Kali the Octopus

I’m really into octopuses lately (no, it is NOT octopi, as commonly thought). If you’ve never read The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, please pick it up.

Saying The Soul of an Octopus is about an octopus is like saying The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer is about a horse, or that the Bible is about a carpenter. There may be a picture of an octopus on the front of Montgomery’s book, and a horse on the front of Singer’s, but the inside of these tomes spin yarns that speak of warriors, kings and ancient languages. I know now that I will never die happily until I look into the eye of an octopus.

Journalist Montgomery studies and builds complex relationships with various octopuses at the New England Aquarium, anthropomorphizing for the reader the personality of each individual slimy imp. Through my literary foray in this chirpy little tome, I have come to know and love George, Octavia, Kali and Karma. What intelligent, crafty, vivacious, friendly, unpredictable, and highly sentient creatures these cephalopods are.

I’ve been thinking and breathing octopuses. I marvel at the fact that when they lose an arm, the arm continues to hunt and fish, and tries to move the fish to a mouth that is no longer there. I’ve learned that octopuses have beaks and rarely show them to humans. That their suckers have pincer grips so fine that they can untie knots. Aquarium keepers have to go to great lengths to contain their octopuses, since they are masters of escape.

Oh, the places they go.

I began to get angry halfway through the book as Montgomery described the small barrel in which sweet, friendly Kali was housed. There was nowhere else to put her, and they had to be sure she was contained safely. I agonized chapter after chapter when, as they unscrewed her lid, she, so desperate for attention, socialization and space, would practically launch herself out of the barrel to touch them and play with them. And as happens with highly social and intelligent creatures, her cramped and lonely quarters began to prey on her psyche, and she began to exhibit signs of depression.

So much like humans. So much like…me! I have also as of late, with impending empty nest syndrome looming, begun to feel cramped with my surroundings. Bored. Feeling like if someone were to unscrew MY lid, that I would also fling myself out with abandon. Desperate for a new view, new space, new smells, new textures. Get me out of here!

But on page 169 a miracle happens. The handlers, determined to place her in a bigger location, found her a tank. If you are an animal lover like me, you will read pages 169-171 over and over.

She immediately turned bright red with excitement. She flung herself about, probing the new tank with her suckers, feeling the new textures of glass, gravel and stones. She stretched her full self out with wild abandon, something she had never been able to do in her small barrel. Montgomery alliteratively described it as “soaking up sensations like a swelling sponge.”

“She moves rapidly and purposefully,” Montgomery waxes, “touching everything, her arms dashing about like puppies exploring the first snow, or caged birds set free.”

All was good. I was so happy for her, for her handlers, for ME. That will be me soon, I thought!

She escaped the first night and died on the floor. All who knew and loved her were heartbroken, as was I. As I still am. Kali, being such the explorer, managed to squeeze all of her 21 pounds and ten-foot arm span out of a hole measuring 2 1/2 inches by one-inch.

This does not bode well for my impending departure. Will I seek new climes, and find them to be inhospitable? Will I overestimate my abilities?

Will I perish in my escape?

But as Anna, one of the aquarium volunteers states, “what you do today doesn’t affect yesterday.” And Wilson the Octopus-Whisperer states aptly:

“She had a good last day. She had a day of freedom. And that she got out tells you a phenomenally inquisitive and intelligent creature wanted her freedom…it must have taken a lot of effort to get out. A stupid animal wouldn’t do that.”

Indeed.

Going Live

Scariest moments in my life.

Ziplining. No matter what dialogue I tried, I could not convince my brain that catapulting myself off of a five-story platform with full confidence in the reliability of a set of lanyards, carabiners, pulleys and trolleys checked casually by our 21-year old stoned zipline guide (who went by the nickname “Extreme”) was the smart, rational, FUN thing to do. Nor did I develop immunity throughout the day- I was just as terrified on the last jump as I was on the first. I want to do it again one day, without weeping.

Teaching my first college class. I was 36, and some of my students were in their fifties. Although I had been a successful high school English teacher for 15 years, I had no idea how to raise the intellectual bar. I would be sweating, stammering, outright fucking FLOPPING. It was a disaster, from beginning to end, and I felt like a fraud, from beginning to end. Some days my students outright laughed at me, and those were the good days. But I got better.

Pushing the “Go Live” button on my website blog. Privacy. I fight for it every day of my life. I stay off social media, and when I have no choice but to use it, I use a fake name. I don’t confide in people, and there are only about a half dozen human beings on the planet I trust enough to talk to about my personal life. That is life as an introvert. But don’t forget: part of being It is being visible and relevant. This blog will not do anyone any good unless it can be viewed and read. So here I am, world.

I’m Going Live.

The (Not) It Girl

I was reticent about naming this blog “thenotitgirl” because I figured some asshat would call it The “No Tit” Girl.

Now, as I see it, a translation like this could either imply that I am missing a breast or that there is a certain activity in my sexual repertoire that is off-limits. Since neither of those conclusions would be accurate, rather than come up with a different blog title, I figured maybe it would be valuable to draw those freaks in- you know, people who like to look at one-breasted women (please, no offense intended to rockstar ladies who undergo surgery to stave off breast cancer- I’d do it too, faster than you can say Nancy Nipples), or those freaks (read ME) who have already watched everything on Porn Hub. Readers are readers, and freaks have feelings too, you know.

And I got nothing against Porn Hub.

So I kept the name, and added some dashes. The tagline actually derives from the childhood game of Tag, and the palpable relief I remember feeling as a young girl when I would be able to scream “Not It!”

Ah, I would think.

I’m Not It.

When you’re not It, there’s no urgency to race through the neighborhood looking in bushes, behind rocks, inside people’s tool sheds. When you’re not It, you can hide and read and dream and think. When you’re not It, your power lies in your absence. If you’re found so BE IT, but you don’t have to BE IT. I remember relishing my anonymity, and even now I can feel the warmth of oblivion that cascaded down my spinal cord knowing I could recede into the cool depths and shadows of my neighborhood unseen, unheard, and uninteresting. It would be years before I discovered that the universe punishes those who crave anonymity.

Obviously my existence has not created in the universe a sense of obligation.

I’m 54 now, and still the little girl who is happy not being It. Come to the dead small-minded little island on which I live and you’ll find me where the action isn’t. I have never “fit in,” and my true friends (there aren’t many) show me love by not inviting me to their stupid shit. Dinner clubs? Boat parades? Pool parties?

Bosh. Fuck off.

I’m rarely in the right place to be. Beautiful beach day? I’m in a cool bookstore. Nor’easter? I’m walking in the maelstrom. Fourth of July at high tea, New Year’s Eve hiding in a desolate Maine B&B, the Super Bowl blessedly alone in a movie theater with a large popcorn and a box of Raisinets. I shop alone, take my boat out alone, travel alone, and think alone. If I am ever where I am supposed to be, it’s probably a major holiday or a funeral that I couldn’t find a way to get out of.

I hate being It.

When you’re It, your strength resides in your visibility. Your stride. Your confidence. Your voice projection. Your refusal to be deterred from your main objective: finding the others. Like a herding dog, It searches, collects and gathers the group so all can be together once again. It is never an introvert’s goal to find, but to avoid. Never to seek, but to recede. Never to draw out, but leave others where they are.

Invisibility is a super power, and I wear a cape with pride. But eventually we all must have our turn at being It, and it is finally my turn. So come with me on my journey.