Props to Boromir

I was idly browsing through some old notes of mine, and found one from last year that reads, in full, as follows:

June 20, 2021: Son 2 thinks Boromir might be his favorite character in The Lord of the Rings, because he has everything he needs to be a hero but fails. And this makes him relatable. We can understand his thoughts, where we can't really understand the thoughts of Aragorn. And he carries all these terrible expectations from Denethor!

Good to know.

As I scanned the Internet looking for an image to decorate this note, I found a post from last December by someone else* who says pretty much the exact same thing. But Son 2 said it first, so there. 

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* The author's name is Logan Dalton, and the post is on a site called Graphic Policy. I'd never heard of either one before today.

     

Is this a meditation practice?

A few nights ago, I attended a free class (via Zoom) on Embodied Mindfulness.

I assumed that it was going to be a run-of-the-mill meditation class, but it was nothing of the kind. The presenter was a mindfulness teacher who visits schools: primary, middle, high, or college. And her topic was how to deploy the basic skills of mindfulness in relationship with other people, regardless whether you have a regular, formal mindfulness practice of your own. In other words, she started with the three fruits of mindfulness practice as taught by the Unified Mindfulness approach (the one developed by Shinzen Young): concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. And then she illustrated how each of these can come into play when you are talking with somebody else, particularly if you are talking about something that is difficult for them (or, I guess, for you). She told stories of interactions she had had with other people to illustrate each one in turn, and a lot of the advice came down to simple stuff that you might hear anywhere else but in different terminology: focus on what the person is really saying, let them say whatever it is that they are really saying even if you don't like it, and ask clarifying questions to follow up (both for your own understanding and also -- sometimes, potentially -- to help them see things about their own situation they might not have seen before). I'm pretty sure all of these techniques fall under the general heading of "active listening."  

What I found fascinating was the idea -- and these are my words, not hers -- that this kind of attentive listening might itself be a sort of applied mindfulness practice. Wait, what? When Wife was in one of her panic attacks and I was trying to unwind her slowly without accidentally setting her off again, I was actually meditating? Wow, who knew? (And I remember once when I did the same thing to D, that she later looked back on it and laughed ruefully, saying something about how I clearly had a lot of experience "dealing with hysterical women." 

It would be great if I never had to use this particular skill again, but I'm involved with Marie these days so we're probably not there. (Although I have said as much to her, stretching a point out of generosity.) So in that case it's nice to know that it counts as meditation. I guess.

      

Marrying your parents? - revisited

A long time ago — gosh, it was more than eight years — I posted on the idea that we "marry our parents," or (more exactly) that we choose to fall in love with people who are like one or the other of our parents. At the time I used this model to understand what were till then my three most obvious romantic relationships. I wrote:

As I listened [to the talk that proposed this theory] I thought about myself and decided that this is a pretty easy case to make for me: Wife and D are both like my father (loud, opinionated, narcissistic, always the center of any gathering, outwardly domineering but with a surprising lack of self-confidence beneath the surface), while Debbie is a lot like my mother (quiet, comfortable in silence and solitude, deeply ethical in an unobtrusive and tolerant way … they even look alike physically).

But at the time I said nothing about Marie. Of course, back in 2013 Marie and I were not in communication. Back then she represented just a confusing and awkward part of my past. So it was easy for me to leave her out of the reckoning. But today that's no longer so easy. Today she's my girlfriend. So how does she fit into this theory? Or does she disprove it?

I've spent a while trying to think through an answer. In many ways she's not a good fit. On the one hand, she's shy, quiet, and chronically (almost neurotically) self-doubting; so she's a poor match for the loud, Falstaffian extroversion of my Father (or, mutatis mutandis, of Wife or D). On the other hand, she seems a lot more complicated and damaged than my Mother or Debbie — not that Mother or Debbie have had life unusually easy, but each of them seems able to respond to its trials with a calm and simple common-sense. And those are never words anyone would think of using to describe Marie.

So does she fit? Or not?

I was puzzled about this for some time, but recently I began to see a way forward towards an answer.

The last few times I've visited Mother, she and I have talked for hours. Days, even. And back in the past we never used to do that — meaning back when Father was alive. Back then he and I might talk for hours, but Mother always sat quietly in the background. And a couple of weeks ago, she explained how it was for her back then. She said, "Back when your dad was alive, I didn't feel like I needed to talk a lot because he took care of all that for me. It was easier to let him do all the talking and not compete. It was obvious that he liked to talk, so I just let him. Because anything that I needed to say, he was pretty sure to cover sooner or later. So it was easier to let him do it."

Then, last week, Marie told me that she lets her friends steamroller her in conversation because "it's easier" that way. And I could not help but to hear the echo.

So maybe that's it. Maybe Marie corresponds to Mother because they are both quiet, and they both find it easier to let someone else take over the conversation. It's still not a perfect match. Mother still has way more self-confidence than Marie. Mother ran the family business back when Father was fecklessly avoiding his responsibilities. Marie tells me that when she is responsible for something at work she can be a real "bitch" [her word] about getting it done right, but I don't see it. Maybe I'd see it if I worked at her store. Also it feels to me like Marie is still carrying more damage from her early life than Mother is. If nothing else, Mother married and had children, while Marie never did either.

But no theory like this is ever perfect. Always they are just ideas to give you insights that might help you understand your life. Maybe that's enough.       

         

Why do Marie's friends talk too much?

A couple days ago, I got back from a week visiting Marie. It was a pleasant visit. We didn't do a lot, but we hung out and talked. And fucked, of course. I might write about other parts of the visit in a while.

But among other things, we visited with some of her friends. One evening we had dinner with a family she's close to, and another day we had lunch with a different friend. And I noticed something during both meals.

How to steamroller over anyone that can't keep up.

Each time, the friend was the kind of person who dominates a conversation, steamrollering over anyone who can't keep up. (In the case of the family, it was specifically the wife-and-mother who did this, but then she's the one who is Marie's particular friend.) Now — just to be completely clear — this was no problem for me. I'm perfectly capable of talking a lot too. (If you've read a few of the other posts in this blog, you've probably already figured that out.) I grew up around Father, who had to be the center of attention in any social setting, regardless who was present or how many there were. So I grew up having to compete for the floor. (Yes, that's really how we described the dynamic at home, even if it meant just chatting about our days over the dinner table.) When someone else talks a lot, I can usually calibrate myself to their output and keep pace. So in one case last week I ended up talking a lot about medical care child-rearing; in the other case I talked a lot about history and philosophy. In both cases I was able to hold up my end of the conversation in the face of relentless pontification by the other person. So far, so good, This was all fine. In that respect, there was no problem.

But Marie said almost nothing during either meal, at least in comparison to her friend and to me. And this silence began to worry me. Certainly when Marie and I are alone and I find myself doing all the talking, I regard it as a danger-sign. That used to happen fairly often forty years ago, when she and I were undergraduates, and I generally learned afterwards that I had been ignoring her — that her very silence meant something was wrong and I should have been paying attention. This means that today when I hear her falling silent, it usually shows up for me as a very loud silence. Ever since we got back together six years ago, I have been very aware of this dynamic, and I have worked hard to spend less time blathering around her than I used to. (Really this is something I've been working on in general for a long time. It's not just about Marie.) Also I try hard to listen. It's not a topic where I can ever claim a permanent victory, once for all. But I plug away at it steadily.

Last week however, at these two meals, I kept talking anyway because I was responding to the steady stream of opinions from her friends. I figured that somehow, in one way or another, I was on display to them; and that it was my job, in the moment, to keep up my end of the conversation so that I would show-off well and look like a credit to Marie. But I was very aware of Marie's silence all the same, and I asked her about it later.

Why do your friends — and yes, I very much include myself in this list — talk so much more than you do? Or why do you allow yourself to be steamrollered in the conversation? Are they like that when I'm not here? If so, why do you choose friends who steamroller you?

Marie had to think for several minutes before she could answer that. At length she said something like this.

It's not quite true that all my friends steamroller me. There are some you haven't met. Of the ones we've eaten with this week, one will listen attentively if I tell her I have something important to discuss, and the other isn't really a close friend. We just spend time together because ... oh, I don't know ... reasons.

But yes, you've got a point. And I think it's like this. For me, it's a lot easier to relate to someone who does all the talking, because then I know what they expect of me. All I have to do is sit and listen, and they'll be happy. I've done my part for the relationship. You remember the night that you and I met, you were telling long stories while I lay on the floor and gazed up adoringly at you. And that worked for us for a while. [I might question the verb "worked" but sure, ... whatever, I guess.] So I think that's why.

OK, I guess that was an explanation. I didn't really know what else to say. She didn't seem to think it was a problem, except that I knew it had been a problem between us way back when. And I admit I did wonder a little bit about the words "easier" and "I know what they expect of me." It made the whole thing sound a little Hermione-Granger-ish, like all the world is an extension of school, and it's our job to please other people the way we try to please teachers. I guess that I (of all people!) have no right to complain about seeing the whole world as an extension of school, and I know I've mentioned before how far Marie reminds me of Hermione Granger. (Honestly, if not for the huge age gap between them, and the multiple differences driven by that age gap — Marie is sixty and Hermione is a teenager — the similarities would be scary!) 

I still don't know what to say about it. I guess she's happy and I don't need to say anything because it's none of my business. Does that sound right to you too?