The Lady of Shalott

The Tennyson poem, The Lady of Shalott, has always tugged at my soul. I encountered it while in school, and, at about the same time, I heard Loreena McKinnet’s musical rendition of the poem. The song haunted me, and the The Lady frequently wells up in my imagination, unbidden.

Her story is one of tragedy and triumph. She lives comfortably in a tower overlooking Camelot with but one restriction. She is cursed that if she ever looks directly upon Camelot, she will die. While the curse stops her from traveling there, she can still indirectly watch the city. She sets a mirror against the wall opposite her tower window, so she can sit before it and look at the reflection of the magnificent bustling city. She fills the room with tapestries, woven with the images she spies through the mirror. Surrounded by images from a life that she is barred from, she eventually decides to risk the curse for a chance to live her life rather than watching others live theirs. This is her moment of victory: she confronts the doom hanging over her and follows her heart. Tragically, a heart’s desire is not always sufficient armor against fate, and she perishes on her journey to Camelot.

For much of my life, I was plagued by the uneasy sense that something about my life was an illusion. Like the Lady of Shallot, there was the persistent sense that I was dealing with shadows and that these shadows would not be enough. For the longest time, I did not realize that I was looking through a mirror darkly. I did not know how to leave my tower.

I recommend you listen to The Lady of Shalott by Loreena McKinnet before reading on.

 

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.

The sunbeam showers break and quiver

In the stream that runneth ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

 

I remember 2012. I am waltzing across the dance floor with my new bride. She is dressed in a gorgeously embroidered wedding gown. I am in a suit bought and tailored for the occasion. We spin and pivot on the dance floor to applause from our friends and family as the band plinks out “The Rainbow Connection”. Our wedding photos are taken on the dock. We hold hands and look into each other’s eyes as the river flows toward the Atlantic. This must be Camelot. Good food, drinks, friends, family, music.

***

Three years later, my child crawls on their hands and knees to the wall. It is nearly Christmas—just past their first birthday. My wife is at work, and my child and I are home alone, playing on the floor. This is the first home we have ever owned. My child places their tiny chubby hand against the wall—our wall, painted the color of Arizona sand. They climb to their feet, both hands steadying now steadying themselves, hips wobbling back and forth. They look at me and smile mischievously, let go, and take their first steps into my arms.

I heap praise on them for the small miracle they just performed. Everything is perfect.

So why do I feel like I am watching all of this from a distance? Why do I feel like I am an outside observer, witnessing this touching scene of a father and child from the other side of a TV screen? Or maybe as a reflection caught in a mirror? I can see the two of them, but where am I?

 

No time hath she to sport and play:

A charmed web she weaves alway.

A curse is on her, if she stay

Her weaving, either night or day,

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be;

Therefore she weaveth steadily,

Therefore no other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.

It is the spring after my child took their first steps. I am at the tailor’s shop. The suit is a perfect fit. I actually look good in this. Every other suit I have ever tried on has made me look like a schoolboy playing dress-up in his father’s clothes. An online company made this suit to-measure, but the trouser waist was too wide when it arrived. I am trying the suit on again after alteration. I pack the suit back up, pay and thank the tailor, and head home. I feel jittery and relieved. I am happy that the suit fits, but more than that I am exhausted by dealing with clothing. My new employer has a business casual dress code. I come from academia where work outfits range from lazy-Sunday (shorts and a tee shirt) to please-take-my-lunch-money-at-recess (poorly fitting button down tucked into baggy chinos). Nothing comes close to “business casual”.

Until now, trying put together an outfit has caused me anxiety on a daily basis. I don’t like anything I have. Nothing feels right. The clothes do not feel like they fit properly. I try something on and it is either too informal or too formal. I don’t like how drab all of my options look. I stare at my closet and wonder who picked out all these clothes? I suppose I did, but I picked none of them because I like them. I chose these shirts because they look like what I should wear. The pants I picked out because they are baggy and anything that shows the shape of my body makes me feel exposed and embarrassed.

This new suit is a uniform I can have confidence in. I know it was tailored to fit me the way a suit is supposed to fit. I know that it will be acceptable in the workplace. Leave the jacket and tie at home and I am casual. Put the tie and the jacket on and I am ready for a meeting with clients. I am already thinking about paying for another suit to be made so that I never have to think about clothes ever again.

When I put on the suit the next morning, I put it on like a witch weaving a glamour. People will see the suit and not me. I can put it on and people with think, “Wow, that guy knows how to dress.” I can stop worrying about what people think about me. I won’t stand out any more.

Why do I stand out? I’m not sure. Because I’m bald? Because I’m short? Because I’m ugly? Because I’m wearing pants to cover my hairy legs when it is 110F outside?

I don’t know. Don’t ask me. Also, stop looking at me. If I put the suit on, will you stop looking at me?

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, came from Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead

Came two young lovers lately wed;

'I am half sick of shadows,' said

The Lady of Shalott.

I have worked at this job for 3 years. Our son is now three, and walking and talking up a storm. They lets us know what they do and do not want to do, which is great. It is very hard to take care of a person who cannot explain what they need or want. However, a toddler with autonomy is a double-edged sword. My wife and I are discussing toddler independence with an old high school friend, J, and her wife, A, while we wait at the airport together.

As my child peers out from behind my legs, I tell J that my child does not want their teeth brushed. Ever. For this cause, they will go to war. J and A have a slightly older child, and she understands how difficult an opponent a toddler can be.

Their child also hides behind his mothers, peaking around at the smaller child hiding behind me. Meeting them here was a surprise. We are catching the same flight to her sister’s wedding in Minnesota. J is a scientist and she married married A, also a scientist as soon as it was legal for them to do so. I struggle to remain coherent during this conversation. I worry that I am going lose control of my mouth, point at them, and blurt out “LESBIANS!” I cannot stop staring at them.

I chalk this urge to shout up to residual homophobia from my childhood. Surely, this feeling is something I learned from a childhood filled with bigotry. Although, if were to be honest with myself, homophobia cannot explain all that I am experiencing right now. As we two couples stand facing one another, I have the sense that I am standing on the wrong side. I feel like I should step across the few feet separating us and stand next to the two married women. I feel like I want to talk with them forever—that there are a million questions that I should ask them. I feel like they can rescue me from something. Rescue me from what though? I have no idea. I just know I need rescuing. That I am stuck somewhere.

I do not connect this feeling to the hundreds of other times I have felt like I am standing on the wrong side of the room when the boys are separated from the girls. I do not connect it to the feeling of abandonment I always feel when the last woman leaves a room and I am alone with a bunch of men. I do not connect this to the sense of performativity that pervades my life. I do my best to bury my feelings.

The conversation ends, we go our separate ways to claim luggage and rent cars. I am undone and unmoored. Sometime during that banal conversation about work and children I have lost track of who I am supposed to be. I have come into contact with something that has left me feeling myself a shadow.

I do not know if I can look at what is casting that shadow.

She left the web, she left the loom

She made three paces thro' the room

She saw the water-flower bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

The Lady of Shalott.

It is 2021: the year Dave Chappelle’s The Closer was release. I am cuddled up on the couch with my wife, watching it. There has been a lot of criticism of Chappelle for this stand-up special. I enjoyed Chappelle’s comedy in the past, and it is hard for me to believe that he has said anything to deserve the level of anger that is being leveled at him. Some of the jokes are bad. Some of them are offensive. Some seem unnecessarily mean while not being funny. I feel weird throughout the special. The special ends with a story about his trans friend, and my cheeks burn at hearing it. The story occupies my thoughts for weeks afterwards. I write long essays about the The Closer and post them to Facebook. I research queer and trans opinions on Chappelle’s special and the final story about the trans woman in particular. The story lives in my head, playing over and over again while I daydream arguments to strangers about how they are misunderstanding Chappelle’s story.

I am trying to explain to everyone how important the final story in Chappelle’s special is. The trans character in the story loses patience when Chappelle says, “I am trying to understand.”

She screams at him, “I don’t want you to understand! I just want you to believe me!”

I am angry on behalf of this woman. She is right. Compassion and kindness can’t depend on understanding. We may never understand each other’s experiences. We have to be willing to believe even if we do not understand. It is not incumbent on the oppressed to explain themselves in order that oppression end.

In reading takes on Chappelle’s special, I am going down a rabbit hole of reading more and more about queer and trans experience. I looked through the window, out of the room, and down to Camelot.

I am reading an essay containing my innermost thoughts, but this essay is written by someone else. They are telling their story, and it is also my story. I cannot help but read more and more. The persona I present to the world—the person I think I am—seems more and more like a shadow cast on a wall or a distorted reflection in a mirror. There is no undoing this. I have seen what casts the shadow and it is me.

With a steady stony glance—

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Beholding all his own mischance,

Mute, with a glassy countenance—

She look'd down to Camelot.

It was the closing of the day:

She loos'd the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,

Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.

There lay a parchment on her breast,

That puzzled more than all the rest,

The wellfed wits at Camelot.

'The web was woven curiously,

The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not,—this is I,

The Lady of Shalott.'

I look down to be sure I am not in fact hovering two inches above the ground. Joy wells up from my heart and blooms out of my fingertips. A burden has fallen from me, and its absence is felt physically as well as emotionally. I feel cushions of air beneath my feet. My arms weigh less and move effortlessly. My breaths are like wind blowing through me.

What is this burden I have rid myself of? I look down and see a wooden skiff bobbing in the waves before me. He is in there, arms crossed across his chest. His beard is neatly trimmed, and the suit he wears is immaculate. It fits him so well because it was made precisely to his measurements.

He is my handiwork, and he is ill-made. He never fit me even half as well as that suit fits him. I spent so much time trying to make him fit that I forgot that he was wrought of shadows and reflections. He required constant effort to keep him from sliding off. I forgot all that. I forgot on purpose, because I knew that turning away from the mirror and looking out at the world with my own eyes would mean death.

Now that I have I turned away from the mirror and that shadows, he has withered away. I did not do so intentionally, but still, it has meant his death.

I hike up the skirt of my dress and set a slippered foot on the gunwale. I cannot wish him well even though he deserves it. Woven from unnatural gestures, a guarded and curated vocabulary, and feigned interests, he protected me from a world that would have destroyed me. He was my caretaker and guardian for a long time.

For all the good he did, he ended his watch as a gaoler. He kept me hidden in that tower looming behind me, knowing that letting me out would mean his death. It is not in me to forgive him for that—not yet. I shove the boat out into the current. To his lapel is pinned a note. It reads, “This web was woven curiously, and its charm is broken utterly.”

Images are Miranda (1916) and The Lady of Shalott (1888) by John William Waterhouse