. There were only two or three payments left, and it was in danger of repossession.  Garnishments seemed to be flying in from everywhere. The divorce directive from the judge was worthless.  Nevada is a community-property state, so any money my ex-husband owed was also owed by me.  And I was the one with a job.

I had to pay for childcare, food, and shelter. I had to emotionally support my child who just had a parent disappear without warning.  The Bowling Ball was still out there, with my name, birthdate, and possibly my Social Security number, capable of obtaining more payday loans in my name. 

Any time not spent moving or doing some repetitive, meaningless task meant I had to think about all of this.  And thinking was exhausting and painful.  Sitting on the steps, watching Lilly’s attire, gave me too much time to think.

“Lilly, you can’t be outside naked,” I told her directly.

“Okay.”

But Lilly had tasted the freedom of life without clothing.  In the warm summer sun, she felt free and unencumbered at play if she was naked.  I started keeping a large beach towel on the chair next to the door.  I looked out the window often as I cleaned, did laundry, organized, or worked out the budget.  Like cooking, it became a three-two-one exercise.

Three minutes cleaning, two minutes to look out the window and grab the beach towel if needed, and one minute to swoop down, carry her into the house, and remind her, “Big girls don’t run around naked outside.”

The first summer after my divorce was a time of financial and emotional chaos. It could have been crippling, but I had to fight through it all and be Mama.  Fear and anxiety would have paralyzed me, but I had to be on alert instead, ready to wrap a naked toddler in a beach towel and lecture her on being naked outside. 

I like to say I got through it all and cleaned up the mess I was given because I had Lilly to take care of and protect.  It was love, or what I thought was love, that got me into this mess in the first place, and it was love that got me out.  Instead of remembering a summer of tears and worry, I will always choose to remember the “Summer of Naked” instead.