First, I Got Arrested—
Then I Escaped
Does anybody know when 1983 happened? Seriously. When was that? How many lifetimes ago?
I like to choose topics for these weekly blogs that are relevant, applicable, maybe even be helpful for navigating our wild and wacky world. This blog offers none of that. Zero relevance. Apologies.
Although I’m not sure why, I find myself thinking about this time in my life and feel compelled to write about it.
Back to 1983. I was 35, profoundly committed to my monogamous relationship with marijuana. I had been declared and out as a lesbian feminist separatist for about 100 years by then—no, probably not 100. Maybe 10. I was teaching at Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, living in Manhattan, and finding my preparatory education in education fully useless. I could teach Hamlet to anybody. But how to teach high school kids how to read? I didn’t know. And couldn’t figure out that I could figure that out.
Anyway.
It was summer. Summer for a high school teacher. Heavenly. Through my “politically affiliated” groups, I found out about a Women’s Peace Camp in upstate New York. Camping! Lesbians!! Protesting the deployment of nuclear weapons to Western Europe!!! Sounded like a perfect summer for me, cashing my every-two-week-paychecks, hanging out.
Please note: confronting the military-industrial complex was not high on my summer hang-out list. But somehow, challenging the patriarchal order at the Seneca Army Base seemed personal and juicy.
So off I went, Ruby the Volkswagen and me, north to upstate New York, to the Seneca Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice.
Suffice it to say, women did powerful, valuable, and useful work there. I did not. Women created and studied together in workshops, in teach-ins, learning, for one of many things, the potentiality and impact of civil disobedience. I did not. I must have done seva, the required work shift, but have absolutely no memory of it—not a highlight or remembrance.
Highlights? What do I remember? Hanging out with young—even younger than me—women from Greenham Common, the English mother of women’s peace camps. Smoking a lot of pot, as I continued to believe in the power of marijuana to make any political demonstration more viable. Going to breakfast at the local diner, enraging the locals even more than they already were.
I had a girlfriend for a few tiny moments.
Suffice it to say, I hung out. If my Present Me could see that Past Me, I would not have liked myself very much. I’m sure I probably didn’t like myself then.
I did fully relish the Actions that we staged regularly around the gates of the next-door army base. I rattled my rattle, demanding the patriarchy to evaporate. I wailed and wept and demanded justice. Pot helped.
Center, with headband
The summer drifted by me.
The big march took place in August, as I remember. I had enough sense to leave my stash of Hawaiian bud at home in my tent. I don’t think I was stoned during the march, concerned about the heat and the length of the march. Good call, ya think?
It was a long march and a hot day. There were no dramatic overtones; time was heavy and long, almost boring, but there was a subtle overlay of quiet, potential anxiety. We hit no counter-protestors until we got to the tiny (and I add, now unforgettable) town of Waterloo. Preventing us from crossing the bridge stood a group of most unhappy and riled-up counter-protesters, all angry, all men, all demanding in loud voices that we go back to Moscow to sleep with our compatriots there.
We, as a group, sat right down. I sat down because we sat down.
I’m first row, fourth from the right
It was terrifying. I absolutely left my body.
I have now no sense of time, then or now, no idea how long we sat there. I continued sitting there because the women around me continued sitting there.
I was numbed out and brain-fogged with fear.
Out of nowhere, police in riot helmets and clubs surrounded us, circling closer and closer, tightening their hold on us.
I remember the male voices, loud and furious. I remember cops trying to get us to retreat. They surged again, closer this time. This went on. Finally, the police swooped in. I remember being pulled on my back across the ground. I remember being heaved, flung like a chicken (I thought) into a police wagon. I could hear my father’s voice exclaiming, a paddy wagon! It was airless and dark; I didn’t recognize the few other women who sat on benches around me. We sat in silence.
After an eternity of bumpy, weaving travel, we came to an abrupt stop. The doors swung open, daylight streaming in. Blinded by the glare, I held my hand up, protecting my eyes, protecting myself. More faceless policemen pulled us out. My right foot was asleep, my legs exhausted and trembling. I limped forward, a policewoman escorting us now.
We were in a huge outdoor compound, part of the Waterloo County Jail.
There were peace camp women already milling in the compound, which was bright with sun and shadeless. More kept streaming in. The benign and wordless officers gave us lukewarm water in waxy paper cups, and eventually told us we would, at some point, be processed. I leaned against the three-quarter concrete wall, no roof above us, pulling my body into a tiny sliver of almost-shade. Meetings were held—of course, it was the women’s movement; it’s what we did. I sat on the outskirts of one and tried to concentrate, tried to listen. Consensus was reached. We would all hold our anonymity and claim Jane Doe status. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant. I was beyond bewildered, had to pee, and had a nasty hangover headache.
Several hours somehow passed. We were given baloney sandwiches on white bread with stale potato chips, served on limp paper plates along with more lukewarm water. It all tasted like cardboard and gummed up the roof of my mouth mercilessly. I spit it into my plate, stood up, and walked over to the large trash can, threw my garbage in, and wandered around the large open-air compound, now filled with lounging women.
The sun had slanted away from us, basking us with some relieving shade. I wandered around some more, looking for a place to sit. Around the corner of the complex, unoccupied, I saw a large wooden door running from the ground to the top of the wall, and went over to this quiet spot. The door handle caught my eye–it was shiny and black metal. I will never forget what it looked like. I looked around me, and then tried the knob. To my astonishment, it opened. I pushed the door effortlessly forward, took a step, and found myself standing outside. The door swung closed behind me. I was free!
HEY EVERYBODY, I wanted to yell, COME ON, WE CAN GET OUTTA HERE!! I tried the door. It was locked. Did I just lock myself out of the coolest demonstration, probably of my lifetime? It continued to sink more deeply in, what I had just done. I tried knocking, and then banging on the door. LET ME IN. Nobody heard me. No response.
I had successfully escaped. And then I realized even more deeply, OH SHIT. WHAT HAVE I DONE? DID I JUST ESCAPE?
Yes, I had indeed not-intentionally escaped. Escape is not a tactic of civil disobedience. Even I knew that.
Now I was alone, without a cent, needing to pee, and wandering around enemy territory, literally behind enemy lines. A wave of another flavor of terror flashed over me.
Thankfully, my survival instincts kicked in. I shook my head, somehow waking up a bit. Somehow, I found a pay phone (remember them?), called the peace camp collect, and eventually got a ride back home.
Humiliated and exhausted, I made my way back into camp. I was embarrassingly “debriefed” by an organized woman taking notes, and dejectedly made my way back to my L. L Bean green moldy tent.
While The Jane Doe-54 prisoners stayed in jail for about a week—I guess I would have been The Jane Doe 55—I joined outside actions to protest. Bella Abzug (remember her? A US representative, open to progressive causes) supported the group’s process. The Jane Doe-54 were eventually released, charges dropped. I am sure Seneca County was delighted to be free of them/of us.
Throughout the rest of the summer, a cloud of inadequacy and shame followed me. Not a surprise reaction for those days. I began longing for my East 5th Street apartment, a return to more predictability world without obviously screaming men. As Ruby and I pulled out of that familiar gravel driveway, tires clicking over it for the final time, we watched the Peace Camp’s farmhouse get smaller and smaller in our rearview mirror.
Back to New York City, back to Malcom X. Back to all that.
The Peace Camp slowed down, closing after Labor Day. Eventually, the Seneca Army Depot closed down in 1995.
Cruise missiles? Nuclear deployment? Dismantling the patriarchy? Where do you think those issues stand today? I’ll leave that to you.
~~~
For me, the question remains: why did these memories surface so loudly this week? What’s up in my present life, right here, right now, early July 2026, that is reminiscent, that echoes of those days?
This past week, I had a very intense commitment to Kripalu to host a retreat of past ashram residents. I had to burn through a lot of feelings, a lot of push-aways, a lot of fear to walk in and pick up that microphone.
And I did. And I did. And it worked, what a surprise, swimmingly.
Perhaps I feel like I escaped those challenges, that potential slippery slope that wasn’t really a slope at all…???
Whatever.
Perhaps I needed to remember how far I’ve come, what a life I have been given? As we say in 12 Steps, a life second to none, my life, in which I can show up for others.
Whatever.
Or maybe it’s just a story. Just a summer story. To share. From my heart. To yours.
Music. Here is Nina Simone, composer, singer, songwriter, activist. Who else to follow that story? Thank you, Nina, for your brave heart.
~~~
Dear Friends,
May we be present.
May we be whole.
May we ride the waves of our lives.
May we live in peace
No matter what
We are given.
May we trust the process of transmutation.
May we continue to grow into the people
That we meant to be.
May all beings benefit from our shared words.
With gratitude,
With possibility,
With wise hope—
Blessings, Aruni
P.S. Folks! Let me know how this story landed for you. Do you relate at all? Was there any value in your reading it? All voices are welcome, please.