Year: 2006

The other night I was telling a whimsical anecdote to some people at a pub when this academic type  of fellow interrupted to ask a question that was at best off topic.

Rachel said she doesn’t answer those!

He was confused and I had to say explicitly I do not answer any questions about my identity.

He furrowed his brow and said None?

None.

So if I ask you if you are a woman, would you answer?

No.

He shook his head and I went back to telling my story.

The truth is I do not answer any categorical questions if I can avoid it – not about my occupation, offspring, orientation, education, relationship status, political affiliations, hometown, or name. I’ll talk about any and all of those subjects – but never in a way that allows an audience to apply a tidy label to my life.

Or rather, people are welcome to believe what they like; I refuse to provide the definition.

There are many reasons for this stance, from the smart (a desire to avoid sketchy people from my past) to the pathological (my love of secrets is perhaps not the healthiest aspect of my character).

I’ve never been particularly sentimental about the holiday season; my cultural heritage favors the macabre and mystical over the jolly.

Except of course I became a parent before I was an adult. To compensate for the social stigma I have always made extra efforts to guarantee that my kids are not missing out on whatever material or symbolic elements are required for a happy childhood.

I have always put in the time to give my kids a reasonably fun celebration including treats and surprises and excursions. We’ve done the standard tree lighting, parade-going, Santa photograph thing every year. I do not understand the British tradition of panto but we have incorporated theatre outings and the Frost Fair.

I put the John Denver holiday album on high rotation and pull out the Cary Grant movies. We have a good time, strictly according to protocol.

But my daughter is a grown-up, and has elected to choose her own gifts instead of letting me bungle the job. She is focussed on her own social life, on the dance later this week, on the world outside her home. In other words, she is launched.

If the younger child were here I would be on the standard holiday routine, but he is away visiting his grandparents.

This is the first December in my entire life that I have no responsibilities, no plans, nothing to tether me to the world. This feels strange and sad; I am tempted to listen to music that renders me suicidally depressed over lost youth. But at the same time I am filled with tremendous joy to have achieved this age, to have this family, to know my friends, to continue forward.

This month I can do whatever I like, exactly when I choose.

I’m going to read Orwell and ride my bicycle through the flat green countryside.

My daughter just turned to me and said accusingly I have a hot lady body! Why did you do that to me? It’s your fault! It’s like genetics or something!

While I agree with her that it is inconvenient to find clothing that fits, that is about the extent of my relationship with the concept. I pointed out that the world is an easier place when you do not worry what people think of your appearance.

The kid does not approve of this stance.

She tells me in great detail about her evolving experience of adolescent mating rituals, including insights like Most boys like weakness – they want girls they need to protect. Only a select few like confidence.

Then she said that several of her friends, male and female, have commented that they want to sleep with me.

I clapped my hands over my ears and hummed.

At least I know the teenagers are just chattering.

In my grown-up existence I am experiencing culture shock – a month back in the states running around with my own sort addled my conversational capabilities.

In my community the level of innuendo and double entendre is almost oppressively constant. In fact, I have always been considered repressed by the standards of that group.

I keep forgetting that lots of British people think that racy discussions mean something. For clarity: no, people, telling scandalous stories is not a proposition. Where I’m from even explicit offers of sexual favors are often just tendered as compliments.

Yesterday I had lunch with some people who deal with the business side of book selling. It was quite an enlightening afternoon – I am intrigued by the differences between the publishing world here and back home.

We chatted about various entertaining subjects and then one of my companions (who has not read the book) asked if my cancer is in remission.

I replied I have a rare genetic disorder and two different kinds of cancer. One has been in remission since the 80’s. The other is ongoing but it doesn’t really bother me that much.

This was delivered with a huge smile and followed up with laughter – the way someone else might describe a happy adventure.

My conversational style upsets lots of folks back in the states. But the British people I’ve met take it all in stride. They nod and agree that my attitude is sensible.

From my perspective there is no other choice.

What do any of us know about one another? And what does a writer know? Writing, perhaps, breeds even more distortions and uncertainties…. The ambiguity persists.

Sybille Bedford, Quicksands

Recently I had to look through Lessons in Taxidermy to prepare for the UK release. I did not remember exactly what was included- there were a few discarded chapters and many incidental cuts, revisions, last minute additions. The final version is also substantially different from the stolen book, which is more clear in my mind because of the loss.

I expected to be mildly baffled to read the book years after writing it. I would not have predicted that the most difficult thing about reviewing the material is seeing my friends appear as characters in a narrative.

Of course I changed many names, particularly in the segments concerning my early life. Or where naming someone would start a blood feud. Several people generously gave permission for me to use their real names. Many, however, are missing.

It is difficult to write truthfully about other people. I tried to be respectful. I resisted the urge to settle scores. Particularly when describing episodes that happened before anyone knew me as a writer, I protected the privacy of the individuals concerned.

But putting real people on a page is inherently problematic. Choices are made about what to say, how to say it. Because Taxidermy is a book about danger I selected stories that illustrate certain points. What I put in the book is not necessarily the thing I remember best about any given year or person.

When I talk to Ana Helena nowadays I do not think about how she helped fix my broken body; we are too busy chatting about our hectic new lives. We meet erratically in odd places and I see her as a catalyst, someone to appreciate in the moment and learn from.

If Stevie is around I do not reflect on her accident- I just enjoy her presence and laugh. When I am far away I think about how she used to cheerfully act as my date for work parties and weddings, about the adventures around town and on tour.

James has been mixed up in my life for nearly twenty years and he says I am not a fiction writer because I am obsessed with the truth. He points out that I have always needed proof of the relative meaning of any given experience. He is correct; in the past I always walked away from things I did not understand. I’ve never been afraid of hard work but I always needed to know the plan. My tolerance of ambiguity is a recent development.

But nonfiction is just another kind of script – facts can be presented to support whatever version of the truth is being promoted. James is arguably one of the most important people in my life but he doesn’t show up by name in the book at all. Not because he isn’t important – in fact, he was one of the most visible and significant people in my teens and early 20’s. There are certainly stories worthy of publication from those years. They just didn’t belong in this book.

Most of my life remains strictly off the record; I do not provide a running tally of everything I think and do. Instead I write about the episodes that strike me as pertinent to a given topic.

I have nothing particularly wise to say on the topic. It was just very strange to read the book.

The morbid months have officially begun. Naked trees, short days, sad music on the stereo.

I need to schedule five or six exhausting medical appointments. The weather is already too cold to tolerate; my hand is numb with shattering pain. I miss my old life and this town suddenly feels very small. I’ve been waiting for the seasonal depression to take over.

But instead of feeling low I have been preoccupied with work, friendship, watching my children grow up, riding a bicycle through the countryside. There are parties to attend, people to see.

January is fast approaching, no matter how hard I try to ignore it. But Jeffrey wrote to say I definitely think your birthday should be a national if not world holiday!

When I posted the new publicity photo I received email from a novelist friend informing me that I am beautiful. I found this puzzling, as people do not tell me such things. I proceeded to check with various other people (who might not be exactly impartial) and they all agreed with the assessment.

Then I reviewed my mental files and tallied all the mad encounters with total strangers this year. I know that my clothes and hair play to a certain demographic, and my appearance has not changed recently. But I’ve been getting lots of attention from people who would never before have dared.

I am excessively confident and do whatever I like. But this attitude is predicated on the fact that I’ve never cared what anyone thinks of me. I couldn’t afford to – the scars ensured that I would never have access to the normal concerns of adolescence. I skipped both the good and the bad parts of being a girl.

I did not hear insults, did not feel injuries. I became a self-contained person who never risked emotions that I could not control. The tradeoff was never hearing compliments, never allowing anyone to say nice things to me.

Or I did not hear if anyone tried. But mostly nobody did – I looked like I would put the smack down because I would. That facade flickered on and off; some people saw me differently but they were a trusted few.

At some point this year there was a dramatic inversion of my public self. Now the defensive side is the bit that is only intermittently visible.

I’ve had a deeply confusing remedial crash course in being human and I do not know the etiquette for this new life. All of my secrets and statistics have been stripped away.

Stella wrote to say that I look good in the new picture because I am happy. She is correct. I am also bewildered, displaced, delighted. I have proper human emotions that I never knew existed. Like the ability to enjoy it when someone says I look nice.

My mother sent a message to the photographer that read Thank you, I haven’t seen a picture of my daughter (the real person) since before she got cancer.

Of course beauty is a social construct. I am no more or less attractive than anyone else. Arguably this belief is my best feature. Aside from the lipstick.

Today I was working without my glasses on and something floated by outside. My macabre brain automatically thought body … but closer inspection revealed a log.

Then my phone beeped; it was a text from a friend to say that the police were draining the upper river to look for a missing boy. The water displaced to our side of the lock had all the boats floating too high.

I checked my lines and pulled out the flood poles.

I think that I hide it well, but I was once an art student. I was trained as a photographer and printer and spent many years of my young life obsessed with visual images – my first year of college was funded in part by an art scholarship.

When I eventually realized that I would never be Ralph Eugene Meatyard I abandoned my pretensions and wandered away to study fiscal policy.

The only lingering remnant of those years is a compulsive desire to control how I am represented.

I do not enjoy being photographed by other people; most who try just get a shot of me holding my hands up in front of my face. Whenever possible I take my own publicity photographs – I shot the one for Taxidermy sitting on the edge of the tub in a house I sold a few years ago. But although I find it amusing, my UK publisher asked for something different.

Rifling through the archives I only came up with an image James took to promote Breeder. While it is technically very good and I look ok (though far too sweet) the photo is now five years old. A quick survey of friends revealed divided opinions. James had the decisive vote – he said that I should get new photographs, and offered to fly to the UK to shoot. But it was short notice and I was about to fly off to Italy and then the states.

In Seattle I explained the problem to all of my photographer friends, hoping that someone would offer a solution – because I’m too superstitious to ask for such things. I had no luck with this scheme until one late night at the Bus Stop when Zack (you might remember him from the Hunt for Bad Boys and Lumberjacks) overheard my tale of woe. He paused playing a video game for a moment and casually offered to help.

On my last full day in the states I took the train from Portland to Seattle, feeling raw and distraught and unkempt, to meet Zack in an old apartment building on First Hill. I dragged along the only two fancy outfits I had available but got caught in a rain storm along the way.

He opened the door wearing pajamas, hungover and hands shaking. At various points in the shoot he blew out a bulb, blinded himself with a flash, and managed to get a big wad of tape stuck to his head.

The whole experience was hilarious and I hoped we would at least get something better than what I could manage pointing my own camera at my head.

We retreated to the Bus Stop where I told Ade stories and Zack made the first edits. When I looked over his shoulder I was startled to find that he had somehow managed take the best photographs of me so far this century – or perhaps ever.

My horoscope this week claims that I need to purge my delusions.

But I like them! They are way more entertaining than the six unopened letters from the cancer clinic.

When Thanksgiving arrived this year I was suffering from jetlag and a profound desire to be back in Seattle. I felt perplexed and melancholy but cooked for two days and nights.

My son made the cranberry sauce, my daughter the pie crust. The doorbell kept ringing as I basted a turkey so enormous the oven door almost did not close.

Jean didn’t have the address of the party and called my agent, then Rachel in Canada, finally fetching up at Bacchanalia, where the proprietor kindly directed him to the correct door. Expeditions were mounted to collect various other lost guests.

Iain, Xtina, Susan, and Amanda all came from London. The usual crew of Cambridge people descended, some with brand new small children to admire. Sally brought flowers. Karen brought sake. Don appeared with whiskey. Others brought copious amounts of wine.

My daughter delivered a ringing monologue about sex education ending with the proclamation that she has no plans to participate in such activities. Later she gleefully discussed her opinions and concerns around dating with a crew of sarcastic grown-ups – an interrogation that no other teen of my acquaintance would survive, let alone enjoy. Yet she revels in the attention.

Those of us who feel that Cambridge does not meet our social needs chatted about the subject. Don objected when I said that this city isn’t worth the investment of my time – even though he was the most outspoken about the fact that I would not find the place congenial.

I served a feast to more than thirty people I sincerely like, then ran out to deliver a piece of pie to the fellow at Bacchanlia. My friends sat around talking and drinking for hours.

In the middle of one of my anecdotes I described what I was wearing in 1990, including the slogan on my favorite shirt. Josh recognized the phrase and interrupted to ask Why were you wearing a 101st Airborne shirt? With the emphasis on you.

He was quite surprised to learn that I was a teenage Army bride.

While I was baffled that a member of the East London Massive has the mottoes of the 101st memorized.

Jean was not successful in coaxing scandalous stories out of me, even though he kept filling my glass with wine.

I was thankful for the usual things – health insurance, family, traveling, the fact that I have good friends and challenging relationships, that I can learn and change and be loved.

I have problems, but they are at least interesting – and that is a fact worth appreciating.