Weird Loud Smelly World

Photo by Gina Easley

By Jody Mace

When I was around nine, I used to practice being blind. It was a strange practice but not totally far-fetched. I had worn glasses for near-sightedness since I was six, and my vision was already terrible. If I’d lived in a different age I probably would have already accidentally walked off a cliff by then. I practiced being blind by walking slowly around the house, blindfolded, my fingers trailing along the walls and doors. I’d get a box of Cocoa Pebbles from the pantry, pour it into a bowl, and top it with milk from the refrigerator. The important things. I’d play piano, trying to memorize my favorite songs, training my fingers’ muscle memory, so that the spacing between the keys was second nature.

I was completely confident that with adequate preparation I could adjust when I went blind and do fine, at least in the practical sense. But the part that really terrified me was just the idea of not seeing anything anymore. When out of my blindfold, I’d look around and try to memorize what things looked like so that when the inevitable darkness came, I’d at least have something to look at in my imagination. Otherwise, no more light, no more moon, no more colors, no more faces.

•••

I’m on a plane heading west. We’re over one of those states that I can never remember, one of the middle states. It might start with a vowel. I know that there are people who live down there but it’s almost impossible for me to hold that thought as a reality in my brain. When I’m on the ground and a plane passes overhead it’s the same thing.

Child development books talk about “object impermanence,” where babies under a certain age don’t understand that something exists if they don’t see it. Out of sight, out of mind. I guess that’s why peek-a-boo is continually exciting for them. It doesn’t take much.

It’s the same thing with adults in a way, though. Down there someone is in the grocery store deciding what kind of cheese to buy. Someone is practicing chords on a guitar. Someone’s teenage daughter just told her that she hates her.

As an exercise in compassion I try to picture these people down in that unspecified state and contemplate their humanity. But it’s too crowded a picture in my mind. The composition of the picture is stressful and chaotic, like a Where’s Waldo book. All those tiny people with their lives. They’re all talking over each other and I can’t handle hearing about all their problems, not all at once.

There’s an actual real, full-sized human behind me who’s been coughing this whole flight and I don’t care about him at all. Maybe it’s just allergies. Or maybe it’s emphysema, which is horrible, but in either of these cases his spittle is no danger to me at all. Or maybe he is contagious, but he’s on the plane because he’s going somewhere important and heartbreaking like a funeral. But I don’t care. I just want him to stop coughing. He should have taken a cough suppressant before he got on the plane. What kind of self-centered monster flies across the country hacking up the whole time?

Even though the guy on the plane is all too real to me, I don’t have any more compassion for him than I do for the theoretical people on the ground. I don’t want to think about what it’s like to be him right now. I can see him but I don’t really see him. It’s a myopia of the heart.

•••

My next-door neighbor works in security in Afghanistan. He’s over there for three or four months at a time and then he’s home for two weeks. Usually, the day after he gets home he knocks on my door and says he’s thinking of having “a little something for the kids” and is that okay with me?

I tell him of course it is, even though I know how it will go. The little thing ends up being a big party. Friends and relatives come and go all weekend. The music goes until late at night. He rents an inflatable water slide as tall as the house and puts it in the front yard. After the party there will be a couple of stray socks that have been carried by the temporary river and settled on the ground next to our trashcan.

I read about the party on Nextdoor. “Where’s that loud music coming from?” Consensus is that it’s a big problem. But what I know, and the complainers don’t, is that he’s been putting himself at risk and has been away from his friends and family for months. As far as I’m concerned, he can do whatever he wants, even if it’s a little bit too loud.

Somehow, we’ve gotten this idea that we have a right to never be disturbed by other people, to never be offended.

I understand wanting it to be quiet. I appreciate peaceful nights too. But, lately, and maybe it’s partly because my house is quieter since my kids grew up and moved out, I’m craving connection more than quiet. I want to know more about my neighbors. Sometimes it seems strange to be in such close proximity to so many people and know so little about them.

•••

We’re driving past Asheville, North Carolina, on our way home from a visit with relatives, and decide to stop there because a jazz fusion trio that we like is playing at a free, outdoor festival. The band is fronted by a steel drum player.

Asheville is a weird place. Sometimes I wonder if they embrace their weirdness a little bit too adamantly, and if it’s become contrived, just a marketing slogan. “Keep Asheville Weird.”

But on the other hand, it really is pretty weird.

Case in point: as the trio played, lurking backstage is someone wearing a Big Foot costume, holding a saxophone. We can see him there for a whole song, poised to come on stage.

Finally, he does, and it’s a surprise to the band. It turns out that he’s pretty well-known in Asheville. He goes by the name Saxsquatch. He’s got a Facebook page and everything. He randomly shows up at events and sits in with bands, apparently with no warning.

He’s a good saxophone player, although I can see that it’s a bit of a challenge to communicate with him. The steel drum player seems to try to tell him that the bass player is going to take a solo. He says something in the direction of Saxsquatch’s giant head, and pokes his big hairy arm with his sticks, but there’s no stopping Saxsquatch. He throws his head back and wails on that thing.

As the band’s been playing, the crowd has grown and it’s become more diverse. White, black, young hipsters, aging hippies. An older man who looks like he walked straight out of a holler is up front, clogging. It’s like he’s listening to a different band that’s playing some kind of old-time Appalachian mountain music, but on the other hand, maybe he’s hearing this inventive fusion band just as it should be heard and is adding his own chapter to its story. A young guy right in front of me gyrates with a hula hoop. He looks like it’s been a while since he wasn’t stoned and smells like it’s been even longer since he took a shower.

At first whiff, I’m annoyed, but he’s part of this scene too. He’s adding his own voice to this epic conversation. The sights and sounds and smells, even the ones that are a little messy, a little loud, a little rank, remind us that we’re part of a community of people. We’re not alone.

We’re all mysteries. Doctors can look at our brains with an MRI and can see the structures—the temporal lobes, the parietal lobes, the cerebellum, the thalamus, the hippocampus. Scientists have imaging technology that can reveal brain activity in those areas. But our actual memories and thoughts, the things we love, our fears, our hopes—although they’re stored in our brains, they’re all invisible. The only way we know anything about each other is through the stories that we tell. If we’re really listening to each other then we can’t divide people into us or them. But we have to decide if we’re ready to see other people, all people, as human. Because once we do, we can’t turn our heads away any longer.

I had one thing right when I was nine. The darkness is inevitable, one way or another, and until it comes I want to see everything I can.

The band’s telling its story through melodies and rhythms that twist around each other like a grapevine. Saxsquatch tells his story with his saxophone and with his mysterious arrival at the show. The drummer plays his solo with impossible speed, rising in intensity until he jumps an inch from the stool at the end, as if he levitated, as if, for a second, gravity was distracted by the story he was telling with his sticks.

Listen:

I want to hear your story. Even if you’ve told me before, I want to hear it again. I want to smell the burgers on your grill next door, even if I’m not invited to your party. When I walk into your kitchen I want to smell the curry you cooked, the ghost of your dinner. When you pull up next to me at a red light and the bass is thumping, I want to see you moving to the sounds, lost in the song. I want you to tell me about your tattoo. I want to sit across from you and your friend on the train and hear you speaking Spanish, Arabic, Lao. I want your drum solo to go on a little too long. Tell me your story. I’m going to try to listen.

•••

JODY MACE is a freelance writer living in North Carolina. Her essays have appeared in O Magazine, Brain, Child, The Washington Post, and many other publications, as well as several anthologies. Her website is jodymace.com. She publishes the website Charlotte on the Cheap in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is a regular contributor to Full Grown People.

 

Read more FGP essays by Jody Mace.