Immediately following my divorce from my first husband, I moved away from Las Vegas. Not so much because I was running away, but because I was losing my mind and needed a diversion so that I wouldn't go completely insane and commit suicide. That's the honest to God truth of the matter and I say it shamelessly. I don't share my stories asking for forgiveness or looking for retribution, my mission in life is only to share my experience, strength and hope with people who who may be living in pain. I don't claim to be an expert on any one thing...rather to be a student of life who attended the school of hard knocks located on the wrong side of the tracks and I'm taking continuing ed in survival. I just so happen to have an understanding that by sharing my journey, I am caring enough to help others. Now that we've got that all squared away...
When I entered the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory of Santa Monica, I was a nervous wreck. Having suffered a mental breakdown (in the not so distant past) one night after half a bottle of tequila and approximately 54 Xanax, the state of Nevada manditorily hospitalized me for postpartum depression with a dash of suicidal tendencies. They were so clever. I was kept under surveillance for a period of 82 hours. You'd think that after living that nightmare, trying to get into acting school would be a cinch. After all, I managed to act my way out of the looney bin and even managed to do it with a script for more Xanax...I was good. Now all I had to do was act my way in, easy peasy, right? Little did I know, the exercise my acting coach recommended would serve to exorcize my entire being.
He was a scary man with slicked back hair and a cheap, pinstriped suit who smoked a fat stogie and had a thick Sicilian accent. When I burst into his theater I was late and disheveled.
"Hi! I'm Sonja, so sorry I'm tardy to the party..." I started immediately.
He looked more than just a little surprised to see me and asked how I had gotten there. So, being the hot mess that I am on any given day, I explained, "Oh...I took the 15 South to the 10 I believe, traffic was a bitch so I got off on..."
"No. No! NO!" He hollered with his thick foreign accent. "I mean-a how did you get here-a? In my theater? I have a one year-a waiting-a list-a!" Smoke billowed out of his mouth and both of his hands were working the air like an orchestrator instead of The Dusa...Acting Coach Extraordinaire.
"Oh!" I exclaimed clear on his real question. "Yeah...I know, right? Well...your girl mentioned that on the phone but with your new classes starting, I had this feeling...you know...deep down in my gizzards that before you made any decisions, we should at least meet. I mean...like most big breasted, toasty beige starstruck knuckleheads from VEGAS....I wanna be an actress and when I researched schools, yours was the one I wanted to come to....So I figured..." I trailed off hoping he'd fill in the blanks.
"You figure? You just-a figure, right-a? You git in yo little-a car anna you drive-a to Da City of Angels anna you just-a figure you gonna be a big-a star-a? Is that-a right?"
"No." I answered honestly, spent and just a little desperate. "I just wanted a shot. If you hate me, no harm no foul...but if you give me a shot and you like what you see...you have the opportunity to make room in your upcoming classes and...heck...who knows?" His pause lasted a lifetime. Then...he presented his challenge. A challenge that truly changed my way of thinking...and quite possibly ~ saved my life.
"Ok-a...fine-a...here's -a what-a I wanna you to do-a.....you go to the coffee a shop-a~someplace...I don really care-a... and you write me a story. Not just-a any story...but I wanna you to put a chair in-a da middle of a da stage-a anna I will wann you to put someone in da chair...I don care who...yo mutha..yo fadda..yo sista..yo love-a...I don care who...but-a...some a one. I will want you to talk to dis some a one-a and tell dem a story...I don care-a you love dem, you hate dem, you kill dem...I jusssss wanna see many emotions...Love-a, Anger, Passion, Disgust...I don care....just show me many emotions...den...I will a decide if you are in-a or if you are out-a. Anna, keep dis in mine....I been doin' dis for a lone time...I will know if a you story is a real or a fake... you unerstan???"
Like Michael Corleone in The Godfather...I accepted the challenge and knew instinctively that if I could pull it off..I'd be part of Da Family.
I got back in my car and drove directly to Gladstones in Malibu. I had always been happy there. My ex-husband and I had had many a happy hour(s) there when visiting my out-laws. It was a good spot for me and I felt as though I could complete my mission there.
I wrote and I wrote and I crumpled up many a sheet of paper before my final coffee (I didn't want to cloud my writing with cocktails...I must have been growing). When I was certain I'd written the story I wanted to share with the perfect imaginary person sitting in the chair, center stage. I called it a night.
When I arrived back at the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, I sat in the back at a table reading my self-written script. I was trying to memorize every word and emotion. Once class had finally finished and students scurried about, Piero himself, stinky, fat stogie in hand, came out to greet me. He saw me sitting there in all of my splendor, trying in vein to memorize my own words. He spat at me, "STOP! What are you doin??? You are a da one dat wrote da words...do you really think I will know if you don have it a memorized?"
Good Point.
I walked into the now empty, homemade theater and stood awkwardly in the center stage. I never felt so naked in my life. I watched silently as Piero took his usual spot in the corner, behind a wonky desk off stage. It was then that he asked me to take an empty chair and place it on a da stage-a.
He told me to walk off stage and enter when ready. I did exactly as he'd asked, like a robot taking orders.
I dutifully placed the empty chair in center stage then walked away, behind the curtain waiting for my cue to enter. I was a professional already, I just didn't know it.
Before my grand entrance', Piero asked me from his smokey perch, "Who do you have-a inna da chair?"
"My first lover," I answered numbly.
"Oh! I like it...very personal-a...okay...when-a you ready...enter, stage left..."
I inhaled deeply and started onto the stage with a purpose. I had no idea how empowering the excersice would prove or how the performance I was about to deliver would be more than just a try-out, but a silent forgiveness that would grant me passage to a place I had yet to discover.
I approached the empty chair with purpose and strength...a false strength that I had no idea I was faking at the time. I stopped shy of the chair that held nothing but emptiness but to me, in my mind's eye, held my very first lover, the stealer of my youth.
I had promised myself that I would not break character, no matter what. That I would deliver my monologue with all the poise and grace I could muster...then I'd let the chips fall where they may.
"Thank you for meeting me..." I started, standing diligently before the chair. "I was afraid you wouldn't come. I'm really glad you did. I have a few things I need to discuss with you, a few missing pieces of my life, I am hoping you will be able to fill them in for me." I leaned down, proposing to look straight into the face of the missing person in the seat.
"I was wondering if you remember the first time we were together...in that 'special' way...you know...not out for dinner our sitting around the house visiting and watching TV...but really 'together' in that 'special' way.... I started to pace the stage nervously. I needed answers but was suddenly afraid to ask the questions. It was as if I had been transported back to that moment in time...a moment that every girl remembers...her first time....
"We were at the drive-in movies. What were we seeing? Do you remember?" I asked the empty seat that was, at that moment SO filled with my lover. "Funny, I remember each and every detail of that night, but for the life of me...I can't seem to remember the damn movie." I giggled out loud. Too loudly.
"Anyway, I remember that we were in the backseat of your maroon Monte Carlo and we were very squished. I had fallen asleep...or at least pretended to be asleep, but you didn't let that stop you, did you, bad, bad boy!" I pointed in his face and scolded.
" The seat belt was cutting into my right shoulder blade and the weight of you was crushing. I was having such a hard time catching my breath...I was so afraid but you kept reassuring me...as you had in the past but this time, I felt sure we would go all the way and I was nervous and scared and coy and shy...but you were so reassuring and kind and gentle. You told me over and over how very much you loved me and how it was okay because it was between two people who loved one another and that was never a bad thing. You made me tell you how much I loved you and went on to promise that you'd love me forever...." And I believed you.
When you unzipped my jeans, I shook with fear but you just shushed away my fears, all the while telling me how special I was and how you would love me forever...
To this day, I remember being so afraid that I just closed my eyes tightly and went away in my mind....I went to a safe place where I was loved. I was a business woman and I came home to my beautiful house where my beautiful children ran to meet me and my handsome, successful husband took my briefcase out of my hand and let me into our kitchen which was filled with the scent of homemade bread and soup and all things warm and kind and loving. My husband held me and asked about my day and told me he loved me and that our children loved me and that I was safe....
But in reality...I was in the back seat of your Monte Carlo, your boozy breath on my neck, your words of love and encouragement so empty compared to the man in my dream. The man in my dream was my loving husband and he spoke of our loving children and I was safe and happy....In the back seat of the car...I was with someone's husband and father...but it was my mother's husband and my very own father... "
I paused for effect. But only for my own. It was the first time in my life that I had ever said those words out loud. "You were my father and you forced me to have sex with you. I was a little girl. I trusted you, I believed in you. I wanted you to be proud of me and acknowledge my accomplishments at school....and YOU STOLE MY CHILDHOOD IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE FAMILY CAR WITH MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS SAFELY WATCHING THE MOVIE FROM THE HOOD OF THE CAR YOU WERE RAPING ME IN!"
I screamed it into the imaginary face of my father who was no longer imaginary to me. My eyes welled up with tears as I spat the words. I was angry and hurt and broken and lost and scared and all I wanted at that moment was to tell him that what he had done had ruined me as a woman! I needed him to know that I had turned to drinking and promiscuity and how I ran away from my first husband becuase I felt that I was used goods and had to leave him before he found out! That I had the self-esteem of a fly on a turd because the first man in my life....my role model...had robbed me of my innocence! But after I'd said what needed to be said, a sudden calm filled me. I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at the chair and my father, the man who was supposed to teach me all there was to know about unsavory characters and build my self esteem and help mold me into a woman to be reckoned with; and I realized...he had done all of that and more. By betraying me and using me and breaking my heart, he had molded me into the woman I had become: The Unsinkable, Unbreakable, Remarkable, Caring, Sharing, Loving, Giving Woman That I am Today...The One And Only Sonja Maria Lemos Flaherty (later to become Graff).
That realization struck me like a ton of bricks. And suddenly all the tears from all the years of hiding that ugly truth...melted away. I felt more free than I had ever in my life. I knelt down in front of the chair that now only held the memory of my sad, sick, pathetic father and I said, "I forgive you. I don't know what happened to you in your own childhood that caused you to think that type of behavior between a father and daughter would be okay...and I don't want to know. All I can do is pray for you. All I can do for myself is to forgive you. I brought you here today to ask you for one small favor...and I have never asked you for anything.....All I ask is that you take a good, long look at my back. I will be walking out of here and that is the very last thing of myself I am willing to give you. Take a good, long look and say goodbye..."
Then I exited...stage right....
Behind the curtain, I let out a sigh of relief that was over 30 years in the making. My entire body was shaking, but no longer with fear...with relief...I finally knew that forgiveness is an attribute of the strong and courageous. I am those things. Forgiving. Strong. Courageous.
Clap....Clap....clap, clap, clap.....I heard the applause of my future acting teacher but knew instinctively, I didn't need his approval. I got into the Piero Dusa Acting Conservatory of Santa Monica, cut right past the one year waiting list...and it was a wonderful chapter of my life. Turns out, not only was I an actress...I was a bad actress... ;) But that does not define my experience. To date, I have not lost my mind or committed suicide...Guess that was a necessary part of my journey. I was growing and learning and facing my fears and ultimately....healing...and sometimes...that's as good as it gets.
I don't claim to be an expert on any one thing. I only promise to share from the heart and hope that in doing so, I stand as a constant reminder that bad things happen to good people but it does not have to define who we become. That which does not kill us...makes us want to live to kick the shit out of that which tries. I am a survivor. I wish you every happiness and above all else...the courage and strength to forgive.
