Bio - 5 in My Bio

In 1978, we moved from the newer side of Longmeadow to the older section. Although the house was much older, it was bigger and I liked it a lot better. It didn’t have much of a back or front yard, but that was okay since I was well past the days of playing outside on swings and in makeshift forts and tents. Besides, there weren’t any woods nearby anyway. All there was in the back was a hedge separating a small patch of grass from a small brick terrace. The front yard was similarly sparse. My dad could ditch his sit-down mower for a push-mower and leave the mowing to me. I didn’t mind; it was pretty much all I ever had for chores besides laundry, and keeping my own space neat and clean. I didn’t do any cooking—my only kitchen tasks were to set the table, clear it off afterward, load the dishwasher, and then empty it.

I received a weekly allowance of $10, which I’d spend on cigarettes. A carton of cigarettes cost around $5 when I started smoking and ended up being over $20 when I finally quit eighteen years later.

Unlike our first house, which was on a dead-end road, this house was on the corner of a busier street. It was also a two-story house with four bedrooms. My stereo and guinea pigs were set up in one part of the cellar where I’d hang out a lot.

When Nana Bella first came to live with us at the first house, she’d snitch on me for every little thing. But once she saw how my mom could be at times, she started feeling sorry for me, and we became closer. She even kept her mouth shut when I’d smoke. “Just don’t burn the house down,” she’d tell me.

She passed away when I was away from home as a ward of the state at seventeen. Both of my maternal grandparents died two years later.

As of 2002, if I had to pick a time in my life that was the worst, I’d say my teenage years were definitely it. This was when my mother began running out of patience with me, and her sending me off to other places escalated. Sometimes those places were even worse than being with her. I truly believe my mother never wanted kids in the first place; she only had them because it was expected in those days.

As a hyper child with wild dreams of becoming a rich and famous singer, I was more than getting on my parents’ nerves. They started ignoring me more, becoming increasingly engrossed in TV and outings with friends. I felt neglected, and my mother’s control and ridicule increased. It seemed I could do nothing right, and as my optimism and confidence faded, my early teens were when I first had thoughts of suicide.

I took an overdose of sleeping pills, but it only made me drowsy. I began cutting myself regularly. I wasn’t doing it to die; I was channeling and venting my frustrations, depression, and growing anger. No one influenced me to do this. I never saw it on TV or heard anyone talk about it. In fact, I didn’t know anyone else in the world had ever cut themselves at this time.

Although I was raised Jewish, we rarely went to the temple. Religion wasn’t a regular part of our lives, which was fine with me since I found religion too structured and often bigoted.

Between the ages of twelve and fourteen, I was walking down the street next to ours on a crisp fall day when a middle-aged woman raking leaves in her front yard said, “Oh, what a cute sweatshirt.”

I looked down at my Mickey Mouse sweatshirt and said, “Thanks.”

Noticing my ear, she asked about it. After I told her about it, she mentioned that she had a deaf son and invited me to meet him. So I did.

Jeff was a dark, lanky boy a year older than me with the same birthday. He knew sign language well. At the time, I only knew how to fingerspell the alphabet. Jeff taught me many words. I’d write down the words I wanted to know and he’d show me the signs for them.

I also began teaching myself Spanish using books and records as I knew no Hispanic people to help me. There were no Hispanics I knew of in Longmeadow at the time. The only Hispanic people I had met were a family from Venezuela at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital when I had one of my ear surgeries.

I had never even seen a Black person until I was around ten or a little older. I called the Black section of the city “Dark Land” whenever we drove through it.

I also dabbled in French and shorthand.

Although Jeff and I spent a lot of time together, neither of us was interested in each other as boyfriend and girlfriend. For him, it could have been for any reason. For me, it was because I was mostly attracted to women, though I didn’t understand that yet. I was simply attracted to women more than men; I didn’t question it, whether it was my attraction to someone I’d seen or to singer Linda Ronstadt, one of my favorites, or actress Kate Jackson.

The summer of 1980, when I was fourteen, was not very enjoyable. Instead of being at the beach, my parents were traveling daily to sell eyeglass frames to optometrists. Having just been kicked out of camp, my mother, not ready for me to come home and disrupt her peace, dropped me off in Connecticut at the campground where Uncle Marty and Aunt Ruth spent their summers.

Although I could take my guitar and new guinea pig with me, I was not a “happy camper.” My only good memories from that time were going water-skiing on the lake and diving from a cliff that was fifteen to twenty feet high. It was scary at first, but a lot of fun once I took the plunge.

Marty and Ruth stayed in a trailer while I stayed in a small outdoor tent. I didn’t mind the tent, but I did mind my uncle and my spineless aunt, who went along with his domineering ways. Even so, she was the one who hit me that summer, not him. She slapped me across the face. I’m not sure if it was for bumming smokes off others or for the boy who came into my tent, whom they thought I invited.

This boy entered the tent one early evening when I least expected it. He sat on my cot next to me as I held my guinea pig on my lap.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked him.

Saying nothing, he pulled my mouth toward his. Before his lips could touch mine, I heard, “Jodi, who’s in the tent?”

It was Aunt Ruth. Both of us emerged from the tent, but before I could explain, she had already made up her mind about what had happened.

“Get in the trailer!” she demanded, where I spent the night.

Shortly after this incident, my father came to get me. Before we left, he, Marty, and Ruth openly discussed my “problems” as if I weren’t even there.