Cape Fear

When people graduate with their phds at my school, each of them speaks for 3 minutes at the ceremony as they're awarded their hoods. This is usually a pretty textured tapestry -- emotional outbursts of gratitude to loved ones, glimpses into passionately pursued work, hoots of achievement. I'm always teary and marveling at the communal nature of "becoming a phd" -- where my faculty, for whom this is old hat, mutter about being bored at having to hear too many times how much people love their husbands.

Last January, a woman I only peripherally know gave the usual glowing kudos to her husband for his support, and pointed him out with a great warm smile as the one in the audience wearing a cape. Dude was indeed fully kitted out in a RenFair-like garment, flowing purple over a nondescript pair of black trousers and a black tshirt. "That's just a thing he does," said Suzanne, loving amusement on her face.

I pondered that for a long time afterwards. What does it take to accept this kind of difference in someone you love? Where is the line of tolerance, and where does it become "just something he does" type of acceptance? Was there a point in her marriage where she sat down and said "hey, look, I thought this was a phase, but it's been 10 years -- seriously, you're 45 years old. Time to confine the role-playing to the stage or the bedroom."

The warm grin on the stage as she gestured toward him held no hint of that kind of conflict -- just unabashed acceptance of something acknowledged to be just this side of wacky. My first reaction was to eye the cape with something of a "what the?..." double-take; the second was to scrutinize Suzanne's face for clues about how she'd achieved this equanimity.

I keep thinking about this moment as I ponder both the freight of my past. Where did my anxiety at my differences from A slice between us? Where did my clench of concern at overly-butch when she buzzed her hair one notch too close to the scalp constrain and curtail both of us? Where did my worry that she would be perceived as incompetent or goofy or insufficiently informed about anything mute us both? I know I always pulled tight on differences, projecting my own fears and hopes into her performance, struggling with being able to stand back and shake my head gently, amused, accepting difference, visible fumbling, divergence of opinion about important ideas. Enmeshed in the "us" in such a way that I couldn't hold her at arm's length, buoyed by my gaze regardless of pursuit.

As I start to glimpse new possibilities for my relational space -- could it be?... maybe?...I'm carrying this startling recognition about how my own self-consciousness has been projected onto my lovers. Like my hot shame, long ago, when Beth made an idle comment about my ex J being a "surprisingly bad dancer." Getting underneath the fear that has often bound my legs and support, wanting to be that person publicly, fully loving my crazy husband in the wacky cape. Carefully tracing out what that means in action.

My neighbour across the hall, an efervescent design student, was struggling the other day to pile way too many things on her bicycle to take to school for a display. I intervened and gave her a ride, and she thanked me profusely. "You're my hero," she said," lugging her bag full of fabric. "I'm going to make you a CAPE."

I laughed and said it wasn't necessary. But for a moment I had a vision of myself in a swirly silky floral cape, experiencing the world from inside the fabric, free and full and open. As I start to embrace the possibilities of this nascent relationship with D, I'm carrying that imagined softness of the silk on my skin.