When I was a child, I lived in a world I could barley make sense of. 

I lived with ambiguity.
I lived knowing there were places I could not go. I learned there were things I was not supposed to talk about, not even to myself. I met people who were trustworthy, others who were not.
I could laugh and cry at the same time, I remember that being a fairly common response to much of what I experienced. I remember my brothers did the same thing. When did we stop?
We threw our toys over the Forbidden Ledge (our neighbor's garbage pit), then begged our father to retrieve them.
I tied a bandana to a tent pole and stood outside our house, my thumb out. When my mother saw me from a bedroom window, I was smacked and hugged, then ignored. In this same fashion I packed my suitcase over and over again to join the circus, return to my real family in Mexico, hit the big time as famous singer/dancer/actor/dog trainer/lion tamer.
I went shirtless and wore a coin around my neck on string. I had six shooters that cracked with caps, a cowgirl outfit. Later an army uniform.
I told stories.
I wrote poems.
How else to order my existence?
In two days I will be 54 years old. Where is that child? I remember what poem she loved best, as a 4 year old.

SOLITUDE

I have a house where I go
When there's too many people,
I have a house where I go
Where no one can be;
I have a house where I go,
Where nobody ever says "No";
Where no one say anthing-so
There is no one but me.

A.A. Milne, Now We Are Six