Krista Bremer - My Accidental Jihad

My Accidental Jihad

A Love Story

KRISTA BREMER

ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL 2014

For my children,

Aliya Rose and Khalil Zade

The lion who breaks the enemys ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

MEWLANA JALALUDDIN RUMI

CONTENTS

I

Homeland Insecurity

Choices

B ack in 1994, after I stood up on a surfboard for the first time, I thought I might just have discovered my purpose in life. Nothing Id ever done compared to the exhilaration of gliding across the face of a wave. I moved into a tiny beach apartment with a hairdresser and a full-time bodybuilder. Craning my head out my bedroom window, I could see a shimmering thread of the Pacific Ocean in the distance. This felt like a major accomplishment.

But I urgently needed a steady income, so I took a position as an assistant at a Planned Parenthood clinic. The job paid enough to cover my rent and was close enough to my apartment that I could walk to work. It was also in keeping with my feminist ideals. In my undergraduate womens studies classes, Id found my tribe among classmates who debated passionately, laughed loudly, and dressed comfortably. In our discussions we sat in a circle on the floor, our unshaven legs tucked beneath us. We had heated discussions about gender constructs, institutionalized sexism, and whether a woman should feel self-conscious wearing a tampon at a nude beach. I had tossed off the artifacts of high schoolcurling irons, berry-flavored pink lip gloss, paralyzing self-consciousnessand discovered that it was acceptable, even desirable, to have a strong body and a critical mind. In my new job I looked forward to playing a role in empowering women.

In the mornings before work, Id maneuver my heavy long board out of the apartment and walk down to the beach in the crisp dawn air, zipping up my wetsuit at the shoreline and then jogging into the surf. When my feet first hit the water, Id recoil both from the cold that numbed my ankles and from the thought of being pulled under the gray waves. As much as I loved surfing, I was terrified of the ocean. Every morning I fought the impulse to turn back and stay on the sand, where it was warm and dry. Big waves sometimes appeared out of nowhere, tossing my heavy board as if it were a toothpick and pinning me against the ocean floor. The first time this had happened, Id panicked, clawing desperately at the water while I spun like a sock in the laundry. Its impossible to know which way is up while youre being tossed by a wave, and I quickly learned that the more I struggled, the faster I depleted my oxygen supply. If I relaxed, however, my natural buoyancy would eventually float me back to the surface.

Id get out of the water at 7:30 A.M ., leaving just enough time to hurry back to my apartment; pull my dripping, matted hair into a ponytail; rinse the thin white crust of salt from my face; and make it to the clinic by eight. The job was perfect for me, a literature major with a voracious appetite for peoples stories. Interviewing a client in my tiny office, our knees nearly touching, I felt like a music fanatic whod landed a job at a record store.

Across from me usually sat a young woman around my age; many times Id recognize her from the beach or campus. A recent graduate myself, Id affect my best professional tone and sail through a list of questions about her medical history. Id always pause awkwardly before asking At what age did you first engage in sexual intercourse? and How many sexual partners have you had in the past year? Id save those two questions for last and note the answers with a brisk nod and a click of my pen, secretly comparing the womans experiences to my own. But before asking those questions, Id try to guess if the woman across from me had a more adventurous sex life than I did and whether she had lost her virginity at a younger age than I had. I usually guessed wrong. The middle-aged former prostitute with the bleached-blonde hair and leathery tan, who lingered in my office and wondered aloud how she would explain the twelve-year gap in her rsum to potential employers, had been with very few partners in the previous year. The young woman who showed up at the clinic wearing nylons in the middle of summer and looking as if she were there for a job interview had lost her virginity at an age when I was still having slumber parties.

In addition to taking medical histories, I administered hormone injections for birth control, described the benefits of the IUD, and once explained the three bases to a nervous boy who called the clinic after school and asked questions in a high-pitched voice. But the most dramatic part of the job was administering pregnancy tests. I could tell from a patients eyes as she handed me her urine sample how she felt about possibly being pregnant. While she sat in the waiting room, I stood in the tiny laboratory, waiting to see whether the thin pink line on the dipstick would appearfirst faint, then staining the white tip darker and darker, marking a permanent boundary between before and after.

Id call the woman back into my office, maneuvering the folding door shut to provide an illusion of privacy. Most clients I saw did not want to be pregnant. When I confirmed their pregnancies, they sighed heavily and held their faces in their hands. I learned to sit in that confined space with a crying stranger, to hand her a tissue without saying anything.

With their copious tears and unpredictable reactions, these women made me anxious, and I was grateful for the color-coded information sheets I could hand them: purple for adoption, blue for abortion, green for prenatal care, pink for Medicaid information. As I outlined their options and helped them set up appointments, I spoke in the language of the clinic: Clear, conscious choice. Intended pregnancy. Every child a wanted child . I liked the sound of these words, the way they seemed to cut through the churning, murky waters of these clients lives like an anchor, solid and certain. I wholeheartedly believed the gospel I shared in the counseling room: that if we planned carefully and made responsible decisions, we could create the lives we wanted.

Still, I was often baffled by the womens choices. A married woman who tenderly held her squirming toddler on her lap, kissing the top of his head absentmindedly, requested an appointment for an abortion without a moments hesitation. A schoolgirl dropped her backpack on the floor, rubbed her fists into her eyes, then asked about prenatal care. Day after day, I counseled young women who stared blankly at me through their tears. Whether I was telling them about the adoption process or how to get on Medicaid or how an abortion was performed, I always reassured them that they would be fine. Like a preacher describing the gates of heaven, I relied heavily on my imagination to comfort these women. In truth, I had no idea how it felt to be confronted with such a decision. I didnt even know how to set a clear, intentional course for my own life, which at that time was very much like my surfing: though every once in a while I found myself in just the right place at the right time, and all uncertainty dissolved in the exhilaration of the moment, more often I was off balance, trying to find my feet in a world constantly in motion. Usually I found my feet too late, just as the wave buckled over my head, or I stood up in the wrong place, and the tip of my board took a nosedive, jettisoning me into the water while fifty pounds of fiberglass whipped dangerously close to my head. Sometimes I didnt even see the wave coming until it was crashing down on me.

When my father came to visit, I picked him up from the airport in my car that belched exhaust and smelled of musty wetsuits and towels. I drove him back to my cramped apartment and searched my kitchen for something to offer him, finding only granola, black coffee, and a half-eaten pint of ice cream. As we walked along the beach, he looked into my sunburned face. If you ever want to do anything with your life, youll need to move away from the ocean.