Sic et non

In an email a couple weeks ago, Marie talked about how since September she has been tying herself in knots – because she wants to marry me, and that's not possible (at least today) and from this she generated a huge amount of anxiety. Some day I'll get around to posting her message and my reply. But meanwhile, here's a sonnet I wrote this afternoon on the same subject.

__________
   

You find yourself by Yes and No entrapped,

Like Abelard inspecting rival creeds,

Or maybe loves me, loves me not's more apt,

Tugging at daisy blooms like worry beads.
   

Shall we be wed? I did not answer Yes.

And if not Yes, why then it must be No.

And if it's No, the question's foolishness.

Are you a fool, to trade in folly so?
   

Or maybe Yes and No don't rule the heart.

Perhaps there's color out past black and white.

We might need dialectic less than art,

Or harsh fluorescents less than candlelight.
   

Hold close, my love, and let me stroke your hair,

While blocks of questions sublime into air.

Intention of kindness

I went to our town's Theravadin Sangha this evening. It's been a few months since I was there last, but I thought it might be useful in light of the. ... umm ... distractibility (or whatever you call it) that I wrote about last night. Anyway, the woman who gave the dharma talk (after we sat for 40 minutes) started by asking if anyone had made New Year's resolutions. No-one had, but she used this entry point to talk about intentions and intentionality. She even invited us to consider setting intentions for the rest of our lives ... or, you know, if that seemed too intimidating then maybe for the next year, or the next two weeks, or whatever we felt we could handle. 

When the discussion started, one young man whom I hadn't seen before said his intention was to be kinder to his wife, because they were fighting a lot and he claimed it was all (or mostly) because of his own spite and jealousy. And I thought, "Oh wow, there's actually someone I might have something useful to say to." So when we were all done I talked briefly to him:

"Your story is none of my business, but I spent a lot of years where you are right now and one thing that helped me was just to slow down. It's so easy to respond to a trigger in ways that you later regret, when you jump at them automatically. And what I finally learned after decades of jumping at triggers was just to pause – for 30 seconds, or a minute, or 5 minutes – and then ask myself What do I really want to say? What's going to help? Anyway, it helped me."

He thanked me and said he'd try it. So hey – maybe I did something useful today ....

Sent from my iPhone

Not anxiety

Worked late. Went to the store. Got home. Ate dinner. Had a couple glasses of wine. Watched a couple episodes of a TV show from five years ago that I just got from Son 2. Went to bed. Masturbated. Drank two shots hard liquor. Ate snacks. Back to bed.

And you know, I didn't need to do any of it. I wasn't even hungry for dinner.

So all of it -- the whole evening -- was just distraction. To keep my mind busy. Why? To avoid feeling ... ummm, whatever-it-is. In the past  in this blog I've called it "anxiety" but that's not really right. "Anxiety" sounds like I'm worried about what's going to happen, or about my to-do list, or something, and none of that's true. It's not loneliness -- the boys were staying with me through yesterday and I would have felt the same thing, only it would have been masked by talking to them. And I might not have drunk as much, nor had the late night snacks. Nor masturbated. (It's a small apartment without much privacy.)

What's the point of all the activity, then? Beats the shit out of me.