The Anniversary

Today is the sixth anniversary of one of the days my life ended and began again. I think of July 23rd as a kind of "birthday." Instead of retelling the story from scratch again, I will allow my words from last year to tell the story. I do so not only as a day of remembrance for myself, but as a silent observance for all women who have experienced violence.

Five years ago today, I stepped off of the subway in Brooklyn and much like today, dove into the city streets through the pouring rain of a gray, steamy day. It always rains on July 23rd in New York City. A half an hour later, my mother picked up the phone in Pennsylvania and received the phone call that every parent dreads. “Your daughter was attacked, but she’s alive…”

Still living outside of Philadelphia, I was excited to be returning to NYC for the following week to cat sit once again for a friend. The energy of the city had enchanted me and my love affair with it was still fresh, new and untainted. As I walked down the empty tree-lined street to my friend’s building, the lyrics to a song by singe/songwriter Charlotte Martin prophetically echoed in my head. “Every time it rains, I know it’s good to be alive / Every time it rains, I know I am trying to survive.”

As I approached the building and began to enter through the double glass doors, a stranger in a bright red t-shirt, who I would later rename “the Monster,” dashed up behind me and nodded to me as if to ask me to hold the door open so that he too could escape the crying sky. I did and that single decision set in motion an almost immediate series of events that forever, irrevocably changed my life.

It was a little after four in the afternoon as he and I quietly stood next to each other and waited for the elevator in the lobby. I glanced over at him, clearly seeing his face—a face soon never to be forgotten—and had no clue, no inkling at all, of the danger he possessed. As we both got on the elevator, I pressed the button for the floor of my friend’s apartment and he pressed the button for somewhere he did not really want to go. As the doors closed, he swiftly moved behind me, grabbed me from behind and with his thick, muscular arm, began to choke me. Stunned, I immediately did everything I could to free myself from his grasp, but to no avail. I tried to bite him; I tried to free my arms that were pinned to my body. I tried to kick him in the groin, but his baggy pants prevented my attempts. I tried to plunge my keys into his flesh, but he knocked them out of my hand. I tried to poke my fingers into his eyes, recalling every possible self defense tip I had ever heard. I grabbed at his head where the feel of his short hair and the curve of his ear became forever etched under my fingertips. With every move, he had a counter-move ready. Almost.

Like a horrific dance he had clearly choreographed before either in practice or in his mind, he pulled us both to the ground. Fortunately, I was still wearing my back-pack and in hindsight, was grateful that I had never adhered to the axiom of “packing light.” I landed on my back, like an upside down ladybug. With strength, flexibility and calmness being the gifts of a regular yoga practice and with no choice, I mentally moved past years of the kind of socialization that teaches that women in our culture not to hurt others no matter what and kicked him in the face repeatedly. He was not expecting the bottom of my sneaker to forcefully hit his nose almost as much as I was never expecting to have to kick someone in the face while he was attacking me. The close confines of the elevator heightened the intensity of those endless moments of the slow, hellish ride.

Angered that I had kicked him, he stood up and began to unbutton his pants. Realizing what he was planning next, I tried to comfort myself with the thought that whatever he did, I had to find a way to survive this. Just survive, I told myself over and over again. But, the burst of adrenaline that came from almost being raped turned my veins inside out and I fought harder and harder. As the elevator approached yet another floor with no one on the other side of the slowly opening and closing doors, my heart sank a little farther. I realized that it was going to be up to me only to get myself out of this. Or, I wouldn’t get out of it alive. I had a sudden flash of my mother finding my dead body in the elevator and had another jolt of energy to fight. I later learned that she was calling me at the very time the attack was happening.

The Monster then grabbed my throat with one strong hand and began to strangle me, while the other hand repeatedly punched my face. I had never been hit in the face by a man before and I found it as emotionally shocking as it was physically. Instead of resisting, my head flowed in the direction of every punch. Beginning to lose consciousness from not breathing and from being hit in the head so many times, I flailed my arms and legs as much as I could. The decisive moment was nearing. At the instant I was almost no longer able to fight, I glanced up at the ceiling of the elevator and thought how profoundly ugly it was and how I hoped it was not the last thing I saw. Miraculously, as the lights I saw were fading into darkness, I hit my hand against the elevator and touched one button without looking: the emergency buzzer. The noise startled him and he could not continue to punch me and strangle me at the same time, so he let go of my throat. I had thought of what I might say to him if I had the chance and uttered: “take my money, take my money…” The elevator doors were reaching another floor as he looked at me and appeared puzzled by my statement as if he had not thought of it before, grabbed my purse and dashed out of the elevator.

I wanted to run after him. I really liked that purse. But, my attempts were futile as I tried to pick myself up off the ground and was surprised to find that I could only crawl into the hallway, a bloody weak mess whose heart was beating out of her chest. But, alive. Still alive. I yelled in a loud whisper, the most sound I was capable of, “he tried to kill me, he tried to kill me.” A blond woman holding her young son who lived on the floor came to my rescue, the angelic antidote to the Monster.

The next several hours were a dizzying mix of a paramedics, police, doctors, x-rays, counseling, looking at mugshots and a journey home to Pennsylvania when my parents came to get me. The next six weeks left me feeling both fragile and invincible. As the physical bruises and scars healed, the emotional wounds were just coming to light. I had a victim’s services counselor who affirmed repeatedly that it was okay to felt bad about what happened, but after weeks of that, I wanted to know how to feel good again, how to even feel human again and how to trust. But, that process would take years.

Like many who experience trauma, I felt like I was on the other side of glass separated from the world by a wall that I could not get through. Over the next year, I grieved the innocence lost and wondered if the parts of who I was would resurrect themselves. They did not, but I grew anew. With descending into numbness the first year after it happened, I found all sorts of methods of self-destruction and people all too willing to participate. I so desperately wanted to feel something, anything other than what I was experiencing. This was only exacerbated by the event that pushed my soul into a new tailspin right when I was finding equilibrium. In December 2004, I saw the Monster again in the same neighborhood and more hauntingly, he saw me. In one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, I decided to cover up the instant recognition and smile at him as I walked by. But, he still got away again and a subsequent police stake out yielded only his evasion.

It wasn’t until the February of the following year when I ran away to Seattle at the invitation of a friend who knew by the sound of my voice after speaking only one word when I answered the phone that I began the healing process. In addition to having intensely spiritual experiences in a city that was as far away from NYC as I could find quickly, I crossed paths with an amazing therapist/life coach/doctor whose work with me transformed everything. It was the beginning of a long healing process that would reveal more about myself than I probably cared to know, but was a journey that had such a sense of delicious forward motion that I could not resist

While I question if I will ever be able to feel completely carefree again or to live with total abandon, I have gained infinitely precious gifts from the journey ignited by the attack. For as resilient as life is, it can disappear just as quickly and knowing this, my focus has become clearer. I am aware of my days and nights and how I spend them. I can no longer muster sincere interest in surface connections with people and revel in the dance of discovering people. I was surprised to find my photography talents right underneath my need to find beauty in the world once again after feeling ugliness around my throat. Every challenge leaves us with something to use to grow.

As I often have done on these anniversaries, I walked by the building where it happened this afternoon. This time, I walked up to the front door to see if my friend who I had lost touch with and the woman who rescued me still lived there. As I stood sheltered momentarily from the rain, a man came from within the building and nodded for me to hold the door for him to exit. I did, but only this time it was much like I now live—from the inside out.