the slow introduction

April 2007.

She is relaxed and still...in her usual cat-like repose. I am shifting around, swatting at my shoelaces.

I squint at the clock. The session is almost over.

M: Can I tell you a story? Do we have time?

Doctor: Definitely.

M: I was just thinking about tenth grade.

I sit up and mirror her repose.

M: It was a transitional period. Prior to that year, I was socially awkward and terribly anxious. After that year, I was socially adept but depressed. It is during tenth grade...I was 15...that I'm really experimenting with the marionette. I am observing people and then practicing specific movements. Externally, everything about me seems normal. Mom and Dad...Ozzie and Harriet...they can't see what's happening. I go to school, home, church; I am jumping through all of the requisite social hoops. But internally, things are getting off-kilter.

I pick up my coffee mug. I rotate it around, squeeze it.

M: It finally occurs to me that I lack body language, so I begin to consciously set up remedial goals. I am saying to myself, "I need to practice hand movements"...so for that week, the theme is Gesturing Casually. I sit in class or on a bench in the hallway and all I do is watch the way people move their hands when they talk. Then I initiate conversations and repeat what I've seen. I mimic. And, as I converse, I'm talking myself through the encounter: "Tone down your left hand; move your arm less but your fingers more; etc." Discovery Channel has 'Shark Week', I have 'Elbow Week'. Eventually, I start to take things further. I notice that, if a person is walking and they look "busy", no one interacts with them. People can sense when someone is on an errand and they tend to give that person a little extra space. No one interrupts them or stops them for small-talk. I find this to be fascinating. I'm drawn to the invisibility of it...I want that invisibility...so for weeks and probably months, this is the theme: Looking Busy. I sit in hallways and observe. I pick up on the fact that a lot of it involves the eyes. It's hard to explain but the mechanism is...looking very focused, even though your eyes are actually on nothing. Does that make sense?

D: Yes.

M: If someone has this mildly intense expression, but they're looking ahead, at nothing in particular...and if they're walking briskly...they Look Busy. I make note of the basics and start to practice. One day, I stand up in the middle of class. The teacher is lecturing...we're supposed to be taking notes...I stand up and walk out of the room. The teacher doesn't stop me. I walk back into the classroom and a few minutes later do the same thing. The teacher doesn't stop me. So, over the next few weeks I repeat this, over and over. One day I walk out...and I don't return to that class.

Doctor: You just leave?

M: Yes. I Look Busy, walk out and roam the hallways. I start skipping all of my classes...and the goal is not to avoid class. The goal is to get out and practice the mimicry. Like, if I'm walking around between classes, the stakes are higher. You're not supposed to be in the hallways without a pass, so I take this to be a challenge. I walk around looking for teachers and principles to walk past. I want to see how far I can take it, the invisibility.

Doctor: And you never get stopped?

M: I did this so many times that I inevitably got caught from time to time. I would say 4 out of 5 times I would skip class and not get caught. If I did get stopped, I could never think of a reason to lie about it, so that was a good time. A teacher would ask, "Why are you out of class?" and I would say, "I'm skipping. Why?" I would get detention and immediately go back to skipping. I didn't care. I was having too much fun.

Doctor: Sounds like there was an element of enjoyment, of game-playing.

M: Definitely. So. I'm experimenting, learning, teaching myself body language. And eventually the skipping gets old...so I take things even further. I'm strolling around the hallways one day, missing class and finally I think, "Why not leave school"? I hop into my car and drive off. And the only thing on my mind is: where can I learn more? Where can I both pick up and practice newer body language? I go into town. I stop at various places...stores, restaurants, side-walks...and then I discover the ultimate place for observing body language. Banks.

Doctor: Banks?

M: Banks rock. No one is there unless they are on a dull errand, so everyone is in a hurry; it's this buffet of rushed walks and focused looks. Walking into the first bank during this period I thought, "And lo the Manna of Normalcy hath found me."

Doctor: Not, I have to say, typical 15-year old behavior.

M: No, no. Oy. Most 15-year olds, if they skip class, it's for the purpose of obtaining beer or roaming around with friends or smoking pot. I'm skipping class and hanging out in banks. I got weird.

Doctor: Not weird. Given what you were up against...alone with all of that sensory and social confusion...that is some serious resilience. You're observing, game-playing, establishing goals. There's nothing at all "weird" in that. It's just...not typical.

M: Well, the whole point is that, in tenth grade, my average day was complicated. I was getting very lost in my head...becoming very invisible. And I cannot describe what it was like to go home at the end of the day...to return from school and interact with my parents. The discrepancy in our realities was intense. Mom would ask, "How was school, honey?" And it was confusing. I had no idea how to answer a question like that. "Actually mom, I wasn't at school today. I suppose, technically, I did spend one hour on campus, roaming around in circles, practicing my shoulder placement. But the rest of the day? I was in a bank lobby working on my Businessman Walk...which mostly involves leading out with your toe and de-emphasizing the 'pendulum' action of the knee in favor of a more stilted, marching action. It's terrific camouflage. How was your day, Mom?"

Doctor: A little tough to work that into small-talk.

M: A little tough. When I failed to make friends as a kid, they couldn't handle that. They couldn't handle minor deviations from the norm.

I pause...grip the coffee mug...listen to the clock.

M: By the time I was fifteen...there was nothing about me I could share. There was nothing in their world view that allowed for what I was becoming.