The Home I Know: Sanctuary
Chapter 24 & Prologue
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CHAPTER 24: SANCTUARY
“Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the
story all the way through is an act of love.”1
~ Dorothy Allison
~ ~ ~
A journalist invited Incest AWARE to speak in front of the New York City courthouse where Ghalaine Maxwell stood on the stand. We invited members of our previously virtual network to gather at this event and meet each other in-person for the very first time. Survivors and supporters came from ages 13 to 60 to connect, create, and continue our pursuit of justice. For ourselves. For each other. We made pins, and printed flyers, and designed posters, and prepped our chosen speaker. Then, we witnessed each other.
Peggy — my old friend from SF who reintroduced me to the ocean with our newfound wetsuit skins — had moved to NYC recently and invited me to stay the night in her apartment. She, temporarily disabled from a serious foot injury, practiced mobility with her brace-bound foot resting on top of a knee scooter.
“Let’s go out to dinner!” Peggy recommended excitedly.
We slowly made our way down the elevator of her high-rise to the street. As Peggy lifted both her knees onto the scooter, my hands rested on her shoulders. Then I pushed her through the city, while she navigated toward our desired dinner spot. Peggy carefully avoided potholes and sidewalk inconsistencies, while I admired the buildings so much taller than trees in the city that never sleeps. We found the restaurant, and Peggy hobbled to her seat.
“You know, I’ve wanted to move to NYC for years,” I began.
“Annie, I mean Jo.,” she corrected quickly. “You should! What’s stopping you?”
“Fear mostly. What if it’s too much for me? What if I can’t manage my disability here?”
“If you want it, you will make it work. Your resilience has always triumphed over your fears.”
That’s all I needed to hear. I returned to Seattle, found an apartment in NYC through a friend, gave away my things to the gift economy, packed up my remaining earthly possessions in three bags, and prepared to move to the city of my dreams. Eventually, I made my way onto the plane and found my seat. A few hours later, the NYC skyline welcome me, while the plane grounded.
At the baggage claim, I retrieved the bags filled with my meager belongings. The first, I placed on my back and the second, on my shoulder, while the third rolled behind me. The signs guided me to the AirTrain. I boarded the E, then the D, which brought me to the Bronx safely. I hauled my suitcases and embodied baggage step-by-step up the subway stairs and onto the sidewalk, until I found the steadiness of the flat ground. Rain poured from the sky. My luggage dragged behind me, as I pulled my hoody over my head and walked block by block to the home I had found in New York City.
Suddenly filled with feeling, I burst into tears and looked up as the salt water of my eyes met the water of the sky. My hands outstretched then came back to hold my own body. My feet were grounded with no mountains in sight to climb. My being alive. A baptism into the expansion of being. Finally, I arrived. I knocked on the door of the new home I chose. The homeowners answered the doorbell and warmly introduced themselves.
“Hi, I’m Jo.” I shook their hands.
~ ~ ~
This one bedroom, top-floor apartment that shares an entrance and stairway with a safe family of activists and their two children, has always had beautiful bones: golden-hued wooden floors, rounded archways between rooms, a long, linear kitchen, more closet space than any New Yorker could ever hope for, windows that when open give the house a cool cross breeze, and a beautiful little window nook just for me.
The home also has a few signs of old age, more familiar to New York standards of living: molding pastel pink bathroom tiles, scuffed and punctured walls, trim sprinkled with holes and wear, busted shades, and dust buried so deeply into the corners and baseboards that even a professional cleaning wouldn’t clear it.
The apartment came with a few hand-me-downs: some dilapidated Ikea items including console and dining tables, as well as a bookshelf. An old floral wingback chair, ripped apart by the former tenant’s cat so badly that the nails stuck through, and a dirty and worn ottoman greeted me daily. A mattress that peeled like sunburned skin all over the bedroom laid on the golden floor. Old pots, pans, plates, and other kitchenware, as well as a few nicer items like a new turquoise daybed, a storage bench, a bedside table, and a full-length mirror scattered throughout the place. This was my home now, and I felt proud.
When I told my generous landlords that I used to be in the design industry, they agreed to let me make the apartment my own. So, I bought cans of paint from a nearby hardware store: in Sedona Clay and Dragonfly, White Dove and Flax, Sail Cloth and Spring Mint, and a sample of a sweet light pink for my front door.
I prepared to spend time with my chosen home by showering it with love: painting the walls and fixing the holes, cleaning the mold and replacing the blinds, refurbishing the furniture. My landlord agreed to help, so I didn’t carry the burden of the work alone. I arose in the morning, prepped the first can of paint, stirred it with a wooden stick, poured the cool beige-gray into a tray, then gently pushed a large rolling brush into it. Wet and full of color, my roller healed the former wounds of the walls.
I repeated this process over and over again, until the home I now called my own was resurfaced with colors I chose, in a community I trust, over a family that shares my values. Peggy’s parents had gifted me a number of hand-me-down blankets, tables, and beautifully framed pictures: all symbols of well-worn and safe love from someone else’s family. I threw the blankets over the ripped up wingback chair and warn ottoman, pushed the daybed into the window nook, and bought some new pillows.
More furniture arrived, including a bed frame that lifted the peeling mattress off the floor, a duvet cover to hide the stained comforter, a rug to throw across the living room floor, and a shower curtain to conceal the newly glazed tub. While I worked, my landlord grouted the shower, patched the screens, replaced the blinds, and filled the holes in the walls and window trims. Soon, the place appeared to have a new face. I just couldn’t get enough of this place, where I was finally learning to feel safe.
Ruth, Oliver, and H videocatted with me to see the before and after home renovation. They celebrated the new aesthetic then announced their plans to visit.
“I’ll see you soon!” I said before our goodbye.
“Not soon enough!” Ruth replied.
~ ~ ~
Within a safe home environment, my brain began to settle and my symptoms felt more manageable. I returned to a psychiatrist to discuss medication one more time.
“What is your medical history?” She asked.
I shared my stories of surgeries, seizures, and serial sexual violence by family members.
“That’s too much,” she grieved with me. “Do you have access to your medical records from childhood? I’d like to review your epilepsy treatment.” I told her about the Valium, then explained how I knew no further details.
“Years ago, I had reached out to various hospitals and pediatric centers that treated me, but due to HIPPA regulations they had only kept my records on file for seven years. My parents might have them still, but due to circumstances I chose not to reach out.”
“That sounds smart, Jo,” she replied. “Well, we’ll work with what we have. What medications have you tried before?” I sent her the list of psychotropics, doses, and durations that I had experimented with over the last 20 or so years. “How did your body respond to these medications?” I told her of the extreme swings between suicidality and fatigue or such high anxiety that I wanted to jump out of my own skin.
“We need to ease you in,” she said. “Let’s start with some herbs that will calm you down, then after a month we’ll introduce a low dose of Fluoxetine and gradually increase it until we find the right amount.”
My body screamed, “Yes!” with a strong twitch before the word left my mouth. “I would love my life to feel easier.”
The herbs hit my body hard, keeping me in bed for hours a day, but I could manage it. The same happened with the introduction of Fluoxetine, but the psychiatrist continued to reassure me.
“It’s okay, Jo,” she said gently, “This is a temporary adjustment.”
Slowly, so very slowly, my body began to feel like a place I could return to, to belong to, to exist in with more ease. A sanctuary. The nights still haunt me with insomnia and paranoia, but most days feel relaxing, restful, and sweet.
~ ~ ~
With the Spring came flowers blooming between the buildings in NYC. My new friend Jade walked with me to the local cemetery. We headed down the street towards the sprawling park, narrowly avoiding the dog shit, the trash, the glass, and the omnipresent rats of New York City. As we entered through the high iron gates, the scenery before us transformed into a sanctuary of death and life coexisting with each other, an emblem of existence itself.
Headstones the size of houses sat before us with names etched into them describing the bones of the person once birthed, then lived, then returned to the earth. Between these stone monuments, trees stretched into the sky and rooted deep out of sight, water pooled into ponds where ducks and turtles and fish co-exist, flowers blossomed in all colors and directions, and squirrels chased each other.
While walking, I shared the story of the evolution of my name. From the name given by my family, Anne Marie, to my chosen name, Josephine Anne Lauren. I mentioned that I chose Lauren because of how beautiful it sounded, but also due to its etymology: the name came from the Laurel leaf which early Christians wove into resurrection wreaths. Greco-Romans did the same to celebrate victory.
“You know, Jo.,” Jade began. “There’s a Greek myth you may be interested in hearing that very much relates to the meaning of your name, as well as your history.”
“Oh, please do share!” I answered excitedly.
I was aware of how often incest abuse is centered in many creation myths across cultures. From the rape of mothers, to sisters, to others, intrafamilial sexual violence has been normalized in stories both fiction and non-fiction throughout history. But I had yet to hear a myth that led to liberation. Jade told me the story:
“Cupid, the god of love, cursed the god Apollo with such infatuation for Daphne, a nymph and daughter of the river god, that he courted her. She refused due to two arrows that struck her heart from Cupid and caused her to despise romance. Then, Apollo chased Daphne to rape her. To keep herself safe, she ran to the river and prayed that her father protect her from Apollo’s aggressive pursuit. In response, the river god transformed his daughter into a laurel tree.”2
I gasped, while Jade explained, “So, the laurel tree is a symbol that represents victory over sexual assault and is also used for healing in survivor communities.”
I too ran away from a history of rape and prayed to spirits to save me, then arrived to the waters where I grew roots through friendship, generosity, and authenticity. I grounded, and parts of me became a nursing tree while the other parts transubstantiated into the Laurel I chose to be. Unlike Daphne, unlike Lilith and Eve, unlike so many other incest abuse survivors before me, I now hold the power to pen my own story.
So I have done my best to reflect on the consequences of the instances of incest in my own life, as well as shine a light on those whose resiliency enabled me to share a history that is so much bigger than me. This bible of my body canonizes just some of incest history as I have known it in my bones, so that no other soul must carry the weight of unnecessary serial sexual violence from within their own homes.
Now, this story is complete in me, actively living on the outside of my body, taking on its own being, transforming others in a way that I can’t yet see, saying:
I hope you too will find your way free,
while supporting others on their own liberation journeys,
just like so many did for me.
I collect the books of other incest survivors and researchers who have created knowledge with our histories to curate a library living and breathing in my chosen home in NYC. We are working on archiving these resources digitally for ease of accessibility. Daily, I witness the end of epistemic injustice that contributed to my own incest story.
Every other month, my computer screen fills with faces that support me and each other. The Incest AWARE Alliance includes individuals and organizations seeking to fill The Incest Gap by improving methods of prevention, intervention, recovery, and justice to ensure children are safe in their homes, survivors and families are supported in their healing journeys, and people who are at-risk to harm are unable to offend and reoffend. I admire the faces on the screen as the litany of loss in my body becomes a litany of love.
We recently launched an adult survivor support group through the Healing & CPTSD Hub. Together, we claim ourselves present in a history that has tried to erase us. We witness the wobbly ways we all exist after being touched by incest. We hold the gravity of the consequences of the abuse on our identity, our economy, our bodies, our families, our communities, our society. And we celebrate who we have all chosen to be on the other side of our journeys: liberators, protectors, teachers, connectors, creators, and organizers. A community of laurel trees. Yes, we are wired to wobble, but we are also wired to be wonders, and we all do both so beautifully.
Today, I call myself an AILA — or Anti-Incest Liberation Agent — because it means “from a strong place” in Gaelic and that is what we are building: an unshakable foundation for the Incest AWAREness Movement (IAM). I’m proud of who we are and what we have accomplished so far, and still we have such a long way to go. And in the space between I feel both grief and opportunity. This is the next step in the United States: a communal commitment to Institutional Courage3 to protect the next generation. A theology of liberation for children. A salvation of safety, so we can make incest history not just for us, but for everybody.
~ ~ ~
After such a long and debilitating process to heal my life from the inside out after incest abuse, I wanted so much to be celebrated. Like loved ones waiting at the end of an Iron Man, or Olympians being applauded at the closing games, or kids running through a v-shaped tunnel made by supportive parents after a soccer game. This pilgrimage of emergency recovery came to an end, and my efforts had been mostly completed internally; while my external life still reflected the simplicity of materiality rebuilt over and over again until I found the right fit, as well as the debt of the process. I felt I hadn’t really achieved anything but what so many start with: a safe home, a safe sense of family, a safe relationship with my body.
Where’s the glory in surviving after incest abuse?
Then a friend and fellow activist connected me to The Aplomb Project. This organization, led by Danielle Festa, offers free painted portraits to survivors of sexual trauma, as well as a weekend gala to reveal the paintings and community events to get to know each other. We met over Zoom. Danielle’s olive skin and teal eyes, light brown long hair and beautiful smile, appeared on screen before me, and I immediately felt safe in her virtual company. She invited me into the trauma-informed and intentional process of painting a survivor portrait.
I met up with Danielle and a few members of her family by the waterside in Hoboken, NJ, so that the backdrop of the portrait would show the New York City skyline and the bridge that I was choosing to become between my formally hidden history and a future of safe memory. We took photos and combined a few to make a picture of me leaning joyfully, smiling at the past, staring in awe of the beauty of the new World Trade Center, resurrected after violence.
The gala approached and I began to feel the familiar unworthiness that constantly accompanied me. I talked myself through it slowly, accepting it would never be absent, but it also no longer had the power to keep me from the present:
I am safe to be celebrated.
I am worthy of being celebrated.
I am loved and am being celebrated.
My desires are safe with me.
Ruth and H FaceTimed me that morning to wish me a good day. A few members of the Incest AWARE Alliance chose to accompany me to the gala, including Shirkydra, my strong liberator. She became a member of the next cohort to be painted by Danielle and planned to have her photoshoot during my portrait reveal weekend.
We rested before the events began, then I dressed my body in a cream, cropped-top suit jacket and long pants, heels, and large fake pearl earrings. I wanted to match how I appeared in the picture taken for the portrait painting. My friends and I showed up together at the gallery and met the other survivors being celebrated that night. We bonded and discussed the meaningfulness of our labor to transform our harmful histories into power and purpose, while being witnessed by community.
Danielle’s extended international family, who flew in for the celebration, couldn’t wait to meet me and immediately introduced themselves as if I were a celebrity. The event began and Danielle called me forward. Together we stood next to my portrait covered in shiny, black fabric — her on the left, me on the right. I shook standing centered in this large group of people.
“Are you ready to be revealed, Josephine?” Danielle asked, smiling.
“I am,” I consented, my knees nearly buckling beneath me.
Gently, she pulled the fabric back to show the portrait of me leaning against the iron railing at the edge of the Hudson, gazing at the World Trade Center. Stripes of lighter colors flooded the frame on the way that I faced, while behind me the darker hues shadowed the painting.
She made me the light, you see?
For when I finally turned to face the future of the New York City skyline, I would illuminate the bridge and the buildings before me. To the left of the painting, a television screen shared the story formerly buried in my body:
“Now, Jo reflects on the past, while the future awaits them joyfully. In the present, their eyes gaze upon everything that helped them to arrive in NYC. Sometimes they wonder:
‘Who would I have been without the surgeries, the seizures, and the serial sexual abuse of my youth? Then after disclosure, the family abandonment and the institutional betrayal by every system that was supposed to support me? I can’t answer these questions.’
So instead, they rewrite them:
‘Who would I be if not for my deep faith in a safer future for me and my community, for the families who re-parented me patiently, for the friends who taught me how to love deeply, for the opportunities that empowered me to share my story freely?’
As I turn to face the future, I see the bridge that leads to a safer way of being for the next generation of children. And when I look behind me now, I hope I remember to celebrate who I am, who we are, and how far we’ve come. The safety we sought, the health we healed, the liberty we fought for, the friends we believed in, and the courage we claimed to create a space that aspires to be safe.”
I am now the woman on the wall and will forever be. Danielle then revealed the title of the painting to me:
“Welcome Home.”
~ ~ ~
The Beginning
A Prologue
One day, I took a friend with me to the sea. We walked, me in my two-piece bikini and a silicon cap and goggles strapped to the top of my head, and she in a wetsuit that covered her skin from toe to neck. We approached the ocean ready for a swim. The swelling waves rose high into the air on that beautifully sunny day, then crashed hard on itself creating tumbling white wash that ebbed and flowed to the shoreline.
“Are you sure you want to go?” A concerned stranger looked at us both. “The waves are too big for a swim. It’s dangerous.” But, as we confidently knew how to navigate the sea, we replied, “We’re going to be okay.”
Then suddenly, our feet felt the sting of cold salt water on our skin. First our ankles, then our knees, then our hips, then our breasts. Lastly our necks and heads. We both submerged completely underwater, then pushed up from the sand and sprung out of the swell like dancing dolphins. Due to her second skin, my friend was more buoyant than me.
The first wave rose far above our heads, then crashed to cause the chaos of whitewash. I, wetsuit free, held my breath then dove deeply down to hug the sand where I always found safety and watched as the currents passed above my head. Then I pushed off the earth, broke the surface of the surf, and began to fill my lungs with air once again. But before I could catch the fullness of the next breath, another breaker crashed right in front of me. Quickly, I gasped as much air as I could, then dove back under the chaos, found the sand, and pressed up once again. But the next wave came far too soon and force me back under water.
“This is how strong swimmers drown,” I thought. “Not due to lack of skill, but instead having to navigate environments that are unswimmable.”
I filled my lungs with another breath far too shallow for the length of time and exertion required to return safely to the other side. I was running out of oxygen. I awkwardly dove beneath the crashing crest before me, pulled the water from front to back propelling me forward, and returned to the comfort of the soft sand within the reach of my hands. For just a moment, all was dark, but I was safe. Still, fear flooded my body and focused my mind on my strengths, while my lungs ached in reminder of their need for more breath.
Get past the break, Josephine.
I pushed harder off the sand to launch me further East and swam mightily to see the next breaker before it fell before me.
“Waves, I need you to calm down.”
I called to them in a final request, hoping the set would cease, so I could catch my much-needed next breath. Finally, I made it past the wave break and began to take in huge gulps of air to recover from the near suffocation of having spent too much time under whitewash.
Where’s my companion? I wondered, hoping she had made it out as far as me.
I began studying the surface of the sea for her wetsuit bobbing up and down like a buoy. Then, I saw her. Tumbling over and over again: her feet over her head, her head over her feet. It seemed from my distance that due to her wetsuit, she could not dive deep enough to find the safety of the sand, so instead met the chaotic tumbling of the whitewash again and again. So I returned to the break to help her.
As the next set rose above my head before I had enough time to truly catch my breath, I watched her tumble her way back to the shoreline where she stood up on the sand safe. I turned to face the peaking wake, dove under it one last time to hold the sand, pushed off to surface, and again swam beyond the break.
How do I get back to shore safely now?
My gaze searched where the waves crashed a little lower and a bit later, as my friend’s body, tiny in the distance, walked on the sand, following my direction. She trusted me to find my way back, and the sea to eventually let me.
So, just like the 12-year-old who was taught all those years ago before jumping off a pier, I swam diagonally across the currents cutting through the surf. Behind the waves, I could count the sets and the seconds between the really big ones that had left me without breath. After minutes of memorizing the patterns of the swells, I sprinted during the calm moments before the next currents of chaos crashed. Eventually, the sea calmed for me, the water shallowed, and the sand rose closer to my feet. I could stand, so I set myself free. My friend awaited me, with all those who were watching, ready to hear my story.
And so, I speak.
For the liberation of children.
Allison. Two or Three Things I Know For Sure.
Chaliakopoulos, “Apollo and Daphne: A detailed breakdown of the famous Greek myth.”
Freyd. “Project on Institutional Courage”.
Is your portrait public?