Like I said< No one wants to hear about pedophilia

Apparently, not even Sister Mary Catherine.

I looked up my abuser's name on the internet. (I will not say that I "googled" him, because the thought results in dry heaves.
My abuser is a very important man.
He lives in Portland. He owns a business. His pals are mayors and governors.
He is well-to-do.
He serves on commissions.
He donates his money and time to civic good works.

He is the salt of the earth.
He is a pedophile.
He is a predator.

He is an important donor and volunteer with the Franciscan Academy of Very Young and Innocent  Children. (Not the school's real name .....maybe later.)

I sent the academy an email.  I named this man,talked of my reason for knowing he is a predator, and begged them to keep him away from children.
They said that Sister Mary Catherine would contact me by phone,on that very day,after 5pm.

What a relief. They HEARD me!


But, Lord! I was nervous.
I was an 8 year old girl, waiting to talk about exactly how and when, and where I'd been touched by a bad man. I'm still 8 years old.
Though I was alone, at home, I spiked my hair, I wore rattlesnake rattles, and studs, and spikes, and bones, and black, black, black...........Not for Sister Mary Catherine, but for myself, to remind myself that I am NOT any longer, a pliant 8 year old..
I
am
anger!

The nun never called.
I went to bed wearing snakes and spikes.

Maybe she was very very busy interviewing children and parents about contact with that guy.

Or maybe, like said in last blog post, NO ONE wants to hear about pedophilia.

He is a big donor to the school. Perhaps they rely on that income.

It continues.
Protect your children.
Teach them to protect themselves.

Pedophilia

I'm sure no one wants to hear about THAT.
No one ever wanted to hear about it.
I tried to tell, but it was too horrible for anyone to hear.
So the kid shuts up.
The kid is ashamed.
I've always thought it was halfway my fault.

Years go by.Decades.
It wouldnt have happened if she was'nt such a rotten kid.
This does not happen to nice girls.
Yet, I dont think she was a bad girl. How could she have been. She was only 8 years old.
She might have drank orange juice, or milk from the carton, when no one was looking, and she would absolutely steal sweets.But I dont think she was really bad.

 8 years old, maybe younger, as far as I can figure, based on where she lived.

I know exactly WHERE it happened. The hall, outside her pink-painted bedroom with the teddy bears in it , and the dollies..
And I know it was a Thursday. Thursdays were when the sitter came.
I cant remember dates. I dont even know how many times. But it was more than once.

I cant prove it.
I cant prove any of it. No dates . No times.
But I can see and feel every detail like it happened yesterday.
She didnt like it.
I did not like it.

I am middle -aged now. I identify as lesbian.
Would I so identify if I hadnt been "molested"? I do not know. That is a heck of a thing not to know.
I dont know if I'm a real lesbian.
I dont know if I'm a real anything, except I am a REAL bonifide, "Dont fucking TOUCH me!"

(They call it "molested", which means ' bothered')
They should call it more honestly.
Fucked.
That asshole fucked an 8 year old.
That asshole FUCKED an 8 year old!

She didnt know what "fuck" meant.
He gave her a stick of gum and told her not to tell.

...and I didnt, for a while, because I was a good girl.
When I learned about fuck at age 10, ..............I thought I was going to have a baby.
But I didnt tell.
I waited for it to come out. At night.Out of my  hairless little girl vulva.
But it never did, because I had not menstruated. But That was a detail I was not aware.of.

I'm 56, and I've figured out finally, there aint no baby in there.


On October 17 2012, A court order forced the release of old files long held in secret by the Boy Scouts of America, going back to the early 1960's. The release of these files stemmed from old cases and cover-ups of child sexual abuse by Boy Scout leaders,  in and around Portland, Oregon from the early 1960s.
http://news.yahoo.com/boy-scouts-america-perversion-files-made-available-public-183000544.html


I read the files. There were names there I knew.
There were lies.
There are STILLl lies.

There were a lot of victims.
The victims werent all boys.

I'm NOT crazy!

I'm not the crazy one.

OMFG!

I
  
am

not

the

crazy

one

!


Oh my stars! What a relief. What a fucking load off my recently troubled psyche.
All this acting crazy is taking a lot of energy.  And time. It takes so much time.
and it disturbs people.
 Totally unnecessary!
Hallelujah....or however you say that in the language of snakes .....(Yeah. I am very odd....but  I AM NOT THE CRAZY ONE!)

So I'm done acting crazy , except in the service of FUN.

I believe I'll yet retain the habit of dressing in spikes and snakes, strange colors and adolescent outcast  wear, because .....it serves the purpose of fun, and black is slimming.

Stick a fork in this depression.
Its done.

Schism

 alienation
breach,
 break,
 cleft,
 crack,
 difference,
 disaffection,
 disagreement
 discord,
 disharmony,
 dissension,
 disunity,
 division 
discontinuity,
 disjunction
 estrangement
 falling-out,
 fissure, 
 fracture,
 gap,
 gash,
 hole,
 opening,
 parting of the ways, 
 quarrel,
 rent,
 rift,
 rupture,
 secession,
 separation,
 severance,
 split,
 strife,
 tear,
 variance,
 withdrawal, 

`
`

I heard about a  Labrador retriever running in blind foaming  panic  with a dog house leashed to his collar, clattering  after him, down a highway. . The doghouse chased the frightened dog  for miles. It chased him out of sight. I don't know what happened to the dog. I hope  he eventually stopped,and some kind person freed him from his terrifying burden.

Me , I  finally undid my own leash , and the funniest thing....
There was no doghouse hooked to me at all . I'd lost it miles ago.
 Its in a pile, broken and splintered. Its been back there all the while.

BlockHead

Right place. Exactly the right time.

I just returned from a 4-day intensive  Japanese woodblock print-making workshop.
....and now everything looks just a tad different. A little bit of Kitagawa Utamaro's floating world informs my brand new retinas.

I like what my head does when I carve my block of  Linden wood.
When I ink the block and rub the paper, I am surprised to see the picture emerge from inside my head , through the wood , by way of the ink, into the material world.
This is fantastic!

The paper I'm using is made of mulberry fibers soaked for hours in a cool stream, by old women in a tiny village in Hokkaido.
When I moisten the paper to prepare it for the ink,  I can hear them gossiping.

I made  prints of a raven, an owl, a snake, and scarlet runner beans..

I'll see if I can scan them in to share here.

Shameless

My body sags.
In the mornings I am stiff.
I am not ashamed.
Sometimes I shit my pants.
Pee also.
I am not ashamed.
My armpits smell.
I have a pimple.
I eat roadkills.
I am not ashamed.
I have lumps wrinkles and scars.
I cant read without glasses.
I keep birds without a permit.
I am not ashamed.
I dumpster dive.
I have broken teeth.
I dont own a lawn mower.
I lost my virginity years before I knew what "fuck" meant.
I am not ashamed.
I am drinking a beer.
I am not ashamed.

My bones are growing back.
I've got my posture again.

Closure

A good story absolutely requires closure.

 Every " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"... NEEDS a " Its a far far better thing that I do......", at the end. *

But thats  stories.  Real life is not so well crafted.
Are we owed closure?
Sometimes we luck out. Heres an example.

About a year ago, while I was away from home at sheepdog trials, my aged Rook dog wandered away from his caretaker, and went missing. I called friends who worked together and quickly found Rook at the Canyon County animal shelter, covered with some stink he'd gotten into, and very ready to come home. My friends bailed Rook out, cleaned him up, and we all, every one of us lived happily ever after.......Well, except  Rook. Rook is no longer with us, but he lived happily for months after, and then died peacefully. A good life for a good dog. A good death for a good dog.
As he deserved.
...and all is right with the world . The space-time continuum remains rock steady , and God's justice falls like rain upon the fertile soil.


In stories, closure is determined by who ever controls the narrative. Sometimes in life too.

 I've made a few vain, and  thoughtless attempts at seizing on "the  narrative" for what threw me into my present depression. Sorry if it was alarming or unpleasant. That was just me trying to make closure. This writing right now is an attempt at some sort of closure.  Perhaps it is less reckless than other efforts.
When one is at the end of one's rope, one can do some pretty ugly grasping, but understand, it is to keep from drowning.
Drowning?
Yes.
Drowning in this:
The notion that what happened , happened because I deserve it.  Because, If I deserve it, then I am the biggest bag of shit , not worthy of life.

Indeed , At the very nadir of my depression, I woke up one morning with the strong notion that God did not want me to live, and that my continuing efforts to draw breath went against the will of God.
(Dont worry. I have since fired that God and am looking to hire another one. Taking Applications now!)



This is why it is vitally, (VITALLY!) important to apologize when we have caused someone suffering,  .  The apologizer offers a narrative that the sufferer may not wholly deserve her suffering. The sufferer still incurs  the usual slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but receives the closure of knowing that its not because she's a bag of shit not deserving of life.

I can live with a sad ending. I just cant live with the idea that I deserve it.

Why WOULDNT you apologize?
Scared?
Weak?
That would make you pitiful , or...
Maybe you really do think I deserve this.
That would make you an asshole.


Thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



*Literature cited:
Opening lines from A Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."


Closing line from Tale of Two Cities:
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. "

Its a great story. Recommended.  The ending, while not 100% happy , yields robust closure.