Essay 09….In Which You Buy Them a Beer

It’s grainy and blurry but, then again, most memories are. And I would wager current perspective of life is, in general, hard to focus into the two precise circles of eyes that we peer out of. The little girl you’re looking at felt the world big. She grabs the hem of her skirt to hold onto something. She’s about 4 years old here and looks out from under brown curls already turned from the blonde she’d been born with. Her southern grandmother’s front porch is behind her, a world she got to visit once a year; a world that felt simpler, freer even that young. The best part was getting to walk into stores barefooted. That just was not done in her proper Illinois town upbringing. She’s dressed in a “just darling” little way. She is the one and only child in her family of 3. Her father made her feel like a princess. Her mother made her feel wrong. She was never quite sure exactly how she was wrong until much later in life.

Her name is Tamara. She is me. She still lives inside me and comes out when I feel “wrong”. But, instead of listening to her, I’ve taught her to listen to me. For so. many. years. I locked myself in and swallowed the key. I looked for ways to be transparent. If you could see through me, you could find nothing wrong. And I would not have to figure out how to make you “pleased” with me, because the alternative took all my oxygen away. I’d figured out, the road map to approval never ended.

When I was a child, I would wait eagerly for the yearly showing of Wizard of Oz. I memorized it, the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow seeping into my little girl bones, and then I’d close the door to my room and act the whole thing out. I wrote poems in 5th grade. In 6th grade, the teacher asked us to write a short story. I did mine in chapters, something about Miss Havisham, because I thought the name sounded nefarious and probably had cobwebs in her house. I did not expect the day my teacher went around the room and asked us to stand up and read our story; in front of everyone. I wanted to vaporize with panic. I had on black boots that went up to my knocking knees and a green plaid dress with a drop waist. They say trauma seers strange details into your mind. I surely must’ve felt it. I held the paper in my nervous little hands and finished the first chapter with relief, wishing to high heavens I’d not written more chapters. The next thing that happened was the kind of surprise that makes your head jerk up like you just saw headlights coming at you. They clapped. And asked for the next chapter. They liked it! I’d cleverly left the chapter, and those succeeding it, into the most 6th grade cliff hangers I could imagine. And they liked it. Something I created. I tried hard not to smile as big as I felt on the inside.That was the first time where I thought that maybe I had something to offer. I locked it back up again until high school.

Freshman year, I had a free period to fill and Acting Class was being offered. I ached to join it, signed up and then lost sleep over it. What have I gotten myself into? 6th grade is one thing but high school is a brutal place to show your hand. Introductory class involved breaking up into groups of 4, given 3 random words and writing a 5 minute play to perform. The group made me the focus character. I assumed a completely different voice and forced myself to not think about anything but the lines I had helped write and d e l i v e r e d. The class laughed, the teacher laughed, the girl Tamara rode the wave of “this feels like being alive!” I went on to perform in plays that traveled around area elementary schools. My teacher asked me to join the speech team to compete. I was thrilled to have her ask me. I walked out of class that day and went to my locker. Mike was his name. I didn’t know him well. I didn’t know most people well, in fact. You know, says this Mike I barely knew, you might be cute if you didn’t have those glasses. I grabbed my key and locked myself back in. I did not join the speech team. I did not compete. Why did I think I could? Looking back, I should have taken my glasses off and handed them to him and asked my dad to send his parents the bill. He’d have done it, too. My dad taught me spunk. Just nobody knew it yet.

When I grew the rest of the way up and moved away from all I’d ever known in a small college town in southern Illinois, I realized I had a golden ticket. I could come out of my cage and sit with all the others and by the way, not be called by a nickname but by my beautiful given name which I had always been afraid to love. I did begin to introduce myself as Tamara. I, unfortunately, did not use the key on my cage. Many years piled up of living within the framework of my faith in college, in dating, in marriage, in motherhood and then divorce, rebuilding and re-approaching faith from the smoky shambles of failure with everyone watching and narrating their own version of my story. I wore long skirts because people told me that was the way to please God. One day, on the verge of jumping off the cliff and out of the game, I sidled up next to a woman I felt safe enough to ask. “Why,” I whispered, “are we wearing these?” I clutched my skirt the same way I clutched my dress in the little girl me picture. It was the beginning of the cage, not just unlocking, but melting down around me.

I told God I loved Him. I didn’t want to do it without Him. But, I wondered, is it ok to not have all the answers? Is it bad to not hide anymore and be the only grown up in the room to wear mismatched socks just for fun? Can I hold the silliness in one hand and go right for the deep questions in the other? Can I be that ragamuffin believer who sits with kings or beggars and dares to challenge all of us and not be afraid of what the people you created think of me?

I began to grow into the dichotomy that is me in the world. The little broken angel that has moved 3 times with me since I was gifted her, always ends up sitting on a windowsill and reminds me that broken is not unacceptable. Next to her sits the first of what became an accidental rubber duck collection, a duck for every mood. It is simple and blue and is not clamoring for attention. But it is indeed, bright blue and shows up in stark contrast to the disheveled angel. I still have yet to name her, which is unusual. I name everything. I have gone from long jeans skirts to a sophisticated black dress with a streak of shocking pink and blue and orange and shirts that say “Silly Goose on the Loose”. I live easily in both. Because sometimes I am a princess. And sometimes I am a silly goose.

These days I look for it, that unexpected conversation that opens like an envelope whose seal didn’t stick when you thought it was shut tight. How has your day been, I ask the pizza maker yesterday when my grandson and I decided pizza was just the thing. I found out she was getting off work soon and we kept talking and she smiled a goodbye to me at the end of our conversation. I answer a message from a friend online, one I haven’t met yet and I say yes, indeed, the weather has been crazy but tell me……what’s been the biggest thing on your mind lately? I check in with my coworker….what color describes your week? I don’t stay in the shallow for more than a couple of sentences. I don’t have time. On the other hand, in the middle of tears, I say something inappropriate and we both laugh and there is where the life is. That swirl of deep belief and bawdy jokes that don’t brand us as anything but human beings being present to each other.

My favorite author, who happens to be a believer I can imagine shooting the breeze with says this:

“These days groaning is discouraged…..Well meaning people will try to talk you out of your groaning. They will sell you a book about how to groan less. They will tell you that your real problem is your bad attitude. Maybe they’re right but maybe they’re not. Maybe it’s that life is hard and there’s a groaning that comes from just being alive. Having enough strength to have a good attitude is a gift from God. Enjoy it as such and then have enough humility to spare the world your purpose driven life. Walk lightly with folks who are flailing under the weight of their circumstances. Don’t offer to be their life coach. Weep with those who weep. Sing with those who sing. Groan with those who groan. Just because someone barely has any hope doesn’t mean they are doing something wrong. It means that the frustration which creation has been subjected to has by chance fallen heavier on them than it fell on you. In that case, refrain from your condescension and maybe buy them a beer.” – Poet Priest, Vol. 3

I respect the man who loves God, challenges thought and isn’t afraid of offending someone who gets twisted up by suggesting a beer.

My colorful days still get rained on now and again. Sometimes people don’t like to talk much or talk deep. Sometimes people want to compete rather than collude. Sometimes people come and go. I start to look for the key when rejection smacks its lips. If you don’t like me I am not likable, I start to lie to myself. Then I look down at my feet and my socks make me happy. I am His and He is mine, my inner compass points to me. The broken angel and the little blue duck smile the reminder that the key should never be used again to lock myself away. If one door shuts to me, I keep walking down the street. I keep walking with my door wide open.