Defeating Self-Doubt

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Max came to class today. Uninvited. Unwanted.  I always think he looks like he is caked in dirt from four-wheeling in the desert. He sank into a chair in the back and crossed his long, lanky legs. Right at home, he hunkered down in the back of the room where my students, an energetic mix of adult writers, didn’t immediately notice him.

Today Heather reads, and it is a riveting story.  With M. C. Escher precision, she paints—but with words. Words of a long-lost memory. Words of a man who lied to her online and betrayed her. There are tears in many eyes when she finishes. We talk of how she has artfully painted a painful memory that needed a canvas.

Then Toni agrees to read a piece that she admits was hard to write. This almond-skinned beauty could read in Swahili and the class would listen. Her voice sounds like a soft jazz song as she honors a love that is being born in her life. I am contemplating that one reading has focused on a life shattered by the lie of love, and in another, a life is unfolding with the beauty of love. Then suddenly as Toni’s voice reaches a crescendo, there is a sudden gasp that escapes her lips. She pauses, and I see her eyes flicker toward the back of the room.

I pivot only slightly for I don’t want it to be obvious that I know she sees him. Max. He has just hoisted his long legs and Frye boots with chunks of mud falling from them onto one of our writing tables with a thud. It takes a moment, but Toni regains her composure and finishes her reading.

After we acknowledge the beauty in Toni’s words, Joseph, the poet, looks around the room. Indignantly he asks all of us the same questions. “Why does he stalk all of us? How does self-doubt seize our insides and make every one of us question not just our writing but just about everything we do?” He turns to me. “You call him Max, right?”  I nod. “Why is this inner critic always sneaking into the back of the room or into the crevices of our minds?”

For the remaining moments of our class we talk about how we arm wrestle with our inner critics, our self-doubts, day and night. We talk about how we write, meditate, walk, paint, practice yoga, and eat chocolate to rid ourselves of the whining doubts in our heads. In the end I explain that it may take pages in my journal to erase Max from my mind, but I am willing to write those pages. When necessary, I use an imaginary eraser to blot out Max.  Once, I admit, I resorted to writing the name “Max” on the bottom of my Nikes and stomping on them. Amid the laughter, I look to the back of the room and see that Max has fled. I want to believe he is never coming back, but I know he will try.

All Youth Are Promising Youth

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Her skinny legs wobble as she teeters on the heels she borrowed from her friend for this occasion. She approaches the podium timidly, but her handshake is stronger than you might imagine. Someday she will speak from a podium like this one, but not yet. Today Cory is barely eighteen, and she shakes a bit as she poses for the mandatory photos and clasps the hands that reach to congratulate her. Cory is trying to make her dream happen. Kaye would like that. Kaye would like her—and this moment is for Kaye.

Twenty years ago, my best friend from high school gave up on this life. For two decades Kaye had tried to bear a life of disappointments coupled with chronic depression, but she could no longer manage it.

In high school we called her Star.  She did shine but more than the aura of her light, she had a gift for seeing the world as it was. I understand that more fully now. She told me to date Paul because he was lighthearted and fun. He was. She told me to never let go of my friendship with Freddi because she was genuine. She is. She treasured our friendship with Jim because she noted, “He is a rare find—a truth-speaker.” He is. She told me to write because I could and should. I did.

Kaye’s passion centered on children—promising youth. A creative and gifted young teacher, she took a stand against “teaching to standardized tests.”  This act of courage brought a halt to her early teaching career.  She never talked of this. She tried to be equally silent about the mental illness, the depression, that plagued her family—and would dog her life.

When her early teaching career ran amok, she moved to southern California where she found love. When she had a miscarriage and her love shattered, she made her way up the coast—and stopped returning my calls. But years later, shortly before her death, she wrote a letter to our friend, Jim. In it she thanked him for our friendships, and she even sent her love to me, admitting she let go of her friendships because she was embarrassed by the depression that had knocked her life sidewise. Just recently Jim sent me a copy of this letter.

While the words ripped me open, they also helped.  In the end Kaye found her voice and admitted her truth. Amid her illness she seemed to be shining a light, as only a star can do, on something important. On unresolved depression.

At our recent high school reunion, Paul, Freddi, Jim, Larry, Tim, Pat, CJ—and many others who loved Kaye, came together because we wanted to write a better ending to Kaye’s story. We decided to host a “promising youth” scholarship.

“Thank you for this scholarship,” Cory wrote in her note to me. “I plan to study social work and addiction counseling.  While I am unable to live with my siblings in our home because both my parents suffer from substance addictions, my grandmother is my hero. She has given me a home and taught me to have a dream.”

“My dream,” she wrote, “is to make a positive difference in the lives of others who need our help.” A promising youth, a genuine “star” –I believe Cory will make a difference.

Promising Youth Scholarship

(My high school pals, Paul and Freddi, at the award ceremony with Cory, in the center.)

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

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The voice is alto, and it is a voice that has never fully understood its limits. It belts out the first strains of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to the church audience. Three hundred eyes widen. It is not a singing voice. I know this now as I stand and sing a tribute to my mom. But as a child–I did NOT know this. I sang all the time. It started when I was five. My best friend, who lived three houses down the block, suddenly died. To help me understand, my mother coached me to say the word “leukemia” and showed me how to pray. But I asked if I could sing instead, and Mom said that would be a great way to honor my friend and to express my sadness.
As I waded through this first experience with grief, I went to our basement, and I remember walking in circles around that musty room as I sang endless, self-composed ditties–the kind that can only come from a child. At the end of my long concert, my mom hugged me, and said I had done a beautiful job. Her words of praise ignited my passion to sing. I began singing endless nonsense songs daily, not only in our basement, but each night in the tiled shower where my voice could reverberate. While I didn’t know how to carry a tune, Mom encouraged me to keep singing. I did. Just her calm presence made me pretty certain I was a child virtuoso.

At some point in this first journey through grief, Mom played a record for me, and I discovered a song that resonated deeply in my child’s soul. It was her favorite song, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I listened endlessly to Judy Garland giving flight to these words. In the weeks that followed, I experienced the inner joys of karaoke, and my drive to imitate a great voice consumed my waking hours. In no time I was convinced I could do a credible imitation of the inimitable Judy Garland.

Now there was no stopping me. I offered to sing my rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to my first-grade class. Soon I was performing the song solo in all the elementary choir classes. I was lauded by fellow six-year-olds and frequently told I could grow up to be Disney’s next Annette Funicello. Even now I recall that magical sense that something significant was unfolding in me. Of course, it was.

But it was not my talent for singing. It would be several years before I realized that I did not have a singing voice and that eyes often widened when I sang loudly and off-key. But by then, the dream of being a pop song star had faded. By then, I had something far more important than a singing voice—I had a strong human voice. I had been gently nudged forward by my mom. She believed in me and she ushered me down a path that would help me find an authentic and confident personal voice. My own words. Mom never stopped encouraging me to find them and share them. She always cheered me forward–even when I sang too loudly or off-key.

To this day I still make up crazy ditties and sing loudly in a tiled shower. But it is only recently, when my mom left this physical earth, that I realized what a gift it is to have had a woman in your life who believes in you, and one who has helped your voice to take flight. Thank you, Mom.