Prompt from “A Summing Up” by Neruda

“Nurtured and Castigated”

(Our birth and our growth are conditioned by a nature that both nurtured and castigated us.)

I am an odd duck, or am i. Maybe it is that most people remember the difficulties more than the good times, the nurturing and encouragement. Maybe it depends on if you are poor or rich. Maybe it depends on if your parents were nurtured or more heavily castigated. Maybe the resources dictate how easy things are, as to how care free one can be. Maybe maybe maybe

i feel out of place all the time. Maybe that is why my words are so abstract and seem out of place, to me, my words seem in place, because of all the turmoil that is breaking my movement, my journey, my dreams, and my potential.

Does anybody have time on their side

maybe if you are nurtured

but an appointment with the undertaker

sometimes you never know

maybe that is why there is more manipulation around than there is nurturing

i am the opposite of how i grew up, yes, there was some nurturing, but all i recall is the castigation. One time… little mr. pyro here set fire to the trash can in the back room. I loved fire until that time… when it seemed the whole house could go up in smoke. There were 3 rooms on one side where the back room was, and 2 rooms and a bathroom on the other side, and a sliver of a hallway that was always dark. It seemed the light was never on.

My dad, when he found out took me in the front yard, he was a cancer head, and he died of cancer, it is a wonder he and the mom did not give us cancer too, but mom, she made it past 70 now… the genes i guess… for a 3 pack of cigarettes a day kind of person… i guess it is a miracle or luck

but the dad, he took my little skinny 9 year old hand with a tight grip that there was no getting out of, and took out his lighter, and held my hand over the flame. He didn’t burn me, but my hand was pretty hot… maybe he did!

Don’t play with fire was the castigation here, and this was a mild castigation.

But i also know that there was the greatest of nurturing lessons was about loving people for who they are – and only hating the people who are evil. I think that nurturing was the key to why i was never a racist… i am prejudiced, i hate stupid people… and anybody who does me wrong. But me saying i hate somebody – my definition is that i don’t want to be around them, and i don’t want them around me! NURTURING