Shy

by Naomi K. Lewis

  The U-Haul story. The U-Haul story is hers, and I won’t touch it.

  It’s enough to say that she drove hundreds of miles to get here, practically single-handed, a drive filled with rising, cresting catastrophes amping up with every passing mile, but she can fill in those blanks. And she’ll tell you that if anyone is a poster-child for commitment and dedication and a willingness to throw it all in to make a clear and definite choice, she’s the one. And the U-Haul story is her absolute, unquestionable, permanent proof.

  But like I said, that’s her story.

  She knows the cadence better than I do. She’s from out west, and knows about catching things with thrown ropes. Me, I’m from the east, all my lines have hooks on the end instead, and hooks leave marks that heal into small white permanent scars.

  Ten: I depend on the idea there are people who hear the message I send, however carefully and lightly it is telegraphed. I can read out loud easily when I find that one sympathetic set of eyes in the audience: I can write about anything if I can imagine being read by just one single person. It’s hard for me to grip the idea that a book could be in any living room, that something I’ve put down could be open to the critical examination of someone I’ve never met. My newspaper’s circulation is in the thousands: I write each column for a single person, and not the same single person either.

  She’s probably telling the U-Haul story right now, each note and pause and step in perfect place and pitch, and enthralled is not at all too strong a word to describe the rapt faces of her listeners. I know I should be glad of that, glad that she’s found a place here all her own; I should be glad, not jealous—or worse, afraid.

  I’ve poured the burned soup into the bowl anyway.

  Perhaps she and I will get to see the beach above Point Lance on the one single day when the sun comes out. Maybe we will lie in the sun and on the sand mere microns apart, a million miles from either November or the chilly winds of doubt.

  I know—I know—that it’s all there in my hands, that it’s in my words, if I can only force them out. But I also know that force would require an absolutely unconventional bravery.

  She says she’ll always be back, says it thrown out behind her like she is reaching out one smooth hand, ruffling hair or fur before she goes. The cats don’t believe her, either. And I hold shy in my hands ten ways, always.

  Drunk Judgement

  STEVEN HEIGHTON

  A night address

  The world is wasted on you. Show us one clear time

  beyond childhood (or the bottle) you spent your whole

  self—hoarding no blood-bank back-up, some future aim

  to fuel—or let yourself look foolish in reckless style

  on barstool, backstreet or dancefloor, without a dim

  image of your hamming hobbling you the whole while.

  Voyeur to your own couplings, you never did come

  with them, did you, even when you did? You said Hell

  is details, when Hell was just the cave, the concave-

  mirrored skull you dwelt inside, your left hand

  polishing while the other shook to clinch a deal—

  Provide, provide! Sure, in the end, like any soul

  you were endless and yets—brave, deft with phrases, kind—

  three cheers for you. Too closed to want what others love

  you vetoed life—

  were there other worlds to crave?

  When Love Was Grey & Timid

  I.B. ISKOV

  In the pale glow of sky light

  yesterday’s stones crumbled

  under reserved feet.

  I never wrote poetry—

  I was lean and did not know

  how to find nourishment.

  The atmosphere was a pastel continual smile.

  Something was missing.

  There was no shadow on the shine;

  there was nothing but stone and air

  together like conspirators

  breaking space.

  I was a naive virgin

  in white collar and black patent.

  While beauty degenerated,

  contrary colours

  painted my fabled utopia.

  I admit I embraced inhibited love

  at Bathurst and Finch

  at a late hour

  in the company of trucks

  blurring my vision

  like a surrealist tragedy.

  Redder Than a Canadian Sunset

  SHIRLEY LIMBERT

  DID BEING A LESBIAN CAUSE MY SHYNESS, or did shyness push me into being a lesbian?

  According to recent studies, the latter could not be the case, so that leaves me with lesbianism as a reason for shyness. We will see.

  At age five, with my best friend Mary in tow, I headed to our local church across the road from my childhood home in London, England, and asked the ever-present verger whom we should ask to marry us. You know what happened next. He spoke to our mothers, and we were not allowed to play together again. I was not shy then, although I might have already been a lesbian.

  So when did this long-term debilitating shyness overtake me?

  As a very small child, I was regularly asked to sing or recite in front of family and friends. “Come on, Shirley, show Auntie Winnie how nicely you can recite ‘There Are Fairies at the Bottom of My Garden’ (or sing ‘Danny Boy’ or dance ‘The Sailor’s Hornpipe’).” The awful feeling began in the region of my belly button, making my stomach clench, and moved up my body like a volcano until, in seconds, eruption time arrived, and my face became hot, sweaty and bright red, luminescent in fact, if I’d only had the word then. I longed for oblivion. All I could think of at that point was the wave after wave of heat spreading across my cheeks, neck, and for all I knew everywhere else on my little pulsating body, there for the entire world to see. I tried to run, but some family member or adult friend of my parents caught me, and my quavery little voice cried,” No, no,” and I dissolved into tears and hung my head, only to be sent to my room in disgrace.

  Why did my parents and teachers torture me in this way, you ask? They all told me I was shy and I needed to be “brought out” of myself. I was asking for attention, they said, and I was to just do as I was asked without any fuss, and all would be well. I could not bring myself to do as they asked. My shyness was my fault they said; I should try to please. As if I didn’t want to, as if I wouldn’t have given anything to smile and prance about as they asked.

  The feeling of impending doom wasn’t necessarily caused by something I had done or not done. Anything could set it off, and then my flushing face made me, I felt, the centre of attention. I would stand glowing, shining, and glistening while onlookers, classmates, and teachers alike unhelpfully pointed out my disability. For that’s what it is. A disability!

  At school, if someone farted and filled the classroom with noxious gas, I would be the one sitting at my desk, glowing. In dance class, if someone was out of step, I would be the one looking at my feet, wishing the floor would open and take me in; I hid my pulsating face though I never made a mistake in dance. Why did I always feel culpable? Others made mistakes and I suffered remorse, and in some cases I was punished. Singled out because I was the blushing party, therefore I must be the guilty one. Or so it seemed to me.

  Once I was old enough to understand that not all people suffered in the same way as I, then shyness and the subsequent and ever-present ability to flush, blush, or flash became more difficult to bear. The two were, in my mind, inseparable; walking to school was fraught with fear of seeing someone I knew and being spoken to, or, worse still, meeting girls from my school who, I was convinced, were laughing at me for being naive, for not wanting to talk about clothes with them or to giggle about boys. I had no idea what to add to their conversations about any of these things. I was not interested. I was terrified of being singled out in class to read or answer or perform a task. Although I was one of the brightest students, I endeavoured to make myself appear one of the least
brainy. At exams I was fine alone in my world. I could shine. Just don’t look at me!

  Consequently, I aced my way through grade-school exams and started on my life’s journey. Secretly, oh so deep in my heart, I wanted to write, and I did so. I put pen to paper, no PCS then, and created a mask for myself. Something I could hide behind. I produced reams of childish writing that as therapy might really have helped; but without someone to translate it, I was back where I started. In fact, having no one to bounce my thoughts off, I became more and more isolated. Soon my parents were at their wits’ end.

  By age thirteen, I was well on the way to becoming monosyllabic in front of other people.

  Although I joined a dancing class at my mother’s command, for she was frantic about my shyness by now, and therapy was not an option for a middle-class child of the late forties, I continued to hide my light under as many bushels as I could find.

  But back to my first conjecture. Did being a lesbian cause my shyness or result from it?

  My five-year-old self had already picked up the idea that, as a female, I would be in the wrong to fall in love with another female.

  What happened? Celia happened. Celia who lived next door.

  We did not go to the same grade school, so had little contact with each other until Grammar School. One day in our first term, as we both ran for the bus, I felt a quick tug at my heartstrings. We arrived at the bus at the same moment, and Celia stepped back to let me on. Her dark hair stood on end in the breeze, and her brown eyes smiled at me. I smiled back, mumbled something unintelligible as thanks, and boarded the bus. She followed. Celia sat next to me, Celia talked to me. I did not react with diffidence or timidity; I fell in love.

  Celia and I became best friends, and Celia and I eventually explored first tentative kisses and gentle gropings beneath our school tunics. We became inseparable; my mother breathed a sigh of relief: I had a best friend like everyone else, therefore I must be normal, whatever she thought “normal” was, and she stopped pushing me to do things. I became less stressed and was even known to stand in class and respond to a question without blushing. I answered when spoken to at home, and tried hard to understand the jokes my school friends made.

  However, the inevitable happened when we were fourteen. One teacher reported us for being “too friendly” and not having other companions. Apparently, she thought we should spend more time with other girls, giggling in the locker room or sitting in the cafeteria, gossiping. She spoke to the principal, who spoke with our mothers. Long story short, we were separated in classrooms and during recesses, and Celia’s mother picked her up after school and drove her home. We were not allowed to see each other at all. What we were doing was disgusting and unnatural, according to the principal, and I was dragged off to the local priest to confess. After a year and a half of feeling it was not entirely my fault, I was back to isolation and guilt over everything. I talked to the priest, told him I did not think I’d done anything wrong, so of course I could not repent, and I wasn’t prepared to say I wouldn’t do it again. After all, I had found a measure of comfort and happiness with Celia, and we had loved and trusted each other.

  Through my school’s dancing class, I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to stage school, and about the same time, Celia’s family moved. I was miserable. My mother took me to see the priest once more.

  “But my child, if you are not remorseful for those actions, you cannot receive absolution. You will continue to live in a sinful state. May God bless your soul.” There was also a lot of talk about hell and excommunication, and I left no longer a member of my church. I was fifteen.

  Dancing was my only joy. I excelled, put on makeup, went on stage in front of audiences, and toured with a dance company. My life, although not easy (I still blushed at every mention of my name) was bearable, and when on stage I became another person, self-assured and full of stage presence. Putting on makeup gave me permission to be the person I wanted, besides which, it hid my blushing. I mixed well with the other girls in the corps de ballet, and they ignored my shyness, in fact helped me over difficult times. I did well at covering my timidity by not engaging too much with others.

  Then along came Selena. I realized at first glance that here was another lesbian, and later she told me it was first glance for her, too. We got to know each other, I was elected to help teach her our dance routines, and sure enough she came out to me. I, of course, blushed redder than ever before at the word “lesbian,” although I knew myself one. I told her about my life with Celia, and she smiled and hugged me.

  I can honestly say that in the years Selena and I were together, I could count the number of times shyness overcame me, on the fingers of our four hands. Why? I think it was a mixture of being accepted by someone I really cared about and feeling she had my back at all times. I came home to her, told her anything, and although it was sometimes difficult, I knew eventually it would be okay. I trusted her and knew she trusted me. Our break-up was a year-long process, and we did all we could to make it easier on each other. Afterwards, she became involved with someone else and moved to Australia. She loved and loves me still, and I feel I owe her, at least in part, for my break with debilitating shyness.

  Not that I got over it in one fell swoop. I didn’t. Even now, years later and an ocean away, if I catch myself thinking of an embarrassing moment, and I know we all have them, I blush redder than a Canadian sunset. Even when I am alone. I have to force myself sometimes to go to gatherings or parties, or to speak in public, but I do those things as often as possible, and with each victory comes a soupçon of confidence. Some residual guilt of uncertain origin still hangs around somewhere, but I can handle it much better now.

  Did being a lesbian cause my shyness? Of course not, but as a lesbian, acting on my feelings, living the life I was meant to live, and being loved—those things certainly helped me overcome the disability.

  Fifty-some years later, I don’t have so much invested in having the world love me as I did when I was younger. I’ve been lucky that those I love, love me. I am a retired social worker, in a relationship of nearly twenty years. Menopause gave me permission to flash, flush, and blush as much as I needed without having to explain or feel guilty; as estrogen waned, so did guilt and, believe it or not, shyness. I am comfortable in my skin, now.

  Laundry Duty

  MIKE DUGGAN

  In my first real job, the controller,

  a tactile woman with an absent ring,

  had me swinging from the hinge

  of my shoulders

  like a cat flap; a soft touch, one push

  and she was through, there to peruse

  my inner décor, which she instinctively knew

  (like a precocious

  child’s spoken English)

  was a little too pure to be taken

  seriously. A few brief explorations

  and she was connecting my singleness

  with a clever rhyme for G&T, her charity

  when buying the after-work drinks;

  as I took my pint a knowing nod and wink,

  “you look a little young to me.”

  Then, “telling me off” for being hungover next day,

  my gullibility fuelled her laughter.

  I felt like the innocent maid and she the master

  and my heart took up the role, played

  along whenever she held my eye:

  drawing freshly laundered

  blood from the liver (fully loaded)

  and hanging it in my face to dry.

  to the red-haired girl on eighth

  WEYMAN CHAN

  any nerve

  splays its

  background noise

  my spy

  aerially defers

  the astroglider’s last argument

  eight feelers hunkered down on my sternum she

  spins ownership over politicos

  tight skinned in my opera

  I have nothing

  ancient or

/>   medicinal to offer

  sprockets blur

  the floating road spray self

  assembles its protein swing

  why do I appear to

  be happening

  just as I stop and think about it

  where if not here will her armour protect my concupiscence?

  could I swing on handsprings

  white flags

  Riopelled over blinks and blunders that

  got me behind

  to get me here

  little eye

  save my stiff

  puppet fluids

  for climbing

  if only your art

  could crush me between the word and the thing

  Common Loon

  JEFF MILLER

  ONE WINTER I haunted the library of a small city in Saitama Prefecture. The Penguin Classics sat on a shelf near the back, their titles written in white letters down black spines. In this corner of the world, the English canon was stripped to four dozen books, and by the end of my stay I had left only the thickest Victorian novels unread.

  The librarian always recognized me; even this close to Tokyo a six-foot-tall white man with bleached blonde hair was an uncommon sight. She smiled and spoke to me in a soft voice while checking out my books on my ex-girlfriend’s library card. I nodded and returned her smile, but didn’t understand a word she said.

  I read at the quiet chain restaurant next door. Its booths were narrower than the ones in the twenty-four-hour restaurant in the Canadian suburb where I grew up, but they were upholstered in a similar earth tone print. I refilled my coffee mug at the mechanized durinku bar several times over the course of the afternoon. Occasionally I called over one of the waitresses with a polite “Sumimasen,” and pointed at a colour photograph of a grilled cheese sandwich on the otherwise illegible menu.