A few weeks ago Alex took me to an REI members' event at the store in the Pearl where Cheryl Strayed, the author of the hit memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, hosted a book signing. It was pretty fun - just to be out of the house, two adults having adult conversations without interruption, you know, doing regular adult things together like drinking wine/beer, eating goodies we didn't have to share, in the context of other regular adults doing similar adult-like things. On a school night, no less. I would have waited in line just for that.
But we signed up to attend the event because I'm a big fan of the book, and of Strayed herself - her story is one that I resonate with very deeply (obvi). The book is definitely on my Top 10 list of forever favorites (alongside Krakauer's Into the Wild, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and maybe even The Fault in Our Stars). I admit to being nearly starstruck to see Strayed speak and then have her sign a copy of the book for me. I guess I have a thing for authors. I wanted to blurt out "I have dead mom issues too! I have a sordid past too! I want to be a writer too! I'd kill to have Reese play me in a movie too! ... So, hey, wanna, like, be my maternal figure now?" But I played it cool (mostly because I knew Alex would relentlessly tease me for my lack of frontal lobe) and said "thanks" and "I really enjoyed your book" and moved on. Also, the two women in front of us were practically fawning over her, and I thought, Ugh, how lame, I would never do that. Riiiiiiiight.
I first read Wild last summer, and wrote about it then here. I'm bound to repeat myself some, so forgive me if you feel like you've heard it all before. As I said , I so relate to Strayed's story. I see much of myself in her. We originally read this book for book club (before our group unexplainably disbanded), and, ironically, one of my best friend's hated it because she thought Strayed to be a self-centered, indulgent girl. I considered being offended, because like I said, I saw so much of myself in her (don't worry, Rach, I'm over it now). Strayed's book resonated with me, (obviously) because of the dead mom shit, but also because Strayed and I share a certain type of response to the grief of losing a beloved parent at a young-ish age. You might even call it "pathological." I had always believed this to be the "normal" and "developmentally appropriate" response to intense, intolerable, confusing and overwhelming emotion. I no longer believe this to be true.
My friend Liz posted her take on the book Wild on her blog back in August. I had started a post in response to it back then, but never did finish. Go figure. Liz and I share a history of losing beloved parents at a relatively young-ish age, and, in fact, we actually knew one another's parents (having grown up together in a close-knit suburb of Portland, playing soccer and attending some of the same schools). Liz and I also share several less tragic interests, such as reading and writing; diverse perspectives on motherhood, and particularly mothering a daughter; blogging; etc. And while we may converge on many topics, our post-death paths diverge significantly.
In Liz's post, I was most intrigued and inspired by her remarks regarding "self-destructive behavior." She commented that while she's not traditionally "self destructive," she does push herself to, and arguably, past, her limits, doing things that are generally viewed as positive endeavors such as reading and writing and running and quilting. In fact, these are some of the very things I admire, and maybe even envy, so much about Liz. That she appears able to channel emotion into motivation, that she is able to move from here to there, achieving actual goals, without getting stuck in the muddy, quicksandy bullshit that is drinking, drugging, promiscuity, self-loathing, and ultimately, avoidance of feeling.
Myself, I'm definitely prone to self-destruction, and in the more conventional way. My tendencies toward self-destruction are neither admirable, nor romantic and book-worthy. I'm self-destructive enough to hurt myself and those close by to maybe get hit by my shrapnel (read: Alex), but not so much so that there would be anything to write a best-selling book about. So where does that leave me? Not bad enough to be good, but not good enough to be bad?!? Or something like that. Writing this actually reminds me of disordered eating - for those of you who may or may not know, I had a touch of the anorexia during the early high school years (self-destruction, anyone?) - and I remember thinking that I wasn't a "good enough anorexic" because while I was supremely fucked in the head - proud of my stunted menstruation, the ability to fit into some children's-sized clothes, and the maintenance of sub-100 lb weight for a body that was inclined to be well over that mark - I was unable to limit my caloric intake or run far enough to earn myself some lanugo (body hair growth as a response to a metabolism that can't keep its temperature regulated), or require an inpatient hospital stay. To me, that would have been a more valid measure of anorexic "success."
I also do not share Liz's persepective that Strayed's actions somehow represent or demonstrate a greater love for her mother. Liz says:
"I find myself strangely envious of people who "get their lives back together" because I could never imagine letting my life "go" in the first place. Somehow I have been conditioned to believe that the more self-destructive Strayed's behavior was in the aftermath of her mom's death, the more it proves she loved her mother. "
If left to think about it, I actually have the opposite view. That someone like Liz loved her dad so profoundly, and loved and respected herself enough, to persevere in the face of gried in a manner he would be proud of. Rather than crumbling and internally combusting requiring other people to worry and intervene.
My favorite part of Liz's post is the end:
"Nobody will ever offer me a book advance to write about the ways I honor my dad because they're not very exciting. No publisher is itching to sell Prime: Skinny Jeans from Amazon and Other Minor Self Indulgences. But I think that's okay. Even if my dad always did say he wanted to write a book, he ultimately decided to invest his energy and resources in other types of projects. So maybe a book is not the way he would have wanted to be memorialized anyway.
But maybe I'm wrong. I could see Reese Witherspoon starring in a movie about thank you gifts and skinny jeans."
This is where our paths converge again. Just as she doesn't imagine her personal journey as "big" enough for a book advance, I, too, can't imagine that anyone would be interested to read something to the effect of "my mom died when I was 19 and my emotional development is stunted, so I have a proclivity to keep life difficult but not tragic by fucking up in moderate ways on a regular basis, but rarely doing anything grand enough to warrant a full re-boot." Borderline: The Predictable Story of an Emotionally Dysregulated WomanChild.
Yesterday I had/took the opportunity to see the Wild movie. In the theater. During the day. By myself. As in, ALL ALONE. It was amazing, cathartic, and just what I needed. There are few things I love more in life (aside from laughing 'til I cry with my besties, iced lattes, reciprocated cuddles with the Bean, a mountain town at dusk, taking a hot shower after camping for 2+ nights, and bear hugs from the Hubs) than crying alone in the corner of a dark movie theater. Some might call that fucked up (Alex does), but I think it is just damned satisfying. Like picking a sticky booger that felt like it was connected to your brain. Or poopin' out a clean breaker. Or having an orgasm when you're ovulating. I cried during - and after - the movie yesterday. Boy did I cry. It had been awhile.
I had a few novel reactions to the movie that I don't recall after reading the book the first time. During the movie yesterday I felt myself thick with envy of Strayed. Not like you'd think - not about her hike, the book, or her ultimate Hollywood success (which I do indeed envy). But because of her memories of her mother. For 13 years I've tried to conjure up concrete memories of my mom. I've asked her to visit me in my dreams. I try to imagine her laugh, her smile, what she might say to me in a given situation. What I wouldn't give for a vision of my mother, of past or of present. For a moment of connection, however fleeting. For that fox in the woods.
And then there's the fact that Strayed's story makes it sound like that 1,000-mile hike actually cured what ailed her. Like she never again picks at the scabs, instead her body just a host to some scar tissue and lots of nice memories. And a best-selling book. I know that she didn't write the story about her PCT hike until decades after she completed it, maybe not recognizing that she had started walking as "lost," and emerged at the Bridge of the Gods "found." But still. I, on the other hand, feel like I've been searching for healing my whole life. And if the answers truly lie in a three-month hike, however intense, I'd say she got off easy. And sign me the fuck up (amiright, Alex?!?)
And even though I didn't geek out when Cheryl signed my book at REI - I totally just emailed her. Yeah, I'm that kind of reader. But I tell myself that someday when I'm a famous author that I'll love to receive emails from my fans, too.
a) You should totally send her the links to these posts. I've read in multiple places on her social media that she reads all of the comments and emails she receives.
ReplyDeleteb) Thanks for including my post in your reflection on the movie. So much of writing a dissertation is sitting alone, at a computer, working to craft a document that only a handful of people will ever read. It's always a pleasure to see someone respond to my writing, and to engage with it, that it really made me wish I had more time for blogging right now. And thankful that somehow through a conglomeration of social media tools that didn't exist when the Dynamites were running around the field, we've managed to stay in touch. If it offers any solace, my forms of self-destruction may be more well respected in the popular conceptions of "appropriate behavior," but they exact a toll on me and those around me, too. I had to read about a lot of cyclists who trained themselves to death before it really hit me that our culture often glorifies the precise type of impulses that could literally kill me.
c) I really appreciate the stuff you've said here, particularly about how poignant Strayed's memories are and how she seems to have come to terms with her loss in a coherent, complete way. I have dreamed my dad exactly 3 times in the 4 years since he died, and 2 of those times were utterly insignificant. All I have ever felt is a profound ABSENCE of him, so I can totally relate to being envious of the way Stayed is convinced that her mother is just THERE sometimes.
I'm looking forward to seeing if my response to the movie is different than my response to the book. I have a feeling a big part of my response to the book was reading it as new mom to 2, feeling like I didn't have a single minute to myself. Hiking alone for 3 months? That sounded like such an extravagance at the time....glad you are over my initial response to it;)
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