How Mary Poppins Stopped Being God 

 Mary Poppins wore a tailored tux and a tall top hat when she was God. The umbrella she usually carried in the film was gone. Instead, she paraded around with a black cane that shot lightning when pointed in a particular direction. She still had Julie Andrews’ face but talked in a deep baritone voice on occasion—she was usually silent. She smelled like freshly squeezed orange juice and wore bright red lipstick. She had soft, feminine hands that fit perfectly into mine.

I saw Mary Poppins frequently as a child. I saw her in my dreams, when I looked up at the sky for too long, in my mother’s fresh laundry, in a puddle of ice cream that melted from a summer’s day, in my sister’s slanted laugh, in my bruised knees after recess, in a bowl of cookie batter on Christmas Eve, in chlorine-filled pool water that made my eyes burn, in a box of freshly sharpened crayons, in every tantrum I ever threw.

My mom hid pill bottles in the closet of my childhood bedroom. The closet was filled with checkered shorts and t-shirts bedazzled in rhinestones. Boxes of unused toys, mainly Barbie and Bratz dolls, lined the top rack.

And pill bottles.

I’m not sure why I knew what they were, I only ever heard the noise of rolling pellets. At an early age I was hyper aware of pills and how they made my parents happy and relaxed.

I was nine when I asked why she was hiding them in my room.

“In case someone robs the house, they can’t steal our medicine.” My mom’s shoulders shrugged as she continued maneuvering through the boxes of toys until she found her Lunesta. I asked her to tuck me in again. I wanted to feel the warmth of her fingertips lightly guiding my blanket into the crevices of my prepubescent body. Her hands were cold.

Her jewelry never got the same carefully hidden treatment as the pills. Her wedding ring was always casually thrown on top of her dresser. She temporarily lost her wedding ring when the flooring of my childhood home was redone. My mom blamed the workers. Their thick frames took apart the bland carpet to reveal hardwood floors as they looked up at my mom’s thin silhouette with glossy eyes. She’s always been tall, thin, and terrifying. My dad assured her that she probably misplaced the ring because everything was always cluttered. The ring reappeared in her bathroom sink. My mom attests this to her intimidation. After that, I thought I understood why she hid the pills.

I don’t remember when Mary Poppins stopped being God. I’ve never seen the 1964 classic. I saw the film on TV as a child. My brain must have idealized the appearance of Mary Poppins and associated her with God. I probably got too old to associate women with any sense of power, much less the ultimate holy being.

Now, God is a faceless cloud with beams of light surrounding him. He maintains frequent conversations with me. I think he does, anyway. I can never tell if it’s really him. He hums in my ear when I’m deciding between two tough decisions. He doesn’t smell like freshly squeezed orange juice. I can’t describe him anymore than that. I don’t really know him.

 When my sister was born, only three years separating us, she was sick with a stomach ulcer. My family loves to casually talk about how she almost died. The doctors had to perform surgery on her stomach—she still has a scar hovering over her bellybutton. She was injected with morphine. The doctors told my parents that she’d be asleep for four hours. She woke up in thirty minutes. My sister, as a baby, had a high tolerance for morphine.

My mom emphasized that it wasn’t anything crazy like meth or crack. Except, it was temporarily cocaine, but at least it hadn’t been for some time. It was mainly opioids and sleeping pills. She told me the summer I left for college like if the precursor to adulthood was discovering your dad is an addict. It felt like an inside joke I was finally old enough to understand. I also found out that all my dad’s business trips were trips to rehab. My mom kept it a secret because she didn’t want to ruin the image of my dad.

I think I was supposed to be shocked. If anything, I was relieved. My dad’s lack of emotional involvement was suddenly not blamed on his inability to care about me, but on his addiction. He never knew the name of any of my friends or any boy I dated. He was just always high.

My favorite Bible verse is Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.” If there is a God, he surely views me as a dog. I’m not someone who can have blind faith. I grew up in the church. My parents took me every other Sunday to a non-denominational church where people wore flip flops and jeans to Sunday service. It was very modern.

One Sunday, I must’ve been eight or nine, the Sunday-school teacher told us how Jesus cleaned the feet of his disciples. It was significant because Jesus was the disciples’ leader, yet he humbled himself to clean the feet of his followers. I went home that Sunday and cried. And then cried harder when I questioned what I was even crying about.

I asked my mom if she would clean my feet. She giggled and kneeled on the ground to kiss the tops of my toes.

I don’t think God maintains frequent conversations with me. I’m not sure why I said that. I haven’t heard from him in months. He still hums in my ear, though. No beat or rhythm, almost like a stutter. He wants to say something but can’t get it out. 

“How was your first Fine Arts?” Pastor Gloria—her curly hair extending the width of two large men, eyes eager with a determination to lure me into gimmicky church culture—asked me as someone sat sandwiched between us.

“Very niche,” I responded.

She repeated what I said, in the way that people repeat a joke to emphasize its humor. “Very niche.” But I wasn’t joking. I was being rude.

I smiled and she smiled and the person sitting between us smiled. And the auditorium smiled. And the people doing the interpretive dances on stage didn’t smile because they were depicting a biblical story about David, or Peter, or Judas. And the judges smiled. And the whole of Christianity smiled.

Because Pastor Gloria was a Hispanic female pastor so that meant our church was progressive. Because we went to interpretive dance competitions with other churches so that meant the Assemblies of God denomination was filled with creatives. Because the young students filling the auditorium wore baggy jeans and $200 Nikes. Because that meant we dressed cool. Because Pastor Gloria also dressed cool. Because our church managed to bring over 300 students to a church-based interpretive dance competition.

 We inspired the youth. And uplifted the youth. And prayed for the youth. And are the youth. And I never understood why they were always smiling because I was mad.

I got my period when I was ten. I hunched into fetal position on my parents’ bed after coming home from the fifth grade. My groin felt the sharpness of a throbbing uterus pumping out blood and I moaned in pain. My mom got Advil out of her nightstand cluttered with Time magazines that never got around to being read.

I asked my mom why she didn’t hide the pill bottle in my room. Her eyes widened; they weren’t a stark contrast from her already protruding lids—a gene she passed down to me. We were both embarrassed I asked. She didn’t answer. My sister, seven at the time, understood much younger than I did what my mom was protecting me from. Sometimes my dad stole my mom’s sleeping pills, so she hid them in my closet.

Before I joined the Pentecostal church, I had spent the summer at home, shoulder-to-shoulder with the addict hiding in my dad’s body. I know it wasn’t my dad because I studied his face when he was sober and full. And I remember what his laugh looked like—what his eyes did when he was proud of my sister and me. And I remember what his fingertips felt like crossing the street, how his mouth widened when he ate steak, how he laughed, how he was proud.

I know that man that I spent my summer with wasn’t my dad because his eyes reddened, and his gaze remained on the ground. No, my dad always looked up. And my dad ate steak every Monday to start off the week.

The summer before I joined the church, my dad didn’t eat a single slab of steak. His body weakened and turned yellow like a potted plant someone forgot to water.

I hugged my mom while she was weeping on the bathroom floor because my dad went to rehab again, and I told her she was a good mom.

Worship felt like a concert. LED lights traced the corners of the million-dollar auditorium while everyone thrusted their necks to the beat of the music. The worship band pranced on stage, lifting their arms, the veins on their wrists pulsing from holding the microphone too tight.

Everyone’s arms were lifted. We sang along to lyrics that were projected on two jumbo screens. People started speaking in Tongues, a language I didn’t understand and never have. Their words blended into gibberish that made their bodies expand in the hopes of reaching heaven. Leaders from the church came and placed their hands on bowing heads, pushing them down until they fell and appeared to have a spiritual experience.

Pastor Gloria, reminding me of my mom with her thin and terrifying frame, came on and yelled at us to feel God. Or be with God. Or speak to God. And then some people fainted.

Pastor Gloria made eye contact with me, my body still not mimicking the compulsions or seizure-like episodes of my surroundings. Her eyes, glittering purple from the lights, spoke to me in a language I understood. So, I knelt and prayed and whispered in a language I didn’t understand until the service was over.

I confronted my dad about it on a Tuesday. I was nineteen. His eyes were barely open, fluttering faintly. He was watching TV, scrolling through channels. I was used to talking to him when he was high.

He reminded me that at least it wasn’t meth. His gaze never left the dim light from the TV. He finally settled on a sitcom. Something like Friends or Family Matters with an annoying laugh track. 

I told him that my mom said the same thing.

“You got to be careful out there,” he shook his head like a bad salesman trying to use his minimal charisma to sell me a product. “We’re all addicts.”

“I’m not an addict.”

“Not yet.” The laugh track from the sitcom went off. A character made a joke. I swallowed the lump in my throat and thanked God it wasn’t meth and laughed along.

I left the church a week after going to Fine Arts. It was the same week I turned twenty-one. It was a month before my dad went to rehab for the sixth time. I think I was supposed to say that I was sorry.

To God, I mean.

Sometimes when I close my eyes and concentrate hard, I see Mary Poppins. She’s wearing a black suit with her cane shooting lightning bolts, the scent of orange juice lingering. Her hands fit more tightly into mine because my childhood palms have grown into thin long fingers. She takes off her top hat and gives it to me. I place it on my head and play God. She kneels to my ankles and takes off my shoes. Water begins pouring from the clouds into a basket where she places my feet and begins cleaning them. And I cry. And then I cry harder when I question what I’m crying about. 

Michelle Munoz is in her last semester studying English at the University of Central Florida. She has been published in Variant Literature and Levitate Magazine. She has worked with The Florida Review and read for Carve Magazine. She lives in Orlando with her three-legged cat, Levi, and teaches group fitness classes at her local gym.