The cruelty IS the point

 

I NEVER ask people about their reproductive plans. And when I hear someone ask any variation of the question, it makes me want to pull them aside and put duct tape on their mouths. (“So…do you guys want a family?”)

There is no more painful minefield. Why would someone intentionally tromp through the emotionally explosive realm of infertility, miscarriages, abortions, and unaligned reproductive wishes with someone other than their partner? You never know what someone else is experiencing, so to conversationally ask if they are planning to have children strikes me as some of the worst casual cruelty a person can inflict.

I know couples who tried for years to conceive, with no success. I know women who have had multiple miscarriages. I know people who have divorced because they could not agree on whether to have children. People carry these things around through their days out in the world, but they don’t wear a sign. You can’t tell by looking at them.

So when I hear politicians like J.D. Vance and others, (who mostly seem to belong to the same party as J.D.), make a woman’s reproductive decisions the object of ridicule and scorn it makes me angry.

It also leaves me shaking my head in disbelief. Why would an allegedly smart person purposely poke at some of the tenderest emotional pain people can feel? Is he trying to lose votes? I don’t get it.

Unless, of course, (just like with his running mate), the cruelty IS the point.

My first--and worst--interview

 

The first interview I ever did as a professional writer started out as the worst interview I ever did as a professional writer. 

 

I had recently transitioned out of a 20-year teaching career and into a provisional position creating “web content” for an Ivy League college of engineering. The school had just paid several hundred thousand dollars to a marketing firm to create a new brand for the college. They needed lots of written stories for their website to highlight the new tagline and signed me to a six-month contract.

 

For years I had harbored quiet aspirations that someday I would be a professional writer. So it was thrilling to suddenly find myself getting paid to be that very thing. Additionally, I have always been a total science geek, and in my new position I found myself surrounded by professors and students doing cutting edge work in fields as diverse as biomedical, civil, mechanical, and electrical engineering.

 

Driving to campus shortly after starting the position, I heard on the local public radio station that one of the faculty members at the college had just been named a MacArthur Genius. I parked the car, went straight to my boss’s office, and proposed writing a profile of the newly-minted genius. She went for the idea and I emailed the professor right away, requesting an interview.

 

He was game, and we agreed to meet the following morning in his office.

 

It took me longer than it should have to find his office. It was in a building on a part of campus I had not yet been to. Worse, the system they had used to number the offices in that building had no obvious logic. So I did not get to the genius’s room until the exact moment I was supposed to, which for me feels like being ten minutes late. I did not have time to take a deep breath, collect my thoughts, and calm down.

 

Still, I felt okay knocking and going in because I had spent a solid four hours the previous day finding out all I could about the professor and his work—which was in an area where physics and materials science overlap. It was a real slog for me to get through descriptions of the field in general and of his work in particular. But by the time I knocked on his door and pushed it open at his “come in,” I felt pretty good.

 

I felt ready.

 

In college back in the 1980s I had worked as an editor for the student newspaper and had developed a lifelong love of yellow legal pads. Twenty-five years later, when I was hired to be a writer, the first thing I did was go to Staples and buy a 10-pack of yellow legal pads. As I entered the professor’s office I clutched one of those pads, and it had the results of my hours of research written two-to-a-page in blue ink.

 

Remember—I had never conducted an interview and had no real idea of what I was doing. So I had written out interview questions on the yellow pages, one at the top of each page and one halfway down. I figured this would give me plenty of space to write down what the genius was saying and to capture any useable quotations. I assumed an interview would follow a logical progression, dictated by the questions asked. I was proud of the progression of questions I had crafted the previous day. (It may even have struck me that this yellow legal pad would end up in the science writer’s hall of fame one day in recognition of the brilliant way I had led the interviewee to unexpected and revealing places that shined a light on his particular genius…)

 

But as you can probably guess, that is not what happened. I had agonized over the first question, figuring it would set the tone for what followed. I didn’t want to be cliché and ask about where he was born or if he had been one of those kids who liked to take things apart. No, I wanted to ask something surprising that would get the reader right into his mind immediately. I had written and then crossed out literally dozens of questions before I settled on the one that I thought wouldn’t just break the ice but would instead shatter the ice and allow for the most amazing interview of this professor’s life.

 

He sat down; I sat across from him and let fly:

 

Q—“On my way to work a few days ago I heard someone on the radio call you a genius. And then again in my office I heard several other people refer to you with that same word: genius. It seems everyone is calling you a genius. What I want to know is, who do you think of as a genius?”

 

I should mention at this point that he was sitting cross-legged on a tattered couch, bare feet glowing an almost-unnatural white, hands clasping his knees, coke-bottle glasses magnifying his eyes so it looked like he was trying to melt me with his stare. He released his grip on his knees and crossed his arms tightly across his chest.

 

A—I’ve always hated the word “genius”…

 

And then he just trailed off into silence, alternating between eye contact and looking at his own feet.

 

I could feel the panic rising quickly in me as I looked at the next question I had planned to ask, and then at the one after that, and the one after that. It was one of the clearest “aha” moments I have ever experienced: I knew instantly that none of these preplanned questions were going to get me anywhere with him. He was closing down and I knew I had to come up with a Plan B and I had to do it fast.

 

To buy a little time I said, “Is that a Philly accent I’m hearing?” as my brain scrambled to find a way to get things back on track. I was flipping through my notes and trying desperately to remember what I had read about his research the day before, thinking maybe he would be more forthcoming about his research than he was about geniuses.

He said, “Yeah. I’m from Philly…but I didn’t think I had much of the accent. Are you from Philadelphia?” I told him I grew up just south, in suburban Wilmington, Delaware. I mentioned that one of my brothers had gone to Villanova. The genius had also gone to Villanova, so we chatted about that a little and I noticed that he had uncrossed his arms and relaxed the rest of his body a bit. We were having a conversation, but the stuff we were talking about was not anything I had scripted out. I could feel my wheels turning, trying to figure out how to get back on the track I wanted to be on.

 

But then a funny thing happened. I got curious about what he was saying about his time at Villanova. He mentioned punk rock and powerlifting and being a bouncer at a bar and doing terribly on standardized tests. So I asked him questions about those things. And his answers to those questions led to even more interesting places, and before long we were deep into a really enjoyable conversation that found its own natural way to his work and to the topic of genius.

 

I was scribbling notes furiously the entire time and by the end of the hour my hand hurt, but I felt really good about how the interview had gone. I went back to my office and typed up notes to myself. And then over the following week wrote a 1500-word profile that, to this day, is one of my favorite pieces of writing. I felt like I was able to capture something of the man that rang true. I sent him the first draft and then checked my inbox dozens of times over the six agonizing hours it took him to write back. You have to remember—this was the first real interview and profile I had ever done. 

 

I was 48 years old and about to be told by a genius whether I was any good at my new job. Finally, at 6:36 p.m., while getting ready to eat dinner, I heard the ding of an incoming email. It was from the professor and I opened it to find the first five words: “Hi Chris, This is awesome.”

 

This. Is. Awesome.

 

That short declarative sentence brought me so much joy. And confidence. And trust in myself. 

 

It is no exaggeration to say that his reply changed my life. From that day on, when people asked what I do for a living, I was able to say without any hemming or hawing or qualifiers “I am a writer.”

 

I never again went into an interview with a list of questions. I still do my research before I sit to talk with someone and I know there are certain things I want to get to, but that first disastrous five minutes of that first interview taught me something that guides every interview I do to this day: it is all about listening. 

 

I believe that when given a chance and a sincerely curious audience, most people really do like talking about themselves. And if you listen you can hear something in their voice when they seemingly parenthetically mention that they took ballet lessons for years or that they play the oboe or that they failed freshman physics. 

 

That little intangible something you can hear is your cue to ask more about that very thing. An interview is a conversation, not a Q and A session. And because it’s a conversation you have to leave space for it to go anywhere. You have to listen. Whether it is a slight Philly accent you hear, or maybe a passing reference to a great high school math teacher someone had, or a throw away comment about maybe starting a company someday, if you are listening and curious, you’ll follow up and sometimes that will lead to gold.

Not so alone...

I stepped into the bathroom of our little rental cottage to be alone for a quick moment and check-in with myself. I stuck out my tongue at the mirror, saw what I saw, and knew I was indeed NOT overreacting. I stepped back out into the living room and said as calmly as I could, “Erica, I don’t want you to panic, but we need to get me to a hospital.”

***************

We were in the Red House Area of Allegany State Park in far Western NY, staying in one of the cottages the park rents out. The weekend cross country ski trip was a Christmas gift I had gotten for me and Erica and it had been going pretty well up until that point. We had our two golden doodles with us, there was fresh snow, and we were both enjoying the feeling of being on a little getaway with no schedule and no responsibilities.

Erica and I don’t take enough of these small trips. It can be hard with 12 chickens, three dogs, and demanding jobs—but “hard” is not the same as “impossible.” And even just 36 hours away from home to catch a concert or take a hike or strap on some skis can go a long way toward recharging our batteries.

This trip was definitely doing that until I sampled one of the mixed chocolates we had picked up along with a few other groceries at the store in Salamanca the previous evening. Within seconds of biting into a chocolate cube with a large nut of some sort buried in the middle, I could feel my tongue starting to both ache and itch. It felt exactly like it had two years ago when I had an anaphylactic reaction to some pumpkin seeds a good friend of mine had ground up and used as the base for an-otherwise-delicious soup.

That particular night I had excused myself from the table, gotten in the car, and driven myself to the Emergency Room of the local hospital. That time, they took my vitals and instantly gave me some liquid Benadryl and some epinephrine. The meds worked, my tongue swelling stopped and then slowly reversed itself, and I went home a few hours later with a prescription for an EpiPen.

That very same EpiPen was now in the medicine cabinet of our first floor bathroom back in Ithaca—a three-hour drive away. Utterly useless. I had not packed it for our weekend getaway. In the time since that first anaphylactic reaction, I had gotten really good at spotting pumpkin seeds, aka pepitas, in all sorts of things. In fact, I was so good at recognizing the presence of pumpkin seeds that I got a bit cocky. I would never be dumb enough to eat those tasty little death nuggets again, right? Why would I need to pack the EpiPen?

The universe has a way of making you eat your words sometimes. And sometimes the way it tricks you into eating your words is by tempting you with chocolate. So in those early moments when I felt the reaction hitting at that cabin miles from help, I turned the box over and reread every ingredient on the list, confirming that pumpkin seeds were not part of the mix. But my tongue—and now my throat—were telling me something different.

In a matter of just two or three minutes we gathered car keys, wallets, cell phones, and dogs and got in the car to drive the snowy roads to the Park Police office that was ten minutes away.

As we drove I slipped into an old habit. I started talking to God, asking for things. I became very aware of the feeling of an audience in my head. It is a feeling I have had my entire life—probably going back to my earliest days as a young Catholic. 

***************

As a kid I took seriously the idea that God could see into my deepest heart of hearts and knew my fears, my desires, my motives, and my truest self even better than I did. I NEVER felt alone as a kid, even if I was alone. I always knew God was watching me. And judging me. You can imagine the guilt that built up over the years as I grew into an adolescent human being and then a teenage human being. Humans by our nature don’t always make the best choices. So whenever I would make some of those typical teenage bad choices about friends and alcohol and bullying and a million other things, I added another layer of guilt to the pile weighing on me.

By the time is was 25 I had decided that there is no all-powerful, all-knowing creator and that whoever it was I felt watching me was not going to come to some final judgment about my soul. Intellectually, I knew that the watcher was really just a being I created out of the internalized judgments of my family, my church, and my society. But still, it was hard to overcome 25 formative years of internalized guilt and self-loathing.

In fact, when I step back and really think about what has been the work of my adult life, it has been coming to peace with the knowledge that I really am alone. There is no being who sees into my heart. There is no cosmic judge I can look to for protection or for fairness. And there is no one who I need to satisfy but myself. 

I am alone. 

Every few years I come back to this epiphany, and each time it hits a little harder, drives a little deeper. There are still so many accumulated layers to get through to get back to the me that was me before I started drowning myself out with what everyone else said I should want and do and be like.

At the age of 58, I am finally starting to understand the repercussions of that awareness. So now, (when I am at my best), rather than running each impulse and thought and action through a sieve of God and family and society to see if it is acceptable, I can judge it for myself. Or—even better!—I can withhold judgment of it and just allow myself to feel it, whatever it is. That does not mean I am going to act on every impulse I have, but it does mean I will be more kind to myself and, in the process, I might even come to a better understanding of what is important to me and what I want out of life.

The most recent version of the epiphany came a few months ago when I was out for a longish Sunday run and I found myself on autopilot. After a few miles of the slow step-step-step on the small gravel of the Black Diamond Trail my mind was quiet and settling into a rhythm of its own. Rather than actively dictating what came into my brain, thoughts and feelings were rising up of their own accord. I like when this happens—it’s a sort of running meditation and it gives me clues as to what is below the surface, just waiting for a quiet space to float up into.

And what I heard that day was my actual internal voice telling me a truth that I needed to re-hear. “Hey—you know you’re alone, right? Remember?”

The tone was conversational, but the meaning was existential.

It was one sentence, but I knew what the voice was getting at. Loosely translated, I was telling myself (in a moment when I could truly hear it), “Remember? There is no God. And you get just the one life. You have wasted some (much?) of these 58 years caring far too much about external standards and ignoring yourself. If that’s okay with you, carry on. If not, you need to remind yourself every day—every hour, even—that you are alone. How you spend your minutes is up to you. Figure out what is bedrock important to you and do that. We only get the one life so, as RuPaul says, DON’T fuck it up.”

Since that day, I spend time every single day reminding myself that I am truly alone. And my life is mine to make of it what I will. Rather than being depressing, the daily reminder is both focusing and liberating. It helps me focus on what I want rather than spending so much energy putting myself through my people-pleasing gymnastics of trying to figure out what other people want me to be like. It frees me up to listen better to my own voice.

***************

So in that Park Police office in Allegany State Park, unable to swallow even a tiny Benadryl caplet because my tongue and throat were so swollen, I found myself talking to God. I was sitting in a chair, head down, eyes focused on the air a foot in front of my face, making myself breathe very deliberately through my nose as deeply as I could to pull the air in. My saliva couldn’t get down my throat, so it was backing up and out of my mouth and down my shirt until someone grabbed me a cup to spit in.

My blood pressure—usually around 130 over 80—was down to 80 over 40.

I was telling God that I didn’t want to die this way. I was asking God to make the ambulance get there sooner. But the only answer I heard back was my own voice saying “you are alone.”

And right at that moment Erica, who was with me the entire time, looked me in the eye and said, “They’re going to be here in just a couple of minutes. It’s going to be okay.” She must have been as scared as I was, but she was calm and certain and reassuring. I shook my head yes and went back to focusing on breathing one breath at a time. It was a very long fifteen minutes waiting for the EMTs, but once they got there, they got me on the gurney and into the ambulance and started a liquid Benadryl IV. Erica called me from inside the building before we even pulled away. I was able to tell her that the Benadryl was working and my tongue had stopped growing. My blood pressure was slowly climbing back to where it should be.

It was a slow drive to the hospital in Olean on snowy roads, but I could feel the meds working with each mile. By the time we got to the hospital I knew I wasn’t going to die. They kept me for observation for a couple of hours, the doctor on duty walking by every fifteen minutes to ask me to stick out my tongue. Each time I did it was closer to normal.

Erica got to the hospital as I was being discharged and we drove back to our rental cottage in the park. We talked a little, but it was a mostly quiet ride. I don’t know what Erica was thinking, but I was thinking about her and how she was there for me. She stayed calm, she reassured me, she was with me. In a thousand little ways she told me that I was not alone. And It struck me more deeply than it ever has before that she and I have been doing this for each other for almost 30 years now.

When we got back to the cottage, the dogs--Marj and Rosey--told me the very same thing—“you are not alone.” They were ecstatic in the way only dogs can be to see their people. Before going to bed I stepped into the bathroom to be alone for a moment. I stood at the mirror, stuck out my tongue for one more reassuring look, and then turned out the light and got into bed with Erica and Marj and Rosey---most definitely NOT alone.

(Editor’s note: we concluded later that it was a Brazil nut that caused the reaction.)