Love My Crazy

Today The Mister is in the mountains, snowshoeing. I am concentrating on the fact that he will most certainly come back alive.

To distract myself, I watched Silkwood, an ’80’s flick, starring Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell.

The movie had a scene where Meryl had just had a lovely evening with Kurt, and he was showing her out the next day. He looked all lovey-dovey at her while she asked him to do some chores before she returned that night. She said something goofy, they both laughed, she waved good bye, got into her car, and drove off.

I thought, this scene smacks of foreshadow. She’ll get into a car accident and die. Cutting away from the car wreckage, they’re going to replay this scene, only it will be in slow motion, with sappy music.

And that’s exactly what they did.

And that’s why it’s Hollywood’s fault I always think The Mister is going to unwittingly snowshoe himself off a cliff–because each time we have a tender moment, I think about how heart wrenching it would be to rewatch it in slow motion to a bittersweet soundtrack.

This charming quirk of mine takes many forms. He likes to travel, and I’m convinced his plane will crash every time. He loves to camp, and I’ve imagined him getting struck by lightening. The first time I said “I love you” was the night before he was going to foray into the woods, and I was traveling overseas to visit a friend. I had to say it then or never, because it was so obvious that if I managed to survive my plane ride, he would most certainly be eaten by bears.

I like to think of this irrational fear as the last bit of housekeeping I should tend to before I procreate. I can imagine it translating into a desperate need to keep my child safe, at the expense of not letting him do outrageous things like ride a bike, go to school, or eat peanuts.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that my story didn’t belong under the blog title “Me Again, Beasley,” so I’ve moved to this new, more comfortable location.

“Me Again, Beasley” appeared as the subject line in a spam message once, and I always thought it would make a great band name. Given that I will never have a band, I thought it would also make a great blog name.

I was wrong.

In the process of writing one of my usual neurotic emails to a friend, she paid me what I instantly realized was the ultimate compliment for someone like me: “I love your crazy.”

She really does.

And while holding myself to the challenge of writing honestly and from the heart, I have decided that I need to, too.

It’s not such a stretch. I’ve always enjoyed my crazy. I’ve always laughed about it. Telling stories about it keeps me humble and entertained. But it’s not until my friend gave it a big, wet kiss that I realized that, more than almost anything else about me, I love my crazy the most.

The only part I love more is its diligent guardian angel — the one that swoops in to clean up the messes my crazy makes when it knocks things over, obsesses about something silly, or says something in public that would have been best not to mention.

This newly-named blog will be told from the point of view of this angel, who realizes it would not be nearly as wise, insightful, or compassionate if not for the thing we both look after as we would a small, adorable child: my crazy.

I think I’ve decided on a new goal in life.

I want to be a “walker by.”  You know, one of those people on the evening news who walks behind the anchorperson?  They are so cool, caught on camera for six feet of their day.

What would you do in your six feet?

Would you look rushed and important, pumps clacking on the tar, briefcase steadfast by your side?  Or would you be the kid who rushes straight into the limelight, puts your hat on backwards, and yells into the camera, “I love you, Mom!”

Today I would be the casual walker-by.  My hands in my overcoat, my chin pointed in the direction I’m going.  It would look like I was breathing, lost in deep thoughts. People would wonder if I’m a mystic.  Their thoughts would wander with me, past my six feet of fame; they would imagine I was going to a dark, mysterious room filled with candles and incense and people’s dreams.

There are 75 ways my Dad can break his daughter’s heart. The top five, not in any particular order, are when he:

1. finds no good reason, in any of the 31 days of a month, to leave his house.
2. delights in hot dog sandwiches made with dissected hot dogs, because English muffins are cheaper than buns.
3. pauses to put his teeth in, mid-phone conversation.
4. has no money for Christmas presents, therefore redeems five bazillion Marlboro Miles for tote bags, leather jackets, and road side repair kits.
5. refuses to hold out for the Marlboro logo-emblazoned iron lung he could have redeemed at six bazillion miles.

A phone call with a manic-depressive, alcoholic father can leave a girl in a big puddle of co-dependent muck, even on good days. On the bad ones, it can feel like Hitler marched through her psychic safety zone, leaving clippings of his tidy mustache all over her sticky heart.

Today was a good day, but it wasn’t all that bad.

I can usually tell within the first 3 seconds of our conversation how he is doing. When he answers, he already knows it’s me because he’s screened the call and heard my voice on his answering machine. Being his only daughter, and that his phone service restricts long distance calling, I have the power to pick him up even if he’s feeling blue.

But if he’s feeling black, his voice is thick and slow, like cold molasses refusing to leave its jar. I have learned that no amount of love from me can warm him up enough to let go and slide on out.

Today he was was a delicious shade of aqua, and he was running freely.

He spoke joyfully of a project that has lured him into the light, at least for the last three months. He has ceased spending his days asleep on his couch, and has pulled himself into a seated position to read lots of books. He remembers his glory days as a graduate student, studying philosophy and the works of dark existentialist authors, in their original French.

He left school after he passed his doctoral exams, but before he finished his dissertation, and the letters “ABD” (All But Dissertation), have haunted him for 35 years. Three months ago he decided that, at 65 years old, he had better get cracking if he ever wants to be Dr. Dad.

And so he stopped watching TV. He stopped snoozing all day. He made himself a couple of hot dog sandwiches, dug out his dusty old books, and started to read.

The Internet has lent an entirely new facet to his learning and, without stepping into a single academic library, my father validated that no literary critic has examined the prose through the same lens he wishes to. He has paged through the notes he left in margins, and has laughed at his youthful naiveté. He is suddenly full of big, important, French ideas, and he’s finally ready to think them.

His jar runneth over with sweet inspiration. And last week it spilled out onto five passionate, type-written pages, addressed to the president of his former university, explaining his journey and why he would now like to resume his studies.

His whole journey.  I don’t even know you, and I’m hesitant to tell you about even one third of that journey.

Oh yes, the president sure has a “situation” hurtling right towards him, and I hope he’s learned how to duck. And I hope he can look past what is undoubtedly a socially uncomfortable missive from a lonely man with lost dreams. If he can, he will find a workaholic who has been unemployed for so long that a small sip of academe will reawaken a scholar who will make his university proud.

But first, he has to be jiggy with reading five pages of a confessional, not unlike step four in any of your basic 12-step programs.

Maybe we’ll luck out, and the Prez will be an AA veteran, looking for a new special someone to sponsor. Maybe we won’t, and the Prez will hand off my Dad’s letter to the provost, who will hand it off to a dean, who will hand it off to Mildred, who doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this sort of shit, so maybe my Dad will never hear back from any of them.

Maybe, instead of letting a lack of response validate his insecurities, my Dad will overcome six decades of low self-esteem and try again. Maybe, after having sent the same letter to every Dean, Dick, and Mildred at the University, my Dad will become “that guy,” who everyone talks about at holiday parties, their elbows cozy in tweed and cheeks rosy with punch.

Then again, maybe he’ll eventually hear back from someone.

My Dad seems to be prepared for either outcome, and I have been marveling over four miraculous things that happened today:

1. He wrote and mailed the letter.
2. His Plan B involves writing the dissertation anyway, perhaps in the form of a book.
3. I did not once, in a 45-minute phone call, try to save him from what might become a devastating blow to his extremely fragile well being.
4. Instead, I congratulated him on taking initiative, and wished him well in his pursuit.

For someone who has spent her entire life trying to save her father from himself, items three and four are akin to winning the free books at an Alanon meeting, or screwing the diet and supersizing your meal anyway. It’s an outrageous and unthinkable scenario, and one that certainly can’t feature little ol’ me as the protagonist.

But it’s true. I’m ready to watch my Dad dig his own way out of his decades-long pit, and let him do it his own way. It’s not my job to criticize, or suggest, or recommend; especially if he doesn’t ask for my help. But it is my job to stand by him, and encourage him, and believe in him, even if my instinct is to cringe at his methodology.

He was never good at making wise decisions, and I was never good at manipulating him away from making them. So maybe this time around we can both learn a thing or two about taking care of ourselves by believing, for once, that something really good can happen for him.

For one year, I blogged.

It was an amazing thing: I wrote, I clicked “Publish.” I posted. Instantly, I received feedback.

It would appear as though I thrive on instant feedback.

People liked what I wrote. And by “people,” I mean friends I’d given the stealthy URL to. They’d read, they’d laugh, they’d add me to their bookmarks. They’d check me out along with their other online haunts every day. Sometimes they’d comment, and I’d be elated.

Acknowledgment: for a writer, is there anything more to life than that?

That’s an interesting question, and it’s why I haven’t written publicly since I stopped posting over two years ago. Because there is more to it than that for me. The more I wrote, and the more I handed out the URL to my friends, the more I realized that what made a compelling story was honesty.But who wants to be honest when everyone you know is reading your blog?

And who wants to read a blog that’s less than honest?

I’m not like my most admired writers. I’m not David Sedaris who, with every lispy turn of phrase, throws his dysfunctional family under the bus. And I’m not Anne Lamott who, with painfully sharp and witty insight, offers up her vulnerabilities to be examined, ridiculed, and loved. I’m Madeline, a pseudonym with stories to tell — and a need for people to read them — while safely behind a firewall of privacy.

When I’m blogging, or wishing I was blogging, I notice profound things every day. And, for reasons that are beyond me, I am overwhelmed with the desperate need to tell you about these things. Why? I have. No. Idea. I don’t even know you! But I think that’s something innate in all writers: we can’t not write things down. For me, it’s a matter of recording before forgetting. Creating for others’ relating. Marking indelibly, before perishing. I record in pixels what the ancients carved in stone, only to remember and be remembered.

So there’s my first nugget of honesty. I don’t generally wear my narcissism on my sleeve.

And yet, here I am to spill my guts to you, and the rest of the English speaking world. In a way, I’m brave to bare my soul. And in another, I’m a coward to do it anonymously. Why can’t I just own my stories? Stand by them like any good friend would do, sling my arm around them, and pose for pictures?

Because then everyone would know I’m nuts. Clearly, unequivocally, gonzo-bonzo.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my neuroses like an old maid loves her cats. I celebrate them every chance I get and tell stories about them incessantly, especially while tipsy at dinner parties. Oh yes, I know how to captivate an audience while completely lacking a filter. It’s a gift.

So let’s see how this goes. This honesty in storytelling. Filters and firewalls begone! Let’s see what it feels like to say thing things that can’t be said. Let’s tell stories that need telling, without the chance of recognition, for better or worse. Let’s see if I can dig far enough, and keep quiet enough about posting, to write the way a writer should.

Openly, honestly, and in stone.