Asshole aftermath

The aftermath of my temper tantrum Monday night has been mixed. At home, there hasn't been much. Wife has said nothing. As for Son 1 and Son 2, by the next day they both seemed back to normal. Son 2 was quirky and affectionate; Son 1 was uproarious and sarcastic. Same as always. So if my lost temper scarred them for life, they don't show it.

My interactions with D, on the other hand, have been rather more awkward. It hasn't helped that the holidays jostled our routine of communicating with each other regularly, so that our letters have already been "off" in one way or another. D blames this on my depression inhibiting communication. Maybe so, I don't know. Maybe I don't have a lot going on in my life right now (apart from the normal press of work) so I don't have a lot to say. Maybe I get a hair crosswise when she replies to getting three letters from me the same day by saying that if I am going to be so uncommunicative then obviously I want to be left alone, for reasons unknown. Who knows?

Probably the easiest way to explain how this has progressed is just to let the conversation speak for itself. As always, D is in blue and I am in green. It started with me writing (on Monday evening):

This wasn't a good evening, but I don't think I want to write about it. I mean, there were some good parts. [Digression where I explain some mundane news.] But other parts of the evening were less good, so I'm going to close there. Maybe some other time. Maybe I'll do a little work for my job before going to bed.

Sorry I am not feeling my usual eloquent self. It's nothing to do with you; I'm just not up to writing a lot right now.

To this, D replied:

Gosh; can you tell me this morning what happened? I am so sorry things did not go well. I would gladly sit with you and listen with compassion and love. Or just kiss you and we could go to another place altogether.

Of course I didn't want to tell her what happened, and I still don't. Even though I am sure I did no actual damage to Son 1, I am certain that D's experience as a guardian ad litem will dispose her to take a singularly dim view of my hitting him. On the other hand, this letter sounded better than I had anticipated, and I answered:

The kissing sounds nice. The rest probably isn't important in the long run. Certainly not as important as good kissing. (smile)

But I guess I jumped a little too soon to the conclusion that she was going to drop it. Ooops.

I am not comfortable with this response, because when I try to get away with the same, you nail me. I suggested listening first...

I got that one in the middle of the workday. By the end of the day I had not replied yet, and suddenly I found a follow-on note in my Inbox.

Things have been difficult between us; last night's short letter was just the latest of several 'not quite right' communications from both of us. Lots of reasons; I have been faced with a crisis at home, while you have been depressed and alone. Sigh*

One of the blogs I read mentioned this poem from Rumi, and it expresses exactly my dismay and discomfort with your lack of communication, both on the phone (and I know depression overwhelms your ability to speak easily) and in your resolute decision to just shut down last night.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
[S]he may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Perhaps it might be possible to re-think a bit. Perhaps we could be just a little kinder to ourselves. That generosity might give us the chance to let the other person know all of the elements about us that we fear and reject — the painful and dark feelings, our shadow side, the things we do that we don’t want anyone to know about. If we are going to be genuine friends, we need to tell each other about our multiple inner characters, the angels of kindness and the demons of anger and impatience.

Rumi’s poem commands us to make space for the whole range of guests who might arrive – the feelings we experience that we push back, resist, numb ourselves to – which might come bearing gifts. The inner witness is the part of ourselves that can be fully present without anxiety, that can offer acceptance and welcome to whatever knocks at our inner door. I am not that inner witness, but I love you beyond measure. If I can't console you, I can always listen. And I can celebrate the goodness and life struggling to be born, the guests that destroy your furniture and leave you with a new way of seeing both yourself and the wider community.

This is probably all wrong, but the silence seems more wrong. May God add his blessing to all your endeavors.

What do I say to that? No idea. Very late that night, here is what I tried:

It's late and I'm tired. I could have been writing for the last 90 minutes, but I have been dithering and poking about pointlessly. I don't know why. After dinner -- at which I ate too much -- I went for a walk for over an hour. This was a good thing, as it helped settle my dinner and it allowed the wine I had at dinner to "evaporate" if you will....

I didn't really know what to say to your earlier e-mail today, so I just worked instead. I figured I would think of something later, and meanwhile there was plenty to do. (I got a lot of phone calls this afternoon.) Then you followed up with this email [that I quoted above], and I'm still not exactly sure what to say. I don't really want to spin a long, extended narrative about yesterday. It was just a bad day. The boys were particularly irrepressible all evening, and I found it particularly difficult to cope with, and I lost my temper in ways I'm not proud of. If you were still talking to Wife for two hours every day, I'm sure she could bend your ear extensively on how this just vindicated everything she's been saying about me all along. But I'm not sure how informative the full story would be, except to verify that "Yup, Hosea looks pretty bad in that story. Dam' shame." And I can tell you all that part right now....

I don't know how to take Rumi's advice, to welcome everything that comes into my soul with equal good cheer. Most of the time I think I can understand how to accept what comes into my soul with equanimity (at any rate), by reminding myself that at a sufficiently great remove it doesn't matter. (This is the old principle, "Who will care in a hundred years?") But joy and good cheer and welcome all seem something of a stretch. But then, it is no surprise that Rumi is more enlightened than I am.

I don't know what more to say. I'm sorry if this isn't right. Even if it isn't, I *do* love you. Good night now, may you be rested for the morning by the time you read this, and may tomorrow be a fine day for everybody!

This morning she wrote me:

It's hard to express how I feel...or to welcome the quiet knowledge that my experience does not make me unique, but rather joins me to everyone else. Naomi Shihab Nye writes, in part:

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness....

The poet says you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing besides kindness. That way, you can open the door to kindness, to a heart, that like Rumi, welcomes everything with love.

And I said:

I'm not sure I understand the fullness of what Nye is saying about loss, apart from a superficial level; nor am I quite sure what to say about the windless spot into which our boat seems to have drifted at the moment. I have a very strong feeling that we are right now at a point where words themselves are not the most useful things, and it is a great sadness that they are all we have. I think we could communicate a lot better right now, just the two of us, by sitting wordlessly together over coffee, holding hands, watching each other's hair, feeling the sun and the breeze. I don't think words are near as useful, by contrast.

But they are what we have right now. And so we suffer on with badly imperfect communication, hoping for a puff of breeze to nudge us back on course.

I am gazing at your face as I type, and feeling your hand in mine though we are so far away. I do love you, even wordlessly, ever and always.

I haven't heard anything more from her today. I'll have to wait and see where this goes next.