One night I tucked Tish into bed and was tiptoeing out of her room with the joy of a mother who is almost to the promised land. (Everybody’s asleep and I’ve got my couch and carbs and Netflix and no one is allowed to touch me or talk to me until the sun rises, hallelujah.) I was closing the door behind me when Tish whispered, “Wait. Mom?”
Damnit to hell.
“What, honey?”
“It’s the polar bears.”
OH, HELLLL NO.
I walked back to her bed and stared down at her, a little maniacally. Tish looked up at me and said, “Mommy. I just can’t stop thinking: It’s the polar bears now. But nobody cares. So next, it’s gonna be us.”
Then she rolled over, fell asleep, and left me all alone in the dark room, stunned into paralysis myself. I stood over her, eyes wide, arms wrapped around my body. “Oh. My. God. The polllaaarrr bears!! We have to save the mother freaking polar bears! Next it’s gonna be us. What is wrong with us??”
Then I looked down at my baby and thought: Ah. You are not crazy to be heartbroken over the polar bears; the rest of us are crazy not to be.
Tish couldn’t go to recess because she was paying attention to what her teacher said. As soon as she heard the polar bear news, she let herself feel the horror and know the wrongness and imagine the inevitable outcome. Tish is sensitive, and that is her superpower. The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It’s not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive, and that’s no badge of honor.
Tish senses. Even as the world tries to speed by her, she is slowly taking it in. Wait, stop. That thing you said about the polar bears…it made me feel something and wonder something. Can we stay there for a moment? I have feelings. I have questions. I’m not ready to run outside to recess yet.
In most cultures, folks like Tish are identified early, set apart as shamans, medicine people, poets, and clergy. They are considered eccentric but critical to the survival of the group because they are able to hear things others don’t hear and see things others don’t see and feel things others don’t feel. The culture depends on the sensitivity of a few, because nothing can be healed if it’s not sensed first.
But our society is so hell-bent on expansion, power, and efficiency at all costs that the folks like Tish—like me—are inconvenient. We slow the world down. We’re on the bow of the Titanic, pointing, crying out, “Iceberg! Iceberg!” while everyone else is below deck, yelling back, “We just want to keep dancing!” It is easier to call us broken and dismiss us than to consider that we are responding appropriately to a broken world.
My little girl is not broken. She is a prophet. I want to be wise enough to stop with her, ask her what she feels, and listen to what she knows.
It’s my senior year of high school, and I still haven’t been nominated to Homecoming Court.
Homecoming Court is made up of the ten most popular students in each grade. Those ten will dress up and ride in convertibles in the homecoming parade, dress up and walk the field at halftime, dress up and walk the halls wearing their Homecoming Court sashes. Homecoming is High School Fashion Week, and the rest of us will watch the members of the Court walk the runways from our places in the shadows.
Our teachers pass out ballots in English class and instruct us to vote for the students who should ascend to court. Each year we vote en masse for the same ten Golden Ones. We all know who they are. It feels like we were born knowing who they are. The Golden Ones stand together in a closed circle—like the sun—in the hallways, at football games, at the mall, and in our minds. We are not supposed to look directly at them, which is difficult because they have shiny hair and their bodies are alluring, light, and radiant. None of them is a bully. Bullying would require paying far too much attention and exerting far too much effort. They are above and beyond that. Their job is to ignore the rest of us, and our job is to judge ourselves against the standards they set. Our existence makes them Golden, and their existence makes us miserable. Yet we vote for them year after year, because the rules control us even at the privacy of our own desks. Vote for the Golden Ones. They have followed directions perfectly, they are what we are all supposed to be, so they should win. Fair is fair.
I am not Golden, but the Golden Ones’ light reflects on me just often enough that I am tinged. They invite me to their parties occasionally and I go, but when I get there they don’t talk to me much. I assume I’m there because they need some ungold around in order to feel their goldenness. Goldenness requires contrast. So when they stand in circles at football games, they let me join their circle, but they don’t talk to me there, either. I feel terribly uncomfortable, left out, and ridiculous in those circles. I remind myself that what is really happening in the circle doesn’t matter. What matters is what people outside the circle perceive to be happening there. What matters is not what is real, but what I can convince others is real. What matters is not how I feel inside, but how I appear to feel on the outside. How I appear to feel will determine how others feel about me. What matters is how others feel about me. So I act like someone who feels Golden.
By mid-September, the buzz of homecoming preparations has reached fever pitch. We’ve just cast our ballots, and the winners will be announced in sixth period. I’m in student government class, and our job is to count the votes. My friend Lisa is pulling ballots out of a box one at a time and reading the names aloud while I tally the votes. She calls out the same names again and again: Tina. Kelly. Jessa. Tina. Kelly Jessa Susan. Jessa. Susan Tina Tina Tina. And then Glennon. A couple more…Glennon. Glennon. Lisa looks at me, raises her eyebrows, and smiles. I roll my eyes and look away, but my heart pounds in my chest. Holy shit. They think I’m Golden. I can see that the ballot box is almost empty, but the votes are close and I could make it. I could make it. I need just two more votes. I look over at Lisa, and her eyes are diverted. With my pencil I make two more marks next to my name. Tick. Tick. Lisa and I count the votes. I have been nominated for Homecoming Court.
I am now a girl who, even when she’s forty-four years old, can roll her eyes and mention, offhandedly, well, I was on the Homecoming Court. Others will roll their eyes, too (high school!), but they will also register: Ah. You were Golden. Golden is decided early, and it sticks, somehow, even when we are grown and know so much better, so much more. Once Golden, always Golden.
* * *
For more than a decade I have written and spoken openly about addiction, sex, infidelity, and depression. Shamelessness is my spiritual practice. Yet I have never admitted to committing high school voter fraud to anyone but my wife. When I told her that I’d finally written this story, she winced and asked, “Are you sure, babe? Are you sure you should tell that one?”
I think what makes this story unforgivable is the desperation. It’s the wanting—the caring so much. If one cannot be Golden, then one must pretend that one does not want to be. It’s so uncool, so terribly uncool, to want to belong so badly that you’re willing to cheat for it. But I did.