Struggling with Jeanne and Josh

Weiting Jeanne and Josh negotiating a relationship in Gaia's Hands is harder than I thought. I'm getting hung up on the age difference, although it intrigued me years ago when I was in the middle of a hypomanic episode.

May-December marriages happen all the time when the man is older than the woman. Although a minority thinks it's unnatural, society in general accepts it. If the woman is younger, has less education, is just getting settled in life, we have some questions but leave well-enough alone if they look happily married.

Older women/younger men pairings, especially when there's that much distance between the two (30 years) tend to be dismissed as "gross". Sociobiologists say this is only natural because men look for older women because of their fertility and women look for protectors -- just look at chimps with their harems. The problem is that the primate closest to us, bonobos (miniature chimps) tend to have sex with pretty much everyone and don't make a big deal of age. Sociobiology has its limits, which is that most practitioners are men and select for what they (as men) want to see that establishes the status quo.

And what if we're evolving from that exchange of babies for protection? In the US, most women work in the marketplace. Childbearing is held off to later ages, and many choose not to have children. Jeanne is 50 years old and has a steady job and income -- Why would he need to be a breadwinner immediately? Why couldn't she help him through grad school?

But oh my God, what about sex? How could he possibly find her saggy body sexy? Art studios have enlisted the bodies of saggy women for ages, because they're more interesting to draw. And Josh finds her fascinating because he's had visions of her in a garden that looks like the Garden of Eden. And Josh, with his slender build and shorter stature, hardly looks like Hollywood material himself.

I have to find the realism and paint them as outsiders at the same time, and this is -- well, difficult. 

Wish me luck.

Bonus post: Interrogating Jeanne Beaumont

(For those of you relatively new to the blog, "interrogating" is when I interview a character in my novel to get insight into their character and motivations.)

I sit on my favorite easy chair at the coffeehouse, musing. How do I explain a relationship -- a solid relationship? -- between a twenty year old male and a forty-five year old female? Is that even possible? The biology is against it ...

A sturdy woman with greying chestnut hair in a ponytail sits down at the chair next to me and sets her latte on the table. "You want an explanation, don't you?" she shrugs. "What if there is no explanation?"

"Jeanne," I caution her. "There's always an explanation. Even for you and Josh."

"Look, I'm a biologist. A plant biologist, maybe, but I know at least some of the animal side of things. A sociobiologist would say my relationship with Josh shouldn't exist -- he should be looking for a young thing he can make babies with, and I -- well, I shouldn't bother looking. Older women are obsolete in the biological world."

"You don't buy that," I challenge. "You and I are both here, and biologically, older women notice young men. After all, cougars exist."

Jeanne burst out laughing. "I'm hardly a cougar.  I'm a pretty solid woman who's grown comfortable with her single life. And then came Josh." She took a long sip of her latte. "I can't find an explanation. Society says -- those pesky sociobiologists again -- that women should have no patience with young men because they don't know where they're going in life. But then again ... " Jeanne paused for another drink of latte. "Then again, isn't the belief that any of us know where we're going to be tomorrow a bit of an illusion?"

I think of my marriage late in life, my developing career as a writer. "I think you might have something there."

"Understanding that something, anything can interrupt our trajectory frees one up to look at a situation differently. Stability has to be balanced with resiliency. Although evolution favors the random mutation that happens to work with change in lower creatures, humans can adapt on the fly to changes. So someone like me can be an outlier and maybe that's a good thing."

"Enough of the biology, Jeanne," I chuckle. "Why you and Josh?"

"I have trouble believing in mysticism, you know, but it's almost something like that. Like, when he showed up at that table that night, we connected. I do alone pretty well, listening to the music and typing on my computer, but when he showed up, I wanted to be in his presence. It was a momentary ego trip spending time with such a beautiful young man, I suppose, but it was more than that. It was like he said to me, 'I know where I want to go, and I want to go there with you.' And what he said made perfect sense, if I wanted to tell society to go hang. And I did. I never have regarded what I'm 'supposed' to do with much love."

"So you and Josh were supposed to be," I teased Jeanne. "Which flies in the face of biology."

"You would have to say that," Jeanne muttered. "I feel foolish looking at it that way."

"But that's the way Josh would look at it."

"Yes, it is," Jeanne mused. "And he might be right."

Josh and Jeanne Part 2: An interesting conversation

I finally had the guts to write this as I wanted to -- with a role reversal: Josh knows what he wants; Jeanne is uncertain, and they have a tense time of it.
****

The next afternoon, Jeanne heard the doorbell ring. She saw Josh through the peephole and opened the door.

“Can I come in? I need to talk this time.” Josh stood there, dressed neatly in a jacket over a red sweater and jeans.

“Sure.” Jeanne opened the door, not knowing what to expect. 

Josh took a deep breath and said, “I need to talk about something.”

Jeanne opened the door. “Yes?” Jeanne felt her shoulders tense, as he had said that twice.

“You keep running away from me,” he rushed in, stripping off his unbuttoned black jacket and laying it on the couch, as if gearing up for a fist fight. “First the summer, then this semester. I’m asking you as your friend, since you don’t see me as boyfriend material – “ 

“It’s not that I don’t see you as boyfriend material,” Jeanne rejoined before the words could be retracted. “It’s just that – that – “

“You don’t trust me.” Josh countered. “You didn’t want to tell me about what was bothering you.”

“I don’t have to tell you what’s bothering me, Josh,” Jeanne snapped. Did she? Should she have? As his friend?

“If something’s bothering you — even it it’s me — I would rather know,” Josh challenged.

 Jeanne had never seen Josh confront her, or anyone, before. Begrudgingly she admitted it became him.“It’s not even that I don’t trust you. It’s that you’re so damn young.” Jeanne rubbed her forehead.

“I’m not as young as you think,” Josh said, in a firm, calm voice that made Jeanne catch her breath.
“Jeanne, I’m legal to drink. I’m legal to fight in a war. I’ve been legal to vote for 2 years, at the age of consent in Illinois for 3 years. I am not and never have been your student; I am not related to you. I’m old enough to make my own choices. To be your friend is one of my choices that you don’t get to make for me. I spend time with my friends, I share with my friends. I love my friends. You will not take that away from me.”

“But you don’t want to just be friends,” Jeanne countered. “You’re in love with me.” There, she said it. She had named the elephant in the room. “And I don’t think you’re above manipulation to get me to love you back.” 

“Manipulation? To get you to fall — “ Josh paused. “I don’t see it that way, but —”

“Those big brown eyes,” Jeanne’s eyes flashed.

“What,” Josh stammered as he subconsciously dropped into an aikido pose. “What the — “ Josh paused, and Jeanne felt the silence, then: “I may just be guilty of that. I discovered my teachers would be more sympathetic when I acted cute, and maybe then they would tell the others to lay off me. I could, and can, manipulate. But if you catch me doing that, tell me.”

“You’ve pursued me for several months. Is that manipulation?” Jeanne glanced into those big brown eyes.

“I don’t know. I practice aikido, and the philosophy of that is to bridge the distance between yourself and the opponent until there’s no distance. The best aikido practitioner never has to fight. I’m guilty of wanting to bridge that distance, but aikido allows for the distance to be bridged in the way that best suits the two.”

“Are we opponents now?” Jeanne snorted.

“We never were. The principles still hold. The goal is win-win,” he smiled. Charmingly.

 Jeanne simultaneously wanted to shake him and kiss him.“What do you want? To get me back into bed?”

“Everything, Jeanne. I want everything.” Jeanne’s stomach flipped. He was only twenty-one, and he wanted everything with her. 

“You’re too — “ Jeanne stopped herself. She couldn’t tell if Josh was too young anymore, given how the conversation had turned. “What if I can’t give you everything?” Jeanne challenged.

“Why not?!”  Josh groaned.

“Maybe I love you enough that I would let you go if that’s what you needed.”  Jeanne heard the words, wasn’t sure she meant them.

“What if I don’t want you to let me go?” Josh sounded bewildered.

“I said need. Remember how you thought I needed you to come over to see whether I felt okay?” Jeanne said quietly, so quietly it was almost a whisper .

“Yes.” 

“I think you need experience to compare me with. Relationship experience. Sexual experience. The kind of experience you’d get if you didn’t always spend time with me.” Jeanne hated the words as she said them.

“I think you overestimate my ability to get a girlfriend,” Josh replied dryly.

“I don’t think so. Unless women have gotten stupider with time.” Jeanne gritted her teeth.

“Will I still get to be your friend?” Josh pushed his hair back.

“Yes,” Jeanne raised her eyebrows. 

“Will I get to spend time around you?” Josh quirked one eyebrow, looking rather like a cute puppy.

“Yes.” Jeanne committed. “I’ll let you decide if you need to go. Just let me decide if I need to go.”

“That is all I can ask, milady.” Josh took her hand in his, kissed it, and let himself out of Jeanne’s house.

Josh left, and Jeanne sat down heavily on her favorite chair. She put her head in her hands. She thought about forever with Josh, and no matter how ludicrous it seemed, she could see the possibility. Even if he was too young, or she was too old. If he wanted her, she couldn’t be too old, could she? But her prosaic fear of abandonment had been joined by a more pressing fear — that the threats against her, vague as they were, would involve him in their scope. 

Josh and Jeanne: Telling their stories truthfully

As I re-re-edit Gaia's hands in a number of ways for a number of reasons, I've learned a surprising lesson -- it's possible to be scared of your own writing.

There are some things about the book I've understated -- too much, in fact -- because I didn't know how people would react to them. The biggest one, I guess, is the relationship between Jeanne Beaumont, a tenured professor and Josh Young, a student (but not one she'd ever have in class) at a midsized university. I looked at the rules at her university, and there is nothing in the conduct code that would present this, as he will never be her student.

Note how I try to justify myself already? If that first part didn't startle you, they fall in love with each other, despite the difference in their ages and the differences in where they are in life. She's settled in her faculty responsibilities yet starting a new venture in permaculture design. He's at the beginning of his adulthood, but focused on getting a PhD in creative writing and a writing career. She tries to avoid problems while he tries to breeze past them, but they go toe-to-toe with each other because their relationship is too important to evade.

I'm not sure the above is even the most startling part -- the most startling part may be that Jeanne and Josh are attracted to each other. This includes sexual attraction, even though he's a slender 20-year-old and she's a zaftig 50-year-old. In short, they are the two groups of people we regard as least sexy in the US -- a young, small-boned Asian American man and a large, older woman. And the younger one, not the older one, is the pursuer. (There are, however, no explicit sex scenes in this book because I thought you should use your imaginations there.)

I created the characters like this on purpose -- to challenge the reader, to expand societal notions of what is possible, to give a view different than our notions that Asian men are sexless and women of a certain age are desperate.  My books are full of oddballs -- perhaps because oddballs are my people -- for better or worse. I could have put ordinary characters against the subtly extraordinary events of the book, but I was afraid they'd wash out. Jeanne and Josh are not ordinary.

If I myself cannot face my characters -- good and bad -- my writing loses power and coherence. It's possible that this book will never get published because I believe an older woman/younger man relationship is not only possible, but believeable. There may be people out there who think a semi-sentient vine and a plant superpower are more believable than Jeanne's and Josh's relationship, but I will not try to erase them or their relationship from this story. The story deserves better, Josh and Jeanne deserve better, and I deserve better.