Made of eggshells

Marie has been really upset since the election, to the point of not being able to sleep and having massive anxiety attacks. Part of me wants to tell her she's kind of overdoing it -- shit, your candidate didn't win but it's not the Apocalypse. But of course she's not doing it on purpose, so it's not going to help to say any of that.

  
I've tried to help however I can. For the most part this doesn't mean holding her, because she lives a thousand miles away (although she did say she felt a lot better while she was visiting my family over Thanksgiving). But I've sent her encouraging words, along with instructions on the most basic form of meditation and a loving-kindness mantra for her to repeat (not this one, but close).  

Finally a couple of weeks ago her doctor put her on Zoloft. And naturally she had a very bumpy start. The first days or weeks on any new anti-depressant are like that. So she told me she was feeling very fragile, and asked for support.

I sent her a letter with a couple of things in it. First, I talked a little bit about how I experience fragility, echoing a couple of the ideas I describe here (though not the whole essay). But then I tried to offer her a little more:

Your body feels like eggshells -- brittle, bare.
Your skin feels tender as if washed with lye,
Then left to sit, exposed to open air,
Scarred by the very snowflakes in the sky.
 
Your spirit feels like eggshells -- fragile, low,
To flinch when startled at a sudden din
Or brood on gloomy, long-remembered woe
That wets your eyes and stabs your heart again.
 
But you are more than eggshells -- for you know
I love you and you love me in return.
Outside it's dark and wet with sleet and snow,
But here inside the coals of love still burn.
 
No eggshell lasts forever -- but when it breaks,
The bird inside spreads out her wings and wakes.

Marie was very grateful. The day I sent it she was feeling so rotten she couldn't process it any farther than to say, "My boyfriend sent me a sonnet! How sweet." But a few days later she was able to consider it as poetry, and we discussed back and forth how it might be improved.

Clearly she was thinking about more than she said. And then one day she went almost completely silent until night-time, when she sent back ...

My body feels like eggshells – brittle, bare,
My skin abraded as if scoured with salt
Then left to chill, exposed to bitter air
As blow by blow of news my eyes assault.
 
My spirit feels like eggshells – fragile, low,
Remembering past times hope was entombed
And still the news pours in new tales of woe:
Of Klansmen, oilmen, loonies given room.
 
Yet I am more than eggshells, for I know
I love you and you love me in return
Though all outside may bleak and bitter grow,
Yet here inside the coals of love still burn,
 
And burning, still inspire that bird to wake,
Which, stretched in hope of flight, all shells will break.

And all I could think was, "Hot damn, but I love being involved with a(nother) poet!"

 

Lovingly molested

Marie visited me for a week over Thanksgiving, and just flew home tonight. Together we drove out to where most of my family was gathered for the holiday. She met them; they met her. A good time was had by all.

But also we talked and talked, as always. And a couple days ago, the conversation was a little interesting.

I was talking about my dad -- specifically, about how he was always trying to worm his way into learning about my private life, as if he were groping at me with his questions. I've written about it here, and probably other places. Marie pegged his behavior nicely as "voyeuristic". And for a long time I didn't have a very good idea why he would even want to know all this stuff about me, except that he always had. Sometimes I thought maybe it was because he enjoyed the power that came from knowing things and being able to make me squirm when he talked about them.

But as I talked to Marie, I added that I had recently thought of another hypothesis ... another possible reason that might have explained his behavior. And I told her that this hypothesis could have meaning for her too.

My idea was this: maybe my dad was lonely. Well, of course I know he was lonely -- he didn't have many friends, and those he had rarely saw him. He didn't have any family except my mother's, and over the years he had alienated most of those. He didn't have a job to go to. So yeah, he was lonely.

And his social skills were a little off. He could be entertaining -- he was an actor by trade, after all -- but he didn't trust people and so he had trouble making new friends. He wanted to be loved and accepted, but he was afraid to let himself be honest and real with others ... and that has to be the first step. The only circle he (mostly) trusted were his immediate family: my mother, my brother, and me.

So I think he wanted to be my friend. Actually I know that's what he wanted, because many times -- usually when he was really drunk -- that's exactly what he would say. "I don't want you to think of me as a father ... just as an older friend who has been through some things you haven't yet, so you can ask me questions and I can give you advice." (Notice, by the way, that this implies he had a really unpleasant idea of what fatherhood entails. I think this is related to his lifelong hatred of authority.) And so I think what he wanted was for us to sit around shooting the shit and "lying about women" [his phrase], the way he imagined that Real Guys must do in the locker room. (My father was a classic Non-Athlete, but I think his image of masculinity must have dated from high school gym class -- which he hated, but which he must have thought he should have liked in order to be a Real Man.)

In short: I think he pawed at my life with a perverted, voyeuristic lust because he wanted to be my friend, and didn't know how. And didn't know that it was impossible, because the Father-Son relationship is prior to the Friend-Friend relationship and excludes it.

Marie thought this was very interesting, both charitable and plausible. But what the hell did it have to do with her?

Well, I don't remember if I've told this story yet but her mother molested her when Marie was 12. Her mother was an alcoholic, and one night (after Bible study!) she came into Marie's bedroom and started massaging Marie's vulva until she came. Marie was really upset at this but figured that a Good Girl wouldn't tell her mother to stop; also, that God wouldn't have allowed it unless she (Marie) was already hopelessly corrupt and soiled. It fucked up her ideas about sex for decades, and that in turn seems to have crippled her sex life until she and I got together early this year.

And I asked Marie, Why did she do it? She wasn't getting off, after all. And she probably wasn't particularly aroused by it -- as she objected later, when Marie confronted her with this and she said that she had no recollection of it (probably true because she blacked out a lot), "I like men." (Marie's father was dead by then, of suicide. Marie's mother was drinking heavily and fucking anything in pants.) So why did she do it? Marie didn't know.

Well, I suggested, maybe it was the same kind of thing that was going on with my dad. Maybe at some level she thought that she was doing Marie a favor. After all here was her oldest daughter, just on the cusp of womanhood ... about to come into her sexual inheritance. If you assume that her mother's higher reasoning abilities were all wiped clean out by the alcohol, it's not so crazy to think that she might have thought this was somehow a good thing.

Of course I told Marie that this was just a hypothesis. She'd have to think whether there was any external data that could make it look likely.

And after a minute she said, "Oh shit. There is."

Marie's mother was a very feminine woman. She was pretty, and paid a lot of attention to her appearance. She always had to have a man in her life, and it thrilled her to be the focus of some man's adoration. Marie was 12 -- just at the cusp of womanhood -- and didn't care about any of that. In mythological metaphor, she was totally devoted to Artemis and scorned Aphrodite. (See, e.g., this link for just how dangerous that can be.) Marie's mother kept trying to convince her to care about boys.

And so, Marie went on, ... maybe it makes sense that her mother would try to show her why it was worth it to care about boys. To show her how good sex feels. To let her experience directly why sex and romance can reasonably dominate your life. Throughout it all her mother kept saying "It feels so good." Maybe that really meant (if you look through the drunken haze) "It's worth the sacrifices. Make yourself pretty. Make yourself sweet and soft. Because then men will want to fuck you, and there is nothing sweeter in all the world."

But that means, Marie went on, that maybe she still loved me even while she was molesting me.

She was sobbing softly into my shoulder by this point. I held her, and kissed her, and tried to reassure her that yes, it was perfectly possible her mother still loved her. I reminded her that many of the terrible, cruel, destructive things that people do are caused not by malice but just by ignorance and clumsiness. And if anything can bring on ignorance and clumsiness, heavy drinking is surely on the list. So yeah ... it's all possible.

We talked about a lot of other things over the course of the week, but that may have been the most unexpected.
  

Banquet dinners

Dear Son 2,

 

When you called Saturday, you said that at one point Mom [this means Wife] claimed she thought she'd "have to spend Thanksgiving alone eating a Banquet dinner." At the time I just rolled my eyes because that sounded so familiar. But since then I have thought about it some more, and I've begun to get ... worried ... at how manipulative a remark it was.

 

Do you see it the way I see it? I asked Son 1 [his brother] how he saw it, and he just kind of shrugged. So I think maybe I should explain. If this is all obvious to you, please forgive me.

 

Also please note that nothing I say here is meant to sound like I'm bitching about Mom. The things I talk about -- I don't think she's doing any of them on purpose. But let me explain.

 

Mom's mother -- your grandmother -- tried to keep people close to her by making them feel sorry for her. And it worked for a while. It kept your Mom hooked until the day her mother died. But at the same time that she (I mean Mom -- your mom) felt so much duty toward her mother, she also hated her mother, and was miserable over the relationship. Other people stuck close to this lady for a while (because they felt sorry for her) but then burned out and quit. They stopped calling, they stopped coming by -- maybe a card at Christmas but otherwise they cut her out of their lives because they hated the way that she used pity to blackmail them.

 

And I think those are the two most common options, in the long run, when somebody tries to hold onto others through pity. Either those "others" end up miserable (and hating the one they pity), or else they burn out and quit. Those are both terrible ways to live.

 

When Mom says she expects to spend Thanksgiving alone eating a Banquet dinner, it's the exact same technique her mother used. (I assume she doesn't realize that's what she's doing.) So I worry about you and Son 1, because I don't want you to end up miserable or burned-out.

 

Just as an aside, it's natural to think, "Oh it's no big deal, really. I can take it." That's what Son 1 said (more or less) when we talked a couple days ago. And it's what I thought, when I was a lot younger. For many years I worked hard to make things better for Mom so she would be happy. Mostly that was before you were born or when you were very young. I assume the only part you remember was at the end, when -- guess what? -- I burned out. But for 20 years before, it wasn't like that. And all I'm saying is that I was way too optimistic when I thought it was no big deal.

 

So fine -- when I say I don't want you and Son 1 to end up miserable or burned-out, what that really means is I WISH Mom wouldn't say things to make you feel sorry for her. But I can't make her change that. The next best thing is that I want to warn you (and Son 1) so you don't get hooked by it. If you can side-step the hook, not get dragged underwater by the emotional rip-tide ... maybe you can keep your peace of mind. Maybe you can avoid both the misery and the burn-out.

 

That's the key.

 

I am NOT saying you have to be mean. Not at all. You can keep right on being as kind and generous as ever. Just remember that it's NOT YOUR job to make OUR lives turn out OK -- either of us. It's up to us (Mom and me, respectively) to do that for ourselves. Of course we love you and enjoy your company. Each of us appreciates spending time with you. But NONE of that loads a DUTY on your back.

 

Just to be clear: This ISN'T about Thanksgiving next month. You want to go to Durmstrang's Thanksgiving this year. I totally get that. And the easiest, most efficient, most practical way to go to Durmstrang Thanksgiving is to spend the holiday with Mom so the two of you can go to Durmstrang together. I get that too.

 

But SOME year, you'll no longer be going to Durmstrang Thanksgiving. When that year rolls around, I hope you can choose your venue based on what YOU want, not on some kind of heavy obligation.

 

Because it's not your job to make our lives turn out OK.

 

All this means is that -- over the years ahead -- I want you to be free and to live in a way that gives you real value. So think about it slowly in the back of your head. Please. Keep your eyes open. Be aware of the issue. And that's all I can ask.

 

Thanks.

 

Love as always,

Dad [Hosea]

 

My apartment

A few days ago I had a conversation with Marie that started like this. It didn't end like this, and in fact we are still talking. But it's something I guess I have to think about.

You know, my love, your place is really bare:
No love seat, armchair, wifi, or TV.
A kitchen -- table -- bed -- that's all that's there.
No place to house your boys -- no place for me.

 

Do you suppose that's why they'd rather stay
With your ex-wife, when back this way they roam?
She's sick and bat-shit crazy, so you say.
But maybe her place looks more like a home.

 

For thirty years, weighed down by all her hoard
Of heirloom trash, we "made a home," you see.
I finally broke out, and -- oh my Lord! --
I want to travel light and travel free.

 

But do you now? Take care. For it's well known,
You travel fastest when you fly alone.

Sent from my iPhone

Little blue pills

I just put Marie on the plane to fly home, after she visited me here for a couple of days. This makes the ... what? fourth? ... time she's visited me. I've visited her once (twice if you count the trip to her family's vacation home). I'm sure she has noticed the discrepancy and is mulling it.

It was fun having her here. Two nights ago we had my neighbors over for dinner, drank plenty of wine, and talked for hours. Yesterday she and I had lunch with one of my friends from work (well OK, my only real friend from work) ... and again, talked amiably until I had to get back for a meeting. She liked all of them; I haven't heard any feedback on her yet, but everybody seemed positive enough. It was all good.

The sex was mostly good, but I use the word "mostly" with care. As I've mentioned before, I've broken down and gotten a prescription for Viagra. And the erections have been great: solid and very durable. Marie, who is in her 50's but never had much of a sex life before getting together with me, was ecstatic. Many times, and very happily. She keeps making discoveries that if she moves like so and I pitch the angle there, ... oooh, aaah, that's really nice!

What I didn't do was come. Ever. I don't know if it is old age, or the medication, or one of my other medications, or just that I wasn't in a sufficiently rutting state of mind. But whatever it was, I could keep going until after a while I'd kind of lose interest and stop. Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Last night Marie asked me if I thought I'd ever want to live with someone again. It sounds like she really hasn't given up wanting to be "Mrs. Tanatu". I told her I couldn't vouch for the future, but today No. Today I love visiting with people, having them over for dinner, talking long into the night, even fucking ... and then having my own private space I can retreat into, where I can rest and recuperate. She sighed and said Yes, she'd read advice that when you enter a romantic relationship you should never do it with the expectation that the other person is going to change in this or that way for you. I agreed, adding only the modification that the other person might indeed change -- but it's still a bad idea to hope that that change is going to be in the exact direction you want. So we cuddled until we fell asleep, and this morning she caught a plane home.

But yes, I think that's what she wants.
    

Thinking like a Tanatu

Son 2 phoned me from school about an hour ago, in high dudgeon. He said he was mad and had to vent steam at somebody. What was he so mad about? He had just gotten out of his freshman humanities class, where they had had a discussion about the Euthyphro, the Apology, and the Crito. Son 2 had tried to make an argument about how people’s understanding of justice depends on the government they live under … and nobody understood what he was talking about. Literally nobody. He said he was frustrated to the point of bursting at “trying to make them think like a Tanatu.” (Not that we Tanatus have any corner on that market, of course, but I guess in his class it was starting to look that way.)

 

I told him that actually I could see some nits to pick in his thesis, and he accepted that. Of course there are nits to pick! That’s what drives the conversation forward. But that nobody could even understand him …!

 

So then I went on to add two other comments. (1) Welcome to large public universities. (2) Not to put too fine a point on it, but … welcome to [the state where he’s going to school]. Yes, they have a fine agriculture program. But they’re not known as a beacon of philosophical learning.

 

Meanwhile his best friend from high school is attending a liberal arts college in California, and says people introduce themselves with both their name and their preferred pronoun (he or she) … rather than leaving it to you to guess, I suppose.

 

That may encapsulate the whole red-state/blue-state thing right there ….

 

 

Pay attention, dammit!

About a month ago, I tripped and fell on my way home from my volunteer work. Here's how I described it to Marie:

I tripped and fell while walking home from [my volunteer work]. More exactly I was watching a CNN segment on my iPhone and not watching where I was going, so I set my foot down wrong and my right ankle folded under me the way it did in Peru. (I told you that story, didn't I?) So I landed on my face in the middle of a residential side street. Fortunately there were no cars coming by. I pulled myself up, retrieved my phone (which had skidded a couple feet away, still playing), turned it off, and walked slowly the rest of the way home with exaggerated caution. The end result was a bruised and bloody nose (though it's not bleeding any more) and one scraped knee (which actually looked worse once I cleaned off the dirt because you could see the blood). I wiped the knee clean with a washcloth and put a bandage on it. My nose has stopped bleeding.

The moral of the story is to watch where the hell you're going. Also that I am not immune from damn-fool stupidity and inattention.

Since then I have been walking much more slowly and attentively. But do I sometimes think of other things? Of course! I've always thought about things while I walk! So it happened again last Thursday.

... I fell again. I was looking for a place to cross the street in the middle of the block, didn't watch the unevenness of the curb, and crumpled. It was better this time: I was moving a lot more slowly so I had effectively no forward momentum, and my hands were free so I could cover my head. I just crumpled in place, right next to a sign giving the parking restrictions. A man was unlocking his bike from the same sign, and he helped me right up. I had banged up my left knee again, but it wasn't bleeding this time. 

So I made my way on to Sangha. [One of the two that I try to attend weekly, when I'm in town.] And that was a good thing, because it gave me space to calm down. Because while I was physically in much better shape than after my fall 33 days ago, I was upset and scared. Twice in just over a month? What's the common factor? I have NOT been having more generalized balance problems. In fact I have walked on dirt trails between then and now, just fine. But also in the last month I have been far more aware of the pavement under my feet; I have walked a lot slower than before; I take more care to look where I'm going. And I still fell, because I was watching the traffic and not my feet. Do I have to watch my feet for every step? Ain't gonna happen. Or just never step off sidewalks into the street? Intriguing idea but still impractical. Do I need to see a foot specialist? And do what -- encase my right ankle in a brace that prevents it from bending? That doesn't sound right. I don't know. I'm very confused and still a little bit scared of it. 

Marie is very worried, because she doesn't want me to faceplant in front of oncoming traffic. I told a friend at work and he just kidded me about it. What do you want, a walker? Trust me, it's just that you weren't paying attention. It's nothing worse.

Yeah, I'm sure he's right. So this evening I was walking home from my volunteer work again, paying exaggerated attention to the sidewalk (or so I thought) but also mulling how to respond now that Wife is demanding more money again ... and I stepped in a pile of dog shit. With the same foot that twice crumpled beneath me ... three times if you count Peru.

Somebody is trying to get my attention -- a Somebody with a remarkably sophomoric sense of humor. And I think the message is, Watch where the fuck you're going! Pay attention! Be mindful!

I'm starting to think that I need to turn every walk into Walking Mindfulness Meditation. Just bloody wonderful.