{"quotes":[{"text":"For this entire walk, my desire had ashamed me, as if my wanting to be kissed that night mitigated the fault of Junior's sudden deafness. I'd been given stacks of reasons to blame myself for an act of violence committed by another. I had blamed my flirting for his subsequent felony. My college taught me: my rape was my shame. Everyone I'd trusted asked only what I might have done to let it happen. In my gut, I'd always believed I'd caused it.I finally questioned it.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","love","memoir","self-realization","truth","woods"],"id":1916,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"I had once again proven that again alone, I was again enough.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","empowerment","girl-in-the-woods","hiking"],"id":35091,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"In the power of my newfound strength, I saw clearly—even though I’d been empowered to have my old college finally address my “horrific trauma,” make me finally feel heard, this event would never have happened had I not first given myself my own voice, the permission to call my rape rape and not shame. In telling, I forced the school that silenced me, that minimized my trauma, that blamed me for the rape, to finally respect my voice and give me the platform they should have given me in the first place. I did not need the school to call it by its name; I did it myself, and they listened. I was the powerful party that brought the closure and empowerment I’d hoped, in first finding their invitation, that Colorado College would bring.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","facing-reality","girl-in-the-woods","hiking-the-pct","powerful-story","powerful-woman","rape"],"id":203902,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"I'd crossed a border—Speaking openly, exposing the weak girl I'd been, I was no longer her.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","memoir","self-love"],"id":253671,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"If I could mark clearly, convincingly and consistently what was good for me and also what was bad—if I could say yes and also no, as if it were the law—it would become my law.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","empowerment","girl-in-the-woods","hiking","women"],"id":257399,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"Because I feared I couldn't walk to Newton Centre without her, I needed to hike through desert, snow and woods alone.Childhood is a wilderness.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","hiking","independence","memoir","mothers-and-daughters"],"id":269620,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"It was suddenly Technicolor clear: the only thing holding me from giving myself vision this entire time had actually simply been me.I saw how in the fall and winter of my childhood, I'd walked through the golden aspens. And then I simply committed and gave myself my own eyes.I had once again proven that again alone, I was again enough.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","hiking","memoir","young-woman"],"id":272263,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"After twelve years of trying, I just decided to stop missing.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","memoir"],"id":314786,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"I had stripped naked in front of men. Drunk. In morning’s somber brightness I tried to remember why I had done it. Total exposure had seemed like the only way to be seen more clearly, heard, but now it seemed the opposite: a wild act that would define me.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["aspen-matis","girl-in-the-woods","memoir","womanhood","woods","young-woman"],"id":441375,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"},{"text":"The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.","author":"Aspen Matis","tags":["action","aspen-matis","bravery","female-power","girl-in-the-woods","memoir","power","truth"],"id":446784,"author_id":"Aspen+Matis"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":11,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}