A Letter Home
It's Mother's Day...
by Cameryn Moore
Dear Mom:
You’re never going to see this Mother’s Day letter, but I’ve got a column to write, and I figure if ever there were a prompt that sprang from a true place, this one would be it, for me. And if ever a mother understood what a “prompt” is, it would be you.
I’m writing this in Medford, MA. That’s about seven miles north of where I lived in Boston for the last four years. I’m here for another three and a half weeks, and then I head out on tour again, but you can still send mail to my old Boston address until September; that’s when my lease is officially up. I guess I’ll need to get a PO box after that. Or you can send things to S in DC, I won’t be there until mid-November, but he’ll hold it for me, at least.
I know that my whole live/work/travel situation has been confusing you for a long time. Frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t called me out yet, given how much I used to write into the family newsletter. I’m pretty sure I stopped writing to the newsletter in the Spring of 2009, which exactly coincides with the date that I became a phone sex operator.
I don’t even know how to explain that to fit in with your Mormon sensibilities. I was really desperate for money, and S wasn’t able to help, and there were no jobs, and a friend helped me find where the help-wanted ads were posted. And then, well, I found out I was really good at it. It’s not a lot of money, but it pays the bills. So I kept doing it, have been doing it for over three years now.
I didn’t tell you, because I know it would hurt you. I know it would really, really hurt you. There was a time when I would have been fine with hurting you. In fact, when I was 23 I would have rejoiced to find a way to earn money AND hurt you at the same time. But I was younger, and still angry at you and Dad, and to be honest, I still cared. Now I’m older and I’ve let it all go: the anger and the caring. I can’t be bothered to sit down and have the conversations, the many conversations that would be needed to explain my current career. There are too many layers, too many ways to confuse and hurt you in your faith. So I told you I worked for a customer call center, and that seemed to satisfy your curiosity.
Three different plays, plus a book, plus a blog, none of which I can tell you about.
Then I started writing about my experiences as a phone sex operator, first in a blog and then in a play, Phone Whore. You probably can’t even read that phrase without flinching, but it has appeared in newspaper articles and on fences across North America over the last two and a half years. I said it with a smile to countless strangers in festivals. Some of them did flinch, but a lot of them took my postcards and came to my show and many of them liked it. I loved touring, so I did it again in 2011, and I’m doing it again this year, too.
Three different plays, plus a book, plus a blog, none of which I can tell you about. I told you about the shows, but I told Dad that you couldn’t come. I told you about the book, and about the sidewalk typing—god, you were so excited about that!—but I didn’t tell you what I was typing and how many times I type the word “cock” in one week. I told you about the Montréal Fringe Festival, but I didn’t tell you about the time I wore a garter belt and pasties and an open satin robe to the after party.
I’m not hiding. I’ve never hidden. As a solo performer, I can’t. My face has to be out there.
I realize that you might find out anyway. Hell, if you’re reading this right now, that means someone has put it together for you and sent you the link. I’m not hiding. I’ve never hidden. As a solo performer, I can’t. My face has to be out there. Posters showing my face and most of my tits have gone up all around the big city closest to where you live; my press photos have appeared in weeklies there. It’s only a matter of time until someone we both know finds a picture of me with my pseudonym and sends it to you.
And then you’ll find out… what? That I’m talking to people, sometimes lots of people, about sex. You wouldn’t like it, but I don’t think that’d surprise you much. If you could somehow manage to get through that, you’d find that… I’m performing a lot. Getting some decent reviews. I’m planning more shows, a tour to Europe. I probably won’t ever be able to buy Dad that yacht he used to bug me about during my journalism days, but, you know, I’m creating in ways I don’t think either of us imagined when you encouraged me to take typing lessons at age 12 and loaned me your Writers’ Digests at age 16. And I’m really happy. If you take away anything from this letter, let it be that.
There’s a little part of me that wishes I could tell you...
From the little tidbits I’ve dropped over my past two years of writing and performing, you’ve picked up enough to be proud of me. I can hear it in your voice, when we talk two or three times a year. But it’s hard to be proud when you’re not exactly sure what you’re being proud of, and you don’t know enough about it to brag to anyone. I know. There’s a little part of me that wishes I could tell you, but it’s surrounded by a much bigger part of me that knows that you could not handle the overall shock.
I’ve had decades of practice at keeping parts of my life from you. These added omissions, they’re only a matter of degree. So I’m pretty much fine with letting our relationship drift into nothingness. I think you must be, too, or you’d ask more. I’ll try to keep you up to date about my mailing address, and I’ll try to give you enough to know that I’m doing well. Let’s leave it at that. It’s my gift to you, cutting the ties. Hell, those were cut 20 years ago. Now I just have to keep letting them go. I know enough about you to know that you’d want it this way.
Yours,
Cameryn
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