.01 What am I now? I'm cultivated.

Leaving the 2x2s. A lifetime of cultivating myself into an approximation of a human being.

Cultivated is where I’ll talk about the 2x2 cult, but only a little, because it’s mind-numbingly boring. I wish I was in one of those glamorous cults; you know, the kind where everyone drinks poison at the end?

I would’ve survived to tell the tale, I’m nimble like that.

I could’ve been in one where I was married off to some nut-job who was seventy-five and already had nine wives. I’d tell you how I escaped in the night, with nothing but my children and the ugly, grey handmade sack dresses I was forced to wear over thick tights that itched all the time.

Rose McGowan was raised in the cult of my dreams. I mean, come on! She grew up in Italy, in a pastel-coloured countryside in old buildings I wish I could afford to take my family to stay in for a holiday. She ate Italian food and learned the language of love before moving to the US where she acted out, behaved like a brat, and became a mega-star.

How do we differ, other than the obvious?

Well, my cult was serious, sedate, and grey as the word can be. McGowan, like Tom Cruise before her, gave the cult-fascination of the zeitgeist celeb-cred; however, it’s tricky to imagine piggy-backing off her creamy complexion and shocking tweets. I simply don’t have the same material to work with.

I don’t get to attend recovery meetings with Sharon Stone and Leah Remini or commiserate with Nicole Kidman over the impact of Scientology on families. My dad didn’t join the Skymount commune and David and Patricia Arquette don’t depend on me for advice.

No.

I had to be involved in a cult that does its best (and does this perfectly) to be the most tiresome place in the world to be,
populated by the most unexciting people on the planet,
doing wretched, tedious things,
in terrible clothes, with awful hair.

Here’s the thing, though —

I can draw a direct line from my dad joining a cult to many of my flaws. I can also infer (although the connection is less clear) that many of my best qualities derive from my upbringing in the 2x2s.

Cultivated is not a sequence of events that happened to me with a redemptive arc cheering readers up at the end.

Oh god. What a drag that would be.

Instead, it’s a series of essays, stories, sketches and very occasional poetry linked by the perspective of someone who escaped a lifetime of rules and regulation and endures the consequences. With, she hopes to convey, a well-honed sense of humour.

Buckle up, settle in, whatever it is. I’ll tell you how it went down, how it still goes, how I dream it might. I’ll try my best not to be a drag but feel it’s fair to tell you.

Sometimes I might be.

I’ve written the whole thing. So many shapes and forms, a lifetime of words poured onto pages. I’ve got more than the bones of the thing. It’s been fleshed into what I was convinced was a book but I’m not sure of that anymore. But a long time ago I loved blogging, and this feels like home. I’ll post piece by piece, scene by scene. It’s sketched on paper and will now be rendered right here.

Listen. I’m nervous, oh, so nervous, but I’m also ready.

Ready to tell you what happened. How things went from this to that in what felt like a moment, and what that meant then, and of course, what it means now.

You are welcome to read up on the 2x2s; you’ll find lots online given there is an open FBI investigation into multiple allegations of childhood sexual abuse. I’ll post some links somewhere — I’m still getting the hang of this site. But it’s not necessary to study for this. I’m telling my version of it, and I’ll be sure to do it justice.

After all.

I’ve been writing this story for the last forty-three years.

A couple last notes:

• If you read as a former 2x2 member, I need you to know. I’m doing my best to be respectful, at the same time I’m respecting my experience. We may diverge. In what we experienced and in how we parse those experiences. I promise to tell the truth¹ best I can, as respectfully as I’m able.
  
  Email me or DM me in the private FB groups or share comments on any of these posts — about what I write, about your experience, about whatever. And pass this on if you think it might help someone feel less alone. I pour over your stories because even when they break my heart? It helps knowing you are all there and I don’t have to do all the work² to explain. If this can do that even for a minute for someone, well. It doesn’t make it worth it and at the same time? It just might.

• If you’re a 2x2 and you’re on the fence? My advice is to get off it. It’s taken a lifetime for me to cultivate myself into something approximating a mostly well-adjusted human. You can’t start soon enough.
  

1. Truth. Hahahahahahaha. [ed. These footnotes won’t make sense to people who don’t yet know anything about the 2x2s.]

2. “Work.” They really did kinda ruin language, hey?