Another Door
I’m always aware of anniversaries, even before I’m aware that I’m aware. Dated memories tap, knock, and finally pound until I look up and open the door to them.
I heard the memories knocking as April began, knew in the back of my mind, or maybe actually in all my cells, that the anniversary was coming up, but I was busy in the present, as much as one can be in the present when memoir-revision is always on her desk.
On the night of April 11, 2007, Lee was arrested for hitting me. He only ever came home again (with approved-third-party supervision) to retrieve his things, bound by a restraining order.
Despite busy-ness, the knocking persists. What is that sound? It makes me uncomfortable. How can so many unresolved feelings still lie in wait?
Last Wednesday, I received a request from a woman who wanted me to talk to her women’s group about domestic violence. Her scheduled speaker had cancelled due to a health problem.
Yes, I’ll do it.
I realized later that I had just committed to speak on April 11, four years after I made that 9-1-1 call.
I told the group about the synchronicity.
And the memories keep knocking now–lunch with a longtime friend of Lee’s last Saturday. A a phone call yesterday from another friend of Lee’s who’d moved away. Dreams.
I open the door to the memories, but once it’s open, I can walk through it, too. I can step into another room. I can step outside.
The events of April 11, 2007 marked the end of the world as I knew it.
Speaking to a group of 45 women about those events on April 11, 2011 marked the end of the world as I knew it. Again.
And I feel fine.
How about some R.E.M. to celebrate?
