Communion

Thoughts about writing a book have been circling over the open plains of my mind like vultures, going to who-knows-where, then apparating again. I whispered the would-be title of my book of essays into Clayton’s ear on the couch after watching TV. I couldn’t seem to say it out loud, but why? Superstition that it wouldn’t come to pass, or for fear that it would? Both outcomes seem equally likely, equally worthy of fear and unease. 

Last night, I read a chapter in High Tide in Tucson where Kingsolver describes what the release of her first novel was like. She likens it to singing in the shower at the top of your lungs then pulling back the shower curtain to find a standing ovation from hundreds of people. Also, the certainty that she has inescapably offended someone or burned some bridges. The issue is, I relate to this as if it has happened to me already. I can see this inevitable end crystal clear, like every tiny pebble at the bottom of a pristine spring pool, each distinct in its perfection and detail. 

Maybe that’s because it’s already happened to me. Sometime in elementary school - my mind, unsurprisingly, fails to locate when exactly- I became intimately familiar with this very phenomenon. Stunned, exposed, shamed. In that order. You see, as is always the case in grade school and unfortunately beyond, there was a boy. This boy’s name was Teddy. Looking back with my all-seeing eye at thirty years old, I can tell you now that there wasn’t anything particularly special about this boy. Chances are I could also have told you that at seven as well, but even at that ripe young age I knew my choices were limited, growing up in small town Texas and all. 

All I know is, he played soccer, as did I. And he was the appropriate amount of antagonizing towards me. One minute, he’s looking my way and snickering with all the other little boys and the next he’s taking me by the hand underneath the playground and sneaking me a thin gold necklace with a little embedded ruby, that he likely procured from the gumball machine inside Cici’s pizza. That treasured necklace quickly became my most prized possession, and my heart, his. Although the jury’s still out on how much exactly he was aware of- much less, prized- my devotion. And devoted I was. 

I could write an entire book attempting to uncover the reasons why I sustained such a fervor for Teddy throughout all of grade school, and even then I probably would never get to the bottom of it. My self as a seven year old seems to be just out of reach to me now - a thing possessed only ever in the present, and lacking the brain functions to save the most precious bits away in a rusty lunch box buried deep in the recesses of my mind for later unearthing. Who and how I was - my motivations, fears, passions - continues to remain an inaccessible mystery to me now, as it has been pretty much since the moment passed me by. All that to say, Teddy probably just happened to walk by at the exact instant all the love hormones came online in my body, and I must have imprinted on him by accident. 

As evidenced in my diaries, I wrote about Teddy.. A lot. He occupied my dream world more than my waking one, and I recorded in great detail (for a seven year old) these dreams, as I often much preferred them to reality. My diary was impractically small for my large handwriting, and dark red with a little heart-shaped locket. The lock was just for show- too miniscule to fit any kind of functional key- but it did provide me with a false sense of security. 

Eating lunch in elementary school was not unlike feedin’ time at an over-crowded hen house. Had a sociologist been present, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the social-going on’s were remarkably similar to a flock of chickens as well. It’s all about the pecking order, after all. There I was, missing my front tooth and trepidatiously eating my scorching hot pocket, when an older boy with dirty blond hair in a bowl cut climbed on top of the table next to me and stood with pride and authority, looking ready to start a revolution. In his hand, I could make out the dangling lock on my journal. 

Instantaneously, palms sweaty, heart racing, cheeks flushed - I was prepared to die, as that seemed the most likely outcome. I slunk, lower, lower, lower into my chair. Hoping desperately I could transmogrify into a puddle of root beer on the floor, a half eaten apple - anything except my own human body. Despite my best effort, I did not die, nor disappear. 

The boy shouted for everyone to be quiet, and the entire lunchroom silenced, reverent and waiting for his sanctimonious oration. No revolution came, however. Just humiliation for me, delight for others. He turned the page and read in a mocking, high pitched voice “I think I love Teddy, he is so dreaaamy.” (Yes, I wrote multiple A’s). 

My brain has been gracious to me, and blocked out the rest. No recollection or written record exists depicting what happened after that. The scene simply fades to black with an echo chamber of a cafeteria, filled with the simultaneous bursts of contained laughter of an entire school. Truly a nightmare, but with the added bonus of being forever encoded into my deep brain structures, destined to insidiously affect every social decision I make for the duration of my life on earth. 

So, I relate. Stunned, exposed, ashamed. As goes without saying, that diary was for only me, and I was even unsure about that. The courage it took for me to even write those words for my own eyes to read would astound the most seasoned combat veteran. For reasons I don’t care to expound on, I had considerable shame around the sexual nature of my being. So, to even utter the truth of my uncontrollable crushes took an act of God. To hear my deepest secrets orated from the lips of some asshole kid, then mocked by an entire school, obviously left me mortified. 

But also, it left me resolute. While the only things that surfaced in my awareness for me in those moments were my sulking shoulders, burning cheeks and hot tears- deeper inside and under the cover of my subconscious, some little wannabe-soldiers of my psyche immediately burst into action.

After taking stock of the situation, it was irrevocably decided: first priority is that this will never, ever happen again. How will this be achieved? 

Well, you dimwit, the obvious answer is that we will never write another word ever again, much less a book. Your truest words, most telling thoughts, humiliating experiences, written down and then made available for anyone with a credit card and some time to kill? Absolutely not. The whole morale of the story is to not be known, you imbecile. 

Alas, here we are. I never could stop writing, although you bet your ass I stopped bringing my diary to school that day. But looking back, there has been a thread that had slipped underneath my awareness until the past few months, loosely weaving the years of my life together. Weaving more than just the years, really. The trauma, the great losses and loves, the unsolvable problems, the mundane days that lack all meaning and light. That thread is and has been, writing. My knee jerk reaction to life, to anything at all, is to write. My feeble attempt to make sense of the unknowable; to search deep inside myself for what is good, compassionate. Writing is the only way I’ve ever known to discover what is the most true. 

Even the cruelty of little kids couldn’t take that from me, although it was one of many in a series of torrential downpours dousing my already pitiful flames of wanting to be known and seen by others. But even so, as I age, I realize that we’ll all be dead soon anyway and that means there’s nothing really to protect.

Almost imperceptibly slowly, my impulse to hide is being replaced by the assuredness that my experience is a deeply human one, and likely other people could relate, and even benefit from my sharing about life from this angle that is only ever mine. I would also assume God is complicit in this slow and subtle shift, this laying down of arms. 

I write in the hopes of giving what I received countless times. “For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” Mary Oliver said it best, as is often the case. She also describes how she has always intended to write from a first person perspective that could be any reader at all- attempting to let fall the specificity of her own personal experience and creating a shared one, so resonant for the reader that they may as well be experiencing her poems in the given moment of their own lives.

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When asked the question “what superpower would you like to have?”, as we all are at one time or another, my response has always been this: I would like the ability to crawl inside the being of another living thing, and experience firsthand what it is to be that body, that mind, that collection of sensations. Retaining nothing of my own, leaving all my bags at the door of my own skin. Empty-handed and without expectation, I would immerse myself in another’s first-hand experience. 

The cardinal that visits our feeder every day- from his flittering perspective, what is it to be a bird? Would I take flight for granted, much the same way I do with my own two legs now? The blind woman with cerebral palsy in a wheelchair being strolled down the sidewalk- what is this park to her, devoid of color, of lightness and dark even, but full of - what, exactly?

My children- what on earth am I to them? How could I ever know, but to see my own kneecaps and belly button from below, as they do? I would, as they seem to, experience myself not unlike a god, containing most if not all of what I need in this life- a safe place to hurl my rage, forbearing arms to soak in as the tears dry. As Mother, the shape of her expectations and needs inevitably defines who I am and how I see myself. 

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Our chocolate lab is snoozing on the couch next to me. Last night a thunderstorm roared and tumbled directly above our house, raindrops pummeling our covered porch. She sat upright and alert on that porch-  just seeing what she could see, for hours. Why? Her contented silhouette, briefly illuminated by lightning flashes startled me into full attention, but also filled me with a longing to play experiential musical chairs, taking a seat right in between her velvety brown ears. 

We share this world with every other living thing, yet we walk around like we own the place - each of us commandeering our tiny empires, within and without. I once heard that the “Age of Mammals” may as well be called the “Age of Snakes” because all kinds of snake species exploded in their own diversity and multitude, alongside mammals. No less remarkable or determinate to the fate of our planet, to be sure. Yet, here we are, running the show- apparently into the ground. But I digress. 

My point is this: life as contained within the vessel of my own skin is but a drop in the ocean of perspectives and existence. Having no more significance or say than any other given drop- whole unto itself and indispensable. And I, for one, want to go for a swim. 

Reading seems to be the next best thing. At this rate, Annie Dillard, Mary Oliver, Barbara Kingsolver, Anne Lamott- they are some of my closest friends and most trustworthy confidants. I am deeply familiar with the secrets of their internal experience and in the process, feel so completely understood.. From reading their books, I am more convinced it is acceptable- desirable, even to be human. For reasons inexplicable, this seems to be a rite of passage all humans must go through- daily. Shaking hands with the realities or limitations of our own bodies and minds. 

Through their writings, I have been granted permission to experience life in the only way I am capable of- wide-eyed and bewildered, overflowing with emotion and captivated by anything at all. The volume of my racing, unwieldy thoughts as loud as intolerable radio commercials, has been turned way down and I have been pleasantly re-introduced to the ground beneath my feet, time and time again. I have been told if I shut up and look around, I will see this world is abundant and generous after all, and feel myself a part of that. After having lived so many years with the inescapable fact of my aloneness, I have learned to hold tight to my chest the camaraderie that reading a good book brings. 

And I write for the same reason I bury my feet in the damp sand- to belong. Rather, to feel the truth of my own belonging to this world, like silky warm sand filling the space between my toes. I write to take and eat, like any other created thing. I write to offer this communion, too.