I had the thought yesterday I could pinpoint the date I ran away from DeSisto School because the Moody Blues played Tanglewood that night, and that information (even the setlist!) would be online. My “RA” was at that concert and many others from our dorm, too. If they hadn’t been I could never have run away. As it was, Carolyn, the dorm parent who had an apartment off the main dorm, suspected I was going to run and made me sleep on the floor in her living room. My roommate was put guard over me, sleeping next to me on the couch. I had to lie there silently and breathe even, calm all of everything but stay awake. My grandmother had given me a gold bangle bracelet–not real but I wore it all the time. It clunked on the floor when I started to make my way into a crouch so I took it off and left it on my pillow, knowing I’d never see it again. I inched across the floor, crawling a bit at a time and freezing, then going a bit further and freezing. When I got to Carolyn’s front door there was a Hebrew character hanging on it that kept knocking against the door so I had to lift it off and leave it on the floor. I always felt bad about that because I didn’t mean any disrespect to her religious beliefs but I knew she would easily take it that way. I just needed to be quiet.

I finally made it out of there and down the hall to my room, where I got dressed and grabbed $50 in one dollar bills I’d been stashing along with my other, regular roommate Beth. We were saving to run away in the fall when she got back from her enforced camping expedition with a group from the school. So I stole her contributions to that fund along with my own to run away with Craig. It hurt her. I didn’t mean to hurt her or do the wrong thing. It seemed like the right thing to do under the circumstances…but to be totally honest I just wanted the chance to be alone on the road with Craig. I was a little shit in a lot of ways but not out of malice. I had to do things. I don’t know. I didn’t think about how I affected others or more to the point it didn’t occur to me that I affected others much. I was smart and knew how to bravado my way, and I felt how guys looked at me too. I don’t think I took much advantage of that but I noticed it and felt its power. After being powerless for years it was heady and I was a lonely girl. But here it was different, something had changed. I wanted to be near Craig and I wanted him to touch me and I wanted to touch him.

The school, on a few acres of land outside of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was an experimental school. We were all butterflies…rather we were caterpillars and chrysalises striving toward being butterflies.

It was a bad place. I was actually kind-of excited to be going there after five long months in the hospital. It felt almost like I was going to college. I was going to get my shit together and make something of my life eventually. The first night I got there they let me unpack and eat dinner at the dining hall, outside of which I first saw Craig. They let me get into my pajamas and go to bed and lie there in the dark for awhile, getting my bearings, thinking this is a bit weird but OK. I was the new girl again, nothing new about that. I’m starting to relax when the door opens, the light comes on, and five girls pounce on me, holding me down. They had all my limbs and I fought but couldn’t move. I spat in one girl’s face. I don’t even know where that came from but that’s what I did. Like an animal.

They dragged me up to a room on the second floor that had bunks along the walls and about 10 girls sleeping in them and also on the floor. I forget what they called this, but these were all the girls at high risk for running away. I was here because I needed to earn their trust that I wouldn’t run. We had all these kids in a room on the second floor, and they blockaded the door with a dresser.

So this was the environment. A lot of money there. My parents had always done well for themselves even though their investments and houses kept us living poor in a lot of ways. It looked good from the outside but it was weiners and beans for dinner. lol. And cold. Not loving. Appearances matter more than what’s inside. Aaaanyway. DeSisto attracted a far richer set than any circles my parents traveled. Judd Hirsch’s son was there when I was. People spent a lot of money to send their unruly privileged troubled teenagers to a place that promised they would come out creative, productive, and even specially gifted citizens. It was a fucking concentration camp with a real chef to cook our meals and culture and nature all around, and Alice’s Restaurant.

Craig and I hit it off immediately. We both knew exactly what was going to happen so we didn’t waste any time pretending it wasn’t happening. I think it was the second day I was there–it was May, just after Mother’s Day–the afternoon was warm and muggy and brought a torrential thunderstorm, which the group of us stayed out in, enjoying the heavy, warm water pelting us. I looked at Craig and felt a burst of joy, stepped up to him and threw my arms around him. He was surprised but only for the briefest beat before he smiled and hugged me back, lifting me off my feet. That was it.

So five weeks later when he and Tex stood outside my window and told me they’d been kicked out of the boy’s dorm to fend for themselves for the night…when he said they were running away and he wanted me to come with them, I had to say yes. I would meet them later in Lenox. But my summer roommate heard the tail end of this and they shut me away in Carolyn’s apartment because everyone was at Tanglewood for the Moody Blues.

I made it out of the dorm and skirted the buildings, down to Route 183, turned left and headed up the road, jumping to the side into ditches or shadows every time a car was coming because I was walking straight toward Tanglewood. A whole lot of adrenaline going through me that night, and it is going through me now, thinking about it. Ha! The wonder of Google…I can tell you I walked 3.6 miles to Lenox wearing my very stylish and practical outfit which included moccasin boots–no support at all. But it was my best don’t-fuck-with-me-I’m-cool outfit. There is power in image.

It was very late when I got to Lenox. Traffic had died, the concert long over. I walked through the empty streets…I didn’t really know where I was but I thought I could find the place we were meeting. Starting to get a bit scared I turned down a street I was pretty sure was the right one and I hear something and saw at the same time motion across the street in a recess–he stepped out and I ran over and hugged him and never had a hug felt warmer or more welcome, ever.

We walked over the mountain to Pittsfield, singing Ozzy songs and enjoying our freedom and power in the moment. In the early morning we all bought one-way tickets to Albany at the bus station, along with a couple packs of Marlboros.

And that is in large part how I came to be in the Cultural Education Center on July 17, 1984. A Tuesday. Thirty-five years ago yesterday.