Chapter 34 #2
My eyes start to prick after a while. My berry-colored contacts have been in for a while, so I take them out and start to
put them back in their case, but it feels too orderly, so I throw them onto the dirt for an impromptu burial. I feel better
right away, like my vision is crisper.
Night falls and I spread out on a pine needle mattress, plunking in and out of sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night
I wake up to a whining sound. My first thought is that it’s Tara on the bottom bunk having a bad dream. Then, remembering
where I am, I shine my phone flashlight until I locate the thing that doesn’t belong.
It’s this dark bundle a little ways away from me. I’ve lived in New York long enough to immediately assume it’s a bomb. But
then the sound comes again, and two bright yellow eyes are staring at me, into me. It’s not a bomb at all. It’s a deer, a
tiny fawn.
Turning off the flashlight so I’m not blinding the little creature, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The fawn can’t be
more than a couple weeks old, all covered in spots and seeming totally clueless about where they are or why they’re there.
I can relate to that. We’re in the same boat.
The mom must’ve left them here while she went out searching for food.
It’s weird to pick a spot right next to a human, but it’s actually quite a compliment to me.
Animals always trust me. It makes me miss Mango and Squid and Arnie too, of course.
I’m worried the fawn might be cold because the temperature is pretty frosty by now, even though it was hot in the day.
I want to give her my sweatshirt, but that might spook her, and I can’t blame her. I even scare myself away sometimes.
The little thing is all tense, sizing me up. But eventually she falls back asleep; she can’t seem to help it. It’s pretty
adorable and kind of reminds me how Arnie tuckers himself out by chasing his own tail and then plops down on my lap for a
long nap. I think of my little niece and Jenni’s baby too. I haven’t been in their lives at all, and this feels like a mistake
now.
I chew on some pine needles. They’ve got a nice crunch. Leaning my head back, I get a look through the shifting treetops up
at the navy-black sky. It’s strewn with stars like someone went crazy with the saltshaker. There’s this one star that really
pops out, the lead of the cast.
Things are bubbling up within me. It doesn’t feel soothing like hot lava; it’s just uncomfortable and makes me burp. I’m curious
about what else I’ve got to burp up, what else is inside me that I don’t want in there anymore. Opening my mouth, I point
it up toward that big star like I’m at the dentist wagging my tonsils. I’ve got no clue what I’m doing but I know it’s right,
so I let the star shine down into me on all the parts I usually shove into the shadows.
The starlight doesn’t hit me all at once. It diffuses into a million softer particles so I can examine them one by one if
I want to, which I don’t at first, but then I start to take a look.
I don’t like it at all. Even the smallest drop of light is too bright.
I shut my eyes for a while, but I can’t resist so I open them again just to take a quick peek back up at the light. It’s blinding but somehow I can see clearly, too clearly. There it is, all my shame splitting itself open or splitting me open. What’s the difference?
The shame about not being the sweet, obedient daughter my parents wanted. The shame about still having no clue what I’m doing
as an adult, flying around like Peter Pan except I don’t actually know how to fly; I just crawl along the grimy sidewalk that
I call the sky because admitting it’s the ground would break me and I’ve got too much shame for that, though I’ve always called
it pride.
And below that but above it too, far above, far below, is the shame about how I’ve piled so many toxins into my body and let
it be used as a toy. And how I’ve used other people’s bodies as toys too, total irreverence that I passed off as independence.
I’m writhing on the ground now, or at least it feels like I am. It’s hard to tell what’s happening out there versus in here.
I can’t control my body; I can’t control anything. Maybe I’ve never been able to.
Keep going, dig deeper, my intuition says, and it’s good to hear that voice again, though it couldn’t come at a worse time. I’m out here looking
for the divine woman or Mary Magdalene and I’m trying to keep the noise at a minimum.
“No thanks,” I tell it. “That’s enough for now. This isn’t a therapy session.” This makes my intuition laugh, like it’s in
on something I’m not.
“What’re you smirking at?” I ask it.
Everything falls quiet in a loud kind of way. I look over at the little fawn, fast asleep, this little ball of untouched fur,
so innocent like I used to be. Like I’ll never be again.
The sound of a piano thumps in my ears. It’s loud, too loud. A man’s face flashes, pieces of a puzzle fitting into place just
so the final image can destroy me, or maybe just destroy the destruction.
It’s Mr. Hubert, my childhood piano teacher. The one who made me hate that instrument for some reason I don’t remember. Except that I remember now. The repressed memories unpeel frame by frame, slowly yet too fast.
His hands are on me like it’s the very first time, reaching under my frilly pink dress. Touching, coaxing, telling me what
a good girl I am. Me pulling away, looking away, closing my eyes. Him pulling me back in, telling me to look at him, that
I can trust him.
I wonder for a moment if I’m hallucinating, if I’m inventing some dramatic trauma just to explain how fucked up I’ve become.
But the starlight swears that what I see is true, and more than that, my body remembers in the way it’s shuddering and shivering
and itching like I’m breaking out in hives.
I’m not in the scene anymore; I’m looking down on it, looking up on it, seeing myself as the little girl she was. The little
girl who started dissociating every Monday from 4:30 to 5:15 p.m., deliberately losing track of time because she thought maybe
it would be better or just less bad if she wasn’t counting down every minute until her mom rang the doorbell to get her.
The little girl whose parents thought she was being a spoiled brat complaining about piano lessons when they were shelling
out money for her. The little girl who wanted to tell her parents what was going on but was too scared and soon felt like
too much time had gone on. Because it was the little girl’s fault too—that’s what she thought. She could’ve done something;
she could’ve stopped him. But she didn’t.
Then the scene spirals, it swirls, and there I am back in the first person again, no separation between the then and the now,
the third person and the first. My body collapses in on itself like it’s finally realized there’s nowhere else to go. The
only way out of this is straight through.
Everything is burning, a white-hot searing pain. All those old itches and triggers and hollow relationships. The way I can’t really be intimate with anyone or even make eye contact with men sober. It’s all here, it’s all here, unleashed from the underworld.
I want to rip myself out of the memories, bury them again, even deeper this time, but I know I have to stay here another moment.
Stare this down to strip its power and reclaim my own.
The truth is heavy but not as heavy as I would expect. It seems it’s been living in my body all this time. I didn’t really
block anything out; I can see that now. It was always all there somewhere, simmering in the subconscious, coating the ceiling
of my life in black mold, the kind that the inspectors never catch until it’s too late, making me lash out at my parents and
my sister because no one understood. And all those people I slept with over the years, hoping the new touch would erase the
old, or at least coat over the filth on my skin. All the relationships I sabotaged because it was better to never let anyone
get close. All the hate and blame I spewed at my family and other people to deflect it from the true target: myself.
My cheeks are soaked. I look up expecting to find rain clouds, but the sky is still clear, piercingly clear. The star is still
there, piercingly there. I’m crying, crying hard. They’re my first real tears in years. Everything’s coming up and out of
me and I wonder what’s going to be left of me, if anything, when this tantrum settles down. The thought terrifies me but carries
some hope all the same.
The decibels build; the vibrations strengthen. Pure rage pours out of me, extra loud and guttural to compensate for how long
it’s been locked up.
But it’s free now. I’m free now. Laughter tumbles out too, braiding with the rage, metamorphosing into something new, medicinal
and militant all at once.
The laughter gains in proportion, wild and uncouth until I can taste my own hypocrisy and giggle at the absurdity of it.
Here I’ve been praising myself as some grand leader leading people into the light, when really I’ve been controlled by the darkness.
I’ve espoused liberation while keeping my friends chained to my side, forcing them to conform to one small definition of womanhood.
I’ve stripped their choices and slashed them out of my life when they dared to disobey me, all to overcompensate for my own fears and try to create a relationship structure that would keep me safe.
Maybe my intentions weren’t all bad, but I’m really no better than the dictators who came before me, trying to oppress everyone around them.
Talk about a plot twist I didn’t see coming—though maybe I did and I’ve just been too stubborn to admit it. That’s my defining
characteristic after all, but perhaps it’s not the only one. Perhaps some other traits can hold me together even if I let
that one go.
The sound of the piano has softened. It’s not making me writhe in pain anymore. It’s just accompanying a trumpet and some
lyrics for a jazz melody. And in the gap of the bridge, it all clicks.
It turns out I didn’t actually have to seek out the divine woman; I just had to recognize her. She’s been inside me all along,
that pesky feeling I used to call my intuition. It makes me feel pretty dumb but also very brilliant. Most people go their
whole lives without making this connection.
The divine woman breathes a giant sigh of relief that I’ve finally connected the dots after all her hints. The star is dancing
now and I’m its partner. I let it twirl me around and dip me to places I’ve never been, places I’ve never let myself go. The
pain and shame shrivel up to a raisin that I toss into the woods for the birds to eat.
There’s a stirring within me, and it’s so obvious now how I’m not the center of the universe after all.
I’m just a tiny speck and there’s a greater force swirling all around us, creating us and dropping little bits of herself in each of us.
Strangely I don’t feel threatened about being invaded by an outside force.
It’s comforting, liberating, like a weight has been lifted and I don’t have to be my own god anymore.
I just have to stand on the shoulders of the higher power and let her carry me through the trials, the triumphs, the tributaries.
I’m aware of my smallness, but not in a way that makes me feel unimportant. It’s the opposite actually. I’m enmeshed in the
infinite, vast as can be as I roll around on the earth’s soil, no longer soiled, never soiled.
In the morning, I wake up to the sight of the mother deer emerging from the trees, nuzzling up to her baby. It makes me think
of our old family dog, Melon, and how he would comfort me after my piano lessons, climbing up onto my bed to sleep with me
even though that was against the rules.
The fawn stands up, gingerly like she’s still getting the hang of it. I can relate because I, too, feel jittery and shaky,
like a newborn. Mother and gangly-legged baby amble off together. As they go, the mom turns back to me just for a moment,
gives me an appreciative look. It’s the best thank-you I’ve ever gotten. Then they’re both gone and I’m by myself again but
not alone. It’s weird, in a good way.
Everything feels crisper and brighter and it’s clear how much I’ve missed out on looking at the world through plastic lenses.
I’m never putting those colored contacts back in. I’m keeping these boring gray eyes forever. And besides, boring is in the
eye of the beholder, as Chris says.
Usually I would tell myself that I feel nothing at the thought of him, but now I can admit I do feel something. I feel a lot
and that’s okay; that’s beautiful actually.
“Hey, divine woman,” I say, like I’m talking to an old friend. “Thanks for staying with me all this time. It probably wasn’t a walk in the park, what with my delightful attitude and all. If the situation had been reversed, I probably would’ve left you a long time ago. Just being honest.”
She chuckles at that. I make my way down the mountain slowly, going on a back trail without any rocks to minimize the risk
of plummeting to my death. Everything feels raw—newly precious, newly fragile. It would be a real shame to pull a Humpty-Dumpty
now that I’ve finally been put back together. Or at least now that I’m putting myself back together. I’m still a work in progress—always
will be.