Confession (Anonymous)
The story of a very special man
Chapter 1
Before you leave, friend, have the good grace to hear this: I am no ordinary middle aged man. I am real, bona fide, mystic — and in an interesting way!
If you could see the whole thing from my perspective, you would stand in awe at the thought that such a path has been traversed.
And do not think that I am not aware — aware that I appear quite ordinary, that mysticism sounds trendy, that writing an anonymous confession seems like a contradiction in terms. I know all this very well, and I don’t expect you to be satisfied or even engaged with these sorts of claims.
No, above all, you’ll want carnal details: how it went with my first girlfriend, how many there were between her and my wife, and even how it goes with my wife. You’ll want to hear how I was humiliated, of course, at work. How I lost friends, refused to try standup comedy, quit video games after reading the stoics. Yes, ironically, you’ll expect me to justify my claim about being a mystic by proving that I’ve never taken my feet from the mud.
But I have this to my advantage: I am writing exclusively for fellow-mystics. To hell with the rest of them, right brother? You and I have left the cave, seen the sun itself, even if we can’t describe it — even if we’ve been dragged back down, by necessity, to the underground.
Indeed, we know that communication concerning esoteric things is impossible in this life, and we have learned to settle for recognizing each other by certain ineffable winks, certain kinds of shared interests. We know that a real mystic may (or may not) attend church regularly, that he may ride horses, or indulge himself in women, or — what is it Wallace Stevens said?
[The poem of the mind…] must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.
Ah, but I might as well say, and say in the crassest language: I had to google that.
But I have memorized other poems, comrade — as I’m sure you have. When I was 10, my father encouraged me (note: I do not say “made me,” for he was a genial fellow) to memorize a speech by Teddy Roosevelt, and I remembered certain lines of Whitman early in life. Isn’t it true that every self-respecting mystic has a few lines of poetry or literary prose memorized?
It feels like I’m mocking now, doesn’t it? But that’s just an inside joke — something to turn the once-born away. The truth is, there is no higher approach to life. Stated plainly, we are the true spiritual aristocracy, gentlemen. A cut above — though, as we know, through no merit of our own have we been be knighted into this order.
So let us also acknowledge at the outset that it is a heavy burden we carry. To know and not to say. To feel, and to remain composed. This responsibility to remain composed — it is the foundation of our moral order, is it not? We keep calm and carry on not for the adult children we are surrounded by, but for each other.
For instance, do I not want to set my hair on fire — as Rumi says, “Why are we not all screaming drunks?” — when I hear a spiritual peasant pontificating about what he dismissively refers to as “the invisible church.” He scoffs, this material man, and rattles on about the necessity of order and hierarchy. Like a child, he likes buildings. And there I stand, blinking at a normal clip, my breathing unchanged. I am composed, and my hair is not aflame. This unwitting material man almost names, by accident, what you and I know is unnameable. Our brotherhood: invisible, sacred. He supposes it is insufficient, imagines institutionalizing it. So damn him, of course.
Here is the trick in all this: because I write only for you, my brother in spirit, I write only for myself. This confession will be another spiritual exercise, hardly different than so many daily trials we endure. I won’t write anything you don’t already know. But look in, acknowledge the rightness of my confession, the truth of it — and perhaps you won’t have to write your own. I will have saved you another bit of work, brother. One more humiliation, though small, removed from your plate.
The first girl’s name was Danielle, and I’ll tell you how I used her to humiliate myself. But there was one even before her that deserves mention: Andrea. I loved her in kindergarten. I remember our teacher doing an experiment, to teach us about scientific observation. The teacher asked for a volunteer — “one of the girls, with long hair,” she said. Quietly, elegantly, Andrea raised her hand.
When I picture her now, it’s difficult to see her as a 5-year old. But so she must have been. All I remember is her long, straight blonde hair. I remember how the teacher, Ms. MacDonald, asked Andrea if it would be alright to pluck one of the long hairs from her head. Andrea agreed, and I sat with a perfect perspective just a few feet away as they went about the procedure: Ms. MacDonald counted to three and pulled a single long hair from Andrea’s head, and I felt a thrill I had never experienced as Andrea endured the small pain without flinching.
The experiment itself was to tie a metal washer to her hair and hang it on the inside of a mason jar, and to mark how far the hair stretched over the next day or two. I don’t think it occurred to me, then, to steal the jar and keep it for myself, hermetically sealed. I didn’t know then what I know now, gentlemen!
This same Andrea sat with me atop the monkey bars three or four years later. I still loved her, believed we would marry—believed God himself made her for me. But on some typical school day, we sat there during recess, eight feet off the ground, facing each other. Out of nowhere, she said: “you really shouldn’t wear socks with those shoes.” I was wearing sperrys, boat shoes. And white socks.
I took the socks off before I got down from the monkey bars. Anything for her. For the next week or more, I went barefoot, felt my toes sweating all day. A year or two later, in 5th grade, humiliatingly, I still loved her. By then my mother knew, and so for Valentine’s Day, I bought Andrea a small package of chocolates and a card, and I wrote something nice in the card, and left the chocolates and the hand-written card in her locker. But by then it was futile, and it had been since she noticed my white socks.
Two decades later, the day I got engaged to another woman, which was also the day of my 10-year high school reunion, I showed up with my new fiancee. In the coat-room, I ran into Andrea. Somehow, she was shorter than I remembered, meeker — but still beautiful at 28. She already had three children. Her husband was there, a pastor. She turned to him excitedly and introduced me to this man as “her first boyfriend.”
If you are a mystic, you’ll understand how I was shot through the heart. She remembered! So it was mutual! In that instant, I forgave her everything. Forgave her for the white sock affair, for her rejecting my Valentine, and for her sleeping with a high school senior the first week we were in 9th grade together. This was no humiliation. In fact, it may be that my entire unconsummated elementary school affair with Andrea was a proper romance, something to live for.
But we’re just beginning, comrade. I’ll tell you all about Danielle next time. The humiliations must come, as you know — how (and why) else does one become mystical, right brother?
