In the Big House

Grove Plantation House found here

During the days before the Civil War, slaves were bought and kept in little hovel-type shacks away from the Big House--the name the slaves gave their owner's home. The land owner needed domestic servants, so there were times when a slave's child who looked the part would be taken up to live in the Big House. While their parents slept on a mud floor, suffered in their back breaking work in the fields and survived the elements, their child was sleeping in a bed of her own up in a warm, dry house. Because her owners did not want her appearance to speak poorly of them, the household servants were taught how to interact with their White owners, how to polish silver, what to wear, and in general, conduct themselves according to what was expected.
When the time came for the servants to visit their parents out in the shacks on the back forty, they were awkward and felt out of place. In their parents homes, they sat on log benches or on the ground. Their parents and friends handled them carefully so as not to ruin their clothes, which compared to what the parents were given, were lovely. Children tried to converse with their parents, but their worlds were so different. There was a vast gulf between parents and child: even though the child was in their space, she did not belong there. The child spoke differently and used different expressions, spoke of different situations than any that the parents had experienced. As she watched her parents talk, she heard the idioms of her parents through the ears of those who had taught her to express herself in a different way, and she hung back from her parents. The parents could not go up to the Big House because they had not been schooled in the expected behavior, nor did they have clothes, or feel at home in such big homes. It was not that the parents didn't want to have homes of their own, or that they were content with the horrendous living conditions that they endured. It was not that they were not happy that their children were doing better than they were. It was that they could not enter that world, nor could they understand the experience of their children--pulled between two worlds but part of neither. When they saw their children hang back or behave awkwardly, they attributed this to their child feeling superior. But in fact, the children felt lost. They could visit their parents but the parents could not go to the Big House. One is not better than the other--both reached for the once known solace of each other only to find that both suffered because something significant had changed and nothing felt entirely comfortable for either party. This is a loss and a grief to anyone who has ever lived in the Big House, or who has lost another to the Big House.

The first day of class after I returned from Europe, my English teacher announced, "Barbara has come back from Europe after singing for the President." She looked over her glasses at the class. "Maybe if we're nice, she'd sing for us, too." I don't know if Mrs. Nelson meant ill by this or not, but it struck me as catty and unkind, and I shrunk down into my seat, horrified to be singled out in that way.
The same thing happened when I went to choir practice for the first time. Miss Olaf made some sort of comment that clearly did not celebrate my recent experience. I was mortified, but determined to prove that I wasn't big headed, and was the same as they were, even though I'd done something different from the others at my school.
But I wasn't the same.
Looking around at the choir members, it was hard not to compare the pimply-faced, sophomore tenors with the tenor opera singer from Vienna who had become quite encouraging of me. Or my tenor voice teacher with whom I had lain on the floor under the piano in his studio, laughing at the cartoons he had pasted on the underside of the piano.
Singing such uninspiring music as Miss Olaf chose, I could not help but recall singing Bach at the top of my lungs in front of an enthusiastically playing string orchestra. Or the tall granite buttresses of so many cathedrals across Poland, and the sound of our music echoing through them.
I had been surrounded by extremely gifted young musicians--some who had won young musician competitions for years, or who had made recordings, or had been taught by famous string players. Our conversations had been about things like which composer we preferred and why; or the performer we had heard play Chopin's Ballade No. 1 with such force that the piano had moved across the stage; or how the bowing should be for the slow movement of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. They had actually been interested to hear me talk about the Italian songs I loved, and why I loved to sing certain notes--yes, other teenage kids actually wanted to know which note I liked to sing best!
There had been a freedom and level of understanding that I had never dreamed I could have.

Other kids actually understood what it was like to step out on the stage and give birth to Music in front of people who sat mesmerized, with tears in their eyes. Our youthful idealism and love for what we created kept us striving to give more to the people who heard us. It was a love that I have never seen or felt anyplace else, so unique, spontaneous, and strong it was.

So, as I walked through the halls at school, was approached by immature boys, or tried to join in conversations with girls about what color nail polish they preferred, my heart was very far away. I longed for the Big House. Even though I would be alone there now, at least it was a place where I knew I belonged.

Now, as a 48 year-old woman, I have lived in a couple Big Houses. One of them--where I live most of the time--is the Big House of being a therapist. People who study to become therapists need to learn that there are losses of every kind when they decide to live in a place where others can't come--even if you want them to. We look at our families in different ways. We think about our spouses differently. We have opinions about the children of our friends--all based on what we have learned, seen, and known from clinical experience. We are told things by friends that clearly states trouble, but that we are not at liberty to point out to anyone.
Fortunately, I've found that there are places where I can meet my friends and husband, where we both fit and belong and where I can turn off the voices in the Big House.

When you're a teenager, trying to figure out who you are in the first place, the longing voices coming from our parents often make us very lonely up up in the Big House.