The Peanuts cartoons had an arc where Peppermint Patty (struggles in school) is trying to teach Monica (wears glasses and reads) how to “hang out” at the mall: Patty demonstrates leaning on the wall looking sleepy eyed. Monica doesn’t get it.
Back when I was more uptight I shared a duplex—we chose the place together—with two women in the sex trade. Maybe not too uptight: When one came down the hall bare naked—oops!—and then retreated, her boyfriend laughed as I was so pleased to have enough flexibility to shout after her, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever!” What we three (but not the boyfriend) had in common was a harsh past and a willingness to be present for each other. The boyfriend was an Olympian. One morning I came down the hall and he said, “Hey! You’re wearing my T-shirt! Where’d you get it?”
I replied, “I am? I found it in the campus locker room.” It was a nice T-shirt, with a circle of Olympic stick figures around the Korean flag symbol.
“We (the Canadian team) all got one at the Olympics. My roommate borrowed it, and he lost it…”
“Oh. Sorry.” He let me keep the shirt.
The man had more to his life than serious Olympic training: I remember him helping a Canadian Football League player to practise catching the the ball, because the other athlete was better at running than catching; I remember an Olympic household name passing through; I remember once coming home to a dark house, with the door unlocked—only to find a candle on the living room floor, and folks passing around a book to read aloud: an Ann Rice vampire novel. And of course the fellow did the sorts of things athletes do on TV: going to clubs and driving a fast car on trips. And he hung out in our kitchen and living room.
I am saying that he hung out, just like anyone else. Later he left to go out east to train under the best coach in Canada. His girlfriend followed. (The other lady had already left, being dislocated to a far away city by her “boyfriend”)
…Years later, a world famous millionaire blogger friend, Derek Sivers, wrote of being so impressed with an Olympian lady who said, “I do not hang out.”—something his heart swelled to hear. I think she would meet him to actively converse, but not, she said, “hang around on a couch doing nothing.” I’m sure she and Derek were both intense. I can relate; I regret I can’t say, “You guys, I’m a ‘medal winner’ too.”
Some folks can be happy knowing they are progressing up the positive numbers on the scale, above the water line, still climbing. Others, though, are still trying to get up to zero, feeling that at least they are ascending, although still below the water line of “normality.” I knew them, I was them.
There was the caustic student who came to campus one Monday and joyously told us she had spent a couple hours on Saturday just laying on the floor, merely listening to music. That was so unusual for a person who goes through her days intent on, you might say, getting functional, getting cured, or getting her act together.
There was a wife and mother who joyously told me how after yoga class, for the first time ever, she had just hung out afterwards with the ladies, “just like they do.” That was so unusual for a woman who would much rather be intently discussing with me or another friend how to get recovered. Not lazy, not a loser, but expending precious time and energy learning to do things others do so easily. Intently following her dream… of getting to normal.
She was an accountant, regular on the outside, but never in any mood to “just hang out.”
One day I was having breakfast with Derek in the heart of Central London: Just we two North Americans, of pioneer heritage, surrounded by Englishmen. By being a dyad, not in a group, we could be more productive with our conversation. At one point he looked sheepish about being intent about something, so I instantly responded with an ‘I get it” look, reminding him “Hey, I’ve got Puritan ancestors.” He relaxed.
Playwright George Bernard Shaw once described a character in Major Barbara who “by dint of great effort, appeared to be, and genuinely was…” I guess I’m genuinely “passing for normal.” Down the years I’ve picked up some skills; long ago, I learned how to be less uptight, more able to do a job without guilt at “wasting” my time by flatlining my brain—but at least getting paid for it… More recently I have learned to not have a compulsion to always be productive. This despite my colonial Ben Franklin heritage: “The devil finds work for idle hands; be ashamed to catch thyself idle; always converse to be instructive.”
I asked girls in grade one and twelve, “What did you learn today?” “Nothing.” Not so; it all adds up.
These past seasons I have been with friends nearly every day, making them laugh… with deep humour for the human condition; freely hanging out. Maybe not so free: We have to “schedule” our get togethers. It all adds up. To experience “hanging out” is a joy forever.
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Sean Crawford, hanging over my computer, hoping for comments,
earnestly seeking excellence,
February 2021
