Echoes
By Katie Hughes, Rural Program Capacity Specialist, Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (WCADVSA)
Editor’s Note: In the spring and summer of 2018, StoryCenter offered a series of storytelling webinars, in collaboration with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. In these sessions we invited participants to write their own stories of gender-based violence. We share one of those pieces here. To view the NSVRC webinar, contact Jenifer Benner.
My husband and I have just gotten out of a concert at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. We are looking for our Uber ride, and a young man approaches us, letting us know he is our driver. My heart races, and my breath catches in my chest as my brain starts spinning ... “Am I safe? Am I safe?” and then, “This– this is racism.”
I tell myself to get in the car, forcing my body through the movements, though I know my limbic system is overwhelmed and telling me to flee. “You’re safe, you’re safe,” I try to convince myself. I open the car door, and my husband squeezes my hand, a reminder that he sees me.
We’re driving. I’m processing all the filters I see the world through. How did I get here? I, who have lived my life learning and loving new languages, cultures, and belief systems. I’m proud of my work to understand the intersections of violence, oppression, and race—to figure out what challenging white supremacy and decolonization means in practice. “It sure doesn’t mean this,” I shame myself. “Hypocrite. Hypocrite.”
As panic sets in, the well-worn fears feel like strange, nearly forgotten, friends. Flickers of memories pass through of my stalker from college, who happened to be Saudi-Arabian. He threatened my life and the life of the person I loved. “Such a little thing,” I chide myself. He’s no longer in the country, so why am I so freaked? “This is totally irrational. You’re crazy.”
Then, finally, “Trauma. This is trauma, Katie.” And, just like that, I can breathe again. I feel the depth of my humanity, and of the driver’s, and it feels Incredible, to breathe it all in, and let the fear, the shame, go.
The ride ends, and the driver looks back, smiling.
“Thank you” I say, sending echoes through my soul.
Thank you.
Thank you.