i. rabbits

Rabbits freeze in fear when threatened. Like most prey animals, they exhibit signs of fight/flight/freeze mechanisms for self-preservation in the face of predation. Freezing helps with camouflaging, blending into surroundings in order to hide in plain sight. For rabbits, it’s not a choice. It’s a natural, innate instinct for protection, it happens like blinking or breathing. We have the basolateral amygdala and hippocampus to thank us for that ability. Yes, humans experience freezing behavior as well. Sometimes prey can outrun or outcompete their predators, but they know they’re the underdogs. Hiding always comes first, it’s only if you’re found that you try to run or fight. The average rabbit freezes every time it’s threatened. The rabbit will freeze everyday.

ii. bennington

               The summer before I left for college, I watched a lot of rabbits. They were returning to Southern Vermont in droves, flocking like wild geese calling over the rows of corn. Last year we had only observed them down by the river, watching from sticky hot cars in dripping bathing suits as they scrambled through the dust to emerge across the thick brambles, but now they had settled into our very yard. Specifically in the rhododendron bush. My mom says it was a family, “breeding like rabbits,” she would say with a hint of obvious irony. I think it was just the one.

               Through summertime, I worked summer camps for kids at the state park. I liked the job, I got to work with good, honest people. I liked being outside, and I liked the kids’ infectious curiosity. But I had to wake up early to get my bag ready, and I always overestimated how long it would take. I sat on the porch with my sweet, lukewarm coffee passing the time almost every morning. Most of the time I closed my eyes and just listened. Cacophonies of birdsong twisted the canopy of our small immediate woods into orchestral performances. They were in love with each other, and I was in love with them. But sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of auburn-brown fur passing through the pink flowers. He was quiet. But not quiet enough. If he was there, I caught on quickly and my focus immediately followed him as he gingerly loped across the yard to the back. That’s where the clover was. It’s stereotypical, I know. But they do really love the clover. It was risky following, because I lost track of time when watching him. And I had places to be.

               I think it was a he, but in my heart he still symbolized my girlhood. I had turned 18 in late spring. I was grappling with the loss of girlhood, whatever that meant. I saw the rabbits everywhere though. So it had to mean something.

               When it was finally time to move-in, I was nervous. I’d never been away from my family and I worried for my siblings, as the oldest child. They’d never been without me, and though I disliked admitting it–I needed to take care of them to understand my purpose. Who was I if I wasn’t taking care of others? It turns out that was the best part of living away from home. Okay, it wasn’t the best part, but it was damn close. I needed to see who I was outside my identity of daughter and sister and caregiver. And I began to. I was a full-time college student taking care of myself, responsible for myself, but I never felt less confined. I stayed up late, I woke up early, I was awake in every way, all the time.

               It didn’t take long to notice Bennington’s rabbits. They liked the edge of the goldenrod that tapered off into murky pond. Unlike at home, there were tons of them. Sometimes I walked fifty ft and saw a dozen rabbits, rushing off into the bushes after my steps echoed too close. There was a healthy population, scampering under wooden docks and through misty pollen. I also saw the deer, often browsing through wooded meadows or crossing the road. Sometimes at night I’d see them next to my house walking home. I shared the magic with whoever was with me, a quiet stunning moment between the almost invisible rustling, and our gentle awe. The white-tail doe was the animal card I pulled for my current journal that I was working through. She was nurturing, mothering, docile. Everything I was attempting to escape. Everything I was leaving at the misplaced speed bumps on my way into school. Here I was reckless and wild and spontaneous. I was responsible only for my creativity and unabashed abandon. I was far from mothering, even further from docile. Yet the deer called out to me. In dreams, in daydreams, in poetry, in my daily walks. I could go anywhere. But I always ended up sitting in that field: fully entrapped by them. Enchanted. Even if I couldn’t see them, I found their trails. Following the subtle imprints in wet leaves, intuition leading me by the hand, the eye, the wide fascination. I couldn’t tell you why. I’m not sure I would if I could.

iii. discovery

               Two summers before I left for school, I went to a summer arts program for high schoolers. It’s an understatement to say it changed the trajectory of my life. The people I met, the teachers I spent time with, the activities and accomplishments we did together, it was beautiful, and freeing. But it was also on the heels of general collapse in my life. I’d been struggling for months, but didn’t say it. After coming home from the program, I decided I needed change.

My childhood best friend had outed me. We had a complicated relationship. As kids our plan was to own a bookstore/flower shop/cafe. We would live together in the same house, and have secret tunnels leading to separate houses where our respective husbands would live. Yes, we both ended up queer. As we grew, our families made different choices and she started attending a rigorous private school. We struggled to keep close, but we managed. Until her mental health began to decline. She eventually confided in me that she had an eating disorder. I was fourteen. I was distraught. I cared about her more than any friend, I needed her to be safe. So I did what I was supposed to, and I told a trusted adult. Needless to say, she found out I snitched. She didn’t speak to me for months. I was heartbroken. I did what I was supposed to, and I only made things worse. Eventually she forgave me, but we never got as close again. At a certain point, I became angry about it. All I was trying to do was save her. Why didn’t she see that, why didn’t she want to be saved? We were distant for several months, and I figured she was done with me. In a way she was. That February, she finally told me she’d been hospitalized. She told me a full month after she overdosed that she attempted to end her life. I tried to stay in contact with her after that, but it ended up being too hard. I cried every day, to my poor mother, to my unassuming boyfriend, to the empty page. I wrote poems about how I felt and published them, but I never liked them. We saw each other for the first time in months at the arts program. But she was bitter toward me. After contemplating the idea of coming out as gay at this program, I asked her what she thought and requested she keep this between us. But she did not. She proceeded to tell my then-boyfriend. I felt forced into the breakup before I was ready. My boyfriend of two and a half years was taken aback. I took everyone by surprise, even myself. We had been dating for a long time (for high schoolers) and had known each other since second grade. He wasn’t a bad boyfriend. He cried when I broke up with him in his green truck, sitting in my parents’ driveway. I tried to get the tears to come. I tried until it was past midnight and my mom was finally tucking me into bed, comforting me. But all I felt was relief.

After a couple weeks, I tried on the label of lesbian for the first time. It fit like a glove, but others told me it wasn’t my color. Eventually I believed them and dropped it. Like a gauntlet. A challenge. But really I was just giving up. Calling in defeat with all my shameful trumpets. I tried to date boys again. It never went anywhere. Or rather, it never went anywhere I hadn’t been before. Sitting in the passenger seat listening to some “niche” rap artist, thanking him for the McDonald’s strawberry milkshake, asking questions but never answering, letting him take off my shirt, not saying no, not saying yes. I was a passive witness–outside my body, watching anything happen. Freezing and becoming limp under the waning streetlight like a tiny possum. I never said no to boys, I may not have liked them, but I still wanted them to like me. I was sexy when I was silent. And I knew it.

iv. freeze

When I walked into the office, the smell of lemons overtook me. I was still small, holding onto my mother’s hand, my heart was racing– I was scared of doctors. My mother promised me this was a different kind of doctor. That he wouldn’t even touch me. That was the only way she got me to agree. I didn’t understand the appointment at the time. He, the balding man with the big glasses, asked a lot of questions I didn’t answer. Deferring my mother as I sat infatuated with the plastic doll house and play-mice. His clipboard hovering over my head as he leaned over to watch me dote upon the inanimate creatures. At the end of the appointment, he stood up and shook my mother’s hand, reassured her of my normalcy, and then reached to shake mine. I remembered my mother’s promise and shied away as I usually did. He didn’t push it. A few weeks later, he became my first therapist. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with anxiety. “That’s all. Simply anxiety. She’ll probably grow out of it.” My mother was guaranteed my health. A small price to pay. For over 10 years, I let her believe it.

As soon as I turned eighteen I booked myself an appointment to be tested for adhd and autism. My mother had her feelings about diagnoses that she deemed unnecessary. But I needed to know. Although the woman botched my evaluation and I came away with no official diagnosis, I had her verbal acknowledgement. I wasn’t simply anxious. That was enough for a while, but eventually I began to question origins. Both conditions are genetic, and it was obvious to me where they came from. My sweet, uneducated mother who told me all my adhd symptoms were normal and things that everyone experienced, she wasn’t ready to hear that yet. As for my father, we didn’t harbor a good relationship. We had lost that in my childhood through his addiction and depression and anger, we continued to lose it in my teenage stubbornness and unforgiving privacy. He treated me like a lost cause, my mother spent hours behind thin walls trying to convince him to care about me. It crescendoed in a fight that made me leave home. Not for a long period of time, but forcibly taking the car and leaving. For a year after, I kept a bag packed in my closet. Just in case I needed to make another quick exit. My father wanted to talk about it. But our communication styles don’t match. It always ended in my stubborn silence, and him walking off in anger. Although, it wasn’t really stubborn. I didn’t mean to. It just happened. I tried to open my mouth and say everything I meant, but it always felt like my throat was too small for the language. It happened so often with him, that now it happens every time anyone is cross with me. It feels like a trap, even though I know my body is trying to protect me. 

v. thaw

The best part of being at Bennington was the constant inspiration. It didn’t matter where I was, what time it was, who I was with, I caught pieces of poems in my mouth like they were numerous particles in the air and I was rapidly becoming infected with each inhale. I quickly jotted down stanzas on my phone on the way to class, kneeling in snow or mud, scarves snapping in strong wind, hands slowing with cold. I spewed lines sitting in the dining hall, my empty tea cups witnessing me. I woke up in the middle of the night with poetry lacing my heavy breaths, eyes still closed, hands automatically grasping for my journal–yes, I was overcome each time. I found myself transcended by bugs, waving grass, rivers of red rocks and crawdads, bright ancestral lands. My poetry came to me in unmatched waves. In prophetic visions. Moments in time in which I stopped to translate. Poetry is more about translation than most people realize. Sometimes I set aside time and care, dedication to craft and art. Sit down, lock in, spell out. I’ve tried that. But I write better on the go. Walking to class, in the car driving home, slipped between the cracks of sidewalks, between the pages. I become an oracle, wisewoman, soothsayer, head thrown to the sky, hands flying over pages or an iphone keyboard, eyes rolling back, wildness boiling beneath. I’ll tell you a story, the future, a prophecy I have seen in daydreams. The universe speaks in subtlety, in bird calls, trees clamoring, coyote howls, the pulse of my daughter. But I, your Cassandria, I shall speak in hissing women’s tongues that crawl down throats to pull out the truth. I didn’t take any creative writing classes my first term, much to my dismay, but after the semester ended I counted up my google docs and was stunned to see I had written over seventy pages of poetry and prose in my free time. There was something about being there that unleashed creativity and drugged me with inspiration. I couldn’t stop it, it became natural, like cortisol or dopamine being released to save me.

Many years ago, my siblings and I took an adventure to an abandoned railroad. It passed through tall cliff sides that, at the time, were covered in thick sheets of ice. It was like walking through a tunnel of icicles, the bluish light wrapped around our cooling bodies. We walked about a half mile down, running our blistering fingers down the massive glaciers, taking pictures of the most remarkable ones. On the way back, I was ahead of my family. Silently examining the pristine snowflakes that clung to the ice, we hadn’t had a thaw in a long while. At night the temperature was in the negatives, dayside we stayed in the mid teens. I turned to keep walking and I noticed something in the middle of the snowy path. It was a small rabbit body that hadn’t been there before when we first passed through. I approached with caution, and discovered it was indeed unliving. Its body lay in the rough, snowy outline of my boot print I’d made passing through earlier. It was a curious phenomenon for a couple of reasons. For one, we were surrounded by fifteen foot ice cliffs. And for another, there were no tracks in the snow leading to the body, no rabbit prints or any sign of a predator that might’ve left the body there. It was still warm and surprisingly intact. We figured someone must have thrown it from the top of the cliff, it must have been roadkill, someone was trying to return it to the woods. But we never found out for sure. I carried it in my jacket back to the car. For the next few years, we left it in our freezer to preserve it, with the intention of maybe learning something. Opening up the body and pumping ancient organs, running our wet fingers across the border of fur and flesh. When someone finally did, I wasn’t there. I don’t remember why. But I can imagine the body in my mind, slowly thawing in the arms of someone else, taking the knife like a hot spoon in butter. Finally unfrozen, reanimated as the lungs begin expanding again, welcoming the exhale of a child learning the skin. I know a couple of kids took the feet home. Salted them and dried them out for luck. Carefully wrapped them in twine for charms. They hang in windows like prisms catching the light, dreaming of fresh snow under warm paws, brainlessly unpreserved, melting and decomposing in the arms of maple bones, at last running unfrozen and free among the mycelium.