Lotus Blossom

This evening, the UU Sangha that I attend held a Tea Ceremony in honor of their tenth anniversary.  Debbie was in town tonight for the occasion.  In fact – I forget if I ever explained this – Debbie founded this Sangha.  She was a member of the UU congregation and she wanted to incorporate meditation into her church life, so she asked if anybody else wanted to start meditating with her.  That's how it started, back in November 2004.  Some people have been members for the whole time, or for many years, but Debbie began it all.

Of course I knew I'd be seeing her.  I wrote about that last month or so.  And actually I figured it would be fairly easy, all things considered.  After all, I've decided that I don't want to be romantically involved with anybody right now, so the fact that we aren't together is just fine.  Right?  No need for heavy weather.

Maybe I could have guessed that it wouldn't be quite that simple.

Mind you, I behaved myself.  And at first it was simple.  When I got there this evening, she was standing near the door; I walked over, gave her a hug, and asked softly, "Hey there, Lotus Blossom … how ya doing?"  We traded "Fine"s and then took our seats.  And for the duration of the Tea Ceremony I was able to look at whoever was talking and to avoid sneaking glances at her.

But afterwards, she suggested that maybe we should take a little time to talk together.  So I hung out while one after another long-time member of the Sangha came up to give her a hug and tell her how great it was to see her again.  And then, after everyone else had gone and we had locked up, we sat in her car and talked.

We talked a little bit about superficial things, and then got more real.  I told her that I don't want to be involved with anybody right now, and she emphatically agreed: that is to say, she agreed that she herself went through such a phase, that she feels that way strongly now that she is in graduate school, that she expects to feel that way at least until she finishes her program in another couple of years … and that she fully believed way back during our first lunch that this was where I needed to be.  Then with that out of the way we talked about other things: how Son1 and Son2 are doing, how her daughter and son-in-law are doing, whether I will move next year to another office (did I tell you my boss wants to move me across the country?) and how the boys will feel if I leave the town that has been their home their whole lives, how her research is going, whether she'll move to live near her daughter and son-in-law after her classes are over, how soon she'll be a grandmother … a lot about the future, now that I think about it, … about how we feel about the futures that spread out before us.  And we couldn't talk for too long because she had a two hour drive yet tonight to get back to the big city where she lives now, and where her classes are tomorrow morning.

I didn't start to feel the ache until we began to wrap up to say goodbye, until I hugged her (as well as I could in the front seat of a small car) and kissed her cheek and told her to drive safely, until I had to swallow suddenly to keep from blurting out "I will always love you."  But I felt it then.  And I kept feeling it as she drove away and I drove home, overlaid though it was with the pleasant sense of having seen her again and of the meeting having gone well.  And I feel it now, after some food and a beer.  And I'll be feeling it as I go to bed.

Don't I have anything else to drink in this apartment?

It's true that I don't want to be romantically entangled with anybody right now.  It's true, I know it's true, I'm sure it's true.  There's no question in my mind.  Dear God, how I miss her.

What do I do now?

I may have a lead on the question why I (sometimes, not always) feel anxiety when I'm home alone, why I cover it up by eating and drinking (yes, I'm continuing to gain weight), even why I snack in the middle of the afternoon at work.

 

I think – maybe – it's because I don't really know what to do with myself.

 

At work, the urge to snack comes in the middle of the afternoon, if I don't have any meetings and I'm not smack in the middle of something, when I feel a weird combination of boredom and anxiety.  You'd think those would be opposites: that boredom would mean having nothing to do, and anxiety would mean having too much to do.  But in fact it's not quite like that.  There is a third state … one where there are several large priorities but no small, urgent distractions.  Because there are no small, urgent distractions, it's not obvious which thing to go do right now; because there are large priorities, I can't just spend the afternoon browsing xkcd cartoons; because there are more than one large priority, it's not even obvious which one to choose; and because the available priorities are large, it's not obvious – assuming I were to pick one – quite where to start on it.  So I know I have to do something, but there's nothing obvious to start on right now.  This means I have to think, to plan, to decide.  And that sounds like a lot of work, which part of me just wants to run away from.  But if I run away from it, the same amount of work will be there tomorrow too, and I'll have one fewer day in which to finish it.

 

Of course I know what the theoretical answer is.  Close my door.  Shut off my e-mail.  Slow down and be quiet.  Look at the tasks until I just see which one has to come first.  Then look at that one until I just see where and how to start.  Really, I know all this.

 

But it is amazing how strong the pull is to get up out of my chair, walk to the vending machine, get a package of Cheez-Its or Wheat Thins, check my e-mail again, and maybe do a quick Google search whether there's any place I can buy a boxed set of Cantinflas movies for Christmas … for someone, I guess, though I'm not quite sure who.

 

Does this same explanation apply at home?  I think it does, more or less.  If I'm going straight from work to (say) the movie theater, I don't feel hungry.  (Why should I after all those Wheat Thins?)  If I've been out doing things until late and only then come home, I'm often not all that hungry … at any rate not until I slow down and get myself something to eat and drink before bed.  But then I dish out my food and drink according to habit, not hunger; I consume it rather than being truly present for the eating and drinking of it; and I fall in bed.  And actually that's pretty good: I may have eaten too much, but by being busy straightaway after work I avoided the shapeless anxiety.

 

On the other hand, suppose I go more or less straight home from work.  Or suppose it's the weekend.  Then I know, in one corner of my mind, that there are a lot of things I think I should do: there are bills to pay, floors to vacuum, papers to file, posts to write for my blog.  And there are other things that I could do: there are books to read, letters to write, new recipes to experiment with, events around town to attend, art galleries to visit, plays to see, great adventurous plans to make for my new life, miles to walk, hills to climb.  And this means that the situation is, structurally, a lot like afternoons at the office the way I described them above.  So the urge to escape from all those important choices is really strong.  If it's the weekend, I pull a book off the shelves – generally one I've already read, but in any event not one that I am currently right now trying to read through systematically from start to finish – and disappear into it for hours.  Then repeat with another book.  If it's a week night, I get myself some food and a beer or two.  After I've had plenty of food, and after a couple of drinks, I'll feel tired and ready for bed.  Then I won't have to make any decisions about how to spend my time because I'll already know the answer: it's time to sleep.  (As an aside, it's a damned good thing I don't have one of those jobs like President of the United States, where the whole job involves making decisions all day long and where the biggest decision of all is how to spend your time. If you ever see anyone mounting a "Hosea Tanatu for President" campaign, vote for the other guy.)

 

Again, I know perfectly well what the theoretical answer is.  To hell with all that crap about what I should do or could do.  Too many decisions are bad for you, anyway, kind of like potato chips.  What I should do instead ("should" … you see?) is to come home, set down all my stuff, pull out my zafu and zabuton, light some incense, and meditate until I can get enough quiet in my mind that it's obvious to me what I really want to do.  Then do that.  This approach has the added benefit that I ought to be able to sell it to myself by pointing out that it is the only strategy which prioritizes my doing what I really want to do.  Why don't I do it?  Two reasons.  The smaller reason is that I forget.  The bigger reason is precisely that I know it's what I should do … and that's just a collossal turn-off. 

 

I also fret a little that if I spend all that time meditating, then I won't have any time left to spend on what I want to do once I finally figure out what it is.  Of course my alternative means not spending time on what I really want because I have no idea in hell what it is in the first place.  So pretty clearly I haven't improved anything here, from a logical point of view.  I hope you don't suppose that makes the slightest difference to me.

 

Do I have more to say on this topic? 

 

Naaah … I've had plenty of dinner and two beers so it's time for bed. 

 

Nighty-night, all.

 

 

 

 

All a jumble

Gosh, Hosea, what's going on with you these days anyway?

It's all a jumble.

I found four or five reviews of "Gone Girl" that I'd like to post here -- links, I mean -- because they raise interesting questions about the nature of marriage, how men and women relate to each other, and other good topics like that.

For that matter, I've got a dozen other ideas for posts sitting around getting stale from some time several months ago when I thought them up.  But writing is like work.  Don't wanna do it if I don't have to.

What do I want to do then?  Shit, I don't know.  Sitting around reading other people's writing is pretty good.  I used to think it was fun enough to read that I wanted to join the circle of authors and write as well.  But that takes effort, don't it?

Meanwhile at work, our Facilities Manager is going to drop dead any minute -- I mean that seriously, he's been fighting cancer for years -- and finally has agreed to go home and not come into work.  Just in time for a big inspection which, in his absence, is somehow kinda my responsibility.  (It's odd. Small companies ... also small offices owned by huge behemoths ... are like that.)  So I'm looking at the scope of what's going to be inspected in a week and a half and trying to figure out ... what the hell did he actually do this year, and what did he just blow off because he could talk his way through it?  How much of this can I talk my way through?  Not so much ....

The last few weeks I've been beguiling my time at work by blogging about what the shape of the company ought to look like.  (You remember I talked about this back when I started doing it.)  This has meant talking to one of my ex-colleagues (a really creative guy) about what makes companies agile and then trying to think through how that could apply here.  OK, it's been fun ... and armchair philosophizing is always more fun than real work.  Maybe I should have put it aside and looked into the Facilities mess before now?  Naah, ... that would have meant planning ahead.  Who wants to do that?

We had a really fun discussion of death last weekend, at my volunteer work.  One of the new residents was a really bright guy who has clearly been thinking about this a lot lately (for obvious reasons), so I and one of the other volunteers sat and talked with him about death up till the staff told us it was time for lights out.  Kind of a strange topic by most lights, but I thought it was fascinating.

I'm trying to get Wife to agree with the last few details in my separation proposal, so we can get the damned thing to the lawyers.  I wonder if there's any chance the Court can still process it yet this year?  Hope so.

I'm arguing with the state tax authorities because they don't want to let me file as Head of Household for 2014, proposing something else that would mean I'd owe another couple thousand dollars of tax.  (sigh)  Maybe not.

And I got an interesting e-mail from Elly late yesterday ... it must have been really late for her, because she's on the other side of the Atlantic.  I had written her about some of this stuff, and she wrote back ...

Hosea,

I do like your letters. Well, they are. They have that personal handwritten touch. They always bring a smile, often a loud giggle, and sometimes a guffaw - though nothing to compare to yours. :-)

Thank you.

I will write properly tomorrow. But for now, good night.

Elly
xx

And I'm trying to figure out exactly what to make of it.  Normally she wouldn't write sentences like "Well, they are."  And stop there.  Not sure if she was just very tired, or if this was "drunk e-mailing" ... or what.  Maybe it's nothing.  But it's fun to speculate.  She has not, for what it's worth, followed up with another e-mail today.  

...

As I said, it's a jumble.   

   

"Gone Girl"

This evening I went to the movies and saw "Gone Girl".  It's terrifying.

Not like zombie movies are terrifying.  Not like horror movies are terrifying.

But for someone like me who has had a troubled marital history … well, like I said.

I don't want to give away the plot twists and turns, in case you haven't seen it yet.  Maybe this whole post should be marked …

***SPOILER ALERT***

All I want to say is that I'm glad the movie wasn't made till now.  If I had seen it during the year-and-a-half when I was unemployed … or during the years after that when we were still going to church because Wife insisted on keeping up such-and-such a public image … or during any of the time that she had a deep crush on Church Tenor … or to put it generally, if I had seen this movie any time between 2003 and about the time I started this blog (end of 2007, or for practical purposes 2008), I would have shit my pants with fright. 

Wife has always cared – deeply, deeply – about how people see her.  About how she looks.  But during those years she was also regularly undermining how I looked – systematically, or so it seemed at the time.  She spread rumors at school and at church about how afraid she was of my "violent temper".  At one point one of the kids was playing rambunctiously with her and bruised her … and immediately she grabbed the Polaroid and took a photo of the bruise, then hid the photo in her lingerie drawer. 

(Of course I found it because I usually did the laundry, so as soon as I put away her panties one weekend I saw it there. She was trying to undermine how people saw me, but at the same time she was perfectly willing to let me do the work around the house, sort out her medications, and so forth. It never occurred to her that I might find the photo of her bruise, or accidentally mix up her medicines in a lethal way, or anything … and so she swallowed unhesitatingly any collection of pills that I gave her. On the other hand, clearly she was right to do so: she's still alive, after all, so you can tell I never took advantage of the opportunities she left in my path. You could say she was careless, or you could say she knew I wouldn't do anything to her because I'm too damned chicken. But I digress.)

Anyway, I think in the end she was never systematic enough – not careful enough, maybe not even smart enough – to have laid a really, truly foolproof trap to frame me for anything truly serious.  But that's only a retrospective judgement.  At the time I certainly thought she was, and I feared her.  I feared that she would call the cops one day – over nothing – and that I would never see the boys again. 

It was a tremendous relief to me the night she was arrested for felony spousal abuse.  Counselor said as much in our next session, actually … that it really seemed like I was relieved.  Of course she got off (because I co-operated to get her off).  But I knew it was a matter of public record, at that point.  I began – slowly, all too slowly – to be less afraid that she could manipulate events to make a violent lie about me seem the truth.

I'm not so afraid of her any more, because the boys are out of her house and so am I; because even though we haven't actually concluded the damned separation paperwork yet, there's less she can do to me.  She probably can't send me to jail any more, nor prevent me from seeing the boys.  Life is better.

But there was a while there – years – that I was really scared … partly because of what she could make people think, and partly because I was sharing a bed with a crazy woman.  (Think also of "Basic Instinct". Good think she always took heavy doses of sleeping pills.)  Every single day I had to pray that my golden tongue could smooth over whatever chaos she brewed up, and could keep me safe until bedtime.  Every day I had to hope that I could – as Ben Affleck's character says – "reach just one [woman]."  Namely her.  Say what she wanted to hear, so that I could keep the peace one more day.

It was an exciting time, no doubt about it.  Read some of my early posts about the excitement inherent in being involved with a "high-maintenance woman" and you'll get  a sense of what I mean.

But dear God, I'm glad I'm not there now.  I almost understand why Affleck's character makes the choices he does, but I'm glad I no longer have to make those choices.

It's late and I'm drunk.  It's time for bed.

And it's a scary, scary movie.  I'm glad it never turned out to be my life, but there were years when I really wasn't so sure.

Day of the dead

Yesterday was Halloween.  Today is All Saints' Day, or Dia de los Muertos if you prefer.  Wikipedia tells me that people celebrate their dead ancestors, visit grave sites, and the rest.  OK, my family hasn't traditionally done that because it's not my national or cultural heritage ... but hey, I'm open to the suggestion.  Why not?

"Why not" is actually pretty simple: I know next to nothing about my ancestors any earlier than my own grandparents (all of whom are, yes, now dead), and so far as I know we don't have any family grave sites.  Anywhere.  I think my grandparents were all cremated and I don't know who has the ashes.  If anybody.  We've just never paid a lot of attention to things like that.

Once upon a time, I guess that would have been kind of strange; but my sense is now it may be fairly normal ... at any rate among the suburban American middle classes.  I mean, ... I remember my grandparents.  They all lived until I was an adult, or nearly.  (The first one to die, died when I was a freshman in college.)  I've heard stories about their parents, or some of them -- probably not enough to pass on to my own kids, but bits and bobs.  But I don't know where any of them is buried.  As I say, I think my own grandparents were all cremated; as for their parents, I'm pretty sure they would be all out-of-state if anywhere.  None of my grandparents was born here.

Does this matter?  I suppose it depends on your point of view.  Wife always found my level of deracinement baffling.  How could I know who I am if I don't know where I came from?  I tried to explain that such questions didn't bother me much, but she could never get it.  On the other hand, Wife is hardly a good advertisement for living the other way, in the shadow of your ancestors.  Part of the reason she can't bring herself to part with all the old furniture and other junk she has carried around for so many years is that it all came from her ancestors and so she feels she is morally obliged to hang onto it.  And she is still tormented by things her mother said to her way back when, still living out insane scripts her mother wrote for her ... or her grandmother ... or somebody.  Maybe those scripts go back to Eve, for all I can tell.  If you ever want proof that men can still be hounded by the Furies, take a look at Wife and her extended family: some curses seem to last on and on, unto the tenth generation.

So am I missing out on something important?  I don't know.  Maybe it would be good if I did.  I don't even know how to wind up this post, really.  It's just something that I've realized lately, and that I've been thinking about.