[While the narrator of this piece happens to be
female, Jewish, and one who suffers from mood swings
[particularly depression] she could be anyone who
finds herself marginalized by the dominant culture in
which she lives. She could be an artist or worse! The
dominant culture could be materialistic, paternal,
and/or commercial. And while, in the following, she is
addressing an employer in her mind, she may as easily
be addressing a landlord, father, husband, banker,
policeman, or judge (or any other macho icon,
including a dominating, or overly-rational female.)]

"There is at crack... a crack in everything. That's
how the light gets in."-Leonard Cohen

I want you to like me. I even insist upon it!

However. If you really stand me, I simply ask that you
continue ignoring me. Just, whatever you do, don’t
attempt to remove me!
Hey, I respect you, really; you are in charge, you
man the great boat to which I cling. You are in and
of the world of things (and that’s good!). You know
the value and uses of materials (and people). Your rig
isn’t dented; it is never out of oil and the
windshield-wipers always work.
You’re responsible and in control: You read
directions
and put things away. You always rewind tapes. You
are
not a fugitive from the video store or the library.
You’ve never bounced a check.
You have excellent boundaries: You respect privacy.
You are good at keeping secrets. You can hold your
tongue; hold onto your assets, your spouse, your
home
and your job. You own your house (and mine). You
always know where your children are and you haven’t
wrecked any (at least, not in obvious ways).
However, and forgive me for saying this, but
sometimes
(only once in a while of course) you tend to
overlook
others. Naturally it’s not your fault. It’s just
that
you can not always see the little guys like Me,
until
either you fall in, or your great rig is out of the
water. Of course you’d prefer confronting me on your
turf, the land. Which isn’t so great for me, however,
since as at such times, I feel quite (unbearably)
vulnerable. I’d even claim feeling "skinless", if
that’s a possible feeling for the likes of me. Your
discovery (me clinging there where you might have
expected it to be smooth and shiny) could be
traumatic, and to us both. Personally (and I hope you
don’t think I’m over-reacting when I say this)
Iíll
be at your mercy! For, not only will I already be
risking drying up (from over-exposure) but there is
a
chance you might think I don’t belong on your boat.
I
just hope, that when that happens, you’ll shrug your
broad shoulders and just ease me (still safely
attached) back into that water.
Another scenario that makes me just about
psychotic,
is that it might be simple for you to rid your rig
of
me because it may appear to you that I’m not alive.
And even if you don’t do that, I worry that you’ll
judge me intrusive and rude.
So, let me assure you that I am alive, and that while
I can seem stuck up, the truth is, I’m just stuck.
I
can’ít help it, though.... You see, I get panicky
under
your scrutiny. I feel about as unwanted in your
world,
as obvious and helpless as a beached whale. (I wish
I
weren’t dependent on you, but being attached is my
nature.)
Look, I know you don’t find me useful to you...that
you might even look at me and think," what’s the
point" of keeping me. But, please! I beg you to not
discard me. There are lives (even whole colonies that
you just cannot see) that aren’t hurting you.
Besides,
we have character.
Why not think of me like your antiques: fragile, a
rare remnant...? You see, I, like you, have a hard
time with rejection (or maybe you don’t, I didnít mean
to sound assuming). It’s just that, while you man this
great modern boat of western civilization, I am only a
small thing, attached to its underside. Listen, be a
good guy, I mean, you are a good guy, rightÖ? You’re
conservative; reasonable. You take care of things. So,
why not just think of me as one of your things? If you
spill something, you clean it right up, you don’t get
rid of it!
And take into consideration how, being privileged
as you are, might morally requires you to be
charitable
to us less-fortunates.
You may think that since you can handle problems, I
should be able to stand on my own feet. But isn’t
it worth some consideration that I don’t even have
feet?
Please consider how my problems aren’t the same as
yours. Don’t tell me I’m feeling sorry for myself:
Yours are not the same. The particulars to which I’m
connected, just don’t occur, unless you live in a
fluid world. See, down here edges are blurry and
feelings
uncontrollable. Up where its dryer and you aren’t
allergic to the atmosphere, you have luxuries I am not
afforded: for instance, you aren’t fussy about air and
water. So naturally, unlike I, you can wait until you
get home from work to act out and misbehave. Or until
you are dying, for that matter. Meanwhile, being
attached to your stuff, I am always struggling for
survival.
Now, I don’t have to remind you do I, that just
because you’re not like me, that’s not a reason to
disregard my rights to love (if not thrive) and,
perhaps even some day, find happiness? Yes, I do have
my faults although they may be totally unlike yours.
You want more evidence? Well, when you make mistakes
you probably don’t automatically groan and go lie down
because it means you can’t get the most simple tasks
right, that you are a total failure and everyone knows
it.
Look. You are a man of the world. You live a
productive life with many assets to prove it. Your
mistakes aren’t indelible. You are boundaried and you
don’t leave tracks when you visit. Indeed, you never
wear-out your welcome because you have your own home.
You never splashed ink or coffee upon your parent’s
expensive furniture and if you did it was too long ago
for them to remember. When you went to stay at your
step-father’s cousins’ he didn’t reassure her about
putting you up by saying that she could expect a well
behaved bulldozer. And when she told you what he’d
said, you didn’t feel flattered and ingratiated.
Now, you wouldn’t want to be known as a
fungus-plant abuser, would you? You, who always have
fresh flowers and plants around your house? And,
incidentally,
the animals don’t eat them. Your pets are quiet,
well-trained and don’t chew up the house. You don’t
consider tag-sales and clothing bins the responsible
way to shop because you regularly replace couches and
chairs. You keep dogs or cats, not reptiles, birds, or
monkeys. Your pets don’t own you. Your pets don’t have
pets of their own. And you don’t prefer them to
people.
You can exercise constraint, and don’t take home stray
people for the night. Nor would you ever take in
somewhere between six and twenty animals, depending
upon the dosage of your medication. And I do
understand that you only take medications for physical
things and you never feel a need to speak of them
(except to nurses and doctors, whom, incidentally, you
see regularly). You trust doctors and bosses, and they
trust you as well. And no doubt, you have regular
bowel movements and you don’t write or talk about
them, either.
I comprehend that, above all else, you work for a
living; instead of concentrating on your breathing.
But no one ever told you to do the world a favor and
stay home. And you aren’t at risk, even when alone in
your own house. You’re efficient and organized: You
don’t burn things every time you cook, even water.
You know where your glasses are and you clean them
often (and you don’t buy them in sixes at the dollar
store and loose them within two weeks).
You’re good at math, realistic and objective. You
haven’t lost count of your sexual encounters. You are
neither frigid nor out of control. You find sex simple
and don’t ascribe metaphysical meanings to the
physical. You neither confuse intensity with intimacy,
nor sex with love.
You don’t find the simple act of mating as bonding as
super-glue. And if you do bond, it’s by choice. You
marry that special someone who is happy to marry you
(and not because she’s pregnant). You keep essentials
well-stocked. You don’t knock on neighbors’ doors to
borrow toilet paper, making sophomoric jokes about
returning it when you are done using it.
Every decision doesn’t seem arbitrary. You don’t
constantly begin things in the middle, trying to make
meaning from chaos. Projects and relationships have
clear beginnings and proper endings. Your actions
planned, and carried out to completion. You haven’t
brought fire, floods and pestilence into your home.
And I’m sure that your boss, if you have one, never
informed you that the only thing that is consistent
about you is your inconsistency. You have the
endurance and fortitude to work at the same place for
years. And I understand how rewarding it is to get
paid well out there in the real world, where life is
tactile, visual, audible, and not always easy; nor
forgiving.
Your production flow is not as unreliable and unpaying
as an affair with a married person. Furthermore, your
bed is not your office.
During work breaks you don’t whip out a vibrator.
Your thoughts and speech are appropriate and logical.
You don’t sabotage your jobs by insisting on telling
your supervisor what you think, or worse, showing him
what you feel. You aren’t at the mercy of instincts
and impulses. Thoughts, rather than feelings, control
your actions.
You are an all-round, great guy! You are a person of
carefully chosen words, a being of meaningful silences
and quiet nuances. You can be extroverted at will.
Getting where you want to go doesn’t depend upon the
moon and shifting tides. You don’t find getting out
the door of your house to be as challenging an ordeal
as jumping naked into the ocean in February.
Travelling on top of the world (not inside of or under
it) on the highways in nice cars, you are a real
"shaker and mover". You are not a vibration in the
soil, a misplaced strand of memory or an animal
spirit. You don’t need to compensate by reminding
yourself and others, that in another culture you’d be
a Shaman.
You are out and about, moving freely; not stuck
inside your head, unable to get to a door, a captive
of your fears and you house. You don’t feel your only
salvation is in obsessively trying to recall and put
on paper, dreams and inspirations that evaporate in
mid-sentence. You have a good understanding with your
computer and your printer and you are still on
speaking terms.
It’s easy for you to be normal, consistent and
trustworthy. You make your bed and exercise regularly.
You jog and like it. You rise up to meet the
challenges in your life. Your mind is well structured;
you don’t catch on fire with ideas that then fizz and
go out before they ever get off the ground. You’ve
never smoked pot or if you have it was a brief
experiment.
You don’t have to see a therapist because you are too
honest. (You don’t have to see a therapist; for that
matter.) Your neurons don’t continually misfire.
Your hands aren’t freezing on a warm Spring day. Your
central furnace purrs when it’s cold, and the fire in
your belly is not out. And you don’t confuse people by
culturally- irrelevant metaphors.
Furthermore, you’re family and friends are
respectable. You don’t have a partner or housemate
whom you must remind to put on some pants when he goes
out on the deck for sun (for that matter, you don’t
have housemates). You understand your role in
organized groups and don’t have to watch your mouth.
People don’t answer their phones when you call by
asking immediately what’s up. You are a team player
who not only knows the rules but observes them. Your
life works! Your friends include those from your
childhood. The kids call on weekends and when they
visit, they return to their productive, busy, lives.
They observe appropriate beginnings and endings
(especially endings).
You have donate both money and energy (of which you
have plenty) to important causes. You know all of your
teenage son’s classes and teachers’ names and you
always read notices and return report cards on time.
You are on a first name basis with that principle
because he knows of your contributions to the
community and respects your work and not because of
the times your child almost got expelled when his pot
pipe dropped out of his knapsack in class, nor the
time he told the teacher to get out of his space. You
get enough sunshine, don’t sit in front of colored
lights with a towel over your head. You don’t talk
about emptying out your head, as if it were a bathtub.
Or about getting enough Melatonin. And you don’t need
to worry about the mechanical condition of your
thinker.
You don’t need a support group, to give you the
courage to open your mail. You enjoy paying bills
which you open immediately and you regularly balance
and manage your checkbook in accordance with your
budgetary needs, of which you are well aware. You eat
and sleep for health purposes only, maintaining a
well- balanced diet and schedule.
You are not a traumatized person who cannot get up
till
Wednesday. You spell out words fully and correctly.
But me, I live in my head. I cannot get out from
under the weight of all this liquid. I have to either
dodge fast-spinning thoughts or function somehow with
a leaden body and head. The roller coaster within me
constantly threatens to unravel what’s left of my
life. I dream my car has gone off the edge into water,
my mind keeps slipping away. I go too far, say the
wrong things, have the timing of a drunk. Just living
interferes with my life. Working regularly and keeping
a schedule seems to me to be, both over-rated and an
unattainable luxury.
Being a barnacle, I seem to think we’re all one. I
don’t seem to see the edges of roads or of people,
until I ram into them. I think I’m Moses or Tich Nat
Han. I try to improve people until they scream out
for mercy from my advice. I’m more pathetic than an
aging hipster expecting a handout while boring
passers-by on the streets, by playing off-tune
Dylan songs on a beat-up, dead guitar. I have the
audacity to tell my dreams to people in cafes,
innocent people who are trapped behind counters. I
tell my problems to strangers in nearby booths who
happened to look up, while trying to drink their mocha
latte’s.

But still, I still want you to; insist that you;try
to understand me: Someone is playing with thevolumein
my brain. Which should explain why voice gets too loud
in cafes and restaurants, if not why I do what I do.
I can’t help but expect clemency for my misdeeds.
Pity. For, while I can swim or float, or go deep, I’m
always afraid of being cut off or somehow being
swallowed, by what’s above or behind me. I’m a woman
and I’m too sensitive, one of those; you know the
kind: Intense and interesting but you wouldn’t want to
marry me. Well, guess what: neither would I. I would
leave me too, if I could, saying "Adios, kid, see ya
when you grow up," if I had any choice about the
matter. But I don’t share that luxury with you (nor do
I want you to share it with me). Sure I’m
interesting, but like a specimen. Unique too:
"You’re, well, different!" I’m told.
Oh yes. When out of water, I’m a hot potato, alright,
but I proceed to then burn up. And that’s why I must
stay immersed.
I envy you, you know. You’re mild mannered, even
keel.
You’re normal. And why not-- this is your home, the
world.
You think it’s boring being so normal, but I think
you’re lucky, and not only that, but I secretly
believe that you owe me. And that’s not right, that
makes you mad.
I’m the nouveau poor. I have a trust fund or a
government subsidy-- I forget which. I am not
materially motivated, nor do I seem able to pull
myself up by the bootstraps. Racked with loneliness
and self-loathing, I don’t seem to value or understand
the meaning of independence.
And you’re right about whatever you see about me that
you dislike. But you are frozen in your role as an
adult while I am stuck in my childhood. The truth is
we need each other.
Let us strike a bargain then, a compromise (you are a
fair person, right?): I will offer you a rare, gritty
glimpse of the underside of modern life, the "psyche,"
if you will; which is important: without undersides,
the great boat wouldn’t float! And you can either try
to understand me, or understand and accept the fact
that you cannot understand me. Even when it hits you
that I don’t seem right in the head, or just plain
"nice". But I’ll try to act straight and be nice, to
the limited degree to which I am capable.
The problem is, and I can only pray you’ll forgive me
for saying so: but it seems to me, that on this
particular yacht where I’m so stuck, nice means,
"White, Middle-class, Protestant, and Male".
None-the-less, I promise that I will try, as best as I
am able, to be those things. But when, in spite of
reminders, I do still displease you, please consider
my failures to be symptoms of my disability.
Everyone’s gotta have one. Mine may not be obvious
like a bandaged head. But you should see the insides.
Surely my brain must wobble like a falling gyroscope.
Yet I’ve decided, just because I have a disability,
that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be here. I kinda
think if I didn’t belong here (and for some reason) I
wouldn’t have been put here in the first place.
Having said that, I hope you can forgive my theorizing
when I’m not a priest or rabbi. Let me reassure you, I
do know I’m as annoying as a big sore on the nose.
But fortunately (for you) I promise to try to stay
hidden "down under", only coming out once in a while
for your air (which, if you don’t mind my saying, we
sometimes do share, no offense intended).
Well, I know I’ve said too much already-- guess I
said it so that you will be assured I understand how
uncomfortable I make you feel, and now I just pray you
don’t throw out the barnacle with the bath-water. I
only need to ask you for one more thing: if at all
possible, could you do as Greg Allman suggested when
he sang, "don’t remind me of my failures, I’m aware of
them"….


One more thing, however, that you might consider:
What goes up must come down, and what goes down must
inevitably come up. And as the tide turns, we shall
try to be more aware of your needs than you’ve been of
ours when we commence to kick ass (no offense intended
of course).