What if it was Scout?

I think it is safe to say I love Harper Lee. So much so I named a pet “Scout” and have been itching to name a kid Harper for a decade.

Atticus has seen me through some tough times.

But here’s the thing, because of my outspoken telling of our family story (adoption, RAD, abuse) I know a lot of victims of child sexual abuse.

Most are white, stable, well-educated and financially stable.

They are not Mayella Ewing.

And yet I believe the reason why 90% of these people are extremely quiet about their stories is the grim stereotype associated with Mayella.

Think about it. How would our perception of abuse victims be different if it had been Scout, Jem, or Dill who had been abused?

Would you tell your story if you knew people would think of you as a Ewing?

Would you fight any harder if it were Scout?

And, for a diehard TKM fan this is hard; Mayella Ewing deserved better. From her wretched father of course, but how about everyone else in Maycomb? Was there no one who could have helped her?

More than 50 years later I will say it–
No
At least very, very few…

About the sword

Some days I almost forget it is there
Protruding as it does
Through my sternum
La-la-la I think
For about, um, 30 seconds…
Then it all comes back

When you say oh, I don’t do that anymore
Like it was a hobby you grew out of
Or…oh, the movie was fun
Like you are at summer camp with your pals

I must breathe
Which hurts the freaking sword
In-my-chest
When you..
When you..

Oh that is right
You don’t remember

Grandfather of the year…

I always wondered what my father would have said or done if he had been alive when we discovered that C had abused children. I will be honest, I doubt he would have moved mountains.

But I have come across a grandpa who is. In response to concern about a grandchild he has started an online protest, cold-called people warning them and posted hotline numbers.

I do not know the whole story. I just think this response is atypical.

Most of us go the quiet road…

The stages of grief

I stay up too late. I am looking for meaning. I feel like an old woman rummaging through her things, longing for the people attached to them–
Tom’s chair
Ruby’s dress

The people I want back are mostly living. I want them to be braver or more honorable, kinder or stronger.

But they are not. So I rummage

For meaning
For hope
For the person I once was
This is my nightly vigil
My grief.

I broke my own rule

One time in the same week I wrote a letter to someone and a poem to someone else.  Both someones had behaved badly.  My intrepid partner (always the English major) told me he liked the poem more than the letter.

Of course, I thought. Poetry is the marble colonade you hide in when followed by ghosts or splendor.  A letter is an everyday thing.  Too blunt to be art.  But is any of this about Art?

No.  Not really.  It is about sanctuary and splendor.  Borrowed safety and borrowed beauty.

And attempting however obliquely to suggest the existence of Absolute Love.

So I violated my own rule about my other blog– called etiology.  I told myself I would keep etiology free of my obsession with grief and injustice and the anger that follows these things.

I once wrote a poem I cannot see myself publishing.  Too painful, too personal.  I once wrote a letter to C’s prison therapist which simply described C’s crimes from what his victims and witnesses had said.  Just the facts, as they say.  The therapist read it and said he read my anger.

 

Anger? I thought.  That was just the facts.  I wonder what he would think if he saw my angry letter.

Wanna

build you a fort

of sheets.quilts

blankets–

counterpanes

A Comforter Stronghold

pillow masonry

fortifying all our flying

buttresses

around this cathedral

the artisans, all children

nobody hurt there

not allowed–

the very law of love

forbids it

and all the pain

of our collective

history

would unravel like a braid each night

healing all these grievous wounds