A moment of sonic bliss for Rubi

Last night I found out that earlier this week one of my high school friends collapsed at a SF park and was fully brain damaged. Her parents took her off life support.

There are no right things to say in moments like these but I've felt guilty for doing and feeling the opposite of what Robyn represented: free, happy, spirited, a lover of life. Aside from work, I've been inert. Not a thread of creativity. Losing a friend can temporarily disconnect that line.
For now I'm remembering Robyn as the unapolegetically outspoken girl and woman that she became. Never one to mince words, or conform to any Fairfield County Stepfordness, Robyn and I had crazy homes and a need to express it. We played field hockey together - she was a little powerhouse. My first concert, the Indigo Girls at The Palace in Portchester, was with Robyn and thus began our lifelong love affair with singer songwriters, lyrics that ache, songs that move the earth beneath you... Robyn was a year younger than me so I went to NYU - the following year she went to Northwestern. I remember calling her on a road trip I took my junior year and we tried, tried to get together but it seemed like she was lost in her world.

Through the years we've kept in touch here - there. I knew what she was up to, and that she was happy, and writing about music, and I'm not sure how far she got, but was writing an autobiography about her crazy 20s. Last week she emailed me to say how sorry she was for not being in touch but that she thinks of me OFTEN and she'll be in LA on the 23rd. I pulled the sheets out to be washed in case she wanted or needed to stay here. And then I found out she was no longer here.
Robyn would want to be remembered for the strong independent fireball that she was. She wouldn't care for my sappy tears so I'm just writing and remembering.

Kiss the sky for me, Rubi. Love you always.

when the media writes: WIVB TV Buffalo NY

I have daily Google alert emails for "rape" and "sexual assault". Sadly, not a day goes by when I don't receive both emails.
One of today's stories is about the arraignment of a 17 year old who raped a teenaged store clerk in Buffalo, NY.
I want to focus on a segment of WIVB Channel 4 news report:
NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (WIVB) - ...Anthony Markel is accused of assaulting and raping a teenaged clerk at Watson's Chocolate Shop in Pine Plaza Niagara Falls. He has also been charged with a predatory sexual assault, a very serious charge.
Um, I'm sorry, is rape not a very serious charge? Let's write this in plain English and be crystal clear about what this man is accused of: rape, assault and predatory sexual assault - which means that he assaulted or threatened her with a weapon. In this case, it was a butcher's knife.
I'm sorry - WTF? Yes, bad things happen every day but why, why don't we spend some money in this country to study the behavior of a 17 year old boy who walks into a store, has his friend be the watch man, picks up a butcher's knife and attacks a young girl?
I have no more words for this one except bail was set at 250,000. Let's watch this one as he is 17 years old. I'm guessing he gets less than 10. Leroy Johnson was 17 when he and his buddy attacked Kelly McGillis and her roommate at knifepoint. He served less than 4 years, went on to attack a few more women, threatened the President, before raping me and my roommate. Please tell me where we are making progress.

What's 440 years in prison?

It's the number of years that each count of sexual assault, home invasion and stalking amounts to in the sentencing of former Bloomington, IL police officer Jeff Pelo. And while it is, by law, the maximum sentence for this rapist, it is also a statement that the Bloomington community is ready to elevate rape as serious as a murder.

Why, you may ask, do some rapists get four years, and others get 40? Contrary to popular belief, it is not their past records (depending on the case and how many years a previous offense was), but the number of charges against them for this case. Think of it as a recipe (as one of my detectives told me): breaking and entering is x number of years, burgulary carries x years, and rape is not just 10, or 5, or 3 years. Sodomy is x years, vaginal penetration is x years, and so on.

I mention this because as horrible and awfully mean it seems, if survivors knew how important remembering each crime is to having the rapist charged for the longest sentence possible, then it might make the process of remembering, documenting, seeking help just a tiny bit easier. Every cell of your being is fighting to protect yourself from remembering, but if there is one fiber that says, if I can say it to someone I could some day be vindicated, it will help. If you can extract yourself from the equation - as many survivors float over their own history and detatch themselves to deal with the pain and death of who they once were - and think that there may be others and that remembering may greatly affect another person's history, that helps too.

I was all about helping other people because it was too painful to remember me. While it wasn't healthy the way I trampled all over myself, I did good work for others and that I can be proud of. I do even better work now that I've owned my history. What has been taken away must be reconstructed - and never pieced back quite the way it was before - because there is no "going back".

The media talks about scars - it's not just scars, it's finding yourself invisible. Homeless. Displaced. And hating yourself along the way, not because you blame yourself (some may), but because you haven't pulled it together. That pressure we put on ourselves is sponsored in part by "real life heroes" on talk shows (not the survivors, the TV producers) and the myths that one you say it, once the rapist is caught, there is an end. There is never an end. The only thing that ended is the life that rapist took away - the "before". And while we don't dwell in the past, it is sometimes necessary to remember it, to own it, and to share it with others.

Kristy Mills and Jonelle Galuska asked that their names be released to the press. Thousands of survivors, including myself, thank you for being so honest and paving the way for other survivors to shed light on what it's really like in that court room - what it means to be able to give an impact statement - what it means to have your voice heard. Because my case was based on DNA evidence, I could not go public. And if you go back in my blog, you will find my livid posts about the rapist being in the papers every day - while I had to do what goes against everything I am as a survivor - I had to be silent.

No- sentencing is not a day of celebration, it doesn't heal or make the rape go away, but it gets the rapist off the street and protects the rest of us from potentially being their next victim. Because there always is.

Sally Doll

Sally (unedited)

I'm sally doll
stitched up by a single strand of thread
unravel my wrist
and bring me home to bed

i'm letting my insides show
such a girly show
glow in the dark turns me
right side out
i'm a doll
you're my night light glowing beside me

Sally doll
with a big stitch on her chest
tears me apart
where I used to hang my heart
UPSIDE DOWN
until all of my luck ran out

i'm stuffing more than I can stitch inside me
pick me up in one piece
you're bright enough to see
i've fallen for you

i'm sitting still now
propped up on your bed
looking at all these books you haven't read
there's no need for conversation
you see i've got marbles for my head
and I guess I should remind you
it doesn't need to mean anything to you
this position you've got me in
cause sally doll
is already dead.

- 11.16.96

Intertwined

Is it possible that I used to be a far better artist and writer than I am now? If so, is there a way to reclaim that me? I can't go backwards and I don't want to copy my own material, but I how did I get here? I've taken a good look at my artwork, and the most consistent and impressive work that may still be on par with the old me is my writing.

I was looking for a poem I wrote back in 1996 called Sally Doll. I found the shiny turquoise folder with poems married together by a single paper clip and a yellow post it on the first page where I wrote "poems before the 'incident'". Sally Doll was in there - I wrote it two days before I was raped.

Underneath are poems I wrote after the "incident" as apparently I once referred to being raped. On top of all the words words words are letters of recommendation from RAINN, NYSCASA, two mixed media project proposals, photocopies of grants I applied to (one of which I received) and correspondence between me and Lorie (my mentor and once Tisch Photo department head) and Debbie (once RAINN Executive Director). So ambitious. So determined. I remember it so well. I remember the blanket girls did not want me to follow this path - they wanted me to take the job at George Magazine , where I met JFK Jr. carrying white tulips to his office.

It wasn't my decision - they hired internally. It certainly would have been a different life altogether. Instead I am here. And you know, this is who I was before the "incident" and I'm still very dedicated to Sheila's photographs. I don't question why I was asked to take self portraits of a character partly based on me and a woman who was raped two days before I was. I recognize that I am her, not the woman, but the woman I became in the photograph - when I was thinking of how it would feel. Now I know. I am proud of my past, and proud of the me now. Somebody's gotta be. I feel like I should resurrect one of these project proposals, throw the clip off the before and after and write it all on the wall. Something's got to stick. Life is too messy for it to peel off so easily.

Debbie was my angel. She's in my bio - she should be someone I give thanks to every night. I do through my work - at least I hope so. And whatever it is that I do, I do much of it in her honor. She was the first to believe in me. The rest is paper clip metallic history.

So here's Sally Doll (next post)