- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PIG PEN
i got home last Wednesday for a few days this week in between legs of
my book tour; feeling very sorry for myself because I was so tired.
Thursday night I was scheduled to do an event with Charles Schulz in front
of a big audience, when in fact I was so exhausted that there was nothing
left of me but buttons and hair. I was on the verge of hysteria.
Perhaps it's hard to believe how toxic and lost you can get when you're
traveling from city to city flogging your latest novel. But you do. You
become the tiniest bit self-obsessed. The bitterness arrives with its
little trunks brimming with equal changes of self-loathing and conceit, its
festive little hat of Schadenfreude. Your mind whirs with resentments and
cravings, and then you become the person in the cartoons who blinks, hears
the ring of the cash register, and suddenly has dollar signs for eyes.
I woke up Thursday with my mind completely on the fritz, with
tremendous anxiety about how soon I had to leave Sam again and head back
out. I forgot that I end up feeling both grateful to, and deeply
welcomed by, people at my readings. Instead I felt hysterical. I kept
touching my forehead gingerly like Blanche DuBois. Finally, after Sam went
to school, I took my dog for a long walk, because it was a warm
spring morning and I wanted to practice being where my feet were. I felt
that this was the only operating instruction I needed to remember, to be
where my feet were; until I had a moment of deeper spiritual understanding
and realized I needed to go get a manicure.
I get them about four times a year. I like them because they usually
make me stop for half an hour, and force me into letting someone tend to
me. I know it's a superficial example of this, but still it's a chance to
deal with spirit, spirit that is intangible but that you're able to take
care of anyway, through the body. However, on the way to the nearest salon
I passed an empty space between two office buildings and glimpsed a group
of homeless people encamped there, under a canopy of sheets and a T-shirt
and towel. There was a black man in a bright Hawaiian shirt, a grungy
white man and a white woman, all with obvious and major dental issues,
plus an older teenage boy, a little girl and a little boy as dusty and
bedraggled as Pig Pen in the "Peanuts" cartoons. They looked like they
were having a garage sale, but then I realized they were displaying, maybe
savoring, their best belongings. There was a kerosene lamp, a large blue
statue of Mary, some bright and dirty plastic toys, a bunch of raggedy
potted plants, even a tall lamp that was not plugged into anything. It
was a very together little space, with garbage scattered just beyond. I
smiled at everyone and kept walking. It was a hot blue spring day.
I went into the nail salon and asked for a manicure from an Asian woman,
who turned out to be from North Korea. There were two bright Buddha dolls
on the floor, with a glass of water in front of each, surrounded by candles
and incense cones. She began soaking my nails in soapy water. We were
alone but there were a number of people in the back room, down some stairs
in the back of the shop, from which wafted a slight but unpleasant cooking
smell. I closed my eyes and listened to unseen women talk in what I
assumed was Korean, and little racist thoughts floated into my head like
piranhas. I had bad thinky thoughts -- the women sounded like angry birds,
and whatever was cooking smelled like dog -- and I tried to squinch the
thoughts away but I floated in and out of a cauldron of racist weirdness.
She began to push at my cuticles and then to snip them.
I thought about how terrible things are in North Korea now, and I
suddenly imagined writing a large check to Doctors Without Borders, to send
to Korea, and I thought maybe that was why God had put the desire for a
manicure in my head: So I could give a starving Korean some money.
She began to put light pink polish on my fingernails.
I remembered that I was going to be onstage with Charles Schulz in a
few hours, and I had a little shot of adrenalin and fear, and I made myself
practice being where my feet were. I tried to really experience this woman
painting my fingernails. Then my mind began to wander again and I saw the
little boy in the shade of the sheets and T-shirt, a kid who looked like
Pig Pen, somber and perhaps a little myopic.
I thought of the people with him, and then of the other "Peanuts"
characters. It cheered me up to think of them, those deadpan clumsy little
kids, hanging onto their raggedy identities. It made me happy to stop
thinking racist thoughts, to stop channeling Tim McVeigh.
The
manicurist finished putting polish on and I dutifully held my nails out to
the tiny fan and let them dry for about eight seconds. Then I got up and
announced that I had to go. I just felt very compulsive and unable to sit
still any longer, stressed to the nu-nus with tiredness and my bad thinking
thoughts. I wanted to go home and be alone. I remembered that when all
else fails, follow instructions, and my instructions are to love and serve
God's other children. That if I do this, God will take care of me.
What could be more simple?
I left the salon. A famous priest once said, "Sometimes I think that
heaven is just a new pair of glasses," and I prayed: Help me change glasses.
Then the black man from the lean-to tapped me on the shoulder. I was
deep in thought and I nearly screamed. He was holding a Starbucks cup out.
"Please," he said. "Help me."
And I really really wanted to. I did. But the thing was that I
couldn't. Because even as I began to reach in the front pocket of my
jeans to get some money, I remembered that my nail polish was still wet.
My heart sank.
"I'm in SUCH a terrible hurry," I implored, and kept walking.
"That's OK," he said.
I kept walking.
"I love your hair," he called after me.
I actually blew on my nails as I walked. I fanned the air. Then I
stopped, and rubbed my eyes -- carefully, so that I didn't dent or smear my
wet nail polish. I was coming up on the lean-to. I couldn't see it yet,
except in my mind -- the blue plastic Mary, the big bright plastic toys; the
pride that was on display, each object numinous, holding something more
than itself. There they were making something out of nothing; surrounded
by ruins, you assemble what comforts you. It's real wealth, a little like
heaven, or at least the most temporary little heavenly encampment, where
you grow things and hang out in the sun with your friends in your fine
Hawaiian shirt.
I knew I was doomed. I retraced my steps, reached into the pocket of
my jeans, brought out some dollar bills, handed them to the black man.
"I am dying for a burrito," he said. I nodded. I thought of the
lamp that was not plugged into anything; then of the boy who looked like
Pig Pen, blinky and dense, then of Linus, and Schroeder, of the ferocity
and poignancy of our illusions. You think a blanket will protect you? That
you are really making lovely music on a toy piano? But the blanket did
protect Linus; and Schroeder does play beautifully; and maybe more than
anything, they keep at it. They believe.
Join the conversation about Anne Lamott and her work in Table Talk.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Registered for our daily newsletter? All newsletter registrants are
eligible to participate in a daily random computer drawing from June 4
through June 15, 1997 to win a signed copy of Anne Lamott's bestseller
"Crooked Little Heart."
Register for our newsletter today!
|
BOOKMARK: http://www.salonmagazine.com/columnists/lamott.html
