Oprah's Lifeclass #11 - Listening to the Whisper
Did you go to class last night?
Oprah had that shirt on that reminds me of the clearwater commercial.
Is that the name of the mom store?
You know the one I'm talking about.
Oprah makes it look good.
Anyhoozle.
She was talking about listening to your whisper voice.
That voice we all have that tells us something is a little hinky.
We all have it, and many of us don't listen until it's too late and we've met a brick wall head on.
It reminded me of being in 3rd grade.
{I hated 3rd grade - but that's a different post}
I was walking home from the bus stop.
My friend Justin with the rats tail, who I simply adored, walked with me part of the way.
I walked the rest of the way, through the fielded path, and onto my street, alone.
In retrospect, it wasn't very safe.
The 1/2 of the walk I did on my own, less than 1/2 a mile, was on a main road, high traffic.
Anyone, at anytime could have taken me.
But they never did.
It was May then, I think, right around the end of the school year.
Justin was moving and that's what I was thinking about as I walked home.
"Who would be my friend next year?"
"Lalalalala."
I walked through the fielded path between houses and the wet land preserve with my head down, just being 8.
Just thinking.
I know.
I JUST KNOW.
I had that whisper.
If I had looked up long enough it would have whispered how odd it was that there was a car parked directly at the end of the path.
If I had looked up, I would have heard that whisper say, "Watch that older man getting out of that car."
If I had looked up, I would have heard that whisper say, "RUN!"
Unfortunately, I never looked up.
My ignoring of that whisper allowed that man to open his back passenger door and wait...
For an 8-year-old little girl to come walking out the end of the path.
It's two decades later and I often wonder if that man had followed me.
If he knew I came home alone, to an empty house.
That no one would miss me until another three hours passed.
I also wonder how loud that whisper was for my mother.
Who, but for the grace of god, had decided after 24 years, to quit her job in the middle of the day.
It was Friday.
She'd come to meet me and take her mind off of work.
She's told me in later years that her blood ran cold, and it was not a whisper, but sheer parental panic that told her this man and his car had no business at the end of the path.
In my childhood daze, I finally looked up as I heard my mother calling out to me...screaming.
"Rena! RENA! REEEEENNNNNAA!!"
I mistook it for excitement, but looking back, I can recognize it was terror.
I remember I smiled and started to run towards the end of the path and my mother.
I merely glimpsed the man slam his door shut, and run to his drivers seat and speed away.
"Didn't you see the man!" My mother exclaimed.
But I was 8, and I had seen the man, but only for a second.
I had seen my mother, and while I had ignored my whisper.
She did not.
I have not doubt she saved me, from what, I'll never be sure.
In the days that followed, that same man, with the same car, and the same M.O, tried the same thing with several girls and neighbors on my bus route.
Because of my mother, I never walked home alone again.
And I learned to be diligent about listening to that whisper.
Do you listen to that hinky whisper before it's too late?
Before you look back and wonder why you didn't?
It was a decade later that I found myself alone in Paris.
I traveled to stay with a friend who stood me up to go to Berlin.
So, I was alone.
I was 18, on winter break from college, and I hadn't told my boyfriend or my parents that I was desperately out of money and had nowhere to stay.
Hahah, I didn't want to worry them.
When a kind Parisian man asked the time, I obliged and struck up a conversation.
My whisper started.
No, no, you don't know this man, and he obviously didn't want the time.
But I was broke.
And he was kind.
So ignored my whisper.
We traveled the champs elysees together, chatting.
He invited me to dinner.
And I was broke.
And I was hungry.
My whisper got louder.
No, NO, you don't know where he's taking you or what his intentions are.
But it was still daylight.
And he was kind.
So ignored my whisper.
We had dinner and got to know one another.
That whisper was still there.
No, it said, this is not safe.
I didn't want to be rude {Oprah has also talked about how women can stay in awful situations because it's the polite thing to do - Oprah and I say - who CARES about polite? LISTEN}, and just leave, but I did take a moment to assess some escape routes as needed.
There was bus stop right outside the door.
Where it would take me, I didn't know, but I could always get on it.
He invited me to a movie.
That whisper...was yelling.
NO NO NO. NO NO NO.
This is not safe.
NOPE.
I politely declined.
He insisted.
My whisper voice was now calling me names.
YOU FOOL!
DINNER IS NEVER FREE!
GET OUT OF HERE!
He insisted I go back to his place and have a glass of wine or coffee, because, after all, he bought me dinner.
I politely declined.
My whisper voice was out of control.
RUN RUN RUN!
He took my wrist and insisted I go with him.
Suddenly, I was 8 again, and my mother was not at the end of that path.
I had let that man open his back door and invite right in.
My whisper voice came back strong.
GET ON THE BUS!
I took the two euros I had left, unclenched my arm from his grasp and bolted shouting, "That's my bus, thanks for dinner!" {Still trying to be polite!?}
And boarded just as the doors closed safely behind me.
Now, Oprah would tell you, if I had listened to my whisper voice when he asked the time, I would have walked in the other direction and never started the conversation.
But - that's the point, in the beginning it was just a whisper, and how was I to know?
Listening to that whisper, learning how to listen to that whisper, it saved my life.
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