Griselda

While each of my family members had some role (and continue to have roles) in my life and impacted who I am as a person, it all began with Griselda. She was the one who officially kicked everything off, whether we were ready for the inciting incident or not. 

Because you see, our lives were relatively hum-drum and routine up to this event with her. We lived our lives – waking up for breakfast, going to school, learning things, dinner with the parents, spending time with the dog and trying to talk with our parents when we weren’t writing down poems or investing in the evening Reading Hour. I wouldn’t say we had the happiest of childhoods, but it could have been a lot worse. No abuse, so that’s always a good thing. There was a fair amount of neglect from our parents, but who among us did not have at least a small amount of neglect from their parents growing up, I ask you? It was routine, it was normal, it was our lives. We didn’t have many waves that were rocking us back and forth. And for that, I can say that we were all grateful. 

And then Griselda had to go and ruin it all for us. Thanks, Griselda. 

She was seventeen at the time. Clarissa was sixteen. Sigmund was fifteen. And I was fourteen. Each of us were a year apart. I guess that goes without being said, but I’m going to say it anyway just because I can. 

So what was it, you may be asking yourselves. What was this big upheaval to the daily living and status quo? A boyfriend, a girlfriend, a bad group of friends?

Alas, if had only been that simple. Oh, I would have loved for it to be a bad boyfriend or a toxic and wayward community. That would have been so simple compared to what actually happened. 

But no – it was a canyon. She just had to go and look for treasure in that canyon. 

Where to start with the explanations of the canyon? For it’s not an everyday thing, I am aware of that much, to say, “Oh yes, alas. Poor sister went wandering down the canyon where she was not supposed to be.” That’s not an everyday thing you hear, that’s not an everyday thing you say. 

Thirteen miles from where we lived was the Battle Ground Canyon, and it had been a national landmark ever since it was discovered, whenever the hell that was. Years and years ago when the settlers took over and explored the area. The canyon was sanctioned off by railing all along the perimeter, so that no one could just waltz right in and stumble into the canyon and fall to their death. But of course, there was nothing stopping anyone from ducking down, slipping underneath the railing, and stumbling down into the canyon to their untimely and foolish deaths. These deaths happened from time to time, but it was always at the expense and the responsibility of the deceased and ignorant person in question. 

There were a few babies who had fallen to their deaths in the canyon. Crawled right along the sidewalk, over the grass, and under the railing. I can’t imagine how awful the parents must have felt about that, and how equally shameful they must have felt as well. For you have to really be inattentive, negligent, to be focused on something so long that your baby crawls all the way out from under you, away from you, and into a cavity of the earth. That’s a pretty shameful thing, I’d imagine. 

A few curious and foolhardy teens and adults fell into the canyon over the decades. And of course, your fair share of suicides. But overall, people kept to the bounds of the railing around the perimeter. Because, you know, even if there wasn’t a railing around it to begin with, it would be less than ideal to fall to your death and never come back up. 

The only thing was, there was a long and winding path that led down to the base of the canyon, and this path could only be accessed by a key that opened a section of the railing, and that single key belonged to the park ranger. There would sometimes be hiking and outdoors clubs that wished to make it to the bottom of the canyon, and these groups had to reserve the time well in advance and pay upfront for such a privelege. There were other rangers on sight, but it was the chief park ranger’s responsibility to lead the groups down the winding path to the base, and then lead the groups back up to the surface. All in all, it took about five days. Two days to walk to the base, one day at the base itself, and two days to go back up. 

In the past year, news had spread that someone – a rich man or woman of some sort –  had taken the initiative of walking down the spiraling path, down the drain to the bottom of the bath tub as it were, and had hidden a small bag of treasure somewhere at the bottom. Hidden underneath a rock or buried in the red dirt somewhere. It was assured that it was not hidden in plain sight – that much was clear. You had to work to find it. And in addition to this, six other empty bags that were also of red velvet were hidden somewhere at the base of the canyon. 

Right from the get go, it’s baffling that so many people believed the rumors wholesale and began to plot out ways of sneaking down the canyon and securing the treasure. No one knew for certain just where exactly the rumors started. It was also baffling to consider the fact that, even if the rumors were true, so many people were willing to sacrifice life and limb to search for the treasure. 

A number of factors went into this. There was a reason that only groups being led by the chief park ranger were allowed to hike down to the base of the canyon. The winding path, circling down and down and down to the red dirt base, was particularly narrow at certain points, and at one point there was even a place where you were required to step off the path for a few paces, grab a series of footholds, and step back onto the reformed path. There was a reason that not even the other park rangers were entrusted with leading groups down to the base. The chief park ranger knew what he was doing, and he ensured that everyone went down and up the canyon in one piece. 

And then of course, there was the factor that even if clusters of people were able to make it to the base of the canyon to begin with, there was the tireless searching for the bag of treasure (provided that the treasure did in fact exist). This is assuming that all seven red velvet bags were buried or hidden somewhere at the bottom, and one of the red velvet bags contained this mythical and mystical treasure. And even if one of the bags did contain some treasure, what if the treasure was just a few measly coins? More trash and less treasure by that point. 

And this is accounting for the fact that the person or persons who took the path way down the canyon not only survived the descent, but had enough food and water to survive at the base, and also accounting for the fact that they were able to make the ascent and go all the way back home with the treasure. 

There were just so many contigencies. So many “what ifs”. And this is all just assuming that the rumors were true, without even knowing where the rumors came from. I remember discussing it with my sisters and brother when the rumors began to circulate, and laughing about the people who actually took it seriously and were preparing to make the descent and search, in fierce defiance of state regulations and laws. 

And then, three days later, I hear from my mother that my eldest sister Griselda had joined a few of her friends in going past the railings and taking the narrow path down the base of the canyon. 

I felt betrayed. I had just been laughing my head off with her and the other siblings about the stupidity and the delusion of those who attempted to find such an ambiguous treasure. And then I find out that not only did she believe in the rumors and decide to embark on the quest to find the treasure, she had left me and Sigmund and Clarissa behind. 

Did she have enough food and water for the trip there and back? Did she trust the people she was journeying with? Would she find any sort of treasure down there? Would she perish at the base of Battle Ground Canyon, due to exhaustion or starvation or dehydration? 

I remember feeling concerned for my sister Griselda, and hoping that she would continue to be my big sister for a very long time. But I knew that the decision and the journey she had taken was foolish and dangerous. I remember telling my siblings Sigmund and Clarissa as much during one of our Reading Hours, one of the first without our eldest sibling. 

As far as Mother and Father, it felt like it was impossible to talk with either of them about our feelings to begin with, so why on earth would we try to process Griselda’s disappearance with them, and how we felt about the situation? Going to our parents with our feelings and thoughts, and our struggles? What a laughable idea. 

I do remember hearing my parents briefly telling the rest of us what would happen. Telling us that, rest assured, the authorities were searching for her and her friends that went with her, and we shouldn’t fret. I recall Mother telling me in that obnoxiously simplistic and demeaning way, shaking her big index finger at all three of us and saying, “Don’t fret, now. Don’t fret.” The message that was communicated to each of us was the following: in addition to not being allowed to cry (because crying is for wimps), you shouldn’t show any sign of fear or discouragement in public, or else you’ll have something to be frightened about. 

‘Great,” I remember thinking as Mother was wagging her stern fat index finger in our faces. “Another emotion I can’t show in front of anyone. That’s going to be real healthy for me, down the road. Repression is a troubled boy’s best friend.” 

Griselda was gone for two weeks and three days. A grand total of seventeen days, to be exact. I remember whenever I would see Clarissa and Sigmund in the hallway at school, or at recess, or in a class we shared, they had long and woebegone faces. They were fully utilizing the use of taken-for-granted freedoms of emotional expression that we were all somehow supposed to suppress whenever we spent time around our Mother. Our Father didn’t like to see us upset or “emotionally riled up”, but he was too much of a wimp to rat on us outright to Mother. Mother was the real one to watch out for. 

I remember thinking and feeling, during that period of seventeen days with Griselda missing, ‘what a shame. Mother is flesh and blood just like the rest of us. And even though she puts on a tough exterior, she feels like the rest of us. Because just what the hell are all those abstract paintings about, in the basement and in the other parts of the house, if not a woman feeling and wrestling with life?’ For whatever reason, she felt like she had to hide her feelings and struggles as the matriarch in the family. Keep a stiff upper lip, and all that. It’s a damn shame, because she hid her humanity in the process, and forced us to hide our humanity as well. I wondered to myself at what point our Father lost his humanity, his willingness to openly show emotions, but I surmised that it must have been before he even met our Mother. 

Clarissa, Sigmund, and I carried on the tradition of Reading Hour in Griselda’s absence. It was identical to the way we always ran it, minus the presence of Griselda herself. We opened with a poem one of us had shared, read our deliberately chosen books for an hour, and then closed with a poem from one of the greats we were currently reading. But instead of ending the hour and going our separate ways, we stayed and talked about our feelings and thoughts regarding Griselda’s absence, because anywhere in the presence of Mother was strictly off limits. We knew that showing emotion meant punishments and ten whacks of the golden rod, and we didn’t wish to add any more pain and displeasure to our plates. So we fully utilized the time we had after Reading Hour. 

At a certain point, our Mother caught on to what we were doing. I think it was around day seven or eight. We could hear her walking up to the door of Griselda’s bedroom (for we still used her bedroom for the daily Reading Hour – it was the only room with the personalized library, after all), and we heard her stop at the door and press an ear up to the door. It very much sounded like she pressed an ear up to the side of the door, in any case. She didn’t knock.

We called out for her. 

“Mother?”

But she didn’t respond. She just stood there at the door, breathing heavily. She didn’t knock like a normal mother. She just stood there at the door. 

“Mother?” one of us called out again. No reply from Mother. 

Griselda’s bedroom with the personalized library was a sacred space. It was a space that could not be touched by Mother, Father, or any other outside deity or demon. Griselda gone or not gone. This was the way it was. This was the way it was ordained, whether Mother and Father liked it or not. 

I also remember that during this time, I not only wrote poetry daily, I journaled my feelings as well. This was rare for me. I felt as if poetry writing was enough for processing my thoughts and feelings in a non-linear and ambiguous enough way, but apparently in that season of life, poetry didn’t do the trick. And I can’t even believe I am saying that, writing it down, “poetry didn’t do the trick”, but it’s true. It didn’t. I needed something more at that period of time. 

Giselda appeared as mysteriously as she had disappeared. She disappeared on a Monday, and she reappeared on a Thursday. Contrary to what you might be imagining, she was cleanly dressed and looked well-fed besides. I remember my Mother and Father siting on the couch and the rocking chair in the living room, reading their respective newspapers, and remarking, “Oh, welcome back dear.” That’s what my Father said: “Oh, welcome back, dear”, before turning back to his place on page 9 of the daily paper. A curt nod from my Mother, and saying something along the lines of, “Good to see you back, Griselda.” Like it was perfectly normal that she would return in one piece. ‘That’s about right, for how they’ve been acting,’ I remember thinking to myself. 

“Griselda!” I exclaimed with open arms and an aching heart. I had fully been preparing myself to be viewing her face from the opening of a casket at a graveside service, instead of back at home and healthy. I was waiting for a hug, but she didn’t offer me one. She didn’t offer either of my other siblings hugs. Her face was perfectly placid. Blanched. She dug into a hidden pocket of her dress and extracted a small velvet bag. Mother and Father were not even looking over at her. But Clarissa and Sigmund and I gasped. 

“It’s not empty, is it?” I asked. 

“What do you think?” she replied. And she loosened the strings on the red velvet bag, turning it over so that the coins and the paper currency fell onto the floor. For as small as the bag was, there was a substantial amount of money in the purse. Her face was perfectly placid, blanched, as the money fell from the purse and onto the ground. She wasn’t looking at any of us as the money fell to the ground. 

“It wasn’t even your group of friends that found it, was it?” I asked, trying to look at her. But I couldn’t look at her, for her eyes were cast downwards toward the pile of money on the ground floor. “It was you who found it, wasn’t it?”

“What do you think?” she asked again, eyes cast toward the floor. She pocketed the red velvet bag and walked toward her room, and she closed the bedroom door behind her. 

Sigmund, Clarissa, and I just stood there looking at the pile of currency that had fallen to the floor of our humble home. Mother and Father didn’t rise from their spots – they were obstinately focused on their pithy reading material. 

As I gazed down at the pile of money, my first thought was not, “I wonder how she found the money, and how she survived to tell the tale?” No. My first thought was, “I wonder what book she’s reading in her room right now?”