DISCLAIMER: I was asked by a Buddhist therapist to ponder these questions. I planned to work on this
during my vacation in Florida from January 20-Feb. 4. As bad luck would have it,
a few days after Marie and I arrived in Florida, I received the news that my
sister Margaret had died. You will see details surrounding her death in this
post. I also must note that when I finally saw the therapist, she didn't
even read it. Does it matter? Not really. I like to write. It was an
interesting activity.
January, 2017 was not a
good time for me to try to write something like this – or was it? Perhaps we
never know who we really are until (1) we receive startling news and (2) any
time our values collide with opposing ones, and we discover where the other
person stops and we start.
All my life I’ve let others
define me. The loss of my sister and the subsequent family interactions have
profoundly changed me.
I did read this to aloud
one person: my best friend from college (1968-72). She thought it was prolix.
When she got to the part about me being a rock, she laughed out loud and said,
“You’re a skipping stone.” And I think she is right. I am a rule-breaker, and
I’ve broken another one now – I’ve decided to take what she said. I am, indeed
a skipping stone. And here is my dissertation.
I am
Elizabeth, the eldest of five sisters – now we are four. I am my sister’s
keeper; or, I tried to be. I am the sister who called the police to
do a welfare check on my sister Margaret in Hawaii, on January 24 of this year,
because no one could get hold of her on her 60th birthday.
While my friend and housemate Marie and I were hoping to have fun on our
Florida vacation, I was the one who found myself placing that call to the
authorities. Yes, I am the Great Family Heroine whose inquiry led the
officers to my sister’s apartment, where she had been dead for four days. I am
the Responsible One: the sister, the daughter, the cousin, the friend, the
aunt, the messenger who delivered the terrible news, wrote the obituary, and
sobbed every day, 1400 miles away from home, trying not to bleed out. I didn’t
know that I needed to be at home. We stayed in Florida; what could be done? It
was so beautiful there. We had the best vacation we could, but this hung
heavily over every day we spent in the paradise we love. Leave it to Margaret
(the only other drama queen in the family) to be found dead on the day Donald
Trump was sworn in, right at the beginning of a family member’s vacation.
Timing is everything. Timing is nothing.
I am a rock. My sister’s last text to me before her death was “You are my rock.” But a rock feels no pain, sings Paul Simon. And an island
never cries, sings Art Garfunkel. Not true. If I am a rock, I don’t know if I
am a fine, smooth stone on which someone can lean for anchor, or a little
pebble in a brook. Perhaps I am a rare piece of quartz crystal, or a sliver of
mica, or some type of jewel. I do know this: whatever type of rock, or stone,
or jewel I am, it is covered with so much seaweed and moss and other dreck that
I can’t see how I shine.
Always a bridesmaid, I was the Brownie Scout who never flew up. I
was the one with the Bachelor of Arts degree but no librarian credentials, yet
I got to be the music librarian at Rockford Public Library because Marie, who
was my boss at the time and didn’t care much for rules either, gave me the
position. Actually, I was an art major; I chose art because it gave me
time to dream and write fanfiction, walk in fields with my guitar, and spend
most of my college days in the music department. (To this day, most people
assume I was a music major; I am only beginning to reclaim my art). I am from
the second generation of sisters to fight over the piano; Mom and my aunts
taught us “Safe piano” to reserve it after the dishes were done. The piano
bench was my safe space. Mom sang to us; we each had our own song. I grew up in
a family with a soundtrack. Music is who I am. I identify myself through music.
So, I am music.
My soundtrack still evolves; it follows me, marking my journey.
When contented, I am melodic with sweet, flowing harmonies. In joy, I am an
outburst of ecstatic choral singing, always with deep feeling and majestic
form, always with me conducting. The parts of me that are complete always
resolve on the tonic note. I am a weeper and a growler – I roar and pierce as a
pipe organ with state trumpets and I whimper with the chiff of flutes. I cry
out loud with the terrifying grandeur of loud registration. I am radiant, full
organ when I feel intense – all my stops are pulled out. At ease, I am that
sound you hear in the wind: a symphony with some choral sections, majestic in
parts and numinous in others.
Pensive, I am a wire-strung harp with sustain, or a classically
fingerpicked fretted dulcimer. I am a writer; I am always telling a story in my
head. I write as a talented choir, swirls of radiance and majesty interspersed
with wistful longing, bearing an undertone of melancholia. I am drama. I am
pure light when my songs flow. I am a talker and I am a jumble of words that I
sometimes reverse. I can be powerful; when misused, my power drains others.
When I am in flow, my power can enchant and energize. In morose mode, my power
shrinks into a flaccid pool of loss, and I am silence.
I am a poet; I discovered at age 22 that my father had snitched a
notebook of my poetry and hidden it in a closet, as a guilty boy would stash
forbidden comic books. Mom still has it. I am also an artist, but life drawing
has been replaced by photo-editing software with a sketch setting. Like
cursive, my drawing is obsolete. Most of my skills are decorative and not too
useful. I am an ornament. I am an educated middle-to-upper middle class Chicago
suburbanite with white privilege. I attract smart people. Rockford is an
embarrassment of poor grammar, misplaced apostrophes and polyester. I am a
snob.
I fear and avoid chaos, dissonance, high-pitched shrieking,
robotic drumbeats and any type of jazz that is jumpy and unpredictable. I crave
harmony and symmetry. I am a creature with an intricate range of settings, but
I perceive myself as either on or off, much like a television set. I am sung in
the key of F, on a bright Asian piano. The key of F is blue, but I am purple. A
bruise is purple. I am a bruise, so I have come here. I am bruised and battered
because I am a lost soul who has spent her entire life granting others
permission to tell me what I am and even how I feel. Throughout the years, I’ve
tried to force a reluctant Marie to define my emotions; she has obliged at
times. This is a very odd thing to be asked to write.
I am female. I am not gender-specific when it comes to falling in
love. I have identified as lesbian; now I find that my kindred spirit and
soulmate is male. Am I heterosexual now? Am I an alien from a planet where
there are no labels? No-- I label everything. Human brains would explode
without some sort of categorizing mechanism. I think that lack is what causes
autism; they are the ones whose brains cannot filter out any type of input;
they are trapped at seven plus or minus two for life. Sometimes, my mind can’t
block things; other times, I am in a tunnel, oblivious to the world. I am a
person who needs structure. I am auditory kinesthetic. I can be digital if I
have to be. I forget faces; I am the one who will remember your name but have
no idea who you are. I am sinister (left-handed.) Coarseness and vulgarity
disgust me; I believe life should be a work of art. I am an elitist. I am
also a brand, and my brand is HAIR. I am my hair, and my hair is me. I am a bit
of a narcissist about my hair.
Marie
says that I constantly look at myself in mirrors. She put an existentialist
spin on it –she thinks I want to reassure myself that I am real. I mostly want
to know if my bangs look all right. I keep wanting others to tell me what they
see. All I see is my image in reverse, in the mirror. Now we have smartphones,
so I am a selfie - I can see myself as I am! It often horrifies me. I am a
selfie who is often Photoshopped, by me, before others see my image on
Facebook. I am constantly taking selfies. So perhaps Marie is right.
I am one of over a billion souls with bodies alive on this planet.
I am an abyss-walker, and I recognize my fellow abyss-walkers – as they do me.
Many people took the ferry across the river of life; I am still struggling to
swim. I thought I was a young soul; now I don’t know. I am told I am a wise,
kind, and brilliant person, so perhaps my soul is old. But my soul doesn’t seem
to fit in with the majority of other souls in this earthly realm. I am a living
thing, leaning toward the sun after a lifetime of owning only my darkness. I am
a chameleon; I am a person who fears authority and punishment, and have let
others define me because that is the only way I can stay safe.
I am articulate, but I am a bubble off. My clock doesn’t run in
sync with the preferred clock of society. I am a contradiction: I test as
intuitive, but I always need things spelled out to me and I panic if I cannot
have closure. (That damned MBTI again) My life is a jumbled tapestry, but there
are some consistent threads. I am a person who wants to follow these threads. I
am a broken mosaic but I am a work of art. The pastor where I attend church
says that I am a beloved child of God. Am I?
I hate groups. I am someone who has trouble picking up the beat in
meetings or groups, unless I am jamming with other musicians. When I am playing
my instruments, which I play by ear, I am in flow. That is how jazz evolved.
Music is communication for those who don’t understand each other’s spoken
language. I communicate comfortably with music. People love to listen to me
play. People like to be around me and listen to the music I make.
As I said, I was a paraprofessional librarian. I chose this field
because it was, at one time, a respectable haven for a person like me who
didn’t “fit the mold” and had an unmarketable liberal arts degree. At the
library I found my fellow abyss-walkers, lovers, friends and enemies. The
mermaids sang for many of my co-workers; they never sang for me. Ultimately it
turned to corporate hell and I was pushed into early retirement.
I am
supposed to label myself as “an alcoholic.” I am not a friend of Bill Wilson.
AA is a patriarchal, book-thumping, slogan-bearing herd of anti-intellectual
people who talk in bumper stickers, thrive on groupthink, and believe that they
are powerless. I am not powerless. And I am suspicious of anything that reeks
of a cult.
I believe
in God, but God isn’t what keeps me sober. I said that at an AA meeting.
Horrors! That’s why I was scapegoated and called out at least once a week
when I went to AA meetings-- I asked too many questions. AA doesn’t like that.
(“Elizabeth! You think too much! That is stinking thinking!”) Donald
Trump doesn’t want any Americans to think very much, or ask questions, either.
Most don’t. That’s why he won. (Personal note: AA would call me a dry drunk,
certainly not a sober person, since I don’t attend meetings any more. To them,
sober means “doing the steps.”) (Sober – dictionary definition: not intoxicated
or drunk.) I have no desire to drink alcohol.
I am a performer. I’m the girl with the guitar on stage. I’m the
one in the crystal-dyed top, leaning over a fretted dulcimer with a spotlight
on my head. I’m the daughter at the grand piano at my mother’s independent
senior living home. The old folks love me, (“Play the piano, Elizabeth!”) and
they want to be my friend. But I am in a cage, and on some level it feels like
everyone knows that I am naked.
I am the
queen of overshare, or TMI – and my specialty is attention-seeking. I agreed
with Marie's suggestion that I might not want attend the monthly Retired
Librarians’ Lunch because talking about death is such a downer at a social
gathering. She was correct; I might have disclosed too many details about
Margaret’s death and monopolized the conversations – Elizabeth, the tragic queen of
the Ladies Who Lunch. Marie is correct, of course. But even the Beatles got by
with a little help from their friends. And damn it, there was no visitation, no
funeral, and no neighbors bearing casseroles. I need my friends! I thought that
since I didn't show up, my former co-workers would send me sympathy cards. They
did not. Is it being self-centered, to have hoped for this? (Is there anyone
whose whole life has been an identity crisis who isn’t self-centered? The
selfless ones are the ones whose energy isn’t drained by this struggle). Find
me someone “in therapy” who isn’t “self-centered” and I will eat my shoe.
I am someone who is loved by many, liked or tolerated by most, and
disliked by others. The support I’ve gotten on Facebook shows me that there are
indeed many people who not only want to be my friends—they are my friends. Some
of them love me. God bless social media. The people from my church signed a
sympathy card and mailed it to me. They care. The pastors like me – I am
literate, educated and liberal. (Am I liberal? I don’t have any idea. You’re
supposed to be, these days, if you want to be among the intelligentsia. (When I
was growing up, you were considered lower-class if you were a Democrat.)
I am known to do anything to avoid my deepest terror, which is
abandonment. I hate being ignored. Yet I love cats more than I do humans and
certainly more than I do dogs. Go figure. I am rebellious. I delight in
shocking people. I am morbidly afraid of being a “goody-goody,” or too prissy,
or too wholesome. That is another part of my personal brand – to be
unconventional and outrageous. I am unusual to the point where finding
kindred spirits is a chore.
I am the cousin who was just told by another cousin: “You have
always been the most loving, caring person in your family. You wear your
feelings on your sleeve.” I thought that was supposed to be bad. I am someone
who has always let others define me; in this case, I’ll take it.
I am a mass of cells. I am one of any bodies on the same boat,
each on his or her own journey, but I seem to be one of the few who recognizes
that we’re all on that boat together. I am the one who rushes in even where the devil fears to tread. (I
do not believe in the devil)
I am a collage of obsessions. I am the published author of a roman à clef entitled The Five Notebooks. Yes,
it’s on Amazon. Go ahead and buy it and read it. I am told it reads like a
diary and that people are embarrassed for me when they read it, but it has good
reviews.
I am lost, and I am terrified of being lost. I am someone
with literally no sense of direction- north, south, east or west. Do not use
those words with me, please. I will have no idea what you are talking about.
I define myself as a person possibly somewhere “on the spectrum,”
but I know that this is the hip diagnosis of the decade—ADD to ADHD to
Asperger. I look to others for validation, and when I get none, I feel crazy.
Actually, I am told that I DEMAND validation. This tortures Marie.
I am the little girl in grade school who always wanted the teacher
to be interested in ME. I am the adult who still wants the teacher (mother, boss,
pastor, or any other authority figure) to be interested in ME. I'm a misfit. I
am probably perceived by most people as boring and lost in my own little world.
I am that mean-looking woman who worked at the library and always
looked hateful, because with my face in repose, I resemble my Swedish
grandmother. I’ll have you know that she was as silly as they come, but she had
a frowning expression. Sorry I don’t have laugh lines; maybe I’ll get some in
my next life.
I have a terrible temper and I am the type of person who screams
at customer service people who don’t speak English well – yet I did NOT vote
for Donald Trump. I think in a lot of ways I am sort of like Donald Trump. This
frightens me.
What makes me a unique individual? Why would someone want me for a
friend?
- I am loyal, nurturing and helpful. I have empathy.
- I am
intellectual. I am creative. I am talented. I am witty. I have “flair.” I
am a deep thinker, well-educated across disciplines. Those who like that
kind of person will want me for a friend.
- In a crisis, I
am the calm, rational one who knows exactly what to do.
- I have a freckle
on the bottom of my right foot, near my toes. When they put a tag on my
toe, it will be easy to ID my body if you know where to look.
- I have no idea
how baseball, football or any other sport is played. I can’t follow it. I
had to fake it all through high school. People who hate sports as much as
I do might find that amusing.( I also flunked Driver’s Ed. the first time)
- I was an
authority on all makes and models of automobiles at age 5. That makes
people laugh.
- I am not terrible-looking, and I have pretty hair and I
wear hippie/ “boho” clothes. People who think that is cool are going to
want me as a friend, because they will think I am cool. I have straight
teeth; some people are really turned off by bad-looking teeth.
- Overweight
people aren’t jealous of me, because my skinny figure went away after I
was 40.
- I am passionate
and expressive, and I can tell good stories. I am a good conversationalist
as long as I remember to listen and not talk too much
- I am so clumsy that I make other people feel graceful.
- I have a
tremendous skill set from having worked with the public for 35 years.
- I have a silly, sick sense of humor and I write
hilarious parodies.
- I can be
diplomatic and polite when I want to be.
- I am “with it”
and on board with popular culture. I am a computer geek.
- I can be what
anyone wants me to be—or, at least, so far I have been successful.
- I can find an
answer to almost every question I’m asked (So why can’t I find answers for
my own?)
