Sometimes I ask myself questions. They’re hard questions, because they don’t really have any answers. For instance, there’s an oil painting of the house I lived in as a child hanging over the couch in my living room. It’s a beautiful house - a big white colonial with immaculately landscaped grounds. But it isn’t real to me. I wish I could remember going to bed in my room, or eating supper at the kitchen table, or sitting in the living room watching television. I can’t. Looking at that house is like seeing a place I’ve been, like the Waldorf Astoria or the Lincoln Memorial - it’s real, but I don’t have any personal connection to it.

The funny thing is that I do remember living in an apartment. I remember the building, and even the name of it. I remember some of the furniture and a park across the street where we played. But, and this is going to sound crazy, I never lived there. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I also remember a house. It was a farmhouse, sort of in the country. It was plain and kind of shabby, but shabby in a happy and warm way. There was a railing around the porch. I remember sitting on the top step of the porch eating popsicles. Gee, I even remember I always liked raspberry the best. But, again, I never lived there.

When I was a little girl, I remember my father painting a car that was only two years old. He was brush painting it by hand in a driveway with a great big tree near it. I was watching him. I remember my mother being angry because she said the color was "battleship gray." Why would someone paint a car that was almost new? Why would someone who could afford to have it done professionally do it in the driveway with a brush? Why is this a driveway of as house I never lived in?

You know, it’s kind of hard to talk about this stuff. There are just so many unanswered questions. Maybe they made some sense at the time, but they don’t make any sense now. It’s like a jigsaw - I try so hard to fit the pieces together to make a whole scene, and they just don’t fit. Do you think I’m making this up? Does it sound crazy? Maybe it is.

I remember so many things that make no sense at all. Like, my mother told me she was a concert pianist, yet I never heard her play the piano. She told me she graduated from Cornell University, but she is not among the alumni. She told me she was an excellent typist, yet ever since I was a teenager I had to do her typing for her. It feels like I’m Alice in Wonderland…everything is all confused. If she were going to lie to me, why didn’t she at least make up things that I wouldn’t question?

The memories still haunt me. I still try to seek out answers. A couple of years ago, I phoned the apartment house I remember. They confirmed everything I recall…the red brick, the name, the busy street, the big park with tall trees and playground equipment and benches. Maybe some of it could make sense, but it doesn’t.

Yes, the memories…or maybe I should say the lack of them…is probably the hardest part. I listen to other people tell about doing things with their families and going places and having dinners. They talk about things they had in their rooms, like dolls or pennants or radios. I can’t talk about anything like this. There just isn’t anything there. It’s all so garbled. Nothing.