It's a bad human habit: give voice to an emotion a singular part of you is having, without taking the time to identify and name that part.
It lands for the listener as a truth when, in actuality, it's the truth of just one part, not the entire story.
For example, let's say you are deep in a house buying process with your partner. One night, you say, "If it were just me, I wouldn't be buying a house right now,"
In fact most parts of you are consenting and have been engaged for months.
But you speak that sentence and the impact lands on your partner as a breach of trust.
You contain multitudes: you are an ecosystem of many parts.
Each part has its own needs and wants.
Ask: "What part are you? and then, What do you want and need?"
Ally sits across from me at the big wooden table where we meet three times a week. "C..RUN…CH" she sounds out. "Crunch." I nod, and she breathes relief, blond hair swinging forward so I can't see her eyes, likely full of tears.
"Do you want to practice your book for the showcase?" I ask. She nods. From the shelf of children's books behind me, I grab "Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It's the book she's chosen for the end-of-summer celebration where all the parents will gather to be impressed with their kids' reading progress.
Ally is ten, but reading at a first grade level. She has severe dyslexia, as do all my clients. She takes the book I hand her, still not meeting my eyes. She opens to the first page that she's read dozens of times. "Hi. I'm the bus driver. I've got to leave for a little while, so can you watch things for me until I get back? Thanks. Oh, and remember… Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!"
Like always, she laughs. She laughs at the pigeon's antics as he tries to convince the reader to let him drive the bus. All summer she works on her reading prosody so she can read with appropriate tone, rhythm, emphasis and pacing. "I have dreams you know!" she shouts, infusing the pigeon's voice with frustration and entitlement.
Even picture books follow a story arc. At the climax of this book, the pigeon stops trying to convince and cajole, and just loses his shit and completely freaks out. "LET ME DRIVE THE BUS!!!!!!" Ally screams in fury, shaking her head, eyes rolling backward, lips curling to reveal her sharp, white teeth.
Whenever she reads that page, I feel unexplained primal fear. Who is driving Ally's bus?
Eventually, my work with Ally ends. But it sticks with me: who is driving the bus?
I leave my marriage. In my head, the pigeon morphs into a drunk girl. She is rowdy, outspoken, and unashamed. She wants things, big things. "Don't let the drunk girl drive the bus!" I say to myself, but I never listen.
For a year, maybe two, she careens around in my life. She takes the corners too fast in relationships, makes huge leaps of faith, scares people who swear they'll not ride with her again. "That bitch is crazy!" they say, shaking their heads.
Not crazy, no. Uninhibited, unafraid. She gets fired. Buys her own schoolbus she can literally drive anytime. Writes an anarchist cookbook for teachers. Learns to dumpster dive. Fucks.
One day, we're driving along a quiet country road in the middle of a hot California summer. The dry dust sticks to the trees, the windshield. Suddenly, she pulls the bus to the side of the road, and turns off the motor. The engine rumbles, shakes violently for a moment, then lets out a sigh before settling. Leaving the key dangling in the ignition, she hops out of the driver's seat, and stands for a moment in the stairwell, backlit by the late afternoon sun. The smile in her eyes says it all: you drive now. I've taken you as far as I can.
Before I can ask, she's gone. What did she need? I can answer only by guessing.
She needed poetry felt on the rocky coast of the Pacific,
waves crashing into pebbly beaches, cold fog and sunsets.
She needed sexual autonomy: lovers, blood, magick, kink.
She needed no rules.
She needed to be trusted.
Above all, she needed permission to BE. Fraught, full of mistakes and edges and mishap, the drunk girl needed her chance at living.
Towards the end of that summer with Ally, I taught her a reading comprehension skill called a precis. In a precis, you read a passage and highlight the most salient word in each sentence. You string those words together to create a summary:
Relief comes with practice. let fear and fury drive your dreams get drunk and fuck the bus will careen f a r but trust.
Did you enjoy this post? The best way to say thanks is to share it!