Rotation

"Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want to be loved doesn't mean they don't love you with everything they have."

At some point, years ago, I came across that quote. I can't remember who said it, or even where I saw it. I can't remember where I was geographically, emotionally, age-wise at the time. But like one of those fragmented pieces of glass that comprise my memory, it stuck with me. I guess you could say I knew instinctually that it would be a concept to which I turned again and again as time progressed, necessarily taking on new and different meaning with the vicissitudes of life.

I think, as human beings and social creatures (well, maybe save J.D. Salinger and Greta Garbo, though I strongly believe that even those self-proclaimed hermits maintained at least some interpersonal relationships), we want to be appreciated, respected, and most of all, acknowledged. So often for me what is most painful in interpersonal conflict is not the specific actions of the other person themselves but my perception that such actions demonstrate a lack of basic recognition of me as a person. In short, how often do our personal narratives go like this:

"He/she did X. Therefore he/she has no concern for my feelings whatsoever. He/she takes me for granted. He/she assumes I will always just be there. He/she has no respect for my time. He/she must not really care about me - love me - at all if capable of acting this way."

So I guess you could say that this is where that quote above comes in. In our relationships perhaps more than anywhere else, we create our own personal stories. Some seem obvious and universal - if my friend steals from me, he or she probably isn't too concerned with my best interests. But most are much murkier than that. My best friend knows I am going through a difficult time and doesn't call me for two months, and so she must not care how I am. No one who cares would do such a thing.I'm in the hospital and she doesn't visit me. She must not love me.

Or just maybe they do.

Maybe I just feel more comfortable with making it be that simple. That way I can order it, have it make logical sense. Without that, how could I possibly decide who to keep in my life, who to make sacrifices for, who to spend time with, and who to let go of?

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that system of belief has probably cost me some very valuable relationships. I see my life through my own particular kaleidoscope with the myriad of pieces seemingly in place - blue here, gold there. But rotate that kaleidscope a fraction of an inch, and suddenly all of those pieces are regrouped, reordered. Maybe, just maybe, actions that I had decided were caused selfishness and lack of consideration were rooted in fear, shame, personal trauma. To give the most obvious example, maybe my friend didn't visit me in the hospital because she has a terror of hospitals that she was too embarassed to share with me. Didn't want to freak out in front of me while I was there. And maybe she didn't call after because she was so ashamed about her actions.

This doesn't make for easy answers. We all still have to decide what are our limits and our breaking points. But I think with my own maturity comes the understanding that love doesn't necessarily behave the way I think it should.

And though infinitely more ambiguous, it's also perhaps gives me the gift of a much larger world.

A Secret

I still call you on the phone
I pretend your number still works
I say hello
I hope you'll answer
I tell you about my day
I hope you'll ask questions
I ask about yours
I hope you'll respond
I want to talk and talk
I hope you have time
I tell you I'm sorry
I hope you'll forgive me

For my mother

Night

dark and the phantoms slip out
soundless and graceful
monstrous shapes mutate
eyes squeezed shut
yearn for nothingness
know it is futile
the monsters know their way in
bulb on the nightlight burned out many liftimes ago
enveloped in their world
seduced effortlessly
sink into layers of velvet

Scaredy-Cat!

This morning on way to the subway, and the job I both dread going to and losing, I began thinking about fear. Namely, why I’m so plagued by it. I’m afraid of going to work, because the minutes creep by painfully slowly. I’m afraid of being laid off/fired, because without a paycheck I could end up on the street, without insurance. (Thanks, Captain Obvious). I fear getting jowls, because I’m quite sure with each passing day my face is sinking at a speed that would far eclipse Venice. I’m afraid of growing old alone, because even though I love not having to deal with in-laws and the toilet seat being up, the spectre of the Old Maid in the game of Fish I played with my grandmother is always looming.

FDR famously said “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Which I have always thought of as one of the most ridiculous quotes of all time, because of the circular logic it invites. Be afraid of being afraid, so you won’t be afraid. Yeah, that makes sense. I feel so much better now.

The basic biology of fear is pretty well known. Fear triggers the fight or flight mechanism, the body is flooded with adrenaline and norepinephrine, I remember this from basic Biology class without having to Google it. And it has an evolutionary purpose, because without fear, well, basically every animal species would be extinct; they just all prey upon one another, or something like that. So fear is essential to the survival of the Kingdom Animalia. One day we’ll all be taken over by insects anyway, but forget that, I digress.

So fear is useful. Logic would have it that fear, of course, is used as a tool by everyone from demagogues to the mass media. Terrorism! Obesity! Cancer! Heart attacks! Cellulite! Wrinkles! North Korea! When all else fails, it’s a proven way to manipulate people. Better watch out, cause like FDR warned, fear is gonna get ya.

Knowing the biology of fear, its evolutionary purpose and its utility is, in the end, not very comforting, right? I don’t sleep any better at night knowing that the same feeling that invites my anxiety also enables me to (possibly) escape from potential predators. Is there anything to take away from this?

Well, several years ago, after breaking up with my live-in boyfriend, I decided to do something that had long since scared the bejeesus out of me. I went to Europe alone. Friends told me I was crazy. I didn’t know the language, I would just be lonely, suppose I got lost, suppose I was knifed in an alley somewhere - who would know to look for me? In an act of bravery (or folly, if you consider that I couldn’t really afford it), I followed the self-help book prescription to Face My Fear Head On. I went to Berlin and Prague. And I didn’t know the language. And I got lost. And I was lonely at times. But it was also one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

Doing what I had always told myself I would never be able to handle (all my life I have had an almost paralyzing fear of being alone) was perhaps my shining moment, if such a trite notion still retains any descriptive power whatsoever. Thank you, Fear, because without you, that would have been just like any other trip - fun, interesting, memorable, but bereft of what I can best call emotional resonance. (And besides, now I can scoff at those who are afraid to travel alone. How ridiculous! You’re too codependent to spend a week with yourself? Really now.)

So in a way, I guess am indebted to Fear. Sure, it’s a dysfunctional relationship, but there are those moments when I’m grateful for it. Sure, it’s gifts come with major strings, but really, what gifts don’t?

Not that this means I’m ever going to ride a roller coaster.

Autumn

Beware
The dusk is drawing close
I play hide and seek with my truths
And hope I have night vision

Dear Marilyn, Full of Grace

Tomorrow is the 48th anniversary of the woman who is arguably the greatest legend - and tragic myth - in screen history. She has been dead for twelve years longer than she lived, yet she is omnipresent - in posters in store windows, on t-shirts, reincarnated in photo shoots by everyone from Charlize Theron to Scarlett Johannsen. A new “explosive” biography seems to emerge every several years, and a book of her own writings is due out this fall. Her image pops up on dresses by high end fashion houses such as Dolce and Gabbana and mass retailers like H&M.. Warhol’s prints of her are equally ubiquitous, and Madonna contributed to the immortality of Norma Jeane by recreating her most iconic moment “Material Girl”, a spoof on the scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in which Lorelei Lee admonishes suitors who cannot provide her jewels that rival the indomitable sparkle of her eyes.

Friends of mine are quite familiar with what they may term my “Marilyn obsession”. And no doubt many ascribe it to her beauty, her glamour, the mystery that enshrouds her life - and tragic death. But to make Marilyn’s life into a Grimm’s fairy tale is to marginalize her accomplishments, her talent, her drive and her indomitable spirit. There seems to be a tendency to prefer “Marilyn Monroe, tragic victim” to “Marilyn Monroe, inimitable success”. And this, to me, is the greatest tragedy. What I write here is nothing new or groundbreaking. But it is the way I can best express my attachment to the woman who was, in a sense, truly miraculous.

Most Monroe fans know the generally accepted view of her life story - abandoned by her mentally ill mother, shipped from foster home to orphanage foster home, married off at sixteen to avoid going back to an orphanage, discovered as a model in a munitions factory and, after a series of failed attempts, shot to stardom in the film noir Niagara. The multitude of biographies I have read speak of her tumultuous marriage to Joe DiMaggio, her increasing use of sleeping pills to combat insomnia, and her dismay as the studio for which she worked - Fox - placed her in one movie after another as a witless, gold-digging blonde. The subsequent ill-fated marriage to Arthur Miller, her many miscarriages, her full-fledged addiction to a variety of prescription medications, what amounted arguably to gross negligence by the doctors in whose care she placed herself, her scandalous rumored affair with the Kennedys - her strange and untimely death - it seems a familiar story now, right?

And this fits nicely with the schema of Marilyn as Hapless Victim of a Cruel World. And yes, Marilyn was, in many ways, a victim - of a misogynistic society that did not believe a woman could be both sexy and intelligent, of the studios who underpaid her and discounted her talent and her drive, of the malfeasance of doctors who plied her with pills, of a medical community that at the time knew little about mental illness. But there was so much more than that tale of tragedy to Norma Jeane Mortensen Baker.

What many don’t know is that Marilyn left Hollywood in 1954 when she was at the height of her success. She walked out of a contract that committed her to what was practically the equivalent of indentured servitude (a general practice by the studios in those days). She moved to New York, where she studied at the Actor’s Studio and formed her own production company with her partner, photographer Milton Greene. Seated in the back of the class, usually without makeup, she yearned to learn and demanded no special privileges because of her movie star status. In fact, it was quite the hindrance, as most (undeservedly) thought her talentless and even ridiculous. She read poetry and literature to make up for her lack of schooling, for which she felt deeply ashamed. She befriended authors such as Carl Sandburg, Carson McCullers and Truman Capote. She wrote some truly beautiful poetry herself (which as previously mentioned will be released this fall in a book called Fragments. I have read some of her writing; it is remarkably poignant. The work of a sensitive human being who thought and reflected deeply about her life.)

Fox, the studio that had suspended her, eventually gave in and rewarded her with a more lucrative contract. She subsequently gave two of what many consider to be her best performances, in Bus Stop and The Prince and The Showgirl. Some Like It Hot, her most famous movie, followed, and finally The Misfits, a movie in which she plays not the character Roslyn Taber, but herself, raw and wounded yet still enchanted with the idea that there is something rattling yet wondrous about the concept of life.

For me, what is most remarkable about Marilyn Monroe masked her private pain to give the fans what she felt they deserved from her. As she once said:
“I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else."

And Norma Jeane Baker knew how to give her public what it wanted. Even as she aspired to be a more serious actress, she was still compelled to present the image the perfectly glamourous and radiant Marilyn. I have read much on Marilyn Monroe, but I think Ayn Rand may have described it best when she said:

“To survive it and to preserve the kind of spirit she projected on the screen--the radiantly benevolent sense of life, which cannot be faked--was an almost inconceivable psychological achievement that required a heroism of the highest order. Whatever scars her past had left were insignificant by comparison.”

Yes, this is what I admire in Marilyn Monroe. The woman who, despite it all, retained an unshakeable faith in her dream. I must quote the brilliant biographer Sarah Churchwell here, who wrote, in what may be my favorite article about Marilyn Monroe:

“In the meantime, she kept chasing the promise of the green light: it receded before her, it eluded her, but no matter, she would run faster, try harder, and, “someday,” tomorrow … Aspirationalism in its purest form, that’s Marilyn Monroe—a greater Gatsby.”

Sources:
http://sarahchurchwell.blogspot.com/2010/06/happy-birthday-marilyn-part-2.html
http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/index.php?news=3247

The Sands

Perhaps the wings of bats
comprise your repose
tricked into believing
an ability to discern
your journey so elusive
you cloak yourself in night
bereft of my illusions
we will just fly blind