ME... 20 Years Later - Part II

I stayed at the helm for the next five years, directing 11 productions and nearly 100 people.  I was invited by Eve Ensler to represent Canada at V-Day's 10th anniversary in New Orleans, was named one of Toronto's Mille Femmes, produced and directed two of Eve's shows in Toronto that have never been allowed as part of V-Day anywhere else in the world, and was nominated for a YWCA Woman of Distinction Award twice.  I am not citing these things to play myself up.  I'm citing them as an example of what can happen when a horrific, life-altering experience gives you more fortitude than you ever knew you had.  That is why I can say, without hesitation, that what happened to me in the snow 20 years ago tonight was not only the worst experience of my life, but my most valuable life experience and the one for which I am most boundlessly thankful.

There is something indescribable that happens when someone attempts to kill your soul, when they take from you that which you have not given and leave you shattered.  What is done to your body, for all of its trauma, is the least of it.  I have said many times that being a rape victim is like receiving a dishonorable discharge from your own life, and I still can't think of a more apt way to describe it.  Imagine looking in the mirror everyday and seeing an impostor staring back.  To go through that experience is to spend the next undetermined period of time walking around desperately in search of yourself.  The longer it takes, the less you remember who that person actually is.  It is terrifying. Because you know that on the day you finally forget, your mind might break and there may be no coming back.

However there is something ELSE that happens - equally indescribable - that is wildly powerful and extraordinary.  Another realm of your being opens up.  It sometimes cannot be seen for years because it is so obscured by heartache, but when it is finally accessible, it is miraculous.  It is profound connection to one's intuition and one's raw self in a way that rocks you to your foundation.  It is a lessening of the noise than can distract you from the stillness that is you.  It is the increased inability to live in a way that doesn't feel authentic to who you are.  

When I took over V-Day I came to understand -- with heartstopping clarity -- the purpose of what had happened to me.  I couldn't have foreseen in 1992 that in 2006 I would have the opportunity to guide the telling of so many survivors' stories in so many beautiful theatrical pieces.  I never could have known back when I swallowed a bottle of pills and then made myself throw them up that one day so many actors would sit opposite me on my couch and confide in me their own experiences.  I never could have known that I would get letters from complete strangers saying "Thank you for that show. It happened to me too." And I never could've imagined being stopped by a woman on the street asking "Are you the person who directed A Memory A Monologue A Rant and A Prayer? It changed my life."

It is just after 10 p.m.  At this exact moment in 1992 I was at home, out of the shower after trying to scrub away a memory that would very soon disappear on its own for several months.  The mind is an incredible thing.  It will protect itself until it can handle allowing trauma back in.  Pure grace.  Today, I understand immense joy and immense pain, and am intimately acquainted with their origins and their consequences.  I know that my purpose on the planet is to create art that illuminates and explores the intricacies of both.  I think daily of girls and women who are raped and then murdered, and I am grateful for my life.  But I don't believe that I survived because God was with me.  I have always had a deep-seated problem with that concept, for its very wording implies that God was not with those who have died in similar circumstances.  I would never, could never, for a moment believe that a loving God -- if one exists -- wanted me to live and another woman to die.  I believe I survived because I was fortunate, and I leave it at that.  Others can interpret that fortune however they choose.

Two decades after my experience, I do not know who the man was that raped me.  The police speculated many years ago that he may have been someone who is in prison for similar and worse crimes, but I have never received certainty.  For over a decade I would sit on the bus or stand on the subway wondering if it was him, or him, or him.  People have asked me if it's hard to live without closure.  There is never closure, only acceptance and forward motion.  Now I simply see my attacker as a societal construct -- the fragments of many damaged, broken men and boys.  I have forgiven him.  And I hope if he is alive, wherever he is, that he has healed from the devastating blow to his own soul that made it possible for him to do what he did to mine.

There are many people reading this whom, whether they know it or not, have played a role in my healing for which I will be eternally thankful.  My BEAUTIFUL family (you will always be my lighthouse), my cherished friends, my wonderful teachers and mentors, everyone who has ever made music or theatre with me, and everyone who has ever inspired me to write, sing, act, direct or create in any way.  You kept my heart beating when it was too weak to beat for itself, and held my hand on the road to strong.  I cannot thank you enough.

What happened to me cost me a lot.  Happiness.  Love.  Strength.  Peace.  I would not wish it on anyone; it took so much time from me and I feel everyday that I am playing catch-up with my life.  But it also gave me a lot.  Happiness.  Love.  Strength.  Peace.  I was always a very introspective and pensive girl, but I became a much deeper well.  And it gave me passion - the greatest gift - the greatest guide.  Whether I am passionate about a cause, a song, a project, a person... I feel it inhabit me now in a way that I never could before.  When you are removed from your spirit and your flesh for years and you find your way back into those things, you experience them in a whole new way.  Passion... purpose... play... therein lies Peace.  For me. For now.  For always.

20 Years.  I still cry, fear, stumble.  I'm poor and struggle to make ends meet. But I still draw breath; he didn't take that from me.  I'm here and I'm standing.  Happy Anniversary to me.

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ME... 20 Years Later is dedicated to the memory of Jessica Lloyd and Kristen French.

Return to PART I.