Modern houses are built with a shower temperature control valve so that you can take a shower without fearing that someone will flush a toilet somewhere. But I once lived in an old house, and this is what it was like:
Laundry
From the basement where I am loading the washer, I hear glass smashing. Five seconds later, I hear another smash, then another. I turn off the washer and run upstairs to the kitchen. Broken glass is covering the floor. Henry, wet and wearing only a towel, holds a beer bottle he'd picked from a case of empties. He aims it at the large mirror on the wall near the basement door where I stand and hurls it yelling, "I was in the shower!"
"What are you doing? Stop!"
Rachel is now in the hall by the kitchen, barefoot and crying.
Henry shouts, "I was washing my hair!"
Me to Rachel, "Don't come in. Wait." I run past Henry, who has grabbed another bottle, and pick up Rachel.
"My eyes were full of soap!" Another bottle flies. "I yelled down at you to turn off the washer, but you wouldn't."
Rachel's crying, "Daddy woke me up." I'm holding her tight out of the way.
"Clean this up," he yells. "I'm going out."
He rages up the stairs. I escape to the basement carrying Rachel and close the door to the laundry room. We sit on the floor, just hugging and crying for a long time. The house becomes quiet. Rachel says, "Mommy, let's get out of here."
I remember my therapist telling me to listen to my child. I think she meant my inner child; however, the four-year-old child curled in my lap is right. We have to leave.
I’m sure by now Henry has dressed and left, taking his growing anger and dysfunction out into the night with him. We have to leave...but the house is quiet. I figure I may as well finish the laundry first. I turn on the machine.
The next moment, Henry is hollering and banging on the basement door, "You're trying to drive me crazy. You want to make me crazy." The door's not locked but he punches a hole in it and rips it off the hinges anyway.
He's soaking wet, having decided to finish his shower at about the time I decide to finish the laundry.
Strangely, the only thing that I remember from the entire five-book Homecoming series Orson Scott Card wrote is that you aren't a man until you take a cold shower early in the morning, outdoors, in less than two minutes. Equally strange is that your story reminded me of that.
Lil, thank you for sharing this. I started conveying the story to my wife and she couldn't hear much beyond, "and her daughter came down..." I'm sorry you had to go through this and that you were ever in a relationship with someone like this. My initial thought after reading this was, "is the daughter okay?" I know from my interactions with you that you are doing well and have escaped such things, but how is she doing? I truly hope she is well and learned from your decision to leave a bad situation.
I think I'm at the point in life where coming of age movies are set. I know all about, perhaps more than most people many times my age, the ugly in the world. I just haven't come to terms with it. I'm still naive with the "I might be able to change this" mindset. At least since high school, I don't have the "I know everything" attitude anymore. I still sometimes ask the previously unanswerable question"how could anyone be so evil?" but more and more I'm finding I can see answer to the question. Lord knows, I've had my fair share of anger or resentment and so has everyone else.
I'm not a religious person, but I'm a fan of the St. Francis quote, "at all times preach the gospel, and only when necessary use words". -our actions in life carry all the weight. If you're interested in changing the world, just start with yourself. I know it's cliche, but it is literally the only thing you will ever have complete control over. I have a friend, ill call him cW, that once said "I run to change the world." He goes on to say, Be the change. -cliche, but true.Granted, I don’t change much of it, at least not all at once. But in another sense, I change every bit of it, in an instant — abracadabra-style. I change the world by changing myself.
I do believe that we can change much in this world, and running is only one of many strategies, and if we align ourselves with powerful positive forces, then the change can be powerful and positive. The belief that such a disposition is naive (which is a rather ubiquitous belief) is a self-fulfilling prophecy that tragically lets the would-be doers off the hook, encouraging fatalism and apathy and the perpertuation of many awful situations. Of course the changes we can make are very often not the changes we want to make. We can't make changes for other people, at least not where their own agency is required, and changes are most often not grand. So we must approach change as a way of life, not as a series of things to be crossed off a list. We can collectively tear down mountains this way, the way wind and water do. In another note, I'm never surprised (often saddened but never surprised) at how much nastiness there is in this world. The only broadly uniting value of the society in which I live is self-interest, and self interest when unchecked always leads to horrendous abuses. Why wouldn't people be constantly doing awful things? One of my own personal mountains to build is something better than self-interest to unite us. Who's in?
I think that self interest can be uniting, if the correct conditions prevail that make one's self interest align with everybody's interest. For example, it's in my interest and everybody's interest for me to be healthy (and I suppose that's at least in part why you run to change the world, no?). This, obviously, is true for each individual, so why are we so unhealthy as a nation? Probably because the most immediate definition of 'self-interest' is economic/financial. Its too goddam cheap to buy a cheeseburger (for example a McDouble costs $1...One. Fucking. Dollar.). Helvetius wrote that through laws, men can be changed, and he meant changed, not just coaxed to behave better. I think farm, food, and health policy may be a clear example of his thinking, albeit in the opposite direction. We have perverted the incentives for people to derelict a lot of their own self-interest by passing laws that encourage a very few people to have a self-interest that does not intersect yours or mine (assuming you are not an exec at ADM!). And as a result the people are different, much different biologically, not simply behaviorally. I have no idea how prevalent spousal abuse is. Far too prevalent, but certainly not anything like what is seen in countries whose laws don't discourage it. In Afghanistan, for instance, a girl can be forced to marry her rapist or else face the death penalty. I have never hit nor threatened any of the girlfriends I've had over the years. I like to think this is completely independent of the fact that such behavior is illegal, but I'm not convinced that such is the case. It seems where people can operate with impunity, they always do. So my point is that we need good governance to ensure that all of our interests can align. I don't think this is overly idealist, nor do I think that it's unattainable. We are a better educated society than we ever have been, and we have far more access to information and debate than ever before (including forums such as this one). Right now, I think two of our biggest national nightmares are food policy and financial industry deregulation. These are huge problems, but the good news is that they're legislative in nature. They, therefore, can be solved. Mutual self-interest is supposed to be the whole point of capitalism. I think it works, so long as oversight is strong and education is ubiquitous.One of my own personal mountains to build is something better than self-interest to unite us.
I'm in. I agree about people looking down on a "can do" attitude and how there are many who talk themselves out of doing things. It's kind of funny, as a lot of people don't understand how small things can have a broad impact. Take bacon for example. Over the past few years bacon has become a "thing" to the point that there will soon be a worldwide shortage of bacon. That's pretty nuts, especially as it's driven by self-satisfaction. Just imagine what else could be done if people began changing their habits by small increments in other ways.