Everything I Can Remember
Notes on a lifetime as a woman
When I was about eight, my mother took my sister and me to a local state park, a place where we would often ramble among the rocks and trees and streams. I waded up a stream on this particular trip, and when I looked back for my mom, I had gone a bit too far. A man was standing there in the stream, blocking my way, looking at me. He held a long, sharpened stick. And he began to chase me, up the stream and away from my mom and my sister. My mom finally realized I was missing, and she ran up the stream, yelling. The man ran away.
I’ve always had a low voice, even when I was a young girl. Starting when I was about 10, if a man was on the other end of the line when I’d call to order a pizza, or to speak with customer service, he’d often tell me I sounded “sexy.”
When I was about 11, something happened to me that I’m not going to share with you. So don’t ask, because it’s my story, not yours. And by the way, I didn’t tell anyone, for 27 years.
When I was 13, the boys in my eighth-grade class often sang me a song in the cafeteria: Roses are red/Violets are black/Why is your chest/As flat as your back?
