Tales from Rural Maine: The definition of progress

When I started with the Orland Fire Department, I was afraid of everything. Quite literally. One year before I joined, I had been attacked by five idiots at a church before yoga one day, and for the next six weeks, I didn't leave the house unaccompanied. The church was so concerned for my safety, they provided an escort at my next week's class, and then they changed the locks and strongly suggested I never let myself be alone on the premises.

I slept with all the lights on inside and out for almost a month. My neighbors organized a 24-hour watch because there was a realistic fear that my anonymous attackers would come back to do more harm. I quit teaching yoga. I quit doing everything. I huddled inside my house all spring. All summer. I was afraid even to go in the yard. I was covered in stress-induced hives for almost a year. My joints ached. I didn't socialize. I barely spoke. I didn't sleep--and if I did, I had night terrors for the first eight months. I nearly committed suicide three times.

The police would not give me or my attorney the names of my attackers, who got off with a disorderly conduct charge because I was too frightened to press assault charges. I had no idea who most of them were. They were nameless. And they were terrifying. I saw the face of the woman who led that attack in my nightmares every night and I lived in abject fear that she or her friends would turn up again, somewhere, when I was alone. So if I was alone, I was behind a locked door--or two. If the doorbell rang, I hid.

I worked really hard to heal, to recover from the trauma, to get some semblance of self-esteem back, but as anyone with PTSD knows...the work is hard and long and sometimes it seems, we will never get well.

Even when I started going out in the world again, I lacked a sense of safety. And then one day, one of my most dedicated students, who also happened to be the assistant fire chief at the all-volunteer Orland Fire Department, suggested I use the training room at the OFD to teach a yoga class. It felt overwhelming to go out into the world again and teach. It felt unlikely that a fire department could be a comfortable home for yoga. But something inside me said, "Yes. Go. See."

So I went. I saw. I met Bobby Conary and Mary Lou Conary. And that space? It spoke to me. It spoke of kindness and belonging and of the possibility that maybe I could be okay again one day. I took a gigantic leap of faith, and I started teaching yoga at the Orland Fire Department.

Slowly, over the course of a year, the kindness and selfless service, the generosity and togetherness, the sweet, amazing courage that infuse that space calmed and settled my nerves. The nightmares stopped. The pain eased. I began to feel more brave and settled and strong. I developed a crush on the fire trucks. And then one day, the Chief, who had also become my student, said, "Why don't you join?"

I laughed. Me?? I'm afraid of everything. I thought he was kidding. But he was serious.

I told him I was too afraid.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked.

And I told him, "Two things really, fire and having to pee! What on earth will I do if I'm stranded for hours in turnout gear and I have to pee?!"

He laughed. And he explained that there were lots of things to do at the fire department that didn't involve being near fire. And as for the second thing, he said, "We have special equipment for that." And he took me to the back of one of the fire trucks and rummaged around in a metal compartment, moving big heavy tools with names I didn't know, until finally he pulled something out.

"This is what we use for that," he said, grinning, and he held out a roll of toilet paper. I laughed. 

It would've made all the sense in the world to say, "No," to joining a fire department, but something inside me said, "Yes. Go. See."

"Okay," I said. "I'm in."

When you apply for membership at the Orland Fire Department, someone nominates you at a monthly meeting. Then for the next month, you can attend weekly trainings as an observer to get a sense for the work and so that people can get to know you. After a month, they vote.

At the very first training following my nomination, I was about to get in a fire truck (my very first time!); I was feeling so brave and special and happy about this new chapter. And then I remembered that I had left my gloves in my car. I went out to get them...and almost ran smack dab into the two people I feared most in the world, the two people I had not seen in person since the day they attacked me almost exactly one year to the day before. I had seen them only in my nightmares. And it was them. They were there. The woman and one of the men (her husband, it turns out) who, along with their three friends, had attacked me.

She had joined the department just a few months prior to me.

Because I was never told her name, my students did not know her name, either, which meant that no one in the department could connect that human being with what had been done to me. I like to think that if they knew, the members of the OFD wouldn't have voted her in...

I'll skip all the stuff that happened next. How impossible, how terrifying, how rotten it was to serve with her for two years. How I refused to quit, even when all of my PTSD symptoms came back. I'll skip all that for now and I will tell you this: I have faced every single one of my absolute worst fears since I joined this department. I have done them one at a time. I began with learning how to step into the woods and pee without soiling my turnout gear at a structure fire. And I moved on to walking on roofs and holding a hose directed at a burning building and responding to an accident where a young man's broken legs were pinned under his car.

Every time, as I am about to do something terrifying--maybe it's going out in a little rubber boat to look for a man's body in the world's scariest bay; maybe it's going out in the middle of the night and driving a fire truck to the spot on the highway where a woman laid down in traffic; maybe it's getting behind the wheel of a fire truck in the first place; maybe it's putting on an ice rescue suit and walking out on the ice toward open water, knowing you are going to fall through; maybe it's just simply being there, with the person who triggers my trauma (over and over and over and over again). Whatever it is, I ask myself each time, "Is this okay?" and each time, something inside me has said, even when my body trembled and my head ached and my stomach churned, "Yes. Go. See."

So I continue to go. I continue to see. I continue to learn and make mistakes and get scared and come back to try again. My crush on the fire trucks has become a full blown love affair.

Which is how it has come to pass that, as of today, I am now officially enrolled in the Hancock County Fire Academy. If I graduate and pass my end test, I will be a real and true bonafide interior firefighter. If you stand outside your burning house screaming, "Save my baby!" I might actually be able to go inside and help.

I begin in a few weeks. It will take six months. It will be the hardest, most grueling, most insanely difficult thing I have ever done. Godwilling, I will not washout (although half the candidates do). Godwilling, my middle-aged body will not fail me. Godwilling, when I am scared, I will do what my first captain has taught me, "Stop. Breathe. Think." Godwilling, I will continue to do what I consider my "yoga-firefighting practice." It consist of three parts: "Show up. Stay calm. Be strong." If you do those three things consistently and in order, I have found, you can respond to anything (with anyone).

It's been two and a half years since I joined the Orland Fire Department. When I began, I was in the worst stages of PTSD. But what I've discovered is that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder does not have to be the end of the line. There is also something called Post Traumatic Growth. It is "positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event." It is based on the idea that human beings can be changed by their encounters with life challenges, sometimes in radically positive ways. If it hadn't been for that traumatic attack, would I ever have found my way to the extraordinary gifts of volunteer fire service? I'm not thankful for the attack. But to imagine my life without the Orland Fire Department is like imagining my life without joy, companionship, or purpose. I am thankful for the tremendous growth that has blossomed out of that trauma.

Right now, as I prepare to face the Academy, the thing I am most afraid of is being in confined spaces on an airpack. My old fear of my attackers (or of fire or of an uncomfortably full bladder!) seem almost silly in comparison to the knee-buckling horror this situation elicits in me. And...it's mandatory. One really cannot be much of an interior firefighter if one cannot keep one's composure when pinned in turnout gear in a small, dark space breathing on air. So. What does a firefighting yogi do in this situation?

She asks for help...and she practices.

Last night, my first captain was kind enough to take me and Marcus Tweedie who will be joining me at the Academy, through some of the tougher drills we'll face. I did okay with everything. I learned to swing a sledgehammer. I climbed a ladder up to a roof while breathing on air. I'd never done either of these things before. And I was scared of both of them. But, when it came to the confined spaces...for the first time in the history of my experience in first response...I almost cried. I was *that* afraid.

But here is the definition of progress: When I couldn't do the hardest, scariest, smallest space, we tried another one, less scary. And I did okay, but I was still really anxious. So my captain, who is a professional firefighter, as well as a volunteer with us (and a really, really good teacher), took another tack. He had me lie down in a smallish space, but one I could stand up in, if I had to, and he turned out the lights. It was total darkness. "Now just breathe," he shouted through his mask, "and imagine you are in an ice rescue suit, floating on the Narramissic River."

Do you see?

I have come *so* far that the thing we can use to *soothe* me is the day I put on an ice rescue suit for the first (and only) time, and walked out on the ice toward open water. I walked until the ice cracked. And I made a mistake, and fell through all of a sudden, face first. Ice water went up my nose. Ice water went down my suit. And I was stuck for an instant, wrong side up under water in a mostly frozen river. It's hard to right yourself quickly when your bottom half is boosted by a rescue suit's buoyancy!

But I came up. I came up shocked and spluttering. I came up *smiling.* I felt calm. I *loved* ice water rescue! I loved it. You get to swim! In a river! In winter! Before we began, I was so scared I thought I might pass out...but I asked myself, and my Self answered, "Yes. Go. See." And now?

Now, ice rescue is the thing we use to *soothe* me when I am trying to learn how to stay calm doing the scariest thing yet. If that isn't Post Traumatic Growth, I don't know what is.

My friend Kirse Granat May says that there should be a movie about my yoga/firefighting. (I like to imagine Julia Roberts gets to play me.) But perhaps I'll start by writing a book about it. And if I do, I expect I'll want to dedicate it to Julia Gray, who first suggested I teach at the Orland Fire Department; and to Bobby Conary, who, as Chief, welcomed Yoga with Naomi into his station, and then stepped onto a mat himself, and then welcomed me into his company; and to John Gray, who taught me how to drive a firetruck with so much confidence that I passed my EVOC practical on the first try (while three of the people who attacked me that day at the church looked on); and to David Sukeforth Jr., who had the somewhat insane idea that I could do the Academy and become a Firefighter I and II, and then went to extraordinary lengths to get me into this next session. He has never wavered in his belief that I can do this, which I find remarkable (and confusing...me? Really??).

But as another writer/yogi who actually *did* get to have Julia Roberts play her in a movie about her life wrote, "You don't get what you wish for, you get what you believe." So...I'm gonna go ahead and believe that Dave and John and Bobby (and the other members of the OFD who have said so) are right when they say they believe I *can* do this.

And when I ask my Self? Even after the scary confined-spaces-almost-crying practice run?

God bless her. She still says, "Yes. Go. See."

Photo courtesy of the Ellsworth American.

Tales from Rural Maine: The audio version

In 2015, I started telling true stories live again, something I haven't done since my Sister Spit Northampton days. 

You can listen to my Queen City Cellar Tellers stories in the 9/30/15 and 12/30/15 episodes of Maine Currents on WERU. The themes were "preservation" and "family," respectively. 

I hope you'll listen to all the stories, but if you're pressed for time, I'm the last teller in each episode. Enjoy! (And tell your stories!) 

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Yoga Tales from Rural Maine: What is peaceful

The work I do at Acadia Hospital is hard. Any work where you have to face the suffering of children is hard. Any work where you have to face the suffering of children and try to make a difference in 45-minutes every two weeks with large groups of multi-age kids with a full spectrum of special needs is *hard*. I'm telling you. Hard.

The end of class with the "littles" is especially hard. It's meant to be peaceful, quiet resting, safe, gentle, still...and today it was especially bonkers. I really felt I'd let them down. I kept thinking that I haven't unlocked this puzzle and I should have by now. But how *do* you get TEN little boys ages 6 - 10 (and two little girls) with hyperactivity, attention deficit, autism, trauma, and other social and mood disorders to rest in stillness? Agh. The thing I tried today worked for four kids (deeply peaceful, resting, yes, success!) but the others? It was like being inside a popcorn popper. A popcorn popper filled with little boys in their stocking feet!

So I'm thinking...damn. I've failed. Again. They're gonna fire me. How do I fix this? What can I do next time, so they get what I'm hoping they'll get? So that they'll have some peace and rest and understand how to help themselves feel better--and feel *loved* and worth loving...and a little more okay...

And then...amidst the chaos, this little one came up to me. It was his first yoga class at the hospital. He's six. He just lost one of his baby teeth. He didn't sit still the entire time. But he came up to me, as I was cleaning up crayons and helping to tie shoes and repeating the instructions for what to do with your yoga mat...he came up to me, this tiny little thing with his missing-toothed-kindergarten-smile and he stood *still* right in front of me and he said, "I like you."

"Oh, my darling (I said his name), I like YOU, too!" I exclaimed. And I stopped what I was doing, so he could have all of me for a moment.

"Can I hug you?" he asked.

I wasn't sure if hugging was allowed. I thought maybe it wasn't? So I asked the occupational therapist in charge. She nodded yes.

"Yes, yes--we can hug!" I said, and I bent down and he wrapped his sweet little arms around me and sighed.

Here's part of why this matters:

During our sharing time at the start of class, I had asked everyone to share something that made them feel peaceful. When it was his turn, this little boy held onto our little blue bear, Share Bear, and he started talking. The words just poured out of him.

"'Peaceful' makes me think of crying," he said in his little voice. "I cry because I lost my dad. My father. My dad...he's never coming back. My dad. And I'm so sad...this is me, crying to be peaceful, because when your dad dies, it's really sad. And crying...peaceful."

I said his name and I said, with deep, gentle kindness, "Thank you for sharing that your heart is sad and that when you think of 'peaceful' you think of your dad and of crying. Namaste..."

And then it was the next kid's turn. And this little one handed over Share Bear so the next boy could share.

So at the end of class, I was troubled because this little one was among those who had rolled himself up in his yoga mat (as I had instructed--be a burrito!), but instead of feeling swaddled and peaceful and still, he went rolling all around the room in his burrito (as did most of the kids). And I thought this meant that I hadn't given him (or them) what was needed.

But really? If you're six. And you have lost your dad. And you are spending your days in a mental hospital. Then maybe what you need is someone to listen to you, someone safe. Maybe you need a bear to hold onto and lots of smiles...and the chance to roll around in a gymnasium wrapped up in a bright blue yoga mat like you are some kind of a Smurfy mobile burrito...followed by ...a hug.

What I learned today is that "peaceful" doesn't always look like what I, as a yoga teacher, might intend or expect peaceful to look like. Especially for these children, "peaceful" and the path to "peaceful" are going to diverge from the thing I now realize I was rigidly working for.

But just because it doesn't look what I expected or intended it to...it doesn't mean we didn't find it.

Om shanti, my friends; peace.

Tales from Rural Maine: Grace

About 25 years ago, a nun came up to me at a ball game we were watching in Bucksport and she smiled such a beautiful smile--the kind of smile that happens when eyes and lips are smiling equally--and she said, "You look just like Grace Kelly."
To this day, I can remember that moment. I remember that I was alone there, leaning on the fence. I remember the smell of freshly cut grass and the gentle warmth of early summer sunshine in Maine. I remember I was a little quiet and a little lonely. And I remember noticing that I didn't feel as embarrassed as I usually did when someone gave me a compliment, and that the absence of that discomfort was remarkable and a relief. This woman, she was so gentle, so sincere, so self-less in her remark. It was like...she was just sharing a sweet truth, articulating in six words the poetry of the day; it was as though she had simply said, "The sky looks like heaven today."
We often hold insults and injuries in our hearts long after the moment has passed. It's harder, it seems, for our human hearts to attach themselves to kindness, generosity, beauty; it's harder for us to believe. Instead, we replay a wounding over and over for decades, consciously, unconsciously. While compliments and kindnesses skip off us like stones.
But every now and then, when one human being offers another human being a certain kind of simple, spontaneous kindness, we arrive at an intersection of grace, I believe, which creates a fixed point in time, a touchstone our hearts and minds can return to, spontaneously, for years to come.
Twenty-five years later--a lifetime later--that stranger's kindness is still there for me. Time and distance melt away. That memory rises up on my journey like a guidepost. I can close my eyes, take a breath, feel that sweet summer air on my face, hear the crack of a ball off a teenager's bat and I can believe for just one moment that maybe...I look just like Grace Kelly...

Tales from Rural Maine: Practice

Last night, it was bitterly, freezing cold, I was exhausted, and I'd had a long day. I wanted to take a bath and read a novel. But I start at the Fire Academy on Saturday, so instead of a hot bath and a good book, I drove to the FD to practice donning my turnout gear.

Most especially, I knew I needed practice getting my regulator into my mask and back off again, and into and out of the thing it goes into on your pack when it's not in your mask because you have to do this left-handed and without looking; you can't see the darn thing. (I can also never remember the name of that thing, either...). In other words, I really struggle with the regulator. It doesn't come naturally to me. I fumble around a lot. Same with getting my pack on. For some reason, I always seem to get tangled and twisted. This doesn't seem to happen to anyone else, even the other beginners I've seen. It makes me feel dumb and clumsy and incompetent that I can't just throw that pack on and pop the regulator into my mask.

The only remedy I can think of is...practice. So. I went out into the cold and the dark and I got into my turnout gear and put on a pack and sure enough, it was all tangled up. Sigh. But I just kept at it. I took off the pack I always use and looked at the straps and it turns out, some of them were twisted in their buckles--that wasn't my fault, and it was fixable. Baby steps.

Then I worked on the regulator. First I practiced looking in a mirror, so I could see what I was doing. When I could do five in a row without messing up, I tried without the mirror; then with gloves on. Then, it occurred to me that I should try with my eyes closed. If I could do it with my eyes closed, then I'd have it.

I left feeling like I need more practice, but that I'm getting better. I also felt like I'm kind of a loser that I need so much practice because I'm not as naturally good at this work as the people around me seem to be.

And then today, when I was studying, I came across this in my Fire Fighter Skills textbook, it was a tip for Fire Fighter II's, so not just beginners or even Fire Fighter I's: "Do not stop practicing until your basic skills become muscle memories. If you can do your job with your eyes closed, then you will be able to observe much more when they are open!"

And then I remembered that my captain, who has been coaching me, saying once, "You know who needs practice? Everybody." And he's a *really* excellent fire fighter. If he says something, you can trust it.

So. Maybe it takes me *more* practice to make these skills muscle memories, but needing to practice a lot doesn't mean I'm a loser, right? It just means I'm a fire fighter.