Gina Lumsden Kropf
NYC Artist/Photographer - art@ginakropf.com
Musings on Addiction & Recovery
Blackout
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth like sweaty
skin against hot leather seats in August.
The taste of last night’s indulgence blasted through
her senses as she worked to regain consciousness.
Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was 4:00 am.
Soaked in sweat, sheer terror overcame her and rose
into her throat, almost choking her. A wave of
questions; Where was she? Where was her car? How
did she get here? Why was she not sleeping in her
room? What had she done, said, and to whom? She
felt sick with the unknowing as she crawled out of the
bed, moving to the window to see if her car was
outside. It was pitch black out, except for the street
lamp that radiated a golden glow over her front yard.
Her car was in her parking space, where it was
supposed to to be. She returned to her bed, thankful
that she was alone and hadn’t brought home a stray
man, and attempted to pull together the pieces of last
night. Her own self loathing prevented her from falling
back asleep, as she wrestled with her inner demons of
vile disgust, and a soul-sickness that had no cure. The
half-empty cup of wine on the bedside table remedied
the raw emotion long enough for her to drift back out
of consciousness. The sun rose in the window as she
once again folded herself back in to oblivion.
Diary of an alcoholic
Girl Lost

Staring at Ceilings
September, 1982
September, 1982 Brad’s room was dark and cozy, like a cave, with
its stained cherry walls that sloped like an attic. It served as a
respite away from the hostile eyes of high school with its heavy
air of deprecating disdain. Brad’s room was an escape from the
everyday pains of life. He was the neon band aid that covered the
daily scratches that would wear away the rocks of her soul like
water on stones. At 14 years old, she didn’t have the capacity to
ponder deeper on this. Her pain was immense and the relief the
boy provided was impossible to ignore. Her old mind couldn’t
remember if she actually enjoyed the sex, or if the tenderness of
two bodies blending was conveniently mistaken for a warm hug
in an inhospitable world. Laying down on his bed as he entered
her, she stared up at the Motley Crue’s album cover, with the guy
in black leather lace-up pants shot from his navel down to his
upper thigh. When it was over, he would Smoke a joint and listen
to this album, as each sad, angsty song fused from one into the
next. Lost and moody as it spun towards the end of the album, the
needle beginning to jump on the vinyl. Sadness enveloped like
smoke from a bonfire that would follow her everywhere she went,
burning her retinas. Only a short time later, she would stare up at
the water-stained acoustic tiles of another ceiling, when her mom
took her to the gray brick building on Computer drive off of Six
forks Road. The lady who greeted her handed her a gown, but
really it was just a piece of blue paper that tied in the back. She
was allowed to keep on her bra and shirt, a yellow Burt's surf
shop tee that he had given her at the beach last summer on a
warm evening when the sand was starting to feel cool to the feet.
She slept in it and made it hers like all girls do with their
boyfriends t-shirts. She sat in a row of chairs along with the other
girls until it was her turn to go into the little room with the shade
drawn over the window that looked out over the gray pavement
of the parking lot. The steel bed was covered with a sterile blue
plastic cushion and rigid, unyielding paper pulled down over the
top that made a crinkling sound as she moved. Her feet sat
cradled in the cold metal stirrups as she lay on her back and
stared up at the ceiling tiles, old and brown with years and water
damage. She heard a voice telling her to relax as the long tube
was inserted into her cervix. She felt it expand as it went it, and
with it, the wave of cramps and the urge to vomit, and couldn’t
help but notice that the same feelings of emptiness were present
as any other time she found herself on her back. It would all be
over soon and there would be no more of the crippling nausea.
On the way home, they would pull into the drive-through burger
king. Her mom ordered all of the comfort food for her. A double
cheeseburger with ketchup, a large fry and a banana milkshake.
She would sleep the rest of the day. Brad eventually moved on to
someone else, and she had a string of different ones, each
promising comfort and love but always filling her with a feeling of
transience. And more of these procedures that promised relief
from the consequences of a pregnant body and a life with a
baby. She learned at a young age that her body was a form of
currency to use with boys to get the attention she ached for, even
if it was the wrong kind. Years later, her fiancé at the time, Rhett,
would bring home all of the left-over liquor when the bar he
owned would close. The booze was kept above the black glossy
refrigerator in a cabinet that she had to stand on a stool to reach
. The assortment, he said, was crap that no-one would ever drink.
Cheap Scotch and Ouzo. They had been living together in that
loft apartment overlooking the lake for almost a year by the time
she finished the last bottle and had the last abortion. Please don’t
misunderstand. The abortions were not birth control, but
moments from drunken evenings when they couldn’t fathom how
the sponge or diaphragm could possibly fail, and she could not
wrap her mind around the life she would have given to a child.
The only moment she was capable of living in was the one of the
present, and beyond that was nothing. She knew he wasn’t for
her during the one of her rare lucid moments as she sat on the
back porch staring out at the water on a mild, beginning of fall
afternoon, just as summer was yielding, and a cool breeze was in
the air. She had just come home from an abortion, and had not
had time to begin the daily drinking. The air was crisp, and so
were her thoughts, for once. This was where this journey for love
had found her? Empty and alone and more than a little broken.
She had no way of knowing at the time how unconditional love
would eventually heal her, from the the maturity and growth of
an expanding heart that is capable of love as a gift to be given
rather than received. It would be ten years later when she would
experience agape love, through the birth of her only child, her
daughter. She had so much to overcome first, and that would
come many sober years later.

Diary of an alcoholic
June 1979
The heat of the summer always reminded her of her dad. He would always appear
as the temperatures warmed, and by the time the leaves began to change, he was gone. He
came over that day in June, and hugged her as he wept on her shoulder. The day was warm,
and the smell his cologne mixed with Pal Mal cigarettes and the rough feel of his beard
against her cheek was comforting in a confusing kind of way. She was 11 years old , and
smelled of summer sweat, chlorine, and Pepsi. He came to the home at Fairway Apartments
that she shared with her mother and her younger brother. He told her that he had given up on
finding a professorial job at one of the many local universities in here in tobacco country; the
triangle area that encompasses Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. Since his divorce from her
mom and his subsequent move from Richmond, he had followed her mom, who insisted on
moving back home to be near her parents. He was the first person in his family to earn a
college degree and escape the cycle of poverty, and had left Durham and swore he would
never return. But return, he did. And he stayed for a year, to be near them, he said. He
whispered to her through tears that God had led him to Dallas, Texas, to teach at the
University of North Texas and Dallas Theological Seminary. This move meant she would see
him sporadically, mostly at Christmas and on Summer vacations. But her dad, being the
genius of the quick sell, painted a thrilling picture of what an amazing adventure this almost
cross-country drive this would be. She jumped at the chance to be included in his world, and
a few weeks later, they hopped into his 79’ blue Buick with no air conditioner and began their
journey across the country. The heat was suffocating, at around 104 degrees, and her legs,
clad in my cut-off Levi shorts, were completely stuck to the old blue vinyl of the bench seats.
She took photos with her brand new One-Step Polaroid camera of the Great Smokey
mountains as they passed through Tennessee, and burned with excitement of the signs
warning of the possibility of falling rocks. Her dad, the music lover, told her all about Buddy
Holly and Elvis Presley as they listened to Blue Suede Shoes and drove through Memphis,
windows down, his cigarette smoke softly lifting up and out through the window and into the
hazy, blue sky. He explained to her the difference between A hotel and a motel when they
pulled up to the Motel 6, just off of I-30. He gave gave a quarter to put in the machine on the
headboard of the bed to make it vibrate. The TV had only rainbow lines and a static noise
since it was after midnight, so she drifted off to sleep in anticipation of tomorrow’s journey.
Breakfast was Fritos and Funyuns out of the machine on the way to the car, as they set off for
another 12 hours. Dallas brought them country music as the landscape changed to flat, and
men in starched Wrangler jeans and cowboy hats appeared as foreign to her as actual aliens
from outer space. It also brought her Taco Bueno, her dad talking to her about Mexico as she
ate this sloppy thing called a burrito, swallowing it down with a Dr. Pepper. He showed her To
the Galleria, one of the glamorous malls of Dallas, Texas, and had stores like Saks 5th Ave and
Bloomingdales. She did not belong in this world, being a pre-teen in shorts and tee-shirts,
surrounded by the glamorous women of Dallas, with their big blonde hair and long red nails.
Her dad was woman-crazy, mom said, and he flirted with all of them at the cologne counters
that were scattered about Macy’s, repeating the same old lines to each one, as she stood
there bored and embarrassed. He slowed down only to remind her that if she didn’t start
watching what she ate, she would be sorry soon. No man wanted a fat girl. He took her to
Bloomingdales, and she felt like somebody as the overly made-up girl at the check-out
counter handed her a “Little Brown Bag”. She rode on his excitement and energy that week,
flying high on the newness of it all. He woke her up one morning at 2:00 am to go to IHOP for
cheesecake. As confused as she was, she loved his spontaneity . Their week together ended
the same way it had started. He leaned down and hugged her as he cried. The weight of his
emotion felt like a cement block , threatening to slam her into the shiny tiled floor. She turned
to get on the airplane, and the flight attendant attaching a little set of Eastern Airline wings to
her t-shirt. As the “big bird”, as her dad called it, lifted up and over Dallas, she marveled at
tiny houses stretched out across the board, with little blue swimming pools in each back yard.
She was lifted up and out of the sadness and confusion, with her ginger ale and pretzels, if
only for a few hours. September 2015 She went to visit his grave today. She and her husband,
and her 10 year old daughter. It’s in Durham, a place he wanted to never return, on a little
piece of muddy earth that appears to slide down into the street. She couldn’t believe he was
under her feet, and she wondered why humans devote all of this land to bury their dead. It
seemed like such an odd tradition, she mused. He didn’t even want to be buried. He had
confided in her , the way he often did, in his syrupy way that always seemed like bull shit, that
he wanted to be cremated. On the way home from the cemetery. we happened drove by an
old pre-war apartment complex and an odd sensation came over her as She looked at up the
large, wrought iron windows, that she had been there before. She was slammed with a
sudden rush of memory. This was the apartment her dad lived in that year before he moved
to Dallas, before they left on our trip together. One summer day years ago, it was her dad’s
weekend to have her and her brother. They were together, in that living room of those old
apartments with its hardwood floors and massive windows that let the sun shine in like a
glowing orb, reflecting off of the shiny floors and white walls. The sparseness of the place
made it seem spotlessly clean. He had an old blue sofa bed, and a big TV sitting on a tray, the
kind people used to call “TV trays”, because they would pull them up to the sofa and eat their
frozen dinners on them. The two siblings were fighting over the channels like two dogs
fighting over a tennis ball. The next thing she knew, her dad was storming through the room,
words coming from his mouth in a series that she couldn’t even comprehend. He was wearing
nothing but a pair of white boxer shorts, the TV in his arms, rabbit ears wrapped in aluminum
foil smashed to the floor. He called her mom, who immediately whisked the children up and
out of there, terrified. She would see him several more times before he died, never knowing
which dad would show. Returning to the present, she glance into the back seat at her 11 year
old daughter, and try to imagine what she would do if she saw her own dad pulI off such a
dramatic feat. She couldn’t She can’t imagine her feeling any of the burden and heaviness of
having to deal with the emotions put upon her by an adult. She had barely escaped that
reality for her daughter. But still, he was there, alone on that little hill. All of the other
tombstones were decorated with old photographs, flowers, balloons, little trinkets from loved
ones, while his was lonely and bare. She became aware of the little flower attached to her car
radio. It was a fake red daisy she bought at the Charlotte IKEA the week before and still had in
her car. She took it out and put it on his grave. It was the best she had, and while she didn’t
really want to go out of her way for him, the poor bastard needed something. She would
return one more time in her life. She didn't see the point in going back.
