speaking up – Page 2

February 26, 2018 By HallieZ Leave a Comment

Diamonds

I am walking out of the grocery store.

Yesterday, my friend told me to ask the Divine One to heal, to bring hope and freedom to the sexually traumatized parts of my mind and body. She told me to ask for specific moments of healing, and that she KNEW they would come to me if I asked.

After more than a year without flashbacks, an event had come out of nowhere this week, and started the vivid images and memories playing like a tape on repeat.

“what do I do?”

I ask, and it is a sigh, a sob, and a prayer.

The tapes play on silent, but the subtitles read:

Replaceable

PROPERTY

Old news

NO CHOICE

Saggy

WORTHLESS

THEN

I hear it like a soft whisper.

“loosen your waist”

“open your hips, let them swing the way they were meant to”

I imagine my skeleton, the way my bones move and glide together, the gait of a human being, in slow motion.

I breath deeply.

I drop my waist. I open my hips. They sway and swing.

I lift my eyes, instinctually, and a smile spreads across my face.

The girl scout cookie mama catches my eye, and we grin at each other, I suspect we are in on the wonder of it together.

These words pulse in my heart and up into my throat.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

And just like that, another wave of healing has broken over this weary soul.

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

January 28, 2018 By HallieZ Leave a Comment

Philomela

We are going to get a little crazy with some names here, for a minute, but stick with me, it will be worth it, I swear.

Philomela was a princess of Athens. Her sister Procne was married to the king of Thrace, who was a son of Ares.

Philomela traveled to Thrace to visit her sister. Somewhere along the way, her brother in law, the king of Thrace, raped her. She threatened to tell what he had done to her, and his answer was to cut out her tongue, and lock her up in a cabin in the forest.

Silenced, Philomela wiled away her days in sorrow and misery until she died.

JUST KIDDING!!

This warrior of a woman began to weave a tapestry, that told her story. Once she had finished it, she found a boy to carry it to her sister Procne. Her sister understood immediately, and rushed to Philomela’s rescue.

Procne got revenge on her wicked husband by killing their son and cooking him in a pie, so that he didn’t know he had eaten his own son until it was too late.

I know. SHE COOKED HER SON IN A PIE!!!!

So then this huge fight broke out and eventually Zeus got involved and turned all three of them into birds.

Philomela was turned into a Nightengale. You may find it interesting to note that the female nightingale does not sing.

Why have I bored you with this story?

Because it is F*$%ing AWESOME.

Take advantage of me and use me. Sure.

You can cut out my tongue. Go ahead.

Lock me in cabin. Do it.

Shut me up and sit me down.

Fine.

But I’ll just weave the most bad-ass story telling tapestry the world has ever seen, and my story will have a voice larger than any tongue could have made it.

January 6, 2018 By HallieZ 6 Comments

WHY WE DON’T SPEAK UP (and/or why we don’t leave)

People often dismiss a woman’s claims of abuse or mistreatment, because she didn’t speak up right away. Or because she can’t prove what she’s saying. And we wonder why women don’t speak up.

I’m not going to speak in riddles here. I’m not going to beat around the bush. I’m not going to speak in generalities, or vague terms that could apply to anyone. I’m going to speak from my experience. From my own story. I’m going to tell you why I didn’t speak up.

As soon as I wrote that, I realize that’s not actually true, I did speak up. I spoke up many times. My voice got louder and louder. First I spoke up quietly to the people closest to me. Then I spoke louder to the people in the next circle of influence. Then I started yelling, with a bull horn. I yelled it to my pastors, to my parents, to my in-laws, to my sisters and brother. And then I went to the court system, where my voice was finally heard.

I didn’t speak up, because I thought maybe my husband would eventually listen.

I didn’t speak up, because I was taught that if I submitted more, if I loved harder, if I gave more, if I prayed longer, my husband would one day give a rat’s behind.

I didn’t speak up because, when I said to death do us part, I meant it.

I didn’t spoke up because I was taught that divorce is never an option, and I believed that with all my heart.

I didn’t speak up because I had no way to support myself, let alone my four children

I didn’t speak up because I have no higher education, no job experience, and I had lived outside of American culture for eight years.

I didn’t speak up because I didn’t want to lose the love and affection of my family. I didn’t want to lose the privilege of being held in my mother’s arms.

I didn’t speak up because I didn’t think anyone would believe me.

The bruises I carried could not be photographed. I didn’t speak up, because I’d heard the abuser defended my whole life. I’d heard them be told it didn’t happen. I was used to people telling victims it was their fault. I was used to people telling victims they had to forgive, they had to release, they had to let go, they had to understand the their abuser’s perspective.

I didn’t speak up because I was scared.

Every day I would put on my face. I would play the part. I would mask the sorrow with a smile and hope for the best.

I didn’t speak up because I have always been the brave one, the loud one, the one who knew her mind. No one would ever believe me if I said I wasn’t actually brave, if I said I hadn’t told the whole story, if I admitted that I had protected, and lived with abusers for my whole life.

I didn’t speak up, because I suspected that when I did, it would go to court. I knew that if it went to court, I would be cross examined by my abuser.

I knew that if it went to court, anyone who had ever hurt me, or tried to control me, or tried to manipulate me, could sit in that room and stare at me, and I didn’t know if I was brave enough to face that.

I didn’t speak up, because I was told that if I did, he would take my children from me forever.

I didn’t speak up, because I knew it would ruin me financially. I knew I would lose my home, possibly go bankrupt.

I didn’t speak up, because I loved the people who were hurting me.

I didn’t know how to hold that love and the truth in the same space.

I didn’t speak up, because I was a child when a lot of things happened, a child when a lot of beliefs were set in motion, a child when a lot of experiences were had, and nobody told me they were wrong.

I didn’t speak up because I was ashamed. I was ashamed that I had stood by for so long. I was ashamed I couldn’t stop it. I was ashamed that I was worth so little. I was ashamed I had not modeled the strength and courage I had encouraged others to use.

I didn’t speak up because I was isolated. I was a paragon a Christian awesomeness. I didn’t speak up because I had “given it all up for Christ”, and I was held to a different standard. I didn’t speak up because I was holding myself to a different standard.

I didn’t speak up because I was angry, I was so, so angry. I was so angry that my anger scared me. I didn’t want to hurt people. I didn’t want to destroy lives. I didn’t want to take action from a position of anger and bitterness. I knew I had to slow down, and allow my wounds to be attended to, so that my anger could take a backseat to the vulnerable emotions the anger was masking.

I didn’t speak up. Until I did.

If you’re gonna ask a woman, or any person for that matter, but ESPECIALLY a woman “why didn’t you speak up?” or “why didn’t you leave?”…

You better be ready to shut the f*** up, sit down, and put your listening ears on. You might learn a thing or two that could help change the world.

January 3, 2018 By HallieZ 4 Comments

WELCOME HERE

Remember back when people started posting these signs in their store fronts and whatnot?

I’ve always had this sort of unease with welcome signs.

They have seemed rather redundant. You’re welcome in my home. I know that. You know that. Duh. Why do I need to say it on a welcome mat?

I guess I had never really seen it from the angle of someone who knows what it is like to be UNWELCOME.

In the course of my 37 years, I can identify probably less than a dozen times I have been truly unwelcome. Each of those times was probably for less than 24 hours.

Other than that, I have always been welcome.

I have been pretty enough.

Polite enough.

White enough.

Rich enough.

American enough.

Educated enough.

I have taken it for granted, and breezed by welcome signs with hardly a thought.

When the president came into office, and I started seeing more of these sort of signs around, I was happy. Content. I didn’t HAVE one, or anything. But I thought it was a cool gesture of solidarity.

And then, I found out what it was like.

I became unwelcome in the home of my father and mother.

I became unwelcome in the home of my siblings.

I was no longer anything enough.

It’s an unwelcome that has gone on, and on, and on, for 13 months.

Sometime last summer, I saw this sign in a window of a shop, and I began to cry. Something lost, rejected, and alone in me saw that sign, and knew it was for me. If something bad were happening, I could go in there, and I would be safe. Regardless.

My eyes began to see in a way I never had before.

Recently, someone I love “came out” to me. This person, raised like me, needed a lot of courage and trust to tell me this about themself. Nothing of the culture in which we were raised would make a non-heterosexual person feel safe, enough, welcome. I was deeply humbled and shattered to think about that, to wonder how someone like this could ever really walk up to a place and know, really KNOW, that the welcome was FOR THEM.

Being unwelcome. Being unsafe, it makes you scared. Anxious, nervous.

Sometimes I get notes from people, and they say something like “you are always welcome in my home”. Most of them live thousands of miles away, but it still means the world to me, it is a statement that I don’t take for granted any more.

A woman I had never met before, at my sister’s wedding, when I was excluded from the family picture, put her arms around me and cried with me, and repeated over and over, “you are always, ALWAYS welcome in my home”.

WELCOME is powerful, friends.

This week, I finally put this together. I have had the pieces of barn wood laying around for months, and the paint, and the plan, but I finally made it happen. And here we are.

My daughter was looking at it and asked “is even __________ welcome here?” It scared me. I was sad and afraid to put this sign up. But as I paused to really answer, I was able to say, “yes, _________ is welcome here… all are welcome here, they must be respectful and kind though”. She laughed.

Oh God. Help me to live with integrity and truth no matter how confusing and rough this path is.

Grant me humility to never stop learning, never stop growing.

Help me to stop. To listen. To see.

Let me know if you need one! I would love to make you one as part of my efforts earning money to pay my over due, and apparently never-ending legal bills!

December 18, 2017 By HallieZ 9 Comments

christmas ramblings on shunning

Sometimes I think about what it is like to be shunned. I really don’t like thinking about it. Even as I write the word “shunning”, I wonder if that’s the best word to use. The people who are shunning me keep saying they’re not shunning me.

As if saying that they are not, makes it not so.

If, however, it looks like shunning, and smells like it, and meets the definition… I suspect it is, indeed, shunning.

Sometimes, I’d like to know what they’re doing. Are they practicing “church discipline”? I’m not even sure what that means. Especially since they’re not my church, they’re my family. Are they “protecting” their family? I can’t imagine what they’re protecting them from since I’m dangerous only in the sense that I believe every person is a human with their own brain with which to make decisions.

Maybe that is, in fact, the most dangerous thing, maybe that’s what we all need to be protected from, people who think for themselves. Maybe we all need to be protected from seeing the joy in life, the hope and freedom that comes when you take responsibility for your own life, for your own thoughts, for your own beliefs.

This is my second Christmas being shunned by my family.

My mother, my father, and my seven younger siblings.

This is my second Christmas missing out on all the memories, the moments that I longed for the many years I was overseas.

I wonder to myself will they even think about me on that day?

Do they remember their big sister, the first year she had a camera and took pictures of everyone? There were not a lot of pictures being taken for a while, maybe our family didn’t have a camera, maybe my parents were too busy with other things to think about taking pictures. Maybe they were too tired. I don’t know. But there weren’t many pictures of holidays for a long time, and then they were a lot, because I got a camera, and loved capturing all those memories.

I wonder if my siblings know how much they were in every beat of my heart, all those years. Do they know about the gifts I would plan ahead for each of them? How I thought about what cookies everyone would like to eat, and tried to talk my mom into buying more sugar and more butter, so we could make extra of the best ones, to store in big gallon jars under the butcher block.

I wonder if they remember the year I was in China, and didn’t have the money to send them gifts, so I wrote them each a letter, and asked my dad to print it for them. I was such a young mom… with two little babies… in a cold, new country. My littlest sisters were 10 and 12 by the, I think.

I wonder if they have turned me into a devil, or just someone who doesn’t exist.

They have joined forces to make me fear I don’t exist.

Unanswered text messages and un-return phone calls. Vacant looks when I run into them out in public. Did anyone ever really know me at all? Is the person I was for 35 years suddenly gone? How did they sleep at night? I can’t imagine the pain I would feel if I kicked my child out of my life. I can’t imagine removing my child from a family photo, from our family existance. I can’t imagine anything horrible enough that I wouldn’t answer my child’s phone call.

At night sometimes, one of my children will get scared, or worried, or just wake up for no reason. They will come to my bed and climb in. One of them in particular steals my pillow, she wants a warm one, that I’ve been sleeping on, instead of the cold one next to me, waiting for a kid to climb in bed.

I think about the authority that this child has, to come get in my bed.

Never imagining for a second that would send her away. Never imagining for a second that would say “you may not ever again climb in bed with me, no matter how scared or alone you are”.

I think about how that’s the way I approach God, kind of barging in to the space God occupies. Sort of expecting that when God said “I will always be with you, even to the ends of the earth”, They meant it with all Their heart. I just take it for granted that when They said “to the heights, the depths, nothing can separate you from my love”, They meant it.

If ever the love of God was to be found in the world, don’t you think we would find it first in the love of a parent?

Every time one of my kids climbs in bed with me, I imagine myself being parented like that, even now, a grown ass woman. I think about how I am worthy of being loved like that, worthy of being safe like that.

I’m so safe inside of love, so warm, so secure. And no divorce, no opinion, no fear, will ever be able to separate me from this love.

I often try to understand why I’m being shunned. I tried to understand why anyone thinks it’s OK to treat me like this. I don’t. I never well. I actually understand less every day that I’m further away from that kind of spiritual abuse. I was talking to my counselor about this, and the word mystery was used. Accepting mystery. It’s OK if I never understand. It’s OK if they kick me out forever. Its ok if they never actually see me. I will be a better parent to my own children.

The pain I’ve experienced in being rejected, is a motivation for me, an urge to push through pain, and to try to show up every day, in love, to be with my children.

I hate Christmas for the reminder that I have been rejected. I hate Christmas for the sorrow of identifying so much with Mary and Joseph. I hate Christmas for knowing what it’s like to be turned away from a warm cozy inn, full of life and laughter and warmth. I hate Christmas for that idea I’m supposed to be grateful they sent me to sleep in a stable full of shit

I love Christmas for the pain of identifying with Mary and Joseph. I love Christmas for knowing that my house will be full of light and love, and that no one will ever be sent to sleep in the shed. I love Christmas for knowing that love and light and joy comes from the homeless… the humble.

I love Christmas for the opportunity to embrace the pain and to push on toward healing. I love Christmas for the joy of embracing the sorrow, along with the good memories. I love knowing that it’s OK for me to miss them, it’s OK to hope they miss me, it’s OK to love them, and it’s OK to be inexplicably and wildly angry they put me out of my family.

I take a lot of comfort in the stories of people who live through similar experiences. I take even more comfort in the lives of the ones for victoriously move through these experiences. I take comfort from the people who put their arms around me, and acknowledge that the pain will never go away. And tell me I will be happy, and find joy again. They tell me to love my kids, and that will help to heal my heart.

I wish I had a moral. Or a solution with which to end this post.

It’s just what it is. I don’t like it. I don’t have a nice happy ending, because I’m still right inside of this moment.

There are far too many of us, kids of fundamentalist evangelical families, who have been put out of our families of origin. For them, who have comforted me in this season, I am thankful.

What I’m Writing