The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Date rape is incredibly humiliating.  Date rape also destroyed my already fragile sexuality. I write this for men as well as for women, especially survivors.  My son is short and on the autism spectrum. Like many other young men of his age, with his diagnosis and short stature, dating just doesn't happen for him. He made peace with that. He lives with me, and we have a great relationship because we both like hiking and gardening. Neither of us is lonely. He also knows what rape did to my sexuality. He's in his third decade of life on this earth, so he can take that. My favorite job in wildlife and fisheries is a tie. I had an internship with the Bureau of Land Management in northwestern Nevada. Among other things, I assisted with the banding of Golden Eagles, Prairie Falcons, Red-tailed Hawks, and a variety of small passerine birds. Because I am small, I have small hands. Guess who was recruited by more senior biologists to stick their hands into holes in trees where birds wer...

 I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology, so I often think of animals, whether they are mammals or arthropods, in terms of their scientific classification. I have been at war with other mothers recently, but they have all been from the phylum Arthropoda — two insects and one spider, aka arachnids. Yesterday, I was watering the strawberries I planted by my front door when I noticed what looked like a giant black-winged ant trying to pull dead bulb-flower leaves into the siding of my house. So I turned the water hose on the insect thing and pulled the leaves out of my siding. I looked it up this morning. It was a Grass Carrying Wasp that builds nests in the crevices in the bark of mature trees, but it will try to do the same thing in the siding of houses. It is not aggressive and will only sting if provoked. My washing out of the crevice in my house's siding and pulling out the dead flowering bulb leaves it had pulled into the siding was not aggressive enough fo...

 I woke up this morning with one thought on my mind: awe heals trauma.  So I googled it and found that there was a lot of research showing that awe does, indeed, help heal trauma. First, I will list some of my recent hiking experiences. My son and I hiked up Lookout Mountain east of Mt. Hook a few weeks ago. Truthfully, I almost hiked up Lookout Mountain. My son hiked the whole way, but I hiked up far enough to see the mountains and landscape for so many miles, I can only guess. 50? 100? You can see my experience on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNnX13EAF5A&t=18s We also paddled a boat across Ollallie Lake a week later and saw 6, yes, SIX, Bald Eagles. Or was it one pair that kept following us? Either way, it was amazing Then we went on a wildflower walk on the edge of a wilderness area. The place was not only filled with wildflowers but also with butterflies and lots and lots of bee species, not just honey bees. You have to get away fro...