WEBVTT 00:00:00.580 --> 00:00:02.670 So I know TED is about 00:00:02.670 --> 00:00:04.806 a lot of things that are big, 00:00:04.806 --> 00:00:08.150 but I want to talk to you about something very small, 00:00:08.150 --> 00:00:11.284 so small it's a single word. 00:00:11.284 --> 00:00:13.537 The word is "misfit." 00:00:13.537 --> 00:00:17.554 It's one of my favorite words, because it's so literal. 00:00:17.554 --> 00:00:21.919 I mean, it's a person who sort of missed fitting in, 00:00:21.919 --> 00:00:24.473 or a person who fits in badly, 00:00:24.473 --> 00:00:29.744 or this, a person, who is poorly adapted to new situations 00:00:29.744 --> 00:00:31.370 and environments. 00:00:31.370 --> 00:00:34.474 I'm a card-carrying misfit, 00:00:34.474 --> 00:00:37.330 and I'm here for the other misfits in the room, 00:00:37.330 --> 00:00:40.233 because I'm never the only one. 00:00:40.233 --> 00:00:43.019 I'm going to tell you a misfit story. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:43.019 --> 00:00:45.968 Somewhere in my early 30s, 00:00:45.968 --> 00:00:50.333 the dream of becoming a writer came right to my doorstep. 00:00:50.333 --> 00:00:53.398 Actually, it came to my mailbox in the form of a letter 00:00:53.398 --> 00:00:58.437 that said I'd won a giant literary prize for a short story I'd written. 00:00:58.437 --> 00:01:02.222 The short story was about my life as a competitive swimmer, 00:01:02.222 --> 00:01:05.449 and about my crappy home life, 00:01:05.449 --> 00:01:11.487 and a little bit about how grief and loss can make you insane. 00:01:11.487 --> 00:01:16.711 The prize was a trip to New York City to meet big-time editors and agents 00:01:16.711 --> 00:01:18.406 and other authors. 00:01:18.406 --> 00:01:22.284 So kind of it was the wannabe writer's dream, right? 00:01:22.284 --> 00:01:26.347 You know what I did the day the letter came to my house? 00:01:26.347 --> 00:01:28.066 Because I'm me, 00:01:28.066 --> 00:01:30.039 I put the letter on my kitchen table, 00:01:30.039 --> 00:01:34.219 I poured myself a giant glass of vodka 00:01:34.219 --> 00:01:36.889 with ice and lime, 00:01:36.889 --> 00:01:39.211 and I sat there in my underwear 00:01:39.211 --> 00:01:41.115 for an entire day 00:01:41.115 --> 00:01:44.854 just staring at the letter. 00:01:44.854 --> 00:01:47.849 I was thinking about all the ways I'd already screwed my life up. 00:01:47.849 --> 00:01:50.868 Who the hell was I to go to New York City 00:01:50.868 --> 00:01:53.840 and pretend to be a writer? 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:55.349 Who was I? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:55.349 --> 00:01:56.928 I'll tell you. 00:01:56.928 --> 00:01:58.855 I was a misfit. 00:01:58.855 --> 00:02:02.060 Like legions of other children, 00:02:02.060 --> 00:02:04.451 I came from an abusive household 00:02:04.451 --> 00:02:07.981 that I narrowly escaped with my life. 00:02:07.981 --> 00:02:12.184 I already had two epically failed marriages underneath my belt. 00:02:12.184 --> 00:02:15.527 I'd flunked out of college, not once but twice, 00:02:15.527 --> 00:02:18.987 and maybe even a third time that I'm not going to tell you about. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:18.987 --> 00:02:20.821 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:20.821 --> 00:02:24.978 And I'd done an episode of rehab for drug use. 00:02:24.978 --> 00:02:30.458 And I'd had two lovely staycations in jail. 00:02:30.458 --> 00:02:32.757 So I'm on the right stage. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:32.757 --> 00:02:36.170 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:36.959 --> 00:02:40.349 But the real reason, I think, I was a misfit, 00:02:40.349 --> 00:02:43.461 is that my daughter died the day she was born, 00:02:43.461 --> 00:02:48.337 and I hadn't figured out how to live with that story yet. 00:02:48.337 --> 00:02:53.585 After my daughter died, I also spent a long time homeless, 00:02:53.585 --> 00:02:57.045 living under an overpass 00:02:57.045 --> 00:03:00.388 in a kind of profound state of zombie grief and loss 00:03:00.388 --> 00:03:02.362 that some of us encounter along the way, 00:03:02.362 --> 00:03:06.240 maybe all of us, if you live long enough. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:10.535 You know, homeless people are some of our most heroic misfits, 00:03:10.535 --> 00:03:14.924 because they start out as us. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:14.924 --> 00:03:20.079 So you see, I'd missed fitting in to just about every category out there: 00:03:20.079 --> 00:03:25.675 daughter, wife, mother, scholar. 00:03:25.675 --> 00:03:27.997 And the dream of being a writer 00:03:27.997 --> 00:03:32.780 was really kind of like a small, sad stone in my throat. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:38.585 It was pretty much in spite of myself that I got on that plane 00:03:38.585 --> 00:03:40.930 and flew to New York City, 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:43.090 where the writers are. 00:03:43.090 --> 00:03:47.130 Fellow misfits, I can almost see your heads glowing. 00:03:47.130 --> 00:03:49.034 I can pick you out of a room. 00:03:49.034 --> 00:03:51.495 At first, you would've loved it. 00:03:51.495 --> 00:03:53.214 You got to choose the three famous writers you wanted to meet, 00:03:53.214 --> 00:03:56.929 and these guys went and found them for you. 00:03:56.929 --> 00:03:59.437 You got set up at the Gramercy Park Hotel, 00:03:59.437 --> 00:04:02.339 where you got to drink Scotch late in the night 00:04:02.339 --> 00:04:04.754 with cool, smart, swank people, 00:04:04.754 --> 00:04:08.260 and you got to pretend you were cool 00:04:08.260 --> 00:04:09.468 and smart and swank too. 00:04:09.468 --> 00:04:12.626 And you got to meet a bunch of editors and authors and agents 00:04:12.626 --> 00:04:17.664 at very, very fancy lunches and dinners. 00:04:17.664 --> 00:04:19.801 Ask me how fancy. 00:04:22.308 --> 00:04:24.143 I'm making a confession: 00:04:24.143 --> 00:04:27.835 I stole three linen napkins 00:04:27.835 --> 00:04:30.621 from three different restaurants 00:04:30.621 --> 00:04:33.369 and I shoved a menu down my pants. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:33.369 --> 00:04:35.087 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:35.087 --> 00:04:38.315 I just wanted some keepsakes so that when I got home, 00:04:38.315 --> 00:04:41.543 I could believe it had really happened to me. 00:04:41.543 --> 00:04:43.563 You know? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:43.563 --> 00:04:45.560 The three writers I wanted to meet 00:04:45.560 --> 00:04:48.648 were Carol Maso, Lynne Tillman, and Peggy Phelan. 00:04:48.648 --> 00:04:51.574 These were not famous, best-selling authors, 00:04:51.574 --> 00:04:55.962 but to me, they were women writer titans. 00:04:55.962 --> 00:04:59.956 Carole Maso wrote the book that later became my art bible. 00:04:59.956 --> 00:05:03.927 Lynne Tillman gave me permission to believe that there was a chance 00:05:03.927 --> 00:05:07.085 my stories could be part of the world. 00:05:07.085 --> 00:05:09.871 And Peggy Phelan reminded me 00:05:09.871 --> 00:05:11.659 that maybe my brains 00:05:11.659 --> 00:05:15.212 could be more important than my boobs. 00:05:15.212 --> 00:05:18.439 They weren't mainstream women writers, 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:20.808 but they were cutting a path 00:05:20.808 --> 00:05:24.453 through the mainstream with their body stories, 00:05:24.453 --> 00:05:29.515 I like to think kind of the way water cut the Grand Canyon. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:29.515 --> 00:05:32.719 It nearly killed me with joy to hang out with these three 00:05:32.719 --> 00:05:35.181 over 50-year old women writers, 00:05:35.181 --> 00:05:37.921 and the reason it nearly killed me with joy 00:05:37.921 --> 00:05:40.405 is that I'd never known a joy like that. 00:05:40.405 --> 00:05:42.588 I'd never been in a room like that. 00:05:42.588 --> 00:05:44.747 My mother never went to college, 00:05:44.747 --> 00:05:47.464 and my creative career to that point 00:05:47.464 --> 00:05:52.758 was a sort of small, sad, stillborn thing. 00:05:52.758 --> 00:05:56.868 So kind of in those first nights in New York I wanted to die there. 00:05:56.868 --> 00:06:01.187 I was just like, "Kill me now. I'm good. This is beautiful." NOTE Paragraph 00:06:01.187 --> 00:06:03.788 Some of you in the room will understand 00:06:03.788 --> 00:06:05.158 what happened next. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:05.158 --> 00:06:09.477 First they took me to the offices of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 00:06:09.477 --> 00:06:13.703 Farrar, Straus and Giroux was like my mega dream press. 00:06:13.703 --> 00:06:17.418 I mean, T.S. Eliot and Flannery O'Connor were published there. 00:06:17.418 --> 00:06:21.992 The main editor guy sat me down and talked to me for a long time 00:06:21.992 --> 00:06:26.752 trying to convince me I had a book in me about my life as a swimmer. 00:06:26.752 --> 00:06:28.726 You know, like, a memoir. 00:06:28.726 --> 00:06:31.211 The whole time he was talking to me, I sat there smiling and nodding 00:06:31.211 --> 00:06:35.692 like a numb idiot 00:06:35.692 --> 00:06:37.712 with my arms crossed over my chest 00:06:37.712 --> 00:06:44.121 while nothing, nothing, nothing came out of my throat. 00:06:44.121 --> 00:06:47.511 So in the end, he patted me on the shoulder 00:06:47.511 --> 00:06:49.786 like a swim coach might, 00:06:49.786 --> 00:06:51.644 and he wished me luck, 00:06:51.644 --> 00:06:54.105 and he gave me some free books, 00:06:54.105 --> 00:06:57.588 and he showed me out the door. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:57.588 --> 00:07:01.141 Next they took me to the offices of W.W. Norton, 00:07:01.141 --> 00:07:03.672 where I was pretty sure I would be escorted from the building 00:07:03.672 --> 00:07:06.366 just for wearing Doc Martens. 00:07:06.366 --> 00:07:08.316 But that didn't happen. 00:07:08.316 --> 00:07:11.219 Being at the Norton offices felt like reaching up into the night sky 00:07:11.219 --> 00:07:16.768 and touching the moon while the stars 00:07:16.768 --> 00:07:19.949 stitched your name across the cosmos. 00:07:19.949 --> 00:07:22.062 I mean, that's how big a deal it was to me. 00:07:22.062 --> 00:07:23.734 You get it? 00:07:23.734 --> 00:07:26.404 Their lead editor, Carol Houck Smith, 00:07:26.404 --> 00:07:30.770 leaned over right in my face with these beady, bright, fierce eyes 00:07:30.770 --> 00:07:34.160 and said, "Well send me something then, immediately!" 00:07:34.160 --> 00:07:36.644 See, now most people, especially TED people 00:07:36.644 --> 00:07:38.618 would have run to the mailbox. 00:07:38.618 --> 00:07:41.660 It took me over a decade 00:07:41.660 --> 00:07:44.678 to even imagine putting something in an envelope 00:07:44.678 --> 00:07:49.067 and licking a stamp. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:49.067 --> 00:07:50.576 On the last night, 00:07:50.576 --> 00:07:51.784 I gave a big reading 00:07:51.784 --> 00:07:54.501 at the National Poetry Club. 00:07:54.501 --> 00:07:56.242 And at the end of the reading, 00:07:56.242 --> 00:08:00.886 Katharine Kidde, of Kidde, Hoyt and Picard literary agency, 00:08:00.886 --> 00:08:03.370 walked straight up to me and shook my hand 00:08:03.370 --> 00:08:07.875 and offered me representation, like, on the spot. 00:08:07.875 --> 00:08:11.776 I stood there and I kind of went deaf. 00:08:11.776 --> 00:08:13.657 Has this ever happened to you? 00:08:13.657 --> 00:08:16.025 And I almost started crying 00:08:16.025 --> 00:08:19.973 because all the people in the room were dressed so beautifully, 00:08:19.973 --> 00:08:23.270 and all that came out of my mouth was, "I don't know. 00:08:23.270 --> 00:08:26.869 I have to think about it." 00:08:26.869 --> 00:08:33.115 And she said, "Okay then," and walked away. 00:08:33.115 --> 00:08:39.594 All those open hands out to me, that small, sad stone in my throat. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:39.594 --> 00:08:43.680 You see, I'm trying to tell you something about people like me. 00:08:43.680 --> 00:08:47.697 Misfit people, we don't know always know how to hope or say yes 00:08:47.697 --> 00:08:49.276 or choose the big thing 00:08:49.276 --> 00:08:51.389 even when it's right in front of us. 00:08:51.389 --> 00:08:53.038 It's a shame we carry. 00:08:53.038 --> 00:08:56.126 It's the shame of wanting something good. 00:08:56.126 --> 00:08:57.403 It's the shame of feeling something good. 00:08:57.403 --> 00:09:01.606 It's the shame of not really believing we deserve to be in the room 00:09:01.606 --> 00:09:04.671 with the people we admire. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:04.671 --> 00:09:07.620 If I could, I'd go back and I'd coach myself. 00:09:07.620 --> 00:09:11.986 I'd be exactly like those over 50-year old women who helped me. 00:09:11.986 --> 00:09:15.585 I'd teach myself how to want things, how to stand up, 00:09:15.585 --> 00:09:16.676 how to ask for them. 00:09:16.676 --> 00:09:20.623 I'd say, "You! Yeah, you! You belong in the room too." 00:09:20.623 --> 00:09:23.147 The radiance falls on all of us, 00:09:23.147 --> 00:09:27.304 and we are nothing without each other. 00:09:27.304 --> 00:09:30.206 Instead, I flew back to Oregon, 00:09:30.206 --> 00:09:36.476 and as I watched the evergreens and rain come back into view, 00:09:36.476 --> 00:09:41.491 I just drank many tiny bottles of airplane feel sorry for yourself. 00:09:41.491 --> 00:09:47.621 I thought about how, if I was a writer, I was some kind of misfit writer. 00:09:47.621 --> 00:09:50.407 What I'm saying is, I flew back to Oregon without a book deal, 00:09:50.407 --> 00:09:54.518 without an agent, and with only a head full and heart full of memories 00:09:54.518 --> 00:09:57.606 of having sat so near 00:09:57.606 --> 00:10:00.485 the beautiful writers. 00:10:00.485 --> 00:10:05.175 Memory was the only prize I allowed myself. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:05.175 --> 00:10:09.100 And yet, at home in the dark, 00:10:09.100 --> 00:10:11.584 back in my underwear, 00:10:11.584 --> 00:10:14.463 I could still hear their voices. 00:10:14.463 --> 00:10:18.527 They said, "Don't listen to anyone who tries to get you to shut up 00:10:18.527 --> 00:10:21.058 or change your story." 00:10:21.058 --> 00:10:24.564 They said, "Give voice to the story only you know how to tell." 00:10:24.564 --> 00:10:27.211 They said, "Sometimes telling the story 00:10:27.211 --> 00:10:31.878 is the thing that saves your life." NOTE Paragraph 00:10:31.878 --> 00:10:35.176 Now I am, as you can see, the woman over 50, 00:10:35.176 --> 00:10:38.357 and I'm a writer, 00:10:38.357 --> 00:10:40.632 and I'm a mother, 00:10:40.632 --> 00:10:43.233 and I became a teacher. 00:10:43.233 --> 00:10:46.298 Guess who my favorite students are? 00:10:46.298 --> 00:10:46.902 Although it didn't happen the day that dream letter came through my mailbox, 00:10:46.902 --> 00:10:52.266 I did write a memoir 00:10:52.266 --> 00:10:54.889 called "The Chronology of Water." 00:10:54.889 --> 00:10:59.580 In it are the stories of how many times I've had to reinvent a self 00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:02.877 from the ruins of my choices, 00:11:02.877 --> 00:11:08.310 the stories of how my seeming failures were really just weird-ass portals 00:11:08.310 --> 00:11:10.563 to something beautiful. 00:11:10.563 --> 00:11:15.509 All I had to do was give voice to the story. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:15.509 --> 00:11:20.664 There's a myth in most cultures about following your dreams. 00:11:20.664 --> 00:11:23.334 It's called the Hero's Journey. 00:11:23.334 --> 00:11:26.283 But I prefer a different myth 00:11:26.283 --> 00:11:29.232 that's slightly to the side of that, or underneath it. 00:11:29.232 --> 00:11:32.041 It's called the Misfit's Myth, 00:11:32.041 --> 00:11:33.806 and it goes like this: 00:11:33.806 --> 00:11:36.198 even at the moment of your failure, 00:11:36.198 --> 00:11:39.077 right then, you are beautiful. 00:11:39.077 --> 00:11:44.232 You don't know it yet, but you have the ability to reinvent yourself 00:11:44.232 --> 00:11:45.764 endlessly. 00:11:45.764 --> 00:11:47.901 That's your beauty. 00:11:47.901 --> 00:11:50.524 You can be a drunk, 00:11:50.524 --> 00:11:53.311 you can be a survivor of abuse, 00:11:53.311 --> 00:11:54.495 you can be an ex-con, 00:11:54.495 --> 00:11:55.168 you can be a homeless person, 00:11:55.168 --> 00:11:58.117 you can lose all your money or your job or your husband 00:11:58.117 --> 00:12:00.625 or your wife, or the worst thing of all, 00:12:00.625 --> 00:12:02.065 a child. 00:12:02.065 --> 00:12:04.224 You can even lose your marbles. 00:12:04.224 --> 00:12:09.007 You can be standing dead center in the middle of your failure 00:12:09.007 --> 00:12:11.167 and still, I'm only here to tell you, 00:12:11.167 --> 00:12:13.303 you are so beautiful. 00:12:13.303 --> 00:12:15.625 Your story deserves to be heard, 00:12:15.625 --> 00:12:19.921 because you, you rare and phenomenal misfit, 00:12:19.921 --> 00:12:22.521 you new species, 00:12:22.521 --> 00:12:24.774 are the only one in the room 00:12:24.774 --> 00:12:26.376 who can tell the story 00:12:26.376 --> 00:12:29.766 the way only you would. 00:12:29.766 --> 00:12:32.367 And I'd be listening. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:32.367 --> 00:12:34.457 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:34.457 --> 00:12:40.099 (Applause)