Before moving to Memphis I had started reading Veronica by Mary Gaitskill. I had come across some clippings from the book on goodreads – I was, I’m sure, looking for quotes on love or loss. I remember coming across this one and thinking this, to some extent, is my ex-fiancee, B.
I wanted to know people. I wanted to love. But I didn’t realize how badly I had been hurt. I didn’t realize that my habit of distance had become so unconscious and deep that I didn’t know how to be with another person. I could only fix that person in my imagination and turn him this way and that, trying to feel him, until my mind was tired and raw.
One of the more hurtful things I had said to B at the end was a criticism of her always running, always being on the move. It didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, but I was frustrated with the pushing away – it was a pattern she said she wanted to break, it should have never become a weapon in the moment. Sadly, that’s what people who love each other do to each other. At our worst, we use each other’s flaws and insecurities against each other – they are the warheads stacked in the kitchen.
Other quotes that resonated and made me decide to read….
feel like the bright past is coming through the gray present and I want to look at it one more time.
and this one….
You want to say, This is me; this is who I am. But you don’t even know what it is, or what it’s for. Time parts its shabby curtain: There is my father, listening to his music hard enough to break his own heart. Trying to borrow shapes for his emotions so that he may hold them out to the world and the world might say, Yes, we see. We feel. We understand.
I love the way Gaitskill uses language – “listening to his music hard enough to break his own heart” – it might not be to everyone’s taste, but the voice resonates with me. Getting caught up in the move and the job and the new city, I haven’t done a lot of reading lately (at least not the formal book type of reading). Last night, after a little bit of writing, and a fair amount of my own listening to my music, I turned back to Veronica. Actually, I first turned to a book I’ve been meaning to get to for a while (B’s uncle Dicky has written a few books. B really admired him – he’s been dealing with schizophrenia). I read a few pages and then went on to Gaitskill. Her writing still captivates me. One of the things I’m enjoying is the narrator’s self-talk, the view in to her mind that we get to glimpse. Throughout the book (what I’ve read so far), there is a tension between the narrator and the people she loves and wants to love. In particular, her family. She has an animosity towards her mother, and an almost pity for her father. I think this is what people talk about when they reference the challenges of mother / daughter relationships.
My mother looked at my image as if she were looking at a wicked little girl come to scornfully show herself to her poor mother. There was love in her look, but with such jealousy mixed in that the feelings became quickly slurred. It was what my mother gave me, so I took it and I gave it back; I reveled in her jealousy as she reveled in my vanity. Reveling and rageful, we went between sleep and dreams right there in the dining room. Silent and still, we attacked each other like animals.
I often wonder how many people have these feelings towards their parents or their siblings, or friends or lovers. Even if they do, can they stop time long enough to put such eloquence to the complexities? Gaitskill does something special in capturing the blurring of love and jealousy and rage.
It was winter and my mother’s skin dried and her face grew thin and shrunken. I might look at her in her rubber boots and her wool cap pulled down over her forehead, the wool darkening with sweat as she worked to scrape ice off the chugging car, and I would think, No sexy pantsuit now. Nobody wants you now! And with that thought, my heart contracted and the world shrank around me so fast that I thought it would crush me. Every morning, my father got up looking like he felt the same way. The expression on his face said that the world shrank around him every day, so close in that it was hard to move. The expression on his face said that he pressed against the hard case of the shrunken world and pushed it back with every step. It was an expression I knew without knowing. I put my forehead down and I helped him push.
Gaitskill’s narrator is all too human, with her very human thoughts and her very human guilt over having such thoughts. Relationships are complex. The narrator’s feelings towards her mother, father, sister (Daphne) are complex, and you get the sense she is adrift in her own pain and confusion.
I cried for what had hurt me, and felt contempt for those who loved me; if Daphne had put her arm around me then, I would’ve clenched my teeth with contempt. Then, lying next to her warm body was like lying in a hole with a dog and looking up to see gods rippling in the air of their hot-colored heaven. I wanted her to know that she was a dog, ugly and poor. I wanted all of them to know. I wanted my father to know that he would always be crushed, no matter how hard he pushed.
I can’t fully relate to some of the things being expressed. I have complex feelings, but not quite on this level. For the most part, I get along with my mother – no such animosity exists. She did a great job of raising me, and I credit her with instilling in me a sense of kindness towards the world. I have more complicated feelings towards my father. He taught me a lot about discipline and being true to my convictions, but much of who I am is also in reaction to / against who he is. I certainly don’t see him as being the tired man depicted in Veronica, but I’ve had times where I’ve pitied him for different reasons – mostly his inability to show love to people he doesn’t respect on an intellectual level. As I read, I think about other people’s relationships with their family. I think about how two of my co-workers were dreading the drama of Thanksgiving. I think about B’s complex feelings towards her family and her sense that everyone in her life has disappointed her coupled with her crushing guilt of being a disappointment to the people she loved (she was forever worried about upsetting me, and no amount of reassurance seemed to matter).
I’ve been fortunate in that I don’t think I’ve had these raging battles going on within. I haven’t felt that tug-of-war between love and guilt for maybe not being as loving as I should be… and when I do, I try to tell myself to be more loving. Reading Veronica makes me think about those people who are facing these inner wars. It makes me want to be more compassionate to everyone. In my post digital clippings, I had copied this image. The narrator in Veronica reminds me a bit of B, I sometimes wonder if she’s read it. I know I wanted to better understand the wars within. I know I wanted to stay, maybe even join the fight if I was invited.