



I can not predict the future. I hope when they remember a certain song or a certain day, they will remember that their mother loves them. They will remember the days I held them while tears ran down their face. They will remember the nights they crawled in bed with me to comfort them after nightmares. They will think about the time I spent trying to remember the things they like, the kids they play with, and the animals they want to see at the zoo. I hope they will be forgiving of my transgressions and the way that I sing classic rock in the mini van on the ride home.



I can not predict the future. I hope when they remember a certain song or a certain day, they will remember that their mother loves them. They will remember the days I held them while tears ran down their face. They will remember the nights they crawled in bed with me to comfort them after nightmares. They will think about the time I spent trying to remember the things they like, the kids they play with, and the animals they want to see at the zoo. I hope they will be forgiving of my transgressions and the way that I sing classic rock in the mini van on the ride home.

Music can remind you of a time and a place in your life. When I hear certain songs, it seems as if I am transported to a different time and a place in my memory. There are some songs that make me FEEL a certain memory. I feel what I was feeling on that day.As I moved from homeless junkie punk into mini van mom, I noticed music is hard for me to enjoy. So much of my using involved being in a closed space listening to the same 12 songs over and over, too fucked up to move. I would have a 40 oz in my hand with a trickle of blood on my wrist or dripping down my forearm. There were so many spots, it look like I had a skin disease. I was sleeping where I feel out and waking where I came to consciousness, where that was I had not control of after a blackout evening. I have lived in three different music studios as they were a safe place for a homeless person to catch a safe nights sleep and still have access to a bathroom. I think one of the intrinsic selling points of a mini van is that if things go wrong, I can always go live in there. Being off drugs is never a guarantee of much of anything except not having to fix every day. For me, that seems to be enough to make each day somewhere between bearable and enjoyable with the freedom a drugless life brings me.I was driving along with my kids strapped tightly in their cars seats. I wondered to myself "How did I get to this place?" My son was grouchy all afternoon. There were a few screaming tantrums today. I was also embarrassed as he bared another children from entering the playhouse. Where did this self centered little bully come from? Ugh. I see myself. The stubborn little boy that has to be extracted from a situation rather than listen to reason. The low point in the afternoon was when he smashed his brother's newly acquired soccer trophy went he did not get something HIS way.As I am driving back to the house, I try to find some kind of song to tune these kids out for a minute. We have worn scratches into the Sex Pistols CD we got for free from the public library. You have not seen cute until you have seen a three year old sing out "I want to be in Anarchy" then ask about fruit snacks. As I flip through the station, I hear the song "Dream On" By Aerosmith. I have heard that same song hundreds of times.I remember being little and listening to albums while people rolled joints on the back of album covers. My experiences from that time of my life are not so different than many other kids with the exception that drugs, alcohol or both seem to be in all them. I hated seeing adults under the influence. I hated the way they did funny things like show each other their private parts, demand to be hugged, or send me to my room. I hated how people would fall down or not be able to get out of bed. I hate how they SAID they were going to be right back but returned hours later with some invented story. I saw these things as a child and I hated them.What do my children see? When they sit in their car seat and stare out the window, what are they thinking about me "STOP SINGING!" Apparently, my singing voice is not appealing to a four year old. He starts to kick my seat. "Stop mommy." Is my singing voice going to be the only thing that makes them embarrassed? What will happen when they find out there mother was a drug addict? What will happen when they find out their mother used to pull her pants down in doorways and shoot dope in her thighs? What will happen when they search the Internet at 13 or 14 and find these writings? Will they be proud of all the things i have accomplished or will they be upset that their mother is junkie whore.