Connie Madson came in less than a minute later. She was dressed in a black ivy league sweater and white linen pants. She wore her hair in a simple ponytail, and had no makeup on but she was still very pretty. She offered coffee and tea cakes, which she served herself. I noticed that there were maids, and wondered why they didn’t do the serving. “I feel strange having the maids serve my guests,” she said. “They have enough to do around here. In truth, I am not used having them.” We sat down and began to chat.

When doing a character piece, it’s always best to start out with how someone grew up. I asked about her childhood. She had experienced racism at a young age, she said, beginning age 6, from both her schoolmates and teachers. One teacher in particular, her science teacher for years, said that Caucasians were ridden with contagious diseases and were the blight of third-world countries, responsible for their numerous socioeconomic problems. Her experiences with racism continued until high school, where it lessened considerably, and became infrequent during college. “Now when I think of what had happened to me,” she said, “I feel that it’s so distant, almost unreal, like I’m already outside of the person who experienced that, like I’m looking at myself from the outside.”

I didn’t buy it. I asked her how a little girl could go through that kind of treatment for years and not be permanently scarred, and she replied, “If you take suffering in the right way, it’s a blessing. You can make something beautiful out of it, witness the evolution of your capacity for empathy.”

“But how do you manage to survive when you were told for years that white people are dirty, white people are diseased, white people won’t amount to anything?”

“Because I knew it was wrong,” she said. “There was a voice inside of me that said, that’s not true, that’s not true, that’s not true. I’m more than that, I’m more than that, I’m more than that, and I forgave. In my heart, I imagined embracing these people even while they were hurting me.”

“You weren’t angry?” I asked her.

She nodded pensively. “Yes, I was angry. I was angry at my luck. My anger came and went. There were times I didn’t want to go school, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents what was going on. I didn’t want them to think, especially my father, that they had let down their little girl. I was a bit angry with my mom because I had told her somewhat of what was happening, but I was too embarrassed to give any details. So it was really, in the end, not something she could be aware of.”

“Did they hurt you physically? Aside from the verbal abuse?”

She smiled, which I found a bit odd. But then I remembered she mentioned forgiving, so maybe it was that. “Yes. But I’m leaving that for the Frequently Asked Questions, which will be posted on my website.”

“Okay, going back,” I said, as I put my coffee cup down, “you said you didn’t want to go to school. Did you hate school?”

“No. I loved learning. I just didn’t like the mode of instruction I was receiving. I also got in trouble for doing things differently, not because I wanted to be obstinate, but because my father encouraged individuality in his children, so I tended to try to do things in a different way to see if it might be the better way.”

“Were you a precocious child?” I asked.

“Well, I liked history, I liked science, even from a very young age. I got mixed reviews from teachers and the like, though. Some teachers thought I was retarded and they thought I needed to go to a special school. Some thought I was gifted and needed to go to a special school!” She laughed. “But I was always marching to the beat of a different drummer. I think most teachers thought I was retarded.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her. “No, really,” she said.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” I asked her, and she laughed.

“You cry a lot? Is there an impending sadness in you?”

“You have to understand that it’s second nature for a woman to cry when she’s hurt, and when a woman is trying to hold on to her sweetness, she chooses to cry instead of getting angry. She chooses to cry instead of lashing out. I would be afraid of a woman who didn’t cry, and I do cry. I’m actually a pretty sensitive person,” she said with a smile. “It’s because I want to do so much. I want to love everyone, but I feel my arms are too short to wrap them around everyone.” She smiled and looked down at her lap, then collected herself back into her prim and proper sit. “I’m happy in that I know that everyone has something good in them, and I try to find that whenever I meet a person. I can honestly say that I am in love with everyone. I’m in love with the miracle that is the human soul.”

“You’re in love with people who have quirks which annoy you? Or attitudes and principles you don’t agree with?”

“I’m in love with the miracle that is the human soul,” she repeats with a smile.

“How do you find the capacity to forgive people so completely?”

“I’ve always wanted to be like Gandhi. Not because I want people to praise me; It’s an accomplishment I have to achieve when I’m faced with a situation which is difficult for me. I ask myself, what would Gandhi do? What’s the right thing to do? Even if it’s the hard thing to do? I remember seeing a movie where one of the characters said, ‘They say it’s hard to do the right thing. But when you know what the right thing is, it’s hard not to do it.’ I’m far from perfect, but this is something I reflect on constantly.”

“Gandhi was a non-violent, but some people might say he’s a pushover. Do you ever worry that people might think you’re a pushover?”

“Was Gandhi a pushover?” She chuckled. “Do you catch more flies with vinegar than you do with honey? If life gives you a bunch of lemons, isn’t it better to just make a whole lot of lemonade? If people think I’m a pushover, then let them think I’m a pushover. I just don’t have the heart to bear grudges. It’s not how I’m built. And in the words of Forrest Gump, ‘That’s all I have to say about that.’” And in an impeccable impression of Forrest Gumps’s Southern accent, she said, “’Ah shoulduh jus’ left Lieutenant Dan tah die in the jungle, ’coz ’e’s such a mayn S.O.B.’”

I almost choked on my coffee.

For a few seconds I just looked at her. Something inside me felt that what she’d told me about her childhood was sanitized and “sugar-coated.” I moved on to another subject, one which I thought would be more glamorous, more “in the scene.”

“I’ve heard that you’ve done modeling.”

“Very little.”

“I’ve also heard that you’ve turned down offers from an agency in New York and an agency in Paris.”

“That is true.”

“Why did you turn them down?” I asked. “A lot of girls flock to New York, Paris, Milan, London, in hopes of becoming models. You were asked. You didn’t go to them, they went to you.”

“Do you know the quote from The Little Prince, ‘what is essential is invisible to the eye?’ Besides, I only have enough intelligence to pursue one of the two, brains or beauty, and I choose brains. I want a foundation which is based on things which don’t wear off with time. I might do some modeling if someone wants me to do it enough…I never really thought I was that pretty, and even back when I did model, I would point out if there was a girl who was better suited or prettier than I was to the agency or client. Every girl wants to be pretty, but if someone’s prettier than I am, I’m okay with it. You are what you are, and if you were born beautiful, that’s an accident of birth, it’s not something you earn, and that condition being what it is, should make you realize the humility of your circumstances, that beauty doesn’t matter if you don’t have any character.”

I nodded and pointed to the dressmaking dummies. “What are the clothes for?”

“Oh, they’re for a new clothing line I’m starting,” she said.

I chuckled at that. “I thought you wanted to give the impression that you weren’t into superficial things.”

“Well actually about 30% of the profit goes to charity, which is why I started it in the first place. I think charities should still make some economic sense. I can’t make quarterly forecasts based on how much I predict people will donate. I think even Warren Buffett would agree that it’s not a safe bet.”

“You like Warren Buffett, huh?”

“Well, he’s good proof that you don’t need to play games, at least as a general principle. You don’t have to be seduced by glamorized stock market predictions. You just have to invest in companies which might not be trendy but produce steady, good, clean money and solid growth, take care of your employees who are deserving, give credit where credit is due, and not have to shake down anybody. Keep things clean, keep things sincere, no hostile takeovers. I can’t afford a share at Berkshire Hathaway, though. He’s run the company so well that the price per share is $147,000.00!” She laughs. “And maybe some people don’t realize that Berkshire Hathaway, in spite of its fancy name, was actually a rundown textile factory.”

"What do you think about Warren Buffett’s ordering from drive-thrus and driving a second hand car?”

“It’s smart. He’s saying, ‘I’m a billionaire, but I’m always going to be careful with your dollars and cents. I’ll count the pennies. I’m gonna take care of your money.’”

“You’re in advertising and marketing. And now starting a clothing line. So you work with models?”

“Yes.”

“So there must be some corruption on your end, or with people you work with?”

She chuckles. “I’m pretty strict about the people I work with. We once had a makeup artist who sexually harassed one of our male models. The model didn’t want to press charges, but requested that I not work with the same makeup artist in the future. I gave him my word and I kept it. The clothing line I’m making is understated chic. There’s no skin-flaunting in it. For pragmatic reasons, one of the causes the clothing line is meant to promote and raise money for is for victims of child prostitution, so it would be ironic if the designs or the advertising were overtly sexual.”

“Is there anything else that you do?” I asked as she refilled my coffee cup. “You mentioned to me before over the phone that you are also a writer.”

“Yes, I am. I sent you a copy of one of my books. I have other ones in the works.”

“Yes, I read it.” The writing style is pretty classic but not florid, and the illustrations were done in an Impressionist style with Renaissance undertones. The book she sent me is a collection of short stories called Heroes, which included a retelling of Princess Florecita, a story of King Christian X of Denmark, and a fantasy fairy tale set at the turn of the Late Middle Ages, among others. What put me off a little, however, was the seemingly unreal moral standards of her heroes. I found them too idealistic, too saintly. I leaned forward, taking a sip of coffee from my cup. “I’ve noticed in your writing that your heroes or heroines are too...well, perfect. Why is that? Stephen King’s hero James Gardener in The Tommyknockers was an alcoholic. Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean in Les Misérables was a thief and a convict. Even Frodo Baggins succumbed to the evil influence of the One Ring in Tolkien’s third book, The Return of the King. Don’t you think you should write heroes who are more ‘human’ and less ‘perfect?’”

“Was Gandhi too perfect?” She asked with a smile, then continued after a pause. “I think you’d be the first to know, being a writer yourself, that writers write about what they know. So, my heroes are based on people I’ve met or people whom I aspire to be myself. It just so happens that we live in a modern day jazz age. Lost, confused. ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky jazz age.”

I cleared my throat. “You know that Hendrix was 60’s, right? And Fitzgerald was 20’s.”

“Yes, but they were both jazz ages,” she said, and we’re in another jazz age now. Oh, and by the way,” she continued, "Valjean was an ex-thief who set unusually high moral and ethical standards for himself." She tips a wink at me.

It seemed to me a bit of an unusual coincidence that she would mention the jazz age, given what she had said earlier about modeling. It reminded me quite a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, The Beautiful and the Damned, a morality tale about the decadence of the jazz age. The jazz age, a term coined by Fitzgerald himself, was a period during the early to late 20’s where morality was very lax and drug and alcohol abuse was the norm.

She looked at me and sat back, crossing her legs. “When you’re so messed up, you want a hero that’s kind of messed up as well,” she said. “It’s easier to see yourself as normal, as okay, even if things are not okay. If you’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof, Yente quotes a Jewish proverb, ‘If God lived on Earth, people would break his windows.’ But I want to face reality. If there is something wrong, I have to be aware of it. I can’t take out my frustration on someone who does it right or does it better.”

I felt as if I was caught outright criticizing her as a naïve idealist, when she was actually more of an optimist. The conversation came to an end. It looked as if I had nothing more to ask at this junction, and as I began to gather my things, I realized: God, we do need more optimists. I thought of Cecily von Ziegesar, author of the Gossip Girl and It Girl series, stories of the modern jazz age, as Connie put it, and I wouldn’t want my little girl reading that and growing up to be a messed up cynic. It’s fashionable, but what is it good for?

Before I left, I asked, "Is there anything else that you’d like to do in the future?"

She replied in a deep Russian accent, “Yez, I vould liek to be Vladimir Putin’s perzonal zekretary, zo I kan mess up wiz hiz mezzages, letterz ov instruktion, etc., zo I kan get Russia to leave Georgia alone.”

I just chuckled and thanked her for our talk, and she said out of the blue, “Love Jimmy and Scott, though. Very talented.” She smiled.



Jonathan I. Vosovic
Manila
August 29, 2008