I have practiced being numb to danger in my life, often daring something to happen. I remember sneaking around alone and spying on hobos at the garbage dump or holding my breath to the point of almost blacking out while swimming, and fond memories of riding my bicycle as a young girl, miles past where I was allowed to go. I hitchhiked alone in Europe and skied down mountains in the Swiss Alps that I should never have been on. Suddenly I am acutely aware that I have never been able to tell the difference between what is safe and what is dangerous, and I sure as hell can’t right now.
A small, green bird alights on the limb to the right of me. We look at each other eye to eye, with only slight movements of our lids. It feels as though something is communicated, but what I can’t tell you. Suddenly, I remember another bird encounter during an experimental course on Kundalini Yoga that I took my senior year in college. Our teacher, a black man wearing a white turban and white robes, would casually walk through the halls of uniformed cadets in the ROTC (Reserved Officer Training Corps) building where our class was held. He taught beginning yoga poses, outlined the yoga philosophy, encouraged us to become aware of our breath, and introduced us to meditation.
One spring afternoon while attempting meditation during the class, a bird began singing directly outside the window. As I worked hard to concentrate on my breath, this sweet song penetrated my entire body, and soon I couldn’t distinguish my breath from the slur of those rich, melodious notes.
I look at the bird next to me now as if it is a feathered angel. Maybe it is. Our steady gaze calms and deepens my breath, until I am able to ease over to the main trunk and slide down to solid ground.
I am so relieved to be on the ground, I announce that my clothes are coming off, and I’m going to run ahead. Dropping my shirt, bra, and shorts, I take off across a field in my underwear and shoes, running like a wild pony in an open meadow. Nancy, sensing the freedom of such abandon, joins me as the guys stand perplexed, Dave gathering our discarded clothes. Nancy and I laugh and run through the lush, green fields, the sun catching our long blonde hair and strong, firm bodies, our feet sure-footed and fast despite the tilled, uneven ground. Nothing can cause us to stumble; we’re flying, aware of the LSD coursing through our bodies. A full fascination of life vibrates in my cells. I’m not running naked as a sexual object; I’m running naked for freedom from what I have felt bound to, obsessed with, and baffled by. Right now, I could care less that the guys are there. Only Nancy’s presence offers comfort, light, and energy. I feel aware of a stronger and surer self. Please, I think, let me continue to feel this lighter side of life. Let me remember what this feels like. Let me understand what I can do to move forward, away from that tight knot of feelings that keeps me tethered to some incomprehensible heaviness and despair.
Later we take back our clothes, and Nancy and I walk on ahead, arm in arm, immersed in delightful conversation while a whole palette of colors splash across the evening sky. Soon bright stars begin to pop out in the welcoming darkness and, with grace, we move toward the house, leaving the guys fading in the background.
AN OPEN MARRIAGE
1977 (age 24)—Texas, Colorado
Dave wanted us to be in this Open Marriage Group he learned about from the university. I’ve been blaming most of my depression on a husband who unabashedly gawks at every attractive woman who walks by. My trust issues and distorted experiences of love have been wreaking havoc on me. I thought when Dave and I got married he wouldn’t want to be with other women, but now I realize that isn’t the case. I am trying to be up to the challenge of an open marriage. I want us to be a cool, open-minded couple, especially if that’s what Dave wants and what it will take for him to be in love with me. I want to be at ease sleeping with other men, but I seem to end up wanting them all to love me, exclusively.
A woman Dave works with and is sleeping with leaves me a picture she has drawn of a fawn lying down in the forest. Bambi? I don’t understand. I look at the Bambi drawing and, though I believe it when Dave explains that this woman is really sensitive and caring, I’m having trouble getting beyond that she slept in my bed and left that drawing on my bedside table. I haven’t slept with anyone else in our home, but obviously it happens here when I’m away.
I’d rather focus on running and being a good schoolteacher than being good at an open marriage. Dave likes to party, late, and has seemed ambivalent about work until this job at the print shop where he met the Bambi artist.
Lenny and I met through one of Dave’s closest friends. Lenny is a musician and a spiritual seeker who is committed to his work with disabled people. We feel an ease with one another, and soon I’m happy to be going out with someone who seems to really feel what he says he feels. So, Dave and I are now dating others, even though we’re still married and living together.
But I’m in free fall. One night I get stoned, take a walk, and feel a dam break within. I weave on and off the streets, in and out of headlights, hearing drivers yelling at me. But the yelling in my head is louder: What a fucking idiot I’ve been! What is wrong with me? I’ll do anything with anybody if they’ll just love me, or act like they are attracted to me, or that I’m special. Why do I do this? Why do I need this? I should never have gotten married. It occurs to me that I’ve got to get out, just like I had to get out of my parents’ house when I went to college.
I find a little rental house next door to a friend on a dead-end road that backs up to a florist shop, and I move in. The shop throws out its days-old flowers in the back bin, and I gather them up and spread flowers throughout my new place. I furnish it with four old rocking chairs to alternate rocking in—the preferred pastime of my childhood and teen years—and I rock and cry and rock and sing and rock and think and rock and pray and rock and dream. I have never lived alone. I feel safe, and at home.
Lenny and I keep dating and decide to take a backpacking trip together to the Spanish Peaks in southwestern Colorado. He picks a place and we hike in and pitch a tent. The second day, we consume some psilocybin mushrooms I brought that Dave and I had gathered and dried from cow fields east of Austin.
I take off on my own as the ‘shrooms are kicking in and find a place to lie down where there had been a forest fire years earlier. The sun beats down on me amidst this nest of burned branches.
Gloom descends. I weep. Why do I always miss Dave? Lenny is so good and kind and trustworthy. Why do I want what’s not good for me? I can’t seem to get anything right. Dave probably has the Bambi girl in bed right now. I look at the black wood around me and feel as seared and scarred as it is. I am at a high altitude, hatless as the sun beats down on me. I have lost track of time and can’t remember how far I hiked or how long I’ve been lying here.
I’m also out of water. I feel dizzy. I close my eyes and think that it is just fine with me to die right here, in the sun, high in the mountains, without water. Why not? Add to my fuck-ups. I can hear it: she was so fucked up she fucked up again in the biggest fuck-up ever.
I doze until a fly lands on my nose.
God damn it. I stand up, wobbling. My vision is blurred. I can tell by the slant of shadows and light that the sun is going down. I’ve been here for hours. I find the trail and begin to wander down. I run into Lenny, who is out looking for me, concerned.
“Are you okay? Drink this. C’mon, lean on me till we get to the tent. You’re really sunburned. We’re almost there.”
I can’t talk. I’m shivering and realize I’m crying. Lenny gets me to the tent and wraps me up, hands me more water, and watches. Before long he decides to head down the mountain for help.
“Stay in the sleeping bag. Here is water. I won’t be gone long. Please, Patricia, don’t go anywhere.” I nod. This guy is too nice to hurt anymore despite wishing, right now, that I had died in that scorched forest.
I float in and out of consciousness in the cocoons of the bag and the tent. I try to grab at threads of what is going on, but it’s hard. Nothing makes sense. The only thread I can grasp is the one that
tells me how stupid I am. How stupid I was to fall in love with Dave, to get pregnant and have an illegal abortion, to marry Dave, to agree to an open marriage, to come here with Lenny, to let Lenny think I could love him when I don’t even know what love is. My head spins and crazy images flash across my vision—unspeakable, nonsensical, sexual images of me with my dad, seeing him walking into my bedroom, me trying to get out of his truck, us lying together on a camper bed on a beach—I squeeze myself into a tight ball, drifting in and out of consciousness.
Search and Rescue arrive with Lenny guiding the way. They secure me in the sleeping bag and begin to carry me down the mountain. On the way down, the jostling and their voices awaken me, and then I’m out again until I wake up in the emergency room. The doc asks who I am, and I want to say, “a fucked up person,” but I say my name, though I refuse to add, on questioning, that I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Maybe Lenny told them. I try to act sensible and smart so that they won’t think anything is wrong with me. A familiar pattern.
“You’re severely sunburned and dangerously dehydrated, and a very lucky person because of your friend here. We’re going to keep you on IV hydration for a few hours and watch you through the night.” The doc looks at me with suspicion and a hint of pity. I feel plenty pitiful. I don’t understand how I can be so numb and dumb. The fucked-up voice is so loud, but behind it I hear the faintest whisper of another voice, the one that whispers how life is good, that I have value, to not stop looking.
AT THE LAST MINUTE
1978 (age 25)—Houston, Texas
We are like a herd of horses stomping and snorting, ready to break out of the corral. Hundreds of women in running shoes and shorts, numbers pinned to our T-shirts, warming up for an all-female 10K, one of the first of its kind, sponsored by cosmetic manufacturer, Bonnie Bell. It is 1978, Memorial Park, Houston, Texas.
An announcer welcomes the crowd of runners, acknowledges the number of states represented, then invites the well-known racers up front. My name is not on that list, but I move to the head of the pack anyway. No one seems to know who is who, and I want to be with the serious runners.
For five years, I have been playing with the newly formed Austin Women’s Soccer League and the first University of Texas Women’s Soccer Team. My position has been right halfback, and I often run five to six miles in one game. These 10K races are new events. Up to this one, the only races I have competed in have been co-ed. Amidst a mass of males, bystanders called out how far ahead or behind the other women runners were, which had helped me to win a number of races.
I took off many an early morning while Dave slept, often with a hangover from a night of partying. I could stretch, run six to eight miles, come home, and eat breakfast before he ever opened his eyes. One weekend I got up early, ran, and won a 10K race in Austin. Returning home, I woke Dave up and showed him the trophy, which during these years, was always topped with a male runner. “When did you start running?” he asked, squinting at the glare of morning light bouncing off my garish prize.
Running numbs me. I slit my eyes and slip into a hypnotic state. Pounding the pavement or ground offers a blend of punishment and a daring, ecstatic freedom. I push myself to a point of pain, feeling a mix of disdain and exuberance. As a young girl, I would pedal my bike ferociously to make it home by curfew, and when swimming, I would come up for a gulp of air just as dizziness began to engulf me. Inching so close to the edge tempted me with a willingness to risk my life, like a sacrifice.
Here at the front of the crowd of runners, I spy the trophies displayed on a table: five engraved gold bells in diminishing sizes, the largest for first place and the smallest for fifth. The last place bell is the exact size of a dinner bell from Sears catalogue that I ordered as a child for my mom one Christmas. I remember its tinny ring.
The day before, I had leisurely walked and jogged the course for today’s race, wanting to familiarize myself with the terrain. There will be bottlenecks if I don’t get ahead of the crowd. Can I stay up front? How fast are these fast women? Do I have what it takes to win this race? Sometimes I imagine myself to be a gazelle sweeping across a savannah. I eye the female athletes around me and tense my leg muscles. Then I look over and see my good friend John, who now lives here in Houston, giving me the thumbs up.
The starting gun pops and we are off. Within the first mile I find myself in a pack of about twenty-five runners. The pace is steady, and I hang back, lacking confidence amidst the quiet thud of feet. The group stays compact until mile four, when about ten women gradually drop behind. I wonder if they are catching their breath and will soon surge forward. Looking at those ahead, I can’t gauge their energy, and during mile five I let myself inch up beside a cluster racing steadily. I hear tired, puffy exhalations, so I sweep ahead and join the leading pack.
Eleven runners with less than a half-mile to the finish. Racing with women only is exhilarating. Sweat flicks off our bodies in the humid Houston air. With form and grace, we stretch into leap-like strides, but I still wonder, are these runners holding back for a final thrust at the end? I am barely hurting.
The finish line is now in full view. I move ahead of runners ten, nine, and eight. Runner seven and six are running neck-and-neck, and I make a quick maneuver around them. Only five women ahead. Five? That makes me sixth! The five trophy bells flash through my mind. With seconds to go, I zip around runner five, crossing the finish line on the heels of the runner in fourth place. Trophy bells are ringing.
I accept the fifth-place bell with a heavy heart, wondering why I had been so afraid to surge ahead, why I had let my doubts and insecurities keep my feet from flying as they were so eager to do?
Why did I wait so long to trust myself?
CAREENING
1978 (age 26)—Mexico, Guatemala
Dave and I divorce, and Lenny and I make plans for him to move into my flower-filled rocking chair paradise. The day Lenny is packing up a truck, I call off our plan. It’s a combination of things. I look around my little house and love it with just my black lab, Bandi-Lune, and me. Also, a not-so-good-for-me guy has been on the periphery, and I decide to go out with him.
Months ago, Lenny helped me apply for and secure a grant at the University of California, Northridge, where I will move later this summer. But first I decide to go on an adventuresome journey with Don, the new dude, backpacking down through central Mexico and into Guatemala. Don has made all the plans, saying that we can travel very inexpensively. I have barely thought about why I’ve agreed to take this trip with Don. He’s nice, but I don’t really like him that much. He’s been to Mexico and Guatemala before, places I’ve wanted to visit. In an odd way he reminds me of my dad: dark features, strong, has a motorcycle, repairs things with ease, a tightwad, shows little emotion.
Ever since my dreadful hike and ER visit last fall, I’ve again been disappointed in myself. My mind replays confusing scenes that floated through my head in the tent on the mountainside while I waited for Lenny to return. My head and heart are scrambled. A sorrow about who I am and who I can’t be jabs at me. I remember feeling like a throw-away girl with Dave while in high school. Like I’m garbage. Maybe I’m just trying to live up to what I think of myself. Who I am and what I do rarely seem to matter.
On one of our first nights in a nicer hotel—as in not sleeping in a tiny space that is only a wall-to-wall bed or on a bed made of hay—I learn what inexpensive means to Don. I’ve enjoyed the Oaxaca hotel and the shower, and head on down to the street as Don suggests so I can meet him after he checks out. As we are boarding a bus full of chickens and also crates that the Mexicans use as seats, I ask Don what I owe him for the hotel.
“Nothing. I walked out without paying!” Don laughs.
“Not really! Why would you do that?”
“It was easy to do, and I figured we could use the cash.”
He takes the last gulp on the Coke he bought at the station and tosses it out the window. The bus is on the outskirts of town.
&nb
sp; “Don, what are you doing?” I am in disbelief and feel like I’m with a total stranger. Maybe I am. But I do know a little about this guy and have met his parents, know they own acres of scenic land just south of the hill country, that Don owns real estate in Austin, and lives pretty nicely. Why walk out of a Mexican hotel without paying, then toss a soda bottle out a bus window?
“That’s what the Mexicans do. Look,” and he points to all the litter alongside the road.
I take a deep breath and feel sadness well up inside, then look around at the beautiful, hardworking people on the bus. All ages. Most of the adults are short with jet-black hair. Some are looking at me—blue eyes and shoulder-length blond hair, a backpack between my long legs. I smile. They smile but look away later when the bus stops so we can all take a pee break. I use a piece of cloth I bought to wrap around me like a skirt and hide most of my butt as I squat.
No turning around now. I’m stuck with this guy, and I better pay attention. I’m in a poor, developing nation and I don’t speak Spanish. He does. But his cavalier attitude extends to me, I soon learn. One night, despite voicing that I don’t feel like having sex, he pushes himself onto me. I don’t fight, just lie there, and realize my participation doesn’t matter anyway. It all feels familiar, and without knowing how I know, I dissociate from what is happening until Don finishes, rolls over, and goes to sleep. I lie in bed and cry. This trip isn’t what I thought it would be.
We are at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, and as strange as it must appear to the inhabitants in this picturesque little village, the next morning I take off for a run in long sweat pants and running shoes. I don’t make eye contact with people. I run up and down the streets, trying to pound out my doubts and disappointments as my shoes hit dirt. I’ve run a few marathons at this point in my life, and right now I feel like I could run forever, that the entire village is pulsing with the drumbeats of my feet. I circle, backtrack at dead ends, but don’t stop. I have to make it to the end. I have to finish this trip. I have to get to California. I have to believe I have something to offer, something of value. I have to survive.
Being Mean Page 9