Marcus at the head of the table (blog #18)

Leave a comment April 17, 2017 CoCo

For the last hour, I’ve been sitting in bed staring at a (digital) blank page, looking through all the photos on my phone, twirling a necklace around and around my finger, hoping to Sweet Jesus to be inspired to write about something worthwhile, but everything that comes to mind seems to fall flat. (Are you hooked yet?)

I recently heard the writer Kurt Vonnegut say that writers are paranoid people, always looking for meaning in everything, like, Why did they put me in room 471? Well, he says, of course, it doesn’t mean anything, but that’s what writers do, try to connect things that aren’t intrinsically connected.

(If you don’t believe him, just watch what’s about to happen.)

Since starting this blog, I spend the majority of my day thinking about nothing else, just bang, bang, banging my head against the wall, trying to shake out a decent idea. This afternoon, I went for a walk at the Van Buren City Park, and I kept noticing the turtles. There was this one tree limb that had fallen in the water, and at least a dozen turtles of all shapes and sizes were hanging out, catching some sun rays, talking about the latest gossip, whatever turtles do. And I tried to sneak close and take a picture, but turtles must be camera shy, since they all just plopped back in the water and disappeared. (Here’s a photo to prove it—not a turtle in sight.)

So I started thinking about turtles, like, maybe that’s what I’ll write about. You know, turtles take their time, slow and steady wins the race. And then I just wanted to gag because it sounded like a bunch of contrived bullshit.

When I got home from the walk, I started talking to my parents, and somehow we got on the topic of Mom’s stomach, which has been bothering her lately. So I’m just asking if the scan of her gallbladder came back, and she says it did, and it looked fine. And then before I know it, she’s talking about really personal things, using words like “constipated” and “gas” and “bloating” and “laxatives” and “straining.” And Mom’s in the living room with her back to Dad and me in the kitchen, and Dad gives me a look like, Aren’t you glad you asked? So we both kind of laugh, and Mom says, “Well, I know. I used to be a nurse, so it doesn’t bother me.”

So then I started thinking about whether or not it would be okay to write a blog about my mom’s bowels and if there was somehow a moral to be found (in the blog, not her bowels), since my friend Marla recently pointed out that all my stories have morals. (No pressure there.) Well, the only connection I could come up with was that listening to my mom talk about her bowels made me want to run away, kind of like those turtles on the log. Like, See ya later, bitches!

And then I thought that’s the same feeling I have when I watch videos of myself dancing, which I did earlier this evening in preparation for a dance class tomorrow. It’s like I look at myself, and my first instinct is to jump ship and throw the phone down because I immediately see something I’m doing “wrong,” or I think, That guy needs to drop a few pounds. Either way, I rarely end up feeling good, and instead end up feeling like eating Cookies and Crème straight from the carton.

Tonight I had a dance lesson with “the guy whose voice sounds like Darth Vader” and his fiancé. And partly because I saw a picture of myself a few days ago that I didn’t like, I was overly-focused on my posture during the lesson, so I kept looking in the mirror. (Usually I just look in the mirror because—to borrow a phrase I learned in therapy—I’m vain. And no, that’s not an apology.) Anyway, I noticed in the mirror tonight how rounded the area in between my shoulders looked, and that made me think of how I sometimes describe that part of my body as a shell because that’s what it feels like, this hard thing, guarding my heart on the other side.

For a good thirty minutes before I started down this rabbit trail of a blog, I was convinced I was going to write about my first boyfriend, R. I don’t have anything negative to say about him tonight, but maybe I will one day, so I’m just going to use one of his initials instead of his full name. We’re still on good terms, I respect his privacy, and I think the letter R is slightly warmer than “The Secret I Tried to Keep for Three Years” or “The Reason I Drank for Six Months.”

Anyway, R took the photo at the top of this blog, and I thought the head-clutching looked a lot like how I’ve been feeling all day, grasping at straws for an idea to come forth and bless us all with its good presence. I actually started writing an entire post about my relationship with R, but it really wasn’t going anywhere (kind of like our relationship wasn’t going anywhere, either). All that being said, R and I used to talk a lot about the fact that I worried about everything. I’d work up all this nervousness and anxiety about a dance lesson or a meeting with a boss, and then the thing would happen—and nothing. So I’d tell R that “everything was okay,” and he’d say, “On the next thing to dread.”

That phrase—on to the next thing to dread—is something I still use a lot. Mostly I say it to myself, but sometimes I say it to other people. Of course, they have no idea where it came from, but it still feels like an inside joke I get to use, a pleasant remnant of something that didn’t work out.

After two full years of therapy, my therapist gave me a metaphor for my thoughts that has been extremely helpful. (I kind of think it would have been helpful if she’d told me sooner, but if “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, we’d all have a Merry Christmas.) She said that thoughts are like guests at a dinner party where you’re the host, and whereas “all thoughts are welcome,” not all thoughts get to sit down and have a meal. So she said when a self-judgmental or fearful or on-to-the-next-thing-to-dread thought comes up, it’s welcome in the room, but it’s okay to tell it to go sit in the corner. Like, thank you for being here, I understand why you came, but I don’t have room for you at the table. (No soup for you!)

So if I were to talk to my therapist about all the thoughts today that have sounded a lot like “Oh gross, Mom’s talking about gas again,” and “That guy in the video really let himself go” and “That guy in the mirror needs to stand up straighter,” she’d probably say, “And what does Marcus at the Head of the Table say?” To which I’d reply, “Marcus at the Head of the Table says, ‘I’m so glad my mom feels comfortable around me and that she’s just talking about anything at all. She was so sick for so long, that there were years when she hardly said a word. I just love the sound of her voice, and I know there will come a day when I’ll miss hearing it. And as for that guy in the video, he’s doing the best he can. And as for the guy in the mirror, of course he’s protecting himself. That’s usually what people do when they’ve been hurt. And he’s standing up so much more than he used to. Standing tall, after all, isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s something that takes time. Slow and steady wins the race.’”

[This blog post is dedicated to Kurt Vonnegut.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

All emotions are useful.