Serving up Poetic Justice

This story begins in a convergence of back alleyways on a recent Friday evening in my hometown where a free concert, one of a summer series,  is about to begin. The band is a popular local group of sixty-something-year-old males who play country music and know exactly how to please their audience. The alleyway is crammed with people – young and old – and by the time the concert is underway, there is standing room only. Looking around, people north of fifty and those who are specially-abled are over-represented in this crowd.

My brother is one of those who are specially-abled. I have brought him to this concert because the band, TGR, is his hands-down favorite.  And although the direct care workers in his group home do their best to get him and his housemates to these concerts, occasionally circumstances arise that prevent them from doing so. I’m not taking any chances.    

It is a gorgeous night. The heat wave has broken, there’s a pleasant breeze and everyone seems happy and relaxed. It’s ‘bring your own chair’ so I set mine up next to T, who works in my brother’s home and who has, in fact, come with two of his housemates. There are other employees from other group homes – angels all – there with their excited charges and I am introduced to everyone.  

Promptly at 7 p.m.  the band members take their place on the stage and in a moment, the distinctive and familiar opening bars to Amarillo by Morning flow from the stage.  I love this song. I love TGR's rendition of it. I sink into musical bliss. I glance at my brother and wait for his metamorphosis. To watch him in this moment is to experience the true meaning of the 1970’s song, I’ve Got the Music in Me.  His facial expression grows intense. His feet start tapping. His arms begin moving.  He no longer appears to perceive anyone around him. It’s just him and the music. Within a few measures, every cell in his body is chair-dancing with a vengeance. Soon his chair can no longer contain him and, as if propelled, he springs suddenly to his feet.

He will dance every single dance tonight, with gusto, mostly by himself.  And he’s damned good.  His teachers include the best – Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Elvis Presley (those hips) – even Barbara and Bobby (and later Cissy) from The Lawrence Welk Show.  He's got all the moves. He’s light on his feet. He keeps the beat.  The words ‘debonair’ and ‘suave’ come to mind and stay there.  Oh, and a pinch of The Fonz coolness for good measure.   

A group of women enter the dance space and begin line dancing. My brother studies their moves, joins them on their periphery and tries to copy them. It is hard not to laugh and I admit I do but it is with glee. In his seriousness, he is just too funny. He is about ½ step behind because he’s following them.  They turn 180 degrees and he spins around, perplexed at what they did when his back was to them. They lift their leg, he does too. They clap, he claps. He scrambles out of their way when they suddenly switch direction and threaten to run him over.   And when they leave the floor, he is still practicing what they did.

A slow dance comes on and couples come out to two-step, fox-trot. My brother is still intent on his line dancing. I can tell by the look on his face that he is getting lost in his dance practice and soon he will be oblivious to everyone around him. On a crowded dance floor, this is not a good thing. I get up, I’m only a few steps away. I put my arms around his shoulders and say, “How about a dance with your old sister?” and I steer him in to a slow dance with me. His t-shirt is wet from his efforts. He stiffens at first – I’ve interrupted his escalation, but then he allows me to defuse his intensity.  I tell him I noticed how hard he was working to line dance with the women and what a great job he was doing. He looks at me so earnestly, and says, “I try.” Yes, my sweet bro, you try.

******

Not long before their break, the lead singer who I shall call BM (real initials, swear to God), waves a pile of 8-1/2 x 11 fliers and announces that it is their performance schedule for the near future. He sets them down on the stage. Three or four of the specially-abled attendees immediately take one and head back to where we are seated to present these to their staff chaperones. “Hey!” calls BM into the mic. “You guys can’t read!”

It takes a split second for this comment to register, to realize which “you guys” he is talking about. I look up at T, sitting next to me.  “That wasn’t very nice!” I exclaim. She agrees with me, as do others with us. BM begins to sing again. I am sitting, appalled and in stunned silence. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’m stunned, yes – but silent, no. I am fuming. How dare he make that stereotyped assumption and into a microphone no less! T is upset too because not only was BM insensitive – what he said was patently untrue.  You can be sure that if there is a piece of paper with this band’s name on it – TGR – all three of the guys traveling with us would be able to read it AND the dates AND the venues.

At intermission, I approach the stage. BM is fumbling with equipment. My brother and his friend, G, are close to the stage. I put my arm around both of them and look up. “Hi BM, my name is Jan and I’d like to introduce you to my brother, David, and our good friend, G.”  BM is eyeing me suspiciously, unsure of what to make of me. I continue, “These guys are two of your biggest fans…… they come to every concert you give that they can get to.”  BM is fidgeting  and looking like he wishes to evaporate. “And there’s something else you should know about them.” I pause for effect.  “They can READ.” BM looks everywhere except at me. I repeat myself, “They can READ.” BM starts to back away and mumbles, “I saw him singing.”  My brain explodes.  I lead my brother and G away – they do not know they’ve been dissed, and I can see that the big BM just does not get it. Back at my seat, the others let me know they watched BM’s reaction carefully and agree that the man is clueless (and classless, I might add).

*****

The next evening after dinner, I meet my friend Jim for ice cream.  Jim is a drummer and he knows this band – TGR  – well because he subs for their drummer on occasion. He tells me that he will, in fact, be working with them later this week.  I tell him about the events of the previous evening, hoping that he will “get” why this has upset me.  I can see in his expression that he does and I am relieved. He volunteers to say something to BM and I tell him, no, it’s ok – he doesn’t need to do that. But I am grateful for his willingness.

We are quiet for a moment. Then Jim chuckles and I look at him questioningly. “You know,” he says, conspiratorially. “None of these guys can read music.”  I wait for more, unsure why he is telling me this. “On a gig, when I pull out sheet music…. they can’t relate to that.”  He continues. “Maybe I’ll just hand BM a piece of music, then say, ‘Oh that’s right!  You can’t read this’ and pull it away.”  Jim is grinning at the thought.  I laugh with delight, inwardly marveling at the poetic justice of this plan.

What goes around doesn’t usually come around quite this quickly!

Stuffed, Part 2: A Study in Anthropomorphism

Let me introduce you to some members of my immediate family. From L-R, we have:

1) Morgan the bear, named after the youngest son of a dear old friend. Morgan used to be the favored companion of my sweet daughter until his position was usurped sometime during high school by a now-mangy monkey known variously as Gottlieb, Hiccup, or more often – Monkey. Poor faithful Morgan – I couldn’t tolerate the idea of him being cast aside in favor of another species, so I invited him to take refuge in my room.

2) Sammy the snowman, a gift one Christmas to my daughter. Sammy joined Morgan and loved him as a brother but alas, he met a similar fate when my daughter decided she only had eyes for a monkey. Not wanting to separate brothers – and having become a rabid fan of all things snowman – Sammy was also welcomed in to my space.

3) Smiley face, a Christmas stocking gift to me from my thoughtful daughter – who knew I had a “thing” for smiley faces back in the sixties. Smiley doesn’t take up much room.

4) Ladybug is the newest member of the family. My mother liked ladybugs. Buying ladybug items was one of the ways we healed ourselves after she died. Ladybug stays no matter what.

5) Next we have Alex and Jordan, the polar twins. Or it could be Jordan and Alex, I can’t tell them apart. Alex was my daughter’s first Gund – she fell in love with him in a toy store on vacation in Williamsburg, VA, at about age 8, and despite the fact that Alex cost way more than I ever should have afforded at that time in my life, she found him under the tree the following Christmas. Alex was also discarded when a certain monkey came to live with us.  Jordan, named for the third son of the same dear old friend noted above, was a gift to me from my daughter two years after Alex joined the family. She wanted me to have something soft and cuddly at night. No smart remarks, please. 

6) Finally, meet Sick Bunny.  That’s not her birth name but I don’t remember what that was. Sick Bunny is dressed in a cabbage patch doll outfit. She is so-named because when my daughter was young and would get sick, I didn’t want her getting germs all over her regulars.  So Sick Bunny was appointed to be the designated hitter during times of illness.  My daughter long ago left Sick Bunny in the dust. But I could not bear to do the same…. Sick Bunny had been there when she was needed, how could I throw her away?   

All these family members reside on a sofa in my bedroom. I don’t use the sofa any longer  for sitting (myself) – many years ago (like 23) it was a gift from loving relatives when I had no money for furniture.  I frequently lament the amount of space it is taking up in my room – space that could be put to good use – or, here’s a novel idea – space that could just be space. Said sofa’s sole purpose in life is to provide a home for the above-described motley “family” – a family I have long been convinced has real feelings. I’ve never said this aloud before but I think maybe the sky would grow dark and lightning might strike me down should I ever deign to… um… dispose of these bodies.  

For I remember how Morgan and Alex wept when Monkey moved in to their turf. “Mommy doesn’t love me anymore,” I would make one, then the other of them wail and kick their little feet in a tantrum, much to the delight of my child. “I still love you,” she would assure them but as night fell, it would be Monkey that she reached for.   

I exhaust myself, I really do. Part of me knows that some of this craziness is likely due to “first, but not last-born neurosis” [a.k.a. Wasn’t I good enough?] Most of my life, I have been able to avoid confronting this tenacious inability to let things go because I was willing to move over and have every square inch of my living space filled. But now I’m not. I’m tired of being a slave to my possessions. More than that, I’m tired of dusting them.  Or thinking I should dust them.

I’m going to get past this. I know this because I’ve come a long way.  For years I could not discard a printed photograph, no matter how fuzzy the picture, how unattractive the pose, or that it existed in triplicate. The photo had FEELINGS, as did the person who was its subject. I tried to pass this neurosis on to my progeny, but luckily, she knew in her soul that this was nutty. And now, I too can discard a photo without feeling twenty twinges of guilt for murder.  

So –my furry friends’ days just may be numbered.

But the Ladybug stays…..

And Smiley face doesn’t take up much room…..

and Jordan’s fur is very warm when I’m cold…..

Stuffed

Just about 9 years ago, as I was packing up my apartment in Queens to move to my own place, an old friend gave me some sage advice. “Think about what you want to take with you. Surround yourself only with things that you truly love. You don’t have to cart the last fifty years to another county.”

I did hear what she said. Unfortunately I was convinced I loved it all. Or thought I should love it all. Living in small NYC spaces for nearly 20 years, much of my precious stuff had been sentenced to boxed lives under beds, in the back of closets, at my mother’s.  Now I was going to have enough space for it all and I gleefully envisioned a Christmas-like reunion with my stuff.

So along with me came two full sets of china, more vases than a sane person needs, an unwieldy collection of decorative cups and saucers from various dead people, hundreds of books including text books from college, souvenirs from trips taken as long ago as 1965, a large collection of 45s and LPs most of which I had not played in years, and scads of beginning-to-get-gross metal paper clips, dozens of on-their-way-to-being dried up pens, and personalized manila envelopes rescued from an office I had worked in years before that had closed. And that’s merely a tip of the iceberg, I am sorry (and embarrassed) to say – but it’s a taste to illustrate the breadth and depth of my stuff.

When my mom passed away three years later, I added a lot more stuff to the mix. I tried to be careful and discerning as we sorted, discarded, and/or sold, but this stuff was my mother’s things and the idea of divesting myself of anything belonging to her felt like I was discarding not only the item, but her. That would never do. So my sister and I took turns choosing first – jewelry, china, depression glass, lead crystal, cups and saucers, unused dish towels and pot holders.  We discovered vestiges of our childhoods lovingly packed away in old trunks and squealed with delight over my first Easter coat and bonnet, matching jumpers our grandmother had made, dresses we wore our first days of school. We divided those items up, the ones that weren’t yellowed or torn, dreaming of future grandchildren. Slowly the small piles in each of our childhood bedrooms became full car loads of more stuff to be lugged to our respective homes.

It was hard to assimilate all mom’s stuff into my apartment. I took care of some of the breakables by appropriating her china cabinet which fit nicely against an available wall, its dark wood closely matching my own furniture. But I should also mention that I inherited most of the items that were already housed in that china cabinet – a huge collection of crystal ware given to my parents as anniversary gifts in the early 40s. So I stacked things a little higher than she ever had in said china cabinet and hoped for no earthquakes.

Other items never found a permanent home, unless you count a corner of my dining area as permanent. There sits my mother’s sewing machine – at first claimed by a niece who fancied a career as a fashion designer. When she changed her mind about her major, it was claimed by my daughter, who fantasized learning enough about sewing to tailor her own clothes. Even though claimed, however, it never actually made its way to any place she’s lived. Keeping the sewing machine company in that corner have been mom’s old slide projector, boxes of old slides, mom’s really old regular 8 movie projector, and boxes of old 8 mm movies.

Not long ago, a designer who’s helping me to renovate my kitchen, came over to survey my stuff to ensure sufficient cabinet space.  She looked at me gravely and said, “You have to edit.” My throat started to close. “Edit??” I gasped. “I’ll come over and help you,” she announced, breezily. I harrumphed.  Over my dead body.   

After she left, however, I looked around.  Was I really that in love with all of this? I admitted to myself that the little collection of antique machines in the corner irritates me. Not only does it collect dust, it fights for space with my jewelry-making supplies (another story of stuff). I had made a half-hearted effort to deal with some of it last year when I sorted through mom’s slides and sent the more memorable ones off to be transferred to a CD. What was now stopping me from chucking the rest of them along with the projector (the bulb of which disintegrated when I turned it on)? Not long before she died, mom had made the herculean effort of transferring all the 8mm films from my sister’s and my childhoods to videotape. Why could I not dump the original film and put the decrepit projector out of its misery? 

I opened one cupboard, which had been specifically targeted for editing. There were at least a dozen generic clear glass vases of various shapes and sizes that gained access as receptacles for various bouquets over the years. I had no particular attachment to these;  maybe I could part with some of them if they were duplicates. Heaven forbid I not have the right size vase for all the cut flowers I don’t bring home.

There were another eight or nine bud vases. One of them featured an etched “H” from my former husband’s last name. Have I ever put a bud in a bud vase? More to the point, how long has it been since my last name started with “H”?  There’s an old Avon bottle, black with flowers, shaped like a vase that I’ve carted from apartment to apartment for thirty-five years, and never used. My former husband gave that to me, too.  I tossed the marriage long ago and never looked back, why can’t I toss the relics from it?

Now it got harder. I picked up a teeny-tiny vase with a lily of the valley on one side. I don’t remember who gave it to me but I know it was because the giver was aware how much I love lilies of the valley.  It would seem very ungrateful to get rid of that, now wouldn’t it. In the back corner was a small pink and white ceramic baby shoe, made for me by a dear old friend when my daughter was born. It had been “customized” with my daughter’s name, her birth date, and her birth weight.  It had not held a plant since the first one it held in 1976. To get rid of that would be akin to getting rid of both my daughter and my old friend.  A two-fer.

I closed the door. I would make no decisions that night. I needed to figure out by what criteria I would honestly be able to determine what stayed, what went, and why.  And whether I could do it without guilt or remorse…….

Next up….. anthropomorphism, or do stuffed animals have feelings?   

      

Cellular Connections

I’m slightly amused and a lot amazed when I enter my crowded commuter train morning or evening and witness dozens of suited bodies with eyes fixated, fingers dancing, and attention captivated by tiny hand-held slivers of technology. Occasionally they talk on them. Mostly they poke and swipe at them. During a break in any meeting anywhere, colleagues pull out their blackberries and smart phones with a sense of urgency.  What might have happened during the last ninety minutes that they simply must know? I sat in a theater last Friday night and during the intermission the same thing happened. Instead of talking with each other or reading the Playbill, most people around me communed with their cell phones.

Recently I took the final course of my doctoral studies – an elective on qualitative research methodology. To provide an in vivo experience in qualitative research, my six classmates and I were required to undertake a small group project wherein we would interview each other on a chosen topic and then collectively analyze the transcripts. After much debate, we settled on the topic of one’s relationship with one’s cell phone. We entertained the idea of going a day without our phones to see how that felt.  One of my classmates practically hyperventilated at the thought. It was vetoed.

Looking around the room, everyone except the professor and me had their cell phones out on their desks every class. I don’t know where his was – but mine was four floors above me, locked in my office. I was unconcerned about what it might be doing in my absence. One young woman sitting next to me sent and received text messages continually during the entire class, every week. I wondered if she thought our professor was blind to what she was doing. Or maybe she didn’t care.

I’ve been teaching for thirteen years.  Over the years I’ve added directives to my syllabus that cell phones must be set on vibrate so their rude ring doesn’t interrupt the class – or more accurately, my concentration. Two years ago I had to add a ‘no texting’ edict during class.  Still, they can’t resist. So I stop in the middle of a lecture when I see texting behavior – head bowed, eyes intently fixated on something just below table level – and demand, “Those who are texting please stop now.”

People clearly are attached to their cell phones with a passion that borders on the obsessive. These miracle machines also serve as mini-computers, movie theaters, music players, video game consoles, calendars, calculators, cameras, video recorders, and GPS systems. Do we really need entertainment and/or stimuli “to go” every waking hour? Do we really need to be so available to everyone’s impulse?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my cell phone. It was the first item I ever owned to which I attributed “stress-busting” status.  Twenty years ago, my first cell phone was an unwieldy device housed in a large black vinyl case with a heavy battery. It also required an antenna mounted on the hood of my car.  Unless one was weight-training, it was not the kind of thing that you would carry around with you. It had been a gift from older relatives worried about the time I spent in my car at odd hours and in unsavory neighborhoods in my work as a writer/photographer for a union.  I plugged the phone in to my car’s cigarette lighter and felt instantly relieved. No more hunting for a pay phone, finding a safe place to park, and digging for change. No more increased blood pressure when caught in traffic late for an appointment. But service was expensive then so I used the phone sparingly, not even turning it on unless I needed to make a call. “Need” had nothing to do with impulse or inability to delay gratification.

Over the years, my phones got lighter and smaller and eventually fit nicely into my purse or my coat pocket. However, I don’t really like talking on any phone, be it land line or cell. I dislike the feeling of disconnectedness and lack of visual cues.  I also tend to resist advances in technology, typically buying new toys long after most people have done so (or not at all).  I keep my phones long past the time when Verizon has deemed me eligible for an upgrade. Counting that first albatross, I’ve had four phones in twenty years. That’s six fewer than Verizon would have preferred.

Last winter my cell phone battery cover somehow broke off. I went without it for awhile. Then my best friend showed off her brand new Samsung Fascinate smart phone. I was – well - fascinated. I sprang for it. We have a love/hate relationship. I hate that a smart phone can make me feel so dumb. I gaze at all the little icons and wonder which one I need to tap to do what I want. Or more likely, which one will cause me to do something I don’t want to do. I panic if I’m engaged with my phone in a simple activity like sending a text – and something else happens, like..... it rings. I’ve yet to master how to deal with call waiting. I’d really rather the second caller would just get a busy signal.  I am, after all, busy. I hate the little genius living inside the phone who second-guesses what I want to type and auto-corrects my mistakes to the amusement of recipients.   

I don't quite "get" the need, however, to have one's phone become a body part.  Yes, they are wonderful when you're running late or are stranded with a car that stopped running. But do we really need to be plugged in and entertained on the sidewalk, waiting in line at the post office or grocery store, and during intermission? What has happened to watching where we are going, waiting quietly, taking in our surroundings, being fully present in this moment in this space? No batteries needed.

 

Excavating Secrets

I’m grateful for every person who responded thoughtfully after my last post, many with their own stories of depression.  I was surprised when some used the word “courage” to describe my willingness to put my experience out there for public consumption.  Working in a profession where depression and anxiety disorders are, sadly, commonplace among clients and colleagues (many of whom come to the profession because of their own experience with various disorders, or those of family and friends), it didn’t seem unusual for me to claim ownership of that. In addition, I live in a city full of psychotherapy training institutes which creates an environment where being “in therapy” is almost an expectable event, even a rite of passage. So – not brave – and not courageous.

One communication from an old friend, however, caused my stomach to lurch and my breath to catch. For in a few sentences, I was thrust backward in time to an emotional space I’ve struggled mightily to negate.  She wrote, “I vividly recall my uncertainty as an adolescent when you experienced episodes of depression. Although, we had no ‘term’ for the feelings that engulfed your life, it significantly impacted me as your friend. Frankly, it scared the hell out of me! I held onto the belief that if I could be the best friend possible and let you know how much I loved and cared for you that you would survive. And you did, very well.”

My post set my first experience of depression at 19, perhaps because that was the first time of “official” diagnosis, perhaps because I didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to document a murky and dark time. But my old friend is right.  I was depressed and sad long before 19 even though we never discussed it and we never named it. “J” slipped into my life when we were freshmen in high school. We’d lived probably a half mile away from each other our whole lives, but we attended different schools up to the 9^th grade.

Now in high school, we rode the same school bus. Somehow she and I ended up getting our ears pierced together and from that moment became inseparable. “J” is one of the few happy memories I have of the time between 14 and almost 18. Every day after school, we’d get off the school bus at our respective homes, change our clothes, and head down the graveled shoulder of the highway that ran past our houses, meeting in the middle. From there, we’d walk down to Pic-a-deli, a corner store in the middle of nowhere, stock up on ice cream, potato chips, candy, and pop and settled in on the couch in my living room where we’d watch Dark Shadows together. We walked around in the rain, burned candles and let the wax run all over our hands, cut each other’s split ends, made cream puffs in my mother’s kitchen, went bowling and to the movies on weekends, and cheered in the bleachers at basketball games on Friday nights. We planted a garden, buried “pet” butterflies that didn’t make it, and got drunk together for the first time at her brother’s graduation party. Well, at least I got drunk. I shouldn’t claim to be fully aware of her condition.  She was the most important person in my life.  And she definitely was the best friend she could possibly be.        

So what could have scared the hell out of my best friend? I knew what she was talking about the minute I read her words even though for a nanosecond, I tried to not know. For it involved razor blades and my forearms…. not the side where I might have accidentally severed an artery and bled to death but the side where I could feel just enough sting to assure myself that I could, in fact, feel something. I did not realize I had scared her, lost in my narcissistic fugue, believing that my activity might be invisible, as I often felt I was. I don’t think I wanted to die, although I definitely didn’t want to live my life.  It’s probably the one time my chronic ambivalence operated in my favor.  I don’t remember how long this phase lasted. But it was long enough to be noticed by my boss at the restaurant where I washed dishes on Sundays. I lied and said it was due to my cat even though I didn’t own a cat.  I wore long sleeves at home to cover the evidence although I do not remember if long sleeves were appropriate weather-wise. I spent most of my time in my bedroom with the door closed anyway, so it was easy enough to escape notice. My best friend must have told her mother though because I do remember what made me stop. She told me that her mother said she had to stop being my friend if I kept on cutting myself. Her friendship was more important to me than my need to draw blood or feel something real. I stopped.

But what was I thinking? Was I thinking? Obviously, not clearly. My diaries and journals from those days are long gone – tossed decades ago in a flurry of embarrassed “I’ll die if anybody ever reads this” chain reactions. The only written words that survived that era are page after page of “remember this” and “never forget that” lists that “J” wrote to me in my senior year book. I sat and re-read every word she wrote one recent evening to see what was there, hunting through the pages forward, then backward, in an effort to follow her whimsical and circuitous route through my year book. There was, of course, no mention of the cutting. No need to bring up a negative period that, hopefully, was over forever.

Her final year book words to me were, “Our friendship is one of those in a million, something everyone wishes for and only few have. You are the most important thing that has happened in my youth.” I’m not sure that sunk in back in 1971, I was so numb.  After graduation, “J” and I grew apart. I’m positive my depression had a lot to do with that because I withdrew from everything and everyone.

I closed the book and turned back to her recent note, rereading to absorb it.  After the part about scaring her, she wrote, “The caring and love of friends do not extinguish. Know that I and others truly care. You will survive. Very well.” 

She’s right about that too. I did – and I will.  Thank you, “J”.

The Hand That Cannot Write

“So, have you abandoned the blogosphere,” my best friend asked me this morning during a rare telephone conversation (I hate telephones).  She is not the first to inquire after my sudden silence after more than a year of weekly posts.  I consider her question and give her the only response I can summon. “I’m so depressed,” I say. “I can’t seem to focus to write.” That’s partly accurate. “I am afraid that anything I write is going to just sound depressed and angry.” I don’t want to drag readers into my morass.  That’s also partly accurate.

I’ve been here before. The first time was when I was just nineteen. After a few months of crying that seemed to surge from the depths of nowhere, someone in my circle of adult friends read an article about the levels of estrogen in birth control pills being a culprit in depression. I had been prescribed those very pills to manage debilitating cramps that had flattened me every month for my entire adolescence.   The solution was simple. Stop the pills. I did, and the depression loosened its grip.

The next time was in my early thirties. I’d fled to New York City. A guy I was crazy madly in love with wasn’t crazy madly in love with me.  I was failing at parenting, confused – no, paralyzed about what to do with my life, broke, stuck inside my personality which at its core is terrified.  I remember standing in a grocery store in Queens, leaning on the cart trying to shop for food for my daughter and me. My limbs, my body, everything was so heavy, I was not sure that I could continue to put one foot in front of the other.  I didn’t want to put one foot in front of the other. I simply wanted to stop. Right there in the store.  Not move. Sink into the floor.

I was lucky.  A woman I call my heart mother picked me up and cradled me for a long while, whispered in my ear when I didn’t know what to do or say, and helped me figure things out. “Say everything,” she’d cajole.  I resisted. She was patient. And slowly the anger that had been lying dormant far beneath my very thin skin came bursting out projectile style. I wallowed in that while she was the epitome of forbearance and after a time, my depression departed.

Two decades passed. I marveled periodically at my depression-less life, grateful for my freedom from those tenacious tentacles.  Of course there were (and are) ups and downs. Jobs end. Children grow up. Parents die. Terrorists attack.  Humans disappoint. But none of this sent me into a tailspin.

So what has derailed me this time?  Many things – it’s sort of the perfect storm of factors.  There is the cumulative effect of a demoralizing professional situation about which I am not free to write, blogs being the public forum that they are. There are difficult relationships with narcissistic people who lack self-awareness, which moves me to rage.  Can’t write about that either.  There are existential dilemmas of loss and abandonment that arise from numerous sources to be wrestled to the ground yet again.  Stir in exhaustion, the afore-mentioned thin skin, a touch of paranoia, and there you have it. Days spent struggling to suppress tears that threaten to leak out at the slightest provocation (real or imagined), creative energy stuck by unexpressed anger, a hand that cannot write because its owner doesn’t have the energy to be diplomatic.    

It will pass.  Most things do. Perhaps writing this will help.

Transcending 17: A Reunion Post-Mortem

When some former high school classmates started ‘friending’ me on Facebook last spring and talking about a 40^th class reunion, I was up for it although I was slightly disconcerted by this activity. Some of these new ‘friends’ hadn’t been my friends at all in high school. I would have sworn that some of them hadn’t even known I existed. I swallowed my inclination to cyber-scream this fact, and clicked ‘accept.’  After all, I argued with myself, it was high time I transcended 17.

“Let’s have it at the Rose Garden,” someone suggested, “for old time’s sake.” The Rose Garden is a bowling alley/bar/restaurant/party house in a small town a few miles from my old high school. “What old times?” I wondered, since I never experienced an ‘old time’ there. I knew it was their old time, but I said, “Sure, why not?”

This would be my first reunion. I lost track of how many there’d been – I only know that I’d never elected to go to one although on at least one occasion I was actually in town when it occurred. There was no one I really wanted to see.  And I felt sure there was no one who really wanted to see me either. I had tried hard to make myself invisible especially the last four years, and my fantasy was that I had succeeded in this endeavor.

As the months became weeks became days, my feet began to get cold. I wondered if the other three J’s would be there. There had been four of us in our neighborhood whose first names began with “J” – we rode the bus together, had pajama parties at my house, and three of the four lusted after the same guy. They had been the girls I considered my friends in high school…. someone to sit with at basketball games and in the cafeteria. Then two of them announced that, for various reasons, they were not attending. I doubted then that the third one would.  Maybe I shouldn’t go either. What was the purpose?

Everyone said I shouldn’t feel the way I felt. “You’ll see,” one friend lectured, “people are no longer who they were at 17. They’ve grown up. All those barriers that were there? Gone.” I listened but I doubted. Years of analysis have taught me that character is character.

I went out to my storage bin and scrounged around until I found the box containing my yearbooks. I plucked the one from senior year from its resting place and took it inside. My graduating class had 84 people in it. I leafed through the front pages that featured our senior pictures. I studied the faces.  There were people I had forgotten were in my class, several I remembered benignly, a few I remembered warmly, and some I preferred to forget.       

“Let’s analyze this,” I thought to myself.  What was making me think twice about going to this event? What was I afraid of? Some of the faces I had started kindergarten with, been in first grade with …. Susan, Sheila, Nancy, two Davids, Cheryl, Brian, Joyce, Ann, Christine, George, two Beverlys, Joanne, Karen, Debra, Richard, Robert, Dennis, Scott. Although I hadn’t ever been close friends with any of them, I felt in my heart that none of them harbored any animosity toward me, nor did I toward them. We all had the same kindergarten teacher, whether morning or afternoon. We ate in the same cafeteria, played on the same playground, shared the same stage during school performances up to the fifth grade. There were no fights, no gossip. But wait….. one of them had been called “flea bags” – had that been by one of those classmates, or was it one of the ‘big kids’ on the school bus? I wondered if she would be there, if she remembered that, if she had transcended that. 

Some of the faces in the yearbook I had not met until sixth grade when students from two rural schools came together, meeting for the first time in our combo junior/senior high school.  Sixth grade had been a tough year for me. I had been dealt into one of four sixth grade classes but there were only 3 of us from my old school in my class. Everyone else was a stranger to me, I did not make friends easily, and I was miserable. And to top it off, one day, as I walked by Frances’ desk, I heard him mutter “Queer” under his breath. I had just learned what that meant, sort of, and I was mortified. The stupidest boy in my class was calling me that name. I don’t think he ever said another word to me from that moment in sixth grade through graduation day, nor I to him. I wondered if he remembered that moment. Would he be there?

And then there was Nelson and his sidekick Fran. I spent junior high and senior high trying to stay under their radar. That was not easy since we shared math, science, history, and English classes together throughout. Nelson and Fran emotionally tortured two of my classmates, Bruce and Cindy, starting in junior high, making them the butt of every joke, the target of thrown objects, and the objects of ridicule. I lived in fear that they would turn their negative attention toward me. In the pecking order of the classroom, I calculated that I was only a couple of rungs up from Bruce and Cindy.  Nelson had given me a taste of his derision when I went to school one day in 7^th grade, wearing new eye glasses. “You’re not going to wear THOSE in the play, are you?” he challenged. I had been chosen as one of the four leads in the 7^th grade play, he was to play my husband. Clearly he found my new glasses singularly unattractive. Every nerve ending in my body snapped to attention. “Of course not,” I spit back at him. Though in retrospect, spitting on him might have been a more satisfying choice.

The morning of the reunion came and I sat in the chair at my hairdresser’s salon for a routine color and cut. My stomach was busy doing gymnastics. My hair dresser listened to my nervous ramblings. I told her about Nelson. “You’ll be surprised,” she counseled, “at how people have changed.” I wanted to believe her.  “You’ll have fun,” she predicted. I was dubious. Walking alone into a place full of people I didn’t know has never been my idea of a good time.

I pull into the parking lot of the Rose Garden at 6:28 p.m.  I meet the girl who’d been called “flea bags” in the parking lot. She greets me by name and smiles. We hug hello. There is Jim at the door – a welcome relief. I did not know Jim in school but we have become genuine Facebook friends and I sense he is glad to see me too. We go inside. A popular cheerleader, a member of what my friends and I called “the in crowd” hugs me long and hard at the door. I start to feel really disconnected. My fantasy world is colliding with the here and now. Thank god(dess) for Facebook, which helps me to recognize several people I might otherwise have not. I study their faces as we murmer niceties to each other, and try to discern facial elements from the past that mark them as themselves. Someone re-introduces me to Robin. I blurt out, “You grew up!” Everybody laughs.  Another person makes a joke that he grew up in height but not in behavior. I cringe inside at my faux pas.  Robin had been a very small (but mighty) guy who played a mean game of basketball. Robin is now a respectably statured and very handsome man, who later actually acts interested in whether I like living in NYC. I don’t think we ever spoke once in high school.

I spend three minutes talking to an unknown man who calls me by name. I am embraced by another woman I do not recognize but know that I should. Later, over dinner, as she references some shared experience, her name comes to me in a flash.  I find Jim and ask him who he was friends with back then. Jim is hard-pressed to come up with an answer, although as he thinks about it, he manages to cite two or three guys he was friendly with. Obviously, none of them are in his life now. I can’t imagine that he is any more comfortable in this noisy environment than I am. Over dinner, I sit beside Nancy, a friend who reads my blog and shares some of my sensibilities. I am comfortable with her. We followed similar paths, although mine’s been filled with detours. We catch up on pieces of our lives and I ask her over and over again, “Who’s that?” She has seen many of these people at prior reunions. She tells me about traveling across country with Nelson and George after high school. My heartbeat quickens as Nelson’s name rolls off her tongue.  I wonder if he is here. I don’t have to wait long to find out, as I see a man who is unmistakably Nelson stride across the room. He seems taller – he’s definitely heavier – and he’s bald. (Forgive me while I say “tee hee.”) He sweeps over to Nancy who rises and embraces him behind me.  I am still flying under his radar as he hasn’t even noticed – or recognized me as I sit beside her.

“This is bizarre,” I say to Nancy. “I feel like I landed on another planet.” I think she knows what I mean. The speeches begin. There are references to music we listened to, things that were going on in the world in 1971. The others allude to parties at George’s house and laugh about what happened on the senior trip to New York City. I do not share in any of these memories or inside jokes. Close to the end of the speeches, I notice that a slender man has taken a place by himself at the table next to ours. It’s Bruce, one of Nelson’s targets. When the formalities end, I make my way over to him and say hello, ask him what he’s been doing for the past forty years. He seems very nervous. Somewhere in my memory bank, I know that this is how he was back then. Has he been this way for 40 years, or has walking into this place done that to him? He tells me about his work, the travel he’s done. His wife sits down at the table and he introduces me. I ask if he has children and he brightens, tells me he has one of each, a boy and a girl. I tell him that I’ve thought of him many times over the years and hoped that he’d had a good life. That I remembered seventh grade, eighth grade. Bruce shrugs philosophically. He never fought back, never defended himself, just took what Nelson (and Fran) handed out as if it was his cross to bear. His father had been a minister. Maybe he’d taken seriously the “turn the other cheek” adage.  Still, I am angry on his behalf.  I remember sitting in Mr. A’s 7^th grade social studies class and wanting to scream at Nelson, “Cut it out already. Just stop!” Back then, I didn’t have the courage. Now I do.  I wonder briefly if Nelson has ever apologized. I doubt it. Character is character.

It’s 9:30 and I have had enough. I know I could just slip out the door and no one would notice I’ve gone. But I decide to say goodbye to Nancy and Jim. I know that Nancy and I will stay in touch with each other. And Jim and I have a tentative plan to meet for coffee next time I’m in town.  On my way out, I run into Kathy, a girl who made sucking noises with her teeth in disgust all the time in high school – primarily against adults. She smiles at me, engages in some brief banter, and doesn’t suck her teeth at me. Outside, there’s David smoking a cigarette. I say hi and ask him about his life. He tells me he is managing a Pizza Hut in Rochester.  We talk briefly about the lack of a work ethic among younger people these days. He seems disgusted. I turn to leave and pass Jerry (I think), who says hello to me. Another first.  

I reach my car, settle inside, draw a deep breath, turn on the ignition. My thoughts turn toward tomorrow and the long drive back home. I back up carefully in the crowded parking lot, then turn my car on to the dark rural road, and as I drive away, I fast forward forty years back into my life.