Sarah said I have a type. And then I as we hugged in pain from the news, Steve said the same thing, “you have a type.”

I guess by that they meant that I loved sharing my life with a partner who also shared my curiousity, creative sense of play and exploration, and whose work complemented my own as we supported each other’s pursuits. The implication, however, was that they often worked with materials that were toxic, or shared the habits of their generation such as heavy smoking and drinking, suffering the consequences of the indiscretions of youthful hubris.

The sad part is that there are no guarantees on longevity. None of us gets an assurance on how long we have on this earth, on how much time we have to spend with our loved ones. And no amount of love, no matter how deep, will keep them here on this earth if their fate is meant to be somewhere else.

[N]o amount of love, no matter how deep, will keep them here on this earth if their fate is meant to be somewhere else.

Not Again

Steve had been feeling sick since late September and was finally able to get a telehealth doctor’s visit in late October. That lead to an immediate trip to the ER due to pleural effusion and three days in the hospital. More follow-up doctor’s visits and then another visit to the ER and a week in the hospital, collapsed lung, more thoracentesis, CT scans, pathologies, and finally a confirmed diagnosis – stage IV non-small cell lung cancer adenocarcinoma. Followed by biopsies, colonoscopy/endoscopy, and PET-CT and finally a meeting with the oncologist.

Treatment would be palliative to keep the cancer from spreading further. Depending on the analysis of tissue from the biopsy, it would include immunotherapy, or a combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Prognosis was dependent on the outcome of that treatment – months or years.

In dark times like this, sometimes a morbid sense of humor results. “I thought I had a 10-year warranty on our marriage!” I said to Steven as we shared a quiet celebration of our 8th anniversary this week. “And I intended to renew it with another 10-year extended warranty!” Geez.

Preparing for the holidays

This past weekend Steve was able to fit in some moments of normalcy between naps and directing from his stressless recliner as visiting family members helped with chores that culminated in decorating a much smaller Christmas tree that I’d ordered. At half the size of the 12′ tree we’ve had the past few years, the smaller 6-1/2 footer allowed me to manage its assembly and grandkids to help with decorations without a ladder. The job was done in a matter of hours instead of days. Although not the grand tree we usually had, it put a smile on Steve’s face and that’s what mattered to me most.

The new 6-1/2 ft tree was decorated with help from family including grandchildren. It replaced the 12-1/2 ft tree that normally fills the room but that takes two adults on ladders to do. This smaller tree was put up and decorated in a day and still managed very nicely to make everyone smile with gratitude and appreciation.

And an anniversary

When we first started dating, he’d show up at my door with two roses in his hand and a silly grin on his face. It always made me smile in return and lightened my heart. Steve gives the best hugs and so it has been my goal to return those hugs and their healing power as much as I can and he’s willing to accept them as his body fights back.

Copper orange roses for our 8th anniversary.

So on our 8th anniversary this week, I brought him a dozen copper orange roses, a box of chocolates, and a Hallmark card. These were what he would have brought me but driving hasn’t been his option for the last two months. So I did it for both of us. His lip quivered a bit fighting back tears as he read the card and saw the roses. I split them up – 8 in one vase for the years we’ve been together, and another 4 for blessings going forward.

Dinner and The Voice

We sit here and watch the finale performances for this season’s The Voice. We’re in the new bed I bought, a split adjustable king bed that would allow Steve to raise and lower his back and legs to help him breath and get a bit more comfortable. 

This afternoon, while I was in online meetings and student reviews in my home office, Steve was riding the tractor down the hillside out back with John following so they could hook up the plow blade for the inevitable snowfall we anticipate for the winter, yet haven’t seen much of yet.

I was part horrified when I learned of his joyriding out back while holding back my critique as he looked at me painfully while trying to eat his dinner. He’d been asking me to make this dish he saw on Facebook – baked honey sesame chicken which was basically a sweet and sour chicken – and so I made it. But that pained look told me he was struggling to eat it – not because he didn’t like the taste, but because as soon as he starts to eat, his stomach says “no more.” 

“Did you feel almost normal when you were riding around on the tractor?”
“Yes, almost.”
“Then it was worth it.”

“How have you been feeling?” I asked. “Crappy all over,” he replied. “It’ll be okay,” I replied. But he broke down. He didn’t like this crappy feeling, he said between tears. “Did you feel almost normal when you were riding around on the tractor?” I asked him, touching his arm gently. “Yes, almost,” came the reply between the slowing sobs. “Then it was worth it,” I whispered.

But deep inside, I wondered how many more of these “close to normal” moments there would be in his future. 

Silken Windhounds, Louie (white and tan) and Ralph (dark grey and black) curl up beside Steve as he watches the singers on The Voice between short naps.

As I write this, Steve munches on some Lays Waves potato chips, craved from the power of suggestion as The Voice’s Blake Shelton did a shtick where he steals the Voice award by swapping the award sitting on a pedestal rigged with an alarm with a bag of Pringles. Steve looks happy. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say all was normal as both Ralph and Louie are curled up with their heads against his side. How I long for this moment of normalcy to last.

Dear reader: I know it’s been more than a year since I’ve published anything. Let’s just say my attentions have been elsewhere. But I’m hopeful that with this post, the ice jam has been broken and I’ll be writing more again in the future. In the meantime, I hope you appreciate this brief entry below.
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Fog rolls in on Lake Superior sunset.

Ten years today you left this earthly plane, you left your cancer pain, and you left us heart-broken.

But time hasn’t faded my memory of you – and of us – because still, I can see your smile, still hear your voice, still feel your kisses, and still know the warmth of your caress. 

And I know that you’ve been watching over us, too, in spirit. I can feel your presence, and occasionally hear your commentary, as if you were walking beside me. We talk that way, too, you know. 

We have so much to be proud of since you’ve passed over in spirit. Two grandsons to start with! They are the light of my life and they talk to you, too, grandpa! Especially T. 

Family preparing for sunset photos as the fog rolls in on Lake Superior.

And I know you were there in June up in the upper peninsula when our youngest daughter, now in her early 30s, was married to her own love of her life. We all felt your presence there… the fog rolling into the harbor as we started to gather for pre-wedding photos at sunset. Then there was the bald eagle flying near the window as we enjoyed families together for the rehearsal dinner. It was an interesting choice, Keith, since previously I’d seen your animus in the form of a Great Blue Heron. But the Eagle is a bird of the north and so it was right.

At the ceremony, we knew you were there smiling when your name was mentioned in honor, as Stassia wore the necklace with the cremation diamond you and she helped plan, as the sunshine and blue skies blessed the day on the shores of Lake Superior, and as our grandsons played in the pebbles picking out the pretty ones they wanted to keep as treasures.

But today, this morning, on the tenth anniversary of your departure from this physical plane, you had to have been so proud of Sarah, our first born, who was honored with the college’s President’s Award of Excellence. Five years ago she joined the college where I work as a temp and then as an independent contractor taking on special design projects. She has comported herself with humor, professionalism, and patience even while dealing with the challenges that were thrown her way. 

When they called her name, Keith, I nearly jumped out of my seat! Our baby girl (now in her mid 30s, of course) was being recognized on this very day, the tenth anniversary of a very painful dark day. But on this day, today, she was given a bright light to shine on the legacy you helped create. 

I miss you dearly, Keith, and I feel your love every day. I have discovered that a heart can grow to love more, to make a new life with another partner, even when my heart had been badly broken. The scars are there, still. But they are worn lines now, serving as symbols of strength and resilience. Today, on this tenth anniversary of a dark day, Sarah accepted this special honor in your memory. Today was a day of light.

I’m lost in my thoughts, sorting tiny pieces of metal type, cleaning the typecases, as sunlight brightens the room from the three walls of windows that filter it into it as I work.

Blessed. That’s how I’m feeling. Surrounded by antique type, printing presses and cabinets, I’m in my happy place, dreaming of the poetry, creative typography, and other items I’d print in this room. Imagining artist friends, old and new, also working in the space, as our creative spirits feed each other.

My mind drifts to conversations, recent events. Mercury and Jupiter in retrograde and I seem immune. But others in the family haven’t been so lucky. Challenges posed by one thing after another keep coming, some more serious than other. They weigh on my mind as each new issue flows through my thoughts like heavy clouds.

From one side of the family, Steve was managing an upset with one of his grown children who seemed to be having a bit of an emotional breakdown on a sad journey. An offer to come help with a project the following day led to an angry response that his help was needed “now” and a meltdown of personal attacks that were more of a cry of someone feeling like their world was out of control and the lashing out was a sign of despair.

Like the virus that has been plaguing the globe, the anger spread, inflicted on siblings. And then it continued to spread. Swirling from one family member to another, feeding on insecurities and bottled up pain.

But it didn’t end there. Like the virus that has been plaguing the globe, the anger spread, inflicted on siblings. And then it continued to spread. Swirling from one family member to another, feeding on insecurities and bottled up pain. Another who had not yet been vaccinated, flatly refusing to be, siting some Q-Anon type conspiracy misinformation, texted another to “mind his own damn business.”

The storm

All of these things were swirling through my head as I quietly sorted type and cleaned the cases in the studio. A dangerous thunderstorm had hit just last Tuesday afternoon… It came up so fast and I had an impending sense of urgency so I went out and told Steve he needed to send our teenage helper home, having just gotten his license. The helper had left barely 5 minutes and the storm came up too fast. Rain blew horizontally, swirling around corners, winds whipping the trees large and small like a forest of rag dolls. The world looked like layers of grey, accented by the whips of rain-soaked brushes between the fields and forests.

I took a short video as the rains and winds came across the fields and slammed the world around me. But I took cover when it came across the upper covered deck sideways. The time stamp on the video was 1:49 pm. And then it was over.

A video of the storm just as it started, trees whipped around violently as the rain slashed across sideways. It was over in ten minutes.

At 1:59 pm, the time stamp on the first photos I took, we saw the destruction. A huge box elder tree with a gaping yawning mouth lined in red where the smaller trunk split from the main one, had fallen across our fence on the east side, and much of it also landed alongside the house, missing a newly installed exterior lamp post by inches – and the house – by only a few feet.

On the west side, a huge maple on the neighbor’s side of the fence had lost a major limb hit by lightning with many extending branches landed across that fence. It also missed the shop windows by only inches. I’d seen the lightning flash and had immediately begun to count. But I didn’t get to “1” before the thunderous crash. Now we knew what it was based on the blackened trunk where the large limb had been severed and veins of burnt bark ran up the tree trunk.

In the backyard, several trees, already weakened from the water that formed a pond whenever it rained, had been blown over, propped up by neighboring trees. Branches and debris were all over, leaves plastered to the house, cottonwood leaves and branches from a tree in the far backyard were found in the front yard.

And yet, as I looked at it all, and as Steve and I walked through the mess, figuring out what we needed to do to keep the dogs safe until the fence could be repaired, once the trees were removed… I felt blessed.

And yet, as I looked at it all, and as Steve and I walked through the mess, figuring out what we needed to do to keep the dogs safe until the fence could be repaired, once the trees were removed… I felt blessed.

It could have been so much worse. The one tree could have hit the house, it certainly could have reached it if blown in a slightly more northerly direction. The maple could have hit the shop more directly, smashing windows and poking holes into the letterpress studio holding our precious type and printing presses. But none of that had happened. I felt like we were in a protected bubble that had kept us and our home safe.

Now we wait for the tree guys to come in the next week or two to cut and clear the downed trees. Another blessing. I told Steve that he should not have to deal with this giant mess. That we had the funds to cover it. I’d spoken to our insurance advisor who told me what the break-even point was for filing a claim, or not. Based on that information we decided to cover it ourselves. Now we wait. And it doesn’t bother me at all. The broken limbs and leaves all around my view are a real reminder of how well we’d faired. We didn’t lose power – at least not long enough for the generator to even kick on.

Meditating on anger

As I rearranged some of the funny advertising cuts, illustrations, and halftones in the cases – ones I’d like to play with in my own art vs. ones I’d likely never use – other thoughts went rolling through my hive mind. Anger and stress, depression and flaring tempers have been fed by more than divorce and is fed as much by the pain of pandemic politics and fear for the health of those we love. Yet, how could someone send a text to their grown offspring saying “your stuff is on the porch, taco dinners at 6, don’t bother showing up.” There is so much to dissect from this statement, especially within the already divisive pain caused by misinformation about the veracity and threat of COVID19.

My mind went to how one handles anger, revenge and spite. Maybe it’s because I’ve matured. Or maybe I’ve found that responding in anger or spite is a no-win game. There is nothing to be gained by it. Have I gotten angry, lost my temper? Yes. And it wasn’t something that served me. I didn’t feel better about it. Just the opposite. I felt awful. It didn’t bring me peace. It took a lot of painful work to try and heal the rifts it caused.

I’ve been wronged terribly and in very painful and even expensive ways. Yet I see no point in being spiteful, or seeking revenge. …Each person’s spirit will face their own path, their own hard lessons.

And it’s been awhile. I’ve been wronged terribly and in very painful and even expensive ways. Yet I see no point in being spiteful, or seeking revenge. I believe that each person’s spirit will face their own path, their own hard lessons. All I can do is attempt to do my part to support growth, not harm. And to separate myself from those who only offer selfish toxicity rather than love.

As I gathered the metal type borders to move to their new location in another typecase, I tried to also gather my thoughts on how someone could so intentionally hurt a person they loved. I couldn’t do that. As angry as I might be with someone who I thought had hurt me through their actions or words, if we had love between us, I couldn’t hurt them back.

I’ve since learned to try and listen – and think – about what and why they were saying and doing what they were. Was I missing something? Were they also hurt? Were they trying to help me with something? Perhaps I needed to understand more from their perspective and not just be caught up with my own hurt feelings and ego. This is how my brain works these days. I live by the Four Agreements (Don Miguel Ruiz) and it has been instrumental in how I’ve addressed conflicts for many years.

A story from before times

It wasn’t always that way. I remember a time not long after we were first married that my dear first husband Keith had done something to upset me. I don’t even remember what it was. But I was really upset as I washed a glass Pyrex lasagna pan in the sink. He kept at it, picking at the wound that I felt was being inflicted. I held the pan up as if I was going to smash it against the edge of the sink and stopped. I didn’t want the glass to hit him. I didn’t want to hurt him. I just wanted him to know how upset I was. I looked down and saw the rag rug I was standing on and, with both hands, I threw the pan down flat onto it hard.

The glass flew off in all directions and I stood there dumbfounded. I’d forgotten it was a concrete floor underneath the rug at my feet. Keith was shocked as well. But he quick regained his composure, taking me by the elbow and walking me into the living room to sit on the sofa. “I’ll clean this up,” I remember him saying. And he did, as I sat there with tears streaming down my cheeks. I’d ruined a perfectly good lasagna pan, and now there was glass everywhere, even three feet up in the pots of the hanging houseplants in front of the far window of the kitchen.

Keith knew how to push my buttons. There was a bit of a cruel streak in him. But I soon learned that I could push back. That he loved me. I just needed to not push with cruelty but with love. And sometimes he just needed space. It took many years for us to find balance. And it seemed like we were just starting to really find our groove after nearly 30 years of marriage.

He’d learned that bravado and machismo can have consequences for the one you love and I paid the price.

He cared for me when I broke my back and wrist. Guilt played a role. He’d learned that bravado and machismo can have consequences for the one you love and I paid the price.

He was so proud of me when I was accepted into the doctoral program. “My wife’s gonna be Doctor Fulmer,” he’d tell everyone.

We danced at our oldest daughter’s wedding, and I knew dancing was not something he liked to do. Yet he did it. For me. And for our daughter. I will forever treasure that moment, captured in a photo, where we were looking into each other’s eyes and saying “How did we get here?” How did we get old enough to have a married daughter? We did well!

All the heartaches of the past had been just bumps in the road on the way to our next chapter in life as true empty nesters. Just one more year to get the youngest graduated from college and we were on our own again. Blessings were upon us, for sure. And then… and then…

Worry when life’s good

Is it no wonder that I now look at Steve with worry and occasional bouts of melancholy, worried that our time together will be unexpectedly brief? I worry for his health. I worry for his strength. I hear him say such and such an activity “takes the life out of ya” and I think – “not too soon, I hope.” Sometimes I think we’re on borrowed time. Perhaps it’s the blessings I feel, their abundance and good fortune. I worry that, like those days over ten years ago, that within a year or two it’ll all be crushed and my heart will be broken once again.

And in a most prescient way, I feel it, that doom. And I try and chase it away. Thankful of the sounds of the antique riding lawnmower he drives by my studio as I continue my sorting. He smiles in a cheerful shy way as if to say “I’m just having fun with my old toys.” And I smile back at him, not wanting to ruin his fun by mentioning the exhaust that pulls into my studio from the fans I have running. So I go and open a few extra windows to help air it out.

It is also the silence that brings me a feeling of dread. A feeling that I have imagined my life with him, and that I am actually living alone in this giant house. It’s a feeling that I must be out of my mind for having imagined this whole life with this sweet man who brought me love when I needed it most. Together we healed each other and I wonder sometimes if my sanity is undermined and that I have dreamed it all up.

Sometimes I think we’re on borrowed time. … I worry that, like those days over ten years ago, that within a year or two it’ll all be crushed and my heart will be broken once again.

And then he smiles and gives me a hug. And I wonder… if this is my reality, who am I to question it. I just cannot wrap my head around inflicting pain on those you love. There’s enough pain in the world… and in life… already. Count your blessings, spread love, not pain.

I go back to my typecases and admire the mix of order and disorder. There are stories here, yet to be uncovered.


Revised from a diary entry dated July 3, 2021.

Warning: This post includes a reference to my own political views. If any criticism of the recently removed occupant of the White House, aka #45, will upset you, please go elsewhere for your reading. That is, unless you are truly interested in learning about the pain this has caused within families and would like to try and heal that rift. Thank you. – MJF

I often wonder how our conversations would have gone if my Dad were here to have seen how the past 10 months have panned out. We had come to agree not to speak politics, especially at the dinner table. I still remember the day more than four years ago when he asked me why I was screaming when he kept dismissing my concerns about then candidate tRump. I told Dad it was because he terrified me. I could feel the evil he, tRump, was projecting, the cold heartless disregard for others, the narcissistic boasting of lies that his speech pattern revealed, unable to string together a coherent thought while weaving in complete and utter nonsense soaked up by his base who somehow thought being tough meant beating up the opposition. All critical thinking having been abdicated in exchange for a toxic masculinity in what became the cult of the schoolyard bully of tRump.

Mom and Dad in happier healthier times. Summer 2010 visiting the Detroit Zoo as part of a family celebration of their 50th Anniversary.

I remember tearfully and loudly exclaiming how could Dad even consider following him after the toxic expressions of anti-semitism, the admiration of dictators and despots, the complete disregard for human decency and process. My dad dismissively waived off my concerns saying it was just his candidate being boastful, that it would never get that bad. And maybe, I hoped do, too. That the checks and balances of government, and that the fourth estate would be enough. But then came COVID19. And he became so adept at the flippant lies that the cultish base he dog-whistled to had finally been fully brainwashed. And the evil we saw spread in its rabid attack on democracy had reached its peak.

Dad passed away May 1st, 2020 after a brief and ugly battle with cancer, and full of the awful indignities that go with it. And I did my daughterly duties and cared for him, cleaning him up, feeding and bathing him when his body turned against him. As his body began to degrade around him, I remember Dad asking me “What happens after you die?” And it crushed me. Raised Jewish, there is no hell or purgatory. But there is guilt. I chose not to add to his pain. Instead, I asked him questions that were meant to help him reflect and guide him to his own conclusions. He was in a room filled with books that explored this very thing…my mother, who had passed away nearly four years earlier, was a voracious reader of all things spiritual. Yet he had never picked up a single one of these books except to place them on the shelf. So, after a few bits of back and forth that didn’t seem to satisfy him, I simply responded “You’ll be with mom once again.”

The writer of the article linked below is hoping to find his lost (to the cult of tRump) parents long before they die. I hope he is successful.

https://qr.ae/pNlwHD

mara-denmark-soldier

Me at age 16, traveling Denmark with a good friend.

(Originally written Friday, September 28, 2018 and then edited through October 1, 2018)

My 13-year-old self didn’t even know how to spell his name correctly as I wrote about him in my diary all of 44 years ago. Yet I called him my “boyfriend” in those diary entries from Fall 1974. He was 3 or 4 years older than me and, as I bloomed into adolescence earlier than my classmates, I found myself teased, belittled, and humiliated incessantly for having breasts, my period, and other characteristics of a grown woman. On the academic side, I was fairly advanced and by graduation I was in the top 20 in my class of over 700. I played violin in both the school orchestra and a competitive youth orchestra and studied privately with respected instructors. In these things – academically and musically – I knew the rules, to study, to practice, to revise, to work hard. Yet in retrospect, I was so insecure about my changing body that I didn’t know how to handle the kind of attention it would attract, for good or bad. My rebellious nature grew as I struggled with the attention I received, which often wasn’t in my best interest, especially from certain boys attempting to play men.

From that early experience, I’ve come to some conclusions about bad behavior. I no longer buy into the “boys will be boys” mantra often used to excuse inexcusable behavior by aggressive angry young men. Sorry. Not sorry. Not buying it. Because when you buy into that, you accept that women, girls, “ask” for rape. They don’t. They dress nicely because they like to feel good about themselves. Not because they want to be sexually assaulted. They say “no” because they don’t want to be raped. Not because they want to sound like a bitch. They smile not because they want to be attacked. They smile because they feel good and want others to, as well. We just want kindness, respect, and humane consideration, not deep shame, verbal or physical abuse, and sexual attack.

#MeToo and My Sisters, Too

The #metoo movement that busted into the limelight last year as women began to stand up and be counted as survivors of sexual harassment, assault, and rape, dredged up memories that I’d put behind me long ago. But like many of my sisters in heart who have experienced that same reignited pain, the poor excuse of a man who currently occupies the White House, and whose name I cannot write here, displayed such openly misogynistic attitudes and behaviors as to declare open season on women, our civil rights, and our dignity. He has empowered other men to also be openly misogynistic who had previously felt stifled by the “political correctness” of civility. In response, a growing chorus of female voices has risen, creating a backlash against the older white male generation’s status quo that said women had to stay in their “place” and men would be the only arbiters of power.

Angry, bitter, outraged… these feelings welled up inside me as I felt betrayed by the openly hostile expressions against women perpetuated and endorsed by this old white male guard that I saw on television. Then there were the younger sexually entitled“incels,” men who were “involuntarily celibate,” celebrating a more violent level of misogyny against women as they openly blamed women for their unwanted celibacy, punishing women for turning down their sexual advances.

I felt betrayed because I thought this was a fight that had already been won and done, and that we’d moved far beyond this level of vitriolic and violent misogyny to achieve some levels of success in championing women as equals – or at least the potential to be equals to men, to be treated with respect, dignity, and valued beyond procreation and superficially pretty looks. That betrayal ignited something inside me that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

It was the 70s

Born in 1961, I came of age in the midst of the burgeoning women’s rights movement. Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The sexual revolution. The Equal Rights Amendment.  Although originally introduced by Alice Paul in 1923 on the heals of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, the ERA was finally passed by 2/3rds of both houses of congress in 1972. However, it failed to meet the next hurdle to achieve ratification in 3/4ths of the states by the extended deadline of June 30, 1982. Only two states have ratified it after the deadline, Nevada in 2017, and Illinois 2018.

As I reached adolescence in the early 1970s, the Watergate hearings, the ERA’s passage by congress, and the gasoline crisis served as a backdrop to the experiments of my generation with sexuality, with feminism, and female assertiveness. After getting my driver’s license as a teen in 1977, I bought a car, but discovered only later that during my time growing up women couldn’t have their own credit card (until 1974, Equal Credit Opportunity Act), or even get contraception (until 1972, Eisenstadt v. Baird) if you were unmarried, or legally get an abortion (until 1973, Roe v. Wade). Heck, it wasn’t until 1981 that the US Supreme Court declared a Louisiana law unconstitutional which had given sole control of marital property to the husband. That attitude of the woman being subordinate to a man was endemic even in the decades that followed the wins of the 1960s and 70s.

Buying a House

So it was no wonder that I found myself indignant when my new husband, Keith, and I purchased our first home, mostly using funds from a trust my grandparents had created for me for college, but which I spent very little having gone to a state university (back when tuition was still quite low for state schools). At the house closing in Fall 1982, the deed was written up as “Keith Fulmer and his wife, Mara,” as if I were an appendage of Keith’s rather than the primary purchaser of the property. I expressed to those present that I found this very demeaning and wanted the wording changed. But I was told “it’s the way it is always done.” My feminist assertiveness later led to a confrontation that same year with a town tax assessor when Keith and I went to file our objections to the increase in taxes after the sale. I was the first to speak for us to the grey-haired older gentleman sitting across the table. His reply “Now, why don’t you not worry your pretty little head about this?” He continued, “You’re just going to stay home and make babies, sweetheart. Let your husband worry about this.” I believe I could feel Keith’s hand on my arm as I must have begun to rise from my seat to mentally slap the man. After all, my income was our primary source, and the one upon which our small mortgage had been based.

The indignities continued long after it became “illegal” to discriminate against a woman. Yet the system is basically rigged against women from the onset. Support systems necessary for staying on par with men in various career choices don’t exist in this country, though lip-service is paid to it, even as women are not. The costs are unsustainable for young people trying to start families while paying the bills, buying a home, and trying to get ahead. Even with the Family Medical Leave Act, employers are not required to pay for leave to stay home with a new child, only to allow you time off – unpaid. Childcare is not supported through any kind of reliable social safety net. And women who choose to stay home through the early childhood years (and whose spouse has the income to manage) often pay an enormous price both economically and in their job status as they try to play catch-up upon re-entry to the job market.

The Kavanaugh Hearings

The same white male old guard that I saw laughing during breaks at the Kavanaugh hearing when Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford had been testifying yesterday of Brent Kavanaugh’s attempted rape, when she was 15 and he was 17, are the same men who make legislature that keeps women down, or block other legislation that is meant to provide some measure of support. And here they were…laughing during a break after hearing her testimony.

Screenshot from C-Span

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during a break in the Q&A for Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court nominee.

Then Kavanaugh got his chance. He hadn’t even bothered to hear her speak earlier, so focused was he on writing his bullying speech on how “not guilty” he was in a vitriolic conspiracy-laced temper tantrum. His anger was frightening, his entitlement astonishing, his indignation unbelievable. What I saw right there was a bullying self-entitled white male who felt he could and SHOULD by all birth right be able to get away with doing anything he wanted because. “I went to Yale!” he shouted. And, “I’ve worked for so and so,” the name dropping and resume rapping all just reinforcing his self-entitled ass. He came off as overly defensive, the kind of man who was used to being able to have his way, but angry that he no longer controlled the narrative, someone who was watching his right to power crumble in front of him, a guilty conscience stomping his feet like a belligerent toddler who knows they did wrong but won’t accept it.

I had been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, figuring maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. But his behavior spoke otherwise. I’ve been the subject of the self-righteous defense of an alcoholic’s rage before, accusing everyone else for their pain in order to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. I’ve cried in response to this heated verbal abuse from someone who called my late husband “friend” and who somehow felt it was okay to belittle and attack the widow and bring her grown daughter to tears to cover for his guilt of his own behavior. It was that same out-of-control tantrum that I saw and heard in the voice of Brent Kavanaugh. Someone who was finally forced to confront the demons they’d tried to hide beneath a facade of virtue. In the end, I felt that regardless of whether he actually did attempt to rape Ford when they were teens, or not, he demonstrated that he was a complete emotional train wreck who was unfit to serve on the highest court in the land. I, like many of my sisters in heart, empathized deeply with Dr. Blasey-Ford.

I was 13, he was 16 or 17.

As I stated at the beginning, I was only 13. I did.not.know. I didn’t understand enough about sex to fully comprehend what I was getting myself into. Marshall was older and I felt flattered that someone older seemed to “like” me. But in reality, he only wanted to have sex. And he would boast about it to my friends afterwards. It got back to me in some of the worst ways. “Slut” was probably the nicest thing they said. But one boy who I called friend, even after occasionally slipping into the role of humiliating me on occasions, would sit down and ask me my side. We later would share a lifelong friendship. I recall telling him that I would commit suicide, when one time he asked if Marshall had “screwed” me and what would I do if I became pregnant. I had just confirmed to him what Marshall had been boasting about. Funny thing, though. I kept a diary back in those days. And I really didn’t know what “screw” meant. I hadn’t felt anything – no penetration, no wetness. It was, in retrospect, some heavy petting. But when asked at the time, I thought I must have been mistaken and been “screwed.” So, after that conversation, I went back into my diary in 1974 and wrote over top of the original entry “screwed me.”

It was four years later when I had begun dating Keith that I discovered I had been wrong earlier. Boy oh boy was I relieved… a bit embarrassed by my naïveté, and chuckling a little about it. I remember thinking, “well, if Marshall really DID screw me, it must have been with the smallest dick possible, because I didn’t feel a thing!” Silly, I know. But it did make me feel better.

That’s because there was one instance when it got scary with Marshall. From my diary when I was 13 years old (names have been changed):

diaryTuesday, Oct. 15, 1974

School was okay today. I talked to Mr. L and I told him about game night. [Note: a chaperoned party where the kids teased the parents about dancing.] We kidded especially about when I was escorted home by 3 boys. During 7th period he told Jay: “I heard about you and what what’s-his-name did to Mara, Friday night.” Jay: “We didn’t do anything.” Mr. L: “But you were thinking about it, and it’s the thought that counts.” Jay told me this as we were standing at Mickey’s locker. Jay walked home with us today. When we reached Mickey’s house, Mickey & everyone else went home. Jay walked home with me. We talked & joked about nothing in particular. When I got home my brother was sitting on the front porch. As it turned out we were locked out of the house. I put my books on the porch and started walking to Mickey’s house. Mickey was riding his bike and so he told me to get on. The bike tipped over so when Joe came out with his bike, I rode on his. We got to the corner of Reed and Wheeler when we met Jay. I got off Joe’s bike and started walkin’ back to Mickey’s.

We went to look at the new house they were building on the Wheeler extension. Then around 5:15 pm, I went home. Jay rode along beside me and offered 2 or 3 times I ride on his bike. I turned him down because was afraid I’d fall off. While I was making potatoes for dinner Mickey came to the door. He had seen my mother drive off and he wanted to know, I guess, if I was available. We talked and he asked if I wanted to come over while he was babysitting around 7:10 pm tonight.

Well after dinner I did go, using the excuse that I had to help Mickey with his homework. While I was walking though, Marshall and Roy [Note: Marshall’s younger brother] rode up behind me on their bikes. They followed me to where Mickey was babysitting and, when I rang the bell, Mickey signaled me to come back in 10 min, (and that) maybe Marshall and Roy would leave. Well I walked around the block once and Roy rode alongside me. When I got back Roy rode off and Marshall followed me back to the door where I convinced Mickey to let us in. Mickey sat in an armchair while Marshall and I sat on the couch. Marshall had his arm around me and so Mickey put a blanket over his head and pretended he wouldn’t look so Marshall could go farther. Every time Mickey left the room, Marshall would try to kiss me. I didn’t want him to because I felt it was neither the time nor the place. But he kept right at it. At 20 of 9 (pm), Mickey said we had to go.

We went outside & Marshall took me by the hand and said “Come here, I’ve got to get my bike.” He got me in the corner of the house next door and wouldn’t let me go. I kissed him twice and then tried to get away. I wanted to get home and I didn’t feel like “makin out”. As I said before it was neither the time nor the place. He wouldn’t let me go & he pinned me against the brick of the chimney where I couldn’t move. He whispered that it was too bad my parents were home… I tried to get away and I struggled. He held me tight so my wrists ached. I wanted to get home. Then he started sticking his hand down my pants. He took my hand and stuck it down his. For a moment there was no struggle. Then I took my hand out and grabbed his to get it out but he held.

Finally he let go and in a mocking voice said “I got to get home, I got to get home.” He left on his bike and went home. I walked down towards Mickey’s house then turned around and went back to where he was babysitting. I asked if I could talk to him & so I told him the whole story. He let me in and we waited till the parents came home. I sneaked out the back door and waited for Mickey. Mickey kept saying what a creep and a jerk Marshall was…I walked home with Mickey who lent me his sweater to keep warm…

Although I think I must have been numb at first, my 13-year-old self finally came to the realization that Marshall was destroying what self-respect I had left, that being with him was untenable. I went through the phases of feeling guilty, ashamed, irresponsible, fearful of disappointing my parents and then ashamed again. Like many young girls, I didn’t respect myself enough, didn’t value myself, though sometimes was good at hiding it. I blamed myself for what nearly happened. I was insecure about myself, my body, my prettiness. It’s not that I wasn’t smart. But, like many book-smart girls, I was very insecure in other ways. And there were always those “mean” girls who seemed to make sure you knew how much better they were by belittling and humiliating you (me) in front of others. Over the next few years, my body shifted back and forth weight-wise and by the time I was 16, I could pass for 22, with a hour-glass figure and long curly auburn hair. I still was insecure about my looks. Oddly enough, Keith was the first one to help me change that.Closed Diary

Looking Back/Looking Forward

In the decades that have since passed, I have reflected on that experience with Marshall* and its impact on me in the short and long term. Perhaps in the short-term, and with the help of people I still count as friends more than 43 years later, I was able to move on, and even come away a bit stronger for it. Certainly, I never let myself get close to anyone who was like him ever again. I used his behavior as a model for whom to avoid. I realized I needed to practice self-preservation. My empathy for others, my need to feel needed and loved would sometimes lead to great personal pain. It took awhile to start to figure out how to harness my “powers” while preserving my sanity.

In the long term, as a grandmother now, I look back at that 13-year-old girl and I am sad. Not just for having to remember her/my experience, but to be confronted by the naïveté of a young girl who so dearly wanted to be grown up, who tried to be and act grown up. But who just wasn’t as mature as she led herself to believe, and who blamed herself and didn’t trust enough to be taken seriously if she were to report the experience.

But no longer do I feel the need to apologize for who I am, and for my experiences I have lived. No longer do I feel “deserving” of the way I was treated by Marshall or anyone else. I have come to understand that their behavior was the result of their own experiences, their own anger and pain. Unfortunately, I was the one who got in their way of their acting out. The fact that I could not trust others to believe me or my side of it, well, I guess I felt that it would only result in more public shaming and blaming of me, and nothing good would come of reporting it. After witnessing the attacks on those who’ve come forward regarding Brett Kavanaugh, I guess I’m not too far off.

Still, I’m rather proud of how that 13-year-old girl – how I – turned out. I know what my powers are now. Such is the result of decades of life experiences, of learning to trust in my intuitiveness, my empathy, my inner and outer “beauty”, and my voice…and of becoming a responsible member of my female tribe. These are among my strengths.

Even so, the behavior on display these last couple of years, culminating in last week’s hearings for the Supreme Court nominee has reminded me of my responsibilities. Beware to those gentlemen who dare to challenge my rights as a woman in the 21st Century. Beware to those who try to demean and diminish the needs and value of women everywhere. I, like my sisters in heart, have harnessed my powers and I know how to use them.

*I’ve chosen not to reveal his real name here because there isn’t any point. Unless he was in the running for Supreme Court Justice, I’d just as soon leave him to Karma. Hopefully, he grew up. I need not waste any energy on punishing him. That fate is in his own hands.

PS: I know that members of my family will have read this and will have their own emotional response to the sexual assault and the other indignities described above. Do something positive. Channel any pain you may feel into making sure the next generation of young women never have to feel “less than” _____ ever again.