Tornado Warning

an excerpt:

It would not occur to me to characterize myself as an extraordinary woman; I have no one gift that would make a person clamor to be in my company. I have led an ordinary life, a life that in some respects mirrors that of many women. I enjoyed a happy childhood with loving parents at the helm surrounded by three brothers and a sister all of whom made me feel as if I were special. Special to them is how I was, and unequivocally how I remain. In the cradle of this life I led as a child if asked to describe me, no doubt an observer would say I was confident. Confident that I had contributions worth noting and talents to dabble in coupled with thoughts worthy of expression. I vividly recall at the age of five pinching myself and saying “I AM ME” of course these raw formed words of a near baby would shape my life in a way that perhaps I could not have fathomed as it is the identification of self that fortifies an individuals soul and gives birth to that phenomenon we classify as strength.

Now suspended on the proverbial high end of the forties bascule I surmise that throughout the vicissitudes spawned in living life fully, I am an amalgam of my myriad experiences. In my assiduity to achieve self-transparency I have grown aware that acceptance is paramount to achieving freedom. I could no more deny the ocean its change of the tides then fracture parts of my past and deny them. True liberation has been engendered by my ability to acquiesce to the ‘all’ of it and to navigate in a way that I hope represents humility.

There will be no apology for the turns in the path that some might call errors, nor will I apologize for the countless mountains I have climbed only to discover false summits that reveal yet another peak to scale. I abhor labels and compartmentalization of human beings. People use them as if they sum one up. He’s a Doctor. She’s a Lawyer. He’s an alcoholic…recovering. She’s a “has been” actress. Worse yet are the labels ascribed by loved ones, they roll off the tongue through inference something like this;

“ well…you know Jane…she’s still trying to live up to her ill-conceived notion of what Dad thought she should be”. Makes me imagine a closet packed with shoe boxes all labeled in a Martha Stewart way. Perfect itemization of what’s inside marked in indelible ink, no dust to obscure the view, neatly if not perfectly, stacked one after the other on shelves designed for storage. To store: keep exactly as we left it. Boxes containing personality traits: “LOYAL”, “ARROGANT”, “MATURE”, “WILLING”, “LAZY”, “PATIENT”, “NEGATIVE” or titles “LOSER”, “TEENAGER”, “DAUGHTER”, “MOTHER”, “FATHER”, “VICTIM”, “CHAMPION”, “SURVIVOR”…you get it. We all do it, I do it and then later feel the shame burn across my cheeks, for it is way more complex than that. Our footsteps…think of them, sometimes shrouded in protective gear once previously housed in the very boxes I mentioned, sneakers, boots, dress shoes, flip-flops, high heels, slippers, and yes we also have bare feet. Shoes and feet what a story they could tell if given the gift of speech. Their names give me cause to smile…flip-flop…as a woman I think this one says it all. The throng of emotion that flows often renders me feeling a little flip-flop. Sneakers…she snuck from the room when she realized she’d heard the occupants speaking about her behind her back. His laced up leather dress shoes squeaked across the marble floor as he set out on his first job interview feeling frightened that his face will reveal his inexperience. Her high heels tapped smartly across the hardwood of the courtroom commanding her very words that castigate the defendant. The child pulled slippers onto her freshly powdered feet pondering the coziness she felt. The homeless woman struggles to the curbs safety exposing feet that have long since forgotten their toes were counted by a new mother at their birth. The stories…we all have them. They, if we oblige, render us vulnerable to judgment. I have reached that crossroad in my journey where I just don’t give a damn about the labels that will be or have been tattooed onto my Elin shoebox, I am a legion of boxes the thousands of shoes I have worn, their odd hand cobbled sole…they are the very foundation of my soul.

I mostly grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut a bedroom community of New York City. There was a brief move to Houston, Texas for five and a half years-years that formulated my voice inflections and revealed a drawl when we moved back to Connecticut and the hometown of my infancy the year I turned 10. I am the daughter of a minerals geologist and an editor turned entrepreneur. People greeted my parents formally throughout the village. “Good morning Mr. Stebbins how are you on this fine Saturday—ah is that your little girl?” a chuckle bubbles up in Dad’s throat. It’s actually a sneer, I know it. He doesn’t think of me as “HIS” nor does he think of me as “LITTLE”. The merchant confused takes the dress shirts from my father and states “Soft and Folded” even though he knows the answer. “Yes, thank you Frank” As we depart I hear Frank call his parting salutation “Have a great day Mr. Stebbins”.

My mother couldn’t get more than a few steps in the Foodmart without seeing a friend and of course in those days void of cellular connection, people stopped to talk and greet one another. This provided me the pleasure of finding grocery items to covertly place into the basket without the well trained eyes of my mother upon me. Checking out at the OG landmark of a grocery store, all the employees also knew the Stebbins family elders by name. “Hi Mrs. Stebbins, how are you today? Would you like carry out service?” The cordial niceties that existed in the small town life that was prevalent in the 1970’s. Of course it made us all feel safe.

This community where my dad biked to the train station and children walked to school. Where stores closed on Sunday and the local stationery shop later would provide three of us our first punch clock jobs. We had a beach open to residents only, Tod’s Point, and we all had cards that proved we belonged. In the summer months we biked there and played in the Sound of Long Island until our skin was cloaked golden and freckled and our hair bleached with sun and breeze. People didn’t loiter and homelessness was something that existed in the bowels of New York City. This is a New England community founded in the year 1640, steeped in a tradition of higher education, civility, and adults who spawned children filled with promise. Not exactly a town where subjects like ‘teen dating violence’ or ‘abuse’ were the topics of cocktail parties. It was a silent topic for me, trapped in the clamped shut locket of young love, images of the latest altercation slipped into the little frame inside, an ax swung, a pot of scalding water held above my lap with his face shouting obscenities through the steam, accusations that unlike the evaporating water would replay in my head for days, weeks, months, kicks that left my mind and body looking like the ripened skin of a cast off banana peel. An imprisonment of the worst kind, caught in my own teenage choices of having left my parents home, and believing there was nowhere to turn. The ugly secret of abuse lay tucked into the bedrooms, living rooms and dens of houses. Walls that bore witness to brutality, anguish and desperation; walls that at times shouldered the blow of a shoved body, a human spirit crumbled beneath the damaged sheet rock in fetal position wondering, almost wishing, if this was the time they would be extinguished.

As I type…I pause to think, and as my thoughts whir I can see my reflection staring back at me in the screen of my computer. The face I see is half in the shadow and half in the light, the day-light streaming in from our kitchen window that reflects off the pool, light that under most circumstances would render me cranky but not today. As I set out to tell my story I see the years etched across my half visible face, therein are the crevices that represent the testimony of this ordinary life. Lines of age. Lines that in southern California women assemble in the Doctor’s office waiting room to erase via injection, that modern day magic known as Botox. I myself cleave to the idea that I am Georgia O’Keefe in the making. Wrinkles, conjures up the crinkly face of a new born bull dog…you know the adage “a face only a mother could love”. Ah yes wrinkles. Today I whisper “lines” out loud in the stillness of the kitchen. The fissures of these lines harbor the story of my living…the journey still afoot yet with a past stretching over miles of misdirection, detours and roadblocks, a journey filled with joy that had no boundaries and sadness that echoes still within the beating of my heart. Thump, thump lines…thump, thump…memories.

Recollections that crawl back to me through every sense I posses it is visceral. As the sun slowly makes its ascent into the cloudless sky my counterpart image begins to grow fainter. Now barely visible on the screens din are my friends the “crows feet” that share with the world the ‘joie de vivre’, more startling, and yes, less attractive and most determined to stare back at me today, are the lines caused from pursing my lips or smiling with a grin, a line too long to be thought of as a dimple it barks AGE at. The shadows become more forgiving as the sunlight no longer streams onto the screen; as do I with myself marching toward the second semester of my life. Thump, thump…lines, thump, thump…memories.

If you were to wend your way through any neighborhood when the light of day fades to dark with many lights aglow, if but for a moment as you traveled, you’d look and maybe catch a glimpse into a housed life. A life that at first blush may appear to conform to the fairy tale living that was portrayed in television of long ago. Look again, in the glow of electric light there are as many unhappy stories unfolding as there are happy. For some discord is as normal as the sun coming up at the break of day, they are trapped in a vicious cycle of torment, fear and the very concept of safety is foreign. Yes, even in Old Greenwich, Connecticut people fall victim to violence at the hands of someone who loves them. Women, men, children, Doctor’s, Lawyer’s, Custodian’s, Delivery Driver’s, Teacher’s, Bank President’s….educated, uneducated. No one dreams it will happen to them…God knows I didn’t…this is my story, a story that parallels that of many, a story that could have had a far different outcome. I know women who have suffered far worse; I have read about women who killed their lover as a means to an end…I get it, that’s what desperation does. Desperation drives a person to the very edge of sanity, that fine line in the sand that stands between “us” and “them”. A line that I am eternally grateful for that I didn’t cross. This story is one of many voices that suffered in silence at the hands of someone who loved them…it is a story that travels past desperation to a place called hope, that was fostered by a lifetime dedicated to healing, born from self-forgiveness. Thump, thump…lines….thump, thump…memories.

Where is Hope and what does it look like? Once in a dream I bumped into Hope in a swirling eddy on a river raft trip with my children and husband, having arrived at the ‘put-in’ I surveyed the shoreline and noted the boulders which provided a clear demarcation of the width of the flowing river, each rock revealing the depths of which these waters had raged, faint lines spelling out for me that there would be shallower water as spring is swallowed by summer. Taking our positions on the raft I assume the self-appointed role of spotter, keeping watch out for the logs, sticks, and rocks that could place us in harms way. Where is Hope? I ask myself for what feels like the thousandth time again, only this time in a rubber craft filled with my family. Once we are under way and down the river a spell, danger swirls around us and I am shouting “ROCK LEFT”… “ROCK RIGHT” bump, we are wedged, caught somewhat motionless, together Jimmy and I, with hands gripped on our paddles work to free the boat, adrenaline like the water around us zips through my veins, the little voice inside my head is humming the words ‘hope we do not capsize, Hope we do not capsize, HOPE we do not, ENOUGH…’ The fear creeping into me, the knowledge of what the sky looks like through the translucent movement of water and the feeling of holding my breath…not my kids! Pure determination rocks the boat free from the eddies around us, and all that pent up energy is released as we cascade down the rapids and flow into calm. The reverie envelops me, the bantering of the children “WOW DID YOU SEE THAT”,“I THOUGHT WE WERE GOING DOWN”, “NO, I KNEW THEY’D SAVE US”…Jimmy and I lock eyes and a smile exchanges relief like coins without a jingle. The sun breaks, heart palpitations return to normal I look back again, and bask in the four faces that reflect my face in the glass of their eye protection, this is where Hope is, in the future of my three children and husband. The water line appears less ominous now that we are floating in near still water, the sound of water rushing reveals another drop in the river lying ahead and with answers swirling I return to my lookout position and navigate the rapids ahead. I am awake. Thump, thump…lines…thump, thump…memories.