Category: Life in Arizona

It makes no difference

MichelleR

In light of the past few weeks and the looming confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as our next Supreme Court Justice, I find myself compelled to respond to the many comments on social media and even from members of our legislative branch that have asked the question, “But if this woman was sexually assaulted why didn’t she come forward right after it happened?” As if that is what would make them believe the allegations.

I have a response to them: because it would have made not one damn bit of difference. Let me elucidate.

These woman could have reported it immediately after the assault occurred, they could have seen a doctor, had a rape kit performed, be able to positively identify their attacker and have ligature marks around their necks. And, yet still, be told it is a “he-said, she-said” case that will not be pursued in our courts. How am I so sure of this? I know because I watched it happen.

In 2006 my best friend, Laurie Dishman and I boarded a Mexican Rivera cruise on Royal Caribbean. On the second night of our week-long trip we went up to the dance club to enjoy the night and were approached by two men in ship security guard uniforms who asked to see our ID/room key cards to make sure we were “old enough” to be in the club. We, being trusting people at that time, complied simply because they were ship security. Later that night I dropped Laurie off in our room so she could go to bed while I went back up on deck with Franky (my now husband). The so-called Security Guard went to our room because he knew where it was, knocked on the door and, Laurie, thinking it was me (there were no peep-holes at that time) opened the door.  The security guard pushed his way into our room choked Laurie unconscious and raped her, impacting the tampon inside of her and left. I will not be able to put into words the enduring pain of seeing my best friend come to and the look realization on her face when see realized what happened. Just imagine this being your wife, your daughter, your best friend, yourself.

I immediately and without hesitation called the ship security (which was tricky seeing how it was a guard that just raped her) and what we now know is that the ship was immediately on the phone with corporate trying to figure out how to “handle” us. We were confined to our room after repeatedly asking to leave the crime scene, Laurie was taken to medical only after hours of asking and begging then an expired rape kit was used on her to collect material. The ships officers taking our statements SAT on the bed where she was raped when they came to our room and then we were asked to collect the clothing and bedding as evidence in a garbage bag. We were also accidentally told by a mournful looking security officer that the attacker was actually a janitor in a security guard uniform because they were short-staffed. I am sure he lost his job for trying to help us. After demanding to get off the ship, have the FBI called, speak to the captain, and given a new room, the officers (no women present) called Laurie and I in one at a time to “identify” the crew member. Laurie picked him out of a photographic line up in seconds. She knew who her attacker was.

We were picked up by the FBI from the Long Beach airport and spent hours giving our statements. Though clearly traumatized I still believed Laurie would see justice. That this man would be arrested and tried and Laurie would have the right to face her accuser in a court of law. I. Was. Wrong.

In order to keep this blog to a length shorter than the novel that she and I need to write, here is the result of our reporting “IT” right away. The answer to the question that so many people seem to ask. Not ONE thing happened. The case was thrown out of federal court because there was a lack of evidence.

US: A lack of evidence? We had a rape kit!

THEM: Oh, it appears the rape kit was expired Ms. Dishman and therefore inadmissible.

US: But we have the impacted tampon, the DNA from the sheets and clothing!

THEM: Oh, Ms. Dishman that evidence was compromised because it was all put together in one bag and you collected it yourself so there is no chain of evidence.

US: But the ligature marks on my neck?

THEM: Those photos aren’t very clear.

US: I know who did it, I identified him!

THEM: Well, he claims the sex was consensual so you see Ms. Dishman, it is simply a he-said, she-said case and we do not feel we can win and therefore we will NOT proceed with prosecution.

US: But what about MY rights? Does anyone care about ME?

THEM: Well, Ms. Dishman the law is the law and if you do not like it, feel free to try to change it.

And, by the way, that is just what she did and that is a whole other story. Her attacker never spent on day in jail or the brig. We found out through a private investigator that he continues to work on cruise ships and was transferred to a different line. Reporting it right away did absolutely nothing.

So, is it any wonder that when my beautiful, intelligent, confident daughter was sexually assaulted in college that she cried and kept it to herself? Is it any wonder that the story that has been handed down to her – the legacy we have left her is that no one will believe you no matter when you tell your story. That even if you call for help, and have evidence and try to be brave and speak out it will not yield justice.  So keep it down, girl. Keep it down. Keep yourself so far down that even other woman will step on your truth and be afraid of even their own stories. And we will still pass out the most important robe and gavel a person can hold because “she waited until now to speak up.”

I am so angry I cannot see.

Where have you been?

MichelleR

It’s been 5 months now that Frank and I have called Arizona our home. My last blog was about 4 months ago at our 1 month mark. What happened? Where have I been? What am I working on?

No one cares and that is reality. We all live incredibly busy and, I hope, full lives. I do not expect anyone to wonder what I am up to. I do not think more than 2 or 3 people will read this post – especially to the very end – and, really that is fine by me. I’m brain dumping so it won’t make much sense to anyone anyways. Plus, I’m in Arizona, it’s summer. Obviously I have sweat myself into a puddle or locked myself in a meat freezer.

However, a big part of this move was to focus again what I love most: writing. A deeply personal job that feeds me and frees me. Moving to Arizona was the result of around 2 years of what I will call a quest for being able to see the me I know I am, instead of the me I pretend to be or people think I am. It’s a spiritual journey for me because there is a great deal of thinking involved and then listening and reflecting. That is why I love writing. It is a chance for me to try to organize and galvanize the hundreds of thoughts that race across my mind while I am “thinking”. I call it spiritual because these conversations are with my “higher” self, for lack of better words. The self that laughs at me when I say I am fine and I am not. My quest is far from over and while I believe the move was completely meant to happen for us, I have spent time considering the, “did we do the right thing?” dilemma.

We have bought a beautiful house that we love. We call it our forever home – as we can seriously see ourselves here forever. But it came before the assurance of “forever jobs” and that is now petrifying. I grapple frequently with the how can this one thing feel so right and yet I do not have assurance of the ability to sustain it. I doubt. I question. I pray. I receive. And yet I do not write any of it. That is a problem. I keep hearing the voice (no, stop worrying – it’s not audible) that repeats the mantra, “But you are not telling your story. That was the deal.” I am now letting the business (read busy-ness) of my days and work and chores once again interfere with the path and process and ultimately the point. (I love alliteration.)

When we moved I promised myself more time at the keyboards. More revelation and expression about my spiritual walkabout and anyone who wanted to read it with me could join the journey. I allowed myself to stop and it has caused me to get a little lost. This random, rambling blog is my trying to get back. Seriously – this is the very definition of blerg. Blerg…

It’s What We Do

MichelleR

Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. – Lady Macbeth

My grown, adult, daughters recently returned from a trip to Paris together. I worried the entire time. I worried they didn’t get the right cell phone plan. I worried their planes would crash. I worried they would lose their luggage, eat bad escargot, fall off the Eiffel Tower, get hit by a baguette delivery van, and worst of all: Be Taken. JUST. LIKE. THAT. MOVIE. I do NOT have certain set of skills to enable me to rescue them, though I would give it everything I had.

Even when they landed safely back on US soil and my toes uncurled a bit, I worried still. My youngest daughter (who had been traveling the equivalent of about 24 hours – aka the reason for the affordable adventure) was going to drive another 5 hours home from her sister’s house. In the middle of the night. I made her promise to keep me posted on her drive home. I tried to fall asleep. I spent the next 5 hours between imagining and dreaming a host of scenarios that included, but were not limited to: gang-bangers carjacking her at the gas station, her falling asleep and careening off the highest cliff on the Grapevine, trying to answer my phone call and swerving into oncoming traffic, and my favorite, just disappearing into the thin air and never arriving at her apartment. She sent me a text when she got home at about 4 am that she was safe and she felt bad she made me worry. I wasn’t mad or vexed in the slightest.

I’m a mom. It’s what I do.

I thought about all of us moms lately and what we do. The worry that we also gave birth to. For some of us even at conception. And people tend to say, don’t worry, be happy. They explain with a two-sided coin either: Everything happens for a reason and a purpose or, that we can’t control the universe and our place in it and we all die eventually. Ew. Blerg. Here is what I have concluded from my very unscientific research called: my gut. Worry is okay, even good for moms. Obsessive need for control is not. Let me take you down this rabbit hole.

My girls and I ten years ago. No worries that day!

At the most base point we worry because of our genetic desire to protect our child(ren). On one side we want to protect them from, well basically, death. And we evaluate everything that enters our child’s life with a litmus test. We rate it as to how likely it is to cause or bring about death to our offspring and act accordingly. If we allow our mind to play out the worst case scenarios we picture our worst fear, which is their death. Their death, we imagine, would take away our reason, our hope and bring us despair, pain and eventually our own death emotionally and maybe physically. (My mind goes to Debbie Reynolds.) What a lovely Mother’s Day blog right? Wait, I am just acknowledging the truth of our fears. We want our children alive.

But the reason we want our children to live, the reason we worry, at its core, is beautiful. We worry because we hope. We want the best for them. We imagine their life and all the potential it holds. We picture them with a successful education, which leads to a fulfilling career with fortune, family, and fame. We imagine them finding love and happiness and creating their own children to worry about and thus ensuring our legacy for generations to come.  Those are not bad things to imagine and hope for our children even if they are not all realistic or probable. And the risk is that as a mom you may impose these hopes on your child, therefore causing them to possibly confuse your dreams for them with their ability to create and find their own path. But from a mom perspective, “I just want the best for you.” There lies the rub: what we hope for is not always what is best for them and we have to allow for experiences bad and good to shape their lives. It sucks, but let’s face it. We don’t always know what’s best and if you think you do you are robbing the wisdom of your future self.

Like our love for our children, our worry never ends, no matter their age, strength or health. “Mom, I’m fine,” is the constant reply of my adult daughters. But you don’t know. People DO get their foot stuck in a railroad track and until further notice I have a right to worry about the cage match between you and that train! I don’t mind that I worry. Selfishly, I know that it means I’m still a mom. I am well aware that my worries are mostly made up in my mind and so banal in comparison to the millions of mother’s currently standing over their child’s hospital beds or sitting in the jail visiting room. Believe me when I say, I worry mostly because I know how blessed I am and I wait every second of every hour for the ball to drop on my world announcing, “Time’s up lady. Your turn to hurt.” I run from that day, filled with worry but also with hope. That my turn won’t come. And I see the life I imagined for them continue.

My and my sweet momma on a wine-tasting trip.

The tables have turned for me now as a daughter too. I worry about my mom, who suffers from advancing Alzheimer’s. I worry about all the scenarios I will not discuss today. But I smile too when I think of her this morning. Knowing our souls are forever knit in the worry stitch. Knowing she wanted the best life for me, that she worried about me keeping me safe so I could create her legacy. Oh sweet mother, your worries are over and a job well done. For now, worrying will be my job. But don’t worry my daughters (see what I did there?) I’ll pass the baton soon.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Walk This Way

MichelleR

It’s not hard to get up early in Arizona, it seems the sun is always up.  With both our jobs requiring an early start time I find myself getting up about 5:30 am and ready to start my day. I’ve been trying very hard to go for walks in the morning. I notice I feel better when I do them. My head feels clearer, I notice the beauty around me like the cactus, the sky and hot air balloons,  the wild-life. In fact I saw a coyote on this morning’s walk.  (Hope he’s not hungry – or that could have been the reason he was following me, not sure…)

Regardless, I feel better when I get back from my walk. Mind you, I’m not a power-walker or under the false illusion that at some point I may break into a jog. I walk at a nice pace, I can talk on my walk (or yell at the coyotes to leave me alone) and I don’t have to bend over to breathe at the end. It’s just getting outside and being in nature, enjoying how beautiful everything around me is. I’m trying to “notice”. I want to be present and if I happen to get in a little cardio I am sure my doctor would say that was good.

Have you ever noticed how even if you really know that something is good for you, and even if you really want that change for your life it’s still almost impossible to do it. For example, I know how much better I feel when I cut wheat out of my diet. My head feels clearer. I’m less sluggish. And yet despite knowing that it makes me feel better and despite the clear understanding that I will continue to feel better if I don’t eat wheat, I see that piece of bread and my desire to eat it suddenly outweighs my desire to feel good. It’s ridiculous and horrifying at the same time. It’s like I care so little about myself that I would allow the momentary delight of a few taste buds defeat the overall wellness and good feeling of my whole body. All of which takes place in my mind. And I’ve struggled with this every day for years.

I’ve been listening to an audio book called, “12 Rules for Life” by Jordan B. Peterson. Audible recommended it to me. I don’t know how they know what books I’d like to listen to because they just met me, but the first two books were free so what the heck. I’m only on Rule 5 and the one rule that has really stuck with me is,

“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to someone else today.”

For me, that rule is a game changer. In many ways it’s what my thought process has been about for decades. It’s not that I have ill-will or anger or even jealousy towards the people I compare myself to. It’s more of a disspointment I’ve felt with myself when I compare myself with others. I think, “Oh if you were more dedicated you could look as fit as her”, “If you had more will-power you could wear the clothes that she’s wearing”, “If you had spent more time reading books instead of watching TV you could be more successful”, and my personal favorite, “If you had just played the lottery yesterday, you could have won the 111 million dollars and buy the dream mansion”.  But, I think the point is that in order for me to really and truly find out who the very best “me” is I have to stop looking at others and ask myself who I was yesterday. Today, can I make one better choice than yesterday? Can I go for one more block on my walk? Can I eat the hard-boiled egg without the slab of bacon today? Can I wash my face before bed?  And to remember to forgive myself and love myself when the answer is “no, I was absolutely not a better today than I was yesterday.”

I think that counts for my behavior too. I think kindness is a behavior I need to practice more. It’s so easy to say, “Be Kind.” But kindness is about how I behave inside not just how I treat others. Anybody can fake being kind, I know, I’ve done it millions of times – like most people. “Have a nice day.” “You too!” But then there is the kindness that come from inside, my compassion. When I look at someone and think, “You don’t know what that person is going through. You don’t know what kind of illness they may be fighting, whether someone they are close to is passing away or ill. Whether or not they cry in bed at night, or their marriage is in shambles and they pretend it’s not. Yeah, there is a lot of thing you don’t know.” And so maybe instead of getting so annoyed with somebody because of their attitude maybe you just think to yourself, they must be really going through something right now. That’s compassion and I’d like to practice that more.

How did I get all this from going for a walk? Let’s loop back.

If I know the facts to be that A.) Getting up early is not hard. B.) When I do it I feel better. C.) When I’m in the walking in the quiet of the morning with no one in the neighborhood out yet I can have clear moments of processing, thinking and planning my day. I can maybe plan ways in which I can be a little bit better today than I was yesterday. That involves reflecting on yesterday. How did I behave yesterday? What did I do physically yesterday? What ways can today be better?

The author of the book also suggest that I treat myself as a younger version of myself. I reward myself for doing something good. To my horror this has worked. In the morning I bargain with myself and tell myself that if I go for a walk I can bring my iced coffee to work. Now, I know very well that I can bring iced coffee with me to work whether I do the walking or not. But the fact that I do not bring a coffee with me if I don’t go for a walk has set some sort of psychological message to my brain. I am waking up saying, “Get up and go for a walk, because you want to bring your iced coffee with you.” It’s weird I know and in a way I feel weird about myself for doing it. But on the other hand, it works.  I go for a walk. I want to be better today than I was yesterday.

I’n not healthy. I’m not in shape. I’m not doing it so I an be skinny or fit or prepared to roll myself into the sausage casing of a swimsuit I’ve got. But I walk because I think I need this time to reflect on the person I am. And I need it every single day.

 

Month One – Check!

MichelleR

So today I officially launch my Arizona Blerg Blog and I am excited to be back in the practice of writing. Today also marks our living in Arizona for one full month and as I look at all I have been able to accomplish I have to say it feels pretty rewarding. Like a crazy long list of things to do now has more checks than empty squares.  Let me show you. Pretty please. With like cherries and stuff?

  • Franky and I both are gainfully employed. I am not sure how much “gain” it will be but the fact remains we get up early and head out to work. For that, I’m grateful. I love my job at Childsplay in Tempe. It’s full of wonderfully kind people who care just as much about the good Theatre for Young Audiences can do for our youth as I do. They are equally as justifiably outraged when people say, “It’s just kids. It’s not “adult” theatre.” They will be my tribe. (But word to my RTAA tribe out there who may be reading – you are ALWAYS my home and heart!) Franky is driving trucks and hauling “fluff” (which is very ground up metal) for recycling. It’s a good job and as always, he works hard, does a great job, and comes home tired but happy!
  • I have successfully learned to navigate the Phoenix highway system. And let me tell you that is a lot of highway. Phoenix is a big beautiful spread out metropolis. It operates on a very well designed grid-system but every single one of those miles is jam-packed with cars during the rush hours. Jam. Packed. I used to drive 2 miles to work each day and it took me about five minutes. I now drive about 30 miles and it takes me an hour on a good day and going home about and hour and 15 to 30 minutes. I was spoiled. I now use my GPS like an Uber driver. And I am all about knowing that if the 10 has construction and a bad accident (almost daily btw…) that I should take the 101 to 51 or the 17 and then hit the 10 at the end – go through the tunnel to the 202 loop East and exit on Priest Drive. Coming home I just give up and get on the freeway – put a book on audio and try not to cry.
  • I now have Audible on my phone. See above…
  • We got a new bank. That is a big deal. We even “shopped” for a bank. Since our bank isn’t here in state we had to go in and find out which bank was best for us. It never ceases to amaze me how people base customer service on their first impression of you.  We picked the bank that treated us like we worth talking to, big shock. Adulting. Blerg.
  • My successful visit to the Arizona DMV.

    The Arizona DMV. Let me just tell you that my experience, I can only speak to mine, is that AZ DMV should give lessons to the CA DMV.  I got my new license, new plates/registrations for my car and our trailer, registered to vote and be a donor AND exchanged pleasantries with the nicest employee all in about 20 minutes and with no wait. They opened at 8 but when we got there at 7:45 am expecting a long-line they were already open and welcomed us in to get things going. Huh? Where am I? Oh and my license expires in like 2048 or some crazy thing and we registered our car and truck for 2 years and trailer for 5 for less money than one year would have cost us on Frank’s truck alone. VERY great way to start out a change of address. I was even walking around looking to see if they were hiring. The thought, “This looks like a nice place to work”, ran through my mind as I exited skipping to my car in joy. Joy I tell you. At the Arizona DMV.

  • We’re settled in. We’ve put too much stuff in a storage unit that is way too small. We’ve been to Walmart and yes Denise, people are the same where ever you go. 😉 I found a nail place and a hair stylist, which are big deals to an aging vain woman. We’ve met neighbors and helped Frank’s parents, found places to eat and places not to eat, decided which grocery store is the best and gotten most of our mail handled.

While the months to come will be filled with hot temperatures, finding a house, and missing my friends and family terribly, I have a great comfort in my heart. It feels like I belong here. It’s a weird experience for me. To know I left everything I knew and loved most in the world to move here.  And to somehow feel the peace that it is exactly what was supposed to happen. I try to be mindful of what I want for our future.  I visualize me writing more. I can see that somehow all of this is towards some bigger dream I have coming.  I picture the ultimate dream:

I’m sitting at the desk in my “library” in front of a big window with a view of the beautiful red rocks, saguaros, and ocotillos while the sun rises, drinking my coffee and writing a play.

I’m getting closer, in fact one month closer today.

Disclaimer

This blogger acknowledges that she knows little to nothing of Arizona, its people or its history. She is however, excited to learn as much as she can. This blog is just her “notes from the journey” on making an epic life changing move. If I get something wrong, meh – get used to it. Blerg.