How I Learned to Drive
The Coupling by Christine Colyer
Long ago you entered me and would not leave,
paralyzing me repeatedly with your overpowering manipulation,
confusing me with your artful word poison,
filling me with your bitter tasting spew of self-hatred,
planting your seed of conquest into the deepest part of my being,
a place where uncertainty met with darkness in an explosive union of domination,
and where implanting was all but assured in the womb of my self-doubt.
For years you grew there, feeding on the frenzy of my fear and guilt,
your tentacles reaching into the furthermost recesses of my mind,
overtaking my rational thought,
smothering my critical thinking,
badgering me with reminders of my greatest insecurities,
controlling me with shame and doubt,
confusing me with the mind game that is survivor blame.
Ratting you out proved inconsequential; liability and image of an institution held in higher regard than the physical and emotional welfare of a child.
Forgetting you wasn't an option when the loop of replay was embossed in the landscape of my most formative years and was the foundation upon which all else was subsequently built.
Denial helped until the pattern repeated itself and shame became the bane of my existence, while masks gradually became the veils of my acting mastery.
Otribulations of life.
Once upon a time aborting you felt like the only viable option, until I realized how much of me would be lost in the process of trying to remove all of you.
Somehow, disposing of you felt like the elimination of my identity,
the wiping away of my battle to keep going, to understand, to forgive...
my hard earned badge of courage and resilience,
the erasing of my survivorship...
THE thing that made me who I am.
I still struggle with you from time to time,
vacillating back and forth between why me and forgiveness,
between accountability and culpability,
between cause and effect,
between empathy for you and empathy for me.
It was, and still is, a coupling of destiny, I have decided,
a wavelength in the television picture of my life gone temporarily askew but eventually brought into focus,
a union that has, with time and self- discovery, forged in me a tremendous ability to forgive.
I no longer wish to forget, only to share the power of adversity,
the power of choice:
of acceptance,
of forgiveness,
of gratitude for all the trials and tribulations of life.
Because, ultimately, everything that happens to us is also for us,
and because even after hardship, after grief, after tragedy,
there is light,
there is life,
there is meaning,
there is joy.
I chose “The Coupling” by Christine Schlumbrecht for the play “How I Learned to Drive” by Paula Vogel because of Schlumbrecht’s writing from an experience of hers. Christine Schlumbrecht wrote this poem to talk about childhood sexual assault and how that can alter a child. This poem navigates the mindset of a SA victim and the thoughts that are fostered from these experiences and attaches a hopeful message to the end. In the play many of the characters displayed have an underlying tone that they had once been victims of sexual assault. From Grandmother who is trapped in as a young person because she had her youth snatched from her to Peck who is continuing the same cycle of abuse that he is a victim of. I also feel that this poem encompasses the journey of Lil Bit throughout the play as she grapples with the excruciating experiences that she is going through. In the end she sees Peck in her rearview mirror understanding that he is always going to be a part of her, but she nods to him before moving forward. Not forgiving Peck but forgiving herself and allowing herself to move forward knowing what he did is going to stay with her and the author had to forgive themselves in order for them to move forward as well.
Conan Gray’s song “Family Line” is the song I selected for “How I learned to Drive” because he sings about the pains associated with living with his family and the trauma they created for him. He has lyrics like
“How could you hurt a little kid?
I can't forget, I can't forgive you”
which I think speaks to Lil Bit and her relationship with her family and how they sexualized and talked about her. I also think those lyrics apply to Peck and how he sexually assaulted Lil Bit in his car. I also think it’s so interesting how Conan connects the features of his family members that would and wishing what parts he did and didn’t have. The family also talks about Lil Bit in that way saying what things they like about her and would have. “All that I did to try to undo it,
All of my pain and all your excuses
I was a kid, but I wasn't clueless
(Someone who loves you wouldn't do this)
All of my past, I tried to erase it
I would say that these lyrics apply to all the family in certain aspects because they have all been affected by sexual assault. They LITERALLY can’t escape their family line because of the passing of generational trauma. They keep falling back into the same patterns to the point where it feels like this cycle is never going to end. The thing is in the song Conan can’t escape his family line; he doesn’t know how to put an end to it, but Lil Bit finds a way to move forward. Leaving the trauma in the rearview as she heads towards a new life.
My last piece that I chose for my curatorial I chose the “Bad Karma Impala” which is a car for charity that can be rented out. The cars message is that no matter how beat up the car is they write beautiful messages and decorate the car. It’s a symbolism to the idea that abuse victims no matter how much they go through it’s not the end of them. They are still beautiful on the outside no matter how the exterior of them has been altered. I chose this because the whole theme of the play and many aspects of the play takes place in a car. A lot of Peck’s abuse and sexual assault that he does to Lil Bit takes place in that car. So, when I saw the photos of the car and the message, I thought it was perfect fit for my curatorial. Also, the fact that the only funds to be made are to pay the people who are volunteering to move the car there for the event. All the rest of the funds go to the charity that the car is apart of.