In Silent Meditation

Phoenix Take Back the Night 2022

2022-08-12T05:04:01Z

Following is the transcript for the speech I gave for the 2022 Phoenix Take Back the Night virtual event on April 7, 2022. You can watch the video here.

Hello. My name is Suzy Jacobson Cherry, and I would like to begin sharing my story with this poem. It is called “Regret.”

When I was young

I was afraid

Boys were a mystery

But I…

I knew myself

And I was sure that I was the

Ugliest, most undesirable, fattest

Person to ever walk the earth, all

Five foot, three inches

one hundred and ten pounds of me

and no boy would ever

ever want me

but oh, how I wanted one of them

I wanted to be loved and cherished

Forever and ever, so badly

That when the first one came along

Who declared his undying love

For me, in tears, I fell head

Over heels, heels over head, and

Straight into the bed

Of terror

Oh, it took a couple of months

After wedding bells

For him to destroy what little self

Esteem I had, only a few months

To tear out my heart and my soul

And shove them into a closet

Where they cowered in fear

In those days there was no name

For that thing that I did with the

Wire cutters, the knives and the scissors

To my arms, but I

I knew that the only way to release

My fear, my frustration, my anger, and

My …

Hope less ness

Was by rending my very flesh

Until the day

After eight years I gained the courage

To rescue my heart and my soul

And walk away

I have no regrets about those years,

For me…you see,

Today, this day, I know who I am

I know I am beautiful

I know I am sensual,

I know my strength and my power and

My control over my future

And I also know that girl

That girl, who at 15, 16, 17, 18…25

Did not know who she was

Did not know she had power

Did not know she was beautiful

I know her, and I know her loneliness

I know her fears and I recall her tears

For her, I have regret

I regret the loss

Of her innocence

The loss of her dreams

And the loss of her years

To the legacy of tears

For these things…

For these things,

I have regret.

When I wrote that poem in 2010, I thought my greatest and first trauma at the hands of others was this marriage, this abuse that took me by surprise. When I became a victim, I truly had not known that someone who professed their undying love could turn from lover to tormentor, from beloved to dreaded. I did not know that I would lose a child to CPS in 1978 because I was unable to find myself in the darkness. I could not protect her because I could not protect myself.

By 2010 I knew full well I had not been alone in my experience and I had begun to think of myself as a survivor. By then, I had been writing my first book, a fictionalized memoir about my experiences called Phoenix from the Ashes for years. When I started writing it in the early 90’s, I was so angry that I punched the keys on the small manual typewriter I was using so hard that they would pop off and fly into the air. Writing was cathartic but it also forced me to question my own part in my continuing torment and anger. If I didn’t release the anger, I knew I would eventually implode.

Forgiveness for my first husband came in an instant one afternoon in the late 90’s. By then I had been married and divorced twice more. I had borne three more children, whom I was determined to raise in love, acceptance, and wholeness. I had set the book aside for a time and was focusing my attention on my children and my spirituality. I was not thinking about my past or how I had gotten to where I was, living with a friend, caring for her children, my children, and the house because I was afraid that I could not hold down a job. Chronic pain from what had initially been diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis but was eventually declared to be fibromyalgia had forced me to quit my government job. I was struggling once more with my identity. Was I really a survivor? Was I spiraling back into invisibility? Then one day as I walked across the kitchen, I found myself stopping in the center as I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders. I was no longer angry at my first husband, and I recognized in that moment that the fathers of the children I was now raising did not deserve the residual anger I harbored for what I had endured before I ever met them.

Within a couple of years, I went back to school at ASU. I earned my BA with a major in Religious Studies and a minor in Anthropology in 2003. I was 45 years old, and it was time to readdress the book I had been writing. I brought the story forward a bit, brought it up to date, and asked a couple of others to read it for me. When they pointed out how angry the writing was, I was able to see it too. Anger was not the message I wanted to convey. I wanted to share my story with others who were in similar situations, so they would really know they weren’t alone. With the help of supportive friends, I reworked the book until I felt I couldn’t do any more, and released it as a chapbook which I shared with anyone who wanted it. I felt as if I was answering a Call from the Divine whenever a reader came to me to share, cry, and thank me for sharing my story. For a while, I thought I had truly become that Phoenix who had risen from the ashes of her previous life. I pushed forward, working a full-time job, going back to school for my Master of Divinity, and raising my three kids with the help of my parents and my small circle of single mom friends. My friends and I, we relished our individual strengths and our ability to be all things to our children while secretly dreaming of finding that “One True Love” who would come into our lives to share our burdens and love us unconditionally. We didn’t know then that our One True Love is ourselves.

When my current husband came into my life it was a bit like a fairy tale. We had been friends long ago when we were both married to other people – he to his first wife, me to my second husband. We’d dropped into one another’s lives periodically later, first in person, then through MySpace, and finally through Facebook. Now, we had finally discovered that we loved one another. At first, I was elated, like the young woman I had been when I first met my abuser, before I knew who he really was. As time went by, I began to realize that perhaps the Phoenix had not truly risen from those ashes. I found that I had emotional responses to things he said and did that were not only inappropriate but completely out of proportion. I kept them inside while outwardly talking with him about open communication and positivity. I devised ways of envisioning myself taking that old baggage and putting it outside of myself, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. He had no idea how many times things he said or did would trigger me, and I didn’t understand why it was so. I was determined to make this marriage work in spite of the challenges of the transition from a single parent family to having a new adult in the house. I was thankful there was only one child still at home. With the power struggles between my son and my husband, and my own need to have control over everything, I think we are very lucky that we will soon reach our 11th year together.

My chronic pain had become almost overwhelming at times, my brain was foggy, I was not able to think critically or quickly. I was fired from a pastoral internship that was already my third attempt at ordination in a large mainstream denomination, and I was laid off from my secretarial job at a church. I don’t know exactly where we would be today if I hadn’t gotten a job working in behavioral health after that. In my new job, I was able to use my experiences to help others. I began to feel that while I do not believe that things “happen for a reason,” we can use reason to make new things happen. I had coworkers who had been in some similar situations as I had, including being females in the military. When I began to meet more women who had been in the military and discuss our experiences, I began to remember what had happened to me. I connected with the VA and started counseling. I was already over the age of 60 before I realized that I had been raped, not once, but twice, when I was in the Air Force. Both were date rape. The first time was when I was still at tech school. I had been “roofied”, which was why my memory of the time was so mixed up. The second time was on Guam before I started dating the man who would become my first husband. At the same time, I was being sexually harassed by a higher ranking, older, and much bigger male coworker who would corner me against the wall. I was so intimidated, I had no idea what to do, so I endured it. For all these years, I had felt guilty, believing I was at fault for what happened, and I had put those memories so far inside that I didn’t realize how that first experience affected me and my relationships with men and people in authority for years to come. Counseling helped me understand that by the time I met and married my first husband, I had been damaged spiritually and emotionally. I was already a victim before I became his victim. I also came to know without a doubt that the day I made the decision to leave him and made that a reality was the day I became a survivor. After I left him, instead of seeking out a therapist, I partied. I worked in the world of rock-n-roll in Phoenix and Hollywood. For a couple of years, I made some extremely foolish decisions and got myself into some dark and dangerous corners, but I got through them. Now I better understand why I made those decisions.

I also understand that part of my strength and my ability to survive stems from the fact that I have always held on to an element of hope and a resiliency that comes from being open to new ideas and experiences. I am still learning and growing, and I know that I always will be. It isn’t that I haven’t had dark moments where I wished it was all over. I have. It isn’t that I don’t sometimes still get a little caught up in the negativity of my past experiences. I do. It isn’t that I’m not sometimes afraid. I sometimes am. What it IS, however, is that I have a strong faith in my ability to overcome the challenges I encounter. I am not afraid to try new things. Most of all, I think, it is that I am no longer afraid to explore the darkness inside myself and to bring the hidden memories into the light. Having a good counselor through my Cognitive Processing Therapy has helped me to realize that it’s okay to find out where I am vulnerable. It’s okay to admit being human.

Somehow during all of this, I completed my Master’s program when I was 53. I was ordained in a small inter-spiritual denomination by leaders who could see my potential when even I was unsure if I was worthy to hold out my hand to others. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s too late to do something you have always dreamed of doing.

My book, Phoenix from the Ashes, has been available on Amazon since I completed another reworking and added resources in 2013. It was the book that led my daughter – the one I lost to CPS – to find me in 2019. She sought me out on Facebook through a relative she connected with after having a DNA test through 23andMe. It was a poem in the book, written at her 11th birthday, that convinced her she had found the right person. Our meeting and the connection of her family with ours has been one of the greatest lights to come out of the darkness.

If you’re interested, you can probably find the book by searching my name, Suzy Jacobson Cherry, on Amazon. If you do, I hope it speaks to you. I want you to know, though, that it is only part of the story. There is so much that I didn’t share, because I was afraid of the consequences of truly opening up. Everything in it is true, but the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and it is very, very far from being the whole truth. There is much that I didn’t share, because even I didn’t know the whole truth. I’m no longer afraid to face the shadows. Maybe one day I will pull them all into the light.

Finally, I want to remind you – all of you – that you will be okay. You are strong. You are part of the light that illuminates the way for others who find themselves in the dark. I want you to know that even when we are at our darkest times, there is always hope and a path to life. Though we may think we are alone, we truly are not. If we pay attention, if we listen, we will hear the stories of others that will help us to see the cracks in the darkness. Once we find the light, we must share our stories to help those who stumble into the dark to find their way. For me, it is important not to think, “why did this happen to me?” but “how can I use what happened to me to make my life and the lives of others better?” You are here tonight because you know that there is always hope. I am proud to share this moment with you all.

Thank you.

comments

Revenge Poem, A Short Memory and A Poem

2020-05-10T01:00:34Z

I'm listening to Joan Baez singing "Diamonds and Rust," a favorite of mine forever. But it's got me thinking.

When I hear that line, "My poetry was lousy, you said," I think of so many male poets I've known over the years who, with a wide swath said, "girl poetry sucks," or something along those lines.

More than that general thought is the memory of K. K was a poet I dated in the mid-80's in Phoenix. He was an 11 East Ashland poet, a punk/rocker from the Mason Jar/Impulse/Metro/Crash days. In fact, I met him at the Impulse, where he worked. When he got fired, I took his job. K and I were an emotional roller coaster heading for a crash. Much later I ran into him at Willow House. Almost fell into the trap again, but fortunately I had grown some by then. K was that male poet. The one who says, "girl poetry sucks."

I dunno, maybe he wanted to be Bob Dylan.

I wrote more than a few "girl poems" inspired by him, all entitled, "K," and numbered in order of the time I wrote them. Whenever I read them at an open mic or as a feature poet, I never said his name. I once read a couple of them at Willow House in the mid-90's, and a woman came up to me later and identified him by name. Strange, isn't it?

Well, many years later I wrote a poem about him, one in which I imagined all the Bob Dylans and K's in the poetry world, driven mad for their disdainful treatment of one too many "girl poets."

I thought I'd share it here.

The Madness of K – A "True" Story

In catacombs they gathered,

Children of the desert night

Beneath the college campus

The lost ones found delight

She had known him as a lover

From the moment that they met

Into the darkened bar she walked

An act she should regret

For once across the threshold

A new sensation filled her loins

He stood alone behind the bar

Bottles jangling like old coins

She meant to play it businesslike

She came to sell the band

But when she walked into that place

Her mortal soul was damned

Her thirst for him insatiable

He hungered for her soul

He drew her in, he knew her name

Her desire would take its toll

Two poets lying beneath the stars

She heard his words like pearls

His worship of the masculine,

Disdain for works by girls

And now in college catacombs

She recalled the day she died

Their mingled blood ran red and free

His love for her descried

Bathed in blood and alcohol

In tears and rain and mud

She freely gave her tender flesh

And shared her lover's blood

Now he without a place to go

And she without a life

Had found each other once again

By fate or by device

He grasped her now to take her

Down forever to his lair

She reached up gently, carefully

Wrapped her fingers in his hair

He gasped, his long beleaguered mind

Had forgotten female touch

His cold blue eyes like devil's rain

Held little and missed much

She pulled herself up close to him

Her tongue upon his skin

She opened up her lonely thighs

And begged him to come in

He held her close and breathed a sigh

Forgetting what he'd done

She whispered vapid girly poems

And bade him closer, come….

In dark and dreary catacombs

She left him there, undead

Midst pools of ink and alcohol

His poems ripped to shreds

Now late at night he wanders

Through the desert city's streets

Quotes Kerouac and Ginsburg

Mutters lines from Poe and Keats

But sometimes in his reverie

He finds he knows the words

To a poem he finds a puzzle

As he quotes it to the birds

He likes the way the poem sounds

Like a ribbon the chants unfurl

It's the story of his own demise –

And it was written by a girl!

© 27 August 2008
By Suzanne B. Jacobson

comments

Nine Months and Counting Down

2019-06-28T05:05:44Z

It's like a pregnancy, only at the end of the nine months, instead of a baby, I am planning to welcome a brand new life -- of retirement!

Well, semi-retirement, really. I'll be 62 and able to draw on my Social Security. I'm not foolish enough to think I can live on that amount, so I have plans to continue working half time, or whatever it takes to make just what I'm allowed to make over my Social Security income.

I'm really looking forward to it, because I will be able to focus more time on writing, marketing my writing, and building the rites of passage/ceremony "business" that is Brigid in the Desert, the little interspiritual church I pastor. I don't really think of it as a business, not really. Still, the weddings and blessings are sources of income. Oh, and art. I've been doing some experiments in painting with oil pastels, but I expect I'll be working with acrylics again soon.

Maybe as I work on the writing, art, and "ministry," there will be income from them and I'll be able to work less and focus more on those things I've been dreaming of doing for so long.

Maybe we'll win the lottery and I'll be able to start that sooner rather than later. Either way, I am very much looking forward to it. In other good news, by then I'll have a new hip, and be able to walk normally again. At least, that's what I'm hoping. I miss going for walks and hiking.

Oh, and most importantly, there will also be a new grandbaby before I retire!

New birth, new life. It's a good thing.

comments

Avenues Not Taken

2018-08-13T20:32:30Z

The other day I was thinking about the different points in my life where I might have changed my trajectory forever. I supposed one might say that we make choices every day that change "what could have been" into "what will be." However, there are some moments that, in retrospect, could have been very, very good choices or very, very bad choices. For instance, I left the Air Force and got married to the man who became my abuser. If I had remained in the service, my life might have been much better in many ways. Later, when I was serving in the Air National Guard, I considered returning to the regular Air Force. My husband wouldn't allow it. What if, when I decided to leave him, I had taken that step instead of just running? Where would I be today?
There were opportunities for divergent paths during what I call my "Kerouacian" or "Rock-n -Roll" days, as well. These are the two I was really thinking about a few days ago. I was pretty much partying out the eight years of abuse I had lived with during that first marriage, and was pursuing a perhaps poorly thought out dream of working in the Rock-n-Roll business in Phoenix.
The first of these two opportunities arose one night at a club called The Impulse at Indian School and 24th Street, just across the street from the once-famous Mason Jar. I was working as a kind of clean up person while also helping book bands into the club. At night, I got to attend the shows for free, and pretty much had as much alcohol as I wanted, which seems, in retrospect, to have been far too much. One night, there was a band booked into the club that played a kind of World Beat music. The group was comprised of a couple and a few other members, who played all kinds of instruments. I don't remember the name of the band. I recall that I was impressed with their talent and I loved the "hippie-ness" of their attitudes and their clothing. They traveled in a van, which I remember as being painted in psychedelic colors and patterns. This may be one of those "fill in" memories, where I think the van should have been psychedelic. After all, it's been a very long time, and honestly, it's not integral to the experience. I thought these were really cool people, so I found myself chatting with the woman who fronted the group after the show. We talked for some time, as the van was being loaded with their instruments. Just before they left, the woman invited me to join them. I remember that I laughed and said I couldn't play any instruments or sing or anything. She said, "We could teach you! Come along! It will be a great experience, and you'll love it!" I didn't think she was serious, but she started to pull me toward the van. I laughed again and told her it did sound like fun, but I wasn't ready to take that kind of leap into the unknown. At that, she got in the van, they headed out, and I went in search of some friends to end the night with.
The second of these "opportunities" came while I was living at 11 East Ashland, an alternative art gallery in Phoenix just off Central and Virginia on, of course, Ashland. I've written about this experience in my book Phoenix from the Ashes. While I lived at the gallery, I helped out by organizing poetry readings for art opening nights. While wine and cheese were served inside the gallery with the art works, I hosted the reading on the stage in the back yard. I was writing some angry works in those days, and had created a persona I called "Elf Witch." One night, as Elf Witch, I was onstage reading a speech I had written about the importance of art and anger in a post-nuclear world. After my reading, I introduced other poets as they came up to read. It was a good night, all around. After the reading, I was approached by a couple who told me they wanted to film me performing for a video they were making about hardcore poets of Phoenix. I was taken aback. I had never thought of myself as hardcore. They told me I was to be the only female poet featured on the video. I took this to be a great compliment. After talking to them for awhile, I agreed to come to the place where the said they were filming. I never went. I don't know exactly why, but after they had gone, I got a strange feeling about it, and chose to forget about it.
I was in my late twenties when these two incidents occurred. I was a vulnerable young adult who had survived eight years of abuse and the loss of a child because of that abuse. For years, I thought I chose not to follow up on these invitations because I was afraid. Perhaps I was, but perhaps it was less fear and more an intuitive awareness that things were not right. In those days, I had not heard of human trafficking, really. There was this illusory shadowy thing I had heard someone mention in my teens called "white slavery," where women were kidnapped and forced into prostitution by criminals. It seemed a far away thing that happened to only a handful of people.
Today, more of us are aware of the danger of being duped into going places with dangerous people and ending up in the life. Were these incidents the innocent invitations they seemed to be at the time, or was there a darker purpose behind them? Was I just a frightened little girl afraid to take chances, or was I unwittingly wise in following an intuitive awareness? I am unlikely to ever know the truth. I know I've never seen a video of hardcore poets in Phoenix. Perhaps it does exist, and I haven't come across it. Perhaps they were just nice people who really did like my work enough to invite me to read. In that case, I am proud to have been invited. Perhaps the girl in the band really did think I would be a fun addition to their group of hippie musicians, and her invitation was as innocent as I took it to be at the time. Again, I am flattered by the offer.
There are many points in our lives where we can take wrong turns, and many where we can take turns that will make our lives better. We never take a straight line from birth to death, for at each juncture we choose, even if we think we have made no choice. I sometimes wonder what life might have been like if I had, say, gone back into the regular Air Force, chosen a new field, and stayed in until retirement. Then I wonder, who would I have become? Would I be the same as I am today? Probably not. What if I had chosen to jump into the van with the musical strangers who seemed so cool? Where are they now? Or, what if I had shown up alone at some warehouse in Phoenix to shoot a video dressed up as Elf Witch? When I imagine it today, I image myself walking into a dark place, with no escape.
I have no regrets.

*Note: I would like to think that both of the Phoenix invitations were legitimate opportunities that I passed up, because I don't want to think ill of anyone I've encountered. If the people involved recognize themselves in this story and want to touch base with me and tell me I missed a couple of fantastic opportunities and my imagination has run away from me, I'd be pleased.

comments

Random Thoughts on Writing and Stuff

2018-06-29T20:19:24Z

I left behind my Livejournal because I thought LJ was dying. I received a message not too long ago that they had deleted my account due to non-use a couple months ago. Still, an author I follow still uses her LJ and just backs up here.

I'm spread out pretty thin, but I like to have different places to do different things. I write so many different kinds of things, but I don't keep up with all the sites I have on a regular basis. I should. I would if I had more time, but you know, there's the day job. And there's family. Sometimes I feel like I'm doing my day job (in behavioral health peer support) on my days off with certain family members. Time is at a premium.

DreamWidth is really like my LJ in that it's the place I write these weird kinds of thoughts that don't fit anywhere else. I don't even know if anyone reads them. Truthfully, I don't know if anyone reads anything I write online, but I keep doing it anyway. After all, there's the site for the church I lead as a Universal Anglican Priest, Brigid in the Desert, which is really just me and a handful of people who sometimes join me in spiritual conversation, or me providing pastoral services in the community like weddings, blessings, and such. Then there's the page that I call the Pastor's Blog, which gets waaay behind, in all honesty. Connected to that are pages with sermons I've given and reflections I've written that weren't necessarily presented in a sermon-like way. Then, there's my poetry blog, and the blog where I put recipes and thoughts on diet/nutrition, and some old short stories that really belong somewhere else, but that's where they are because that's how I started it. I wonder if I should move them here.

I love this page, because it has some of my best stuff that just didn't fit anywhere else. It's kind of pretty, too. I wonder what will happen to it when the day comes that I'm no longer here to keep it up, at least somewhat.

I've recently heard poet Donald Hall, former Poet Laurete of the United States, in an interview he gave a number of years ago to NPR. In the interview, he talked about how he expected that one day he would no longer exist and he would be forgotten. Well, he passed away this week, which is why the interview was replayed. He discussed the sense he had that others feared being forgotten, and worked hard to create things that would live on after they were gone, but that he just wrote what he wrote because it was there to be written. In a way, I'm like that. There's stuff inside me that demands to come out, to be written, but sometimes it just doesn't. I know I won't be on the earth this time around forever...we never are. I know I will be remembered by my children, and I hope by my grandchildren. I will be lucky if anything I've written lasts beyond my corporeal days. I wonder sometimes why it matters to me...or if, in fact, it really does. My real desire is to sell more of my work and know while I'm still here that I am writing something others wish to read.

Well, I'm a self-publisher, which is something I could not have done when I started writing, and made the choice not to spend money, time, and emotion sending in works typed up on old typewriters only to receive back rejection letters ad nauseum. I did that with a couple of pieces, and honestly did have some of those published, though I made little money for them. I think my decision not to play that game was partly laziness and partly fear - not of rejection, but of not being able to survive as a "starving artist."

Then, when my life turned course with the advent of children, it was definitely overwhelmingly a fear of not being able to care for them. Perhaps it would have been different if I'd chosen men who had the same kind of work ethic I was raised with, who trained for trades and got good jobs, and who loved me enough to figure out how to keep me in their lives. Perhaps then I could have raised children and written for a living. Then again, maybe not. It's futile to imagine a different life than the one I have had. In fact, when I do, I am certain I would be a totally different person than I am today, and I'm pretty happy with who I have become. Would I still be me if I had been married to one man, actually knew what it was like to live a middle class life, had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and was a "soccer mom?" Or on another train of thought, would I still be me if I had stayed in the Air Force, gone to college earlier, gotten into a lucrative line of work, and not gone through the struggles I've had because of the choices I've made?

Probably not. I might not have even had the same children. Life is a collection of the results of random choices, often made on the spur of the moment. Between me and my clients, there is only the difference of one choice here, another there, which when made offered me the hope of a roof over my head and food in the fridge, albeit paid for paycheck-to-paycheck.

So today I work without knowing if I'll be able to retire in five years, write when I can, and hope my kids forgive me for not being a middle class soccer mom who could provide them with the amenities of a suburban life, including a father who brought in the pay while I baked cookies and wrote while they were in school.

I'm thankful for the time I do have, and for my current husband, who is supportive of my sometimes planned and sometimes sudden desire to run off to a poetry reading or coffee with a friend. I do write, and I do publish, and I do stand up in front of strangers and share my soul on occassion. I even get to draw and paint once in awhile.

If I had not made the choices I made, if I had not become who I have become, I would not be in the job I'm in today. It's not lucrative, but it's helpful to others. In fact, I consider it in some ways an extension of the ministry I have with Brigid in the Desert. I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm pretty lucky. How many other women can say they've raised three good, caring children; have a loving, late-life spouse; are helping other people; are a published writer, an artist, AND a priest?

If I'm forgotten soon after I'm gone, well, so be it. Life is good.

comments

Surprise! This IS a Book Review: Spent Saints & Other Stories by Brian Jabas Smith

2017-06-24T21:34:14Z

No one could mistake this blog for an influential resource. I don’t follow the stats here, but I suspect the readership is pretty low. I’m not a known blogger, but I do keep a handful of different blogs going because I love writing when I have time. Also, like most everyone else, I like to share my thoughts about things that are important to me. I have blogs on spirituality, poetry, food and creativity, and this blog. This particular blog is where I come with thoughts that don’t quite fit into the themes of the others, although once in awhile the themes could cross over.

Today, I want to discuss a book I recently read. The collection of short stories, Spent Saints & Other Stories, was written by Brian Jabas Smith.

In full disclosure, Smith and I have been acquaintances since 1986, when I was a wanna-be rock promoter and Brian was the singer in one of my favorite bands of the time, Gentlemen Afterdark. I was living in an alternative art gallery called 11 East Ashland (named for its address off Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix) and coordinating poetry readings when I became “Suzi plus One” on the GAD guest list. Plus One was always my good friend and partner in the pursuit of the rock lifestyle, K. The two of us were an enigma in the music “scene” of the mid-eighties. We liked and worked with bands in both the heavy metal/glam genres and the alternative/punk scene. We mixed our metaphors and our clothing styles. We met Henry Rollins at an afterhours club called “Crash” and described ourselves as “Heavy Metal Valley Thrash Punkers of America, like fer shure, F’n A.”

We liked what we liked and maybe we were confused because we were both probably suffering from PTSD from our equally violent first marriages that we had escaped just months before we met each other through a mutual friend.

Today it’s not unusual to find that a person can enjoy a range of artists from Elvis Presley to Elvis Costello or Metallica to the Ramones or even Nuclear Death to Thai Pink. At the time, though, we were the strange ones in cut up black tee shirts and spandex, multi-colored asymmetrical haircuts, and painted faces. We loved it. We yearned for more. We promoted shows. We organized shows.

We went to every show we could, especially GAD shows, wherever they took place. A good many of them at the once famous Mason Jar.

Later, returning to Phoenix after a brief foray in California and a lifetime becoming almost normal in Texas, I returned to the poetry thing and discovered Brian Smith’s new band, Beat Angels. I went to see them once or twice. Over time, I lost track of Beat Angels, of the music scene, and of Brian Smith.

Until one day, I saw an article in the Phoenix New Times. It was a memorial for GAD member Kevin Pate, written by Brian Smith. Beautifully written, heartfelt, and honest; I knew then that Brian was a writer. He had been a staff writer for the New Times, but I had missed that somehow.

The next time I heard of Brian, he was writing for the Detroit Metro Times; then he was suddenly back in Arizona, in Tucson, writing for the Tucson Weekly. Glorious articles about the people he meets, the things that make people who they are; the hard times and the joys of the people who live hard lives. Real people; tough people. Brian knows them. Brian is them.

Spent Saints is proof that Brian Smith knows the hard times and isn’t afraid to admit it.

I’ve lived an entire lifetime denying the experiences that this book dredges up in me. Oh, I don’t mean literally denying them as if someone suspected me of lining up white powders on mirrors and questioned me. No, I mean denying as in simply leaving those experiences out of the stories I tell about my life. I’m fortunate, you see, because those experiences didn‘t take me as deeply into the dark places that they take so many. Not because I was any better, any different; I once saw myself on a precipice between dark and light, and teetering, wanted to choose the dark.

Instead, for a long time, I simply didn’t choose. Walking on that dangerous ledge, fearful of falling, I kept myself safe only by the fortune of noncommittal. That ledge kept me safe from the immolation of addiction; it also kept me from the attainment of worldly success.

One can only recognize what has saved them or held them back from the perspective of hindsight. Many never achieve such insight. It’s taken me years of introspection to realize that the life I lived was mine by choice. It took Brian Smith’s stories of Spent Saints to awaken me to the value of that life.

Spent Saints should come with a trigger warning or two. It’s been years since I had a personal interaction with mind altering substances. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten that part of my life; in fact it now informs me in my day job working in behavioral health. Yet, as a peer, I see those experiences from a distance; it has no effect on my vagus nerve. Fight or flight is not triggered.

These stories, though. These stories are an emic experience; reading them is like being there. Again.

I attended a reading at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe a couple of weeks ago. Singer Cait Brennan performed. Barry Smith played his haunting original violin music, and Brian Jabas Smith read a story from Spent Saints.

Those who know me well know that I am a survivor of 2nd & 3rd degree burns on 60% of my body. It was 50 years ago, but the memory is deep. I can’t watch people on fire, not even pretend. Nobody thinks to warn about it.

The story Brian read at Changing Hands? It involved fire. It jarred me to the bone.

And when I read the rest of the stories, so did they.

If you want to understand some of the people who struggle with addiction, with poverty, with depression…read this book. It’s a tough read, but worth every word.

You can purchase the book from the publisher, Ridgeway Press, here.

comments