Delving into the Past

Cheryl and Dagny explore their childhood memories for clues about why they became the people they are today. From the whacky to the tragic, their memories run the gamut. They round out the episode with a discussion of their latest reading adventures from the works of Elizabeth Strout and Oliver Sacks. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to the porch. We're so glad you're here. This podcast comes to you from Virginia's Northern Neck, where life slows down just enough.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

This is Cheryl here with Dagny, and today we're going to be talking about some childhood memories. The story may be a little bit dry, but we'll see. And I will go ahead and start off. So I was born in Santa Barbara, and I was there through, well, let's see. So I do remember a couple years where I was like preschool age. And then then when my parents split up, my mother took me to Arizona, where she went to grad school, and my dad stayed in Santa Barbara. And then he quit his job. He burned out at the welfare department and went to live at a drug abuse prevention center.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Okay. I thought you said this was going to be dry. We could do a whole podcast on this.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Okay. Well, to me, it seems it seems a little bit like, you know, I moved here, I moved there, I moved there. But anyway, so he he quit his job and he says, I can't send you money anymore because he'd been playing paying child support. He says, but I can take Cheryl and I could keep her here with me. And it's a Christian-based uh recovery program for addicts. And we all live together in this giant house with three attics. Oh my gosh. And you know what? And and they were probably wonderful. Oh, yeah. Well, to you. Well, no. Uh there's another story, but that happened after I left. So we stayed there for about two and a half years. I moved in with my dad. And that's of course where I really got to get a relationship with my father, because before it had been very, you know, get to see him once in a while, but he lived pretty far away. So that's of course where I started seeing Star Wars and all that stuff. And there were other kids that lived in this big house. So we came in like kind of like a family, like because I had no siblings. So it was kind of cool that I got that socialization with these other children. Right. So this is all in Santa Barbara where where all that happened. Eventually, my dad burned out there, and then we moved up north. He moved back in with his parents, in that was in Reading. So that's quite a ways. That's like the other end of the state from Santa Barbara. My mother, in the meantime, had moved to LA. So I remember I'd take a Greyhound bus all the way down to LA and back. By yourself? Yeah, by myself. How old were you? Well, let's see. Originally, when she was in LA and I was in Santa Barbara, it really wasn't that far. And so that would be everywhere from when I was third, fourth, and fifth grades. And then when I went to Reading, that was fifth grade. But then I was back with my mom for sixth grade. So by then she had moved up to the Bay Area. So I take the bus from Reading to the Bay Area. So it's very, very, very young to be there. I mean so when you think of it now in I became very independent pretty early on, just because I had my parents were split up, and I kind of felt like it was my job to be the good daughter. And you know, you know. You were their only child. I was their only child, and and here they were split up, and I wanted to somehow be loyal to both of them. And and yet I couldn't be both with both of them at the same time. So I grew up with that tension.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

It's a yeah, yeah, it's a tough position to be in. Is while my parents are very stable, they're still still married to this day, you know, and but I am, I did go through a divorce uh after being married many years and you know, to the father of my my children. I'm remarried now, but it's a tough position to be in as a kid, you know, to feel like that you have to balance and uh keep both of your parents happy, uh, you know, it's like tug of war. It's a hard, it's a hard gig. And it's interesting because, you know, I heard you say that moving back in with your dad, the whole Star Wars, you know, 12 times in the theater, and you all clearly became close, which is great because that doesn't always happen, especially with dads after a divorce. I also also heard you say your mom came back and tried to get back together with him. Maybe we could do an entirely other podcast on that. But I guess what I'm saying is uh, you know, and also obviously your dad's Christian beliefs is that where you know, I know I've heard you say that you you'd recently visited him, you're you're still you're close. Do you feel like that you received those beliefs from him? Or how did how did his Christian his his moving to Christianity from when he hadn't been before, how did that work off on you?

SPEAKER_02 4:53

As a young child, I wasn't cognizant of anybody's religious beliefs. I didn't really think about religion until you know I was living with him at that drug abuse preventive center because they had Bible, you know, prayer and singing, you know, because that was part of the recovery program. So you get to know, you know, the the tenets of your faith pretty quickly, you know, when you have it, when you're living in a in a program like that. And so that's where I, you know, I really think I I've accepted uh Christ. And, you know, it's just always been part of who I am. I don't remember a big, you know, conversion type experience. Although, you know, certainly there have been times in my life where it's become more, you know, God has revealed more of Himself to me, you know, that through that process. It's not like, you know, it's been static since I was 10 years old, kind of thing. Yeah, and what I was gonna say, you were saying, oh, everybody there must have been super nice. Well, you know, I didn't have any trouble with with any of those guys. They were for the most part grateful to be there instead of in prison and really trying to turn their lives around. But after I left, it turned out one of them set the place on fire and burned it to the ground. Oh and people died intentionally? Oh, yeah, he's an arsonist. And my father specifically noted that if we had stayed, we would probably have died. That's so scary. Maybe not so much scary as just this sense that uh life is uncertain, and we just never know when our last day will be. Anyway, enough about me, Dagney.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Why don't you tell me about your childhood? Sure. Yeah, I grew up in Virginia in Waynesboro in the Shenandoah Valley, uh, you know, more in the in the mountains than we are here in Lancaster County. But my parents were avid travelers and they took us from my sister and I from a very, very young age all over, you know, Europe, Mexico. I'll never forget a trip where we went to Norway and Denmark because my mom was really into Vikings. Oh, wow. And so she wanted to see all of the uh the Viking ships and really hands-on. That was that was an experience. It was cold. I was, you know, maybe nine. So, you know, not exactly the greatest vacation for a nine-year-old would want to go on, you know, seeing Viking ships. But I I truly appreciate it now that they that they did drag us along on all of those and didn't just you know leave us with our grandparents or something.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, yeah, that's a very formative memory, yeah. Sure. Now, when I was a kid, my both of my parents were very busy. They were they met as social workers at the welfare department, and um they, you know, social workers are not well paid. So um I've heard they they never really uh got their finances, especially when I was a child, they did not get their finances together to the point where we could just go off on on trips whenever we wanted to. It was pretty tight. I didn't ever feel deprived in any way, but obviously we we weren't living lavishly. Um, you know, I went to Disneyland and you know, did did a couple of the typical childhood, but most of my trips were with my grandparents because they had a camper and they were more than happy to just take me with them wherever they went. So I all I spent summers, we spent mostly going north. It's very hot where we were at, and it was nice to go north in the summer and get cooled off. And my grandfather was really into fishing, so he'd go over to the Oregon coast, Northern California coast, and do a lot of fishing and camping. And then once we went all the way up into Canada and we took a trip over to Alaska. Nice. So yeah, I did get to see a lot of that part of the country, but pretty much I stayed west, you know. We didn't we didn't go east, we we went north, so it's all all western side of the continent.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Well, your your grandfather and I would have gotten along spectacularly because I love to fish, uh, but I've never done any fishing out out west. Yeah, it's a long ways from here. Uh yeah, I I do I do love to fish though. And crab. What's the biggest fish you've ever caught? I so okay, now now we're gonna get on a story about so when I was traveling with my parents, we were in Jamaica, and we did a tour on a you know a charter boat, and they took us way out. It was myself, my parents, my sister. So this one I was a I was about 19, so my sister was about 15, and my parents were um very gracious to let my then boyfriend come along. Well, he got terribly seasick, and as I was pulling in a giant marlin that was you know bigger than I was, he is getting sick off the side of the boat and yelling, go Dagney, you know, in between getting sick. And and we finally landed this marlin, and I mean it took hours, it at least two hours. We were out there for a long time, but it was very, very exciting. And then my dad decided that we should look into getting it stuffed. Oh, wow, bring it home so we could look at it. So he asked the hotel we were staying in if he could put it in their giant walk-in freezer, and they said yes. And my dad did some research, you know, and this was this was before the internet, so he's probably making phone calls, talking to people. And what he found out was that it not only would be very, very costly, but that when they reproduce a fish for you to take home and and hang on the wall, a lot of the parts are not actually the fish. From a I guess I don't know a lot about taxidermy, but from a taxidermy perspective. So he thought, well, gosh, if it's not even going to be the fish, if it's just gonna kind of be a replica, then maybe not. And then we left a resort, and then dad realized he'd never told the resort that we were not going to take the fish. So hey, in 2026, that fish might still be in the walk-in freezer. Oh my. Probably not, but it was it was funny.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Okay, and and you have approximate length that that gets a little longer every year.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Oh, well, I'm five foot two, and when I caught it, it was yeah, it's it's probably up to about eight feet long now. That's great. After all these years for sure, but in reality, it was probably uh six feet long.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Okay, that's certainly bigger than any any fish I've caught. Yeah, it was big, but yeah, I I did I did catch a couple of fish when I was with my grandparents. I've never really become an avid fisher type person. I'm more I'm more like, you know, walking in the woods, uh looking at all the plants and animals and trying to figure out what they are. That's that's kind of my thing. I I love to go explore and discover, oh, I didn't know there that existed. Yeah, here so it's it's kind of it's really fun being in a new part of the country where the wildlife is so different from what I grew up with. I've really enjoyed that aspect. So, Dagny, tell me one story from your childhood that you think is foundational to the kind of person that you've become.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

I I can do that, sure. So when I was a kid from a very, very young age, I didn't sleep well. And ever, I mean, ever. I couldn't nap, I just couldn't sleep. And as I got a little bit older, uh, you know, I was a very early reader and having trouble sleeping. My mom and dad, but you know, my my mom, I I I gotta give it to my mom because she's you know, the other uh, you know, writer and artist in the family. My dad's very creative too. He's amazing woodworker, but my mom kind of understood what I was going through from that great artist perspective. Yeah, so she um she said, Okay, look, you can't sleep, but your sister needs to sleep. Because at this point, I'd had my younger sister and we're four years apart. So let's say that by then I was six, she was two, we were sharing a room at the time. Mom would say, as long as you are reading or writing, then I'm good. You know, just take your flashlight under your blanket, read, write, whatever, just don't wake your sister up. Now, this didn't help me with my sleeping because because then I was up reading and writing. Then you're really motivated to stay awake. Was my favorite, yes, and what those were my two favorite things to do. So, you know, I would lay there and I would read my favorite books over and over again. I would write poems.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

She should have made you read the washing machine manual or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

That might maybe maybe that's all I've ever needed is to read the washing machine manual to help me sleep. Well, um, so anyway, yeah, it's been a problem my whole life, but that was pivotal. My parents saying that I could stay awake as long as I didn't bother my sister that I was reading or writing. So of course I became a writer. And, you know, that that's just one of those things that I will remember forever. Because what if my parents had said, you know, lights off, I don't care, lay there, you know, no lights on, you can't be doing anything like reading or writing. Things have might gone a very things might have gone a very different way.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah, that is really a great approach to parenting. I applaud that. I've heard other parents like giving their kids melatonin and Benadryl. And I'm like, sure. No, these are children. You you need to let figure out how to help them sleep naturally. Yeah, maybe they're eating too much junk food before bed. Maybe they they they get wound up. There are other ways of getting your children to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Sure. And by the way, I'm still not a good sleeper. So, you know, a lot of times I will be up reading, or uh this is awful to say, but I'm being real here because ever since the advent of smartphones, sometimes if I can't sleep, I am doom scrolling on my phone when I probably would be better off getting up and writing.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, I I don't have a problem with that. I turn, I turn the volume off, I put it on the charger, and I do have no temptation to look at it because a lot of times the texts that come through are like stress-inducing. They're not they're not fun. So I'm like, I don't want to deal with that when I'm trying to go to sleep. And then I just get out a crossword puzzle. Oh. And those put me out pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

You know, that's a good idea. I think those might put me out too. I think what would put me out even more might be uh Sudoku. Okay. I I'm I'm not a fan. My husband loves Sudoku. I'd rather do a crossword puzzle.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, I've tried to do Sudoku and I just can't get into it. It's just like it's just a number. Who cares? That's where it's where it's a word. Like this is meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I know. We feel the same way. Our brains, our brains are wired for words and letters and not numbers. I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Yes. So, well, um, to round out your your experience, I uh remember as a child, I I always slept pretty well as a child. Now, of course, you know, once I got to college, that became uh another issue entirely. But I do remember trying to go to sleep and I would start crying because I would think that everybody was gonna die someday. And my dad would have to come and comfort me. But but it's true. It's true. That's why he couldn't really comfort me. What could he say? Oh, little Cheryl, yes, they are. So yeah, I was kind of an unusual child because most children, you know, their minds don't really go to some. It wasn't like anybody had cancer or it was gonna die imminently. It was just like someday, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Look, that certain people's minds do very much go there. Uh, me, okay, so we're still getting to know each other. I can 100% believe that you laid there and thought about that. The things that I used to lay and think about as a child, this is gonna sound funny. I was made fun of it for years. My two biggest fears as a child: nuclear war and enemas.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

I didn't even know when an enema was as a child.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Probably probably good. Um I can tell you why I knew what one was, but maybe we'll save back. Maybe we'll have to do a whole enemas episode. The enema episode. No, I get it. My point is I I I get it. I get laying there and thinking deep thoughts and thinking everybody's gonna die. Yeah. But they are, they are going to die. And like, what am I gonna do about it? So, you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah, well, eventually, you know, you develop you know, your your worldview and your faith and the ability to handle that concept. But as a child, I didn't have that yet. Sure. So that was why that I do remember very some very long uh you know evenings trying to get sleep while with that hanging over my head.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah, well, and and this is pretty deep here, and we can cut this if you want, but you know, talk about uh at a young age and trying to understand death when I was almost eight years old, and my sister was almost four, our little brother died. Oh, yeah, very, very unexpected. Um I won't go into the the the you know the details um so yeah, thank you. It that is something else that you know you asked me what shaped my my life. So the the positive was the reading and writing and being you know under the covers and being allowed to do that. That's something else that really shaped my life, and I had to suddenly come to terms with the fact that a several month-old baby could who who had really just been born could just all of a sudden be gone. That was that was something that definitely shaped my life, not so much in a positive way as the reading and writing, but uh, we don't need to dwell on that. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

I mean, I I can't imagine that wouldn't have affected your psyche in some in some way. Yes, definitely. I was very fortunate in some ways as a child. I mean, even though my childhood was uh a little wonky, you know, and all the moving around and not really making a lot of friends, I didn't know anybody who died.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

But there are things that you know that are out of our control, out of our parents' control, that for better or for worse will affect us for the rest of our life.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

Yeah. I mean, certainly, depending on how your parents handled that, you know, that could be an important part of becoming a resilient person and being able to see, oh, my parents went through this and they were okay. Yeah. So that is an important thing for a child to experience. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Well, one thing is for sure, Cheryl. All of your upbringing has made you into a very interesting, smart person. Um I'm fascinated listening to you talk.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Well, thank you, Dagny. And I am likewise impressed with your screenwriting ability and really looking forward to going more in depth in the writing process with you. And um, I've been looking through your novel that you have on Amazon, and I'm curious about your inspiration for a Western themed novel, given that you were raised in Virginia. So we will we will save that uh tidbit for a future episode. Okay, sounds good. And we also have an update from Dagny on what she's been reading.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

So go ahead, Dagny. Yes, I have been reading a lot lately, all different genres. Uh, the first one I'm going to talk about. It's actually a genre that uh that I I've read another book recently, so maybe maybe it's not all different genres, but um this one is called Amy and Isabel, and it is by Elizabeth Stroud. I have read that. You have? So I found it to be a pretty dark coming-of-age story. It is a bit dark, yeah, it is. The the whole thing with with the the teacher. Yeah. I couldn't put it down. I probably read it in in two days, but uh the you know, the the reason I say that I've talked about another book recently. The last time we were updating you on what we've been reading, I was at that time had just finished uh a mother-daughter kind of coming of age story. This is also a mother-daughter, it does have a happy ending.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

It it does, it does something that yeah, that you weren't it's I wasn't expecting. Not not given not given what the they went through.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, yeah, it's a great book, and I think this might have been Elizabeth Stroud's very first.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

It is, and I've also read her second book, which is called Abide With Me. I'm waiting for that one. Okay, that one is very different. Um, I read that one first, and it has a very Christian vibe. So I was thinking, oh, maybe she's a you know, she's a Christian writer, but Amy and Isabelle definitely did not get the Christian. No, but there's a lot of faith tolerance. They talk about church, they talk about church, but none of it seems very positive.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

No, it doesn't, not in that book. They don't find any comfort there, yeah. So we were talking last time about the Libby app. Yes, and yes, and so I am waiting for some of her other books, not just Abide Abide With Me, but a couple of others. They are very popular right now and interesting, so yeah, waiting for that. And then on a totally different topic, I read a book by Oliver Sachs, who is the doctor that the movie with Robin Williams Awakenings was based on. I'm familiar with any of that. I I bet Richard has it in his collection. I will have to ask him. Um, so it probably was done in the maybe early 2000s. It's about the doctor, the neurologist Oliver Sachs, who the movie I'm talking about now, Awakenings, not the book. The book is totally different, but Oliver Sachs started doing testing on people who had Parkinson's and also people who were in comas. And he gave them, I believe one of the big things he gave them was L-dopamine. Okay. And these people woke up. Hmm. Now it didn't last. Their families were very excited. It was they came back to themselves after having been in some sort of vegetative state, but it didn't last. I mean, it might only lasted a few days. Okay, but then couldn't you just give them more L-dopamine? I there was a question about how much could you give them and would it even would it even uh uh you know make it last it was essentially it was it was a short-term success but a long-term failure. Interesting. So anyway, this book is actually called uh musicophilia, and it's by Oliver Sachs, the neurologist that the movie Awakenings was based on. And it's about people who it's about a lot of a lot of different uh topics involving music, but mainly people who have had a traumatic brain injury or a near-death experience or where they they actually you know died on an operating table, and they wake up and they suddenly have this music ability that they did not have before without any lessons or spontaneous, it's just it's like it's it's awakened a part of their I think the um is it the amygdala, the brain? Yeah, yeah, I might be saying it wrong. Amygdala, I think it's a word, and they suddenly have these incredible gifts, and not just gifts, some of them are obsessions, and other people have actually been driven fairly crazy by their sudden need to have music in their lives and make music. You'd think that would be a blessing, but it really does take over some of these people's lives. There's also a chapter on um, you know, when you say that you have an earwig or a when you have a song stuck in your head. Yeah, earworm. Earworm. There's a whole chapter on that and about how that happens to people, and it might last for a couple hours, or in extreme cases, weeks, months, years, these people cannot get these songs out of your head.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

I heard that you're supposed to actually record it to your doctor if there's a song that you can't get out of your head. And I was like, really?

SPEAKER_01 27:12

What's my doctor gonna do about that? So I personally have never had one single song stuck in my head, but I have a very annoying problem that I live with every day. That whatever the last song I heard on the radio that morning, you know, turn on 101.7 or whatever. Um, the last song I have heard stays in my head until I hear another song. Yeah, I've had that too. It's really annoying sometimes. Yeah. You guys decide what song do you want stuck in your head? That's right. Listen to that one. That's right. I've actually gone and turned the radio back on just to get a different song stuck in my head. Yeah, I think that's all very normal. I think so too. But it's interesting that you said you've heard you should report to your doctor if you have one song, like or something that's really becoming like you're unable to sleep, or if it's staying, if it's bothering you and it won't go away, then you are supposed to report it.

SPEAKER_02 28:13

It's I guess it could maybe it could indicate a brain tumor or something, like any kind of changes in the way that you think or process information is relevant to your your medical health.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Absolutely. Yeah. Very interesting, though. Very interesting book. I highly recommend it. And so that concludes this episode of Two Pens One Porch. Thank you so much for joining us. See you next time. Bye bye. Bye. And please remember, if you want to get in touch with us, you can do so at two pens one porch at gmail dot com. Again, that's two pens one porch at gmail.com. No spaces at T W O O P E N S O N E P O R C H at Gmail.com.