The time I was a nomad: how I discovered horses, maxi pads and pornography

The year I entered sixth grade, my parents moved four times. As if sixth grade isn't difficult enough, try being the "new kid" on perpetual repeat. My family’s semi-nomadic lifestyle was spawned by a dream.   

Mom and dad had honeymooned in Naples, Florida in 1970, and ever since, dad dreamed of living there. So, in 1984 dad sold the family business and headed for Naples. Life in Naples was fascinating for an 11-year-old girl from Ohio. The Gulf of Mexico was a veritable playground of wild creatures not at all like anything I encountered in Ohio. One evening, after returning from dinner, the peaceful trill of crickets was thwarted by the startled screams of my mother from the family room. 

I accompanied dad into the family room to discover mom in near hysterics over a bright green tree frog stuck to the wall.  There was much clamor about how to capture and transport the thing back into the wilds of our tropical backyard. We opted for a large bowl, about the size of a Cool Whip container and threw it over the frog. Slowly, heroically, dad slid the lid of the container between the wall and the opening of the bowl, trapping the frog safely inside. 

Then there were encounters with black snakes.  

For the sake of clarification, Florida's "Black Racer" is non-venomous. But try telling that to an Ohio transplant.

My dad was trimming hedges in our Naples backyard one sunny afternoon when mom and I saw him suddenly flinging the hedge trimmers wildly into the bushes. In a matter of seconds, he hacked the neatly-trimmed hedges with irrevocable damage. Mom and I ran out to see what had prompted such a spontaneous fit of flailing, only to discover a large black racer lounging deep within the shadows the the hedges.

Dad managed to kill it, but not long after, a dozen or so mini-black racers hatched in our backyard. Every time mom went out the sliding door to hang laundry, she stomped her feet with each step in an attempt to get the snakes to clear out of her way.

It seemed we had just settled in when we were whisked off again: this time to Orlando. I was sad to leave our stucco three-bedroom ranch in Naples. Mom dragged the boxes out, which were still labeled "bedroom" and "kitchen" and I knew there was nothing I could do. Protesting was futile.
Things weren’t going as planned for dad in the insurance sales business, and when the going got tough, my parents got packing.

I learned to pack boxes with precision, wrapping fragile items in newspaper. Each city seemed to offer hope for a fresh start, but whittled away quickly. After a brief stint in Orlando's "Chickasaw Woods," an upper middle class development, we landed at the home of my mom’s sister in Melbourne. It was here that I discovered, among other things, how to ride a horse, what it meant to have a period, and pornography.

My three older cousins were all boys. The youngest one was 17 when we moved in. They didn't talk to me much. All I knew of them were that they were all into older muscle cars, and the youngest had a giant poster of Farrah Fawcett in a bathing suit on his bedroom wall.

Chery Teigs was on the opposite wall.

I was 11 years old, staring in the buxom bosom of these voluptuous women. Their flowing 80's feathered hair and glowing skin seemed to embody what a woman should be and what boys liked. I struggled to find my place in this world.

I had always been a shy, tomboyish-type with too much belly flub, what my mom called "baby fat" even though I was 11. My favorite thing in the world was my hamster, Critter. The year before, when my pre- pubescent breasts started to blossom before any of the other girls in my class, I wore a light weight jacket to school every day, all day, in an effort to hide the cone-shaped breasts that had become my shame.

And yet, my body kept changing, stirring within me new feelings. My parents' money problems and career struggles became muted to the hum of my own thoughts and concerns: like, about boys in the new school in Melbourne, why I had to start wearing a bra, what the aching cramping feeling was in my stomach, and trying absorb life in a bi-lingual school where I was a minority among African American, Hispanic and Puerto Rican children.

One Saturday, my youngest cousin's girlfriend, Darlene, asked me if I wanted to learn how to ride a horse. She lived in an orphanage nearby, and the kids in the home had horses. I felt bad that she had no parents, but having horses seemed like kinda a trade off.

Darlene introduced me to Cassy, an 18 year old gentle dappled grey mare Quarter horse. We spent the day riding around the arena. Darlene taught me the basics of Western (heels back, straight back, relaxed shoulders) and showed me the difference between a Western and an English saddle. The difference was clear to me: English was just way tiny and more uncomfortable looking. She then asked me if I wanted to try riding bare back. I was nervous, but jumped in, reassured Cassy's gentle demeanor.

Darlene led us around the arena walking at first, until I became used to the gait of the horse and how to hold on with my thighs. Darlene showed me how the horse read my body language through the contact my body made with her back.

"Keep your legs in the same position you would if you had your feet in stirrups," Darlene instructed. She told me to keep my back straight and sit forward in order to maintain my balance. She then let go of Cassy and I walked her around the arena myself, proud of my accomplishment.

I squeezed her sides a little and called her up into an easy trot. At first, my butt collided with her back, bumping up and down. But then I caught onto her gait - which was nice and smooth - and learned to move with her movement.

That day started the beginning of many years of a love of horses for me. As Darlene drove back to my aunt's house in her little MG sports car, I felt somehow like I had crossed over into some new realm of adulthood.

I didn't realize how very literal that was when, to my surprise, I found blood in my underwear when I went to the bathroom back home. I fastened a maxi pad into the clean white crotch of a new pair of underwear. I came out into the den feeling like I had somehow arrived, like I was a woman, akin to Farrah Fawcett and Cheryl Teigs after all.

Later that night, perhaps out of boredom, curiosity or a combination of the two, I started rummaging through bags of things in the back half of the room I stayed in. The room had been a later addition to the house, added right off of the den, and my middle older cousin had previously lived in the room. There were bags of his things left behind. I had no business searching through his things. But nothing could have prepared me for what I found. 

Tucked under a sheet I found a plastic bag of the grocery variety. Nosy, I pulled the bag out from it's hiding place and started to unwrap its contents. Imagine my surprise when I saw, on the cover of a stack of magazines of the same variety, a nearly naked woman. Her head was thrown back in ecstasy, her breasts exposed with a man's tie wrapped around her neck. She wore a black lace garter belt, and nothing more. 

I felt a mix of shame and curiosity come over me. I couldn't resist but to pull the rest of the contents out of the bag. Names like "Dirty Girl" and "Private" and "Penthouse" spilled out. I had never seen a penis before, and suddenly, all variety of penis's stared at me: black ones, pink ones, huge ones, small ones; penis's stuffed in all variety of orifices. I had never looked at my own body in such detail, and now the most private, intimate parts of other people were exposed during intimate activities with other people's private parts. 

Was this why my older cousin's lusted after Farrah Fawcett?

I felt confused, ashamed, and somehow strangely aroused. Is this what people did when they loved each other? Is this what I would eventually have to do? 

Suddenly, I lamented the maxi pad between my legs. Suddenly, I no longer wanted to be a woman, but remain the child I once was. The child I was leaving behind.