AYO_Here She Is_Excerpt

Transcription

damali ayo • Here She Is • Chapter 1: Land of Confusion • 4
- Excerpt1
Land of Confusion
“There’s too many men, too many people, making too many problems,
and not much love to go ‘round.” – Phil Collins & Genesis
By the time I was thirty-six I had proposed to three men and tried to bully a fourth into
proposing to me. Caressing someone’s hand while making a romantic speech then
unveiling the ultimate question was something I had always dreamed of. At seventeen I
saved up my allowance for two months to buy my boyfriend an engagement ring. It had a
sky blue, rectangular turquoise stone embedded in a thick silver band. I thought it was
stunning. My boyfriend thought it was “kinda homo.” I gave it to him anyway. I may
have picked out the wrong ring, and maybe the wrong guy, but my proposal on the steps
of our school under a starry summer sky, was as good as any man’s.
“damali is the most like Daddy,” was a recurring refrain in my family. This was used to
explain everything from my personality, to the shape of my legs, to my blood type. As a
teenager I wore dresses and heels more than most girls, but it was my father’s size twelve
shoes that I tried to fill as a little girl, literally and figuratively. I clopped around in his
chocolate brown wing-tips, and I became my dad’s sidekick. I served as his apprentice
around the house trying to soak up all the things he knew. Dad was the only male in a
house filled with a wife, three daughters, and thee female dogs. He never told me he
wished he had a son, but I wanted to be that for him.
DRAFT © 2012 damali ayo. All rights reserved.
No portion of this may be reproduced without written permission from the author.
Looking up at the framed black-and-white photo of Mohammed Ali that hung in our
living room, or maybe I was playing with my Mohammed Ali doll when I asked my dad
what I would wear in the boxing ring. I wanted to grow up to be a boxer. The male boxers
didn’t wear shirts, and I knew my girl parts that were not supposed to be exposed to the
general public. Dad answered that I would probably wear an undershirt like the white
cotton ones I wore under my t-shirts, and compete against other girls. I was ready with a
drawer filled with suitable undershirts, but last part didn’t make sense to me. I had no
interest in fighting girls. I dreamed of myself in the boxing ring, donned in a plain white
undershirt with braided pigtails and maroon boxing gloves, unleashing swift uppercuts
and body blows on burly shirtless men.
When I outgrew my boxing fantasy, I resolved to grow up to be like my other childhood
heroes– Albert Einstein, Garrett A. Morgan, and Harry Houdini. I studied how to be a
scientist, an inventor and an escape artist. Dad taught me how electrical circuits worked.
Together we built this cool box to teach me how color and light interact. He let me design
a shelf for my bedroom and when I got older he gave me a toolbox and helped me to
build a set of shelves myself. I set up my own makeshift science laboratory in a storage
closet in our basement. It was right next to the room where my dad kept all his tools. I
made drawings and plans for all kinds of inventions, and when I could, I tried to bring
them to life. I snuck the colorful polyester rings from my sisters’ potholder-making kits to
use in my Houdini act. I instructed my family members to tie my hands with them so I
could practice freeing myself while they timed me. I liked to plant flowers, but was more
excited when I learned how to use fertilizer to turn pink flowers blue. My first cookbook
was Science Experiments You Can Eat. I was a bunny once for Halloween, but my
favorite costume was one I requested that my dad make. It was a wearable painted box
with big numbers and red lights that I could make flash. Yes, that year I was a calculator.
I played a boy in every school play until eighth grade. In second grade I was given the
role of “Mercury the messenger god,” a character assigned to me even though I really
wanted to be “Hades, god of the underworld.” In fourth grade I was “Ahmad” the boy
who gets stuck up a tree in his underwear in The Bad News Bears. No one in the entire
class wanted that part. When the parts were announced the whole class burst into laughter
knowing what I was going to have to do on stage, and grateful it wasn’t any of them. The
teacher, worried that I would quit the play, took me aside to bolster my spirit. In her pep
talk she explained that she and her co-teacher chose me for the role because of all the
boys and girls in the class, I was the only one who was strong enough to handle it.
Two other girls and I became the first to play on the fifth grade football team. Suited up
in full equipment and padding, I played what my coach called an “x-end,” an offensive
counterpart to the tight end. Bursting through the defensive line, I tried to impress the boy
I had a crush on, a safety, by attacking him over and over before he could even see our
quarterback. He never mentioned anything about it, but another boy told me later that I
was really scary. In sixth grade I recruited my best friend and forced us, against the
coach’s will, onto the all-boys baseball team. The first few days, the coach instructed us
to leave. I refused for both of us. It took three weeks for the school to decide that we
could stay on the team. I was adamant about staking our claim in baseball. I would not be
forced to pitch a ridiculous giant ball underhand on the “pussy softball” team.
Most boys’ testicles drop sometime during puberty. My balls dropped early. They grew
and grew until they nearly swallowed my life whole.
Of the three men I proposed to, the first was my high school boyfriend who was one year
older than me. We were a cute and unexpected couple born while flirting over dissected
worms and frogs in biology class. When his senior year slide show projected a photo of
us the whole school let out a simultaneous “awww.” After I proposed, he went off to
college and said he would think about it. I don’t think he did. When I asked him if he was
wearing the new ring I gave him to replace the one he had homophobically rejected, he
told me it turned his finger green.
The second proposal was to a soft spoken but hot-tempered bass player with long hair.
We met when we worked at a CD store in Chicago during my six-month transition across
the country. We moved to Portland together. He was the first man I had dated after three
years of giving up men altogether. He answered yes, but every time we talked about
being married we got into a huge fight. The fights got louder and uglier. Eventually I
packed up my art, one bag, and snuck out of the house while he was at work. I notified
him of my departure in a melodramatic ‘I’m leaving” note, left on the kitchen table. Not
to be outdone by my made-for-TV-movie style departure. He countered by changing the
locks on the house and threatening to sell everything I had left behind unless I paid him a
thousand dollars. I did.
My last offer of marriage was to an artsy filmmaker who called himself a feminist. He
had passed through town while documenting a mutual friend’s book tour. He and I struck
up an online friendship chatting about art, life, and our lonely hearts. He showed me this
little comic about squares and triangles trying to find another shape that matched their
own. I thought he was trying to tell me something about us. I decided I would pick up
what he was putting down. I suggested we get married. He thought I was joking. Cute
comics or not, he didn’t think of me that way. He stopped popping up to chat. Maybe a
proposal over instant message from a woman he had only met once was not what he had
dreamed of his whole life, I don’t know.
I needed to switch my approach. Instead of being the man on one knee with a ring and a
promise, I became determined to find a man who would out-man me. What I got was a
front-row seat at the internet dating circus. It started with a parade of men whom I
suspected didn’t realize they were gay. I guessed this is why they hadn’t met the right
woman. Next came the lanky, braces-decked guy who showed up on our first date with a
copy of the Mensa magazine to prove that he was a certified genius, something I found
hard to believe when he started an ill-advised argument on our second date. Nothing turns
a girl on like being told that women are responsible for rape. I finally had enough of netdates when I went to a movie with a dude who was writing a chapter in a fantasy novel
from the perspective of a nine foot owl. That was the first time I had ever feigned illness
to get away from someone. Although I am sure if I had stayed, my fake migraine would
have turned real.
To fuel my frustration, a neighbor friend of mine cooed, “You’re having so much fun on
line, I’m going to do it too.” I still don’t know why she thought I was having fun. She
logged on, posted a profile, and went on one date. A year later she got married to that
man wearing a dress from Goodwill in a fun, friend-filled ceremony in the beautiful
garden she designed behind his house where she had moved in eight months before. Alice
worked for the fire department. She was wearing her uniform in one of her profile
pictures. If she could find a someone man-enough to handle her, clearly something was
wrong on my end.
A masculine woman can have a fine and happy life if she accepts a feminine man as a
counterpart.1 This is what my high school friends had done. They married quiet, kind men
and dominated them with unpredictable tempers, shrill voices, underhanded insults,
humiliation, and control. At their weddings people patted the grooms on the back and said
“good luck.” I felt sorry for their husbands. They exhibited a kind of marital Stockholm
syndrome. You could sense a terror in their eyes that eked out “help me,” but their silent
screams were quickly covered up with smiles and nods as they compliantly did what they
were told.
A marriage like that seemed like unending hell. I hated weak men, and I hated the women
who dominated them. I was a lot like these women, but I didn’t find comfort in this kind
of arrangement. I hated myself for being controlling and I quickly resented men who
never took the lead. I knew somewhere inside that I didn’t want to dominate my partner,
but I didn’t know how to do anything else. I longed for something different. I wished I
could meet a man who would wrestle control away from me, so that I could finally relax
and trust someone with my heart, with my body, with making dinner- with anything.
One evening, a year after moving to Los Angeles, I burst into tears at the local Koo Koo
Roo. I had left/been asked to leave the full-time job I had attempted to work after years of
being self-employed. I hated working for someone else, and my boss hated that I kept
leaving whenever I wanted to continue giving talks. My second book, which had been
both a painful and mediocre effort, had been left to die a slow lonely death by a careless
publicity department. I applied to be an entertainment reporter for NPR but got balled-out
for being unprofessional by the manager of a celebrity with whom I was attempting to
schedule an interview. I tried stand-up comedy and writing jokes, but didn’t have the
stomach for the comedy-club scene. I walked out of several shows mortified by racist
jokes, rape jokes, and one night where three comedians in a row abandoned their act to
spend their allotted five minutes talking about (and to) a girl in the front row who wasn’t
wearing any underwear.
Next I auditioned in an open call to host a show on the Oprah’s newly forming television
network. That was a disaster. I choked on my poorly-crafted lines which I had barely
memorized because they were wholly forgettable. When I waved my arms in the air
egging the audience to yell “I can fix it!!” which was the name for the obvious and cliché
“everyday heroes” show I had created, they yelled it out, but clearly out of pity, or in the
hopes that I would be reciprocally sympathetic when it was their turn to audition. In
addition to leaving/losing my job, my speaking gigs had dried up that Fall for
unexplained reasons. My income had ground to a halt and I was living off my savings.
Stabbing in the dark, I crammed for the GRE and applied for graduate school. I thought
maybe I’d get that Ph.D. I had dreamed about when I was a kid, but my application was
rejected because one of my references, the one who had actually graduated from the
school I was applying to, had sent her letter in late. I hadn’t made art in three years, I had
short-sold the house in Portland that was supposed to be an investment in my future, and
I was haunted by a carrion trail of my love life.
My car had been totaled a few weeks earlier. An impatient LA driver, instead of obeying
a right-turn-only sign, decided to slam on the gas and jet across a busy street during rush
hour. He took me and my little Honda Civic with him. The guy I was dating offered to
help replace my car and start paying my living expenses. I thought this would give me
some sense of relief. Maybe in all this chaos, I had found one good thing, a man I could
rely on. I explained this to the two people across the table from me. They were not
impressed. They were there to help me organize my finances and return to life as an
independent, self-employed, creative professional. They did not like the idea that some
man I had been dating for two months was about to make me dependent on him. They
really didn’t like that I was seriously considering letting him do just that.
“I am so tired of being a man!” I plunged my face in my hands. As I watched tears drip
onto pages of budgets and a plate of original rotisserie chicken, the reality of what I had
blurted out hit me. My way of doing things was destroying me. My life did not look
anything like I had planned. I was lonely, beyond exhausted, and I only had one year left
to try to fend off the grueling and terrifying crawl towards the impending doom of my
fortieth birthday.
A couple of women in LA who had advised me I needed to be more feminine. One guy
informed me, “No man is going to ask you out. You’re too intimidating.” That had struck
a nerve. I knew it was true, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Femininity was an idea
I used to cringe at. As young feminists we were taught that femininity was the ultimate fword, the kryptonite of every strong and capable woman. If we got too close to it, our
super-human powers might be permanently compromised. I had lived this way for years.
I had proven to myself that anything boys could do, I could do better. I didn’t know
exactly what these women were talking about, but something did have to change. I
needed a break. Femininity sounded like a vacation from myself.
I had no idea how to be feminine, but I had taught myself to be an artist, a writer, and a
business woman. I was sure I could figure this out too. I had been making a haphazard
stab at being feminine with this new guy. Joe was trying to navigate similar waters. “I
know what a man would do,” he often proclaimed. He planned our dates and activities,
was always the one to drive, and set the pace of our sex life. I tried to be feminine by
wearing dresses over lacy underwear in his favorite football team’s colors. I cooked for
Joe every chance I could, making him homemade sugar-free jam and quinoa granola to
show how I could tailor my skills to his dietary needs. I smiled to suppress the anger that
instantly boiled beneath my skin when he didn’t like the things I made for him. I was
sexually available to him whenever he wanted me. I tried my best to comply with his
vision for our life together. Insurance was going cover the cost of replacing my car but
Joe wanted to double that amount and buy “our car.” I agreed because I wanted to show
that I trusted him. I thought that saying yes was the feminine thing to do.
Outside of this generous offer, Joe was not the kind of guy who was capable of taking
care of me or anyone. I had never met a man who was so afraid– of everything. Despite
being a licensed marriage and family therapist who had spent five years working with
gang members, Joe’s first response to most things was, “It scares me.” When he said this
about my tattoos, I thought, They are all flowers. What is scary about drawings of
flowers? Joe’s delicate feelings were the most important thing in his life. If I didn’t laugh
at his jokes, which were never funny, he got visibly upset. After my car got wrecked, a
woman doing a bad parallel parking job behind Joe’s car whacked him on the bumper.
Joe collapsed on my couch, draped his arm over his forehead, and raised his hand to
shush me. He needed some quiet to process his feelings. I sat next to him in silence,
trying to forget the aches in my neck and wrist, and my totaled car was that sitting in the
garage three floors below. A week later, I asked him to massage my neck which was still
sore from the crash. He refused. He didn’t want to drain his energy.
To top things off, Joe’s affections ran hot and cold. Some days he mounted me like I was
a cave man’s blow-up doll, dragging his body over mine, grunting and rubbing against
me until he came. Other days he would turn away from me, barely able to look at my
body let alone touch it, no matter how available I made myself to him. One morning on a
camping trip, in a tent in the middle of Big Sur, Joe and I laid next to each other in
frustration after he once again had been unable to be physically intimate with me. I
begged Joe to tell me what was keeping him so distant. Grabbing his sleeping bag like a
security blanket, Joe let out a big sigh.
“Okay. Here it is,” he glanced in my direction for a second then looked at the
sleeping bag he was mashing and kneading. “I have issues with race and beauty.”
What on earth does that mean? I looked at Joe blankly. He explained that never expected
his “beloved” to be African American. He had not found black women attractive in the
past– and he still didn’t.
“That’s why I always look into your eyes.”
I spent another grueling month-and-a-half trying to salvage my self-esteem. I pretended
that Joe’s disgust didn’t bother me. Then I tried to coerce his attraction through making
him feel guilty for hurting me. Joe tried to work through his “issues” and shove himself
begrudgingly into a committed relationship with me. I reached an all-time low of pain
and humiliation. In all my ups and downs of dating I never imagined I would end up
choosing to compromise my own worth in order to combine my life with a man who
found me racially repulsive. It became too much to bear. My chronic fatigue syndrome,
which had been mostly in remission for the better part of three years, started to flare up. I
was exhausted, depressed, and could barely get off the couch. Our relationship was
literally making me sick. It had to get that bad before I would give up.
I told Joe that he couldn’t keep treating me like this. I hung up the phone and never spoke
to him again. I sold the car we bought and confessed to my financial advisors that I had
made a huge mistake.
After I peeled myself out of bed, I went looking for anyone who could show me how to
do this feminine thing right. I did not want to repeat the debacle I had with Joe. On the
internet I found a “feminine power” yoga class where one other woman and I were led by
a ripe neo-hippie (she borrowed my deodorant so she could go to a party after class) to
tap into the power of our pelvises by swishing our hips awkwardly from side to side in
the form of a figure eight. In my twelve years of practicing yoga, I had never done that
particular move. After that class there was a “female empowerment” Meet-Up in the
same room. This time six of us paraded back and forth as a gorgeous, slightly-creepy,
kind of mean, and incredibly self-impressed “female sensual lifestyle and relationship
coach” analyzed corrected each of our walks so that we could move in a way that was
“sexy, soulful, and sensational.”
When it was my turn to walk, the coach concluded that I moved too quickly and kept my
head down, like I was going somewhere. Her analysis followed. “No one can even see
you like that, although you’ll definitely get to wherever you’re headed” I tried again. This
time I lifted my gaze and slowed my pace. As she had instructed us to do, I “grounded my
energy in my pelvis” and “led with an open heart.” I became surprisingly scared. I felt
exposed and unsafe. I raised my hand and asked the coach what to do about my
discomfort. She responded that I should to seek out a professional who was better
qualified to deal with those “types of things.”
There had to be an easier way. I painted my nails pink and did more internet research. I
discovered clips from a British television show, Anthea Turner: Perfect Housewife. Here
a successful television host embraced her domestic side as she showed women how to
properly fold towels, organize a linen closet and make lavender sachets. That inspired me
to watch several more YouTube videos and learn how to fold fitted sheets. Now I had an
end-product that I could take pride in every time I went to the bathroom or looked in my
closet. I started baking muffins and vacuuming my apartment every Sunday night to
experience the joyful results of women’s work.
Even though she was creepy and unqualified to handle my deeper “types of things,” the
“female sensual lifestyle and relationship coach” knew more about walking, talking, and
acting feminine than I did, so I did a free sample one-on-one session with her. I couldn’t
afford the expensive series of sessions she kept trying to sell me. Over a painfully slow
twenty minutes, sitting on pillows on the floor of her apartment while her roommates
were out, I smiled politely, breathed and visualized. She led me through a predictable
exercise I had heard a million times before that she seemed to think she had invented
herself. “Most people don’t teach this kind of thing,” she claimed. She boasted about how
she had been bullied as a kid but now that she had discovered her feminine power, people
were always giving her things or doing things for her. Her femininity seemed greedy, or
like some form of revenge.
I had been doing a lot of lectures back in Portland, where I had lived for twelve years
before moving to LA. On each trip, I made a ritual of spending an afternoon in Powell’s
Books browsing the new and used titles, making sure to check the Anais Nin section to
see if there was a rare edition I could add to my collection. On one of these trips, I headed
to the “Red Room” where they keep the self-help books. I thought I might find something
to put an end to my relationship tribulations.
My friend Lucia, had started sending me titles of books that her new therapist
recommended to her. She figured that anything that might fix her, might fix me too. I
appreciated any free therapy and generally followed the advice that came via texted
epiphanies and animated five minute voice mails. As I walked along the stacks, I pulled
out my BlackBerry and scrolled through her references. One that I had ignored before
jumped out. “Buy this book!” “Getting to ‘I Do’: The Secret to doing Relationships
Right! by Dr. Pat Allen.” When I first received this note I thought You have got to be
kidding me. Never in a million years was I going to buy a book called Getting to ‘I Do.’
Now, desperate for a solution, I figured, Fine. I headed to the section of books whose
authors’ names begin with A.
The book’s cover was as mortifying as its title. It had a cheesy eighties-style design in
washed out green, yellow, and pink. It looked like a book that had been fading away for a
decade, which it had. A ridiculous white rose with a gold wedding band around its long
stem framed curly script fonts that laid out the title. Reading the title in the text message
had made me cringe but finally seeing the words in their loopy purple glory made me
want to puke.
It opened with the cliché self-help question:
Does this sound like you?
You’re alone, successful, and the clock is ticking…you want your brains
respected and your feelings cherished…you have dated men who seem
right in the beginning, but then it all falls apart…you work more hoping
the money will feel good…you find yourself envying women with men
you wouldn’t want… You may still be with that married man who
promises to leave his boring wife but never does…you try to settle…but
you just can’t. Why? 2
That did sound like me. It sounded a lot like me, but any self-help book can do a pretty
good job of roping in someone who feels hopeless. As I flipped through, phrases like
“beware of equality,” and “it is good for you to feel indebted to your man,”3 made me
cringe. One of the first notes I wrote in the margin was “ew,” something I later erased.
I looked at a few of the other books on relationships and hated them more. I didn’t want
Lucia to think I ignored her advice entirely so I resigned to getting this book. The pages
of the used copy were slightly yellowed and rough. It cost eight dollars and fifty cents. As
I walked up to the counter to pay for it, I hung my head in shame. I could not look the
check-out clerk in the eye. I did consider lifting my head for a moment to ask him to
wrap it in a “discreet brown paper bag” as if it were a porn magazine.
Now that I had the book, its author started popping up everywhere. When I traveled for
work I often stayed up until three in the morning surfing cable channels in my hotel
rooms. This always led me to some kind of unexpected inspiration. Once I spent an hour
flipping between a Behind the Music on Britney Spears and a History Channel special on
Adolph Hitler. Somehow both were equally riveting. It’s amazing what we put on
television. Over the years I’ve watched a woman make herself into a banana split so she
could win the love of Ray J; became familiar enough with Hugh Hefner’s three
girlfriends to pick a favorite; nearly blew out my hearing watching a marathon of the
screaming Atlanta Housewives whom I now adore. I was perhaps most taken aback when
I watched celebrity rehab coach Dr. Drew escort Rodney King to place a bible and
bouquet of flowers at the site of his historic and brutal beating, like that would make it go
away for the rest of us.
On one of my trips I stumbled over the show The Millionaire Matchmaker. I watched a
loud, brazen, and posh New York-to-LA transplant, self-described “yenta” with an
assistant who had a mohawk, steel-toed boots, and tattoos, force direct and brutal dating
advice on men and women. As a result, people fell in love with each other, sometimes. I
was riveted. At home I searched for the show on the internet and any chance I had to
watch it I did. On one episode, the matchmaker, Patti Stanger, brought in her mentor to
coach a particularly difficult woman who did not know how to let men take the lead,
make decisions, or earn her respect. She introduced Dr. Pat Allen, a shriveled old lady
with a potty mouth framed by red lipstick, and big smile. She was a modern day Dr. Ruth
with less giggles and more arsenal. When Dr. Pat directed Patti’s client to “Put your penis
away,” my mouth hung open. I thought back to my overgrown testicles that had been
choking me. I dug out the book and put it in the drawer by my bed. I tried to read a little
of it every night.
Soon after, a woman approached me following a meeting of my creative careers support
group. I must have mentioned my poor track record with relationships, something I had
heard this woman talk about too. “Have you heard of Dr. Pat Allen?” She asked. A month
later I was sitting among a group of women, on the eighteenth floor of a Century City
office building in a big pink cushy chair opposite Pat.
Pat was just as I had seen her on television. On the outside she was short and slightly
shriveled but her big bright eyes revealed a personality that was full of spunk. She was
direct and loud, with a mouth that knew no boundaries. Wearing expensive clothes
bought on sale, she was solid, smart, and as equally tough and kind as anyone I’ve met.
By the time we got there for our one night with her each month, Pat’s shoes would be off
to the side of the room along with any polite pretense she might have reserved for her
daytime clients.
Pat called the big dusty-rose colored chair the “hot seat.” Women signed up on one of two
lists, either to listen or to “work.” Those that opted to work rotated in fifteen minute
increments in the hot seat for one-on-one mini-sessions with Pat in front of the group.
“Most of us are here to work on relationships, but you can work on anything you want,”
she explained. She only charged ten dollars to listen and forty dollars to work. If it was
your first time you could listen without paying at all. Pat stayed with us until every
woman who wanted to work with her had, often until eleven-o’clock at night. She was
committed to everyone in the room, even if she had just met you.
This woman wasn’t a new age self-proclaimed guru. She was a Jungian, cognitive
behavioral therapist and Transactional Analyst with a ton of experience. She always
backed her methods with physiology, neuroscience, or anecdotal evidence. She was never
surprised by the stories we told nor shocked by the pain, shame, and abuse that we
shared.
As I explained my history with relationships, Pat interrupted, “You’re used to being a
man. That’s over. You’re not a man anymore.”4 She assigned practical prescriptions for
femininity in the form of actions we could implement in our day-to-day lives. “This is
‘lady training’ we’re doing here.” 5 She made us raise our hands and take pledges as a
group which always left us laughing and kept us accountable. Her idea of femininity was
empowering, straightforward and simple to understand which helped, because it wasn’t
always easy to enact. At the end of our fifteen minute mini-sessions, she always asked
“So, what’s your contract?” Being feminine meant making a commitment to ourselves.
I left each session exhausted, but stayed awake for hours afterwards, letting it all sink in.
I “worked” nearly every time I went to group. I wasn’t there to listen, I was there to
change.
Just as powerful as working one-on-one, were the books Pat recommended that we read.
Over one year I compiled a list of thirty-two titles that Pat shouted out over the course of
our sessions.6 I bought five. I read three and started the other two. One totally knocked
me on my ass. They weren’t typical self-help books. Two of the ones I read were written
by therapists for therapists. I saw myself reflected in the pages of the books as if I was
looking in a series of well polished mirrors. I devoured them. I had been too busy to read
books cover-to-cover for years but now I read every word. I underlined sentences and
phrases on nearly every page and wrote notes to myself in the margins to make sure I
would remember the string of unending revelations I was having as I read. Details of my
past, my frustrations, my fears, and my failings, were unfolding before me in plain black
print. Things I had never admitted to anyone were staring me in the face. Sometimes I
was so taken aback by the uncanny description of my life that I could only read a couple
of pages at a time. Then I’d have to take a nap.
As I succumbed to the merciless unveiling of myself in their pages, the books became my
guides. Like Beatrice leading Dante through hell into purgatory and then paradise, they
promised me a world that could be peaceful, bright, and kind. The more I read, the more I
wanted that bright, kind, sense of peace to replace the lonely, exhausting, pressure-filled
experience that my life had become. As I read further, the lessons the books offered and
the changes they predicted started to become real.
The closest I had gotten to a happy relationship was six years earlier. Christos and I met
at one of my events as my art career was gaining momentum. I was performing a onewoman original piece called “American Girl” about patriotism and alienation. In addition
to everything else I was doing, I had recently co-founded a theatre company and one of
the other co–founders had written the piece for me. In camouflage pants and a tank top
that read “hello, my race is…” I screeched out the Tom Petty song after which the piece
had been titled, and recited the words from the pledge of allegiance in alphabetical order,
among other things. Christos was the audio technician for the artist-run gallery in Ottawa,
Ontario where I was to stage the spectacle and give a follow-up talk.
I have a week spot for sweet, nerdy, capable, men. I love audio technicians. I love
Canadians. Christos was all of those things, plus he was adorable and assigned to keep an
eye on me. The second son of Greek immigrants, Christos had a head full of curly black
hair and a retro-style. Christos was quiet and soft spoken but when he did talk, people
listened. He had a eclectic genuine appreciation for all types of music but especially funk,
soul, and neglected bands that should have been superstars. He was cultivating his
knowledge of speed metal. He was passionate about the Pointer Sisters. He had a playful
energy about him. He was stubborn and opinionated with streaks of optimism in his
cynicism balanced by jolts of cynicism in his optimism. When he said he would call me
back in seven minutes, he would. As a dee jay and audio-tech, he knew exactly how long
seven minutes was. I loved that. It was a refreshing change from my best friend who
frequently promised to call me back in ten minutes but instead disappeared for two days.
He was resourceful, dependable, and thoughtful. His friends counted on him. His striking,
nervous, hazel eyes made me want to earn his trust.
I pursued Christos instantly, flirting with him throughout our rehearsal and never letting
him out of my sight. I nudged him into taking me to breakfast the morning after the show
before my flight back to the states. At the restaurant the new Tom Waits CD was playing
overhead and I suggested we buy it together. As far as I was concerned our relationship
had already started. I waved to Christos from my cab as I headed to the airport. I knew I
would hear from him by the time I landed and checked my email at home. I did. He was
mine.
Over the course of our two-year long-distance relationship we visited each other for a
month at a time. We biked around Ottawa and walked around Portland introducing each
other to our favorite spots and creating new favorites together. We spent hours in used
record stores. Christos searched for new additions to his dee jay library and I started a
hobby of collecting old comedy albums. We ate so much delicious food, the weight we
put on showed up in the tons of photos we took while we were together. We climbed into
bed and watched documentaries about music and history and funny cartoons about
nothing. Our senses of humor seemed tailor made to fit each other. We laughed
constantly. We shared a knack for finding the funny parts of things that should be grim
and could point this out to each other with only a look. No one had ever made me laugh
as much as Christos did. I loved the sound of his laughing at my jokes.
Christos did find black women attractive. He had dated a black woman right before me.
Unlike previous lovers of mine, he never tried to ignore who I was, “I don’t think of you
as black,” or turn me into a novelty, “Can I call you Cocoa?” When I revealed to Christos
that my relationship history included both men and women, his response blew me away,
“You have so much love to give, that I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.” That is
still the nicest thing anyone has said about me. My first book was just coming out and I
oozed self-importance. I threw a tantrum when he interrupted my work time and
announced that “My work is my wife, my partner is my mistress,” he understood.
Christos never got angry at me, although I gave him plenty of reasons to. My
expectations on our relationship were high and I never missed a chance to point that out.
When my mother called me “too direct” and questioned how he put up with me, he
laughed it off. He never criticized anything about me or expected me to change. He liked
me for me.
- End of Excerpt-

AYO_Here She Is_Excerpt

Transcription

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