April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I’ll be posting some additional articles then, but wanted to start getting the word out now in case other bloggers didn’t know about this event and would like to support the cause on their own sites. The following is a story I’d like to dedicate this to S.J., a survivor. “Where you’ve been is not where you’re going.” – Love, Jane

How I Became A Pacifist

1.

My throat is closed up. I remind myself to breathe, breathe, but I can’t get all the air I need through my nose. The sweat’s pouring down my face, down my neck, but I don’t know how much is sweat and how much is blood. Mr. Kinley says keep fighting, don’t give up, only quitters quit. His voice is like an echo in my barely conscious brain.

I’m floating, floating

she smells like burnt brown sugar
I wonder whatever happened to my dragon diary
everything’s pretty when it’s cobalt blue

Something hard hits the side of my head. I just want to sleep. Can I sleep now, I ask silently. The answer is a sharp jab to my left side.

I’m supposed to want to win, but I’m losing bad. Don’t fall, the worst thing you can do is fall, don’t be a disgrace.

Had enough yet?  Her voice hisses and her blow lands square in the middle of my face. I can’t see anything except heaven and the smell of burnt-brown-sugar has turned to rust.

Hey God, is it supposed to be dark in here?
Why isn’t nobody answering me?

Hands under my arms pull me away from God’s distant reach. I know God was almost there, but the hands came too soon. I’m disappointed, but I know we’ll meet one day. It’s inevitable.

2.

“Why you ain’t fight harder?” Kaia asks. “You know you got it in you.”

But I don’t want it in me. I want a washing away, a do-over, a new life, an exorcism. Whatever is in me isn’t mine. It was never mine and never meant to be. I was pulled apart, pulled open, that thing was shoved in there and then I was sewn up tight.

“So it’s like that, huh? You just gonna let yourself get beat?”

I shrug. It’s too hard to explain the kind of peace that comes from surrendering —from refusing any part of that kind of rage

not mine, never mine, don’t want it to be.

Kaia raises her hands in disgust before dropping them to her side. “Well, I can’t watch it,” she says. “Not if you’re not even gonna try.” She walks away then and I know this time it’s for good. It’s not the first time we’ve had this argument.

3.

god give you anger, god give you strength
god give you love, god give you pain
god give you nothin’ but what you already have

If you listen very closely to the sound of a drum, God does this magic thing that puts grown up words in your heart, beautiful words, true words, words that resurrect. I beat the drum for hours and hours, ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-ba-dum

except it wasn’t really a drum and it wasn’t really God.

It was a head-shaped dent in the wall. If you squinted just the right way, though, it kind of looked like a heart.

I love you God, I thank you dent. One kind of pain really is better than another.

4.

Get your head out of the clouds.
Who you talking to?
Your imaginary friends aren’t going to save you.

My mind is my own and she can’t get to it, not with her hands, not with her words. I fly, I float, I swim into new people and whole other worlds. Mr. Kinley goes, Kaia arrives. Kaia goes, Alice comes. Nobody ever really stays for longer than they need to, but nobody ever really leaves, either. I know it’s just a mind thing, but it’s my mind thing, and nobody can take it away, not even her.

5.

Look at this day, how red and gold and sunlit it is, with leaves blowing through the air and tumbling across the narrow street. I spy a gray cat stretched out on a porch, sleepy and lazy, while in another yard a brown-black dog rolls in the yellow-green grass. Not my cat, not my dog, but it doesn’t matter. Animals, like children, really belong to no one, even if nearly everyone feels like they have a right to them. Is that called dominion? I think it’s called dominion.

I don’t want to be like that, so I sit close and wait for the dog to come to me. I’m so grateful when she does, especially because I have nothing to give her except a hug around her neck and some good petting. She lays down and opens her whole self up to me — neck, chest, belly, legs — and she seems to be smiling. This is what love feels like, I think. It feels warm and soft and accepting. It feels like trust. And if it doesn’t, if that’s just another thing I imagine, then that’s okay with me. I like this kind of imagining.

The drum in the dog’s chest goes ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-ba-dum, and after a while God whisper-sings to both of us

all the days in the world are sweet, somewhere
somewhere, always, it’s just like this
red and gold and sunlit,
& wide-wide open to love.

Bandit lets me lay my head down on her big brown-black chest and I make a cradle out of my arms for her. I breathe her heartbeat in and sing us both to sleep.

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You know how sometimes you just adore someone you hardly know for no perceptible reason? Maybe it’s a chemical thing or an intuitive one, but that’s the way I felt about Ellen.

In another life, I worked in a health club as a massage therapist. Ellen used to come in and use the treadmills and step machines after work. Between clients, I would sometimes work out and that’s how Ellen and I met. Our talk was casual and brief, but there was just something very likeable about her. Our lives were very dissimilar — her father was a well-known attorney, she owned her own successful business, she had no kids, and her family was close — but in spite of our differences, I felt a connection with her. Maybe it was a crush, I don’t know, but if it was, it was an innocent one. I was nowhere near Ellen’s league. She told me once she hadn’t dated for years. I assumed it was because she was busy growing her business, or maybe because she was selective, in her late 40s, and couldn’t find her equal, or someone as solid as she was.

I thought Ellen was beautiful. She was a larger woman, about 5’6” and somewhere between a size 18-20, but she wore it well. She looked healthy and had a smile that lit up her whole face. There was something of the Renaissance about her — something almost angelic about her dark hair, bright blue eyes and the cleft above her upper lip.

One day, she came into the club walking slowly and looking strained. I asked her what the matter was and she said her lower back hurt. I offered to give her a free massage. She looked at me with a pained expression on her lovely face. “Oh my god,” she said, “I’d never want to put another person through that.”

“Through what?”
“Through the horror that is my back fat.”
“What?”
“No, seriously, it’s hideous.” I checked Ellen’s face for signs that she was joking. She wasn’t.

I wanted to argue with her, but found myself feeling unexpectedly emotional. I excused myself to go hide in my therapy room, where I ended up crying in the semi-dark for about an hour to the oceanic sounds of Enya.

At first, I thought I was crying solely for Ellen but as the minutes dragged by and my thoughts progressed, I realized I was crying for both of us. Sadly, angrily, pitifully.

Ellen was beautiful. How could someone who looked like she did find any part of themselves hideous?

My own body . . . not beautiful, full of scars. My smile, broken; my face asymmetrical; my ankle deformed. Who was I to feel worthy of love if someone like Ellen couldn’t? More so, if she (or someone like her) found themselves to be untouchable, what could she (or someone like her) possibly think about me?

I had always wanted to look the way Ellen looked. Healthy, unbroken, bright-eyed, clear-skinned . . . Did she know I often smiled at her just because the sight of her made me happy?

If she didn’t feel accepted in the world, how could someone like me ever hope to?

On it went, through reels of memories, accountings of damages, feelings of less-than, tinged with a sense of hopelessness. My own years-long celibacy, Ellen’s, and the shame we shared. Knowing that it’s never more easy to pretend than when alone — love, wholeness, acceptance, openness. Touching and being touched.

Who are you to think you could ever be loved? Who are you to imagine that someone would ever want to touch . . . this?

Self-hatred comes from the suspicion that others will despise us for all those ways in which we don’t measure up.

History – can’t undo it.
Perfection – can’t achieve it.
Trust – hard to find, hard to believe.
Love – a thing to be felt & given, but never taken, expected or accepted in return.
Control – I will hide the broken parts of myself & no one will ever know.

I quit the health club shortly afterward, but before I left I talked to Ellen once more. Doing my best to hold back my own, self-centered emotions, I tried to convince her that she was truly beautiful, not just on that “it’s what’s on the inside that counts” way, but as a whole person. I could tell that she didn’t believe me. Her doubt made me wonder if I was trying to convince myself.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the single, middle-aged, imperfect, scarred, scared women out there who may be lighting candles, pretending lovers, and buying their own heart-shaped cakes tomorrow. My message to you is this: Someone out there finds you beautiful, even if you don’t know it. Find your way into knowing it. Life is too short to keep yourself hidden.

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At night, the city slowed but the bright lights remained. Bored taxi drivers waited in curbside lines, checking their emails or talking to loved ones on cell phones. I’d wander down Stetson Street, to Bockwinkel’s market, where I’d make small talk with the night workers, buy something to eat, and then hand a few dollars to the old man who sat outside telling passers-by that he needed only $20 to get a room for the night. He was there every evening. One night, he remained even after I gave him the full amount. My friend Rick reminded me in an email to pay it forward, pay it forward so I did, reminding myself that it didn’t matter how the old man used the money, or what he really wanted it for, because anyone desperate enough to sit on a cold sidewalk with the winter wind blowing through their thin jacket needs something, even if it’s only a moment of faith in the care of other people. See me, see me.

My imagination soars when I’m alone, but it goes nowhere, aimlessly. I’ve rarely admitted this in the last thirty years, but I do appreciate a slight pull of the reins and a sense of direction. There’s something to be said about a shared destination, no matter how independent the travelers. I believe that whether it’s work, love or family, everything stands the best chance of thriving when it’s part of something that’s bigger than itself — whether it’s two people striving for common ground or 10 million reaching for the stars.

The man in the thin coat sits apart, outside commonality and too far removed from sky-high hopes. His salvation comes from one outstretched hand at a time, one pair of eyes that don’t look beyond, but that take the risk of meeting his. In this way, he is no different from any of us except that he, perhaps more than he’ll ever know, causes us to confront the spiritual character of our hearts by doing nothing other than existing. Do we feel compassion or disgust? Resignation or empathy? Do we wish for him the best that we would wish for ourselves? God is in the details, my friend.

In Chicago, whether I’m walking the city streets or pacing the stark warmth of my hotel room, I feel acutely aware. There’s something magnetizing about 24 hour lights and nonstop movement that makes me see more — intuit more, feel more — yet that draws me farther into myself. It’s an outward meditation that works its way in. I want you to be as warm as I am tonight. I hope you find a room.

My spirit is intact, but it doesn’t have all the answers it seeks. That empty space used to gnaw at me, but oddly it doesn’t anymore. It’s become part of me — a phantom limb of unanswered curiosities, still attached, but not the painfully driving force it used to be. Over the course of the last year, some kind of emotional corner was turned and I grew into accepting that some things will never make any rational sense. Fix what you can and leave the rest. (Still, I think so much could change, if enough of us really wanted them to.)

I don’t sleep well alone in a strange bed, but I dream vividly anyway. Some things come to pass and most don’t, but in that precious slice of morning between asleep and awake, I see all things as possible. When I rise, I don’t feel tired but hopeful/grateful/part of something bigger than myself. I wake with the feeling of a home without walls; a chosen family that feels nurturing. Finally. This kind of connection to the world, to others, so many years in the making, now comes without fear, without ache. Yet I know (most of us know really, even if we don’t like to admit it), that we’re only ever one or two degrees removed from the man on the sidewalk.

We are only flickers of light among thousands of lights. Even the beacons among us are smaller or dimmer when seen from a distance. It’s only when we stand close, side by side  — two of us, 300 of us, 10 million of us — that we each shine to our fullest potential.

What matters most is what matters most.

Good intentions, above all.

On a Chicago morning, paper cup in hand, I stood under an awning waiting for a taxi, and thought about how so much of what passes for substance-faith-belief really isn’t, while so much that’s real is disregarded or thought to be out of reach. But we should never stop reaching, even when the odds are long, the days are short, and the critical voices pile on. No one ever built a monument to the critics.

I remembered this as I later walked into The Rosie Show studios. When it comes to what’s valuable and what’s not, everyone has ideas and opinions — literally hundreds of them a week are tweeted, Facebooked, emailed in — and that’s on top of the hundreds that come from staff, friends, critics, and people on the street. In a much less obvious way, I think almost everyone’s life carries something like this. We might be doing our best to thrive, to live our truth and realize our highest potential, but there are always voices . . . some are supportive, some are crazy, some are helpful, and some are cruel . . . but we get to choose the filters. We get to choose which voices echo in the chambers of our hearts and sound truest to our intentions. I am grateful to have come to a place in my life where that’s no longer wishful thinking, but reality.

And on we go, as Rosie would say.

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When I was a child, it seemed nearly impossible. As a young adult, it seemed incredibly far away. In my thirties, I still felt like I had forever barring an accident or disease. Today, though, I realize I am closer to the end than I am the beginning. Even while some trick of biology makes me feel like I’m 19 on the inside most of the time, (and it’s often a shock when I look in the mirror and see that I’m not), it can’t do away with the reality of aging.

Our middle is not like our beginning or our end. Our legacy is not in our ourselves, but in how many lives we touched.

Nearer the end, I think it doesn’t matter where we came from, but where we went after we arrived. It doesn’t matter how fat or thin our wallets were, or how thick or thin our thighs were — it matters who we loved and who loved us in return. It doesn’t matter how many accolades we received or how many tragedies we survived, but what real difference either of them made to the world outside of ourselves.

In many ways, I squandered my first 46 years. Not on purpose, but because I couldn’t seem to find a way out of a cycle, no matter how many moves I made or new directions I tried. I often question whether there was any bigger purpose to those accumulated experiences, but when I hear from women who tell me there was,  I feel loosened from what otherwise might feel like regret.

I don’t want to squander any more years. Not even days or hours. That’s what I meant when I said in my last post that my 50th year feels urgent-wild . . . We-don’t-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-left wild.

I’ve started to write my second book. My posts will be less frequent and I won’t be online as much, but I hope those of you who found Elephant Girl worthwhile will stick around for part two.

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Last Friday in the West Loop of Chicago, I skipped lunch and took a walk in order to enjoy the bright blue sky and lukewarm sun.  I was well into a nonsensical reverie about French presses, tiny cars and strange restaurants, when suddenly a brush of concern flittered through my neurons.

Oh god, I’ve lost my edge. I’m becoming dotty. Taking that panicked worry to its logical conclusion, I knew that if I died right then, I’d leave no profound last words, not like Voltaire or even like Joan Crawford, who is said to have screamed, Damn it, don’t you dare ask God to help me!  (Can’t you just hear her saying that? So wire hanger-ish.)

No, instead of something profound or memorable, I’d be thinking about a restaurant down the road — The Girl & The Goat — and their unappetizing menu of wood-roasted pig face and parsnip puree. (That’s for real, ya’ll. Click the link).

I remember that at the end of her life, my mother saw a blonde woman in a green dress beckoning to her from a silver train. The only part of MJ’s DNA I share is the tendency to dream of odd things in vivid color. On Friday, on some corner of Randolph Street, I just knew that if I keeled over at that very moment, there’d be no friendly guide to see me into heaven. It would just be me, alone, pulling into a white tunneled Starbucks drive-thru in a red, button-sized Smart car while trying to clear my mind of menu memories like confit goat belly and tongue-olive vinaigrette.

Obviously, I thought, today would be a terrible day to die. I should probably hang on a little while longer.

Comforted by new, meaningful mission, I dug my hands into warm coat pockets and jangled the spare coins that weighted down both. In Chicago, far away from the kids who hang out in front of 7-11 or the homeless guy who sits outside of Starbucks, I’ve amassed a ton of change. I try to remember the last time I bought anything that cost less than a dollar, but that makes me recall the days of powdery white candy cigarettes with pink sugar tips, which not even the novelty candy makers dare sell anymore. Almost everyone smoked when I was growing up, though, including grocery store clerks and teachers. I remember sitting in a classroom, shaking my wrists out after a painful hour spent learning to write in cursive with a #2 Ticonderoga pencil while Mrs. McCollum gathered up her Virginia Slims and headed outside for a break.

Who reminisces like this?

Dotty people.

Old people.

Fuck. Really?

Put off by my mental turn into an era of beehives and bubble gum rock, I scanned the street looking for redemption. For that one person who needed about $8.32 worth of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. I figured if I died during an act of generosity, maybe God would see fit to send me a blonde angel instead of a roasted goat. But at that moment, in all of Chicago, as far as my eyes could see, there wasn’t one person who looked ragged except me.

It’s occurred to me more than once that I just don’t look good in clothes. I’m sure I look worse out of them, but that’s not the point. The point is nothing fits. Pants are too long, shirts are too short and unless I’m in love, I hate to shop. Only love makes me want to lengthen my legs, shorten my torso, and style my hair — which right now has a skunk-like gray stripe growing down its crooked part. And gray hair isn’t like normal hair at all. It’s like the little steel threads of a Brillo pad.

Oh my god, I thought somewhere near Morgan Street, I’m going to die with Don King hair.

I continued walking until I found a Starbucks. The girl behind the counter seemed oblivious to my existential crisis, so I put on my best game face and ordered a non-fat Venti latte with an extra shot but then — along with feeling dotty, misshapen and gray — I felt pretentious. I wondered if my world would right itself — if I might find some check and balance or even a bit of redemption — in paying for my $4.76 order with coins. Of course I didn’t, because that’s something only very old, very young, or very poor people do.

Heading back to The Rosie Show, it hit me: there has been a lot of talk around the office about the number 50. (Rosie turns 50 nine days before I do.)

50, I realize, is the reason for all this angst. 50 is trying to be my late-blooming midlife crisis. 50 is the reason my legs are too short and my hair is Don King funky. 50 is why babies make my ovaries hurt, young people frustrate me, and love stories make me cry. 50 is why I won’t even try something like hedgehog mushroom gribiche, knowing that I’d prefer a cheeseburger.

My 50 wants to drive a sensible, mid-sized car — a nice, solid GMC or Chevy — and it doesn’t care that it’s still using a flip phone from 1993, but it can’t abide thin towels, cheap coffee, rude people, or disposable razors. My 50 likes to think ahead, divert disaster, and fix what needs fixing before moving onto the next thing. It’s afraid to go to funerals, weddings, or other serious events because it doesn’t trust its hormones not to laugh at inappropriate times.

Yet for all its dichotomous stodginess and hormonal unpredictability, my 50 is wild. Not 20 or 30 wild, but urgent-wild. Life experience-wild. Smart-wild. We-don’t-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-left wild. My 50 has become a colorful precautious sage. Unlike previous ages, it doesn’t fly by the seat of its pants, fueled by nothing more than big ideas and all-encompassing feelings — it’s got documentation, research, personal anecdotes, informed and fierce opinions, and a strong backbone.

My 50 still has a 10 year old girl on the inside, ready to drop everything and play at a moment’s notice — or burst into tears when things hurt or don’t go her way — but it’s learned to self-parent, discipline and nurture.

My 50 has realized that impulse and intuition is not the same thing. One should be checked and the other heeded.

My 50 has realized that it’s not about how many new stones can be dug up — it’s about taking the time to polish the ones you’ve already collected before searching for more.

Somewhere along the way, the sharp edges of my younger years grew into curves of memory, mind, and consciousness. I’ve lost edges, but gained a horizon.

I still wish I could rock a pair of jeans or keep a hairstyle for longer than five minutes, though. Maybe that will happen when I’m 51.

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Okay, this is going to be a fast post because I have a lot to do before my plane to Chicago leaves Sunday, but PEOPLE — I’m going to work for the The Rosie Show on OWN! How excited am I? So very.

Before we start throwing the confetti around and pouring the margaritas, I should mention that this is, for now, a very temporary assignment. Two weeks to start with — time to evaluate whether my content ideas will be a good fit for the future of the show. I can hardly wait to get started. In the meantime, my mind is already running in high gear and there are bags to pack, plans to make, and a hundred little things to do before I leave the sunshine of Arizona. I’m going to have to forage for winter clothes and figure out if Annie is joining me or going to visit friends for a couple of weeks.

I’ll keep you all updated on Facebook and Twitter as often as I can. Thank you to all of those who have followed my journey through the years and who wish me well in this new endeavor. Your support means the world to me!

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