The Home I Know: Fluidity
Chapter 7
Thank you for your interest in the section of my memoir below. If your email server clips the message, then you can read the full post on Substack. You can also listen to the post by clicking the audio button at the top of this page. When needed, visit the Bibliography and Support Resources. This post mentions incest abuse. If you’re seeking resources, head over to Incest AWARE or Sibling Sexual Trauma.
The sea lapped against the shoreline just a few miles away from my university. I still had my Hyundai Santa Fe, which my youngest brother aptly named “Green Bean.” When I felt tired, or sad, or mad, I forced myself to walk to the parking lot, get in the car, turn on the engine, and drive down the bluff to the shoreline. I stopped, stepped out of the vehicle, pulled my shoes off, then felt the sun-soaked sand quickly heat the bottom of my feet. The edge of the water awaited me, as it always did, and instantly I felt soothed by the endless blue horizon.
~ ~ ~
The summer passed both too slowly and too fast, as I laid most days depressed in my childhood bed and stared at that white statue of Mother Mary that still stood constantly on my windowsill. I had one thing to look forward to: an upcoming trip to Lourdes, France, where Mary once appeared to a 14-year-old named Bernadette. Pilgrims of a variety of faith traditions who revere Mary visit the city every year to pray in the basilica, to view the grotto, to walk the life-sized stations of the cross, and to bathe in the waters known for healing miracles.
Hospices have been built right across the river to care for the travelers who may need medical support during their holy journeys. The community depends on volunteers to run the baths, to accompany the sick from the hospices to the various activities, and to lead the pilgrims pacing in candlelight processions and singing songs every evening.
My father had recently become a Knight of Malta after receiving an invitation from the Catholic organization known for recruiting the conservative and wealthy. Every summer, the Order of Malta traveled to Lourdes to volunteer with the sick, as well as planned a pilgrimage for high school and college students to attend. My father and mother went, then sent me on the next youth pilgrimage.
As soon as I arrived, my feet guided me as if they were not mine. Every morning, I arose, quickly ate some bread and butter, jam and ham, then headed out to be with those in need. Sometimes, I folded blankets for the buggies that carried those who needed assistance with mobility around. Other times, I led the congregation in song during the candlelight vigil at night. Then finally the planning team asked me to work in the baths, the most trusted and coveted position for volunteer pilgrims.
Early in the morning, I walked along the basilica and through the grotto where Mary had appeared to Bernadette. My hands dragged across the once rough rock like so many pilgrims had done before me, eventually polishing the stones into a sleek and smooth marble. I passed the candles that continued prayers in small iron cages next to the river that flowed through the holy city. When I arrived at the sacred site, pilgrims had yet to form the line so long that they may need to wait all day to be bathed. The leadership team unlocked the door for me and the one who spoke English provided instructions.
Dressed in the youth Knights of Malta uniform with long khaki shorts to my knees and a white, loose crewneck T-shirt with the logo of the organization on the front and back, my attire matched what their team expected. They handed me a navy blue apron to pull around my body then introduced me to the rest of the volunteers: five other women from around the world, none of whom spoke the same language as me. We gathered in the baths, divided between women and men, where we practiced what exactly to do with the pilgrims.
Two of us assisted the believer in undressing with the help of a white sheet to ensure modesty. Once naked, we wrapped the cloth around the pilgrim and walked her to the entrance of the bath, where the four other volunteers awaited her. In the bathing area sat a long stone opening filled with ice cold water. A small white statue of Our Lady of Lourdes rested at the far end.
The pilgrim entered the tub and slowly shuffled forward to the Mary awaiting her, offered a prayer, then the volunteers dipped her back until the white sheet and her bare skin soaked in holy water. Then the same process continued just backwards: the pilgrim returned to the entrance of the bath, and with help of the volunteers, dried and dressed. She departed from the sacred place that she had waited all day to bathe in, ideally having received some sort of miracle from Mary. I couldn’t help but wonder:
If the power of prayer, or a simple dip in a bath, could heal people in an instant, why did Jesus and Mary stay so silent in response to my pleas for healing?
The pilgrims entered the bathing chamber one by one. All day, the other volunteers and I supported the believers by disrobing, dipping, then dressing them. Eventually, my team invited me to hold the weight of the women as they leaned back into the water. I witnessed in honor, as the pilgrims of so many faith traditions wept, feeling close to Mary for this moment in the bath. Moved by their belief in the power of healing, I wondered what might happen to my young body slowly struggling to function when I took a dip in those holy waters.
At the end of the day, my time finally came to find out. Each volunteer who wanted to bathe followed the same steps as the pilgrims. I got undressed with the help of the women who I had volunteered with, wrapped the white linens around my flat chest and narrow hips, then entered into the back of the bath. My feet felt the fluid first: ice cold, but light; less like water and more like barely there frozen air. I swept my body wrapped in the sheet through the cold fluid until I arrived where the statue of Mary awaited me.
I touched her gently, while tears began to flow from my eyes. Suddenly, I felt in my body the potential for the power of healing. I knew I was not better right away like so many miracle stories of Lourdes. Instead, healing felt possible, and I was clear that it was my job to pursue it.
While I changed back into my modest uniform, I felt both disillusioned and determined: disappointed that I had not received the healing-in-a-moment experience I had hoped for. However, my spirit knew a new energy that drove me to keep seeking other ways of healing. With a light pep in my step, I walked past the long candles in the iron cages that had stamped on the backs, “This flame continues my prayer.” I approached the burning wicks, found one that had yet to be lit, struck a match, and watched the flame ignite. The wax began to slowly drip, keeping my prayer for healing alive.
~ ~ ~
Sophomore year of college began, so I returned to LMU to be with my roommate in an apartment atop that beautiful bluff that overlooked the sea. In the space between classes, papers, and reading, I was now free to do just about anything having canceled my commitment to passing balls and chasing walls in the confinements of an olympic-sized pool. So I explored all the activities the campus had to offer to second year students like me: a community service club, campus ministry, a sorority.
My schedule filled quickly and I felt busy, but in a different way than before. With less time exercising and without the daily soak in the sun and water, I began to feel sluggish and tired. My hair and pleasant personality both turned darker, as my moods continued to oscillate in ways I still could not explain. My relationship with my roommate became strained, as I couldn’t take care of my responsibilities in our shared apartment on campus. Clothing covered the floor of our small room, the trash filled up and over the top of the bin, gnats flew around the kitchen sink from the pile of dirty dishes. She asked me time and time again to respect her wishes by simply cleaning up, but I couldn’t find the energy.
Instead, I spent time journaling. In my mind, I began to travel back and forth in time throughout my story to try to uncover any painful memories that might have been the cause of what I came to understand to be psychosomatic symptoms: or body strains from the brain that can often be due to emotional and psychological pain. But I couldn’t think of anything particularly traumatizing. The only obvious moments of trauma from my childhood were the times I couldn’t remember before the age of five: the surgeries and the seizures. But physicians I met with expressed no concern that a temporary childhood illness could cause such debilitating depression and anxiety as an adult.
On the outside, my life in college was progressing as it should be. But my body was telling me a very different story. Finally, I reconsidered the recommendation of the doctor, my father’s cousin. I turned to therapy and medication. The sick and the crazy had consumed me, and I wanted to return to some sort of recognizable normalcy. First, I tried therapy, but the college counselors lacked both the expertise to treat the severity of my symptoms and the space in their schedules to fit me in. Treatment outside of school was not covered by insurance. Then I pursued psychiatric medications, which I hoped would just fix me without having to talk about the chaotic currents flowing within my brain and body. So I went to a new doctor who performed some tests.
“You’re too young to be feeling like this,” he said.
Am I being punished?
“There’s nothing structurally wrong with you,” he continued.
So, you’re saying it’s all in my head?
“Are you dating?” He inquired.
“No!” I responded angrily now, wondering what dating had to do with healing.
“Why not? You’re beautiful, it may make you feel better.”
I certainly hoped to meet someone in college and had tried dating a few guys in my class, but none of the relationships lasted. Managing the severity of my symptoms alongside my studies and increasing activities didn’t leave much free time for fun. I redirected the physician.
“Dating isn’t my priority at the moment. Do you have any other ideas to help me feel better?”
He then went on to tell me that he too managed anxiety, and that the best medicine for him had been distraction: to stay busy during the day and to practice a gratitude exercise before bed. I had already tried busyness as a solution, but the symptoms on my insides took over me, as did the terrors of being raped at night. Now, it felt necessary to try anything that might make me feel better, so I could once more become the bubbly, happy, high achiever who I was so accustomed to being, who I was expected to be. So I suggested:
“How about medication?”
The physician wrote me two prescriptions: the first for Zoloft, and the second, a gratitude exercise. I was to write down five things I felt grateful for before bed each night. I returned back to school, popped the pill in my mouth, and pulled out my journal to write down my list of five gifts. But anger answered within my soul and body, as gratitude felt so unusual to me with the weight of this heavy suffering.
My system felt agitated by this exercise meant to be medicine, and the pills made me so tired I didn’t want to get out of bed. Instead, I felt trapped between a new trinity of journaling, praying, and incessant visits to the sea to relieve the messages spinning in my head, trying desperately to feel better, to get better, to do better, to be better. But my days passed with no relief.
By the end of Sophomore year, I walked to my student mail box and pulled out a letter addressed to me from the university. Surprised, I ripped the seal with my index finger, pulled out the folded white paper, and read the invitation to an awards ceremony at the Sacred Heart Chapel.
I arrived to the church the day of the celebration dressed in a white, flowing skirt past my knees, and a coral wrap around top, with high heeled flip-flops. The emcee began to read the agenda for the ceremony. One person from each class was to be honored for their academic excellence, commitment to social justice, and care for the community. The emcee called the Freshman honorary to the stage. Then, when it was time to name the Sophomore, he spoke: “Anne Marie,” then the surname of my father, and his father, and his father before that.
In shock, I stood and walked down the aisle to the altar. The wooden pews that sat in long, linear rows passed next to me, while I approached the Christ hanging from the cross. I watched as my peers cheered me on, then I saw them. In the very front row, where they always sat as if the pew had been reserved for them, waited my family. My grandparents — Pops and Joan, Jay and Magdalene — my father, mother, and my younger brothers, all gathered to celebrate me. The school had called and invited them to attend.
At the end of the celebration when the sun began to dim, I kissed my family goodbye, then walked hastily back to my apartment before it grew too dark. I unzipped my skirt and let it fall to the floor. Then I untied the coral pink sweater, pulled on pajamas, picked and washed my skin, brushed my teeth, then rested my head in bed wondering:
How could I be this honored and still feel this horrible?
Wow, riveting. I am very moved by what you wrote, and how you wrote it. THANK YOU!!!