An escape hatch for trauma
One of the answers to “How did I survive?” was: Moment-to-moment. One second, by one minute, by one hour, by one day. Some days, it was all I could do to just make it to bedtime and have a break from the violence. Never, never, never did I look too far down the road. THAT would have crushed me.
The other crucial item I used during those trauma times was a mental force field that I call “Moments of Respite.” Moments of Respite were for the many times when my world was being torn apart. They were the pain-relieving medicine that made enduring his torment possible. And they let me shield my nervous system by giving it a momentary distraction.
Moments of Respite were ALWAYS found in the details, whether sensory or physical. Details give the world its special beauty, and beauty is the perfect antidote to horror. Details are life’s adornments that bring order, calm, awe, mystery, and tranquility.
If you question whether overlooked tiny things have such power, consider this. You can draw a circle with a line sticking out of it and call it an apple with a stem. Or you can underpaint the circle with burnt umber, then add successive layers of cadmium red, cinnabar green, some titanium white, and Naples yellow. Suddenly, the depth, intensity, and richness explode on the page, and that image of the apple is like holding an entire world in the palm of your hand. I’ll expand on the apple example at the bottom of this post.
Suffice it to say that in the depths of my abandonment, all of those tiny aspects of life would call out to me. They were like friends racing up in a getaway car and yelling for me to jump in. They taught me to look for the beauty in the smallest of things and to see it no matter how bad the bigger picture was.
Even when I could count on no one or nothing else, the details in those Moments of Respite offered that intricate deeper dimension, right at my fingertips, always available…unlike the people in my life.
Moments of respite were my reminder that, even in the midst of chaos and horror, life possessed infinite little worlds of richness and beauty. They were my steadfast companions, offering sensory retreats — a “breath in between moments” — where my overwrought, throbbing, nervous system could escape and rest. If I focused on them, I could tune him out, even momentarily. And by doing that, I could withstand the next moment’s onslaught.
So, always, Moments of Respite, dosed moment-to-moment. And NEVER think further ahead than that.
What kinds of things am I talking about?
With as much chaos as there was in our house, I became very skilled at finding them in any number of places or experiences.
Sometimes, while he was across the room glaring at me, I would focus on the beauty of the wood grain in our living room floor. He would think I was just looking down contritely. Meanwhile, I was escaping, my eyes entering an adventure that ranged along each groove and line.
Another respite was school. I LIVED for school. Aside from the fact it meant striving for a career and a way out, it fed me in that moment. Especially my freshman high school English class with that most loved teacher, Terry Doyle.
When I was young, it was books about courageous men watching the Japanese during World War II while hidden in the dense jungles of a South Pacific Island. It was Nancy Drew adventures, being Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, the Civil War soldiers blown off course to an abandoned island in Jules Verne’s book, Mysterious Island.
Other times, it was standing by a brook next to the corner market, imagining myself living there on the banks, just like the kids in the book The Boxcar Kids. Or dissecting a preserved frog I bought at a local hobby shop, or making undersea shipwreck dioramas out of Plaster of Paris.
So often, it was music
I loved sounds and music so much that I basically have a playlist for my entire life. From the rhythm of Eastern European accents to so many songs and lyrics, all through the decades, sounds spoke to my soul.
As a despairing 20-something, it was learning about the allure of Gregorian chants during Vesper services at a local abbey, or discovering the intricacies of Chamber and Baroque music in a class at a local community college.
There’s Madonna, Big Band music, and Mozart, to Streisand, Billy Joel, and Lady Gaga. I rejoice in the hope of Van Halen’s song “Dreams,” the sensuality of Olivia Newton John’s “Physical,” or “Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins.
Even in childhood, I followed the moods of Herb Alpert’s trumpeting and the sorrow of battle losses in the soundtrack from Victory at Sea. And the 1960s TV show theme songs like Jonny Quest, Lost in Space, and Discovery 69 will immediately make me freeze in place and smile with joy.
While all this might sound strange, a December 2023 article in the AARP magazine, “The Extraordinary World of Music and the Mind,” shared current research on the power of music as therapy, not just for our minds, but for our bodies:
“Recent studies have shown that music’s power over us is not purely psychological but based in measurable physiological changes. Singing along with others to a beloved song… causes the brain to secrete oxytocin, a naturally occurring hormone that creates the warm sensations of bonding, unity and security that make us feel all cuddly toward our children and others we love; infuses us with feelings of spiritual awe, and can alleviate chronic pain or the debilitating sensations of anxiety or the isolation of autism.”
The article went on to show how music is used with dementia patients as a way to root them even more in their present moment. And familiar songs often bring us a surge of dopamine, another hormone associated with the pleasure and reward centers of the brain. So there’s a lot of power in those little notes.
The power of “little”
Now, it’s learning about bird breathing, reasons to love the rock pegmatite, and why, in my 70s, I still love to sniff Play-Doh! There are fresh-cut grass smells that send me back to my 7th-grade classroom in early June when it was almost time for summer vacation. And there’s discovering now that if I rub two pieces of milky quartz rocks together, they smell just like the cap guns I used to play with as a kid.
NONE of these are BIG things….but never doubt the power of little things to save a life.
That apple barn
I mentioned above that I would return to the subject of apples. Here I will share one of those Moments of Respite essays, about a very lonely time of despair in my twenties when I was still struggling to avoid suicide. Those details saved my life:
A New England Fall…and Survival, in the Palm of My Hand
Throughout my life, as is true for many of us, there are difficult days when the weariness of spirit becomes like a hand shoving us down against the mattress as we try to get up. The body struggles, and the mind asks: Why bother? Why try?
Moments of “respite”
Decades ago, through years of childhood abuse, I found a way to survive — not a “dissociation” thing, but by living “Moment to Moment.” There would be bad things, and at that moment, you just did whatever you had to do to get through it. Later, though, when alone, I took comfort…escape…in a moment here, a quick experience there, but essentially in some small “detail” that I could lose myself in even for a little while. In those breaks, I could eke out sustenance where none seemed possible. And that let me keep going. At the time, I didn’t recognize consciously what I was doing–I just did it intuitively, I guess– but it was my survival. Now I call them my “Moments of Respite.”
When autumn is in full color, I am reminded of one of the Moments of Respite from my late 20s — during a lonely day full of despair and a sense of abandonment.
Nature’s abundance
I grew up in New England, where the cold of fall harvest days conjures up images of steely gray skies and bare orchard trees. Even now, remembering that day gives me a reprieve from current problems…
Pulling into the dirt driveway of the farm, I parked near the barn, the only car in the lot. Dried leaves crunched underfoot as I approached the building, and the air was heavy with that sweet smell of damp earth and composting plant matter. The sun hung low in the sky as the late afternoons were already taking on the appearance of night sooner than I wanted.
Inside the dimly lit barn, my breath visible in front of my face, bushel baskets of nature’s bounty were arrayed in rows before me. Grease pencil writing on cardboard signs listed the varieties there: Early McIntosh. Golden Delicious. Baldwins and Cortlands. Empires and Granny Smiths. So many to choose from thanks to nature’s gift to us of abundance… of flavors and textures, colors and sensations.
Questions, questions, questions
That gift, though, presented the dilemma — which one or ones to choose? Even the questions came in abundance: Sweet apples or tart? Crunchy or soft? All? How much money was in my wallet? (Farmers then didn’t take credit cards, and there was no Venmo or Squarespace.)
More questions followed. Would it be pies for the freezer? Or applesauce? Caramel or candy apples, or baked ones? The type of apples makes a difference, of course, depending on how you are going to use them. And then there was just that simplest of delights, eat them fresh and raw before they made it into anything!
I walked the rows of baskets, gravel of the barn floor grinding against my boot soles. Back and forth, assessing the red ones, the green-red stippled. The sizes. The shapes. You look for the best ones with the fewest bruises…unless, of course, you waited too long and there aren’t many left to choose from.
Even before I finished shopping, I couldn’t wait any longer to sample one. I was buying the basket anyway, so I grabbed the largest one off the top, rubbed it against my jacket, and tore into it.
The joy of a fresh apple
When you eat apples that are fresh off the tree, the sensations come all at once: the aroma of sweet and spice mixed together; the snap of crisp skin giving way under your teeth; a flash of tanginess as the soft flesh hits your tongue, and the syrupy juice that sprays out and runs down your chin. It is an overload of delight. In that moment, that “Moment of Respite” — the despair temporarily evaporated. In the raw air of a fall evening, drowned in the sensations of a fresh apple, I felt the totality of an autumn miracle right in the palm of my hand. And refreshed, I could go on.
It’s all in the details…
So many times in my life, those Moments of Respite saved me, fed me, gave me the energy to try again. For all the times when your world may be torn apart, life is sustained in the small details. It is those precious details that preserve the life-blood of our souls. You can draw a circle and color it in with a red crayon and call it an apple. Or you can underpaint it with burnt umber to put in the shadows, then layer in increasingly bright pigments of cadmium red, cinnabar green, lemon yellow, and titanium white. You can vary the intensity of the colors and the depth of the layers. Whatever you choose, the details make it all the richer for the moment. And it is in seeing the details that we are reminded there is more to life than just the pain we are struggling with at the moment.
Finding the calm
Moments of Respite provide the reminder that life still offers little worlds of richness and sensory escapes where our overwrought nervous system can retreat to find calm…where we can bind our wounds, restore our minds, and then return, ready for another round of the battle.
I no longer live in New England, and my life is much happier and more serene. But even now, whether I am holding a crisp fresh apple from the store or the leaves hint at shades of crimson and burnt sienna, the evenings get a chill and the light departs sooner than I want, that moment comes flooding back. And I remember that Moments of Respite can make any chaos seem a little less daunting.
Note:
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and make a visit to my home state for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
Soul Mosaic 
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