Ersatz Reader's Open Salon Blog

Break-up score: 20-1, part I of II

Mon, 9 May 2011 09:05:41 -0400

Until B. broke up with me in the food store parking lot last weekend, thereby ending my winning streak, our breakup score in the past quarter had been 20-0, my advantage. Now it was 20-1. Frankly I found his behavior annoying. Each of my breakups had involved weeks of prior anguish, hours of tears and self-recrimination violent enough to evoke nothing but relief in the other party at the thought of ending it. Some breakups had been absolute feats of diplomacy; so much so that I was the only one of us realizing that they were in fact breakups. Here was B., breaking it off on a whim.

It took B. less than a minute to calm down enough to ask me to get back into the car to have lunch together as planned. I could not bring myself to reply. Honoring the one solid rule we have applied during our fifteen years as a couple; to avoid causing irreparable damage during a fight if possible, I dug out the broccoli he had asked me to get, chucked it through the car window and dragged my bags to the closest bus stop.

There was no doubt that we were experiencing turbulence. Breaking up twenty-one times with the same person has some advantages however. Like with fire drills at work, if you pay attention during drills instead of just being annoyed at having to interrupt your work you can concentrate better when a real fire breaks out. You may even manage to smuggle your purse out in defiance of the rules so you can sit at Wayne’s Coffee while the others stand around freezing and waiting for directions. Since I had been paying attention during previous breakups, I knew that the important thing was to avoid grief at all cost.

Grief cramps anyone’s style. Avoiding it was easy; my lack of imagination protected me. During previous breakups I had cried through every sad scenario possible to imagine: How sad B. would be when he looked at the empty side of the bed, how sad he would be going to the allotments alone, how sad he would be when telling the neighbors, his kids and his parents about the breakup etc. Unable to cry about these same things again, yet unable to imagine new scenarios to feel sad about, I went home, took a shower and went to a blues club with my sister.

What you need to write: a self that stays the same

Mon, 9 May 2011 09:05:49 -0400

Did you write as a teenager? Do you remember writing texts other than those assigned at school? At the age of thirteen I latched onto my first diary like a leech to an exposed wrist, carrying it with me always to prevent others from finding it and reading it. Writing down the pain and confusion was the only thing that helped.

Besides having to worry constantly that someone might find and read the diary, the other problem was that an entry re-read a few days later had zero recognition factor. Who had written this? Who had harbored these intense crazy feelings? Certainly not I. The person writing was obviously depressed in a manner that sunny me reading the diary could never identify with. Or the opposite; posts chirpy enough to elicit a vomiting reflex from a me who recognized the world for the bleak place it was. Writing letters was worse, as a reader other than myself would be involved. When I arrived at the end of a page I could no longer identify with the self that had started writing at the top. Eventually I learned that resisting the temptation to re-read something I had written long enough that I no longer expected to identify with it helped. Usually ten years was enough, but sometimes twenty was needed.

The past six months were one long reminder of this fundamental truth about writing: that in order to write you need a stable self. If your vantage point keeps shifting there’s no knowing how to evaluate what is happening. Writing something that you will disagree with next day is just distressing. You just wait for the guy holding the kaleidoscope to get tired of turning it. Heck, knowing who I was for fifteen minutes straight would have helped. Having a full scale war inside one’s skull is not conducive to writing. The number of potential selves which I feared ending up becoming was larger than two but fewer than ten. I feared I would turn out to be:

1) A love addict who keeps falling in love with unavailable men, or

2) a person who meets the love of her life at the age of forty-seven, which might or might not include being

3) a liar and a cheat, or

4) a person who leaves the love of her life at the age of forty-seven, thereby breaking his heart, or

5) a groupie (of the kind that sits in bars with wine-rosy cheeks and plunging necklines exposing wrinkled skin), or

6) a sucker, and or

7) a martyr, and most certainly,

8) hungry of heart.

Writing about Dad during the period when I did not know who I would become worked, but only because Dad is equally and consolingly unable to communicate with me regardless of who I am.

The self which I did not foresee becoming was the one that actually emerged: A person who found the perfect actor for a six-month psychodrama that changed the lives of all actors on the set FOR THE BETTER. Those who needed mothering got mothered. Those needing validation got validated. Those who needed to prove that they were in control of their impulses were assured that God was on their side through one easy victory after another. Those petrified of people and women and themselves dared to take affordable risks and were richly rewarded in ice cream, backrubs and books. Those who yearned to play cats got an audience more appreciative than they could have dreamed of. And it was never too late and no one used their superego and for once everyone got both what they wanted AND what they needed. Which was to love and be loved, though those involved may have disagreed on which was the want and which was the need.

I did that. I wrote the script and cast the actors and directed it and acted in it. And I built the stage, plank by bloody plank, nail by bloody nail, while the actors were sleeping at night. We got standing ovations. That is a self I can live with and write out of.

Games dads play

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:03:51 -0400

Logically there must exist a computer game where the objective is to shoot and destroy incoming hostile objects, let's say UFOs for argument's sake. If you can't pull the trigger fast enough the UFOs build up and fill the screen and then the game is over.

That is what conversations with Dad were like for seventeen years after he stopped wanting to be a father. Only the incoming objects were not UFOs but lies. Together the lies formed a ficticious reality, something alien and threatening and false that my Dad wished was true but wasn't. Whenever we spoke Dad would start shooting them off, lots and lots of lies which I had to shoot down one by one, hyper-vigilant lest one lie get past my defenses and all would be lost. His ficticious reality covered not only the present but the past as well. A great deal was at stake: the story of my life. Had I ever had a father or was it true that he had always been Mr. Don't-pin-me-down with no ties, no conflicts and zero feelings? I was an excellent player. I imagine that on some level Dad was proud of me for not letting him win his bullshit game. We did not speak too often. Both of us got so exhausted by the game I imagine.

We could have been playing Battleships only in that game the players have to admit if the other has scored a hit. Dad's rules did not allow admitting anything.

When Dad had a stroke, communication changed a bit. No longer being able to walk is something that is hard to deny. Fewer UFOs. Less shooting.

I invented a new game. I explained the rules to Dad. "When you have time I will call you and ask you about your life." We tried it. The rules were simple. I asked questions. He remembered stuff. I asked more questions. About his childhood, his mother and father, about his sisters. Though Dad liked the new game we never switched positions. I remained the black pawn stalking the white king. Speaking with Dad got easier with this last game we invented.

Now Dad is confined to the apartment and can't sneak off to call me on his cell phone from the garage. A new pattern emerged. As if his subtitle machine breaks from time to time and the words don't fit what is happening on the screen:

Dad on the phone: "So, we'll be in touch. It was nice of you to call."

Me: "Oh were we done talking? Is your wife pissed that I called?"

Dad: "Yes lovely to hear from you. Take care now. Bye."

Swedish utopia

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:03:04 -0400

Daughter on subway: "My assignment is to describe a utopia. What would yours be?"

Me: "That is such an interesting assignment! Let's see. The variables that one usually has to take into account are a feeling of happiness, personal freedom versus state power in that society and the levely of equality. Hm..."

Daughter: "You make it too complex!" I want it to be just a place that one can visit to reload one's happiness batteries. Then one would be ready to face regular life again."

Me: "Oh so it would not be a full utopia, just like centers that one could visit? What if people never wanted to leave these centers?"

Daughter: "They would be forced to leave. There would be sensors to measure whether someone's happiness was reloaded. These centers would be super nice with a lot of light and nice furniture and nice people."

Me: "A lot of light so that you could cope with the darkness say, in wintertime?"

Daughter: "Yes!"

[Fellow subway commuters visibly interested in conversation.]

Me: "So you would need the people at these centers to treat you nicely? In that case I guess they better be trained staff because you know how a lot of tired random visitors at a bar are unlikely to pour loving attention on each other without wanting anything back."

Daughter: "Yes!"

Me: "I believe you are describing a solarium."

Daughter: "Yes! No! You are ruining the assignment! I mean you could just go there and get an injection of happiness!"

Me: "Oh, you are speaking of the kind of utopia that is achieved by means of chemicals?"

Daughter: "No! I just said that. Of course I don't mean chemicals. Maybe something that has not been invented yet."

Me: "So when you say "injection" you mean that in a metaphorical sense?"

Daughter: "You are impossible to speak with. This is my stop. Bye."

Conclusions: a) Swedish schools aren't as bad as thought. b) Reading science fiction for decades may prepare you for engineering a theoretical society but it does precious little to prepare you for parenting.

Eyesight deteriorating. Or not.

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:03:57 -0400

The guy on the bench opposite could have gone to work as a beekeeper without needing more protection. It was impossible to make out his body shape under the expanses of black denim. The hat was pulled down deep over the face, saucer size cushioned headphones covering his ears. The only skin visible was the tip of his unshaved chin and his hands. He did not lift his face from the iPod in his lap once during the fifteen minute subway trip into the city. The hands were normal in all respects. No bruised knuckles or dried blood or anything. He was wearing a large silver ring on each finger including the thumbs. All save one were of the clunky screw nut kind that young men tend to favor. The ring on the right middle finger depicted two human bodies entwined in a sexual pose. No matter how much I squinted I could not make out what the pose was. Here I was faced with a man who would not be less visible if he was wearing a burqa, who was giving people one single clue about his inner life and I could not make it out. It is extremely irritating how my eyesight has been deteriorating. Of course the fact that his hand was in constant motion wasn’t helping any. The guy was either fiddling with the iPod or drumming his knee obsessively.

Or was I imagining? The nurse at the employee health checkup later that morning disputed my opinion, saying that my eyesight is quite normal. For my age bracket. She was very patient and very young and pretty enough to be a model. My employer has just switched from one health service provider to another which must be a great deal more expensive judging by the difference in resource allocation. I was greeted politely upon arrival and only had to wait a few minutes. I had at least half an hour allotted with a nurse and half an hour with a physician. The urine sample which I submitted at the reception had been analysed during the half hour I spent with the nurse, so that when I got to the physician’s room she could tell me the results. The customer-centricity of the processes was crystal clear. I was made to feel welcome, valued, important. My self-image, alas, had not undergone a magic transformation from being treated as riff-raff during the most recent checkup. After two minutes I got sick of the coddling.

They were unable to take my ECG. The beautiful young nurse tried again and again. After the fourth time she had to call in a senior nurse. The machine did not work. Finally I asked whether it could be due to the bath oil I had used after the shower. And that WAS the reason. BUT no one got mad because I was a valued customer. SO the doctor asked me to go back to the nurse for another ECG. AND the receptionists asked me to wait in the lovely waiting room for another few minutes for the nurse to take the second ECG. Whereupon they forgot me. When I tried to tell the receptionists that I could not wait any longer because I had to go to work they snapped at me. I imagine that that they felt stressed because there were no fewer than THREE people in the waiting room by this time. So I just left.

When I received the phone call later in the afternoon where an anxious voice apologized and asked me if I wanted to schedule a new appointment soon for an ECG I replied that there was no need to worry and that I was completely satisifed. Which is true.