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Into Every Life a Little Otis Must Fall; or The Otis I Did For Love; or Love Me, Love My Otis The Reverend Dr. Becky Edmiston-Lange, November 6, 2005 You may have noticed that my sermon title has several references to “Otis.” You are probably wondering, “Who or what is Otis?” Otis is a pet iguana, and a rather disgusting pet iguana at that. Otis has essentially two modes of existence. One is “about as basic as it gets: stare, stare, lie on rock, stare, sneak to other end of cage, stare.” The other consists of periodic terrible episodes where he tears around his cage like a balloon losing air, spewing thin white ribbons of excrement. Yep, he’s pretty disgusting, but he is the beloved pet of a seven year old named Harry. Harry simply adores Otis. No matter what state Otis is in, Harry praises him, “Oh, Otis, you are such a good little iguana.” Harry’s mother, Mattie, on the other hand can find not a single redeeming quality in Otis. Otis to her is all ridges and green scales. She’s so afraid of Otis she won’t even touch him—if she has to move him, she resorts to chopsticks to do the job. She describes him as “a vaguely hostile scrap of leather.” And Otis is about the last thing Mattie needs at this point in her life. Mattie’s life is, quite charitably, a wreck. Her philandering professor husband has left her for one of his graduate students, she’s living in her mother’’s former home which is falling down around her (her mother’s solution to cracks or mold was to cover them over with paint and cabinets—one bright spot in Mattie’s life is that she has lots of storage space because there are cabinets everywhere!), Mattie’s mother, who lives in a retirement community nearby, is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, her best friend has moved away, she’s fighting the battle of the bulge—which is no small matter since she makes her living as a size-model for Sears—and, to top it all off, she’s got a crush on a married man. And now her seven-year-old decides that the perfect pet is an iguana named Otis that alternates between catatonia and foul-smelling bouts of madness! I checked with one of my friends who happens to be something of an iguana expert—having owned several over the course of her life—and she tells me that this description of Otis’ behavior is right on the money. I checked because, as you might have guessed by now, Otis is a fictional character. He and Mattie and Harry are characters in Anne Lamott’s novel Blue Shoe. But it’s not just Otis’s behavior that rings true to form, but also how and when he shows up. For doesn’t it seem that just when you think you’ve got all you can manage life seems to deal you just a little extra frisson of chaos or stress? It hardly ever fails. You’re struggling to keep your head above water at work, your teenager’s in trouble at school, you’re trying to help your aging parents with Medicare claims by long distance, last night you discovered a suspicious lump in your armpit, and you are feeling like you cannot care for one more thing, take on one more responsibility, when your five year old falls in love with and wants to adopt six baby kittens from down the block and will not take no for an answer, at least not without a crying jag so pitiful that it makes you feel like the cruelest parent on the planet. Or, your boss is sending you on an extended out-of-town trip, your kitchen remodeling project is long behind schedule, your car’s in the shop, your in-laws are about to come for a visit from halfway across the country, when the contractor informs you that the dishwasher is on back order and won’t be in for another two months, and the upstairs toilet overflows while you are away, flooding the whole second floor. Those are both true life tales. Yes, exactly when we think we’ve got just about enough mess to deal with, thank you very much—isn’t that when “into every life a little Otis must fall?” In those life moments, it’s as if the world of external objects is wickedly mimicking our disordered internal state. No wonder the ancients believed that the gods were tricksters! Yes, Anne Lamott’s Otis may be fictional, but he reads true to form, for we all, at one time or another, experience a little Otis chaos. But, and this is part of the genius of this lizard character, there’s another level on which Otis operates that also rings true to life. Remember how Mattie feels about Otis—he’s so disgusting she can find not one redeemable feature to Otis. And yet she puts up with him. Why? Why, when one day Otis appears to be more comatose than usual, when he appears utterly dead in fact, does she carefully extract him from his cage, place him in a shoe-box, and drive him to the vet, who much to his surprise, is able to revive him by stroking his stomach? And why, one night when Otis is missing, does Mattie organize a massive search party, all the while secretly hoping Otis would not be found, all the while fantasizing how much bigger the living room would seem once cleared of Otis’s cage, all the while thinking with moral righteousness of mothers in other countries who do not have the luxury of worrying about their kids’ pets and of how Otis with his heat lamp and his lettuce leaves was living better than half the world’s children? And why, when the search is called off and Otis has not been found, does she, even while still harboring her secret thoughts, get down on her hands and knees to begin yet another search, going through all the rooms, all the closets, and even through the garbage, where finally at the bottom of Harry’s GI Joe trash can, Otis is at last discovered? Why all this? Because Harry is absolutely heartbroken, cries inconsolably, when Otis cannot be found. Why? Because Mattie “could not see a single redeeming quality in Otis, except that Harry loved him so.” Don’t we recognize ourselves here? Oh, maybe not rooting around on our hands and knees looking for iguanas, but don’t we all have experiences that would fall under the category of “the Otis I do for love”? Some of you who are parents could relate similar tales of pets you’ve endured for your children’s sake. And don’t we all have friends who own pets with habits the owner’s seem to find endearing, but which we find decided less so? My friend the iguana lover also has a pet boa constrictor and has a habit of greeting you at the door with the boa wrapped around her neck. Then she invites you to hold it—“come on, he’s not slimy, in fact his skin is very dry”—and, when you resist more than a light touch, she drapes the snake along the back of the sofa you just sat down on.( Creepy sound.) Or the dog owner who doesn’t seem to get it that their pet’s habit of greeting you by putting their nose up your skirt can be a little disconcerting, embarrassing even? And it’s not just children’s possessions or obnoxious pets that fit into this category of “the Otis we do for love,” is it? Don’t we all know a few people who have obnoxious habits or irritating personality traits, but somehow we keep going back for more? My Uncle Fritz had this annoying habit of giving his nephews and nieces monkey-shines—you know what I mean—grab your head in a half nelson, rattle his knuckles on the top of your skull—it didn’t matter how old you were—I was still trying to dodge them when I was in college!—and, what’s more, he also had a habit of telling off-color jokes and belching—or worse—at the dinner table—not someone you wanted around when you brought a new boyfriend home to meet the family! And he never could understand, or so it seemed, why I wanted to go to college and seminary, kept asking me when I was going to get married and have babies like girls are supposed to do. Well, of course, you say, I had to put up with Fritz because he was family and we’ve all got family like that. Well, yes, but also because Uncle Fritz, beneath his off-putting exterior had a big, soft heart. When I was a young adult struggling to make ends meet and driving an old clunker of a car that finally gave up the ghost, Uncle Fritz gave me his six-year-old Chevy Impala and paid the insurance on it for six months till I was able to get my feet on more solid financial ground. And when my Dad died when I was nineteen and I had to sell my beloved horse, Breeze, he was the only one in the family who seemed to fully realize what that loss meant—he held me in his arms and let me bawl my brains out on his shoulder. I ruined his favorite sweater with my mascara and he never said a word. So, yes, I put up with the monkey-shines and all the rest. And I have a friend who is a both a control freak and hypercritical. When you make her a BLT sandwich she watches over your shoulder to make sure you get the ingredients in the right order—that the lettuce goes between the bacon and the tomato, not on top of the two—“they don’t call it a BTL, now do they,” she’ll ask? She always find the piece of lint on your dress, the errant lipstick on your teeth; remarks on the dark circles under your eyes in a way that makes you feel that being tired is a character flaw; if you clean her kitchen counter she comes behind you with a sponge of her own; and, she never gives a compliment without taking it back with a qualifier in the next breath. More than once I’ve thought “that’s it, I’m writing her off.” But I don’t. Why? Because she is witty and smart and she can be, when she lets herself relax, great good fun. Because she taught me how to rumba and I taught her how to hustle and because she has been there for me at times when I thought I didn’t have another friend in the world. So, no, it’s not only family that fall into the category of “the Otis I do for love.” Don’t any of you have a friend like that in your life? People whom we forgive their irritating habits and obnoxious traits because they are, underneath, quite loveable people with lots of redeeming characteristics and we feel blessed to have them in our life? And so we take them, Otis and all, no matter how embarrassing or off-putting. And, don’t we all secretly know that we each have our own Otises that require others’ forbearance? And, don’t we hope that our friends and family will take us, Otis and all? Anne Lamott’s portrait of Otis helps me recognize people I know and love and the Otis in myself. But I think there is still yet an even deeper level at which Otis rings true to life. Let me tell you a little more about Harry, the little boy who loves Otis. Remember that Harry’s mother’s life is in disarray. Well, Harry’s own life is upset as well. His Dad has left his Mom and like any kid in such a situation Harry is dealing with feelings of loss and anger and guilt. Harry wonders what his Mom did to drive his Dad away. He wonders what he did to drive his Dad away. He wonders why his Dad doesn’t love them anymore. He wonders why his Dad is being such a jerk. He wonders if he, Harry, is a jerk and that’s why his Dad left. He wonders why they can’t all live together in the same house even if his Mom and Dad aren’t married anymore, why he has to schlep back and forth between two houses? It’s not too much to say that to Harry life feels like one big mess. But in Harry’s Dad’s life, on the other hand, only good things seem to be happening. Dad has been promoted, he’s bought a new car, he’s building an addition onto the house, and, to top it all off, he and his beautiful young wife are expecting a new baby. It’s at this point in the novel that Otis makes his appearance and it makes perfect sense that Harry would be needing a pet, something of his own to love, something to love him, right then. But an iguana? Why not a cuddly puppy or kitty? At least that Mattie could understand. But no, it’s an ugly, half catatonic, half mad lizard that Harry wants. The character of Otis really is a masterful stroke because Otis provides a perfect externalization of the confused disorder of Harry’s inner life. Can’t you just imagine that Harry himself alternates between wanting to be able to just shut the world out, stare down the chaos around and inside him, or wanting to tear around in a fit of pique, spewing appropriate commentary on the situation? There’s a wonderful scene in the novel when Katy, Harry’s Dad’s new au pair comes to pick up Harry for the first time. When Katy peers into Otis’s glass cage, Otis promptly goes into one of his more prolonged and glorious “episodes.” Katy recoils in disgust, “oh, God!” but Harry beams. “That’’s my boy!” he enthuses! However, Otis is not just a one-dimensional representation of what Harry would like to do to his Dad’s new life. There’s also a way in which Otis represents how Harry is feeling about himself. Rejected by his father, or so it seems to Harry, Harry is feeling eminently rejectable, unlovable. And so by having such a disgusting pet and by loving such a disgusting pet, Harry is in effect saying, “if even this is loveable, surely I am lovable, too.” And by forcing others to accept Otis, Harry is demanding to be loved, scales and all. Harry is really hurting. And it is not unusual when people encounter suffering to, at least unconsciously, wonder if there is something wrong with them, or if they did something to bring it on. When Otis is lost and Harry is bereft, he says, eyes swollen with tears, “God has stopped loving this family.” Of course, we know that Harry’s great grief is not just about the loss of Otis, but about Harry’s loss of family as he has known it and of his special place in his Dad’s affections. Harry, of course, can’t articulate all this. He is, after all, only seven. And so Otis’s mute displays are the perfect outer manifestation of Harry’s fears, sorrows and vulnerabilities. Otis functions a little bit like the transitional objects of very young children—the monkey that’s always there to comfort you when no one else is, the teddy bear that will suffer your worst fits of anger and tears and still won’t go away—the transitional objects that give children a means of expressing what is going on inside of them in a way that enables them to trust, to extend themselves toward others. But it is not only children who have difficulty voicing complex emotions in the face of the vicissitudes and losses of life. It is not only children who in effect say, “I’m not feeling very lovable right now, but please love even my unlovableness; please, love me, love my Otis.” When my sister Margaret was dying of ovarian cancer, her miniature poodle, Candace, was also dying. My sister Margaret lived alone. She had few people in her life other than family—she was not the easiest person to love. Candace was more than Margaret’s pet; she was her friend and companion. But Candace was old and her internal organs were failing. Her back legs were arthritic so she tended to drag herself around by her forepaws. She spent much of her time asleep on the couch. But she also had episodes of violent vomiting and diarrhea. Worse, when this happened, she didn’t stay put in one place but drug herself all over the house. All in all, it created a pretty disgusting mess—and of course it and she had to be cleaned up after each episode. And as Margaret herself got weaker, Candace’s episodes increased in frequency. We in the family wondered why Margaret didn’t have Candace put to sleep—her vet had even suggested it. Margaret was hardly able to take care of herself, let alone a sick dog. Why did she need this—why did we need this? But if anyone so much as hinted at such a thing Margaret would be enraged. And if you ever suggested that Candace was anything less than loveable in her current state, if you ever evinced the slightest nuance of disgust when cleaning up after her, Margaret seemed to take it as a personal offense. Meanwhile, all this time it got harder and harder for Margaret to take care of herself, to do the chores to keep body and soul together, to get to her doctor’s appointments. She had a hard time accepting help for herself, but she was always willing to accept help when it came to Candace. Margaret would talk about Candace dying—someday—but Margaret never talked about her own dying—that is, she never talked about it until after Candace died. In retrospect, it seems quite transparent really—that Margaret projected her own internal drama onto Candace, that holding onto Candace was a way for Margaret to hold onto life; and that demanding others accept Candace’s condition without being repulsed was a way of demanding such acceptance for herself. After all, Margaret’s body was also betraying her; her insides were also breaking down, giving out. And she was angry and feeling abandoned by life. Candace’s drama acted out all that Margaret could not articulate, gave voice to all that she felt was unspeakable. Asking us, her family, to keep on loving and taking care of Candace until there was no more hope was Margaret’s way of asking her family to keep on loving and caring for her until the end came. In effect she was saying, “I’m not feeling very loveable right now, pretty unspeakable things are happening to me; but please love even this; please, love me, love my Otis.” You see, what I am trying to express are the ways in which we bridge our inner personal reality and the outer realm of interpersonal relationships and shared reality. Otis, and things like him, are what help us cross that great divide between us and others, especially at those points where we feel at risk or in danger or somehow unacceptable. They give us a vessel or a space onto which we can project those fears, vulnerabilities, and sorrows, those things we feel are unspeakable or unacceptable and from which we can transfer back what it is we so desperately want and need. If my Otis is unlovable and yet I love it anyway, then I can love even those sides of myself I find unacceptable. And if others can accept my unacceptable Otis, then that helps redeem for me the part of myself I fear is unlovable, helps me to see that even with this, I might still be loved, accepted. It’s not just kids that have to navigate between inner and outer, self and world. As we grow up the demands increase and sometimes outer reality can be pretty overwhelming. We all have fears that the world will not be receptive to our embrace; we will all encounter times when outer realities abrade our sense of self and trust. And so we all have our own unique ways of navigating those tricky waters. Anne Lamott helps me see beyond those navigation techniques, those Otises, to the loveable people behind. I think now that my Uncle Fritz’ off-putting exterior helped preserve his big, soft heart in a world that was, at times, anything but. He grew up in the depression; he lost a hand in World War II. If he had succumbed completely to his tenderness and empathy, he would have been lost. And my friend’s boa is both her way of reaching out for the connection she hungers for and a way of protecting herself from the rejection she secretly fears she deserves. Without the boa she might not be able to reach out at all. And my other friend’s hypercriticalness? Maybe it comes from her own overly critical self-censor and maybe her controlling behavior is a way of keeping that internal monitor at bay enough so that she can engage the world and other people. We all have vulnerabilities. We all encounter times when we fear the world will not be receptive to our embrace. But the miracle is that we do touch and connect and find understanding. The miracle is that there are those who will search us out, hold us close when we need assurance; those who will take us Otis and all. And by so doing they help us come to know ourselves as loveable, acceptable. And that is part of the gracious gift we can give to one another. It is from one human being to another that the heavenly bread of self-being is passed. |
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