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Money, Money, Money
On sorting out my relationship with lucre
I have a complicated relationship with money.
I know many of us do, and the truism (that may also be true) is that women, especially, do.
My family seems to be particularly troubled by money and money issues.
There are so many reasons. Teasing them apart is the work. Am I ready to write an article explaining definitively what happened in my family around money, to try to illustrate why I and my three siblings are evidently hampered when it comes to understanding, caring for, or using this precious resource?
Probably not.
But half the reason I write essays is to try to figure this kind of shit out.
So, here I am.
Back to money.
Let’s start with Piedmont.
Piedmont (“foot of the mountain” in Italian), California is a tiny, tony town tucked into the foothills above Oakland, a troubled city plagued by crime and neglect since shortly after World War II.
Piedmont is where I grew up. My parents, a journalist and a merchant marine, with a double income at a time when few couples had one, were able to buy a large, shingled house with a big garden on Highland Avenue, the main thoroughfare.
