Not Waving but Drowning

The Hazards of Pretending We're All Fine

Not Waving but Drowning              
by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,   
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought   
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking 
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,   
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   
(Still the dead one lay moaning)   
I was much too far out all my life   
And not waving but drowning.

***

My father called me about a week or two after he lost his long-time job as a mechanical engineer. I was in my rent-controlled apartment in East Cambridge. There was a guy in the apartment below me who got drunk every night at 7:30 p.m. and screamed for 15 minutes– no more, no less–sometimes up at me, sometimes adding BITCH!!! The apartment was $350 a month, and I was in grad school. Fifteen minutes seemed fair. 

My dad wasn’t a phone guy, and him calling was something new. I picked up and asked him how he was: How are you, Dad?  

I don’t want to talk about it.  
What?
Talk about something else. 
All I did was say how are you. Like you say, you know, like as an opening thing…
Talk about something else. Talk about your cat. 
What?  

Then he hung up. We didn’t talk for months. I learned later that during those months he spent a lot of money on pyramid scheme water filtration systems. When he gave up on those, he hustled to find another engineering job. By then we were talking again.

He’d work the phones in his suit-and-tie voice with a cigarette going at the kitchen table, wearing a cardigan and jeans. He’d peck out cover letters with his index fingers. It makes my heart swell and sink to think about it. In the end, he took his old job back at half the salary. The water filters sat stacked in the back of our garage for years. When he died, my mother tried to give them away to people. Take two!

My father wouldn’t or couldn’t show people his messiness, vulnerability, failure– anything in that category. He covered, dodged, and pivoted with a combo of humor, silliness, denial, and certainty. Even though it was his messiness that made him lose his job, the shame of having to hustle again at his age just about undid him. I had to stop teaching Death of a Salesman after all that.

Years later, he would die of a pulmonary embolism, and I wonder if it’s partly because he didn’t ask for help often or directly or soon enough. But I can’t be sure. The doctors confined him to bed with deep vein thrombosis for a long time in what seemed like a holding pattern. He became a big fan of Brazilian Beach Aerobics on TV and started calling me at work regularly and saying things like “Let’s keep calling” and “Talk to you soon.” When they finally put a stent in, the clot that killed him had already slipped into his lung. I should have been more involved. I should have paid closer attention. I think we were all navigating around his pride and his privacy. Still though. 

***

In college I broke up with a boyfriend who wasn’t the love of my life, so it was a surprise when a couple days after packing up his stuff I felt myself unraveling.  The extremity of my sadness was like nothing I’d experienced up to then. Whatever it was– saved-up grief, a crisis of faith, depression–I hunkered down. I was living in an old farmhouse in Lee, NH across the street from a big open field of daisies and tall grasses. I loved my classes, but I stopped going. For about a week, I stopped most things, including answering the phone.

I heard a knock at the door one night, wiped my face with a damp washcloth, and opened the door to Tom and Pete, classmates who were brothers. Tom, the older more stout one with glasses and curly brown hair had a couple records tucked up under his arm. Pete, no glasses, shorter, had a bag of groceries.

Tom, Pete, and I were at that point in an English major’s trajectory when other course requirements like Finite Math (D+) are out of the way, and you’re reading and writing all the time. Every discussion feels like a mystery unlocked and you feel believed in and smarter than you are. The brothers and I were just starting out in our friendship. Both of them were shy and smart. And you’ll see: so kind.

We heard…well, noticed, too…You haven’t been in classes. You’re not picking up the phone. 

They’d never been to my house before. I cleared a space on the sofa–kleenex, books, maybe plates– for them to sit. I realized what they were seeing and got nervous and started tidying up and they said to stop. Then we talked and ate the food they brought and listened to records. They stayed until I felt better.

I had other friends– very good ones–but there was something supernatural about those brothers showing up. Their timing, their way, and their ability to override their own shyness and my hiding. My mini breakdown and the arrival of those brothers were illuminating to me. I didn’t know until then that I could go that low and come back up. I didn’t know until then that you should show people your messes and weaknesses along the way– and not wait until you’re on the floor with a mug of whiskey crying to Patsy Cline. Or out to sea. 

Like most Gen X kids, I was taught to prize self-sufficiency and resilience. I knew I was loved, and that my parents believed in me–even if one of them was a little touch and go. I was left to figure things out on my own, and there were many such things. By my late teens, I was overconfident when out in the world and deeply sad when by myself. Bravado only gets you so far. And like any lie, it can make you lonely. 

When I was teaching, I tried to remember to keep an eye out for kids who seemed to breeze through the day, who seemed fine, cheery, well-adjusted, happy all the time. Those kids are trickier to watch out for and more difficult to read than the kids who are transparently miserable, or disruptive, or just adept at vocalizing their needs. It’s easier to read kids you know well. Small schools help.

There’s another thing I learned from Tom and Pete’s friendship, and from other friendships since. To quote a post-it note I have up in my office: Make a Fucking Effort. 

***

In Stevie Smith’s Not Waving But Drowning, people are talking. And that’s about all they’re doing, except the guy who’s waving and drowning, then dead and moaning. The onlookers are guessing, surmising, lamenting, assuming, and finally and too late–maybe listening.  It’s painful to be invisible, and it’s painful to hide. Being misunderstood seems like the worst of both.

Smith’s poem is a strange, small, and bristled treasure. It has a great punchline. And leading to that punchline is a droll and frenetic cautionary tale about miscommunication that implicates everyone and no one. We see the consequences of seeming fine when you’re not—of making your confidence public and your troubles private. Mostly, the poem shows us the hazards of assuming everyone is fine, especially those who lark around like everything is. It’s tragic living as a nobody in a world of other nobodies. Smith’s poem reminds us: Pay better attention. Make a fucking effort. Then you can talk about your cat all you want.

***

It’s not surprising that teenagers have plenty to say about this poem. Being misunderstood is in their wheelhouse. Finding themselves in sudden and emergent duress is familiar terrain. They hear about grit and resilience and the importance of being vulnerable and asking for help. What a crazy and confusing mix of messages they get. From us. 

Some excerpts from years of student papers and discussion:

On the waver/drowner:

The poem sounds crazy, fast, like heavy metal. No no no! Dead guy talks, people watching a guy drown. Saying they’re surprised, but no one really knew him. Epic.

He always loved larking. Does that mean he was a partier?

Clueless citizens Poor guy.

He’s moaning. And dead? This is a very disorienting poem. Is it a little much?

On vulnerability: (cobbled from two class convos and group of essays re: same thing)

Yeah, well not everyone can afford to be vulnerable. 

True. Easier for girls? Maybe. And white people, definitely.

What about kids with social cred. Is it easier for them to show their true selves, or harder?

I think that’s how they got their social cred: by pretending.

 But Instagram. Is there performative vulnerability? Isn’t that a thing?

Don’t you already have to be in a power position? Otherwise you just look pathetic or invisible like the drowning guy?

On not drowning, just waving

What about parents who think you’re drowning when you’re just waving?

Oh god a whole can of worms, yes.  

Yes.

***

P.S. Also, can we start using “larking?” Comment in the comments whatever you think about any of this. Sorry about the swearing. It can’t be helped. xo