Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things

by Amy Dickinson

  I am no longer afraid of my father. I don’t dread my contact with him. I pull up close in order to shout into his ear. I hold his hand, and when he is in bed, I sometimes stroke his wispy hair into place. When he’s feeling up to it, we go out onto the home’s porch and look out at the steep hill that rises up and fills the view at the edge of town. Recently, Bruno and I wheeled him a short distance to the town’s park, with its stocked lake. We sat in the sunshine and watched people pull trout from it. Buck always thought this rough countryside was God’s country, and he still seems to love it.

  My father never asks about his farm on the island in Canada or about his sheep, goose, or cats. He doesn’t talk about his other property and scattered possessions. They’re all gone now. Now that the lie of wealth can no longer be maintained, the women, too, have vanished. When I asked him recently if he liked where he was living, he said, “Well, I just don’t give a damn.” Searching for signs of depression, I asked him, “Wait, Dad, are you saying you don’t give a damn because you just don’t care?”

  “No, I’m saying I don’t give a damn because I know I will never leave here, and I’m happy enough. It’s going to end someday,” he said.

  Gradually and incrementally, I seem to have accepted the position as my father’s next of kin. I have made peace with his regrettable choices and ruinous actions. I no longer blame Buck for being himself. I don’t know if I would call it forgiveness, exactly, but more a letting go of my own bitterness, in being the daughter of someone so hell-bent on disruption. Now that his life is nearing its end, I miss his antic energy and refusal to settle down.

  My childhood happened so long ago. I am no longer the girl trying to outrun my father’s failures but a middle-aged woman stroking the hand of a man who has nothing left. I have spent the bulk of my life missing my father. Now, at the end of his life, I know my father in a new way. The menace of his early years has faded. Every thoughtless, disruptive, and unkind thing he could do has already been done. He and I are shackled to the knowledge that it’s going to end someday. The only burden I shoulder now is my knowledge that, when that day comes, I know that I will miss him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things

  I was putting gas in my car the other day, standing there at the gas pump and silently counting “One, one thousand, two, one thousand,” which is the only way I can seem to cope with this, my least favorite chore. I usually close my eyes while I’m pumping, playing a little game against the ticking numbers of the gallon indicator. I tell myself, Just pump until ten gallons and stop. And when I reach ten gallons, I’ll say, Well, you’ve come this far, you might as well fill it.

  I had finally reached a full tank and was replacing the nozzle when a car pulled up across from me on the other side of the gas pump. A woman got out. She looked vaguely familiar, but when you’re pumping gas, everyone looks vaguely familiar. Pumping gas unites the whole of humanity into one big washed-out blob. It’s the great zombie leveler.

  I was finishing my transaction when the woman spoke to me. She reminded me that we had met that one time at the farmers’ market in Ithaca. Did I remember? (I did not.) “Oh…,” I said. I never voluntarily cross the threshold of Ithaca’s famed farmers’ market, which is a crowded outdoor weekend market of organic goods, homemade soap, candles, and wearable art, housed under a large and fancy pavilion.

  On Saturday mornings the hippie farmers come down from the hills, peddling their panpipes and goat cheese and batik tablecloths. They carry their babies in crossover slings. I love a hippie family (who doesn’t?), but it’s the adjunct professors at the farmers’ market who give me a pain. They are the ones who stroll from booth to booth, holding up the line while they grill the proprietor about the locally sourced honey: Are the bees from here? Do they feast on the nectar of buttercups? Is this a free-range hive? And the drones—are they encouraged to form a lasting relationship with the queen? This plastic bear the honey comes in seems a little gender-specific. I brought my own Mason jar. Can you fill it?

  I buy my produce from my neighbors, my soap from the supermarket, and I try to stay as far away as possible from wearable art. I get a rash just thinking about it. But once in a while, one of my daughters will drag me down to the farmers’ market, where I spend all of my time trying to find a slice of pizza with real cheese on it and then grumpily wait in the car.

  I did not recognize the woman at the gas pump and she didn’t introduce herself to me, so I will call her Barbara (she looked like a Barbara). At the start of this encounter, I did what I usually do when I am greeted by someone I don’t know. I faked it and said, “So, how are you doing these days?”

  Barbara said, “Well, I’m sure you heard about Kurt and me.” (I hadn’t, and couldn’t place him either.)

  “No,” I said.

  She then told me about her husband’s infidelity. Barbara supplied lots of details about her husband’s behavior, the other woman’s behavior, the woman’s physical appearance, and even the breed and comportment of the woman’s dog (not to put too fine a point on it, but that woman’s dog was a real bitch). Barbara had already crossed over the hump of hurt and the river of denial and was now in the pissed-off phase of life after infidelity. Their children were torn but forming alliances, resulting in what sounded like a very uncomfortable standoff.

  This sounded awful. As someone who had survived infidelity, I could still feel the emotional muscle memory of betrayal. I also remembered the almost manic need to tell the story. Sharing our problems with a stranger might be a naked bid for sympathy, or it might be an expression of a simpler and more elemental need to describe our lives, in a bid for connection. Right after my first husband left me, I was sitting in the dentist’s chair for a root canal. As the dentist’s probe mistakenly hit my tooth’s nerve, I jumped and shrieked.

  “Oh no, what happened?” the dentist asked.

  “My husband cheated on me!” I cried.

  “Well, I can’t do anything about that,” he said, offering me a tissue. “But I can totally fix this tooth.”

  I feared Barbara might ask me for something, because sometimes when people run into me, they either tell me their stories and seem to expect advice in return, or they flat-out ask in advance for advice, then tell their story, and then don’t listen to my response (sort of the way you might ask your vet about your dog’s heartworm at a cocktail party but then forget to pay attention to his answer).

  I was praying for another vehicle to arrive at the gas pump, which would force me back into my car and permit me to drive away. But it was an extremely slow day for gas guzzling. After forty-five minutes of standing at the pump listening to the sad infidelity story, I realized with some relief that I had nothing practical to offer Barbara, and so I simply listened. I waited for her to finish, and then I told her I was so sorry this was happening. I told her I would be thinking about her and hoping for the best for all of them. And then I drove away, feeling heart-heavy over this unburdening.

  This happens to me quite frequently, individuals offering a personal unburdening to me. As challenging as this can be, I prefer it to the other sort of encounter, which is heavy with expectation.

  During my first year of writing the “Ask Amy” column, I became aware of a growing phenomenon at my office at the Chicago Tribune. A colleague would come in, close the door, unleash a personal problem, and then wait for me to help them solve it. This seemed to happen about once a week, and I did my best to be polite and helpful. I had even spoken with the referring therapist at Northwestern Hospital—just down Michigan Avenue from the Trib building—and he encouraged me to offer his contact information to colleagues who might want it.

  One time, just before Christmas, I arrived to work early and noticed my coworker, whom I’ll call “Gage,” seated just outside my office. Gage and I were sort-of newsroom friends; we joked around and occasionally ate lunch together in the break room. Basically, Gage and I were break room buddies. This was the third or fo
urth time I had arrived at work to the sight of Gage, waiting for me to start my workday as his personal advice-giver. As I opened the door, he followed me in and plopped down in the chair across from my desk. As I was taking off my coat, Gage started babbling away about his romantic involvement with a newsroom intern. Gage was single and she was single, and I didn’t care at all about any of it—or them, in particular. But Gage was now torn between two interns, and he wanted me to help make his choice for him.

  I demurred, “Mmmm, Gage, I think you need to stay away from the interns. Otherwise, no. I’ve got nothing for you.”

  “But I’m here for advice!” he commanded.

  That was when I realized that he saw me as a shortcut between one of his petty problems and an answer he didn’t want to bother to arrive at on his own.

  Here was my advice: “Gage, shut up.” I then suggested that if he wanted me to solve his problems, he should write me an “Ask Amy” question and take his chances to see if I decided to publish it.

  That felt sooooo good.

  One morning, one of my coworkers closed my office door and told me about an ethical dilemma that was intensely intimate, essentially unsolvable, and quite heartbreaking, at least to me. As she spoke, I immediately realized that after this revelation, she would probably never speak to me again. I got the distinct sensation that she had violated her own privacy, and I knew she would regret it. We weren’t friends, and although she seemed like a nice person, she was just someone I passed in the hallway and occasionally saw in meetings. I’d never had a personal conversation with her on any level. There was no relationship or context to carry us over her disclosure, nor did we have the anonymity provided by my advice column to hide behind. I tried hard not to offer any point of view at all, knowing that if I did, I would regret it.

  My colleague was passing off a true ethical dilemma as a Hobson’s choice, and after she was done telling me about it (and after I offered the therapist’s referral phone number), she backed out of my office and went back to hers. I’ve often wondered what ultimately happened with this woman’s dilemma, but I will never know, because in the ten years since her disclosure, she has indeed managed never to speak to me again.

  Right after that, I called the referring therapist at Northwestern on my own behalf. My therapist does what skilled therapists do: She helps me to unspool the events of my own life and decode my problems, in order to arrive at a deeper understanding and sensible solutions. Sometimes we discuss the burdens unique to the advice-giver, of being the repository of so many sad stories. We talk about the pressure I have felt to somehow behave perfectly and the perception that I should always know what to do, despite the fact that I lead a distinctly imperfect life and make my share of bad choices. I’m smarter on paper, and I always maintain that if other people approached their own problems the way I approach their problems—with research and reflection and a time-consuming weighing of options—they wouldn’t need me at all.

  When I first started writing the “Ask Amy” column, Ann Landers’s former editor at the Tribune gave me a gift when he told me a quote from the late, great advice-giver. When asked if she felt burdened by the volume of personal problems that landed on her desk, Ann Landers replied that she didn’t let it bother her. “These problems aren’t my problems. I’ve got my own problems,” she said sagely.

  Sometimes, though, the fact that people tell me things means that I can enjoy a moment of connection that feels real and where I leave the encounter with much more than I offered. This happened recently when Bruno and I were guests at the very fancy Gridiron Club dinner in Washington. The Gridiron dinner is a quirky annual Washington tradition, where members of the press and members of the political ruling class meet to lampoon each other, in a strictly off-the-record evening of songs and jokes. I pulled my one formal dress out of the closet, and we rented a tuxedo for Bruno for this famous white-tie event.

  President Obama and many of his cabinet members were seated along a raised dais at the dinner, while the 700 or so guests were seated at long tables in the hotel ballroom. I was excitedly wearing my ding-dong dress. I call it the ding-dong dress because its skirt sways back and forth like a bell when I sway back and forth—which is something I tend to do after enjoying the cocktail hour and the free-flowing wine at these fancy events. Bruno, who had never worn white tie before (and who has?), was looking extremely handsome and even more awesomely Ed Harris than usual.

  In between food courses, guests mingle and table-hop. Aside from the president and many important Washington officials, there are other celebrities and rich and powerful types in the room, and they seem happy to shake hands with the hoi polloi. I had already met President Obama at a previous Gridiron dinner nine years back when he was the freshman senator from Illinois. He did me the huge favor of saying, in front of the publisher and CEO of the Tribune, that he and Michelle couldn’t start the day without reading my column over breakfast. I think I still owe him five bucks for that.

  While Bruno and I were eating and chatting with our tablemates, I furtively scanned the room, looking for the people I most wanted to meet between courses. I skipped over Wolf Blitzer but put Madeleine Albright on the short list. I waved hello to Andrea Mitchell and Gayle King. But once I got a bead on him, I knew what my first stop would be. After the first course was cleared, I beelined across the room to meet Hank Aaron. I think I knocked over Chris Wallace on the way as I crowded in to shake the hand of my childhood hero. I told Mr. Aaron I had written him a letter when I was twelve years old, when he surpassed Babe Ruth’s home run record. His letter in reply is one of my greatest treasures. Just clasping his giant hand made me happy to be alive.

  Emboldened by my success with Hammerin’ Hank, and perhaps also by that third glass of wine, after the next course I pulled Bruno over to meet Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and the new owner of the Washington Post. I introduced myself, and we started to talk. Mr. Bezos very politely said he read and appreciated my work, which is carried in the newspaper he owns. He asked me how I know what to say when I answer letters in the column. I answered him the way I usually do when I’m asked that question—saying that I had actually experienced many of the things people write in to me about and that I often used my own experiences as insight when I pondered how to answer. I told him I was from a small place and that the problems I had wrestled with in my own life were human scale and very real.

  Jeff Bezos then told me that his mother had given birth to him while she was still in high school in New Mexico and that his grandparents were incredibly influential in his life because he spent his summers on their ranch in Texas while his young mother went to school and worked. I said I was also raised by a single mom and was a single mother myself and that Bruno and I were now the parents of five daughters and were trying hard to help raise our young granddaughters. Jeff Bezos’s grandparents had been his great champions, and he encouraged and reminded me that what Bruno and I were trying to do in our personal lives—to have a strong marriage, and do good work, and to take care of our families—was probably as important as anything else any of us would accomplish. I don’t know Jeff Bezos; I doubt I’ll ever see him again. But an important feeling of human connectedness happens when people describe their lives and respond with compassion. Ding-dong. I can still feel it.

  Jazzed by my warm feelings toward Mr. Bezos, I scanned the room again and saw Dear Abby—Jeanne Phillips—seated at a nearby table. Jeanne is the daughter of Pauline Phillips, the original Dear Abby, who was the twin sister of Eppie Lederer, also known as Ann Landers. During the roughly forty years when Abby and Ann wrote competing syndicated advice columns, the two columnist sisters had often been reported to be feuding or not speaking. I have always assumed the reality is probably more complicated and nuanced than the legend. But, sure enough, when I first started writing the “Ask Amy” column (replacing the Ann Landers column in many newspapers), Ann Landers’s daughter, Margo Howard (also an advice columnist), had come after me in interviews in a
way that made me feel like I had wandered into a dysfunctional family business. Because of Margo Howard’s attitude toward me, I have—naturally—avoided any contact with or comparisons to her cousin Jeanne Phillips, of Dear Abby. And yet there she was, sitting two tables away. I recognized Dear Abby from the headshot that runs over her column, exactly the way people recognize me.

  “I’ma let you do this one on your own,” Bruno said, giving me a little push.

  I gingerly approached Jeanne, who was enjoying her dessert. I seriously wondered how—or even if—she would respond to me. Syndication is a competitive business: something I had learned during my first months on the job, when I was roundly snubbed by two other columnists at an industry event. When I first started the “Ask Amy” column, I pictured a sort of Algonquin Round Table, where other advice-givers would occasionally get drunk together, give one another awesome advice, and go dancing at the Copacabana. After my snubbing, I returned alone to my hotel room and called my mother. I told her I was disappointed that the other kids on the playground weren’t playing nice.

  “They’re not your friends; they’re your competitors,” Jane said.

  It’s called show business, not show friends.

  I scooted down and introduced myself to Jeanne. Would I be snubbed? Would I end up with tiramisu in my hair?

  “Oh, Amy, of course—I’m such a fan!” Jeanne said.

  “And I, you. I mean, me too. Shit, I mean darn. I mean… I’m also a fan of yours.”