Reckoning

Taken on the night of one of parties I attended in grad school. I was 24.

In the past couple of weeks, I have been diving into the playing injury I suffered years ago at the end of my graduate degree, how it came about, and how my time in music school studying classical violin informed the artist I am today. I realize over and over again how my experiences as a woman are inextricably linked to how I feel about myself and navigate the world as a musician, artist, and writer. The other day, I read this essay (CW: sexual assault) and a memory was unearthed that I didn’t know I had been burying. I had written it off as a bad night. The word I should have actually used was assault. For years, I listened to friends’ references or stories of assault and said, I’m so sorry, I’ve never been through that. I’ve just dealt with the regular (near constant) harassment. I truly thought this was the case. Because I didn’t know it could happen in the way that it did. I’m not ready to write about this in any kind of detail. I’m confused and bewildered. I’m writing this post from far away, a place in my mind that constructs sentences even when my perceptions are falling apart. I spent this weekend in a kind of paralysis, sending voice messages to my friend and eating until I was uncomfortably full. Thank god for the women in my life. Thank god for women writers like the author of this essay, T Kira Madden, for telling their stories so that I could attempt to piece together mine. So that I could have words for what happened to me. Sometimes I think it’s a fucking miracle that women artists have the strength to fill the world with their words, their art. My skill as a violinist and as a creator came from my ability to survive a culture that wanted to quash my voice at every turn through violence. I didn’t let it. I won’t let it.