Holding My Breath

My friend's husband is a Mexican citizen. They are truly in love. They were married in Mexico City almost a year ago. It was joyous. His family loves her. She is so happy with him, she glows. With him, it's like she has found the security and support she has always needed in order to fully be herself, trust herself, accept herself. He is kind and has a generous heart. He is playful with her and has such unwavering faith in her. I love watching them together. They give me hope.

I wrote a letter of support for her petition for him to come to the U.S. while they go through the process of applying for his citizenship.

I know there are people who marry just for a green card. My friends are not those people. I know that immigration is a complex issue with a fraught history and much animosity on both ends of the argument. My friends aren't making any kind of statement.

They are just in love. They want to build a life together. A life where they can live and work in the same country. A life where the people around them love and accept both of them. They want to have a family (maybe not as soon as his grandmother thinks they should have a family, but eventually - a family!) and a future.

She would move there, but the two of them together in Mexico cannot earn a fraction of what either of them alone could earn here. And his family lives in Mexico City - where it is notoriously overcrowded and incredibly dangerous. If they were to raise their family there, they would share a three bedroom home with his parents, his two adult sisters and their two children. And, like his sister's children, my friend's children would play in a small concrete courtyard with a locked gate to ensure their safety in such a dangerous city. So she is here, away from him. Working in the States, to pay for lawyers, so that someday the two of them can have a life here together.

We all know this - but in the U.S. we take for granted the wealth we are born with. I grew up with very little, but the poverty I was born in is nothing like the poverty they endure in other nations. I thought I understood what an overcrowded city meant until I visited Mexico City and saw the people packed like sardines into bus taxis to get to their jobs, the number of people who share a home - and only one bathroom - in even a middle class environment. There are so many people, there is no escape from it - 24 hours a day you have people around you. Huge crowds in the streets, even at home every bed is a shared space. It's overwhelming. I had no idea.

I think that when we discuss immigration, it's easy for the argument to get focused on our resources and to forget the people involved. Families who are separated. People with no other reasonable choice than to seek shelter in a land that will not welcome them. So that they can make enough money to support their families. So that someday their children can play outside. If I was born in a country where the work I could get would not allow me to live in any comfort, where my children had to be locked in a courtyard in order to be safe, where I could not go out without an escort because I feared for my own safety - I wouldn't care whether it was legal that I travel to a neighboring country to live in safety.

I respect that my friends are doing this the right way, following all the proper legal channels. In spite of how painful it is for them to be apart. But my perspective on this issue is forever changed. I watch my friend working, living alone and missing her husband terribly and I am in awe of her patience. I watch her and catch my breath, knowing how she aches to have him home with her and how long they have been apart as they try to do the right thing.

Things They Don't Write How-To Books For

I hope none of you are ever caught smack in the middle of a horrific tragedy that makes newspaper headlines. And if you are, then chances are it will only happen once.

I've had two happen in my life - roughly only a year apart (the second of the two was over a year ago now). I feel a bit like I have the lay of the land. I could write a book, but that's so time consuming. Instead I'm going to chronicle some of my thoughts here. You know, where it's messy and unorganized and will never get snag me an advance from a publisher. How's that for brains?

Actually, that's the first thing I learned:

1) Don't expect your brain to be fully present. Be prepared when it goes on hiatus for a bit. Don't feel dumb when you can't form complex sentences, but also - don't operate heavy machinery. Or try to balance your checkbook alone...

In fact, when you have survived a horrific tragedy, and everyone asks how they can help, here is the best advice I have for you: hand your checkbook or your debit card to your nearest, dearest and most trustworthy friend or relative. Give them your bills. Tell them to pay what is necessary and give you the remaining cash in increments. I'm not even kidding. You should not be trusted with money or expected to do math after a tragedy and NO ONE thinks about that. I still have no idea what I did with my May 2009 paycheck. I think I bought some food. And maybe clothing to wear to memorials. And... um... yeah. I got nothing. I have NO IDEA what I spent money on. I just didn't care. At all. I'm still trying to catch up on debts that were ignored and went unpaid during the first several months.

2) Buy a mild sedative (unless you are suffering from dangerous levels of depression). Take it at 9pm every night. I don't care how busy you are. You need rest and if you don't do this you are going to end up like me - awake at 1am on a weeknight making lists because you have forgotten how to sleep. It ain't pretty. I mean it. It's going to take years for the bags under my eyes to go away. Small birds could nest in the hollows beneath my eyes. The sleep deprivation does NOT help you regain brainpower. Take a pill. Get some sleep. Later, when you are ready to heal, you will stop taking them and start dreaming again and blah blah blah healing blah.

3) Even the nicest reporter is not your friend. Everything is on the record. I'm going to write a lengthy post about this at some point, but just remember - even a genuinely well-intentioned reporter (and they DO exist) may misquote you. If you speak to the media, do the following (even though you will sound like an idiot in person when you do this):

Think very carefully about exactly what you want to say.

Say very little.

Pause as long as you need to to come up with the shortest and least complex sentence possible.

Speak at a reasonably slow pace and speak clearly - they cannot quote what they cannot understand or, in some cases, write down (but they can more easily misquote it).

End the conversation as soon as you have said what it is most important to say, no matter what. Even if it means being rude and saying, "Thank you for continuing to respect our privacy" and then just walking off.

You can stop ANY time you feel like it.

An interview isn't a conversation. It feels like it, but do NOT forget that you aren't just talking to someone - you're giving them material. And MOST important - Accept that they WILL get some of it wrong anyway. Even if they mean well. Even if they WRITE it accurately, their editor may cut out half a paragraph that changes EVERYTHING. Be prepared for that.

4) If you choose NOT to talk to the media, you are choosing not to have your voice heard. That's okay. They're going to get it wrong to some degree no matter what. But you need to accept that if you choose not to speak to the press, then you are choosing to keep your point of view to yourself. So, when your perspective and feelings are not represented (or accurately represented) in the media coverage, you need to be ready for that and know that you made that choice. Sometimes NOT talking to the media is as bad as talking to them. You aren't betraying a dead friend if you speak to a reporter. If you knew them better than anyone else, you're probably the person who wants to talk to the press the LEAST. You may, however, also be the best person to describe what your lost loved one was actually like. You may sit at home pissed off while people who did NOT know your friend that well are talking to the press. Neither choice is right. Neither choice is going to make things okay. Even the best news story is not very comforting. But recognize that whether or not you speak to the media - you are making a choice and you need to be ready for what that choice means.

5) There is no wrong reaction. The hardest thing to do sometimes is to figure what you need. What you actually want. If someone you love has died in the tragedy in question, then nothing is going to make that feel better. Except maybe time. Everyone has unique needs and one of the hardest things is seeing what you have to or need to do and accepting that. Conversely, if a lot of other people in your life who are effected by the tragedy - realize that they may have needs and reactions that you do not understand. Their reactions are valid, too. Even if they're weird or irritating. If they bother you, put some distance there, but don't punish other people who are also suffering for their reactions. Vent to a third party but it is important to get through difficult times without increasing someone else's suffering. This is the case with ALL tragedy, but it is magnified when there is media scrutiny. You start to feel like your emotions are supposed to fit some set course - because it's so public and others are SO aware of what is going on. It increases the pressure to "act normal" in a situation where there IS NO NORMAL. So just know that that is okay. You don't have to experience or cope with this in any particular way. Do what you need to do.

Honestly, if a large group of people are experiencing the same loss - the part about trying not to increase other people's suffering at all is dang near impossible. But try. When people are reacting to trauma they all have different needs. Be there for the people you love, but also locate some friends or family who are NOT sharing your loss. I don't care if you have to call someone you haven't talked to in ten years. I guess that would be #6...

6) Have at LEAST one person (preferably more) in your life who has not experienced the same trauma. Sounds easy, right? Well - depends on the scope of the trauma. But seriously - FIND someone. Like actually designate them. Let them KNOW. You are going to need to have someone around or someone you can call who has not ALSO just experienced this devastating loss. It took me forever to figure that out. You can't just lean on people who are also in the middle of healing and you need people you can trust - because acquaintances are not the best people to depend on when someone you love is in the news.

People can be surprisingly odd and unintentionally callous when, instead of just dealing with, "Oh your friend died, that's terrible." they are dealing with, "Your friend died and it's on the national news and the camera crews were right down the street from where I work and..." Yeah. Choose carefully, but find a non-trauma buddy. Someone who isn't excited about the fact that the newspaper reporter wants to interview you. If you stick with fellow survivors, then not everyone's needs will get met and some damage can be done. When massive, bizarre, life altering tragedy strikes - try to find at least one person to stand by you who isn't a fellow "victim." Even if that person is your awesome new therapist (**I HIGHLY recommend finding a good therapist!).

7) When you can, define your situation for the people outside your trauma. Basically, provide "Clif notes" to them. This is actually a good rule when dealing with a lot of types of tragedy - not just news-story horrific level stuff. But... remember that not everyone who matters to you is going to "get" it. And their ability to understand the level of impact the trauma has had on you does NOT mean they are a bad person or that they do not love you. Maybe they aren't imaginative. Maybe they've never experienced any sort of trauma. Maybe they are just human and have bad crap happening to them, too - smaller stuff than in your world, maybe - but still damn big in their world.

I learned to tell people in my life things along the lines of, "I am not okay. I may look okay and act okay sometimes, but I'm not really okay yet. I may not be okay for a long time. This _________ is what happened to me - in practical terms, that is what I experienced. That's a lot to process. I need you to try to remember that I'm always thinking about that, too. Don't give me a free pass to be a jerk or anything. But just be aware that that is part of what is happening inside me. All the time. So if I forget things or I don't reach out a lot - It's not that I don't care. It's that I'm still healing and I have a lot to work through."

It kind of feels like having to explain to the people you love that you were fully functional, but now part of your brain is gone. And you're sorry. And you don't actually know if it's going to come back.

But the things is, they DON'T KNOW unless you tell them. You may be really lucky and be surrounded by people who are incredibly empathetic and just pick up what's going on with you easy as can be. But this is the real world, so I'm thinking that's unlikely. If you talk to the people you love, even in the most rudimentary way, about where you are at and what you are still working through - that gives them some perspective and reminds them that you DO still love and need them. You just don't have complete access to your brain right now.

8. If you can, find ways to laugh. At least try. Again, good advice in all traumatic situations, but more so if it's something SO outside of normal experience (violent act, natural disaster, freak accident) that you have to process both the loss AND a horrific foreign experience. If someone has died, find someone else who knew them who will talk with you about the funny, stupid or weird things about your lost loved one - not just the simple, nice stuff. ESCAPE by watching a funny movie. DO something completely silly. One night shortly after the shooting, a bunch of my friends came over to my house and one of the guys - a big, butch guy's guy in the group - shows up with a hair highlighting kit. He let us highlight his hair. He was walking around with this silly cap on and strands of hair sticking out everywhere and, while my heart was so heavy, it made me see that there would be good again and there would be laughter again. It reminded me that the friend I had lost would want me to be able to smile - and would be laughing himself if he saw this big tough guy with a women's hair processing kit being used on his head (this man is one of my personal heroes).

Finding ANY joy and ANY normalcy kept me from losing my mind. When the world feels like it makes NO sense, the best thing you can do for yourself is find anything at all to laugh about. Or help someone else heal by giving them something to laugh about.

_________________________

These are the basics as I see them right now. I'm sure I will think of other things. Hindsight is 20/20. I think it was oddly helpful to me and the friends I went through the second tragedy with that I had had some previous experience with trauma in a public arena. I was better prepared for the media. I was more acclimated to the whole idea that terrible things actually happen to real people. On the whole, the big trick is to allow yourself to slow down. Take things one at a time. Don't rush any decisions that you don't have to. I know you don't have much choice about funeral arrangements. When you are involved in the memorial, those things have to be done. So you do them. But everything else can wait. And that's okay.

And last but not least - I hope no one I know ever needs any of this advice. If nothing else, though - rules 3 and 4 are really good to keep in mind during all media interaction.

Just in case, btw - to reiterate - I realize many of you put two and two together and will know which tragedies I am speaking of - which is fine. I just don't want this post or my blog linked to or mentioned in conjunction with anything that identifies my friends or the incidents in question. I hope my own awful experiences can be helpful to others, so I certainly want the advice or ideas passed on, but I don't want media-circus-gawker traffic. I appreciate your consideration.

Unconditional

So the last year (the last two years, really..) have been difficult and insane and I kind of feel like I'm starting over from scratch. Like anything extraneous about the person I was has been seared away and I'm sitting down and trying to sort out what's left.

In the midst of this, the people in my life have changed. The people who find tragedy too overwhelming (or who don't have the patience for the fact that I average 4 months to return a phone call these days) have fallen away. But the friendships that HAVE survived have become stronger. And some support has come from places that seem surprising. People I barely knew when this happened. Family I had never met before this past year. And teh interwebs! Sometimes it's still funny to me how you can bond with people you never meet... but it makes sense in a way that this place where I put my thoughts and my lessons and my laughter has led me to some amazing people.

Tracey at Beyond the Pale always checks in with me and gives me someone safe to talk to (Thank you!)

And I don't think Greg, Sheila or Nina hane any idea how much it improves my day to hear from them and keep track of them via their blogs.

I drew into myself a great deal this year, and it was often misinterpreted as a desire to be left alone. As I explained it to one friend: I want to connect, but I don't know how anymore. I want to know that my friends are there and care about me, but I may not be able to talk. And sometimes the hardest thing in the world is picking up the telephone. Sometimes talking to the people I am closest to is far more difficult than talking to people who don't know what happened - because I can't hide things from the people who matter the most.

So she started sending cards to me every week. For MONTHS. How amazing is that? This weekly reminder that you matter enough to someone that they will just send you love. And know that you love them back without requiring anything in return? Those cards have been such a blessing.

One friend called me weekly for the first few months after the shooting and just left messages. Crazy messages. He told stories. He went on for as long as the voice mail system would let him. About silly things. Dreams. Monkeys. Anthropomorphic brooms.

My family in Australia had me come visit them and I fell in love with a big group of virtual strangers who took care of me and showed me their world and just let me in and loved me as if I'd been there all along. (I have to write about that trip. I'm not certain I even have the words to write about it. It was so important to me. I found a new home. Part of me feels like I belong on the other side of the planet.)

So I guess I'm saying: If, and when, you have friends experiencing profound loss - I know it's hard to know what to do. It's awkward. You don't know what they need and nothing makes it okay. We all know that. Just love them. The most amazing gift is to be shown love in ways that ask nothing in return. Love without conditions. Love that accepts that you are not yourself. Love that will be there when you put yourself back together again.

Sometimes the only light at the end of the tunnel was knowing that there were people who hadn't given up on me.

There have been people there to give me that and, in that, I am so blessed.

I Talk to Dead People

Maybe this isn't unusual. Maybe this is how a lot of people cope. I don't know. I've lost a lot of people over time, but this is new.

We're loading in tonight for the next show I'm working on at my theater. I'm not what you would call a handy person. I'm good with a paintbrush and so far I haven't permanently injured anyone with any of the power tools. I maintain that it is only a matter of time.

So tonight I've got a project to complete and I cannot complete this project with the use of the staple gun. I root around in the tool closet in the back of the theater. Find what I think is a staple gun. Locate staples. Try to load them into the gun. They fall out. I try again. Same result. I look at the fine print on the side of said gun. It says, "Load nails here." Ok. Wrong tool.

I go back. Find another thing that looks like a staple gun to me. Actually locate the word "staple" somewhere on it. Satisfied I have the right tool, attempt to find the place that the staples go in. After about five minutes of struggling and pulling at different bits of metal and trying to pop SOME PART of this thing open I am FED UP. I don't know a damn thing about any of this. I cannot remember this ever being so hard. I have never been so frustrated at the theater before and I OWN A STAPLE GUN AT HOME that I know how to use. I am beside myself.

Then it hits me. Standing in the tool closet, away from the 20 other cast and crew members who are noisily painting and drilling and sawing out on the stage I have a sudden moment of clarity. At set calls, I would come to Allan. I would hold the offending power tool or doohickey out to him and say, "Make it do." He would stop whatever he was doing and come and set up the tool, walk me through how to use it, pat me on the head and go back to what he had been doing. Eventually we got to where there were no words. I would hold it out and frown, he would smile because he liked being needed. He would walk through the steps and hand it back. I'd lean against him for a moment in a no-armed sort of hug. And work would begin again. A cooperative ballet as we built. He who knew everything, I who knew nothing. We had a rhythm when we worked together.

And tonight I stood in that tool shed and felt so lost. My partner is gone. I stared at the tools, tears rolling down my face, and just started talking to him... something I do a lot these days.

What will I do without you?

How will this ever feel right again?

Do you know how hard this is?

Are you here? Are you gone?

Do you know how much I love you?

I need you here. I need you with me.

I can't make this fucking staple thing work.

I'm useless without you.

God I miss you.

----------------------

There's another set going up. Another set he wasn't here to help build. Another set none of them were here to help build. And it isn't the same. And sometimes it's so damn hard. The theater is my home. It's where my heart lives. It's where my friends died. It's where I talk to them. It's where I'm trying to heal.

I found someone to help me. I finished my project. I'm going back tomorrow to touch it up and then we begin dress rehearsal.

The shows will open. The work will get done. I will heal.

It would be faster if he were here, though.
He knew how to fix anything.

Paradox

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
- Mother Teresa

That is where I am trying to be. In a place where I focus on how much I love the people I have lost. I want that to be my driving emotion. More than one person I care for died in the shooting. I am focusing on the loss of Allan, but that is because it is so large to me. I feel I need to find a way to understand that one loss so I can process all the deaths that took place that day.

I have every one of their phone numbers in my cell phone and I cannot figure out what to do with that. I started to text Allan one day. I was somehow disoriented enough to start typing a message I can never send.

Sometimes something hurts so much that it feels like it has a physical presence. It feels large and looming. The loss is enormous and surrounds me and makes me feel as if I am seeing everything through a haze. As if it has swallowed me whole.

I realize that the loss is so tremendous because of how much love I have for the people who died in front of me so suddenly, all in one day. So I am trying to find a way to focus on that love. If I must be swallowed by a whale, let it be made of something good. Let me be overwhelmed by how much I love them. Let me take that love and use it in how I interact with the world.

I'm not angry. Perhaps I should be, but I don't have room for anger. The man who shot my loved ones is dead. He took his own life. He is irrelevant and was, to me, from the moment they died - although we did not learn of his death until weeks later.

I have lost so much in the last year and a half. My last tenuous shreds of illusion about safety. My plans and even my desire to marry. Family members have died. And friends. Friends who were some of the most remarkable people I have ever known. This is not a disingenuous and distorted memory of the dead. I tend to be appalled at the rosy cheeked perfection with which people remember their dead. No, each of the friends I have lost were truly unusual and remarkable. Death came and took the best from among us. I do not want to be made up of loss.

So here I am, loving. Loving until it pains me in ways I could never have imagined. Loving like something in my chest cavity is straining to cry out and make itself heard in the ether. I am going to accept it and try to find a way to take joy in my capacity to love them. I am not going to let it close me down or prevent me from loving other people. I am not going to let myself swim in this suffering.

I will love so much that there will be no more room in me for hurt. Only love.

Healing

I've been away for a long, long time.

I've just redesigned this blog and the coming months may see some additional changes. I'm fine tuning at this point. We'll see where it takes me.

I am going to blog again about film and random topics of interest for my fellow females and/or people who like to read a female perspective. I am. But I think that, if I'm going to start writing again, I'm going to have to embrace the fact that this is going to get personal. When my personal life was simple and mundane and smooth sailing, it was easy to focus on pop culture. But in the last year that just became impossible. So I stopped writing. And I MISS writing. I miss capturing little moments of life and fleeting ideas about the grander scheme of things in the happily haphazard format of the interweb essayist. I miss the freedom of saying things I need to say.

I'm in the trenches right now. Anyone who actually checks this blog (Yes! All three of you!) will remember the loss that took place in my life last year. I am sorry to report that I suffered another sudden and violent loss just a couple of months ago... made more bewildering by the fact that this time when I lost a friend I was actually standing next to him. A close friend of mine was shot and killed in front of me. Right now I have no idea how to interact with the world without acknowledging this loss. I'm not even certain I will come out the other side of this remotely the same person. I mean, my wicked wit and self-deprecating sense of humor are intact - have no fear. But I'm not certain about the rest of me.

For the first time I can remember, I understand what it is to be lonely. I've always liked as much time to myself as possible. Incongruous in a woman who is, essentially, a world-class social butterfly. But true nonetheless. I like my own company and I have never really understood loneliness. But it's hard to connect with other people now, and I sense that a lot of people who know what is happening in my world may be uncomfortable with me. There is a chasm between me and everyone who has not experienced this loss. There is a strangeness between me and anyone who is uncomfortable with death. As if death hangs about me and they don't want to stand too close to it. I am taking a sharp look at just how short life really is, and how suddenly and unexpectedly it can end. I am realizing that I don't actually want to spend my life alone, and it shocks me to have to face that. And of course, more than any other factor creating this gaping lonliness - one of the closest people in the world to me is gone.

Now, not everyone has someone in their life like my friend, who I'm going to call Allan here for obscure personal reasons other than it actually being his name (because it isn't), but if you do - then this will make sense. There are some things in life that we go through that are almost impossible to understand or accept about ourselves without seeing ourselves as a victim. I have had far more than my share of tragedy and, other than discussing a limited number of those topics relatively anonymously on here, I don't tell people in my everyday life just how many horrible statistics apply to me. I work hard to make certain that people who know me in my daily life are given the impression that I sprang into existence fully formed and happy as a clam. My history exists for them in broad and vague strokes. Allan was one of those rare people that I just let SEE me. He KNEW. He knew all the awful, ugly and terrible things that I don't tell people. Allan was wonderful and wise and knew I didn't want his pity. I just wanted him to know me. And he accepted that. He let me be wholly self and unguarded in his presence.

When we met, years ago, we were both going through horrible, painful breakups. The kind that are massive ordeals and change your life and involve discussions with accountants and creditors and burning things in the backyard and resisting the urge to throw your telephone or run anyone over. We spent many nights sitting on the back of my car, rehashing horrible conversations with our exes and congratulating each other on managing to breathe and wake up in the morning and not say mean things to strangers just for spite. We worked on creative projects together and met for emergency I-Need-To-See-Someone-I-Actually-Like lunches. We told each other all manner of Things No One Else Knows. Over time we developed such a shorthand that we would design a set or discuss a project seamlessly in stream-of-consciousness juggling matches in which we finished each other's sentences and solved each other's conundrums. He was one of those rare friends who become a safe place. Someone who you can hand a piece of yourself to and trust to hold onto it and guard it and treasure it and not laugh at the parts of it that are weird or silly or funny looking.

He was gentler than I have ever known how to be. He was the most intelligent person I have ever been close to personally and he absolutely refused to see that about himself. He had a biting, wildly off-kilter wit that my world seems drab and hollow without. He took a piece of me with him. I am traveling through the world a little more alone than I have ever felt before. I'm not sure how to live in a world that doesn't have him in it. I'm a little bit lost.

So I think I'm just going to have to accept that, if I am to write at all, this is going to become increasingly personal. I mean, I will dig up favorite quotes and photographs again. And I will share my rants about the horrors of dating (Yes. I've been dating. I don't know why. Because self-flagellation would leave marks, I suppose.) and the terrible films that get made these days and all that nonsense. But I'm healing. And it's probably going to be obvious every little step of this journey. But maybe I need someone to talk to. That can be you.

All three or four of you.

Mourning

Some types of trauma don’t just end. There are echoes of it as time passes. Shockwaves as new information or developments hit home. It is not simple. You cannot just mourn. Mourning is in itself a process, but some horrible events in life are similarly a process. With each phase the grief or horror must be re-experienced. Redigested. Relived.

First they found my friend. We knew for certain that she was no longer with us and any lingering hope was gone.

And we mourned.

Then we learned that the state in which her body was found was particularly gruesome. We were left with an image in our heads of something from a horror movie happening to someone we knew and cared for. I have never understood why anyone finds it entertaining to watch people do terrible things to each other in films and I understand it less now. Somehow it made her death seem worse, her body being treated with such disregard.

The mourning process began again.

Then the man who took her life was sentenced to spend his life in prison and his picture was back in rotation on our television set. This face I am trying not to associate with my friend. New information was released regarding the last days of her life and we learned how close the authorities came to finding her and how hard she had fought to stay alive. It was strange to feel so devastated and so proud of someone all at once.

The mourning process began again.

Now the state’s Bureau of Investigation has released far more detailed information via what I understand to be a news media interview with an investigator (EDIT: Apparently what happened is that the recordings of the killer's confessions were released. So, right now, every tv news station in our state and many across the country are making the distasteful decision to broadcast his voice into your living rooms). Of course, all the details are so much worse than I had chosen to tell myself they might have been. She cannot be hurt anymore, but we keep learning more about what she endured before she was killed. Previous information came to me first through a sort of phone tree initiated by the family, so I had some warning and learned of it in a less jarring fashion. But the most recent details I learned by turning on the news one day, not expecting anything about my friend to still linger on the media’s radar.

Until now I had hoped, naively and foolishly and blindly, that amidst everything else that was done to her... perhaps she had not been raped.

So the mourning process begins again.

Any loss is a long and complicated thing to cope with. Every death alters lives. Certainly more so if your loved one’s death is brought about by another human being, whether it be premeditated murder or as a casualty of war or a victim of terrorism, an unnatural and intentionally caused death is a strange and awful thing to come to terms with. I know this will in many ways be a life long burden for her family and closer friends. They will feel the echoes of this far more strongly and for far longer than I imagine I will. But for all of us the feeling that we can safely allow ourselves to begin the journey of coming to terms with her loss is still illusive.

I have never been comfortable with the death penalty. It brings no one back and puts tremendous, frightening power in the hands of a judge and a jury and our correctional system. It is useless and impotent as revenge. But even if I am uncertain of my stance on it, I think I understand it better now than I did before. Until that man dies, the mourning process will begin again and again. When he is mentioned on the news. When he reveals new information. When the trials take place regarding his other victims. Until he dies of old age (and in this case one can only hope that prison life is difficult on the health of a man of his years) or unless he is executed for one of the other murders he committed, the people who loved her will sit at home and relive this sorrow again and again. When he no longer exists there will be greater closure in what is, under any circumstances, an impossible situation to accept.

As someone who was her friend socially more than having an emotional closeness to her, I am still coming to terms with my right to mourn. But she was my friend. We got together and did the girl talk thing. I miss not only someone I enjoyed spending time with but also someone I was getting to know better. Someone who I, due to her years of closeness with my loved ones, anticipated would be a part of my life for a long time to come.

We interact with each other in life and we ask, "How are you?" and most of us tell people that we are fine no matter what is really going on. We bump into each other's lives without really knowing what is happening in the world of the person behind us in line, the saleswoman on the other end of the phone line, the server at the restaurant who falters with his tray. Sometimes it is difficult to watch how life keeps moving and you wish there was some way to let the world know you need it to back off a little. To let the news media know their enthusiastic reports are beaming into the living rooms of people that news actually impacts. To let loved ones know that seeming alright and being alright are sometimes two completely seperate things (which, of course, they cannot do anything about. This is the nature of grief).

My friend was abducted. She was beaten and raped. She fought for her life for four days; both physically fighting (injuring and disarming her attacker) and bravely risking retribution by providing inaccurate information regarding her bank account again and again, forcing him to keep her alive or abandon hope of financial gain. She spent her last hours tied to a tree. In the end she was bludgeoned to death and after death her body was decapitated.

I am living my life and in many ways everything is “normal.”
But I am also not really okay.

And the mourning process begins again.



In this post I use more detailed information than I have previously, while still not using names. I realize many of you put two and two together and know which case I am speaking of - which is fine. I just don't want this post or my blog linked to or mentioned in conjunction with anything that clearly identifies my friend. This is my rumination on grief in unusual circumstances, not participation in the media circus. I am not interested in that kind of traffic. I appreciate your consideration.

In A Crisis

This was written before my friend was found and is simply my attempt to remember the outpouring of public support as well as the strangeness a tragedy like this can bring out.

We spent Thursday on the side of the mountain my friend was hiking when she disappeared. We arrived at 6am in 10º weather and watched the bizarre circus unfold. I won't hash out the details and I'm not writing this to talk further about my own distress. It's just strange and fascinating how people respond and I have been making notes about it to try to remember everything. How crises bring out the best and worst in people. How much more people care about strangers than you often realize. How much more complicated an effort of this nature is than I ever expected.

There must have been close to 100 volunteers Thursday. Friends of hers, family members, local hikers who know the trails, vacationing hard-core hikers, people with search-and-rescue experience, gawkers, and people who simply wanted their face on the news (seriously, some people just seemed to be hanging out behind whoever was being interviewed. People walking by cannot help it, but the guy standing two feet behind the interviewee and just gazing off as if he didn't notice the cameras? Irritating.).

It was a panorama of personalities and reactions.

The local tradepost owner was wonderful and supportive. My group were the first volunteers to arrive that day and as they would not allow anyone on the trails until the helicopter had first made the rounds to do an infared search, we would have had nowhere to go for hours if he had not opened his store for us. He was very thoughtful and stopped an interview between one of his employees and a TV news reporter to first ask us if we were alright hearing her talk about our friend. He made a very difficult morning somewhat easier and we were all grateful.

The news crews arrived in droves and I found myself struggling with mixed feelings - it seemed distasteful, watching them decend like vultures. But then, the human interest and the resulting increased coverage is what brought out so many volunteers. The increased media coverage may have helped in aquiring more professional search-and-rescue people as we saw that more and more resources became available as public awareness grew. MOST importantly, more people came forward with information. This information led first to the identification of the man who abducted her and then led directly to his capture. It also led to the correct identification of my friend's dog when she was found. It is impossible to overstate the importance of the media coverage in finding everything we know at present about my friend's abduction. We have to thank the news media for that so I am a little ashamed of my initial discomfort and irritation.

The kind and patient men with the fire department organized the volunteers. The most experienced hikers and people with search-and-rescue training were sent out first. There were SO many of them - local people who knew the trails, vacationing hikers who delayed their plans, people with search-and-rescue training who saw her on the news - who just showed up in their gear, ready to go. People who knew her, experience or no, were held back to be interviewed. Once officials saw just how many people that included, however, they settled for interviewing only a few people to get an overview. This meant that some experienced hikers who were close to her were left cooling their heels because they were delayed too long to be sent with the first wave of search teams. I understand the irritation this created, but the Fire Chief was doing his best to organize an effective search while not stepping on too many toes. He had a difficult task.

A delicate, sweet faced woman with short brown hair and glasses showed up with her two beautiful teenage daughters to help me in the kitchen. They were on their annual vacation and had rented a cabin for the week. They showed up at lunchtime and stayed all day, doing whatever I asked. They didn't make a fuss over their sacrifice - just quietly helped and did it in a efficient manner. They said that they preferred to be helping when people realized they were from out of town and were so selflessly pitching in.

The fire chief's father (a genial older gentleman who insisted on being called "Grandpa") showed up with a huge container of beef and noodle soup and hung around all day, alternating between being reassuring me with kind words and unnerving me by saying that, "If it's your time, it's your time. Even if you're young." He meant well, though. He told me they have to rescue hikers "all the time" and then went on about bringing down a man with a broken leg and how it took four hours to get him off the mountain once they located him and generally he kept me distracted in between food rushes.

One man arrived in the afternoon and stood around for two to three hours, just rambling on about himself to anyone who would listen. He talked about how he's from an affluent neighborhood and none of the teenagers where HE lives would volunteer like this. He talked about how this would be a lesson to his 9 year old daughter. He rambled on and on about how people don't understand what's important and how his kids only value Ambercrombie and Fitch and how what's REALLY important is (expansive hand gesture) "THIS"... He also didn't lift a finger all afternoon.

One woman who actually does know our friend (and probably meant well) kept talking about her loudly IN THE PAST TENSE. She cornered family members and friends. She babbled cheerily all afternoon. All the while slipping into the past tense and then saying, "Oops!" and correcting herself. "Did you know her?" "She was a tough girl! I mean, She IS. I keep doing that! I mean IS." "So, Were you friends with her?" Top volume. All day.

The Fire Station's Chaplain was there non-stop. Not only making himself available to anyone who needed to talk and leading people in prayer, but also helping with the food and just pitching in wherever he was needed. He's a tall man with glasses and a big, bushy moustache (I find facial hair reassuring. Santa. My Dad. My favorite Uncle. Tom Selleck. So many of my favorite men have facial hair). I felt better just having him around.

An thin older woman in a formless grey sweatsuit and a tough looking leather biker jacket signed up to volunteer and then waited in case she was needed. She asked if we were saving food for my friend because she was going to need energy bars when found. I reassured her that certainly the EMT's who were standing by had appropriate supplies at the ready. She asked one of my companions if she and our missing friend had ever talked about girl stuff, "like what you would do if you were stranded in the woods." We puzzled over that for a while, as niether of us recall any "girl talk" conversations with female friends having covered lost-in-woods scenarios.

A couple of sweet teenage boys kept coming up to me and asking if I needed anything and just generally stayed around all day looking for things to do. Opening doors for people. Waiting to see if they were needed. They were quiet, they were respectful, they didn't go near the cameras. They just wanted to help.

My friend's godmother is the family's spokesperson and she was both emotional and firm. She did media interviews, she made announcements and thanked the volunteers, she spoke with such a fervor that I think some part of her hoped to bring our friend back by sheer force of will. She has continued to this this non-stop for days now. I think my friend would be both proud and deeply moved to see how her godmother has handled herself and tried to protect my friend's parents from the media glare.

I think volunteers who were not used may not see that they did something. They made themselves available. They showed up and said, "Here I am. Use me if you are able. I want to help." So many people did. When seven of us left together at 5am, we had no idea what to expect in terms of manpower. We didn't know if we would be a large percentage of the group searching or if there would be huge teams of law enforcement on the ground or WHAT. To watch droves of people arrive as the day went on was so reassuring.

Most of us know nothing about how these things happen. When you want to help, who do you call? Where do you go? Few people who volunteered expected to work with the food or do other tasks. They showed up to search. Much more support is needed than the actual people out looking. None of us understood that organizing volunteers was such an enormous task. Many friends and family members were left waiting, restlessly coming in and out of the building; sitting, standing, hugging, talking, calling people. But nothing to do. The waiting was and is awful. Every person present who knows her was there because they not only wanted to help, but NEEDED to. Looking back now I am kicking myself for not finding a way to draft more people into the kitchen. For their sake. Did it make a difference that I ladled soup all day? Doubtful. But I FELT as if I was doing something and I should have made an effort to help other people who were also struggling with that need.

For all that something like this reminds you how ugly humanity can be, it also brings out the best in people. As I sit watching the news now; waiting for more information, worried by the facts we have learned, my out of practice tongue whispering fervent prayers for a missing friend and her grieving family - there are hundreds of strangers doing much the same thing. Hundreds of strangers who searched the woods in below freezing temperatures or sent food or posted flyers or called about her dog or kept an eye out in their neighborhood for that man or just kept her in their thoughts. Hundreds of strangers who in their own big or little way did whatever they could to help are also watching the news and saying quiet prayers and becoming very familiar with the face of a pretty woman whom I very much wish they could all someday meet.

These Things Happen To Other People

I cannot remember a time when I did not know that other people could hurt you and were not to be trusted lightly.

Not in a childlike "don't talk to strangers" way. In a concrete, visceral, premature distrust of the world way.

My friend was abducted while hiking alone in the woods with her dog. The man responsible for her disappearance is in police custody and is being charged, for now, with kidnapping and causing bodily harm. Sufficient evidence has surfaced that the authorities have officially declared this to now be a search and recovery effort instead of a search and rescue. Honestly, though, every single person who knows her is still trying to hold onto hope that she will miraculously be found alive. The evidence has made it clear that she will not be found unharmed.

I grew up in a fairly bad neighborhood. A poor neighborhood. I remember being very young and hearing that a police officer had been shot late at night in the park two blocks from my house. And I thought, "Doesn't he know it's not safe in the park at night?" I learned about the birds and the bees because my best childhood friend was molested by her next door neighbor. I ran home one day when a man offered me a watch in order to lure me to his car and then followed me.

So I don't feel any less safe today. Because I never really felt safe to begin with.

Like everyone who cares about this woman, I am torn between frustration that she took the risk of being out on the trail alone and knowing that I would not have wanted her to be a different person. I would not want her to be someone who lives in fear. She is more physically capable than most any woman I know. She is trained to fight and to defend herself. She even had a fairly large dog with her for company. But clearly those things aren't enough.

I'm a door locker. Windows, too. I keep a phone next to my bed at night. I keep a light on outside the door so neighbors can see anyone who approaches my door at night clearly. I don't walk to my car alone in the dark. I am not particularly friendly with strangers, although I will converse with them if I am in a sufficiently public place. Perhaps I'm a little paranoid. I also live my life. I traveled to another country by myself. I've taken a cross country road trip alone. I don't let my fear keep me from living, but I try to be careful. I acknowledge that every stranger or person I do not know well could potentially be a threat.

To be clear, this friend and I are not close. We get together in a group to watch bad tv and talk about girl stuff on a semi-regular basis. Until yesterday I could tell you about her excitement over her new job or who her favorite contestants are on ANTM but not where her family is from - that kind of friendship. I am fond of her. People I love, however, have known her for years and are very close to her. So this is not happening to me. This is happening very near me to people I love and a woman I very much care for.

There is no good in this. But perhaps there is a warning or a reminder. When we watch the news so many of us forget that these are real people and not just stories. These are people with families and friends and lives being halted or altered horribly by the events we see unfold in flashy television updates. And those people you see grieving on the TV news live feed could someday be people you know and care about. Today they are people I know and care about.

We are all hoping for her to be returned to us. I am also hoping that people will hear about her and be a little more careful in their choices. More hesitant to trust a stranger met in an isolated place. More likely to find someone to go hiking with them so they are not alone. More likely to get someone to walk them to their car at night. (Edit: To be clear - I do not think my friend was careless. You SHOULD be able to go hiking with your dog in the middle of the day and feel safe. I just think a reasonable level of healthy distrust can save your life.) Bad things can happen to anyone. Taking precautions will not change that, but it is the one thing we can do to stack the odds in our favor.

We can also all learn from this to keep a closer eye out for our fellow man. If only one of the several people who witnessed this man talking to my friend (and some said it gave them a bad feeling) on the hiking trail had stopped to check that everything was alright, perhaps she would be safe at home today. I certainly don't blame them in any way, but it is hard not to think that small changes in the actions of the people who saw her that day might have made a difference. Awareness of a witness might have altered that man's choices.

I (surprisingly) actually believe that most people are good. I still think 9 out of 10 people who stop to help you on the side of the road can be trusted. The problem is this: We all look the same. People who knew Ted Bundy thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy. The man who abducted my friend looked like a crazy, freaky old man. But most of the old men I've met who look bizarre and freaky are actually great people. You just can't tell, so you can't take risks with your safety and you shouldn't make assumptions about people based on too little information. For your own sake and for the sake of the people who love you. Live your life fully, but exercise caution.

My friend is an exceptional person. Right now everyone who knows her hopes that will translate into her beating the odds in what have become an increasingly grim sequence of events.

“I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

- Elie Wiesel


________________________________


Edit: They found my friend and I am sad to say that she is dead.

Take care out there. The world is a wonderful place but there are some frightening people in it.

“My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”

- Richard Adams

Teen Pregnancy, In General

Excellent holiday topic, RIGHT??

Honestly I have no interest in the Spears family specifically, I just think this is an excellent example of a double standard we have in our society. We would prefer that teenagers, but more specifically GIRLS, do not have sex before they are married or at least legally an adult. But we know it will happen anyway, there is little parents can do to prevent it and in a lot of ways sex between teenagers has become socially acceptable. They don't even bother hiding it anymore (when I was a teenager, you HID the fact that you were having sex. Which I was. You didn't talk to everyone about it, dammit. And you didn't let your ass hang out of your jeans! Or your THONG! And we had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school! Ok, not really. But you get the point.).

So we know this is happening. So some of them are going to get pregnant. Either they don't take proper precautions or they can't figure out how to put the condom on correctly, I DON'T KNOW (hello? Do schools no longer use the bannana method?). But if unplanned pregnancies can happen to adults, then you KNOW it's going to happen to crazed horny teenagers who are way too hormone addled to think straight.

When my mother was young, these girls would be sent away to "stay with a relative" or - if the family had money - "travel abroad" while they had their babies and were then forced to give them up. OR, if they lived in fear of angry parents, they would try to obtain an illegal abortion and possibly die in the process. I'm glad that we don't have that system of shame and danger any longer. The world is a better place for it. I just don't know how you get teenagers to take pregnancy seriously without it. They are old enough to only be scared by real and horrific consequences, they are also at an age when practical consequences like raising a child are less frightening than more abstract consequences like massive public humiliation. But I think the Fire and Brimstone, hide-the-girl-once-she-starts-"showing" approach is wrong. I just don't know what the alternative is.

There is still a lot of shame associated with abortion. I get that and don't really think that's wholly a bad thing (while maybe a sense of gravity might be more appropriate than actual shame). It's a horrific, ugly thing to have to do. I just personally acknowledge that for some people it is the right choice and I prefer to live in a country where it is legal and therefore REGULATED. But I don't think teenage girls should feel like that is what they have to do. I personally know women who had abortions as teenagers that their parents pushed them into. While that may have been better and easier for their parents, it was not necessarily better for them. One woman in particular is still upset over her loss, and it was 20 years ago. Clearly it was not the right choice for her and she should have had options.

But the other option is to have a child when you are yourself a child. That's a difficult road. Some of these girls choose adoption, which I think can be an excellent way to go, but some of them cannot bear to give up their child. That makes sense to me. Were I in those shoes, I don't know if I could do that. How difficult to let go of your child, even if you know it may be best for them. How can you ask that of anyone? It has to be a personal choice.

I know women who look particularly young for their age who find they are given unpleasant looks by strangers when in public with their young children. Because that is the double standard we live with. People look down on the teenage mother who chooses the most difficult road - to keep and raise the child herself. You don't have to BE young to feel that, you just have to LOOK young to know firsthand how poorly people react to it.

We try to teach our children to learn to take responsibility and accept the consequences of their actions.

Then, as a society, we teach teenagers that sex is fun and sells cars and Trojan condoms (or whatever brand has a slick ad right now) are cool and everyone's doing it.

But don't get pregnant.

If you do get pregnant, don't let anyone know.

Hide it, get rid of it, WHATEVER. We, as a society DO NOT want to talk about it. We don't want to know.

If you get rid of it, we REALLY don't want to know about that. If you let it slip that you did THAT, we will hate you for it. For doing what we secretly prefer but forcing us to be AWARE of it.

If you don't hide it or get rid of it, we will treat you differently. We will act like you are beneath us, for the same thing which we would celebrate if you were five years older.... and preferrably married.

We will not acknowledge that you chose to take responsibility and accept the consequences of your actions - like your parents tried to teach you when you were little. Partially because this doesn't fit in with our idea of how the world should be, partially because we're afraid you are contagious and other teenagers wil catch the baby bug and think it is ok.

We will crucify you in order to preserve the sanctity of the teenagers who are not yet pregnant.

We will not acknowledge that this could have happened to any of us when we were 16 or 17 because we were probably having sex at that age, too (we just didn't talk about it so much which, frankly, pisses us off about your generation).

It's a big hypocrisy. It's no win. Once the baby is on the way you have to step back and realize that this girl needs support and the whole world is going to be against her and each and every one of us who smiles reassuringly instead of looking down in judgement is making the world a slightly nicer place (every time you are pleasant to a teenager who is preggers or has babies a fluffy angel kitten gets it's wings, ok?)

Pregnancy is just as hot button an issue as abortion itself, it's just people are more ashamed to admit all the massive issues we have with it. How confused we are about it. Women who want to get pregnant often cannot. Women who don't want to get pregnant often do. You're bad if you get pregnant when you're young or if you're not married, but you're a saint and everyone flutters around you in joyful anticipation if it happens to you when you are older and married. If you do it when you are too old people think you are a freak. If you are too old without ever having done it, people act like something is wrong with you.

Everyone wants to talk about sex and no one wants to talk about unplanned pregnancy. These two topics have more than a little to do with each other so we should probably all start talking about one subject with a little less abandon and the other subject with a little more understanding.

That's all I'm saying.

(Ok. It's out of my system now, I SWEAR.)

The Spears Pregnancy Media Circus

I'm not going to go on about this, and I rarely address issues in gossip media here at dame. But I'm tired of the hypocrisy.

To be clear, certainly I am saddened that another woman is pregnant before reaching adulthood. It is disturbing that her family allowed her to live with a man who is legally an adult when she is still only 16. I know parents are in a panic as to what they are going to tell their children and I am sympathetic to their discomfort. All over the internet gossip blogs are having a field day. Angry parents are vilifying her for "glamorizing" teen pregnancy. Some people are commending her for making a difficult decision. I think an important point is being missed.

The Spears family have significant rescources. If she had chosen to, young Ms. Spears could have obtained an abortion with complete anonymity. She could have gone on being the popular star of a children's television program and maintained her reputation. A fair number of the same parents who are furious with her for making teen pregnancy seem acceptable would be horrified if she had an abortion. But then, they would never know.

I happen to be Pro-Choice. That does not alter my feeling respect for someone willing to make such a difficult choice. This is unheard of in Hollywood, right? 16 year old television stars do not get pregnant. I think we should be asking ourselves, however, if Ms. Spears is the first particularly young woman in Hollywood to ever have an unplanned pregnancy - or is she simply the first not to choose to take the easy way out?

I don't think this is the first time this has happened. I just think it's the first time I have heard of a young woman in her position putting her personal beliefs ahead of her fame.


EDIT: My friend Larken made a very important point and I wanted to address it - It is difficult to know how accurate these reports are. Although OK magazine was the original source, the information has been confirmed by Nickelodeon via a public statement. If the information IS inaccurate, it is being disseminated by the Spears family. While there has been a lot of negative publicity for Britney, I cannot imagine them conciously countering that with a teen pregnancy scandal. It DOES take the spotlight off of big sis - but that would SERIOUSLY be "taking one for the team."

Based on the information at hand I would have to assume the reports are accurate. If they are not, then Jamie Lynn Spears may be in for a lawsuit from Nickelodeon.

Completely unrelated and irrelevant but I cannot stand that girl's name.

Advice From Someone Who Knows

I know I have previously mentioned having a family member who was severely mentally ill. I also, however, have other family members who struggle with issues like chronic depression, borderline personality disorder and being bipolar (oddly enough, due to my blended family, none of the people dealing with these issues are biologcally related to the family member who was hospitalized and heavily medicated for much of his life due to severe mental illness). Because of my acute awareness of this issue, I wanted to share this post from Dooce.

It absolutely had me in tears, and not because it is in any way sad. It was just wonderful to hear from the perspective of someone on the inside of this situation. It was familiar. I have watched this. My relative who is bipolar went through so much when she was younger and had a long period of just not being the person I knew and loved. She has been on medication now for almost her entire adult life and, while I know she went through some years of struggling with insecurity over "needing" to take it, I think she is at home with it now. She embraces it because she is MORE "her" when she is taking it than when she is not. Proper medication and periodic counseling gave her back to us, and to herself.

Being a Better Human

Arthur is my local theater community's resident crackpot old guy. He shows up to any and all auditions that have a male role. He volunteers for set building. If there is a theater holding auditions anywhere in town, you will see him walking down the side of the road in grubby slacks, a disheveled plaid shirt and maybe an old cardigan, his head looking cold with it's sparse covering of wispy white hair as he plods along, determined to attend the audition.

Basically, Arthur is a crazy old man. I don't think he's literally "crazy." I suspect that he has some psychological issues which have been compounded by old age, a difficult personality and many years of lonliness. I do not know his "story." I think he lives in a place downtown that houses low income elderly people. I have never seen him with anyone when he is out walking. He has never mentioned friends or family, but he does not usually talk about himself.

He is not an easy person to talk to or to be around. Arthur communicates in an awkward, stilted manner. His readings are typically a monotone drone interspersed with brief glimspes of warmth. In a show, he has to be watched for backstage directing - he will go up to your lead and tell her she skipped a line. His "directions" are obnoxious and misguided, but closer examination reveals them to be genuinely well intended. There are stories about directors casting him and then having huge problems. You have to provide him with specific and clear directions and appear to be taking his concerns seriously or he becomes mule-like in his refusal to cooperate. It's inconvenient and unprofessional, but it's also community theater. Although Arthur rarely gets cast, there IS a higher level of tolerance than would exist in a professional setting.

This weekend Arthur turned up - two hours late - to an audition I was at. Everyone froze as if a violent escaped mental patient had just wandered in. He has had some sort of surgery on his ear recently so he had bandages on one side of his head which added to his disconcerting appearance. In place of a headshot and resume he handed the director a sheet of paper. When I leaned to the side to catch a glimpse of it, I saw that he had handwritten a resume - covering the entire front and back of a worn page in uneven lines of blue ink.

We were essentially done with the auditions by the time he arrived. The few lingering actors looked around nervously and then rushed the door like rats jumping ship. The director and stage manager stood there uncertain what to do. I could see that if they allowed him to read at all it would be him reading alone on the stage. Arthur was going to be left feeling it was mere formality. Which I am fairly certain it was... But he had walked roughly 2 miles to get there and his intentions were earnest and I hadn't left yet. So I asked the director (who appeared willing to accomodate him, just unsure how do accomplish that) what she would like us to read. We read one of the selections together and when we were done Arthur packed up his things (he always carries a little bundle of papers and a book or two with him) and headed out. He seemed satisfied.

If any other actor had shown up at the last minute, a couple of the young women who were desperately vying for the lead would have leaped at the chance for another read. Another shot to show what they could do. No one wants to help when that last minute actor is Arthur.

We all encounter people like Arthur now and then. Perhaps I would be less inclined to look past Arthur's difficulties if I had not grown up with a close relative who was severely mentally ill. But I know first hand that just because someone behaves oddly or has difficulty communicating does not mean they are a bad person. Functioning in this world is more difficult for the elderly and alone and can be a great deal harder for the mentally ill. But Arthur is still trying. He wants to contribute. He wants to be a part of the community. He doesn't appear to have anyone and he knows how most of the world sees him. He still shows up and shrugs off the whispers and the nervous giggles and he tries.

I wish that when people ran into someone like Arthur, they wouldn't just run the other way. The mentally ill or impaired typically KNOW when they're being dismissed. So many other people have done the same to them. It doesn't take a lot of effort to interact with them in a respectful way. The difficult thing that it requires is overcoming your own fear and awkwardness about interacting with someone who is different and who may have trouble communicating constructively. Most of the time, I think they appreciate just being talked to instead of ignored or overlooked. I know Arthur does.

At first I thought to myself that it was unfortunate that this in no way related to the holiday season which is upon us - and on which I typically focus my posts at this time of year. Then I realized this does relate to the season. Quite sharply, now that I think about it. In this season of giving, what greater gift is there than to give someone a little bit of their dignity back?

We're In This Together

Today I received an email from my Aunt. It was one of those standard issue emails that goes on about sisterhood and valuing the women in your life. It was sweet and well-intentioned and, while I may have seen those emails a bazillion times, I was pleased that she thought of me.

Someone on her list responded first to my Aunt, and then apparently thought about it and and decided to send her response back to everyone on the list.

She wrote an enormous paragraph about how, in the 60’s, she bought into the idea of sisterhood and then she learned that she couldn’t depend on other women. She railed against feminism and ranted about how she had been let down by her fellow females. She went on. And on. And on. Bitterness, vitriol and verbal bile just spewing forth. First at my good natured Aunt and then at everyone else who had the misfortune to be on that list.

Now, it’s a shame this woman doesn’t have positive female relationships in her life. But her rant was about women on the whole letting her down. Like she expected complete strangers to help her because of their shared sex - without any evidence that she has treated other women in this fashion. Sometimes women who do not know each other offer each other support, that DOES happen. But that’s NOT what my Aunt’s email was about.

Sometimes we forget the value of the positive and close relationships we have with other women. We get wrapped up in dealing with husbands or boyfriends (who are in some cases wonderful partners and some cases horrible mistakes), with co-workers, with difficult family members, with people who do not support us or whose relationship with us is transitory. But if you are lucky enough to have a close relationship with even one female relative or a lifelong girlfriend who you can depend on - then that is a treasure. And it is important to stop and look at that and value it and remember not to take it for granted.

And while we're on the subject - I am SO SICK of hearing women say, “I really don’t like women. I don't meet women I like being around.” If that is the case, then you are not looking hard enough. We often fall into the trap of feeling as if we are simply competitors. There are only so many jobs that are going to go to women, only so many men to go around, only one woman can be the prettiest woman in the room - and yes, some women get wrapped up in that too much.

You cannot depend on strangers to support you, male or female. But you CAN form relationships with members of your own sex. WAKE UP! If you feel like “other women aren’t like me” then you haven’t been paying attention! We are as widely varied as can be. More so than men on the whole, because we get less flak for embracing both our feminine and masculine inclinations than men do. (Yes, people give a masculine woman a hard time and there are certainly cases of violence against transsexual men - men who were born with the bodies of women - and I do not wish to belittle that in any way. It is very serious. I am just saying that if you ask any transsexual woman to talk to you about her experiences you will learn a lot about the greater level of freedom that society affords people who are born with female “parts” to explore their options.)

I hate the word tomboy. I am sick of the word tomboy. Women use this word to say, “Look, I am more like men than women. I am proud to show how much closer I am to them than I am to you.” Oh, bite me. Do you have any idea how many women say they were a tomboy? Straight women, lesbians, skirt wearers, jeans women, tough women, soft women - it makes no difference. Like 90% say they were a tomboy. Which is to say that as a child you identified easily with boys, you liked to run around outside, maybe you fished for tadpoles or thought bugs were neat. Some boys played with dolls and pretended to clean house and explored play in nurturing roles. It’s part of being a child. It’s not a male or female thing. It’s a human thing. It doesn’t make you different. Get over it.

I play video games. I love science fiction movies. I am not afraid of spiders. I like to climb trees. I am not alone in this and I am not a tomboy. I am a woman. Plain and simple.

There was a time in my life when I said that I could not connect with women - that I was male centric. I took pride in this as thought it made me interesting and different. I thought all other women were stupid and “girly” or - excuse the word - evil, competitive bitches. Then I realized that a lot of women think this. It’s like this moronic rite of passage that huge numbers of us reject our femininity and connection to other members of our sex because we don’t realize that part of us can live side by side with our more traditionally masculine attributes and interests. Women backstab each other sometimes. Guess what? So do men. I feel sorry for any woman who does not realize the value of her relationships with other women and I feel sorry for women as a group that we have one less woman who wants that closeness to us.

In a perfect world, women would all be supportive of each other. Big shocker - we don’t live in a perfect world. But try going out your front door in the morning and looking at other women - women of other races than your own, women who are straight and gay, transsexual women, old women, young girls, women of different socio-economic circumstances - and interact with them while realizing that we have a common thread. Try looking at them as fellow members of a long line of women instead of competition. They understand things about you that no man ever will. There is a connection between women, even women who are strangers. Not all of us stop to feel it or are willing to feel it but, like it or not, it’s there. A common history of repression, of having once been considered property instead of peers. A common debt to the women and men who fought for us to have the right to work, to own property, to have a say in our government... to have any say at all. A common history of victimization and violence but also a common history of strength, of persistence, of shared knowledge, a common history of being nurturers and creators. You cannot depend on all women embracing this but you CAN make an effort to be aware of it yourself.

There’s a lot of good there. There is value in these connections. It's not about a movement or an issue or making a stand, it's your birthright. It's part of who we are and has the potential to enrich our lives. I am SICK TO DEATH of watching women refuse to see this.

My Aunt sent out a friendly reminder to the women in her life that she is there, that she values them, that we are connected. How pitiful that one of those women was too bitter to see it for what it was - a gift.

And now I'm going to go punch a wall.

Prerequisites for Executing Women

I found this article in the September 5th, 1949 issue of Life magazine.

The text of the article reads:

“MARTHA BECK HEADS FOR THE CHAIR
‘Lonely Hearts’ murderess will be the
seventh woman electrocuted in Sing Sing Prison

In a Bronx courtroom last week Justice Ferdinand Pecora, with shaking voice, pronounced the death sentence upon two stolid defendants who seemed less affected by it than he did. Then hefty Martha Julie Beck, 29, and Raymond M. Fernandez, 34, her ‘Latin lover,’ were hustled off to Sing Sing Prison to die for the murder of an Albany widow they had met through a mail-order ‘lonely hearts’ club. When Martha Beck’s sentence, now set for the week of Oct. 10, is carried out she will follow in the footsteps of seven other unglamorous women who have gone to the electric chair in New York state, six of them at Sing Sing. The six (left): Mrs. Martha Place, who killed her stepdaughter (executed 1899); Mrs. Ruth Snyder, convicted with Henry Judd Gray in the sashweight slaying of her husband (1928); Mrs. Anna Antonio, who plotted her husband’s murder (1934); Mrs. Eva Coo, who insured, then killed her hired man by running over him in a car (1935); Mrs. Mary F. Creighton, who helped her lover poison his wife (1936), and Mrs. Helen Fowler, who, with a partner, bludgeoned a service-station attendant in a holdup (1944).

Now I am not sharing this because I wish to get into a discussion about the death penalty or disparate media coverage of the executions of women or any other such matter. I cannot say whether the media's approach to this topic has changed significantly in the past 60 years.

I just want to make an observation.

Under the photograph of Martha Beck arriving at Sing Sing, the photo has a caption that reads, “Escorted by an officer and matron, 200-pound Martha Beck arrives at Sing Sing, two hours after hearing her sentence.” In the body of the article, the reporter notes that Martha Beck “will follow in the footsteps of seven other unglamorous women who have gone to the electric chair in New York state.”

Life magazine is reassuring their readers that it is okay.

Women are being executed in New York State - but only unattractive ones. 1950’s America could rest easy because no women who were thin and pretty had been executed in our fair nation.

Oh. What a relief.



If you would like to read more about the women mentioned
in this 1949 Life magazine article, try the links below:
Martha Place (1899) / Ruth Snyder (1928) / Anna Antonio (1934)
Eva Coo (1935) / Mary F. Creighton (1936) / Helen Fowler (1944)
Martha Julie Beck (1949) / Sing Sing Prison / An article comparing
Helen Fowler's 1944 conviction with other murder trials

When I Am An Old Woman

I imagine you know the poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph. When it comes to mind, I tend to think of it as trite because it has been printed on greeting cards and has generally been overused. But then I read it and remember that I like it. I like it for it's honesty and attention to mundane details. It's overexposure should not detract from the fact that Jenny Joseph had something to say. Something worth hearing.

That poem came to mind yesterday afternoon when I was listening to NPR and a piece came on about depression in the elderly. It's a difficult issue, treating depression that is, essentially, understandable. Depression in someone who has reached an age where their friends are dying. Depression in someone who may have lost a spouse or siblings to old age. Their bodies don't work as well and for many people old age brings with it debilitating illness. Elderly people who are unable to care for themselves any longer find the transition to assisted living disheartening at best. It can be a very difficult time in life, particularly in a culture that values youth and disdains age, and the treatment of this type of depression is a complex issue.

I listened to the radio, thinking about what I expect from my own old age and what has made this time in life more difficult for older people I have known. I suppose that brought the poem to mind.

Hopefully I will have children and grandchildren. While I hope they will visit, I also hope my life is sufficiently full that I don't mind their absence when they do not. I am putting money away for retirement, so theoretically will be able to stop working and still support myself at a reasonable age. I will have a lot more time to paint. If my hands hold out and I don't develop arthritis, I will probably crochet a lot. Not because old ladies are supposed to crochet but because I enjoy it. I will have time to make more elaborate quilts and include hand stitched details that don't fit into my busy life right now. I will drink a lot of tea and make a huge production out of it. I will bake things I wouldn't allow myself to eat in my youth. I will audition for quirky old lady parts in local theater productions. I will make huge pots of homemade soup and putter around the kitchen all day. I'll wear my hair in a short white Louise Brooks bob but forget to put on makeup unless I'm going out. I'll go on long walks because I don't have to be anywhere. I'll spend too much money on fancy chocolates and wear brightly colored scarves.

I hope I am satisfied with my choices and the life I have lived when I reach my "golden years." And, as the poem subtly cautions, I hope I don't feel as if I have waited until too late in life to take the time to do the things I want to do. I try to make as much time for them now as I can, but I think having more time for my myriad hobbies will be comforting in my old age.

A friend of mine is planning her grandmother's 80th birthday celebration. Her family has this tradition, they throw a sort of "this is your life" celebration for the women of the family when they turn 80. My friend refers to it as being similar to "a funeral while you're still alive," which actually makes a lot of sense. As Jeff Goldblum's character said of funerals in The Big Chill, "They throw a great party for you on the one day they KNOW you can't come." What a wonderful idea to throw such a party when the person CAN be there to enjoy it, a party to tell them how important they are and celebrate their life while they are still with you.

I wonder if the women in my family would like such a party thrown for them? Some of them aren't very fond of being reminded of birthdays and might not think it was so great... If I am alive when I am 80, I think I will throw myself a funeral. Give away things that would have gone in a will. Have a big hoo-ha and play music that I want played at my actual funeral. Tell everyone what I really think. And then live another 20 years just for spite.

Warning
 
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

It's funny to think that, while Jenny Joseph is now over 70 years old, she was not yet 30 when she wrote this tremendously popular meditation on the freedoms of old age and not wasting too much of our youth on excessive sobriety.

After the Abnormal Pap SmearorWhat To Expect If They Find Wonky Alien Cells in Your Coochie

This is a teeny bit graphic but it's my attempt to demystify the Abnormal Pap smear for other women. If you can't handle talkin' 'bout Vaginas then just don't read this post. Chicken.

So I had a Pap Smear come back abnormal.

This is WHY we have pap smears. We go to the doctor every year (and if you don’t, and are a woman under the age of 65, you should) because of the many conditions that might go overlooked unless a red flag goes up when you have your annual exam. About 5% to 7% of pap smears produce abnormal results. Primarily, pap smears are a method of early detection for Cervical Cancer. And conditions like HPV* that are associated with Cervical Cancer.

So I go. Every year I get my exam. I brave the chilly tools and undignified experience and the unpleasant sensation of someone poking around my insides. Putting my feet into cold metal stirrups and leaning back on that weird inclined medical bed thing always makes me feel like I’m getting into some bizarre ride or machine, except my vagina is front and center so apparently IT’s the one driving. It’s a FREAKY feeling. But I do it. Because I want to live a long life, I care about my family and I want to have children someday (and part of planning for that is making certain that my reproductive system is healthy and hasn’t been taken over by aliens or anything).

We learn in health class (hopefully) that girls should get annual exams and about some of the things a pap smear can detect. No one, however, talks to you about what happens when you get a call from the nurse saying your pap is “abnormal.” I did some research. An abnormal pap smear (love that phrase, by the way) can mean many things and can be handled a few different ways. It can mean you have an infection, that you have pre-cancerous cells in your uterus, that you have HPV... it could even be that your pap smear was inaccurate. Click here and here for more detailed information. When I called the nurse back in a panic, she theorized that the GYN would probably just do a second pap to make sure the first was accurate. She was trying to be reassuring. I wanted to be reassured so I chose to take her word for it.

My appointment was yesterday. It was then, after being weighed and peeing in a cup and filling out forms (you know the drill, I swear they do this to make you feel that you have no power and are therefore less likely to complain when they keep you waiting forever and poke you with frozen metal implements), that the nurse handed me a form to sign. A form that, essentially, served to acknowledge that I had had the Colposcopy and Biopsy procedure explained to me and knew the risks involved.

I hadn’t. I didn’t. And... I was scheduled for WHAT?!?!

Biopsy is a scary word. Biopsy means - to the uninitiated layperson with NO experience of it - You Might Have Cancer And The Doctor is Gonna Cut You. Mix into that the fact that the doctor wants to cut me IN MY UTERUS and - you know what? I got a little tense. Call me crazy but I wasn’t stoked on that combination.

The nurse breaks this news to me and then drops me off in an exam room. I sat there for 30 minutes on the fresh sheet of paper they pull across the table (I really don’t LIKE sitting bare assed on what to me appears to be something very similar to butcher paper. HELLO? If you can wrap dead meat in it, I don't want it NEAR my private bits.) Waiting. For half and hour. For the doctor to come in and explain why she needs to CUT ME IN MY UTERUS.

When she arrived it pretty much went like this:

She read my lab results to me. I have some atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS. Yes. It’s an official designation. Wacky, huh?). The short version is - there were some signs of wonky-ness in my uterus.

To determine the exact nature of these cells, the Doctor will perform a Colposcopy (read here and here about Colposcopies) and possibly a Biopsy.

First the Doctor has you position yourself in the stirrups (the same as the Pap Smear position. Superfun) for the Colposcopy. She puts in the speculum (evil cold duck-lip thing) and widens the Vaginal opening enough to see what’s going on in there. A vinegar-like solution is spread around and it turns abnormal cell growth white so it can be easily identified (this feels similar to but not nearly as scratchy as a Pap smear). She uses the Colposcope to get a better look at the cells. IF the Doc finds sufficient abnormal cell growth (read here: pretty much any at all), she cuts a small piece of that tissue off to be tested - that is the Biopsy. This feels like a very sharp pinch; less pronounced than I would expect it to hurt if someone cut a bit of tissue off of my hand or leg (but without the reassuring knowledge that you can kick the person who has injured you in the hand or leg.) It DOES hurt, but it isn't all that bad and it is fairly brief. I did NOT feel noticeable continued pain after the Biopsy - as you would if you were cut somewhere externally.

Women have these done ALL THE TIME. They just don’t talk about it (presumably because no one wants to talk about having HPV, which seems pretty stupid considering that three out of every four adults over the age of 18 have been infected with it) so it sounds really freakin’ scary. The Biopsy causes mild bleeding. It is not like menstrual bleeding, it’s more thin and bright red - like what you expect from a cut on your skin. It can also cause cramping. I experienced a tiny bit of this but the nurse gave me four Motrin prior to the procedure and really - they did the trick. It did hurt but wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. If I can handle it, most other women will be fine.

After the Doctor was done, she put something on the cut to help stop the bleeding. This stuff looks icky AND she tells me that in a few days this material will “drop out” on it’s own so I shouldn’t freak out. JOY. Love being told that my Vagina will be expelling stuff. Woo-hoo!

Oh, and my warm fuzzy Gyno tells me that you should not “Place anything in The Vagina for two weeks after this procedure.” I wanted to ask, “oh... THE Vagina? The one right here or the one I keep on my kitchen counter? WHICH Vagina exactly am I not supposed to put ‘anything’ in?” But she did at least clarify that she means, “Tampons or intercourse.” Which I guess is to reassure me that she didn’t assume I put like power tools or an extra pair of shoes up there.

The good news is, I’M FINE. There was very little abnormal cell growth. I will probably just have to have my PAP every 6 months for a while until we are sure nothing weird is developing. In two weeks I’ll get the results of the Biopsy which will be more specific. Statistically, it will probably turn out to be no big deal. But I would rather KNOW.

Mind you, for the last ten minutes of sitting on that stupid paper waiting for the doctor, I seriously considered just leaving. I was uncomfortable and scared and horrified that she might have to perform a Biopsy and I wanted to GO HOME. I stood up and paced. I seriously considered walking out the door (after changing from the big paper sheet back to my blue jeans and underwear, of course). I'm glad I didn't. Proper Gynecological care can catch early evidence of cancerous growth, saving your life and your family a great deal of grief. My visit yesterday was unpleasant, but nothing compared to how horrifying it would be to find out that I had a condition that had advanced to the point that it couldn't be treated.

I just wish that ANYONE I knew had EVER mentioned having this procedure before. I was terrified. Stone cold horrified and ready to beat feet. So now, if this happens to YOU - you know it also happened to ME. And we're gonna be ok. Even if the news is bad, I will be finding out early - while something can be done to help me. If you get an abnormal Pap smear you may have to have a Colposcopy (which I can barely pronounce) and/or a Biopsy. You will survive both of them just fine. They aren't as bad as they sound and maybe you will be luckier than me and have a Gyno who warms up the speculum.

Also, from personal experience I can say that chocolate cake helps. Taken orally, of course. When your Uterus feels bad, four Motrin with a chocolate cake chaser may not actually fix anything but it does help.

*There are like 40 types of HPV, roughly 74% of adults in the U.S. are carrying it. It is sexually transmitted but a lot of people who have it have no symptoms and never know they have it. Some forms manifest as genital warts (which, since it’s an obvious question, I will share with you that I DO NOT have. Yay for me.) Some forms are associated with Cervical Cancer. It’s like this: NOT everyone who has HPV gets Cervical Cancer but everyone who has Cervical Cancer has HPV. Basically if you have HPV, then they watch for Cervical cancer... ‘cause you are at risk. Read here about HPV truths and myths!

ANOTHER addendum: My doctor has told me now that I do NOT have HPV. I am a little unclear on whether this means the initial tests were inaccurate or if this means it can "go away" - which I did not think was the case. Whatever the case, I preferred to have this accurately recorded here. And I'm not asking again lest she suggest another biopsy. A scalpel doesn't need to be anywhere near my ladybits again, thankyouverymuch. It's been a few years and I am still getting very regular checkups to make sure I am healthy because, no matter what my doctor says I do or do not have - keeping track of our health is something we owe it to our loved ones to do.