I wonder: did he ever feel like a square peg trying desperately to get into a round hole, as I do when I'm at church? Did he ever crave the acceptance and approval of other Mormons? Did he, like me, try to change everything about himself that ever bothered another Mormon, only to find that they hated him all the more for his simpering people-pleasing? Did he, like me, give up the fight and resolve to serve God while being precisely, utterly who he truly is whether they hate him or not?
I admire his courage most of all. I've been inactive for years now because I dread to dirty looks and the harsh whispers I get from other Mormons. I just can't make myself go anymore. It feels like high school to me. I got into church and have to confront a lot of people who already have their established cliques and family pews. I can't fit in because of some nuance of my hairdo or my makeup or the way I talk. I flee as soon as sacrament meeting is done because of a nasty remark someone made about me, and have to sit of the back steps crying because I just can't do it anymore.
I try to will myself to just go anyway. I should be tougher, right? I should understand that we're all just there to praise God and to worship Him, and he'll hear my prayers just the same while I'm wearing red lipstick. And I already know it won't do any good for me to just wear a different color lipstick. I've tried that. I'm a red lipstick girl. Red is my shade, and when I change myself to fit in, people seem to sense it and they regard me with even more contempt than before.
Anyway...Porter Rockwell. He was stranger than I am. If I wore a long black coat and carried a gun, I bet people would think twice before saying something nasty to me! But he must have encountered serious opposition, even in the early church when people hadn't yet socialized each other to behave like clones. He must have had the same sort of thoughts about how he got along with non-Mormons much better. He probably could have gone into any rough frontier town, had a few drinks and smoked a few cigars around a poker table, and gotten by just fine. But he chose to stay where he wasn't really welcome, out of his faith in the gospel and service to Joseph. In my craven heart, I wish I had his fortitude.
I truly believe I would feel more comfortable around him than I do around many of the preppy, backcombed, self-righteous Mormons I've met. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying all Mormons are evil. But the truth is, I seem to fit in better with others who feel out of place in church much more often than not.) I usually feel an instant kinship with others who don't belong. For instance, once I stopped in Mesquite for gas, and a very rough-looking biker with shaved head, goatee and silver-studded leather chaps got off his Harley and opened the door for me with a smile. I looked him in the eye, smiled back, and said thank you with utmost sincerity. He didn't frighten me a bit, nor do goth kids or emos or homeless people. I usually get along with them just fine. It's the middle-aged women with short hair who appear in church with no makeup, wearing bizarrely ugly pink pinafore dresses, that send me running for the door. Or the younger women with their hair so backcombed they have square heads, wearing sensible khaki skirts and way too much makeup, struggling to corral a herd of tiny children and snorting with derision when they see me. Or the home teachers with the confident, arrogant, condescending smiles that convey both pity and revulsion. These are the people who frighten me.
Of course, there's no guarantee that Porter would have wanted to be my friend. He might have seen me for the milksop I am and regarded me with the same polite condescension most other Mormon men do. But since he's not here to pass judgement, I'd like to believe he and I could have been friends, and he might have understood me as most "normal" people don't. Check it out -- I'm trying to befriend a dead man. Good job we believe in life after death.
So the upshot of all this is that I think I'm going to be stealing the name Porter as a baby name. For...whenever we have a baby. Just in case the name can imbue greater courage on my offspring than what I enjoy myself.
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