Fried Green Tomatoes

Of all the movie characters I've seen in forty-some years of movie watching, I'd most like to be Idgie Threadgood in Fanny Flagg's "Fried Green Tomatoes". Idgie was a tomboy's tomboy, tough, fearless, and pretty. Idgie, at about the age of 8, developed a crush on her teenage brother's girlfriend, Ruth Jamison. When her brother died tragically, Idgie went a little wild. She stayed that way for several years until Ruth arrived to bring her back into the civilized world. Idgie loved her. She gently wooed her by taming bees and giving Ruth their honey. And after a movie's worth of complication, they shared a home and raised a child together.

I love this movie because it's the life I want to live. The movie downplays sexuality and focuses on the character of Idgie as a woman of deep love and loyality, a fun, generous member of her community. While Idgie and Ruth clearly loved each other, and built a life together, there were no labels attached to them. It just was. That's it.

I love a lot of people; I know at least a few of them love me back. And every now and then, I love someone, a woman, with more parts of my heart than usual. I can feel it deep in my chest. The love feels so big in there, and so sweet, that I want to pour it out like Idgie's river of honey. With the sweet, comes the protection of a mother bear and a guareented, forever after unconditional devotion, no matter how the story ends.

My life would go from good to near-perfect if there came a time when my heart was feeling bigger than my chest could hold, and the woman I loved, loved me back just as big. After a time we'd quietly begin to share a life together. Everything would go on as normal, and I'd be Shelley and she'd be she, and nobodied see any different.

I've been trying to live that life for as long as I can remember. Loving for me hasn't been about sex; it's been about devotion and loyalty and the pleasure of another's company. I'm not saying I'm asexual, just that loves been more about a gentle touch than a giant orgasm, and that, I don't want my life defined by sexuality.

I am who I am because of the way I've always loved. If I loved men, the way I love some women, I would be different. I can't say exactly how; that answers in a life that never happened. I just wouldn't be the person that I'm happy to be today. I'm stubborn and I know I won't change. I don't want to. I may tell you my sexual status, just to get it out of the way, just so you'll know I won't be bringing a man with me to supper; but I won't live a life defined by my sexual status. I won't. It's not how I think; it's not how I want to think.

I want to live like Idgie. When Ruth comes to pull me out of the wild, or if she's swimming in the lane beside me, or smiling at me in a Yoga class; I'll be ready. My heart will expand, the honey will flow, and I'll give myself to her. It'll be quiet, though my friends and family will cheer. They'll breathe a shy of relief. Cause they've been waiting for Ruth just about as long as I have.

Anger is the Human Condition

People get angry a lot. Yes they feel others things, love, sadness, fear; but they are most likely to tell you about something that has recently pissed them off. Occasionally someone will come see me in counseling who is unaware of feeling angry. These are the acceptions and with a little proding they soon find that they are angry too. What is everyone so angry about? They're angry about all their other unpleasant feelings. I'll name a few: humiliation, shame, abandonment, powerlessness, fear, sadness, mistrust, and sometimes even love because it brings up these other feelings. It is a strong and courageous soul who will openly display all feelings without jumping to anger. Even love, we hold back.

I suppose you could argue that people hold back their anger too. I'd agree, thank goodness, since we channel so many of our feelings into anger I wouldn't want to see it spilling out unchecked. Some are better at controlling their output than others, thus therapists get paid, prisons get filled, and the divorce rate runs at about 50%.

But, we humans are sneaky, and we find other less obvious ways to "let it out." We criticize the people we love; we hold back our affection; we isolate; we have affairs; we spend all the money; we judge. This makes humans sound really bad, which I don't believe is true. In fact, every person who has allowed me to see their deepest center radiates innocence and love. This is really true, not just psycho-babble unconditonal positive regard.

Then why, why so much anger? I think it is because we are humans and mammals, and we fight or flight just like every other species, and we've got these giant brians that create mazes to our real emotions, to our truest innocent, loving selves. What is anger? Fight or flight? It's both. For a moment I feel humiliated and I run away to anger. It feels safer there. Here I can blame, justify and criticize. And if my tenderest self is touched, and I fear I need protection, I go to anger, fighting to protect the tender self.

It takes a lot of work, lots of probing by me the therapist, to get someone first to share the feelings of which they're aware, and more probing to help them discover the feelings from which they hide. Therapists' job is to work with resistance, each person's natural self-preservation instincts to mask and hide feelings, to uncover the hurt, young, innocent soul beneath. The absolutely gorgeous soul that lies quietly in the center.

I heard the old tune "Smile on your brother, everybody get it together" the other day. I sang along with sadness and joy. Joy at the beauty of the dream of togetherness, and sadness at the knowledge that we will always run to anger, at least some of the time, a lot of the time. Togetherness would mean we had laid ourselves bare, everyone of us. Because it can only be safe if everyone of us were bare. We can't do that; we don't know how and we really don't want to.

We are human, we are beautiful, we defend against the real and imagined. We get angry, a lot.