I hesitated—my mouse hovering over the “purchase now” button for several minutes while I weighed the gains and losses—and remembered how visibly delighted she was when I presented the idea.  It was an opportunity to help women who were recovering from unspeakable violence.  It was a chance to show support to friends who were volunteering their time and talent for this important project.

It seemed like the perfect mother-daughter outing.

I had heard about The Vagina Monologues and long admired Eve Ensler’s work, but I had never actually heard The Vagina Monologues. When they were first performed in my neighborhood in 1996, I missed them. I was a young mother, busy raising the girl—now a young woman—who would accompany me to this show.  She is an avid reader and student of history, well-informed about world events.  She has heard about violence against women and children, and she knew about  the show through her involvement in theater. She had shared the very same stage with several of the actors who were participating in this benefit performance.

I knew that there was no way she would miss it, and no way for me to protect her from the world outside our neighborhood.  She hugged me when I told her that I had purchased two tickets.  I was unprepared for how excited she was to go with me.

I was also unprepared for how strange it would be for me—now a middle-aged mother of two teenaged daughters—to experience the monologues with my baby sitting beside me.  The monologues alternate between hilariously funny and impossibly sad.  They are inspiring and exhilarating, and also nauseating. They are a finely engineered roller coaster.

My daughter— the youngest woman in the room—was naturally sensitive to the mood swings of the monologues.  She leaned over to nestle her head against my shoulder or squeeze my hand frequently during the 90 minute performance.  Even as I treasured these shared moments of intimacy, I worried that I had made a bad choice as a mother. Perhaps I should have helped her maintain her childhood wonder.  Did she need to hear these stories, to be informed of women’s suffering before she was a fully-formed woman herself?

After the show, we met our friends in the lobby and hugged them, and cried and gushed over their moving performances. My daughter turned to me and thanked me earnestly.  I understood that the ground beneath our feet had shifted, and I was unprepared for the euphoria and nausea that I experienced as I regained my balance.

It was indeed a perfect mother-daughter outing.

I imagine myself standing at the edge of the Nile, attuned to its cyclical ebb and flow which occasionally causes floods and overwhelms those who have built their lives alongside it.

I live near a different river. When I say it in my native New York accent, though, it may sound like the same place.

Denial.

Actually, it’s not a place at all.  It’s a state of being.

Denial is an excellent defense against trauma.  At times, living in Denial is the only way to prevent myself from being engulfed by pain.

Grateful though I am to be spared physical pain, I suffer from a spiritual pain that threatens to drown me.  I grasp the branch of a tree which grows along the banks of the river.  I look up at the tree’s canopy. Seeing that I am sheltered by a weeping willow, I yearn for an unyielding stalk of bamboo.

I can’t bring myself to write about my feelings, because writing would lead to their acknowledgment and acceptance.  Denial allows me to keep anger and sorrow at bay.

Yet, I write:

“A mother who has only recently buried her son—the fruit of her womb—is forced to confront the injustice of her life. Her hope for the future was cut off, its death hastened by the son of another woman.  I have heard her cry for mercy.”

Beyond these few sentences, I cannot write a word.  As a mother, I can too easily imagine the nightmare of burying a child. I willfully deny myself Empathy in order to cope with the enormity of her Pain. I seek comfort in reading the written words of others, but I will not commit my own words to the pages of my notebook.

Instead, for now, I wade among the bulrushes of Denial.

Perhaps I will find words of consolation there.

Here’s a page from my “walking journal,” where I jot down things that occur to me when I manage to unchain myself from my desk:

I appreciate living in a place where I can safely walk the streets at most hours of the day and night. But there is a downside to having friendly neighbors, and I feel compelled to share it with you.

When I am power-walking up and down the hills of our neighborhood, listening to cardio-boosting music with one earbud and watching the sidewalk intently for obstacles in my path, I am in the zone…so, I have a request: Please don’t beep your car horn at me.

Why not? Three good reasons:
1) You will get my attention with the horn, but
2) I can’t see you behind your tinted windows. And
3) the horn usually scares the daylights out of me.

Although I generally regain my composure quickly and respond by smiling and waving, my heart stays in my throat. This is not so great for my workout.

Uh oh. I just reread this and it sounds like a complaint.

I don’t want to rewrite it completely. Instead, allow me to recommend a solution: Roll down your window and wave as you drive by me.

Why?
1) I still probably won’t recognize you, but
2) I will know that you are a friend, one who is intent on greeting me without startling me. And
3) my heart will beat happily in my chest as I raise my arm to wave.