Yet, myths are NEVER RELICS FROZEN IN TIME. The story shifts and morphs. It changes however the teller needs or wants a change. A myth can validate or refute reality. It all comes down to the story, and the telling of the story.
The story always has a purpose . . . what its purpose is is not always crystal clear. There is no shew-stone to reveal it.
In my youth--age 4 or 5 years old--I knew something that the adults in the San Jose neighborhood didn't.
I knew my huge mother was as big as all of Asia, and potentially just as dangerous.
I vividly remember seeing her stalk around our back yard, angry and her eyes seemed to be shining. My mother was what educated people called "manic-depressive". (Nowadays this mental condition is called bi-polar.) I did everything I could to stay our of her way.
My Father was attempting to protect my 13 almost 14 year old sister by sending her to the neighbor's home across the street for a few days. He didn't understand manic-depressive behavior.
1. You SEE, my mother believed that someone had phoned her--when my mother was glad to be home--by herself--all alone in the brick house.
A voice on the other end of the line told her that her daughter had been seen coming out of the Starlight Motel. The disembodied phone voice said something else and then hung up. I think my mother somehow dreamed this phone call. She did not seem to be processing reality.
I am certain that no such phone call happened.
My mother told me my sister was no longer a part of our family and she would not be allowed to speak to me again. If she did speak to me, my mother would have her arrested and thrown in jail. My mother feared her 13 year old daughter was no longer a virgin--and as such she would be un-sellable as a potential wife to any rich husband.
My mother was from the age mindset in which it was thought that a female's best bet was to marry wealth: ideally old money.
At the time, I understood none of this . . .
My mother ABSOLUELY believed this story. It is one created in her adled brain and was supposedly 100% factual.
It became my mother's internal myth.
My sister had become the scarlet woman . . . the great harlot.
My father took my 13 year old sister to a gynecologist. Yet, the doctor truthfully informed him that my sister was virga-intacta. The hymen was unbroken.
2. My mother was insane as well as bipolar.
The people across the street were Jewish. My mother HATED THE WIFE more than anyone else living there--because that woman converted to Judaism and then dyed her hair blond.
My mother, around this time, started snacking on bunches of cookies daily. Thus, she began to gain weight, steadily developing a body remarkably akin to the famous Venus of Willendorf, though her breasts were never as pendulous.
She began this cookie habit when we moved with my father to Northern Florida into her "dream house" of brick. I was born in the late 1950's after this house was built.
I was soley my Dad's idea. He wanted another child. When I was little, I remember he called me "Sugar"! He had my crib in his bedroom. My mother did not want to deal with an infant again.
On the other hand, my mother thought she had finally attained her life goal. She had a maid. She had her own brick house, her own bedroom, her own TV, and she thought her father would gladly move from the west coast to the east coast and NOW live with her.
My mother did not fly back to the west coast to attend her own mother's funeral. She was busy envisioning and preparing for her lifelong dream! Her father would just sell the old house on the west coast and use the money to come and live with her in Florida. Her happily ever after ending was that my mother would FINALLY HAVE HER OWN FATHER ALL TO HERSELF!
Only, there was something my mother did not forsee. My maternal grandfather was hesitant to move away from an area where he had lived most of his life and where his wife had died and been buried.
Hence, something else happened. My paternal grandmother moved into the room that was supposed to be my maternal grandfather's bedroom. You see, my mother flat out hated my Father's mother.
My mother was angry about her mother-in-law moving in and continued to sit outside every afternoon and would eat a whole box of cookies EVERY afternoon and--of course she gained more weight and acquired that Venus of Willendorf body. She never admitted she was manic-depressive or bipolar. She seemed to hate everyone in our family except my Father. She would never--could never--be satisfied or happy with anyone.
I was not sorry when she finally died. Though my Dad, who had genuinely loved her, really did mourn and miss his wife and life companion of 50 some years.
-- LW