Jump Girl

by Salicrow

  This all seemed fascinating—even more so when a male friend who was six years older than me asked me out the next week. I started thinking about moving to California with Cookie and my dad, a plan they had been talking about. Cookie’s son lived in California, and my dad had spent time there in the Marine Corps. He had pretty much stopped drinking before he got into the relationship with Cookie, but suddenly he started back up again. Cookie was no pushover; she made it all my fault. My behavior hadn’t changed: I was still drinking, smoking pot, experimenting with other drugs, skipping school, lying, and starving myself. That said, I was not the cause of his chaos.

  As we spiraled haphazardly together, ricocheting off one another in a spiteful mess, I reached bottom—the feeling that I truly did not care to live anymore. It was not the outcome of a long battle with depression; it was a precise moment, an instance, when the weight of everything became too heavy.

  Again, I perceived the situation from the dual perspective of both experiencer and watcher. That ability never went away. I got out my Bible, which I had long ago stopped looking at. I prayed from the depth of my being, reaching out with my very essence to a higher power. I did not pray to the Christian God of my church; I prayed to “the God,” the being of many names, the power of creation, the universal consciousness, the All. It was not an act of organized religion, of getting officially sanctioned and being reborn; it was an act of divination, of prophecy. I was praying with an expectation that God would answer me in that moment, and He/She did.

  The request I put forward was simple: “If you have a plan for me, if there is a reason I am enduring this pain, let me know now.” I opened up the Bible and pointed randomly to a verse. I don’t remember what verse it was; hell, I don’t even know whether it was in the Old Testament or the New. What I remember is God answered me. The verse I pointed to was relevant, and it reassured me that my life had a purpose.

  At that moment something inside me started to heal. I had reached out to God and had received an answer. It was not a flashing-lights, booming-voice, Wizard-of-Oz kind of manifestation. It was subtle and filled with knowing. I started rethinking my relationship with God and what it really meant to me. It was never church that had drawn me to God; nor was it the Bible or Sunday school. It was the feeling of being connected to something higher.

  The message I received reminded me of my conversations in the mirror when I was little. It reminded me that I had work to do, that I had entered this incarnation with a purpose. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was crucial.

  A few days later fate wove a new pattern into the tapestry of my life.

  20

  Vermont

  In Carlos Castaneda’s book Journey to Ixtlan he talks about “stopping the world,” his belief that we must stop the mindless chatter and repetition of our minds in order to “see.” Long before I read any of Castaneda’s books, I experienced the stopping of my world. I was forced to move to Vermont. It was not a choice, nor was there any planning for it. It happened without boxes, bags, or goodbyes. It happened in a single turnabout night.

  The day of my sudden departure to Vermont, I spent the afternoon with Cookie. It was quite a pleasant afternoon, actually. I was feeling a change inside myself after my divination with the Bible. I had decided to put more effort into connecting with my dad’s girlfriend. After all, if I was going to be bonded to her, I could at least make an effort toward pleasantries.

  That afternoon my father had gone into the woods with a sleeping bag and a gun. Somehow things got blown out of proportion, with insinuations that he may have been going there to kill himself. Cookie was from New York City, the kind of woman who wore high heels and spandex to go jogging. She was not really acquainted with the ways of the woods.

  In the ensuing drama, I was sent to my mother’s for the night. She drove over from Vermont and picked me up. I was upset and confused. I didn’t understand what was going on. My stomach ached, and I felt anxious. I knew those signs meant something big was going to happen. I imagined that my stomachache and anxiety were connected to my father’s sudden departure into the mountains. I was blinded to the true reason my body was signaling me and completely unprepared for what happened.

  That night I slept on my mom’s couch. I awoke the next morning to hear her arguing with my father on the phone. At first I was relieved because if they were fighting, it meant he was home safe. My mother was really upset, and I could sense her anger and pain. Her voice raised to a high pitch as she yelled into the phone, “Richard, you can’t do that to her!” I knew she was talking about me, and I knew without hearing that she was telling him he couldn’t kick me out. My father was telling my mother I couldn’t come home.

  That was when my world stopped. I was numb. There was a stillness, a Zen-like quality to the moment. The sense of a dual reality was vivid, almost supernatural. My higher self was watching and planning as my body, the experiencer, sat in the void. I couldn’t wrap my mind around all the ways that one action of my dad’s would change my life, but I knew it would change me forever. It was like witnessing a death, a death of the old me. All that I knew and loved had been thrown up into the air like unwanted toys, and I didn’t know where or how they would land.

  My exile to Vermont turned out to be one of the truest, most complete moments of change I have ever experienced. I left my hometown, the place of my roots, the land of Grammy Brown. I left my friends, my school, my social world. I left my reputation, my shared memories, my outgrown ways. I didn’t realize it, but I was free—free to become someone else.

  I moved into the home of my mother’s boyfriend, the man who would become her second husband, Ron. He lived in North Danville, which was the middle of nowhere. When I say nowhere, I mean there were no neighbors in sight; the roads were almost impassable in the spring, and there wasn’t a streetlight for miles.

  With a month and a half left in the school year, I transferred to Danville High. The place was tiny, and everyone seemed to have known each other since kindergarten. I didn’t want to be there, but I had no choice. I was only fifteen, which meant I didn’t have a driver’s license and was stuck out in the boonies with no friends. I had moved less than an hour away from my home in Whitefield, and my mother would take me back there occasionally to see old friends, but for the most part I was stranded in the middle of Vermont with nothing to do.

  Though I’m a social person, I didn’t want to make new friends, and I was drawn inward into a well of deep introspection. Two minds warred within me—one that was angry at being dropped in the middle of East Bumfuck, and the other that believed the move was a necessary part of my spiritual growth. This part of my mind, my higher self, knew I desperately needed to change. I needed my world to stop so I could “see” what was becoming of bad-girl me.

  Vermont proved capable not only of stopping my world but also of piquing the curiosity of my jaded mind. On the one hand, it was so rural that our bus would be late to school because of a cow crossing or because the mud on the roads was nearly impenetrable. On the other hand, Vermont was a multicultured crazy quilt that included Buddhists, dowsers, and witches. Without knowing it, I had come home.

  These spiritual and cultural treasures were not hidden. They were there in plain sight, and my introduction to them happened quickly. Weeks after my move to Danville, the town was abuzz with activity as people flooded into the area from all over the world for the cremation rites of a Buddhist rinpoche. A week later, a conference held by the American Dowsing Society descended on the sleepy little town, bringing with it thousands of people. Before the month was out I was introduced to my first real-live witch, the mother of one of my school friends.

  I had heard of Buddhism before but knew nothing about it. I had no idea what a dowser was either; but I had already been searching for witches. There was true mystery in the Green Mountains of Vermont, a way for the universe, God, and my spirits to reacquaint me with concepts outside of Christianity. I had been searching for answers. I knew there w
as more to the world then the philosophies of holy rollers and pious preachers. In Vermont, far from Grammy Brown, I was starting to remember who I was.

  My sister Sandy came to live with us in the woods of North Danville after her graduation from eighth grade. We packed her bags quickly and traveled like refugees through the dark of night. Her departure from our dad was a painful one, but I was glad to have her with me and felt I now had at least one true friend at my side.

  On the day of Sandy’s graduation ceremony, I found her crying in her bedroom. She had spent most of the day goofing off with friends, as they only had a half day of school. When she got home, my dad was angry. He had been drinking again, and his temper had gotten the best of him. In his anger he hit Sandy and accused her of being good for nothing. It was the first and only time my father used physical violence on any of us.

  Upon hearing this from Sandy, I walked out of her room and through the living room, where I passed Cookie, sitting blank-faced on the couch. I walked straight up to my father, who was standing in the bathroom and looking into the mirror with the door open. I could see his remorse and feel the palpable ether of self-loathing that surrounded him. I knew he was disgusted with himself, but I didn’t care. In that moment I was a spiritual warrior. I felt no fear, and I carried a righteous fury inside myself that was impossible to contain.

  I stood in the doorway and looked him straight in his good eye, and when I spoke, I did not yell, and my voice did not tremble. I spoke firmly and with authority when I said, “You need to get help. You are fucked up. You are not okay.”

  I turned around and shot a venomous glance at Cookie, daring her to speak. I knew my father’s actions were not her fault, but I also knew he was broken, his trauma too heavy for him to carry. She sat like a coward and said nothing about what was happening.

  My father missed my sister’s graduation and checked himself into the VA hospital that very night. Thus began his long journey to sobriety. The rest of us sat through graduation, holding ourselves together the best we could, trying to feel happy and joyful as we witnessed my sister’s transition from kid to teenager.

  Within a month my father and Cookie left for California without saying goodbye. Over the next couple of years, we heard from him periodically and saw him on a few rare occasions. He had walked out of our lives without looking back.

  I missed him. I hated him. I thought about him often, usually with spite. For him to choose Cookie over his family was despicable. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t see through her veneer. But he was halfway across the country, and we had so little contact that I could push that pain to the back of my mind until I could approach it without self-destruction. I started slowly to heal.

  For the next few years my life seemed to bob up and down between my mind opening spiritually and my shadowy bits wanting to pull me back into the abyss of self-loathing. The first part of myself to begin healing was my anorexic need for control. I was able to step away from bulimia and began nourishing my body again. I could “see” how unhealthy I was. I no longer felt the need to compulsively write about every morsel that touched my lips. My mind was interested in more mysterious things.

  Sandy and I started talking about past-life memories we had and began reading whatever books we could find on the occult and metaphysical worlds. Our friendship returned to its former role of primary importance in my life.

  21

  Stopping Time

  By the end of my teenage years, I started paying more attention to the voices I heard in my head. I didn’t always take the time to determine whether they were my higher self or a spirit, but I always listened, particularly if the voice was accompanied by a feeling of knowing.

  Moments with spirit began happening more often. I would experience a “knowing” as if someone had spoken clearly in my mind, saying something urgent. This feeling of urgency would spur me into action.

  Months before graduating high school, I escaped trouble a few times by listening to the guidance of spirit. The first time involved an underage party I went to. I was hanging out in the living room when I suddenly knew I had to leave. I grabbed my friends and said, “We have to go now. Follow me.”

  We left the apartment where the party was being held and went around the side of the building to smoke a cigarette. I insisted that we head down the hill a little bit, farther away from the apartment building. I had a bad feeling, like something was about to happen. Moments later the police arrived. We ended up spending almost an hour sitting on the side of the hill behind the apartment building while the police broke up the party. Many of our friends were cited and fined for underage drinking, but not us.

  Another situation when spirit saved me involved more than just following guidance; it also pushed my understanding of reality outside the box.

  One night my friend Lindsey and I were hanging out with some friends at an apartment in Lancaster, New Hampshire. She had drunk too much and was feeling sick, so we went outside for some fresh air. This was her crowd, and a heavy-drinking one at that; most of them were also doing coke. I didn’t care for this particular group, finding them rougher than the people I preferred to hang out with. But it was a place to be, and I liked to spend my weekends drunk, stoned, and generally fucked up. It hadn’t been very long since my world had stopped. I had begun my healing around anorexia, but I still carried the self-destructive attitude of someone who doesn’t give a fuck.

  I had tried coke a few times and wasn’t that fond of it. I was a hyper person to begin with, and the last thing I needed was more energy. Cocaine did tend to make introverted partygoers more talkative and philosophical, which at least made the conversations interesting.

  As Lindsey and I sat outside smoking, two guys approached us. They had just left the bar up the street. We didn’t know them, and I knew it was a bad idea to talk to them, but I did anyway. I was in a place in my life where I liked courting danger. I wanted to break rules and play with fire. I enjoyed feeling as though I was outside the rules of reality. Being bad-ass powerful still made me safe.

  We decided to walk with them to their apartment and then go for a ride in the Camaro one of them owned. They were in their mid-twenties. We were seventeen but often hung out with guys much older than we were, and we didn’t think much of the age factor.

  As we walked to get the car, I felt apprehensive, but I swallowed the feeling down. Inside the car I felt uncomfortable. I thought the feeling was connected to drinking and driving, and I questioned whether the driver was sober enough to drive. The old Sali, the sensible Sali, the Girl Scout, the higher-self Sali knew it was stupid to ride in cars with people who had been drinking. She knew it was stupid to take off into the night with men she had just met.

  We hadn’t been in the car long when it started to have problems and then stalled out. At first I was thankful, thinking that my uncomfortable knowing was connected to drinking and driving. Then I realized how cliché the sequence was. It was the story line of half a dozen teen movies: the guy’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, forcing the young couple be alone together in the dark. I was cynical by nature after a childhood that had exposed me to the ugly underbelly of the world. I knew that people didn’t always have noble intentions. I held little faith in humans as a general rule, but then again, I didn’t care.

  We had to walk the mile and half back to town. It was the early hours of the morning, and dew was starting to settle on the ground, making me wish I had brought a heavier jacket. I was starting to feel tired, so I smoked cigarette after cigarette as I walked.

  As we walked, we separated into couples. The guy I was accompanying, Brian, was over six feet tall and had broad shoulders. He had a shaggy appearance, with dirty blond hair and a stubbly face. I suppose he was attractive, although not really my type. The thing I remember most about him is that he smelled like sawdust. For some reason the smell was repulsive to me. My internal radar was going off, but I wasn’t listening. If I had been, I would have recognized the repulsion as a wa
rning sign.

  On the long walk back to town, we outpaced Lindsey and the other guy, so that when we arrived at the guys’ apartment there was no sign of them. By this time I was becoming nervous, and I wondered what had happened to her. Having been raised by a marine, I was observant and protective of my friends. Brian assured me that they would be along shortly and that we should just go up to the apartment to wait for them where it was warm. I was uncomfortable going in the apartment alone with this guy, but I was more worried about Lindsey. What if she came back to their place looking for me and I wasn’t there? So I agreed.

  The apartment the guys shared was on the main street of town, one of those buildings with a dozen or so units on three floors, with shops below. There was a stale smell of beer in the hall and a handful of cigarette butts littering the corners. A big stairwell with sand on the stairs showed that no one was actually keeping up the building. It was the kind of place you would expect college students to live in.

  The apartment was small, with windows that faced the front street. The sky outside the window showed that the sun would be coming up shortly. I sat tightly on the couch, smoking a cigarette and wondering where the hell Lindsey was. Brian offered me a beer. I opened it and we drank together. There was a heavy, thick energy in the room, a tension that I think I was personally generating.

  After a few moments, he kissed me. It wasn’t a tentative “Are you okay with this?” kiss; it was a “let’s get down to business” kiss. Being a bit intoxicated, I at first returned the kiss. But the urgency with which he was kissing me made me really uncomfortable. I pushed my hand against his chest and told him to wait. I explained how I had just gotten out of a relationship and was unsure that it was over between us. I was scrambling, trying to make him feel compassion for my situation. Though a bit scared, I was sure I could handle this one guy.