Читать книгу I Closed My Eyes - Michele Weldon - Страница 3

“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.” — Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

In the past three decades I have published more than a million words. As a journalist and author producing articles, essays, chapters and books, I remain most proud personally and professionally of the words in this book.

The initial publication in 1999 changed my life. The courage it took to leave my marriage to a man who by all accounts seemed perfect to everyone else, is dwarfed by the courage it took to place my truth into the world on a large stage.

At an extraordinarily demanding time beginning in 1995, as a newly single working mother of three sons, ages 6, 4 and 1, I began to write. Over three years, I wrote in stolen moments before and after teaching graduate and undergraduate journalism classes at Northwestern University’s Medill School. I wrote before and after filing stories as a contributing freelance weekly columnist for the Chicago Tribune and other monthly magazines. I wrote at 3 a.m. as my sons slept. I wrote while the boys napped or after I dropped them off at pre-school. I wrote feverishly and with determination because I had to tell my story. I could not continue as a journalist telling other people’s stories ignoring the biggest truth in my own life.

My understanding of myself and my role in my marriage – and eventually peace—arrived with the process of honestly taking control of the past by putting it into my own words. I could see that living it made no sense. But writing about the chaos and the years of deception made it all quite clear. My mission was to transform the inexplicable violence I endured into a story that for me was no longer shameful. My intent was also to make other women like me not feel so alone. If I could help one other woman feeling the same desparation and despair it was enough.

I believe wholeheartedly that I succeeded.

When I re-read the words I wrote in this book, I cannot imagine writing them today. Every chapter, every episode feels as if this all happened to someone else. I am not the same person who witnessed this life. But when I reread each chapter, I am transported back to that time and feel briefly engulfed in the backlash of those emotions. I viscerally recall the crippling energy drain of trying to contain my secret and making everything appear normal in a life that was not.

The process of publishing this book at first more than a decade ago was not easy. And my life was not instantly transformed as a result.

My goal was to precisely and purposefully articulate what it felt like to have been a victim of domestic violence. I knew that in order to justly explain it to others, I needed to explain it to myself and attempt to understand just how this could happen to me—a happy, educated, confident woman from a family with no history of violence. I was not a stereotype. Because there is no stereotype. Domestic violence can happen to anyone.

I began by writing an essay called “I Closed My Eyes,” and entered it into the Writer’s Digest National Writing Competition in 1996. Competing against thousands of entries, I won first place in the memoir category. I entered another essay that ended up being another chapter in the book and won first place in the National League of American Pen Women’s writing contest. In 1997 I entered the book in the National Writers Association nonfiction book contest and was a finalist. I knew my book was worthy of being published. I had to stop entering contests to feel validated, I needed to have it published as a book for a wider audience. I needed to be brave and to stand up to my truth.

I found a compassionate and diligent agent—Wendy Keller—and she sold it quickly. I worked closely with editors to make this book the best it could possibly be. Three attorneys – two from the publisher, Hazelden Publishing, and one who helped pro bono— worked with me over every line to make sure each claim could be backed up with a document or corroboration from another source. I did not use my former husband’s name—and our last names are different.

Informed by a magazine writer doing a story about my book just prior to its release, my former husband tried to stop the publication with a motion to bar me from “speaking or writing disparaging comments” about him. It was dismissed immediately; prior restraint it is called.

Still, in telling this story publicly, I dealt with my own shame and ambivalence. I felt reticent about revealing my secret, and at the same time I carried an explosive urgency to tell the truth. The ambitious author wanted this well-crafted story out in the world. The abused wife with the handsome husband was scared the neighbors would talk.

I have since grown into the notion that I am comfortable and proud to walk the talk, to be accountable for what I have written. But it was not easy. Sometimes it was humiliating. A radio host once introduced me saying, “We have on the show an author who was regularly beaten to a bloody pulp by her husband. Welcome to the show, Michele.”

I was speechless.

In the past several years I have worked to use my voice to dispel the myths of domestic violence—that it only happens to “other women”—that it doesn’t happen to women like me. I have been a guest on dozens of television shows from “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” to “Later Today,” and more than 100 other radio and cable shows across the United States and Canada.

Before I appeared on “Later Today” in 2000, the producer was prepping me in the green room. I had been chatty in several meetings on the phone and in person and now I was frozen. Every question she asked me, I answered in a single word. We were minutes away from a live interview. It was near the end of the show, almost 10 a.m.

“What’s the matter, why are you acting like this?” she asked.

“It just occurred to me that old boyfriends might watch this and think I turned out to be a loser.”

She smiled. “If your old boyfriends are sitting home right now watching TV, without a job, they have bigger problems than you. Besides, you wrote a great book.”

She was right. I was fine.

After I appeared in June 2002 on “Oprah” as a guest speaking about my first two books, “I Closed My Eyes” and “Writing To Save Your Life,” a student stopped me in the hallway at Northwestern.

“I saw you on TV, Professor Weldon,” she said and paused. ”I had no idea you had a past!”

But since that public admission, more young women who are students I know from class or who have heard about my work, have come to my university office to seek help either for themselves as victims of violence or asking for tips on how to speak to their mothers, best friends, sisters or cousins about breaking out of a violent relationship. Friends refer me to friends to give advice. Readers beg for help.

As prevalent as those questions seeking help, unfortunately, another question I receive from journalists or members of an audience is why would I write a book about a private matter?

This is how I respond: If someone rang your doorbell and you answered it, and that person punched you in the face, you would call the police. No one would tell you it was a private matter because you were hit in your own home. Partner violence is no different. It is a crime. It doesn’t erase the horror because of where it happened and that you know who struck you.

There are other insidious questions. A man stood up at one book signing and said, “This is just your side of the story. How do we know this is true?”

I answered him that there is no incentive to fabricate this kind of story that is historically and culturally bathed in shame. It is not glamorous or envious. It is just true.

You know your story. You know what happens to you. And you have every right to speak it and write it.

Throughout this process, I was careful to try and keep my young sons separated from the speeches, book signings and appearances. They each reacted differently to the existence of the book. Though they all knew what was in our home and that we needed to leave, they were embarrassed to have so many know about their father. They felt shame. They were naturally angry.

That weighed heavily on me and I did my best to help them through that. So many years later, I hope they are proud of what I have done and know that I could not keep silent because I am a writer and a journalist. I had to tell this story.

They understand my goal was not to be salacious or vengeful, but to communicate the larger good in publishing my story.

I was lucky to receive several honors, awards and recognition for telling my truth in this book. I was given the Bread and Roses Individual Courage Award in Publishing in 2000 in Chicago, the International Women’s Peacepower Award for nonfiction book also that year and the American Pen Women award for books. This book was chosen for the state of Massachusetts “Step Up And Read” One-Book program in 2003. I also won the Sarah’s Inn Visionary Award in 2003, the Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy in 2005 and the Twenty Years/ Twenty Heroes Award in 2007.

My former husband, a practicing litigating attorney at the time, never filed a legal claim or spoke on the record any form of rebuttal to the book. Twelve years later, he is still silent about the book. Intentionally I did not write about his supposed motivations. I wrote about me, what it was like for me, what happened to me.

The conflict with my former husband did not end with this book. There was no sweet happily ever after once he left our home. He remarried within a year of our divorce in April 1996, had a daughter with his new wife, and adopted her son from a previous marriage. About two years later they were divorced.

There were a few years after that when I believe he tried to be helpful, but when I look back, I feel manipulated. He would cancel his weekend with the boys at the last minute when I needed him to watch the boys as I had a business trip planned, or he would not show up at all. He would occasionally return the boys from a visit without shoes or winter coats saying he couldn’t find them. He was many times several hours late, if he didn’t cancel altogether. There were also times when he would fight with the boys and they would call and ask to come home. It was not easy, any of it.

My former husband left the top-shelf law firm where he was a partner-hopeful in 2001. He then moved to different jobs and one after the other to several small apartments in the Chicago area. He worked in different sales positions; I never really understood what he did. Then in 2004, he announced suddenly he was moving to Amsterdam, with his lover at the time, an older woman with whom he was a partner in a spiritual travel business.

That year he left the country Weldon was a sophomore in high school, Brendan an eighth grader and Colin in fifth grade. Their feelings of abandonment played out in different behaviors that were hard to manage alone. These were difficult years, but with the help of family, friends and coaches, the boys thrived. I cannot imagine the hurt they must have felt and still feel. But the boys were successful in school and athletics and were always good sons.

In 2005 my former husband stopped paying all child support. After he moved to Europe, correspondence and visits dwindled until he was completely absent. His sons have not seen him or spoken to him since 2007, when they saw him briefly at the funeral of his father, a good grandfather to my sons. It has been difficult financially and emotionally dealing with their father’s total abandonment. I discovered his return to the area by accident in 2010. Since then I have been involved in years of litigation to recover unpaid child support and college tuition and to defend myself against his claims that I do not need financial help for our sons. I am at times confident I will prevail. But years of what would seem to be a simple case has taken so much energy, time and money to attempt to resolve, but without a resolution.

Abuse can arrive in different manifestations long after it no longer exists in a physical form in your home. So far this has lasted 26 years.

Unfortunately this is a story that happens to millions of women in this country and many millions more around the world. Not everyone writes a book about it. Many keep quiet.

If you think of the three women friends you have emailed, Tweeted or speed dialed this morning on your cell phone, you can imagine that statistically, one of those friends will at some point in her life be a victim of domestic violence. It is more common than breast cancer, more common than being left handed.

In the 16 years since my divorce, I have certainly healed. I learned to trust again. I did fall in love and it was a wonderful relationship that lasted six years. But in the end I was not able to guarantee my partner the time and attention he demanded or deserved. I was simply too busy raising the boys alone and working as hard as I possibly could to pay for everything to be the kind of life partner he wanted by his side at all times. I realize it is not easy being partner to an imperfect, ambitious woman who is outspoken, dedicated to her children and her work. I have felt the reverberations from those men who demand a more private life. It has proven difficult to be with someone who truly understands and accepts my position and my mission, as well as my steadfast commitment to my sons above all others. I still believe wholly in the power of love and commitment.

I have given more than 200 keynotes around the country and Canada attempting to reverse the misconceptions of domestic violence. I have spoken at universities, hospitals, high schools, benefits, book clubs, fundraisers, government organizations and rallies. I have felt the applause of audiences and the appreciation of thousands of readers.

I have received thousands of letters and emails from women all over the world. The letters come from every state in the country, and in many countries; some are addressed from prisons. The women who write them are as young as 13 and as old as 86. They range from a paragraph to 13 pages long, single space, typed. They give me grace and make me humble. The letters are heartbreaking and uplifting. They are typed neatly or scrawled like a child’s. Every woman who writes me her story tells me her own truth.

But even with the comfort of this support and the soul-warming feeling that I have helped so many face their own stories, my own history is not erased, the experience not exorcised.

I can say fervently that I am glad I am here.

However, I cannot say I am grateful I was there. I would take back those painful years of marriage if I could. I would erase the pain cause to my sons by a father who abandoned them. He was my choice for a husband; not theirs. But I know doing so would not allow me to have the life I have now. I am the mother to three amazing young men. And I am grateful for they are miracles.

It is not easy to have a mother who tells the secrets of your family. My sons are proud of me and hopefully accept the need for my work, but they do not want to be reminded of it all. It was a painful life for them as well. What I have learned from writing this book and this journey is that you don’t tell the truth and walk away joyously skipping. There is a price to pay for breaking the silence.

Ultimately, from writing this book, I have learned the lesson that no matter what your experience, no matter how mired in shame you feel when it is fresh, it is always better to stand up and tell the truth. It is better to lend the example that honesty and strength are allies, not enemies.

I published this book initially because I did not want to believe the warnings of my friend who told me that if I published a memoir of domestic violence I would forever have the word “victim” on my name tag. I am so much more than that.

There are millions of women— and men— who think they cannot say the truth about what happens in their homes, in their partnerships, in their marriages, because they will die of embarrassment. But is never embarrassment that kills them. So many women are loved that way.

Women like me.

We are women in your office, we are women in your car pool, women in your gourmet club, women in your book group, women at your athletic club. We are your students, your professors, women who volunteer with you, women who work with you. We are your dentists, doctors, lawyers, nurses, professors, children’s teachers, accountants, architects. We are famous, we are anonymous. We are feminists, we are mothers of millions of children. We are women of all ages, races, socioeconomic backgrounds and education levels. We are beautiful, we are plain, we are bold, we are shy. We are thin, we are round, we are tall, we are short.

What I have learned in telling this story openly is that domestic violence is everywhere. In no culture on this planet, is there a society absent of domestic violence.

A Cheyenne proverb begins, “A people is not conquered until the hearts of the women are on the ground. No matter how brave its warriors or how strong their weapons, then it is finished.”

It is not a finish any of us want.

I have tried to use my words to further the mission of minimizing if not eliminating partner violence. But I think that is not possible until as a society we will not tolerate violence as a means of expression. It cannot happen until our young boys grow to be men with zero tolerance for abuse of women and children, until they no longer see so much violence in media that they are immune to its consequences. Until everyone realizes that violence hurts.

I am not extraordinary, I am not exceptional. I am one woman who saw the truth and with the help of family, community, agencies and the justice system, wrote her story and rebuilt a life free of fear and without any violence. I have raised my sons, now 23, 21 and 18 to be good men who have no tolerance for violence against women.

I have written about my life since the first edition of this book in a new creative nonfiction memoir, Escape Points. That book, with an excerpt at the end of this edition, deals with my struggles raising the boys alone, their wrestling careers in high school, the help offered by their wrestling coach, Mike Powell, as well as my brothers and sisters, my recovery from breast cancer and my professional challenges to keep all the pins in the air and do it all. I believe it is uplifting and honest, a testament ot the complicated lives so many of us lead.

The message is that I believe you can create a meaningful and joyful life when faced with many difficulties.

“There is an alchemy in sorrow,” Pearl Buck wrote. “It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not being joy, can yet bring happiness.”

I have taken the experience as a woman once married to a violent man and chosen not to let that define me in a static place. It is not on my name tag.

I have moved on to be productive and hopefully influential. I was a victim and have become an advocate. I do believe all women and children should be safe. I believe that hope and hard work will at least curb if not eliminate domestic violence.

Writing this book changed my life. I want my words to continue to change the lives of other women struggling with a partner as I once did. Because for me that is simply the right thing to do.

Michele Weldon

September 2012