Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [63]
This is the most important point of all: Beware of anyone who reminds you of the parent with whom you do not get along. Ask yourself this question every time you are instantly attracted to someone problematic: Does this conflict remind me of the ones I had with Mommy or Daddy? If the answer is yes, you have stumbled into Mother Nature’s greatest camouflage trick. Shrinks call it repetition compulsion. The mind-bogglingly unfair rules of it are as follows: A brand-new version of the same old parental issues with which you have struggled for years are repackaged and sold back to you in the form of an attractive and compelling member of whichever sex attracts you. To make sure you don’t catch on, this new, improved version of Mommy or Daddy is age-appropriate, stylistically perfect for your generation, and available in lavish contemporary colors. But make no mistake: it will turn out that your unconscious picked this fetching but hot-tempered bass player in an indie band, who makes you feel like a misbehaving teenager not because they were perfect but because your unconscious recognizes this sexy new person as a stand-in for your mother.
“But,” I can hear you saying, “since I adore my parents, doesn’t that mean this relationship I am unconsciously repeating is a good thing?”
Well, maybe. But in that case, you wouldn’t be charging into your golden years and still dating assholes, now, would you?
These issues are so complex and confusing that it’s fair to wonder if we should all throw up our hands in despair. And I think we all would if it weren’t for the unfortunate truth that humans are pack animals. We are meant to live in tribes. Most of us find a life of complete isolation tiring and unnerving. We like the laughter, insights, and distractions that come from being with other people. We also like the sex, the rides to the doctor’s office, and the help carrying groceries in from the car.
Therefore, it behooves us to pick our partners as carefully as we can. The only other option is to become the asshole ourselves and try to beat everyone else at their own game. That might explain why, as people get older, they also seem to get meaner and grouchier. They look back on a life of being nice to everyone and think, “Well, that didn’t really work, did it? Enough of everyone else’s bullshit. This time around, the rest of you assholes can just cope with me.”
A Chance to Dance
IT’S FIVE A.M. AND ANDY IS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE bedroom in which I am fast asleep. Why is he calling my name at this hour? “Merrill!” he says, and then he says it again, louder: “Merrill! Wake up! I think there’s a fire.”
“Shit,” I say, wishing I hadn’t just heard that. As I open my eyes, I can hear the sixty-mile-an-hour Santa Ana winds blowing outside.
When I first moved to Southern California at the tail end of the seventies, I loved the Santa Anas. There was something mysterious and sexy about these unseasonably warm winds from the desert that brought an incongruous blast of hot air into the middle of the chillier fall or winter weather. In my mind, their arrival always triggered a chorus of “Here come those Santa Ana winds again” from “Babylon Sisters,” a Steely Dan song I love.
It didn’t take too many years of living here, however, before the sexiness and mystery morphed into anxiety and dread. Now the Santa Anas mean only one thing: the crazy people of Southern California have declared another statewide holiday on which they will crawl out of their catacombs and head to one of L.A.’s many dry, overgrown hillsides to dance gaily and fling lit matches. If there is a full moon, like there was last night, well, talk about an embarrassment of riches.
“I think there’s a fire,” Andy says again.
“Why?” I ask, trying to will it gone. “I didn’t hear anything about a fire.” When I get up and go to the window, it looks like the Babylon Sisters know whereof they sing. The Santa Anas are flattening all the trees in the front yard down to a forty-five-degree angle, and the early morning sky is coming up a sickly gray-orange,