Diana's Blog: Quirky Words and Book Reviews

December 19, 2008
What Richard Paul Evans tells me this morning during our interview, I find chilling. I knew, but I didn't know. He says his new Christmas book GRACE was sparked by a conversation with a social worker during the 1960's.
Richard has been investing heavily in healing abused kids since his first book THE CHRISTMAS BOX became a huge hit. A personal investment, as well, working with abused kids and talking with caseworkers. This particular social worker told him several years ago that there were a lot of good girls on the streets in the early 1960's. Why. Simple. They were abused, and they split. Grace's character was based on them.
GRACE is written through the eyes of a man whose life was changed irrevocably by a teenage girl who turns up, dumpster-diving, at his burger joint job when he was a teenager -- and he takes her home, hiding her in the clubhouse he and his brother share in the backyard. Grace finally reveals her secret -- that her stepfather is sexually abusing her. The book is painful, and Richard says it's hard on some readers, but -- and I'm saying this -- damn it, it's true! These things happen, and to not look, to not pay attention, to not say stop, is to destroy these girls even more. Grace didn't tell -- same reason I didn't tell -- because no one -- back then, especially, would believe that men would rape their stepdaughters. It is beyond evil. The ending of GRACE is not pretty -- no, no spoiler here -- but the chance for redemption is in GRACE.
Notice when a little girl seems precocious, when she flirts and wiggles on men's laps, and if you weren't paying attention, you'd think she was a grown woman. Yeah, there she is. Talk to her. Let her know you will listen with your heart.
I was four-and-a-half when my stepfather started raping me -- the violence forced my internal organs out of place. I remember the night before my first gyn appointment, when I was a teenager, my mother and stepfather spoke directly to me "If your hymen is broken, tell the doctor it's because of all the gymnastics you do."
Who says that to their kid?
I didn't run away like Grace did. Why not. I knew New York -- that's where I would have headed. I saw the whores, and I knew that was my fate if I ran. But my grandmother lived in the city, and it would have been logical to live with her, but how would I explain it. I couldn't put words to any of it -- I'm still like that -- if it's traumatic or deeply emotional, I retain the feeling and the pictures, but I have trouble saying the words. Back then, instead of running away in body -- oh, I tried once, ran off one Sunday with a few books and the fat newspaper, and no extra clothes, and it wasn't worth it -- so instead of running away in body, I would go away in my mind. Or the angels would come take me away. And, now, so many years later, the damage remains, and I heal stitch by stitch, creating new memories, new loves, new neural pathways. And sometimes I fall back into that horrible black hole of terror of my childhood, and it takes magic, someone loving, great strength to pull out and snap back into being me.
And when I read GRACE, my heart rips apart again -- for all those little girls.
Notice.
Read GRACE.

Labels: book review., Christmas, GRACE, rape, Richard Paul Evans, social workers, stepfather, tell the truth, transcending the trauma, whores

October 11, 2008
One of the books I treasured when I was a kid was Alan Paton's TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE. Set in Paton's South Africa, we see a white policeman fall in love with a native girl. The affair is discovered and he is betrayed and reported. The book broke my heart open. I was too young to understand about romantic love. But I did know injustice. My real dad -- and everything about him, stories, pictures, his name -- were severed from my life when I was five -- forever -- by my mother and stepfather. I understand the reasons why my mother and stepfather did what they did, so my heart forgives them -- but I am not sure that I can forgive what they did -- the rapes, the violence, the alcoholism, the suicide attempts, the abandonment, the neglect.
What I find most amazing is I've been thinking about forgiveness lately. So I looked up the word Forgiveness in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, 3rd. Ed. There were a handful of choices, and I immediately went to the one in the index marked "until we f." It was a powerful quote by Paton -- marked an unrecognizable PATO in the index -- and it was from TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE:
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
As I write, I am also assimilating the first visit of longer than a half-hour I've had with my younger brother -- born of the same father as I -- in probably fifteen years. We talked for nearly six hours today, sharing stories, filling in the gaps, and finding puzzle pieces that fit that one had but the other didn't.
I was filled with fear as I drove to meet him -- the child fear -- because to see him would mean all the old energy and the old scenes would come flooding back. I promised myself I would be real and I would stay in that vibration of light.
One wonderful thing about my brother. He has played the piano since he was three. And, he has been living in my parents' home for the last year and a half, giving classes to people in piano, yoga, Spanish. I said to him, "You are immensely talented and all that violence and abuse kept you from sharing your music with the world. " And I burst into loud, gasping tears. Not pretty in a restaurant, but very real.
And then he got it. I have always loved and treasured him -- we were trapped apart by the violence. Not any more.
"When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive."
I am gently moved into a place of forgiveness.

Labels: alcoholism, brother, forgiveness, mothers, OXFORD DICTIONARY OF MODERN QUOTATIONS, rape, stepfather, talent, TOO LATE THE PHALAROPE, transcending the trauma, violence

September 16, 2008
I have been procrastinating all night. I don't want to do this book. Don't want to. Which means that I must. It is HEALING RAGE. When I first saw the title, I thought Healing was an adjective, not a verb. Distance, that's what I do.
I often say that the right book crosses my path just when it is the perfect time.
I don't get angry. Not at all. The first glimmer of possible anger, I address it, deflect it, and curse myself for what I must have done wrong. My therapist says it is time to let the rage out.
"What rage?" I ask.
My new massage therapist says my liver is tight with anger. Unexpressed.
Anger is Danger. See the words! They are the same!
The walls of my childhood home shook with anger. The walls bore the holes left by my stepfather's fists and my mother's hips from when she fell after drinking. His middle name was Fiore. For years, I thought it was Fury. When I discovered that Fiore meant Flower, I figured that was what made him so angry, having a middle name like that. I forgive them both everything.
It was my fault.
Being raped by Fury when I was four, five, six and older, was my fault.
Being loyal to my real dad, which made Fury angry enough to rape me, was my fault.
Seeing my real dad beat up by Fury and sent away forever, was my fault.
I open the book and see that Ruth King says trauma gives birth to rage, and we hold rage in our bodies. Types of trauma that give birth to rage: emotional neglect (like my mother not protecting me and trying to kill herself?), verbal abuse (like Fury yelling obscenities?), loss (my real dad gone after I was six), physical violence and sexual abuse (like every day.)
King wants the rage child to be expressed. Remember that version of Aladdin when he let the genie out of the bottle? That was one pissed-off genie.
I have a punching bag that I bought a few months ago -- I take probably a dozen swipes at it at a time, then walk away. I do kick-boxing once a week! I dance! My body can express some of these emotions, but Ruth King also suggests meditation, creating a stillness practice, and recording dreams. The energy that is trapped in rage, she says, needs compassion to be released.
My therapist believes it is most effective if someone caring bears witness to the rage. I haven't allowed that yet. Way too frightening. That little rage child, the one wearing pigtails and sucking her thumb -- a stopper for these trapped emotions, peers out with wide eyes. "You want me to do what?"
I left her behind. King would classify the adult me as Distracted -- I stay busy -- and Devoted -- I am intuitive, caring and a perfectionist. That's the Flight version. There's Fight -- Dominance and Defiance. And there's Shrink -- Dependence and Depression.
I know that I am Transcending The Trauma. Better boundaries. Less blaming myself. And believing that that little girl with the pigtails was one amazingly strong soul who deserves to express her true feelings. All of them.
Dancing does it. Writing works. Lighting a candle enlivens me. All of me.

Labels: abuse, HEALING RAGE, peace., rape, Ruth King, therapist, transcending the trauma, violence