Month: November 2018

Isobel’s Quandary

Posted on by Kai Raine

My mother and I used to read a lot of Eva Ibbotson romances.

And by “a lot,” I mean “all of them.” It was my mother who started giving me straight-up romances, instead of my usual fantasy or mystery novels with romantic subplots. She tried this several times—I don’t know if it’s because she liked romances, or because she thought I seemed to get the most out of those romantic subplots. I suppose we’ll never know, since I never thought to ask.

Whatever her motive, she tried several times—and most times, those attempts failed miserably. She first introduced me to romance novels when I was about eleven or twelve. These were novels like teen romance movies from the ’80s, revolving around high school and cliques and peer pressure, and that one perfect boy who comes and turns the main character’s life upside down.

I wasn’t yet at the point where I could form the opinion of “disliking” a book. I don’t remember having any particular negative feelings. I merely didn’t feel like reading more things like that. I do remember not understanding why there were weird initiation rituals to cliques, and wondering why in the world anyone would bother.

I was fifteen or sixteen when my mother finally found my sweet spot: that sweet spot was Eva Ibbotson.

I’d already read and loved Journey to the River Sea, Which Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, and other such stories. One day, my mother handed me The Countess Below Stairs. I took one look at the author name and started reading.

I was hooked. I was weirdly into Russia at the time, and the historical fiction with an aggressively tame, G-rated romance was right up my alley. The countess-turned-servant angle was also pretty fun. Somehow, that book managed to push all my buttons: it gave me angst without getting dark; deep, world-rocking emotion without getting wordy or descriptive about it; and a main character whose misfortune didn’t bring her down, who seemed to go around making other people’s lives just a little bit brighter.

I have to say, I think that part of the appeal of Eva Ibbotson romances are that they aren’t merely romances. The two main characters overcoming the obstacles that keep them from being together when they first meet—that’s just the frosting on the cake that is these stories. The cake is the sheer richness of story, full of side characters with little stories in their everyday lives.

In the case of The Countess Below Stairs, it’s in the neighbors, the staff, and both families. These books are populated with characters with joys and sorrows and dreams and hopes and fears, and Ibbotson weaves them all together into a stunning tapestry that always leaves me looking at the world around me and feeling it a little brighter.

I bring this up because recently, I’ve been thinking of A Company of Swans. This is the story of Harriet, the abused daughter of a misogynistic professor, who runs away from home (and, indeed, England) to be a dancer with a ballet company that goes to Brazil. Here she meets Rom, the second son of an English noble who left home in a rage after the love of his life, Isobel, was offered a choice between Rom with his love or Rom’s brother with his title and money—and Isobel chose the latter.

My mother and I used to talk about this book, once upon a time. I was young, and the uncaring, status-obsessed Isobel didn’t seem worth much thought. She was a villain, for the purposes of the story. Obviously Rom had been mistaken in her character, I thought.

My mother disagreed. She reflected that the choice Isobel made—choosing status over love—must have changed her, because she would have had to live with that choice afterwards.

Years later, upon rereading the book, I was surprised that I’d ever thought of Isobel as a villain. She’s uncaring towards her son and clearly pursuing Rom at Harriet’s expense. Yet Rom himself points out in the text—he can only pity her. I find that I pity her, too.

Of course, there’s no way to know how Eva Ibbotson intended Isobel to be read, but as a believer of the school of thought known as Death of the Author, I don’t really think it matters. I like my mother’s interpretation, because I believe that that is a true phenomenon. We make choices that we tell ourselves are practical, because they offer us what we think is supposed to make life happier, or easier; but in reality, we’re giving up something else that we’d never have given up, had we known how much of ourselves we would lose in the process.

It’s easy to look down on Isobel, I think, because we’re indoctrinated on Hollywood and Disney movies telling us to Follow Your Heart, and that True Love is the answer. It may be easy to see why giving up your true love for his brother’s status and money would cut this woman to the soul and change her fundamentally, for the worse. But despite—or maybe because of—that, I think Isobel is a beautiful lesson hidden in plain sight.

I think of Isobel a lot, these days. I say I pity her, but I don’t mean it in a condescending way, if that’s at all believable.

I have a low-paying part-time job, and have been accepted for a second part-time job starting next year. But I’m already experiencing weeks when my body simply can’t keep up with the one job plus research, plus all the other random things I decide I want to do (reading, volunteering, going out with friends, writing).

So I applied for a scholarship through my university, and they recommended me for one, which I then proceeded to fill out and complete the application.

It weighs on my mind, now. This scholarship would be from a tobacco company. The money would be good—enough to live on 2/3 and have 1/3 left over for fun, or savings. When I completed the application, I was in the mindset of, “Well, a scholarship is a scholarship.”

I spent half of this month living on meager paycheck to meager paycheck, and it was rough. So I saw the opportunity for an end to this, and I leapt at the thought.

But ever since, I’ve felt the weight of it on my mind, darkening me. I’ve found myself thinking of Isobel.

It’s practical. But if I get accepted (because I haven’t been yet, thank goodness), and I take it, what is the true cost going to be? In a physical sense, it would make life easier; but for my mind? I feel like it would cloud me up again. All the junk in my mind I’ve cleared away, the little bit of clarity I feel like I’ve finally been arriving at in this last year, or half a year—what was all that for, if I’m just going to take a scholarship from a company that I know I don’t like? Who’s actively pushing tobacco into international markets?

After all this time, sorting through all the little things that have clouded my mind and made me more a product of my environment than anything truly me—what kind of idiot am I that I think that I can accept something like this in the name of ease and time and think it won’t affect me in any bigger ways? That it can just be a paycheck and an occasional gala-type event that I have to attend? When has that type of logic ever truly worked for me? (Never. I can’t remember a single instance where it didn’t come back to haunt me.)

Practicality is only one part of the puzzle—a big part, yes, but I think I’d rather deal with the impractical solution that leaves me without such a weight on my conscience.

EDIT: I don’t think that Isobel necessarily would have been happier had she married Rom. Clearly, a penniless suitor wasn’t something that appealed to her, regardless of how much love there was between them. I do think that even if she had made that choice, they would most likely have grown apart in time and become unhappy—maybe Rom would have gone on to meet Harriet, fall for her and have an affair with her anyway, and she really would have become his mistress, just as she was convinced that was the most she could ever hope for in the story itself.

I don’t think Isobel’s mistake was not marrying Rom. I think her mistake was marrying Rom’s brother. And those are not the same thing, to me. But I also recognize that in reality, that’s probably the hardest choice to make of all. Stuck between the choice your heart yearns for and the choice your mind yearns for, saying “I pick neither” is probably the hardest thing in the world, and itself carries the risk that then you’re searching for some impossibly perfect thing to justify what you gave up for some reason you probably can’t even articulate.

Just so we’re clear.

The Irresistible Lure of Failure

Posted on by Kai Raine

Have you ever heard of the secretive, bizarre 60-hour over-100-mile race that has only been completed by 15 runners since it began 30 years ago?

If you answered no, we’re in the same boat. I’d never heard of the Barkley Marathons until this week.

When I’m tired, I often watch the Today I Found Out YouTube channel. Earlier this week, I stumbled across this video when YouTube recommended it to me.

If you don’t have the time to watch an 18-minute video, here’s the TL;DW (“too long; didn’t watch”, or a brief summation of the video): Barkley is a race that is deliberately designed to be unbeatable. From the secretive application process to the course that gets harder every time someone manages to finish, the whole thing is designed to be an Experience in Failure.

And from the moment that I watched that first YouTube video, I have been utterly hooked. It’s funny, in a way, because while I do run sometimes as a means to an end (i.e. exercise), it’s never been something I enjoy. I’m happy when I can run 5km continuously; never in a million years have I considered running a marathon, let alone one that’s 160km in the mountains.

But that’s not the point.

This race, to me, isn’t about the running. No—instead, it’s the stuff of dreams: pushing yourself to the limit for a near-impossible goal, with no reward on the horizon beyond the ability to say “I did it.”

Isn’t it glorious?

I’ve watched footage of the race taken by runners, an absolutely spectacular documentary about Gary Robbins’ attempt to complete the race, and a multitude of other sources about the race.

It brings me such joy, this race.

We as a society can be so insecure when it comes to failure.

Whether it be the validity of our own opinions, little inevitable mistakes born of carelessness or inexperience, arbitrary goals that we set for ourselves, or a wide range of other things, we can become embarrassed or ashamed in the moment or even just reliving the memory. Sometimes, we even lie or obfuscate to hide these little things.

But why?

Failure is a wondrous thing. For years, The Incomplete Book of Failures by Stephen Pile has been a staple gift item of mine. It may be out of print, but it is such a wonderful book to have around so that one can have a good laugh from time to time.

But that’s always been insufficient in and of itself, of course, because that book is more about laughing at other people’s failures than about being secure about our own.

It’s more than that, I realized recently as I read The Story of Jiro by Kojin Shimomura. This is a story of an unfortunately “monkey-faced” second son of a well-off family growing up and learning about life and the people around him. It reminded me somewhat of Anne of Green Gables, both stories being episodic stories of a particular child that expanded gradually into that character’s lifetime in stories.

The Story of Jiro and the Danger of Praise

One of Jiro’s childhood struggles is his insecurity about his position in the eyes of the adults in his family. Because Jiro’s mother was unable to produce enough milk, Jiro was raised in his early years by a wet nurse; consequently, even after he is reclaimed by his birth parents, he grows up perceiving his wet nurse as his main mother figure. Between Jiro’s paternal grandmother’s overt favoritism for both of his brothers over Jiro, and his own internal conviction that his own mother neither wants nor loves him due to poor communication between the two, Jiro finds refuge in the male adults in his family: his father and maternal grandfather. At first very rebellious, Jiro settles down after a series of events culminating in a meaningful discussion with his grandfather.

After a time during which Jiro takes care to behave himself well, including several Very Good Deeds, he is praised by everyone in his family—save his grandfather. Jiro becomes increasingly convinced that he has been shunned by his grandfather, and is just about to lash out—when his grandfather acknowledges that Jiro has done a Very Good Thing.

Jiro is at a loss at this. If his grandfather has always been on his side, then why hasn’t he been praising Jiro along with all the other adults?

His grandfather tells him a story, then, about a young Buddhist disciple. All the young disciples are trained in reciting the sutras, but most of them do so going through the motions, only memorizing the words. This disciple, however, is different. He takes the time to meditate on the meanings; to ask the monks about what he doesn’t understand, and meditate upon their answers. Because he takes the time to understand, when he recites the sutras, it is a beautiful thing to hear.

One day, a group of visiting monks arrive, and this young disciple recites the sutras for them in a ceremony. The monks are duly impressed, and tell the disciple that they have never heard those sutras recited so wonderfully. Their praise is lavish, and the disciple is utterly delighted.

And from then on, whenever he starts to recite the sutras, what comes to mind is not the meanings of the sutras, but instead the delight he felt at being praised for reciting so well. The brilliance of his recitation fades away, until they ring dull and hollow.

At last, the boy goes to the monk presiding over his temple and asks for permission to go into the woods to train alone.

“Why do you want to do that?” asks the monk.

“I can’t focus my mind,” the disciple laments. “Ever since those visiting monks praised my recitations, my head’s been turned. I am still utterly immature.”

The monk considers the disciple solemnly. “You are wise,” he says to the boy. “For where many focus on the way that a scolding disturbs the mind, words of praise are far more dangerous—but there are few who ever notice.”

Jiro’s grandfather finishes the story, and asks Jiro if he understands. Jiro does.

I felt like I was there with Jiro, a child being enlightened on something so simple—something that I almost feel like I remember hearing as a child and then forgetting because I, unlike Jiro, didn’t understand its significance.

The Gift of Failure

I’ve been learning to practice radical self-acceptance—this is my therapist’s school of thought. In learning this, failures and mistakes have been the greatest gift.

I grew up beating myself up for every failure; recounting and reliving failures hours or days or months or years past again and again. Somehow, there was a part of me that thought that failure=bad and therefore I must punish myself.

But that’s not true, I’m finally learning. Failures are utterly valuable—I can learn from them, and not just in a don’t-do-this-again sense.

It’s in learning to apologize and change my behavior without letting shame disrupt my mind. It’s in accepting that in conversations where miscommunications prevail, I don’t have to keep talking, trying to clarify as if the misunderstanding is tantamount to a lie. It’s in accepting that I can tell people things about uncertain thoughts of the future without throwing the mantle of “unreliable” over myself when I ultimately don’t choose to do what I said I would. It’s in accepting the flaws of my mind and action as things that are, indeed, flaws, but are simply a part of me and nothing to be ashamed of.

There was a part of me that always thought that if I stopped beating myself up for each and every failure, I’d lose the ability to learn from each failure.

But that’s not what’s happened.

Instead, I’m only more clear-minded: “I didn’t like how I said that. Oh well. Next time.” And often, I do change. Maybe not immediately, but gradually and surely.

And I can do these, because they are failures. Praise and success are, as Jiro’s grandfather’s story portrayed, harder to recover from. I had no words for it before I read that book. Praise sometimes paralyzes me as I fear squandering the good will I’ve somehow built up. Other times, success makes me lazy until I am failing once again and must fight my way back up.

Circling Back to Barkley…

Is this why the idea of a failure-guaranteed race so appeals to me? Maybe. I can’t say for sure. All I know is that I love the idea of Barkley.

Something contestants are almost guaranteed to fail. But they try it anyway. They wish each other five loops with grins. They push themselves and push themselves, and many try again and again.

It’s a bizarre little event.

And I love the idea of it.

The Different and the Same

Posted on by Kai Raine

“No one is born with prejudice,” I often hear. And while that is true, it does come with some caveats. No one is born racist, but most small children do grow accustomed to a certain set of physical characteristics that they frequently see, and can become alarmed upon meeting someone with different characteristics.

For me as an infant, it was men with beards and/or deep voices. My father’s voice isn’t very deep, and he’s chosen to present himself as clean shaven consistently since before I was born. Of my parents’ friends, most were also clean shaven and with higher voices. When the few with beards or deep voices attempted to approach me, my mother recounted, I would cry.

The community where we lived when I was born was a very, very white one. So perhaps it was inevitable that one girl of my age would scream bloody murder at the sight of my dark-skinned father—an action which led her embarrassed parents to suddenly realize they had somewhere else to be, as the story was recounted to me.

I never noticed the skin color difference until I was put into preschool at four years old.

There was a state-mandated inclusivity session for preschools, called “We’re all different, we’re all the same.” In this session, the teachers sat us all down and explained to us that everybody is the same, even if our hair color or eye color or skin colors are different.

I have no doubt that this is a session that was useful to some children, who had already noticed that there was a difference and started acting upon it. However, for me, it had the opposite effect.

I looked around, and for the first time, realized that all the children but me and one boy had white skin, and most of them even had blond hair and blue eyes. I had boring brown eyes; stupidly dark hair; and shamefully dark skin. Obviously, I realized, if they were telling us that we were actually all the same, that meant that we weren’t. That day, I went home and cried to my mother, asking why I couldn’t have her skin, hair and eye color.

My mother was furious, but had no idea what to do except try to explain to me that I was perfect as I was. (Not that it mattered. I’d already firmly decided that white skin, blue eyes and blond hair were the Ideal.) My mother remained so furious that over twenty years later, she wrote a lengthy letter to one of my preschool teachers, detailing the damage that that single session did to my psyche.

As it turned out, that teacher was already aware of the damage. She had colored grandchildren, who had gone through a similar experience, and lamented the state mandate for the inclusivity session that seemed to have the unfortunate effect of making visible minority children aware that they were minorities.

I’ve often pondered this. It took the better part of a decade for me to grow out of the idea that someday I might be able to change my looks for the better with plastic surgery.

Yes: in my early teens, I actually became more secure with my looks. I attribute it partly to losing interest: after nine years of mentally beating myself up for being what I was, alternating between avoiding mirrors and staring into them detailing all the physical characteristics that were “wrong”—first because I wasn’t white, and then because I wasn’t Japanese—I finally simply grew tired of the stress and resigned myself to what I was. It helped that there were bigger things to worry about regarding my appearance, like my horrid acne outbreaks and my awful habit of scratching at them until they bled rivers in the middle of class.

What I most regret—what terrifies me to confess about this whole debacle, was the way I treated others. Because I was so convinced that being dark skinned was bad, I shunned the child—namely the one boy in my preschool—who was darker than I. Because being dark was bad, but being associated with other dark children, in my mind, would have made it even worse, as if somehow my skin color might change by association.

I don’t have a solution to this sort of situation. I’m sure there are excellent programs out there. This is simply my story.