Are you nervous? You should see the other guy...

"I'm a nervous wreck," one of the women was saying.

She was speaking loud enough for me, the woman with the coupon books, the men with the ice cream cones, the girl with the blue hair, the crazy Ann Arbor driver, the crazy Ann Arbor pedestrian, the old man and the old man's poodle to hear, so

Jennifer Strausz Jump Ship and Swim

I don't think she minded that I was listening to her story.

It seems that the self-proclaimed nervous wreck had been having problems at work. Her boss had given her an extra project with an early deadline and no extra pay. She wanted to confront him about that, but her stomach was getting queasy just thinking about it. She couldn't handle conflict very well. To make matters worse, someone named Mary Anne, a relative by marriage, would be staying at the nervous wreck's home that weekend, and it really wasn't convenient for the nervous wreck to have guests. It would have been inconvenient even if she liked Mary Anne, but she did not, and that was even worse.

The other woman, Marge, was apparently an expert on handling difficult situations. "I don't know how you do it, Marge," said the nervous wreck. The previous week, Marge had seriously discussed Thanksgiving dinner plans with her mother-in-law, and the week before that she had complained to her chiropractor about the amount of time she had spent in the waiting room.

"Actually, I have a little trick," said Marge. "If I start to get nervous, I can calm my thoughts by picturing the other person without any clothes on ... "

The nervous wreck had heard this one before. "In his underwear," she said knowingly. "I've tried it. It doesn't work for me. It just makes me more uncomfortable ... "

"No, not that," said Marge. She explained that she had found something much better. "I don't even picture him with underwear on," she said.

"Naked?" The nervous wreck was appalled.

"More than naked," said Marge. "Skinless. No skin. Nothing on the outside. Nothing keeping the insides from staying inside. Just guts, bones and a beating heart."

The traffic light switched from red to green and we crossed the street together. When we got to the other side, the two women turned the corner, leaving me alone with the image that Marge had just created. "Guts, bones and a beating heart," I said to myself.

It brought back the image of those Halloween parties where they blindfold you and then someone in a witch costume tries to scare you by putting your hands in things like cold spaghetti ("These are brains ... do you want to eat them?") and peeled grapes ("These are eyeballs ... "). If they hired a band to play at one of those parties, they would for sure choose one called "Guts, Bones, and a Beating Heart." "Guts" would be the name of the lead singer. "Bones" would be a tall, skinny guitar player. The drum set would be painted to look like a human heart, and the drummer would only play heartbeats.

I was writing a song for the imaginary band in my head as I walked to lunch that day, and during lunch I thought some more about Marge's "trick." I pictured her picturing other people as 'guts, bones and a beating heart.'

After a little bit of thinking and some practice in the restaurant, I decided that it actually made sense.

If you imagine other people as they are, physically, under the skin, what you will probably see are living, interconnected systems of muscle, bone, nerves and organs, along with some other things that might look a bit like cold spaghetti or peeled grapes. You will probably see something that is simultaneously nauseating and amazing. When you get good at this, negative feelings about other people will vanish. It is difficult to be angry at a mass of slimy organs, and it is impossible to be intimidated by someone when you're looking at their face inside out.

Oh, and it's funny.

- Jennifer Strausz can be reached over e-mail at jstrausz@umich.edu

11-05-99