It has been a wonderful summer, very free and open in so many ways. I haven't had to work so very hard==in fact I've taken a total vacation from work for the entire summer--and I haven't been encumbered by any romantic relationships, good or bad. The whole thing with J, as you know, was very distracting, but not ultimately a solid thing that I could rely on. We're not in the same place, emotionally. He's not ready for intimacy and commitment, and I really need comittment, Also, while he's a lovely person, very good and very decent, our educational background is so diverse, and our sense of the universe so different (he's a very conservative Protestant, very Republican, and I'm a Buddhist/nonconformist, very suspicious of the current administration), I don't think we could ever have made it work even if he had been interested.
But I have been spending a lot of time with my friend M, who is a feminist lawyer, very smart, who is married to a J, a playwright, whom I got to know a few years ago in a tennis class. I love her and her children--J is out of town for a month, directing a play--and her brother, T, who is a pilot.
In fact, my dear, I have fallen in love.
Okay, I know this sounds mad. It makes no sense to me. But the very first time that I ever met T, I fell for him. He takes yoga with our class, every now and then. And he is so handsome, so charming, so funny, so silly, so good with children, so loving, so amazingly talented and responsible. Yes, of course, I'm idealizing him. I've known about him for a long time--for over a year, but I also knew that he was going through a divorce, and that he needed time to recover. So I waited. I had this inkling, maybe just a fantasy, that he was the one for me. So I left him alone. But then, when I finally met him, after more than a year had passed, I found out from a mutual friend that he had a girlfriend! And I was so distraught, so devastated, I couldn't speak for hours. I couldn't talk to anyone, couldn't eat, had to go for a long walk. Ridiculous. I know. So I tried to put him out of my mind, to give up the dream. But I was so smitten. And am.
Never have I kissed a man with this kind of perfect compatibility, this kind of total love and surrender of myself. Never has anyone given himself to me so totally. I"m so afraid. I've had passionate encounters before--not quite this wonderful, but similar. And every time, I've been dropped, or abandoned, or I have left. It is terrifying. There I have said it. I am terrified.
But I am also very hopeful. He is such a good person, such an upstanding honorable man. I have so much respect for him. I know he'll do the right thing--I know he will break if off with her. But he hasn't done it yet. Am I a complete idiot? I have all this trust in him. I believe he will be good to me. Will he lose respect for me because I trust him so much? I can't believe he will. I am scared.
So, I'm sorry. I've been hanging out with the family, M and T and the M's kids. We've been biking and swimming. We've made dinner together in their wonderful kitchen. We've corralled in their living room watching movies. T and I have fallen asleep on the couch with our arms around each other. We spent last night together kissing the entire night through.
Okay. So I'm probably insane. Do you think so? I'm doubting myself. I think I'll be worried, on pins and needles, I guess, until I know that he has severed the relationship with her. I have to be patient. I know he'll do it. I don't want to push him. I'm trying to remain conscious--to say to myself, "it's like this: fear, fear, fear, anxiety, and hope, hope, hope, joy, joy, joy, and fear, fear, fear..." Trying to chart the weather system.
It's good spiritual training, I suppose. This morning, in yoga, I realized that I was very preoccupied, very "taken," occupied, by these thoughts and feelings, this longing for T, this hope for love, this joy, this excitement, this fear of abandonment, of screwing things up, of losing, again, of being alone." And I asked myself, what will help me? How do I find peace in this turbulence of emotions? What can I hold onto? God? But I don't know where God is, or what God is, if there is a God at all. I wanted there to be a god, a spiritual presence greater than everything, the sum of all being, pure goodness and love, a refuge. It is a fantasy, an ancient fantasy that our ancestors invented and passed on, through myriad variations, to us. But is there something holy and golden and true within us all, even so? Is there something alive, something that I could sail by, a beacon, a lighthouse, a steady point. Faith. Have faith in goodness, in love, in wisdom, in honor, in faithfulness itself.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
Weeping
But I actually fell apart in yoga. I mean, I went to the bathroom to blow my nose and then started to weep. I don't know why it had to happen just then, and there, but I was just suddenly overwhelmed by grief, and the pain of being so far away from him, and for so long. It's always worse on this side of a visit, especially be he obviously suffers too. The whole situation is generally good for him, but there are really hard bits. It should be easier.
Anyway, beautiful Joan, who is in her early 70s, came in and hugged me. She told me that two of her sons had died, and that she understood. "You just love them so much," she said. Then she started to cry, and told me that life was hard, and that that is why she's a Buddhist, and that she was strong and so was I. So I managed to get back out on the floor and to do sun salutations, feeling comforted that she was nearby. I felt just a little bit as though Mom was there in the room, too. But when I looked around, I saw that Joan had gone, and felt awful because I thought I had spoiled her yoga practice. If I hadn't been crying in the bathroom, she wouldn't have thought about her sons, and she wouldn't have started to cry... So of course I couldn't go on with the class, either. I will write her a note.
I'm okay. Really. Just a stormy weather system today, as my favorite Buddhist teacher would say. I'll be okay. I have some errands and chores to do today. THe Jeep is leaking oil, and has to go back to the shop. I have to go get a TB test so that I can volunteer for Hospice. It's a huge pain. When I come back I hope to have the energy to paint a little. Maybe get out some of this anguish on the canvas.
Anyway, beautiful Joan, who is in her early 70s, came in and hugged me. She told me that two of her sons had died, and that she understood. "You just love them so much," she said. Then she started to cry, and told me that life was hard, and that that is why she's a Buddhist, and that she was strong and so was I. So I managed to get back out on the floor and to do sun salutations, feeling comforted that she was nearby. I felt just a little bit as though Mom was there in the room, too. But when I looked around, I saw that Joan had gone, and felt awful because I thought I had spoiled her yoga practice. If I hadn't been crying in the bathroom, she wouldn't have thought about her sons, and she wouldn't have started to cry... So of course I couldn't go on with the class, either. I will write her a note.
I'm okay. Really. Just a stormy weather system today, as my favorite Buddhist teacher would say. I'll be okay. I have some errands and chores to do today. THe Jeep is leaking oil, and has to go back to the shop. I have to go get a TB test so that I can volunteer for Hospice. It's a huge pain. When I come back I hope to have the energy to paint a little. Maybe get out some of this anguish on the canvas.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Missing him
August 1:
B announced, within 30 seconds of getting into my car, that he had plans for the weekend and was not leaving. So, there went the camping trip I had planned.
I was so tired, and even in pain, that I welcomed the idea of "camping" at a hotel. B and I checked in, went across the street for pankcakes, and then huddled together on one of the beds, checking out the facebook profiles of B's friends and listening to music he likes --even some that he's composed. Then we watched the end of Borat and a documentary about the 1967 anti-war demonstration at the U of Wisconsin. It was fun.
August 2:
As I was driving back tonight, feeling really terrible and sad about how awful it was that I was driving away from B, when every part of my body wanted to turn around and return to him, in whatever possible way, I was thinking about how, when you grown in your heart, as it were, for a child, when your heart becomes inextricably bonded to someone, you just don't factor in having to be separated from them for months at a time. Or having to see them on such limited schedules. The heart rebels against this impossible and unnatural situation, and then it gets sick.
August 3:
I haven't spoken to a single person today. I didn't unpack the car until well after 6 pm. Only then did I bring in the sleeping bags, the tent, the air mattresses---unopened, unused. I hung the rain jacket I bought for him back in the closet. I put my clothes away, started a load of laundry. I thought about the clean sheets and new carpet I had put in his bedroom, but didn't go up to look at them. In the fridge, I saw the corn tortillas that I got to make a special dinner; the bag of semi-sweet chocolate pieces. I rearranged the magnets and photos on the doors. Before I left, two days ago, I had gotten used to being here alone. Today and tonight the house feels empty, too big, and barren.
At 3 pm, instead of mowing the severely overgrown lawn, or washing the dishes, or unpacking the car, I watched a DVD while eating a big bowl of leftover pesto pasta, a bag of popcorn, some sugared almonds and a piece of chocolate. I also drank half a bottle of red wine and fell asleep on the couch before the fim ended. I woke up feeling ill, bloated and gassy. I forced myself to finish my chores.
Then I took a long walk around the neighborhood. There were couples and parents and children circling the reservoir, a big crowd of people lingering at the fountain. A tall man in shorts, slightly hunchbacked and bow-legged with arthritis, walked ahead of me, toward his car with his round-shouldered wife. I envied them their togetherness and wondered if I would ever have a partner. The old thought, that I will always be alone, came into my head. I drove it out again with an attempt to make contact, somehow through space and time, with that someone--there must be someone--who will love me someday. I cried a little. Then I walked back to my lonely house.
B announced, within 30 seconds of getting into my car, that he had plans for the weekend and was not leaving. So, there went the camping trip I had planned.
I was so tired, and even in pain, that I welcomed the idea of "camping" at a hotel. B and I checked in, went across the street for pankcakes, and then huddled together on one of the beds, checking out the facebook profiles of B's friends and listening to music he likes --even some that he's composed. Then we watched the end of Borat and a documentary about the 1967 anti-war demonstration at the U of Wisconsin. It was fun.
August 2:
As I was driving back tonight, feeling really terrible and sad about how awful it was that I was driving away from B, when every part of my body wanted to turn around and return to him, in whatever possible way, I was thinking about how, when you grown in your heart, as it were, for a child, when your heart becomes inextricably bonded to someone, you just don't factor in having to be separated from them for months at a time. Or having to see them on such limited schedules. The heart rebels against this impossible and unnatural situation, and then it gets sick.
August 3:
I haven't spoken to a single person today. I didn't unpack the car until well after 6 pm. Only then did I bring in the sleeping bags, the tent, the air mattresses---unopened, unused. I hung the rain jacket I bought for him back in the closet. I put my clothes away, started a load of laundry. I thought about the clean sheets and new carpet I had put in his bedroom, but didn't go up to look at them. In the fridge, I saw the corn tortillas that I got to make a special dinner; the bag of semi-sweet chocolate pieces. I rearranged the magnets and photos on the doors. Before I left, two days ago, I had gotten used to being here alone. Today and tonight the house feels empty, too big, and barren.
At 3 pm, instead of mowing the severely overgrown lawn, or washing the dishes, or unpacking the car, I watched a DVD while eating a big bowl of leftover pesto pasta, a bag of popcorn, some sugared almonds and a piece of chocolate. I also drank half a bottle of red wine and fell asleep on the couch before the fim ended. I woke up feeling ill, bloated and gassy. I forced myself to finish my chores.
Then I took a long walk around the neighborhood. There were couples and parents and children circling the reservoir, a big crowd of people lingering at the fountain. A tall man in shorts, slightly hunchbacked and bow-legged with arthritis, walked ahead of me, toward his car with his round-shouldered wife. I envied them their togetherness and wondered if I would ever have a partner. The old thought, that I will always be alone, came into my head. I drove it out again with an attempt to make contact, somehow through space and time, with that someone--there must be someone--who will love me someday. I cried a little. Then I walked back to my lonely house.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Lassitude
I'm not a very productive person.
Today, for example, I got up dutifully for yoga at 7.30, then worked out on the treadmill. I took some packages to the post office, came home, and took a long nap. At 3 or so I got up, dallied about in my studio for a few minutes, and then decided that I was too terrible a painter even to begin. I didn't have the heart for it. I could have done something more productive, I suppose. LIke the dishes. But instead I sat on my couch with watermelon and cookies and watched the end of "All About Eve." Great Bette Davis film. When it was over, I thought about going to the climbing gym, but had too little energy for that. So I did the dishes, set up my stereo (which I've been meaning to do for about a month), sprayed Febreeze all over the old carpet that I got from my dad's house, which smells of old dog piss in the summer months, and finally settled down to shoppingfor camping gear online. Very dull. At least I'm not getting all dressed up and heading out to a bar. I used to do that, in darker times, when my self-esteem was lower. Now I just accept my lassitude, my sadness and loneliness, and try to cope.
It's not much of a life. At least I'm making some lovely women friends. I have a big crush on a guy in my climbing group, but it really doesn't make any sense. He's not at all educated, hardly reads, and has told me very clearly that he won't get involved with any woman until his daughter is out of high school--two years or more from now. He flirts terribly, and I'm very drawn to him for some reason. I don't know why, exactly. My girlfriend, Elliot, tells me to get over it. I'm working on it. He doesn't even kiss that well. And yet I love to kiss him, and to be held by him. Mysterious, sexual attraction. Who can explain it? Not I.
Am at least not drinking quite as much as in the past. It's too hard to get up for yoga when I'm hungover. Sitting here on my back porch, writing, listening to jazz sad standards.
Going back to the couch now to watch another movie.
Today, for example, I got up dutifully for yoga at 7.30, then worked out on the treadmill. I took some packages to the post office, came home, and took a long nap. At 3 or so I got up, dallied about in my studio for a few minutes, and then decided that I was too terrible a painter even to begin. I didn't have the heart for it. I could have done something more productive, I suppose. LIke the dishes. But instead I sat on my couch with watermelon and cookies and watched the end of "All About Eve." Great Bette Davis film. When it was over, I thought about going to the climbing gym, but had too little energy for that. So I did the dishes, set up my stereo (which I've been meaning to do for about a month), sprayed Febreeze all over the old carpet that I got from my dad's house, which smells of old dog piss in the summer months, and finally settled down to shoppingfor camping gear online. Very dull. At least I'm not getting all dressed up and heading out to a bar. I used to do that, in darker times, when my self-esteem was lower. Now I just accept my lassitude, my sadness and loneliness, and try to cope.
It's not much of a life. At least I'm making some lovely women friends. I have a big crush on a guy in my climbing group, but it really doesn't make any sense. He's not at all educated, hardly reads, and has told me very clearly that he won't get involved with any woman until his daughter is out of high school--two years or more from now. He flirts terribly, and I'm very drawn to him for some reason. I don't know why, exactly. My girlfriend, Elliot, tells me to get over it. I'm working on it. He doesn't even kiss that well. And yet I love to kiss him, and to be held by him. Mysterious, sexual attraction. Who can explain it? Not I.
Am at least not drinking quite as much as in the past. It's too hard to get up for yoga when I'm hungover. Sitting here on my back porch, writing, listening to jazz sad standards.
Going back to the couch now to watch another movie.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
Aggression and Masculine Domination
Interestingly, KD showed up at my gym the next morning. He never works out there. No way was I going to talk to him. Sure, I let him know that I saw him. He didn't scare me. I wasn't going to budge, leave my territory just because he happened to show up in it. Bully.
I left his damn shirt hanging in a plastic bag on the outside of my front porch fence. The porch was closed when I left the house. When I got back from errands, the shirt was gone but the porch fence was swinging wide open. Typical, subtle, menancing. That's how I interpreted it. What an asshole.
KD fits the description found on an internet site that features a list of signs common in abusive men.
Check it out. It's good.
I left his damn shirt hanging in a plastic bag on the outside of my front porch fence. The porch was closed when I left the house. When I got back from errands, the shirt was gone but the porch fence was swinging wide open. Typical, subtle, menancing. That's how I interpreted it. What an asshole.
KD fits the description found on an internet site that features a list of signs common in abusive men.
Check it out. It's good.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Verbal abuse makes women physically afraid because we don't know what the raging person will do next
May 30, 2008 11:30 pm
Dear L:
It's almost too awful to put into words, but tonight I had such an awful conversation with KD on the phone that I'm actually worried. I've double-locked my doors and put on all the lights outside, because I'm worried that KD might, in his rage, try to get into the house. It's not that he's ever done something like that before, but rather that he was so abusive, verbally, and so irrational, so impossible to speak to in ordinary, honest and direct language, and also that I know that he plans to come over here--he asked me to put a shirt that belongs to him in a bag outside so that he can pick it up. I put it in the bag and hung the bag from the outside of the fence around my front porch (he had asked me to put it on the porch, but I don't want him to come that close to me). In it I put a note that I had to rewrite three times that said:
Your behavior tonight was abusive, irrational, rude, and wholly unwarranted. I do not deserve this treatment and will not take it any more. I am angry and disgusted, frankly.
I really am beginning to think that everything that his last girlfriend said about him, and everything that he says she said about him, is true. I understand now why she wanted to get a restraining order against him. He's really frightening, really nasty, really violent in his temper. I think he must hate women deep down--and that he is really just full of himself, full of ego.
The conversation is not all that easy to reconstruct because he was so irrational--his responses to what I was trying to tell him. I had confessed that I believed that he had no real genuine interest in me, no real desire and that this was hard for me to say. Instead of hearing what I was saying and responding to it, he lashed into me, accusing me of doing things (such as dating various persons) which he knew very well I was not doing and had no interest in doing. Maybe he was drunk. I don't know.
I called a friend of mine, a man who has spent many years in Asia and who has thought about these things a lot--and described KD's words and behaviors. He said that Kevin was classically abusive, derisive of women, and driven by arrogance. KD is the kind of man who thinks that every woman wants him. Remember how he used to brag about me? He probably still does.
At any rate, he was terribly abusive and mean and nasty and I am never going to speak to him again. I want to let you know now what has happened--just in case he starts spreading terrible rumors about me or, goddess forbid, in case he comes here tonight and something awful happens. I will not answer his calls and will not come to the door, so I should be okay. But I will say that I'm worried and a little bit afraid.
Dear L:
It's almost too awful to put into words, but tonight I had such an awful conversation with KD on the phone that I'm actually worried. I've double-locked my doors and put on all the lights outside, because I'm worried that KD might, in his rage, try to get into the house. It's not that he's ever done something like that before, but rather that he was so abusive, verbally, and so irrational, so impossible to speak to in ordinary, honest and direct language, and also that I know that he plans to come over here--he asked me to put a shirt that belongs to him in a bag outside so that he can pick it up. I put it in the bag and hung the bag from the outside of the fence around my front porch (he had asked me to put it on the porch, but I don't want him to come that close to me). In it I put a note that I had to rewrite three times that said:
Your behavior tonight was abusive, irrational, rude, and wholly unwarranted. I do not deserve this treatment and will not take it any more. I am angry and disgusted, frankly.
I really am beginning to think that everything that his last girlfriend said about him, and everything that he says she said about him, is true. I understand now why she wanted to get a restraining order against him. He's really frightening, really nasty, really violent in his temper. I think he must hate women deep down--and that he is really just full of himself, full of ego.
The conversation is not all that easy to reconstruct because he was so irrational--his responses to what I was trying to tell him. I had confessed that I believed that he had no real genuine interest in me, no real desire and that this was hard for me to say. Instead of hearing what I was saying and responding to it, he lashed into me, accusing me of doing things (such as dating various persons) which he knew very well I was not doing and had no interest in doing. Maybe he was drunk. I don't know.
I called a friend of mine, a man who has spent many years in Asia and who has thought about these things a lot--and described KD's words and behaviors. He said that Kevin was classically abusive, derisive of women, and driven by arrogance. KD is the kind of man who thinks that every woman wants him. Remember how he used to brag about me? He probably still does.
At any rate, he was terribly abusive and mean and nasty and I am never going to speak to him again. I want to let you know now what has happened--just in case he starts spreading terrible rumors about me or, goddess forbid, in case he comes here tonight and something awful happens. I will not answer his calls and will not come to the door, so I should be okay. But I will say that I'm worried and a little bit afraid.
My mother's legacy
Dream: I have been living here for a number of years--the same number of years that I have been teaching at XU. The rooms are on the bottom floor of a large, multi-story dormitory. It is incredibly cold during the winter because the walls do not reach all the way to the ground and sway like curtains from the top down. There is a gap of at least an inch in place between the ground and the wall. It is therefore impossible to keep the front door locked. Noise comes in, and light, and the weather. I have petitioned for a change but the institution has been very slow in responding to me.
I can't stand it for one more minute and resolve to send a scathing message (the office is closed) for the person in charge. But the phone is so decrepit that I can't pick out the right numbers to dial, and have to begin again and again. After trying to get the number correct about twenty times, I ring through but the number has been disconnected. I begin dialing a different number but see a university official of some sort outside my swinging walls and run out to grab his attention.
I bring him in and show him how terrible the conditions are, the walls that swing flimsily back and froth and do not meet the ground, the furniture that will not stay in place and keeps sliding out into the open because the floor dips towards the front; the tattered curtains, the bunk beds that are built far too high for any human being to get into, and my things all packed up in boxes. I am ready to move, but I don't yet have a new room. I am waiting on the university to give me one. "I would be happy to move just one floor above," I wail.
The official sees everything and agrees that this is a terrible place to live, far and away the worst housing in the entire institution, and asks me why it is suddenly so important to get to a new set of rooms, since I have obviously been able to stand these for a long time. "I am frightened. It isn't safe." I am worried that someone will break in and hurt me. I am also worried that they will steal my stuff. The official goes away without guaranteeing any change. I continue to hope that the institution will move me before the summer ends. I am losing my mind staying here.
Things quickly get worse. A couple who have been tormenting me return to abuse me some more. They are a couple from my department in real life, whom I know and particularly loathe because they are very popular and powerful but also very artificial. They are only nice to people who can do things for them, rude and cruel to persons whom they perceive to be beneath them in the pecking order. Each of them has been beastly to me in real life. They have both got tenure and a child. In my dream, they are much nastier.
The woman has stolen a number of items that belonged to my mother--mostly objects made of china: vases, bowls, a Della Robia relief; breakable things. Only they don't break. I have on several occasions screamed at this woman for taking what clearly does not belong to her--my mothers possessions, which she left to me. The thief is not related to my mother; she didn't even know her. She has plundered me of the very objects that I treasure the most. And she won't return them. The situation is so dire that I absolutely need to talk to someone about it. I try to reach my sister but I can't find her new phone number. I don't have any friends in town whom I could go to see. I have no friends. I am alone.
I try to steal them back, but she threatens me. If I don't allow her to keep them, she says, she will begin to murder random, innocent, and helpless people. In my rage I pick up the items one by one and smash them against the ground--on the brilliant and rational principle that what I can't have no one can have--but they will not break. They refuse to shatter no matter how wildly I throw them, no matter how hard the ground. She goes out, but threatens her terrible threat again before going.
In her absence I plot how to get my mother's things back into my possession. I complain to anyone who will listen about the unfairness of the situation. I start to car them back to my pitiful, ragged and unsafe rooms. On my way--I am distracted by sexual need. I want to fuck, to be fucked, but remain frustrated. I have been yelling at the woman, who has taken something very important of mine with her. She hurls back insults and a bloody head. "Good!" I scream. "Give me your head!" But the head is not hers. It is attached to a different body, and both belong to a poor and hard-working elf from up the street. A completely innocent man, and now his blood is all over my apartment. I am stunned, beaten. Finally. "Who was he?" I ask a similarly small, impoverished, small-faced and small-bodied elf laboring up the stairs to his house, next door to mine. "He lived up the street. Can you please call off this vendetta so that we can stop worrying about being killed? We're all panicking here." I nod my assent, numbly, dumbly, and go back into my rooms, which adjoin the couple's house.
The man returns, in a foul mood. I point to the dead body. "Yeah, I tend to lose my temper. Told you you should shut up about the stuff." He is the murderer. And I am now at home alone with him. He gets a beer from the fridge, loosens his clothes, sighs. I am beaten, terrified, silenced, passive. I leave everything that she has stolen exactly where she has put it, or where I have thrown it. If an item is out of place he will kill again and I can't have that on my conscience.
She has what I deserve, what belongs to me, my mother's legacy to me, and people will die if I seek justice.
Possibly relevant facts for interpreting this dream: my mother died when I was pregnant with B. My colleague got to have her career and her child, but I had to give up directly rearing and mothering my child in order to have my career. I am stuck in my career.
I can't stand it for one more minute and resolve to send a scathing message (the office is closed) for the person in charge. But the phone is so decrepit that I can't pick out the right numbers to dial, and have to begin again and again. After trying to get the number correct about twenty times, I ring through but the number has been disconnected. I begin dialing a different number but see a university official of some sort outside my swinging walls and run out to grab his attention.
I bring him in and show him how terrible the conditions are, the walls that swing flimsily back and froth and do not meet the ground, the furniture that will not stay in place and keeps sliding out into the open because the floor dips towards the front; the tattered curtains, the bunk beds that are built far too high for any human being to get into, and my things all packed up in boxes. I am ready to move, but I don't yet have a new room. I am waiting on the university to give me one. "I would be happy to move just one floor above," I wail.
The official sees everything and agrees that this is a terrible place to live, far and away the worst housing in the entire institution, and asks me why it is suddenly so important to get to a new set of rooms, since I have obviously been able to stand these for a long time. "I am frightened. It isn't safe." I am worried that someone will break in and hurt me. I am also worried that they will steal my stuff. The official goes away without guaranteeing any change. I continue to hope that the institution will move me before the summer ends. I am losing my mind staying here.
Things quickly get worse. A couple who have been tormenting me return to abuse me some more. They are a couple from my department in real life, whom I know and particularly loathe because they are very popular and powerful but also very artificial. They are only nice to people who can do things for them, rude and cruel to persons whom they perceive to be beneath them in the pecking order. Each of them has been beastly to me in real life. They have both got tenure and a child. In my dream, they are much nastier.
The woman has stolen a number of items that belonged to my mother--mostly objects made of china: vases, bowls, a Della Robia relief; breakable things. Only they don't break. I have on several occasions screamed at this woman for taking what clearly does not belong to her--my mothers possessions, which she left to me. The thief is not related to my mother; she didn't even know her. She has plundered me of the very objects that I treasure the most. And she won't return them. The situation is so dire that I absolutely need to talk to someone about it. I try to reach my sister but I can't find her new phone number. I don't have any friends in town whom I could go to see. I have no friends. I am alone.
I try to steal them back, but she threatens me. If I don't allow her to keep them, she says, she will begin to murder random, innocent, and helpless people. In my rage I pick up the items one by one and smash them against the ground--on the brilliant and rational principle that what I can't have no one can have--but they will not break. They refuse to shatter no matter how wildly I throw them, no matter how hard the ground. She goes out, but threatens her terrible threat again before going.
In her absence I plot how to get my mother's things back into my possession. I complain to anyone who will listen about the unfairness of the situation. I start to car them back to my pitiful, ragged and unsafe rooms. On my way--I am distracted by sexual need. I want to fuck, to be fucked, but remain frustrated. I have been yelling at the woman, who has taken something very important of mine with her. She hurls back insults and a bloody head. "Good!" I scream. "Give me your head!" But the head is not hers. It is attached to a different body, and both belong to a poor and hard-working elf from up the street. A completely innocent man, and now his blood is all over my apartment. I am stunned, beaten. Finally. "Who was he?" I ask a similarly small, impoverished, small-faced and small-bodied elf laboring up the stairs to his house, next door to mine. "He lived up the street. Can you please call off this vendetta so that we can stop worrying about being killed? We're all panicking here." I nod my assent, numbly, dumbly, and go back into my rooms, which adjoin the couple's house.
The man returns, in a foul mood. I point to the dead body. "Yeah, I tend to lose my temper. Told you you should shut up about the stuff." He is the murderer. And I am now at home alone with him. He gets a beer from the fridge, loosens his clothes, sighs. I am beaten, terrified, silenced, passive. I leave everything that she has stolen exactly where she has put it, or where I have thrown it. If an item is out of place he will kill again and I can't have that on my conscience.
She has what I deserve, what belongs to me, my mother's legacy to me, and people will die if I seek justice.
Possibly relevant facts for interpreting this dream: my mother died when I was pregnant with B. My colleague got to have her career and her child, but I had to give up directly rearing and mothering my child in order to have my career. I am stuck in my career.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Love and Debt
I received this email from J this morning:
Thank you for your lovely phone message yesterday. I responded in kind from bed last night, but the missive mysteriously disappeared when I attempted to send it. I am still looking for it, but it remains fugitive.
You are very generous with compliments and words of appreciation. I fear I am a bit astringent in this respect. I suppose that a stubborn masculine pride gets in my way; to express gratitude is to infer need.
I wrote back:
Dear J:
Thanks for this.
I like to compliment people. Sometimes they interpret it as some sort of fishing on my part, as though my generosity were not generous, but needy. I think they are afraid to be indebted to me. To receive the gift is to become obliged. This is the logic of many cultures, at least. To acknowledge a gift--a compliment is a gift--is to admit to a need for it. And we don't like to be indebted, to need.
I see your point, though. You know that you like to be complimented.
Or is it: we imagine that somehow we can escape the emotional economy, that we somehow exist as independent generators, producers, of emotional wealth, and don't need to get what we need, to have our needs met, by exchanging, giving and taking, buying and selling, trucking, it used to be called, with one another? The beauty, the mystery of the emotional Exchange (as in the marketplace) is that the feeling of being valuable is infinitely produceable without cost, it can be generated endlessly but only through interaction (commerce is just another word for conversation and also for sex), through the give-and-take between people who honor their interconnection and commitment to one another. Doris Lessing called this the Substance-Of-We-Feeling (SWOF), but she didn't quite comprehend it as an economy.
What am I talking about when I say that our feelings of well being are generated in an economy, in exchange with one another, but not the kind of economy in which someone gains only at the expense of another? I hope to make this clear. Well-being is Love--the Substance of We Feeling--the material experience, sensation, of being loved and being able to love. First: this feeling/sensation/experience is a substance because it takes place at the atomic level, the ground of our being. Second: this feeling/sensation/experience comes about only between ourselves in communication with one another. (Yes, a hermit can experience this but she or he is going to be experiencing a relationship with some Other, either in an I-Thou relationship [note to self: read Buber and comprehend him this time] or in a different kind of mystical relationship). We can't generate the Substance of We Feeling in isolation. And we cannot live without it. Human babies die in isolation; human beings reared in profound emotional deprivation do not function well. You know this. This boils down to the simple truth at the heart of so many religious traditions: we need one another.
We often talk about good feeling, that sense of security, of self-worth, as something that ought to come from within, as though we were, each of us, independent engines of value, generating away in isolation from one another, or fountains infinitely pouring out from within ourselves light, peace and well-being. The Buddha is often mistakenly interpreted as advocating something like this--self-actualizing, automatic enlightenment that pours out of us, each one of us an burning sun. This is not entirely wrong--and I'd like to study Buddhism a lot more to grasp this better. Christians would interpret the burning sun within as the Spirit, as God, an energy source that comes from somewhere else, outside the self, who alone has value and who alone can give value. The reason that many people turn away from Christianity towards Buddhism is that they understand that well-being, worth, comes not from some extraterrestrial entity but rather from ourselves because we are in ourselves infinitely valuable. But we are infinitely valuable because we can love one another, because that is what we are, essentially, is what we can do: be loved and love one another. The Buddha understood this--his simple message is to have compassion--love--for ourselves and for one another.
The Substance of We Feeling is not simply the sense of ourselves as a collective, as an infinite and infinitely complex communion of Being in the universe, an incomprehensibly vast eco-system, but also, between ourselves as human beings, a sensation that we generate together in relation to one another. Some of us have a greater and others have a lesser store of it. I suppose I am thinking of emotional well-being as a kind of wealth that we generate, and that we give and take from one another. And this giving and taking creates a web of obligation between us, of debts that we have to one another. These debts bind us to one another.
Where does theidea of debt and our indebtedness to one another as a painful, unpleasant state of being come from? My study indicates that it derives from the Judeo-Christian interpretation of the covenant between God and Abraham and again between God and the people after the Flood--in which God commits to the people and the people commit to God. The Covenant is conceived as an economy in which there is only one source of energy, one source of value--that lies outside of the people and in God alone. So, whatever goodness that is received is to be understood as coming from God and as something that has to be repaid. Furthermore, the myth of the Fall is mixed up with this covenant so that the idea of repayment is perceived as an extended punishment.
The Parable of the Talents in the New Testament further interprets this debt as on that has to be repaid with interest, with more than what was received. If God alone is the source of value, then this is an interest that God alone can generate, but which the human being, condemned to labor throughout time, must labor to produce--and for whom? For God, the taskmaster, the overlord, the landowner, the corporate baron who sets his workers to generating profits that belong, in principle, fundamentally, to him alone (because they derive from him alone, from his ingenuity, his genius, his prior claim to all the value that is). The debt then becomes one that humanity is perpetually laboring to honor. Humanity, conceived as evil (according to John Milton, to be evil is to be in lack, in deprivation of the good, which is God) as unable to generate anything good from within themselves. They therefore continually fall short, and further into debt, from which God alone can redeem them. Debt, the state of having received a value that derives not from the creature but rather from the creator, is an experience of perpetual, miserable obligation, worthlessness, intransigence, truancy (the word truant derives from the Middle English for vagabond, idler).
Early modern English debtors went to prison. And early modern Christians frequently referred to their sojourn on earth as a period of imprisonment, or bondage, enslavement to sin from which God along could free them. Augustine spread the nasty notion that the body itself was a prison. Perverse sorts like John Donne got into the idea and begged God to fetter, batter, beat, and rape them out of themselves, emptying them of self--conceived as worthlessness, lack, absence of value--so that they could mystically unify with what they believed to be fullness, worth, an enslavement in "Christian liberty" which was the whole and utter recognition of their radical worthlessness and total indebtedness to an extraterrestial, incomprehensibly greater being. To be in debt was "good" insofar as it was a spiritual condition that involved renouncing any concept of worth in the self or in being in this life and in this body and this world. But it was also "bad" and painful because it involved acknowledging that this self and this being and this body and this world had absolutely no value. To be was to be in debt because being itself was bad.
How much easier we would all feel if we simply recognized that we are ourselves the source of the good and that the good is something that we create in relationships of love between ourselves! That we are all in debt to one another but that debt does not require that we conceive ourselves as empty of value and mere recipients of worth, but rather as agents of value and worth which we produce together in conversation and commerce with one another. When we make love to one another we generate value, the Substance of We Feeling. We also procreate, make more of ourselves, we increase and substantially expand the potential for the Substance of We Feeling, Love, to grow amongst ourselves? When we give to one another, to our beloved partners and children and families and friends and neighbors, we refine the web of generosity but also obligation between ourselves. We creates bonds, which are also debts, obligations to repay and to increase, to generate profits, Love itself, the profits and proliferations of love and well-being, when we give to and receive from one another.
So, it is good to be generous because giving generates the good; but in order to do so it has to be received in some way. And more good is generated when the recipient acknowledges the gift not necessarily by returning the favor in kind but by doing something generous in the world, either by expressing compassion for the self, which is loving but tender and vulnerable, or by expressing compassion for another. To express compassion, to have compassion, to own it, to claim it as a property, propre, proper to and of the self.
So, forgive me for pointing this out (to ask you to forgive me, of course is itself to acknowledge my obligation to you, my bond to you), but when you write that you are "astringent" with compliments and affection, don't you mean "stingy"? You hold back, you hoard, you are miserly--not because this is your true nature but because you are afraid to acknowledge your indebtedness to me and to people in general, your need for the Substance of We Feeling, for Love, that you need to live? You are forgetting that this is a profit, an increase in well-being that can only be generated in exchange, the exchange across the synapse. And when you fail to acknowledge your need and are stingy you suffer because you deprive yourself (and me) of what we both need and can create only together.
I didn't go to art class today. I didn't feel like being underground, for one, and wanted to be here, in my backyard, with myself and my cats (with whom I also exist in this is commerce, this commercial economy I'm talking about here), painting--or creating an expression of myself in the world.
Thank you for your lovely phone message yesterday. I responded in kind from bed last night, but the missive mysteriously disappeared when I attempted to send it. I am still looking for it, but it remains fugitive.
You are very generous with compliments and words of appreciation. I fear I am a bit astringent in this respect. I suppose that a stubborn masculine pride gets in my way; to express gratitude is to infer need.
I wrote back:
Dear J:
Thanks for this.
I like to compliment people. Sometimes they interpret it as some sort of fishing on my part, as though my generosity were not generous, but needy. I think they are afraid to be indebted to me. To receive the gift is to become obliged. This is the logic of many cultures, at least. To acknowledge a gift--a compliment is a gift--is to admit to a need for it. And we don't like to be indebted, to need.
I see your point, though. You know that you like to be complimented.
Or is it: we imagine that somehow we can escape the emotional economy, that we somehow exist as independent generators, producers, of emotional wealth, and don't need to get what we need, to have our needs met, by exchanging, giving and taking, buying and selling, trucking, it used to be called, with one another? The beauty, the mystery of the emotional Exchange (as in the marketplace) is that the feeling of being valuable is infinitely produceable without cost, it can be generated endlessly but only through interaction (commerce is just another word for conversation and also for sex), through the give-and-take between people who honor their interconnection and commitment to one another. Doris Lessing called this the Substance-Of-We-Feeling (SWOF), but she didn't quite comprehend it as an economy.
What am I talking about when I say that our feelings of well being are generated in an economy, in exchange with one another, but not the kind of economy in which someone gains only at the expense of another? I hope to make this clear. Well-being is Love--the Substance of We Feeling--the material experience, sensation, of being loved and being able to love. First: this feeling/sensation/experience is a substance because it takes place at the atomic level, the ground of our being. Second: this feeling/sensation/experience comes about only between ourselves in communication with one another. (Yes, a hermit can experience this but she or he is going to be experiencing a relationship with some Other, either in an I-Thou relationship [note to self: read Buber and comprehend him this time] or in a different kind of mystical relationship). We can't generate the Substance of We Feeling in isolation. And we cannot live without it. Human babies die in isolation; human beings reared in profound emotional deprivation do not function well. You know this. This boils down to the simple truth at the heart of so many religious traditions: we need one another.
We often talk about good feeling, that sense of security, of self-worth, as something that ought to come from within, as though we were, each of us, independent engines of value, generating away in isolation from one another, or fountains infinitely pouring out from within ourselves light, peace and well-being. The Buddha is often mistakenly interpreted as advocating something like this--self-actualizing, automatic enlightenment that pours out of us, each one of us an burning sun. This is not entirely wrong--and I'd like to study Buddhism a lot more to grasp this better. Christians would interpret the burning sun within as the Spirit, as God, an energy source that comes from somewhere else, outside the self, who alone has value and who alone can give value. The reason that many people turn away from Christianity towards Buddhism is that they understand that well-being, worth, comes not from some extraterrestrial entity but rather from ourselves because we are in ourselves infinitely valuable. But we are infinitely valuable because we can love one another, because that is what we are, essentially, is what we can do: be loved and love one another. The Buddha understood this--his simple message is to have compassion--love--for ourselves and for one another.
The Substance of We Feeling is not simply the sense of ourselves as a collective, as an infinite and infinitely complex communion of Being in the universe, an incomprehensibly vast eco-system, but also, between ourselves as human beings, a sensation that we generate together in relation to one another. Some of us have a greater and others have a lesser store of it. I suppose I am thinking of emotional well-being as a kind of wealth that we generate, and that we give and take from one another. And this giving and taking creates a web of obligation between us, of debts that we have to one another. These debts bind us to one another.
Where does theidea of debt and our indebtedness to one another as a painful, unpleasant state of being come from? My study indicates that it derives from the Judeo-Christian interpretation of the covenant between God and Abraham and again between God and the people after the Flood--in which God commits to the people and the people commit to God. The Covenant is conceived as an economy in which there is only one source of energy, one source of value--that lies outside of the people and in God alone. So, whatever goodness that is received is to be understood as coming from God and as something that has to be repaid. Furthermore, the myth of the Fall is mixed up with this covenant so that the idea of repayment is perceived as an extended punishment.
The Parable of the Talents in the New Testament further interprets this debt as on that has to be repaid with interest, with more than what was received. If God alone is the source of value, then this is an interest that God alone can generate, but which the human being, condemned to labor throughout time, must labor to produce--and for whom? For God, the taskmaster, the overlord, the landowner, the corporate baron who sets his workers to generating profits that belong, in principle, fundamentally, to him alone (because they derive from him alone, from his ingenuity, his genius, his prior claim to all the value that is). The debt then becomes one that humanity is perpetually laboring to honor. Humanity, conceived as evil (according to John Milton, to be evil is to be in lack, in deprivation of the good, which is God) as unable to generate anything good from within themselves. They therefore continually fall short, and further into debt, from which God alone can redeem them. Debt, the state of having received a value that derives not from the creature but rather from the creator, is an experience of perpetual, miserable obligation, worthlessness, intransigence, truancy (the word truant derives from the Middle English for vagabond, idler).
Early modern English debtors went to prison. And early modern Christians frequently referred to their sojourn on earth as a period of imprisonment, or bondage, enslavement to sin from which God along could free them. Augustine spread the nasty notion that the body itself was a prison. Perverse sorts like John Donne got into the idea and begged God to fetter, batter, beat, and rape them out of themselves, emptying them of self--conceived as worthlessness, lack, absence of value--so that they could mystically unify with what they believed to be fullness, worth, an enslavement in "Christian liberty" which was the whole and utter recognition of their radical worthlessness and total indebtedness to an extraterrestial, incomprehensibly greater being. To be in debt was "good" insofar as it was a spiritual condition that involved renouncing any concept of worth in the self or in being in this life and in this body and this world. But it was also "bad" and painful because it involved acknowledging that this self and this being and this body and this world had absolutely no value. To be was to be in debt because being itself was bad.
How much easier we would all feel if we simply recognized that we are ourselves the source of the good and that the good is something that we create in relationships of love between ourselves! That we are all in debt to one another but that debt does not require that we conceive ourselves as empty of value and mere recipients of worth, but rather as agents of value and worth which we produce together in conversation and commerce with one another. When we make love to one another we generate value, the Substance of We Feeling. We also procreate, make more of ourselves, we increase and substantially expand the potential for the Substance of We Feeling, Love, to grow amongst ourselves? When we give to one another, to our beloved partners and children and families and friends and neighbors, we refine the web of generosity but also obligation between ourselves. We creates bonds, which are also debts, obligations to repay and to increase, to generate profits, Love itself, the profits and proliferations of love and well-being, when we give to and receive from one another.
So, it is good to be generous because giving generates the good; but in order to do so it has to be received in some way. And more good is generated when the recipient acknowledges the gift not necessarily by returning the favor in kind but by doing something generous in the world, either by expressing compassion for the self, which is loving but tender and vulnerable, or by expressing compassion for another. To express compassion, to have compassion, to own it, to claim it as a property, propre, proper to and of the self.
So, forgive me for pointing this out (to ask you to forgive me, of course is itself to acknowledge my obligation to you, my bond to you), but when you write that you are "astringent" with compliments and affection, don't you mean "stingy"? You hold back, you hoard, you are miserly--not because this is your true nature but because you are afraid to acknowledge your indebtedness to me and to people in general, your need for the Substance of We Feeling, for Love, that you need to live? You are forgetting that this is a profit, an increase in well-being that can only be generated in exchange, the exchange across the synapse. And when you fail to acknowledge your need and are stingy you suffer because you deprive yourself (and me) of what we both need and can create only together.
I didn't go to art class today. I didn't feel like being underground, for one, and wanted to be here, in my backyard, with myself and my cats (with whom I also exist in this is commerce, this commercial economy I'm talking about here), painting--or creating an expression of myself in the world.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Comforting arms
Spent the night at J's last night. Dark-eyed, handsome J, who cooks brilliantly, and loves his three daughters so well. This is what I love about him: I can arrive at his house trailing clouds of misery, which dissipate like fog in sunshine in his quiet, compassionate presence. He puts his arms around me. He lifts me up with stories. He makes me laugh. He reads me to sleep in bed.
How lovely it is to be with someone who cares for me. J sees my lonely, aching heart, acknowledges my terrible losses, all of my failings, all of my weaknesses, my drinking too much, my promiscuity, my heaviness, my comings and goings; he accepts it all and still sees the good in me. How could I not love this man? I do.
But there is the penis problem. He tells me that I 'm the only one who finds it inadequate. The size is fine, of course. But it never quite stiffens up to the task. It can be pushed in like an overly soft banana, but then I can't quite feel it in there. And feeling the rod of my beloved's desire for me is, well, rather necessary. I like it. It's kind of key to sexual pleasure. Am I so unusual for wanting this, for needing this?
And yet a hard man is obviously not always good to find. The night before I, weakly, had gone to bed with K, whose equipment works well enough, and whose strong hands arouse and open me adequately. Not spectacularly. I'm fond of him, frequently seduced by him, for he's as charismatic as the devil, but not loved by him. What was I looking for? Certainly not comfort. He never offers that. No, it was something more like achievement, or accomplishment. After all those weeks that we spent together while he spurned me, K had started to tell me that he couldn't get me out of his mind. I had suddenly become the necessary object of his lust. Stil, why did I care? why did I sleep with him?
What was I believing? That I would somehow be recognized, realized? As though I were nothing if not sexy, not even here, not alive if not beautiful and desirable? Is this narcissism? Vanity? Or something much more deeply rooted? What, after all, did my parents and my culture, the movies, the magazines, television shows teach me if not this--that to be worthwhile, to be acceptable, to be lovable, to be wanted, a girl/woman must be sexually attractive. We all dreamed of Jeannie. We all believed that, to love us, they would have to be Bewitched. And the attending negative, right? All women who bewitch are witches, whores, demons in disguise. Necessary but evil.
The morning after this conquest (his or mine?), I fell into the pit. I thought I have given "it" (what?) up too quickly. I knew he cared about me somewhat but didn't love me. There was no emotional connection there--I gave up looking for that intimacy with him months ago. I gave him sex, not myself. I knew now, also, that he'd still be dying to see me had he not already had me. But he is dead--this is the problem. He can't love me. He never makes me feel good. I always feel empty and sad after I've spent time with him. There's so little there there. But he's pretty, and affectionate, if also needy and predictable. I keep hoping that he's be someone else.
I wanted him to want me, to long for me. It would have been easy to continue denying him, to hold him off in a way that would have prolonged his longing. But that would have meant playing the dull game that I've never enjoyed or been very good at. And I wanted to test, to see whether or not he sincerely cared for me.
Why do we do this? Why do we sleep with men whom we know quite well don't care for us the way we want, need, and deserve to be cared for? What are we doing? It is like drowning ourselves in the same lake over and over and over again.
In his bed I had a dream that I think has something to do with this. A group, a family--two sisters, a brother, and a baby-- were traveling. They--we--had seen a film about a man who had either been a part of this group or who had insinuated his way into it. This man had murdered all of them, brutally, with a knife, in a motel room, and then framed the brother (whom he had not killed but mortally wounded) for the crime. Only after the murderer's death did the truth come out. This group WAS that group but alive again. They had seen the movie. And yet they followed all the same steps that they had followed before. They turned into the very same motel on the same empty desert road they had turned into before, checked into the same room. And he murdered them again. This time, I fought back--wrested the knife away and stabbed and stabbed at his face. In futility. He killed us all, the baby first, spraying blood all over the room. I saw it happen again and died again. He framed the brother and got away with it. Again.
Then it was over and I was on a ladder with my sister, pulling what seemed an endless amount of boxes and suitcases and loose items out of a closet. I was holding everyone up. They were waiting in the car and I had to pack up all of this stuff so that I could take it with me. I was up there on the ladder thinking about how junky it all was. Did I really need to keep two incomplete sets of electric rollers that had belonged to my mother? "Do you want one of these?" I asked my sister. I expected her to sneer at the very idea of holding on to such crap and was hoping for the excuse to chuck it. But when she enthusiastically responded in favor the sets suddenly acquired great value. I could remember my mother putting up my hair--into poofy 1950s styles that made me look so lame that no one but the weird boy with the red hair and white shoes would ask me to dance. It came to me: all these broken, worn-out and worthless things that our mother had used once--loose bobby pins, chipped cheap china that she had stored make-up in, stained house slippers--signified not the strength and vitality of our mother but rather the pitifulness of ourselves grasping after her, trying to hold onto what was irrevocably departed. It was our loss that we were commemorating and clinging to, our own pettiness, really, our smallness. We were not remembering that we already owned what she had left to us: our own selves, our lives.
What's the relationship between the first and the second dream? No idea, but for the rest of the day I was preoccupied with loss and disappointment, a sense of having diminished myself. I missed my mother and my son and arrived at J's door in desperation. He took me in without questions, fed me steak and salad, fresh corn and Spanish wine. And when we got up this morning at 5.30, he brought me coffee in bed and mused with me while the sun rose. When I got up to go, he told me that I was beautiful.
How lovely it is to be with someone who cares for me. J sees my lonely, aching heart, acknowledges my terrible losses, all of my failings, all of my weaknesses, my drinking too much, my promiscuity, my heaviness, my comings and goings; he accepts it all and still sees the good in me. How could I not love this man? I do.
But there is the penis problem. He tells me that I 'm the only one who finds it inadequate. The size is fine, of course. But it never quite stiffens up to the task. It can be pushed in like an overly soft banana, but then I can't quite feel it in there. And feeling the rod of my beloved's desire for me is, well, rather necessary. I like it. It's kind of key to sexual pleasure. Am I so unusual for wanting this, for needing this?
And yet a hard man is obviously not always good to find. The night before I, weakly, had gone to bed with K, whose equipment works well enough, and whose strong hands arouse and open me adequately. Not spectacularly. I'm fond of him, frequently seduced by him, for he's as charismatic as the devil, but not loved by him. What was I looking for? Certainly not comfort. He never offers that. No, it was something more like achievement, or accomplishment. After all those weeks that we spent together while he spurned me, K had started to tell me that he couldn't get me out of his mind. I had suddenly become the necessary object of his lust. Stil, why did I care? why did I sleep with him?
What was I believing? That I would somehow be recognized, realized? As though I were nothing if not sexy, not even here, not alive if not beautiful and desirable? Is this narcissism? Vanity? Or something much more deeply rooted? What, after all, did my parents and my culture, the movies, the magazines, television shows teach me if not this--that to be worthwhile, to be acceptable, to be lovable, to be wanted, a girl/woman must be sexually attractive. We all dreamed of Jeannie. We all believed that, to love us, they would have to be Bewitched. And the attending negative, right? All women who bewitch are witches, whores, demons in disguise. Necessary but evil.
The morning after this conquest (his or mine?), I fell into the pit. I thought I have given "it" (what?) up too quickly. I knew he cared about me somewhat but didn't love me. There was no emotional connection there--I gave up looking for that intimacy with him months ago. I gave him sex, not myself. I knew now, also, that he'd still be dying to see me had he not already had me. But he is dead--this is the problem. He can't love me. He never makes me feel good. I always feel empty and sad after I've spent time with him. There's so little there there. But he's pretty, and affectionate, if also needy and predictable. I keep hoping that he's be someone else.
I wanted him to want me, to long for me. It would have been easy to continue denying him, to hold him off in a way that would have prolonged his longing. But that would have meant playing the dull game that I've never enjoyed or been very good at. And I wanted to test, to see whether or not he sincerely cared for me.
Why do we do this? Why do we sleep with men whom we know quite well don't care for us the way we want, need, and deserve to be cared for? What are we doing? It is like drowning ourselves in the same lake over and over and over again.
In his bed I had a dream that I think has something to do with this. A group, a family--two sisters, a brother, and a baby-- were traveling. They--we--had seen a film about a man who had either been a part of this group or who had insinuated his way into it. This man had murdered all of them, brutally, with a knife, in a motel room, and then framed the brother (whom he had not killed but mortally wounded) for the crime. Only after the murderer's death did the truth come out. This group WAS that group but alive again. They had seen the movie. And yet they followed all the same steps that they had followed before. They turned into the very same motel on the same empty desert road they had turned into before, checked into the same room. And he murdered them again. This time, I fought back--wrested the knife away and stabbed and stabbed at his face. In futility. He killed us all, the baby first, spraying blood all over the room. I saw it happen again and died again. He framed the brother and got away with it. Again.
Then it was over and I was on a ladder with my sister, pulling what seemed an endless amount of boxes and suitcases and loose items out of a closet. I was holding everyone up. They were waiting in the car and I had to pack up all of this stuff so that I could take it with me. I was up there on the ladder thinking about how junky it all was. Did I really need to keep two incomplete sets of electric rollers that had belonged to my mother? "Do you want one of these?" I asked my sister. I expected her to sneer at the very idea of holding on to such crap and was hoping for the excuse to chuck it. But when she enthusiastically responded in favor the sets suddenly acquired great value. I could remember my mother putting up my hair--into poofy 1950s styles that made me look so lame that no one but the weird boy with the red hair and white shoes would ask me to dance. It came to me: all these broken, worn-out and worthless things that our mother had used once--loose bobby pins, chipped cheap china that she had stored make-up in, stained house slippers--signified not the strength and vitality of our mother but rather the pitifulness of ourselves grasping after her, trying to hold onto what was irrevocably departed. It was our loss that we were commemorating and clinging to, our own pettiness, really, our smallness. We were not remembering that we already owned what she had left to us: our own selves, our lives.
What's the relationship between the first and the second dream? No idea, but for the rest of the day I was preoccupied with loss and disappointment, a sense of having diminished myself. I missed my mother and my son and arrived at J's door in desperation. He took me in without questions, fed me steak and salad, fresh corn and Spanish wine. And when we got up this morning at 5.30, he brought me coffee in bed and mused with me while the sun rose. When I got up to go, he told me that I was beautiful.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Dreaming
This entire weekend I have spent in mourning. I miss B with an intensity that I frequently experience, but only in very small doses. These past few days I've been flooded with the aching loss of him. I'm mourning the lost years.
It makes sense that I should then dream so often about his father. Last night it was again the usual story, that M and I were going to get back together. But with a twist. I was on the phone--in a giant selling-all-things store like Costo or Walmart (in which, curiously, X, a woman whose divorce and career more or less coincides with my own, but who has become a much more prolific and well-known scholar, was working)--to my sister. I was telling her that M and I had gotten engaged. "What?" she squawked at me. "You can't do that! He was horrible to you!" I wanted her to be wrong but knew she was right. What I longed to do was fall back into sleep, into the fantasy that at last my loneliness would come to an end, and that M would love and treat me kindly. My sister brought be back to the truth, that he had been incredibly cruel to me, that his family had cut me away from them and left me to die.
Considering this, I turned to him and said, "You were horrible to me. You hurt me really badly. It was terrible what you did and said to me when we were breaking up." He responded gruffly. "You deserved it." He would not apologize for hurting me. He would not acknowledge that he had hurt me.
I realized that I was still under his power, and that life with him would be like living in a blizzard. In fact, I could not see that I could not see, that I was standing on a hillside or mountain slope engulfed in snow and darkness and cold. I was dying.
My grandmother FRL, was there. She had been hoping that would return to M and find happiness with him, but now she, too, could see that I could not see, that I was still crippled--literally, and she or someone was stitching it up.
The dark clouds, the snow and ice that surrounded me, I understood, were M's malevolence against me. What I needed to do was to visualize sunlight and color; I had somehow to exercise my own power to drive the darkness away. But I was weak, and lonely, and cold. Too weak to survive. It came to me then: I had to appeal to my grandmother, who represented my entire family. She would cover me with blankets and bring me food. She could extend her trip to me (she had bought a ticket) for a few more days, long enough for me to recover from my knee injury. She would clothe me and feed me until I could walk again.
And then the clouds began to dissipate, and the sun to shine, at first wanly and intermittently, but the hills were green again and it was growing warmer. M's father was there, and he was telling me to stay off my leg for two more days--so I wouldn't be able to go to the gym. This upset me because I need to work out every day in order to keep my mind at peace. When I don't keep to my regime, as I haven't for the past two days, I seem to fall into weeping and loneliness. I begin to think--or thoughts come into my mind, and despair, and I wonder what the last seven years of sacrifice have been for. Why have I spent the last seven years in the libray, in isolation, in loneliness, separated from my only child, in whose company alone I feel whole?
But I awoke and realized that my legs were whole and that I could get my workout after all.
It makes sense that I should then dream so often about his father. Last night it was again the usual story, that M and I were going to get back together. But with a twist. I was on the phone--in a giant selling-all-things store like Costo or Walmart (in which, curiously, X, a woman whose divorce and career more or less coincides with my own, but who has become a much more prolific and well-known scholar, was working)--to my sister. I was telling her that M and I had gotten engaged. "What?" she squawked at me. "You can't do that! He was horrible to you!" I wanted her to be wrong but knew she was right. What I longed to do was fall back into sleep, into the fantasy that at last my loneliness would come to an end, and that M would love and treat me kindly. My sister brought be back to the truth, that he had been incredibly cruel to me, that his family had cut me away from them and left me to die.
Considering this, I turned to him and said, "You were horrible to me. You hurt me really badly. It was terrible what you did and said to me when we were breaking up." He responded gruffly. "You deserved it." He would not apologize for hurting me. He would not acknowledge that he had hurt me.
I realized that I was still under his power, and that life with him would be like living in a blizzard. In fact, I could not see that I could not see, that I was standing on a hillside or mountain slope engulfed in snow and darkness and cold. I was dying.
My grandmother FRL, was there. She had been hoping that would return to M and find happiness with him, but now she, too, could see that I could not see, that I was still crippled--literally, and she or someone was stitching it up.
The dark clouds, the snow and ice that surrounded me, I understood, were M's malevolence against me. What I needed to do was to visualize sunlight and color; I had somehow to exercise my own power to drive the darkness away. But I was weak, and lonely, and cold. Too weak to survive. It came to me then: I had to appeal to my grandmother, who represented my entire family. She would cover me with blankets and bring me food. She could extend her trip to me (she had bought a ticket) for a few more days, long enough for me to recover from my knee injury. She would clothe me and feed me until I could walk again.
And then the clouds began to dissipate, and the sun to shine, at first wanly and intermittently, but the hills were green again and it was growing warmer. M's father was there, and he was telling me to stay off my leg for two more days--so I wouldn't be able to go to the gym. This upset me because I need to work out every day in order to keep my mind at peace. When I don't keep to my regime, as I haven't for the past two days, I seem to fall into weeping and loneliness. I begin to think--or thoughts come into my mind, and despair, and I wonder what the last seven years of sacrifice have been for. Why have I spent the last seven years in the libray, in isolation, in loneliness, separated from my only child, in whose company alone I feel whole?
But I awoke and realized that my legs were whole and that I could get my workout after all.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Trinity.
It never hits me immediately. And that's probably just as well, since I'm not wiping away tears as I hug him goodbye. Usually the pain takes about an hour to build up, and another half hour before it bears me down. I'll catch myself snapping at someone, or rushing onto the bus without my gym clothes, as I did this morning, before I'll figure out what the problem is.
It rushed over me like a tidal wave this morning. I was on the bus, reading the newspaper, or trying to, and finally just put my sunglasses on and dwelled in it. Okay, let's just see what's going on in my body, I said to myself. There was a hard pulling-up sensation at the back of my throat, and a tightness in my chest. I was breathing shallowly and quickly, almost as though I were afraid. I felt anxiety. But what for? Naming the feeling, I said "sorrow, loss, sadness, loss, emptiness, bleakness." Look around. Here I am on the bus. It is not crowded, for once. And it is a beautiful day. I felt like crying. I wanted to go home, throw myself on the bed, and cry. I straighted up on the seat and gritted my teeth. But it hurt so much. "Learn from this." I allowed myself to experience the loss, and realized that this is how it had been for years. Brendan returning back to his father and his "real" room, back to the life he lives there without me. Me heading into work, down to the Cathedral of Learning, that stone tower, tower of loneliness and frustration and unappreciated labor.
What difference would it make, I wanted to know, in my day, if I simply acknowledged the pain, took note of it, and said, as Tara Brach has taught me to say, "this, too." How might I go through the rest of my day in a more conscious fashion. Could I be more present in my work if I accepted what I was feeling now, if I named it (or tried to), instead of repressing it. Would I be more awake, better able to focus on the tasks ahead of me? I found my mind wandering away, towards the classes I had to teach, plans for getting some exercise later, to phone calls I had to make, the lunch I had forgotten, and gently brought myself back to the present.
I even took a sacred pause on the grass, crossing from Forbes and Bellefield up the slopes to the Cathedral. I stopped in the fresh Spring sunshine to see the chapel's graceful spires, and the imposing tower itself, all white surfaces rising upwards to the sun against the cool blue sky. Not a cloud.
How have I done this, year after year. How have I carried this pain, this wrenching sorrow, this aching loss. Every time like a limb cut off.
The odd thing was that, on the bus, thinking about my heart, feeling my heart, and feeling grateful for the opportunity to shower him with love for three days, as I did, I started to cry. This was my heart being my compassionate, loving heart. This was me recognizing myself, feeling my love for my child, loving myself and loving him, and this was also my mother, crying for me. I was at that moment mother, mother, and child.
It rushed over me like a tidal wave this morning. I was on the bus, reading the newspaper, or trying to, and finally just put my sunglasses on and dwelled in it. Okay, let's just see what's going on in my body, I said to myself. There was a hard pulling-up sensation at the back of my throat, and a tightness in my chest. I was breathing shallowly and quickly, almost as though I were afraid. I felt anxiety. But what for? Naming the feeling, I said "sorrow, loss, sadness, loss, emptiness, bleakness." Look around. Here I am on the bus. It is not crowded, for once. And it is a beautiful day. I felt like crying. I wanted to go home, throw myself on the bed, and cry. I straighted up on the seat and gritted my teeth. But it hurt so much. "Learn from this." I allowed myself to experience the loss, and realized that this is how it had been for years. Brendan returning back to his father and his "real" room, back to the life he lives there without me. Me heading into work, down to the Cathedral of Learning, that stone tower, tower of loneliness and frustration and unappreciated labor.
What difference would it make, I wanted to know, in my day, if I simply acknowledged the pain, took note of it, and said, as Tara Brach has taught me to say, "this, too." How might I go through the rest of my day in a more conscious fashion. Could I be more present in my work if I accepted what I was feeling now, if I named it (or tried to), instead of repressing it. Would I be more awake, better able to focus on the tasks ahead of me? I found my mind wandering away, towards the classes I had to teach, plans for getting some exercise later, to phone calls I had to make, the lunch I had forgotten, and gently brought myself back to the present.
I even took a sacred pause on the grass, crossing from Forbes and Bellefield up the slopes to the Cathedral. I stopped in the fresh Spring sunshine to see the chapel's graceful spires, and the imposing tower itself, all white surfaces rising upwards to the sun against the cool blue sky. Not a cloud.
How have I done this, year after year. How have I carried this pain, this wrenching sorrow, this aching loss. Every time like a limb cut off.
The odd thing was that, on the bus, thinking about my heart, feeling my heart, and feeling grateful for the opportunity to shower him with love for three days, as I did, I started to cry. This was my heart being my compassionate, loving heart. This was me recognizing myself, feeling my love for my child, loving myself and loving him, and this was also my mother, crying for me. I was at that moment mother, mother, and child.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Steps backward
I caved in over the weekend and agreed to see K, who pestered me with phone calls and pitiful tones. We made an effort, and it was somewhat pleasant to hang out with him. But ultimately not. There is no passion, no chemistry. This is an odd thing, since he is ruggedly handsome, tall, muscular, blond, blue-eyed. But he has absolutely no interest in me, there's no heat under his skin. Kissing him is like kissing a doll.
We went out for beer yesterday afternoon and got rather drunk. I passed out in the car on the way back. When we got home, we got into an argument. He accuses me of deliberately blackening his name, which is complete nonsense. I had only repeated to him what one of our mutual friends had told me--gossip about how he came on to another woman while still dating the woman he was cheating on his wife with. In other words, I called him on the fact that he was a three-timing bastard at one time in his life. I was hoping that he'd tell me it wasn't true. Instead of denying or admitting it, he turned on me. So we argued and he left and I called up S, who came round and took me out for another short one. I asked him to spend the night with me. He didn't. Just as well.
The real issue, of course, is the book that I'm thinking of abandoning. This project that has chained me to my desk for the last ten years, this leg-iron, this albatross, this dead animal. I don't know what to do about it. Do I walk away? What then? What kind of job will I look for? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? What matters to me, about what am I passionate?
I don't know how to answer these questions.
I don't even know how to talk about it right now. I just ran into an acquaintance in a coffee shop, who asked me a lot of very direct and personal questions. I ended up telling her straight out that I'm not going to get tenure because the book is not done. She commented that I seem surprisingly calm about it.
I suppose I am, but I think the calm comes more from shock than equanimity. I've spent the last ten years of my life feeling burdened by this book, attached to this book, to this career, and the last seven years at this institution. Even though I've been ambivalent about the work and have been talking about leaving academia for years, I haven't actually had to face the prospect head-on before. It's a good thing, I suppose, but it's a difficult thing. We get so attached to the paths we're on, and the hedges on either side grow so high, that we can't see anything but the path, however dull and parched the ground is, however acutely we understand that we need to find more fertile ground and a broader view
We went out for beer yesterday afternoon and got rather drunk. I passed out in the car on the way back. When we got home, we got into an argument. He accuses me of deliberately blackening his name, which is complete nonsense. I had only repeated to him what one of our mutual friends had told me--gossip about how he came on to another woman while still dating the woman he was cheating on his wife with. In other words, I called him on the fact that he was a three-timing bastard at one time in his life. I was hoping that he'd tell me it wasn't true. Instead of denying or admitting it, he turned on me. So we argued and he left and I called up S, who came round and took me out for another short one. I asked him to spend the night with me. He didn't. Just as well.
The real issue, of course, is the book that I'm thinking of abandoning. This project that has chained me to my desk for the last ten years, this leg-iron, this albatross, this dead animal. I don't know what to do about it. Do I walk away? What then? What kind of job will I look for? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? What matters to me, about what am I passionate?
I don't know how to answer these questions.
I don't even know how to talk about it right now. I just ran into an acquaintance in a coffee shop, who asked me a lot of very direct and personal questions. I ended up telling her straight out that I'm not going to get tenure because the book is not done. She commented that I seem surprisingly calm about it.
I suppose I am, but I think the calm comes more from shock than equanimity. I've spent the last ten years of my life feeling burdened by this book, attached to this book, to this career, and the last seven years at this institution. Even though I've been ambivalent about the work and have been talking about leaving academia for years, I haven't actually had to face the prospect head-on before. It's a good thing, I suppose, but it's a difficult thing. We get so attached to the paths we're on, and the hedges on either side grow so high, that we can't see anything but the path, however dull and parched the ground is, however acutely we understand that we need to find more fertile ground and a broader view
The Apostate's Diary, Feb 27, contin.
February 27, 2005
I did end up speaking to B, but by the time I got through to him I had become very sleepy. He sounded, as he so often does, somewhat depressed and bored. Whenever I ask him what he is doing the answer is always “sitting around.” He was particularly upset this time because he had had some sort of fight with his friends. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, though, and I had to drop it. I think most of his distant manner on the phone comes from a natural and lifelong discomfort with the telephone and his age, the studied indifference to parents in particular that appears to be necessary to teenagers. I don’t really know. If I lived with him, it might not be any easier to speak to him. I would at least have a greater sense of doing good in the world in general, because I would be doing him good. I would do good by taking care of his clothes, cooking dinner, shopping, keeping the house somewhat neat, and by asking him to help me with these chores. I would have more to do but would be much happier because I would at least have some direct influence in his life. Perhaps I overestimate the ameliorative effect that actively parenting him would have on me. Perhaps I would become more irritable, more uptight, less patient. I don’t think so. It is at any rate a great sadness for me to been unable to do these things for him. I don’t know what could possibly console me for the loss, probably nothing, although I sometimes think that having another child would help a great deal.
I spoke to M this morning and briefly told him about the decision to go to LA with C. He had almost no time at all to discuss it with me, so we didn’t really. We’ll talk at length tomorrow at lunch. I am relieved to have a way out of the position of mistress—to have my own relationship to settle. It is so uncomfortable to be the unmarried one, the supplicating one who has loads of time for the other, who is almost always occupied with domestic or business affairs. To have only a few hours a week together—this is not much, not enough for me. The dream of course is to live in house with M, B, and Mia, here in London. I have this dream. I don’t know for sure that M has it. It feels wrong to go to California with C while knowing that this is my dream. It feels dishonest. I feel once again very depressed about everything and without much hope. But if M is not going to leave his wife, then I feel I have no other option. That is of course not true. I could break things off with C and live alone, very poorly, and wait for M. But I might wait my whole life for him. He offers almost no encouragement. I don’t believe he will leave her.
A lot of this boils down to money. I have so little of it—even without paying rent in London, I can barely afford to eat.
I splurged a little at the market over the weekend—spending $60 on bread, fruit, cheese, chicken, beans, milk, yogurt, and two non-essential items: a bag of candy and packet of pakoras. When I am ill I feel weak and want to eat a lot to build up my strength. I usually gain weight. I feel guilty for having bought this food, and sat today, like a beggar, in Starbucks without buying anything just to get out of the cold. Since I was near the door, though, and right in the draft of the cold air, I started to cough.
I don’t know how I’ll afford the summer if I don’t live with C. It will be so much cheaper to live with him, and to go every day to the Clark in his MG, and to take occasional trips up to SB to see my father, and most of all to be near the ocean and in the sunlight in my favorite city in the world, all of this will be very good for me. But I am so poor, and so terribly in debt, and see little end to this poverty and dependency.
As I lectured M this morning, we are the masters of our fates. So I will now try to recover some of the energy and optimism of my youth and try to pour it into my book. It is very hard. I feel quite low, quite depressed, quite lost.
At the end of the day. I worked until the very last minute at the library. I made good progress on the chapter on usury, and basically tried to draft the whole thing in one day. Tomorrow I shift to Jane Lead, and want to have a draft of that chapter, no matter how terrible, how crappy, by the time I leave for York.
Had tea with D again, as usual. I really like him. Love talking to him, and find that we talk about everything, feelings, work, Protestantism, history, science fiction, alcohol, AA, the craziness of Pat Parker, you name it, so easily. He’s also really cute. Too bad that he isn’t in a place to get involved with anyone. Just broke it off with his girlfriend. I think he’s attracted to me, as I am to him. But I sure as hell don’t feel like I can make a move. Plus my love life is way too complicated. Working at the library has gotten a lot more fun since I met him, and that work in general has been going better, too. I really look forward to seeing him…. but he’s so out of my reach. But god I want to sleep with him.
I really can’t see him bringing me and certainly not B into his life. I have so much growing up to do.
I am not depressed, however.
But I sure as hell miss my kid, and wish I had had a different path to follow with him. Every time I see a kid depicted on tv. or run across boys about B’s age on the street, my heart falls.
I did end up speaking to B, but by the time I got through to him I had become very sleepy. He sounded, as he so often does, somewhat depressed and bored. Whenever I ask him what he is doing the answer is always “sitting around.” He was particularly upset this time because he had had some sort of fight with his friends. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, though, and I had to drop it. I think most of his distant manner on the phone comes from a natural and lifelong discomfort with the telephone and his age, the studied indifference to parents in particular that appears to be necessary to teenagers. I don’t really know. If I lived with him, it might not be any easier to speak to him. I would at least have a greater sense of doing good in the world in general, because I would be doing him good. I would do good by taking care of his clothes, cooking dinner, shopping, keeping the house somewhat neat, and by asking him to help me with these chores. I would have more to do but would be much happier because I would at least have some direct influence in his life. Perhaps I overestimate the ameliorative effect that actively parenting him would have on me. Perhaps I would become more irritable, more uptight, less patient. I don’t think so. It is at any rate a great sadness for me to been unable to do these things for him. I don’t know what could possibly console me for the loss, probably nothing, although I sometimes think that having another child would help a great deal.
I spoke to M this morning and briefly told him about the decision to go to LA with C. He had almost no time at all to discuss it with me, so we didn’t really. We’ll talk at length tomorrow at lunch. I am relieved to have a way out of the position of mistress—to have my own relationship to settle. It is so uncomfortable to be the unmarried one, the supplicating one who has loads of time for the other, who is almost always occupied with domestic or business affairs. To have only a few hours a week together—this is not much, not enough for me. The dream of course is to live in house with M, B, and Mia, here in London. I have this dream. I don’t know for sure that M has it. It feels wrong to go to California with C while knowing that this is my dream. It feels dishonest. I feel once again very depressed about everything and without much hope. But if M is not going to leave his wife, then I feel I have no other option. That is of course not true. I could break things off with C and live alone, very poorly, and wait for M. But I might wait my whole life for him. He offers almost no encouragement. I don’t believe he will leave her.
A lot of this boils down to money. I have so little of it—even without paying rent in London, I can barely afford to eat.
I splurged a little at the market over the weekend—spending $60 on bread, fruit, cheese, chicken, beans, milk, yogurt, and two non-essential items: a bag of candy and packet of pakoras. When I am ill I feel weak and want to eat a lot to build up my strength. I usually gain weight. I feel guilty for having bought this food, and sat today, like a beggar, in Starbucks without buying anything just to get out of the cold. Since I was near the door, though, and right in the draft of the cold air, I started to cough.
I don’t know how I’ll afford the summer if I don’t live with C. It will be so much cheaper to live with him, and to go every day to the Clark in his MG, and to take occasional trips up to SB to see my father, and most of all to be near the ocean and in the sunlight in my favorite city in the world, all of this will be very good for me. But I am so poor, and so terribly in debt, and see little end to this poverty and dependency.
As I lectured M this morning, we are the masters of our fates. So I will now try to recover some of the energy and optimism of my youth and try to pour it into my book. It is very hard. I feel quite low, quite depressed, quite lost.
At the end of the day. I worked until the very last minute at the library. I made good progress on the chapter on usury, and basically tried to draft the whole thing in one day. Tomorrow I shift to Jane Lead, and want to have a draft of that chapter, no matter how terrible, how crappy, by the time I leave for York.
Had tea with D again, as usual. I really like him. Love talking to him, and find that we talk about everything, feelings, work, Protestantism, history, science fiction, alcohol, AA, the craziness of Pat Parker, you name it, so easily. He’s also really cute. Too bad that he isn’t in a place to get involved with anyone. Just broke it off with his girlfriend. I think he’s attracted to me, as I am to him. But I sure as hell don’t feel like I can make a move. Plus my love life is way too complicated. Working at the library has gotten a lot more fun since I met him, and that work in general has been going better, too. I really look forward to seeing him…. but he’s so out of my reach. But god I want to sleep with him.
I really can’t see him bringing me and certainly not B into his life. I have so much growing up to do.
I am not depressed, however.
But I sure as hell miss my kid, and wish I had had a different path to follow with him. Every time I see a kid depicted on tv. or run across boys about B’s age on the street, my heart falls.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Steps forward
And lo and behold! I have taken the first step. Seeing myself through the glass less darkly here, I have had the courage to break it off completely with KD, whose company did not not nourish me. I realized that I was falling in love with him and that he could not reciprocate. I explained to him that it was too painful for me to be "friends" just now. He pretended not to understand. He just kept smiling away at me, like the giant leprechaun that he is, and practically sauntered, whistling, down the street. "Goodbye, not my friend," he called out, his back to me. I collapsed into my car and sobbed. Then I called my therapist. I had to leave a message. I needed back up badly, a shot in the arm. Something. I called L, who knows K. She was wonderful. Without trashing him, she managed to sympathize and affirm me. I made the right decision.
She knows how he is, how he uses people up without really intending to; how he manipulates, out of tremendous need and desperation. How he leaves one feeling exhausted, emptied out. One pours so much into him--because he is open and charismatic one wants to reach out to him---but nothing comes back. He doesn't seem to give out, only to take in. It's very strange.
Thank goodness for true friends. The thing is, KD was never really a friend. We haven't known each other long enough to establish that bond. And for most of the time in the relationship, if you can call it a relationship, I felt, well, frightened, anxious, worried.
He never lied, I think. He just wanted me to be there every three or four hours. I might be the only one who will really listen to him these days. Everyone else has dropped away. I was kind to him, supportive, encouraging. Hell, I even bought his drinks last night. He bought lunch today. It's not about the money, or about who spends more, but rather about how one feels when with him. He feels good after being with me. I feel bad.
I was laughing, finally, as I was explaining it to Linda. "I've got so much pain right now with the change in my life, the end of my career in academia, the decision to give up my book--my life's work for the last ten years--why would I sign up for more? This is one pain I can actually say 'no, thank you' to.". What a revelation. You say "NO" to some pain. Some you can't avoid. Some you can. You have to walk away from that kind.
And, today, I did.
She knows how he is, how he uses people up without really intending to; how he manipulates, out of tremendous need and desperation. How he leaves one feeling exhausted, emptied out. One pours so much into him--because he is open and charismatic one wants to reach out to him---but nothing comes back. He doesn't seem to give out, only to take in. It's very strange.
Thank goodness for true friends. The thing is, KD was never really a friend. We haven't known each other long enough to establish that bond. And for most of the time in the relationship, if you can call it a relationship, I felt, well, frightened, anxious, worried.
He never lied, I think. He just wanted me to be there every three or four hours. I might be the only one who will really listen to him these days. Everyone else has dropped away. I was kind to him, supportive, encouraging. Hell, I even bought his drinks last night. He bought lunch today. It's not about the money, or about who spends more, but rather about how one feels when with him. He feels good after being with me. I feel bad.
I was laughing, finally, as I was explaining it to Linda. "I've got so much pain right now with the change in my life, the end of my career in academia, the decision to give up my book--my life's work for the last ten years--why would I sign up for more? This is one pain I can actually say 'no, thank you' to.". What a revelation. You say "NO" to some pain. Some you can't avoid. Some you can. You have to walk away from that kind.
And, today, I did.
How to Read this Blog
As it must by now be clear, I'm writing this blog from two points in time. The posts from "The Apostate's Diary" come from a journal I kept during 2005, when I was living in London. I often refer to that time as "the year I went mad." It was then that my depression began to become serious, although of course I didn't realize it. The choices I made based on thoughts and feelings that I had while living in London precipitated a precipitous fall into darkness that would last for the next two years. Obviously I had a sense of the what I was going through, since I named the journal "the apostate's diary." An apostate is someone who turns away--from god, technically, and that is why the apostate is called a heretic and the worst sorts of things in the Bible. The apostate disowns and rejects the established tradition, dogma, religion. Using term then felt like a heroic gesture, a Blakeian flourish. But looking back on it now I understand it differently. I see now that I was turning away from myself and from sense. I turned away from love that year. From Craig. From happiness.
I couldn't work. I couldn't think straight. I spent nearly every hour of the day in the British library working away like a madwoman on a book that I am now on the brink of abandoning. I poured myself into my project, into writing about Milton and metaphor and usury. And for what. For what? It would not come together. I could not get the threads to cohere into a pattern. My body lived in the library, but my mind and my heart lived in darkness, passion, fear, longing, and misery. Misererei mei. It was all I could do.
All in a darkness, I swooned over Manpreet, a married man 10 years my junior whom I barely knew. Infatuation is a kind of madness, even in the best circumstances. But I was so lost to myself, so fallen into unreason and grief and sorrow, that I could not think clearly. The book should have righted me, the work, the progress. But it didn't. My apostate heart was not in it. My heart had left the building, as they say. But whither had it fled? It had flown away from me into the dark, dark eyes of an imprudent, self-indulgent man. My heart was not true. It was untrue to myself. And why? What had made my heart so sick, so unable to love its own ground, its source, its origin?
Ah, that is the question with the complicated answer for which I am still searching.
How does one heal the heart? In solitude? In company? But with whom? And how?
I am writing this blog from two points in time, then, in order to connect myself now in this moment of turning away from the professional goals and aspirations to which I pleged myself more than 10 years ago. I am looking back on that moment in London, when the turning away appears to have gotten started in a way that involved tremendous suffering. I am saying that the choices I am having to make now were begun then, or rather result from the choices that I made then, choices that I could not help but make, it seems.
The idea, the hope, is that by writing through this period, and reflecting back on that one, I will somehow manage to see more clearly and make better choices now. My aim is to recover myself and reclaim my heart, to turn now back to myself and find love.
I couldn't work. I couldn't think straight. I spent nearly every hour of the day in the British library working away like a madwoman on a book that I am now on the brink of abandoning. I poured myself into my project, into writing about Milton and metaphor and usury. And for what. For what? It would not come together. I could not get the threads to cohere into a pattern. My body lived in the library, but my mind and my heart lived in darkness, passion, fear, longing, and misery. Misererei mei. It was all I could do.
All in a darkness, I swooned over Manpreet, a married man 10 years my junior whom I barely knew. Infatuation is a kind of madness, even in the best circumstances. But I was so lost to myself, so fallen into unreason and grief and sorrow, that I could not think clearly. The book should have righted me, the work, the progress. But it didn't. My apostate heart was not in it. My heart had left the building, as they say. But whither had it fled? It had flown away from me into the dark, dark eyes of an imprudent, self-indulgent man. My heart was not true. It was untrue to myself. And why? What had made my heart so sick, so unable to love its own ground, its source, its origin?
Ah, that is the question with the complicated answer for which I am still searching.
How does one heal the heart? In solitude? In company? But with whom? And how?
I am writing this blog from two points in time, then, in order to connect myself now in this moment of turning away from the professional goals and aspirations to which I pleged myself more than 10 years ago. I am looking back on that moment in London, when the turning away appears to have gotten started in a way that involved tremendous suffering. I am saying that the choices I am having to make now were begun then, or rather result from the choices that I made then, choices that I could not help but make, it seems.
The idea, the hope, is that by writing through this period, and reflecting back on that one, I will somehow manage to see more clearly and make better choices now. My aim is to recover myself and reclaim my heart, to turn now back to myself and find love.
The Apostate's Diary, Sunday, February 27, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
London
Last night Fiona came over for dinner. I am still almost completely broke but wanted to make her a nice dinner, so bought chicken and cooked it with garlic, ginger, rosemary, and lemon. We had salad and stilton and brie with baguette, and as a first course, slightly overcooked pasta with garlic, butter, oil, parsley and cheese. I have a cold and wanted to eat a lot of garlic. She brought champagne, which was festive. Over dinner we talked about lots of things—mostly she talked, about her relationship with her father and mother and brothers. She grew up feeling at odds with her mother and enraged by her father, much as I did, only lately she has discovered how much she likes her mother. At 40 she is just becoming friends with her mother. This of course made me rather wistful, as I could not help but remember the way my own mother and I became friends.
When I was 14 or 15, I wrote my mother a letter, provoked or inspired by something I had read, no doubt, in which I told her that I wanted to be friends with her. She was moved by the gesture and made a sincere effort. Also she confided in me a great deal, probably more than she ought to have, and I felt I got to know her better than many young women seem to know their mothers at an early age. I loved to be in her presence. I’d hang around as she put on her makeup, help her make dinner in that orange flowery kitchen. Isn’t it strange? The best times with her were the most mundane. What I’d give to drive around town doing errands from dry cleaners to drug store to market. Stopping at 31 Flavors on the way home.
Last night that I was actually Joni Mitchell’s long-lost, never acknowledged daughter. In my dream, my real mother was present, but hovering somewhere in the background as I hovered over the star’s shoulder, making a confession of the “rapture” (that was the word I used) I had experienced while listening to her songs. She wanted me to name the ones I had liked the best, which were not the most famous ones, and I could not say. And my mother, who was no longer my real mother, but only my erstwhile mother, hovered in the background silently. I had a notebook in which Joni Mitchell had drawn something in blues and purples, abstract and muted shapes of a woman’s face. Hard to focus on. My own paintings looked childish and crude in comparison. Anxiety of influence. Bloom missed so much.
Fiona went home rather early, at about 9.30, but not before making plans for a “girls’ night out” with my wild American friend, Marion, who is very good at picking up men. I texted her after she left to tell her how much I had enjoyed the dinner, and she responded that she was sure we could become good friends. I sincerely hope we will.
I am ill, run down, coughing, miserable when I step outside. I had meant to get out the door early, to have a coffee and then to beat the crowds at the British Museum. But CY called and we ended up talking for about two hours. At first I felt impatient and bored, even irritated with him—he has such a strange and disturbing relationship with his mother. But he was finally so ardent (and not a little pissed) and full of passionate longing for me, and I don’t mean that he expressed this in a doggish or simpering fashion. He earnestly wants to come to England, and as earnestly wants me to come back to LA with him for May and June. He has professional conferences and teaching appointments and god knows what—so much more going on in his academic, professional life than I do at the moment—and needs to be there. He also went on and on about how wonderful our connection was, how lovely it was to live with me, how well we understand each other. When he started talking about having sex I winced. Usually I am the one who initiates these conversations, but this time I remained so silent, since I couldn’t think of what to say, that he ended up apologizing…He was a little drunk, since it was 1.30 am for him and he had just come back from a pub with two English blokes. And we have had sexually frank conversations in the past, so he was perfectly in line. I just couldn’t bring myself to join in, and worried not a little bit about how I will respond to him when he finally comes.
Fiona and I talked about whether or not I should let him come to England—and decided that it would be the honorable thing to do, and perhaps also the intelligent thing. He does seem to care for me a lot, and to have a great deal of respect for me, and to be a decent, loyal, good man. He lives in the city of my birth, near my family, and many of the people in my family have met him and liked him. So it would be rather idiotic to dump him without even giving him a chance, especially for someone who is, after all, MARRIED, and who doesn’t seem to be moving any too quickly towards divorce.
Still in my heart of hearts I know that I would be happier with MD. If he were ever to become available, and to invite me into his life, I would go. I would drop everything and go.
But until that happens, I will hold onto what there is that is secure and stable in my life…so little is. CY does disappoint me in lots of ways: when it comes to music, art, literature, and talking about emotions. But he is steady and romantic in his own way, and we have a nice kind of vibe when we live under the same roof, and he has given me a degree of security that I have not had for a long time.
I still have so little self-esteem, so little dignity in myself, so little respect for myself. This has a lot to do with not being able to be the kind of mother to BNO that I want to be. It is as though the very core of myself is deeply wounded…it is deeply wounded. This is the part of me that would mother him if I could, and it is also that part that was not properly mothered or fathered. And it is also the part of me that feels inadequate and small and imperfect and pathetic. I don’t know what I do that is valuable or good or true. I don’t take much pride in my work, nor do I have a home life that I feel proud of. It is this lack of self-pride, of self-esteem, that is the problem. I do not in my deepest self feel low or bad, but rather on the level just above that one. It is not that I hate myself completely, but rather that I have lost the feeling of goodness, of virtue (?) of beauty that must once have been strong in me, for it is not dead.
I would say that getting tenure, writing the book, would help with this problem. But I can’t say this, since so few of my other accomplishments have made me feel strong. The feeling of strength has to come from within, but it is hard, hard, to go for long periods without affirmation from without. One starts to break down.
I will just call BNO now, even though I know he won’t be able to talk, and that his stepmother will try to cut the conversation short if he does feel loquacious. It’s usually better to call after school, but I miss him. And also I want to know how he is doing.
London
Last night Fiona came over for dinner. I am still almost completely broke but wanted to make her a nice dinner, so bought chicken and cooked it with garlic, ginger, rosemary, and lemon. We had salad and stilton and brie with baguette, and as a first course, slightly overcooked pasta with garlic, butter, oil, parsley and cheese. I have a cold and wanted to eat a lot of garlic. She brought champagne, which was festive. Over dinner we talked about lots of things—mostly she talked, about her relationship with her father and mother and brothers. She grew up feeling at odds with her mother and enraged by her father, much as I did, only lately she has discovered how much she likes her mother. At 40 she is just becoming friends with her mother. This of course made me rather wistful, as I could not help but remember the way my own mother and I became friends.
When I was 14 or 15, I wrote my mother a letter, provoked or inspired by something I had read, no doubt, in which I told her that I wanted to be friends with her. She was moved by the gesture and made a sincere effort. Also she confided in me a great deal, probably more than she ought to have, and I felt I got to know her better than many young women seem to know their mothers at an early age. I loved to be in her presence. I’d hang around as she put on her makeup, help her make dinner in that orange flowery kitchen. Isn’t it strange? The best times with her were the most mundane. What I’d give to drive around town doing errands from dry cleaners to drug store to market. Stopping at 31 Flavors on the way home.
Last night that I was actually Joni Mitchell’s long-lost, never acknowledged daughter. In my dream, my real mother was present, but hovering somewhere in the background as I hovered over the star’s shoulder, making a confession of the “rapture” (that was the word I used) I had experienced while listening to her songs. She wanted me to name the ones I had liked the best, which were not the most famous ones, and I could not say. And my mother, who was no longer my real mother, but only my erstwhile mother, hovered in the background silently. I had a notebook in which Joni Mitchell had drawn something in blues and purples, abstract and muted shapes of a woman’s face. Hard to focus on. My own paintings looked childish and crude in comparison. Anxiety of influence. Bloom missed so much.
Fiona went home rather early, at about 9.30, but not before making plans for a “girls’ night out” with my wild American friend, Marion, who is very good at picking up men. I texted her after she left to tell her how much I had enjoyed the dinner, and she responded that she was sure we could become good friends. I sincerely hope we will.
I am ill, run down, coughing, miserable when I step outside. I had meant to get out the door early, to have a coffee and then to beat the crowds at the British Museum. But CY called and we ended up talking for about two hours. At first I felt impatient and bored, even irritated with him—he has such a strange and disturbing relationship with his mother. But he was finally so ardent (and not a little pissed) and full of passionate longing for me, and I don’t mean that he expressed this in a doggish or simpering fashion. He earnestly wants to come to England, and as earnestly wants me to come back to LA with him for May and June. He has professional conferences and teaching appointments and god knows what—so much more going on in his academic, professional life than I do at the moment—and needs to be there. He also went on and on about how wonderful our connection was, how lovely it was to live with me, how well we understand each other. When he started talking about having sex I winced. Usually I am the one who initiates these conversations, but this time I remained so silent, since I couldn’t think of what to say, that he ended up apologizing…He was a little drunk, since it was 1.30 am for him and he had just come back from a pub with two English blokes. And we have had sexually frank conversations in the past, so he was perfectly in line. I just couldn’t bring myself to join in, and worried not a little bit about how I will respond to him when he finally comes.
Fiona and I talked about whether or not I should let him come to England—and decided that it would be the honorable thing to do, and perhaps also the intelligent thing. He does seem to care for me a lot, and to have a great deal of respect for me, and to be a decent, loyal, good man. He lives in the city of my birth, near my family, and many of the people in my family have met him and liked him. So it would be rather idiotic to dump him without even giving him a chance, especially for someone who is, after all, MARRIED, and who doesn’t seem to be moving any too quickly towards divorce.
Still in my heart of hearts I know that I would be happier with MD. If he were ever to become available, and to invite me into his life, I would go. I would drop everything and go.
But until that happens, I will hold onto what there is that is secure and stable in my life…so little is. CY does disappoint me in lots of ways: when it comes to music, art, literature, and talking about emotions. But he is steady and romantic in his own way, and we have a nice kind of vibe when we live under the same roof, and he has given me a degree of security that I have not had for a long time.
I still have so little self-esteem, so little dignity in myself, so little respect for myself. This has a lot to do with not being able to be the kind of mother to BNO that I want to be. It is as though the very core of myself is deeply wounded…it is deeply wounded. This is the part of me that would mother him if I could, and it is also that part that was not properly mothered or fathered. And it is also the part of me that feels inadequate and small and imperfect and pathetic. I don’t know what I do that is valuable or good or true. I don’t take much pride in my work, nor do I have a home life that I feel proud of. It is this lack of self-pride, of self-esteem, that is the problem. I do not in my deepest self feel low or bad, but rather on the level just above that one. It is not that I hate myself completely, but rather that I have lost the feeling of goodness, of virtue (?) of beauty that must once have been strong in me, for it is not dead.
I would say that getting tenure, writing the book, would help with this problem. But I can’t say this, since so few of my other accomplishments have made me feel strong. The feeling of strength has to come from within, but it is hard, hard, to go for long periods without affirmation from without. One starts to break down.
I will just call BNO now, even though I know he won’t be able to talk, and that his stepmother will try to cut the conversation short if he does feel loquacious. It’s usually better to call after school, but I miss him. And also I want to know how he is doing.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Desert
Sunday morning. Alone in a coffee shop. Not the way one is supposed to conclude a night with one's lover, or boyfriend, quite. But then he's not my lover, is he. He doesn't love me, for starters. And he doesn't find me attractive. Any other man would respond to my naked body with some kind of attention. He doesn't see it. We sleep together, he on his back, my head on his shoulder. Or, occasionally, his back to me, my right arm around his chest. He rarely returns the favor. I am lonely by his side. He pays more attention to his dog than to me.
We talked about it a little bit, on the way down the hill from his house. He was off to volleyball. Not that he plays these days. But he would rather be there with the guys than with me. So I've come to this coffee shop.
What am I doing? Why am I stay by his side? Why does he want me to? There are other men, after all. Why am I trying to convince myself that I prefer the company of this man who never touches me to the others, whose hands I push away? I say--I don't want to be pawed, I don't want to repulse them. I don't have any libido. I'm too sad.
Even a cat needs to be petted.
I long for intimacy. I long for CY. For his deep, soft kisses. His navy eyes seeing me. The root of him strong within me.
But that's over.
And there is only this desert, this harsh landscape of failure, of disillusion, of needing to change.
I am not going to get tenure. The book is not done, not under review anywhere. I've not brought it to fruition. I'd be slaughtered, crucified. I can't go through that. Better to leave without having been denied, beaten up, torn apart.
I have mixed feelings. Mostly I feel stunned. Shocked. It's not as though I didn't know. It's just that I haven't been able to do it. I've fallen into the tarpit too many times. I've worked and worked and worked on this thing. Like an overworked canvas, it gets worse and worse.
I'm both too close and too far away from it. I've been writing in despair for how many years now? four? five? six?
In despair for how many years now?
We talked about it a little bit, on the way down the hill from his house. He was off to volleyball. Not that he plays these days. But he would rather be there with the guys than with me. So I've come to this coffee shop.
What am I doing? Why am I stay by his side? Why does he want me to? There are other men, after all. Why am I trying to convince myself that I prefer the company of this man who never touches me to the others, whose hands I push away? I say--I don't want to be pawed, I don't want to repulse them. I don't have any libido. I'm too sad.
Even a cat needs to be petted.
I long for intimacy. I long for CY. For his deep, soft kisses. His navy eyes seeing me. The root of him strong within me.
But that's over.
And there is only this desert, this harsh landscape of failure, of disillusion, of needing to change.
I am not going to get tenure. The book is not done, not under review anywhere. I've not brought it to fruition. I'd be slaughtered, crucified. I can't go through that. Better to leave without having been denied, beaten up, torn apart.
I have mixed feelings. Mostly I feel stunned. Shocked. It's not as though I didn't know. It's just that I haven't been able to do it. I've fallen into the tarpit too many times. I've worked and worked and worked on this thing. Like an overworked canvas, it gets worse and worse.
I'm both too close and too far away from it. I've been writing in despair for how many years now? four? five? six?
In despair for how many years now?
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
The Apostate's Diary, Februrary 10, 2005
You, my dear, are a revelation. I mean to say, you are (seem to be) the love I have always been searching for.
I wanted to record, especially now, before I forget, the beads on the necklace of my time with you. I won’t forget, but still want to lay them out, in brief:
There was the Luna concert. I was so happy to be there, so buoyant, so jubilant, and there you were, this steady, strong presence in the turbulent crowd. I’ve rarely, perhaps never before, felt such strong a connection, like rope, like a ribbon, with a stranger. But were you a stranger?
Then there was the first meeting, at the British Library, when we walked around King’s Cross like a pair of 15-year olds and ended up in that uninteresting pub, which we wanted to be a hotel room.
After that you came to my flat, and you brought what seemed to be ten armfuls of flowers, and a vase, and music, and champagne. And we sat on the couch and listened to McCarthy and Damian and Naomi and Spiritualized and kissed. And I started crying to Low--a song about heartbreak-- because it was so beautiful, the music, and you, and the feeling of perfect harmony, at last, after so many lonely years, and of settling for less than what I wanted. We couldn’t eat because, as you said, the stomach felt like a washing machine, and so we drank some more and locked legs on the couch, sitting at each end, facing one another, and discovered that we both like vintage classic cars. And we thought it wasn’t possible for the other to be more perfect. But then you were more perfect. In the bedroom I encountered in you a delicacy, a sweetness and softness that I did not know could live in a man’s body. Such dark rich loveliness and hidden pleasures, such deep beauty. We didn’t make love because, as you said, this was about more than sex. And so we hungered for each other, and still do.
Then there was the week in hell, after we met in the bar for lunch, in Kensington, and you said you needed to sort yourself out and I couldn’t’ stop crying. Later I told you I wanted you to be free for me, and felt I had lost you completely. I thought I had to do this, because I would lose you anyway, and you wouldn’t be true to me in the long run, that whether I gave myself to you or not, you would lose interest, or find that you did not have the courage or desire to free yourself, and I would lose you, and had lost you, and my heart had only more agony to bear, the lacerations of your future rejection, the knife of the story that you could not leave because of this or that, and you were very sorry, and I would be bloodied there, eviscerated, destroyed, as before. I would not recover. I would die. I thought I was dying. I texted you and you wrote back:
Too busy
dreaming of you.
And I thought that meant you were too busy to talk to write to me, but that I should be placated by the comment that you were “dreaming” of me. But dreaming was not thinking or hoping and certainly not loving, and that meant that I was only a dream, only a wish you didn’t expect to fulfill, and that I should therefore leave you alone. And I tried. But failed. A few days later I texted again, “please call me,” and you did not get the message for days. I thought you were ignoring me. You said you left your phone in the office all weekend, and I believed you because you seemed so genuine on the phone and in person. You told me, that day in Kensington, when I could not stop crying, that you would always love me. I believe you then but during the week of hell of lost faith in you. I stopped believing.
We had then that amazing day on Portobello road, walking along from used bookstore to record shop, and you showed me how well read you were in an area I have always wanted to know better, and let me read poetry to you. And you said that I brought you to the brink of tears. You seemed to love me, the spirit inside of me, as I love the spirit in you. And I told you that you were the love of my life, the only one. And you said the same to me. I saw my first blooming tree of the year, a maroon spray of cherry blossoms arching like a wedding veil across the sidewalk. We passed under it and its petals, already falling. I decided to be free and gay and loose with you. You said, “I will walk you to that lamppost and then have to turn around.” Before we got there, I pulled you into a doorway to tell you that, just for one minute, I was going to pretend that you were free and I was free and that we could be together, And we kissed what seemed a thousand times, our eyes blazing.
I said that I loved you for you, not because the situation was impossible, and not because I couldn’t have you. I wanted to prove this to you and for you to feel it, to feel free to take me or leave me. How did you feel when you kissed me then, I wonder? Did you feel released? Do you think you could love me if you could have me? Could I love you if I could have you? Don’t doubt.
There are so many things I want to say to you, to ask you, to talk about with you. When? When will there be time? Will there ever be time? Will I ever know you really? Will you ever be my comfortable old man whom I love in spite of your farts, your softening belly, your silence, your preoccupations? I long for this, too.
You are like rain, the life-giving sun, a flood of golden water and light. Or so I imagine you. And it is therefore fitting that we will be meeting in a building filled with life-sustaining seawater, by a river, soon.
So tomorrow I will meet you at the Aquarium, and meet your little daughter, Mia, and fall, I am afraid, deeper into love with you. I am so afraid. Afraid of losing you, I think, more than of loving you. Although I am also afraid of that…of really loving and needing someone. It will be good to see you.
I have a dream of living under one roof with you and our children, Mia and Brendan and more, and of learning from them and from each other, and of learning, finally, how to love..
This is not the document I sat down to write. I had meant to compose some beautiful lyric piece that would capture the beauty of our early days, hours, together, and have ended up writing what I usually write, a rambling confessional meditation.
I wonder how I will look back on this. I hope I will be able to.
I want to say this last thing. I love you with all the ardor and idealism and foolishness of an adolescent. I want more than anything to be able to love this way, and not to have rein myself in, because I am loved in return with all the blazing glory of life that I feel inside of me, and which longs to shout in exultation, to expand and finally to find its room. Doesn’t everyone want to love this way?
I wanted to record, especially now, before I forget, the beads on the necklace of my time with you. I won’t forget, but still want to lay them out, in brief:
There was the Luna concert. I was so happy to be there, so buoyant, so jubilant, and there you were, this steady, strong presence in the turbulent crowd. I’ve rarely, perhaps never before, felt such strong a connection, like rope, like a ribbon, with a stranger. But were you a stranger?
Then there was the first meeting, at the British Library, when we walked around King’s Cross like a pair of 15-year olds and ended up in that uninteresting pub, which we wanted to be a hotel room.
After that you came to my flat, and you brought what seemed to be ten armfuls of flowers, and a vase, and music, and champagne. And we sat on the couch and listened to McCarthy and Damian and Naomi and Spiritualized and kissed. And I started crying to Low--a song about heartbreak-- because it was so beautiful, the music, and you, and the feeling of perfect harmony, at last, after so many lonely years, and of settling for less than what I wanted. We couldn’t eat because, as you said, the stomach felt like a washing machine, and so we drank some more and locked legs on the couch, sitting at each end, facing one another, and discovered that we both like vintage classic cars. And we thought it wasn’t possible for the other to be more perfect. But then you were more perfect. In the bedroom I encountered in you a delicacy, a sweetness and softness that I did not know could live in a man’s body. Such dark rich loveliness and hidden pleasures, such deep beauty. We didn’t make love because, as you said, this was about more than sex. And so we hungered for each other, and still do.
Then there was the week in hell, after we met in the bar for lunch, in Kensington, and you said you needed to sort yourself out and I couldn’t’ stop crying. Later I told you I wanted you to be free for me, and felt I had lost you completely. I thought I had to do this, because I would lose you anyway, and you wouldn’t be true to me in the long run, that whether I gave myself to you or not, you would lose interest, or find that you did not have the courage or desire to free yourself, and I would lose you, and had lost you, and my heart had only more agony to bear, the lacerations of your future rejection, the knife of the story that you could not leave because of this or that, and you were very sorry, and I would be bloodied there, eviscerated, destroyed, as before. I would not recover. I would die. I thought I was dying. I texted you and you wrote back:
Too busy
dreaming of you.
And I thought that meant you were too busy to talk to write to me, but that I should be placated by the comment that you were “dreaming” of me. But dreaming was not thinking or hoping and certainly not loving, and that meant that I was only a dream, only a wish you didn’t expect to fulfill, and that I should therefore leave you alone. And I tried. But failed. A few days later I texted again, “please call me,” and you did not get the message for days. I thought you were ignoring me. You said you left your phone in the office all weekend, and I believed you because you seemed so genuine on the phone and in person. You told me, that day in Kensington, when I could not stop crying, that you would always love me. I believe you then but during the week of hell of lost faith in you. I stopped believing.
We had then that amazing day on Portobello road, walking along from used bookstore to record shop, and you showed me how well read you were in an area I have always wanted to know better, and let me read poetry to you. And you said that I brought you to the brink of tears. You seemed to love me, the spirit inside of me, as I love the spirit in you. And I told you that you were the love of my life, the only one. And you said the same to me. I saw my first blooming tree of the year, a maroon spray of cherry blossoms arching like a wedding veil across the sidewalk. We passed under it and its petals, already falling. I decided to be free and gay and loose with you. You said, “I will walk you to that lamppost and then have to turn around.” Before we got there, I pulled you into a doorway to tell you that, just for one minute, I was going to pretend that you were free and I was free and that we could be together, And we kissed what seemed a thousand times, our eyes blazing.
I said that I loved you for you, not because the situation was impossible, and not because I couldn’t have you. I wanted to prove this to you and for you to feel it, to feel free to take me or leave me. How did you feel when you kissed me then, I wonder? Did you feel released? Do you think you could love me if you could have me? Could I love you if I could have you? Don’t doubt.
There are so many things I want to say to you, to ask you, to talk about with you. When? When will there be time? Will there ever be time? Will I ever know you really? Will you ever be my comfortable old man whom I love in spite of your farts, your softening belly, your silence, your preoccupations? I long for this, too.
You are like rain, the life-giving sun, a flood of golden water and light. Or so I imagine you. And it is therefore fitting that we will be meeting in a building filled with life-sustaining seawater, by a river, soon.
So tomorrow I will meet you at the Aquarium, and meet your little daughter, Mia, and fall, I am afraid, deeper into love with you. I am so afraid. Afraid of losing you, I think, more than of loving you. Although I am also afraid of that…of really loving and needing someone. It will be good to see you.
I have a dream of living under one roof with you and our children, Mia and Brendan and more, and of learning from them and from each other, and of learning, finally, how to love..
This is not the document I sat down to write. I had meant to compose some beautiful lyric piece that would capture the beauty of our early days, hours, together, and have ended up writing what I usually write, a rambling confessional meditation.
I wonder how I will look back on this. I hope I will be able to.
I want to say this last thing. I love you with all the ardor and idealism and foolishness of an adolescent. I want more than anything to be able to love this way, and not to have rein myself in, because I am loved in return with all the blazing glory of life that I feel inside of me, and which longs to shout in exultation, to expand and finally to find its room. Doesn’t everyone want to love this way?
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Apostate's Diary: Sunday, March 15, 2005
My dearest MD:
Last night I had a conversation with my son, BNO that made me feel so close to him, so very able to understand him and to be understood by him, that I felt transformed. We have had many tender and intimate talks, in which he has told me about his longings and desires, but I have never before seen so much of myself in this child, never before felt as though we were indeed of one spiritual fabric, one heart. Never before have I had the sense that my own child was not only OF me but WITH me, not just an offspring, but a soulmate. And the comfort of this conversation, the consolation it gave me, was a healing balm that soothed the ragged, jagged-edged standard that my heart and my spirit have been. My heart has flown like a white flag, a standard of defeat and despair, in face of the distance between us, my sense of having failed him, of having lost him, of all the terrible small and large mistakes I have made, and all the battles I have lost while trying to hold onto him, my beautiful, sensitive, loving son. I have held it up and out there, in the line of fire, as it were, from his father, his stepmother, and the world that condemns women like me.
My dearest, dearest boy, who so often seems to live so far away, to be utterly inaccessible and unknowable, opened his heart to me. What wonders children of this age are—they are wonderful at all ages, but at 13, 14, they are so honest, so frank, so idealistic, so trusting, so tender-hearted, even though they are also old enough to be duplicitous, closed, cynical, and to think to themselves that they should begin to harden against the world. I think it’s their decision to remain open, in spite of their awareness of the hurts in the world, that makes them such delicate and wondrous creatures. They are small dolphins, just grown gazelles, youthful lions still discovering the sleekness of their bodies, the ease with which they move through the world. They sense their power, but haven’t mastered it yet. They’ve had setbacks, but they haven’t given up. They want everything and still hope to realize their dreams. Adolescents are so often misunderstood, maligned, disliked, perhaps because we older folks remember how miserable and uncomfortable we were at that stage, and disown ourselves in them. But we ought to remember how beautiful we were when we were their age.
What was he talking about, then, you ask? What was it that made me feel so in tune with him, so very comforted to know that, in spite of the great divide, the divorce, his father’s narrowness and his stepmother’s jealousy, that I had somehow won some ground, forged a connection with a son over whom I have so little control, so little influence? He was telling me that he felt different from most of his peers, and that what he longed for most of all was to meet his true love, the girl who would understand him and know him and love him best of all. He said that he had just broken up with his latest “girlfriend” (whose name, eerily or sensibly enough, is Kim), and had realized that none of the girls he had known so far was quite what he was looking for. None of them was smart enough, or sensitive enough, or imaginative, or musical enough. You know what he meant.
Of course he is very inexperienced and doesn’t really know what it means to have a girlfriend. I doubt if he’s even kissed a girl yet. But he thinks about these things a lot, as I imagine many boys and girls his age do (I did). One could say that he’s compensating for something else in his life, some thing he is lacking, self-esteem, a sense of purpose, a drive, an ambition, a hobby. Give him something useful to think about, get his mind off such silly dreams, such fripperies, one might say. Or one could see that he is developing according to his own nature, and that he is just coming into his sex, and that his body may be growing—as it always has—very fast, and that it is spring, and he is an animal like the other creatures he loves on the planet. One might add that he, my thoughtful, idealistic son, often says that he likes animals better than humans, because animals don’t hurt the planet. He is very angry about what people’s chemicals and pollutions do to the waters and the creatures who can’t defend themselves against us. I love him for this.
I told him that one had to kiss a lot of frogs before finding the princess. He liked that. The saying seemed kind of stupid and trite to me, but I remember thinking it very profound. I also told him about a poem I used to sing to him when he was a little boy, called “The Song of the Wandering Angus.” It’s by Yeats, of course, and I was glad to be able to send it to him…by email, just before I sent you the poem by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. It was sending the poem to BNO than made me think of sending that one, about spring and blossoming and transcendence and sex, to you.
Last night I had a conversation with my son, BNO that made me feel so close to him, so very able to understand him and to be understood by him, that I felt transformed. We have had many tender and intimate talks, in which he has told me about his longings and desires, but I have never before seen so much of myself in this child, never before felt as though we were indeed of one spiritual fabric, one heart. Never before have I had the sense that my own child was not only OF me but WITH me, not just an offspring, but a soulmate. And the comfort of this conversation, the consolation it gave me, was a healing balm that soothed the ragged, jagged-edged standard that my heart and my spirit have been. My heart has flown like a white flag, a standard of defeat and despair, in face of the distance between us, my sense of having failed him, of having lost him, of all the terrible small and large mistakes I have made, and all the battles I have lost while trying to hold onto him, my beautiful, sensitive, loving son. I have held it up and out there, in the line of fire, as it were, from his father, his stepmother, and the world that condemns women like me.
My dearest, dearest boy, who so often seems to live so far away, to be utterly inaccessible and unknowable, opened his heart to me. What wonders children of this age are—they are wonderful at all ages, but at 13, 14, they are so honest, so frank, so idealistic, so trusting, so tender-hearted, even though they are also old enough to be duplicitous, closed, cynical, and to think to themselves that they should begin to harden against the world. I think it’s their decision to remain open, in spite of their awareness of the hurts in the world, that makes them such delicate and wondrous creatures. They are small dolphins, just grown gazelles, youthful lions still discovering the sleekness of their bodies, the ease with which they move through the world. They sense their power, but haven’t mastered it yet. They’ve had setbacks, but they haven’t given up. They want everything and still hope to realize their dreams. Adolescents are so often misunderstood, maligned, disliked, perhaps because we older folks remember how miserable and uncomfortable we were at that stage, and disown ourselves in them. But we ought to remember how beautiful we were when we were their age.
What was he talking about, then, you ask? What was it that made me feel so in tune with him, so very comforted to know that, in spite of the great divide, the divorce, his father’s narrowness and his stepmother’s jealousy, that I had somehow won some ground, forged a connection with a son over whom I have so little control, so little influence? He was telling me that he felt different from most of his peers, and that what he longed for most of all was to meet his true love, the girl who would understand him and know him and love him best of all. He said that he had just broken up with his latest “girlfriend” (whose name, eerily or sensibly enough, is Kim), and had realized that none of the girls he had known so far was quite what he was looking for. None of them was smart enough, or sensitive enough, or imaginative, or musical enough. You know what he meant.
Of course he is very inexperienced and doesn’t really know what it means to have a girlfriend. I doubt if he’s even kissed a girl yet. But he thinks about these things a lot, as I imagine many boys and girls his age do (I did). One could say that he’s compensating for something else in his life, some thing he is lacking, self-esteem, a sense of purpose, a drive, an ambition, a hobby. Give him something useful to think about, get his mind off such silly dreams, such fripperies, one might say. Or one could see that he is developing according to his own nature, and that he is just coming into his sex, and that his body may be growing—as it always has—very fast, and that it is spring, and he is an animal like the other creatures he loves on the planet. One might add that he, my thoughtful, idealistic son, often says that he likes animals better than humans, because animals don’t hurt the planet. He is very angry about what people’s chemicals and pollutions do to the waters and the creatures who can’t defend themselves against us. I love him for this.
I told him that one had to kiss a lot of frogs before finding the princess. He liked that. The saying seemed kind of stupid and trite to me, but I remember thinking it very profound. I also told him about a poem I used to sing to him when he was a little boy, called “The Song of the Wandering Angus.” It’s by Yeats, of course, and I was glad to be able to send it to him…by email, just before I sent you the poem by Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. It was sending the poem to BNO than made me think of sending that one, about spring and blossoming and transcendence and sex, to you.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The Apostate’s Diary, Feb 10, 2005
London
My dearest Manpreet,
I’m only addressing this to you because I feel I often write better, or at least more comfortably, when I adopt the letter form. But I shall probably not send this to you or even let you read it. I used to keep a journal, and have done so on and off since I was about 8, I suppose. I can’t remember, since all of my childhood journals were lost when my mother died and my father remarried and sold the house. The Great Fire of my life, the catastrophe that burned everything to ash and forced me to start over. It was my mother’s death that propelled me, I think, into recognizing that my marriage was not what I had expected it to be, not what I had been pretending it was. It’s so much easier to imagine that I am telling you these things, as I think of you as the most sympathetic and loving listener I could ever possibly meet, than to think of writing just into the wilderness, as it were, into the air. My childhood journals were lost, thrown away, most likely, and the books I’ve filled since then are stacked in a closet at home in the states. I can’t bear to read them. And in any case they are only halfway accurate. I have never been able to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, when I write “in my journal.” Always there has been some nameless, critical reader looking over my shoulder. So I shall imagine that I am telling you about myself, and trying to be as honest as possible, while also admitting from the outset that there are things I won’t say, because I want to present myself in the best possible light.
I have often wondered, though, what it would feel like to set down everything, absolutely every sordid thing I have done and thought, without judgment or analysis. So much of my journals have been about analyzing my actions, thinking them through, rather than just recounting them. What a relief it would be to find the courage to narrate the events as they come, without worrying about what people might think about what I imagine is my scandalous life. The things I do that I can’t tell anyone about, the things that I hate myself for. And to do more than that. To narrate, also, the mundane, the ordinary, the strange, the days rolling past.
Today, for example. Not much happened. I felt inspired by you to be more responsible about my work, and therefore got myself to the internet café by 8:30 to take care of email. Then I realized I didn’t have the address of the student I was supposed to write to, and had to write to someone else in the program who might have it, and ask her to pass my message along to him. Rather discouraging. Then I bought groceries, grapefruit and rye bread, because they are lower in carbohydrates than other foods, and, since high-suger foods only fill me up for a short time and I am trying to eat as little as possible, both to save money and to lose weight. I also bought the paper, some apples and ham, for my lunch. 8 pounds. I can’t seem to get through the day without shelling out at least 20 bucks, and if I spend that much I will soon be out of money all together. I am constantly worrying about money. It seems that I never have enough. I am awake at night, like half the people on the planet, worrying about it.
But I did not sit down to record my anxieties, but rather what seems too important to neglect.
Starting again, then: Last night I had a conversation with my son, Brendan that made me feel so close to him, so very able to understand him a… [This part of the letter was not sent]
[also taken out of the letter]
I have loved Ian this way—I have loved the god in him, as well as the man, but he has not loved me as much. He only sees the disappointing, ordinary woman in me, not the divine. He sees little of my spirit, I think, but still he loves me. I don’t quite know why. It has been so hard, so painful, to love him. I am so tired to loving this way.
What I dream of in you, and perhaps foolishly, is to be loved in return as passionately, as tenderly, as I love.
It is so sad with Ian, for the root of my great love for him is still there, still strong and deep in the ground, like an old vine. But there are few leaves and less fruit these days than there ever were before. How can you continue to flourish when you love where your love is not watered? When your every branching out is regarded as an excess, a limb that ought to be cut back? So I am somewhat puzzled by his desire to come to see me.
I do not look forward to feeling the need to restrain myself with him again and again, as I always do. He is nice, he is passionate, he is loving, for about three days. Then he withdraws again, and I have to learn to put on yet another hard layer of bark, to protect myself from the pain of it. He always makes me cry.
I have loved him so well, and for so long. And for what? For dry, parched ground around my feet. For a bit of dew and lots of dust. Why he has been faithful to me, why he has continued to come round, I cannot explain. He has been, ironically, the only one I could trust.
I have not known Craig long enough to say for sure, but my gut feeling about him is that I cannot trust him very far. I will be okay with him as long as I hold myself together and do not crash.. When I tell him about how it goes with me sometimes, how forlorn and devastated I feel, he falls silent. My sadness frightens him, because he has never felt it and therefore can’t understand it. And once, when I was really in a bad way, which had everything to do with Brendan and the hardship of that situation, he repudiated me for being depressed. We nearly broke up, and I have never quite trusted him since.
Ian, for all his untouchableness, knows melancholy and can talk to me. He usually comforts me. I know that I could go to him in utmost need, and that he would help me. But I would continue to grow only in a twisted and half-withered, parched way.
Do you understand why I haven’t been able to give Ian up, even though, on surface of things, Craig is more generous and more affectionate? I have held on to both of them, because they give me different kinds of love that I need. Both leave me feeling rather desiccated in the long run, but they give me what I have needed to survive. And I have needed them. I hope you don’t think less of me for this, my need for them.
The letter I sent:
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me about my concerns. And for such a lovely time yesterday, meeting by chance in the station and walking around Kensington, then sitting together in the cafe where there was an old lady hacking away and feeling ill on one side, and, on the other, a lonely old man, who, happily, soon joined the crown of white-haired gentlemen spending the afternoon talking about the war. And how we smiled at them and at one another as we watched them bidding one another farewell so affectionately.
I do have a lot more hope now than before. You always make me feel better.
Do know that I really never do want you in any way cause you harm or anguish or worry. I hope you'll sort things out soon.
With lots of love,
J
My dearest Manpreet,
I’m only addressing this to you because I feel I often write better, or at least more comfortably, when I adopt the letter form. But I shall probably not send this to you or even let you read it. I used to keep a journal, and have done so on and off since I was about 8, I suppose. I can’t remember, since all of my childhood journals were lost when my mother died and my father remarried and sold the house. The Great Fire of my life, the catastrophe that burned everything to ash and forced me to start over. It was my mother’s death that propelled me, I think, into recognizing that my marriage was not what I had expected it to be, not what I had been pretending it was. It’s so much easier to imagine that I am telling you these things, as I think of you as the most sympathetic and loving listener I could ever possibly meet, than to think of writing just into the wilderness, as it were, into the air. My childhood journals were lost, thrown away, most likely, and the books I’ve filled since then are stacked in a closet at home in the states. I can’t bear to read them. And in any case they are only halfway accurate. I have never been able to tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth, when I write “in my journal.” Always there has been some nameless, critical reader looking over my shoulder. So I shall imagine that I am telling you about myself, and trying to be as honest as possible, while also admitting from the outset that there are things I won’t say, because I want to present myself in the best possible light.
I have often wondered, though, what it would feel like to set down everything, absolutely every sordid thing I have done and thought, without judgment or analysis. So much of my journals have been about analyzing my actions, thinking them through, rather than just recounting them. What a relief it would be to find the courage to narrate the events as they come, without worrying about what people might think about what I imagine is my scandalous life. The things I do that I can’t tell anyone about, the things that I hate myself for. And to do more than that. To narrate, also, the mundane, the ordinary, the strange, the days rolling past.
Today, for example. Not much happened. I felt inspired by you to be more responsible about my work, and therefore got myself to the internet café by 8:30 to take care of email. Then I realized I didn’t have the address of the student I was supposed to write to, and had to write to someone else in the program who might have it, and ask her to pass my message along to him. Rather discouraging. Then I bought groceries, grapefruit and rye bread, because they are lower in carbohydrates than other foods, and, since high-suger foods only fill me up for a short time and I am trying to eat as little as possible, both to save money and to lose weight. I also bought the paper, some apples and ham, for my lunch. 8 pounds. I can’t seem to get through the day without shelling out at least 20 bucks, and if I spend that much I will soon be out of money all together. I am constantly worrying about money. It seems that I never have enough. I am awake at night, like half the people on the planet, worrying about it.
But I did not sit down to record my anxieties, but rather what seems too important to neglect.
Starting again, then: Last night I had a conversation with my son, Brendan that made me feel so close to him, so very able to understand him a… [This part of the letter was not sent]
[also taken out of the letter]
I have loved Ian this way—I have loved the god in him, as well as the man, but he has not loved me as much. He only sees the disappointing, ordinary woman in me, not the divine. He sees little of my spirit, I think, but still he loves me. I don’t quite know why. It has been so hard, so painful, to love him. I am so tired to loving this way.
What I dream of in you, and perhaps foolishly, is to be loved in return as passionately, as tenderly, as I love.
It is so sad with Ian, for the root of my great love for him is still there, still strong and deep in the ground, like an old vine. But there are few leaves and less fruit these days than there ever were before. How can you continue to flourish when you love where your love is not watered? When your every branching out is regarded as an excess, a limb that ought to be cut back? So I am somewhat puzzled by his desire to come to see me.
I do not look forward to feeling the need to restrain myself with him again and again, as I always do. He is nice, he is passionate, he is loving, for about three days. Then he withdraws again, and I have to learn to put on yet another hard layer of bark, to protect myself from the pain of it. He always makes me cry.
I have loved him so well, and for so long. And for what? For dry, parched ground around my feet. For a bit of dew and lots of dust. Why he has been faithful to me, why he has continued to come round, I cannot explain. He has been, ironically, the only one I could trust.
I have not known Craig long enough to say for sure, but my gut feeling about him is that I cannot trust him very far. I will be okay with him as long as I hold myself together and do not crash.. When I tell him about how it goes with me sometimes, how forlorn and devastated I feel, he falls silent. My sadness frightens him, because he has never felt it and therefore can’t understand it. And once, when I was really in a bad way, which had everything to do with Brendan and the hardship of that situation, he repudiated me for being depressed. We nearly broke up, and I have never quite trusted him since.
Ian, for all his untouchableness, knows melancholy and can talk to me. He usually comforts me. I know that I could go to him in utmost need, and that he would help me. But I would continue to grow only in a twisted and half-withered, parched way.
Do you understand why I haven’t been able to give Ian up, even though, on surface of things, Craig is more generous and more affectionate? I have held on to both of them, because they give me different kinds of love that I need. Both leave me feeling rather desiccated in the long run, but they give me what I have needed to survive. And I have needed them. I hope you don’t think less of me for this, my need for them.
The letter I sent:
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me about my concerns. And for such a lovely time yesterday, meeting by chance in the station and walking around Kensington, then sitting together in the cafe where there was an old lady hacking away and feeling ill on one side, and, on the other, a lonely old man, who, happily, soon joined the crown of white-haired gentlemen spending the afternoon talking about the war. And how we smiled at them and at one another as we watched them bidding one another farewell so affectionately.
I do have a lot more hope now than before. You always make me feel better.
Do know that I really never do want you in any way cause you harm or anguish or worry. I hope you'll sort things out soon.
With lots of love,
J
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