I was standing in line at the bakery, waiting to buy the last cranberry sourdough loaf prominently displayed by the cash register. The door chimed, and a man walked in.
“Fuck!” he yelled.
My daughter turned to me and smirked, gave me the one eyebrow up look that I have obviously taught her. The eyebrow up means anything from hmm to what do you think you are trying to pull, young lady, etc. This man had come in and used a word usually reserved for the car when Mom’s driving. I just gave her a little shrug and reached for the loaf.
“Shit!” the man yelled.
Now I turned to get a glimpse. The guy was huge, size 15 feet perhaps, and built like I imagine small giants are built. I wondered if he wanted the last loaf, or if he was upset about the lineup, but as I turned, he was looking into the other cases, seemingly unperturbed. I smiled to myself. One of my all-time favorite characters in a book (Motherless Brooklyn, thanks, Todd S for recommending it those many years ago) has Tourette’s, and he is constantly shouting out things he shouldn’t at inappropriate times. But the reader gets a running commentary of what is going on inside his head, which is something entirely different from his EAT ME outbursts. I wondered if this guy had a similar problem. Or maybe he was expressing his dissatisfaction. I’ll never know. But when a character thinks something other than what he relays to the rest of the world, or when they get it wrong and don’t know it – he/she is called an “unreliable narrator.” Sometimes we do this in our daily lives, not just on the written page. I don’t often shout “fuck” when I’m thinking, “which bagel should I chose today?” but I do it in other ways.
For instance: In more times than I’d like to admit if I’m fighting with my husband I’ll be upset about something he didn’t say.
What’s that? Yes, that’s right.
I’ll say to him…”you said blah blah blah, and that upset me, and…”
“Hold it right there,” he’ll say. “That’s not what I said. THIS is what I said.”
Then he’ll explain to me the words he used, as opposed to the ones I heard. How is this possible? Emotion. It gets in the way of actually hearing what someone else is saying. I have to begrudgingly backtrack and admit that yes, I have somehow filled in the blanks with what I thought he was saying, what I felt like he was saying. I had turned my feelings into words, ones that were never even used. How ultimately frustrating for my husband, and for me, as I have to admit that I got it wrong, again. And I wonder if it’s inherited. My dad used to do this. He’d say, “But you blah blah blah…” and I’d say “No Dad. That’s not even what happened.” But he had concocted some story, told it to himself a few times, and then turned it into reality. Viola! A new reality!
Sigh. Its a wonder we can ever really communicate with each other. A friend of mine has a very apt bumper sticker that reads “don’t believe everything you think” with a buddha underneath. How true. I am my unreliable narrator!
I think I’m not alone in this. Ages ago I watched a 30 Rock episode in which Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) goes back to her high school reunion. She remembers all sorts of slights from the popular girls that she feels she might right this evening, only to have them confront her about all the horrible ways she put them down for being stupid or slutty. It wasn’t what she had remembered, but the realization that she was the bully set in. Amazing how often we get it wrong.
And sometimes we learn later what really happened. I had a woman at school be quite horrible to me while I was co-chair of the PAC. Horrible as in, I’ve never had vitriol spewed at me like that, ever, in my life. Much later I learned she was having a particularly hard time; I just happened to be in the way of that time. Was she a terrible person? No, probably not. She was just an unreliable narrator. And I couldn’t see that at the time.
So, I’m learning. I’m listening. I try not to let me own unreliable inner voice of bullshit get the better of me (you can’t write, why even try, you’re a terrible mother/partner/etc..fill in the blank). I’m also keeping in mind that a feeling, carried from long ago, might be a complete pile of manure, and I might as well offload it if it’s not affecting me today. Because I should not believe everything I think.
Although when I yell “fuck” in the car, I mean that. The kids can count on its complete reliability.