I, The Divine

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I sat down in front of the television with my first quart of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (the first, Chunky Monkey; the second, Cherry Garcia). I was confused, slightly blue. I flipped channels as I stuffed my face. Ice cream worked better for me than any antidepressant or mood enhancer.

I was having trouble writing my memoir, not being able to figure out how to attack it. I had tried different methods, but the memoir parried back expertly. When I was a little girl, I used to watch a cartoon called Touché Turtle, the name of a fencing turtle musketeer whose sidekick was a talking dog called Dum-Dum. Every time I tried something new with my memoir, I felt the memoir become Touché Turtle, fighting me all the way. “Touché,” the turtle would say every time it stabbed me, which was fairly often. At the end of each frustrating writing session, I would hear the damn turtle’s farewell call, “Touché away,” complete with closing credit music. I sat in front of my television devouring ice cream, healing my saber wounds before I attempted to enter the fray again.

I settled on a PBS nature documentary about lions in Africa. There was Red, the dominant male of the pride, getting older and barely holding on to his position within the pride. Juna was the best hunter, and the pride began to follow her lead while hunting. It was exquisite to see the pride on a hunt, the interminable wait, the coordinated movements, as if they were one organism, such murderous poetry in motion.

A lioness called Pinky delivered three delightful cubs, Bucka, Monk, and Ginny. Ginny turned out to be the cutest cub of them all, playful and cuddly.

Time passed. One of the younger males, Lewis, matured and decided to leave the pride and make his own way. Bucka, Monk, and Ginny were about four months old. It was a joy to watch and I was lost in a whole new world. I loved the interactions and relationships. I enjoyed the friendship between Pinky and Lisa, who seemed inseparable. I loved the communal rearing of the young.

A new lion appeared on the horizon, Corey, in his prime, beautiful, strong, and obviously up to no good. He stood on a hill and roared. Old Red, now alert, roared back. But even from the roars, you could tell the fight was over before it even began. Old Red was done for. I felt sad for him, but hey, that was life. The old had to go at some point. Old Red left the pride after a token fight. Corey was the new leader, but then that son of a bitch did something that shocked me.

Corey walked over to where my babies, Bucka, Monk, and Ginny, lay shivering with fright and began to kill them one by one. He started with Bucka, while Monk and Ginny cowered at his feet. He lifted Bucka by his neck, shook his head ferociously until the cub’s neck snapped, and flipped the corpse away. He then picked up Monk while Ginny stayed where she was, waiting her turn for annihilation. By the time he killed Ginny, I no longer recognized myself. The announcers were pedantically explaining the logic of Corey’s behavior, while I sat open-mouthed, shocked, unable to hear anything. I sweated, felt porous, like my body was made of clay not yet fired. I was afraid if I moved even an inch, one of my limbs would fall off.

On the screen, the pride was adjusting to life with Corey. Slowly, I began to grapple with what had happened. Individuals came and went, but the pride was what survived. Always. I had identified with each lion or lioness as a separate entity. I had thought I knew about lions because I saw Ginny as a cute and cuddly cub.

If I wanted to know about lion, I had to look at the entire pride. I had to look at it not as a single organism per se, but as a new unit much larger than the sum of its parts. Red was lion; Lewis, the lion who left the pride, was lion; Lisa was lion; Corey was lion; and my baby, Ginny, whose life was snuffed out to ensure Corey’s new lineage, was lion. I could not begin to fathom what being a lion was if I only looked at each lion individually, or even at the relationships between the lions. All of them together, not all of them individually summed up, but all of them as a dynamic organism, were the species; all were the word lion.

I had tried to write my memoir by telling an imaginary reader to listen to my story. Come learn about me, I said. I have a great story to tell you because I have led an interesting life. Come meet me. But how can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me? I have to explain how the individual participated in the larger organism, to show how I fit into this larger whole. So instead of telling the reader, Come meet me, I have to say something else.

Come meet my family.

Come meet my friends.

Come here, I say.

Come meet my pride