by Leah Nagely Robbins

The first time I dreamt of flying I woke up thinking it seemed so easy! All I had to do was flap my arms and I’d float above the ground. Not a powerful flap. Just a movement of my arms signaling my intent. The more I wanted to rise, the more I did. I just had to think it. When I zoomed down to the ground to follow a trail, below the radar, I could feel the speed with wind on my face.

In most of my dream flights, I was outside of my dad’s house on Massachusetts Ave in his North Portland neighborhood, Overlook. I’d wave my arms to lift off and hover high enough to see the park, the neon signs of The Palms Motel and the Alibi tiki bar. The air felt like water, and I maneuvered by moving my arms like I was swimming.

And then the flying dreams stopped. They were replaced with night terrors, the kind where I could save myself if I could scream or run. I’d scream with my entire body, but no sound came out. My face red with the effort, mouth wide open, arms stiff and hands in fists. Screaming for help! Screaming in warning! But there was only silence. No matter how much I told my body to move, my feet would stay planted in the dream ground.

The dread dreams wake me even now. The worst take time to shake the disorientation. I lay in the dark, eyes open, breathe and attempt to remember the thread, like a plot in a movie. After years of these, I know the loss of control is what I fear. Control over my own fate. Control over my safety. The loss of autonomy of my own body. And despite fighting it dream after dream, I lose my voice. Without power, I wake in fear.

These night fears intersected with my very real experience of shutting down in confrontation with power. A lifetime, almost, of white male power. Domineering stepdad? Clam up, run upstairs to my teen bedroom and shut the door. Eggshell husband? Avoid any sensitive topics so varied that I had little reason to say anything to him.

Let me be clear. I’m a loudmouth who is loose with my opinions. I have a lot of them, and I make them known. But when it comes to battle with men who wield their power, I reflexively back down, making myself small to avoid the fight. Any white man pontificating? I may not shut them up, but my eyes can roll, and I can walk away in disdain. Or preachers? I stopped giving them an audience.

*

I sat in the South Park blocks at Portland State University on a sunny dry spring 2017 lunchtime, an easy walk from my office and away from the typical patterns of my colleagues. I came here on a sunny fall Tuesday, the day of the November 2016 election when I sashayed through the park in my light blue pantsuit, white blouse, and red shoes and scarf. I felt buoyed then, a hopeful member of ‘pantsuit nation,’ excited for a woman to lead the country. Such a different feeling this 2017 day. I was deflated, but not willing to go quietly into the foreboding proto-fascism of the new administration. 

I spent months using my voice in protests. Shouting, sure. But more fulfilling was the motley assembly of a Radical Chorus I sang with during protest marches. Local musician friends, bandmates, Rocker Chixx Choir friends and new friends banded together to practice songs we could sing while marching in the 2017 Women’s March. My soul felt restored song by song, in the  crowd and like a pop up mob seeing other random strangers join us singing the songs they knew: Twisted Sisters, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”; Cat Stevens’ “If You Wanna Sing Out”; Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” and folk protest hymns like “We Shall Not Be Moved”.

But this day I just wanted a break. The thing about Portland is there are sweet pockets of urban parks and gathering spots everywhere. And anytime the sun is out, people flock to them. Almost everyone is Vitamin D deficient. We need the sun. I carried my Indian chicken wrap (medium spicy) from the 4^th and College food cart pod to Park Avenue and the pedestrian way lined with gangly London Plane trees and arrayed with brick edge curbs and benches that open into a sort of orator’s corner. It’s where the farmers market is on the weekends.

And, apparently, it’s where street preachers do their talking. Three of them walked up, stepped onto a brick curb and started street-preach shouting. One doing the talking, the other two flanked him like henchman. Or seconds in a duel.

The voice-man looked like a rough mid-30s. Dark hair and a beard. He was clearly used to holding court and his tone was oddly both defiant and controlling. Like he owned the place but also was an uninvited guest. His message? Fire and damnation, eternal light through some mix of a vengeful patriarchal god. I felt aurally assaulted.

Roiling, though my wrap had all the flavor, I only tasted blah. I scanned the crowd. How is everyone just going on with their lunch? Am I the only one fed up?

I watched a young woman stand and walk to the opposite side of the block from the preacher. Stage right to his stage left. We all could see her. She attempted to read something out loud, competing for air space and volume. It was hard. We couldn’t hear. I was rooting for her. She smiled confidently, maybe self-deprecatingly, and sat down.

If she could make a stand alone, maybe she’ll join me. I walked over to her and asked her, “Do you know the Twisted Sister song, We’re Not Gonna Take It?” This time with a demure smile she said, “No, I don’t think so.” No matter. I’d made a move and was right there. So I stepped up on the curb and started in with all my Radical Chorus/Rocker Chixx alto volume while the preacher man was still talking. I sang the chorus into the first verse about fighting the powers that be and that we, this crowd, belong here, fulfilling our own destinies, making our own choices autonomously.

And at the next chorus, I hoped the crowd would join me. I don’t remember hearing their voices. But I certainly had their attention. As well as the attention of the preacher and his henchmen. I worried for a minute, while singing, “will they follow me back to my office?” and set that aside and kept singing. About condescension and gall; their boring and jaded life. Then back to the chorus, repeated many times.

I didn’t channel Dee Snyder. I channeled me and my fury. And finally, I finished; strong, not wavering. I stepped down, turned my back to them and flew away.

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