Alive and Free.

 

It’s taken me days to start writing this piece. Well, years or maybe decades, actually. As a woman, a grandmother, a mother, a spouse, I’ve had many roles dictated by society, by religion, by men. I have been seen and unseen. Loved and hated. Embraced and abused. And it started when I was so young, I had no words for it. No context. Even if I did, I would not have been heard. 

So you can understand why this weeks press conference on Capitol Hill by the women who as girls were captured and raped hit me hard. They are so brave and I wished I could have been so brave, too. I tried. I was unheard. So I did the best I could, I shielded my children. I refused to let them be alone with my family. When I had to appear, my husband and I made sure they were protected at all times. Push came to shove and I had to say, NO. Stop the abuse and bullying. Stop the threats. Instead of listening to me, my mother disinherited me. 

The bullies got the money. 

I got safety.

Am I angry. Yes. 

Is there grief and loss? Yes. 

But I am free. I am safe. 

So are my children and grandchildren. 

Art Therapy. 

I can see now, clearly, that much of my art tells the story. Without realizing it I wasn’t just telling the story of my past, but the story of my present. The story of rising. The story of the strength it took to stand up and step away. 

Now with that pedophile in the White House, I put my feelings and needs into clay. I thought I was just playing around with a new way of making a bust. But without realizing it, I created a few pieces with women as walls. Women as guardians and goddesses.

These pieces helped me see the truth. I may feel shaky, but I am healing. Physically from major surgery this year where, as an older woman, I was tossed from doctor to doctor for a year before getting the help I needed. Mentally from the shock of major surgery. Emotionally from the wounds of the past both emotional and physical. 

And as my sweet, strong, supportive husband keeps telling me: it takes time.

 

Time to slowly find myself again. 

Working with my hands and heart and clay.  

I now have Goddesses to remind me:

I protected my love, my babies, myself. 

Now, I am alive and free. 

 

How to deal with fury and fear?

It’s been an awful week in this country. Watching the bravery of one woman who dared to come forward to save the sanctity of the highest court in our land. Listening to an experienced federal judge shout, insult and refuse to answer questions put to him showed him to be totally unqualified for the Supreme Court. And then, our president ( lower case, intended) mocked her in a speech, which, showed him to be not fit for his office either.

How do I deal with the onslaught of fury and fear that I feel? Where can I find information to help me understand, process and move through all this?  

The answers came directly into my inbox. 

Several authors wrote insightful emails that not only helped me out of the trench of anger and fear, but illuminated the darkness. Here are quotes from their emails. 

Lissa Rankin with psychologist, Robert Augustus Masters, PhD. Robert’s on the ‘boy’s club’:   

“I’m inviting men to stop toleration this faction, even if it includes your boss, your political rep, your law enforcement buddy, your drinking pals, your brother-in-law, your father. And I’m also inviting women who are caught up in this faction-through misplaced loyalty, fear, blindness-to also cease toleration such men and speak the fuck up.”

Tara Mohr on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony:

“I want all of us women to see what we watched today as a play, a kind of narrative-crafted, sculpted, with a point of view that is meant to have a particular impact on us.  

The story could have been shaped as one about investigating(truly investigating) a potential crime, or as a story about rape culture in teenage life, or about the patterns of abuse we see amongst powerful men - or all of those. But that is not how the story was shaped for us. The title was given: “Is she telling the truth?”and that question was made the central theme. 

The shaping of the story is intended to shape us as women. It is supposed to teach us that the first question to ask a victim is not, “How can we help?”but “Are you to be believed?” It is intended to imprint into our hearts that if we speak up, we will be met not with compassion, but with skepticism from our fellow human beings, when we most need their support. The story is crafted to vilify for us the caricatures of the conniving woman and the good guy wrongly accused. It is here to teach us women to become skeptical of each other, and then, even worse, to become suspicious of our own memories and experiences.

So, my request today to all of us is this: see the play being performed for your inculcation, and choose not to swallow its narrative. Instead, choose consciously what you will make of what you saw, or heard, or read.”

What do you choose? 

I choose not to feel like a victim. I choose to see myself as a survivor and a champion of truth. 

Here is the truth: Abuse, bullying, violence towards someone else smaller than you doesn’t show power, it shows weakness. And your weakness is what you really fear. 

Stop. Now. 

No more excuses. No more denials. No more temper tantrums. Man up, America.