The Secret

Yesterday, I told my dad.

We were on the phone, talking. He spoke about my brother and how much he resented his silence. He could not understand. I told him that it didn’t matter; he had to respect his choice. Still. We were silent for a long time it seems. Perhaps lost in thoughts. Then I heard it, a sob, a deep sob, almost a groan, the groan of a small animal in excruciating pain. It scared me. It scared me because it was me making that noise. My dad listened. I was gasping for air. Oooh dad, if only you knew. Tell me he said. I was crying. Dad, I was molested when I was four years old. I was molested by my brother. I heard my dad cry. It was the first time I ever heard him cry. Why didn’t you tell me, I would have protected you. Oooh God… His voice broke. Why didn’t you tell me? I listened to him cry for a while. I told him everything. He listened. He didn’t doubt me. He didn’t think I was crazy. I needed to know. How come my brother knew about these things? Unless he was really sick, someone had done it to him. Was it him? There was another long silence only broken by my dad’s sobs. All that time I knew something was wrong. Your brother was molested but not by me, it was that guy who coached him baseball. One year he came home dressed as Santa Claus. He had kissed your brother on the lips in exchange for his gift. It shocked me. During all these years, I have never been able to shove away that picture from my mind. We cried together for a while. I’ve wasted my whole fucking life working on boats, away from my family, always by myself. I’ve sacrificed everything because I wanted to make sure you had a good life, that you needed for nothing, and during all that time, you were hurting, all of you. Why? I only wanted what was best for you. I wanted to give you all that I never had. We never had any money, but my parents loved me. What a waste. I’ve lost my family for nothing. Don’t ever doubt that I love you. If I would have known, I would have killed him. I wish you weren’t that far away. We cried for a little while longer.

Dad… I always knew you loved me.

The Answers

There is something absolutely exhilarating about therapy. Whenever I come back from a session with John, I feel as though I am levitating. Everything is a little clearer. I have always felt that way, even in the beginning when things were a little heavier, when there was much more to sort out. The amazing thing about it is: the answers. There is an explanation for almost everything, usually a simple one. One that would have eluded me because of where I come from. All of a sudden, things make sense and when they do, it is much easier to move on. Eventually, there comes a time when you realize that you’re not that – crazy - anymore. Then the therapy becomes more about polishing the corners than rewriting the past.

There is also the fact that this person has known you from the worst on. That person is on your side. He wants you to reach your full potential and he will cheer for you when you achieve it. If for no other reason than the gratification it provides him for having done a darn good job with you.

I was discussing my powerlessness towards the novel with John. He helped me realize that one of the reasons I had not been able to write a word thus far, was because it went from being an amazing project to being a job. I didn’t have to impose myself a strict regiment as to when and how many words should be written in a particular time frame. It took away the joy and the pleasure of the action. But it also became potential for failure. Because every time I failed to write the required amount of words, I felt like I was failing my project. And nobody wants to feel like a loser. And the guilt generated prevented me from even writing on my blog. Ultimately, I stopped writing altogether while all I ever wanted was actually to write more.

The moment I understood that, I started writing again.

I read recently a book introduction by a famous Afro-American writer who said that from the time she was a little girl she felt a stranger in her family and her hometown. She added that nearly all writers have experienced that feeling, even if they had never left their native city. It’s was a condition inherent in that profession, she suggested, without the anxiety of feeling different, she wouldn’t have been driven to write. Writing, when all is said and done, is an attempt to understand one’s own circumstances and to clarify the confusion of existence, including insecurities that do not torment normal people, only chronic nonconformists, many of whom end up as writers after having fallen in other undertakings. This theory lifted a burden from my shoulders. I am a misfit; and it seems that there are others like me out there. I have never fit in anywhere. Not in my family, not in my hometown, and worst of all, not in my own culture.

And although my childhood was but a formidable mass of misery and complexes so tangled and perverted that even today I can’t quite understand them all, even with John’s help, it appears that there aren’t too many wounds left that time won’t be able to heal, time and a bit of help.

So if chronic nonconformity is the key to a great writing career, I guess I am still in the running for this Pulitzer Price after all.

The Evil Eye

There is this new girl at the office who started working with us perhaps six months ago. Although her debut seemed promising, she turned out to be a complete disappointment. We had hoped for another bright, pleasant, hard working person, who require next to no supervision. We got the complete opposite. Worst still, her attitude was such that no matter what you’d say to her, or how you’d say it, she would systematically remain mute while looking through you as if you weren’t there. There were no “good morning to you”, no question asked, no reply provided, she simply did not utter a word.

It didn’t take long for our interest to fade away and a certain frustration to surface. As a result, most of her work was divided amongst people who preferred still to work harder than waste time training and retraining her. Because no matter how much effort and patience was applied, she could not remember from day to day what she had been explained. The tension escalated even more as she seemed perfectly comfortable doing the bare minimum while we struggled along.

Of course, we all shared part of the responsibility in this fiasco. There was obviously something we had collectively done wrong to make her feel so inadequate and so un-welcomed. My office is not a bad place generally, but I guess we are used to more assertive people. Let’s just say this was not a period of glory we should be proud of.

Still, it was obvious she was miserable, and this alone was enough to make us all miserable as well. But we didn’t know what else to do without feedback on her part. So we did nothing. We watched the situation deteriorate more and more every day, waiting for her evaluation period to end so that we could all be put out of our misery.

That is, until the day she brought to the office an amulet against the – Evil Eye -. The message was as clear as could be and a formidable sense of shame dawned on all of us. Yet, soon after, changes started to occur. Things became smoother. She opened up, we opened up and even though we were all very careful, a sense of camaraderie slowly emerged.

One night not too long ago, we rode the elevator together. Out of the blue she mentioned her amulet and the fact that the bad vibes had dissipated, that she finally felt good in the office. She was happy that – it – worked, but then again, from the moment she had put it on the wall, she knew things would get better.

“You know, it works both ways” I replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were convinced that things would change, it made you feel safe, you behaved differently, and you started smiling to people. So people responded to you differently. Perhaps you were your own – evil – all along?”

We reached the ground floor, the elevator’s doors opened and I left. She looked stunned. It had never occurred to her that she might have been partly responsible for her misfortune.

Writer's Block

For those of you who have read my previous postings, you know that on New Year’s Eve, I resolved to start the writing of a novel. Needless to say, it is an exciting project to me, I think about it night and day. Everything is going fine, save perhaps for the fact that I have not yet be able to write down a word. My mind goes blank. As a result, not only do I not feel like an amazing writer in the making, but I feel like a complete disappointment. And each day that goes by without my typing out a few words on the screen, stresses me further. My unexpected fizzle is now encroaching upon my self-confidence. I need your help before I start doubting my ability to write altogether.

How do I get pass that stage?