As I write, it’s the first anniversary of the surreal barbecue featured in “Falling Slowly.” Hard to believe it’s been a whole year since Miranda collapsed and Sam drove Andie and me to the E/R. A whole new life was beginning for me, at the vintage of forty-one, with the help of an unusual and gifted man young enough to be my son. Coyly feeding him a triangle of vodka-soaked cantaloupe from the tip of a plastic knife at dusk, I had no idea what I was getting into.
Sometimes that’s a good thing.
**
Tyler Tervooren, another Portlander like Chris Guillebeau who advocates risk-taking and living an unconventional lifestyle, said something (which I can’t find to quote now) to the general effect that being courageous in the everyday choices we make accustoms us to taking risks and being bold in more significant areas of our lives.
It was for this reason that, presented with the option of either taking a permanent, secure job in a toy company’s Internet department for a $30K salary (in a basement with mostly women) or becoming a full-time fundraiser for the anti-corporate underdog in our Democratic primary (in a a diverse and bustling campaign office), which by all accounts would be temporary and hourly, I chose the latter.
The former was a sure thing, but would definitely be stressful and suck precious hours of my life away (underground) for no real purpose. The campaign job was risky, but held promise as well as meaning. It would enable me to advocate for and help elect a real “people’s candidate,” while also possibly providing new connections and leading me in any number of new directions — if I wasn’t automatically out of a job after the primary.
In the midst of this decision, I had my first truly bitter fight with Jeannie. To make a long story short, she believed she was acting in my best interest, while I was shocked at her sudden “bossiness” with me and apparent lack of trust in my gut feelings.
What I derived from this episode, however, was a greater understanding of how Sam must have felt when I “bossed” him and showed little faith in his judgment. I didn’t like it, either.
Choosing the campaign involved a leap of faith. It was an act of trust in the future as well as belief in the candidate, and belief that fortune does in fact favor the brave — belief that my life will only change if I start making choices based not on what is already known and safe, but on what draws me forward and closer to a greater expression of who I am and what I value. It was the same kind of leap I took last year at this time.
As you know, it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
**
For the past month I have also been working with Beth, a fledgling “Calling In The One” coach in Sonoma, California. We have weekly hour-long sessions that are meant to correspond to each section of the book. So far I don’t seem to have Called In The One, but I have definitely become more “magnetic” (to borrow from Katherine Thomas) when it comes to the opposite sex. More on that presently.
Beth’s input, along with some of Frank Schaeffer’s well-chosen words in his latest book (Patience With God), helped me deal more effectively with the latest Come-To-Jesus letter from my mom.
Dripping with the catchphrase-laden sentimentality peculiar to born-again Christian women, her missive gushed about how her life with her Heavenly Father/Lover (shudder) was so much more fulfilling than mine. (That incestuous blurring thing BACW do with their version of God I’ve always found unsettling.) It also took for granted, as usual, that her literalist cult had the corner on the “Christian” label and on what God wants.
God has always had a wonderful plan for your life, and has always wanted to reveal it to you. He has given you delightful gifts — tenderness, kindness, mercy — plus all the “smarts” with which He has endowed you. And the life He offers is one which is filled with His loving presence!
Do you still feel that the Christian life is one of rules and regulations legislated by a tyrant God? Not so! It is a life of a loving relationship with the God who designed us and Whose will is only for our good! You may feel your life is full of excitement and adventure, but I assure you “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” A life lived with God is a life of deep satisfaction because it is lived according to the blueprint of the Designer! And instead of being confining, it is a release into freedom, life as it was intended to be!
To top it all off, she sent me a Facebook message later that same week complaining about the words I’d used on someone else’s thread. “I didn’t bring you up to use such crude language,” she scolded.
First a child’s blush, and then a flash of rage, made blood ring in my ears. How dare she? The letter was already presumptuous to the max, but this was beyond the pale.
I took a time-out to cool down rather than going with my first impulse and using language that would have made her sorry she’d said anything at all.
**
Instead, I explored with Beth the critical relationship issues that surface in my dealings with my ever-proselytizing mother. Namely — the inability to stand up for myself; the distasteful bind of being either projected upon in the most saccharine manner (as sugar and spice and everything nice) or dismissed as invalid (stubborn and sinful); invisibility. All of which inspire a sort of primal and inarticulate rage.
To this day, after all, I often allow men with strong personalities to dominate and silence me. I have attracted admirers who idealize me so much I don’t even recognize who the hell they think they’re enamored with. I have chased many highly visible (attention-grabbing and handsome) men to whom I have been essentially invisible.
These relationships are mirrors of what I picked up from my earliest connections. Jeannie and I even discussed how the dynamic of our conflict resembled the dynamic of me vs. my mother and her well-meaning but overbearing Come-To-Jesus letters — just days before the latest one arrived.
So, theoretically, I should be able to apply the remedy where it all began.
Beth had me imagine the part of me that feels this rage as a small child. What does the child want? she asked. How would you take care of this child, as the responsible and mature adult? What would you say to her? What would you say to your mom?
This simple visual aid was remarkably helpful. I found myself feeling angry and protective of the marginalized, silenced, “unacceptable” little girl who was supposed to “be good” at all times and not upset anyone. In my mind’s eye, I picked her up and told her she was just as important as everybody else. I told her I recognized and valued everything she was, whether or not my mother or anyone else judged it to be “good.” I told her to express whatever the fuck she wanted. And I told her I wasn’t going to let my mother talk to her like that anymore.
**
The next day I wrote my response.
The fact that I have no idea which comment you’re talking about only serves to demonstrate that I am finally letting my hair down around here. I’m sure whatever it was could have been a lot worse in your book — I’ve been using language you’d probably call crude since I was a teenager. At forty-two I’m just getting over things like walking on eggshells and self-censoring to the point of nonexistence. I don’t want every part of me that isn’t inoffensive to someone to be invisible…
I can only marvel at the hubris when any human being thinks that they can read the mind of God and outright tell me I am NOT following His wonderful Plan for my life in my own damn time and way. (Oops, guess I cussed again. Somehow, I think God is bothered more by the behavior of the Enron Corporations of the world than by my saying “damn.”) Look, I know it’s just your way of trying to communicate love and concern, but doing it that way is neither welcome nor necessary. Why not just trust that God knows what He’s doing with me? It seems like a lot of hurt, tension, and resentment could be avoided here.
Defensive, my mother backed off somewhat, thanking me for being honest, but she still couldn’t resist throwing out the classic fundamentalist argument:
I don’t pretend to ‘read the mind of God’ other than reading what He says pretty clearly in His Word. I know you feel that Jesus’ words about being The Way, The Truth and The Life sound pretty exclusive — I didn’t say it; He did! I have chosen to believe Him as I would if a doctor told me ‘This is the ONLY medicine which can cure your disease!’ It is not a matter of opinion; either it is the truth or it is not. (Pascal) was willing to trust it as the truth — what was there to lose?
This “because he said so” tautology used to work on the child. C.S. Lewis made something like this argument too, saying that Jesus had to either be the Messiah or akin to the madman who claims he’s a poached egg. (What Lewis et. al. fail to consider, even within their dubious closed arguments, is that we can never know how much the canonized New Testament writings reflect what Jesus, if he really existed, actually said, written as they were after decades of oral tradition within a revisionist religious movement. To say nothing of those heretic Gnostics who didn’t even make the cut!) I replied:
There’s a couple of places we diverge that are irreconcilable, I guess. I don’t believe that I need to be cured, or that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, although I do believe that someone in the first few centuries wrote that a guy named Jesus said the “Way, the Truth, and the Life” thing…
You may or may not remember this, but I took a preceptorial (elective seminar) and wrote a paper on the Pensées at (college). (Pascal) was a fascinating character, but I agree with Franky Schaeffer’s assessment of his famous wager: “Pascal’s wager, wherein one bets in favor of God rather than risking damnation, is one of the stupidest ideas ever articulated. If there is a God, He knows you were just a good betting man splitting the odds – insincere but scared.” There are better reasons than fear to believe in some kind of Divine. On that perhaps we agree.
After that she pretty much shut up about the whole business, and since has stuck to subjects like how the campaign is doing, what’s happening with people we know, and the news.
It felt like some kind of watershed moment.
**
Just as Jeannie taught me what it was like to be on the receiving end of the “bossing” I gave Sam, my mother’s letter taught me something else about myself. Something uncomfortable to look at.
I realized that my mother was trying, time and time again, to persuade me with impassioned and sometimes manipulative pleas to take on her emotional experience when it was definitely not mine.
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: no wonder my carefully-crafted, effusive love letters to nearly a dozen indifferent or ambivalent men over the past twenty years never won them over. I could no more “convert” these guys to my subjective and unshared emotional experience than my mother could convert me to hers. They were probably even less into me than I’m into Jesus…and I wouldn’t or couldn’t accept that.
I flushed, thinking how cloying and annoying my attempts must have seemed. Perhaps as annoying as a subway evangelist handing out tracts.
I guess it’s a hard habit to break.
**
But about that “magnetism”…
I should mention that Ted has been working a few hours a week for the campaign, and that Padraic came over after he found out I was working there. (Ted has since quit the call center, and may be going more full-time until he passes his pharmacy exam.) I must admit, I never fully got over my crush on Ted, that nondescript but intelligent liberal Texan of my own generation. When I met him, he reminded me of a forty-plus version of Sam — hence the attraction. But I gave up on Ted months ago. I really don’t want to suffer over any more men who’ll play with me when I’m the only game around, but run around after other, younger women when I’m not. He still kids around with me, and seems genuinely glad to see me when I’m there…clearly he has a friendly affection for me. So I take our relationship for what it is, no more and no less.
Padraic I take with a grain of salt. I figured him out after a while: if I take a step toward him, he takes a step backward. This dance is time-tested and guaranteed. When he complained that his young ex-girlfriend was “too into” him and wanted to get serious (which is why they broke up) I realized I was being presented with yet another opportunity to play chase-the-carrot. Wisely, I declined. Padraic really does remind me of my brother John. I could have broken my own heart again and run after John one more time…but I wouldn’t have caught him this time, either.
No, I’ve had it with the terminal ambivalence and mixed messages. I deserve better than that.
**
One thing worthy of note, however, is how one of the Big Fish at my new position reacted to me. It caught me completely off guard. This is a national campaign, so it’s populated by local political luminaries who are Big Fish in our small pond.
During my first few days there, I came into contact with one of them repeatedly. A handsome, charismatic figure who knows how to work a room, Matt shook my hand with an oddly dazed look and seemed at a loss for words. I just smiled and nodded. I didn’t burble or effervesce the way most women do in his presence. Mind you, this is a guy at whom multiple eyelids flutter whenever he enters the field office, who gets to rub elbows with impeccably groomed Abercrombie & Fitch princesses at events.
Yet every time he’s had contact with this low-rent, un-svelte, T-shirted fortysomething in chipped librarian frames and holey sneakers, he looks like nothing so much as a dumbfounded adolescent boy alone with the prom queen. I’m tickled to death by this. I know I didn’t put the energy out there, but I feel it in the space between us.
I haven’t told anyone but Beth about this. And now you. No one around here, at least no one who knows local politics, would believe me if I told them. Beth, of course, says it’s a sign that I’m becoming more “magnetic.”
Even Ted, the other day, surprised me: I was standing outside with him and one of the other fundraisers, an ex-Marine in his fifties who had come down to work at our office location “just to see you,” he told me with bald flirtatiousness. Suddenly I felt Ted’s hand resting on my shoulder as he talked to the Marine. It felt weirdly territorial. Then Ted made a humorous remark, and shook the other man’s hand in a conciliatory fashion. The body language honestly seemed like something dogs might do if they were bipeds. Again, I was tickled, especially as it was Ted. At least he didn’t pee on me.
**
There’s really something to this whole let-them-come-to-me business. The best example of all happened when I went down to the call center to pick up my last check.
I would never have expected it to be so effortless, to get what I had been hoping for for weeks. I had by this point pretty much resigned myself to never making significant contact with either of the beautiful newbies mentioned in my last post, as I was (at long last) leaving The Job.
Stopping by various cubicles to bid my farewells, I didn’t see the half-Asian Adonis anywhere. The raven-haired Sir Lancelot, however, was sitting just a few seats down from my friend Jane. Standing there beside her, telling her about the campaign, I noticed he and I were still just missing each other’s glances. Before long, he stood up from his seat and logged out for a break.
As he came toward us, both Jane and the supervisor coming down the row read his subversive T-shirt slogan aloud. Lancelot laughed, stopped, and explained it to us, introducing himself with a firm handshake. His name was Tanner. Actually, Tanner was his surname; Jim was “everybody’s name,” so he went by his last. Close up he was even handsomer, his dark-lashed brown eyes larger and warmer. He had a sexy voice and an easy affability, and I wondered why on earth we hadn’t managed to introduce ourselves earlier.
After a minute of chatting he left us to go outside. I followed suit not long thereafter, not expecting to see him unless I deliberately went up the alley. The designated smoking area was on the other side of the building. I was contemplating whether or not to go that way, and how I might contrive to speak to him again, when the elevator doors opened.
To my surprise, Tanner was sitting right outside the front door. He held it open as I wheeled my bike out. I stopped to chat with him for a few minutes more (and to tell him that this was my last visit to the call center). I found out a bit more about him: he was twenty-seven, currently in his last year of school at the Art Institute, and had been a new recruit in the military — dispatched to the Pentagon — during 9/11. After witnessing censorship and the suppression of information at the site in the immediate aftermath of the attack, his politics did a U-turn and he became something of a 9/11 “truther.”
I tried not to stare as he spoke but couldn’t help myself. Sweet Jesus, what a delectable young radical was he. I wished I could eat him with my eyes. (And so friendly! Who knew!) When at last he turned to go back inside, he wished me luck with the campaign and said he was glad to have met me.
“I’m glad to finally know your name,” I said, starting to wheel my bike away as he pulled the door open. “Now you’re not just the tall handsome one with the tattoos.”
He paused, grinned, and laughed: a pleased laugh, a very sexy laugh. “Thank you!” he purred, with that sultry voice of his. “See you around…”
Oh, I wish, honey.
Nevertheless I couldn’t believe how easy that was.
Maybe he’ll turn up at a rally somewhere.
Recent Comments