March 2, 2006
il y a vingt-cinq ans
3/2/06
Exactly Twenty-Five Years Ago: March 1981
If you never been to Eastern Iowa at the beginning of March, you've never known wind chills down to 70-below zero, never known holding a Bic lighter to your car's keyhole in order to get it to thaw, never known snow drifts that block your front door closed for two days. As a kid, you think these things are cool, but as a thirteen-year-old like me, you were beginning to truly feel the misery.
To say I was the "class reject" is to do a disservice to losers in grade schools across the country. I was not only ignored and reviled, I was singled out for after-school brutality. These two kids in particular used to ambush me on the way home from school, and thus I'd vary my schedule wildly in the hopes they'd eventually give up.
I had one friend named Brad, and he got me into Amateur ("Ham") Radio, an activity where I could receive Morse Code from someone in Brazil, but never actually meet another human being. I trod to school with my violin and tried to stay as invisible as possible, praying not to be called on in class. Even the orchestra wasn't safe - the lead trombonist "called me out" to the bike rack. I hid in the practice rooms until 6pm.
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What made it worse, curiously, is that I knew a better world. We had just lived in England two years before, where I excelled at sports, commiserated with girl, had a best friend in Adam Regis (hey, Ad!) and was actually revered as a cool foreigner. Even a few months before, I'd traveled to Africa, met Richard Leakey and was basically adopted by a Kikuyu tribesman who showed me how to make food and play their version of the violin.
But here I was, wiser and ready to expand, yet thrust back into Iowa a second time, and things had gotten worse, because the bad guys had gotten bigger. I was so demoralized that I sank into a deep, unmitigated depression in January and didn't speak to anybody for a month. The worst part? Nobody noticed or cared. They all had their own fish to fry. My parents' marriage was disintegrating, and my sister and brothers were all in states of vociferous cantankerousness.
Besides, let's be honest. It was 1981. It didn't have the barefoot flavor of the seventies, and none of the cool trappings (or music) of the eighties had filtered to us yet. We were stuck in Reagan's "Morning in America," a limbo cauterized by John Lennon's assassination and hostages in Iran. If I'd had the internet, things might be different, but I didn't, so I sat in my room, and when I ran out of things to read, I stared at the ceiling.
Twenty-five years ago this week, my Dad got us together at the dinner table and asked us what we thought about moving. I knew better than to imagine this was a democracy, so I braced myself for the truth: we were relocating to Norfolk, Virginia, where he would conduct the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. I had talked to someone in Tidewater on the ham radio, so I knew it existed - a warm marshy place? A beach?
And I still can't believe my reaction: I begged him to not take the job, I wanted us all to stay. I was willing to fight for this pathetic life, this turgid, go-nowhere, wretched existence with all my heart. I was in a living hell, but it was a living hell I understood. That's the curious thing about depression; in a way, you don't want to get better, because you believe the only thing holding you together is the predictability of your misery.
Twenty-five years ago tonight, I was staring out the window, the future murky as soup. I had no idea I was about to get a scholarship to the prep school that would introduce me to actual friends, then get me into an amazing university, then on, through the ragged hopscotch of all the blog entries of this week to where I lie right now, at thirty-eight, writing this blog in Venice, California.
That night, everything was about to change for the better, bless me with more providence, love and luck than I could possibly imagine... and I didn't want it, any of it. I wanted to stay right there and let the cold window fog up with my breath. The Lord may punish us by answering our prayers, but maybe he - or she - blesses us by knowing when not to listen.
I'm not going to be able to get the song, "Empty Garden" out of my head now--Sir Elton John's homage to Lennon. Compelling entries all week. Quite an interesting look down memory lane through your eyes while recalling my own concurrent experiences. I also recall from that time--or thereabouts--that Reagan was shot on the night the Hoosiers edged our Tar Heels in the national championship game.
One other observation from yesterday's post--smart move to answer that the first time was on your wedding night. Even if it's not true, just a smart, smart move there newbie. [Spoken like Dr. Cox from the show, SCRUBS.]
That brought tears to my eyes. Thanks, Ian.
Man, this was just like an episode of the "Wonder Years", except with a darker edge! How I loved that show! I have really enjoyed your posts this week. . . thanks for sharing!
I spent a lot of time in my room, too. Quiet. Depressed. Friendless. With a big bully who tormented me from kindergarten on. Michael C. -- I still hate your f-ing guts! Tormenting a shy, small girl with eyeglasses and Little Orphan Annie hair FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN YOU JUST COULD is just evil. And the mark of a small mind. I hate you to this living day.
Sorry for the digression. Having read this week's posts makes me all the more enthusiastic about all of your good fortune and happiness. All of your successes could not have happened to a more deserving person.
"We were stuck in Reagan's 'Morning in America,' a limbo cauterized by John Lennon's assassination and hostages in Iran."
When were those hostages released? I think you meant to refer to the Carter malaise. The Reagan years were, like your move to Virginia, when things finally started to get better.
I hate to spoil the symmetry of the blog, but I think you are talking about 1980, not 1981. I graduated from Iowa, Melissa and I got married, and you guys moved in June 81 to Norfolk. By '81 you guys going to VA was a done deal already.
Otherwise, be not A-Freyed.
Kent, you are partly right... the Virginia deal was set in 1980, but 1981, the time Ian is talking about, was the time when we were planning the move, and when Ian was agonizing via Ham radio with a stranger in Virginia Beach.
Early spring of 81 was (in spite of the joyous occasion of your wedding to the marvelous Melissa) a time when Ian was no doubt miserable about the thought of moving to a new place and finding new enemies to torture him on the way home from school.
Ian doesn't mention in the blog that he was a year or two younger than anyone in his class, having been shoved into first grade (because of his reading skill) at the age of barely-five. England was a terrific school experience for him partly because the Brits didn't care if he was a prodigy. Kids were put in the class that corresponded to their ages, even distinguishing between half years. For the first time, Ian was with his actual age group, and not the shortest, squeakiest-voiced kid in the place.
I relate this as a cautionary tale for all the parents who lurk on this blog. Don't let them put your kid "ahead" in school. Sure, it's an ego trip for the parents to think your child is a genius, but it can be a nightmare for the kids. Find other solutions. If I had known what I know now, I would have home-schooled all my kids.
Meanwhile, Ian, a terrific week of blogs, even though it brought back a lot of dark memories for me. And things are much better now for all of us. Whew....
ah dude, i know the particular hell of which you speak. the unwanted drastic change forced upon us by parental relocation.
for me it was moving from overseas for last year of high school, plucked from an overseas prep school oasis straight into a sick, racist version of heathers at a small southern public school.
misery.
Ian,
Once again you have reaffirmed my want to return to this site.
While you are a bit too left leaning for this moderate, your writing is just amazing. Your love for UNC (1990 grad) rivals my own and that always peaks my interest.
I generally only enjoy hearing about the families of close friends. I have never met you, but I always enjoy coming to this blog to hear about you wife, daughter, and family.
I am sorry that we never crossed paths at Carolina. Knowing you sounds like an interesting venture.
Keep up the blog. It is truly a treasure.
Go 'Heels
Dear, dear Ian--this is such a timely and necessary post for me, waiting in the very trough of despair you spoke of today, just beginning to want to disengage myself from the darkness of a long-unfolding disappointment, trying to feel ready to embrace whatever better blessing (and it could only be better) providence holds...god, having FOUGHT almost literally tooth and nail for an entire year to hold onto my known misery rather than accept failure and allow the future, my future, to simply happen...trying to believe, finally, that more love and luck are somewhere just ahead of me, rather than somehow hidden inside this Mobius strip of agony I've been unable to extricate myself from for the last thirteen months.
I know you (and everybody) have been trying to tell me this the whole time, but today's post reaches me in a way that no words have yet been able to--thank you, dear friend. Your gift is in reminding us what we human beings are--damaged, masochistic, myopic addicts, but still capable of true and miraculous transformation--and it is priceless.
I think moving is always scary to kids, even if you're already in hell. Great post.
"That's the curious thing about depression; in a way, you don't want to get better, because you believe the only thing holding you together is the predictability of your misery."
Never a truer word was spoken, Ian.
amen, ian. that's all i have to say...
I can hardly wait for the movie. Ugh. Sucked to be you.