I’ve made a decision to get back to the proposal, and am having an awful time of it. I sound fake, hollow, and insincere. I sound like a really bad kid actor trying to impress you with big, phony tears. I feel like, fuck, maybe I can’t write, maybe I have this incredible burning desire to write this book to the exclusion of nearly all other desire, but maybe I just can’t do it. It’s an awful, terrifying feeling.
So I’ve been trying to at least osmosify by reading and absorbing scraps of other people’s apparent ability to get past their don’t-do-it demons. So I went to Evan Handler’s reading tonight at Barnes & Noble. The one across from the Tower Records that is now, what? Empty? A “flagship” for porno teen clothing? Dunno.
He read from his new book, “It’s Only Temporary; The Good News and Bad News About Being Alive,” a collection of essays mostly about his ordeal with leukemia in his 20s. I read “Time on Fire”–his wrenching earlier cancer memoir–at the behest of my agent (is she still your agent if you haven’t followed up in two years? and never signed a contract? or gave a finished proposal to her?). And loved it. I wrote about it on the blog here and a couple of years ago Evan found it and wrote me a cool letter, part defending himself (tho I loved the book, I fear I was a tad obnoxious, never dreaming he’d read this), part talking about illness, and part complimenting me on my writing. I lost the email in the Great Harddrive Crash of aught-six.
Anyway, so I went to see him tonight and he read and was moving and funny and best of all, nakedly real. Just the thing I’m struggling with. Because I want people to like me so damn much, I can’t squeeze out an honest sentence.
Oy. So it was great to hear him read. And people asked questions after, the first being, and I shit you not, “When does the next season of Californication start?” Ummmm. Lady, meet Google, Google, Lady. WTF? Another question was about whether he was excited by the Sex and the City movie. When Evan gave a perfectly palatable, but non-gushing answer (“the movie will do fine with or without me, I’m pushing my book right now”), she pressed him, “But it’s SUCH a big movie, and here in Manhattan, aren’t you EXCITED?” He replied that he was indeed but, “maybe not as much as you want me to be.”
I couldn’t bear it. Here, the man just wrote a gut-spilling book about cancer, confronting mortality and becoming a true, whole grown-up and they’re asking him what they could get from a freaking TV Guide? So I raised my hand and asked him about something he mentioned at the start. He said he eventually came to gratitude. I asked what the mechanism was that made him feel grateful for his disease. He said it was a good question (at least the competition wasn’t too steep), and a hard one. And then I have no idea what he said–except the word “psychotherapy”–because I was too busy calming down from having spoken in public to a writer I admire.
But I’d actually like to know the non-Barnes & Noble book signing answer. How, if it doesn’t come right away, do you develop gratitude for something that sucks so badly. For something that yes, maybe makes you a little more interesting, but essentially is a life-long scar down the middle of you. I mean, maybe it is easier when you know you’re cured, a word I will probably never hear. But probably not when you’ve been to the deepest hell and back and lost so much.
It’s probably hard to snuggle up to it and say, as I wish I could, “Thank you, teacher. Thanks for enlightening me and allowing me to appreciate life better.” Instead of “Goddamn, you again. Making me get another CAT scan even though I’m allegedly fine. Making me question this cough as a potential sign of relapse. Making me feel like my body is sort of enemy territory, or at least hosting sleeper cells of assholes who don’t care about me, who only want to reproduce, if only I’d let them, if only they could get through.
I’m so tired of feeling like I should have learned something. Not that I’m like Seinfeld: “No learning” was one of the shows mottoes. I would, in fact, welcome some learning. Some evidence of growth, compassion, or at least self-honoring.
Today I was listening to Terry Gross (Fresh Air podcasts are reason enough to get an iPod. As are the Savage Love podcasts–I love sitting on the train, looking normal amongst my fellow commuters, while Dan is illuminating the finer points of teabagging). Today, or yesterday, she interviewed a psychologist, author and quadrapeligic who’s not feeling so hot lately. Terry asked, “What’s it like for your career to be taking off while your body is failing?” He stopped her and said he didn’t feel like his body was failing. He said he actually appreciated his body for all it had been through, that it had been such a trouper all these last 30 years. It had been through so much and carried him through life anyway.
Terry graciously took the correction, seeming to appreciate the distinction–just because your body isn’t feeling well, that doesn’t mean you have to be mad at it. It was beautiful. He said, “Exactly. I just like to say that my body is getting tired.”
He expressed a similar affection for his incredibly anxious mind, the mind that keeps him up nights with panic attacks. He said it was like an old friend.
There’s something so tender and gorgeous in that, in loving your uncontrollable body and your crazy thoughts, no matter what they’re up to, because hey, you’re still here and that is huge. That is enough for you to love them.
PS: After the reading, I had Evan sign his book. He was warm and completely didn’t remember emailing me, but I’m still glad that I introduced myself. Maybe just the handshake will give me the completion cooties I need to write the proposal.
(You know, maybe the ability to complete a task is contagious. Maybe.)
