Friendship

I finished my memoir, and I sent it off to an agent who said she wanted to read it (Please send!!). The two exclamation points made me very happy. Thrilling. Thrilling. But now it’s been ten days. Two hundred and forty hours of worrying, pretending not to care very much, caring very much, re-reading it, hating it, loving it, cringing over it, hating myself, pep-talking myself, trying not to think about it, thinking about it obsessively… My usual psychotic vacillation.

Thank goodness we’re in Florida on vacation, and we have company. Every day, they say, “Let’s do something!” We have been on catamarans, kayaks, motor boats, dinner cruise boats and these little zippity-do-dah hold-onto-your-hats boats called Craig Cats. We have been golfing, beaching and bobbing around the pool. We have gone out to breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have barbecued and food shopped and wine shopped and blender-drinked ourselves into utter silliness. Today, more company is coming. I know what they are going to say when they walk in the door: “Let’s do something!”

Thank God for distractions from myself. Otherwise, I’d be driving myself crazy. Well, I AM driving myself crazy, but it’s a slower process because of all these daily doings.

I stink at “letting things go” and “giving things up to the universe.” I’d much rather be in charge of the universe, thank you. I’m not very trusting of the universe these days.   I mean, look what’s been happening in this country. Yikes. And the other day, one of those ancient peaceful beautiful gopher tortoises was smushed by a stupid car on the road. What was the universe thinking?  Maybe the universe is on vacation drinking too many pina coladas also.

Nonetheless, I wrote a letter to the universe today. Dear Universe, It’s hard for me to ask for help. But I’m asking for help in the courage department, in the faith department and in the believing-in-myself department. All of which I could use improvement on. This memoir is really me. It’s vulnerable and true. It was hard to write. It was hard to let an agent read it. But I think I need to tell this story. And maybe the world needs to hear it. Yours truly.

I kind of felt stupid writing it, but I did it. I wrote it in my notepad, then I closed the pad. I felt a little like the kids in Mary Poppins, when they write the note saying what they want in a nanny, and the father rips it up, but the wind takes it and puts it all back together again and delivers it to Mary. I want to believe in that kind of magical universe. I can’t say why, but I got some peace after I closed my notepad. I feel like I did my bit. I can only do so much. Now, it’s in the universe’s hands.

So, my husband goes, “What are you writing?”
And I go, “A memoirish thing.”
I don’t want to admit it. He reads non-fiction all the time—about somebody who went to the moon or who survived Everest or who invented an airline. Famous people who DID something with their lives. What have you done, he’ll ask me. I know it. But he doesn’t.
“What do you have so far?” he says.
I say, “You want to read it? Really?”
Then I think, he’s your husband, you dope. Of course he wants to read it. It’s about you and he loves you. Yeah, but will he love you after he reads it?
He puts on his little reading glasses. He buys them in a six-pack at BJ’s. He buys his underwear there too. They come in six-packs also. Yesterday, we were in BJ’s wheeling around with our enormous cart, and I go, “You want to buy some more underwear?”
“No,” he says. “I have plenty.”
I can’t help giving him grief about it. Every single time we go to BJ’s, I say, “Let’s check out the underwear.” It’s a wonder he puts up with me.
He’s Polish. He’s got the cheekbones, the wide warm face. He used to have eyebrows when he was younger, but he doesn’t anymore. That’s a funny thing. Sometimes, one stray hair will pop out of his forehead and start growing like a weed. He doesn’t notice it, and I’ll have to tell him, “You have a…thing.” I’ll point to his head. He doesn’t see it because he needs glasses for close up.
I don’t know why his eyebrows disappeared on him. “How did that happen to you?” I ask. He doesn’t know.
I met him six years ago through a matchmaking service after I’d finally decided after thirty-something years of dating, that I was no good at choosing men. The matchmaker interviewed me for four hours. It was a whole battery of psychological tests and questions (basically about why I was go good at choosing men).
At the end of the tests, she says, “That will be twelve thousand dollars.”
“What?” I say. “I can’t afford that!” I get up to leave.
The woman says, “Wait,” and goes out of the room to consult with someone. She comes back a minute later. “We can offer you an eight thousand dollar package,” she says.
I feel like I’m in a used car showroom. I start to cry.
She sighs heavily. “Hold on,” she says and leaves again. A minute later, she comes back with a single-mom rate of three thousand dollars.
I continue to cry.
Out she goes.
After a long while, she comes back. “I’m not supposed to do this, but I’ll give you the student rate,” she says.
I’m fifty-two years old.
“Sold,” I manage to say.
My husband is the first man they match me up with. The only man. Right after that, they go out of business.
Now, my husband flips one page after another of my memoirish thing. “Hmmmm,” he says every once in a while. At the end, he takes off his glasses. “Very nice,” he tells me.
“Is that a good nice?” I ask.
“Interesting,” he says. Then he goes out and starts building something in the garage.
Nothing about me fazes him. Not all the stories of bad boyfriends–the one who threw me against the wall or the one who drove backwards ninety miles an hour so that I would “shut up” or the one who told me, “I love you, Cheryl.” Etcetera. Not the years of eating disorders and depression. Not even my mother.
Nothing can make him unlove me.
So I keep writing.

Yesterday, I was supposed to have a “me” day. My husband left to go watch football with some friends –he wouldn’t be back until evening. My son was working—who knows when he would be home. I’ve been going non-stop for the last six months. Finally, a day all to myself!

The dog and I padded around the house. No laundry needed doing. No hairballs rolled across the floors.

I sat down at my computer. Lately, I’ve been thinking that I should turn all the poems I’ve written over the years into a book, and all the memoir-bits into a memoir, and it really was time to revise the draft of my novel (again). I had piles of papers and folders in front of me. Where should I begin? I started typing some handwritten memoir pages just to get going. Then I re-read what I’d written. Everything seemed flat on the page. I felt my shoulders tightening. I looked at a couple poems, skimmed through the first thirty pages of my novel. I hated it all. What was I thinking? I was wasting my time. I wasn’t a real writer after all!

I went and sat on the deck and read a novel. It was good, and I got all caught up in it. I’ll never be as good a writer as this, I thought. She’s a REAL writer. I went inside. I felt like crying. I made myself some buttered noodles for dinner.

When my husband came home, he was smiling. He had a good day. He was happy to see me. “Why didn’t you eat there?” I lit into him. “Now I have to cook for you?” His face fell. He sat on the chair stolidly eating leftovers and saying nothing. Meanwhile, I tiraded along… How come he didn’t think I was a REAL artist? How come he thought his friends were more talented than me? And how come he didn’t respect me as a writer? He just looked at me blankly. Then I stomped upstairs and threw myself on the bed. My husband tiptoed around the house. I could almost hear the bewilderment in his footsteps.

By the time he came to bed, all the anger in me had deflated, and I was left with a lost feeling. “It’s not you that I’m mad at,” I said. “You didn’t do anything. It’s me. I’m no good,” I told him. “I’m not a real writer. I’m just a black hole,” I said.

“No, you’re not. That’s just insecurity. Why do you have that after all you’ve done, all you’ve written? Haven’t you proved ANYTHING to yourself yet?”

I shook my head. “I’m not good enough to be a writer,” I said.

“Of course you are.”

“Not a REAL writer.”

“What do you mean by real?”

I shrugged. “You know…good.”

It went on like this in circles. I won’t bore you.

My husband just held me for a while. He has strong arms and a warm solidness that makes you want to lean into him. Which is what I did. And fell asleep.

This morning, the sun is shining. I have the voice of one of my teachers echoing in my head. “Get out a fresh sheet of paper,” she always says. I love the way she says “fresh.” It sounds so clean. So hopeful.

So I got out a fresh sheet of paper and started writing. I still hear the voices coming out of the black hole inside of me—“You’re not good enough, etc.” But I’m writing over them.

Being a writer is like building a bridge. You make a solid structure where once there was just air. We all build our selves the same way. We build our lives that way too. We make ourselves real. As the velveteen rabbit says, “It happens bit by bit…”

Sometimes the bridge is fragile and teetering. Some days, it’s more sure, and I can even run across it. Some days, like yesterday, it collapses, and I fall into the black hole. But today, I’m building the bridge again. Word by word.