Why Can’t I Be David Sedaris?

Now that I am posting my writing on a somewhat regular basis, I am aware of a creeping self-consciousness. Gee, I think to myself, my chosen topics sure are dark (sidenote: I never ever say, let alone think, the word gee -  so why am I writing it into this story as if I do?). What I write about is moody and brewing; it’s death by a thousand cuts. I write about cancer and divorce, alcoholism and sexual abuse, adolescent despondency and unrequited love, career frustrations and death. What a shit storm! I think of my audience, or the audience I like to imagine I might have, and wonder about the experience they probably have while reading my essays. Do they feel put off or depressed? Irritated at having been brought down a notch when they had otherwise been relatively optimistic?

She ain’t no barrel of laughs, I imagine them saying to themselves, shaking their heads as they walk away from my most recent post.  

And that’s when I think to myself, Why can’t I be David Sedaris?

Like me, Sedaris writes about quotidian experience, only his interpretation of an ordinary event is layered with humor and wit. I feel good when I read his essays because he lifts me up and makes me laugh, even when what he is writing about is fundamentally sad. In the end, I suppose, he is celebrated because of the loving and humorously absurd perspective he brings to whatever experience he may have, regardless of how enthralling or dull that experience may be. My suspicion is that he achieves this unique perspective by keeping his heart open, even when his first impulse might be to protectively shut it down.  

So today, at the public library in Paso Robles, I selected his essay collection “Happy-Go-Lucky” and sat down to read. I was primed for levity and committed to studying how Sedaris writes as he does. I hoped that in reading one or two of his essays, some of his talent would somehow rub off on me – like bar-b-que seasoning or springtime pollen, the kind that sticks to the bottom of the roasting pan or accumulates at the bottom of your windshield. As they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

But most importantly, I was resolved to remaining open to whatever might cross my path in the few hours that I had set aside to learning how to become a funny, straight and female version of David Sedaris. I mean, isn’t openness the only chance anyone has at altering their perspective? Maybe by staying open, I could somehow become funny or, at the very least, less serious.

Because I am a linear and obedient reader who prefers to consume a book from left to right, I read the first handful of essays in sequence (where would I be if I read haphazardly, only to discover that the seventh essay had been informed by the fourth?). I laughed aloud at several passages, felt moved and inspired by others and then jotted down a few sentences that felt especially succinct (I absolutely adore succinct sentences and if “He slips beneath the covers and I cleave to him like a barnacle” does not exactly sum up in as few words as possible how I Velcro myself to Tony at night, then I give up: I will never write a succinct sentence in my life).

Two hours into the book, I became dimly aware that I had grown distracted with flickering daydreams of a water fountain and toilet. I was parched and needed to pee (isn’t that ironic, to simultaneously have both the need to consume and void water? I guess, try as we might, we don’t share much in common with a camel except, perhaps, the urge to lick the faces of the people we love). Placing the book face down, I abandoned my laptop, phone and jacket at the little desk I had found by a window and wandered off in search of the ladies room.

Much to my surprise, a half disrobed clown stood washing at the sink. At least, my initial impression was that this person must be a clown as she wore heavy white face paint, ridiculous amounts of thick red lipstick and at least a small ramekin’s worth of black eye makeup. She had wadded up a bunch of wet paper towels and was wiping furiously at her face in such a way that it left grotesque smears, much like Heath Ledger’s makeup in The Dark Knight. She was tiny – maybe eighty-five pounds, if that - and was dressed in jeans and a torn tank top. Her arms were deeply tanned and muscular and she washed her armpits with the same wadded towels she had used with her face paint, leaving residual streaks of red, white and black radiating from her pits down the insides of her arms.

It was then that I noticed the grocery cart that was parked in the first bathroom stall, filled to brimming with a rolled up sleeping bag and redeemable soda cans. She gestured at it with a jerk of her thumb and began muttering.

  Oh, I realized – she is homeless.

I felt immediately uncomfortable because of previous encounters I have had with the homeless, so I scurried into the second stall and promptly slid the lock in place. No sooner had I done that then I realized the folly of locking myself into a bathroom stall with a potentially threatening person between myself and the exit. What if she became unhinged, like the one homeless man who had thrown the change I had given him back in my face, or the homeless woman who had once trailed me down a Santa Barbara street screaming “Whore! Whore! Whore!” But there was nothing to be done – I couldn’t hide out in the bathroom stall forever. So I peed and then stepped tentatively out of the stall and next to the homeless woman who still stood washing at one of two sinks.

She turned to face me. “I’m sorry that I left my cart in the stall, I didn’t mean any inconvenience.”

“Not in the least,” I said, “there were still two other empty stalls to choose from.”

She yanked additional towels from the dispenser and began sopping up the water that was spilling from the sink rim onto the floor. Then she grabbed more towels, dropped them on the tiles and then stepped on them so that she could dry the floor with her feet. There were soggy, balled up paper towels everywhere. She seemed embarrassed and then stooped over to collect them, placing them in the trash can.

“I don’t see why people can’t clean up after themselves,” she muttered, anger threatening the edges of her words. “It’s so easy to just take your trash and put it in a trashcan. But people just litter all over the place because they don’t give a damn and they think it’s fine to shit in the nest, but we all live here. We all have to share this world.” She scoffed and then continued. “But then I get blamed for the litter because I’m homeless.”

She looked at me intently with eyes so blue that I felt both startled and fascinated. Then she began weeping, much like a small child. “People call me cunt because I sleep on a bench. They even kick me. People who have homes. They kick me.” She began wailing. “Why are people so cruel?” she asked, her chin trembling.

“I don’t know why, “ I said, feeling humbled and penitent. “I guess they are cruel because they are feeble minded. I’m so sorry for your pain,” I added lamely. “I’m so sorry that people are cruel to you.” I stooped over to help her collect the paper towels and we fell to cleaning together in silence.

When the last towel had been tossed into the can, we stood to face one another. She pushed the hair from her eyes and looked at me once again. She was dry-eyed now and she smiled.

“My name is Leslie,” she said.

“My name is Elizabeth,” I said. Her eyes widened in surprise.

“Of course your name is Elizabeth,” she replied, laughing. “Do you know who Elizabeth is? Elizabeth from the Old Testament?”

I had no idea. In my youth, I had gone to Sunday School every so often and, while in college and graduate school, had taken a Bible in Literature class and a course in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Even so, I had no idea who Elizabeth was, other than having a vague notion that Elizabeth was originally an old Hebrew name, appropriated by the English. I looked at Leslie with what must have been an entirely blank expression.

“She’s the mother of John the Baptist!” she almost shouted. “Imagine?! John the Baptist!” She was thrilled and referenced John the Baptist as though he were a household name, though I still had no idea who he was or why he was virtuous or important, other than my quick assumption that he probably baptized those who had previously been considered irredeemable (I am further mortified to admit that, having now gone and done some research, John the Baptist is, in fact, the prophet who baptized Jesus, of all people; how someone with a masters’ degree in English does not know this staggers and embarrasses me. For ease, I’ll blame this shameful lack of knowledge on the pitfalls of education rather than on my own horribly porous brain. How ironic it is that I was once a teacher).

“You know what?” she said. “I’m going to bless you. I’m going to bless you because you’re Elizabeth and you deserve to be blessed.” By this time, Leslie had worked herself into a fervor. She was pumped up and excited – like she had just attended a pep rally - and I was now even more acutely embarrassed. I am in no way, shape or form religious and here I was, in a dirty public bathroom, about to be blessed by a woman who had clownish makeup smeared all over herself like a Grateful Dead tie-dye much the worse for wear.

But I remembered that, only a couple hours earlier, I had vowed to keep an open heart no matter what might cross my path. My whole purpose in being at the library was to study how to become David Sedaris. Evidently, Mr. Sedaris had sent Leslie and this entirely absurd moment as a test of my faith. So, I went with it. I think I even took a wider stance and presented myself fully to her, ready to receive.

  In a gesture of benediction, Leslie then placed her hand in front of me, closed her eyes and said, “May God bless you and your husband and children and your home and whomever and wherever it is that you love.” She let the blessing hang there for a moment between us, and then she stood back with a triumphant smile and fist bumped me.

  “Right on!” she said laughing. Then, without a second thought and entirely without ceremony,  she grabbed ahold of her grocery cart, did a quick k-turn and left me standing there, utterly speechless and alone. Leslie vanished as quickly as she had materialized.

  In a daze, I washed my hands and then walked back to my little desk by the window. Oh my goodness, I thought. I was just blessed by a tiny homeless woman who sleeps on a bench and is kicked like a dog and called a worthless cunt. She blessed me, when it’s me  - not her - who is fortunate enough to sleep under a roof in a cozy bed with a man whom I adore, a feather pillow  and fluffy comforter cradling me until I wake in the morning to make espresso with hot, frothy milk. She - the fortune-less, blessed me – the fortune-full.

  I was astounded. What grace. What love. What humility. How much we have to learn only in keeping an open heart.

  I sighed and took my seat, then kicked off my sandals, propped up my bare feet on the empty chair across from me and picked up the David Sedaris book. Highfalutin was the next essay in the sequence. I cleared my throat and settled in, content to read at least another essay or two. Just then, a second homeless woman sat down in the chair across from me. Her face was boiled red, probably from unrelenting exposure to the elements. I could feel her silently studying me. This time, I kept my nose buried in my book.

  After a moment she said, “Hey. You. I just moved to town and I’m in sales. Any idea where I should look for work?”

  “Well,” I finally offered after a moment’s pause, “I’m not too familiar with the businesses here, but you might try hospitality. Lots of restaurants and wineries.” She smiled and nodded. We looked at each other for a moment and then she leaned forward and gestured at my bare feet.

“Uhm, don’t mean to embarrass you,” she said in a conspiratorial tone, “but I know where you can get some shoes for cheap. I’m kinda surprised they let you in here all barefoot and shit.”