by Sherry Peterson
How to begin again.
And again.
And again.
I am four months old in the womb. Floating in oblivion.
Everyone who came before is with me. Floating. Whispering their stories. The old stories playing out on repeat. What limited joy there was left behind in empty cradles, handwoven blankets, cupped bowls.
Across rivers, lakes, seas, oceans. In paddle boats, sailing ships, steamers.
Through forests, across frozen barren steppes, vacant prairies. On foot, horseback, with sleds, covered wagons, on trains, in automobiles.
Daughter of the women trailing in long skirts, dragging their XX chromosomes with them. Following husbands. Learning to make soap from lye, ash, tallow. Lathering linens in metal tubs. Hanging them out to dry. Sweeping. Mopping. Kneading bread. Preserving. Conserving. Serving. Trading freedom for the illusion of protection and provision. Baby, after, baby after baby.
Nothing is ever permanent. In a parenthesis of a moment, change always happens. Often subtle. Sometimes, catastrophic–clutched stomach, tightened fists–pressing a beating heart that will not stop. Until the face in the mirror, the furrows, the wrinkles, the graying hair are yours. Leaning in forehead to forehead.
Suddenly, in nine months I will be 70. Living longer than my grandma, my mother, my daughter.
Living with the shards of sexual abuse inherited generation to generation. The sound of belt hitting skin before the sting, the pain, the raised welts, the bruises. The voice of here comes trouble, fat ass, stupid, whore like your mother.
With his multiple marriages, bigamies, prejudices, callous disregard for the welfare of his children living with him, what did that make my father? Thankfully, no one compared me to my father while I longed for my mother to return, to save me. For anyone to save me. For the slice of a knife, the letting of blood, a handful of pills to release me.
To have chosen a different womb.
I seek the way forward. Suitcase open. Strewing undergarments, shirts, shorts, pants, skirts, suits, dresses behind me until I am naked as the day I was born.
Taking the blanket from my backpack, I swaddle myself. Sit back against a tree. Sing the new me into being.
In the undercurrent of sorrow, there is wisdom. There is a heart still open.
There is me.
This time, birthing myself.
Sherry Peterson has been working on her memoir for the past 30+ years. Someday it will be finished.