PETERBOROUGH - "I start by introducing myself before the accident," Jennifer Field says of her one-woman show, A Distant Memory. Then Field tells her audience about her road to recovery and about her life today, living with a brain injury.

"It's extremely personal and I reveal a lot about myself and my recovery," Field said. "People of many ages and backgrounds can identify with it. I don't think you have to have had a brain injury to be affected by my performance."

Through her performance Field takes her audience on a journey and comes to terms with who she was then and who she is now. "I always had the memory of what I was like and I so wanted to go back there."

Field, 34, was born in New York City and grew up in Peterborough. She is the daughter of Edward Miller and Joanne Field, and the Great-great granddaughter of Marshall Field, founder of the Marshall Field department store chain.

Growing up on Beagle Brook Farm on Sand Hill Road, Field began riding horses when she was 6-years-old. By the age of 12 Field began a successful career as a nationally recognized and award winning show jumper.

Her passion for horses and career as a jumper ended suddenly when she suffered a massive head injury in a car crash.

The accident occurred on Nov. 17, 1992. Field was 17 and a senior at Dublin School. She was driving home from school that afternoon on Route 101 in Dublin, through the S curve just before the Route 137 junction where Carr's Store is, she said, when the Saab 900 she was driving hit a patch of black ice. The Saab skidded into a tractor-trailer traveling in the westbound lane. The impact of the crash caused her seat to collapse and she flew backwards out the rear passenger side window.

She spent two months in a coma, she said. "I was in a deep, deep coma for a month."

The second month of the coma, Field said, she was emerging. Coming out of a coma is not like it is in the movies, she said. You don't just wake up one day. "It was very, very slow."

Thankfully, Field has no memory of the crash. "I think your body does that on purpose to try to save you. ... I think that's a good thing."

Based on an MRI of her brain immediately following the accident, doctors said she would never speak again. Field's mother refused to accept the prognosis, though. "They tried to tell her a lot of awful things and she wouldn't hear it," Field said. "They said in the beginning that I would never talk again. I really injured that part of my brain that controls the voice."

"They say a lot of things in the medical world based on statistical data," she said. "But when you come right down to it every single person is different. ... We've learned so much more about the brain. It can regenerate, it can heal."

Despite her victories in recovery Field will never be the same. Her brain injury is a condition she lives with on a daily basis. She has a constant headache that is exasperated by physical exertion, she said. She also has a severe tremor in her left arm and double vision. She can't drive a car, she can't run, and she will never ride horses with the skill she did before the crash.

"I got back on a horse even before I was out of therapy," she said. "In my mind I keep thinking the next day I'll be the same person I was before."

But that day never came, so she no longer rides. Field said she was disappointed. "I wanted to be that person. ... I couldn't handle the way I was on a horse, to have that memory."

She was also afraid she could re-injure herself riding horses. "I don't want to take the risk. What if I fell of on my head?"

The turning point in her recovery came when she realized that she was never going to be the person she was before. That was when she decided to turn her focus on helping others, which she does through the J. Field Foundation.

Before the accident Field was to have graduated from high school early. Because she was so close to finishing Dublin School, administration gave her a diploma. She attended the spring graduation ceremony with her class, she said. "I could barely walk down the aisle, but I was there."

After high school, Dublin School allowed her to take a math class, which she found difficult. She also took her SATs again, bringing in a much lower score than she had before the crash.
Despite the difficulties she faced academically, Field persisted. In 1995, three years after the accident, she attended Wheaton College in Massachusetts.

Field said she was unable to take the normal class load. She took three classes a semester and during the summers she would take classes at Franklin Pierce College.

"I realized it was going to take a long time to get everything done."

Field had extra help from teachers, she said, and unlimited time on examinations since the brain injury affects her right side and she has difficulty writing because of it.

In her sophomore year she realized she loved Art History and declared it her major.

"It did take me five years, but I graduated Magna Cum Laude," Field said.

After college, she moved to Santa Monica, Calif., where she completed a two-year acting training course in the "Meisner Technique" at the Ruskin School of acting.

Through the technique, Field was taught to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances, she said. Field said she was able to channel the traumatic experience of her brain injury into different characters and for the first time live honesty as herself.

"I realized I was my accident and that doesn't scare me anymore."

Field initially wanted to write a book to tell her story. Michael Laurie, her acting teacher, helped her develop her story into a one-woman show.

"The one-woman show was a way for me to express myself and express to people my determination and focus," she said.

She also wanted to inspire people who face similar challenges. "I wanted to give people hope."

Field is also an accomplished painter. The show is named after one of her paintings of horses running.

Her show is incredibly therapeutic for her, she said. "What I love about my show is that it's constantly evolving as I evolve."

Every time she performs the show, Field said, she experiences a certain level of emotional healing. "And I think it's healing for the people that hear it."

Field plans to perform her show at the Union Congregational Church on Concord St. Dec. 11 at 6:30 p.m. The show is free. Field will accept donations to support the J. Field Foundation, which supports others who face physical and mental challenges. For more information about the foundation, visit jfieldfoundation.org.