Gilda

I'm not sure if I can make it to class tonight. I'm exhausted and the thought of doing those emotionally touchy feelie improv exercises before class makes me want to scream.

I feel sad about this because I have really been enjoying the class and interested in the conversations we've had. The instructors are really good. Up until this afternoon, I thought I would not have a story to share, I've been too emotionally raw to write anything good. Everything is weepy self-pity diary type entries I would not share .. even here. Believe me, it can get a whole lot worse than what is here!

But I pulled together a first draft of something over lunch and I could do an edit before class if I go. I don't hate it.

It is weird to share stories for class in writing since these stories are designed to be read or performed. I have begun writing them that way, not trying to convey in punctuation the things I would do with voice. And writing in a way I would speak rather than read on a page.

But I will give it a whirl:


Because I am not the Unibomber.
Or a shoe bomber.
An underpants bomber,
Or any of the other murderous monsters of the past 50 years, I’ve noticed that people go out of their way to be kind to me, especially when mentioning what they perceive to be one of my key personality traits.

When describing me people often pause and say
hhhhhmmmmmm
and then go on to say something like:
Autonomous.
Calm.
Comfortable with silences and myself.
Self-sufficient,
self-reliant,
self-contained,
serene,
confident,
or bravely independent.

Those are nice things, and some of them may even be true.

But I’m fully aware that if I take one small step over the legal line, if my mug shot shows up on the evening news, there’s a whole list of people, regulars at my local pubs, coworkers and even relatives, just waiting to say what they really mean:
Loner.

I think that there is really only one reason people get this impression of me. Sure, there are plenty of tiny reasons and minor examples offered up, like that time I went on vacation with my highly energetic Aunt who gets more errands done and rooms cleaned in a day than I do in a month. We had rented a cottage on an island in British Columbia and I decided to spend an entire day sitting on a bench out by the water. First I watched the tide come in and then I waited and watched the tide go out. I only got up to run inside to pee a few times and grab a sandwich.

Just sitting and watching and thinking.

My Aunt was so amazed,and confused, by this that she took a picture of me to prove it happened.

But most people don’t even know about things like that, the main reason people who don’t know me well get this impression that I am self-contained is that I like to go out, right here in the city, and do things by myself. Things like going out to eat ... and not just lunch at Subway but real meals, in sit down restaurants, sometimes even with table cloths, surrounded by couples on dates and friends catching up and rowdy groups.

Or going to plays or to see bands.

But best of all, I love to find a cozy bar, grab a stool, and sit down for a long stretch with a drink and a stack of magazines and books, and a notebook to jot down thoughts.

Apparently, this is still unusual for an adult woman in 2011?

And I admit, I don’t see too many other solo women when I’m out. I see men frequently, they’re often watching some sports thing on TV. And women I’ve talked to about this are mostly divided into two camps, those who can’t imagine why anyone would want to go out and do something without a friend or partner to talk to while they were doing it and those who are intrigued but think it sounds too socially scary. The first camp always asks:

Isn’t it boooring? Why would I want to do something alone?

and the second always asks:

Don’t you feel weeeird? Like people are staring at you? I’d be so self-conscious!

I’ve never felt any of those things, so I guess I was willing to take credit for some of those nice words people used to describe me, even if it did seem a bit too easy to earn them.

Then, about a year ago, I saw Gilda. Gilda, of course, is not her real name. I don’t know her real name; we never talked. We were both just women out and enjoying our own company at a bar, not looking to chat or share our life stories.

It was at my favorite pizza place and brewpub, the one with the great skylight that I can sit beneath for hours on end in the middle of the day and read and write and drink wonderful tulip glasses full of IPA. It was a Sunday, but not during football season, so the bar wasn’t packed full with meatheads.

I had been there for about an hour, absentmindedly eating the same kind of pizza I'd ordered so many times that the bartender memorized it and sent it in as soon as I sat down: personal size, red sauce, with goat cheese and basil.

My nose was in a book, but I vaguely noticed the couple who came and went next to me. I think a man stopped in and drank a beer in one long draw. And I overheard the waitstaff and a few of their friends from neighboring bars talk about the drinking they had done the night before and exchange some clique gossip.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a long, luxurious cascade of auburn curls, impressive enough to give my full attention to.

I took my nose out of the book.

She sat down five chairs away, far enough that, without my glasses on, everything was a little blurry, like the soft focus-lens in a romantic movie. She was looking down at her candy apple red phone and was turning it off; her face was obscured by that wonderful tumble of hair.

What in the world is that woman WEARING?

She had on a cream colored, lacy dress with long sleeves and a high neck. She was wearing white tights but I couldn’t see her shoes, obscured but all the stool legs and seat bottoms. It was a mother-of-the-bride kind of dress and she had a mother-of-the-bride kind of matronly figure to go with it.

Wow. Not what I was expecting when I glanced that fiery hair.

I wondered if she was on her way to church or maybe on the way home from it, and was just stopping in to get a beer to take the edge off. I smiled to myself and put my nose back into my book. By the time I was another chapter in, I had started to think of her as Gild. I had no idea what I was reading and my mind kept wandering back down the bar to her. I put the book down and covertly observed.

Gilda wasn’t DOING anything.
She wasn’t looking at any of the TVs.
She wasn’t reading.
She wasn't chatting to the bartender or any of the gossiping staff clustered around the wait station.
She wasn’t writing or doodling.
She wasn’t looking around, even covertly, and people watching.
She was just sitting.

How could she just sit there for so long?

I realized that I always distracted myself somehow. If I didn’t have anything to read, I scrounged a pen from the waiter and wrote all over stacks of cocktail napkins. When I was out to see a band and it was in between sets, I felt all hands and feet and constantly in the way. And I hate those cheap little paperback novels that can’t be propped open with plates and silverware.

How was I supposed to hold open a book while cutting and eating my food?

My personal library is as coated with tomato sauce and soy sauce and salad dressing as my cookbook collection is.

Gilda reached for her beer and I saw a flash of cocktail rings … on a really large hand. And as she brought the glass to her lips, she turned her head slightly toward me.

Gilda was a man.

Everything registered at once but the thing that stuck with me was not the pancake foundation or the heavily eyeshadow; it was her absolutely beautiful and serene smile.

Knowing and content.

People always talk about Mona Lisa’s smile, I myself am drawn more to those of the saints and Madonna’s of the Northern Renaissance. But none of those paintings could hold a candle to Gilda.

She sat there like that, smiling quietly, for another hour. She was happy to just be Gilda.

Gilda out for a beer, at a bar beneath a wonderful skylight, surrounded by couples and hungover waiters, and a woman reading a book. She didn’t want to be distracted from just being herself.

I know, I’ve read a lot into a smile.
I have no real idea of what Gilda was thinking, or how she felt when she walked into the men’s room after her 2nd beer, if she’d be glad that I thought of her as Gilda or be frustrated that I also thought of her as a man.

I’m making lots of leaps with zero information.

But I did think about her a lot that day and often since then. I hope she was as self-satisfied and content that afternoon as I imagined. She certainly inspired me to put down my distractions more often and just enjoy myself. To be a little bit more
Autonomous.
Calm.
Comfortable with silences and myself.
Self-sufficient,
self-reliant,
self-contained,
serene,
confident,
and bravely independent.