Tracing a Nose Backwards
I think I was trying to kill someone off. Who was I trying to kill? Who deserved to be hurt?
Buckle up friends, we’re diving in deep today.
Many of you here reading know— in mid-January I had a decade-plus-overdue, medically necessary septoplasty and turbinate reduction. The details of why now are largely unnecessary but mostly it’s that I have been following and trusting the breadcrumbs of my body these last couple years— a body navigating long covid and various surprise activations and reactivations that I’ve spoken at length about in other pieces on here.
Besides wisdom teeth, I’ve been fortunate to only need two surgeries in this lifetime— both in the last year and a half. Due to the way our crumbling medical system treats anyone interested in consent and bodily autonomy, anyone who speaks up, says no, doesn’t play the game during their surgery (and no I am not talking about the vaccine here— fully vaccinated because doing so is personal and community care thank you very much! I am also fully aware some people with complex medical conditions have been advised by their doctor to avoid it. That’s not what I’m talking about.)— these surgeries have been incredibly hard on my body/mind/spirit not to mention the energy needed for recovery from both obvious and less obvious wounds.
I put off getting this surgery for years because back in those days (2008) I didn’t have health insurance and I didn’t have any money but also in part because consciously and unconsciously I knew that it was going to be A. LOT to navigate. In my first appointment with the surgeon I touched briefly on the fact that this surgery was the result of a lifelong history of abuse and trauma (see below). She responded “Oh, yeah, I don’t really work with trauma all that much— I mean sometimes but not that often". This wasn’t the first time I had heard that kind of statement from a surgeon— in fact, I’ve found that many “western” medicine doctors and surgeons— think that they aren’t actually working with trauma and faaaaaaar too many have absolutely no skill around working with survivors of trauma without further traumatizing them. Not to mention that cutting into a body is indeed the definition of physical trauma. (Though I will say the second appointment, when I shared my more recent history of medical trauma, she gently touched me on the arm and said “I’m going to try hard to have this be a non-traumatic experience this time.“ It helped.)
I broke my nose twice in my twenties. Both times were in relationship to my alcohol use— one time in college, very hungover, I got hit in the face (nose) with a lacrosse ball during practice so hard it bent my nose ring backwards. The second time was during an even deeper dive into alcohol misuse, drunk and play-fighting with a friend. Because I am a person who has been deeply rooted in my own and others trauma healing for over a decade, I knew this surgery— just by virtue of cutting into my septum— would mean old, embodied trauma would be present.
You see, my drinking to excess, to numb, to disappear was in direct relationship to the abuse and trauma I experienced in childhood through adulthood. While I began to shift my relationship to alcohol nearly a decade now, it wasn’t until I worked with the powerful plant medicine iboga (a story for another day) that I began to truly change my relationship with alcohol for the better, to understand what I was trying to destroy in me.
But sometimes time passes and we have health insurance coverage and sometimes we are resourced enough internally and supported enough by a partner and dear friends and family to choose to right the wrongs of the past. The surgery was incredibly hard and also, a younger part of me got to be truly cared for.
But what I’d like to share today is an echo of a past version of me, one who wrote the below piece speaking to the impact of trauma and violence on a body, the way ongoing trauma and violence shapes a person into someone who needs to leave, dissociate, destroy, to get by. I want to share a little more of her story.
Writing and sharing as naming and witness.
That person was (and sometimes still is) me and of course I imagine many of you are familiar with that version of yourself too. That person, abused and discarded, drove me into finding ways to engage in healing and from there, trained and studied to be able to create spaces for others to explore their healing too.
I love that person. I live most days trying to honor that person.
The below piece is from my in-process manuscript “Assaults + Rituals”. Arguably, I’ve been working on this manuscript my whole life but intentionally since 2013 when I started a graduate program at Goddard College—. As we’ve navigated this global crisis and collective trauma these last few years, I’ve struggled so much to work on this book. It’s been too much trauma, you know? And also, I know this book needs to be in the world.
(If you’re a literary agent— get at me! LOL. I have a whole book in my hands— I’ve been working with an editor. If you’re a publisher— same! Calling in that push to get me to finish.)
I’m grateful for you all of course, for being here, for reading in the bath and listening over tea or on the subway or on a break from your job.
I’m also very grateful for the paid subscribers— you truly allow me to sit in space and time to find the words. (And for those who are not paid subscribers— I recently lowered the monthly and yearly rate to $5 and $55 respectively. If you find yourself moved to support with a paid subscription, I’m grateful and welcome it. I’m also considering offering more to paid subscribers this year— things like recorded meditations and breath practices— so stay tuned.) As a sliding scale healing arts practitioner in my day to day, I can’t aways prioritize writing the way I would like to— paid subscribers help support this often unpaid work.
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Side note: music is a huge part of my life and so I’m going to start sharing a song or two that are supporting this writing, this living— below one I’ve been listening to for nearly 30 years (and it became an over and over type of song in the last month as I reached back into my youth, memories of riding the bus at 14 or 15 with my Discman, and goddamn it is still so good) and one is brand new to me thanks to my girlfriend Rose but hitting deep. Give them a listen before you read on, if you want.
Honey I was wrong, I had to walk down to turn Get a good look at my ways and hell maybe I’ve learned something From wringing out my shame - I had to lay down with her If just to see it was the same thing that got me before Honey I was right, I thought about it all night I looked the snake right in his face, I’ve seen the way he blinks that eye at me But I am not afraid, I’ve heard we’re all gonna die In a cascade of system failure or in the blink of an eye, "Snake", Sadurn It’s funny— when I first heard this song I heard it as a person calling back themselves but now reading the lyrics, it’s clear it’s about trying to call back a lover. #selfasbiglove
Tracing a Nose Backwards
I close my eyes, I try to imagine what a person walking down Front Street in Brooklyn saw that night. It was 2008, October.
It was late; I was whiskey drunk and yelling. I was in various states of sitting and standing; blood dripping down my nose, over my lip, into my mouth, bubbling over onto my yellow vintage sweater.
But earlier, we were standing on uneven cobblestone, Tara and I, engaging in what we had been referring to as boxing but really it was an intoxicated street fight among friends. We weren’t very good but it wasn’t about that. It usually ended with a joke, wolfing down a bag of chips, hers jalapeno and mine salt and vinegar, sitting posted up against a metal fence. There was a certain kind of ritual to it.
My latest romantic interest, Jo, was smoking on a bench during her break and laughing as we stumbled, drunk fists brushing past skin. She was an ex-heroin user turned alcohol (mis)user. I liked that about her. My leather-booted foot hooked onto the fragmented edge of stone and as I fell, full weight on my nose, I don’t remember being afraid. I do remember freaking out that I didn’t have health insurance.
After I was lifted up from my fall, I quickly realized that there was no way my nose wasn’t broken. I could lift and shift the bridge from its natural resting position. It made a popping sound as I pushed it around.
I might have been crying but maybe I was even laughing a little. I couldn't remember if I was supposed to sit with my head between my knees or roll my head back.
This entire ordeal had happened outside of Tara's restaurant after her shift and down the street from my day job as grumpy working class person fetching $1400 boots for wealthy women at the luxury clothing boutique. One of the restaurant employees insisted on calling an ambulance. I got abrasive and demanded she not call. Ambulances were way too expensive and there was no way I was getting in some vehicle unless it was yellow and a taxi to take me home. Advil would do the job. And some ice. Besides, it was only a broken nose.
I thought of my grandmother who has broken her nose twice. Now I would look even more like her. A moment of shallowness popped in as I realized my face would probably forever look fucked up, imperfect. Tara and I went home with my mangled, bloody mug and passed out. During that half-awake sleep that alcohol provides, I pulled myself out of various dried pillow bloodstains, too worn out to clean myself up.
This happened two months after I got a DUI, three times over the legal limit. This happened four hours after I returned from Pennsylvania on a bus while drinking mini-vodka bottles. As a result of the DUI, I had to take these state-approved safe driving classes for eight hours every Saturday, four Saturdays in a row and drinking mini bottles of booze was the only way I wanted to make it back to Brooklyn. This happened after at least nine whiskeys on the rocks, which I drank almost for free so why would I stop? We had found an easy way to feed our taste for caramel liquid; we stayed at her work and gulped all night. We drank until we couldn’t stand. A dynamic duo.
The following day, I called my nurse mother and asked for advice for a “friend” who broke their nose but couldn’t go to the hospital because she didn’t have health insurance. My hangover was wearing off and I was starting to get worried. I didn’t tell her it was me for a solid year.
Afterwards, I took some Advil and went to the all-day, rape crisis counselor training I had been going to for the past month at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. Over the course of the eight-hour class, my face blew up like an over- ripe watermelon. My eyes teared up the entire time. I couldn’t blow my running nose. I had one black eye turning into two. There was a deep cut on my bridge that has since scarred.
The instructors pulled me aside to see if I was ok, indirectly asked me if someone was abusing me. “Not today they aren’t” I thought to myself, the string of past violence and abuse in my past riding in my gut.
I explained the play fighting in the best way I could, assured them it was all in good fun but how do you make someone believe you’re fine when even the truth sounds like you are abusing yourself?
Of course, I didn’t have that insight then. I was too close, too off the rails and loving it. I know I believed I was fine. In the wildness, the unpredictable, I found freedom. For once I was in control.
During the days, I would lash out at the vocal, leering men on the subway who assumed I was straight, couldn't read my queerness. They would ask me if my boyfriend did it to me. Often my answer was You mean girlfriend. And no. I wore my bruising unabashedly as I shopped freely in Trader Joe's, preparing for my upcoming birthday party. I bought bottles and bottles of wine and whiskey, loaded up my cart. I was having a prohibition- themed party and in light of my new look, was dressing as an Irish prize-fighter. I even concocted this elaborate idea for an art project that involved me, my self- induced black eyes, and a daily photograph of their progression. I propositioned my ex-girlfriend’s current girlfriend for help with this. She seemed hesitant but said she would. In my mind, this photo story would be some grand statement on women, desirability, violence and who knows what else.
I think I was trying to kill someone off.
Who was I trying to kill?
Who deserved to be hurt?
I kept dating that person on the bench for a month or two longer but I often felt like I hated her. I hated how she would sleep all day, drink the bought booze before I came over and then, we would soak ourselves in what was left. I hated how when we were together we would drink and then get into her car. I hated how she told me I wasn’t femme enough, that when she first met me, I was wearing a dress so she had imagined me to be different. (I was not femme then or now.) I hated the way she didn't ask to feel my skin on hers, just pushed and pressed.
In reality, I hated all of the reflections of myself in her more than I hated her. She mirrored what had suddenly started spilling faster out of me.
February Corpus Ritual Healing Arts Announcements
The next sliding scale, virtual Breathwork for Aliveness group is FEBRUARY 23RD 5pm-6:30pm MT. Learn more about breathwork and join us!
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