River of Time

by Naomi Judd

  I had often heard the saying “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know” and now felt that I had no choice but to accept Michael Ciminella’s long-standing proposal to marry him. He knew his parents would be happy to have a daughter-in-law and a new grandchild, believing it was Michael’s baby, on the way. With great sadness, I left behind my own fractured family, my bedroom with all of my dolls and collection of perfume bottles, my high school pals, and any fantasy of going to college at the University of Kentucky.

  Living in the Ciminella’s home, I went from having very little attention as a child to having more attention and opinionated direction than I could patiently handle. Even though obsessive-compulsive disorder was not recognized and listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1968, I’m dead certain that Mrs. Ciminella was the textbook definition. I felt like I was at the mercy of a meticulous home economics instructor. Every waking minute was filled with directions on the proper and correct way to do everything, from ironing a shirt to squeezing a toothpaste tube. I spent thirty minutes with her after each meal, as she repeated the “rules” of washing the dishes: glassware first, silverware next, then plates. I wanted to scream at her, grab my baby, and run into the woods.

  The first day home from the hospital, Mrs. Ciminella insisted that we all wear surgical masks. I’m not kidding. She had sanitized the house from floor to ceiling. If I brought anything new into the house she sprayed it down with Lysol disinfectant. She was always checking to see if my hands were recently washed and if my fingernails were short and spotlessly clean before I could touch my own baby. She would keep a thermometer on the floor to make sure it was warm enough when Wy was in her playpen. My new mother-in-law was always at my elbow, with instructions on how to care for my infant “the right way.”

  Anytime the baby was fussy, Wy was whisked from my arms by one of Michael’s parents, who scowled at my inexperience. I didn’t think that I had a right to speak up for myself, because I had zero experience as a wife or mother. I also had no husband there to stand up for me. Michael couldn’t tolerate being around his neurotic parents for more than a few days. I soon understood why. I realized the reason he went to military school was to get away from them. They made today’s worst “helicopter” parents look like amateurs.

  Of course, this was not an ideal beginning to a marriage or motherhood, but I was scared to death and unprepared for both and I had nowhere else to go and no money of my own. Later, I saw the Ciminellas as a source of support for both my daughters over the years of their childhoods and young adulthood, and they all had a mutual adoration for one another.

  * * *

  In 1964, at age eighteen, I felt doomed, except for my bond with my newborn daughter. It became the only real relationship in my life. Over time it has remained a partnership that has been the most challenging one of my life and has also brought me the most joy, especially when Wy and I are in sync with each other onstage. It has always given me a feeling of being the most alive. Wynonna and I are like moths, dancing around each other’s bright flames. As a singing duo there is always the energy and beauty of the mother-daughter spark between us; yet as individuals, the flammability of our raw emotions can burn. During our final tour together, in 2011, we each came home with singed and damaged wings. The enmeshment we had on the Encore tour became far too intense.

  Wy and I had both agreed to allow the new Oprah Winfrey network, OWN, to film a “behind-the-scenes” reality show about the tour. We were honored to be a part of the network’s inaugural season on cable. I had never watched this kind of reality show before, where the cameras are with the subject from morning until late night. I truly had no idea what we were signing up to do. The way the OWN producers pitched it to us made it seem like a perfectly reasonable and even fun, by golly, idea. It soon became an overwhelming invasion, with every flicker of emotion followed and encouraged on camera, with the producers asking leading questions meant to get a passionate, uncensored response.

  We were taken to places that were certain to bring up unpredictable and raw reactions, emotionally charged locations, such as the Los Angeles house where I had lived in hand-to-mouth poverty, trying to raise Wynonna and Ashley, two very feisty daughters. This was the only place I could afford following my divorce from Michael, who provided no financial support over the years, except for a single check for one hundred dollars.

  Wy’s memories and perceptions of her time as a child in Los Angeles that she described for the OWN show were difficult and painful for her to express, but feeling very sensitive, I perceived them as accusatory and full of blame. I was going through my own extremely painful emotions, which I was trying to keep internalized, being suddenly taken back to yet another place in my personal history that held long-suppressed trauma of gigantic proportions for me.

  All of my memories from those early Los Angeles years in the 1970s were of a breathless struggle to keep us afloat. But that is something a child can’t comprehend and I didn’t want my daughters to feel the insecurity or grasp the severity of our plight. Wherever we had to drive to in my old beat-up green Impala, I would tell my girls stories or we would sing songs together. I wanted them to know joy, and it was a good distraction from my own mounting worries. Since I had no medical insurance, my greatest fear was that one of us would get sick.

  I would pick out all of our clothing at the United Way thrift store and then fold Wy and Ashley’s clothes up in a shopping bag, as if they were brand-new. Many meals were bologna, crackers, and canned corn. I told myself it was a balanced meal: meat, vegetable, and a grain.

  By the time Wynonna was nineteen, she was beginning to earn a good income from RCA, our recording label, so it was a challenge for her to relate to the desperation of being a single mom and not knowing if you would be living on the street the next month because you fell behind in paying rent. During that week of shooting the OWN show in Los Angeles, I felt exposed and defensive about my necessary past choices and survival methods as a young single mother, even though I had done the best I could.

  By our last date of the tour, and once the reality show was wrapped up, Wynonna and I were both emotionally and physically exhausted. We had so many unresolved issues of resentment, anger, and lack of boundaries.

  About a week after the finale of the tour, we met with our longtime family therapist, Ted Klontz, at my farm, hoping to resolve any leftover hurt or anger. We both wanted the tour to end on a high note.

  Our session was not harmonious. When we tried to discuss anything, even minor problems, the anger flared and became frightening. It was obvious we were living in very different realities. Ted, who has referred to us as “two alpha females in one family,” advised us both that when we are so frustrated and emotionally defensive that we might say something we will regret, we should immediately declare “I’m flooded,” which means “stop.” No explanation required.

  It was obvious that we were both drowning. I shut down and so did Wy. After fourteen months of being together daily on the Encore tour, we seemed to be headed for some time apart. I don’t think either of us knew how much time.

  The day we finished the Encore tour, Larry and I flew home together. In the airport, I took pictures with fans and hugged strangers. I laughed and chatted and told jokes to the airline staff and the flight attendants. It’s what I love doing. However, as soon as I sat down on the plane, I felt like my last ounce of energy had been spent. I was taken aback to feel pent-up tears stinging my eyes and spilling out. I wanted to curl against Larry’s shoulder and sob, but it wasn’t the place. I dabbed at the corners of my eyes with a tissue and then leaned back and pretended to be sleeping. Images flew through my mind of our final bows and the happy faces of the audience looking up at us with warmth and affection. They may have been capturing the moment for their memory books, but so was I. It was the end of an era, an era that I had moved heaven and earth to create.

  In the car from the airport, I peered up at the thick layer of cl
ouds hovering over the countryside. It was late October and the air held a damp chilliness that I knew might last until April. A feeling of heavy dread wrapped around me, no matter how hard I tried to shrug it off. I reminded myself that I was physically tired from our nonstop schedule. I was jet-lagged from changing time zones every two days for weeks on end. I thought I was probably going to experience the post-tour blues. I’ve had the blues before, because I always miss the fans and their joy. I didn’t yet suspect that this time was different and that within a week I would wish that I only had the blues.

  When I opened the door to my home, I flipped on the light in the hallway. The house was so quiet and seemed so empty. Larry took the dogs and walked to the barn to check on the horses. I could hear the kitchen clock ticking steadily. I had never noticed it in the past. I stood, motionless, listening to the sound of emptiness. At first the clock sounded like a persistent tapping, like someone or something wanting to come in. Then it prodded me like unrelenting questions, demanding my attention, questions that I wanted to ignore, but couldn’t. The questions gained entry into my mind and then drilled down to my heart. They terrified me.

  Tammy Wynette became my best friend. She also suffered from deep depression.

  Chapter 3

  Who Turned Off the Spotlight?

  What will be next for you, Naomi?

  The question I asked myself devastated me. One pesky question followed another. What will you do with yourself tomorrow? What will your days hold next month? What about the rest of your life? Is your time of striving for a career goal completely over? As a harmony singer, becoming a solo act isn’t what I want to pursue.

  The era of performing before thousands of people has come to a close. There are no more tours set up for the future. There will be no more music publishers knocking on your door for the next song you’ve written, no fabulous gowns to design, no awards shows to attend, no spotlight shining on the complete joy you feel while onstage. Even your offstage life will never be the same. Your daughters are adults with careers of their own. They don’t need you. The grandchildren have grown up and have lives of their own. They don’t need you. Your husband is still traveling with his vocal group and is often away. You are on your own now. What in the world are you going to do? Do you have anything to do tomorrow? I tried to shake the questions from my head. I tried to laugh them off as a mock restaurant hostess: “Ms. Judd, pity party of one. Please follow me to your table by the door of doom.”

  What should have been a welcome home celebration from a successful tour in 2011 felt more like a slow forced march into a bleak future. I was becoming afraid it was the beginning of a descent into darkness I had heard about from other troubled souls who had shared their plight with me.

  I had friends who had spoken of being shocked and overwhelmed by similar feelings, women who had dedicated their lives to raising children who were now grown and had moved away. I’ve known career women who had been laid off or forced to retire before they were ready, or who had husbands whose companies had downsized rapidly. Friends and fans had often told me stories of feeling happy-go-lucky one week and completely unsure and even devastated the next. A friend of mine who works in my town told me that she watched her husband get up every morning and head out the door for his job, as usual. One afternoon, he was spotted alone, reading on a park bench when he should have been at work. This forced him to confess that he had been fired weeks before and was too humiliated to tell his family.

  “When you put a lifetime of effort into a career or avocation, what do you do when that focus is gone?” fans and friends would ask me. I could see the fear and uncertainty in their eyes. I listened with sympathy, but I couldn’t empathize. I always had the next goal ready to go. The phone continued to ring with more opportunities, so I never slowed down.

  I have talked to many women who lost their husbands through death, divorce, or betrayal and were feeling abandoned and alone after giving their best years to a relationship that was now gone. They would tell me that they had fallen into a depression or suffered bouts of anxiety about their futures, confiding that they had no idea who they were now, since they had identified themselves for so many years as a wife, mother, or employee. I’d never seen that as possible in my own future, even though I witnessed as it happened to Mother when Daddy left us.

  When my tour bus arrived two days later, wending its way onto our property and to my front door, my only wish was to get on it and be driven away, back to the life I loved and away from the gathering clouds of my darkening mood. Even though the tour had been filled with challenges, every day brought a new city, a different crowd, maybe some unpredictable dilemma or a delightful surprise or two. As long as it was interesting, I felt fully alive and engaged. After all, as a former ICU nurse and with all I’ve been through, I’m at my best in emergencies.

  I couldn’t re-create these vibrant feelings anymore since returning home. I tried to take a “back to nature” walk in the valley, something that always refreshed my outlook on life in the past. However, this time the trees seemed looming and threatening.

  I attempted to cook a big family meal, which has always brought me pleasure, a connection to my family, evoking a feeling of warmth in the past. This time, though, I had no desire for food. Nothing appealed to me and I began to lose weight. I felt drained of all desires to do anything at all. My mind was repeatedly nudging me, taunting me like a bully: “What’s the point, Naomi? Is the rest of your life going to be another walk in the woods, another homemade meal that is eaten and forgotten in twenty minutes? Is that all your future will be?”

  The bus driver took my hand to help me climb the steps into the coach. I gave him a hug and smiled, resisting my impulse to say, “Start the engine. We’re out of here. I’m not ready to stop. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.” However, “my” bus hadn’t arrived to take me somewhere new; it was there to leave me behind. It was time for me to clean out my personal belongings. There would be another touring country singer who would soon be leasing this bus and crisscrossing the country. It was no longer my traveling home.

  I made my way to the back of the bus, to my cozy bedroom where I had slept soundly for eleven months. The hum of the massive tires on the highway beneath me and the soft pull of forward motion would lull me to sleep quickly. If I didn’t feel especially tired following a concert and a meet-and-greet, after the OWN camera people had called it quits for the day I would make a bag of microwave popcorn and sit in the big captain’s chair next to the bus driver and we’d talk and look out at the starry night, like pilgrims on a journey into uncharted territory. There is something so simply relaxing about knowing that your only goal for the next ten or twelve hours is to let the driver take you to the next city on the tour.

  Since the mid-1980s, when Wynonna and I went on our first national tour, I have always been most “at home” on a tour bus. I’m happy having a zip code–free life. We would arrive in a city, park in back of the venue near the stage door, do a sound check, have dinner with the crew, do a two-hour show, meet with our fans for hours after the performance, then get on our bus and watch a movie, tell funny stories, share a homemade cake or treats from a fan, and eat bag after bag of microwave popcorn.

  When we first started out, it was a more intimate setting, with the band in bunks near the front of the bus and Wynonna and me with small bedrooms in the back. It was like having a close-knit family without the complications of actually being family. We would go to bed at two in the morning in the Black Hills of South Dakota and wake up nine hours later at the Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado.

  After so many years of struggling along as a single mother, trying to piece together a way to support my children while living in a series of dilapidated apartment buildings, broken-down cabins, roach-infested hotel rooms, and drafty rented houses, I welcomed the chance to live in our clean, comfortable little house on wheels. Even though I now own a lovely home, the tour bus life still holds its charm.

  For
the Encore tour, Wy and I each had our own bus, and the band had a bus, too, which seemed like quite a luxury compared to our past. We would travel caravan-style, along with six more buses carrying the crew, band, instruments, and stage set, winding our way across the United States. I was completely content, and proud of our visible success.

  There are certain items I take with me on every road trip or tour to make myself feel at home. I always look forward to arranging them around me in any new situation. Now it was time to pack them up.

  I tugged my favorite quilt from the top of the bed, folding it into a box along with my most comfortable flannel pj’s with the monkey faces design that Wynonna had given me. On my bedside stand were the framed photos I always keep nearby, both of family. Next to that was my little box with my trusty earplugs and eyedrops, alongside a bottle of eucalyptus oil that I always keep nearby for aromatherapy. I had left some of my favorite books on the bus, a few of the gifts the fans had given me, and my cosmetics bag, all of which I put in the box. On the shelf near the door was where I had placed a beautiful natural violet and blue crystal geode stone, about the size of a grapefruit, an amethyst, given to me by a Native American friend, who always regales me with fascinating stories of natural healings. Amethyst stones have been treasured for centuries and are believed to have a calming and positive effect. I use it as a meditative stone for emotional balance and peaceful thoughts. I told him that I would take it on the tour as my “altar.” Whenever I needed to “alter” my frame of mind to be more positive, I would gaze at that geode.

  I opened the closet door to my gorgeous stage costumes. A reporter once asked me why I didn’t dress more casual country and wear jeans and cowgirl boots for the shows. I gave her a double answer. First, I’ve never owned cowgirl boots or a pair of blue jeans; they’re not my style. Second, I’ve always wanted the audience to have a “wow” experience both musically and visually. I knew that it was expensive for many of them to buy tickets, pay for babysitters, drive into the city, and park, all to see our show. I knew that our concert was a two-hour vacation they could take away from their own worries and troubles. If I could fit more sparkle and bling, another rhinestone or dyed feather on my gowns, it would certainly be there. It made me feel glamorous and I passed that good feeling of self-confidence on to the audience.