friendship (Page 2)

Weeks ago I saw on Facebook that my friend Paula had a birthday. I’ve been off of Facebook for a couple months now, so I didn’t have its handy-dandy little notice that her day was coming up. Turns out she fibbed about her birthday, but it was right around that time. I got to thinking about how I could really wish her a happy birthday. Not just an email (she’s an online-only friend). Not an e-card. Not just “glad you were born!”
For days I constructed a brilliant essay about her. About her and me, of course. It was in my mind for days, then I started writing. Everything I wrote was crap. For weeks, it wasn’t enough. Or it was too gushy. Or it was… well, screw it, I’m going to just tell you now. I wrote about how we met in the newsgroup misc.writing and how she scared the crap out of me. How she was so totally mean that I cried a few times after reading her posts directed at me. How even then I was struck by her open mindedness, her willingness to accept people with very overt and often offensive flaws.
I missed the blogging hey day (hay day?) that happened in the early 2000’s, so I never got to know her in that way. Then, as misc.writing finally and totally collapsed Facebook revived our online world in a new way. That’s when I started to really know her.
Paula is unique in this world. Of course everyone is, but Paula’s unexpected. I kept trying to classify her as… well, you name it, I tried labels on
her and none of them fit. She’s strong, funny, a great writer, a dependable friend, and beautifully honest. She’s gorgeous inside and out, too. She is one of my first friends who doesn’t come from where I’ve been. Our backgrounds are different, our values are frequently different (besides valuing honesty and there are a few other key shared values), our politics are often different (don’t even get me started on how misguided she is about Palestinians!), and she somehow understands the world that is shoe-lust. Shooz, that is. Or has it become sh00z? I think so.
She is herself. It’s what I admire most about her. She may sometimes slide into trying to be something or someway for others, but more than
most people, she stays true to being her. She’s an incredible friend, a solid shoulder when I’ve needed it, and always (did I mention?) honest.

She’s amazing. And, yes, I am very glad she was born.
Happy birthday my dear, sweet friend. Here’s some buttercream just for you.
 

“Tell me this, Heather. Do you not like being around people?” my friend asked recently. And I had to tell her, yes, it’s true. At my core, I mostly don’t like being around people. This is entirely unrelated to my opinions of or feelings for people. It’s not you, it’s me.
The conversation started when my friend noted that I share intimate information with my online friends but moan and groan when talking about offline relationships. What is it that draws me into the world of online friendships? Oh, the beauty of it! Always on my timeline, at my convenience, at my whim, only when I’m in the mood. When I have the energy. That’s for starters.
No small talk. There’s no need for the lingering entry and lingering exits that are so important to most people in offline life. In the last few months I tried an experiment and stopped pretending. I pretty much stopped participating in what I consider a pointless exercise: the small talk and the lengthy greetings and farewells. In my opinion these are social conventions based on “because that’s what we do,” rather than activities that serve legitimate functions. It’s a bit like how I described to my daughter why she ought to wear something over her tights. “It’s not that tights are underwear, it’s just that people see them and think of them as something you wear under things so they’d feel like they were seeing your underwear. It’s silly, it doesn’t make sense, they’re just like leggings, but still, it’s how it is.”
Trouble is, my opinion isn’t typical. In this experiment I know I’ve been alienating people. Whether I’m puzzling them or offending them, I’m not sure. Though with one friend in particular I haven’t just tried to avoid the usual pleasantries, I’ve been downright crabby and rude because I want to be left alone. That’s a different matter.
For those people where I’ve just either launched right into “what we’re here to talk about,” or dropped off my child to the class and not hung around chatting about the…what do we chat about? the weather? yes… groaaaaan. Again, I’m not sure what they are thinking about my atypical experience. I do know I get vibes from some who clearly think I’m being rude or weird. Anti-social, perhaps. And, that’s me! I am against social!
But why, you may wonder? What is so wrong about enjoying some light banter about the weather, or about how great our children are, or what project you’ve been working on lately? There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. And, when I’m willing to play that game, I’m good at it. Sometimes a bit awkward, though those around me seem to think I’m no where near as awkward as I perceive myself. I’ve got decent social skills when I choose to use them.
Here’s the problem. It is exhausting. Talking to anyone, especially on any surface level, wipes me out. Some people go running for miles and think they feel tired. Put me in a group of people all talking about even interesting topics and it’s like I’m running a marathon but I’m already at the point where my nipples are bleeding from the friction against my shirt.
I described it as “playing that game.” I realize it’s not a game. I do understand that for what seems like most people, it’s part of the pleasure of communication. Most people, it appears, enjoy ramping up for a while before getting to the deep down and direct content. Or, they never really want to get there anyway. Being pleasant together pleases them. I like those people. I like nice people, and that behavior is nice. I get that. I see how my “I don’t like being with people” can come across as rude, insulting, perhaps even mentally unhealthy. But it’s not any of those things.
My brain works in concert with my gut/soul/spirit/heart/whateveryouwanttocallit. Everything is loosey goosey and flowing. My internal experience is like oil paints or acrylic paints or oil pastels. Mushy and smushy and blending all around. For me, the polite conversations considered normal and healthy are like a manual typewriter. Don’t get me wrong, I love those things, but I can’t use them effectively, ever. Each. Key. Must. Be. Hit. At. The. Right. Time. Or. The. Details. Will. Not. Come. Together. To. Make. The. Larger. Picture.
It’s as if there are shooting stars all around that I’m supposed to try and catch like a dog leaping for a treat, but the stars are shooting too fast and all at once like fireworks sparkles. I need something to contain them.
This quality of mine has its upsides. In a group, I’ll be the first typically to say, “Sounds like we all agree on xyz, shall we do that?” Or, “Sounds like no one’s really sure what to do, why don’t we get in touch with each other later?” Anything. Anything to end the PECK. STAB. JAB. of the group wanderings and ponderings. Problem is, lately, I don’t wait long enough for the assumed correct level of polite conversation to happen. That is, I jump into the decision before the people who process things differently have had a chance to do their thing. This comes across, I know, as abrupt, and definitely sometimes rude.
Honestly, even writing about being with people makes me tired. The juggling. The consideration of my body language, their body language, their facial expressions in relation to their words, all of it. Everything is like a bad acid trip (I’ve never had a bad one, but the good ones were seriously freaky and I’m sure a bad one would be quite a bit like my experience of being sociable.) With too much stimulation and too many senses working at once and the whole sensorial experience causes me to wish the earth would open in a great chasm and just suck us all down and put us out of our misery. But, really, it’s only my misery. Most people, it seems, are either unaffected or positively affected by communicating with others.
Unfortunately, this exhaustion-from-people even holds true for having one-on-one conversations with good and close friends. I love one-on-one conversations. Those times I get myself to actually keep a coffee date with a friend, I’m always glad I did. Talking with my offline friends is an enriching experience. Connecting with these people enhances my life. Knowing what’s going on with them, how they are, how what we are going through is interconnected. All those things are good. I need those things.
But, please, not very often. Because, you see, even spending time with my friends who I love, I get wiped out. Tired. Overstimulated. I want to hole up in a quiet room, alone, with my computer to write or with a book if I’ve got time to fall asleep.
Getting along in this world I realized just this week will require my reaching out to people a bit more than I have been. I’m going to have to suck it up and put on my game face for pickups and drop offs as our children have their school and other activities. Making myself available for pleasant conversations is a requirement if I want to help my daughters learn to have healthy and happy social lives. So be it. As I mentioned, it’s not that I don’t like these folks. It’s just that I’ve got the unpopular quality of simply not liking to be around other people. I’ll go back to hiding that fact a bit better than I have been for the sake of the family. But as soon as the social hours are over, as soon as I’ll hurt no one’s feelings and can get away, you’ll find me alone. Writing, futzing around online, making art, cooking, reading, and resting. Breathing freely again. Alone.

“She’s Black, she’s Black, she’s BLAAAAACK!” was just about all my brain could handle. Maintaining a simple and polite conversation was barely possible. No matter how much we had in common, no matter how likely a future friendship, I could think of nothing but that amazing dark skin, the transcendent hair texture, and my entire personal history of race relationships. Oh, how I wanted to prove to this woman that I was not like just any white woman! I knew, of course, it was just this level of self-consciousness that would make me utterly annoying to her. But, I just couldn’t help myself.
Helping myself, though, is really what race relations is about for me these days. I do care about the greater socio-political issues (shocking disregard for people’s lives all across the continent of Africa, overt brutality in our country, job discrimination, and of course the list goes on). However, my personal journey with racism now centers around me, my husband, and most of all, my daughter.
When I sat for coffee with the “she’s black she’s black she’s BLACK” woman, I was reminded of a time in college in the late 80’s when a fellow student raged at me something like, “I am not all black people! I can’t solve your problems!” The disgust, the tears, and the absolute giving up I felt from her did change me. I was so ignorant, so inexperienced with people who were not white-upper-class-and-highly-educated that I lumped anyone unlike me into a group. This group, I thought, would be my source for how to fix the world. Surely, they knew what I could do to not be like a bigot, a racist, a slave owner.
It was then I began to try and get over myself. Trouble was, I just didn’t have anyone to practice being just a person with. There was no one in my life I could intentionally not discuss race relations and curing the world of injustice. There was no one in my life with darker skin, or fancier hair. There wasn’t even anyone I knew whose family had struggled financially, dark or fair skinned. And, yes, I recognized how this desire to not look to someone for all the answers was just a different side of the same coin.
I don’t believe in the concept of being “color-blind.” I find it offensive to everyone involved. Why should anyone pretend someone doesn’t look the way they do? How is that respectful? One constant in my life is my need for authenticity. Facing tough issues by talking about them; I don’t do well with elephant’s snoozing on the throw rug nearby.
It my own need for honesty and clarity that had me obsessing, desperate for an intense and intimate conversation about race every time I ran in to this woman. Entirely annoying, of course, since I knew I was just doing it again. Not seeing her as a woman, a mother, a wife, a writer, a social justice activist, but only seeing her Blackness. I really didn’t want to, but I knew if I pretended I wasn’t, it would just make it worse.
In college, I studied and fell in love with “Symbolic Interactionism.” Put forward in force by Herbert Blumer but made real to me by Erving Goffman, the idea that we all together strive most of all to maintain a coherent sense of reality. The “presentation of self” is disturbed when an individual becomes obsessed with their own performance. Smooth interactions between individuals are the goal of most players in life, most of the time throughout our daily lives (most don’t walk down a crowded busy street intentionally slamming into other people, we work together as individuals to keep the peace).
I know in my past I have suffered from white guilt and that has prevented me from behaving naturally. It’s humiliating, really, but, it’s my own shit.
Playing with dollhouse toys, my daughter announced one afternoon that she called one set of dolls the dark-skinned dolls. She didn’t say that the other set was the light skinned dolls. I gathered myself together enough not to launch in to a whole history of race issues in the USA. She’d made a simple observation. We’ve tried to always be sure she has characters in books with lots of different backgrounds, tried to always have dolls that are not only blond and white, knowing every little thing is part of the greater picture. We talked to her about melanin when she first asked about darker skin after visiting my parents’ church. We’ve done everything we can to not make a big deal, but to still keep the option for deeper discussion open. And, yes, I am probably over-thinking it way too much. But, then again, I’m really not.
We live in a state (Maine) where it’s not common to see people who aren’t white. Economic status is more varied than where I grew up, but trying to recognize those differences takes a judgmental frame of mind, not easy for a four year old to pick up on. We visit Boston (awfully white city, but relatively International) and come across families speaking other languages, wearing interesting clothes, looking remarkably different. It’s nice, and we talk about things with her, but what will help Baby1 most?
I tried signing her up for a Kwanzaa celebration class for toddlers, but was vastly disappointed when the instructor slipped up and asked the class if they knew about the country of Africa. I do believe that experience with people with darker skin, with different languages, and with different cultural backgrounds is the best thing we can give Baby1 (and ourselves). But, how can this happen and not be contrived?
I’ve written previously about my six grade field trip on a bus into Hartford where the teachers showed us “urban decay” and “urban renewal.” They actually stopped the busses in stressed out neighborhoods and said “this is urban decay.” I guarantee you there were people around those streets. How can [my husband] and I be sure that signing Baby1 up for classes or working to have playgroups where the kids aren’t just white isn’t a lot like that? I suppose it makes a difference if there is a genuine interest in the topic, or if the playgroup participants are actually friends. Knowing I have the motivation of “exposure” however, is what feels too close to that old frame of mind (“these people will give me the answers, ease my guilt”).
Today we went to the toy store where [my husband] and I very blatantly purchased an excessively expensive and annoying toy strictly for bribery (you reach this milestone, we’ll celebrate with this toy!). We reached the shelves and the Baby Alive toys available were only the dark skinned, curly haired dolls (sort of African American looking, though I think they all look like aliens). We had watched a movie on the computer that morning as we whetted her appetite for the thing where the freakishly large-eyed blond baby says, “uh oh, I made a stinky!” I flinched at the shelf. I wondered if I should be prepared for Baby1 to say, “That isn’t the doll we saw, I want the other one!” I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to say, “It’s this doll or no doll,” because I didn’t want the darker doll to be the disappointing choice.
Baby1 didn’t say a word about how she looked different (even though the doll was surrounded by the blond dolls of the “pee-pee only” version). She hugged the box to herself. She has been cherishing the boxed doll all day (she gets to open it after she reaches her milestone).
On the way home from the store, this is what she said, “The company that makes these dolls must really want children to buy them!”
“Yeah, hunny, why is that?”
“Because she has dark skin and dark skin is the most beautiful.”
“Dark skin is beautiful, hunny, yes, they must know.”
Inside I’m not afraid her pale-skinned self-esteem is suffering, I’m doing a touchdown dance with fireworks. Thinking, at least at the moment, she’s making good associations.
A few months ago (a year?) I said to the “she’s black she’s black she’s BLACK” woman who I had come to know on some deeper levels, “It’s so nice to finally know you as a just a person.” I honestly don’t remember if we went forward with that conversation at that point, or later in safer email, but, it’s true that she’s the first Black woman (and Latina, it turns out) who I consider a friend. And, it’s most definitely true that while I have fleeting thoughts of “wow, that hair is so cool,” or, “her skin is so stunning,” I realize I have thoughts like that about all of my friends in different ways (“how does she pull of those knit caps?” “when does she have the time to shave her legs?” “her hair always looks so clean.”). They are fleeting and I’m not obsessed.
[My husband] doesn’t have the same hang-ups I do. He grew up in a much more culturally diverse world (Southern New Mexico). He’s also blessed with an ability to not over-think things. But, he knows what I’m talking about when we try to decide how to help Baby1 not think that this world (Maine) is typical of the rest of the world. He knows how gross it feels to imagine signing Baby1 up for a playgroup or class only because we know she’d meet kids who aren’t white. I suppose, like everything, I’ll have to turn this over to faith. Trusting that it will all work out because God’s in charge and I’m not.
I don’t know the answers. I don’t know how I can help Baby1 make friends without having an internal explosion about race or class issues go on in her brain. For this day, for this moment, I’ll take Baby1 finding the “dark skin is the most beautiful” as a pretty good start.