[Music]
[Applause]
we swim on the windward side of Oahu off
the shore from bellows a military beach
where the sand sits like flour through
your fingers
I am treading water that is well over my
10 year old head summer waves swell
beneath me rolling through my body like
spells of nausea
my father swims nearby or stands really
because he can touch where I cannot the
dried salt on my cheeks mixes with
rivulets of sweat I’m tired my father
a naval lawyer who determines the rules
of the sea swims close he begins to
tickle my sides under my arms giggle and
drown he chants giggle and drown this is
a game we play when the surface low and
bodysurfing impossible or this is a game
he plays because while I am laughing I’m
also coughing and sputtering and gasping
for breath my arms thrash frantic my
legs
searching for purchase and finding no
bottom giggle and drown he continues
hazel eyes bright in the Sun smile broad
or maybe this is not so much a game as a
lesson this is what my father tells me
he’s teaching me to be strong to assess
what matters staying afloat and to in
fact live you have to learn to foe
Jennifer he says tune everything else
out I know how to be strong I’m the
eldest daughter of a career naval
officer I have slept on submarines and
slid down the narrow hallways while the
sub practices angles and angles for the
dependents on board I have felt water
slugs reverberate through my chest when
launched from steel-cased torpedo tubes
every day after school my mother drives
me home and we passed through a guard
gate where a soldier greets us with a
salute and a machine gun and the family
Caravan rolls over a speed bump filled
with enough explosives to deter any
terrorist attack every day at work my
father prepares for the possibility of
war briefs treaties agreements aimed at
controlling a body of water that covers
two-thirds of the earth DEFCON 1 DEFCON
2 threat level red orange I know them
all and I know my duty as a daughter of
the military to be brave to be strong to
be as sleek and efficient as the
submarines that populate my days and
when my father swims close to me and
begins to tickle my sides watching me
clutch and gasp I do what I must
and I take the measures necessary to
save myself I swim I do not let the
waters take me down and I wait for my
father to tell me that I have done well
this is what I notice nearly 40 years
later what is remarkable to me about the
story of giggle and drown that at the
time as a military child living on a
near military bases none of this was
extraordinary it was all intensely
familiar well-worn an intimate war and
the possibility of war it was made
ordinary by all those around me with my
morning Cheerios I ingest did the
missiles and the weapons and the
soldiers humping guns along the side of
the road while the other children built
tree forts I learned to identify the
fast attack class of subs well other
children kept Diaries
I had a page in mind with my friends
listed and a blank space next to that so
that I could write down their address
and when they moved write them letters
all who entered my life arrived as an
absence and when my father told me to
stop laughing and swim for the shore I
did because he was strong you know how
to legislate this sea itself if asked
most of us could define post-traumatic
stress disorder and the kinds of
traumatic experiences that caused it we
know how the selfish shattered how the
trauma haunts how hard it is to heal
what is less known perhaps is the fact
that psychologists relied on the
experience of Vietnam soldiers to first
diagnose the disorder so it with
soldiers in the battle scarred that gave
us our defining examples of what
constitutes trauma only later did her
understanding of trauma move from the
battlefield to the bedroom the kitchen
those domestic spaces or victims face
less literal shellings I know firsthand
is a former military dependent the
soldiers are not the only ones who
suffer when living within a culture
built on the possibility of war though
they never see battle never hold a gun
military children face a trauma that is
all their own it is something I’ve
learned to call ordinary trauma ordinary
trauma when a series of events pass
unnoticed are made to appear ordinary
but wound nonetheless these moments
they’re unnoticed and so easily denied
how is driving over a speed bump filled
with explosives traumatic a friend in a
writing group asked me long ago I moved
around a lot as well it wasn’t traumatic
but that’s the thing about ordinary
trauma it’s invisible
nobody remarks on it because nobody sees
it after Sunday school unsub base at
Pearl Harbor children play on the backs
of deactivated torpedoes painted to look
like Barracuda they do not swing on
swings and it means something to write a
missile like a pony it’s telling that
child something about the way the world
works safety how peace is secured the
child does not see this the parents do
not see this the military is not
intentionally causing harm and yet that
child grows up
Denine her body food in order to
maintain the order and control instilled
by the plane of taps and the flash and
shine of her father’s shoes giggle and
drown wood
turn to me a second time when I
graduated from the University of
Nebraska as a valedictorian several
people had perfect GPAs but I was the
one chosen to give the address at the
Honors Convocation having fought a late
spring blizzard and bearing a ginger lay
my father sat in the audience as he does
tonight for my speech I told the story
of giggle and drown I told the heroic
version the one where I stopped laughing
and save myself by swimming to shore the
same way I had traveled 2,000 miles from
home on my own and found my way at the
University of Nebraska I left out the
part about how I’d learned to regulate
my body how living in a landlocked state
away from my family and the structure of
military life I had taken control not of
the sea but of my eating and I watched
myself dissolve
I remember tiny scraps of paper like
letters home listing the few calories
I’d eaten that day and then stuffed into
a desk drawer I remember days of eating
when I lettuce carrots and Apple I would
run for miles and miles and miles and
then I would come home and jump rope for
hours in the basement all while
maintaining perfect grades and making
the homecoming court I revealed none of
this in my speech instead I followed the
line I’d been taught to follow the one
about fear strength and winning it all I
knew that line well as well as my
shrinking belly were the numbers on the
scale intimately which is why
four years later when my husband left me
for another woman and my young marriage
ended in divorce
I was shattered for the first time
failure consumed me public failure
I could not hide in my dorm room or in
tiny scraps of paper
or miles of running I could not change
the fact that my husband simply no
longer loved me I had no choice but to
hold that loss which ironically was also
a truth the same truth I’ve been trying
to star for years the understanding that
sometimes no amount of preparation will
prevent the bombs from falling I did not
know it then but that first night alone
in my queen sized bed husband gone
parents gone ocean once again wrapping
the island like a shawl I began to write
what would become my memoir ordinary
trauma at the time I had no intentions
of writing a book I was just trying to
make it to the morning and it would take
me 20 years to write that book 20 years
to find the line I wanted to follow the
one I wanted to live my life by the
understanding that the acceptance that
the only constant in life is change
and that is why control will always fail
giggle and Ron returned to me a third
time when I was revising my memoir not
the heroic version not the terrifying
version but just as an ordinary moment
the same kind of ordinary moments that
fill our days but that we so rarely
notice and when I swam back to that girl
body swam back to that place in the
shore where the earth slips away I felt
fear sure but I also felt an intense
presence of being present and the
details around me rang clear like a bell
head thrown back face offered to the Sun
light pouring down fiery and certain my
father’s face close to mine he and I
touching held in waters as warm as the
womb carried by wave buoyed by wind
always in motion unmoored but forever
held fully alive and loved
you
[Applause]
we swim on the windward side of Oahu off
the shore from bellows a military beach
where the sand sits like flour through
your fingers
I am treading water that is well over my
10 year old head summer waves swell
beneath me rolling through my body like
spells of nausea
my father swims nearby or stands really
because he can touch where I cannot the
dried salt on my cheeks mixes with
rivulets of sweat I’m tired my father
a naval lawyer who determines the rules
of the sea swims close he begins to
tickle my sides under my arms giggle and
drown he chants giggle and drown this is
a game we play when the surface low and
bodysurfing impossible or this is a game
he plays because while I am laughing I’m
also coughing and sputtering and gasping
for breath my arms thrash frantic my
legs
searching for purchase and finding no
bottom giggle and drown he continues
hazel eyes bright in the Sun smile broad
or maybe this is not so much a game as a
lesson this is what my father tells me
he’s teaching me to be strong to assess
what matters staying afloat and to in
fact live you have to learn to foe
Jennifer he says tune everything else
out I know how to be strong I’m the
eldest daughter of a career naval
officer I have slept on submarines and
slid down the narrow hallways while the
sub practices angles and angles for the
dependents on board I have felt water
slugs reverberate through my chest when
launched from steel-cased torpedo tubes
every day after school my mother drives
me home and we passed through a guard
gate where a soldier greets us with a
salute and a machine gun and the family
Caravan rolls over a speed bump filled
with enough explosives to deter any
terrorist attack every day at work my
father prepares for the possibility of
war briefs treaties agreements aimed at
controlling a body of water that covers
two-thirds of the earth DEFCON 1 DEFCON
2 threat level red orange I know them
all and I know my duty as a daughter of
the military to be brave to be strong to
be as sleek and efficient as the
submarines that populate my days and
when my father swims close to me and
begins to tickle my sides watching me
clutch and gasp I do what I must
and I take the measures necessary to
save myself I swim I do not let the
waters take me down and I wait for my
father to tell me that I have done well
this is what I notice nearly 40 years
later what is remarkable to me about the
story of giggle and drown that at the
time as a military child living on a
near military bases none of this was
extraordinary it was all intensely
familiar well-worn an intimate war and
the possibility of war it was made
ordinary by all those around me with my
morning Cheerios I ingest did the
missiles and the weapons and the
soldiers humping guns along the side of
the road while the other children built
tree forts I learned to identify the
fast attack class of subs well other
children kept Diaries
I had a page in mind with my friends
listed and a blank space next to that so
that I could write down their address
and when they moved write them letters
all who entered my life arrived as an
absence and when my father told me to
stop laughing and swim for the shore I
did because he was strong you know how
to legislate this sea itself if asked
most of us could define post-traumatic
stress disorder and the kinds of
traumatic experiences that caused it we
know how the selfish shattered how the
trauma haunts how hard it is to heal
what is less known perhaps is the fact
that psychologists relied on the
experience of Vietnam soldiers to first
diagnose the disorder so it with
soldiers in the battle scarred that gave
us our defining examples of what
constitutes trauma only later did her
understanding of trauma move from the
battlefield to the bedroom the kitchen
those domestic spaces or victims face
less literal shellings I know firsthand
is a former military dependent the
soldiers are not the only ones who
suffer when living within a culture
built on the possibility of war though
they never see battle never hold a gun
military children face a trauma that is
all their own it is something I’ve
learned to call ordinary trauma ordinary
trauma when a series of events pass
unnoticed are made to appear ordinary
but wound nonetheless these moments
they’re unnoticed and so easily denied
how is driving over a speed bump filled
with explosives traumatic a friend in a
writing group asked me long ago I moved
around a lot as well it wasn’t traumatic
but that’s the thing about ordinary
trauma it’s invisible
nobody remarks on it because nobody sees
it after Sunday school unsub base at
Pearl Harbor children play on the backs
of deactivated torpedoes painted to look
like Barracuda they do not swing on
swings and it means something to write a
missile like a pony it’s telling that
child something about the way the world
works safety how peace is secured the
child does not see this the parents do
not see this the military is not
intentionally causing harm and yet that
child grows up
Denine her body food in order to
maintain the order and control instilled
by the plane of taps and the flash and
shine of her father’s shoes giggle and
drown wood
turn to me a second time when I
graduated from the University of
Nebraska as a valedictorian several
people had perfect GPAs but I was the
one chosen to give the address at the
Honors Convocation having fought a late
spring blizzard and bearing a ginger lay
my father sat in the audience as he does
tonight for my speech I told the story
of giggle and drown I told the heroic
version the one where I stopped laughing
and save myself by swimming to shore the
same way I had traveled 2,000 miles from
home on my own and found my way at the
University of Nebraska I left out the
part about how I’d learned to regulate
my body how living in a landlocked state
away from my family and the structure of
military life I had taken control not of
the sea but of my eating and I watched
myself dissolve
I remember tiny scraps of paper like
letters home listing the few calories
I’d eaten that day and then stuffed into
a desk drawer I remember days of eating
when I lettuce carrots and Apple I would
run for miles and miles and miles and
then I would come home and jump rope for
hours in the basement all while
maintaining perfect grades and making
the homecoming court I revealed none of
this in my speech instead I followed the
line I’d been taught to follow the one
about fear strength and winning it all I
knew that line well as well as my
shrinking belly were the numbers on the
scale intimately which is why
four years later when my husband left me
for another woman and my young marriage
ended in divorce
I was shattered for the first time
failure consumed me public failure
I could not hide in my dorm room or in
tiny scraps of paper
or miles of running I could not change
the fact that my husband simply no
longer loved me I had no choice but to
hold that loss which ironically was also
a truth the same truth I’ve been trying
to star for years the understanding that
sometimes no amount of preparation will
prevent the bombs from falling I did not
know it then but that first night alone
in my queen sized bed husband gone
parents gone ocean once again wrapping
the island like a shawl I began to write
what would become my memoir ordinary
trauma at the time I had no intentions
of writing a book I was just trying to
make it to the morning and it would take
me 20 years to write that book 20 years
to find the line I wanted to follow the
one I wanted to live my life by the
understanding that the acceptance that
the only constant in life is change
and that is why control will always fail
giggle and Ron returned to me a third
time when I was revising my memoir not
the heroic version not the terrifying
version but just as an ordinary moment
the same kind of ordinary moments that
fill our days but that we so rarely
notice and when I swam back to that girl
body swam back to that place in the
shore where the earth slips away I felt
fear sure but I also felt an intense
presence of being present and the
details around me rang clear like a bell
head thrown back face offered to the Sun
light pouring down fiery and certain my
father’s face close to mine he and I
touching held in waters as warm as the
womb carried by wave buoyed by wind
always in motion unmoored but forever
held fully alive and loved
you
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