Looking up my Past

  My year of mourning slipped away, and we bought a cabin which we could not use until November, but it proved that we were richer and could enjoy a new lifestyle, which we had not been able to afford until the Levi’s stock went public and we came into a lot of money.     I felt better and better, even though Bill said he was too upset to stay at Berkeley, and he continued to slip into his depression.     I ignored him, because I was rising myself.     I was writing my book about my safehouse experience, and I found an editor, Renate Stendal, who encouraged me.     We were enthusiastic about its possibilities.     I was also making friends and seeing friends.     My best friend was still in Santa Cruz, and we got together often, and I was also still seeing Lin, and then my new friends in Berkeley like Sandra and Anne and Marianne bolstered my mood.     Bill didn’t like it, but he still Had Omba, and they joined a...

So began my life in California again.  I was overwhelmed, my children beyond traumatized and my mental state a complete wreck.  I tried to hone into Jessi and the others, and I found a therapist who saw me at her house, twice a week.  That turned out to be a disaster, because she was not safe, and in the end, she began seeing Bill as well.  At that point I’d had enough, and I chucked her, but Bill continued to see her.  Finally, he gave up as well, after we saw a couples’ therapist who was even worse than the people I had seen before.   I also began making friends.  I saw my old friends such as Sharon, Lin and others, and made new friends like Anne, Sandra, Marianne and others.  That was my saving grace.  I strengthened with my friends around me, even though it was difficult.  I made it through the awful parts and slowly handled my therapy, by finding a new therapist who set me straight....

  I am so upset at we didn’t see how much we were hurting our kids by being in Colorado.     But that is water under the bridge now.     I would love to redo things in the past, but I can’t.     Our life in Colorado had some terrific moments.     We did make some good friends and I still am in touch with Amy Levin, Kate Grenville and Joanna Seiler.     I feel the couple of days with Toni Morrison, with people like Paula Marshall, Timothy Leary, and Kay Boyle, as well as others were powerful encounters.     I also loved my teaching and think I did a great job.     I did return to teaching after a hiatus, and really enjoyed it.     I gave myself a lot of room to wiggle around in and kept the safehouse work up as long as I was able.     People don’t last in safehouses all that long.     Bill did prove he could complete a task and his thesis was considered terrific.  Susan hate...

  I realized that our time in Colorado was more mixed than that.     We did get our grad degrees and I also loved working with the Boulder safehouse and then the Longmont safehouse.     I was gradually forming an attachment that I loved with the people in the safehouse community. I learned many things:     how to keep a safehouse safe, how to respond to the clients in an appropriate manner, what to say and what to do.     I learned a tremendous amount about what works with the women and what doesn’t.     My out-of-print book describes it all.     I had first helped in the Santa Cruz safehouse, as a person who looked for people who can be talked to without endangering the people outside.     I felt like that worked out well for them.     In the Boulder safehouse I learned practical stuff, and in the Longmont one I had my choice of what to do when.     One of the things I felt that was most impo...

  When We moved to Colorado, things fell apart quickly for Gary.     He had been sober for many months, but as soon as he moved, he got back into drinking and we seldom saw him.     Yes, we did Maui and then Mexico, but Gary was not sober, which is what his parents had hoped.     I kept telling them we didn’t see him, especially after we put the Corral together.     It was a terribly built corral, but we laughed about it.     The gate didn’t swing shut easily, and the whole thing was rickety.     I was busy myself, so I had no time to babysit Gary.     I invited him to things, but to no avail.     We had three and then four kids, and I had my hands full.     I also began going to AL Anon, and that changed my thinking.     I realized my father was enabling my brother, and I kept telling my dad about it.     Finally, at the instigation of myself and my dad, he agreed to take ...

  I am realizing that what is done cannot be undone.     I lived in a world that protected me from my own mistakes at the time, but now I see them clearly.     What did I do to both kids?     What can be undone.     Nothing.     Not the mistake of Colorado, certainly not that.     I had no idea how freaked out my kids would be.     I now see clearly that their lives might have been different if we hadn’t moved.     And it was a bad move for me as well.     I saw the way the kids were treated, not then, but later.     I just blinded myself to it all.     I was so devastated about my thesis, which was badly typed up and not clarified, that I decided not to pursue teaching.     I felt like a failure, when, really, I just needed some help, somehow.     I went into safehouse work, rather than teach.     I wonder if I had had any help, would I have b...

  I Wish I could go back and redo my life, but that is never possible.     When Sadiq and Sandra left, I felt freed from the concern and care of an ex-husband.     I didn’t know any better.     I thought the kids and I could restart our lives, but that was not to be.     We moved to Colorado and the first thing was that I knew was it was a mistake.     Our house was too small and living out in the country was hard.     The street turned out to be a swift highway and many animals were lost and found there.     We made a big mistake in not finding a place in Boulder, but we thought we couldn’t do it, as we were going to live on very little money while we were in grad school and working.     But if we had, it might have been very different.     We had promised the kids a horse, and so we ended up near a conservative town and area instead of where we should have been, and it made our driving hard ...

  Today I realize how horrible it was that my kids lost their father, and that to have a sense of him they needed to be seeing him more than he could while they were with us.     It was a devastating blow to them both, and I know now that they felt devastated.     I don’t know what was better – to be separated but living their own life in his country.     I’m sure he didn’t mean for their world to be as awful as it probably became. Sandra flourished and had their child, but Sadiq didn’t, starting out that his friend’s boat, when it landed in Fiji with all their stuff, was stuck in the harbor.     Sandra never got her manuscript and other stuff was lost. Sandra got a job teaching at a women’s college, but Sadiq kept trying to launch venues that didn’t quite work out.     I believe he became the principal caretaker of Mikal Sa’id Koya.     Sadiq tried but losing the boat and everything meant it was difficult.     I...

  What had happened to me?     I discovered something authentic:     I loved someone with all my heart, and without reservation.     It made me so much more open with everyone else, including Mary and Dale Peterson.     I could accept that something in my world besides my husband was great.     So, when we told Sadiq and Sandra, we discovered how much we loved each other, and they became more loving towards us.     Sadiq was now working for the Ventura police department, and Sandra was more accepting of our children’s lives.     We now regularly had them over for barbeques and did a lot of our socializing together.     Things softened.     I still had some doubts, but not many.     He still had doubts about me as well, but less so.     I think they were learning to accept the new reality, and when I got pregnant six months after our marriage, that solidified the change. ...

  I tried to understand what was happening to me, as Bill and I learned to live together and with our two children.     Bill knew I was terrified of all the turmoil that had entered my life.     I was passionate about everything, but also depressed at what I had called into being.     We struggled and fought but beyond it all, I realized I’d never been in love before.     My kids were part of the pattern that I was now changing.     I realized I needed to get out from under the pall of a marriage that had taken everything from me.     Bill revived me.     I was dying to be with him and sleep with him and make a new life. In January that came to be.     Bill was offered a job that sent him to Santa Cruz, California.     We took the day off and drove down and found an apartment a mile from Mary and Dale’s place.     We sat outside after we rented it, and Bill asked me to marry him. ...

  I learned to listen to people around me, but not react to their issues.     I did not sleep with Frank or anyone else, and Slowly became interested in my partner in the Wednesday night group in the therapy center nearby my house, where I could bring the kids and we parents had a couple of hours to ourselves.     In the months leading up to June, when I then asked Bill if he wanted to come over for coffee.      I was pretty desperate, because I was approaching the three weeks when the kids would be with their father.     I explained all this to Bill, and he was understanding.     I had a friend be with me when Sadiq picked up the kids, and I had made them each books to take.     They must have been so scared, but I was helpless.     I tried to make everything as normal as I could.     But after they left, I called Bill and he came over soon.     I explained to him how freaked I was, and ...

  I had a great connection with a woman upstairs in my building.     She had a young daughter between my two kids, and they began seeing each other frequently.     Wendy’s daughter was named Rafael, and we were both at home too much, Wendy because she was newly married to her husband Ray, and because he was just finishing a law degree and we spent many hours together and took the children out frequently.     In the end, however, we both did something stupid and let the kids go downstairs by themselves. Riyad accidently slammed the door on Rafael’s finger.     We ran down and I took Rafael and her parents to Herrick, not realizing the best choice would have been children’s hospital in Oakland nearby.     They did not keep the finger joint in Ice, and by the time they got to the Oakland office, It was too late.     She lost that part of her finger, her ring finger.     They left soon after, and all the great times ...

  I spent the summer alone In San Jose and focused on the Olympics.     Mark Spitz was the champion of the summer, and I loved watching him.     We were often by the pool, and though my kids were 1 and 3, I had high hopes for them in the future.     I wondered about what my life would be now? I could not imagine what the fall might bring, but I hoped to at least get temporary custody.  I did.  It helped that Sadiq said the United States had no jurisdiction and that Sadiq was living with another woman.  But the judge ordered home visits and psychological tests.  We bravely endured them, and Sadiq Insisted that he see the children, though no one thought it wise.  He had taken the kids back to Santa Barbara after the first visit, and my dad and I had to go to Goleta and the police station to get them back. While there, it was apparent that Sadiq was in a different married student housing section than befor...

  The second time I left him, it was because he picked a fight with my father, while they were in Goleta on their way to Vacation Village in San Diego.     We were at dinner, and the two kids were at home.     Gary made some comments that Sadiq found offensive, and it quickly escalated into a fight outside.     My father tried to get in the middle, and Sadiq hit him in the head.     My father was bleeding, and Sadiq quickly left and got home before I did.     The neighbors were gone, and my father and I argued with Sadiq for a while, but to no avail.     When he left, my father promised to check back in the morning.     Of course, the minute My father left, Sadiq marched me upstairs at knifepoint and raped me.     When My father came in the morning, I’d lost my voice completely, and after some moments, my father told me to pack some things and go with them. I was beyond caring anymore in San Diego ...

  I immediately had problems with Sadiq.     He wanted me to leave my newborn and not yet two year old, but I convinced him I could tale in kids for daycare an make a similar living at home.     And this I did while causing Little disruption, except to my own sleep, because Ramiza kept me up most of the night, by fussing, and needing to feed frequently.     Sadiq would go in and hit her if I didn’t come and carry her downstairs, so     that is how I got through the first year.     The second year, I became a graduate student and managed to be gone from the kids only the l0 hours a week I was in class.     Otherwise, I was on my own, and Sadiq was out every night with the guys.     He drank, and did whatever else he did while I had to make my hours count by nighttime reading.     Sadiq also said he was taking the kids and leaving, and when that happened I would never see them again.     I tried...

  It all the Fiji stuff to the back of my mind.     We had a great time living with My and Dad until Sadiq found a job in Santa Rosa.     I loved having Riyad around to share the burden and sSadiq was busy getting Interviews to find a job.     Sadiq finally found a job in Santa Rosa, which was near but not too near, and we moved there in the spring.     We had a two bedroom condo near his work, and there were lots of other people our age.     I found friends and we lived well until     the earthquake hit, when I was so jarred by 3 5x8 earthquakes one night.     I wasn’t alone.     My family had me for a week, and then Sadiq moved us to a less valuable place on the second floor of an apartment nearby.     I adjusted again, and     some of the people who had moved from Bismark, South Dakota moved back, even though the company had recollacated to Santa rosa.      A couple...

  I was appalled and yet not surprised when Sadiq had a conniption over the posting for the Bureau of Statistics.     The British person chose Philip to be head of the department, though he had no degree in statistics.     Sadiq responded by punching him In the nose.     It was a horrible thing to do, and it meant the end of a friendship, a decision that Sadiq would leave Fiji and go back to the U.S.     A few weeks after our baby was born, we did just that.     Of course, we had to borrow the money from my father, as usual.     I was happy at Marist brothers, but that meant nothing.     I remember my friend Roy Allen visited us.     But we could not tell him that our days were numbered.     I also wished that there was someone who could help us, but Sadiq wouldn’t allow it.     The last night we were in Fiji he was roaring drunk and took the baby out in the carseat, with no carrier ...

I came up with an idea today to do a blog around women and their lives.  I feel that my safehouse experience of twelve years has enabled me to see the ways women do not have agency in their lives.  When a woman has to leave her husband or other any other person to  be safe, we know it can raise hell for herself and others.  She made be isolated and have no one to help her.  I am thinking it is one of the hallmarks of not being able to live her life as she wishes.  I had to hide out from my first husband for many months after I left him. I finally was able to see him a year later, after he decided to listen to the rules of combat.  It also lelped that he wanted to see the kids and Had no overnights until the next year, when I had a friend who could make him behave.  Thank goodness for small favors.  Until then he had to meet them In a police station. I thought I was raised to be independent, but in ...