Buffering Read online

  I got good at staying still when I was alone because I had injured myself too many times already when I didn’t. Once I lit a match and put it back into the matchbox with the other matches, which instantly caught on fire. I was so startled that I threw the box into the fireplace, and the fire grew. I started adding the trash from the floor to the fire, and it continued to grow. I thought my mom would be proud when she came home to find that the trash was gone and that I had cleaned up. Unfortunately, some of the old envelopes I had thrown into the flames were important. It was hard to tell what was mail and what was junk in our house. Everything was covered in coffee stains. My mother didn’t yell, though I could tell she was angry and I’d done a bad thing. I didn’t play with matches again, which was fine, but it chipped away at my already limited entertainment options.

  I slept on the couch a lot. I was hungry a lot. I was bored a lot. I traced the outline of the Chinese chest1 with my fingertips and imagined what every person in the village was doing, and wondered if the shapes of the trees on it were real trees because I had never seen trees like that. Sometimes I would do arts and crafts. My favorite was to collect ash from all the ashtrays around the house and spit into it to make a paste and give myself tattoos. Another arts and crafts activity I did was carving “H” into the desk or floor. I hid from the mailman. I never opened the door for strangers or answered the phone. I was a good little latchkey child.

  I spent much of the day peeking through the sheets on the windows (who needs curtains, when you’ve got sheets!), looking for any sign that someone was coming home. Once I woke to find my mother’s green coat on the couch, and I was overjoyed because it meant she hadn’t left for work yet. She rarely changed outfits, and she absolutely never left without that coat. I ran through the house looking for her, but I couldn’t find her. That was okay, though, because she had probably just run out for a minute and would be coming back soon. Maybe she’d gone out to get donuts and we were going to have breakfast together! That pink box!

  I decided to surprise her, and I hid under the coat on the couch. I was giggling and giddy because she would definitely laugh when she grabbed the coat and found me underneath. Then she’d say that since she was already late for work, she might as well just stay home with me. Or maybe I could go with her. I could sit under her desk while she transcribed audio from newscasts. It was going to be a wonderful day.

  I don’t know how long I waited under that coat. I think I fell asleep, because suddenly the sun was much higher in the sky and the house had heated up substantially. Our house had many windows, so it would get very warm and sleepy inside.

  Eventually I crawled out from under the coat and walked to the bathroom. I took off my shirt, wet it in the bathtub, and put it back on to cool off. I drank some water from the bathtub faucet—bathtub water was the cleanest; the kitchen sink was off limits since it was always clogged—and walked back to the couch.

  Before resuming my place under the coat for what was still sure to be a wonderful prank, I peeked out the window just in case she was about to walk up. There were men outside talking by the car repair place across the street. The sweat was sticking their shirts to their backs in different patterns. It was like looking at clouds, trying to make out which shapes looked like faces, like animals, and so on. I wondered if their sweat made their shirts cooler, as the bathtub water had made mine. Everyone seemed to be hot that day.

  Then suddenly it clicked.

  It was hot outside. And no one would need a coat on such a hot day.

  That is my first memory of feeling a deep self-disgust. I felt disappointed, but I also felt stupid. My hope had broken my own heart, all because I didn’t think it through. I wept into the coat and used it like a pillow. I wanted to fall asleep. I wanted time to pass. I wasn’t just bored. I was lonely.

  By the time third grade rolled around, my mother had started dating her boss. That man would eventually become her second husband and Maggie’s father. His name was David, and he moved in with us that year, and when summer came his son, who I’ll call Matthew, came to visit. Matthew had a fat nose like a pug and a sandy blond bowl cut. He was older than Naomi, already a teenager, pockmarked and greasy. His eyes were blue and beady. He liked comic books and was able to do all sorts of things because he was a boy that I couldn’t do because I was a girl and that was just the way things were.

  That summer Matthew became my regular companion. Unfortunately, he had a bit of an affinity for violence. He once showed me a scary comic called Spawn. One issue featured an alcoholic father who came home every night to beat his wife and children. I was horrified. Our household wasn’t the cleanest or the most “normal,” but it was never a violent home. Matthew told me that if I was scared of violence, it was only because I didn’t know how to defend myself. So he decided it was up to him to teach me self-defense. But when we started our self-defense lessons, it was clear Matthew and I weren’t evenly matched. After all, he was five years older than me.

  One day, Matthew said he was going to teach me how to escape a chokehold. I told Matthew that I didn’t want to learn that one, and he chased me down the hall to the front door. I’d been trained never to open the front door, so once I reached it I turned to face him and he choked me, lifting me off the ground until I was on the tips of my toes. I kicked him as hard as I could in the stomach and crotch, and he sputtered and stopped.

  Naomi came home (or appeared from another room) and was upset and told Matthew to stop. He said we were playing pro wrestling and lifted me and slammed me on his knee. The wind was knocked out of me, my back hurt, and I couldn’t really move. Naomi called our mom and told her that she needed to come home from work right away to take me to the hospital. I was angry at Naomi for doing that because Mom had lost a job before for having to take me to the hospital (the incident with the knife). I felt responsible for what had happened. If I’d known how to defend myself better she wouldn’t have had to leave work.

  Mom came home and we went to the ER, and the doctor was annoyed and sent us home because my back was only bruised and not broken. I was embarrassed and felt guilty for pulling Mom out of work and wasting everyone’s time. But it was Naomi’s fault, too. She was always interfering.

  The next day Mom and David made Matthew go to work with them, and Naomi was off somewhere else, and I was home alone again. The emptiness of the house felt magnified somehow. I was hot and sad, and I felt as though my head was filled with cotton. I didn’t open the windows when I was home alone because Mom had told us once about a kid who was napping by a window when a kidnapper reached through and snatched him out. I felt guilty. “As a family” it was decided that Matthew wasn’t allowed to be alone with me anymore, which was supposed to be a good thing, but being left in my silent solitude again, I felt punished.

  It wasn’t fair. Why should I be punished for being too weak to be left alone with Matthew? Maybe it was a sign that I needed to strike out on my own.

  I packed all of my belongings onto a stick just like “hobos” did in cartoons. I took my boogie rag2 and laid it on the floor and tried to think of what to pack. I didn’t want to take anything that Naomi might want, and there wasn’t much food in the cupboards, so my options were scarce. What I did find was a pie crust in a pie tin and some Jell-O packets. I laid those on the rag and looked for something to tie the rag around. I pulled the rubber head off the plunger and used the handle.

  I left a note for my mother and sister using some binder paper and a pencil I sharpened with a knife. I added the knife to my pack. I wrote that I was sure they wouldn’t miss me and that I loved them very much, but that this was the best thing for me to do. I told David that I would miss him, too. The only one I didn’t mention in the note was Matthew, hoping to hurt his feelings. I was an emotional mastermind.

  As I left the house, I turned back and waved good-bye to the people inside. That was a habit. Whenever I left the house during the school year, I would pretend to say good-bye to people who weren’t there, just in
case someone was watching and tracking my movements. My mom told me that our neighborhood had “prowlers” who would hide behind fences and watch for empty houses.

  I crossed the dead grass and patchy dirt of our front lawn and headed in the direction of the nearest park. In my new life on my own I was going to do whatever I wanted, and I wanted to make some friends. There were always kids at the park with their families and with summer camps. I could make some fast friends and maybe even get a snack out of it later that afternoon. Hell, maybe even a juice box! Luxury.

  Another benefit of going to the park was that by the time night began to fall I could set myself up behind some bushes. I would sleep in the park and then head for the train station in the morning. Then, because I was a kid, I would just get on the train with a group of adults and no one would be the wiser. (Clearly my plan had many holes, but at the time it seemed flawless. I even thought that I could make friends with a monkey and we would entertain people for money. Legit.)

  As I walked toward the park, I did a lap around my school to see if there was anything left on the playground that could be of some use to me in my new life. But the gates were all locked because school was out of session. I continued my way parkward and was about to cross the street alone for the very first time. I was becoming an independent adult already!3

  “Hey there!”

  Before I could cross, a truck pulled up in front of me and a man shouted through his passenger window, “Do you live around here?”

  Stranger danger. I felt my feet freeze to the ground. Without my consent, my head nodded.

  “Do you know how to get to Howard Street?”

  My heart was beating hard in my chest. I was so scared of that man and his truck. I felt the hairs stand up on my arms. They were scared of him, too. I shook my head no.

  “Are you sure? I thought it was right around here.”

  I was lying. Howard Street was only two blocks from where we were. Maybe I was being paranoid. I thought of my father. He would be ashamed to see me lying to someone. I shouldn’t lie. Lying is sinning. Sinning is wrong. God hates sinners, and I don’t want God to hate me. I spoke and pointed. “It’s that way.”

  “Which way?”

  I pointed harder. “That way.”

  “Listen.” He leaned across his seat and opened his car door. “It’s close, right? Wanna just get in and show me? That would be a big help.”

  I thought of my mother. She had taught us to follow our feelings and that our feelings came from God and trusting God was trusting your gut. She said if you ever feel afraid, just start screaming and don’t stop. But I was torn between the conflicting teachings of my parents, so instead I just said “No” and backed toward the school.

  His smile cracked, and behind his eyes I could see anger.

  “Bitch.”

  He peeled out from the curb with his door slamming shut in the process. I ran back to my house as fast as I could.

  Once I was back inside, I felt such comfort in the familiar feeling of home. I couldn’t run away. I was a child. The world was big and bad. Both of my parents could agree on that even if they couldn’t agree with each other. I would be in such danger out there on my own.

  So I had to choose between feeling lonely and feeling scared. Loneliness I knew. Feeling scared was foreign. I looked at my letter, tore it up, and never told my family about my attempt to run away. Night time would come and the house would be full again soon enough.

  Shortly thereafter, Matthew was taken to a group home for juvenile delinquents after he’d gotten in some big trouble at school. My mom said that he’d been wrongly declared “mentally ill” and insisted that “mental illness” was made up by “garbage-sucking scum buckets.” She had taught us that all medications were evil and to be wary of doctors because they wanted to tear our family apart and drug us and stick us in hospitals.

  I think it was after that summer that I began to look at my mother differently. After the incidents with Matthew and seeing that she still had affection for him, I started to question not only her judgment but also her thinking. I knew she loved me, but why didn’t she see the need to protect me? Weren’t all children worth protecting?

  As children, we think that whatever world surrounds us is normal. As I entered fourth and fifth grades and began spending time in the homes of other kids, my world grew. I spent a lot of time watching and thinking about the way people interacted with other people. I began to see that not all families were like mine. I realized that healthy relationships weren’t born out of the desperation to avoid a feeling of loneliness. And that loneliness can come with you into even the most crowded of rooms.

  These days I’m learning to value my solitude. Turns out I’m a bit of an introvert. I haven’t been magically cured of my depressive tendencies but I am learning to manage them better. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that the mind is like a muscle and it can be trained (or in some cases retrained) with time, energy, attention, and care and through meditation, medication, and sometimes even simple conversation. I think of it as being like training for a marathon: you have to put in the time and the effort to see results and there will be good days and bad days, but you will move forward as long as you move through them all.

  The day I tried to run away was scary, but I did take something positive away from it. After that day I started to walk around the neighborhood more often. It was a great way to pass the time, and I had learned I could trust myself to stay safe and avoid danger. And now, in my adult life, I make it a practice to walk for at least thirty minutes every day. It helps get me out of the house and out of my head.

  I also have a visual reminder: a print of Little Red Riding Hood walking through the woods with the wolf.

  For me, dealing with depression isn’t about trying to run away from the feeling; it’s about learning to walk alongside it.

  1 As I’ve mentioned my mother wasn’t very good with money. Our power would go off and the water wouldn’t work, but she did bring home wonderful things from “garage sailing” like the Chinese chest, a massive, ornate, solid piece of furniture with a village scene carved into the front.

  2 We were often out of toilet paper, so every time we got sick we’d use our baby blankets, which we then called “boogie rags” and carried them around to snot into. It was a great way to save paper! We were going green!

  3 We lived on the same block as my elementary school, so even though the journey felt very long and far, I hadn’t traveled even a block from my house.

  FEAR AND ECSTASY

  I used to like drugs more than I do now. I went through a period after college when I was living in San Francisco and stuck in a rut. It’s not that things were all bad, but I was living in that postcollege state, still partying and drinking like I was a student, and it started to wear on me. At the time I was sharing an apartment with one of my best friends, Hannah Gelb, and her boyfriend, Alex. I considered myself bisexual then, but only to mask the crushes I had on Hannah’s friends from UC Santa Cruz.1 Over time, our wild nights of drinking and spontaneous dance parties weren’t enough to keep me going. Life was just . . . still. And everything seemed to come with a caveat. I had graduated from college, but the job market was tanking. I was comfortable being gay-ish, I guess, but I was always hanging out with my straight friends, who were all in relationships, and was nowhere close to finding a partner of my own. We had Mom off the streets for the moment, but without medication and treatment she would only get worse; we had put a Band-Aid over something that was starting to fester. I felt as if I were trapped in a holding pattern.

  Then I went to a party and decided to try coke.

  The effects were not what I expected—more like an incredibly strong cup of coffee than any sort of druggy delirium. Coke just made everything seem interesting again. However, I quickly realized if I needed to do a key bump in the bathroom of El Rio while my friends sang karaoke outside with KJ Paul2 in order to stay positive and have a good time . . . well, then, c
learly I wasn’t really having a good time. And if I could no longer have a good time participating in my favorite sport,3 there had to be something wrong in my head and my heart. So I accepted the truth and announced to my friends that I was getting seriously stagnant in San Francisco and needed something more out of life. Aside from the semester I’d spent in Japan during college, my entire existence had taken place within a twenty-mile radius of San Francisco. Staying close to home wasn’t helping me break old patterns of caretaking behavior with my mom or making her any better (and I could help pay her bills from anywhere). I wasn’t challenging myself to chart new waters. I was just wading in still ones.

  At the time I was working two jobs: during the day I worked as a property manager for a small-business owner who lived in Noe Valley but who was mostly on perma-vacation in Cabo, and at night I would head to my job as a part-time proofreader for Geotext Translations. I really liked that job. It was like white-collar mining, hunting for errors in stacks of paper until 11 p.m., when I would catch the Muni home. Geotext had offices all over the world, in San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore, and I think also in Hong Kong. I heard about a part-time position opening up in NYC and decided to go for it. And I got the job! So I drained my savings and moved to New York to sleep on couches and gain a bunch of weight and eventually make the first episode of My Drunk Kitchen as a way of trying to cheer up Hannah Gelb.

  I had moved to New York to get myself in gear and to start out fresh in a new city. Little did I know that the move would lead me someplace totally unexpected: to the middle of the desert for Burning Man.

  NOTES FROM BURNING MAN—DAY ONE