Emails with Debbie, 1

I explained here that within the space of three lunches spanning a month and a half (and with a prolonged silence of a month between the first two lunches), she and I have gotten to the point of holding hands and whispering "I love you."  Sounds like quick work, all in all,  Honestly I think part of the explanation has to be that we had gotten to know each other quite well years ago, when we worked together; and I now think that she must have had feelings for me back then similar to mine for her, or she could not have fallen this fast.

But some of the progress in closing the gap has been done in e-mail; so it is only fair that I back up to just after our second lunch, and fill in the story from there.

Anyway, after that second lunch (where we admitted that we were "responding emotionally" to each other), Debbie wrote me this:

I just want to say that I really enjoyed our time together at lunch

today.  While there is a great sense of familiarity, there is also much

new in the getting to know you again, and I am enjoying the energy

between us.  I especially appreciate how you ask questions to clarify

your understanding of something I have said or done.  It gives me

permission to be open and authentic, and how you have received what I

have said makes it continue to be safe.  You have done it a couple of

times now and I find myself admiring you for it and also wishing I could

be brave enough to do the same.  So maybe this is something I can learn

from you.

I wrote back:

Your kind words are sweet to hear, especially as I wasn't aware I was doing anything special.  But I think part of what makes it possible is that there has been time between our meetings (two weeks from the grocery store to our first lunch, and four from our first lunch to today) ... and I have been able to spend that time thinking.  I suppose in the last four weeks I must have stepped through that part of our conversation in my imagination ... well, any number of times.  Since I didn't know how you would answer, I tried to prepare myself for the worst (unnecessarily as it turned out, for which I am exceedingly grateful).  But this also meant I had to look at myself from all sides and really think about what was going on with me, too.  Because I knew that would be a part of the picture -- how could it not? -- and I knew I had to be honest about reporting what I saw, if I expected anything good from the discussion.

As for "brave enough" ... well I've never thought of myself as especially brave.  In some ways, as I told you over lunch, I see my life as marked by a kind of timidity that often doesn't serve me but that can be hard to shake.  But I don't feel that way so much when I'm talking with you.  It seems to me that was even true way back when ... unless I am just seeing the past through the eyes of the present.  But that's how I remember it.

I'm going to remember this lunch fondly for a long time.  And yes, I very much look forward to the next one.

I'm going to break this dialog up into several posts, both because that was how it unfolded in real life and because otherwise the post will become prohibitively long.  Stay tuned.

Legacy student

This is outside the main path of the narrative right now, but I want to make a note of it before I forget.  I was talking with Son 1 the other day, and he said something interesting.

Actually he asked me a question: "Dad, when you were a student at Hogwarts [like he is now], what did you say in your chapel talk?"  Hogwarts has a tradition that every Senior gives a chapel talk to the community some time during the year.  Son 1 is a Junior, but he has started to think about what he wants to say.  I think I have also mentioned that Son 1 is a legacy student, in the sense that both I and Brother went to Hogwarts for high school.  (Son 2, you will recall, is the odd one out; he's going to Durmstrang.)

"I'm not sure I remember. Why?"

"Well I wanted to ask you, and then I wanted to ask Uncle [i.e., Brother]. And then I figured I'd start out by saying, 'I'm not the first Tanatu to stand up here before you. My father talked about this, and my uncle talked about that. My talk will be different.' "

What struck me is that I hadn't realized how much it is a part of Son 1's identity at school, or of his self-understanding, that he is the third one in the family to go there.  That there is some kind of Tanatu legacy there that he's a part of.

I mused a little longer, "I kind of remember what I said at graduation, but I'm not sure I remember my chapel talk ...."

"Graduation? Oh right, you were valedictorian weren't you?"

"Ummm ...."

"Why didn't you ever tell us you were valedictorian, back when we were growing up? Do you realize I only found out my Freshman year, when one of the old teachers there told me?"

"I guess because I didn't want to come across as one of those fathers who ...."  I fumbled for words.

"Who says 'You have to follow in my footsteps'? Don't worry! I don't feel that way."  Then he laughed and added, "You can tell by looking at my latest grade report."

"That's OK," I said.  "You're also a varsity athlete. When I was at Hogwarts the idea of mentioning my name and 'varsity athlete' in the same breath could only have been a bad joke."

We joked a little more back and forth before drifting off the subject.  But he did ask me to try to remember what I talked about.

Third lunch with Debbie

I'll keep this brief.  I don't have time to write more at the moment.  And really, I should post about a week's worth of e-mails between us first.  Maybe two weeks.  I'll get around to that soon, to fill in the back story; because I think without the steps provided in those e-mails, this post may be a little abrupt.

Suffice it to say that this is only our third lunch and we have reached the point of holding hands and discussing what we can afford to do together ... where the boundaries have to be.  Debbie is no longer worried about not even going to the theater with me.  She asked if she can invite me over to dinner with some of her other friends.  (Sure, why not?)  But we both agree that we probably shouldn't actually fuck until I have moved out ... so if the boys ever ask, we can say so with a straight face.  I explained that their good opinion matters more to me than a lot of other considerations.

Update added June 27, 2022: I don't want to change anything else that I've written here, all of which was written in the moment. But maybe I can add a little more about what we discussed. Two points have stuck with me over the years. 

One is that this is when I explained about Wife's multiple infidelities over the years. Debbie was pretty quiet during this account, but then she said softly, "OK, so maybe you don't have to keep your side of the street as perfectly clean as I was thinking." And I agreed.

The second point didn't even involve words. We were talking about some of the things we might do together. Debbie was being a little cautious about committing to any of them, and I asked why. Without saying a thing she took my left hand in one of hers, and with the index finger of her other hand started tracing back and forth across my wedding ring. Clearly her unspoken question was, How long are you going to keep wearing this? And it took me a little bit by surprise because I had forgotten that I was wearing it. After almost thirty years, the habit of sliding it on in the morning had become so automatic that I didn't even notice I was doing it. I don't remember what I said. I think I mumbled something like, "Oh, right." And I started to think about when to take the ring off. At this point I don't remember quite when I actually stopped wearing it. But this lunch is the first time it was drawn to my attention.  

And as we parted in the parking lot, we exchanged the sweetest kiss ... and finally got to the words, "I love you."  "I love you too."  She was first with the kiss; I was first with the words.

I'm sure I did something at the office in the second half of the day once I got back from lunch, but I'm damned if I can tell you what it was.

Buddhism, pizza, and poetry

One point that I have left out of all these posts till now is that Debbie is a practising Buddhist.  When I had known her years before, she and her husband attended a Unitarian church.  But apparently during the years in between, she started meditating and then gradually learned more and more about Buddhism itself, finding it a refuge and stabilizing influence in her life.  During our second lunch, after talking about how we were falling in love with each other, she asked me if I was OK with this.  She said she didn't want to convert anybody, but it would be hard to be with someone with whom she could not share such a large part of herself.  Would I maybe (some day in the distant future) be willing to think about going on a retreat with her?  And of course I said yes.

Anyway, during our e-mails she asked me if I would be interested in reading anything about Buddhism.  When I said yes, she recommended Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart, and offered that I could borrow her copy with all of the marginal notes she had jotted in it ten years ago, when she started meditating.  This sounded great to me, so we spent a little time discussing when we could get together so I could borrow the book.  We finally agreed she would stop by my office the next Friday evening, on her way out to dinner with a (female) friend of hers, after which the two of them were going to the symphony.  Beethoven was playing.

This was all good, but I was curious who Jack Kornfield was and so googled him.  Prowling around in the search results, I found a piece he had written that included the following paragraph, which caught my eye.

One of the interesting things when you start to look at and work with the hindrance of desire is to see that what relieves it, what makes one finally happy about it, is not so much the thing that you get, or the person, or the experience that you get at the end -- this is important, so listen to this -- it's actually the fact that the state of desiring has ended.  I'll give you a simple example.  Suppose you have a craving for some food that you really want to have.  It can be pizza or ice cream or cannelloni, you name it, whatever it happens to be.  You go and you get it.  You do all the things.  You get in your car, you go, you finally get it, you have it in your hand, and you take the first bite of whatever it is.  And usually the moment that you taste it, there's this great sense of delight and release, and so forth, and part of it may be because it tastes good and it's pleasurable, if it's part of your fantasy -- but the main piece is, in that moment, finally the wanting stops.  Do you understand that?  And that a good deal of the joy of fulfilling desires is not so much the getting of the thing, because you have it for a little while and then you want the next thing -- it's endless -- but rather that there's a moment when the wanting itself stops.  If you look closely in yourself, if you let yourself look, you find that the very process of wanting is painful; that the very state of not being complete or content or present with what's here is what the pain is about.

OK, it's not an unusual teaching if you have read anything about Buddhism.  Pretty straightforward stuff.  It did make me wonder a little bit about love and sex, about all the desire for each other that Debbie and I had been talking about (ever less guardedly).  Does that work the same way?  I suppose it could explain a lot of infidelity.  But if so, that makes Buddhism a strikingly anti-romantic religion.  Worth thinking about.

So I thought about this passage some more.  And then some more, ... and some more, ... and some more.  And finally, that Friday afternoon when Debbie was on her way to lend me her book (and then go off to a concert), I composed her the following:

“Just think of pizza,” Roshi said one day,

“You smell it, need it, crave it, don’t you see?

“Your mind’s a-blur, there’s nothing you won’t pay,

“And that first bite is sheerest ecstasy.”

“The second bite is not quite so divine:

“For with the first, the Craving drops its hold.

“Then it comes back, now maybe it wants wine,

“And finds the pizza greasy, stale, and cold.”

Is it like that with love? I stare in fright.

Do all the waiting, longing, and desire

Prepare us for one single, magic night,

And then, with dawn, cold ashes but no fire?

It must not be (although for some it is).

Without the Want, love still has work to do.

It builds its fire anew, each day, from bliss.

And makes our souls a home, a shelter true.

They’re not the same. Love has a different goal.

For pizza feeds my gut. Love builds my soul.

When she arrived at my work, all I said about it was that I had e-mailed her a little something based on a passage from Kornfield I had found on the Internet.  Maybe when she had a chance she'd like to take a look.

That evening she wrote me back:

I came home from Beethoven to find this...  you amaze me.
I 'm surrendering to these feeling of love for you, and while the desire is delicious, it's the love that is filling my soul.

Score.

And Monday was our third lunch.

So controlling, part 2

The other day I was browsing through some of my e-mails from D last year, and I happened upon one that caught my attention.  She wrote it last August -- maybe a month and a half after I thought I had broken up with her, but a full month before I remarked casually in an e-mail to her that of course our affair was over, at which point her replies stopped short. (I have heard from her exactly three times in the four or five months since, each note short and perfunctory: happy birthday, merry Christmas, ... that sort of thing.)

Anyway, the reason this letter from last August caught my attention is that D actually called me "controlling" -- D, who used to laugh at how Wife said the same thing and at how little control she (D) could see that I actually exerted in the relationship.  But in this case, she was replying to a line where I had mentioned how much I hate to be the center of attention; and D wrote back:

From my vantage point, you do insist on being the center of attention because you demand full control of so many aspects of our relationship. My desires, my needs, even my generous impulses are rejected unless they meet with your approval. There is little compromise. In part, I accept your control because there are aspects of my character that need reformation and work. But I might gently suggest that your fears are not productive or grounded in reality and that ultimately, your controlling side must collapse and accept some risk.

There it is, plain as day: "controlling".

When I first read that, I was just amused.  But then just recently, on my way to work one morning, I realized exactly what (I think) she was talking about.  The things she itemized that I was trying to control were all things she did that made me crazy, or that hurt me deeply in some way ... often because of her unspoken assumptions that in this context I ought to behave like that.  And so of course when one of these would come up, after the fight was over, I'd tell her "I don't ever want to go through that particular fight again, so let's not even re-create the situation that caused it. Please don't XYZ any more."  So controlling.

And in all this the real answer to it all is that I wanted out.  The affair had gone on too long and was too burdensome, D herself required far too much maintenance or management, and I just didn't want to be with her any more.  It was time to quit.

In retrospect, that's probably what it meant when Wife started calling me "controlling" too.  In the first years of our marriage, she complained (if anything) that I was too passive and exerted too little control, not the reverse.

But this is useful.  It tells me something about myself, and how I respond in relationships.  It also tells me (if I can extrapolate safely from only two cases) that when I start putting hedges around a girlfriend's behavior. it's a sign something bigger is going on and maybe we have to evaluate the whole romance.

If any of you ever finds yourself involved with me (I'm speaking to my female readers just now), and if you find that all of a sudden I am getting inexplicably controlling, maybe it's time for us to call the whole thing off.  Just a thought.


P.S.: I have also come to think, in retrospect, that I saw D exhibit a lot of the same behaviors which D herself called "narcissistic" when Wife did them.  Maybe I'm stretching too far there, but it has crossed my mind.  Of course, maybe I do the same things too without realizing it.  

 

Cat 1 has been found

He was at the veterinarian's.  Apparently our vet was driving along some time last week and saw this cat up in a tree -- dehydrated and hungry, but alive.  Climbed the tree, took the cat to his office, has been looking after him ever since.  Wife texted me from the office.

I had insisted we not tell the boys anything to make them worry, until we knew for sure what the situation was.  Good thing, so it turns out.

A happy ending.

Second lunch with Debbie

Debbie: It’s been great seeing you again, and this has been such a wonderful conversation. I suppose you’ll have to get back to the office soon.

Hosea: Pretty soon.  But … can I ask one more question?

Debbie: Sure.

Hosea: Did I hit a … wrong note … or something, in one of my e-mails? I mean, when you ….

Debbie: Oh, right. [Shy smile, stares at table.] No, it was nothing like that.

Hosea: [Looks quizzical. Waits.]

Debbie: [Continues to stare at table while talking.] I’m feeling very vulnerable here. But I found that I … was starting … to respond to you … emotionally; and I felt it was better just to slow down.

Hosea: Oh. OK. I think maybe we’re in something like the same place. I mean, … gosh, at some level I’ve been sweet on you for years, ever since we started working together. And when I first got your e-mail tabling our discussion I felt kind of like you had swatted me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Debbie: Oh, no, it was nothing like that!

Hosea: But after that I got to thinking, and I began to agree that maybe it’s wise to slow down, at least for ….

Debbie: Right.  [Long pause.] So what do we do now?

Hosea: Now?

Debbie: Let me just say that for myself, I have a really strong sense that I can’t start any kind of relationship with you while you are still married. It would make me feel cheap.

Whoops! Really? Better think about that. Quite aside from what this says about the possibility of anything romantic with Debbie, will I ever be able to tell her about D? Good thing that I know this now.  But aloud all I said was …

Hosea: “Still married”? I might stay married for a long while, legally speaking, so that Wife can be covered by my company-paid health insurance.

Debbie: [Thinks.] Well, … maybe not while you are still legally married. But I can’t see doing any kind of dating – not even plays or concerts – while you are still living in the same house with her.

Hosea: But lunch is good?

Debbie: Lunch is great. Let’s have lunch again soon.