“I’m trying to write code, but Rebecca won’t stop talking about her feelings.” This is what a guy at work said (as a joke) a couple of years ago when I was talking about this or that with my team. I was probably talking about what it’s like to date in the city, or detailing an awful tinder date I had over the weekend, or maybe just boo-hoo-ing over something or other. You never know with me. I tend to be an open book in all aspects of life, and have no problem answering the question “How are you?” honestly and openly – and with plenty of detail. Ya know, in a work-appropiate-ish kind of way, at least. I find myself chatting away, dishing out gossip from my personal life, telling spunky, self-deprecating stories about car accidents I almost caused in my morning commute, or detailing my new recipe for pork tenderloin I’m trying over the weekend – only to look up and realize that the men around me are in agony and would like nothing more than for me to zip it and write some code. I get it, guys. Sorry.
I haven’t had another woman on my team at work since 2018. This is not exactly surprising – I work in a very dude-heavy field. Lady data scientists are not unicorns anymore, thanks to the power of STEM initiatives, but we are still less than prevalent. I was at a work event the other day and noticed that by the end of the event, there were two women left in the room and about 30 men. As I was walking out for the evening, my friend made a joke that I couldn’t leave and abandon the other lady – but it was like 9 pm and this old lady needed to be in bed by 10, so I left her to fend for herself.
Now don’t get me wrong. The men I work with and for (see my previous post about Frank, Chris and Steve) are brilliant, funny, supportive, awesome people. I wouldn’t change the composition of my team for anything. In fact, my work-husband who recently switched companies was and is one of my closest friends in DC. He makes me spicy pickles. But over the last few weeks, I have renewed my focus on making lady friends at work. When I was on a different contract a few years ago, I had three other ladies on my team. We used to take morning walks to buy Diet Sunkist at the snack shop on the first floor, and took breaks in the afternoon to walk up and down the stairs. We had happy hours after work, and hung out, went on hikes and took fitness classes together on weekends. We really had an awesome support system in place and built an amazing rapport where we all felt comfortable sharing our authentic selves. It was amazing to work with these smart, successful women and build judgement-free friendships. I want to build relationships like that again.
It’s been a bit of a process, but I’ve slowly been collecting friends in the office by inserting myself awkwardly into conversations with ladies who work on different teams. I usually meet them organically when I’m squatting at a computer I’m not supposed to be on, or in a cross-team meeting. Then I invite them to coffee/lunch at the cafe in our building. Then I make my friend move and invite them to dinner or drinks after work. My campaign has been a huge success and I’ve had dinner with three different office ladies over the last couple of weeks! One of them is a mother of two, one of them is a marathon-runner who broke off an engagement earlier this year, and another is a single lady who doesn’t like her roommate and loves to travel. I have so enjoyed getting to know these people – they are so brilliant and accomplished, with interesting backgrounds. They are also very open and willing to divulge personal details of their lives. They talk about dating, marriage, children, dogs, dreams of owning homes, and their families with abandon. Most importantly, they listen and respond when I do the same.
I don’t want it to sound as if I’m criticizing men for being less open or less willing to listen. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I just think the lines are drawn a bit more firmly for what men are willing to discuss with women at work and how much of themselves they are willing to share. And I think most non-crazy women also have the same boundaries with men at the office (as I said, I’m a bit nutty, so this doesn’t apply to me). So while I am constantly in awe of the gentlemen who write awesome code with me, and make fun of me, and make me laugh until my cheeks hurt – I am super excited to be forging some lady connections at work. It also helps that none of these women are data scientists – we are less likely to talk about gini coefficients over dinner and lemon drops.
In the spirit of my gratefulness theme this month, I feel incredibly grateful that I work with such amazing people, men and women alike. I feel grateful that I am being brave and branching out to make new connections. I’m grateful that my attempts have been well-received and for the fun nights out I’ve had as a result. I’m also grateful for the reminder that I am a fun, likable person – someone choosing to spend time with you when they aren’t getting paid to do so is a huge boost to self-esteem. I’m grateful for my office ladies of the past and present and their kind hearts and open ears, and hopeful that I can provide the same to them.
My coworkers think my Kentucky-isms are hilarious. I can’t remember the exact context of the conversation, but my coworker, Paul once overheard me chatting with our boss (Frank from the previous post). When fellow Kentucky native, Frank left the room, Paul said “I’m sorry I don’t speak banjo – what were you two talking about?” and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. There was another incident with Paul where I was talking about my renter’s insurance with some of our clients (probably as part of my fire story) and in true Kentucky spirit, I was pronouncing it like IN-surance. I said the word about three times before Paul interrupted and said “She’s saying insurance. That’s the word she keeps saying.” I also have a reputation for talking about pork chops more than average Deloitte employees, and it’s not uncommon for me to end a long day at the office with a polite “Hey, you wanna go get drunk at the Cracker Barrel?” I love leaning into the “I speak banjo” stereotypes around here because these assholes from Philadelphia and New Jersey think it is hilarious.
I love Kentucky so much. I love the fact that my family is there. I love the way people talk there. I love Ale8’s and miss the days when I could buy one at the gas station instead of mortgaging my first born child every time I pay for shipping costs to DC. I love Lexington. I love thinking about that ooey gooey feeling I got inside when I lived in Lexington and all of the Christmas lights would go up downtown and the traffic would get bad due to a combination of basketball games and holiday shopping. I love the UK Arboretum and miss being able to run the two-mile lap around the park. I love the grimy Mexican restaurants in the towns surrounding my hometown. I love Hometown Pizza and the chronic cheese sticks they have there. I love thinking about the time my friend Shawna taught me how to ride a horse, and all the times we ran with our friend Katie for run club at our favorite brewery. I love thinking about going to Thursday Night Live and drinking Bourbon Barrel Ale and eating at Local Taco with my friend Rachel. I love that all the grocery stores in Kentucky are cheap, and they always have a healthy stock of Little Debbie cakes. I love Red River Gorge and Miguel’s Pizza. I love Bowling Green and walking on WKU’s campus and reliving my most awkward years, and thinking about the night I met my best friend, Kristin there during a game of capture the flag 13 years ago.
There are a lot of things I love about Virginia too. I love my house and my puppy. I love being so close to the mountains in Shenandoah Valley. I love seeing plays at Ford’s Theatre. I love going to Chinatown for hockey games, and loved being here when the Caps won the cup. I loved living in the DC area when the Nats won the world series in 2019, and I went to the big parade. I love my job – like seriously, I LOVE it. I love the people I work with, and the fact that the diversity of this area has connected me with people from all over the world – Bulgaria, China, India, Texas, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Australia, Ireland, Russia. For the first time in my life, I have friends that all have drastically different backgrounds and upbringings – I love that. I love the satisfaction I get when I successfully navigate DC traffic. I love that I’m so close to New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Boston – I hope to start taking some post Covid weekend trips soon. I love the fact that I met Joshua here. I love the life I’ve made here.
Sometimes it’s really hard to know that Kentucky is so far away. When life is busy and good, I don’t think about it much. But when things don’t go my way here, or I get my heart broken by life, I start thinking about how far away I really am. There have been a few days over the last few weeks when I would have killed to give my dad a hug or go for a ride to the grocery store with my mom. But one of the great things about being in this part of the country is that almost every person you meet is in the exact same boat. We are all separated from our roots and far away from our families and closest friends. And some people are separated from their main support by much more than a 9-hour drive. I’ve been on a campaign recently to connect with friends more here, and to branch out to make new friends from work – and my story is not unique among them.
It seems like we are all working hard and killing it in our careers, while trying desperately not to focus on loneliness or missing the people we love. We deal with guilt and shame for not being accessible to the people who used to see us every single day – guilt for not calling enough or visiting enough, or only calling during the tough times (I am especially guilty of this). You feel like this strong, independent badass one day, driving your new 4Runner off the lot with Webbie blaring on the radio, and the next day you can’t stand how selfishly you live. You wonder if the challenging, exciting, rewarding career you have chosen is worth all the time and moments you are missing elsewhere.
I mentioned last week that I’ve been trying to really focus on gratefulness. I think that sentiment extends here. I am challenging myself to feel grateful for my time here in Virginia. I want to be grateful for the friends I have here and all the friends I am bound to meet in the future. I want to be grateful for my time with Josh and getting to meet his family here. I want to make happy memories in this big house of mine, and take this new car on adventures with my little Maudie girl. I can live gratefully and appreciate my life here in Virginia and also make more meaningful connections with my family and friends in Kentucky – connections that are not maintained by guilt or sadness. I can keep in touch and visit them joyfully and build more memories that are worth thinking about and missing. I need to keep in mind that I may not always be here in this spot. Who knows what city my future will find me in? There may come a day when I’m looking back on my time in Virginia the same way I do with my Kentucky years, and I want to have happy memories of my time here. Not tearful, lonely, sad memories. I’m really going to put my heart into this effort. Let me know if you’re in a similar spot, and maybe we can strategize or just share stories. I’d love to hear from you.
I fell asleep with my window open last night and woke in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. My clever brain told me that the smell was the familiar scent of cigar smoke, probably coming from my neighbor’s balcony or someone smoking on their front stoop. My triggered heart told my clever brain to shut the hell up, and I swiftly ran down the stairs in my underwear to convince myself that my house was not on fire. Once I assessed the nothing-ness in my home, I crawled back into bed and had vivid dreams about rounding the corner of the stairway to my kitchen to find the stove engulfed in flames.
I experienced a small fire in my apartment in 2020. I was moving to a new apartment down the hall, and had a plastic container neatly packed to the brim with all of my nicest cookware sitting on my stove. As I was carrying some boxes down the hall to my new crib, I must have hit one of the stovetop knobs with my elbow. I went down the hall, unloaded the boxes, and returned to the old apartment for another load, only to see smoke filling the hallway. My stomach dropped and I ran into my apartment to see my stove in flames. I ran inside to rescue Maudie and searched for her for a few moments before I remembered that I had boarded her safely at PetSmart for the weekend. Then I ran through the tiny hallway that was the kitchen of my studio apartment, and melted plastic from my neatly-packed-and-now-destroyed-by-flames plastic container splashed onto my leg and my arm as I exited. As the fire alarm went off and I heard fire trucks arrive outside of my now-evacuated 18-story apartment building, I sat in the lobby nearly hyperventilating, wondering if my mistake had injured anyone…or worse.
I took my first ambulance ride that day, got treated for some minor second degree burns, and hitched a ride with the fire marshal back to my apartment, which he assured me was “not in that bad of shape”. When I followed him into apartment 224, it dawned on me that only a very small percentage of my belongings were damaged by my tiny fire – but nearly everything I owned was drenched in water by the sprinkler system. The next two days were a marathon of sorting through my wet belongings to determine what could be salvaged and what should be thrown away. I was very lucky that my parents were already on their way to Arlington to help me move that weekend, and they arrived early in the evening to find their pitiful baby girl in a covid-19 mask with soot all over her face, sticky from sweat and dirt from the clean-up effort, and too stressed and overwhelmed to cry (I did later, a lot). When they arrived, I realized I hadn’t taken a sip of water, looked in the mirror or gone to the bathroom in about 8 hours – as if the only thing that mattered in life that day was the cleanup process/punishment I deserved for a careless mistake.
Looking back, I know this was a good experience. It was good that I didn’t get hurt more than I did, it was good that no one else in my building was injured, and it was good that Maudie was not home at the time. It was good that I had renter’s insurance to cover all of the damage, not only to my own belongings, but to the building (including flood damage to my neighbor’s apartment and the OrangeTheory on the first floor). It was good that my family was there to help me. It was good that I had a place to stay that night (and every night after).
This is one of those life experiences that I would like to forget, but I’ll still be a good sport and laugh about it with friends. My boyfriend’s favorite nicknames for me, “Smokey” and “Sweet Lil Half Smoke” are inspired by this incident (which I got to recount to him with pink cheeks during our first date). When I met his parents for the first time, he made sure to bring it up so I could tell them my embarrassing tale as well. It’s all in good fun, and I’m blessed that it is a story that can be told with a light heart and met with laughter, when it easily could have been a tragedy. I am very lucky.
Despite the laughable circumstances, I’m still a little traumatized by the whole experience. When I moved into my house and cooked my first meal here, the sensitive smoke detector in my new kitchen went off over and over again – this thing was triggered by steam from asparagus, for Pete’s sake. Each time the beeping started, I nearly jumped out of my skin and felt seized with panic. Before the evening was over, I had ordered a new, less false-positive prone smoke detector because my little heart couldn’t take all the false alarms. I rarely leave the house without feeling the nagging sensation of having left something plugged in or turned on at home – Is my hair straightener on? Did I turn the oven off? Is that lamp in my office still switched on?
We have all experienced some form of trauma in our lives. I don’t pretend my trauma holds a candle to things that others have faced- I try to keep that in perspective. I just left a party for a five-year-old who finished his last chemotherapy treatment this week- his parents know something about trauma. Here I am, with my trauma amounting to little more than a funny story I can tell at parties paired with some paranoia and fear of flames- I definitely don’t want to come across as whiny or self-important, because I’ve lived a really privileged life. But even I can understand how some things that happen to us stay with us and impact us in ways we never expect. I’ve experienced some other types of trauma that didn’t involve fire, mostly involving mental abuse and infidelity in romantic relationships of my past. And just as I feel paranoia about fire safety, I also feel paranoia about safety in relationships of all kinds. I’ve had trauma responses to innocent circumstances and found myself projecting insecurities from past trauma onto people that I should and DO trust. I don’t need to go into detail here, but it’s something that I’m aware that I struggle with.
I don’t know why I’m writing this – I just had my panic moment last night, and my bad dream to follow, and had a moment of joy this afternoon when I found myself cooking my dinner on the stove. It’s such a small thing that was like breathing before my fire in 2020, but now I sometimes marvel at my own nerve when I stand in front of the flame. Just as trusting people in romantic relationships and opening myself up to love used to be as easy as breathing before my trust was compromised. Yet, I still stand in front of that flame and open myself up to love again and again. I think maybe this is just a tiny example of grit from my life, and I’m not exactly moving mountains or doing anything remarkable here – but it feels like a small drop in the strength-bucket to say that I got burned and still stand in front of the flame. I hope that you can look at the traumas that you carry around with you, recognize how they affect you in your present, but can also acknowledge all of those moments when you bravely stand in front of the flame anyway. That’s true grit, and I think you should give yourself a little credit for it.
I went to a swanky retirement party on Wednesday evening at the type of restaurant I will only visit when it’s on the company’s dime. The party was for two PPMDs (partner, principal, managing directors) at my firm who have been the dynamic duo leadership team for my group at Deloitte. I am not sure how long they have been with the firm, but I met them both just over 5 years ago when I interviewed with Deloitte. I remember getting confused by the Rosslyn parking that day, and showing up sweaty and nervous for my round of interviews for a data scientist position. My first interviewer was a very tall man named Chris, who asked me if I wanted a coke, and spent the majority of our 30 minute interview slot telling me how wonderful and impressive I am rather than asking me questions. I didn’t talk much at all during the interview, and we were interrupted in the middle by another tall, bald man named Frank. Frank busted in and said “I’m late for a meeting, but I heard you are from Kentucky- I am too. We’ll chat later, Kentucky Cousin.”
These two men, Chris and Frank are arguably the most important figures in my tiny corner of the Deloitte multiverse, and they are also two of the kindness, smartest, most insightful and persuasive people I have ever met. They are also very good friends – they have known each other for over 30 years, and owned a company together at one point before they came to Daddy Deloitte. The retirement party had so many people in tears on Wednesday as we came to terms with a future without their guidance and support. I personally teared up the most when someone was giving a speech about the talent pool Frank and Chris have grown over the years, and Frank scanned the crowd with his eyes and pointed directly at me. I also cried when Frank gave his own toast and paid a touching tribute to his wife and three children. Frank and Chris have a lot of ‘isms’, and catchphrases that were discussed in great detail at the party- but I think their impact at Deloitte can be captured best in the three word phrase that they have both uttered countless times each day:”I appreciate you.” These guys are dynamos in terms of success, business sense and creating impact for clients, and are two of the most talented people in this country – yet they are always shouting from the rooftops that they appreciate little nobody’s like me. I can set aside all of the business savvy, delivery excellence, and selling tips they have both imparted to me over the years, and safely say that their true impact on my life has been their unending support, appreciation and confidence building (pudding proof of the latter point can be spotted in my previous blog about self esteem and gratefulness). I now feel compelled to jot down some of my favorite Frank and Chris moments so I can repay the favor and show my appreciation for them.
When I finished my week long orientation at Deloitte in January of 2017, I showed up at the Rosslyn office and got introduced to the weirdness that is working for a consulting firm. You see, it’s not like a normal job where you have your own desk assigned to you that you come and sit at every day. You are on client contracts – sometimes multiple contracts that can change at any time, and you sit where you are needed. You may sit at your client’s workspace, or you may work remotely from the Deloitte office or both. When you are at the Deloitte office, you sit where you can find a spot – the process is called hoteling. You can book a work space for a day, as if you are renting a hotel room. I remember riding the metro to Rosslyn and walking into the big 24-story building with my hot pink Kate Spade bag that my mom bought me for a graduation present- and I stared at all the buttons on the elevator panel wondering which floor I should choose. I went to ten and wandered around like a lost puppy. I stopped at an empty desk and checked my work phone – and sure enough, I had a text from Chris. “Come to 13 when you get here.” When I got to 13, he greeted me with an enthusiastic handshake, and took me to a table full of data scientists. “The cool, geniuses sit over here.” I credit this small act of kindness and attention to my swift development of a network and friend group at work.
Several weeks later, I was on my first contract with the Department of Defense and my client was a really brilliant data scientist named Tom (years later, Tom would take a job at Deloitte and become my boss instead of my client). Tom apparently told Frank “Rebecca is really great and capable, I just wish she would speak up more during meetings.” At an all-hands meeting, Frank sought me out in the group of ~100 practitioners, and got in my face (in a friendly, non-threatening way) and said “Listen lady, you don’t need to be afraid to open your mouth. Every time you do, brilliance comes out. Get out there and show them what you’re made of.” I remember being kind of distraught by this, because I thought I was already letting people down at work. From that moment on, I could tell that Frank was on a mission to help me learn to communicate confidently with clients. He volun-told me to assist with delivery and development of a “conversational analytics” course curriculum. Our difficult task for this class was to explain complex data science concepts to leaders who haven’t had a math class since Freshman year of college. That course was a turning point for me. The success I had with it helped me uncover a talent that I didn’t know I had – I can explain complex topics in terms that anyone can understand. Over the years, this has become my brand at Deloitte. I am not the best programmer or data engineer, but I can talk to a client and help them understand what they are getting with their dollars. I don’t know that I would have discovered this without Frank’s investment and support.
I’ve been having some personal mental health struggles recently. A few weeks ago, I was scheduled to give a talk about selling to over 300 Deloitte practitioners – but I needed an emergency session with my therapist and the only time she could get me in was during the time of my talk. This talk was a big opportunity that Frank had given me, but I felt more than comfortable texting him to tell him the truth about my situation. Not only did he tell me to forget about the talk altogether and focus on myself, he also told me that he put a calendar reminder in his phone to pray for me on the day of my appointment. A couple of weeks later, he introduced me via text message to a lovely lady named Marlene who knows his wife through church. This sweet lady called me on a Wednesday during lunch, and I poured my heart out to her as if I had known her my whole life. The only explanation I have for this openness with a complete stranger (who wasn’t charging me by the hour) was that I knew that Frank trusted her, and I trust Frank. In fact, there’s no one in the DC area that I trust more than Frank. I told him I was thinking about shopping for a new car this week, and his eyes lit up and he said “Let me know if you want me to go with you!” Sometimes I think he’s a really close substitute for Ron Crouch when Ron Crouch is so far away – he has been tough on me when I needed it, but always makes me (and every other lucky person who has worked for him over the years) feel important, special and cared for -“I don’t know what you’re going through and I won’t ask, but I just want you to know you’re not alone.”
After writing this, I realize I’ve had many more interactions with Frank than with Chris over the years – but to me, they are kind of like peanut butter and jelly. It’s hard to think about one of them without thinking of the other. I am so sad to see these men go away from my everyday work life, but they have left behind a legacy of leaders who have been brought up in their image. My direct boss (his name is Steve) is a young version of Frank who has adopted almost all of his ‘isms’ and catchphrases, and his passion for growing talent and truly caring for people along the way. Frank and Chris – if you guys ever read this, just know that I appreciate you and you are the twin pillars of my success thus far, either directly or through other leaders you have cultivated. I hope I continue to lead based on your excellent example and that your ‘isms’ will be carried on and get big laughs at my own retirement party in 100 years.
When I met with my new therapist for the first time a few weeks ago, one of the first questions she asked me was “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your self-esteem?” My knee-jerk response to this was “Well…it depends on what room I’m in.” I went on to describe to her how I feel like I’m made out of titanium when I’m at work. I walk into that office and feel like I’m the smartest, most competent, put together person in the room. I rock pencil skirts and sleek blouses with high heels, and strut around like I’m the data science queen. Then I described that other times, when I’m outside of work, it’s not like that at all. I feel bad about my body sometimes…maybe a lot of the time. I sometimes feel insecure about my decisions, my attitude, the way I love, the size of my ass, my smile, my writing, how sensitive I am, how much I cry, my makeup application, how dirty my car is, my dog’s haircut…you name it, and I’ve felt insecure about it.
It’s not that I sit around feeling bad about myself all the time. I just notice that I am much more susceptible to creeping feelings of low self-esteem when I’m outside of the comfort zone of work. Maybe its because I get so much positive feedback at my job – I work with people who are constantly hyping me up and celebrating success. I know with perfect certainty when I walk into a meeting that I am prepared for it, and I am likely the expert in the room on the topic at hand. That doesn’t mean that nothing ever goes wrong, or that I never screw up – that’s far from reality. There’s just something about having a set of guiding principles that you learn in your training that help you prepare for workplace interactions, and then also help you deal with fallout when they don’t go so well. It also helps that there’s always someone more experienced than you around to help you figure out tricky situations. Everything is so straightforward and you are surrounded with these wise Yoda’s who guide your path, and that cultivates confidence. Everything is natural and right, and I feel happy to be me.
Then I leave work and go out into the real world for my free time, and I realize that all the other aspects of life are hard. I have a hard time managing the friendships I have, and making friends in your 30’s is really difficult. I struggle balancing my diet and exercise. I can’t find the right shade of makeup to suit me, and always feel like I’m too heavy handed with eye-shadow. I get on the scale too much. My dog misbehaves sometimes and I blame myself. I’m lazy about laundry. I love to write, but feel a knot in my stomach every time I post a blog for fear of sharing too much of myself, or offending someone with opinions. I doubt my decisions and overthink things. I don’t wash my sheets enough. I sometimes get defensive when people offer me advice or disagree with me. I’m a laughably bad driver. I watch too much reality tv. I cry too much and sometimes dwell on my pain and turn it into suffering. I love a little too hard and overwhelm people. I am sarcastic and make bad jokes. No one is more aware of my flaws than I am.
I am sure that you identified with at least some of the things I mentioned above. I don’t think any person is immune to the thoughts that grab ahold of us and make us see ourselves as unworthy or less valuable than others. I think most feelings we experience in life serve some positive purpose – feeling grief and sadness is useful for identifying what you value, and for really appreciating happier times, for example. Feelings of low self-esteem or inadequacy can be useful for helping you aim at the things you want to work on. This is easy when you are looking at problems that have clear solutions – I can wash my sheets more often, I can send my dog to school, I can cultivate a fitness routine, I can watch YouTube make-up tutorials, I can reach out to my friends more and branch out socially. Thinking about yourself critically can really help you make plans to improve. Not all the time, though. I can’t really do anything about the shape of my face or my smile, and I’m not going to absorb enough therapy overnight to change how sensitive or insecure I am in relationships, or address body image issues – and focusing on these things in the meantime only exacerbates the problems. Instead of having a negative emotion that leads to positive change, the whole thought cycle devolves into negative self-talk, which is destructive.
The other issue with being critical of myself is that I never seem to do the opposite. I don’t spend much time fixating on the things about me that are great. I can see them when I think about it. I know that I’m smart and hardworking. I know I’m thoughtful, sweet and generous. I know that I give Maudie a lot of love and a really nice life. I know that I’m a great girlfriend who loves openly and joyfully. I know I’m a good friend. I know that I have built a lovely life. I know I am a good cook when I put my mind to it, and always go above and beyond when I prepare a meal for someone I love. I know that I’m creative and try to make thoughtful gifts for people I love. I know that I’m a good aunt. I know that I look pretty in that maroon dress I bought last month. I know that I’ll still look pretty even if I gain 10 lbs this month or lose 5. I know I kick ass at my job and try my best to guide the people who look up to me. I know that I am good.
Logically, I know all of these things to be true. But when I wake up in the morning, they aren’t always at the top of my mind. I guess it’s like having a hangnail. Your whole body can be in tip top condition- well-rested, clean, healthy, hydrated – but instead of resting in gratefulness for that, all you can think about is the tiny hangnail on your index finger. It hurts. I wish it would heal faster. Why do I keep picking at it? Maybe I should put a bandaid on it. Or maybe it’s something that’s not even real like a painful, little hangnail – maybe it’s just the worry that tomorrow you may not be as healthy, or that decisions you are making today will lead to eventual disability. Dwelling on this hangnail or the possibility that tomorrow may bring chaos doesn’t make the hangnail heal any faster or prevent future pain – it simply distracts. All the while, your healthy body is practically crying out to you. Use me! Let’s go for a walk! Move me to do something kind for someone else! Carpe diem!
I guess we are always going to find things about ourselves that we don’t like and those things are definitely catalysts for low self-esteem. But I, for one, am tired of feeling these emotions that serve no positive purpose and distract me from seizing the day. I think for the next few weeks, I’ll try to reframe my thinking a little bit. I want to spend more time being grateful – not only for the things I have, but for who I am. I want to appreciate myself more. I need to appreciate me the way my coworkers appreciate me and show it every day. I need to stop waiting for that appreciation to come from external places. I want to work on the things I think are deficits in my being, but I want to keep in mind that the hangnails that need to heal won’t keep me from running or jumping or living. I can work on some things (therapy being a really good place to start) without pausing others. I can think about myself less and others more. I can love more and with more intent. I can rest in gratefulness, and also MOVE in gratefulness. I didn’t write this post in honor of the Thanksgiving month, but maybe it’s appropriate. I am grateful for me and I hope you are grateful for you. You are good.
I was on the phone with my mom last night after a couple of strawberry margaritas, and I could hear that she had Young Frankenstein on in the background. The movie plot had progressed to that part where Dr. Frankenstein is starting to accept the monster he created in his lab and is beginning to show him love. He says to the Monster:
Hello handsome. You’re a good looking fellow, do you know that? People laugh at you, people hate you, but why do they hate you? Because… they are jealous. Look at that boyish face. Look at that sweet smile. Do you wanna talk about physical strength? Do you want to talk about sheer muscle? Do you want to talk about the Olympian ideal? You are a God. And listen to me, you are not evil. You… are… good.This is a nice boy. This is a good boy. This is a mother’s angel. And I want the world to know once and for all, and without any shame, that we love him. I’m going to teach you. I’m going to show you how to walk, how to speak, how to move, how to think. Together, you and I are going to make the greatest single contribution to science since the creation of fire.
You are good. These words cause the Monster to dissolve into tears as Dr. Frankenstein pulls him into a hug. To a monster who has no companions, no history, no structured upbringing with complete with clear pictures of right and wrong and unconditional love through it all, hearing the words You…are…good must have been a powerful signal of acceptance and trust. Last night when I heard that line, my drunk little ass kept my mom entertained for about an hour shouting “YOU ARE GOOD” into her ear on the phone and going on and on about how that’s all anyone on planet earth really wants to hear. We all just want some confirmation that we are accepted and that someone on this giant planet thinks that we – that is, our being, our existence, the space we take up on this land – are good. In a world where so many things are bad, and so many unfortunate events happen, and you encounter so many people who let you down all the time with their human ways (while you are busy letting them down too) – how lovely it is when someone who is swimming through the exact same shit-pile that you are looks at you and says YOU ARE GOOD. You are a gruesome, disfigured, delayed, confused Monster, and yet, you are good.
I’ve been blessed my entire life with people who look at the little monster that I am and tell me that I am still good. I have one friend who randomly texts me words of encouragement when I’m least expecting it. I have friends and family who offer me good advice and bad advice and patience when I ultimately ignore their advice, and know the truth about every ugly, bitter, angry part of me and still tell me I am loved and deserving. And they don’t say it because they know I need to hear it – they say it because they believe it. They believe I am good – that all the lovely, thoughtful and kind things I do and say somehow outweigh my mistakes. They all listen to me tell stories where I am sometimes the hero, other times the villain, or other times the willing victim or bystander who gets in the way – and no matter which role I fill; antagonist, protagonist, annoying pest or comic relief character – they still tell me I am good.
If you are reading this today, I just want you to know that you are good. I don’t know why – some of my readers are complete strangers. But if you want to know why, just ask your friends, significant others or family and they’ll be able to tell you. And then you be sure to tell them all the reasons they are good. It seems trivial – something so simple that Frankenstein’s simple-minded monster understood it perfectly, but you have no idea who needs to hear it today or might need to hear it tomorrow, or the next day. Grab all of the monsters in your life that you believe are good and tell them that they are.
Miss Maudie Atkinson is a secondary character from the novel To Kill a Mockingbird. She lives across the street from the protagonists of the book, the Finch family – Atticus, Jem and Scout. The book chronicles the adventures of 5-year-old Scout and her older brother, Jem -two rambunctious, imaginative children who live in Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression. Maycomb is a sleepy little town, eventually rocked wide awake by a racially-charged trial of a black man for the alleged rape of a young, white woman. The children find themselves in the middle of town drama when their wise and authentic father, Atticus is selected to defend Tom Robinson (the accused rapist) in court. They also find themselves intrigued (or borderline obsessed) with the town recluse, Boo Radley. As the children navigate hot, sticky summers in Maycomb, full of child and adult drama alike, they have a constant companion in Miss Maudie. Miss Maudie Atkinson is spunky, clever, ladylike, gentle, and persevering – and she treats Scout and Jem like adults. She shows them respect and guides them as they deal with some themes that may be deemed beyond the grasp of their growing minds by other adults. Instead of telling them to be quiet and to stop asking questions, she answers their questions as blatantly and openly as she would for any adult. She is a true friend to Jem and Scout, and perhaps their greatest example of a mother-figure they have in their lives.
Miss Maudie Atkinson is my favorite literary character I’ve encountered (so far). I wish I emulated Miss Maudie a little more. When she speaks in the book, her words are dripping with class and wisdom. Her demeanor is dignified, even in the face of great suffering (like when her house catches on fire). She is funny and empathetic, and shows respect to everyone she meets. She is this wonderful example of how you can have a potent impact on the people around you, even in the most mundane situations (tea parties, porch sitting, etc.), and she demonstrates to young Scout that you can be ladylike without squashing every ounce of “self” and expression within you. She is lovely and strong, and I so desperately want to be lovely and strong too.
I like to think that Miss Maudie (the dog) lives up to some of the traits of her namesake. She is certainly spunky and gentle, and treats most people with respect. She is definitely prejudiced against large humans in dark clothing – especially after dark. She is clever, but also very dumb. She is not well-trained, but she has done an excellent job training me – most notable when the pizza has been delivered or the steaks are done cooking. Like Miss Maudie in the book, she has also survived a house-fire. She loves children. She can’t be trusted at tea parties because she will probably break some of the fine china or pee on the parlor rug. She is not a great conversationalist, but she’s funny. She’s barks at every noise she hears, and is the loudest chewer on the planet. She has torn a hole in every fuzzy blanket I own. She throws up at the most inconvenient times, and rattles her crate at bedtime as if I’ve locked her in Guantanamo for life. She looks adorable in bandanas, and hates to have her hair brushed. She’s a great listener. Miss Maudie (the dog) has a potent impact on my life every day, and she helps me be strong.
A lot of the guilt I experience in my life is related to Maudie Dog. I worry about her a lot. Is she happy? Does she get enough walks? Does she know how much I love her? Does she look at me and think about that time I smacked her – that time, I was late for work and she wouldn’t come out from under the bed and I lost my temper, and cried the entire way to work out of shame? Does she suffer from my demanding career? Did I mess up the good thing she had going for her when me and her “dad” parted ways? Would she have been happier with him?
I can remember when I first brought her home. This poor little puppy missed her real mom so much she cried all night every night for the first week we had her. I slept on the floor with her back then. I would lay down with my pillow and blanket in the closet next to her tiny little crate, and stick my hand inside it so she could feel me next to her all night. One night, I woke up and she was not in her crate. I sat up in a panic, and then looked down at my legs to see that she had curled up behind my knees and was sleeping like an angel. I felt like such a good dog mom in that moment. I felt like I had been her comfort during this incredibly painful time for her, and that I enveloped her with love. I think she’s been returning the favor ever since.
Like the rest of you, I have experience sitting in those valleys of life that people always talk about- those tiny, personal atomic bombs I mentioned in a previous entry. I don’t know how our pets are so attune to our feelings, but during these times, Maudie has presented herself front and center in the storm as if she knows every pathway in my heart and wants to walk them all with me. More than once in my life, I have fallen asleep with tears in my eyes and Maudie on my feet. Once when I was sad and working from home, she put her paw on my hand and rested it there – and there we sat for several minutes just holding each other. I am always so shocked by these little moments with her. She is this unstoppable ball of energy, always bouncing off the walls, begging for a fetch or a walk or a bite of something yummy. Yet, when my heart breaks, she is still. She looks at me with her big brown eyes, and together we are still.
I know some of you may read this and think that I need to get a grip or a life- that an animal shouldn’t inspire so much prose or sentimental foolishness. But I know that Maudie and I have survived a lot of trials together. We lived through a pandemic, we survived a fire. She has been by my side through migraines, strep throat, sore knees, and broken hearts. She lets me dress her up every Halloween, endures ugly Christmas sweaters, agonizing 5k races and trips to the groomer. She is always up for a hike or a walk, or even just a long ride in the car. She slow dances with me when I’m lonely. She gives me a reason to get out of bed every morning (her whines are quite persuasive) and makes me leave the house to get fresh air at least three times a day. Choosing to take care of her for the rest of her life was the best decision I ever made. More lovely still, she chooses to take care of me even when I’m not worthy or deserving of her unconditional love. I am not always lovely and strong like Miss Maudie Atkinson, but sometimes I think Maudie Dog helps me be lovely and strong more often because she is lovely and strong.
My 8th grade Arts and Humanities teacher, an eccentric lady named Ms. Williams, was purely luminescent – that’s the best way to describe her. She lit up every room she was in with her energy and quirky expressive style. When I think back on the lessons from my school years that I remember most vividly – most of those memories come from her class. I can remember reciting Hamlet in front of my classmates, learning a pop dance number of “Everybody” by the Backstreet boys, receiving the “Stephen Meeks Award for Scholarly Achievement” during a unit on the Dead Poets Society, and participating in a week-long Holocaust demonstration where half of the class was treated differently than the other half for no reason at all – one kid ended up having an actual meltdown during this unit, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget Ms. Williams calmly walking the red-faced, tearful boy out of the room. We played improv acting games, and I even got to be a defense lawyer in the trial in which Scar was prosecuted for the murder of Mufasa in The Lion King. Ms. Williams had a poster of John Lennon in the back of her classroom.
I was always pretty sure that she didn’t like me very much. Not that I was a bad seed, or caused her any problems, or ever had any type of altercation with her. I was a very strait-laced, diligent bookworm in school (not unlike Stephen Meeks), and a good rule of thumb was that I was destined to have the most trouble in classes that didn’t have an assigned textbook. The only B I got in high school was in art class, ya know what I mean? I totally get how a creative person like Ms. Williams might have been taxed by a child like me. I spent much of my time in her class feeling really uncomfortable – feeling eyes on me while I made up a rap on the spot during an improv game, or getting frustrated while trying to get the kid who was playing Scar in our courtroom drama to pay enough attention to his defense to be convincing on the stand. Looking back, I learned so much from Ms. William about how art can make you feel – and how vulnerable you are when you share your art with the world. I felt nervous in her class because creative expression can be uncomfortable, especially when others are looking/listening/reading. I learned that creating art is not something reserved for the beautiful and talented – even self-conscious teens in sweatpants can create art, and everyone can appreciate it (duh, didn’t we all download the new Adele song at the exact same time last week?!) Maybe this blog and vulnerability I experience every time I hit that “Publish” button is a living, breathing tribute to Ms. Williams and the other great teachers that taught me to use this dusty, clumsy, non-math part of my brain (I’m looking at you, Mrs. Long and Mr. Graham). These excellent educators taught me how to love stories and the ways that good stories that can be told through all of the various art forms. I’m a sucker for a good story.
I always think of Ms. Williams this time of year because she loves (trying not to use the past tense too much here, because I am pretty sure she’s still alive!) scary movies. She had an entire unit on scary movies in our class, and would show us clips from her favorite horror films. We watched the Twilight Zone segment (I think it was from the Twilight Zone movie – starring Dan Aykroyd) where there was a monster on the wing of the airplane, and I still can’t take a flight without thinking about it. She used to turn out the lights in the classroom and hold a flashlight up to her face while she told us scary campfire stories. She told the story about the babysitter getting phone calls from the murderer inside the house, and a story about an old woman putting a puzzle together, and slowly learning that the picture in the puzzle shows her in her house putting together a puzzle – and the last piece reveals that there’s a man with a knife standing behind her. EEK! She once told me that in order to really watch a scary movie correctly, you should turn all the lights out in the house and open all of the doors and windows for full effect. I’m more of a watch-in-broad-daylight-with-a-friend-with-all-lights-on-and-doors-locked-and-SimpliSafe-armed kind of scary movie connoisseur, but I can understand where she’s coming from with this suggestion. In addition to all the other great things I learned in Ms. Williams’ class, I also learned that it’s really fun to be scared!
I have a long history of being a baby about scary movies. I watched Signs with my dad the year it came out, and it gave me nightmares for many days afterward. When fellow freshman girls at WKU asked me to go see Haunting in Connecticut, I ended up sleeping on the concrete floor in their dorm-room that night because my roommate wasn’t home and I couldn’t be alone. Huge baby. I also take these scary stories and carry them around with me. I remember the end of I Know What You Did Last Summer featured a scary guy with a hook thing grabbing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s feet while she was sitting on her bed. I only recently stopped checking under my bed before I go to sleep, and that’s because my bed is so low to the ground that Maudie can’t even get under there to tear up my carpet (much to her puppy dismay). I am also convinced that I think about The Fly more than anyone else on the planet – more than the writer, the actors, the director, everyone. I think about it way too much, and feel so much compassion for Jeff Goldblum and his grotesque fly body, and Geena Davis’ plight of having to shoot fly-man Jeff Goldblum in the face before having his maggot baby. The end of that movie might be the greatest contraception advertisement of all time.
As I get older, I’m noticing that scary movies are less scary than they used to be, and I think it has something to do with my true crime obsession. It seems like every day I’m listening to some sort of murder podcast. I like to think I was a fan of My Favorite Murder before it was cool, and I’ve seen Karen and Georgia perform live twice. If you aren’t familiar with the podcast, it is a comedy podcast about true crime where Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark each tell a true murder story each week. Comedy and murder is such an interesting combination, but it really works – they tell stories and laugh a lot, while still showing respect and compassion for victims. On Mondays, they release mini-episodes where they read the emails they receive from their fans about hometown murders. This is the part that is mind-boggling. It seems like everyone has their own story of a murder or creepy story that happened to someone they know. It’s as if every person is one or two degrees of separation from some violent tragedy.
My Favorite Murder ended up being a gateway drug to other sorts of true crime media – other podcasts such as Last Podcast on the Left, True Crime Garage, Crime Junkies, Sword and Scale; tv shows and documentaries galore, and books. Karen’s friend, Michelle McNamara passed away before she could complete her book about the Golden State Killer. McNamara was the author of a popular true crime blog, and devoted the last years of her life to finding the identity of California’s East Area Rapist (EAR), the Original Night Stalker – one person with a lengthy and varied crime portfolio. This man ransacked homes, peeped in the windows of young girls, raped women (sometimes making their husbands watch) and eventually murdered at least 13 people. McNamara dubbed him the Golden State Killer, and spent years interviewing victims, victims’ families, and investigators (current and former). When she died, her husband, Patton Oswald and her assistant, Billy Jensen worked to complete the book in her absence. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer was released in February of 2018. The Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo was arrested two months later. I was fascinated by the timing of these events, and felt so happy for Michelle and her family. She wasn’t able to find this guy on her own, but the timely release of a book filled with victim stories and the complex sentiments of survivors, as well as the horrifying details of the crimes was so appropriate and perfect. Her book is by far the scariest thing I’ve ever read, and I can’t fall asleep listening to the audio book because I will dream about the baby-faced killer hiding in the dark. If you haven’t read it, I really recommend it – the audiobook is narrated by my favorite narrator, Gabra Zackman.
My true crime obsession is not unique. It seems like crime has been popular for decades, even centuries (NYPD Blue, Law and Order, every movie on Lifetime, JonBenet Ramsey headlines, the OJ Simpson trial, In Cold Blood, Lizzie Borden). The triumphant return of radio in the form of podcasts created a new space where storytelling was once again limited to sound – no special effects, 3D, costumes, etc. When Sarah Koenig released Serial in 2014, she reminded us all how effective good storytelling can be when it is just that – someone using their own voice to tell a story from start to finish. It is such a simple concept, but over the years podcasters all over the world have tried to follow in Koenig’s footsteps to masterfully create audio-media that is as compelling and unique as any movie or tv show (across all genres, not just true crime) – and so many have succeeded.
I’ve lived alone (sans other humans) for much of my life, and I’m a small person with less upper body strength than most. It’s impossible to hear these true crime stories about women being raped and murdered and not map those events onto my own life. It’s too easy to turn scary true stories into possibilities. I guess that’s why the stories that scare me the most are the ones about women whose lives mirror mine in some way. When I first moved to the DC area, there was a news headline about a woman who was going for a run around 7 pm in Dupont Circle, who was stabbed in the street. She crawled into a Chinese restaurant, and died there – for no reason – she wasn’t robbed or raped, just stabbed and left to die. I know that the 7 pm thing seems like a strange detail for me to remember, but I will never forget the time because I always assumed she was just trying to squeeze in a run after a long day at work and was probably looking forward to grabbing some dinner afterward. Just like I have, thousands of times. That’s scary.
Karen on My Favorite Murder once told an I Survived story about a woman in Texas, who woke in her apartment in the middle of the night to a stranger on her bed who slit her throat with a knife. Her survival story is miraculous – she was saved by a 911 dispatcher who convinced her not to answer the door when the perpetrator returned to her apartment after fleeing once (she locked the door with deadbolt and chain lock after he left the first time). When he came back a second time, he claimed to be a security guard who heard her scream. In the end, the attempted-murderer was an employee of the apartment complex and HAD A KEY to this lady’s apartment. When I heard this story for the first time, I was living in an apartment where maintenance men and other employees had key entrance into my living space. That’s scary.
The Gabby Petito case we’ve all been hearing about lately really affected me. 22-year-old Gabby Petito was road tripping in a van with her boyfriend out west, and died of strangulation in Grand Teton National Park in August. Most speculation and common sense suggests that her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie is responsible for her death, and he is currently missing. A lot of information has come out about the days leading up to Gabby’s death, and the abusive, toxic relationship Petito and Laundrie shared. To me, that’sreally scary. It’s really scary that a mother and father can watch their young daughter leave for a fun trip with a man they assumed would keep her safe, only to find that he was the opposite of safety. It’s scary that the toxic, mentally abusive relationship can turn into having your picture blasted all over CNN. I’ve been in that relationship, and never once felt like my physical safety was in question – I guess I just wonder if Gabby felt that way too. It’s scary.
I guess that’s why fictionalized scary movies about ghosts and monsters, and serial killers with super powers and ugly masks are not as scary to me as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I still squirm and squeal like a baby when I watch them- I just told you how much Haunting of Hill House scared me in a previous post. But the scary stories that really affect me the most are the ones that are true. The really haunting aspect of life is the torment and violence we inflict on each other. How do seemingly ordinary people with really wonderful lives become killers? How did Chris Watts go from loving, family man, to cold-blooded killer? Why are some people victims of random, senseless crimes? Will something like this happen to me tomorrow? Tonight after I close this laptop and put my put my puppy in bed? That’s scary. Yet I keep consuming the true crime media. Tomorrow I’ll listen to the new episode of Suspect, an excellent podcast about the murder of Arpina Jinaga after a Halloween party in 2008. Thursday, I’ll download the new episode of My Favorite Murder. I’ll just keep ingesting the stories, the same way I keep coming back to watch Michael Myers impale people, the same way I keep binging The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. The fear is fun, and even when it’s not fun – even when my heart is broken and my head is horrified after reading up on the Gabby Petito case – it’s still a story worth hearing. And everyone knows I’m a sucker for a good story.
I bought a copy of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House at a used book store several months ago. I set it aside to read in the spookiest of months, October. The other book I set aside for this month was a re-read of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I am delighted that both books I designated for my favorite holiday were written by women. I think “horror” or “terror” as genres of art are so often connected with men (Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, John Carpenter, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, Alfred Hitchcock, Rob Zombie, etc.), yet these two classic works were brought to life by masterful authors who happened to be women. More on Frankenstein to come, but today I just wanted to celebrate my new favorite book (ok maybe a very close second after Pride and Prejudice), The Haunting of Hill House.
The Haunting of Hill House was written by Shirley Jackson in 1959. I plan to write an entire post on Shirley Jackson soon for a series I am planning on “Inspiring Women”, but you may have been exposed to her work in high school – she’s the one who wrote the macabre short story about an annual lottery in a small town, in which a single member of the community would be selected with a random drawing. That story was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, and the magazine received a ton of backlash for publishing such a dark and disturbing story – *spoiler alert* the tale culminated in the brutal stoning and murder of wife and mother, Tessie Hutchinson as she plead with the town to sacrifice anyone but her (and even offers up her own children). As we have found throughout history, the things that get our panties into a wad often turn out to be incredibly cherished and influential as generations pass. The story is now revered as one of the most famous short stories in American literature; so famous that 17-year-old Rebecca was forced to read it in school, and carried it around for the rest of her life.
I am going to be spoiling a bit of the book from here on out, so if you think you’ll ever read it, please go do so and then come back and meet me right here.
The Haunting of Hill House chronicles a young woman named Eleanor Vance as she travels from her home in “the city” to take part in a three-month experiment in a haunted house. When we first meet Eleanor, we learn that she has a dark past with less-than-warm feelings toward her own mother and sister, and a childhood loss of her father. After her father’s death, she experienced paranormal activity when rocks fell from the sky onto her childhood home. Years after hearing of her experience with seemingly supernatural forces, Dr. John Montague has invited her to be his guest in the old, abandoned mansion he has rented for the summer – Hill House. He hopes he and his guests will experience interesting activity and record their impressions in Hill House to provide ample fodder for an upcoming book he is writing about his research in paranormal activity and all things spooky.
Eleanor sets off on her haunted adventure by leaving a haunted past behind. Her attitude toward the trip and the three-month fear-fest she has signed up for is similar to that of a teenager leaving home for the first time for college. At 32-years-old, Eleanor has been a virtual recluse her entire life, spending her adult years taking care of her mother until her death three months prior to Eleanor’s summer vacation in Hill House. This explains her childlike demeanor throughout the book and her overwhelming excitement to accept an invitation that most normal people would have ignored. She spends the entire drive from the city celebrating her new independence and dreaming of the charmed life she will live after the Hill House experiment is over. She dreams of owning a home or apartment with a cat inside, and tiny stone lions on the stoop. When she makes her way to Hill House, nestled in the hills outside of a bleak town called Hillsdale, her happy dreams dissipate as chills run down her spine and she is overwhelmed with the feeling that the house is “vile” and “diseased” and that she should leave at once.
“No human eye can isolate the unhappy coincidence of line and place which suggests evil in the face of the house, and yet somehow a maniac juxtaposition, a badly turned angle, some chance meeting of roof and sky, turned Hill House into a place of despair, more frightening because the face of Hill House seemed awake, with a watchfulness from the blank windows and a touch of glee in the eyebrow of the cornice.”
That’s an overwhelming theme of the book – the idea that Hill House itself is alive and menacing. It’s such an interesting take on the haunted house trope. Throughout the book, you find that there are no specific spirits that haunt the house – no apparitions of children, or women carrying umbrellas or ghosts of civil war soldiers that you hear about on ghost tours and on the A&E channel. It’s not about “who” is inhabiting the house, it’s that the house itself is a “who” with an evil persona. Eleanor and the other “guests” have signed themselves up for many nights of entertainment from the enchanted house, and the house has been designed with a perplexing floorplan, and odd angles and passageways to make leaving the house as difficult as possible.
Another famous, enchanted house
Eleanor is joined at Hill House by a beautiful young woman named Theodora (Theo), Dr. Montague, and a member of the family who owns Hill House, Luke Sanderson. When Eleanor arrives at Hill House and meets Theodora, the two of them become fast friends. When the entire crew is assembled, they all seem to be a merry bunch of misfits with a nonchalant attitude toward the house and the events that will inevitably follow in the dark of night. Eleanor is loving being with this group – at this place where she was invited (wanted), with people who seem to enjoy her company – yet, she immediately begins to fear being left out or ostracized for being different.
On the second night of their stay in Hill House, Eleanor and Theo are startled awake by extreme cold in their rooms accompanied by loud banging sounds that come all the way down the hall and culminate with an intense banging and rattling of Eleanor’s bedroom door, along with giggling sounds. Before Eleanor was startled awake, she had been having a dream about her mother calling for her and awoke to this terrifying moment in Hill House with a feeling of relief that her dream was not her reality. Her reality was absolutely horrible and bone-chilling, but served as a welcomed break from the nightmares of her past. The next morning, Eleanor rises with an overwhelming feeling of happiness – happiness in Hill House. This was the moment in the story that I realized the complexity of Eleanor’s character. She lies to her co-habitants about a life in a little apartment with a white cat, she lies about her age, and pretends to be exactly what Theodora wants her to be in hopes that Theodora will continue to want her. She is hyperaware of what every one thinks about her and often misunderstands the things others say to her and misinterprets sarcasm and humor as slights and judgement. When she feels slighted, she feels intense anger and hatred for her new friends, yet still maintains desperation for approval. Eleanor is an extremely fragile and vulnerable character, not quite fully developed as an adult-person. And all she knows is that she is desperate to be wanted and accepted – which makes her a perfect muse for the persona that is the Hill House.
More creepy things happen and Eleanor is soon singled out by the house. The guests find messages written in chalk and blood that say “HELP ELEANOR COME HOME” (in case you need your daily example of why punctuation matters), and tensions among the house guests, particularly Theodora and Eleanor begin to develop. Theodora, who has shown herself to be a pursuant of attention at all costs, accuses Eleanor of writing her own name on the wall, and Eleanor begins to panic that her being singled out will separate her from her group of companions. Over time, however, as Eleanor begins to be sucked in by the house, she revels in the fact that the house chose her over all of the others.
Eleanor begins merging with Hill House, and can hear sounds from all over the structure as if the it were her own body. On the last night of Eleanor’s stay, she finds herself happily running through the halls of Hill House, chasing a voice that keeps telling her to follow (a voice that sounds like her mother’s). She bangs on doors, startling the other guests in their sleep. When they rise and begin to search the house for her, she runs to avoid them and ends up in the library where she climbs a rickety, iron stairway. When the others discover her, they are horrified that she has climbed so high on a stairway that seems weak enough to break from her weight. Luke bravely climbs up the stairwell to usher the disoriented Eleanor down safely. When she is safe on the floor of the library, she realizes that she had not been acting entirely of her own volition, and recalls that she ran happily up that staircase with no thought given to the danger of bodily harm.
Naturally, Luke is quite angry that he nearly broke his neck saving her from her own silly choices, and the entire group tells Eleanor the next morning that she must leave Hill House. Eleanor is devastated by this and does not want to leave. Not because she will miss her new friends, but because she belongs with the house. They force her to get in her car and tell her to drive home, but in the end she decides she will never leave the house and “with what she perceives as quick cleverness” puts her foot down on the gas pedal and drives her car head on into a tree in the yard.
This book was extremely scary to me, but I am in love with it. I am in love with Jackson’s masterful development of Eleanor’s character, and the way most people (especially people who have ever had mental health concerns) can identify with Eleanor. She’s an odd person, and not even a particularly “good” person – she lies, she is spiteful, she is selfish. None of the characters in this book are particularly good. Sometimes they are all great, caring companions who take care of each other in adversity. In other moments, they make fun of Eleanor and revel in making her feel like an outcast. Theo and Eleanor get into heated arguments, but in the end, they always find ways to mend the relationship. None of them are perfect, and none of them are perfectly horrible. But at the end, when Eleanor has been taken in by the house and has seemingly gone insane (demonstrated by her flight up the rickety staircase), the reaction among the group ranges from rage and disgust (demonstrated by Luke) to pity (demonstrated by Dr. Montague) to patronization (demonstrated by Theo). Yet they are all in agreement – they know what’s best for Eleanor and she must leave. It’s such an interesting juxtaposition – they can all accept each other when they are being awful and mean by choice, and can still forgive each other and welcome each other with open arms. But when Eleanor is no longer able to make her own rational choices (either due to mental illness or the house’s power over her, or both) she is cast aside with no regard for what she wants or says she needs. In fact, even though they know she is very unwell, they tell her to drive away from Hill House on her own – none of them accompany her to this implied safety of “home” – further reinforcing her need to find home in the evil arms of Hill House. Of course, the end is disastrous and Eleanor never escapes the clutches of Hill House or the haunting inside of her own head. This seems like interesting commentary on mental illness, right on the heels of the lobotomy era.
Eleanor is a person who is looking for a home, and finds one in the form of vile, diseased, Hill House. As the reader, you never learn what makes things go bump in the night at the house, or why the house is haunted to begin with. Was it haunted when it was built? If not, what event in the house’s long history made it so? Are there spirits walking there, or is the house itself an evil spirit? Will Eleanor haunt the house now that she has killed herself on the grounds? Or was it Eleanor herself who was haunted well before she ever entered the gates of Hill House?
Seriously, I have not done this book justice here. I cannot recommend it enough. I wouldn’t read it right before bedtime, unless you are much braver than I (highly likely).
Her first baby come out sideways. She didn’t scream or nothin’.
October 11, 2021
I never felt as frustrated with my own upper body strength (or lack thereof) than I did when I moved into my house. I was blessed with enough disposable income to hire some guys to come and move my furniture for me, but still stingy enough to insist on moving “anything I can carry myself” on my own, just to save a few bucks on moving costs. I spent days loading up my RAV4 with boxes, driving the 50 minutes from Arlington to Aldie, unloading and then heading back to rinse and repeat. I carried every box up the stairs to where it belonged, and unpacked it myself. The one trip I’ll never forget was the box of books I carried to my office, which I, being the clever girl I am, decided would be on the FOURTH floor. I lost about 5 pounds during the week in August that I moved, mostly from going up and down stairs carrying boxes that I honestly had no business carrying. It’s a miracle that I didn’t hurt myself, pass out from exhaustion, or take a tumble down the stairs. This move has been an ongoing struggle between me and my body. Even last week when I gave my office a little attention and turned it into the workspace of my dreams, I ordered a new desk and chair for the space. I barely got the boxes of furniture from the front stoop to the inside of my house – I think I lost about half of my hit points in that battle. Yet, being the hard-headed woman I am, I still set my sights on getting them up to the fourth floor on my own so Josh wouldn’t have to fool with it on his weekend. Somehow I succeeded, but with much gnarling and gnashing of teeth – and honestly, a lot of frustration heaped onto myself for not being stronger. Why can’t I just be stronger?
Now, I know the answer to that question – my lack of upper body strength could have something to do with me sitting in my bed with Maudie, writing this blog under our blankie, eating the bag of Halloween candy I bought “for my trick-or-treaters” instead of hitting the gym. It also has a lot to do with biology, and the fact that my mother never forced me to eat vegetables or drink milk as a child (yes, Mom, this is all your fault!) resulting in the 5-foot-nothing ball of sass that I am. I am told, however, that there are many other ways to be strong – strong of mind, strong of wit, strong willed, mentally tough, strong in the face of adversity, emotionally strong, strong earring game. I’ve been called each of these at points in my life (most frequently, the earring thing), but I’ve also felt like the opposite of each of these from time to time as well.
One of my least favorite moments of my moving experience was a situation that forced me to face my lack of physical strength and emotional strength head on. It’s such a trivial situation, I feel silly even repeating the story. I had ordered a king-sized mattress for my bedroom, and when it arrived, I discovered that the delivery people were not going to help me get the giant mattress up the stairs. When I handed them a tip and they left, Josh and I stood there with the mattress, each staring up at the stairs we would have to navigate to get it up to the third floor where it belongs. Josh immediately began doing mental calculus – figuring out exactly how the physics would work. And I – well I simply burst into tears. Josh getting that mattress up the stairs with little to no help from me – partly due to my weak body, and partly due to my little melt down, was one of the most impressive feats of ingenuity and strength I’ve ever beheld. Once we got the mattress where it belonged, I hung my head in shame over the strength that I didn’t have.
I love the show “90 Day Fiance”, and on one of the bajillion spin-off’s in the 90 Day universe, I was introduced to a woman named Darcey Silva. Darcey has had her fair share of tribulations in life and especially in love. She spent two seasons of the show with a controlling, 24-year-old (Darcey is in her late 40’s) named Jessie, and two others with a British man named Tom who called her fat. These were obviously not nice guys, and Darcey has earned a bit of a reputation for falling apart and ugly crying on tv. My girl Darcey and her twin sister Stacey are like walking Instagram posts. They indulge in plastic surgery the way I indulge in soft pretzels, and wear really insensible shoes and flashy outfits. They also have little catch-phrases that they repeat to each other, the way people on instagram shout hashtags at each other. #SilvaStrong. #BossBabes. #StrongIndependentWoman. Something goes wrong, and one twin is in the other’s face telling her “Eye on the prize!”, “Out with the old and in with the new!”, “You need to focus on yourself!”, “You’re a strong woman! You have two beautiful daughters!” and so on. I love these women and they make me laugh out loud, but they are perfect examples of how strength is so much more than a hashtag you put below a selfie on social media or a mantra you repeat to yourself over and over again. No matter how often they repeat these words to themselves, they don’t seem to gain much strength from it. They still fall apart on tv all the time, and cut themselves open to fulfill some version of physical perfection that they will never achieve, and are just generally sad people.
Darcey and Stacey, crying through Botox
Telling yourself that you are strong is not the same thing as building that strength by putting the work in. I can pat myself on the back each time I can’t carry a heavy box up the stairs and say “It’s okay, Rebecca, you are still strong!” That’s true. It is okay, and maybe I am strong. But if I want to be strong enough to carry a heavy load, then maybe I can go to the gym and lift weights to work on building that strength. I can tell myself that it’s okay that I burst into tears over a mattress, because everyone gets overwhelmed and reacts in hyperbole. That’s true. It’s also true that I can look at that moment head on, recognize that I was lacking strength in that moment, and find ways to build strength up for next time.
I think about strength a lot. One of my friends was telling me a bit about a depression she is experiencing, and she traced it all back to not feeling strong, which made her feel like she’s not a full person. Then she made this really excellent point about how being in that headspace – feeling weak – put her in a position where she is doomed to fail in a perfect negative-feedback loop. Being the less-than-perfect friend and trusted advisor that I am, my knee-jerk reaction was to tell her that she is strong. #BossBabe. #StrongIndependentWoman. Here’s the thing – those words don’t mean a damn thing if I can’t make her believe them, and they are also not actionable steps she can take toward addressing her problem. What I should have said is that her telling me about this depression and feeling weak was an example of a strength-building exercise she had already done that day. I should have told her that facing her lack of strength head-on, and recognizing the headspace she is in and the effect it has on her is an example of her strength-building. I can liken it to standing in front of the mirror and looking at your biceps and telling yourself “I can work on this” before you pick up the dumbbells. That’s what I should have told her – that it sounds like she’s ready to pick up the dumbbells.
I know strength can mean different things to different people, and I’ve found that strength inside of myself is even open to my own interpretation. I have done my fair share of falling apart and begging people to stay in friendships and relationships, and often I look back at those moments with intense regret for being weak. Other times I can reflect on those same moments and marvel at my willingness to be vulnerable and honest about my feelings – maybe that takes strength too? Maybe it takes strength to even look back at those moments and reflect on them at all – maybe that’s part of the act of strength building – finding out what being strong means to you. There are a lot of strong athletes who can bench press more than their body weight. There are many strong athletes who cannot, because strength means something different to each of them. That’s ok. It’s ok to remind yourself of the strength you have built over your life and celebrate it, but I am more encouraged by the fact that strength is always something we can build and improve upon.
Cluelessness is the Mother of Invention 