This is my island.

I was going to go down a completely different rabbit hole this week, but in the process of searching for a certain quote (which I still haven’t found) from the BBC’s 1990-94 comedy series Waiting for God, I came across this, and it sent my brainbox in a different direction entirely.

“I used to come down [to Brighton] during the war. I used the watch the air battles, the dogfights, out there. Our boys and their boys weaving about on a lovely summer’s day, putting on such a show. If one of the Hun went down, the whole beach would cheer. If one of our boys was hit, even the wind would stop blowing. Time froze until the lad either parachuted to safety and your heart would leap, or he plunged into the sea and you all died with him. Nineteen or twenty years of some dear mother’s adoration, loving care, just switched off. Doused. It’s why I never had children. Couldn’t face losing them. It’s why I never had much at all.”

It’s from one of the program’s quiet moments, one of the infinitesimal spaces where they would slip into the dialogue something so poignant and sharp that you’d forget for a minute that you’d come for the laughs--at least, until one of the main characters whacked a pigeon with her cane or purposefully confused his drug-addled daughter-in-law. It’s a split-second of total honesty. A bare-faced ‘come to Jesus’. It makes you think. Well, it did me, anyway.

I’ve heard it said that the happier you are, the less you need. Those inspirational Instagram doohickies are always touting simple pleasures. ‘You can’t take it with you.” Experiences and relationships are more valuable than things. There’s certainly something to be said for this vein of life philosophy--especially if, like me, you deplore clutter.

But there’s something beyond that for me.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I’m ‘not very good at people’, and there’s a reason for that. A life of externally-enforced--which very quickly also became self-enforced--emotional repression has rendered me wary. I keep the world at arm’s length on purpose, because anything closer than that is dangerous. Experience has taught me that there is always another shoe to drop; there’s always a way for someone to disappoint or betray you. It’s an unending dogfight, but it doesn’t seem to matter who gets shot down. If it’s me, it’s because whatever situation I’ve ended up in is somehow my fault. If it’s someone else, I’m not cheering as they plummet towards the sea--I’m watching, wounded, because they’ve proved themselves to be an unsafe connection. No one wins.

It always makes ‘not having’ seem the safer route. If I don’t build the bridges, the bandits can’t cross. If I don’t reach out, no one can cut off my hand. If I don’t give myself away, I remain intact.

You can’t grieve for something that was never yours.

Or can you?

It turns out that you can. I have existed with a permanent loneliness which I only recently was able to recognize for being what it is. It’s always had labels like ‘independence’ and ‘self-reliance’ and to a degree those are absolutely on the nose, but behind those things is this big, empty space between what I call my ‘Public Face’ and the rest of me. A metaphorical no man’s land, only I’ve always pictured it as a vast, open stretch of ocean, surrounding a tiny, rocky outcrop, which is where my interior self lives. Sure, she could go swimming, try to get to somewhere else that’s less desolate, less isolated, but she knows there are sharks, and she knows that you never see them until it’s too late. Does she want to leave her island? Of course she does. She knows there’s something else out there beyond the horizon that’s less lonely--she knows, because it exists around her, on the other side of her ‘Public Face’. She can look, but she can’t touch. Well, she could, but that would mean braving the sharks, and probably losing limbs.



So would it be worth it? Everybody says it is. “Come on over this side, everyone’s lovely and we have cake!” They don’t seem to see the minefield in between, the deadly obstacle course I’d have to run to get there. “It’s nothing, why are you worried? Just come across the grass.”

“There are snakes in the grass.”

“No, there aren’t. You’ll be fine. After the grass, there’s a little bridge, you just have to cross that and you’ll be here.”

“There’s alligators under that bridge, and all the boards are rotted through.”

“Looks fine and dandy from where we’re sitting. What are you so scared of?”

“You’re made of bees.”

“Bzzzzzzzz!”

“I...I think I’ll stay here, thanks.”

Sometimes, it’s easier to live without--even though it’s without something you know you want. Something you know you need.

The less you have, the less you have to lose.

(I had a shitty week, okay?)

Necessity is the mother of invention, but accidents are far more likely.

Have you ever sat back and thought about how things that are ubiquitous today were discovered in the first place? Things we now think we can’t possibly live without didn’t just magically appear out of the ether--someone made a concerted effort (or possibly a mistake, or maybe even lost a bet) to create them for the benefit of themselves and others. Obviously a great deal of the progress of humankind has been centered around great inventions like the wheel, and those are certainly noteworthy, but it’s the random little things that give me pause for thought--the things we take for granted, or at the very least simply don’t think about because in our world they’ve always existed. Some of these things have had a significant impact on the whole of humankind, while others are kind of quirky, but somewhere, at some point, someone had a ‘Eureka’ moment and that’s how we ended up with:

Coffee
Back in the mists of time in the jungles of South America, some indigenous person identified the coffee bean as a food source. Maybe this discovery was made by watching the local fauna feast on the fruit of the plant and thereby deciding that since the birds didn’t drop dead immediately upon consumption that it was probably okay for people to eat the fruit, too. But here’s the kicker--Mr. or Ms. Indigenous took it one step further. Well, I guess it was several steps, really. Somehow it went from eating the beans straight off the tree to roasting them and grinding them up and running hot water over them and turning them into a beverage. How? How did that happen? Who was walking up the steps of the Temple of the Jaguar one day and suddenly said, “Hey, I know what! Let’s take those bean things we like and do all this stuff to them to make them into a drink so that thousands of years from now people can pay $7 for a cup of it and annoy the heck out of the barista with an unnecessarily complicated order”? A true genius, that’s who.

The same goes for tea and chocolate and a lot of other plant-based foodstuffs, really. Corn syrup, sugar, ice cream...and maple syrup? What doofus was running around in the wilds of Canada and stopped to lick a tree?! It was probably the same guy who saw what the bees were making and decided he needed to lick that, too.

Glass
Glass is a BIG DEAL. We use it for tons of stuff, and it made a world of difference in the realms of medicine and sanitation, but who set the damn beach on fire and figured it out in the first place? Sand, limestone, soda ash. What are the odds that those three things were in the same place at the same time and got heated up to the correct temperature to make glass happen?
“Hi, Bob. Whatcha got there?”

“Oh, just a pile of sandy stuff. If you wanna stick around I think I might set fire to it.”

“...Why?”

“No reason, just thought it might be fun.”

I’m sure that’s not how it was at all, but I like this version better.

Gemstones
This is a weird one. I know that humans (and jackdaws) love a good shiny thing, and of course I know that gemstones are Very Shiny Things in their natural state. So who was the guy who woke up one morning and thought, “I think I’ll go try to make the shiny things even shinier”? Someone literally took a hacksaw (or other, probably more appropriate tool) to a purple rock at some point and now we have a rush on amethyst jewelry every February. Obviously some minerals come in a sort of pre-cut shape--geodes and crystals and whatnot--so it may originally have been an attempt to emulate that, but it’s a far cry from what we recognize as a diamond today back to “Oooh! Shiny rock!” This one just feels like putting two and two together and making five.

Jigsaw Puzzles
This one just makes me shake my head. I love jigsaw puzzles. They’re relaxing, you can do them alone or if you do them with other people it’s a nice, non-competitive activity. You can glue them together and frame them when you’re done, or break them up and put them back in the box to do again another time or give to someone else to enjoy. But what goofball saw a picture or a painting and thought, “I know! I’ll bust that up into a bunch of pieces and then put it back together again. It’ll be great!”

I love jigsaws, I do, but if you really think about it, the concept is just ludicrous. Talk about an exercise in futility.

How to Drive in California

Today, we will be exploring the correct way to drive in the state of California. California is unique in its geography, weather, and demographic spectrum, and while we could spend an infinite amount of time exploring the equally infinite microcosms of Californian driverhood, for purposes of simplification we will be examining the driving conditions and stipulations of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Firstly, you must evaluate your driving needs: Will you be commuting? Will you only do some occasional driving, like once or twice a week to work and the rest of the time for small, local errands? Are you shuttling kids around? Do you need towing capacity for your weekend activities? Once you have determined your ‘must-haves’ in a vehicle, scrap the entire list and buy a BMW (or equivalent Mercedes, Audi, Lexus, or other luxury automobile.)

Next, know your terrain. Whether you are driving on twisty mountain roads, long stretches of straightaway through agricultural fields, cramped, congested city streets, or eight-lane freeways, always remember: It’s your road, you are the most important motorist on it, and everyone else needs to get the fuck out of your way.

The rules of the road only apply if you’re going to get caught breaking them. Speed limits and red lights are more suggestions than hard-and-fast regulations. It doesn’t matter in what order you arrive at the four-way stop, the object is to be the first person to get to go. Pass on the right if you feel like it. If you can make it, make the U-turn. ‘Keep Clear’ zones just clog things up--go ahead and sit in the middle of them. Same goes for blocking intersections on red lights. And hey, if no one sees you doing it, why shouldn’t you use the carpool lane when you’re driving by yourself? Let the other drivers prove you don’t have an infant in the back seat!

Dealing with other drivers is a pain no matter where you are. If someone is going too slow for your liking, tailgating is absolutely acceptable. Flashing your lights and honking your horn should accompany any and all close-proximity driving, as it warns the offending driver that you are there and you mean business. This works the same in reverse, of course. If someone behind you is going too fast, apply your brakes liberally, and try to do so in such a way that the offending tailgater can’t change lanes to avoid you. Hey, if he rear ends you it’s automatically his fault!

And speaking of changing lanes, you have three options open to you. Option number one is the safe and sane way--checking your mirrors and blind spot, making sure there’s enough space for your vehicle, adjusting your speed accordingly, signaling, and making the transition in as smooth a manner as possible. Option number one is boring and to be avoided at all costs. Option number two is to find a break in traffic where your car fits, line yourself up, start signaling, and then promptly slow down so that your rear bumper and the front bumper of the car at the back of the space into which you wish to merge are in line with each other. Continue to signal, but do not make any attempt to speed up the little bit it would take to get you safely into the other lane. This is sure to make the driver of the vehicle in front of which you are trying to merge absolutely seethe with annoyance. Option number three is to leave the consequences to luck and zip in and out of traffic without looking or signaling, thus causing everyone else to have to make way for you. After all, it is your road. Conversely, if you see someone attempting to change lanes you must make it as difficult as possible for them to do this--just because.

It is your sacred duty to wait until the last possible second to exit any freeway.

Road hazards such as curves (no matter how slight), hills, irregularities in paving, cars pulled off to the shoulder (especially if accompanied by law enforcement), and construction zones should all be approached with the same technique--the sudden and forceful application of your brakes. Otherwise, who knows what might happen?

Of course, all of this is easy enough under normal driving conditions, but we do need to make mention of the biggest problem drivers face: the weather. While the San Francisco Bay Area usually enjoys mild temperatures, occasionally weather happens. Here are some common adverse weather conditions and how to deal with them.

Strong winds
Make sure to drift across lanes and then snap back into the one you were originally in. A half-assed ‘Sorry’ wave is customary in these situations to anyone you may have nearly broadsided.

Fog
Your high beams will simply reflect back at you in the fog, so ensure that you have them on to facilitate maximum annoyance to yourself and others. Also, any suggested speed should be decreased by approximately 30 miles per hour, and make sure to brake for no reason every so often.

Rain
Water falling from the sky is always cause for alarm. Apply your brakes frequently and liberally, and travel at a minimum of 10 miles per hour below the suggested speed. If you anticipate making any turns or changing lanes, make sure to make these transitions as slowly and painstakingly as possible while ensuring that you purposefully delay or cut off anyone behind you. If you come upon any of the road hazards mentioned above, apply your brakes earlier and harder than you would under normal driving conditions.

Snow
Call in sick to work.

I hope you have found these tips helpful and that you will consult this definitive article before embarking upon any future car journeys within the quadrant bordered by Santa Rosa to the north, Brentwood to the east, Gilroy to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Your fellow drivers will applaud your commitment to the Bay Area standards of automobile transport, and you will be safe in the knowledge that you’re absolutely the only person on the road who matters.

Green

Please, if you’ve been having a difficult time with all the news surrounding the Me Too movement/Why I Didn’t Report/the Kavanaugh farce, don’t read this post. Take care of yourself, and come on back next week. Really. The content herein is of a sensitive nature that may be distressing for certain individuals. So, off you pop, lovelies, and go engage in some self-care. You’re beautiful, amazing creatures, each and every one of you.

For those of you who have chosen to stay, well, here goes. What follows is true and accurate to the best of my memory.


***


I was ten. So was he. It was summertime, and we were out of school. We had known each other and played together for years, so the invitation to ‘camp out’ in his yard in his new tent wasn’t anything out of the ordinary--in fact, it sounded like a great new game! No one thought twice about it, and why should they have? We were ten, for goodness’ sake. And so two or three nights that summer I packed up my gear, climbed the fence, and we ‘camped’.

It’s just that camping included this...other thing. The other thing involved getting me on my back, shoving my extra-long t-shirt pajamas with Garfield’s giant, grinning face and my sports bra thing (whatever a ten-year-old girl wears when she’s not quite ready for the real thing yet but still needs something) up under my arms, yanking my underwear down, and keeping me still by holding the blade of a large Swiss Army knife against my neck while I stared at the ceiling of the tent and tried not to think about what was happening below that blade resting on my throat.

Now, generally speaking I was a fairly scrappy kid. I didn’t have too many qualms about making my opinions known, and was a serial shin-kicker/’Indian burn’ giver/back-of-the-head-thwacker. There had always been something about this particular boy, however, that had given me pause. He had a dangerous edge which, most of the time, made our games a lot more fun, but there had always been moments when even my own bull-headedness had been cowed by his sudden fits of aggression. The few times in the tent that summer were definitely among them. The terror overtook any capacity I had to fight back, and afterwards there was the overhanging worry of, “If he’ll do this now, what will he do if I tell?” I got stuck in a self-defeating cycle--I couldn’t fight him off, I was too scared to tell anyone in case he did something worse, and I was stuck going back a couple more times for ‘camp-outs’ because if I said, “No, thanks,” then someone would ask why and I couldn’t answer that question because I was afraid of him even thinking I’d told someone.

He wasn’t the only problem. As with any situation like this, there were the factors of shame and embarrassment and--being ten--the fear of getting in trouble myself.

So I didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say anything for the next couple of years, until (for some reason I can’t remember) I made an off-the-cuff remark about it and my 6th grade teacher heard it and dragged in the school district psychologist and called my parents and generally did all of the things a teacher is absolutely supposed to do in these circumstances but, being the cavalier sort of kid I was, I covered up the shame and terror at being found out with an attitude of, “What’s all the fuss about?”

At this point I should explain that, though my parents love me in their own way, they are Very Not Good at Feelings-with-a-Capital-F, and as a result, were just as uncomfortable as I was with the whole sordid affair. That evening at home there was an extremely awkward and uncomfortable half-hearted attempt at a discussion which, if I remember rightly, mostly consisted of me avoiding answering anything or just saying, “I don’t know,” and “I don’t remember.” None of us wanted to be there trying to have that conversation, and after that exercise ended a miserable failure, it was never brought up again.

But the trauma didn’t go away.

I mostly forgot about it--or at the very least tried not to think about it--for years afterwards. It didn’t occur to me until well into my twenties that my reactions to certain actions from my partners in intimate situations were a direct result of the manner in which I had been restrained in the tent that summer. It’s worth noting here that not one of my partners has ever held a knife to my throat--what I mean is that if I start to feel trapped I panic. It doesn’t matter how much trust there is in the relationship, if you put too much weight on me or I get tangled up in the sheets or a piece of clothing I go into fight-or-flight mode instantaneously. It doesn’t stay in the bedroom, either. I remember being at a party my senior year of undergrad and flirting with a guy I liked in the kitchen. I was leaning against the counter, and he put one hand on either side of me, effectively pinning me in, and I actually pushed him off when the adrenaline exploded into my system. I had no idea why at the time, but I do now.

I don’t like to talk about it--who does? Talking won’t change it. It happened. This is where it’s got me. It’s a part of me, and it will never go away. It’s still terrifying. It’s still shameful. I’ve actually spent time berating my ten-year-old self. “Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you just not go back?” It doesn’t help. Those are all obvious options to me now, but when you’re ten, you’re ten. The world is full of stuff that doesn’t make sense to you yet, and you deal with it however you can--which sometimes means not dealing with it at all.

So, dear Ten-Year-Old Me, it wasn’t your fault. You were doing the best you could with what you had. No one should have expected you to deal with that situation like an adult. Adult You knows that now, and she’s really sorry she spent so much time being angry at you for not doing things differently. You did fine. By some miracle, you’re still here. You pulled through despite the lack of recourse to support because you’re a scrappy little so-and-so and life can bend you, but it can’t break you. And no, you will never be rid of the vivid memory of that blade pressed against your neck while you looked upwards at the green ceiling of that tent and tried to will yourself dead from the shoulders down, but it will fade enough to be manageable. And you will finally be able to stand up and say “This happened to me, like it happened in different ways to so many other people, and that doesn’t make any of us any less worthwhile.”