A river runs through it…

It took eighteen years of hits and misses to come to discover the name and mission of my project in 2009. It’s like I had to travel a long road of experimental activism to find it, that name, Time To Tell, and that mission, Sparking stories from lives affected by incest and sexual abuse to be told and heard. You can read my book to see all the twists and turns I found on my path, the gifts, and conflicts, the roadblocks and affirmations.

Once that 15-word mission statement jumped out onto my flipchart, getting ideas from Suzanne and Lor and Linda right here in my studio --- once they popped out of the blue magic marker in my hand, I let out a loud yelp, “That’s IT!” Allow me to repeat: Sparking stories from lives affected by incest and sexual abuse to be told and heard. Make no mistake, many an English major has told me it was not grammatically correct. But, damn the rules, the statement said it right and those two commands: Told and Heard, had to be the clincher. And that wonderful word “Sparking” – how I loved her from the minute she appeared. I’d much rather be sparked than made to do something – natural-born rebel that I am!

Back to Told & Heard, can’t have one without the other, not if you’re about changing the world. And lo, a decade later, the mission is exploding like a Fourth of July fireworks display over the Statue of Liberty.

I’ll give you several beautiful examples. Six months before the pandemic pushed us into our safety caves, I went to a life-changing, life enlarging, gathering of survivors of sexual violence. Twenty of us were seated around a U-shaped table facing The Stories We Tell seminar leaders, Anne Ream and R. Clifton Spargo. We were brought together to write. Write our hearts out about our lived experience. The Stories We Tell is a program of the Voices and Faces Project and the theme was: Writing for Social Justice. We were there to think about how to change the world through our writing. 

We had a stack of homework to read before we got there – like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham prison (something I’ve re-read every year in January on MLK Day, just to keep me on track). For two days, we wrote and talked and listened to each other and our leaders – all gaining inspiration and momentum to rid the world of sexual violence by telling our stories and getting them heard.

The sponsoring agency Lotus Legal Clinic took our work to the next level. They gave us an editor to help us refine what we’d written after we got back home (thank you, Deb Brenegan). Then they took our writing to the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and invited students to create an artistic reflection of a piece or two of our writing. Wait, there’s more! Lotus had a gallery show, hanging all the art with its accompanying story. And, as if that weren't enough, Austin Reese, Director of Survivor Empowerment at Lotus, produced a beautiful, glossy magazine, its pages filled with everything we had created. It’s called Untold Stories, and you can get a copy here. 

Lastly, Lotus produced a Zoom showcase, and with some of us reading of our pieces. You can listen to 5-minute readings done by me here and my sister survivor Carla here and see the art created for them (video created by Michael Snowden). 

I thought that was enough, for a while. But my mission has been on a roll – like a long toboggan ride down a slide, lots of legs wrapped around hips, arms around waists, screaming joyfully into the person's back in front of you. A month after the writing for justice gathering, I performed a reading of excerpts from my play and book. I did it with three cameras from Northampton Open Media positioned around a live audience in the Smith College TV studio. The footage awaits the lifting of covid so we can complete the 30-minute production and start distribution. More telling and being heard!!

And from that filming, in Oct. 2019, the Universe delivered yet again. A survivor who's a poet complained to my production partner, Jackie Humphreys, that she had the most challenging time finding venues offering poetry readings to be open and welcoming to material about sexual abuse. Having just helped run the reading I’d done at Smith, Jackie said, "Hey, let's organize a reading for survivors." Kinda like Mickie Rooney telling Judy Garland, "Hey, let's put on a play!" Well, now, one year later, that's what's going to happen. We're bowled over with the dozens of survivors who have submitted their 5-minute pieces of prose and poetry of survival and resilience. We’re calling it Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, and it is happening the last weekend of January. Four showcases from Friday, January 23rd through Sunday, January 25th. For everything you need to know, go here. 

The river running through all this is the ongoing writing circles Time To Tell offers to survivors. Each session, we gather together on Zoom to write together, read our writing aloud, and give each other feedback on how our writing resonates. We're experiencing multiple opportunities to be both witnesses and actors in telling and being heard — layers upon layers of affirmation and empowerment.

May this new year be healthier and more uplifting for us all.

Thanks for reading,

Donna

From Isolation to Community

I am infinitely grateful for the community of survivors that has grown exponentially in recent years --- our tribe, our raucous, healing, feisty, sassy tribe of warriors carving out a field of safety for all of us to sit in and breathe.

My belief gets stronger and stronger that survivors need to be in community with each other for a robust healing to happen. The two main barriers to being in community are survivors not feeling ready to share their identity and/or not prepared to receive others' stories.

I’ve been dreaming of us, this gathering together of survivors, for a very long time. Somewhere between today and 40 years ago, when I first came out as a survivor, somewhere between when my nightmare became a whispering question, this question has become a dream.

Once I let myself enter the nightmare of my experience, opened my eyes, unzipped the bulletproof vest, and let my experience step out of hiding, I was only prepared to face my own terror, my own pain, my own abuse. A big fear I had back then was about being around other survivors. All my strength had to go to holding on to me – protecting me from any further knowledge of anyone else’s harm.

About 10 years in, I'd finally healed enough, cried enough, raged enough to open the littlest of windows to L – a sister writer in my writers’ group with my mentor Genie. We were in L’s car. She was driving us home from group. As I was getting out, she pulled a little white square out of her pocket. “You can read this if you want – or not.” She dropped it in my outstretched hand. It was actually a piece of 8”x11” paper folded over and over into a one-inch square. I started to unfold it, but she said, “Not here. Wait till I leave.” I squinted my eyes, scrunched my eyebrows. She was looking straight ahead over the dashboard out the window. "OK, I will. Hey, thanks for the ride, buddy." And she took off the minute I closed the car door.

I sat down on my front step staring at the little square pinched between my index finger and thumb, wondering what the heck this was. I unfolded it slowly like it was a piece of treasure. And then the truth radiated off the page and into my heart. How I wish I knew where that piece of writing was today. I'd frame it and put it in a place of honor in my studio.

She shared with me that she was an incest survivor, and she had a sneaking suspicion I was, too. And we didn't ever have to talk about this if I didn't want to. How deeply grateful I will always be to L for pointing me onto the healing path of being in connection, in relationship, in community with survivors. 

Today I belong to a vast network of survivors. I couldn’t have said that back when I started my healing. I didn’t know then how remarkable and necessary a sense of belonging would be for my recovery from the abuse.

This is in itself such an ironic surprise because from 1971 on, I’d started countless support groups for women --- support groups holding the fundamental belief that it would be liberating for women to join together, tell their stories, support each other’s struggles and successes. This was my message to so many groups, including single moms, divorced women, women of color, battered women, artists, Jews, lesbians, adoptive moms. This list is evidence of how clearly I understood the power of being in a support group with others you share an identity with, a life experience with. It was a fundamental. That is – all but sexual abuse survivors. 

My God, how slow I was to see, that we, just like every other grouping of humanity, needed our sisters (and, yes, our brothers when they showed up) --- how much our healing depended on an enrichment of care from peers. I'm convinced it took me so long because of the very nature of the oppression of sexual abuse. ISOLATION. It permeates the experience because most of these crimes are committed in private, hidden from the rest of the world, from potential witnesses. And the culture locks in the isolation by refusing to address it, acknowledge it, expose it, and refuses to listen to, let alone believe, survivors. So, isolation is the cloak we wear, making us feel we not only can't but shouldn't lock shoulders with, march beside, offer solace, and tell our lived experience to each other. 

Yes, this insidious isolation is a crucial component to the status quo to remaining static – the more we melt down the massive walls of isolation surrounding each of us, the closer we'll come to unraveling the web of abuse choking us.

Being in community also helps us learn from each other and grow. A little over a year ago, I met a new sister survivor: a creative, smart activist. Recently she said, “Can we talk?” I suspected something was up. 

She said, “So, I want to talk about how we’re supporting Queer culture.”

“Great.” 

We started into an easy conversation about the value of using proper pronouns for everyone to claim their particular gender identity.

She continued, “Firstly, and this is just my thoughts, I say with all due respect, but we should be inviting people to put their pronouns next to their names in the participant list when we gather in Zoom,”  (which is our only and best space right now).

I say, “Great, let’s do it.”

Then comes the bombshell, “And I think we should stop using the phrase “coming out,” it’s an appropriation of Queer culture.”

BAH Boom. In a flash, my inner child, Molly, is screaming, “Please, don’t take that away!” My inner teenager, Jessica, is asking, “Does she know who she’s talking to?” And my inner critic, Pacasandra, chortles, “That’s what you get for bein’ an old broad, Jenson.”

I reply, “Tell me more.” A phrase I learned eons ago to give me time to take a few breaths and stay present when I’d just as soon head for the hills. See, I’m very, aware that the phrase “coming out” came out of the Gay and Lesbian movement (that precursor to LBGTQI) in the 80's. For Christ's sake, I worked with five of the leaders at the Gay and Lesbian Center on 14th street in NYC – helping them navigate the plague of AIDs while running social service groups. I’ve written of this widely; I’ll have you know. Oops, let me climb down off my high horse here and just try to make my point.

I witnessed time and again how powerful that phrase – coming out of the closet - was for the Queer community, both as a beacon and as friendly marching orders.

As I gradually, cautiously, approached this beacon of my own, Ruby and Amber and Eli and Ken – who'd been following their own beacon out of their Queer closets, put hands on my shoulders and nodded a welcome to a fellow traveler. One who would be risking, just like them, the anger of their families, the potential shaming, the possible banishment. We were different, and we had something huge in common. This risk of truth-telling could ignite terrible loss but also incredible gain. 

I so believe in the power of language. This phrase was like a set of fresh batteries to my lighting system. I knew about keeping an exhausting secret; I'd been hiding one deep in my guts for decades. 

One of our differences, my new survivor sister and I have, besides Queer culture, is the half a century of years between our ages. Our conversation continued with her saying, “Well, I've talked to a bunch of people, and they agree it’s appropriation.” And I responded, “I hear you, and many in my life think this works. So, I suspect this is somewhat a generational thing.”

She subsequently shared with me an important observation: “Queer survivors come out twice: once as Queer, and a second time as survivors. Often, our sexual orientations and our abuse experiences become convoluted and seen to have a cause and effect relationship (i.e. believing that someone is not homosexual because they were abused by someone of the opposite sex, or believing that someone is queer because they were sexually abused.) 

I told her I want to keep thinking about this together – she and I and whoever else is interested, especially Queer survivors, to come up with something new, something fitting for sexual violence survivors, something that’s as good as, as powerful as “coming out.” Let’s keep talking. 

Lastly, I want to tell you about a remarkable community experience we had last month. Jackie Humphreys, the clinical consultant to Time To Tell, is leading a terrific project, Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. The big event is happening in January 2021 – read all about it here. On Sept. 12th, we did a practice run-through, a pilot, on Zoom, where nine survivors, including Jackie and me, each read a five-minute piece of our writing. We also had a practice audience, some survivors, and many allies. It was a resounding success. Here are some comments that people shared in the dialogue we had with the audience after the readings:

A Survivor:     This was absolutely incredible – it really broke my sense of isolation.

An Ally:          I felt I was witnessing something important

A Survivor:     I was so, so nervous, and then I was so, so glad to be here.

An Ally:          I felt included, given a voice, too.

A Survivor:     I felt a huge growth spurt for myself.

An Ally:          I was honored to be invited.

A Survivor:     It felt so powerful to be in community with all the other survivors. 

An Ally:          The stories were so powerful! They are going to stay with me.

This blog's banner is a collage created by the pilot's highly skilled tech Moderator, Beth Siegling. She selected images reflecting what was said in each of the readings—yet another excellent result of being in community. 

Thank you for reading,

Donna

Here’s to Reckoning & Recognition

I want to add my voice in response to the unprecedented actions throughout our culture since George Floyd was tortured and murdered. To dig deep into my writing voice, I start with some material to spark my pen and find a prompt to ride into it. Like this:

Dreams

BY LANGSTON HUGHES

 Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Prompt: My dream contains …

      (Feel free to try this, too.)

My dream contains layers and layers of explosions of creativity in just as many textures. To feel, to witness and to experience creativity is, always has been for me, the best that this existence called humanity has to offer itself. It’s what I am praying for, rooting for, cheering for, fighting for – the mightiest outcome of the rebellion, the great movement not only forward but up and out of the swamp, the hell hole, the torture chamber and killing field of racism. I’ve had this dream for at least 45 years – it’s what fed and fueled my birth as a feminist. This dream includes you. And you and you and you. All of us reaching for the highest of our spirits out of the deep well of our souls.

 It got interrupted for a spell, while my friends Ken and Richard and everybody else was dying of AIDS. It was all I could do to keep my spirits nose above water, treading fast so as not to drown in grief. And truth be told – there's a voice lodged somewhere behind my right ear whispering – Goddess, please, don't let COVID take all these brave and bright protesters. But I learned as a child to tamp down my voice of fear – otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to get up every morning and escape our apartment for grade school. I didn’t let the fear voice chain me to my bed. So, I know about shunning and muffling the fear voice. 

The dream pulses every time another image, another video, another message comes out promising to stay and fight, stay, and build. Stay until everybody spends their time on, spends their lives on, being creative – making, singing, expressing, and loving being the highest form of human experience. We must honor, foster, clear the way for and tear down the barriers impeding all forms of human creativity.

I want to follow the leadership of the wise, brave, folks in the Black community reckoning with and rebelling against racism. And I also want to articulate where I stand and how ashamed I am that so many of us in our culture are steeped in ignorance and hatred that has been instilled and stoked by the systems of power in our culture, at the hands of white people who constructed and maintain those systems. That's the stuff my 73-year-old mind recites to me. But travel down a ways, to my heart, and another voice is wailing – at the multitude of sacrifice of lives, dignity, and humanity. What I most treasure in my life is connection with others, love given, shared, and received. Warm eyes taking each other in, open hands and hearts in creative pursuit of human expression. To hear each other's voices, to experience the carbonated joy of belly laughter together. 

Those are the reasons I want racism to be reckoned with and eliminated – so we can all get to the place of being who we each are, truly are, using our gifts and talents we hold within ourselves. 

Recently I got inspired and fired up watching a two-part forum, Where We Go from Here, moderated by Oprah Winfrey, comprised of a host of wise and dedicated Black leaders. Here’s Part 1  and here’s Part 2. 

And I’m giving financial support to:

•   Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, an advocate, policymaker, activist, and survivor who believes people closest to the pain should be closest to the power and a diversity of voices in the political process is essential to crafting more effective public policy. In Nov. 2020 she’s up for re-election to represent Massachusetts’ 7th Congressional District of the U.S. House of Representatives.

• The Performance Project  is an arts community of many ages and ancestries that engages young people in intensive artistic training, inter-generational mentoring, leadership development, and community building through the arts. TPP envisions a world in which all people strive for personal and social liberation, where all individuals and cultures are honored, embrace interconnectedness, and we all are free to achieve our full potential. They claim a public voice, engage audiences in dialogue about oppression and liberation, and celebrate our humanity and connection through the arts. Check out this performance trailer from First Generation Ensemble: ROSARY- COP VIOLENCE

•  Families for Justice as Healing is led by abolitionists who are incarcerated women, formerly incarcerated women, and women with incarcerated loved ones. Their mission is to end the incarceration of women and girls. They organize in the most incarcerated communities in Massachusetts to transform harm by developing alternatives to police, courts, and incarceration. FJH is unapologetically focused on women and girls and is a member of the National Council of Incarcerated Women and Girls and closely connected with their sister organization, Sisters Unchained. It is also a part of the National Participatory Defense Network.

And I’m reading: 

The anthology, Love with Accountability: Digging up roots of Child Sexual Abuse.  Edited by Aishah Shahidah Simmons, a Black feminist lesbian activist, cultural worker, international lecturer and award-winning documentary filmmaker of NO! The Rape Documentary

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Audre Lorde:

“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision—then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."      

Thanks for reading,

Donna