This is a story I have to tell because it is no great exaggeration to say that the rest of my life will be affected by what happened to me on May 5, 2002 and if you're going to be any part of my life you might want to know how it and I will be different.
Thus, this will not be a typical Deborah Chronicles; I have been collecting cute little stories designed to make you laugh, but they will have to wait. However, please keep in mind that my love of and capacity for laughter remains intact. It's just that, hmmm, you see I was, errr, I shouldn't have, well he shouldn't have, how to say this? Well, let me just bring out the climax of the story right now. Despite all actions, I'm alive. Not fully functioning, but alive. This is not an overstatement.
Sunday, May 5th in New Orleans — enjoying the fourth and final day of my fifth New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Incredible music, incredible food, incredible friends. Midday, trying to snatch pieces of Rosie Ledet & the Zydeco Playboys, The Dudes (formerly known as the Subdudes), and Corey Harris — who are all playing at the same time — while contemplating getting the hot afternoon favorite Mango Freeze. Missing Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys because I'm catching Walter "Wolfman" Washington & the Roadmasters, Sherman Washington & the Zion Harmonizers, Aaron Neville singing gospel, and slurping a dozen (+) raw oysters during Percussion, Inc. Ending the evening battling with the decision on whether to watch John Mooney & Bluesiana or The Neville Brothers (so spending time with both) and reluctantly missing out altogether on Chris Ardouin & Double Clutchin' and The Radiators. But finishing out the Festival by grabbing a bread pudding with praline sauce (extra, please!) before meeting up with friends to leave the fairgrounds. Enjoying a softshell crab dinner with the two of them before heading back to the French Quarter hotel solo to organize, pack, and try for an early wake-up the next morning to eat Cafe du Monde beignets one last time and do a few things in the French Quarter before my plane leaves at noonish.
I drive the rental car back to the hotel and search for parking. The two previous nights I had found free, legal parking within 1-2 blocks of the hotel, so being the frugal woman I am, I try again. Except it's 10pm, not the 3am I previously operated under. Circling, not finding anything, resisting the high paying opportunities for parking out of misplaced principle, and reaching in a direction previously avoided — Rampart Street. Ah, look, a parking place, legal, free til morning, and only two blocks from the hotel! I gather my festival support goodies and head down the street. Uh oh, the empty street, the street without any hotels, any restaurants, any bars, any stores. Only two blocks. I begin to get an uneasy feeling. Walking on the left sidewalk, I pull away from the buildings, almost walking in the street, so that no one can unexpectedly hide behind a building wall and pull me in. I try to alert my Washington street sense. But I forget to look to my right. I don't know why, but I forget to check to my right. And that's where he comes from, behind me, on an angle from the right.
A voice speaks directly behind my head, I can't hear what he is saying. I am only one block now from my hotel, now he is next to me, his right hand is between my shoulder and the strap of my bag. He repeats what he had said, something to the effect of "I am taking your purse." It is said without an accent, without slurring, clearly, firmly, with great intent, but not meanly.
My reaction is without a single thought, without a moment's breath. My reaction forgets whatever I have read about safe conduct. My reaction forgets about screaming, about yielding, about running. My reaction forgets whatever I have regularly fantasized about disabling a man, kneeing groins, stomping insteps, poking eyes. My reaction forgets that my money and credit cards are not even in the bag, they are in a pocket. My reaction forgets that I am a 5'1" female alone. My reaction is simply, "No!" It is not a whimpering No, not a pleading No, not a questioning No, it is a No of Indignance, a No that seeks to remind the offender that taking my bag is not correct behavior, nor will it be tolerated. And in case the "No" is not sufficient it is accompanied with a battling action for this bag. That is the last I remember, holding onto the bag and giving him a bit of a fight. That, and blue, for unknown reasons I associate this moment with blue. He was wearing blue, my bag was blue, the moment, the movement was all blue.
And later I understand that my face became blue. The left side completely swollen, a completely round deep bruise encircling my left eye, another bruise at the left of my mouth, my lip even having striped marks, dark on the inside (and days later — maybe even a week later, I figure out I am missing a dental splint that held together teeth on the lower left side). My head was bleeding on the right in the back (I am still dealing with the scabs and flakes). My only indication of how bad I looked is that my friend Elisa, a high-achieving woman of strong caliber and rarely flapped by anything, seeing me maybe 5-6 hours after the attack, fainted at the sight (thoughtfully away from me). Yet, all of these are hardly life-threatening proof — certainly not delightful or desirable -- but not an indicator of the extent of the assault.
As I finally came to understand, the worst is that my brain was harshly injured. Picture your brain as an entity floating blithely in fluid inside your skull. Now imagine — because of outside factors — it being slammed against your skull in several places hard enough to bleed internally, to bruise, and to swell like crazy. That's my brain. Deborah, a woman who has lived off of her brain, who presents herself to the world through her brain, whose only place of true security and confidence is in her brain, now has to accept she's going to have to live somewhere else for now, for awhile, for maybe a long time. The brain is just not functioning correctly.
I cannot drive. I am just learning how to walk steadily again. I cannot lean over without a problem. I cannot have my head change any position without an accompanying weird movement of the world. I forget a lot, including some words. I don't seem to have emotions, but I cry for reasons that elude me. My taste and smell are not wonderfully acute. I had a seizure — not a body jerking drop to the ground seizure, just one where I lost use of language that other people also knew — so now I have to take a twice daily anti-convulsant medicine. I — who lives to drink tons of water — have to watch my intake of fluids now because it is somehow related to a dangerously lowered sodium level and I can't really understand all of this in the Deborah way I'd like to because I don't have Deborah's brain! I am limited. My comprehension has limitations of language, of retaining thoughts, of being tired, and sometimes, of headaches. I can't read the novels that used to make my day so fun. I am just now starting to understand the news. I don't seem to have boundaries of what is appropriate to say and what is not. And yet, I seem to be able to write. I can't do anything physical really. Yet, my body is fine. But, my brain is not. And I have to summon large amounts of patience to let it recover at its own speed.
So much is still unknown. Did he hit me once and I just fell straight back and slammed into concrete? No, how did I get bruises at the eye and the mouth? Did he hit me once and I kept coming? Did I fall and start to get back up? Why was there no other apparent bruises, or scratches, or bleeding on my body? Why was one of my earrings on the left side found out of the ear (which was not torn) and embedded in my hair? How long did I lay in the street unconscious? Or was that where I was found? When was I found? By whom?
My next memory is that I am lying in either the street or on the sidewalk. There is a woman kneeling to my left and a man standing by my right foot. I see yellow. There is an ambulance (I think) to my right. My memory holds the number five, as if there were five people rescuing me. But apparently I didn't understand I was being rescued; I physically fought them. I fought them with such a vigor that I have a still-healing mark on my wrist where they had to tie my hands up. I remember a battle to apply an oxygen mask and my exclaiming my claustrophobia. I know that I went in and out of consciousness. I know that I repeatedly vomited in the ambulance and the Emergency Room. And, disgustingly, the color of this part of the memory is highly affected by the vomit, which perhaps was infused with blood because I still see, an orangish pinkish flood of fluid.
I know many of you are wondering if I was sexually assaulted. I can say with nearly 100% certainty I was not. I assume the New Orleans hospital checked me for this and I know the folks in Massachusetts did. I have no physical indicators of such. But I do want to know from the ambulance people how I looked when they found me.
I had two hospitalizations, one in New Orleans and one in Northampton, MA. Thank goodness I had Elisa in New Orleans and my sister Nina in Northampton to be my advocates, my set of ears, my set of hands, and my loving comfort. There is a lot I don't remember. Except what happened whenever my head was moved — you cannot imagine how much a world can move in your poor vision and be physically felt in your head.
The irony is that this past year, I had vowed to build the under-developed parts of me — my emotional, my spiritual, my artistic, my very being — to match my over-developed intellectual side. And now I have no choice because I am supposed to let my brain be, let it rest, let it heal. So, somehow, I need to look at a beautiful scene and not say, "Gee, I think that's pretty," which seems such a statement of the brain's approval, but to feel its beauty in a non-brain involved way. This is likely an experience many of you have without even knowing it is desired and somehow to be attained by a brain-primary soul. Help me.
And admire the bravery of that last request because it is taking more out of me than traveling alone for eight months did. I'll need to learn dependence and, most of all, comfort with dependence. I, who has achieved amazing heights in Being Alone, Living Alone, Doing Alone. Who has excelled in Independence. My lifestyle will be completely different now. For example, not driving isn't that big of a deal since I live in town and near the bus line, but at the moment, I can't even walk to the bus stop! One of you local friends (or the taxi service) will be involved in ALL my business now. Can you imagine how hard this is for me to absorb?!
But amazingly, absorbing the understanding, the clear mandate, that my main business is my health has taken place. I, who for most of my adult life has claimed that Love is one's primary business, now clearly remembers a moment in an office, many years ago, when my friend Judith responded in passing to my comment that Love was the most important thing in the world that she always thought Health was. I didn't believe her. And while I have clearly spent much desire and effort on acquiring romantic love, that's not all I meant. I meant all the Love life offers -- the love from a sweet newborn to the love of an ancient relative and all the friendly Love in between.
But as vital and as wonderful as all Love is, it is possible for belief systems to change. I see that I can dance without Love, I can hike without Love, I can climb mountains and rappel off of them, paddle canoes and kayaks, swim heartily, explore worlds, travel widely, listen to live music til 3 am, all without Love. I can earn a living without Love, listen to the news, follow world and current events without Love, even strive to affect the world without Love. But with the current status of my health, I can do none of those things.
This is not to say I devalue Love — god no, or I wouldn't have made it this far in my recovery and will welcome any expression of it — but it no longer holds first place in my consideration right now. I have become, and will be until I am whole, the Health Queen.
So far the doctors have told me this. My damage is not permanent, but there is no knowing how long it will take to heal — 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years, or 2 decades. My job is to let my head rest. Tomorrow I start intensive physical therapy. Somehow I have to let go of looking for work. I have to let go of the entrepreneurial/community builder dream I was revving up for. I have to let go of building a consultant business. I have to let go of summer driving trips. I have to let go of dancing!! I have to let go of everything except regaining my Health.
Please know that I am adopting an unpracticed passive position with regard to the rest of the world. I want contact and communication with friends — geez, I'll need it — but I will no longer be an initiator, I may be slow in responding, and I'm going to have to learn how to be a taker. And know that my memory will be screwy, and I've no notion of what is and isn't OK to say and — quite obviously!! — have little regard for what is too long to read.
My final thought is this. I am happy to be alive. I am not beset with anger, fear, blame, or depression (of course, I don't have all my brain functioning either! hahaha!). And I am very grateful for a strong body, a strong will, and a wonderful world of friends. Just in case I don't survive whatever mishap I manage to find next time, please know I was in this world full of appreciation, affection, and the fufilling sense of being loved. Life is grand and I'm living it.
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