My birthday is this Wednesday. I celebrate my life, and the tiny inner voice that whispers guidance and truth.
Luck is one reason that I am still living, There no other way to explain how I survived some situations.
At 9, I knelt and peered down, many hundreds of feet, into a deep dark turbine shaft under construction. My father lunged to grab me and prevent a tragic fall.
As a junior and senior in college, I hitchhiked in Manhattan, reasoning that even if abducted, there would be a red light so I could escape. Nothing ever happened.
At 19, I worked as a barmaid in a pub in Gibraltar. One night, I fell off the wagon and drank 9 vodka and lime cocktails. I blacked out because vodka always does that to me, The pub bouncer walked me home and I was put to bed safely by my roommate. Nothing happened to me from that night save a hangover,.
At 20, working Sunday mornings in a florist’s shop on 1st Avenue in Manhattan, wrapping single roses used as promotional items, one of my bosses offered me a modeling job. I eagerly accepted, ignoring the tiny inner voice, and one night, I rode with him to his apartment that was somewhere in New York City. No one knew where I was. It turned out he wanted me to pose naked for pornographic pictures. I was outraged and shocked to see pornography for the first time. He accepted my refusal to pose, and then insisted that I service him sexually because all the talk and photographs had made him aroused. (In the late 1960s. and 1970s, I had been taught that men’s sexual needs were a woman’s responsibility, and had to be satisfied.) I took off my clothes. He spread my legs to look at me because he said he’d never seen a virgin before. (I had lied about that, and probably saved myself from rape.). He buried his face in me, and after a while, got up to go get a towel. When he returned he made me sit on his face while I massaged him to his climax. Then we got dressed and he drove me back to the dormitory, where all of us nursing students stayed. I was numb. I asked him if he had done that because I was White (he was Black). He said no. When he dropped me off, I kissed his cheek goodbye and then went in. I took the world’s longest hot shower, thinking about all the other girls sleeping quietly in their dorm rooms, while I had had this experience. Again, I was lucky to escape worse treatment.
At 31, I escaped getting herpes by a mere few weeks when the relationship I was in ended. I had been with that man for nearly 4 years. 3 weeks after we started dating, his addictions and self-centeredness were obvious, yet again I ignored that tiny inner voice and held up my end of our relationship with codependency.
I am sure that there are many other ways that I have been lucky. I have learned to spend time in stillness and meditation and to listen to that tiny inner voice. I imagine another 20 years to see my grandchildren become adults. May the luck continue!!!
