I have, until now, held that my tombstone—were I the sort to desire one—should read: Skinny At Last. You know, a little edgy posthumous feminist humor, a nod to how much time I (and millions of others) wasted buying into (even while hating buying into) society’s anorexic demands on women.
Now I have changed my mind. Before I reveal my new epitaph, we must first discuss The Boy. You know— the boy in that old story, walking down the street hitting himself in the head with a board. Someone asks him why he’s doing that. Because, he says, it feels so good when I stop.
If ever a joke encapsulated the bulk of my life, that is the one. Well, except for the part where the boy at least takes breaks in his self-flagellation, something I rarely do. And so, my new imaginary tombstone is to read: Finally! She Put Down the Fucking Board.
The happy truth is that I actually have been learning, very slowly and at random intervals, to put the board down. But before I could do this, I had to first realize there even was a board.
Because the board I got handed at birth was not in the form of wood or any other tangible material. My board, metaphorical, came in the form of chaos. Very, very bad chaos. The chaos of fear and yelling and perpetual high drama. As small creatures are wont to do, I imprinted on the only big creatures at my immediate disposal. Chaos wasn’t identifiable as chaos. Chaos was just our “natural” state of being. I had no idea there were other options.
When, at eighteen, I took off alone into the world, I did not have a sense that I was ever actively courting or creating chaos. And yet I know now, with certainty, that those who have known me more than a little while would cheerfully beg to differ. What they could readily see, I could not see at all as I gravitated repeatedly toward the familiar.
Lockdown gaveth and lockdown tooketh away. I doubt any of us will ever be able to fully sort our personal seismic shifts. One big change I am aware of, though, is that in effectively shutting down my previously solid wedding business, lockdown gaveth me space to see some things. I sorely missed the income of hosting big events on the regular, but I did not at all miss the stress. Lockdown tooketh away my taste and tolerance for chaos-related work.
Earlier this year, before I fully realized my newfound chaos avoidance, I booked another ranch wedding. That wedding happened this past Saturday. Observing my feelings as the day approached and comparing them to my feelings the day after was an excellent exercise in getting closer to understanding what I do and do not want in my life.
Y’all, I am not exaggerating when I say I do not know how to clean. At best, I know how to tidy. Once, long ago, I spent hours “cleaning” in preparation for a dinner guest. I was very satisfied with my efforts. When my friend arrived, she gestured around at all the stacks and piles and announced, “I think it’s so cool you can live like this,” and by this of course she meant the mess she could see but I could not.
I began cleaning the house two weeks before this past weekend’s wedding. Each day, for fourteen days, as I swept and mopped my anxiety grew. It would never be good enough. I was sure to get an earful about something. I could never meet the bride’s standards.
Not the actual bride, the one who was actually getting married. I’d met with her a number of times and knew she was laid back. Instead, I was worried about the standards of that other bride, the one that lives in my head, a composite stitched together from the worst of the brides I’ve dealt with. This despite the fact that these bad apples were always far and away outnumbered by the happy ones.
I’d remind myself to breathe during these anxious moments, to be positive, that everything would be fine. Sure enough, the real bride was happy, relaxed and easygoing. I mean really easygoing.
HOW EASYGOING WAS SHE?
When I checked in with her a couple of hours before the ceremony, she pointed toward the ceiling. “I’m not sure if it came from the top of the doorframe or that vent,” she said. “But a mouse fell on me.”
“A MOUSE? FELL ON YOU? Oh my gosh. I am so sorry,” I said. I gestured at Emmitt, the twenty-pound cat asleep in the middle of the dining room table a few feet away. “I’m going to fire the Mousekeeping Department.”
She just laughed. She genuinely thought the whole thing was funny. I relayed this to her groom, before the nuptials. “Oh yeah,” he said. “We’re country folk.”
Many years ago, during my misspent Knoxville youth, I once got so stoned that the attendant paranoia compelled me to hide my weed, fearing the popo might show up and bust me. I hid it so well I could not find it the next day or the next, etc. Weed-seeking friends would come over and offer to help find this stash, which grew to legendary proportions in our minds until it was a full on bale we sought. I even wrote a blues song—replete with a plea to St. Anthony—titled, If I Were Me, Where Would I Stash My Stash?
Naturally, when I did find it months later, shoved between some books, I discovered a very small baggie with a toddler’s-size handful of stems and seeds at the bottom.
Which brings me to one of my favorite lessons on shifting perspectives, found in the wonderful James Thurber short story Many Moons. I shan’t spoil the tale too much except to say that, yes, on the one hand, it does advocate lying to children. On the other hand, it taught me that for best results when dealing with clients (or anyone really) there is no better thing I can do than actively listen, let them tell me their expectations rather than trying to guess, which only ever leads to me anticipating the worst. Unfortunately, I have frequently experienced amnesia around this lesson.
As with ye olde weed bag of yore, in the months between the mouse tolerant bride booking the place and arriving to marry, I had built up an imagined scenario of doom in my mind. I envisioned endless complaints, scores of people getting drunk and staying late and being loud. I imagined having to call the plumber Monday to undo whatever surely was going to happen to the septic system.
But the reality was this—there were maybe forty people total, including a bunch of wonderful little kids. No booze. They finished up an hour before they expected. They texted on the way out to say how much they loved the place. They left things in great shape. The toilets are still flushing nicely. Any chaos that occurred was minimal and of the joyful, boisterous variety.
I could not thank them enough.
This pleasant experience did not, however, convince me to forge ahead and try to recreate my pre-lockdown life of hosting dozens of big parties every year. Because I took note of an even more pleasant experience the next day. I woke up full of relief. My mind was quiet, really quiet. So quiet that this is when I remembered the boy and the board.
I realized that one of my favorite sensations is relief. I also realized that anxiety is relief’s predecessor. I asked myself if I would, henceforth, be willing to forego blissful moments of ecstatic relief if this also meant not courting anxiety-inducing chaos, be it real or the product of my imagination.
The answer was a resounding yes.
This might sound simple and obvious to some of you. For me the realization is profound. A huge win. Not effortless, for the fiscal reality of dispensing once and for all with my heretofore biggest income generator necessitates great change. These changes—becoming a full time landlady, taking a part time day job—had already begun a year ago. They are not fully anxiety-proof but great is the difference between feeling responsible for perpetually trying to manifest people’s so-called happiest days of their lives versus collecting rent from mostly quiet tenants and striving to leave the ranch early enough to clock in on time. Too, I must live a far more frugal existence now.
But the quiet? The absence of long lists of just how wrong things can go? These things, as the old credit card commercial goes, are priceless. This trade-off of crescendoing anxiety/relief cycles for subtler, far less chaotic stretches of steady-on quietude might just be the best gift lockdown gave me.
NOTES:
Thanks for reading y’all. If you dig this substack and want to support it financially, you can do that for $5 per month or $50 per year. Another way to help—pass it on to readers you think will dig it. One time Venmo tips gratefully accepted @spike-gillespie.
You know I love asking questions. This week I want to know—have you observed any major life changes brought on by lockdown?
I’ve got several more free writing workshop sessions happening at the Hampton Branch Library. The next one is Tuesday, October 17, 5:30-7:30 pm. This Friday at the Susanna Dickinson Museum I’m leading another fun FREE story time for kids from 10 am til noon. Next Friday I’m leading another FREE craft session also at Susanna Dickinson Museum, also 10 am til noon—we’re making friendship bracelets. All are welcome. Email if you want details about any of these events.
The only change I can directly attribute to lockdown (as opposed to being in my 60s) is my attire has become much much more comfy and casual. And I DEFINITELY don't need more anxiety. But I do need more money. Hence grad school so I could feel I had been prepared to know what I'm doing. I spent at least 2 decades avoiding anxiety, now I'm ready to give strengthening my ability to cope with anxiety a try--I have been working on this for at least that amount of time, wish me luck!
I now know that I never want to work in an office ever again.
I’m really terrible at cleaning, too. I seem to make a bigger mess than the one I was supposed to be cleaning. And, I don’t know where to start. Ever. Plus, I’d rather be reading.