Is It A Bomb Or A Bullet, And the Examination of Gaps

This past Saturday I walked into Poulsbo's WalMart, took a tour around the place as if I were a woman who knew exactly what I was doing and where I intended to do it , and finally walked up to a man wearing a name tag, and asked, "Where do you keep your bombs?"    

The man, wearing a white shirt and blue vest, took an immediate step away from me and attempted a smile. So did I. "Where we keep our bombs?" he parroted back. He appeared to be looking for Time.

"Yes," I said.  "I know you kekep them in the kitchen section, but I can't find that!"
"What kind of....um, bombs....are you looking for?" he said, his brow furrowing and his right arm motioning in what might seem to be a wave  action or a some kind of truly large tic.  Actually, he was waving to another man wearing a white shirt, a blue vest and a name tag. 

When the second man came up to us, the first man said, "Hi, Dave, this lady says she is looking for our bombs, which she thinks we keep in our kitchen section.  Do we have any kind of......well, I mean, (turning back to me) "....what do these bombs do, exactly?)

Glad to be back in the conversation, I said, "All my friends  have them. You put all kinds of stuff in them, turn them on, and in only minutes, maybe seconds, really ....boom!  Everything is liquid!  Or  mush!  I would think you would know exactly where they are!"

Dave smiled, patted Mr. First Man on the back and said, "I think she is talking about  'The Magic Bullet', Jim.  Are you sure you aren't talking about the Bullet?" he said, turning to me

Well, now. The Bullet.  The Bomb.  The Bullet.  The Bomb. Well, the Bullet certainly sounded more .....reasonable, calmer, and fast, yes, a bullet would be fast.  "I can go with that," I said.  "So where's the kitchen department?  Let's go see if we can find this Bullet."

And there, amidst blenders of all sizes and various modes of complications, was The Magic Bullet.   
"I'll take it," I said, and put it in my cart. Easy, see?   How could I have become so attached to the idea that it was called "The Bomb" in the first place? What is that about me? I'll think up a word or phrase or line from this or that, and I'll bet money on its accuracy, if need be.  There are areas in which no one in their right mind would want to bet with me, because they'd know I'd be right.  There are also those areas in my brain wherein if my friends were - - well, not my friends - - they'd be betting against me  and making money hand over fist.

It goes back to my Gaps.  

When first I entered psychotherapy at nineteen years old, suffering from the sickening, debilitating symptoms of anxiety disorder and panic disorder, I happened upon a very good doctor of psychology in Tacoma, Washington, where I was then living, with my first husband, Tom.  I couldn't drive, I could barely speak, I could fly in airplanes, I could sing on stage, but as soon as our set was over, I had to rush back into the kitchen and hold my head in my hands. Mostly, what I could do was read, which I did,  most eagerly.

And, somehow, what Dr. Raymond did, was to bring me back to Life again, to teach me how to look people in the eye, to help me find my tongue so that I could speak again, to give me stacks and stacks of old New Yorkers  and Saturday Reviews  and medical and  psychological journals to read and to give me an IQ test to prove what he already knew about me but I refused to acknowledge and, best of all, to listen to every single word I could muster about my life and ask questions and make comments and remain interested and supportive and never repulsed and never scared but always loving and  interested, even fascinated.  So that, at the end of our three years together, he said this: "I have not diagnosed you. You have no insurance and there is no need, therefore, for me to go through what I believe to be a certain type of  nonsence.  I do know you have been very sick and now you are capable of living a life of creativity and meaning and, most importantly of love. We have established the fact of your high intelligence.  But this level of intelligence does not mean you will not always have gaps. You just will.  It is my opinion you should simply accept these gaps and stay in the area of your brilliance.  Analytically, you will  always be successful..  Mechanically, directionally, you will always be quite low on the scale. Go to University but stay away from engineering. Get enough schooling under your belt that you can hire others to do the "gappy stuff".

So I brought The Bullet home, got out a banana, some strawberries, a handful of spinach, some yoghurt, chopped it all up a bit, and read the directions. In that order.  How hard could it be?  Until I noticed that the container part which held the ingredients appeared to be sitting upside down on top of the rest of the machine. Upside down. On top of the rest of the machine. How could it not spill out, while I was trying to attach the bottom--bladed-part?  But, life being somewhat magical inside the "gap part" of my mind,  I tried. I tried, like I have always tried, and what happened is what always happens, in one form or another - - fruit flying all over my kitchen,is what happened. The counter, the island in the center of my kitchen, the floor, my boots, the bottom hem of my wool skirt, and the gratitude, of course the gratitude that no one had been around to witness this travesty. Unless I had simply had the bad luck to purchase a Bad Bad Bullet.  But, of course and alas, that had not been the case.

It is never the case. It is me, it is always me, it is me and directions or me and mechanics or me and any given space like a garage or an automobile and a pole or, say,  a curb and the way my mind works. But. Give me a test  in a certain type of class,  give me several tests,  give me a masters thesis, give me a doctoral dissertation, and I will  ace it, I will cream it, I may well receive the highest score. Or.  Give me a piece of equipment which most of the populace can figure out in ten minutes and I will deck the halls with fruit and spinach.


The next day, I got up, ran downstairs, grabbed the Bullet box and a cup of coffee and sat for half an hour, reading and imaging, reading and imaging. Yes. I see. You need to turn over the extractor-ring-thing--- - you need to attach it to the bottom of your filled-jar - you need to attach it and then turn the filled-jar over AND THEN plug it in and then - -  but what makes it go?  WHAT MAKES IT GO?  There is nothing on the box that says, "And now, dear READER, here is what you do to make it GO.  TO MAKE IT GOOOOOOOOOOOOO.  To. Make. It. Go.   So there it all was, all filled, all fine and turned over and looking just like the picture on the box, but I couldn't make it go.  I plugged it but it wouldn't go. I felt all over for a button, for a place to press, for an indentation, for ANY indentation,  but....................so..........................
...........I.................unscrewed the    whole thing, poured the ingredients into a bowl, and ate them, in their original form,  with a fork.

I hated my Bullet.  I just hated it so much.  I wanted to throwthe damn thing off my deck.  I wanted to bang it down into my garage and hammer the hell out of it.  

Instead, I went down into my office and sat with the first three patients of my day.  I felt like I was supposed to feel, or at least how I have come to feel. Curious, calm, ready for anything, eager to see these people, interested, confident.  At the end of the third session my patient asked if I needed more eggs, for she is not just my patient, she is my fresh-egg deliverer, and I confessed that I can think of nothing that has anything to do  with my kitchen just now, because I have just purchased what is called "The Bullet" and, whatever the game we are playing together is called, it, The Bullet,  is winning and I am losing.

"May I come up for a moment and give you a hand?" she asked.
"Of course," I said.  I am not loathe to allow a patient of twenty-some years to give me a hand with the loathesome Bullet.  So up she came and said, "Well, tell me what problem you have having."
"Well," I said, "I don't know how to start it.  I can't find a way to make it go."
"Oh," she said, "that's easy. We don't have to put anything inside at all.  Just attach this to this, plug it in, and push."

She pushed, a motor sound began sounding, blades started running, and I knew that, if any fruit-substances were inside that glass thing, they would be being pulverized.

"Now you do it," she said to me.
I pushed.  No sound.  "Push harder," she said, kindly. "I pushed harder."  No sound.
"Give it hell!" she yelled.  I gave it hell, the motor came on, I could hear those blades a'runnin, and it sounded like heaven.

Ahhhhhhh. Now I knew. Surely I could do it, now. On my own.  She handed me a check which I should have handed back, but didn't, and all was well with the world. Or wasn't.

 So.  The next morning, that being today, I chopped up a banana, some strawberries, added some yogurt and a few rasberries, dropped them in one of the jars, took the mean-looking gray lid with the metal teeth, attached it to the top of the filled-up jar, turned the whole thing upside down, attached it all to the big holder, plugged it in, bore down hard, hard, and - vrooooooom, vrooooom.  Then I0 swept my arms up in the air in sheer triumph, whereupon the other gray lid with the other kind of metal extractor blade got knocked off the counter and slammed itself  down on top of my right bare big toe, banging me down to my bottom and making me to weep in pain for about two minutes before bringing myself back up to a standing position and sampling the contents of my mooshed-up breakfast  Magic Bullet. 

It was good enough for folk music.
 
Sometimes I fear for my heart.. 

Sometimes I think I was doomed before I was born.

Sometimes I think that to know me is to endure me.

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The author Dani Shapiro once wrote, "My father has a great philosophy.  He says, "You are the same person you've always been.  That doesn't change.

    Yeah.  That's a problem."
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From the colored little condo where it's never too late to figure out how to live.