I met Sue Ellen at the library yesterday. She was thrilled to find a copy of “Billy Elliot” in the movie stacks. As she reached for the disk, she directed a comment my way: "It's great to find what you are looking for," she said. Then she went into a diatribe about her Catholic beliefs, environmental concerns, knowledge of the Inuit people, trips she took to Europe in the 70s, aspirations of writing short stories, and a Cuban man she once met in Miami. I didn't know how to get away from her.
The interesting thing was that three weeks ago I met a similar woman on the streets of Portland. Like Sue Ellen, Rebecca, who I wrote about in my entry "The Inquisitor," was also in her early 60s, blue-eyed, dreamed of being a writer, was concerned about the environment, considered herself devout Catholic, was a self-proclaimed miser, and had once known a Cuban man in Miami.
When I first met Rebecca, I was thrilled to make a friend in Maine. I dismissed our potential friendship, though, after a telephone conversation in which she repeatedly accused me of sleeping with married men, something I never said. I relegated that conversation to case of transference; it seemed the Cuban man Rebecca met in Miami deceived her into committing adultery by not admitting he was married when he was with her. Because of her religious convictions and fear of breaking one of the ten commandment, she spiraled into a breakdown for which she was hospitalized. I asked her if she had loved this man regardless of his omission to which I received no response and more personal attacks on my moral character.
Now, here comes Sue Ellen three weeks later with the same references and personal attacks. After I mentioned my recent trip to Copenhagen where the air was crystal clear and a thrill to breathe (I shared this observation after she commented on her environmental concerns), she accused me of being a "movie star" and flaunting my ability to travel while others did not have the same opportunities due to limited funds. I must also note that like Rebecca, Sue Ellen had also known a Cuban man in Miami, thirty years ago. He had surprised her on a solo trip she took to Germany and drove her around Europe.
I gave Sue Ellen my email address, even though I didn't intend to contact her. Later that day, I received a lengthy message from her summing up points from our earlier conversation and more references to the Cuban man she had once known in Miami. A "friend" she stressed repeatedly.
It was a strange coincidence running into two similar women. Early in our conversations, I mentioned to both I was Cuban-American and had recently moved to Maine from Miami. Now, I thought about the connections between us and reasons why they sought a friendship with me with a sense of excitement and trepidation.
I realized later their connection to me was Miami and the Cuban men they had once loved but never admitted to for all the fears, reasons, justifications, lies they told themselves about not being able to love a man who was from a different culture, race, place, etc.
Here I was 30 years later in remote Maine coming to haunt them as the counterpart of their great Cuban lovers. With no intention or awareness of their pasts, it seemed I dislodged their deep-seated lies about love, made them remember men they buried and dismissed as accidents, mistakes from very long ago. This enraged them, which made them attack me personally. Made them dig deeper, bury the truth even further. Made them want to be closer to me, inviting me to the beaches and trips to Miami, which further infuriated them. They would never admit it, of course, but these men might have been the great loves of their lives.
This reminded me of a narrative essay assignment based on a predominant emotion my students were required to write in class. Through the years, I received hundreds, if not thousands, of essays. For all the emotions students evoked in their experiences only one or two papers ever struck at the heart of their truth, which included the story of a young woman recalling the birth of her twin daughters. After sharing the minutest details of the antiseptic and medical aspects of her labor, from stethescopes, needles, blaring lights, tugs, pokes, her epiphany was not only taking part in but also witnessing the miracle of birth. This was her truth. She was present for it. She had earned the this experience.
Another paper I never forgot was about a woman who had had a terrible accident on her way home from work. When she lost control of her car it rolled down an embankment and into a Florida canal. Because it was raining heavily no one witnessed the accident or came to her rescue. For what could have been hours or days, she clawed her way out of tangled steel, water, underbrush, palm trees and back up to the highway, arriving on the median overhead bloodied, listless, undressed and in critical condition (once discovered by passing motorists who went for help, she was medi-vac'd to the hospital where she spent a month in intensive care teetering between life and death) She ended her story with the observation that life was good, especially since she had been given a second chance to live it.
But that was not the truth of her experience. The truth, which she omitted in necessary details and reflection, was that she had been in the jaws of hell. Even now, 20 years later, when she wrote her paper the truth was daunting: You could die any minute, but even death is better than clinging to half-life - traumatized, alone, naked, bloodied, and critically injured in a dark Florida canal with snakes and alligators. To this conservative, religious student that was worse than any biblical hell she could ever imagine, even though she would never admit it.
I've never forgotten that paper, and after reading it I realized that the truth can set you free but in denying it you are haunted by it forever. Memoir, " of ," available at:
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