Still Dreaming of Someday, Remembering When

Black Book 116, 4-5-24

Some things even the people closest to me perhaps don’t understand: That I still have no idea what I’m doing. That I still feel like an imposter and an imposition. That I’m still terrified of rejection. That I’ve never been able to bring myself to apply for a job, ask a woman on a date, request help from anyone, call a friend just to talk or to see if they might be available to hang out or go to a movie or concert. That I have never been able to submit any piece of writing for publication. That I’ve never in fact done so. That I am socially awkward and anxious, dislike parties and crowds, and am most comfortable hanging out with a dog, reading, and listening to music. That I really don’t much like to leave my house without a dog at the end of a leash and music playing through my headphones. That I prefer to be up when most of the world is sleeping. That all my life I have been afraid of the ringing of a telephone or a knock on my door. That I am both a habitual loner and lonely. That I have always distrusted my public persona, the character I have come to think of as The Man in the Brad Suit, even as I have come to think of that man as the most genuine (and generous) version of whoever I am. That for most of my life my insecurity has been disabling and for long stretches paralyzing. That I am self-conscious about virtually everything, and too often mask my insecurity and self-consciousness with episodes of mania in which I talk too much, laugh inappropriately, and often stammer and become confused. That at the heart of my self-consciousness is the fact that I truly don’t know how to write, find grammar rules and the parts of speech as perplexing as quantum physics, don’t know how to pronounce many words, and learned almost everything I know by reading and talking with people whose opinions I’ve respected. That for most of the last 30 years I have spent the overwhelming majority of my time with dogs, talking to them, singing and reading to them, dancing with them, and telling them repeatedly how much I need them. That I have battled insomnia, ADD, and OCD all my life. That the only time I’ve ever really been able to sit still when I’m not jacked up on speed is when I have a book and/or a pen in my hands. That an especially debilitating component of my OCD—as with most OCD sufferers—is an elaborate series of repetitive and ritualistic behaviors. That I count—steps, each movement of a toothbrush in my mouth, the entire time I’m in a shower, much of the time I’m driving, and whenever I’m agitated (which is often). That I count in an endless series of sevens. That I am phobic of numbers that are not seven, or don’t add up to seven (16, 25, 34, 43, 52, etc.), or in which through subtraction, multiplication, or division I can’t arrive at at least one seven or a series of sevens (my longtime address before my present home was 4325–two sevens!) and was chosen for that reason. That complicated math was necessary for me to become at all comfortable in my present home, whose street address is 1684: 8+4=12, 12-6=6, 6+1=7. That I pace ceaselessly at home or in motel rooms, counting my steps. That when I am alone I seldom speak in the same voice or accent. That I constantly latch onto words or phrases and speak them dozens and sometimes hundreds of times a day. That I have created hundreds—perhaps thousands—of alternate names and identities, each with a radically different backstory. That I will frequently do push-ups off and on all day like a death row inmate (counting to seven, again and again). That some of my more elaborate OCD rituals frequently eat up at least two hours of every day. That it is truly some sort of miracle I am still alive, and still writing words in these black books every single night.

I honestly believe what saved me was an incident in my early adolescence, when I had a vision—I remain utterly convinced it was real—of an elderly, exhausted angel crawling up the stairs of my boyhood home, gulping, wheezing, murmuring. It was a sweltering hot July morning after three a.m., and this angel was giving off a sputtering light filled with dust motes stirred up by its dusty wings. I was in my familiar quiet-hours spot at the top of the stairs, where most nights I would sit staring out across the lilac bushes and wooden fence at the glittering surface of the swimming pool in a neighboring yard.

That morning as I watched the angel crawling up the stairs toward me, the initial spasm of terror quickly gave way to a sort of pity as I studied the slow, agonizing progress of the creature, which in the darkness looked like nothing so much as a giant, faintly-glowing grasshopper. I nonetheless understood that this visitor was an angel, and I was of course curious about the nature of its visit.

The angel finally succeeded in reaching me on the landing, and it crouched near me on the top step, wobbling a bit, and then with great effort shook its wings—another blizzard of dust—and got them folded away in their proper place. For what seemed like a long time the angel sat there hanging its head and breathing heavily. Heat radiated from the angel, and it gave off a smell like an old furnace kicking in on the first cold night of the year.

Finally the angel raised its gaunt head and met my eyes.

“You must not surrender to boredom, despair, or self-destruction,” the angel said in a quavering, sexless voice. “You will have an interesting life that will take you far from this tormenting town.”

And then the angel squeezed itself through the open window, faltered for an instant, and then stumbled off into the night sky like an ancient and erratic sandhill crane.

At this point late in my life, I no longer have any expectation that anyone will read these words—or any words I write—or will believe a word I say, but that story is the truth, and every day I somehow get myself up, muster a half-hearted leap of faith, and gracelessly throw myself through a window and out into this terrifying and beautiful world.

Day draws near
Another one
Do what you can.
—Czeslaw Milosz, “On Angels”