May 31, 2019
My Monument Quilt Square Story # 2767
This weekend marks the long-awaited culminating display of The Monument Quilt exhibit on the National Mall, and Nancy will be there all weekend!
We are dedicating this special edition of our newsletter to Nancy’s story and her personal tribute to The Monument Quilt, and sharing the line-up of amazing events taking place in conjunction with the display.
To donate to Force’s ongoing work and future Monument Quilt activities, visit the Monument Quilt website as well as the Force’s Instagram and Facebook.
Below is my personal story of becoming, living and healing as rape survivor and my experience being a part of The Monument Quilt. That means it may be a triggering read for anyone who is also a survivor or is the loved one of a survivor. If you or someone you know needs information on immediate support and counseling, please visit Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) or call their National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE. ❤️
We got you. You are not alone / No estas solx.
xo,
Nancy
On the morning of February 23, 1991, I survived a violent assault and rape. I was 19 years old and on a gap year from college in Mexico where I was studying art and immersing myself in a place, culture, and language I had fallen in love with when I was 11 years old.
On that day I became 1 of the *1 billion women and girls worldwide* (1 in every 3) who become victims of sexual, gender-based violence (rape, assault, and abuse) in our lifetimes.
It happened while I was running on the beautiful beach in a little blink of a Mexican village situated on the Pacific Coast called Playa Azul. I had been running alone for five minutes tops. That is how much time had passed since the man who had been my running partner for about 30 minutes (a surfer friend of the guy I was traveling with) said he couldn’t keep up and was turning back. He assured me it would be safe for me to continue on alone if I wanted. I wanted, so I did. I replay this moment and see my young, intact self running into a snare that would take decades for me to be released from.
I set off to run a bit further down the beach before I turned around for my return leg to our hotel. The Pacific was to my right, the wide beach and edge of town to my left. My assailant was a man about my age who approached me out of nowhere, from my left. I was prey, blindsided in paradise. As my vision focused, I saw many things at all once: he was accompanied by three dogs, he was wielding a machete, he wanted to hurt me, and he was already on the attack. This was not going to be the assault I had been trained for in my college orientation sessions, when the female students were delivered terrifying tools and tips for how to prevent our own rapes while merrily accruing credits towards a college degree. A stranger, a strange place, and nowhere to escape – I needed to call on dramatically different training for this, which I didn’t have. That’s when primal instincts kicked in.
I remember first looking down the stretch of beach I had come from and seeing the back of my returning running partner in the sea haze, a pinpoint. I screamed and yelled and started running that way. The ocean was roaring, or maybe that was me. I fought the rapist and his evil intentions with everything I had. My screams vanished into the hot salty air. My mind flashed to my karate classes from the year before. I was in the fight of my life and gripped in terror. The odds of winning this battle were against me – a woman alone on a beach against a predator armed with a big weapon and hate. I grabbed hold of a storyline that allowed me to psychologically commit to fighting as long as necessary until I was free. I would win this fight by defending myself, hurting him with his weapon in the process, and escaping to safety powered by my strong legs and swift feet.
Soon enough though I was consumed by the soul-crushing realization that the rules of this fight were unlike any other and that storyline was a farce: the more I fought, the more violent he became. To continue to fight would be to die on that beach. And so I stopped fighting because I wanted to live. I failed to comprehend in that moment what I know all too well today: it wasn’t a life or death situation. It was a literal death or a pyschic death situation, and I still died on that beach even though I made it out alive. For me, becoming a rape victim was a near-death nightmare. Instead of seeing the light and choosing to return to life, my new vantage point as a rape victim gave me a view of the darkness of humanity and a sudden undersanding that because I am a woman I will never be truly free in the world.
Thankfully for me, my story is one of survival and rising, and I’m here 28 years later to tell it and see it in The Monument Quilt’s history-making exhibit. I know that not all victims of sexual and intimate partner violence and abuse have this privilege; some of my survivor-sisters remain imprisoned by unending violence and abuse, some are in the dark death grip of trauma, and then there are those who didn’t survive. I tell my story for every one of these sisters.
The only witnesses to the crime were the ocean, the sun, and the sky. Somehow I made it back to the sleepy little hotel way down the beach and told someone what happened before collapsing. Someone carried me and laid me down on a bed in a room with white walls and white curtains and a white fan spinning below the white ceiling. I was shivering under all the covers, still wearing my blue shorts and yellow t-shirt and running shoes. I replayed an after-school special from my teen years that had some message about not showering if you’re raped. I had a deep cut on my hand from grabbing the rapist’s machete blade. I freaked out when I overheard someone say they were calling a doctor, adamant that no stranger would enter the room and I would only see a woman doctor (which meant no doctor in those parts). I asked someone to call the police to report the crime.
At some point, a line-up of ragtag policemen awaited me in the blinding sunlight outside the white room. I saw their weapons gripped by machismo, their eyes seeing a stupid gringa. Someone had to tell me how to say “rape” in Spanish. Every time I reported details of the crime, the one in charge shut me down.
“He attacked me from the side, raised his machete towards me, fought me with it, I fought him….he tackled me to the ground…then he raped me.”
Over and over he responded to my detailed report of the crime with either “No te creemos, señorita.” or “¿Porque estuviste corriendo sola en la playa, señorita?” – “We don’t believe you, young lady.” or “Why were you running alone on the beach, young lady?”
I thought I got a break when one of the cops reacted to my description of my assailant: “That sounds like so-and-so. Didn’t he just get arrested for raping that girl a few months ago?” But no break emerged. Instead, they left abruptly in a macho dust cloud with no explanation. At some point, they returned. With my rapist in tow. He had cleaned himself up and was wearing a fresh change of clothes and his best “It wasn’t me. I’m so confused. What is going on here?” expression. I passed out again when I saw him. When I came to, I told the police “It was him, without a doubt.”
The reply from the head cop was “Tienes que probarlo, señorita.” You have to prove it, little lady.
A force joined me on the scene at that moment that only be described as divine-sister-goddess-warrior-grace. It was like every girl and woman in that town was saying to me “We believe you!” His last victim from some home in that town was saying “I believe you!” I already knew that Carolina, the only woman with the group I was with and the mother to three beautiful little daughters I had been playing with earlier that morning, believed me. She had been lovingly tending to my injuries and showed me how to use the inner filmy skin of an onion to treat my wound. She had stepped in as the healer I needed when there was no woman doctor. A globe of girls and women was with me.“OK, I WILL PROVE IT! What do I need to do?”
“Take us to where it happened.”
I was paralyzed by the pressure, but then I heard those voices that believed me. I was going to do this for all of us. And then somehow, I directed a caravan of three vehicles and 20 people – including 10 heavily armed cops and my rapist – to the scene of crime from the access road to the exact location on the first try. I remember zooming over the sand and seeing the spot and exhaling with relief when I understood that the tide had not come up any further. Rather, it had receded, leaving the crime scene perfectly intact. I walked powerfully to the location and looked the head cop in the eye.
“Here it is!”
“This is the place. Look with your eyes!”
¡Aquí esta!
Este es el lugar. ¡Vea con sus ojos!
“There is no way to know you were here. This could be from anyone.”
My rapist denied being anywhere near there that morning. I told them he was lying, and he knew it.
“No es bastante,” they told me. It is not enough.
Defeated and enraged, I dropped my gaze to the sand. My running shoes came into focus, still on my feet. I began to scream maniacally and stomp all over the sand. All around the cops. And around my rapist. It was the rage dance of millions of women.
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
“Here it is!”
When the cops realized what I had showed them and what it meant, they arrested my assailant on the spot. I spent the rest of the day and night filing police reports, first over and over at the local station in town where the rapist was locked up, then eventually at the state police station in the capital. I also met a police-angel-sister who I affectionately call La Jefa (Girl Boss). She was in charge of the crew of state cops who I had to deal with, which truly made her otherworldly in that time and place. La Jefa was my local source of salvation that day, and there are plenty of days I channel her energy today. She took me under her strong wing, accompanied me – and thereby showed she was my advocate – when I filed my umpteenth report, and then she drove me to a doctor. I had consented to a medical exam for my injuries only if she took me and if she was in the room with me. She said, “Si, por supuesto.” – Yes, of course.
I refused stitches for the large, deep V-shaped wound on my hand despite the doctor’s admonishments about infection and the impossibility of it healing on its own. Carolina’s onion skin dressings worked, and today, all that is left is a very small scar that is the sole physical evidence I carry from the crime that almost killed me.
I left Mexico a couple of months later, landing in Baltimore enveloped in post-traumatic stress. I entered therapy for the first time in my life through the local rape crisis center (the organization now called Turnaround). There, I began to get acquainted with my new reality as a rape survivor and began the process of recovery and reclamation of all the parts of me that were violated and discarded on that beach in 1991. This is what I have focused on and fought for ever since. I am a grateful beneficiary of infinite love and support from my family, my soul sisters, my community, and professionals and healers of many kinds. Fellow survivors – those who are my dear friends, those in my communities over the past 28 years (mostly women but male survivors, too) as well as writers, thinkers, artists, leaders. and activists from around the world – have been a lifeline for me throughout my healing journey. I have created a beautiful life and family and do work I love and while doing all I can to use my story as a loving force for healing. What heals me heals others and others’ healing heals me. This is a beautiful universal truth I have learned firsthand and keep learning.
Sometime in 2013, I learned of The Monument Quilt project for the first time. I remember thinking “I want my story to be a part of that!” But in the blink of an eye, five years passed! How did that happen?! There are lots of ordinary reasons like that I was focused on raising our daughters from little girls to a tween and a teen, I exited my career track and started a business, we traveled, and we paused along the way for life’s typical celebrations and losses. But then there are also the extraordinary reasons that emerged from a series of major sociopolitical turning point moments over the past 5 years: Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Freddie Gray was killed here in my beloved Baltimore, a sexual predator and poster boy for patriarchy and white supremacy was elected President of the United States and kicked off an endless shit-storm in our national reality. My response to all of these was to step up my social and political activism locally and nationally while continuing my ordinary adulting.
There was also the eruption of the #MeToo movement in 2017. That moment turned out to be one I needed to navigate quite differently. For me as a rape survivor, #MeToo’s success at bringing the horrific prevalence and trauma of sexual violence and gender-based discrimination to the foreground of social consciousness was an equally celebratory and upheaving moment for my trauma and my healing. Particles of trauma and memory I had been carrying in me as undisturbed vestiges for many years rattled in their cages, demanding to fly free. This meant I had to get quiet, slow way down, and listen exquisitely to the needs of my soul. Then I felt the call to dive back in, to reckon yet again with the wreck. And so I did.
And then in November 2018, Force announced its final Monument Quilt workshops and the culminating display on the National Mall. Three things happened next. First, I jumped for joy! Second, my business Asana Consulting signed on as the very first sponsor of the National Mall event (and we’re in excellent company!). Third, I sank into despair that I had missed my chance to include my story in The Monument Quilt. Thankfully, with some hustle on my part and flexibility and generosity from The Monument Quilt’s co-founder Hannah Brancato (thank you, Hannah!), I got that chance. On the morning of January 5, 2019, I hosted the very last Monument Quilt Square Workshop.
In community with four other survivors, I stared at a blank 4’ x 4’ red fabric square on a folding table at the workshop and dove into the wreck again , focused this time on bringing my story to the world in a way unlike anytime before. I sadly observed how much awkwardness I was bringing to the artistic endeavor, then realized it was first time I had done art in decades. Trying to organize my thoughts felt impossible, so I dropped into my body and connected with my breath as my teachers have taught me to do. As I found my flow, I understood that making a quilt square was giving me the gift of reclaiming my artist self, who I left back in Mexico so long ago. A creative vision for my piece emerged slowly. I used fabrics from my travels in Thailand, some from the Monument Quilt studio collection, Mexican heart stamp prints with metallic paint on turquoise fabric, and pieces of a white Ikea curtain I had from home cut into shapes to honor the divine feminine and the woman I am today. I also used a scrap I found during the workshop, discarded by one of the other survivors. It was in the shape of a blade, silverish blue, and said “Warrior” in her handwriting. All of these were arranged in the form and energy of a woman on the bold red fabric used for every square in the Monument Quilt.
I took it slow, finding my way, minute by minute then hour by hour. In fact, I took it so slow that I had to take my square home to finish it! At home I completed the application of the fabric pieces and the hand embroidery around the stamped panels stamped. I had to walk away and take breaks many, many times and then return to do more. I did this over and over, working in silence. When I finished these parts, I looked at my square and loved it, yet discovered it felt incomplete. I hit a wall. I walked away, stomped around the first floor of our house. I screamed and yelled and cried. I returned to my square, picked up a black Sharpie and began to write all the words you see on my square. I had no idea what would coming out. The words came from the deepest part of me, bypassing my mind, flowing through my arm and through that pen with an unstoppable force. It came through in English, in Spanish, in past present and future, in my voice and in the voices of others who helped me and hurt me on that day.
And then, just as suddenly, the words stopped and I put the cap on the Sharpie and knew I was finished. In that moment, I experienced a new freedom and a sweet, pure joy.
el 23 de febrero 1991
“No te creemos, señorita.”
Onion skin will act as the new skin for the wound. Por supuesto te creo, mi amor.
“Tienes que probarlo, señorita.”
Esta no es mi lengua materna. Esta es la lengua de mi violacion. Demando que sea la lenguaje de mi curacion.
Cada respiracion es una reclamacion. Vivir es una revolucion.
Aquí hago libre las alas de mi voz. Canto gracias de mi corazon a cada curandera en mi camino desde aquel dia.
I chant gratitude to the Pacific Ocean, the sun and sky for witnessing, for being the guardians of my battlefield. For holding me safe between Earth and Sky, life and death.
At the epicenter of the earthquake, los angeles aparecieron para ensenarme come ser guerrera. Mano a machete, sand and sangre y las olas mezclando con los rayos del sol como un red de proteccion y poder y un recuerdo de la luz y la vida indestructible.
Stop it. Help. Does anyone see me? I thought I was smart and strong and safe. I believed I was flying free.
How do I live with so much gone?
Tend to the wounds.
Find your feet.
Salute the sky.
Stop running.
Keep breathing.
Rise up.
Befriend the darkness.
Trust your heart.
Be a channel of healing.
Eres una milagra.
“You’re going to have to prove it to us.”
Call the police.
Don’t take a shower.
Do not touch me.
No doctor.
The armor of alcohol. Alchemy in a bottle. Self-induced coma.
Sobrevivir. Esto es un milagro.
A sobrevivir, esto es un milagro.
Tu eres una milagra.
Today, I will go to the National Mall accompanied by my 15-year-old daughter to see the full Monument Quilt in all its brave and beautiful splendor. Tomorrow my husband will join us. On Sunday I will be back with a number of survivor-sisters and loved ones. We will find my quilt square – #2767 – sewn together with the voices and stories of 3000 fellow survivors. The scale will be massive. I will tell my daughter “It is important to remember that what we are seeing here is 3000 of the one billion women and girls are beaten or raped in their lifetime.” We will talk about the male survivors and non-cisgender survivors, too. All weekend long I will sending out blessings and solidarity and power to that global corps of one billion, channeling La Jefa and every person who has loved me along this journey. And we will take over The National Mall, rising.
I have learned a good bit about the Force and Monument Quilt community and what it’s like to testify and heal trauma in community. So here is my personal preview of what will happen this weekend in Washington DC:
Learning of the existence of The Monument Quilt project five years ago gifted a new peace to my survivor soul. Today that peace is elevated exponentially knowing that my story, my voice, my words, my truth are sewn, ironed, painted and written onto a massive and gorgeous work of art dedicated to the dignity and healing of every rape and abuse survivor on Mother Earth.
I’ll end with an offering from Eve Ensler, the founder of One Billion Rising and author of The Vagina Monologues, because there is no better or more brilliant voice to wrap up in this tribute to my survivor self, all survivors, and The Monument Quilt:
“1 in 3 women across the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That’s ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. We rise – in countries across the world – to show our local communities and the world what one billion looks like and shine a light on the rampant impunity and injustice that survivors most often face. We rise through dance to express joy and community and celebrate the fact that we have not been defeated by this violence. We rise to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.”
❤️ If you or someone you know needs information on immediate support and counseling, please visit Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE. ❤️
Nancy is a Baltimore native who came to communications and marketing through her work in public health. In 2014 she took an entrepreneurial leap of faith to start Asana Consulting and she found her wings.
