Monday - Eavesdropping on Strangers
Dec. 4th, 2006 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about the two women who sat at the table next to me at a Starbucks yesterday, and how when you are going to air your dirty laundry in a public place you should speak quietly. If you don't, the non-descript woman sitting at the next table writing in her old-fashioned paper journal might record every sordid detail you reveal. She will do this not because she wants to, but because she came there to think but couldn't because you were talking too loud. With a blank page in front of her and your words in her head instead of her own, she will write down your story, with commentaries and opinions about you. Then, if you are really unlucky, she will blog about you later on.
I didn't try to eavesdrop, it was impossible not to. The coffee shop was crowded; there was no place I could move to avoid their voices. Then, once I started hearing all of the sordid details of the young woman's life, it was impossible to not listen to her. After all, I study people and collect their tales; I can't help myself. That none of this was any of my businesses was beside the point. This woman told her naked story, in vivid detail, within two feet of me in a public space; how could my ears not drink it in?
The two of them, one in her teens and one in her 40’s, were on a soul-baring tell-it-all kind of mission. The younger had her story written out longhand on four sheets of loose-leaf paper, front and back, in red ink. She read it to the older woman with frequent asides to explain certain passages. I quickly figured out that the older woman was the younger's sponsor in a 12-step program. Without wanting to know, without really caring, I learned about all the bumps and curves on the girl's road to addition.
It was a well-know road I'd seen maps of before; the broken home, the bi-polar mother, the abusive stepfather, and the drug-addicted boyfriend who led her down a path to self destruction. She was small and thin, with long brown hair and no makeup. She dressed to blend in and be forgotten.
I found her sponsor more interesting - she looked like a soccer mom. Tastefully dressed and impeccably quaffed, I couldn't picture her snorting or smoking anything, unlike her young protégé. She showed the girl a book called A Gentle Path Through 12 Steps that she liked and recommended. The hands offering the book were well manicured; the hands accepting it were rough, with nails bitten down to the quick. I'm sure the older woman picked this location for their meeting; the girl didn't look like the Starbucks type. She looked like she would have chosen Denny's, instead, or some place else where refills for your coffee are free.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ # ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
I told Jeff about them when I got home. He rolled his eyes.
"Welcome to our cult," he said. He is derisive about 12-step programs, not because they don't help people but because he associates them with his ex-wife. Their marriage ended when she took up with a guy she met in Alcoholics Anonymous.
"It's better than the cult they left behind," I said. He grudgingly agreed.
Its kind of fun to hear him go off about AA, once you know where he's coming from and know why he's bitter.
"Those people are f-cked up!" he says, "Before they start going, they're drunk and f-cked up. After they go for awhile, they're sober, but they're still f-cked up."
One night at his wife's AA, several women spoke up about their abusive relationships. His wife, feeling left out, tearfully told them all that Jeff beat her, too. When he arrived to pick her up and take her home, everyone at the meeting gave him the cold shoulder. Only later did his wife admit to him what she'd said.
"She told them I hit her!" he said, "No wonder they all looked at me like that. I swear, I never laid a hand on her!" His voice rose in hysteria, years after the incident and the marriage were long over.
"Oh, admit it, you kind have wanted to at that point," I teased him.
"I didn't want to hit her, maybe just shake her a little," she said.
"Then she really would have something to tell them about at her next meeting," I said, and winked at him. He made a low growling noise in his throat and skulked off.
To this day, seeing The Serenity Prayer printed on anything makes the cords in the side of his neck stick out a little.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ # ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
A day later, I still find myself thinking of that pair sitting in Starbucks, the young woman and the soccer mom. They didn't look like they would know each other, yet they connected all too well. They had nothing in common except a shared demon and a plethora of pithy, rhyming mantras to help them make it one day at a time.
I'm glad they've made positive changes in their lives, and I wish them the best. Still, I think someone should warn them that when you speak in public, you should beware of harmless-looking people writing in leather-bound journals, because poets and story collectors do just that. You should talk quietly when you see one, lest your tale wind up God-only-knows where. We will slip it into our journals, muse over it in our heads, write poems about it and post blogs about it over the Internet.
Your name will still be anonymous, but everything else about you might well be preserved for the ages.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ # ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
I didn't try to eavesdrop, it was impossible not to. The coffee shop was crowded; there was no place I could move to avoid their voices. Then, once I started hearing all of the sordid details of the young woman's life, it was impossible to not listen to her. After all, I study people and collect their tales; I can't help myself. That none of this was any of my businesses was beside the point. This woman told her naked story, in vivid detail, within two feet of me in a public space; how could my ears not drink it in?
The two of them, one in her teens and one in her 40’s, were on a soul-baring tell-it-all kind of mission. The younger had her story written out longhand on four sheets of loose-leaf paper, front and back, in red ink. She read it to the older woman with frequent asides to explain certain passages. I quickly figured out that the older woman was the younger's sponsor in a 12-step program. Without wanting to know, without really caring, I learned about all the bumps and curves on the girl's road to addition.
It was a well-know road I'd seen maps of before; the broken home, the bi-polar mother, the abusive stepfather, and the drug-addicted boyfriend who led her down a path to self destruction. She was small and thin, with long brown hair and no makeup. She dressed to blend in and be forgotten.
I found her sponsor more interesting - she looked like a soccer mom. Tastefully dressed and impeccably quaffed, I couldn't picture her snorting or smoking anything, unlike her young protégé. She showed the girl a book called A Gentle Path Through 12 Steps that she liked and recommended. The hands offering the book were well manicured; the hands accepting it were rough, with nails bitten down to the quick. I'm sure the older woman picked this location for their meeting; the girl didn't look like the Starbucks type. She looked like she would have chosen Denny's, instead, or some place else where refills for your coffee are free.
I told Jeff about them when I got home. He rolled his eyes.
"Welcome to our cult," he said. He is derisive about 12-step programs, not because they don't help people but because he associates them with his ex-wife. Their marriage ended when she took up with a guy she met in Alcoholics Anonymous.
"It's better than the cult they left behind," I said. He grudgingly agreed.
Its kind of fun to hear him go off about AA, once you know where he's coming from and know why he's bitter.
"Those people are f-cked up!" he says, "Before they start going, they're drunk and f-cked up. After they go for awhile, they're sober, but they're still f-cked up."
One night at his wife's AA, several women spoke up about their abusive relationships. His wife, feeling left out, tearfully told them all that Jeff beat her, too. When he arrived to pick her up and take her home, everyone at the meeting gave him the cold shoulder. Only later did his wife admit to him what she'd said.
"She told them I hit her!" he said, "No wonder they all looked at me like that. I swear, I never laid a hand on her!" His voice rose in hysteria, years after the incident and the marriage were long over.
"Oh, admit it, you kind have wanted to at that point," I teased him.
"I didn't want to hit her, maybe just shake her a little," she said.
"Then she really would have something to tell them about at her next meeting," I said, and winked at him. He made a low growling noise in his throat and skulked off.
To this day, seeing The Serenity Prayer printed on anything makes the cords in the side of his neck stick out a little.
A day later, I still find myself thinking of that pair sitting in Starbucks, the young woman and the soccer mom. They didn't look like they would know each other, yet they connected all too well. They had nothing in common except a shared demon and a plethora of pithy, rhyming mantras to help them make it one day at a time.
I'm glad they've made positive changes in their lives, and I wish them the best. Still, I think someone should warn them that when you speak in public, you should beware of harmless-looking people writing in leather-bound journals, because poets and story collectors do just that. You should talk quietly when you see one, lest your tale wind up God-only-knows where. We will slip it into our journals, muse over it in our heads, write poems about it and post blogs about it over the Internet.
Your name will still be anonymous, but everything else about you might well be preserved for the ages.
