emotions

Hiding anger was a survival skill,
so you might not know I’m angry

By David McElroy · January 28, 2019

My crime was slight, but my father was filled with rage. While he was out of town, I had used the record player in our living room. I was about 8 years old. My mother had been there and the four of us — my two sisters, Mother and me — had wanted to listen to some music.

It was some sort of silly, child-like music. I can remember us dancing around the living room — all four of us — having a joyful time.

Then my father came home.

Somehow, he found out that I had used the record player. He had told me numerous times that I wasn’t allowed to use the record player, because I might scratch a record. I could even damage the needle. Or something terrible, apparently.

He flew into a rage and screamed at me. I stood quietly, just as I always did. I picked a button on his shirt to concentrate on. I was required to look at him, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything or show any response. That was the unspoken rule. Most of all, I couldn’t dare talk back or show any hint of anger.

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Nature struggles to keep alive
the living things that it creates

By David McElroy · November 11, 2018

For the last few years, I’ve struggled to kill a stubborn little weed.

I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no idea exactly what it is or where it comes from, but a tiny shoot of it keeps growing out of a little space at the top of one of my kitchen windows.

I’ve cut it. I’ve poured weed-killer into the crack between the window and the wall. I’ve killed everything outside the house that looked as though it might somehow connect to it. But no matter what I do, I keep finding a little shoot growing out of that spot, often with tiny new leaves.

I just found these latest leaves a few minutes ago. I was shocked, because I thought I’d won the battle a couple of months ago. I thought it was gone. But somehow — despite all my best efforts — it’s back again. It’s still alive.

As I stood there looking at it — again contemplating how to kill it for good — I couldn’t help but realize that Nature works really hard to ensure the survival of certain things it creates. And then it occurred to me that this was a perfect metaphor for some powerful feelings that I haven’t been able to kill.

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Here’s my grass-cutting neighbor attacking my yard this afternoon. No, I won’t tell you which house is his, because I’m afraid you’ll steal him to do your yard instead. I really appreciate Harvey. My yard was looking pretty ratty. Another neighbor, Cora, called me on the phone while he was cutting and said, “Did you know someone is cutting your grass?!” I told her not to say anything because he might come to his senses and quit working if she did.

I got an email this week from an Australian psychologist who wanted to let me know that the therapists at the clinic she runs have been using an article I published six months ago — “If you grow accustomed to abuse, you eventually accept it as normal” — as required reading for their patients. (The clinic specializes in abuse by partners and parents.) She asked if I would let them print it for internal use by their clients, too, because she said some clients had found it was a good way to start opening up to the idea that maybe their experiences with a spouse or parent had been abusive and they hadn’t accepted that for a long time. I was really happy to find something I wrote being helpful for hurting people.

Do you remember me telling you about a couple who moved in two doors down from me just a month or so ago — and I saw them out making family pictures with children and grandchildren in their yard on Easter? I finally met them tonight while Lucy and I were out walking. They’re super nice folks, but here’s the reason I’m mentioning this. The man asked if I would mind if he cut my grass. I thought at first that he was just trying to make some money, but he didn’t want anything. He said he just enjoyed cutting grass on his riding lawn mower, so it would be a little bit of extra riding. I told him he was crazy — and they both laughed — but he’s going to start cutting it this weekend. I really do live around nice folks who treat their neighbors well. It makes me feel fortunate to know these people.

This is a day when I’d like to walk away from work for six months or a year and go make a film instead. Not necessarily as a way to get wealthy or as something to do for the rest of my life, but just to take a defined chunk of time and make something I could finish quickly. It was December 2004 when I shot my only existing short film (“We’re the Government — and You’re Not”) and it played in 20 film festivals over the next couple of years. It even won some audience favorite awards. It was a big deal to me. That short represented where I was then, but it’s nothing like what I’d make today. The YouTube version has more than 300,000 views, but the Vimeo version is better quality. As I thought about all this tonight, I pulled out scripts I’ve worked on since then and was surprised to find they were surprisingly good. I don’t really think much now about making a living this way, but I’d still like to make some art. Taking the time off to do it now is not financially feasible, but if it were even remotely possible, I would walk away today without a second thought.

As I pulled out of my driveway Monday, I glanced over at my neighbor’s yard and saw that she had dozens of bright yellow and red flowers looking gorgeous in the bright spring sunlight. I picked up my phone and called Cora as I drove so I could tell her how beautiful her yard looks today and how much I appreciate the work she’s done. I could hear the joy in her voice as she explained that she had gotten away from gardening since her husband’s death five years ago shattered her world. She said this is the first year she’s tried to get back to what she used to do — and she was proud as a peacock to have someone notice. “You have made my day, David,” she said with sincerity. The call didn’t take more than 60 seconds, but I had told her something honest that she needed to hear — and she was happy. It reminded me again that we have the power to make other people happy if we choose to care about them and express the words they need to hear. Whose day can you change today?

emotions

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