Lessons from a Stranger

I recently had the honor of speaking at Take Back the Night at Princeton University. Several people asked me to share my speech, so I offer it here. namaste


I took off my earrings before I went out that night. They were the long dangly kind, and a little voice in my mind told me that if something were to happen, my earlobe would rip. As women, these moments of fear, these “what if’s” are woven into our lives, but as I walked into the night, I thought no further of what might be. I allowed myself to be enveloped by the darkness, by the moonlight. Sipping my peppermint tea, I breathed out the tension of a stressful day.

It was around 9:30 at night. September 2, 2009—a night that changed my life. I had a cell phone in my pocket, and my favorite tea in my hand. I had just stepped back into life after spending several weeks outdoors in California, and the night and the silence felt more comfortable than the chaos going on in my life. I felt safe and strong, as I walked slowly down the street I lived on. I didn’t know it, but I was being watched.

As I reached the end of the street, I took my phone out of my back pocket and returned a call to my friend. I noticed the houses and the trees. I noticed a woman painting in the window of her house. It was when I was between two houses and between two streetlights that I felt it—a hand reached over and covered my eyes. “Is this some kind of joke?” I thought, and as I turned to look at the prankster, I felt an elbow clamp over my mouth--pure aggression, pure pain. “This is real,” I thought. Things always happen to somebody else until they are happening to you.

And then I can’t remember, though he pulled my almost six foot frame over, ripped my glasses from my face and hair from my head, dragged me behind trees, hidden from the street. The police tell me we had some kind of fight while I was on my back, and my friend, the only witness who was a phone line away, tells that I screamed the whole time. The next thing I remember, I was in a fetal position, hugging my body in tightly, desperately trying to disappear, and a very strong man was over me punching my left eye with a force that I have never felt before, trying to get me to pass out. “Get off of me,” I screamed repeatedly, and I knew, I knew that if I stayed on the ground, I would get raped. “Just get up. Just get up,” I told myself, and a cougar awoke. Somehow I threw the man not just off, but a distance away. I got up into Malasana, a yoga squat pose. I was too dizzy to stand up all the way. I thought, “I don’t know how to fight, but I’m big, and I’m going to make myself as big as I possibly can, and I stretched my arms wide. And he ran toward me, and still in a squat, I ran toward him. I thought, “I’m going to go for his crotch. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get there, but I gotta do this.” It was fight or be dominated. I screamed, “Get away from me, you asshole,” and we locked eyes. That did it. Suddenly I became not a woman but a person, a force to be reckoned with. We stared, and he moved from running toward me to running down the street. And I screamed hysterically to an empty night.

I continued screaming, until there was a circle of people surrounding me, staring. A woman accused me of committing a crime. I was bawling, my face was a mess, and I was on the grass in a center of a circle, screaming for people to call 911—I had been assaulted. All I got was disconnected, blank stares, as if I were insane. Until one woman, an angel of light, swooped in, took charge, and held me in loving arms. She guided me into a house, allowed me to curl up on the floor in a corner, where I felt safe, and said “Go ahead and cry. Something really terrible happened.” And pretty soon there was a circle of police and paramedics swirling around scared, huddled, terrified, and hurt little me.

I wish I felt that comfort from others after the assault, but instead I received more blank stares and blame than hugs. Indeed, what hurt most wasn’t my bruised body, my cracked ribs or my concussion and my pounding headache—it was my voice not being heard. It was the shame placed upon my shoulders. It was stinging words coming from many around me telling me, “You shouldn’t have been out by yourself,” “You shouldn’t have been on the phone,” “You should be more aware of your surroundings,” as if I didn’t learn these lessons the hard way. “At least he didn’t take your wallet.” I would give all the money in my bank account to not have to go through what I went through. “Why can’t you just forget about it?” as if I don’t want to forget, to erase the pain. Further, healing from trauma is a long process that takes time and strength and loving support. The reactions of so many people were trauma on top of trauma. I was treated as if I committed a grave felony by being, by not living in fear of men, by going out of my house at 9:30 at night. Am I supposed to be imprisoned by my gender? I say, “No.” I say, “Man, who followed me, who dragged me and was on top of me punching my face so hard, you shouldn’t have done that. I was simply out for a walk. I was living.”

I wish these were simply isolated voices, but instead they are choruses echoing. You hear them as you walk through the grocery story, and the “I’m sorrys” spill from the mouths of women. You hear them in domestic violence centers, as women struggle to free themselves from the belief that they somehow caused the abuse that they often so passively suffered through, responding to violence with love and forgiveness. And you hear them too often from their families, saying, “How could YOU allow HIM to do that do you?” I ask, “How could HE do that?” When we stop accepting violence against women as natural and a given, and thus something a woman is responsible to prevent, I know the world will change.

I probably blend in as one of the many women that man has done and will do this to, but I will never forget him--his eyes, his elbow around my mouth and his fist meeting my face. I will never forget the karmic dance we performed that fateful night, and I actually am grateful for the experience. Because through my interaction with him, I found my voice and my strength. Because of him, I deleted the words I’m sorry from my vocabulary. He helped me learn to break the pattern of abuse, harassment and indeed victimhood that has persisted throughout my entire life because of my gender. He taught me “no” and strangely taught me how beautiful it is to be a woman.

My story was not one of shame that I was or am going to hide in the closet, which it seemed most people wanted me to do. It was a story of pain but ultimately, it is empowering. I refuse to take blame, for I firmly believe I was doing what every human has a right to do—take up space, go for a walk on a nice evening, to just be. When we, as women, raise our voices and say assault is not the woman’s fault, and it will no longer be tolerated; when we, as women, collectively hold up our heads without fear and say no in all areas of life; when we as men and women, as human beings, see others simply as humans seeking happiness and peace, and compassionately witness and respect the lives of everyone around us, then I will stop telling my story. It will no longer be relevant.