And so you will take the coffee, because the truth of the matter is that your acceptance of the gift IS the gift. And if you’re not in a hurry, you will also draw the barista a picture, or draw a picture for his friend who’s a huge fan, or tell her about the Ben Folds song. And when he’s not looking, you leave a ten-dollar bill in the tip jar. Because you can. And because you remember how fucking amazing it used to feel to empty out the tip jar and see a ten-dollar bill.
The gift must always move.
I finally wrote a new song. I realized, while I was writing it, that it had been almost a year since I’d written…anything. Not since the Kickstarter launched, the band hit the road, the cancer hit Anthony, the bomb hit the marathon, and my whole plan fell apart. I hadn’t been spending very much time by myself. I’d been spending it with the fans, with Neil, with Anthony. I hadn’t even wanted to connect the dots. There were too many. And collecting them was hard enough.
I find it really hard to write around people, physically. Even Neil. I’m too self-conscious. One day while we were still in the rental house in Cambridge, I got an idea for a new song. Neil was writing in the house. Though he was two rooms away, I still felt like finding privacy was impossible. I went outside into the corner of the garden of our rental house with my ukulele, and tried to see what would happen. The garbage collectors came by to pick up the recycling and waved hello. I went and hid behind the neighbor’s garage.
Behind the garage, I wrote a song. The year. The hurt. The hate. The fans. Anthony. Blender setting = 1.
I recorded it into my phone. I called it “Bigger on the Inside.”
Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we’ve already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts—sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love—back into the puzzle of the world.
Our second job is to accept where we are in the puzzle at each moment. That can be harder.
I know people who support their spouses, their families, or their recovering/destitute/unemployed friends. When speaking off the record, sometimes they say they resent it. They have an uneasy feeling of obligation.
And I know others who are rich in the same kind of wealth or power, and who make an art of being able to help those around them. It takes a lot of work to get it right.
On the other side, I know people who accept support from their friends, families, or spouses but really can’t get comfortable with it; they avert their eyes, they refuse to discuss, they feel a huge shame. Others accept the help offered to them with grace and humility, and announce with a smile that they’re living at home while they figure shit out. Humor is key.
Some days it’s your turn to ask.
Some days it’s your turn to be asked.
Neil was going to take me to the airport to catch my flight to Australia.
I had spent as much time as I could with Anthony before I left. He was doing better, finally off the last dose of steroids and cancer drugs. He had just been to the hospital, where he’d had a battery of tests: he was officially in remission and getting ready to self-publish his second volume of his memoir-stories.
We went for a long walk around Lexington that ended in our regular coffee shop stop. The kid behind the counter asked for my autograph and told me he’d just emailed my TED talk to his mom. He tried to give me my coffee for free. I refused. Anthony rolled his eyes.
Mrs. Huge, he said, poking me in the ribs as we sat down. I took his cane and after whacking him with it, leaned it carefully against my coat, where it wouldn’t fall over.
Ha, I said. Mr. Big. You know I owe you everything? My whole soul?
You don’t owe me nothing, he said.
I’ll be back in April, I said. Enjoy the evil, soul-numbing, sucking torment of the Boston winter.
You’re a pussy, he said. There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices. You just can’t learn to wear a fuckin’ sweater.
He knew I hated it when he said that. And he said it every single time I complained about the cold.
I glared at him. I hope it blizzards on you all winter. I hope you have to shovel ten feet of snow every day.
Ha. YOU. YOUUUUU, he said, in his gravelly godfather voice, pointing at me. YOU…I love. You helped me.
I’m going to miss you, I said. I’m so glad you’re not dead. Have I mentioned that lately? That I’m so glad you’re not dead? I am. And maybe I’ll write about your sorry ass in my book.
Make me famous, okay? he said, brightly. Maybe I’ll finally get some free coffee around here.
I’m kind of afraid to write it, I told him. I feel like there’s all this pressure to get it perfect. It took me like two months to write the TED talk, and that was only twelve minutes, and even then I fucked up and went over and it was more like thirteen minutes, and I’m worried the book will suck, and it’ll be convoluted and self-centered…
Shut up, beauty, he said. You’re going to do great. Just tell the truth. And don’t forget what I’ve always told you about people.
You’ve always told me, like, seven hundred things, I said.
You can’t give people what they want. But you can give them something else.
Ah.
You can give them understanding. Just tell the story. Tell it all. They’ll understand. He smiled at me. You’ll be fine.
I’m going to miss you. Please don’t get cancer again while I’m away, okay? Please? Promise?
Can’t promise that, beauty. But I can promise to love you. That’ll have to be enough.
That’s enough, I said.
I stretched over the café table to hug him.
It’s enough.
Blake (remember him? the ex-boyfriend ex-white-angel statue?) emailed me this story.
Early on in my busking career I got caught in a summer rainstorm.
You know how it is sometimes in Boston, there will be a drop or two of rain and it’s a fifty-fifty chance it will either clear up and get sunny again or just plain downpour. Eventually I made a rule for myself that if the bricks on the sidewalk got more than halfway covered in water it was time to get down and seek shelter, but this was my first real rainstorm. I knew my costume wasn’t waterproof; the wings were largely made of papier-mâché, but I also knew the costume needed some improvement and figured if it got ruined that’d be all the more motivation to make a second version. So, the clouds rolled in and the raindrops came slowly, then quickly. The pedestrians tend to disappear as soon as the first few drops hit the ground.
It seemed like there was no one around, and I wondered what it would mean to busk in an empty square. So I stayed. I held a pose with my arms slightly out and down. Not the easiest pose, but one I could hold for quite some time.
I waited the rainstorm out, getting soaking wet, down to the core.
After probably only fifteen or twenty minutes of really heavy rain, the sun came out.
The rain stopped and the sidewalk started to dry.
I had really thought no one was watching, but for the next several minutes people came from all directions and they spoke to me, saying they had seen me in the rain and that they were touched.
I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal at the time. It was an easy choice.
For the rest of my decade-long career, people occasionally came up to me and said they’d seen me in the rain.
As Neil pulled the car up to the departure gates, I looked at him, worried.
Are you sure you don’t want to come? I said. Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe you should.
He helped me put my bags and ukulele case onto a luggage cart.
I love you. I’ll see you in nine weeks, darling.
Maybe while I’m writing the book, I’ll figure out my life. And our marriage, I said. If I do, can I write about you and all your innermost personal details? Or will you divorce me?
He sighed. I won’t divorce you. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. It’
s like Anthony said. You hit me. I stay hit.
I laughed.
It was freezing cold outside the airport, and the wind whipped at us. I didn’t have gloves or a hat on, and was only wearing a thin coat, since I hadn’t wanted to bring a heavy one to Australia.
He shut the back door of the car.
Just make sure you stay in touch during your book marathon, he said.
Promise. I’ll miss you, I said, and put my freezing hands under his sweater, warming them in his armpits.
He gasped, then smiled.
I tucked my mouth into the crook of his stubbly neck, and whispered:
Thank you. Thank you for letting me go. Why are you so good to me?
I don’t know, darling. Because I love you, I think.
We stayed in our hug.
I’m proud of you, he said. I’m proud of you for finally letting me help. Even if it took Anthony getting sick for you to ask. I’m still proud.
You know, I didn’t ask for the money just so I could stay home with Anthony, I said, pulling out of our hug and looking at him. I think I thought that, then. But I don’t think that now.
What do you think now?
I think I asked…because I trust you enough to let you help me. I mean it.
I love you, he said.
Then I turned away from him and pushed my baggage cart towards the glass automatic doors, looking behind me only once to blow him a kiss. He stood next to the car, waving. He looked happy. I believed him.
The glass doors slid open, and shut again behind me. I wheeled the cart over to the international check-in kiosk. I looked back through the doors, though the mess of people. He was gone.
Now I have to write a book, I thought. How the hell am I going to do that?
As I stood in the line, I realized I was crying. I wasn’t really sure why. I knew the story, I knew what I had to say, but it all felt too disconnected, even though it wasn’t.
I pictured Anthony sitting in the café, during the million-dollar Kickstarter day, looking at me and shaking his head, trying to be patient.
I thought about everything I was leaving behind. The cold, the winter, the cancer, the hate, the past year.
Can hate grow back if it goes into remission?
My brain started to flood with images as I stood there with my passport in my hand.
All the dots. The Kickstarter, the backlashes, the bombing, the poem, the house parties, canceling the tour, sitting on Anthony’s hospital bed while the chemical bag dripped into his body, the TED talk, the massage girl. The book deal.
Neil.
All the nights I held him as he told me his secret childhood stories, all his fears and worries.
And all the nights he’d held me, when I was lost in my own paralysis of terror, afraid to take his help, afraid for Anthony, afraid that I was doing the wrong thing, afraid of looking weak to everyone. The Queen Of Asking, too ashamed to ask.
The fanbase, the chaos of complicated, creative ways we’d asked and helped each other, comforted and made space for each other. All the bizarre exchanges of money, songs, tears, food, beds, gifts, writing, stories.
All the people I had hugged. Touched. Who had touched me. All the little places we’d found strange solace in one another…the massive, connected, heartbreakingly human messiness of the whole fucking thing.
I wiped my eyes, took my phone out of my pocket, and sent Neil a text.
If you love people enough, they’ll give you everything.
A few weeks after I arrived in Australia for the book marathon, I found myself walking through the packed and drunken streets of Melbourne during White Night, an overnight festival where pedestrians and revelers can wander freely throughout the city center all night long, until daybreak, as it explodes with performance, music, and artistic light projections illuminating all the downtown buildings.
After hours of wandering, happily lost, through the chaotic magic of the all-night museums and the churches filled with inebriated, ecstatic crowds of people, I was heading home when I spied a living statue working across Flinders Street, near the Town Hall. I can spot a living statue a mile away.
I walked across the street and watched him from a distance. He was crouched in a gargoyle pose; his body was completely purple in a costume that clung to his skin. His face was covered with an intricate handmade mask, which revealed just his eyes. It was decorated with little glued-on mirrors that made his muzzle look like a disco ball. He was majestic, dragon-like, beautiful. When a passerby put money in his cup, he un-froze and encouraged them to pat him as he made serpentine movements of pleasure. It was nearly dawn, and I wondered how long he’d been working there. I was tired, but I wanted to watch. I leaned against a tree across the sidewalk.
A group of drunken people stumbled over, jeering and laughing, and took a bunch of pictures of him. I felt my pulse quicken.
They stumbled away, and another group, drunker than the first, took over. Even though one of them gave him a dollar, the girl who went to pose with him shrieked so loudly I saw him flinch slightly. Then she took the can of beer she was holding and, giggling, tilted it above him, pretending she was going to pour it on his back. Her friends laughed loudly, and she darted away. Then they loitered in front of him, gabbing riotously and ignoring him.
I crossed the sidewalk, and as I crouched down and put in a two-dollar coin, I looked into his eyes. He came to life and then stopped for a moment. Then he lowered his head.
It was odd. He froze in that position and I stayed there on my bent knees, waiting to see what would happen.
Then his whole back started slowly shaking.
He raised his head back up and I looked into his eyes, which were brimming with tears.
We crouched there, for a moment, face-to-face.
I reached my hand out to touch his cheek, before taking him into my arms.
He buried his head in the crook of my neck, sobbing without a sound.
I closed my eyes. I tightened my arms around him. He tightened, too.
The drunken crowd who had just been tormenting him stared at us, and went silent.
We stayed, attached, on our knees, for what felt like two or three minutes.
I held him.
He held me.
He finally raised his head and looked at me through the slit in his mirrored mask, with his wet, red eyes. I felt his breath slow down.
I whispered in his ear:
Get back to work
…and I walked up the street without looking back.
BIGGER ON THE INSIDE
You’d think I’d shot their children
From the way that they are talking
And there’s no point in responding
Cause it will not make them stop
And I am tired of explaining
And of seeing so much hating
In the very same safe havens
Where I used to just see helping
I’ve been drunk and skipping dinner
Eating skin from off my fingers
And I tried to call my brother
But he no longer exists
I keep forgetting to remember
That he would have been much prouder
If he saw me shake these insults off
Instead of getting bitter…
I am bigger on the inside
But you have to come inside to see me
Otherwise you’re only hating
Other people’s low-res copies
You’d think I’d learn my lesson
From the way they keep on testing
My capacity for pain
And my resolve to not get violent
But though my skin is thickened
Certain spots can still be gotten
It is typically human of me
Thinking I am different
To friends hooked up to hospital machines
To fix their cancer
And there is no better place than from this
Waiting room to ans
wer
The French kid who wrote an email
To the website late last night
His father raped him and he’s scared
He asked me
How do you keep fighting?
And the truth is I don’t know
I think it’s funny that he asked me
Cause I don’t feel like a fighter lately
I am too unhappy
You are bigger on the inside
But your father cannot see
You need to tell someone
Be strong
And somewhere some dumb rock star truly loves you
You’d think I’d get perspective
From my view here by the bedside
It is difficult to see the ones I love
So close to death
All their infections and prescriptions
And the will to live at all in question
Can I not accept that my own problems
Are so small
You took my hand when you woke up
I had been crying in the darkness
We all die alone but I am so, so glad
That you are here
You whispered:
“We are so much bigger on the inside,
You, me, everybody
Some day when you’re lying where I am
You’ll finally get it, beauty
We are so much bigger
Than another one can ever see
But
Trying is the point of life
So don’t stop trying
Promise me.”
—released to the Internet in some form or another, 2014
Epilogue
I came back from Australia. I’d written way more material than I needed. I figured whatever was left over, I could blog.
The Art of Asking Page 30