I admire confidence in people. I am just starting to get a hold of it in my own life, and I’m not throwing that out there for pity; it’s been one hell of a learning curve, but I am grateful for that curve. It’s much better than a flat line, where nothing changed because no questions were asked, there was no curiosity, no inner sense that something about this part of me was lacking. It’s important not to confuse confidence with narcissism; someone who barges into a room, barely listening and all full of loud bluster. To me, ‘confidence’ has to do with the ability to be present, willing to listen, and keen to defend an opinion or a position, all the while embodying the sense of worth necessary to do this–to take up space with positive, energetic gusto commensurate with the situation. Listening is key, and in my utopia, the best confident person possesses the egoic flexibility to change a stance; mature enough to comprehend a different perspective and take it up when it proves to offer sensible, dependable truth. To cultivate such confidence in your kids is a parent’s responsibility. Barring this, if your parents didn’t do this, it is your challenge to do your own cultivating. Such a task is in a way, not only an investment in yourself, but also in the community; you don’t live in a vacuum. You influence the people around you at work, in your social circle, and even those you meet in the elevator, or in the line for coffee. An example of this happened this past winter during a visit to a local independent coffee shop. I stood in the line, and soon caught the eye of one of the barista’s, acknowledging with that chin raise and nod that she was ready to take my order, so I ordered. There was a young teenager standing up near the cash but over to the side. I had assumed that she had already ordered, and was waiting for something complex, a drink with many steps, iced, whipped, simmered, or thrown, or all of the above. I paid for my coffee and then watched as my barista asked the teenager if she had been served. She shook her head, ‘no,’ and as I was still right there, I said, “Oh, no! I thought you were waiting! Oh damn, the next time, make a stink because you should have been served before me! Next time,” and I chose a fun voice, “Hey lady, wait just a second, ‘cause I’m in line here!” She laughed, and then placed her order. I turned to go, and an older woman, possibly her mother, but could have been her aunt, or just a friend, looked at me and said, “Thank you!” I could tell that the teenager was shy and so this was a challenging scenario for her. But, maybe now she might step up for herself.
What you’re looking for when you’re a kid, is the clarity that everything is okay. You want to know that you’re safe, and that the people around you are okay. One day, when I was young, I remember overhearing my mother and father talking in their bedroom. My father had just gotten home from work and was changing out of his suit. I remember it was sunny, summer. My mother had told my father that she had repainted the picnic table, visible through their window out under the oak trees beside the farmhouse. I was shocked to hear my father demand, “Well, change it back.” It was such a harsh directive, an order, instead of any type of comment where there might be a discussion, like, “Well, maybe a lighter shade of blue,” or whatever. This was about the paint colour on a picnic table, not the suggestion of putting the children up for adoption. What I needed to hear was my mother stand up for herself. What would have been even better would have been the two of us going out the next day and covering the table with bright polka dots in an attempt to convey the message that perhaps my father should lighten up. This didn’t happen, and instead, there was allowed to continue to blow an enervating wind of uncertainty through that farmhouse and around all of the members of the family that lived there. My parents were not a team. They seemed more like inmates in a dark paradigm orchestrated by ancestry and bad chance. I honestly don’t ever remember him bringing her flowers. Shouldn’t I have witnessed that at some point along the way? What a waste.
The problem with low confidence and low self-worth is, not only that you don’t stand up for yourself when you should, but you tend to take things personally. Here is the description of a scenario that makes me roll my eyes, one that I would love to go back in time to revisit, to have the chance to react differently: It is late 90’s and I’m at a cottage, a guest along with several other people. Before arriving, I stopped at an antique store to look for a nice gift for the cottage owners, something other than the usual bouquet of flowers or bottle of wine. I found an antique brass ice bucket with an elephant figurine set near the bottom. I liked it. I thought it was beautiful and unique, and would be the perfect gift for my hosts. After arriving, I presented it, excited to do so and in that way where I might have been suggesting that this was likely the best cottage gift they had ever received, at least that weekend anyway. I think it was the next afternoon when I was walking into the main living room from an adjoining hallway, listening to guests laughing. It was that time of the day when everyone gathered for the cocktail that punctuated the day, when all exercising was to be curtailed in honor of a second cocktail, and the lead up to dinner and more good conversation, so almost everyone was in the living room, talking and laughing. I was just about to step across the threshold into the room when I saw that the cottage matriarch–the grand dame, had my ice bucket in her hands. “Who would buy such a thing,” she said. I realized that the laughter had been aimed at my gift, and when I witnessed the dismissive judgement, I stopped in my tracks. I felt the blood drain from not only my face, but my whole body. I turned around and went elsewhere. I still roll my eyes when I think of it. What I should have done was to continue walking into the room, answer the “Who would buy such a thing,” question with “Oh it was me,” taken the bucket from her hands and launched it into the lake. Then I would have come back into the room: “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. So, who knows how to play canasta?”
Of course, throwing the bucket into the lake would have been juvenile, but so was, “Who would buy such a thing.” When we experience things like this–interactions that drop us, the trick is to learn from them. It’s as if there’s this thing inside of us, an entity that doesn’t age; it’s like an observer writing our story and it wants to write the better one. We can’t go back in time to visit events and have a re-do, but imagining is fun, because I really launched that bucket out there–hell of a splash, and the look on the matriarch’s face when I walked back into the room was priceless. The better story, the realistic version involves being ready for the next opportunity, and I don’t mean looking for trouble, but instead, making sure that you are present in your skin. Slow your walk if you have to; I find this helps. It’s too easy to get all up in your head, and forget that you have a body that is your threshold to this reality.
I’m much better at this now, but I am far from perfect. Take this incident where I witnessed a white person shut down a black person talking about grief and Black Mental Health Week. Both had lost family members, but when the black person mentioned the week dedicated to the black experience, the white person launched into a speech about how all grief was the same and that race didn’t matter. Here, I’m pulling the ‘shock’ card because my jaw was on the floor. The conversation moved on, and like a complicit idiot, I didn’t say anything. I also slept horribly that night, and over the next few days, kept replaying the scene in my head; yes, my stupid, stupid head. For crying out loud, I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a descendent of several hundred years of slavery. Or to have a black son in the same town where there are police. I think ‘living’ as a black person has to be a challenge, let alone dying. And then there’s this bullshit where someone decides that it all means nothing! As I replay the moment, instead of being a silent dope, I quietly raise my hand, and then say, “ I respectfully, and with great love, would like to say that I disagree that all grief is the same, and would like to be clear that I believe it is only my black friend who can pass judgement on that.” At least. At least that. I could go on. I’m not making anyone’s grief lesser-than–it’s not a competition. Thing is, the white person didn’t have to say anything at all. She could have simply sat in non-judgement, holding space for their sadness. I gently addressed the comment at a later gathering, without being damning or confrontational. I was prepared for the relationship with the white person to be strained, and was willing to risk that, but somehow I found the words that offered a solid meeting place; about how each person’s grief is unique, and that ancestral history is a powerful contributor of all of us, in life, so absolutely too, in death. I was glad to have addressed it.
I’ll remind you here that I had a friend who, in an email, compared the vaccine passport deal with Germany during the war. I didn’t say anything then either. I should have said, right away, “Hey, about that comment, can we talk?” Instead, we just didn’t communicate for a few months. I phoned her, offering my thoughts of concern after a tornado took off part of her eaves trough. Why is it never the other way around? Why don’t people who say terrible things, come back later with, “Hey, I don’t know what came over me? How are you doing?” It’s always me reaching out to try to restart communication, never, ever the other way around. I reach out because I want to try to walk the talk, and I sincerely do want the world to be a better place. You get tired of it, after a while. It’s exhausting.
At the end of J.D. Salinger’s ‘Seymour–An Introduction,’ he writes, “Seymour once said that all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.” I interpret these “pieces of Holy Ground,” as opportunities for growth, for learning. We have the opportunity to learn, and learn, and learn, unless we are dopes, and some of us are. I wish I had learned earlier. So much time walking around looking at people wondering how this all worked. The ‘Seymour’ character, in case you’re curious, was the one that committed suicide and was referred to in several of Salinger’s other stories. We all have our dark moments, when we wonder how it is that others thrive. Yes, I know that we never know the whole story, but some people sure seem confident about it all. Although–although the more I get to know some people, the less solid their confidence seems–the corners aren’t quite square and there’s a hinge or two that squeeks; Everyone is navigating something. Even denial is a mode of emotional navigation; you can’t escape it. Perhaps the sweet spot is when those of us who have been working through our failings, finally get to the point where we realize that it’s all about ‘being present,’ and we run into each other, nobody putting on airs, trying to sell something, and we can communicate on that sacred level, almost numinous. This is what it’s all about. This is the goal. Nothing else matters.