Hunted down
The fire of the previous fall carried me forward with increasing intensity into early 1983. I continued adding to my professional skills by taking a course at a local university with a friend from work, in the Art of Supervising Others. Again, I still wasn’t sure where my career path would eventually lead me, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to add this to my resume.
I’d also met a man at one of the Cenacle retreats who was from my town and very pleasant to spend time with. While it was a sometimes thing and not serious, we both enjoyed going out to fine restaurants, so we got to explore a number of them over the coming months.
And I continued to spend some time camping with my friend’s family, enjoying the solitude of the woods. At least, until I was hunted down…
A few of us had headed out to shop for supper items and had a peaceful day visiting a number of local farm markets. Nothing like a local farm stand to get the best large juicy tomatoes fresh off the vine, crisp summer squash, and sweet corn just in from the field. Driving down the dirt path into the woods, we made our way back to the campsite.
While we were gone, the others had chopped firewood and gathered kindling. As we unpacked the car, one of them said, “Your father was here.”
I started laughing, assuming he was joking. Until I looked at his face. He was dead serious and said again, “No, really. He and your mother came by.”
I froze where I stood. So many emotions shot through me I wasn’t sure which one to react to first. Fear? Rage? Disbelief? Guilt, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong?
“Where is he?!” I could barely get the words out as I spun around, frantically looking for the “threat.” I would have felt less terror to hear there was a bear behind me. At least the bear BELONGED there.
“They left. They headed back home.”
The first emotion, disbelief, centered around two facts. One, my friend’s property was a FOUR-HOUR drive from my house. That meant that my father spent an entire day just to drive up there and then drive home.
The other fact was that my father had no idea where this property was. It was literally an hour or so from the Canadian border, and our campsite was deep in the middle of forty acres of forest. While he knew the name of the town nearby, still, how in God’s name did he even know where to find us?
As that question formed in my brain, it also tumbled out of my mouth.
My friends answered, “He apparently found the town, then said he was trying to meet up with friends and asked around for directions. People knew about the property and told him how to get here.”
For several moments, I was speechless as I stared at all of them. I could feel their eyes on me, seeming uncertain what to say next. For sure, they saw I was upset.
I felt embarrassed that “Daddy and Mommy” were here checking on their 27-year-old daughter like I was some pre-teen on a school camping trip, and they needed to see who was chaperoning.
My mind also flashed to my father’s innuendoes about my spending time with married friends. I’m sure he thought we were having some orgy in the woods, and I was suddenly red-hot with rage. How dare he intrude on my weekend!
But worst of all, I felt terrified. There seemed to be no place far enough away, or anything I could ever do, where he wouldn’t track me down if he decided to do so. He was showing me his reach would stretch as far as he chose, and that he had power over me, no matter where I was.
“He asked where you were, and we told him you were out shopping.”
Apparently, since he could see this was nothing more than a family group — adults, kids, dogs at a campsite — he just told them to say hi to me, then left and headed home. For the four-hour drive back.
My friends tried to smooth it over and just kind of joked about it, but I was black with rage and despair. Would I EVER have a life of my own?
The Realtor
It is a total blank in my memory as to what, if anything, was said about his “surprise visit.” Probably nothing more than some passing comment about “being out for a ride and stopping by to see where the place was.” I can’t remember. All I know is that the rage I felt wasn’t going away. But as Viktor Frankl said in his book, keep my own counsel and my own thoughts deep within me, and just keep going. So I did.
It helped that the other thing I’d been busy with that spring was speaking with a relative who was a licensed realtor. Given that I had some idea of what I might afford, I went to her for help in finding a property I could buy.
She was extremely helpful in explaining just what kinds of homes were available in town, and that many of them were to be avoided. Frankly, I owe her a lot because she convinced me to steer clear of the old 3-family houses that were expensive and would need a lot of upkeep and repair. “You don’t want or need that headache and expense,” she warned me.
While it was discouraging to hear that at that moment there wasn’t anything in my price range, she said she would keep looking and let me know. In the meantime, I would just keep saving my money.
A vacation of my own
That’s when the Universe provided me with a reprieve.
All my life, I loved ancient history. Stories of the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. I longed to stand in the Colosseum, minus any lions, and to walk the streets of Pompeii while glimpsing the sleeping volcano of Vesuvius on the horizon.
Scanning the Sunday paper that spring weekend, I spotted this:
I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Imagine standing before the balcony of Juliet, where Romeo wooed her. The canals of Venice, the art of Florence, and the shopping in Milan. I let myself dream for a moment before starting to reject the idea as out of the question.
Then I caught myself and remembered the lessons of my retreats. What were my goals? What did I want out of life? What was possible, right now? And what mental attitudes were stopping me from making my dreams a reality?
So I went back to the ad and scrutinized it. It was everything I’d ever wanted in a trip, and it was a price I could actually afford. Yes, I would have to dip into my house savings, but this seemed totally worth it.
And I needed something like this. This was that chance for me to do what I said I wanted – to go on my OWN vacations now. And I was so worn out by everything at home, as evidenced by my passport photo, that 11 days in Europe would be divine.
As to any hurdles, there were none I could come up with. Even though I didn’t speak Italian or know how to get around in Italy, I didn’t have to. It was a tour group led by guides who knew the language, the country, and how to get around. It was a church group out of Springfield, Massachusetts, that was going, which meant it wasn’t so far from me that I couldn’t make it work. The bottom line was…there was NOTHING wrong with this trip. I could do it…If I really wanted to.
So, that was it. I was going. My only concern left was if they still had open slots. It turned out that this wasn’t a problem. There were several openings to share a room with other solo travelers. And they were having a meeting in a couple of weeks up in Springfield to give everyone more information on logistics, as well as on the various places we would visit.
The people I met were lovely. Mostly older. No, this wasn’t a trip designed for wild romance, but I didn’t care one bit. This was a life bucket list item, and I didn’t care who was going as long as I could join them.
We took a bus to Boston, flew to New York, and then departed that night for Rome. We flew on a 747 whose engines — those JT9Ds I knew about from my father because his company built them — roared as we lifted off, surging with a power I’d never felt before.
I didn’t sleep at all, just kept looking out the window, and watching the approaching dawn in the sky as we crossed time zones. And I spent the next 11 days reveling in history, food, museums, shopping, and friends. I met up with a woman who was traveling with her daughter, a young woman about my age, and her elderly mother, who was visiting Italy for the first time since she’d left at 16. They sort of adopted me into their group, and we just clicked. The entire time was WONDERFUL and pure joy.
I have never regretted choosing to do that trip. It was meant to be. And it reinforced everything the Sisters at the retreat said could be possible when you take charge of your life…including the fact that God expected us to give ourselves some fun along the way.
It annoyed me when I returned that the question most people asked me was, “Did you meet anybody?” And when I said, “No,” they shrugged the experience off as a failure. It was as if I didn’t find my life’s soul mate, then any experiences were worthless. But I drew from the retreat lessons again — be self-directed, find your happiness from within, and don’t worry about other people’s opinions.
In fact, very shortly after I returned, I went for a day retreat there. When I returned, I was REALLY down. Having to come back into that house, that atmosphere, to him, was almost too much to bear. So I went for a day’s reflection.
You have to get out now
I had things to decide. Be a nun? Stick with my job? Move? Or…buy the condo my relative had found…
While I was away, she had heard from a fellow realtor that there was a brand new set of condos being built not far from the hospital. Because it was a risk — they were just building them on speculation, hoping there would be interested buyers — the initial price was low…low enough for me. So as soon as I was back, she let me know, and I went to see that realtor. My reaction was to do it. But I needed time to think. So a day at the Cenacle was perfect for that.
I can’t say that the heavens opened and God spoke. In fact, the day was one of a vague inner turmoil, like bubbling lava rising in a volcano. But it was the moment shortly after I got home that God did speak.
Standing in the room alone upstairs, staring bleakly out the window, I got the message:
“You have to get out now. It’s time. If you don’t get out now, you’ll never get out.”
It felt so real, I actually spun around to see if someone was there. But I was alone. But…maybe I wasn’t. I can’t speak to the existence of those Guardian Angels the nuns used to tell us about in school, but I swear it was like one was whispering in my ear.
Whatever that was, real or not, an angel or my gut, I never questioned it then, and I have never questioned it since. I simply accepted it as my path and made my decision. The voice said what I knew to be true. I had to get out now. I couldn’t risk losing this chance.
So I visited the realtor and put the deposit down, sight unseen, except for the plans. I drove by it and could see the construction. It was due to be ready by November. And while there was no guarantee that the complex would succeed, the risk was worth it. My feeling was that I was young. I would buy it, and if it wasn’t right, I could always find something else later. The Universe had brought me to this, so that was it. I was the first person to sign on for that complex.
I am eternally grateful to my relative, who forfeited any commission to send me to someone who could help me. Thank you, forever, to her.
In reality, I was someone not ready for life compared to my peers. I was like a person unable to swim. But the hell with it all. I was going to move forward anyway and figure out the rest later. I would jump off the dock of life into the deep water, no matter what happened. It was time to sink or swim.
The VERY LAST STRAW
If I had any last doubts, those evaporated quickly. About the same time as my return from the trip and my visit to the Cenacle, there was yet another Saturday fight between my parents. Or rather, the fight my father inflicted on my mother.
I was upstairs in my room and could hear him yelling. I heard her try to answer, then I heard his voice rise in full rage and heard the sound of someone falling to the floor.
Running down the stairs, I saw my father looming over my mother, who was crouched on the floor. His fist was raised, and in that split second, I was overcome by such a level of fury that I’d never experienced before.
Seeing my mother on the floor absolutely enraged me and snapped me out of my usual “dead zone” that I went to out of fear. In that moment, I felt no fear at all. And whatever issues I had with my mother in life, no one wants to see their mother beaten down and demeaned like that!
I rushed forward to stop him before he hit her and said to him in full anger, “YOU NEED HELP!”
That’s when he turned his rage on me. Grabbing me by the throat, he shoved me against the wall….like so many times, over so many years.
But it didn’t matter. I was filled with such rage at him that I think if I’d had a weapon, I might have used it on him. Somehow, though, I managed to stay in control and not escalate the situation, and he stormed out of the house.
But THAT MOMENT was the ABSOLUTE last straw. At that moment, something broke in me. I knew this would never end, she would never leave him, and I was going down the tubes if I stayed.
His words, years earlier, “You are most like your Mother,” ran through my head along with my own mantra: Don’t grow up to be my mother. If I stayed, her reality would be my future.
I don’t know what drove his rage toward her. He married the type of woman he wanted – compliant. But then it seems after a while, he didn’t want that. Or maybe he no longer knew WHAT he wanted. And certainly he, they, were never going to get help.
It didn’t matter. I only knew that I was done with it all. I knew, given my secrets, that no one could ever love me. But it didn’t matter. All I wanted now was to live in a place of my own, in peace and quiet, and that would be enough. It was time.
The postscript
As a postscript to this entry, when I sketched this, I flashed on the last conversation I had with Dad before he died. That was the one where he talked about his life and how he always wanted to “stand for something.”
I remember thinking of this moment in time, and it was all I could do not to say, “Oh yeah? Well, when are you going to start?!”
Instead, I just left him to God.
Soul Mosaic 
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