Cause and Effect

I drugged my husband because he ran into the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn’t mean to, and he didn’t mean to, and the two events were separated by 26 years, but they are nonetheless related.

We were in his 1971 Chrysler Newport Custom, a huge white boat of a car that would probably be illegal in San Francisco these days. It was a bright, beautiful Starsky-and-Hutch day. People kept telling us the weather was unusually sunny and cheerful, which we in our premarital bliss, attributed to our very presence there.

As we crossed the bridge, we were both looking to the right at the bay, marveling at water so blue, so clear, so unlike the Mississippi. I was transported; swept up, up and away as I always am when I see the ocean. Its foreverness, its depth and power, make me speechless, filled with a C.S. Lewis’ longing. As my friend Belinda once said of a sunset, “It’s so beautiful, it hurts.”

I turned to look at Pat, to share in the wonder of the moment. His eyes were on the bay; I turned back to admire some more, only to feel the car drift to the right, hit the guardrails, hear the cruel sound of metal on metal as the bridge nudged us back to the lane, back to reality.

And though we weren’t hurt, and the gash in the paint was minor, I’ve never gotten over it. Over the years, instead of conquering this irrational fear, I’ve practiced it, fossilized it.

Whenever Pat takes a hand off the wheel, or his eyes off the road, I’m certain we’re headed straight for a lamp post. If he points out a landmark, I refuse to look, because if he’s not looking, then of course I have to - or we’ll crash. If he gets too close to the car in front, I brace myself against the dashboard, apply my imaginary brake. All these reactions are maddening to him, as they are to me when I have a nervous passenger. But I can’t help it.

I try to be a normal passenger, to appear relaxed, to forget that I’m riding in a weapon of mass destruction, but after visualizing running into parked cars, I resort to leaning my seat back so I can’t see over the dash, if not outright climbing into the back seat and lying down. Ignorance isn’t exactly bliss, but it definitely helps.

As does Valium, a few of which I have leftover from my daughter’s adolescent seizure disorder. I’ve taken a half of one here and there when we’ve gone on road trips. (I sound like those people who say, “I never watch Oprah, but the other day I was….” Because who wants people to think you watch afternoon TV, or take Valium?)

I really don’t hardly ever watch Oprah – I mean, take Valium. That’s why I forgot about the 2 and a half pills that I’d put in the Tylenol bottle that somehow navigated from my purse back to the medicine cabinet, sans Tylenol, unbeknownst to me.

Pat had woken up with a headache. He grabbed the Tylenol bottle, took 1 and a half pills, drank his coffee, and sat down to his cereal. A little while later, he told me, “I feel weird. Dizzy.”

“Maybe it’s sinus.”

“I don’t think so. I had a headache. Took some Tylenol.” He was staring into space; a common pastime I happen to enjoy, but which is not in my task-oriented husband’s schedule.

“I can get that blood pressure tester,” I offer.

Before I had a chance, he said, “What were those yellow pills in that Tylenol bottle? I took one and a half. Maybe it wasn’t…”

Oops. It slowly dawned on me. The Valium. (That I rarely take, mind you.) “I think you took some of Joanna’s old Valium. I’m sorry. I put it in there a long time ago. I don’t know how it ended up there.”

He was so relaxed all he said was, “Huh?”

In a cheap attempt to defend myself, I tried, “Who takes a half a Tylenol? Didn’t you notice?”

He took .7 mg of Valium and was so wiped out, he lay down on the couch and slept until lunchtime.

I told my coworkers what I’d done, thinking they’d enjoy a laugh. Instead, they screeched, “You what!!? Don’t you know better than to mislabel prescriptions! Never, ever do that!!!!” Nina, a nurse turned ESL teacher, who is so organized she carries a little container of salt in her purse, along with all other necessities, was merciless.

“They’re only .5 mg. My daughter took 3 a day at age 12. How bad could it be?” I weakly tried to defend myself again. When he didn’t answer the phone, I began to worry, so I Googled, “How much valium does it take to overdose?” – a question that will take you to some mighty strange places.

At lunch I told Nina, “I looked it up on the internet and it’s almost impossible to overdose on Valium.” Another coworker had just relayed the story to my boss, who, too, felt compelled to reiterate the folly of my ways. So far, no one had laughed.

______________________

That was only the first in a week of mishaps designed, if such things are designed, to showcase my somewhat (of course, I have to qualify) disorganized life.

My anesthesiologist friend called, “This surgery’s taking so long. I won’t be home for hours. Could you please go to the house and let Bassie out?”

“Of course. Where are the keys?”

“You have a set, remember? From when Natalie took care of Bassie.”

Keys. We have lots of keys. A drawerful of unidentified keys. “I’ll look,” I said. But I wasn't optimistic.

At home, Joanna helped me look. “That’s her key chain – the Disney one – I remember.” She remembers everything visual.

Fine, but why aren’t the keys on there?

I filled my pocket with stray keys, went to her house, and unbelievably found the right ones.

____________________________

The next day it started pouring rain just before my afternoon class. I had no umbrella. I had no raincoat. Spying a green raincoat on the coat rack that I reasoned was probably mine, I asked Becky if she thought it belonged to somebody else. (Nina had left; she would have known whose it was.)

“It’s pouring. Go ahead and take it. I’m sure it’s yours.”

It was a bit snug, but I was glad to have it, though I got drenched anyway walking to class. After class it was still pouring down, so instead of going back to the office, I sloshed my way to the car.

Later that night, about 8:00, it hit me. I don’t know for sure that the raincoat was mine. When I needed it, somehow I was sure, but now I’m filled with doubt. It was kind of small. It couldn’t be Nina’s; she’s so tall.

What if I had run off with someone’s coat? What if it’s Clare’s, who was innocently teaching her class in the warmth and dryness of her classroom, secure that she was smart enough, organized enough to bring a raincoat? Only she went to the office, found it gone, and was forced to get drenched going to her car.

Joanna, who remembers everything visual, said, “No, that’s not any of our coats. I’ve never seen it.”

Great. The woman who mislabled dangerous prescription drugs has now run off with someone else’s raincoat.

The next morning, I carried it in timidly. Nina’s there. Everyone’s always there before me. (Except Becky, who had said, “Go ahead, take it.”)

“Does anyone know whose coat this is? Because I took it yesterday, and now I’m afraid it was Clare’s, but I thought it was mine. It was raining so hard….”

Nina said, “It’s not mine. And it’s been hanging up there for months.” Definite. She would know.

I was so happy. It had to be mine, if it had been there for months! Clare wouldn’t leave something hanging around for months. She’s organized. Probably has a salt shaker in her purse.
__________________________

There is a pile of mending under my sewing machine. It’s been there for at least 5 years. I know that because I remember seeing the same pile in our last house. All of it belongs to Pat. If I have something that needs mending, I dispatch it straight away to Goodwill. I hate sewing.

There was a blue moon, so I decided to try and be a good wife and bless my husband by doing some mending. (I stole that joke from Ronnie Stevens.) “Give me the three things you want fixed the most.”

I sewed a button on some work pants, hemmed some nice Dockers that I’d bought him at least three years ago, and sewed the crotch of some raggedy blue jeans. “They’re great to work in.” I had decided not to argue.

A couple of nights later, he asked, “Did you sew this button on?” After one day’s wear, it was hanging on by one thread. The next night I called him to see why he was so late for the church chili dinner. “I had to go home and change. You know those jeans you sewed for me?"

Yes, I remembered those obscene ones with the crotch out.

"Well, it all came undone.”

"A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.” William Styron, American novelist .

I wish I could say I’m a deliberate literate. That I’ve read all the books that educated people say are necessary to be considered educated. But I can’t.

Most of the books I’ve read over the past year have been second-hand. Books in brown paper bags otherwise headed to Goodwill. Books I’ve sought out because their authors were quoted by authors I like. Books loaned to me by friends. Picked up at garage sales.

Someday maybe I’ll be more purposeful. But for now, as with much that happens in my life, I just somehow “end up” reading some incredible books. And for this I’m thankful.
_______________________

I set the book down. Deliberately. But unconsciously. I say it was deliberate because I could have kept reading. I had the time. I say unconsciously because I didn’t really recognize what was happening that made me stop reading.

A day or two later, I saw the book where I’d last left it, untouched and reproachful. I realized I’d stopped so near the end for a reason. I didn’t want Jefferson to die.

He was going to. From page one you know that. But, so near the end, with nothing left but the execution, I didn’t want to lose him. By postponing reading, I kept him alive a little longer. Like his teacher, his godmother, and the deputy in the jail, I’d come to love this man. What happened to him mattered to me.

I finished "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines yesterday. And though Jefferson did indeed die, he isn’t dead.

He joins the other literary characters who have shown me the world, worlds that I would otherwise never know. They’ve shown me the hearts of people, the heart of God. I owe so much to them all – to Jean Valjean and the priest, to Epinene, Fantine, Samwise Gamgee, Aslan, Atticus, to Gollum, Anna Karenina, Tess…….

I must be going through menopause because as I was writing this the other night I couldn’t keep writing because remembering these people made me cry. Then I felt guilty because I’ve forgotten so many names and that seemed so treacherous, so shameful. Nor could I remember authors’ names, titles, or even what I’ve read this year, and I went to bed frustrated with my slap-dash approach to life. Looking back on the previous paragraph, I see how sappy it sounds, but I’m leaving it that way. My fellow bookworms will understand.

But back to Jefferson. I don’t want to tell his story here. If you’ve read it, you know already. If not, you should read it fresh, as I did. And be amazed. And pierced. Rebuked. Resurrected.

Every night the local Memphis news shows mug-shots of young, hardened black men accused of committing crimes. I look at these faces on television or the newspaper, and I don’t really see a person. I see someone to despise, to fear, to lock away.

Because I tutor children fathered by men like these, children who have captured my heart, there is a part of me that doesn’t want to feel that way. Because as a Christian I know that every life has value, I don’t want to think that way, live that way.

I know five boys whose mother is on crack; the fathers are dead, the older brothers in jail. For now, the light is still in their eyes. They joke, they laugh, they give hugs, they beam when praised. There’s hope. Because of them I want to see those mug shots differently.

Because of Jefferson I can.

Creative Nonfiction Workshop

“All right, I’ll tell you. The reason is…, okay, I’ll make a confession - an intimate detail, if you will.” Lee Gutkind, the workshop instructor, gestured towards the phrase on the whiteboard.

My eyes are on him, as are those of the other 30 or so people gathered in the small university lecture hall. I don’t breathe, I don’t blink. What “intimate detail” could have anything to do with me, with this moment?

“You see,” he scans the audience, ruling the moment as he would prove to rule the day. Then his eyes are back to mine only long enough to say, “I thought you were a guy.”

I blink. I gulp. Nothing has prepared me for this. I’ve never been mistaken for a boy. Not even in the fourth grade when I, along with every other boy and girl, cut our hair to look like Davey Jones of the Monkeys.

Nor in the seventh grade when I insisted on wearing a bowl cut just like the girl on the Butterick pattern. My mother begged me not to “smash my bangs down like that”, and was always coming at me with her hair pick. “You need height; your face is too round.” In truth, instead of looking like the female half of The Captain and Tenille, I looked like Moe from the Three Stooges.

But if anyone thought I was a boy, I never knew about it.

That same year, with that horrible hair I’d convinced myself was stylish, our P.E. class was paired with the 8th grade boys for square-dancing. Gary, a cool 8th grader, was paired with me. He looked me over, turned to his friend, and sneered, “Oh, I got a pretty one.”

At 12 years old, thick-waisted with toothpick legs, and bangs that wouldn’t stay flat because my hair was so thick and wavy, I took the boy’s scorn, managing not to cry, enduring the do-si-dos and alleman lefts until class was over, school out, and I could run home, throw myself on the bed and cry “until you can’t cry anymore, honey”. My mother understood the times.

Except for that hour-long hell, some mishaps with hair dye that made me look like Elvis one time and an eggplant another, and a few weeks of postpartum frumpiness, I’ve enjoyed looking pretty good all my life. “I thought you were a man,” stumped me.

Thirty-eight years after that gym class, I don’t take it. I strike back. “I paid $45 for this hairstyle just yesterday, and you thought I was a guy!” I laugh, the class laughs. I assume people are looking at me, assigning a femininity rating, as puzzled as I at his statement.

We have all come here to hear his statements. We’ve traveled from Alabama, Arkansas, even New Orleans and Florida to Oxford, MS to hear his statements. He, who has published books, has credentials, can be Googled and not come up wanting, has passed muster.

We, with pen and notebook in hand will hang on every word, watch every gesture, wonder, “How many ex-wives are there? Does he blow dry his hair? What’s with the earring? He couldn’t have ever been fat.” (One of his books is titled, "Forever Fat".) We are waiting, and he will deliver because we all want to be, but he is, a Writer.

Arriving early, scanning the room, I had asked a gray-haired, bearded man if I could sit next to him, gambling that he’d be interesting.

“Can I bring you another muffin?” I point to his empty wrapper, but this confuses him. He starts to hand me the wrapper, puts it back down, recovers, “Oh, yes. I believe I will.”

Dressed in a well-worn t-shirt, shorts, leather shoes and socks, it’s not hard to see him as the wanderer he had been. A Korean vet, a half-hearted student at UCLA and Berkeley, some wives, teaching jobs in Korea and Japan, he even joined a commune in New Hampshire. “It failed.”

“I’ve been working on my memoir for 40 years. At first I was going to call it, “The End of Tenderness”, but I’ve changed the title to, “Grotesque”, he would say later over lunch, to which we read him the riot act as they say.

The workshop instructor is a symphony conductor; all is balanced. He scribbles, questions, jokes, makes things flow. “It’s all about scene and story, scene and story.” He’s a live model of what’s he’s teaching us about creative non-fiction.

He keeps the class in check, no Bogarting allowed. A crusty codger, a cross between Colonel Sanders and Mark Twain, a retired Mississippi lawyer no doubt, tries to stir things up with, “Whoever’s really even met a true atheist?” The instructor handles him firmly without rancor. This is his show, after all, and he knows we’re here to learn to write.

If he had just said, “had thought you were a guy”, I would have understood. Terry, spelled with a “y” is a boy’s name, I had reminded my parents from the time I could read.

“It was your name,” he said. “We always have more women than men. I was recounting,” he said in defense of why he looked away just as I began my introduction.

Ultimately, everyone had a turn to speak. The pretty young woman from Alabama who had confided to me, “It’s my first workshop, too. I didn’t know what to wear. I brought two outfits just in case,” wants to write about her mother who had lived in a convent for 15 years.

Some people have completed books. One has a business card that says, “Freelance Writer”, and others have their own websites. A striking woman with a can-do attitude and hairstyle to match announces, “I’ve written a memoir on getting control of your finances that will blow Dave Ramsey out of the water.” I bet she will. There are college students with years of text before them, a retired teacher researching a book on a local “character”, and a woman who tells all with the title of her memoir, “Groaning up Baptist”.

Rapt listeners and notetakers all, we’re each making an investment, exchanging time and money in the hope that the man before us will give us something. Because whether we should call ourselves “writers” or not, that is what we want to do. We have stories to tell. Or time to kill. Or maybe we just like the look and feel of putting words on paper.

Our story may be dramatic or common. Our ability to tell it may range from poor to great. Some people, like Flannery O’Conner, write because they write well. Most, it seems, don’t write well, but do it anyway, like those people you try to avoid who never stop talking, saying,

“Well, I got up this morning, and when I touched the floor with my bare foot I realized it was a bit cold, so I put on some nice warm socks and then thought, ‘What will I have for breakfast?’ and I couldn’t decide between a boiled egg or scrambled – Joe likes scrambled – but I like mine boiled you know – just short of 9 minutes – no more.” They drag out their speech, claiming the conversational territory, leaving no breach for escape.

Perhaps after years of workshops, the instructor was on his guard for these boring types. It’s his job to deliver, both to the workshop connoisseurs and those, like me, who thought long and hard about spending the $175. Maybe that’s why he stopped looking at me seconds into my introduction, and started scanning the audience, making sure no one was zoning out.

Why I blurted out, Why aren’t you looking at me?! Am I already boring? I still don’t know. Nervous? Yes. Wanting to stand out? Possibly. What I do know is that my outburst speaks to what all would-be writers want – really, what everyone wants. “Hey! Over here. Listen to me. Don’t look away.”

And, of course, the point of the workshop was, and will always be, “Here’s how to keep them from looking away.” Thanks, Lee. It was worth it.