When I Get to the Border

Posted by landis on Nov 29, 2011 in Blog, Uncategorized | 4 comments

for Rory Danielle Wilson

 

I walked out into the kitchen of the trailer we inhabited in the tiny “shore” town of Marmora, NJ. A 12 minute car ride from the beach or so, but near enough to smell the salt air and be annoyed by the gulls. Camp sites like this, mere miles from the bridges to the islands which comprise the Southern New Jersey shore, are budget-friendly options for down-on-their-luck families—they pitch tents, bring in their RV’s, or (like Rory and I did) rent a trailer. The rent was absurdly cheap for the season. Less than $1000 for 4 months inhabitancy meant we spent $250 a month on rent, plus marginal utilities. When I walked out into the kitchen of our tiny, run-down trailer, wreaking of pot smoke and littered with empty beer and wine bottles, she sat on the kitchen floor, naked from the waist down, arms streaked in crimson (a goth-kid’s candy cane). She was holding a large carving knife and had cut up the rug in front of our sink and was taping it to the fridge in patterns that Duchamp would blanch at (…actually, no he wouldn’t have) and smearing the blood from the superficial cuts on her arms to add color to the canvas. She looked up at me, blank, sick, hallow grin on her bulimic face: “Look honey”, she said in an eerie sing-song, “art.”

 

§

On October 12th of this year, Rory Danielle Wilson—my dear friend, former lover, former fiancee—passed away. As I write this at 2:00 am in New Jersey, we still don’t know why. No indication of drugs. An inconclusive autopsy. Rory, when I knew her best and spent the most time with her, did not lead an easy life. She struggled with severe and frightening eating disorders from a time well before I knew her, she had a penchant for self-mutilation, she was a binge drinker, and after she was brutally sexually assaulted (her attacker never brought to justice), she developed a fondness for freebasing cocaine. I was no angel myself. I really liked dexedrine. And whiskey. And beer. I liked drag racing with my headlights off on dark country roads with my best friend (also named Matt), Camel Light hanging out of my mouth, bottle of Crown Royal in the passenger seat, and a tallboy of Red Dog in the hand not draped on top of the steering wheel. I was either suicidal or on serious amounts of Effexor and Lithium most of our relationship. She cheated on me. Repeatedly (I even walked in on her once). Still, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt closer or more intensely connected to another person. We saved each other’s lives in a way—if in no other way than by scaring the hell out of one another. And in the end, I never trusted anyone the way I could trust her. How could she hurt me more? What more could she take? What more could I give? The idea of having secrets just seemed foolish.  The fact that she’s gone now still doesn’t seem quite real. Nothing really does when I’m aware of her absence. But then, when am I not?

§

She would’ve liked Occupy Wall St. She was never “political” in the sense of being a “political junkie”, but her father (an ardent socialist and a fiercely intelligent man) instilled in her a basic sense of fairness, a fundamental suspicion of social norms and expectations, and he tried (but failed) to prepare her for the harsh reality that life so infrequently rewards either of those traits. That failure is part of the reason she could be so sweet and such easy prey—she genuinely wanted to believe that her sense of fairness and kindess would not be seen as weakness. She never got jaded.

We attended several protests against the impending Iraq War. We petitioned. And did die-ins. And marched in gay pride parades. As she got older, she paid attention to politics more. I guess, when she died the Occupy movement was still somewhat nascent, just starting to lose it’s baby teeth, teetering on the edge of being a “movement” instead of a flash in the pan. Rory was very much of the generation(s) which spawned the Occupy movement. 28 years old, 2 years of college, certification in massage therapy & herbalism, struggling to find consistent, decent paying work, relocating a few times, trying to harness the Internet to develop her own business—always scraping by, always trying some new venture, chasing some new lead, trying to find some way to utilize her training and her talent to help people in the manner she believed did the most good. It so rarely worked out for her. College, bartending, odd jobs, the haven of her aunt’s deli, spas, private clients, her own business…Rory was a transient person. She liked moving around and being active; trying new thinks and challenging herself. But that was fortunate for her. She didn’t have much of a choice.

When I think back on Rory overcoming (as much as one can) her eating disorder, her drug addiction, and her cutting, I don’t think of a damaged, fucked up kid (though, she certainly was that). I also don’t think of the strong, independent, happy, quirky, unfaltering optimist that she became as a result of her recovery. I don’t think of her loving parents or her caring partner. I don’t think of the life she managed to fashion for herself out of the hell that was our late teens and early/mid twenties. I think of how a person who could encompass all of these traumas and triumphs, these calamities and conquests…I wonder how it’s possible. I think of the disillusionment she exhibited and the stubborn insistence that she would not give into it. I think of the depression and how it nearly took us from one another (respectively) and how we both got our backs up and fought it. I think of the myriad ways we were failed by the mental health system, by shrinks and insurance companies, by teachers and administrators, by her friends, her lovers, and her employers. And I think of the people who wonder what the Occupy movement are complaining about. The people who cannot comprehend the violence entailed in a 5’6, 115lb girl being able to think she is too fat and starve herself or surreptitiously sneak into a bathroom and throw up her meager meal so easily, she no longer had to use her fingers to make herself gag, but could do so on command. That she could live in a society which, despite the obvious psychological damage done to her, the marks on her face and arms and hips, would force her to prove she was assaulted. To be unable to prosecute her attacker. To have to turn to drugs because she felt as though no one else would believe her and so it was better to kill what she felt inside of herself rather than understand it. To dedicate herself so fully and so selflessly to a career designed to improve the health and well-being of others and then struggle to find ways to share her new-found balance, grace, and  sense of belief in the world. And in spite of all this, to never give up, to always get back up whenever she let herself get down, to have friends and family to rely on, to demand more out of life, to demand more from authority, to hold the world she lived in to a higher standard, a standard she risked her life and her health to understand and eventually not only lived up to, but surpassed—to demand that her optimism and her sense of belief be justified and to demand of herself that she take active steps to contribute to that end each and every moment she walked forward on the road of her recovery.

Rory isn’t some tragic parable. She’s not an allegory for the disenfranchisement of the 99%. She’s a human being who lived an all too human life of pain, trauma, frustration, transcendence, joy, and possibility. It was a life ended too soon. But she is instructive, in a way; I suppose, yes she can teach us something. Her life was instructive because it was a reminder that no matter how insidious or internalized our oppression, no matter how hegemonic or inexplicable the violence we suffer, no matter how distant those other shores may be, we are always waiting at the border; we only need to take the first step to cross over. Rory managed to cross that border. She managed to overcome the alienation and trauma she lived through. And I don’t mean in the abstract, when she passed on. I mean literally. As she lived and breathed. She made a life for herself. And isn’t that what the Occupy movement is all about?

So as you congregate in the parks and plazas, as you link arms and sing songs, as you take over bridges, shut down traffic, wash the tear spray out of your eyes, bandage your scrapes, dress your bruises, and laugh and kiss (in spite of this) just remember what it is you are trying to make for yourself. A life. Do not be so satisfied as to say “this is my life”; for though it is, “this” may also be “that”; it could be “anything” or “nothing”; because life is not about the living, it’s about the making; it’s about creativity and the freedom to create; it’s about the belief that “this”, “that”, & “anything” are possible.

§

Greedy people take what’s mine

I can leave them all behind

And they can never cross that line

When I get to the border

Saw-bones standin’ at the door

Waiting till I hit the floor

He won’t find me anymore

When I get to the border

§

Mouth agape, I stopped and stared at what she had done. The vacant eyes, the smile, hollow as the bones in a bird’s wing. I looked at her arms, the blood and fabric smearing her thighs and the white tank top she had on. I looked down at her, and stammering, slightly replied, “Th..That’s…that’s great sweetie.” She looked down again and resumed cutting at the rug with the knife, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth a little. Intent. Dedicated. And at that moment I thought she had lost her mind. I backed away slowly, quietly slipping the sliding door to our bedroom shut. I locked it. I slept on the floor on the farside of the bed, unsure if the violence she inflicted on herself might be turned against me in my sleep. I covered myself completely with a blanket and wept.

Now that she’s gone though, I wonder if that desperate, “pathetic” creative act wasn’t art—if it wasn’t a creative personality struggling with the limitations of their own life; their shortcomings, society’s shortcomings, their fears, neuroses, and unfulfilled wants and needs. I wonder if, in that moment, much like Eliot suggested in Tradition and the Individual Talent, she wasn’t Eliot’s exemplary artist: escaping the torture of her own emotional life through one singular, determined, bold, and uncompromising attempt to create. To invent form. To struggle with content. I wonder if I weren’t stupid for being so frightened that night. Truth be told, I regret not sitting on that floor with her, drawing my own blood and taking down the curtains and cutting them up and joining her in that endeavor. I regret not taking her in my arms and holding her. I miss her terribly every moment of every day.

I guess that is the other thing Rory taught us—never wonder “what if”, only “why not?” and then act accordingly. If only I had, I’d have had the “one more night” with her that the survivors of the dead so often long for. But I can’t have that. I can only honor her memory by being a maker; a creator; an artist; a prostelytizer of the possible.

And by missing her. And loving her.

But then, that’s never changed and never will.