The Human Circus
Written by Kelly on November 29th, 2009When I was 10, a neighbor knocked on our door. She sat in my mother’s kitchen all polyester grief. She told my mother about a broken down car that was at the shop. A broke down car is and is not a metaphor. She clearly wanted a ride to the market, but was afraid to ask. I watched the way she moved her mouth like a hint. It made me furious. Why didn’t she just come right out and tell my mother directly what she wanted? I left the room disgusted at how a person could be so weak. A half hour later, I smiled a greedy smile at the slope of my neighbor’s back as she walked down the street to her own home. I crept down the stairs and watched my mother quietly humming, washing out the dirty tea cups in the sink. I thought my mother the most beautiful thing.
My mother used to tell a story about my brother and I growing up at Christmas time. She liked to explain how my brother never asked for anything. Brian always believed in working hard for every thing he got. My mother would extol with obvious pride. I do not fault her in her storytelling. It is true. My brother is this very sort of amazing. Always has been. Enter the foil. Apparently, I was the opposite. I would sit with the Christmas catalogue and circle entire pages. I want this, and this, and this. The other children on the block called me Princess. When I hear my mother tell these stories, I marvel at how I could have been that little girl. Sometimes, I miss her.
All grown up, I once followed a homeless man down a street begging for him to get in my car so I could give him a thermos of hot tea and a blueberry muffin. The more he resisted, the more I was desperate to help him. There was something about his stubborn refusal that had me quite convinced that no one in the world could save him but me. Everyone needs. Some of us just need a lot more than others.
I am constantly trying to pin down my own definitions of self, but self is slippery. I grew up manipulated and angry. I grew up with the enormity of love. I spent my teenage years with an indefeasible loneliness and an inability to speak. I am constantly told that as an adult I talk too much. I am a woman surrounded by people. Sometimes all I do is ache to simply be left alone. All definitions are hazy.
Need is this strange thing, isn’t it? Look around and you see it, here, everywhere. Blogging only magnifies it. Sometimes I feel like we are this human circus. The fat lady charging a buck fifty to let the audience marvel in awe and revulsion at our skin. Some of us just smoke and mirrors, bravery like the man who stares down the open mouth of a lion and dares the crush of teeth on the vulnerability of his own head. Only most times the audience is unaware that the ferocious beast has been drugged into submission. Needs get tamed.
I do not know what I need or if I actually need anything at all. I am no longer the little girl who can turn the slick page of a Sears catalogue and have happiness materialize. I’m not a sullen teenager, either. I’ve been thinking a lot about that long ago neighbor. Why was I so angry with her? I think the answer to what I am asking might be found in the washing of dirty dishes and the broken down car that is and is not a metaphor.
29
AM
i find myself reading you and wanting to say something yet feeling completely inarticulate. that is not a feeling i have often, but it is one i actually enjoy (frustrating as it can be.)
i am the most ‘me’ when i live in metaphor. yet i’m usually alone. it’s always a welcome thing to read someone else’s words and feel like me.
few writers do that for me.
yet you do it time and time again.
thank you.
for inspiring me to write my own metaphors.
29
AM
Copy. Paste. This is how I feel but can’t put into words.
I was that little girl too, I wish I had saved a catalog so I can see now how uninhibited I was- now I can’t even ask my husband to put his f*cking dish in the dishwasher.
I still have needs but don’t want to appear weak.
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powerful writing.
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Yeah, this is it… this is exactly it. From different places but still the same… this is really it.
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After years in a marriage where I subverted my needs, my wants for too long, where I sat in our kitchen waiting for him to offer instead of me asking, I’m finally stepping back and asking what I need. A man to fuck the shit out of me. A man to hold me. I need the space to just be me-and I’m grabbing it now and it’s a wonderful feeling, even when it’s scary as all hell.
We’re told needs are weak, but they really aren’t. I wish we’d all believe that more often.
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Don’t be afraid to tell your needs.
They don’t let you appear weak. The wants do that.
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Why didn’t the woman ask? Asking would make her vulnerable. Is that why you disliked her? It reminded you of how that feels, to have your needs ignored.
Last night I was to meet a friend to see a movie. When she hadn’t shown up, I called her and she had been sleeping. I felt unseen, unworthy all over again, and then I felt angry. Angry at myself that I depended on her, she’s very undependable. Angry that she cares more for herself than for me, she should. Angry that it took me three hours of work to get out of the house and to the theatre on time, while all she had to do was roll out of bed and drive to the theatre. I still don’t know who or what I’m most angry with or about.
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It’s hard to be human.
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I think all we really are, as human beings, is a bundle of needs in a skin wrapper. I need to get up, I need to lie down, I need to work, I need to rest, I need to eat, I need to stop, I need love and anger,success and to deal with failure, security, tranquility, adventure and risk. Living is needing.
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I find myself waiting for each post by you – to make me think, revel in your words, feel, push the envelope.
I LOVE your writing!!!!!!!!!
You can put me right there in your kitchen in 1975, right there in your teen angst head… right there alive in each story.
Wow as usual.
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Our needs. Our tangled identities. This human circus. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thanks for visiting my neglected family blog, so I could find yours. For better or worse, you’ve gained a regular reader.
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I think that the manipulation of unstated needs is something that I sense and resent. I want to be asked, I want it straight and not to have some guessing game. I am no longer afraid to ask for what I need. I may not get it but I ask.
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It’s definitely is a lot to think and puzzle about.
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Amen. The need to be known and not known. The need to speak and shout and be silent. The wish that “they” would just read our minds, intuit our needs. Yes, and blogging makes it worse. I think I’m shutting down for a while. Hey, but you better not!
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Excellent. Agree 100%.
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What happened to two hands?
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I, too, am constantly trying to define and redefine myself under whatever labels will suffice and explain away why I can be desperately unhappy amid a shockingly beautiful life. Or how I can be strong and steadfastly calm while chaos rages around me. I am my own enigma sometimes. Especially now. I want someone to tell me what to do, how to feel and when it will all be okay (again.) Then the minute someone actually attempts that I burn them with a white hot fury of rage and poison darts that pierce the very foundation of our relationship.
Nice, huh?
And then some days, I just want to endlessly nap.
Most days, I sneak away and read your blog and remember I am not alone.
xoxo
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i couldn’t agree more.