How We Look to Others

The late Caroline Knapp wrote once that all her adult life she knew she seemed very ‘smooth and ordered’ on the outside but in fact was ‘roiling and chaotic' underneath, and boy did that ever strike a chord for me because I am told I seem pretty ‘smooth and ordered’  too.Once, when I brought a teen to look at a boarding school to which he was hoping to win a scholarship, the young woman who interviewed him asked to speak to me separately afterward. We chatted about things generally and about this young man too, and at the end she said, “I just feel as if I could talk to you all day! You’re so CALM!”She evidently couldn’t hear the yips and barks and funhouse shrieks going on inside me.You just don’t know what the inner reality of another person is; that’s why you can never judge.Another interpretation of myself that I've sometimes been treated to involves the fact that I tend to walk around with a smile on my face.“You’re always smiling at people! Why are you always SMILING?" near strangers have said to me in random settings.Out of the blue like that. Not during any kind of conservation. Just in this pointed, halfway-nasty way as if what they were really saying was, “How about I punch you in the face right now?”I've also noticed over the years that people who know you only a little often don’t like you that much, especially if you seem happy. It’s as if they think you stole their portion of happiness; that they could be a whole lot happier if YOU weren’t so darn happy.When I was as a high school teacher, students who knew me only from seeing me in the corridors sometimes disliked me.  I know because they would tell me as much, after they had become my students. But by then they were in my class, and wrapped in that warm blanket of niceness, the one that all teachers are meant to wrap their pupils in, and their dark assessments had melted away.Here's one thing I know to be true: If I find someone hard to like,  it's almost always because there's something about them I'm not quite ‘getting’ yet. I just need to pay closer attention and try to know them better.As to the always-smiling-at-people part, I smile that way because the aunt who raised me smiled that way -  throughout a life that was far from easy. I used to love walking down the street just behind her, to see the effect she had on the people in her path. By the time she had passed them, they were smiling too.So you can roil all you want on the inside or be baffled or gibbering like a chimp and nobody will necessarily know it. That’s one more nice thing the sainted Fred Rogers told his television audience of little ones: Other people really CAN’T read your thoughts and thank Heaven for that!

How We SEEM

The late Caroline Knapp wrote in her memoir Drinking: A Love Story that all her adult life she SEEMED very ‘smooth and ordered’ on the outside but in fact was ‘roiling and chaotic and desperately secretive underneath.”Only 'not noticeably, never noticeably' she then added and these words struck me as so apt and oddly…. familiar they got me wondering how many others have felt just this way, maybe not the secretive part but the roiling-and-chaotic-on the-inside part.I know I myself seem pretty ‘smooth and ordered’ on the outside. Once, when I brought a young person to look at a boarding school to which he was hoping to win a scholarship, the woman who interviewed him asked to speak to me separately afterward. We chatted about things generally and about this remarkable young man as well, and at the end she said, “I just feel as if I could talk to you all day! You’re so CALM!”She evidently couldn’t hear the yips and barks and funhouse shrieks going on inside me.You just don’t know what the inner reality of another person is; that’s why you can never judge.A second, related interpretation of myself that I have been treated to involves the fact that I tend to walk around with a smile on my face.“You’re always smiling at people! Why are you always smiling?" near strangers have said to me in random settings. Just out of the blue like that.  Not during any kind of conservation. Just in this pointed, halfway-nasty way as if what they were REALLY saying was, “How about I punch you in the face right now?”Why do people come at each other this way? Are we hard-wired to harbor mistrust and judgment? Or is it that life here in Wild West America has brought out these qualities in us?I've also noticed over the years that people who know you only a little often don’t like you that much, especially if you seem happy. It’s as if they think you stole their portion of happiness; that they could be a whole lot happier if  only YOU weren’t hoggin' all the happiness for yourself.When I was as a high school teacher, students who knew me only from seeing me in the corridors sometimes disliked me.  I know because they would tell me as much, after they had become my students.But by then they were in my class, and wrapped in that warm blanket of niceness that all teachers are meant to wrap their pupils in, and their dark assessments had melted away.I've finally figured out one thing by now: If I find a person hard to like it is always, always because there is something about them that I am not quite understanding yet. I know I will feel differently if I can just get to know them better.As to the always-smiling-at-people part, I smile that way because my Aunt Grace smiled that way throughout a life that was far from easy.I used to love walking down the street behind her, to see the effect she had on the people in her path.  Invariably, by the time she had passed them, they were smiling too.So you can roil all you want on the inside or be baffled or gibbering like a chimp and nobody will necessarily know it. That’s one more nice thing the sainted Fred Rogers told his television audience of little ones: Other people really CAN’T read your thoughts and thank God for that, because as I write this I’m three hours late for breakfast and all I can think is “bacon-bacon-bacon” and “coffee-coffee-coffee.”

Marilyn and Caroline

For weeks now I’ve been thinking about our Marilyn, practically the founder of that group of people for whom no last name is necessary.  Today she will have been dead for 50 years. As everyone seems to know by now, she was just 36 when they found her sprawled across her bed, the phone under her hand..For weeks I have also been thinking about writer Caroline Knapp, who as of this summer has been dead for ten years. She was just 42 when she succumbed to a very aggressive form of lung cancer: diagnosed in April, gone in June.But I remember so vividly the day they found Marilyn’s body. I remember so clearly looking down at my own changing body and thinking, "How did all THIS get here?" It was a bewildering new world all right; having guys fake-sighing and then laughing when I passed in the corridors. I suddenly had a boyfriend too, young as I was. He was blond with perfect ears and just 5 foot 2, my same height at the time. I liked that we were small like that. It made the whole boyfriend girlfriend thing so much less scary. It made us seem to me like children still, which of course we were.Children.Innocents.This boy and I were together the day the news broke about Marilyn’s death and it chilled me to my core, I think because even at that young age I saw in her something familiar, naïve way of pleasing others that I sensed was becoming my way. It’s how young women were taught to be back then, ever pliant and agreeable.I was heading down that path, all right; and were it not for an ability to shine in school I can't think how I might have ended. Giving people my shirt as well as my cloak, to use the metaphor. Memorizing the birthdays of people I had only just met so I could send them a card in four or six or eleven months and to prove what? To purchase what?I gave away far too much time and attention to others, and kept far too little for myself.Marilyn did that too, and used alcohol to keep herself blind to the fact.In her brave book, Caroline Knapp writes with great insight about addiction's riptide pull. In it we learn what she finally learned about self-worth, and about alcohol's insidious way of acting like your closest friend - right up until it reveals itself as your deadliest foe. She talks about her father, high-achieving and remote, every night drinking his martinis-with-an-olive.And because, as she puts it, “alcohol travels through families like water over a landscape,” she drank as well, starting at age 14.Just by her description of a glass of chilled white wine filled to the brim and beading with moisture you can see how she loved it, in much the same way Marilyn loved her champagne, alternating its use with the pills she took at night to help her sleep and the ones she took in the morning to help her function again.Well I don’t know just where I’m going here except to note that while Marilyn lost her battle, Caroline won hers, thanks to the 12 Steps. She got sober and she wrote a wonderful book which I would recommend to anyone. It certainly helped me with my decades old habit of over functioning.Drinking: A Love Story, it is called.Now let’s watch this video of Marilyn and salute the oh-so-natural and the oh-so-perishable beauty that was hers.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJfBUKCnzNs&feature=related]