2.20.2007
The Auditions.
Governor's School auditions.
Horrible Auditions.
Horrible.
The most important audition of my life thus far and I blew it.
I hope the judges see past that.
I hope they know I am a very motivated person who wants this more than anything.
I can do it. I know that I would make them proud. Which is a slightly arrogant thing to say but
I am willing to sacrafice. I want this more than anything.
But I guess we all do.
So.
Now.
All I can do is wait.
Ms. Hepburn and I sit waiting for another month or so.
But I know she is in.
She is amazing.
I hope she is reading that.
AMAZING.
BEAUTIFUL.
the end.
or something like it.
-1:48 pm three days after the audition.
I mean after all-
It wouldn't be the end of the world, it would just feel-seem-be like it.
Ok. So maybe it would.
Ms. Hepburn.
I love you.
Silence is sometimes golden.
Horrible Auditions.
Horrible.
The most important audition of my life thus far and I blew it.
I hope the judges see past that.
I hope they know I am a very motivated person who wants this more than anything.
I can do it. I know that I would make them proud. Which is a slightly arrogant thing to say but
I am willing to sacrafice. I want this more than anything.
But I guess we all do.
So.
Now.
All I can do is wait.
Ms. Hepburn and I sit waiting for another month or so.
But I know she is in.
She is amazing.
I hope she is reading that.
AMAZING.
BEAUTIFUL.
the end.
or something like it.
-1:48 pm three days after the audition.
I mean after all-
It wouldn't be the end of the world, it would just feel-seem-be like it.
Ok. So maybe it would.
Ms. Hepburn.
I love you.
Silence is sometimes golden.
2.07.2007
2.05.2007
Returns of the Day
Returns of the Day (The New York Times Magazine, October 2, 1994)
The anniversary of my rape has come to mean more to me than my birthday.
By Nancy Venable Raine (author of After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back)
On an autumn afternoon in Boston seven years ago, when the cherry tree in my garden was the color of orange marmalade and the sky was a flawless blue, a man slipped through the back door of my ground-floor apartment while I was taking out the trash.
I don't know how long he skulked in my home, or in what shadows. Long enough for me to lock the back door, turn my back, walk over to the sink and begin to wash the pan I'd cooked oatmeal in that morning. I was scrubbing it when he grabbed me from behind. "I'm going to kill you," he said. He dragged me into my bedroom and, using duct tape, blindfolded and bound me. He then beat me and raped me. I never saw him. Only his enormous feet. The anniversary of my rape is the brooding axis of my year, more significant than my birthday.
After all, I don't remember my own birth struggle. But I remember every second of those three hours. Like the majority of rapists, he was never caught, tried or imprisoned. Like all survivors, I am growing accustomed to living with an anniversary that can be marked only by silence, a silence that tastes a lot like shame.
Every year I feel the anniversary coming even before my conscious mind recognizes it. When the air crisps and the leaves begin to turn, I get this thing about taking out the trash. About oatmeal. The eyes in the back of my head, the ones that are never shut, begin to burn like the autumn colors, filling me with emotions I still can't encompass.I know how to mark my birthday, my wedding anniversary, even the anniversary of my brother's death. But the day I was raped? How should I observe the passing of another year? After all, I did take the trash out yesterday, and just this morning - the morning - I ate oatmeal standing at my kitchen window while contemplating the wild plum trees in my California garden that were turning the color of...orange marmalade.
Of course, anniversaries are celebrations. Celebrate is what I do on my birthday, with friends and family who make a fuss that I outwardly protest and secretly relish. Celebrate is what I do on my wedding anniversary, when my husband and I slip out of the humdrum and go off and do something silly that makes us appreciate our routine again. And on the anniversary of my kid brother's death, I call my mother and we retell the story of how he carried his pet alligator to the zoo when it outgrew the bathtub - in a paper bag on a Washington bus. I am never alone when I celebrate these anniversaries, because someone else remembers them, too.Is it possible to celebrate this anniversary alone, as alone as I was that afternoon?
Celebrate in silence my slow coming to terms with the fact that I can never again be that woman who locked her door and felt safe. My husband, my mother, my friends still suffer their own brand of helplessness when they try to imagine the content of my memory. My father, who spent his life in law enforcement, leaves the room if the subject of rape in general, or my rape in particular, creeps into the conversation. Why remind them? And dare they remind me, when they secretly hope I might be "over it" at last?
Silently every year on this date I remember with particular lucidity what it was like to be only mindless instinct, a collection of synapses and fibers, muscle and bone, organized around a single desire: to live another second. This reduction to such bare necessities of body was an alchemy that spun not gold but something dark and polar, a terrible knowledge that to this day sits in the center of my heart like glacial ice. Why remind people who love me it is still there?On this anniversary, more or less safe in the cradle of the day's routine, I began to think back. To the first anniversary, when I realized that I had to stop talking about what happened to me because the people who loved me could not bear to hear it. The second, when I pretended to myself I was "over it." The third, when I realized I wasn't. The fourth, when I was in treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome. The fifth, when I was convinced my treatment wasn't helping and secretly wondered if I had the guts to kill myself. The sixth, during a lunch date, when I told a woman I barely knew that our meeting was occurring on the anniversary of my rape. I spoke matter-of-factly, afraid she might gather up her black briefcase and suddenly remember a dentist's appointment. "My 10th was in June," she replied. As the seventh anniversary hour, 3:30 P.M., approached, I made a cup of tea. I remembered a story I'd heard 25 years earlier from my friend George. In those days, work crews marked construction sites by putting out smudge pots with open flames. George's 4-year-old daughter got too close to one and her pants caught fire like the Straw Man's stuffing. The scars running the length and breadth of Sarah's legs looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In the third grade she was asked, "If you could have one wish what would it be?" Sarah wrote: "I want everyone to have legs like mine." Yes, I thought.When George first told this story I knew it contained a profound truth, but not what that truth was, nor that I would need it someday. Today, I understand that the self consumes misfortune like a sacred potion until the glass is empty. And this bitter elixir changes who we are. Sarah could not imagine herself without her scars. But she could imagine those scars not setting her apart. She could imagine not being alone. She was not wishing her misfortune on others, but wishing they could share it with her.
I finished my tea and realized I was too anxious to take my daily walk. The odds of being raped don't go down because you've been raped once. A little past 3:30, the doorbell rang. I crept to the peep hole and looked out. It was only the local florist, a woman. The bouquet she presented was huge - yellow roses, pale orange lilies and blue irises. It was from my goddaughter, a university student, who was viciously attacked and sexually molested two years ago by a pack of American college boys in a bar in Mexico. The note read "You are not alone. Love K."
No. I am not alone. There are millions of us celebrating our silent anniversaries, I thought.Someday we will all march to the Capitol carrying flowers, and we will leave them on the steps. We will celebrate our anniversaries. We will give our names. The month, the day, the year, the hour. We will stop being silent. We will stop being alone. It doesn't have to be in autumn. I'm not picky.
The anniversary of my rape has come to mean more to me than my birthday.
By Nancy Venable Raine (author of After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back)
On an autumn afternoon in Boston seven years ago, when the cherry tree in my garden was the color of orange marmalade and the sky was a flawless blue, a man slipped through the back door of my ground-floor apartment while I was taking out the trash.
I don't know how long he skulked in my home, or in what shadows. Long enough for me to lock the back door, turn my back, walk over to the sink and begin to wash the pan I'd cooked oatmeal in that morning. I was scrubbing it when he grabbed me from behind. "I'm going to kill you," he said. He dragged me into my bedroom and, using duct tape, blindfolded and bound me. He then beat me and raped me. I never saw him. Only his enormous feet. The anniversary of my rape is the brooding axis of my year, more significant than my birthday.
After all, I don't remember my own birth struggle. But I remember every second of those three hours. Like the majority of rapists, he was never caught, tried or imprisoned. Like all survivors, I am growing accustomed to living with an anniversary that can be marked only by silence, a silence that tastes a lot like shame.
Every year I feel the anniversary coming even before my conscious mind recognizes it. When the air crisps and the leaves begin to turn, I get this thing about taking out the trash. About oatmeal. The eyes in the back of my head, the ones that are never shut, begin to burn like the autumn colors, filling me with emotions I still can't encompass.I know how to mark my birthday, my wedding anniversary, even the anniversary of my brother's death. But the day I was raped? How should I observe the passing of another year? After all, I did take the trash out yesterday, and just this morning - the morning - I ate oatmeal standing at my kitchen window while contemplating the wild plum trees in my California garden that were turning the color of...orange marmalade.
Of course, anniversaries are celebrations. Celebrate is what I do on my birthday, with friends and family who make a fuss that I outwardly protest and secretly relish. Celebrate is what I do on my wedding anniversary, when my husband and I slip out of the humdrum and go off and do something silly that makes us appreciate our routine again. And on the anniversary of my kid brother's death, I call my mother and we retell the story of how he carried his pet alligator to the zoo when it outgrew the bathtub - in a paper bag on a Washington bus. I am never alone when I celebrate these anniversaries, because someone else remembers them, too.Is it possible to celebrate this anniversary alone, as alone as I was that afternoon?
Celebrate in silence my slow coming to terms with the fact that I can never again be that woman who locked her door and felt safe. My husband, my mother, my friends still suffer their own brand of helplessness when they try to imagine the content of my memory. My father, who spent his life in law enforcement, leaves the room if the subject of rape in general, or my rape in particular, creeps into the conversation. Why remind them? And dare they remind me, when they secretly hope I might be "over it" at last?
Silently every year on this date I remember with particular lucidity what it was like to be only mindless instinct, a collection of synapses and fibers, muscle and bone, organized around a single desire: to live another second. This reduction to such bare necessities of body was an alchemy that spun not gold but something dark and polar, a terrible knowledge that to this day sits in the center of my heart like glacial ice. Why remind people who love me it is still there?On this anniversary, more or less safe in the cradle of the day's routine, I began to think back. To the first anniversary, when I realized that I had to stop talking about what happened to me because the people who loved me could not bear to hear it. The second, when I pretended to myself I was "over it." The third, when I realized I wasn't. The fourth, when I was in treatment for post-traumatic stress syndrome. The fifth, when I was convinced my treatment wasn't helping and secretly wondered if I had the guts to kill myself. The sixth, during a lunch date, when I told a woman I barely knew that our meeting was occurring on the anniversary of my rape. I spoke matter-of-factly, afraid she might gather up her black briefcase and suddenly remember a dentist's appointment. "My 10th was in June," she replied. As the seventh anniversary hour, 3:30 P.M., approached, I made a cup of tea. I remembered a story I'd heard 25 years earlier from my friend George. In those days, work crews marked construction sites by putting out smudge pots with open flames. George's 4-year-old daughter got too close to one and her pants caught fire like the Straw Man's stuffing. The scars running the length and breadth of Sarah's legs looked like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. In the third grade she was asked, "If you could have one wish what would it be?" Sarah wrote: "I want everyone to have legs like mine." Yes, I thought.When George first told this story I knew it contained a profound truth, but not what that truth was, nor that I would need it someday. Today, I understand that the self consumes misfortune like a sacred potion until the glass is empty. And this bitter elixir changes who we are. Sarah could not imagine herself without her scars. But she could imagine those scars not setting her apart. She could imagine not being alone. She was not wishing her misfortune on others, but wishing they could share it with her.
I finished my tea and realized I was too anxious to take my daily walk. The odds of being raped don't go down because you've been raped once. A little past 3:30, the doorbell rang. I crept to the peep hole and looked out. It was only the local florist, a woman. The bouquet she presented was huge - yellow roses, pale orange lilies and blue irises. It was from my goddaughter, a university student, who was viciously attacked and sexually molested two years ago by a pack of American college boys in a bar in Mexico. The note read "You are not alone. Love K."
No. I am not alone. There are millions of us celebrating our silent anniversaries, I thought.Someday we will all march to the Capitol carrying flowers, and we will leave them on the steps. We will celebrate our anniversaries. We will give our names. The month, the day, the year, the hour. We will stop being silent. We will stop being alone. It doesn't have to be in autumn. I'm not picky.
------------------------------------------------------
.Dear Nancy.
.It will be three years.
.February 06.
2.02.2007
Reading Response for English Class.
Every four weeks we must as a requirement for my English class read a book with a reading level of 11th grade or higher. Many people do not realize that most adult bestselling fiction books hit a reading level average of 9th grade.
I evidently surprised my teacher when I told her I would be reading When Rabbit Howls by the Troops for Truddi Chase. She thought it curious that someone my age was reading "such a book". She said she had read Sybil.
So here is my conclusive answer and questions I have to turn in. To be honest, I am proud of myself for answering the questions so well given they way they were asked.
Below...
I evidently surprised my teacher when I told her I would be reading When Rabbit Howls by the Troops for Truddi Chase. She thought it curious that someone my age was reading "such a book". She said she had read Sybil.
So here is my conclusive answer and questions I have to turn in. To be honest, I am proud of myself for answering the questions so well given they way they were asked.
Below...
Reader’s Response to When Rabbit Howls by The Troops for Truddi Chase
1. Would you read another book by this same author? Explain why or why not.
If given the opportunity, I would read another book written by the Troops for Truddi Chase. It is however, important for any reader of this book to understand that the authorship belongs to the selves of Truddi Chase, and because of this, the book may prove difficult to read. Their writing style is unique not only because it is written from the perspective of those living in the world of multiple personality disorder but because the authors themselves bring incredible, personal insight into what the daily life of a multiple reflects. They each have something special to offer to their readers and if they do indeed publish future works I would be interested to see how it is presented.
2. Give a clear explanation of the book’s title.
The title of the book When Rabbit Howls offers a distinct look into why the book was written. As a child the selves of Truddi Chase endured horrendous sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. The abuse began when the first self was three and continued on into her teenage years. Truddi Chase disassociated into separate selves as a way to cope with the hideous things that were happening to her. Some of the selves evolved into individuals that remain with Truddi Chase to this day. Miss Wonderful is the perfectionist self. Elvira loves to party and take risks. Mean Joe is the strong, tall, protector of the others. Nails is able to take an incredible amount of emotions and hold them. Ten-Four and Lady Catherine are both witty, sophisticated businesswomen. Then among the others is Rabbit.
Rabbit is a young child that suffered significant sexual abuse. Rabbit is the self that never fully evolved. Rabbit only screams and cries in pain. The book revolves around the life and therapy of the Troops and the relationship each member forms with their therapist known Dr. Robert A. Phillips Jr. (known to the Troop members as “Stanley”). Of all the people living in Truddi Chase one grabs the attention of the reader. When rabbit howls, the reader knows that not only are the selves being revealed but also the pain associated with the abuse is being explored and finally dealt with.
3. Explain the central conflict faced by the book’s main character(s).
The central conflict in When Rabbit Howls is not simply defined. Because of the complexity of the Troops, it is difficult for the reader to identify the one problem or one area that needs improvement. Unfortunately this book does not present conflicts in a simple way. There are many conflicts, even central conflicts that the main characters face. The one that seems to be most difficult for the Troops to resolve is finding an effective way to cope with the effects of the trauma they have experienced throughout their lives.
4. How is the conflicted resolved by the book’s conclusion?
To many who read When Rabbit Howls it would seem as though the conflict is not resolved because even at the end of the book the Troops still exist (and still do exist) for Truddi Chase. In Sybil (by Flora Rheta Schreiber), a book that is similar in subject matter and therefore often compared to When Rabbit Howls, the selves eventually combine to help Sybil function as one. This does not happen in When Rabbit Howls. Instead the therapist, who becomes an essential to the healing of the Troops, encourages that she embrace each of the personalities and find out what their purposes are. Each personality has their own memories, desires, talents, thoughts...and are viewed throughout the book as separate beings, and because of this; the idea that they will be connected is not hopeful. When Rabbit Howls does bring a different kind hope to its readers. It brings a comfort simply in being a direct, honest look into multiple personality disorder, a subject that is often neglected in the literary world due to its complications.
5. State an important life lesson (theme) that this book teaches
In this book, the Troops for Truddi Chase teach many valuable lessons. Each self brings a different message to the reader because each self has a different reason for existance. The overall message is clear and runs parallel with the timeless cliché "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." That holds true for this book. When Rabbit Howls also shows clearly that people do unique things to survive traumatic situations, and survival should be respected regardless of how misunderstood or eccentric it may seem. It is important to avoid labeling the Troops as evidence of mental illness, but instead viewing them as important evidence of survival.
1. Would you read another book by this same author? Explain why or why not.
If given the opportunity, I would read another book written by the Troops for Truddi Chase. It is however, important for any reader of this book to understand that the authorship belongs to the selves of Truddi Chase, and because of this, the book may prove difficult to read. Their writing style is unique not only because it is written from the perspective of those living in the world of multiple personality disorder but because the authors themselves bring incredible, personal insight into what the daily life of a multiple reflects. They each have something special to offer to their readers and if they do indeed publish future works I would be interested to see how it is presented.
2. Give a clear explanation of the book’s title.
The title of the book When Rabbit Howls offers a distinct look into why the book was written. As a child the selves of Truddi Chase endured horrendous sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. The abuse began when the first self was three and continued on into her teenage years. Truddi Chase disassociated into separate selves as a way to cope with the hideous things that were happening to her. Some of the selves evolved into individuals that remain with Truddi Chase to this day. Miss Wonderful is the perfectionist self. Elvira loves to party and take risks. Mean Joe is the strong, tall, protector of the others. Nails is able to take an incredible amount of emotions and hold them. Ten-Four and Lady Catherine are both witty, sophisticated businesswomen. Then among the others is Rabbit.
Rabbit is a young child that suffered significant sexual abuse. Rabbit is the self that never fully evolved. Rabbit only screams and cries in pain. The book revolves around the life and therapy of the Troops and the relationship each member forms with their therapist known Dr. Robert A. Phillips Jr. (known to the Troop members as “Stanley”). Of all the people living in Truddi Chase one grabs the attention of the reader. When rabbit howls, the reader knows that not only are the selves being revealed but also the pain associated with the abuse is being explored and finally dealt with.
3. Explain the central conflict faced by the book’s main character(s).
The central conflict in When Rabbit Howls is not simply defined. Because of the complexity of the Troops, it is difficult for the reader to identify the one problem or one area that needs improvement. Unfortunately this book does not present conflicts in a simple way. There are many conflicts, even central conflicts that the main characters face. The one that seems to be most difficult for the Troops to resolve is finding an effective way to cope with the effects of the trauma they have experienced throughout their lives.
4. How is the conflicted resolved by the book’s conclusion?
To many who read When Rabbit Howls it would seem as though the conflict is not resolved because even at the end of the book the Troops still exist (and still do exist) for Truddi Chase. In Sybil (by Flora Rheta Schreiber), a book that is similar in subject matter and therefore often compared to When Rabbit Howls, the selves eventually combine to help Sybil function as one. This does not happen in When Rabbit Howls. Instead the therapist, who becomes an essential to the healing of the Troops, encourages that she embrace each of the personalities and find out what their purposes are. Each personality has their own memories, desires, talents, thoughts...and are viewed throughout the book as separate beings, and because of this; the idea that they will be connected is not hopeful. When Rabbit Howls does bring a different kind hope to its readers. It brings a comfort simply in being a direct, honest look into multiple personality disorder, a subject that is often neglected in the literary world due to its complications.
5. State an important life lesson (theme) that this book teaches
In this book, the Troops for Truddi Chase teach many valuable lessons. Each self brings a different message to the reader because each self has a different reason for existance. The overall message is clear and runs parallel with the timeless cliché "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." That holds true for this book. When Rabbit Howls also shows clearly that people do unique things to survive traumatic situations, and survival should be respected regardless of how misunderstood or eccentric it may seem. It is important to avoid labeling the Troops as evidence of mental illness, but instead viewing them as important evidence of survival.
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