Asking for Help

Below is an excerpt from a recent edition of Culture Study, a column written by Anna Petersen. The essay really hit home for me – how hard won it was to become a modern woman—sometimes to the point of needing help and forgetting we can ask for it. 

I might add that, however, that it helps to partner with someone who is willing to fill the volunteer fireman’s position, but in any case having quarantined for so long – all of us have gotten the idea that it is up to us to isolate and be singularly responsible for taking care of ourselves.

 

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You Do Not Need to Sell This Life Today

By Anna Helen Petersen

There’s this moment in American Beauty— a movie that now seems so incredibly 1999 I want to put it under glass next to Santana’s “Smooth” and a pair of American Eagle low rise jeans — where Annette Bening wakes up and prepares herself to sell a house.

I will sell this house today, she repeats like a mantra, going through the checklist of things that would, theoretically, help her sell the house: she grooms and fits herself into the power suit of feminine house-selling.  She strips … to deep clean the house in her slip. She does all of the things as she’s been told to do in order to be successful, including giving herself a pep talk of positive thinking.

(…)

…but Annette Bening does not sell that house today! Her subsequent breakdown is cathartic and monstrous — a clear metaphor (perhaps too clear, like the rest of American Beauty) for the festering mess below all that positivity-focused feminine cheer.

I thought of that scene earlier this week as I tried to power through the last hard day at the end of a series of hard days. I knew I could figure it out, I just needed to make enough lists and not get distracted.

(…)

The privileges of self-employment mean that I rarely wake up and shower and put myself together, but on this day, I had to give a talk, and I was fully in charge of the dogs, and I had to prep the house for a repair, and I had to file a piece and make sure I responded to at least 20 separate pressing and ever-expanding inquiries in my inbox and complete the latest ride in my Peloton PZ Challenge and put the duvet cover on the comforter because seven days is probably long to sleep without a duvet. I had to find the dog vaccine records and empty the dehumidifier and reschedule a dentist appointment. I had to drop off a return before the 30-day window closed. I had to record for NPR.

(…)

I showed up early to the ferry line, and then, as I was about to leave the island (yes I live on an island now), a guy walked up to the car and said YOU KNOW THAT YOUR REAR TIRE IS TOTALLY FLAT, RIGHT?

(…)

Reader, I did not. I did not sell this house today. I kinda wanted to take the dogs out of the car and torch it. But unlike Annette Bening, … I was just trying to get through this particularly overflowing day at the conclusion of an overflowing week and wind my way back to some sort of balance.

So I didn’t torch the car. The good thing is that the guy who tells you that your rear tire is flat is also the chief of the volunteer fire department, and helps you put on the spare in the rain and tells you exactly the place he trusts to go get it patched quickly. I tried to ask him what I could do to repay him, and he just told me to think about joining the volunteer fire department.

Left to my own devices, I would’ve figured out a solution. I always have, whenever I’ve been faced with similarly (momentarily) dire situations. But it felt like such a gift, to be caught mid-fall.

(…)

When the fire chief asked me if I wanted him to help me change the tire, my first response was: Oh I think I can figure it out!, with the exclamation point there to emphasize just how genial I was trying to be.

And I would’ve. We have a weird jack, and I probably would’ve fiddled with it for awhile, and then I would’ve called Triple-A. I could rely on myself and my ability to pay people to do things and it would’ve been fine. But there was something about the way he asked that reminded me that allowing yourself to rely on others isn’t a source of weakness, but a real fucking strength.

What rescued me at the end of my long day of self-sufficiency wasn’t my best laid plans or my organized planner or my to-do lists. It was actual community and ethos of care. And after so many years of refining self-reliance amidst uncertainty (…) it feels wild, wild!, to gradually and willingly rely on others.

Actual community isn’t like Triple-A — you can’t buy a membership. But it’s more likely to happen if you cultivate circumstances for it to flourish.

You can show up for others, which can mean so many different things. You can talk to people you don’t know, which can take many other different forms. You can give alms willingly and without expectations. But most of these things involve taking time away from the concentration on your own to-do list. Community is showing up to weed the library garden even though it’s on a Saturday and you like a certain routine for your Saturday. It is actually joining the volunteer fire department. It is committing to a two-hour-a-week volunteer spot even though it feels weird because you’ve learned to dedicate all hours to work, and then blocking it off the same way you would block off any other commitment. It is offering assistance before it is asked for, even if it means camoflaging it in the form of “I’m going to the store, can I pick anything up for you?” It is having conversations that go nowhere even when you have dinner to start. It is unlearning so much of what many of us have taught ourselves about making every moment of our lives as efficient and optimized as possible.

To be clear: I am struggling, even on this little island where we have moved with the intention of doing this, to actually do this. Community is inefficient and inconvenient as shit. But then you get a flat tire and there’s community, showing up for no reason other than because you are there, reminding you: you do not need to sell this life today. You are you, and you are here, and that is enough.