A few days ago, my business partner told me that I presume everyone is incompetent and I feel bad about it, which is one of the most insightful things anyone has ever said about me. I do presume that most people are incompetent, and I feel bad about it because that presumption is antithetical to my politics, which tells me that people have an inherent dignity that no one—especially billionaires—has any right to take away.
Talking about it with my husband, I realized that I have full faith in the competency of the general public, just not in the competency of anyone I actually know. I’m exaggerating a little: of course I think you, my friend reading this, have all the competence in the world. Keep reading! I’m not all bad!
I spectated at Bloomsday this weekend. Bloomsday is a 12k road race and a Spokane tradition. Hundreds of thousands of people come to run or walk it, many of them dressed in costume, and there’s live music all along the race route.
Unlike most sports, about which I know very little, I have a connection to running. I was a dedicated member of my high school track and cross country teams. I have not run seriously since my mid-twenties, when I injured my knee, but for many years running was my primary athletic endeavor. So, I enjoy cheering at races.
To every little girl running Bloomsday, I yelled, “You look strong!” I high fived hundreds, if not thousands, of participants. One of the runners had a large feathered hat and she handed it to me as she ran past. Multiple runners then complimented me on my hat as the race continued.
Just like last year, midway through the race I started thinking I should run Bloomsday next year, but this year I had a new and frightening thought: if I run, who would cheer? Sure, the course is lined with literally thousands of people cheering, I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them. But none of them was as good as me, none of them had the same gusto, the same ability to make a meaningful human connection in the brief moment a runner ran past. If I ran instead of cheering, I thought, Bloomsday itself might suffer.
Of course these are the thoughts of a mad man, a lunatic. I admit them to you as a kind of penance: to show you the inner workings of my mind, the heart of the matter, the place in which my sad belief in others’ incompetence festers.
That’s something else I feel compelled to admit: I am often a mad man, thinking the craziest things, telling myself stories that make no sense. For example, earlier this year I got it in my head that I could save my friends’ marriage if I sang “Semi-Charmed Life” at a karaoke party.
I am good friends with several people having marital problems, a fact which makes me feel both sad and inept. It gives me a similar feeling as to when I’m confronted by the death of a loved one: this would be easier if I had religion. It would be convenient to tell my friends that divorce is morally wrong, but of course I don’t believe that. In fact I’m not convinced that marriage makes any sense at all. I have nothing to give my friends but the vaguest, most meaningless platitudes.
That’s why I decided to sing karaoke. I had never sung karaoke before, because I have a terrible singing voice and an inability to hear when things are off key. But for once I decided not to let that stop me.
I picked “Semi-Charmed Life” because it’s a great song; it had nothing to do with my friends or their marriage. Still, I thought that maybe if I sang it really, really well, they would choose to stay together. I did sing it well, or at least reasonably well, and the crowd seemed to enjoy it, especially the, “doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break” line. My rendition did not, however, save anyone’s marriage.
I’ve never really known how to be in the world. The summer before seventh grade, when I was twelve, a couple boys in the neighborhood decided they wanted to play spin the bottle with me and my best friend, Katy. We decided to meet in the alley behind Katy’s house.
It was just Alex, Jake, Katy, and me. It was clear that Alex wanted to kiss me and Jake wanted to kiss Katy, but we kept up the pretense with a bottle. Jake was Katy’s boyfriend and I believe he really liked her. I always thought Katy was prettier than me, with a beautiful, delicate face and red hair. Her family had money and she had a nice house, full of cool, artsy things.
Alex was not my boyfriend, even though we maintained an odd and, arguably, deeper relationship throughout my childhood and adolescence. Not only was he my first kiss during the spin the bottle episode, but he was also my date to senior prom, the person to whom I lost my virginity, the first person who—after I got my first cell phone—would text me some variation of “u up?” when he was drunk or high.
I never understood how Katy got boys to like her, but I thought it had something to do with her lack of desperation. I was desperate for someone to save me from myself, to take me out of my childhood home, to free me—most of all—from my inner demons, which I would later identify as anxiety and depression, though I did not actually treat them until very recently.
I spent most of my childhood trapped in this state: waiting for someone to save me without any agency of my own. All I had was this thrumming desperation that made me unpleasant to be around, because it was ultimately self-centered.
Anyway, I kissed Alex in the alley behind a wooden garage on a summer night in Missouri a long time ago. I’m sure the cicadas were loud, the air humid, but I don’t remember those things or the kiss itself, only that it happened.
I dream of Alex now and then. The other night we were on a bus together with some high school classmates. The bus ended up stuck in a cave deep underground. I woke up as an adult with a husband and children, on a Tuesday morning, to another beautiful day in Spokane, Washington.
Long term relationships are difficult, I think, not because love fades, but because desperation does. We get older and realize that no one will save us. When I first met my husband, I wanted so badly to crawl towards him, through everything, so that I might understand him. Now, in the brief periods outside of work or kids, I want only to crawl toward myself.
This weekend there was a punk festival in my neighborhood. My nine-year-old loved the outfits and makeup, I loved the politics. Neither of us liked the music, but that’s okay, it really does take all kinds, and the punks enjoyed it.
At the punk fest, there was a booth teaching people how to make zines, and the punks patiently taught my kids. I flipped through the zines as I waited, and then I made my own with some rules for living. The last rule was “forgive yourself,” which I think is a nice message.
I wish I knew how to help people with their marital problems. I wish I had no marital problems of my own. I wish I didn’t think others were incompetent. But, also, I forgive myself. Hell, I forgive everybody.
Kid Springfield 