Reflections of a Rebel Heart – Online-Only for the November 2022 Issue
A witch ought never to be frightened in the darkest forest, Granny Weatherwax had once told her, because she should be sure in her soul that the most terrifying thing in the forest was her.” —Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith
This past August, when my 15-year-old daughter and I spent a week in NYC, we went to see Wicked. I knew little about the musical, only that it was a reimagining of the backstory of The Wizard of Oz. But it didn’t take long for me to recognize Elphaba’s desperation to right wrongs, to save others, her impatience, how her spells–however well-intentioned–went wrong, and that the darkest forest can be walked through if you believe yourself the most fearsome of all.
When I was in high school, my English teacher assigned me and my classmates to give speeches about ourselves that encapsulated who each of us were. I don’t remember anything about that speech except the story I chose to tell.
In grade school I played on a boys’ baseball team, not because I was good, but because girls’ teams simply didn’t exist. I remember getting hit with a fly ball to left field after it sailed over my glove and smacked me square in the head. I fell backward like a tree, sporting a ball-shaped impression on my cap. As my coach jogged onto the field toward me, his mouth twitched with suppressed laughter. But when he saw my piercing look, he ceased smiling.
Despite my hiccups, there was one magical game I could do no wrong. Toward the end, I remember getting up to bat and the coach giving me the signal to bunt the ball. Wielding an aluminum bat in the cold morning, I felt an immediate sting when the ball smashed into my finger. Nevertheless, I ran like hell to first base. As my foot hit the bag, the first base coach seized my hand dripping with blood and shoved my split finger into his mouth in what I can only now assume was an ill-advised attempt to staunch the bleeding. His vampiric ministrations notwithstanding, my finger pulsed and bled as I walked back to a bench full of open-mouthed boys.
“That looks like it hurts so bad!” “That’s a lot of blood!”
I shrugged and said nothing. I remained silent as my older brother walked me back to the car 200 feet away and tried to make me laugh. He knew I did not want to cry in front of anyone. I did not let a single tear fall until we got inside the car, the doors shut and we pulled away.
The blonde boy I secretly liked in high school was not in that class to hear my story though it might have helped him understand something fundamental about me. When I saw him again at my 25th high school reunion and we laughed about the night I took him to a professional hockey game where he sat mute the entire time, he said, “Wait? Was that a date? I just remember being scared of you, like you might ask me something I couldn’t answer.”
After I graduated high school, I went out on a date with one of my older brother’s friends and told him on the drive home that I didn’t think it was going to work. He said, “I just realized that I’ve known you for seven years and you know everything about me and I know almost nothing about you.” I said, “It took you seven years to figure that out?” before I stepped out of the car.
Soon after, in my freshman year of college, I met my future husband. I told him, by way of warning, that I would never love him and I wouldn’t hold his hand in public. He looked at me, smiled and said, “Ok.” Try as I might, I couldn’t scare him away. So, of course, the first time I told him I loved him, I walked away from him, turned back and yelled in anger, “I love you! Ok?! Are you happy now?!”
When I was young, before I met my husband, there was only one person who I felt safe to be vulnerable with, other than my brothers. In Wicked, when Elphaba and Galinda sang For Good to each other, I thought of my best friend, Heidi, and the 11-year old girls we were when we first met: I, dark-haired and inscrutable and she, blonde and riotous. We’ve spent almost the entirety of our 41-year-long friendship apart, but I know loving her and being loved by her changed me for good.
I had told her we were going to see Wicked that night. Of course, she had seen the musical before. And at the end, when the lights flickered back to life in the theater, and when I turned my phone back on, there was a single text from her: For Good. I thought of how exhausting it is to be the most terrifying thing in the darkest forest. Even the most fearsome of all wants to be vulnerable, chosen and loved. I was grateful for the mask I was wearing. No one could see me cry.
Eileen Bobek is a former ER Doctor and now owner of Rebel Heart Books in downtown Jacksonville.