Just Say "No"

When I imagine visiting a spot as famous and as touristy as the Taj Mahal, I think about my seeming inability to refuse the goods and services of local peddlers.  Historically, I am too desperate to be liked to say, “No”.  Consider my experience in Cairo three years ago. 

I am standing in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken facing the Giza pyramids. My taxi-driver deposited me here with no instructions and only a promise to return in three hours.  The sun is directly above me, casting no shade, only the dusty heat that slowly swirls around me – promising, but not delivering, a breeze.  The gravely sand crunches under my feet as I shift, looking for a ticket booth.  Rising from a dip in the landscape, the pyramids loom in the distance, easily as far as twenty, maybe more, city blocks away.  The KFC behind me is a boarded up shell of a building. I briefly marvel that a KFC wouldn’t continue to thrive at one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world. 

            Of course, I am not a tourist.  I like to think of myself as a world traveler.  I was born and raised overseas. , I know a thing or two about visiting foreign countries, unlike the man walking toward me wearing a T-shirt that reads, “Drink till I look better”. In deference to cultural custom, I’m wearing long pants and a blouse with sleeves that cover my shoulders.  It’s important to me to belie the “ugly American stereotype”. 

            My brother, Keir, lives in Cairo with his wife and baby daughter.  I’m here to visit him and write an article on camping in the Sahara Desert.  If I am a world traveler, Keir and Robyn are citizens of the world.  They’ve lived on the Ivory Coast, China, North Korea, and in several countries where their mail gets routinely stolen and where political coups and bombings are routine. As far as I can discern, Keir only feels comfortable when his life is threatened.  Unlike my brother, I am a traveler but not a big risk-taker.  Unless you consider going to the London production of “Blood Brothers” starring David Cassidy taking a risk.  As, indeed, it turned out to be.  When I hit my mid-forties, I resolved to push my risk-taking ventures beyond culinary, cultural, and sartorial arenas, which is the deeper reason for this trip. And, last night, my brother unwittingly gave me a real challenge, in the form of an ominous warning about the pyramids, “Whatever you do, don’t get on a camel.”

            “I’m not even tempted,” I said.  “I’m afraid of heights, being hijacked, and being bitten – all of which come to mind when I look at a camel. I’m also afraid of rats, being beheaded, and unexplained rashes, but I assume that’s not coming into play here.”

            “Everyone says they’re not getting on the camel,” said Keir.  “But they all do. The guides at the pyramids have been ripping off tourists for two thousand years. They can read people.  Read their weaknesses.”

            “They’re going to shove a rat in my face?”

            “No.  It’s more psychological.  You’ll see.”

            “You underestimate me,” I said, “I haggled with a woman selling painted eggs in Kiev and got her to throw in three sets of napkin rings.  For free.”

            Keir walked over to his shelves, pulled out a fat photo album, and flipped to a page of photographs showing a couple riding atop a camel, looking very uncomfortable. 

            “That’s Jamie and Ken,” Keir said, “they said there was no way they’d get on a camel.  He’s an army ranger and she’s a motivational speaker. They got on the camel because they felt sorry for the guide.” Keir flipped a few more pages of the photo album and pointed to a big man on a camel, “That’s Charles.  He said he’d never get on a camel.  He used to be a heroin addict and now he’s a human rights activist working in Tehran. Cynical as hell.  Charles said that he felt like the guide could see into his soul.”

            “I’m not falling for that shit,” I said.

            “All I’m saying is, don’t even go near a camel,” Keir said.  “If you do, you will walk out of there with absolutely no money or pride left.” 

            I look at a group of tourists walking toward me as I feel in my pocket for my money.  An Egyptian man materializes beside me, quite literally taking shape as if from the crunchy sand and dusty air.   “I am Mohammed Mustafa and I can take you to the entrance and show you the pyramids in my carriage,” he says pointing to a yellow cart hitched to an unhappy donkey.

Until this very moment, I have thought that I was going to figure this whole thing out on my own.  Including the part where I walk around three pyramids that are so large they can be seen from space, all by myself. But I can’t even see the entrance.  And the distance to the very first pyramid looks like it will take at least an hour to walk.  In this heat?

I say to Mohammed Mustafa in a friendly, but firm and savvy, fashion, “I will set a price with you and that will be it.  No more.”  I pause to look him confidently in the eye, “What is your price?”

He tells me that it is twenty pounds.  I say, “Great.  Also, just so we understand each other, I will not be riding a camel today.”

Mohammed Mustafa shrugs amicably, “Why you don’t like camels?”

I say, “Oh, I like camels.  I am a nice person. I simply want to save my camel riding for another time.”

Mohammed Mustafa shrugs as if to say, OK, you’re just another camel-hating American bitch.  But I deal with this all the time, so what can I do? 

He leads me to the his rickety carriage and shows me where to plant my feet in order to step up and inelegantly fling myself onto the seat, which happens to be right next to him.  And we’re off.  Mohammed Mustafa launches into a rote monologue about the history of the pyramids as he drives me away from the pyramids and through the streets of what looks like the sets of any Bible movie before it’s destroyed by a black cloud of locusts.  I dismiss my knee-jerk American concern that Mohammed Mustafa could be kidnapping me for all I know.  The scene before me looks so exotic that I start imagine the documentary of my bold and adventurous trip to a land untouched by time.  In the voice-over I would sound like Christiane Amanpour and my conservative blouse would be replaced by a khaki flack jacket.

 I hired a local, Mohammed Mustafa, to guide me through the rough terrain of the Sahara so that I could look upon the ancient majesty of the pyramids and the face of the famously enigmatic Sphinx.  Mohammed Mustafa has vowed to be my guide on this treacherous road.  I have no choice but to trust him.  Even though our relations briefly broke down following my refusal to ride a camel. 

The carriage jogs quickly to the left and I see the pyramids again.  My trust has been rewarded.  I see a small Kiosk where people stand in line to buy tickets, but our cart is waved through.  Clearly Mohammed Mustafa is connected.  He keeps up a tour guide patter as we drive past the first pyramid and toward the second.  We stop a couple of times for him to take a picture of me.  Each time, he asks for twenty pounds.  I feel awful quibbling over what is essentially three dollars.  Am I really that petty?  So I hand over the money, each time reminding him that I am a good person.  We made a deal.  He should treat me fairly and this is the last time I will give him money.

When we reach the second pyramid, I ask if he will stop so I can get close to it.  The walk to its base is longer than I guessed, sitting in the carriage.  As I traverse the distance, easily a football field long, I realize that this is because the pyramid is so huge.  It feels close because it’s all I can see.  When I finally get near enough to reach out and touch it, I am amazed at how rough it is.  From a distance, the sides look smooth.  Up close, it is clear that the silhouette is created by rocks forming jagged steps that narrow as they meet at the apex far above me, piercing the blue sky.  As I walk along the edge of the pyramid, I try to stay with my jumbled thoughts.  I feel small and unimportant.  But that thought, far from being frightening, is liberating.  In one flash I understand that I am simply passing through time.  That thought is replaced by another and another.  I am part of everything -- the sand, the pyramid, history, the future. My thoughts run from the ethereal (I am simply visiting this planet.  I am impermanent) to the mundane (I am hot.  Mohammed Mustafa is waiting, where are the bathrooms).  The desire to lie down next to the pyramid and simply meld into its side is great.  But the pull to return to that which is familiar is greater.  I walk back to Mohammed Mustafa and the cart.  If I am nothing, I think, then I can create myself every day.

I clamber back into my seat and we take off across the desert.  I feel empty and at peace as Mohammed Mustafa hails a friend of his, riding a camel.  Groggy with nihilism, I look back at the pyramid.  We have traveled some distance and I don’t see any other people. When I turn back around Mohmmed Mustafa has stopped to chat with his friend.

“You stand next to the camel and I take your picture,” says Mohammed Mustafa, interrupting my absence of thought. 

I shift my gaze from the camel’s rider into the face of the camel.  Quickly my consciousness rouses from no place and hurtles through a mental tunnel, ricocheting off walls, depositing it straight into my brain.  I am alert.  I am prepared.  I see the camel and I know that the test has come.  If I create myself every day, I can be anyone I want to be.  I do not have to be a slave to my fears -- a slave to habit and convention.  I can be the first person Keir has ever known to walk out of this desert having refused to ride a camel. 

In a voice that sounds like a combination between Christiane Amanpour and Joan of Arc, I declare, “I am not going to ride a camel!” 

Mohammed Mustafa shrugs indifferently,  “What?  You do not trust me.  Only stand next to the camel for a picture.”

“I don’t want a picture with the camel.”

“I am good to you, yes?  I take you to the pyramid.  Now I take a picture for you with the camel.  Then we go.”

The friend whaps the camel with is feet and the beast starts to kneel.  I look back at the pyramid, remembering the peace I felt only minutes ago.  Why am I denying this man the satisfaction of taking my picture with the camel?  It’s clearly important to him.  What would Christiane Amanpour do?  Do I think that the two men are going to force me onto the camel? Aren’t I the master of my own fate?  Clearly, everyone here will feel a lot better if I get my picture taken next to the camel. Then we can get going.

“OK,” I say, in a cool, officious voice.  “I will stand next to the camel but I will not ride the camel.  And I will not pay any more money.” 

I scramble down the cart as the camel owner dismounts and approach the camel cautiously.  A few paces away, I stop, turn and shout, “OK.  You can take the picture now.” 

“You need to be closer,” Mohammed Mustafa says.

“No.  This is fine,”

“It is not a good picture.  The camel will not bite you.”

“I’m not concerned about that.  I just want to make it clear that I am never going to ride him.”

I take a few steps closer and pose.

Mohammed Mustafa says, “It is better for photo when you are next to him.” Mohammed Mustafa continues to direct and cajole until I find myself leaning into the kneeling camel, resting my palm against the wiry hair of his neck.  Mohammed Mustafa takes the picture.

Done.  I start to walk away when Mohammed Mustafa says, “My friend says for a better photo you must sit on the camel.” 

My back stiffens, “I will not sit on the camel.”

Mohammed Mustafa speaks to his friend hurriedly then says to me, “Why you don’t sit on him? My friend says you do not like his camel.  You do not trust him.”

I stop and look up at Mohammed Mustafa sitting in the cart with my camera.  I am aware that I am being manipulated, but something deeper pushes through me.  I want these strangers to like me.  I want them to see that I am decent.  That I am good.  I can barely conjure the feeling of sublime emptiness I experienced at the foot of the pyramid.  Now I am all need. 

“All right,” I say, “ I will sit on the camel and you can take the picture.  But I do not want to ride the camel.  We must trust each other.” 

“You have made my friend very happy,” Mohammed Mustafa tells me.  And I feel better.  I return to the camel and let the owner support my foot so that I can crawl up the camel’s side to the saddle.  When I get to there, I scramble on all fours, my ass waving in the dusty Egyptian air, trying to orient myself as the men bark orders at me.  Eventually, I slide legs on either side of the saddle and sit. 

Mohammed Mustafa says, “Now the picture.” I pose and he snaps. 

Then the mass of muscle and hair beneath me shudders and shifts.  It rocks me from side to side.  I cling to the horn of the saddle.  As I am lifted into the air, I close my eyes and my heart pounds.  Nothing is solid. I scream, “Down, down, down.”

My mind races – Holy Mary Mother of Living Fuck!  I’m riding a fucking camel!

“Is OK,” I hear Mohammed Mustafa say.  “You will not fall.  I take a picture.”

“Down,” I scream.  “No Camel! No Camel!”

“Open your eyes.  I take the picture.”

“I’m too scared.”

“Only open your eyes.  You will not fall.”

I grip the saddle horn tighter and pry open one eye.  The horizon of the desert and the pyramids tilt from side to side like a slidey toy.  I look down and find Mohmmmed Mustafa aiming the camera at me.  Everything slows down.  I feel infinitesimal.  My swaying atop a camel in the middle of the vast desert, under the blue canopy of an impassive universe, has no meaning. 

Except the meaning, I give it. 

I lift my head and imagine the commentary.  Less than an hour into my great journey to the pyramids, I find my legs tightening around the haunches of the camel I refused to ride.  Straddling the beast, my gaze extends beyond the pyramids, imagining the stretch of arid earth that millions of years ago, was an ocean floor.  It is easy to feel unimportant in a continuum of time that does not pause to acknowledge your existence.  But I cannot allow these thoughts to take precedence over my CNN deadline.  I am not only an adventurer and a fearless advocate for the downtrodden, but I am a professional.  I am – in fact – whoever I say I am. 

I list to the left, unable to center myself on the swaying camel.  But when Mohammed Mustafa lifts the camera again, I am ready. 

Click

Hunger

A friend told me that the food in India was fantastic and he ate and ate and ate without putting on weight. In fact, he actually lost several pounds. 

Lately, I’ve been looking for meaning in the smallest moment.  For example, as I retrieve a petrified grape from the crevice between Spencer’s bed and the wall I question my instinctive repulsion.  Instead, I wonder, should I not honor this grape (at least I hope it’s a grape) as a symbol of Spencer’s already fading childhood?

The moment with the grape is fleeting and I toss it.  But the point is that, in my present state of spiritual hunger, I should pause when my friend tells me that I can have more and still lose – I mean, that’s a gem, right? Possibly.  But all I really want to think about is limitless food with no poundage – are frigid’ kidding me?  In the words of my ‘tween, that’s awesome. 

            Concern about my weight is relatively new for me. I grew up in Europe, where I didn’t feel any pressure to be model thin.  I have always had a naturally cooperative metabolism which, combined with a diet soda and cigarette addiction, kept me svelte enough through my twenties and thirties.  Besides, I was stacked.  Which meant that I would always be a brick house rather than a grass hut.

            I gained fifteen pounds from giving birth to Spencer and another ten from Murphy’s birth.  Frankly, I didn’t suffer too much over it.  I considered it a natural repercussion of pregnancy. I joined the Y to work out and “get back into shape”.  I was sold on the childwatch program.  One could drop off the baby and take a class – two hours of un-baby-fettered time.  But the aerobics classes were too demanding and the Pilates classes really hurt.  So I’d drop off the baby, get suited up, and walk in the direction of the class until I was out of view of the childwatch attendants.  Then I’d slip out a side-door, get a smoothie, and read the paper.  Needless to say, the pounds didn’t melt off.

            Two years ago, I was writing for a website that was being sponsored by Weight Watchers and they wanted me to include their company in my copy. In order to write about it accurately, I had to go to meetings and try the program.  I had never been interested in Weight Watchers. Counting points seemed punitive.  A friend of mine used to call me at ten in the morning, complaining that she’d already used up all of her points and had to eat lettuce for the rest of the day. What kind of life is that?

            The meetings I attended were run by a thinnish woman named Liz, who never tired of telling us that she lost fifty-seven pounds through Weight Watchers, thirty-two years ago. Liz clearly loved what she did.  Her seminars were a form of food-centric stand-up.

            “Have you ever noticed this thing about potato chips?  There’s like fifty portions in one bag!  If you’re like me – you want one portion!  The whole bag!”          
           Liz would slap her thigh a couple of times, confident that she now had the room’s attention.  Then she would launch into the subject of the day.  Flipping the page of a presentational pad on an easel, she would say, for example,   “OK.  I’m going to talk about something you don’t hear about to often.  What do you think it is?”

            Liz liked to tease her audience. Hands would shoot up. Liz would give a satisfied smile and then start pointing. 

            “Calories?” the mousy girl in the front row would say.

            “Nope,” Liz would answer.

            “Salads.”

            “Nope.”

            “Portion control?”

            “Nope.”

            “Starch?”

            “Nope.”

            “Deserts?”

            “Hah. You got me,” Liz would laugh. “No. No. No.  And no. Today, I’m going to let you in on one of the secrets that thin people already know about…”

            She’d let it hang there, building the tension like the seasoned group leader she was.  A couple of people would take out pens and notebooks.  There would be a collective anticipatory rustle…

            “Soup!” she would announce, triumphantly, taking out a magic marker and writing SOUP on her pad. She would then circle the word several times for emphasis.  I would find myself getting caught up in the excitement.  Why hadn’t I thought of soup before?  Of course, it made so much sense. 

In the week that followed my first meeting, I lost eight pounds. I grew to love the meetings.  They were part revival, part twelve step, part group therapy, and part coffee klatch.  There were tears and hugs when someone lost ten pounds and rigorous coaching when someone slipped, “Remember, people, you don’t have to eat the whole thing!”

            The free-flowing generosity in the room was as moving as it was hilarious. A lifetime member would stand and offer, “Here’s what I do when I need a little something. I take an endive leaf, put just a smidge of fat-free sour cream in the center, sprinkle it with a little parmesan, throw a black olive on there, and – bingo – it’s just one point!”

            Huge applause.

            A lady with a baby strapped to her chest would stand, “If I need something that’s a little crunchy, I bake three corn tortilla and break them up into chips.  I eat four of them and then bag the others for later.”

            Applause and a fist pump from the man who lost seventy-three pounds in two years.

            I’m sorry to say that I stopped going to the meetings because they cost time and money.  But I remember them fondly.  After all, it’s not just food we hunger for, it’s fellowship. 

            When I think back on this year, I realize that when the maelstrom hit, I isolated myself. Refused myself fellowship.  I didn’t do it purposely.  But I withdrew, nonetheless.  I needed time to divest myself of shame and guilt. 

And, were I to consider this in light of the comment my friend made about eating in India, I could say that having shed most of that shame and guilt has given me room for more of what I actually need – love, creative fulfillment, and time.  The time, it so happens, that it takes to consider the meaning in a petrified grape.

The Beginning -- A Marriage

I have read that crises like the ones Pat and I experienced this year, can break a marriage.  I don’t doubt that the extreme stress can do just that. What I have found with Pat, however, is that we have become kinder to each other. Deferential. We have become so close that I can barely remember the tenor of our relationship before we became embattled survivors.

When Pat asked me to marry him in the middle of a hot Chicago night twenty years ago, we grabbed onto each other and giggled like we’d just gotten away with something.  I thought about the usual stuff—the years we would laugh through, cry through—and the children we would have.  But I didn’t think about the day I would have to meet his extended family.  The part that wasn’t incarcerated.

            When the day came I approached it with dread and determination.   I decided on a conservative beige sleeveless dress.  In the bathroom I carefully curled the ends of my hair under.  Pat came in and banged around looking for some after-shave.

            “So it’s your Aunt Jo Anne, and there’s Dee-Dee, your cousin, and George, and then David—right?”

            “Yup,” said Pat, finding the Lagerfeld and loading it on.  “Aunt Jo won’t be wearing her teeth.  So don’t keep looking at her funny.”

            “Right.”

            I got the mascara out of my make-up bag, shook it, and removed the wand.

            “Now, David,” I said, brushing black on my lashes. “David is the one who threatened to kill his brother when he found out he was gay.”

            “Right,” said Pat.

            “And Dee-Dee has the glandular condition, that makes her unable to stop eating and that’s why there are locks on the cupboards and the refrigerator?”

            “Right.”

I screwed the wand back in the mascara bottle, looked in the mirror and practiced my neutral smile. ‘Good,” I said.  “I think I’ll be fine.”

            “Sure,” said Pat, “just remember I’m right there with you.  I’ll take over and do the talking if things dry up.”

            “Great.”

            “One more thing,” Pat said as we left the bathroom, “David…”

            “The killer,” I said,

            “Yeah, well, he has a toupee that snaps on to a snap that is surgically imbedded in his forehead.”

            As our car approached his aunt’s house, I went over the names and relationships in my head.  “Now the toupee,” I said, “actually snaps onto his head?  Is it just one snap, or several?”

            “Don’t think about it,” Pat said, taking an exit.

            “No, I think I should be prepared.”

            “I think it’s just the one snap in front,” he said.

            “Did he have an operation to put the snap in his head?”

            “I don’t think you should think too much about this Brett,” he said.  “If you think about it too much, something bad is going to happen.  You’re going to say something.  Or start laughing.”

            “Pat, look, it’s pretty unusual.  I need to know what I’m in for.”

            “Frankly, I think the lock on the refrigerator is much stranger,” he said, turning into a housing complex.  All the houses looked like fake tiny log cabins.

            “No, the snap on the head is worse,” I said.  “I think it’s worse because it’s a choice.”

            “Maybe he won’t even have the toupee on,” said Pat, turning into a driveway.

            “You mean he could just be sitting there with an exposed snap?”

             “No, of course not,” said Pat, opening his door, “Sometimes he snaps on a cap instead of the rug.”

The inside of Aunt Jo’s log cabin bungalow was dark. Hundreds of porcelain pigs sat on every inch of available shelf or cabinet top.  Pigs doing things like skiing, shooting hoops, and peeing.  Pigs from different backgrounds:  A Chinese Pig, an Eskimo Pig, and a Pig doing the Hula. Aunt Jo materialized in front of the pigs.  She was a shapeless woman dressed in what appeared to be a pillowcase.

            “Beer?” Jo asked.  Sucking in air through her flapping, denture-less mouth. 

            “No thanks,” I said, sitting on the edge of the couch.

            “Coke?” she asked, sucking.

            “Sure,” I looked at Pat.

            The person who was Pat had shrunk and hidden in a corner of his mind.  Representing Pat was a kind of moving wax facsimile of himself.  I had seen this transformation before.  Once when I had drunkenly stripped in front of his co-workers, and invited them to throw damp quarters at my nipples to see if they would stick.  And more recently, when he’d gone to a family reunion of mine and was forced by my cousins to sing, “Oh, Mandy,” into a pool cue that was being used as a fake microphone.

            The wax Pat said, “I’ll have a coke.”

            Jo ambled off to the kitchen.            I looked at a Pencil Sharpener Pig.  Pat stared out the window blankly.

            “Oh, here’th David,” I heard from the kitchen.

            My jaw clenched.  I ripped my eyes from the pencil sharpener pig and, with hope that Pat might have returned to his body, threw a look of appeal in his direction.  The only sign of life I saw was a slight twitch of his thumb.  I heard footsteps hitting the hall carpet with muffled thuds.  My best chance of getting through the meeting without offending anyone would be not to look at the toupee at all.  The footsteps approached as I fixed my face to appear expressionless. 

            “So you’re Brett,” I heard a man say.

            I raised my face carefully and looked directly into David’s eyes.  Of course, I could see something on top of his head, but as long as I kept my concentration on his eyes, it remained a shadowy.  Don’t look at it.  Don’t  look at it.

            “Hi David,” I said, standing to shake his hand.  My eyes wanted to travel north but I willed them to stay focused on David’s somewhat dilated pupils. I sat down again and threw a glance to Pat, who was rocking ever so slightly at the window. Don’t look at it.  Don’t look at it.

            David sank into the lazy boy opposite me, moved a Dutch Girl Pig on the end table next to him, and lay down a jackknife that looked large enough to gut a deer.  I stared at the jackknife intently, images of gutting swirling around my brain.  My eyes began to hurt and I shut them, taking in a long purposeful breath.  Then I heard a shuffle from Pat.  Maybe he was reanimating.  Relieved, I repositioned my head and opened my eyes. 

There.  Right in my line of sight was a black hairy thing affixed to a dent in the center of David’s forehead.  It was amazing in it’s wrongness.  A monument to bad judgment.  It didn’t look remotely like hair.  It didn’t even look like a hat.  It looked like something matted and living. It looked taxidermical. 

            “Did you guys have an OK time getting here?” he asked.

            Aunt Jo lumbered in with Cokes, giving a can to Pat and one to me. I stared at the Coke can.  The nice neat swirl of white above the letters C-O-K-E.   I repeated the letters in my head. C-O-K-E.  The wax Pat turned from the window and said, “It was pretty easy going.”

            “Good,” said David.

I thought, what kind of person looks in a mirror and thinks that looks good?  Then I thought, obviously a person who threatens to kill people.  A person who lives in a house with his mother and a thousand porcelain pigs. David flipped out the footrest of the lazy boy, popping his legs in my direction.

            “George and Dee Dee are late,” he said.

            I took in a long breath and narrowed my eyes at Wax Pat. I watched as he moved to a chair, his gait reminiscent of the slow, hesitating march of soldiers who are burying one of their own. I looked at the Coke can.  In the middle of the word Coke, were the letters O.K. O-K.   O-K.  Don’t look at it.  Don’t look at it.

            The doorbell rang.  Aunt Jo leaned over to me quickly.

            “That’ll be George and Dee Dee.  Do me a favor and don’t offer Dee Dee any nuts.”

            I nodded like we were old friends.  Aunt Jo winked and trudged over to the door. As I looked up to greet Dee Dee and George, my eyes grazed the black thing on David’s head.  I paused there, not meaning to, willing my eyes to move.  But they were paralyzed. Move eyes.  Move eyes. C -O -K -E.  C –O- K- E.

            I thought, is the black thing supposed to be hair?  Or is it a hat?  Did killer David pick this one out of a bunch of other choices?  Snapping and unsnapping different colors, different textures – curly, bone straight – till he said, “This is the one.  This black fuzz that looks like a smoker’s lung.  This is the one I want?”  When he unsnaps the thing, does the skin around the scalp snap pull?   You know the way you lose snaps from clothing -- Is his scalp snap in danger of pulling out of his skin?  Is “scalp snap” the correct term?

            “Brett, this is George,” I heard Aunt Jo say.   Only with the sucking sound, it sounded like “thorsh”. I had to move my whole head, because my eyes had lost all movement.  I saw a bulky man wearing a faded t-shirt that read, “I like pussy” above a cartoon kitten.  Behind him loomed a round woman who was wider than she was tall.

“And here’s Dee Dee,” Jo Anne said.

I nodded and smiled. I think.  And threw a “help me” look to Pat. He had melted into the chair.  Only his head retained its former shape. 

“Pat,” I said, in a high, small voice.  “I left my cigarettes out in the car.”  I rose and walked like a sailor on a choppy sea, making my way to the door.

“Excuse me a second,” I threw over my shoulder to the humans, to wax Pat, and the pigs.

Outside the log cabin, in the fading daylight, I made sharp little barking sounds as I struggled to regulate my breathing and stifle the scream that was pushing itself out of my chest.  Shaking, I reached in the car for a cigarette, pulled one out and lit it.  I inhaled the smoke, let it out, then hummed a satisfying, sustained MMMMMMMM.  Then I did it again.  The repeated smoking and humming calmed me in much the same way rocking calms psychotics.  After awhile, my mind and body rested.

My pupils regained some movement and I scanned the other log cabins, wondering about their inhabitants.  I thought about all the things Pat and I had to learn about each other.  When he returned to his natural state.  I thought about all the things I had put him through.  Long, boring teas with my uptight college pals.  Sweet Honey in the Rock  concerts.  Demanding that he read, Getting the Love you Want and then do the exercises where you mirror back what your partner just said.

             When I thought about it, I had put Pat in many more uncomfortable situations than he had me. 

            I sighed, dropped my cigarette to the ground and stepped on it.  I turned to face the log cabin, pulled in a breath and held it.  Yes, being married would be a series of compromises.  Little things I would do for him and little things he would do for me.

            I walked toward the doormat that said, “Leave your shit-kickers here”.  I paused with my hand on the door handle and thought, so this is it – these are the little things we do for each other.  I turned the handle and froze.  I froze because deep in my heart I knew that NOTHING I COULD EVER PUT PAT THROUGH--  NOTHING WOULD EVER COME CLOSE TO THE SNAP.    NOTHING.

Spiritual Nugget

In the mid-eighties, when I was an actress living in New York, a friend of mine invited me to a “Rebirthing” seminar. She had reenacted her own birth with a professional rebirther several times and had found that it helped her connect to, and let go of, some of her psychological pain. At the time, I was very interested in mining my own psychological pain in the hope that it would make me deeper and sexier.

            The core tenant of rebirthing, as I understood it, was that all psychological pain emanates from one’s original birth trauma.  Passing through the birth canal into the cold, harsh world is so upsetting that we repress the memory. However, the pain of that trauma lives on inside us and the only way to release it is to relive it by paying lots of money to put on a bathing suit, submerge oneself in a tepid hot tub, and reenact it over and over until one feels better.

            The testimonials at that rebirthing seminar were compelling but the start-up weekend package was too pricey for me.  I tried some of the techniques in my bath at home, but without a big outlay of cash and a rebirthing expert holding my hand the experience was hollow.

            However, my interest in rebirthing kicked off a period of spiritual promiscuity that only slowed down when I had children.  I’d hook up with a self-help movement only to take a shine to a guru or an inspirational phrase.  I bounced back and forth between Shirley MacLaine and non-blaming techniques. No one path held my interest for very long and I refused to commit. 

            In the past couple of months several people have asked me if I plan on going on any spiritual retreats when I’m in India. I’m not at all closed to the idea, but I haven’t planned on anything yet.  Lately, I find that moments of spiritual clarity have hit me in unexpected and profoundly ordinary ways.  I don’t doubt that spiritual practice would give me even greater insight and prepare me for understanding spiritual truths when they reveal themselves.  And I’d hate to think that there are hordes of truths hanging around and screaming “pick me” that I’m simply too busy or too spiritually lazy to recognize.  But these days, when I have to make the choice between contemplating the beauty in a grain of sand and changing the cat litter, the litter wins. 

            So I’m taking my spiritual nuggets where I find them. 

            Last night at dinner for example Spencer and Murphy were talking about the possibility of there being life on other planets.  The conversation was kicked off by a recent discovery that a microorganism in a California lake substitutes arsenic for phosphorus.  If I understand the importance of this correctly (and it’s entirely possible that I don’t), this means that life does not need to confine itself to the elements that we previously thought essential. If a toxin can be a building block of life then who knows what else can be a building block.

            Murphy couldn’t understand why scientists had confined themselves to the known building blocks in the first place. He’s six so he said it more simply, “Dude, why does everyone think it has to be stuff we already know about? Of course aliens are going to be made up of something different. They’re ALIENS!”

            I encouraged Murphy to finish his beans because they were one of the building blocks of dinner for this human boy.  And as we continued talking about the universe I thought about our habit of assuming that the unknowable must be based on some small part of what we DO know (the world being as flat as a table for example). The habit is understandable. It’s too frightening to imagine that we know absolutely nothing about what is before us or around us. What’s more, it feels positively irresponsible to admit total powerlessness over our ignorance. Surely a lifetime of study and experience must have some relevance.  We can’t simply throw up our hands and say, “Hell if I know -- anything is possible.”

            Can we?

            “Maybe that means,” Spencer said in his man/boy tone, polishing off his applesauce, “that there are different Goldilocks zones all over the universe.”

            “Goldilocks zones?” Pat and I interjected simultaneously.

            “Sure, it’s the part of space where conditions are,” he said, making air quotes. “‘just right’ for life.”

            “Huh, really?” said Murphy pushing his beans around.

            “Did you learn about this at school?” Pat asked Spencer.

            “No. It was in that Steven Hawking book you had,” Spencer said, clearly in his element (no pun intended). “It says that Earth is in the Goldilocks zone.  But if life can be made up of all kinds of different building blocks, then it makes sense that there’s a whole lot more than just one Goldilocks zone.”

            “Are you sure it was Steven Hawking?” Murphy said. “The guy that sounds like a machine?”

            Spencer dabbed his mouth with a napkin, “Oh, yes.”

            As the chatter continued to wind around arsenic, zones, aliens, and Murphy’s insistence that beans have seeds and are therefore a fruit, I felt the lightness of not knowing anything. About science for sure. But about everything else too. If one accepted the possibility that the future does not have to be modeled on anything we’ve previously experienced or known, then I certainly couldn’t predict what our lives would look like in the new year when we would return from India.

            All I knew was right there at the dinner table. These were the conditions just right for my life. Good conversation with a man and two boys in a modest apartment building somewhere on the planet Earth.

            Looking over at Pat, I wondered if my grasp of this simple truth made me sexier. And I could tell by the glint in his bifocals that it did.  It certainly did.

Salvation

I love being a writer. But the stress of wondering when, how, or if I will get paid for various jobs this year, certainly caused me to doubt my life choices.  Containing my fear became no longer possible on one spectacularly crappy day last Spring. The strong language in the following piece has not been softened in the interest of truth.

Career Day

The crumpled flier that sticks out of Murphy’s folder is yellow and I pull it out, prepared to toss it as I do most of his neon epistles from kindergarten. They invariably ask for money or time. I don’t have much of either.  Pat and I are declaring bankruptcy and work has been scarce to nonexistent.  From day to day, I enjoy my family and friends – but whenever I look at the big picture, I feel powerless, terrified, and regretful. Why did I choose to be a writer?  Why didn’t I choose a career in some essential field like childcare, waste management, or cosmetic surgery?

            The banner of Murphy’s flier catches my eye, “Career Day Volunteers Needed.”  My first reaction is that this is a cosmic joke aimed directly at me.  Knee-jerk cynicism has been getting me through our financial crisis.  I don’t like myself like this, but beating the universe to the punch feels – at the very least – proactive.  This time however, when my lip curls in wry response to the yellow flyer, I cannot muster the rest. This time, I reconsider.  Maybe this isn’t a joke at all.  Maybe it’s an opportunity for me to reconnect to what I love about writing. Maybe what’s been missing, besides actual money, is my passion and commitment.  I’m tired of being afraid.  Tired of cynicism.  Tired of saying no to neon fliers. Tired of feeling like all my life choices belong the “don’t” column of every situational analysis.

            Sensing a metaphoric breeze of change, I boldly check, “Yes.  I will volunteer”. It’s thrilling checking “yes” instead of “no”. I know that this shift in attitude is coming from me.  I don’t expect the world to respond – oceans to divide – but the awakening flutter of inspiration in my chest, carries with it the faint whiff of hope.

            By the time a coordinating parent calls me a week later, the flutter has taken root, sprouted, and flowered. I tell volunteer mom that “Career Day” is a personal calling for me. If she gives me the job, I will make it my mission to light these small minds on fire.  I feel that it’s vital, in this economic environment, to let children know that a career in the arts is still viable. Artists can make a modest living.  But more importantly, artists are essential to a thriving community.  We are the nation’s dreamers. We are the makers of things. Art is what links the corporeal to the spiritual. It is what saves us from leading lives of quiet desperation.   

            “You realize you’ll be talking to Kindergarteners,” she says.

            “Of course,” I say.  “I’ll dumb it down a bit. Take out the part about quiet desperation.”

            I hear her shuffling some papers, “I could pair you up with a psychologist.”

            “Things aren’t that bad,” I joke.

            She doesn’t react.  Apparently, she’s all business.  I adjust and say enthusiastically, “A psychologist would be great.  We could do a brief lecture on the origin of man’s need to tell stories about the nature of his own existence.”

            She pauses.  “Maybe we’ll put you with the court stenographer.”

            Finally, she decides to leave the pairing till later when she has more takers.  But one thing is clear.  I’ve landed the job. 

I tell Murphy that I’m going to talk to his class about being a writer. He is thrilled and does a celebratory dance, which includes a leap off of the couch and a robot move that has significance only to him. Murphy is an ebullient kid who declares his passion for almost everything with the zeal of a true believer.  It is common for him to announce at breakfast, for example, “I love French toast more than anything.  I could have French toast every day for the rest of my life.”  Or, “Rubber bands are the best thing invented because they can do hundreds of jobs and be used over and over again.”  Like all zealots, however, he is only a breath away from total despondency.  One can run out of syrup.  Rubber bands can break.  In these moments, when life lets him down -- when his faith is tested -- his despair is oceanic.  He collapses into heaving sobs, balls his fists, doubles over, and keens, “Why, why, why?” 

            “On career day, I can bring one of my articles that shows pictures of you,” I tell Murphy.  A few of my parenting articles have featured pictures of my family.

            “This is going to be great,” he crows. “It’s going to be the best day ever.”

            The week leading up to Career day is frenetic. I flag magazine articles I’ve written.  I unearth a newspaper Op Ed about Halloween.  I outline a brief introduction of what I consider to be strong writing elements – steer clear of adverbs, make sure the conflict is clear, be able to state your theme even if you don’t write it – that kind of thing.

            “Remember to keep it simple,” my husband warns as I work on a poster-sized graph of a story arc. “They’re six.”

            “That’s why I’m doing this graph. It’s visual, see?”

            I gaze at the poster and think, I am going to blow that court stenographer off the stage.

            “I need the perfect closer,” I say to Pat. “I could hand each one of them a tiny book that they could write their own stories in.  What would I need?  Construction paper?  A stapler?”

            “How many little books are we talking about?”

            “It’s all the kindergartens combined. So roughly sixty.”

            “Brett, you don’t need to hand out little books.”

            “I want Murphy to be proud of me.”

            Pat sighs, “He’s already proud of you.  As soon as you walk in the room, he’ll be proud of you.”

            “I was envisioning a stage,”

             “Whatever,” he says.  “You don’t have to try that hard.”

            But what Pat doesn’t understand is that I’m done with underperforming.  On the morning of the big day, I ask Murphy if he would like me to dress like “casual mommy” or “beautiful mommy”.  He chooses beautiful.  After sending him and his older brother off on the bus, I return home to apply make-up and perfume.  I pull the look together with sparkly earrings, spike heels, and a flowing silk sweater. 

            Pat takes in my outfit, “Accepting an award?”

            “Murphy wanted ‘beautiful’ mommy,” I say.

            “And this means cocktail attire?”

            The night before, Pat staged a one-man intervention, threatening not to drive me to the school if stayed up all night making sixty mini-books.  Since I don’t drive, this could have seriously derailed the venture. By the light of day, I realize that the mini-books would have been cumbersome to tote anyway, since I would also have to carry a story arc board and my stack of magazines. As we’re leaving, I remember that I once wrote some Internet content for the ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ movie.  I dash over to the printer and quickly print it out. 

            In the car, I visualize walking onto the stage and seeing the upturned faces of Murphy’s classmates.  I look down at the stack of the magazines on my lap and make sure that the post-it notes are still visible.  Pat talks to me about something he heard on the news. Normally, I would be interested.  But I need to focus. If I get involved in conversation, I could be thrown off my game.

            I am unaware of the turn we’ve made into a gas station, until Pat comes to a complete stop.

            “Something’s smoking,” he says.

            I look out the windshield and see that steam is indeed, emanating from the hood of our dusty old beater of a car.  Pat jumps out, pops open the hood, and a plume of steam escapes. I take a slow breath and am surprised to find myself fairly calm.  I’m not anticipating the worst, not imagining the best.  I simply breathe and wait as Pat swats the fumes until he can get a closer look.  Look at me, I think, I’m a calm woman, dressed for her son’s Career Day, sitting in a smoking clunker, while her sweaty husband looks under the hood.  I am remarkably calm.

            The driver door opens and Pat flops in the seat.  “I don’t think I can get her to go,” he says.
            “She’s not going to go?” I repeat, insensibly.

            “Don’t think so.”

            “OK,” I say.  “Then that’s it. No career day.”

            I open my door, teetering slightly on my heels.  When I get my balance, I walk over to a chain link fence, squat down, and let out a howl.  “Nooooooooooo,” I moan.  “Nooooo,” I repeat over and over again.  My gut clenches.  Tears surface and stream down my cheeks.  I place my palms on the gravel and lower myself to my knees.  “Noooooo,” I scream in a higher pitch. On all fours now.

             “Why? Why? Why? I can’t take it anymore,” I yell to the ground.  “All I wanted was Career Day.  One day. One fucking day when everything would be perfect. That’s all I want! “

            I turn to Pat who sits stiffly in the driver seat.

            “Is it too much to ask? To have one day go perfectly?  To look good to my son?  To make a difference to eager minds?  To have just one day go right when every other fucking thing in my whole fucking life is a fucking fuck fest of failure?” 

            Pat looks at me and says softly, “No.  It’s not too much, baby.”

            “Damn right,” I scream, scrambling to my feet. 

            Pat gets out of the driver’s seat and checks under the hood again.

            I grab onto the fence and start kicking it with the pointy toes of my shoes. My toe gets caught and I have to wrest it from the wire mesh.  “I can’t even kick a fucking fence,” I yell. 

            “I know,” Pat says from under the hood.

            “What is it Pat?  Do I expect too much? Am I terrible person?  Why does everything go wrong?”

            “You got a script deal this year.”

            “A teeny, teeny, tiny one.”

            “I wouldn’t say that.”

            “I would,” I yell.  The fight is almost out of me. But I’ve started to enjoy this.  What abandon. I totally see why Murphy let’s loose like this.  I never scream and it feels good.  Really good.  I feel Italian. The problem is that I can’t think of anything more to say.  I stomp a little more.  But it hurts in my narrow shoes.   I sniffle and wipe my cheeks. 

            Pat emerges from under the hood, “OK. I have a plan.”

            “A taxi?”

            “Are you kidding?  It’ll cost fifty bucks.  But hear me out. I think it’s a leak in the water pump. I could be wrong.  But I can fill it up with water and it leaks slow enough, we might get there.  If we break down, we call AAA and have them tow us to the school.  We get three tows a year.  We’ve only used one.  We could even get them to tow us back home after you’ve finished career day.”

            I can’t decide whether showing up for Career Day in a tow truck is humiliating or heroic.  But the thought of experiencing the depth of Murphy’s disappointment is now my primary motivating force.  I can fail myself – I do it all the time. But I cannot fail him. I jump into the car and it sputters its way toward the school. 

            Parents with nametags mill in the auditorium when I arrive.  I haven’t had time to check a mirror.   Am I tearstained?  Blotchy?  Has my hair separated into matted clumps?  The mirror in the car is foggy and I can’t depend on Pat to give an accurate assessment.  The fact that he always thinks I look good is both delightful and maddening.  In the past, he’s failed to inform me about exposed bra straps, criminal panty lines, and a patch of gray hair on the back of my head that I didn’t manage to reach with Clairol number 6N.  He smiles approvingly at me as I leave him at the door, but it’s entirely possible that I look like Mickey Rourke. 

            I wobble forward on my heels and no one looks startled. Either I look fine or the bar is very low.  I look around and determine the bar to be somewhere in the middle.  Clutching my story arc chart, I find my nametag, and sit on an unforgiving metal foldout chair.

            “Welcome. Welcome,” says the principal, a woman of indeterminate age and gender identification.  Parents take their seats as she talks them through their room assignments and pairings.  As Pat predicted, we are presenting in rooms and not on a stage.  I mentally swat aside my disappointment. I argue to myself, that I’ll make more of an impact in an intimate venue.

“We were disappointed to lose our dental hygienist, but we picked up a mail carrier,” the principal says.  “It always works out somehow.”

            Apparently, my court stenographer is also in abstentia.  I am given my room assignment, but as yet, no partner.  No worries, I think, all the more time with the kids to go over plot structure. 

            I am the first to arrive at my assigned classroom.  I place my magazines on a table, prop up my story arc chart, and run my fingers through my hair.  I look at the rows of desks and chairs and imagine myself lighting youthful imaginations on fire. 

            The door opens and a man pokes his head in.  He has a shaved head and a tattoo covering half of his face.  “Is this kindergarten, room 5?”  he asks.           

“Yes,” I say.

            He nods, pulls open the door, and steps in the classroom.  He’s wearing a complete martial arts costume – the white outfit, with a black belt.  He’s carrying a samurai sword. 

            “Are you the writer?” he asks.

            I nod and don’t ask if he’s a court stenographer.  Holy Fuck.  Are you shitting me?  This is my partner?  What little kid is going to want to sit through my lecture on story arcs after listening to a real live ninja dude with a facial tattoo and a fucking ninja sword? 

            He holds up the ninja sword, “It’s not real.  Don’t worry.”

            “I’m cool,” I say.  So I guess there isn’t a chance he’d accidentally stab himself with the sword before the kids arrive.

            “Name’s Hector,” he says.

            “I’m Brett.  Whose father are you?” I ask.

            “No one’s,” he says. “I teach some of the kids, so one of their dads asked me.”

            “So you’re not even a parent,” I ask, catching my judgmental tone and tempering it with a smile.  But, come on, isn’t that against career day rules or something?

            “Hey,” he says, companionably, “you want to go first or should I?”

             “Oh, I’ll go first.  No problem,” I quickly offer.  At least I won’t have to follow the coolest ninja dude on the entire fucking planet. 

            The door opens and Murphy appears, a crush of children behind him. “Hi, Mom,” he beams. 

            “Hello my love,” I say.

            He strides in with the throng tumbling in after him.  The kids stare at Hector and the sword as they move toward the desks. But Murphy only sees me.  He takes a seat in the back row and pats the chair next to him so his best friend can join him.  Their heads bow together and then Murphy points to me.  “That’s my mom,” he says to the entire classroom.  Several eager faces look toward me, then return to Hector and his sword.  But Murphy stays focused on me.

            The teacher settles the kids and introduces me as Murphy’s mom and a writer.  The kids wiggle around and Murphy shushes them.  I look at my story arc chart and the stack of magazines.  I look back at Murphy.  I mentally review the bullet points of my opening speech.  Murphy’s smile is eager.

            Then everything slows down.  Something in me falls away. I can barely retrieve the image of myself that I conjured seconds earlier.  I can’t remember what I wanted.  What I expected. I can only see and feel Murphy. I reach into my backpack and pull out the matted pages I’d yanked from the home printer, little over an hour ago. 

            “I’d like to share the interview I did with ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’,” I say.

            A hand shoots up in the first row, “You know Alvin?”

            “Not exactly,” I say.  “I am Alvin.”

            The class murmurs approval and interest.  Murphy flashes an even wider grin. I know that everyone else in the room will quickly forget my presentation when Hector wields his mighty ninja sword.  But Murphy will remember.  I will remember.  And, at the moment, I feel all of my losses and failures dissolve with the benediction of his smile.

Murphy beams at me from the back row of his classmates on Career Day

The Forgotten Birthday

Ever since Murphy entered pre-school, the weeks from Halloween to Christmas have become a gauntlet of multi-leveled hell that Pat and I charge through with such ferocity that we end up kicking Murphy’s birthday aside. At the top level are all the costumes, winter performances, potlucks, glitter projects tossing their sparkly sparkleness over everything, and wrapping paper drives at two different schools.  Below that level there are the cash outlays:  presents for teachers, soccer coaches, business contacts, and hostess gifts.  Below that are the travel plans for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And at the very bottom, under the post office runs, is Murphy’s birthday on December tenth.  By the time Pat and I hurl ourselves into January we are broke, exhausted, and barely speaking to each other. 

            During the holiday gauntlet we do daily triage.  Which is more important today?  Selling more wrapping paper or bathing? And as we tackle the most pressing tasks, Murphy’s birthday party gets bumped and bumped and bumped and bumped and bumped until it’s an afterthought, a postscript -- a distant shadowy presence.  Historically, one of us suddenly remembers and we get cracking on the invitations a week before the designated party day.  Murphy excitedly lists his dream guests and we bump the invitational calls and e-mails another two days in favor of nailing a house sitter for our vacation, locating everyone’s winter coats, volunteering for one school’s book fair, buying groceries, paying bills, driving to soccer practices, and bathing. By the time we contact Murphy’s friends only one is available, but he’s allergic to cats. We promise to lock up the cat, vacuum the whole house, turn the beds, and open the windows.  Then we start calling the outliers -- random kids, ones with head lice and pink eye, ANYONE between the ages of one and sixteen.  We could go as high as eighteen and as low as six months.  Gender is not important.

Last year a couple of kids got sick on the day of the party leaving us with the allergic kid and an exchange student from Spain who I met in the elevator.  Pat hopped on the phone and I ran downstairs to the home of a friend with a young daughter. 

“I need Laura in an hour for Murphy’s birthday party,” I demanded.

“She’s got a rash and we don’t have a present,” my friend said.

“I’ll take her,” I yelled, running to catch the elevator and zip across the street to Safeway for a cake.

A couple of years ago, I remembered that we needed party favors a half-hour before the party.  I dashed to the local mall and searched frantically through the only store that wasn’t for clothing -- Sur La Table.  I rifled through cooking utensils, looking for small, inexpensive items that would pass and was thrilled to find mini snow globes in cute boxes.  I snapped up ten, raced home, and -- smiling with the victory of having come through for my son -- threw the bag at Pat. Mission Accomplished.

Minutes later he came into the living room as I was emptying some chips into an Easter basket. 

“Did you know that these snow globes are wine corks?” he asked.

“Oh no,” I said. “The boxes covered up the cork part.” 

“And they’re glass,” he said.

“Geez. That’s really bad, huh?”

 “It’s questionable.  The kids are only four, except for the mail carrier’s son and the exotic dancer from next door.  But I was more concerned about them being actual wine corks. What message are we sending here?”

Sad to say, we didn’t have any more appropriate options (although Pat suggested giving each kid a baby carrot and a marble) and I persisted in passing out the snow globes. By the end of the party I had had a Bloody Mary to calm my nerves. 

“Remember your wine corks,” I reminded a couple of four-year-olds as they scooted out the door.

This year another level of hell has been added to the Holiday gauntlet – the preparation required for travel abroad.  All this has been even further complicated by the fact that Pat has been acting in a show and does matinees on the weekends.   This morning, we started narrowing in on Murphy’s party which has to happen before we leave for India in twelve days.  Working around the matinees, school, and soccer games, we struggled to find a three-hour block of time.

Pat stared at our schedule on the computer, “Can we have the party on Sunday at seven in the morning?”

“Absolutely not,” I said.

“It’s either that or an eight-o’clock cocktail party tomorrow.”

“For six-year-olds?” I said.

“You’re the wine cork lady.”

“Pat.  Come on.  There’s got to be something better.”

Pat leaned back in his chair, “OK.  Can we pull it together by this afternoon?”

God help me, we considered it. 

Murphy's Birthday with some kids

The Fact of the Matter

A couple of years ago, a magazine editor called to ask me to try out a new piece of exercise equipment and write a column about it.

            “I don’t really use exercise equipment,” I responded.

            “Really?  Not even a treadmill?”

            “I tried one a couple of times, but I got too winded,” I said.

            “Isn’t that…” the editor paused, then pressed on.  “Anyway, we’re not looking for an expert.  We want you.  We’ll send you the Bosu ball and you have at it.  Preferably with your children watching. It’ll be hilarious.”

            “Also,” I said, “I should probably tell you that I don’t seem to be able to understand instruction booklets. Even if they’re written in English.”

            “That’s perfect.  Make it part of the story. This is going to be good.”

            Clearly, I had found a niche market: writing from the standpoint of extreme ignorance and either triumphing over that ignorance, or failing miserably to the great and hilarious delight of readers who would then feel better about their level of competence.  Or, I hoped– to the delight of similarly affected people.

            My husband had to blow up the Bosu ball because the instruction booklet used red flag words like “flap”, “casing”, and “fasten” (“fasten”? How? For the love of God, HOW?)  But once the ball was up and operating, I did manage to flop through an exercise routine thanks to an accompanying DVD. I had to pause the DVD’s cheerful fitness lady a number of times and rewind, but she was far more effective than written instructions (even with diagrams) would have been.

I am what teachers call a “hands-on” learner.  I have to get down in the dirt and plant the seed myself to understand how vegetables grow.  Then I have to forget to water the seed, finally realize that I’ve killed it, and plant it again. This process may have to be repeated four times before I get a carrot. But personal history has shown that I will eventually get that carrot. For what I lack in information or skill, I make up for in determination, animal instinct, and luck. It also doesn’t hurt that I seem to have a low threshold for humiliation. 

            A few months ago, I bought a guidebook for the region of India that we will be visiting. I chose the guide that had the prettiest pictures and an illustrated time line of Indian history.  I took the book to bed with me for several nights in a row and I liked the glossy pages and the way it smelled.  I’d flip to a section about one of the cities we would be visiting. Agra, for example, home of the Taj Mahal.  I’d start to read the information and then I would experience a familiar phenomenon.  My eyes would glide over the copy and I would get to the end of the page, unable to retain any of the information that I had just read. I tried slowing myself down, picking apart each word individually. But even when I read it like a first grader, I couldn’t absorb a thing.

            To be clear, I read a lot.  I jump from novel to novel like a head louse in a mob of kindergartners.  But when it comes to instruction manuals, guidebooks, and textbooks I’m at a complete loss.  On the whole, facts bore me.

            Which is why I cannot vouch for the accuracy of anything I write. I would argue, however, that accuracy is different from truth. It is because of my intellectual resistance to facts, that I have to ask myself frequently, “Is this true?”  And the answer comes back from my gut, my heart, and what I would call the “commonsense” side of my brain (I’m betting that side actually exists under fancier nomenclature, but I’m not going to look it up because we all know what I mean).

            I can only write about what is true for me.  And sometimes what is true, changes. What I know about India is inchoate.  My information is mostly anecdotal, gleaned from family and friends who have visited.  When I get there, that information will either make sense to me or it won’t. I will absorb new information, sift impressions, and toss out old ideas.

            This is how I have ever truly known anything.

            When I come home, what I know of India will be in my bones.