Fragility

Once when the guy I had recently started dating (and would eventually marry) was late to pick me up, I decided I should be angry. I should practice my assertiveness (something I’ve never been very good at) and let him know that I was not going to take that kind of rudeness. That I wasn’t to be taken advantage of. That we needed to start this relationship off on the right foot.

I imagined what I would say when he finally showed up. The non-assertive voice in the back of my head kept popping in to make me doubt myself. Maybe there’s a reason… he’s never been late before… be patient… see what his story is. No, I argued with myself. I’m a feminist. We young women shouldn’t be taking this kind of crap. My friends and I need to demand more respect from men, and here’s a perfect example of what we shouldn’t be putting up with.

Time wore on. Thirty minutes. An hour. I veered back and forth between ‘you should be angry‘ and ‘maybe he’s not interested in you/he’s blowing you off‘ and ‘maybe something happened to him‘. Two hours. Two and a half hours. Three hours. Then a phone call. He’d been detained. Oh….

***

Then there was the time after we were married. We were living in his country. There was a war going on in the background. We were at the market and had run into an old school friend of his who was very flirtatious. She kept bringing up things they had in common that I hadn’t been around for. She kept touching him on the arm. She was pretty and she had an exotic name. On the one side it was obvious my husband was head over heels for me. On the other, this woman made me feel jealous. She invited us out to her mother’s place for lunch. I didn’t want to go. I knew I would feel out of place and uncomfortable. I made up an excuse to stay home, not saying what I really felt. Come on, my husband said. Come with me. I want you to go. At the last minute, I agreed.

We took a public bus out towards her parents’ home. About 45 minutes outside of the capital, we came across a group of soldiers. A long flatbed military truck was parked off the road with some civilian men and boys sitting in the back. The soldiers stopped our bus. A few of them boarded, guns slung over their shoulders. They glanced around, looking everyone over. The bus was silent. They started pointing: You. You. You. You. Get off the bus, they motioned. One of the people they pointed at was my husband. He got up from beside me. I got up too. No, no, stay there, he said. No, I said. I followed him off the bus, my stomach heavy. What was going to happen?

The soldiers noticed me.  No, no. You. Get back on the bus! they told me. I’m with him, I said reaching for his arm and circling mine tight around it. He is my husband.

Oh oh, they said graciously, raising their hands, palms out in front of them in defense. We are very sorry. Excuse us. Excuse us. Sorry, sorry. They directed us away from the group of unlucky boys and men who were not married to me, who didn’t have an excuse for not climbing up into the military truck, who didn’t have a way to get out of being forcibly recruited. Two soldiers walked us back to the side of the main road. One of them stopped the next bus and put my husband and me on it. We went on our way, off to lunch, the incident just a little 10-minute sidetrack for us.

Meanwhile those other sons, brothers, boyfriends, husbands would not be going on their merry way at all. What was it like for their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives when they never arrived for lunch that day? Were the women imagining the assertive things they would say? Were they musing over a reaction, only to realize they were oh so very wrong? When night fell, did they become desperate, looking for their boys and men? How long before they found out what had happened to them? How did that chance bus ride change a family of lives forever?

My husband’s old flirtatious school friend didn’t seem so threatening or important any longer. We rode the rest of the way to her house silent, sitting close, hearts pounding. Hyper aware of what had just almost happened. What if I had stayed home? I have no recollection at all of the actual lunch, that trivial thing that I had been ridiculously concerned about.

***

There was also the time that I was sitting in a chair in a tidy air-conditioned office, waiting for a job interview. Sitting there in my nice clothes, nervous about the interview, idly chatting with the secretary. While I was there, worrying about the interview, my husband was being held hostage by four heavily armed men out on an empty plantation off the side of a rural highway a couple of hours out of the capital.

It was a random thing. He and some co-workers were coming back from a training session in a community. Four men with automatic weapons stepped out onto the road and told them to halt, probably because they were in a decent looking 4×4. It was a robbery, not anything political or military, just simple post-conflict organized crime. While the robbery progressed, the old man with the machete who guarded the plantation ventured over to see what all the noise was. He was shot. The police happened by. There was a showdown of sorts but everyone came out OK, well, everyone except the old man with the machete.

My husband arrived home on time that night, but shoeless and carrying a small cardboard box. There was a wounded mourning dove in the box that he’d found and brought to give to his mother (she loved birds). His shoes, cheap watch and silver wedding ring had been stolen. It struck me that I’d been calmly sitting in an NGO office, interviewing for a new job while he and several others were sitting in the middle of a field, wondering when they were going to be shot. The whole thing felt surreal. What if we’d left the house angry with each other that morning and things hadn’t turned out OK for him?

***

Life goes on. The day-to-day takes over again. But underneath it, you keep your awareness of life’s fragility.

Why didn’t we tell our mothers?

A few years ago I was at a conference. I ended up going to dinner with several women I had met that day. We were mostly from the US,  Scandinavia, the UK, and some other parts of Europe. We got on the topic of how different life was when we were growing up compared to now. We lamented how people these days keep their kids inside out of fear, that many parents don’t let their kids play freely outside. We felt glad that we were not those kinds of parents.

We began wondering if the world is really that much more dangerous, or if our collective perception of the world has changed to a culture of fear. We got onto the topic of sexual predators and pedophiles. We started sharing stories of all the times that we’d been harassed as girls.

Each one of us had more than one story. And for the most part, we hadn’t told our mothers about it.

I remember being 7 years old and getting followed home from school by some guys in a black car. “Ha ha, wanna get in the car and have some candy little girl?”

When I was 8 I got an obscene phone call. I kept talking to the guy because I didn’t understand what he was talking about or the expressions he was using. And because I thought it was the priest from our church. How’s that for interesting. To this day I kind of wonder if it actually was.

When I was 10 and doing my paper route in the rain some guys followed me for several blocks, calling out the car window to me. The empty streets and closed up houses meant there was no one else around.

When I was 12, walking home from school late in the dark, near Christmas time, a guy followed me. I thought to myself, he doesn’t realize I’m walking here or he’d stop playing around with his zipper. Nope. He was unzipping his pants expressly because I was there. He began walking quickly towards me and I got scared. Out of nowhere came my voice and I screamed “Get away from me!!!!” He said some obscene things and kept walking. My mom asked me to run an errand when I got home and I refused. She got mad at me. I let her be mad.

When I was 13 a car pulled out of an alleyway as I walked home from school. The guy was naked from the waist down.

At a high school party, I went out on the roof to smoke a cigarette. The guy sitting on his porch across the street started staring up at me and jerking off for my benefit.

*****

Lest you imagine that middle America has an inordinate amount of these guys, it doesn’t. They are everywhere. And I suppose they don’t only go after little girls.

In college, Southern California, out for a morning walk and a guy opens his car door as I walk by. He’s fully undressed and fondling himself.

Another morning walk, different route. A guy sees me coming and opens his robe and steps out onto his porch to show himself off to me. Ugh.

*****

But it’s not just in the US.

I spend some time in Latin America. There it’s not guys showing themselves, they keep their clothes on and actively physically and verbally harass me.

They make kissing noises and say complementary things about my anatomy. I usually just let it go.

I start expecting that guys who walk past me on the street might decide to grab my ass.

When it crosses that boundary, it’s not so easy to manage and I get angry. I develop a “don’t fuck with me face”. One time I throw an ice cream cone at the jerk (and miss dammit!). Another time I turn around, go up behind him and kick him in the ass with all my strength. Not sure what that accomplished, and it was probably dangerous to do that, but I felt a little better afterwards.

A guy goes past riding a motorcycle as I’m crossing the street, reaches out and grabs my breast.

A guy comes up behind me as I’m walking home from the gym one evening and fully gooses me. I swear at him, enraged.

A guy traps me in the bus seat and won’t get out of my way until I physically shove him. I get out of the bus with my legs shaking from the adrenaline.

It’s not until after I am married and have children that I start telling anyone about this kind of thing. I suppose a psychologist could have a field day interpreting that one. But whatever. I don’t happen to think my story is that different than a lot of other girls and women.

*****

So… back to my lovely, strong and smart friends at dinner. We start wondering why as girls we didn’t tell anyone. We had nice mothers who wouldn’t have blamed us or shamed us. Why didn’t we tell?

We start wondering about our own daughters. Have times changed at all?  Will our more open relationships with them mean that they will confide in us when it happens to them? Or will they bear the silent confusion, fear, and tightness in the pit of the stomach that we did?

Swimming Lessons

YMCA pool

When I was in 4th and 5th grade, my mom signed me up to go to the YMCA after school. In the dead of winter.

A bus would come to my Catholic grade school and take us over to the Y every day after school for 2 weeks. 2 miserable weeks. Each year I was signed up for the same three 45-minute sessions: gymnastics, swimming and crafts.

After gymnastics, I’d go over to swim. I’d sit on the edge of the pool, lips blue, teeth chattering, body shuddering. Only when the instructor scolded me in front of everyone would I get in the water and swim to the other side or try to do the dead man’s float for the longest 1 minute ever. I remember swimming as cold and scary and feeling very small and vulnerable.

Once swim was over, I had 5 minutes to rush, still shivering, dripping wet, over to the humid, chorine-y smelling locker room, and yank my clothes on over my wet skin to try to get warm as soon as possible. From there, it was to the craft room to make some kind of something or other out of yarn and popsicle sticks, and then the bus ride back to the school parking lot.

And then, the interminable freezing cold trudge home in the near dark, with my heavy backpack and still wet hair, to do my paper route and my homework.

I’m not much of a swimmer to this day.

****

Rock Classic Hotel pool by day

Fast forward to the Rock Classic Hotel in Tororo, Uganda, some years later. I was with a group of US and Ugandan kids on an exchange trip. It was the first time they’d met. Their English was so different that none of them could understand each other very well. Things were pretty quiet and stiff.

The second night was balmy, so we decided to hang out by the pool. It was my night for adult chaperone duty. The hotel was empty except for our group. The night guard put his radio out for us. The tinny sound was small in the quiet of the night, the stars in full force, and the big Rock that gives the hotel its name still visible through the dark in the distance.

Most of the kids didn’t actually want to get in the water, but one of the American girls, E., realized that one of the Ugandan girls, J., did. So E. jumped in the pool. J. followed suit, but she hadn’t ever been in a swimming pool before. It didn’t occur to her that a pool is different from a river. A swimming pool is deep.

She jumped in and went under. She panicked. Before I could even get out of my chair, E. had her in a gentle embrace and was floating with her over to the shallow end.

The two girls, spent the rest of evening together in the pool, E. showing J. how to float, holding her in her strong arms so she would feel safe. A totally different kind of swimming lesson than what I ever had: warm, caring, physically secure.

The rest of us drank sodas and mineral water by the side of the pool and listened to the radio. The dancing started. Two of the Ugandan kids were not supposed to dance due to their religion. Two of the US kids were too cool to dance. But within a couple songs, they were all in a circle together, swaying at least a little bit, and singing and doing campy poses to Michael Jackson.

The laughter had started, the barriers had lowered, and by the next morning it was like they had known each other forever.

Butterflies

I worked in a country that was just getting through a Civil War at one point in my career. I was in my late 20′s. I had very strong opinions about who was right and who was wrong in the conflict based on conversations I’d have with people in the (poor) neighborhood that I lived in, and the arrogant, right wing attitudes of the upper class who I felt brought the conflict upon themselves by their unwillingness to stop supporting a dictatorship and exploiting the poor.

The agency I worked with had a reconciliation program. They were supporting organizations from both sides of the conflict to work together and helping ex-combatants adapt back to civilian life. One of the organizations was an association of war wounded from the armed forces: ex-soldiers who were missing arms, legs, or blinded, or had some other sort of disability due to the war.

I was sitting in my office one day around lunchtime and the buzzer rang. The secretary was on break so I got up to open the door, and C. walked in. He was a bit scruffy but there was something about him. Instant crush. Damnit. One of those things where you look at someone and they look at you, and you realize that you’ve both just gotten yourselves into a potential hot mess.

He was with another guy, T. They were looking for me because I was the point person for the project they had submitted for funding. My stomach did little butterflies and my head told it to stop. Be professional. Get your shit together. Both C. and T. walked with limps, which tipped me off that they must be from the ex-soldiers association. We got down to business.

They were presenting a project and I had to review it. That was normally quite a process which would go back and forth several times. They’d explain to me what they wanted to do, I’d take notes, try to understand the project well, present the project at our project committee meetings, get feedback, give them the feedback, they’d adjust, re-submit, I’d re-present until eventually the project and budget were in the state where we gave them the funding. If you have ever submitted or awarded a grant, you get the idea.

With all the back-and-forth, I quite spent a bit of time with C. and T. I visited their office where they were making prostheses for other war wounded. (That was the project that we were to be funding). I sat in on some of their association meetings and trainings. They came to our office to hand things in.

I never was able to get over the butterflies. C. must have had the same experience, because the interactions were always charged with a certain energy. He was presenting at a meeting at our office one time and couldn’t keep the half-smile off his face when he’d catch my eye. He’d forget what he was saying and have to re-group his mind. But we were both married already. So we never talked about it.

One day C. and T. and I were in the lobby at the agency where I worked.  We exchanged the normal pleasantries. How are you, how did you sleep, how was the morning. C. said he hadn’t slept well. I made a comment like Oh, that’s too bad. Weather too hot?  He said No, that he had nightmares of his leg getting blown off. Of a loud noise and being loaded into a helicopter, losing consciousness, waking up again and seeing that he was missing the lower half of his leg.

Oh.

T. said he often had similar dreams. They started talking about their time in the armed forces. C. had been recruited off the street when he was around 15. T. had joined voluntarily. C. talked about how the army would come around and pick young guys up off the street. They’d take you to the barracks and beat you up. Then you’d sleep on the cement floor. The next day they’d come back around and ask: Who wants to go home. If you raised your hand, you’d get another beating. Eventually everyone decided they’d prefer to stay. They’d make you drink dog blood and pump you all up before you’d go out to fight.

T. spoke. I don’t dream about my leg. The thing that gives me nightmares is the time I shot a child.

You shot a child? How could you shoot a child?

I have nightmares about it all the time. He was probably about 12. I can’t get his face out of my mind. I never sleep the night through. But it was him or me. I was there, pointing my gun at him. He was there pointing his gun at me. One of us was going to die. So I pulled the trigger.

Oh. Um. Wow. Uhhhhhhh… think, think, uh, don’t know what to say to that…. uhhhh…. So, shall we review that project then?

C. drove me home one time after I’d made a visit to the project. He told me that he had a gun hidden in the car under the passenger’s seat because he was afraid the armed forces would send someone after him since he was leading protests against the government to demand benefits for the disabled ex-soldiers. Did I want to see the gun? I felt scared. I was an idiot for getting into a car with a guy who was from the Armed Forces and who had a gun. He said I could just reach down and I’d feel it there, and I could see it if I wanted. I had never held a gun before. And I didn’t want to. I declined.

We drove through downtown. Total Eclipse of the Heart was playing on the radio. He said he’d always wanted to know the words, so I translated them for him as we drove in stop and go traffic. The other thing, the thing we weren’t talking about, made the tension in the car thick.  We got a couple blocks from my house and I said he could let me out there. I didn’t want people talking about who I’d gotten a ride home with.

So, can I at least have a kiss on the cheek? he asked.  The tension burst.  No, I said. I can’t.  I’m married. I can’t. I have to go.

I got out of the car. He drove away.

Their project continued. I always looked forward to the project monitoring visits and office meetings. The tension built up again. My husband picked me up from work one day after C. had been in the office. I was giddy. What’s your problem? Why are you acting like this? You’d think someone just proposed to you.

One day, C. came by the office unexpectedly. He told me that he was leaving the Association. I had my small daughter, about 3 months old, at the office with me. It was the end of the day, time to go home.

Come for a ride with me on my motorcycle, he said. Bring her, she’ll be safe. I looked down. My mind swirled. I was torn.  I can’t, I said. I really can’t.  You sure?  Yes, I’m sure. I can’t.  Ok, he said. Silence…. Too bad, he said…. Well, anyway, he said….  I just came around to say goodbye to you.

I never saw him again.

—–

I have a friend who says I’m too nice. That I shouldn’t let myself get called out. That I should stand firm on my positions and opinions. But everyone has their reasons and their frameworks. There’s always a story behind a story behind a story. We’re all just trying to get through life, whether it makes sense or not to other people, or even to ourselves sometimes.