Becoming J.D. Salinger

It's nearly 2AM, and I can't sleep.  I'm thinking about J.D. Salinger.  He died earlier this year, but that's not really why he's on my mind.

I want to be more like him.  Of course, part of me would love to be a writer, churning out novellas to sell to the unsuspecting public.  But more than anything I want to be the kind of person who recognizes Jesus as the Fat Lady.  To see that life is an imperfect thing but that despite its flaws it is a thing of beauty and joy.

I want to tell the world about how my elastic of my underwear melted to my thighs and separated from them to stay glued to my buttocks without it being something perverse.  The world needs to see that ordinary things are lovely and deserving of attention.  People need to know that failure is okay, that there are times we all have when we have no friggin' clue where to go next or what to say.  We will all have moments in which we fail to predict another's behavior or to meet another's standards of propriety.

I want to be able to tell people that my heart melts when I see my son in his lion towel.  I want to share my adoration of the man who collects aluminum cans to recycle for beer money.  I want to demonstrate in words that I believe people smell wonderful without having to resort to perfumes, that they have beautiful hair no matter what color it is, that I love it when I visit a house that isn't pristine.

I want to be part of the Glass family.  I want to be BooBoo in Down at the Dinghy, helping my emotional son resolve his issues in oblique ways.  I want to be Buddy as he writes about the brother he wants to emulate, his unattainable idol.  I want to be Franny who needs to be told that Jesus is the Fat Lady.

I want to show how much I love the way J.D. Salinger has helped me to see the beauty in the everyday.  Without him I might never have fallen to pieces inside with joy at seeing the elderly black man with a walker in his brand new Batman t-shirt.  I might never have appreciated the ramblings of my off-beat neighbors.  I might never have understood that I do not have to agree with others to love them for who they are.

Part of me wants to know more about the man.  Part of me really wants to do a quick web search to study up on the life of the man I know as J.D. Salinger.  I might discover that he was a phony.  I might learn that he never really believed there was anything special about a boy who didn't fit into boarding schools or a tiny, quiet, old man riding in a car.  Perhaps I would learn that he changed his mind about it all and gave up on his belief in the intrinsic beauty of life.  But it isn't what I want to believe, so I do not risk it, even though I might like what I would learn.

Salinger has helped me to recognize socks left by my husband as an allergy he has to putting them in the dirty laundry.  He has helped me recognize the elegance of a quarter in the hands of my toddler.  He has shown me that even a world with such a large number of phonies need not throw one into a state of despair.  I can be happy with myself, with my life, however flawed.  I can be happy with a world that finds me strange and disturbing because I do not fit the mold, because I do not conform.

I want to tell it to the world straight that I love everyone and everything.  I may not always love your behaviors, but I love you, world.  (No, I'm not drunk, though I should be tired.  Probably was too much dark chocolate earlier that is keeping me awake.)  Do you hear me, people?  I love you and all your flaws.  I love the way you are wrong and still fight to make people believe you are right.  I love the way you pretend not to care what others think about you while silently hoping they will cherish you as a beautiful, cherished element of the world.  I love the way you argue and hug and kiss.  I love the way you laugh to be polite, even though you don't think the joke was that funny.  I love the fact that you've read this much of what I had to say, just because you know I wanted you to read it.

I love you people so much my heart could burst.  Thank you for existing.  Thank you for giving these words a piece of your time, for letting them run through your mind for a while.  Thank you for letting me in.  For this, I love you even more.

Good night, and please, oh please, let me get some rest before the son wakes up.