Fat ass.

That’s what my car used to be.  Until 90 minutes ago.

Zelda Maleficent Jolene Fitzgerald and I became best of (car) buds in 2013, after my grandmother’s reliable and sweet Ford Taurus, Ruby, was totaled by an idiot driver who was too cool to stop at a red light, I guess.  Zelda was born, a metal, Korean-made phoenix from the smoky ashes of Ruby’s airbag.

Zelda, unlike Ruby, is metropolitan.  She’s chic.  Like her namesake, Zelda Fitzgerald, she sees no boundaries between where she is and where she wants to go.  Her middle names come from the Disney live-action remake, “Maleficent,” which spoke all-too-deeply to me about the character development and personal growth that challenges a woman who’s had her power stripped from her.  And “Jolene” is my favorite Dolly Parton song.  Hence.  Zelda Maleficent Jolene Fitzgerald.

And suddenly, today, she was no longer a fat ass.  As of 1:02pm today, she has no rear bumper.

Merging onto Los Angeles freeways is probably tantamount to the coming-of-age ceremonies in Medieval times.  If you make it successfully, you are a full human.  If not, you die.  So merging onto the 5N freeway from the curvaceous 110S freeway has always been an act of bravery, requiring steely nerves, not for the faint-of-gasoline pedal.  Alas, my time had come to endure what countless drivers have before me—the fated big rig collision on one of the most dangerous merging lanes in Los Angeles County.

I don’t completely blame him—he didn’t see me, so he didn’t slow down.  Zelda is such a sporty gal, so she really sneaks by sometimes.  I merged, with enough space between us, but the big rig was just too big.  My rear bumper came off with a heart-crushing sound and a lateral movement like swiping lipstick off my lips with a tissue.  And suddenly, the bumper was gone.  A part of her lies on the side of the 5N freeway, a witness to the Los Angeles metro scene until a lonely city worker comes, picks it up, and takes it to be recycled.  A part of Zelda, now sucked into the Circle of Life, never to be seen again.  Perhaps the metal will make its way onto another car, maybe a luxury car.  I hope she’s reborn onto Rodeo Drive—it would make Zelda’s legacy sweet.

Oh, but the day did not end when the officer said, “Adieu.”  The day had to continue.  It was, after all, only 1:30 in the afternoon.

I filed my insurance claim on the spot, like a good little insurance adjuster’s daughter.  I wrote down the information, the claim number.  My stomach sank a little at the deductible I’d have to pay, but such was the adult life, full of paying for things you really wish didn’t cost you anything.

I drove my bumperless Zelda back to my parents’ after affirming that I’d be able to borrow one of their cars for the time that my gal was in the shop.  Once I got to my parents’, I breathed a little sigh of relief as I plopped down my computer bags onto the couch.  No one was home—they were all out gambling at a casino, party animals—so I strategized the cars I’d have to move to borrow my brother’s blue Elantra, moving it from its last place in the driveway to the first.

But as I walked back outside to retrieve more bags from Zelda, a gust of wind blew through the porch, changing the air pressure inside the house, and the front door shut.

Oh. Crap.

I pressed down on the latch of the front door, knowing full well that I had NOT unlatched it and that it WOULDN’T open, but perhaps hoping THIS time I might have just pressed it hard enough to where it opened on its own.  Maybe it knew my struggle and would just open out of pity?

No luck.

I went to the back gate, where to my dismay, I found the lock latched.  I was standing outside my parents’ house, with my car keys, and no way of getting into the house again.

Or so I thought.

“No, there’s got to be a way . . . I’ll make a way . . .”

I drove Zelda up to the veeerrryyy edge of the gate without hitting the gate, stood on the hood of my car, and reached over the edge of the gate.  I unlocked the padlock, hopped off the hood, and swung open the gate.  Barrier 1, done!  I drove Zelda back onto the curb to make room for the other cars I’d have to move.

Walking to the backyard, I tried the back door.  Drat!  Locked.  But I was not defeated!  God knows I wouldn’t surrender!!!

I glanced at the windows and spotted one without a screen.  Was it . . . it was unlocked!  It stood next to the air conditioning unit, but it was too far from it for me to safely stand and push myself inside.  I’d need something to stand on to hoist me onto the windowsill.

“Think, Jackie, think . . . ”

I saw a set of folding chairs by the patio and immediately knew what I had to do.

I grabbed the nearest one, but was worried about the efficiency of climbing through a window with a long maxi skirt.  So of course, I tore off my skirt like a cabaret dancer, stood on the chair, and pushed up the window.

The window wouldn’t stay open, so I glanced around for something tall and steady with which I could prop it open.  I looked inside and saw my mom’s cookbook nook.  I grabbed the tallest one I could maneuver reaching, vertically standing it up to hold the window up.  I pushed one leg through the window.  The book dropped, but just in time, I grabbed the window with both hands, and held it above my head as I swung my other leg through.  Then I gingerly closed the window.

What an absolutely terrible 90 minutes of my afternoon!  But everything was okay.  I was safe and unharmed, the claim had been filed, and eventually my car would be fixed.  I stood up and took a breath of gratefulness that I was okay.  And then I realized I wasn’t wearing my skirt.  I unlocked the back door and went outside to grab it from the swing where I’d placed it.  Hope the neighbors didn’t see!

Dresses — oh how I loved to dress in dresses!  Five years old, I knew nothing about fashion, but I knew the bigger the skirt, the more fabulous I’d feel.  I wore colorful dresses, pastel dresses, short dresses, hand-me-down dresses, and they always boasted bustly princess skirts.  I’d visit my grandmother, loving her attention as I twirled and twirled and twirled just to show them off to her!

“Mija,” she’d smile, “you’re spinning so fast in your dress!  Be careful or you’re just going to fly away from here!”  I’d drop to the floor like a ring around a rosy, giggling as she clapped and giggled back.

Public policy had appeared on my radar not more than three years ago, when I was invited to a conference on the futures of Regional Centers in California.  From that moment, stars had continually aligned, connecting me with contacts in and around my behavioral world, each offering me a tantalizing taste of policymaking until it was MY turn to talk to THEM, on that rainy Sacramento weekend, discussing how the brothers and sisters of people with disabilities would transform the way this world looked at family support.

A neuroscience major, I’d long practiced telling myself that I was ‘excited’ rather than ‘nervous,’ because the circuitry through the brain is the exact same for both emotions; our experiences of the emotions simply depends upon our labeling of them.  I always felt better telling myself I was excited, not nervous.  And that’s what I told myself in the days leading up to this policy conference — the time spent practicing the speech I believed to be aimed at parents, teachers, and general community members who were interested in a general update to the developmental disability world.

Oh, was I wrong!  I saw neither anyone ‘general’ nor ‘public’ when we stepped into the Holiday Inn’s ballroom arena.  Imagine believing you’re just going to make a run to the grocery store, when you open the door and walk right into a Victorian ball.  I had been raised in the ways of private school; however, nothing could have prepared me for the surprise of seeing the fellow mountain-movers that were making up my audience.

I suddenly felt underdressed — something I hardly ever allow myself to feel, as I’d internalized it as a sign of insecurity — but I felt it then.  I scanned the room feverishly for a sign of hair that wasn’t speckled with grey, but felt a small stone plunk into my stomach; I was the youngest attendee in the whole ballroom.  The other wonderful ladies on our Executive Committee were not much older than I, even though I was the youngest of the four of us, and collectively, we were the youngest by about fifteen years.  Oh, I felt underdressed and babyfaced and over-cleavaged, having attempted to make myself as presentable to the public; perhaps I was showing off a little too much assets in a sea of professionals who would have underestimated my lack of a dinner jacket, because I looked too much like a woman, and weren’t we all reliving the Peggy Olsen roller coaster of Mad Men, just in different hairdos???

So ran my anxious thoughts, but then I heard my grandma, almost standing beside me and not sitting hundreds of miles away — oh her Craftsman home, the stability and steadfast love that shaped me like the flames that present the phoenix: “Mija, I feel like you’re going to fly right out of here!”

I had never felt more powerful as a child than when I was spinning in my ballroom dresses, a childhood princess, ready to fly on powerful wings and pintucks pinned with tucked-in little flowers!  I had inherent power, my grandma told me so.  I’d been practicing, and she’d been priming!

Our speech delivered, our energy palpitating through the room, we curtsied to a round of cheerful applause.  We. Had. Arrived.

Later that night, having celebrated our fame on Twitter (on accounts that weren’t ours!!!), I ran into a Los Angeles contact, one of the instrumental leaders who had sent me flying toward the Capitol years prior — “Sacramento better watch out, Jackie!  You really are a seismic force, taking things by storm in a wrap dress!”

All I could do was grin.

  
Monday through Friday, I get to play God. That is my job–in a manner of speaking. As a Behavior Analyst, I am counted successful when my clients do as they are told. “Sit down,” “Tell mom,” “Put your shoes on,” “Write your name,” “Keep your underwear on.” If my clients don’t do as I ask, I have to “help” them complete their tasks. I train the Instructors on my team in the art of Tough Love. They have to show the clients they care about them, but will not stand for their bull shit. 

Perhaps this is where my God complex arose. (Note: these statements have not been evaluated by any Behavior Analyst governing body.) My salary, my success, and thus my worth are tied to how well I can exert CONTROL. The beautiful seven-letter C-word. 

Yesterday, one of my most aggressive and manipulative clients brought me tears of joy. We sat at his Clinical Team Meeting, evaluating his incredible progress, when his Instructor showed me some of his work. He had written out the steps to completing his homework (as part of the Executive Functioning curriculum of Sequencing), and the last step read, “I sit with quiet hands.” That’s a key term we in the field use to bring clients to a calm and coping state–better able to comply and less likely to throw something at my head. “I sit with quiet hands.” 

The phrase took on a broader meaning, and I was swept into a metaphorical sea of meaning and God and symbolism and consequence. 

Four months ago, something terrible happened. I’d only experienced watching it play out in TV shows and movies, yet after one life-changing moment, I was faced with experiencing it in real life–in my life, in real time.
 
I did what I thought best considering the drastic circumstance–called on the savage strength of my favorite female heroine. But I was unstable. I became radioactive, dangerous to my own touch and ideas of how to beat and control what I’d been told was my inevitable dissent into emotional monstrosity. 

I tried everything different than what had previously existed in my normal life, channeling Scarlett O’Hara’s refusal to let Destiny plot her fate without her two cents. 
But I did it wrong. What I used to accomplish with unflappable bravery was now desperate flailing gunshots. Attempts at control backfired because I wasn’t ready to think through my decisions–I simply acted. Hysteria loomed close, exhaustion held me in its grip even though I refused to sleep so I could control slipping into nightmares. 

Finally, after far too long, Melanie Hamilton slapped Scarlett across the face and told her to shut up. She tied her hands behind her back, tied her shoes together, duct taped her to a chair and forced her to listen . . . to herself. Myself. My strength. My Self. The one who inherently knew what to do, the one who never fought against the tide but had always sat and listened to my inner awareness, the knowing that I had exactly what I needed to move my mountains. No more, no less. 

I was reminded to sit, to sit with quiet hands.