allowing ourselves anticipation anyway

(A little talk of sexual violence and psychological control today — just know that ahead of time.)

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Hope, he said, it’s as insidious as bitterness.

If mother earth only knew how much we
loved one another she would creak, shudder,
 
and split like a macheted melon, releasing
the fiery ball of molten hope at her core.
– from “Hoffnung,” by Amy Gerstler

Good morning grey — feels like fall is coming, though I know we’re not nearly done with San Francisco Bay summer. I’m listening to my new favorite Pandora station (Ulrich Schnauss, how come nobody told me about him before?) and trying to stop fidgeting long enough to find my way down into the words. All the surfaces of me are stuttery this morning, flaking off into douse and drain, peeling away to remind me you need to do this thing don’t forget about that and underneath it all are the words, really? really?

I woke up calm this morning, calmer than I think I ought to be given that I’ve got  job interview today, given that my life is changing completely. Maybe we’ve been through this so many times before in our lives that my body has burnt out all its fuses and worn out its shocks. Ok, another total life change today. Gotcha – Right on. What’s for lunch? 

What do I want to say about this? When the rush comes, I’m still here under the blankets with the radio flowing into my headphones the volume turned all the way up, trying not to hear the world outside, trying to keep the monster voices at bay. When the rush comes, I’m still trying to make sure it passes me by: nobody here but us chickens. When the rush comes, I’m the one behind the rock — maybe if they don’t see me, I’ll be ok. What are the parts in us that keep hiding, so many long, long years after the violence has ended? I take a sip of soy-milk coffee, too dry even to cry today.

This is where this is going: On Monday I go to my first class, my first grad school class, my first class toward my MFA in Creative Writing, the fourth creative writing class I’ve taken in my life (the first one was in college, and the second was a friend’s private poetry seminar, and the third was a Saturday afternoon poetry writing class with Alison Luterman through the Writing Salon). Shouldn’t someone going for their MFA have taken a few more classes? But so much of the school we enter into as writers is unofficial, is self-driven, is all about the hours and days and years we plunk ourselves down in front of the notebook and just keep on writing. Oh, and all that reading — turns out that was school, too, and not just a way to dissociate from life or hide from responsibility (so there, innner critic).

Anyway, on Monday I go to my first class. Yesterday I got my student ID. I’ve wandered around campus, learning the back alleyways, the hidden-ish gardens, finding the places I will eventually want to haunt. Last Monday, after the grad student orientation, I came home electric with excitement, and stayed up until after 11 looking at my schedule, planning out the next three years’ coursework, trying to figure out how to take all the classes I want to take (creative writing classes and workshops, of course, sure, but then there are critical theory classes, and neurolinguistics, and composition instruction theory courses, and the one about psychoanalytic approaches to literature, and…). My body vibrated the way it does when we’re plugged into something that brings our whole self together, when we’re deeply curious and problem-solving, when anticipation and delight has fully taken over everything inside the skin.

And then the next morning that inside reverberation was gone, and as the week has gone on, my body has got quieter and quieter. This is old learning: too much eager charge, and the body shuts it down. Those places of electric possibility are muffled now, taken over by a throb of wait and see wait and see wait and see –

That throb is the voice that remembers the old lessons, how every deep interest and enthusiastic curiosity was used by my stepfather against me, to use as leverage either to pull me more deeplyinto his madness or to force me into a state of complicity (you were excited about it too!) or hold over me, withhold access to, unless I did what I wanted. Or he just took it away. Interested in English and creative writing? He drove it into the ground, ridiculing anyone who would find themselves drawn to such a waste of time and talent. Excited about a boyfriend, a classmate I could actually talk to, a friend who might call to see if I wanted to hang out on the the weekend? He derided them, detailed their shortcomings and their intentions, then demanded that I not spend time with them anymore, following up repeatedly to make sure that I wasn’t disobeying him. Interested in theories of interface or database design? He found new research or books, sent them to me at college and then called me up, wanted to talk about them, waited until my voice was thick with inquisitive thrill, then ordered me to masturbate for him: that was the penance for falling into his trap, for allowing myself to be deeply drawn to anything. Anything I loved or let myself get attached to, idea or object or person, could and would be used against me. When would I learn?

This body learned hard, and when there’s too much excitement, too much of that shuddery, stuttery vibration that means we’re letting ourselves look forward to something too much, want something too much, she gets terrified and shuts us down. She says, just wait. Let’s see. Don’t get your hopes up — you never know what might happen. Maybe the financial aid will fall through. Maybe you didn’t register right for classes after all. Maybe the school is going to call you tomorrow with an embarrassed message: We’re so sorry, we made a mistake, we meant to admit this other Jen Cross, the one who is much smarter, much more interesting, much more accomplished. We apologize for any inconvenience to your life.

Does this voice ever go away, do these old lessons fade into the background of the body’s knowing? Surely we don’t forget all the survival strategies, the ones we use in the outside world and the ones at work always inside our hearts and psyches, but maybe eventually we can let ourselves trust something good.

Can you do that easily, trust something good? Of course I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Of course I am. There’s that part of me that’s leaning out with one hand to its ear, waiting for the bad thing to come up and take away what we have let ourselves slip some small tendrils around,what we have let ourselves get curioous and adoring of, what we have let ourselves want or love –it takes a long time for that part to be satisfied that we’re safe. (What am I saying? Has she ever been satisfied that we’re safe? She’s leaning out right now, listening for the sound of a jail cell opening, afraid he might be released without anyone telling us first…)

On Monday, school will begin, and I’ll be in class. There’s a flutter in my chest as I write that, a tightness and thrill that means the excited part hasn’t gone away completely — she’s still ready to froth us into a lather of oh my god I can’t believe I finally get to do this.

Oh my god, I can’t believe I finally get to do this.

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What are you not letting yourself, too afraid, too experienced to let yourself get excited about these days? What if you give yourself ten minutes to write in the voice of that elated, buzzy joy? Maybe it’s a small excitement — but we know, don’t we, that it’s the smallest excitements (or the things other people might deem small) that we deserve big celebration around: paid the bill on time, figured out a new route on public transportation, got yourself a space to breathe easy for a minute. Just 10 minutes — don’t worry, watcher parts, we’ll close the notebook when those ten minutes are done (unless the words and energy really take hold of us, and then we’ll just keep following the writing wherever it seems to want us to go).

Thank you for the ways you’re learning to let yourself anticipate anyway, be excited anyway, fill with those smoky threads of delight anyway, even though you know how bad the disappointment can be if they’re taken away.  thank you for the ways you keep on rebuilding that muscle of joy. Thank you, of course, for your words.