I went to have dinner with Vanessa on Monday, one of my favorite people to visit in part because of her sagacity and warmth and in part because you always know exactly where you stand with her. She will tell you when she is happy; she will tell you what she needs. She loves a good bedtime and will signal very clearly when it's time for you to go. The people who love her, myself included, have been trained; we see that the hour hand is past nine and we get up to leave.
All that to say it was just after 9pm on a Monday evening when I left her and started walking home, less than a mile away, on a route I've walked myself over a hundred times without incident. I did not feel unsafe. I saw no reason to.
On Broad Street, a wide and well-lit corridor, I noticed a car had pulled up next to me on the curb. I thought the driver might be asking directions—I had an earbud in and couldn't hear perfectly—but then I saw he was smiling in a way that definitely didn't seem conciliatory, so I kept walking. Sure enough, he kept pace with me. I walked toward a stretch of road where there were parked cars that prevented him from driving too close, but he managed to swerve around to meet me when I was visible again.
At this point I could hear him entreating me: come on, babygirl. Just get in. I'll take you away.
I held my head high and kept walking, but: men are not interested in reading signs of disinterest. He pursued, leaning closer, veering toward me, and I turned onto a more narrow, residential street. But he followed.
This weekend while I was away, my Girl Scouts had gotten together to paint the shelter of a nearby community fridge. They'd covered it in colorful images of animals and food, birds tweeting "welcome" in a half-dozen languages, rainbows and hearts. In the dark, alone, I turned onto the block where the fridge was housed, and saw it down the street like a beacon. It's possible I believed my proximity to their work would save me.
But the man was following and now it was more poorly lit, there were fewer parked cars, he could get even closer. He was leering like a cartoon wolf. When he started to reach for me, I knew to act.
You can never outrun men like this. You can never find safe enough places that they cannot find you.
And you can never make choices so unproblematic that you will not put yourself in their path. You can only ever make yourself a problem.
So I turned directly toward him, eyes flashing, fists at my side. And with the full facility of my lungs—with all my breath—I screamed.
He hit the gas immediately, and was down the block and around the corner before I could register anything about the car except his Florida plates. Having repelled him, I was going to continue on, but I heard neighbors rush to their doors, and a series of pedestrians and dog-walkers materialized on the sidewalk around me. It was a cacophony of What's wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need anything? I explained what had happened and why I did it. I said I was sorry for scaring them. And then I felt relief when one woman looked me in the eye and said: "No, don't apologize. You did the right thing."
I got home safe. I texted friends about it as though it were a funny story, which on some level it was (my man went FLYING down Castle Street. my man is a predator but was startled by a loud noise.).
My friends tried to chasten me for my flippancy. And I wanted to wave it off; I simply will not stop making jokes about fucked-up situations, which is one of the most reliable ways I have to cope! But their concern also illustrated a kind of resigned, well,-whatever attitude I have toward the likelihood that people are going to disappoint you. That eventually, the safest routes you have will also be tinged with threat. Hell, this is not even the first time I've been followed in a car in specifically this way. I heard loved ones say oh my god, that would have shaken my faith in humanity and I heard myself laugh and respond that ship has sailed.
And it made me more than a little sad—strangely, not sad that I'd been targeted by some random creep, or even just sad to confront my cynicism, which I already knew was there. But sad that when I'd told that story, I hadn't meant to feature the man who followed me; I really meant to lean into my delight in the support I found in bystanders. I'd meant to say: Yes, I was made to feel unsafe but then strangers rushed in to protect me—isn't it wonderful that people can still be good?
That perspective didn't come through when I told the story, or else it felt less important than the present threat. And I get it. But with the year I've had, I couldn't help but get the message that my attempts to make good out of what I've got are falling short. My efforts at optimism just aren't enough. And whether that's because the situation is too dark, or whether the darkness is in me, I'm not sure. I'm not sure to what degree I'm making the problem for myself.
Yours in survival,
Arielle
Three Things Offering Joy
Bookstores. This past weekend I went to Western Massachusetts to visit Emily and Liam (and their four (4) cats) and I visited three bookstores in as many days: the Montague Bookmill, Kelly Link's Book Moon, and the bookstore at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Then two days later I took a walk to my local indie, A Novel Idea, to pick up a pre-order. Indpendent bookstores feel like some of the last net-good institutions we've got and I support the hell out of them.
Trash television. Prestige TV is great, but have you ever...? On Wednesday, I got monumentally high with my friends and watched the first part of the Vanderpump Rules S10 reunion. Tara has DVR so we were able to pause occasionally to fill Lansie, our novitiate, in on the back lore of the characters. ("Watching with you guys is like watching with Pop-Up Video," she said breathlessly.) Folks who aren't into shows like this (and I get it! It's not for everyone!) often ask the wrong questions—who are these people, why do we care about them?—and the thing is we don't, except. These people are nobodies but the human drama is just so good, so over-the-top you would've been ripped to shreds if you'd wrote it and offered it up in a fiction workshop. Sharing television with people I love has been such a salve recently. For two months now I've been getting together almost weekly with a small group to share a homecooked meal, make each other laugh, watch Yellowjackets, and be in bed by 10, and it's all I've ever wanted out of friendship. I'm having pre-emptive anxiety about whether we will keep up the habit after the season is over next week.
Clean sheets. When I have an earth-shattering, devastating day, I really have no sense of what to do with myself, except this: clean sheets. When you have been emotionally demolished, please try to use your every last bit of energy to strip your bed and put on fresh linens. You will better honor your tears by letting them be absorbed by soft, clean fabric instead of sinking into dust and your old dead skin flakes. If your body is going to wrack itself, be good to it otherwise.
What I'm Reading
A loss tinged with shame, regret, or a sense of something unfinished is the most dangerous sort, a black-hole grief that pulls a person relentlessly toward its center, and when our lives come to one of these we are forced to bow before it or to detach completely.
—Biography of X by Catherine Lacey