First Impressions

I'm listening to Norman Mailer on the radio. He's died, but his rough and goopy voice lives on. I don't know what I think about Norman Mailer or how I feel about the legacy to which the radio host keeps referring. I think I am supposed to dislike him, to find him arrogant and misogynistic. I think I am supposed to feel offended by him, oppressed by his intellect and use of big words.

But I have never read Norman Mailer. I have only heard him speak -- short snippets of interviews before I change the channel of either the TV or the radio. I seem to dislike the rumor of him. I do not like his voice and for some reason, I don't like the look of him, but all I know of him is his perceived greatness, the greatness now broadcast on the radio after his death.

I form opinions like this often and try as I might, they stick. I feel much the same way about my neighbor. Our interactions have been limited, but his aura, as it were, gives me the creeps. His wife is affable though we call her Mrs. Kravitz because of her rather snoopy nature, but he, the husband feels smarmy and unpredictable.

A few years back, Sharon lived up the street though we called her "Lulu" in reference to the odd and loopy things she did -- sitting on her front stoop in only her underwear and slippers in the dead of winter or her monthly "cleaning" of her house where she threw everything out the front door including furniture, applicances, rugs, and a TV and left it in a pile until a kindly neighbor came by to clean it up.

Last year, as I was walking home from work, a middle-aged woman stopped me on the street and thanked me for being so kind to her. "I was your neighbor," she said once she saw my puzzled look. "I'm Sharon." She looked nothing like the Lulu we'd known. Her hair was clean, her clothes were on and relatively new, and the whirling dervish I remembered of her eyes were now clear and direct. "You were just so kind and I will never forget that," she continued. I had no recollection of what I did other than call the police as I watched her beat her son with a broom handle and chase him down the street, but I bowed my head and said, "You're welcome" afraid to ask any of the questions swirling through my head (where are you living, what happened, why are you sane when I thought you were a lost caused?).

Even as she walked on up the street and I continued on home, I doubted that she'd changed, that she was as kind and as thoughtful as her words.

My first impression stuck and I couldn't shake it.

When this happens with one of my students, I do an excellent job of compartmentalizing my feelings and dealing with the kid on her level. Years later, if she were to stop me on the street I might not remember her or if I did, I wouldn't necessarily give her the benefit of the doubt.

This happened once when I was in a bar. There to hear one of my favorite bands, a young woman approached me and smiled. "Do I know you?" I asked. "Yes, I'm Elsa." And it all flooded back to me. This was Elsa. Perfect Elsa. The Elsa who asked amazing questions in my history class and wrote insightful, powerful essays on the failings of war and the exhausting struggle it took to maintain peace. I loved Elsa. But I didn't recognize her. 17 year old Elsa would never go into a sleazy bar like this one. Elsa wouldn't like this band. Elsa wouldn't be holding a shot glass in her hand and look at her former teacher a bit bleary-eyed. This was not Elsa of my first impression. This was an adult Elsa, an Elsa of her own choosing.

It didn't fit.

I do it with people with whom I work. R. at work who makes me nervous. J. who I joke with in public, but find difficult to respect as a teacher. K. who does everything to bug me, or so I think, even down to her slurpy food that she eats with her hands and spills on the table.

They are good people. They are people doing the best they can and still I keep my distance. Still I find it hard not to let my first impressions limit their potential.

Norman Mailer is now talking about sex on the radio. How sex with someone you love is much different than sex in a brothel. He is articulate. The audience laughs. The host interacts in a jovial way. And Norman Mailer coughs a phlegmy rattle, stopping the conversation long enough for there to be a moment of silence on the radio.

And from sex, he moves on to the topic of Hitler and then Stalin and finally, the radio show ends and I still feel as if I cannot like the man even in his death.

This is not me. I am a good person who tries hard not to judge.

And yet still, the judgment happens. Conversations prattle on inside my head and I argue both sides of pointless debates. My first impressions hold firmly and my kind self cannot seem to get a foot hold in the spiteful mountain of my mean self.

Okay, I'm not mean. I don't actively hate anyone or go out of my way to do mean and spiteful things to people who make me uncomfortable. In fact, I am an avoider choosing to remove myself from possibly confrontational situations even if my judgment of them is visceral. I do kind things too like help the old lady with her groceries at the store or open doors for those in need or smile at the neighbor who sits on his porch watching the world go by.

Still, if I could wipe away my gluey first impressions what would my world look like then?