reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: interruption


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fly. [k.s. friday]

the seagull looked at me furtively, side-eyed. he acted like i just wasn’t there, stepping along the harbor channel wall at his own pace, seemingly not too nervous about my presence.

writing, i’m holding my weathered copy of jonathan livingston seagull in my hand. jonathan thrived. he left the traditional flock of gulls so that he could fly, soaring higher than he had ever soared. he was an outlier but was kind and loving, generous with the skills he learned.

i’m thinking he was as much an artist as those of us who are artists.

ever since, well, forever, i have had a thing about seagulls. i have a seagull collection in a box in the basement. in the 70s, it was a popular tchotchke – a plaster or wood base that looked like a piling or rocks or shoreline with a thin metal piece atop which was a seagull. sold in every beachfront town, i was – back then – a willing buyer. i had seagulls everywhere in my room. they represented the beach for me – my winter/spring/summer/fall sanctuary. and then i read richard bach’s book. and i was hooked. it resonated with me back then, this story of breaking away, hopefulness, dreaming, accomplishing. i was 18 and i was a jonathan-livingston-seagull.

my soaring seagull days ended abruptly at 19.

but in these days now – as i walk the lake michigan beach or hear the gulls as they fly overhead our house – i am reminded. the caw of the gull is reassuring and, as i gaze up watching them swoop and soar, i feel vestiges of the surf – the sound and the ocean from long ago. tide out. tide in.

i walked along the channel and, in parallel lines, the gull started to step along the wall. and then he stopped, put both feet firmly on the cement.

and, still looking at me sideways, whispered, “don’t forget you know how to fly.”

*****

TAKE FLIGHT ©️ 1997 & 2000 kerri sherwood

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interruption. [flawed wednesday]

i had had a life interruption.

i hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. but – suddenly – it was just as obvious an interruption to me as night is to day.

resilience is a support organization in chicago – “empowering survivors ending sexual violence” is their byline. their presence is powerful, necessary, moving survivors forward in healing and advocacy, providing education and empathy. there was nothing like that on long island in 1978.

my life was forever interrupted. and i just realized that. because – back in 1978 – i filed it all away – all the trauma, all the grief, all the stripping of innocence, all the betrayal – i placed it on a shelf in my heart i didn’t want to access, a place i didn’t want to go. no one really talked about it. i moved on.

only i didn’t.

the night-that-turned-my-day-dark wrapped itself around me and, in all likelihood, affected every single decision – good and bad – that i made from that day forward. it acted like a filter – like the kind you screw onto the front of a 35mm camera lens, coloring every scene in the aperture, every experience in life. just as in so many of these stories, no one was made to take responsibility for this act of life-interruption, for the thing that would skew everything in my heart. i was nineteen and he was free. he still is.

there are defining moments in our lives that lay down a blanket of circumstance, that wound in all directions. sexual violence is one of those.

even now – 45 years later – though i cannot dredge up all the minute details as they seem locked up on that shelf – i can feel the interruption of my life – the unmooring – the visceral line of before and after.

the sun is setting through the trees and i suddenly see clearly through the woods, without underbrush. i can feel the night fall.

the thing that has helped is that 45 years has granted me people who have been there, who have held me in grace despite it all, who have loved me even as i – at times – flailed.

i wouldn’t hope for anyone to experience the pain of sexual violence of any sort. but, because women are insanely statistically likely to be victimized and betrayed in this way, i would hope for their resilient spirits and bodies to see the enormous life interruption for what it is and to rise in the sun the next day – surviving – accessing hope, surrounded by loving support, empowered.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this WEDNESDAY


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i’m from new york. [not-so-flawed wednesday]

towering cloud. monochromatic tones. i took this photograph. i may not have taken a second look but for the wire cutting diagonally across it. it was the interruption that made it – a gorgeous cloud – even more interesting.

i’m not from here.

i am proudly from new york and sunday night out on our deck i reveled in feeling new york. i haven’t felt as new york as i felt that evening in a long time. we were playing records outside and painting rocks. i had selected a few albums – dan fogelberg, john denver, michael murphey, survivor, fleetwood mac – and i was playing dj, picking and choosing the songs to play. we sang along, somehow remembering lyrics of songs we hadn’t heard in ages, a mondegreen or two slipping in.

then i went inside to find a certain album, leaving david to pour a little wine and wonder what i was searching for.

i came back out with the double-album-set of saturday night fever. there is nothing that quite defines 1977 like that album and the bee gees. instantly transported back to the discos and beach bars of long island, i got up and, in the new privacy of our backyard, danced. the more i danced, the more i danced.

i texted a few friends, asking them if they remembered the steps to the hustle. crunch wrote back that he didn’t remember all the steps, but he remembered the spins and sent a picture from a beach bar on the island he was at as he typed his message. marc reminded me he didn’t dance – which i, of course, remembered – and told me – if i was indeed sending him snippets of “stayin’ alive” simply to annoy him – not to be such an “assassination” (which, back in the day, i would say for the word “ass” so as not to cuss. friends would tell you i have come around from those days.)

interrupting our 70s mostly-mellow flow, saturday night fever disco drew a line through the soft wash of memory in which we sat. it invigorated us. it made us dance and it made us laugh. it made a perfect night even more perfect. and it woke up the new york in me, never too far away but always a little at-bay, a little tempered.

new york is a little noisy for wisconsin. new york is a little demonstrative for wisconsin. new york is a little talkative for wisconsin. new york is a little emotional, a little animated for wisconsin. new york is a little exuberant for wisconsin. new york is a little brash for wisconsin. it’s a little center-stage, a little aggressive, a little assertive, a little interruptive.

i’m not from here.

i’m from new york.

and i’m damn proud of it.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY