In Silent Meditation

In 1985, I left my first husband after eight years in domestic violence. In those days, shelters were a budding concept and the issue of spousal abuse was still something to talk about in hushed tones. I certainly was unaware that such things happened until I was in the midst of it. When I gained the strength to leave, I never considered counseling. I was ready to live my own life.

Since my first taste of hard rock, I was a rock-n-roll girl. After listening to Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin with friends when I was in 10^th grade, it was “so long Top-40 station” and “hello Progressive Rock radio.” The music has been a necessary soundtrack to my life, and when video killed the radio star, I was there. I think it was the music that gave me the real strength to leave my first husband. It’s true that there were other factors – my faith that God was with me no matter what and a two week Air National Guard summer in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for instance. The music was even at the core of my two weeks at Myrtle Beach. That’s where I wrote my first lyrics and had my first taste of real live music. Back at home, though, it was the music on M-TV by strong women and sexy men that got my heart pumping and my spirit dreaming. Some of the songs that were most popular at the time actually dealt with the issue I was struggling with. Til Tuesday sang “Voices Carry,” and Annie Lennox belted out “Would I Lie to You?” Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” inspired me. They gave me strength.

I guess it’s no surprise when I admit that I wanted to live a rock-n-roll life. So, I tried to make it so. Circumstances led me back to Phoenix in early 1986. It was a different city than the one I’d lived in as a child in the late 60’s. Soon after arriving, I answered a newspaper ad for a band that wanted to put together an all-female road crew. I worked with them for awhile and began trying to work with other bands doing promotional work, writing and back-stage security. I booked bands into benefit concerts around Phoenix.  I drove all over the valley dropping off Public Service Announcements to radio stations. I interviewed with radio personalities in the wee-small hours of the morning.  I hung out at the rock clubs, and worked doing clean up at one of the smaller clubs in town for awhile. I created for myself a sort of bohemian-rocker-punk-poet persona that seemed to grow out of my angsty inner teenager. I was 28 years old when I started my rocker lifestyle and when I turned 29 I was living in a Phoenix art gallery organizing poetry readings and inviting visitors to the building to write on the walls of my room. I organized a “heavy metal art show.” We threw my 29^th birthday party in the gallery. My friend and I hired a band out of Tucson to play, and we charged $2 at the door to cover the cost. A couple of months later, my friend and I hitchhiked to Venice Beach, where we got day jobs. We sub-let space on Hollywood’s  Sunset Boulevard and tried to start a business to promote bands. By the time we held our first show at the Troubador in early October, we knew that we had no idea what we were doing. Real life and responsibility began to call, and we left Los Angeles and our rock-n-roll dreams behind.

For a long time afterward, I felt a sense of shame for some of my behavior during that time period. It was an inexplicable sense of guilt and free-floating anxiety. Part of me wanted to forget those two years ever happened.   The problem was that I didn’t really know why I felt this way.   I was sure I had been a very bad person and done things that I should be embarrassed about.   I didn’t know if I wanted to ever return to Phoenix. Of course, I did return to the area. Once in awhile, I would run into someone I had known during my rock-n-roll years. I didn’t die of mortification. I’ve been running into people from the both the music and poetry scenes of the old days off and on for years. Sometimes they remember me. Not one has ever said, “You’re the one who…” followed by some humiliating activity.

Recently, I joined a Facebook group of people who used to hang out at a certain rock club in Phoenix during the 1980’s. I’ve discovered that most people probably don’t even remember who I was and most of those who do haven’t accused me of anything shameful. This development inspired me to ponder my own motivations. Why did I feel so embarrassed? What was I ashamed of, exactly?

Some of my behaviors at the time might be the kinds of things that most people would be ashamed of. However, those are not the behaviors that have bothered me. What have been on my mind are damaged relationships. I dated a few men who wanted to have a serious relationship with me. I wasn’t ready.   After all, I had spent the better part of a decade in abuse. I wanted to be in a relationship, though, and I spent a lot of my time falling “in love” with men who either were not available or who were not interested in me. I spent hours…days wallowing in self-pity, writing sappy poetry about unrequited love. When I dated someone, I invariable allowed myself to get caught up in the idea of being part of a couple before I realized I still wasn’t ready. I made promises I couldn’t keep. I never intended to “play games,” but there is no doubt that it probably seemed to others that I did. My friend and I tried to work in a business we really knew nothing about, a field in which people notoriously made empty promises and bad agreements. Neither of us intended to be deceitful or dishonest; we were just naïve. I was thoughtless and self-centered; I didn’t consider how my actions and decisions would affect others.

Well over twenty years have passed since that short time in my life. However, those two years were formative. I became independent during those two years. I claimed my freedom and my right to be unique during that time. The problem was that I didn’t know what to do with it after those two years passed. I spent many years afterward in fear of what might happen if I allowed myself to fully embrace my unique and independent self. The guilt I felt over those years was a manifestation of the fear I couldn’t let go of. Every severed relationship, every goodbye, and every acquiescence to events against my better judgment was a result of my fear.

It’s in my nature to wonder why things happen the way they do…where God is in all of this. Of course, the answer is that God was there then as God is now. There is never a time or place that God is not. Despite popular platitudes about things “happening for a reason,” I don’t believe that to be true. I don’t believe that God makes bad things happen to people or bad people to come into our lives. I do believe, though, that God is always Present, calling all of us to a better way of being who we are. I believe that God’s Grace is in the way we are given the opportunity to make new choices, no matter what we do in a given situation. Standing from here, looking back, I can see that in a world of poor choices, I didn’t make the worst. Certainly, I didn’t make the best choices as I bumbled through that world, hurting others and myself. Out of those choices, however, I have been given new opportunities to learn how to make better choices. God didn’t put me in an abusive relationship, but in that relationship I learned how to survive. God didn’t keep me away from counseling after I left; I just didn’t know I needed it. I already knew how to interact with authority figures – I had been in the work force since I was 15 and I’d served in the Air Force. But because I had moved so often as a child, I never really learned to interact with my peers. In the two years I spent in the “rock-n-roll” life, I learned how to talk to people. I had a good time. I made friends, some of whom are my friends to this day.

Twenty-plus years ago, many of those who frequented the clubs intimidated me. They were younger, more stylish, more confident and more popular than I – and they knew each other. Many of them went to high school together. They had been going to the Phoenix clubs long before I arrived. The concept of knowing people from high school afterwards was foreign to me. I didn’t know, back then, why I always felt like an outsider, no matter how many friends I had. Discovering that the simple reason was that I was an outsider is liberating. That may seem strange, but it’s the truth. I may have been different, I may have been self conscious and self absorbed, but there was really nothing wrong with me.

It would be many years after that before I fully embraced my independence and my uniqueness in an organic, authentic way that was not undercut by whispers from my fearful self. Even now, that fearful part of me tries to call me back. Now, however, I know which call to answer. I no longer answer the voice of shame and fear. Now, I listen for the call of God to become the best of who I am. I cannot change what was in the past. I cannot go to many of those who I believe I hurt back then. Some of them are no longer with us. I can, however, go forth into the future a better person than I was then. I can make things better for others who have been in the places that I have been. I can reach out to those who are hurting, who are lost, and who are afraid. I can reconnect with old friends and acquaintances. The Facebook group not only gives me a chance to do that, but also allows me to make new friends. That’s where God is today - in the remembering and in the new opportunities. And I am grateful for that.