Up to the Weight of Nobody Watching
Today as I walked through the light rain on my way to campus, occasionally someone would kind of pause to look at me or hold my gaze. At first I didn't notice because I was enamored with the white trees that were blooming, but eventually the wash of color streaming onto my face brought me out of my stupor. I was walking down the street in a knee-length cherry red raincoat with an umbrella like the Pantone color wheel. It was probably next to impossible not to see me.
And my next thought was, how am I possibly the same person, the same conscious being inhabiting this body as 10 or 15 years ago, who could hardly stand to be looked at, to be seen? Who hid behind cameras and wore black t-shirts from Page & Plant and Tori Amos shows, was terrified to leave the house without makeup? Whose boldest choice when it came to fashion was to wear navy instead of black. Sure I took some "risks" in high school, and I liked being the girl who wore all black on Valentine's Day. Or had yellow cords and camo pants from the Salvation Army, purple lipstick from Hard Candy. But these things were about shields/facades, not comfort in skin.
At some point in college, my roommate decided I should start dressing like a girl. She was a dancer and worked at a makeup counter in Macy's. Which is pretty much as girly as you could get in my experience. I'd arranged to go to a party with a guy I had a crush on (I've always been brave about some things), so she took it upon herself to force me into some skirts (skirts!) and also found me some red leather heels. I felt like a mermaid in pants. I took my camera to the party, and I could barely bring myself to dance even when he asked me. But I did feel more like a girl. And standing in the darkroom the next week, watching the prints come up in the tray, this one image rose up of him dancing in the living room, stopped, smiling at me. And I stared at it and knew that I was seen by someone.
Alone in Crowds
Five years ago, my cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident. She was riding in a rally in Southern California; her boyfriend was driving. They were following behind another bike who was going too fast, and they were matching his speed as they went around a curve. The curve had a line of concrete pile-ons to keep cars from running off the road. He lost control and the bike went down. Her boyfriend slid between the concrete pillars. Shanna slid into one. She had always been the cousin I was closest to, the one I looked up to, and whose footsteps I followed in: choir, swimming, hell I even tried church. I admired her a lot and we were good at the same things and even had the same smile. I took her death extremely hard. Being alone in California when she died, where she'd died, where I'd just moved only months before (and not yet been able to visit her despite finally being driving distance from her) was brutal. So I did the only thing I could think of. I decided to skip class and drive to San Francisco, where one of my favorite bands was playing.
So I went with my single ticket and stood awkwardly waiting for the band to start, watching the many couples around me cuddling or taking pictures while I tried to stand in a way that best demonstrated casual ease. Once the band came on, I found that it was mostly like watching a movie—an experience that is both solitary and binds you to everyone around you—so that it didn't matter that I was alone. I felt raw and connected, sharing this experience with complete strangers. And it was worth it. It was worth it to be in San Francisco in that theater on that night to be singing with that band the words "Live through this and you won't look back" while my heart was breaking for my cousin and for her two young children that she'd left behind.
What changed? And when? When did I become the person who could get up in front of people like I did a couple of weeks ago to emcee a poetry reading? When did I become a person who would go to parties where I only know the host despite the sheer terror that causes me? Or move across the country to Maine where I didn't know anyone so I could learn documentary photography?
I can't say when exactly. All I know is that I reached a point where the things I wanted to accomplish for myself and for others became more important than my own discomfort. The prospect of my own potential happiness began to outweigh the possibility of people paying attention.
Stretching Past Discomfort
You've probably seen those pictures of the women in Africa who put new rings on every year in order to stretch their necks—maybe not your or my ideal form of beauty, but there's something in the act of it that I understand. Almost two years ago, I went to a store to buy a chain for a spoon-handle necklace I had, which I wanted to wear to a friend's rehearsal dinner. I didn't have a chain that was the right length for the dress's neckline I was wearing, so I was on a search. I finally found one that would work. Attached to it was a rhinestone pistol pendant. It horrified and fascinated me. Who would wear such a garish thing? I could never stand to have attention on me like that. But I had to buy it all together anyway to get the chain so I went ahead and paid. But when it came time to dress later, I thought, you know, just for fun, what the hell? Why not? I was already wearing my fruit-punch colored boots. And we were in Texas after all. The rehearsal dinner was on a riverboat and would have a margarita machine. If there was any place I could get away with such a thing, this was it.
And I got away with it. I was uncomfortable. But as the spring and summer passed it was a challenge to myself: to become the kind of person who would wear a gun necklace. It required a confidence I didn't have, a confidence that I had to muster and grow into. And now? I actually have that confidence. And it has benefited me. It's helped me become the kind of person who can get up in front of people and emcee readings of writers I admire. Hell, it's helped me have the confidence to put together readings in the first place, despite having almost no experience doing so. Only because I care enough about getting other people's words out. And because I know that we get certain windows of time in life to act in, and we have to take them, we have to act.
I watched a documentary last night called "A Touch of Greatness" about an unconventional teacher who taught 5th graders in Rye, New York between 1956 and 1966. And one of the things he does is have them mount these very intense productions of plays like Antigone and Julius Caesar and Henry VIII, and they read Shaw and Garcia Lorca, and they have spelling contests, a live Congress attended by community members, they swim a paper Mississippi River, and such. But listening to the kids talk about the effect on them of acting in these plays and the license they were given at such a young age just made sense. In taking on those big roles, they began to trust themselves and they trusted their own minds. It impacted them forever.
I wonder now how much of the reason I'm willing to take risks, why I force myself past the point of discomfort is because I had teachers who showed me not to be content at such a young age. So that even when I'm scared, even though for years I let myself get away from that place, I eventually found my way back out, and decided to become a teacher myself. I still remember the school that I went to—doing archaeological digs when I was 9, measuring out the string to mark where we would begin our quadrants; putting on a news program and talking about how to interview someone; finding out how the Anasazi, Inca, Maya Indians survived and making our own rope by scraping the green plant fibers from a yucca leaf, letting it dry out over the course of a week, and then braiding it together; learning women's history and dressing up like Betsy Ross; doing math problems and then having our teacher (in 4th grade) tell us "That was algebra."
That was algebra. You can make rope.
I can do anything, if I just endure long enough, if I'm willing to be a little uncomfortable.
