Red Dirt Girl

By Melissa Espinoza

Red Dirt Girl is the true story of one girl's life growing up somewhere between the cities of the Bay Area and the red dirt of Northern California. Growing up in a family of drinkers no one was watching as she was living a youth of abuse and constant fear. As you read, you will meet Grandma Edith who lives with cigarette in one hand and beer can in the other. You will meet the men who take constant sexual advantage of the young girl, starting even before her memories do. You will meet her dad who loves the ladies and his hangover pickle juice. And, of course, you will meet Melissa. She floats through the story as if this life is what she was made for. She does not fight the fear and terror, she, like so many other abused children, just accepts.
EXCERPT/PREFACE
"Taking a trip is exhausting on the body and the mind, your body having to navigate all of the abuse and texture of space, objects, people, and your mind with nowhere to run, just a bound captive to whatever happens to your body. Then there is all that sitting, sitting on cramped airplane seats or sticking to the vinyl of old car seats, smelling bodies, babies, thick air, and food, always smelling of food. Don't forget all the walking through human nature, feeling all the people in the cities breathing too close, fearing encounters, fearing touch. Fearing. Walking again through nature, at first feeling that false sense of security within the soft grass, the comforting smell of nothingness. Then comes the stiff bark on your back, the prickly pine needles stabbing you underfoot, needing to pluck them out of your toes like you would a sliver but being unable to move, always unable to move. Again, bodies too close, the heat on your face not from the sun.

Then comes sitting in cars, on couches, in theaters, in the dark, always in the dark and always without feelings. Where are the feelings? I ponder this for a moment. The feelings are never on my trips. They stay home in my warm, cozy bed. They stay where they are safe, they are the smart ones, unlike me, I keep coming back, I keep smelling the smells, I keep plucking the pine needles, I keep sitting in the dark. For a moment I want to run back to my feelings, wherever they are, jump in bed with them and fall asleep. But I can't get there, it's like trying to run in a dream, they are always just out of reach. I move in slow motion until I am no longer moving at all. Then I give up. I, on my trip, and my feelings back in my cozy bed alone.

I have a realization now that it was probably better that my feelings didn't join me on these trips. They may not have fared as well as my mind and body did. I see now that my feelings are all I had left to keep safe. My mind and body were forced aboard the cars and couches, the busy streets and cement staircases, the swimming pools and dark rooms. As I return to these trips in my brain I see sometimes my feelings did join me. They would teleport to me from their safe haven in my bed at lightning speed giving me a jolt of anticipation, dread, fear, anger, and there must have been a jolt of happiness now and then, though my memory falls short in finding that one. Almost before the jolt could make it completely through my body it would be gone, replaced by the calm feeling of nothingness, my favorite feeling, my safe haven, my home."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0DTGJLY3H
• ISBN13: 9798328587044
• Release Date: January 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"