Category: life

I have the same knee-jerk instinct to avoid extensive conversations about spirituality that I do for endless talking about politics: 90+ percent of the time they end up being an exchange of position statements which may even escalate into a full-out debate (oh goody, one of my favorite ways to spend time). In other words, people are so busy defending their own beliefs (as if disagreement constituted attack) that they stop listening. The first thing that often goes out the window is acceptance that other people really can be different. They’re not just stupid or ignorant or evil or trying to wind you up: they can actually think and feel and behave differently about important things.

I’m a big fan of the concept (which I first saw expressed in this post by Bob Sutton) of “strong opinions, weakly held” — the idea (see Sutton’s sidebar) that I should fight as if I am right and listen as if I am wrong.

I am still working on this. I find help from Nicola (which doesn’t surprise me at all) and from my screenwriting experiences (which has surprised me extremely).

Until fairly recently — probably until into my 40’s — I was invested in being Right About Things. Not because I needed to win arguments, but because I preferred to avoid them. And so my “rightness” was not about strong opinions, it was about weak ones. My strategy was to keep my opinions weak because it meant that I was flexible; that there was room for other ideas in my world. I didn’t get that real flexibility happens only when I have boundaries, beliefs, a firm center from which I am then willing to really question and really listen to the answers.

Which is why I find so much joy and hope and value in this post by Roger Ebert about death and what may, or may not, happen afterward. I love his curiosity, his acceptance, and his willingness to just let people be who they are. And to let himself be who he is, too, without apology or justification. There’s a great sense in his writing of This is who I am right now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be a little different. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

And then there’s this part of Ebert’s post that particularly speaks to me:

I drank for many years in a tavern that had a photograph of Brendan Behan on the wall, and under it this quotation, which I memorized:
 
I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don’t respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
 
For 57 words, that does a pretty good job of summing it up. “Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.
 
— Roger Ebert

Part of what I’m learning right now is that I can’t make myself happier if I don’t have my own strong ideas about what that means, and if I’m not clear about it to other people. I can’t make others happier if I don’t listen to what would make them happy.

But for me the tricky part is to have strong ideas, weakly held, without sacrificing the strength of the things I know are truly right for me. To accept that I’m different from you, and that I can be right for myself even if I’m not “right” for you. Or maybe the better word is true — to be true to myself without having to be “right” about it in some greater sense. To accept that this is who I am today, and maybe tomorrow I’ll be different.

Hmm, I’m not so sure how to say all the things I mean yet. And yes, I’d love to hear what you think. But even more than that, I’d love for you to do something today that makes you happy. Of that I am certain.

The taxes are done, the house is clean, the sun is shining. I’ve been back to the gym after a week of repelling Viral Invaders. I am full of tea and a bit of the Easter chocolate that Nicola’s father sent us. I am pondering a new screenplay idea that fell into my head while I was washing dishes this morning. I have U2 tickets for the US fall tour. I am reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. I have watched three movies this week.

When I was in my teens and early 20’s, I imagined a Big Life for myself. And I’m having it; I just didn’t know that the real payoff of big risk and hard work would be the saturation and joy of these moments that I would have called small back then.

LIFE Magazine has a website.

I am a writer and express myself in words, always words (millions of words… I thanked Nicola last night for being patient with me while I processed something, and she laughed and said, Darling, if I couldn’t cope with processing we would have split up nineteen years ago). But when it comes to events in the real world, I often like them better expressed in pictures. There’s something about photographs — their power to capture a real person in a real moment (or a not-so-real moment), the sense of being there — that I find compelling.

If I want to learn about an experience, deepen my understanding of it, I’ll go read about it. But often what I want is to know how it felt. The best photographs dissolve the barriers of space and time and bring me straight into the moment, the immediate there-and-then. Novels and stories put me into the moments too, of course, but they are a process. Probably why I do them (grin). Words take me into myself: photos take me bang! straight into other places.

I grew up with LIFE magazine. In my day, LIFE and National Geographic were the pinnacles of photographic journalism — information and story crystallized into a single arresting image, or series of images. Humans, the world, stillness and motion, life and death, the majestic and the ridiculous — moments of real life that will never come again, but we can see them. In pictures.

I’m still puzzling through my response to photos. I must say that mostly, other people’s vacation pictures and endless wedding photos don’t really do much for me. My wedding photos feel special to me, in part because they were taken by our friend Mark, also a writer, someone who knows how to tell stories in pictures and in words. But even so, I don’t expect them to be special to other people (grin). Mostly, I find my own life as captured in photos less compelling than the real thing. But good photographers record the story, not just the image, and there are some stories of my life that I wish very much I could have such a clear, true record of. That would take me back bang! to the there-and-then. Just for a visit. Just for a moment.

Nicola and I have a Great Big Box of photos. It’s all mixed up together — her history, mine, and ours all in a jumble of photos, in packets or loose (professional photographers everywhere are shuddering at this moment, I know…). I love every once in a while to drag this box out of the closet and look. I love seeing myself and my beloved people in different times and places in our lives.

It’s odd that N and I don’t actually have that many pictures of ourselves together, and we don’t routinely take a camera when we travel… for whatever reason, we just don’t think to do it. Perhaps it’s that although I love seeing photos of beautiful places, to me they are primarily art or story — I don’t often take pictures of places I visit in order to remember them. It’s photos of people that do it for me, and generally people-in-action (as opposed to the group-hug-everybody-smile variety).

Here are two photos that I really love. The first is my mother at about age 38. I always liked the photo, and I was jazzed when I moved to Chicago in my early 20’s and she gave me the shirt and the hat.

When I was 27, I asked a photographer friend to help me create the second photo. I wanted to give my mum a present, and I thought it might please her to see us being “related” — a metaphor of mothers and daughters made concrete.

My mum has these photos hanging side by side in her home. The other day, she scanned them and sent them to me. I am thrilled to have them in my virtual Great Big Box.

Today is International Women’s Day.

Thank you to all the women who have helped me survive, grow, learn, fight, love, laugh, hope, cope, and appreciate the beautiful things of the world. To the women who taught me languages and why communication matters, who taught me poetry and prose. To the women who taught me by good and bad example how to behave in public, in business, in life. To the women who gutted it out during some bad time, and I know a million of you: you are all magnificent. To the women who dance and the women who watch, who write and read. To the women who reach and fail and reach again and touch the sun; and then go on to do the next thing that must be done.

I wish every woman in the world a life every bit as real, as full, as safe or risky or quiet or exciting as she herself has ever wanted. I wish that no one would ever again say “a woman can’t…” I wish that people would stop being so damn surprised when a woman they know turns out to be fully human, with all the grace and fear, potential and skill, short-sightedness and clear vision, caring and cruelty, horror and healing, cowardice and courage, and fierce yearning dreams that any human is capable of.

To the women who have enriched my life with your love, wisdom, and silly jokes; who have tended my wounds, held me while I cried, made me food, stood up for me; with whom I’ve shared books and television and movies; and secrets; who have showed me the world, and taught me that the world is just as real in my own back yard; who have believed in me fiercely, forgiven the hurt I have caused them, hauled me up short, told me hard truths; who have shown me the bright beauty of human kindness in a simple act; who have been unkind, frightened, flawed, hurtful, less than helpful, downright mean. You are all a part of me, and I love you.

When the music changes, so does the dance. — African proverb

I realize I haven’t talked about dancing in a while. Things have changed, and although change is, of course, to be deplored (my favorite line ever from Thunderbirds), this one has been good.

Last year, the boss of the dances (the lovely Pauline) decided for cash-flow reasons to lay off all the Seattle go-go’s. I was disappointed: it had gone from a lark to something a little more important for me. I had (finally!) started to own the part of me that likes public attention and approval, and the feeling of power that comes from being able to draw that response from people. I went to my job every month hoping people would like me.

And then I began to watch some of the other dancers and realize that there was a lot I could learn from what they were doing. I could be an even better dancer if only I was willing to stop “hoping” for approval and actually start working for it.

I went online and watched some other women and men dance. I worked on some new moves at home. I went to Goodwill and bought some new dancing outfits probably no more than a week before Pauline sent us the Thanks for all your hard work email. And I sighed and thought, well, so it goes. Back to dancing on the floor, fighting it out for space without a legitimate reason to take the stage and put on a show. Pauline told me I was welcome to get up on stage anytime for fun, but I shook my head because it felt too much like showing off, too much like desperation or… something. It felt (brace yourselves) inappropriate.

Perhaps you can see what’s coming. I’m glad someone can, because it always seems to take me a really long time.

I started going to the dances early so I could have a lot of room (I Do Not Like to dance in one square foot of space without being able to swing my hips or raise my arms). And when the music started and no one else would get out on the floor (high school is with us forever in this way), I thought that I could either lose my dancing time or just get out there and dance. So I did.

And then I went back next month and did it again.

The month after that, a woman approached me as I was buying my pre-dance beer. She wanted to tell me how much she enjoyed watching me dance, and how much she enjoyed that I was willing to get out there on my own. We chatted; and then I went out to dance, by myself. She wouldn’t join me on the empty floor. But later I saw her out there, in the crowd but dancing by herself. And I thought, You go, girl.

And then there was the time that a woman came up to me on the floor and told me she’d always enjoyed my dancing and was sorry I wasn’t a go-go anymore, but if she gave me a dollar would I get up on stage and dance? I blinked; and at first I said no, and she went away. And I had one of those Just kick me now because I really need it moments, where I realized that something I wanted had just come knocking and I wasn’t answering the door.

I hunted the club until I found her, and I told her that if she still wanted me to dance, I would. And I did. And she gave me a dollar. The best damn tip I ever had.

More things have changed. We’re at a new club now. I show up early, and I dance. When the floor becomes crowded, I get up on stage (usually with my friend Tami, occasionally by myself) and dance my ass off. I do it for myself, and I do it for anyone who cares to watch. I put on a show. I do it on purpose, and I work for the approval I get. I dance full-out for a couple of hours, by which time I am exhausted and literally covered in sweat: my hair drips, every bit of clothing is soaked through, my legs hurt. During that time, women on the floor catch my eye and dance for me, and I dance back, and everyone smiles. Sometimes a woman will come to the foot of the stage and then gather her courage, climb up, and we’ll dance together. And it always pleases me to see how much fun they have when they realize that it isn’t inappropriate at all to let the music move you with other people, for other people, in the joy of being alive.

There’s more on this topic. It runs deep, and turns out to be connected to a lot of other things happening in my life right now. But for today, I will just say that I am having fun in ways I always dreamed of but was never willing to do. I am powerful when I dance, and sexual, and beautiful, and a lot of other things that are not “appropriate” to a woman my age in this culture of youth.

And I like it that way. I don’t want to be young anymore. Young women come into the club for these dances, and they are lovely and fearless in their own way, but their dancing does not move me because it is only Look at my body! dancing. They don’t yet understand what it means to dance themselves. Sometimes they look at me and my friends, and sometimes I can see them thinking how weird it is to see old people shaking it with so little inhibition. My hope for them is that when they’re old, they don’t let themselves believe it’s weird anymore; that they will dance themselves too, and transform themselves from pretty girls into beautiful women moving with all the joy, anger, pain, power, fire that is in them.

You know the expression “Age before beauty” that people use sometimes as a sideways put-down? Well, I’m thinking now that the only appropriate response is Yes, that’s how it works. But hang in there, someday you’ll get there too.

You must go right now and read the customer reviews for this product on amazon. Come back and thank me later, when you stop laughing (and thank you, Dan, for sending it to me).

There were times during the Borg GWB years that I felt maybe resistance really was futile. But oh, the power of humans to find a way to say the thing… sometimes in the most unexpected places.

Why are you still here? Go, go!

Enjoy your Saturday.