I dedicate this blog entry to my therapist, Curt. Though I'd love to take credit for the insights that follow, clearly had I actually had them as insights, I would not be seeing a therapist!
Did you know that the way to evaluate a healthy relationship is to ask if 51% of your needs are being met? I missed that chapter. Must be because I skip numbers when I read. So I asked Curt: "How do you know? What does 51% feel like? Look like?"
He reframed it: "No one person meets all of our needs. But for a deep connection, for intimacy to grow, both partners need to feel that they are getting more than they put in. 51% is a way to ask yourself if you are getting more than you give."
Talk about a mind flip. I've spent endless hours refining my skills of "need suppression." Love, in my mind, meant figuring out what the other person needed and supplying it, selflessly, endlessly, even when tired and cranky, even when I gave away chunks of my soul, even when I didn't want to. And yes, I was proud of that proclivity.
I practiced my version of empathy with friends, kids, husband, the lady at Kroger's, my dog, telemarketers, other people's kids, neighbors, and clients. Giving, sermons told me, was its own reward. In intimate relationships, giving equaled love and "should" provoke reciprocity (the recipient will be so moved by the gift of your giving, s/he will be humbled and give back). Even without reciprocity, suppressing one's needs in the name of giving meant high standards of behavior and should create well-being in me anyway, since "it is better to give than to receive." Right?
The expression: If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy was patently false, according to my way of thinking. My credo: If you're not happy (whoever you are), how could I possibly be?
So this idea—this odd assertion that a healthy relationship meant that I was getting 51% of my needs met felt wrong, backwards, upside down. If Curt had said that both of people in the relationship were supposed to focus on meeting 51% of each other's needs, I would have nodded along. That's how I thought it was supposed to work. (Though it didn't. But I hadn't stopped my "need suppression" long enough to notice.)
What healthy people do is express their needs. They put them on the table. As Curt said to me, "Julie, your needs are never off the table." And he meant it. If my significant other got cancer, was depressed, unemployed, moody, tired, broke, out of town, hungry, mad, needed sex... you name it—none of those conditions were reasons why my needs stopped mattering, stopped being important. They were, quite simply, my needs—not judgments against me or impositions on others.
The only way I could know if the other person would/could meet my needs would be to express them. That person might not be able to (legitimately or selfishly), but there is no chance of their being met if the "needs" stay hidden and suppressed against the "some day" of the future when my partner woke up and thought, "Gee, I wonder if Julie has a need. I am now ready to meet it." Not only that, there's no way to evaluate whether or not the partnership is a good one if one of the people in it hides the very ways the partner can express love. Moreover, needs fill the space. So if yours aren't in the mix, other people's needs will take up all the space and time you have. That's just how it works.
Of course, I got so good at need suppression, I had forgotten what mine were! In fact, I became expert at feeling other people's needs, feeling other people's happiness! I didn't have my own nearly as often as I borrowed from someone else (someone I had helped become happy). There are a few notable times in my life where I remember feeling purely, singly happy (college, and especially graduate school, are two such times of unadorned personal happiness). But largely, I've depended on making those around me happy so I could finally relax and feel a little of their ease or peace—a version of well-being.
Expressing my needs into a room of other needs felt like lunacy! If you have unhappy people around you, adding your unhappiness is like volunteering to start a whirlpool and then jumping into the center. You're all going down! To drown! So, like the good worker bee that I am, I would set about fixing the unhappiness around me, against some future date when peace would reign and I could finally take a moment to figure out what I wanted. I also secretly hoped that someone would ask.
Fast forward to today: I'm aware that if a relationship has the power to sustain itself, both people have to repeatedly keep their needs on the table no matter what the circumstances are. It's never anyone else's responsibility to meet those needs (ever—they're your needs; get them met). But in a relationship, if you put your needs out there, you then get to see if the other person can meet them or not. Over time, you discover if this is a person that can reliably support you and help to meet your needs. (And yes, there is another version of this issue—the chronic need-pusher who expresses every need and expects others to anticipate and take care of them rather than taking responsibility for them.... but that's another post.)
Bottom line: It's still up to me to get my needs met... however I can. If enough of the kinds of needs I have in an intimate relationship can't be met by, let's say, the man in my life? That tells me about the quality of the relationship, not who is more giving or loving or that someone is too needy. And we're only talking 51%—not ALL needs are to be met by your main squeeze. Just a little more than half of them. Good relationships are a match (not a boxing match, not a lit match, not a personality match from match.com). They are a match between two people who have the resources to meet 51% of each other's needs... that are on the table, for all to see, all the time, no matter what.
Showing posts with label Midlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Midlife. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
How fragile we are...
There's a thin line that separates the mentally tough from those who've slipped under the rushing waters of panic and anxiety. Brave, successful, "mainstream" people one day find themselves clutching their chests and calling 911 when they feel like their hearts will burst, only to discover at the ER that they are suffering a panic attack and their hearts are fine.
Panic is spontaneous. It's not like you plan for panic or even anticipate it. Panic, by its nature, swamps. It's the downpour of unwelcome adrenaline that floods the bloodstream, overwhelming the system like swirling, pulsing waters from a drowning gutter that spill into traffic. The traffic is your life, and suddenly you're barely dog paddling in the rapids, too fast to navigate.
I've been told by numerous friends that when they hit that stretch of deep water, the ordinary stuff of life feels impossible. Usually in the wake of panic, depression sets in. Imagine nearly drowning and then being asked to get back in the water and swim a mile, with a rip tide. That's how it appears to a depressed person—who's lost the life vest and is clinging to a palm tree for stability.
Depression isn't merely a psychological condition, nor is it mostly about the emotions. Apparently biology can trip the wire as easily as stress. When the body gets involved (where food becomes poison, where sleep happens during the day but rarely at night, where shivers and shortness of breath are the new conditions of regular living), depression takes on a very different character than mere sadness, grief, or disappointment. Depression, particularly led by panic, quickly and effectively strips the individual of ordinary tools for living.
I've been emotionally depressed during a few seasons of my life—not ever medically diagnosed, and I've never called the ER myself. Still, I can think back to specific occasions where I let the TV drone all day while I barely supervised my toddler because I couldn't make myself stand up. I've had moments where anxiety spilled from my nerve-endings and it seemed I could send electrical shocks if I touched anyone or anything.
I've had an incredibly challenging pair of years, and it occurred to me recently that it would not have been surprising at all had I had a full scale breakdown at some point. The pressures have been enormous and new, complemented by the kind of pain I never imagined. Yet even with some of the symptoms of depression, I didn't wind up clinically depressed.
I've reflected on why and have become so grateful for my mental fitness, I wanted to list (and pay due gratitude to) the resources that have kept me from drowning:
Panic is spontaneous. It's not like you plan for panic or even anticipate it. Panic, by its nature, swamps. It's the downpour of unwelcome adrenaline that floods the bloodstream, overwhelming the system like swirling, pulsing waters from a drowning gutter that spill into traffic. The traffic is your life, and suddenly you're barely dog paddling in the rapids, too fast to navigate.
I've been told by numerous friends that when they hit that stretch of deep water, the ordinary stuff of life feels impossible. Usually in the wake of panic, depression sets in. Imagine nearly drowning and then being asked to get back in the water and swim a mile, with a rip tide. That's how it appears to a depressed person—who's lost the life vest and is clinging to a palm tree for stability.
Depression isn't merely a psychological condition, nor is it mostly about the emotions. Apparently biology can trip the wire as easily as stress. When the body gets involved (where food becomes poison, where sleep happens during the day but rarely at night, where shivers and shortness of breath are the new conditions of regular living), depression takes on a very different character than mere sadness, grief, or disappointment. Depression, particularly led by panic, quickly and effectively strips the individual of ordinary tools for living.
I've been emotionally depressed during a few seasons of my life—not ever medically diagnosed, and I've never called the ER myself. Still, I can think back to specific occasions where I let the TV drone all day while I barely supervised my toddler because I couldn't make myself stand up. I've had moments where anxiety spilled from my nerve-endings and it seemed I could send electrical shocks if I touched anyone or anything.
I've had an incredibly challenging pair of years, and it occurred to me recently that it would not have been surprising at all had I had a full scale breakdown at some point. The pressures have been enormous and new, complemented by the kind of pain I never imagined. Yet even with some of the symptoms of depression, I didn't wind up clinically depressed.
I've reflected on why and have become so grateful for my mental fitness, I wanted to list (and pay due gratitude to) the resources that have kept me from drowning:
- California: I do think there is something to be said for growing up in the navel-gazing capital of the world. I grew up knowing it was important to pay attention to me.
- Therapy: Similarly, therapy is not stigmatized in my world. It's a given, and it's not a "once-for-all" proposition. Therapeutic tune-ups are part of my mental hygiene.
- Nutrition: My mom was one of the original health nuts of the 1970's. I grew up reading labels, not trusting additives and preservatives, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables. I have no appetite for junk food or fast food. It's not even a struggle. It doesn't appeal.
- Running: Even though I haven't run every year of my life, I've returned to it again and again, particularly during stressful seasons. I know running will be there for me when I need it.
- Ocean: Which is not in Ohio and has had consequences unpleasant! The ocean sustained me when I felt like the world was falling away from under me. Now I look to the big, open expanse of sky above me. It works too.
- Friends: Of all textures—the ones I call just about every day who live out of town; the ones I only talk to on chat or email; the ones who fly me places if I need them to; the ones who knew me way back then and validate my today perceptions; the brand new ones who like me as I am now and don't need to care about my past; the local ones who've brought me into their lives; the virtual ones I've never met in person who respect me and share my ideals... Friends are the difference between sanity and losing touch. They have literally preserved my mind, given me saving ideas, and shouldered half the load.
- Writing: Who knew how important it was to write? I only do it because I can't not. It's how I know what I think. Turns out writing is a chief way to process our internal stuff, and endless processing has saved me from the specter of overpowering phantom-like anxiety. I know the measure of my pain... in lines on a page.
- Spirituality: Whatever version, whether by the Bible or poetry, through church or grad school, by the intimacy of prayer or the quiet emptying of yoga, a spiritual life has undergirded me as long as I can remember.
- Fun: I have it, I like it, I go back for more.
- Mother: And if you go back over the list (1-9), my mom is the Ur-text for all of it. She's 72, hikes, camps, knits, goes to her regular support group meetings, is active in her faith, works out at the gym, eats healthy foods, doesn't have physical complaints, is writing her 74th book (yes, that is seventy-four!), supports her family through acts of kindness and phone calls, gives money, keeps old friends and makes new ones, is optimistic and positive, and looks for the good in people and life. How lucky, blessed, lottery-winning am I to have such a mother!
We've heard it said so many times, we almost stop listening: Take care of yourself.
I'm realizing today that every age carries with it the stresses of that stage of life (whether you're learning to navigate a high school and open a locker; figuring out how to get a job and repay school loans; adjusting to a new marriage and baby; hanging in there with a partner who is disappointing or challenged; or leaving a long term marriage and making a new life alone). It's easy to take ourselves for granted, believing we can face new challenges without re-upping the supplies we need to survive.
If you don't put oil in the car and it's leaking, eventually you'll burn out the engine and have to rebuild it from scratch.
1-10 is my oil change check list.
Thank you friends, family and online community for being a part of my sanity package. May I be a part of yours too.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Eat, Pray, Love, Cover Your Ears
Don't get me wrong. I loved the book. Okay, I loved it and at times wanted to yell "Over-writing, over-writing!" But Gilbert's freewheeling word play that ran off the rails at times only endeared her to me in the end. She's the kind of passionate, self-examining, self-deprecating, self-inflating person I recognize! Her "quest philosophy" (read it) is genius—the best stuff in the book. I came away open to the whole world again, ready to trust my life and process while staying alert to my journey (not wishing it away).
I read the book in January 2008, before I had even a hint that I'd wind up scarlet branded with the letter D in my not-so-distant future. I heard Elizabeth speak at UCLA with Anne Lamott in March of the same year... the epic journey through California that began the inner-unraveling.
The film came at an interesting time. I'm in a different place and related to different pieces of Liz's story than I did on the first pass through. What I noted, though, that is sticking with me (and not especially comfortably) is just how dominant the male voices were in her story! Let me count them:
I read the book in January 2008, before I had even a hint that I'd wind up scarlet branded with the letter D in my not-so-distant future. I heard Elizabeth speak at UCLA with Anne Lamott in March of the same year... the epic journey through California that began the inner-unraveling.
The film came at an interesting time. I'm in a different place and related to different pieces of Liz's story than I did on the first pass through. What I noted, though, that is sticking with me (and not especially comfortably) is just how dominant the male voices were in her story! Let me count them:
- Ketut: The prophecy that led Liz on her year-long, world-traveling journey began with a prophecy from a medicine man in Bali. Yes, he was toothless and old, adorable and addled, yet he gives her a palm reading that becomes the guide to her future.
- Her husband: He told her what to think, how their lives should be, what he wanted that was not what she wanted. It made her feel guilty to leave him because he was unhappy (he did not seem to have any guilt over his making her unhappy!). Her husband sat across from her at the negotiation table and told her he wouldn't grant her a divorce! That's how deaf he was to Liz's voice. He thought he could require her to stay married to him!
- Her boyfriend: David was a trip. This man lived his life in accordance with a female guru from India. Liz adopted his guru, adopted his lifestyle, adopted his values... and slowly disappeared into him. Her eventual journey to India was inspired by the hand-me-down guru she adopted during her torrid love affair with David.
- Her language partner: In Italy, we're immediately treated to some of the best looking male specimens on the planet. Just sayin'. Italian men have it going on. Liz's primary partner in language is a good-looking, gentle god of a guy. She has to fight her primal sex urges in order to mimic his accent.
- Richard from Texas: Just when you think Liz will get a break from all these tempting men by going to an ashram in India dedicated to a female guru, Liz becomes friends with Richard from Texas. The guru, in a twist of irony, is not in residence having taken a trip to New York, where Liz came from! (Perhaps a "Wizard of Oz" lesson underlying; there's no place like home, or, what you seek is already within you.) In any case, Richard is confrontational with his "bumper sticker" wisdom. Liz, like a polite woman would, attempts to deflect Richard's earliest attempts to "teach her," but eventually yields to his tactics once she's aware that he is suffering too. Truly, I like Richard in the book and loved the actor in the film... but upon further reflection, I have to admit it makes me uncomfortable how easily men tell women what to think, how to feel, what to know, how to recover, what to learn, how to love, what to do, how to live. What's up with that? I am trying to think of a time when I've seen on the big screen some man being "bullied for your own good" by a woman's unrelenting "wisdom" until he finally yields to it because he saw "who she really is." Help me out - is there such a film/story anywhere? I'm so sick of it!
- Ketut (again): He hardly remembers Liz when she returns to Bali. But once he does, Liz happily trusts his account of her future, yet again.
- Felipe: And here's where I wanted to claw my eyes out. In the book, I wasn't a huge fan of his either, but at least he seemed genuinely kind to Liz (and is eventually the man she marries in real life). The movie, though, took his personality to a place I will no longer tolerate in my real life. As Liz is having an emotional melt-down about love and being whisked off into a future without her express consent, Felipe yells at her! He tells her who she is, what her real feelings are (amazingly, he assumes they are just like his!), he tells her how to get over them, he attempts to intimidate her into cooperation with his "romantic" plan! Ay-yi-yi-yi! What is up with this whole "men use force to get women to do what they 'really' want" thing? Why do we think that is romantic, beneficial, respectful or even remotely justified? Why did the screenplay writers feel the need to inject that dysfunction into the relationship... as though that is a model for how to find true love? Gag me with a waxy plantain leaf!
I saw it all plainly. Men feel utterly comfortable dictating advice, stating their goals, passing on their experience and wisdom, all while women go on long journeys and quests away from them to figure out what they want... and then they wind up wanting men! It's just crazy!!!
I cannot picture a man going on a world tour to get over a broken heart, listening to women read their palms and guide their futures through folksy wisdom or forceful "buck up and do what I tell you because I'm right" kind of language. Not one man would go to see that movie.
Yet women are constantly bombarded with male voices. Our western gods are male, our presidents in America are male, the vast majority of our pastors are male (in some churches, they all are!), our business leaders and school principals: male. I had a Sue Monk Kidd moment last night when I got home—Arggggghhhhhh! Get me out of this male-dominated, overly verbal masculine world! How can woman even hear herself think, let alone come to any insight that would be truly suited to her while men won't shut up!
Before I offend the loyal male readers of this blog, let me say this. One of the hardest parts of being female is hearing your "inside yourself" voice. Male voices drown us out much of the time and we consent because we have been trained to listen politely, to not pass judgment, to trust an authority (male=authority), to seek protection, to accommodate those in power over pleasing ourselves. In fact, women are so used to this condition, if you have a group of women chatting away together and you add a man to it, the man will become the focal point and the majority of women will literally stop talking.
I can think of so many dinner parties where I was happily chatting away with my girlfriends until the husbands joined us. Then—poof! The women go silent and the men take over. It's uncanny.
The best thing males can do to right this ship is to listen. I don't mean the kind of listening that therapists suggest on couches to couples. I don't mean "active listening" where you try to repeat back what you heard. I mean, actually listening—to the confusion, to the tentative attempts to protect self, to the hopelessness, to the anxiety, to the "good ideas," to the disillusionment... all while doing nothing with it.
Nothing looks like: compassionate eyes, interest, hugs, an occasional (brief!) affirmation of the woman's inherent powers to find her own solutions that work for her. Nothing looks like fewer words and more nods, a willingness to watch her fail and make poor judgments, encouragement to keep going on her own path and resisting the temptation to rescue her from herself and others.
Nothing means not interfering, not trumping, not denigrating, not expecting a different outcome, not asking for compromise, not coercing through disappointment, anger, reason or relentless logic.
Nothing means accepting her report of her own experience without minimizing it, without discounting it, without reinterpreting it, without taking it personally.
But women, know that men aren't going to "do it for us." We have to be willing to walk away from relationships, to tell the men we lean on to be quiet. We have to seek spaces that let our minds wander. We have to trust the inkling of internal wisdom and risk everything on it! We can't expect a man to bail us out or help us. We have to know that the end of the road is inside (not in a man's paycheck, his size, his superior position, his intelligence, his romance, his validation, or even the idea that he is endowed with greater authority).
When I wrote "it's all on you" last time, one of the underlying messages I wanted to convey is this: When we delegate the authority over our lives to a "higher absolute"—saying it exists apart from us (particularly as women), we develop a habit of second-guessing ourselves that can become pathological. We start from a place of distrust of self.
When we recognize that it was our own insight and reasoning skills that empowered those beliefs to start, we open ourselves to confident inner knowing (we esteem our ability to seek the good, to find the good and to live according to the good). That's my goal for me, for my daughters... and yes, for the lovely men in my life too.
But women, know that men aren't going to "do it for us." We have to be willing to walk away from relationships, to tell the men we lean on to be quiet. We have to seek spaces that let our minds wander. We have to trust the inkling of internal wisdom and risk everything on it! We can't expect a man to bail us out or help us. We have to know that the end of the road is inside (not in a man's paycheck, his size, his superior position, his intelligence, his romance, his validation, or even the idea that he is endowed with greater authority).
When I wrote "it's all on you" last time, one of the underlying messages I wanted to convey is this: When we delegate the authority over our lives to a "higher absolute"—saying it exists apart from us (particularly as women), we develop a habit of second-guessing ourselves that can become pathological. We start from a place of distrust of self.
When we recognize that it was our own insight and reasoning skills that empowered those beliefs to start, we open ourselves to confident inner knowing (we esteem our ability to seek the good, to find the good and to live according to the good). That's my goal for me, for my daughters... and yes, for the lovely men in my life too.
May the sexes go forth and support each other!
These are my musings on a Monday morning. Your mileage may vary.
Friday, August 06, 2010
What healthy looks like
I spent the night at a friend's home. I woke up before the married couple who lived there. Their dog was awake and eager to be uncrated. So I opened the latch and then opened the sliding glass door to let him go outside to do his business. This is how it works with my dog and I assumed it would work with him. He panted and yelped a bit, he made circles in his crate but wouldn't leave it. I coaxed him to come out and eventually he put a paw outside the crate, followed by another. Clearly agitated, though, he didn't romp outside the way I expected.
At about that time, the "man of the house" and long term dear friend descended the steps and noticed the dog's confusion (and mine!). He saw that Kapu was hovering near the sliding door. Bill turned to me and said, "You know dogs. They have their habits. Kapu is used to eating in his crate right when he wakes up before we put him outside." Then he turned to his dog and with the kindest, friendliest voice urged Kapu to go outside, "Go on Kapu. I know. You'll get your food after. That's a boy! Go on!" He chuckled lightly. Kapu obeyed and returned to the house ready to eat. Bill scratched him behind the ears.
Unremarkable moment in Bill's life, I'm sure. But for me, it was one of those "Oh wow!" moments. A routine event didn't go the way it was supposed to, and that break in routine was greeted with gentleness, humor and a kind spirit. I recalled listening to other dog owners order their pets about with all the tenderness of a military drill sergeant! Something in me craved that forgiving, reassuring tone in my own life, let alone my dog's.
I've spent too many hours of my life debating intentions, explaining my meanings, reframing my message... only to be told how I should have done it, what my motives really were, why I was not saying what I thought I was saying. I used to believe that I was poor at communicating! I have been told so many times by enough significant people in my life (people I love) that what I think I'm saying is not what I mean, I stopped believing that I was effective at expressing myself.
And then I stood there in Bill's kitchen watching his gentle guidance offered to Kapu and I realized: No one has to get angry just because something isn't going the way it should or because the other party is confused or momentarily off balance. It's possible to bring clarity and support to another with kindness. No sternness required, no assumption of nefarious motives.
So here's my list of healthy—what it looks like to me now:
At about that time, the "man of the house" and long term dear friend descended the steps and noticed the dog's confusion (and mine!). He saw that Kapu was hovering near the sliding door. Bill turned to me and said, "You know dogs. They have their habits. Kapu is used to eating in his crate right when he wakes up before we put him outside." Then he turned to his dog and with the kindest, friendliest voice urged Kapu to go outside, "Go on Kapu. I know. You'll get your food after. That's a boy! Go on!" He chuckled lightly. Kapu obeyed and returned to the house ready to eat. Bill scratched him behind the ears.
Unremarkable moment in Bill's life, I'm sure. But for me, it was one of those "Oh wow!" moments. A routine event didn't go the way it was supposed to, and that break in routine was greeted with gentleness, humor and a kind spirit. I recalled listening to other dog owners order their pets about with all the tenderness of a military drill sergeant! Something in me craved that forgiving, reassuring tone in my own life, let alone my dog's.
I've spent too many hours of my life debating intentions, explaining my meanings, reframing my message... only to be told how I should have done it, what my motives really were, why I was not saying what I thought I was saying. I used to believe that I was poor at communicating! I have been told so many times by enough significant people in my life (people I love) that what I think I'm saying is not what I mean, I stopped believing that I was effective at expressing myself.
And then I stood there in Bill's kitchen watching his gentle guidance offered to Kapu and I realized: No one has to get angry just because something isn't going the way it should or because the other party is confused or momentarily off balance. It's possible to bring clarity and support to another with kindness. No sternness required, no assumption of nefarious motives.
So here's my list of healthy—what it looks like to me now:
- Curiosity over accusation: When you find someone's behavior strange or upsetting or simply different than you expected, ask questions, show interest. Don't make assumptions, accuse or assign intentions/motives.
- Kindness over force: Kindness means a quiet voice, a gentle tone. Force is coercive—it uses an urgent (sometimes loud) tone to create anxiety in the other person to provoke an action. Kindness assumes that the person can be reached through support rather than control.
- Trust over suspicion: As a friend says, "I look for reasons to trust people." A disposition that trusts creates open lines of communication and freedom to take risks. It creates a willingness to own up to mistakes or poor choices. Suspicion kills creativity and it drives shame underground. Secrets grow in an atmosphere of suspicion.
- Acceptance over control: To truly accept means that you are willing to receive what is offered without judgment or interference. Control means you need to match my expectations of you before I can accept what you offer. (Your five minutes at dinner with me before you head out the door again is enough because you gave it freely; not Because you didn't eat a full dinner with me, I won't be friendly to you during the meal.)
- Owning personal limits over imposing personal limits: If I need something to be a certain way, I make it happen or take responsibility to make it happen. I don't require others to create the space I need to live in. I create it for myself. I don't blame others for my lack.
- Expressing my disappointment over calling you a disappointment: When expectations surface and aren't met, sharing my disappointment as an unmet need rather than assigning you the label "disappointing" is healthy.
- Asking for help over requiring it: It's risky to say "Would you help me....?" because the person might say, "No." But to require "help" is to remove the possibility of "gift." A requirement of help can become a source of festering resentment. To share what you need and ask for help means a person has the chance to be good to you. People love to know that what they do is genuinely appreciated as a free gift, not as an obligation.
- Surprise me over "that's who you are and always will be": I like to find out you are more than I know or thought I knew. Labels limit people and we stop being surprised and amazed by them. In healthy relationships, even long term ones, surprising each other with new facets, new interests, new points of view keeps the love alive. If when you risk sharing a new way of seeing or being with someone you love and you are met with skepticism "You don't like X" or "You're not that kind of person," it shuts down the adventure of living... for both of you.
- Passion over discipline: Discipline fuels passion, true enough. But you can't get to passion by starting with discipline. Knowing a person's passion and supporting it does more to create a climate of enthusiasm and joy than all the rules, systems, structures and good ideas in the world. Discipline alone is soul-stealing.
- Yelling never works. Unless your house is on fire or a semi is about to crush your car.
- Affirm over suggest: Find traits to affirm, look for ways to validate the other person's judgment, thought processes, ideas before offering your own. Only make suggestions when asked.
What others can you think of?
I'm done with drama. I can see how much time is wasted on provoking arguments, righteous self-defense, accusation, assignation of motives and nefarious intentions, labeling, requiring others to meet personal needs, not allowing someone to grow or change (even radically), assuming the worst, forming suspicions, imposing ideas, and ignoring someone's passion because it isn't yours.
If we treated others as intelligent, reasonable, logical human beings, whose insights, practices, yearnings and hopes made good sense (given who they are, where they live, how they got to this phase of life) rather than as dangerous, misguided, self-centered or illogical, we'd discover so much more to love between us. If we listened well and showed interest, if we held back judgment and attempted to see through the eyes of the other, if we kept a cheerful tone (or at minimum, a gentle one) and waited patiently for more understanding before slapping on labels or expecting someone to be who we say they are... we could avert so much emotional punishment... the feeling that you are scorned for being yourself.
The image that comes to my mind is a huge WELCOME mat. I welcome you to my space, as you are, ready to serve you and enjoy you. How about tea?
The image that comes to my mind is a huge WELCOME mat. I welcome you to my space, as you are, ready to serve you and enjoy you. How about tea?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Underground of the Other Half
I got an email last week from someone who knows someone who knows me. She cautiously admitted that she's considering a divorce and had heard that I had been through one (Was that right? she hedged respectfully, non-intrusively, covertly). She wondered if it was okay to ask me about it. I recognized the tone. A familiar tentativeness—trying to determine if the audience will understand that you don't want a divorce but that you might still get one. It's a hard thing to admit out loud in the homeschooling world we come from... that you aren't able to sustain the image of healthy family, and that you feel awful about it, and even embarrassed by it.
She and I talked on the phone today. In that "back from the trenches at different fronts" kind of way, we traded stories, even laughing at what isn't laughable. I got around to asking her what support she has in her life right now. She quipped, "Well I have my non-Christian friends who take me downtown for dinner and drinks. Thank God for them."
Oh that made me laugh. I know just what she means. In the churches we come from, it's almost like two-shall-become-one is not just a spiritual, mystical union, but a fact of identity. When you go back from "couple" to "single," it's hard not to feel like half a person, half a soul, half-saved. While outside the church, people just look at you as, well, you!
I remember years ago when a couple who led our home Bible study group filed for divorce. They were a little older than I am now. The home group disbanded because the husband moved out. At the time, it disturbed me. Why couldn't we carry on with the wife heading up the group? She was still in the house. She hadn't asked her husband to leave her for someone else. But the policy of the church was that "couples" led groups with other couples in them. Sure singles were welcome to participate in the group, but they couldn't lead groups (unless they limited themselves to singles). We all accepted this unwritten code, as though the nature of true spirituality is a married heterosexual pair.
Once you declare that you are more interested in a healthy life than in propping up an institution, the others on that underground railroad find you. It's an interesting community down here. A major shared characteristic is how many have moved away from their original church communities. When they most needed support, they felt abandoned or worse, persecuted. I've heard from women who have had to endure pastors defending violent husbands, calling them repentant or provoked. For what? I can't think that pastors are excusing violent behavior because they, too, are violent (though some may be). I don't think they want wives to be smacked, shoved, slugged, or forcibly restrained, either. So why do some pastors go to such lengths to keep marriages together after a wife finally gets up the courage to admit how bad it's gotten?
My guess is that marriage is so critical to the reputation of the evangelical church (at least the white churches I've been in), they feel the need to protect it at all costs. Successful marriages (in America anyway) have become the chief evidence that the Spirit of God is still a vital force in people's lives. Divorce has become the great evidence that the Spirit of God is lacking in our culture, and consequently, in the lives of individuals who choose it.
Seen that way, no wonder those of us in the divorced camp huddle together in cover of email and get drinks with non-Christian friends away from the suburbs! It's not pleasant to be seen as one who is no longer responsive to God's Spirit... or worse, perhaps was never filled with that Spirit to begin with!
She and I talked on the phone today. In that "back from the trenches at different fronts" kind of way, we traded stories, even laughing at what isn't laughable. I got around to asking her what support she has in her life right now. She quipped, "Well I have my non-Christian friends who take me downtown for dinner and drinks. Thank God for them."
Oh that made me laugh. I know just what she means. In the churches we come from, it's almost like two-shall-become-one is not just a spiritual, mystical union, but a fact of identity. When you go back from "couple" to "single," it's hard not to feel like half a person, half a soul, half-saved. While outside the church, people just look at you as, well, you!
I remember years ago when a couple who led our home Bible study group filed for divorce. They were a little older than I am now. The home group disbanded because the husband moved out. At the time, it disturbed me. Why couldn't we carry on with the wife heading up the group? She was still in the house. She hadn't asked her husband to leave her for someone else. But the policy of the church was that "couples" led groups with other couples in them. Sure singles were welcome to participate in the group, but they couldn't lead groups (unless they limited themselves to singles). We all accepted this unwritten code, as though the nature of true spirituality is a married heterosexual pair.
Once you declare that you are more interested in a healthy life than in propping up an institution, the others on that underground railroad find you. It's an interesting community down here. A major shared characteristic is how many have moved away from their original church communities. When they most needed support, they felt abandoned or worse, persecuted. I've heard from women who have had to endure pastors defending violent husbands, calling them repentant or provoked. For what? I can't think that pastors are excusing violent behavior because they, too, are violent (though some may be). I don't think they want wives to be smacked, shoved, slugged, or forcibly restrained, either. So why do some pastors go to such lengths to keep marriages together after a wife finally gets up the courage to admit how bad it's gotten?
My guess is that marriage is so critical to the reputation of the evangelical church (at least the white churches I've been in), they feel the need to protect it at all costs. Successful marriages (in America anyway) have become the chief evidence that the Spirit of God is still a vital force in people's lives. Divorce has become the great evidence that the Spirit of God is lacking in our culture, and consequently, in the lives of individuals who choose it.
Seen that way, no wonder those of us in the divorced camp huddle together in cover of email and get drinks with non-Christian friends away from the suburbs! It's not pleasant to be seen as one who is no longer responsive to God's Spirit... or worse, perhaps was never filled with that Spirit to begin with!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Letting go....
I'm upside down on a high bar in the playground, swinging back and forth, back and forth, arms pumping, the skin on the under side of my knees squishing against the metal. My back arches, I bend my arms at the elbows and thrust my little body backward one last time until my face through stringy hair is looking facedown at footprints in the sand. My knees are still hooked until suddenly, in a slow motion moment high above the bar.... zing.... my taut muscles let go! Feet and legs are free! The whoosh of wind rushes into my ears, I see sky and trees, my gangly limbs sail through the pillowy air toward the earth—flying, not falling. I have to reeeach for the ground with my feet. Thud! I crumple and the delirious world spins around me.
--
It's nearly 7:00 a.m. The every two minute twinges in my back have subsided happily, but the reprieve is brief. Transition. Muscles clench my round belly, squeezing tears from my eyes and ergwauauaargghhhhhh from my throat. Laura, with a midwife's calm, reminds me to breathe, to imagine opening up, to let go. It's. so. hard. to let go... my body bearing down with a fierce force I can't master. But I gasp for air and call it breathing. I cry out. I can't stop breakers that crash over me and over me and drown me. To give up... to yield... to float and flail on a sea of muscular power. To let go and be taken over. A crescendo of urgings and voices and visions collide. And then, it's over. Forever. Whether or not I wanted to let go.
--
I see her standing in a too small room, flanked by a preppie co-ed, boxes oozing contents into the cramped space. All that needed to be said had been, yet other words, eighteen years worth of words, wanted their last chance to take the floor... and wouldn't come forth. In a split second, careless red hair danced on her shoulders, liquid blue eyes gleamed. Brave smiles, so many hugs, forced cheerfulness accompanied by "Good bye" and "Have fun" and "I'll miss you." A long walk. A quiet car. The tether between us slackened with each mile. We let go of her childhood together while apart, but we didn't let go of each other.
--
He promised me I could trust him with my heart. He would take good care of it. I took him at his word. He lied. That's why I wanted to punish him, to expose him. My better angels and self-help books insisted I let go. Some added, "Let God." But locked inside was a righteous indignation. I wasn't hanging upside down, being pulled along by my body, or choosing a goodbye. I hated being required to let go. I hated being counted on to let go. I hated knowing that he knew that I was too good a person to not let go.
--
That's how I hold on, clenching my knees around that bar, gripping the sides of the table, forcing a goodbye. I choose my resentments. I resent being managed, the robbery of my dignity. How do you let go when you suffer someone else's consequences?
--
It's nearly 7:00 a.m. The every two minute twinges in my back have subsided happily, but the reprieve is brief. Transition. Muscles clench my round belly, squeezing tears from my eyes and ergwauauaargghhhhhh from my throat. Laura, with a midwife's calm, reminds me to breathe, to imagine opening up, to let go. It's. so. hard. to let go... my body bearing down with a fierce force I can't master. But I gasp for air and call it breathing. I cry out. I can't stop breakers that crash over me and over me and drown me. To give up... to yield... to float and flail on a sea of muscular power. To let go and be taken over. A crescendo of urgings and voices and visions collide. And then, it's over. Forever. Whether or not I wanted to let go.
--
I see her standing in a too small room, flanked by a preppie co-ed, boxes oozing contents into the cramped space. All that needed to be said had been, yet other words, eighteen years worth of words, wanted their last chance to take the floor... and wouldn't come forth. In a split second, careless red hair danced on her shoulders, liquid blue eyes gleamed. Brave smiles, so many hugs, forced cheerfulness accompanied by "Good bye" and "Have fun" and "I'll miss you." A long walk. A quiet car. The tether between us slackened with each mile. We let go of her childhood together while apart, but we didn't let go of each other.
--
He promised me I could trust him with my heart. He would take good care of it. I took him at his word. He lied. That's why I wanted to punish him, to expose him. My better angels and self-help books insisted I let go. Some added, "Let God." But locked inside was a righteous indignation. I wasn't hanging upside down, being pulled along by my body, or choosing a goodbye. I hated being required to let go. I hated being counted on to let go. I hated knowing that he knew that I was too good a person to not let go.
--
That's how I hold on, clenching my knees around that bar, gripping the sides of the table, forcing a goodbye. I choose my resentments. I resent being managed, the robbery of my dignity. How do you let go when you suffer someone else's consequences?
Friday, July 16, 2010
This side of the D word
The matrimonial culture we live in was never so apparent to me until I left it... I've felt ashamed of the times I overlooked another person's unmarried status in my writing, in my thinking, in my self-congratulating pride at being married. But now, I identify with the "single mother" in Toy Story 3. I notice naked, dented ring fingers. I get irritated by announcements of silver anniversaries and the chipper way marrieds toss out "Love you, Babe" on Facebook walls and their friends comment how cute they are together (not ever knowing, even, if that couple is kind, faithful and generous to each other, or secretly enmeshed in verbal terror, infidelity and/or cold, stale, long-term indifference).
The pressure to stay married is tremendous, which is why so many do—long beyond mutual joy, emotional safety and family well-being. The reason so many marrieds think "every" couple has huge fights or deals with cruelty and meanness is that so many of those couples stay married and report that this is what it's like. We tell ourselves that we aren't worse than anyone else... and on we go, putting up with what no one should. We mistake intensity for intimacy.
I've read many of the standard "how to stay married" books and frequently, they aren't in the arena of what is wrong. The deep problems in marriage aren't about money or sex or kids. Often, communication problems aren't really about communication, but a flawed fundamental disposition toward the other person.
Better to ask:
Do the partners revere each other? Do they operate from goodwill and generosity more often than not? Is there the capacity for empathy and mutual understanding? Can both people be themselves—the real person, as he or she is—without being a disappointment or source of ongoing irritation to the other partner? Is the marriage a wellspring of strength and nurturing or is it a relationship of egg-shells and pretending?
In other words, if the advice in marriage books to resolve differences doesn't work, might it be that the issues are more fundamental—not about bedtimes and budgets, but what it takes to provide consistent regard and care, shared power and mutual support? Do the parties esteem each other in both the global ways (who you are in the world is someone I am proud of and admire) and in the tiny, hidden ways (I protect your well-being by my tone of voice, by believing the best of your motives, by hearing your anxiety and fear... and relieving them, by cherishing your friends, habits and interests)?
Anyone who thinks divorce is easy clearly ain't been there, done that. Staying married (even in painful, hurtful marriages) goes with the flow—it's downhill, it's the path of least resistance... at least, until it isn't. No one steps out of the powerful, culturally-approved current of marriage because, "Hey, it's so easy to divorce in our state, and you kind of bug me, so bam! I'm filing." I haven't met that divorced person yet.
And I'm certainly not her.
But I'm also not someone who willingly conforms to the cultural viewpoint of divorce as the Great Epic Tragedy of a Failed Marriage. As a dear friend said to me at one of my low points of self-doubt about my decision, "I'm sorry that you are second-guessing your divorce since it's the healthiest thing you've ever done for yourself and your family."
That was a moment.
But I do get it. No one gets married looking forward to the day you get to get divorced! The best option is not an option anyone wanted.
Still, divorce doesn't have to mean a shipwrecked life. One of my biggest disappointments is that I have to "stop counting the years" as though I'm "out of the race" or am no longer qualified to be a happy, successful family. I decided a few weeks ago that all those years count and if I ever remarry, in my heart I will start at year 26. After all, I have been married 25 years. They were real years of investment. They are simply at an end for now.
One of the lessons of divorce for all involved is that there are some behaviors, some issues that deserve a no tolerance policy even if it means completely overhauling the structure of your family. Divorce makes it possible to extricate oneself from those destructive forces, to build again, to teach one's children that a love relationship must be grounded in deeply committed, honest respect. Anything less is not intimacy; anything less is not what I want to model for my children as a marriage.
Last week on the Bachelorette, we had exhibit A of Jake's emotional abuse of Vienna (that television constructed villian-ness to Jake's good boy image). How odd it was to watch the whole thing flip—suddenly Jake was unmasked as the arrogant, defining, controlling, abusing male to Vienna's inarticulate despair and humiliation. In that flash, I saw something that moved me. This young (widely disliked) woman of 23 had more self-esteem than I had for most of my adult life. She said in effect, "Fame, fortune, my reputation be damned. I won't be with a mean person. I deserve better."
That's what divorce is often about. The culture of marriage sweeps meanness under the rug—we're urged to "deal" with it, to endlessly turn the tiles of the Rubix cube in search of a solved puzzle. There's some idea that if I hear your story and it "doesn't seem that bad to me," then you must be able to deal with it. But there is never any way to convey an atmosphere, a pervading sense, an inner knowing that you are not being respected. The isolated incidents can be untangled and re-imagined, they can be forgiven and left behind. Who hasn't done that ad nauseum in a long term marriage than ends in divorce? What no one can understand without living through it is the way your psyche and spirit are diminished in a slow yellow-wallpaper kind of way that leads to a one-day inner cry of "Enough!"
When that day arrives, divorce is the long lost friend. It's the passage, the ticket to Europe, the remodel of the house, the great chance at a do-over. I know people want to convey sympathy when they say to me that they are sorry. I do get that. What I feel now, though, is that I want people to feel relieved for me, to be optimistic with me, to believe that if this is the choice I made (and they know me), they can't imagine it wouldn't be the right choice for my family despite the enormous pain it creates in the aftermath.
I know that's a tall order. I accept all offers of kindness no matter how packaged. I also know that divorce feels like a contagion. Who wants to get close to it, particularly if your own marriage is one of those challenging ones? I certainly don't "recommend" divorce like a good book or fine wine.
I do, though, stand by one principle over all others:
Your life is your responsibility. Protect (with a mother bear's fierceness) your right (and your children's right) to peace, respect, love and safety. Whatever it takes to achieve these is what it takes. That's all.
The pressure to stay married is tremendous, which is why so many do—long beyond mutual joy, emotional safety and family well-being. The reason so many marrieds think "every" couple has huge fights or deals with cruelty and meanness is that so many of those couples stay married and report that this is what it's like. We tell ourselves that we aren't worse than anyone else... and on we go, putting up with what no one should. We mistake intensity for intimacy.
I've read many of the standard "how to stay married" books and frequently, they aren't in the arena of what is wrong. The deep problems in marriage aren't about money or sex or kids. Often, communication problems aren't really about communication, but a flawed fundamental disposition toward the other person.
Better to ask:
Do the partners revere each other? Do they operate from goodwill and generosity more often than not? Is there the capacity for empathy and mutual understanding? Can both people be themselves—the real person, as he or she is—without being a disappointment or source of ongoing irritation to the other partner? Is the marriage a wellspring of strength and nurturing or is it a relationship of egg-shells and pretending?
In other words, if the advice in marriage books to resolve differences doesn't work, might it be that the issues are more fundamental—not about bedtimes and budgets, but what it takes to provide consistent regard and care, shared power and mutual support? Do the parties esteem each other in both the global ways (who you are in the world is someone I am proud of and admire) and in the tiny, hidden ways (I protect your well-being by my tone of voice, by believing the best of your motives, by hearing your anxiety and fear... and relieving them, by cherishing your friends, habits and interests)?
Anyone who thinks divorce is easy clearly ain't been there, done that. Staying married (even in painful, hurtful marriages) goes with the flow—it's downhill, it's the path of least resistance... at least, until it isn't. No one steps out of the powerful, culturally-approved current of marriage because, "Hey, it's so easy to divorce in our state, and you kind of bug me, so bam! I'm filing." I haven't met that divorced person yet.
And I'm certainly not her.
But I'm also not someone who willingly conforms to the cultural viewpoint of divorce as the Great Epic Tragedy of a Failed Marriage. As a dear friend said to me at one of my low points of self-doubt about my decision, "I'm sorry that you are second-guessing your divorce since it's the healthiest thing you've ever done for yourself and your family."
That was a moment.
But I do get it. No one gets married looking forward to the day you get to get divorced! The best option is not an option anyone wanted.
Still, divorce doesn't have to mean a shipwrecked life. One of my biggest disappointments is that I have to "stop counting the years" as though I'm "out of the race" or am no longer qualified to be a happy, successful family. I decided a few weeks ago that all those years count and if I ever remarry, in my heart I will start at year 26. After all, I have been married 25 years. They were real years of investment. They are simply at an end for now.
One of the lessons of divorce for all involved is that there are some behaviors, some issues that deserve a no tolerance policy even if it means completely overhauling the structure of your family. Divorce makes it possible to extricate oneself from those destructive forces, to build again, to teach one's children that a love relationship must be grounded in deeply committed, honest respect. Anything less is not intimacy; anything less is not what I want to model for my children as a marriage.
Last week on the Bachelorette, we had exhibit A of Jake's emotional abuse of Vienna (that television constructed villian-ness to Jake's good boy image). How odd it was to watch the whole thing flip—suddenly Jake was unmasked as the arrogant, defining, controlling, abusing male to Vienna's inarticulate despair and humiliation. In that flash, I saw something that moved me. This young (widely disliked) woman of 23 had more self-esteem than I had for most of my adult life. She said in effect, "Fame, fortune, my reputation be damned. I won't be with a mean person. I deserve better."
That's what divorce is often about. The culture of marriage sweeps meanness under the rug—we're urged to "deal" with it, to endlessly turn the tiles of the Rubix cube in search of a solved puzzle. There's some idea that if I hear your story and it "doesn't seem that bad to me," then you must be able to deal with it. But there is never any way to convey an atmosphere, a pervading sense, an inner knowing that you are not being respected. The isolated incidents can be untangled and re-imagined, they can be forgiven and left behind. Who hasn't done that ad nauseum in a long term marriage than ends in divorce? What no one can understand without living through it is the way your psyche and spirit are diminished in a slow yellow-wallpaper kind of way that leads to a one-day inner cry of "Enough!"
When that day arrives, divorce is the long lost friend. It's the passage, the ticket to Europe, the remodel of the house, the great chance at a do-over. I know people want to convey sympathy when they say to me that they are sorry. I do get that. What I feel now, though, is that I want people to feel relieved for me, to be optimistic with me, to believe that if this is the choice I made (and they know me), they can't imagine it wouldn't be the right choice for my family despite the enormous pain it creates in the aftermath.
I know that's a tall order. I accept all offers of kindness no matter how packaged. I also know that divorce feels like a contagion. Who wants to get close to it, particularly if your own marriage is one of those challenging ones? I certainly don't "recommend" divorce like a good book or fine wine.
I do, though, stand by one principle over all others:
Your life is your responsibility. Protect (with a mother bear's fierceness) your right (and your children's right) to peace, respect, love and safety. Whatever it takes to achieve these is what it takes. That's all.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Waking up: The shift from one point of view to the another
My Facebook set of friends is one of the more diverse bunch of people I've run across online. That's because suddenly my past and present have collided in conversation in ways that would never happen if we limited our relationships to in-person contact. So what's happened is that my high school friends, who knew me mostly as a short, a-political, theater student without much of a religious agenda, are interacting with my college friends who knew me as this zealot who shared the Four Spiritual Laws with anyone stuck in a bank line with me. My missionary and Vineyard friends are interacting with my liberal theological graduate school buddies. My homeschool momma friends are talking to my business networking friends here in Cincy. And of course, my Obama campaign colleagues are talking to my rightwing radio pals from bygone years.
And like me, many of my friends have gone through significant shifts (either a deepening of loyalty to their original commitments, or a radical reassessment which led to a new, changed point of view).
I respect all of you (even when we disagree). I wouldn't keep you around on my FB if I didn't! In fact, I have kicked a few off my list when they've crossed that invisible line called "Coerce Julie back to what is good for her and tell her she is going to hell if she doesn't listen."
So here's the thing. For years (over 20), I adopted a point of view both politically and theologically that was rooted in a set of assumptions (these assumptions were handed to me with care and conviction, and they were based on the core doctrines of evangelicalism at the time). I remember once saying to Don Carson (some of you will remember him), the head of our Campus Crusade chapter at UCLA, "Why are you telling me that predestination as a theological tenet has to be believed in order to be a Christian? I haven't even had time to think about it yet." I had the same reaction to inerrancy (Is this really necessary to be a Christian? Can I think about it a bit?), to the doctrines of heaven and hell. I still remember saying at my first Bible Study at Kappa Kappa Gamma that I didn't like the idea of hell, after all, that would mean all my Jewish friends from high school and step relatives were going there... and I couldn't quite *get* that. I mean, it was one thing to believe in heaven and hell when you grew up in La Canada or Pasadena, where everyone you knew was Protestant. But what happened when you had to include people you loved, A LOT, in that number?
I found myself suddenly in conflict: to belong meant to adopt (uncritically, really) the values and doctrines that enabled me to remain a part of the community (this new, great group of people who were so much fun to be with), or I could reject those tenets and not be in the group, not have the love, worship, prayer, moral values, and community Christianity offered. So adopt I did (and worked to learn the apologetics for these tenets) and from then on, made it my chief aim in life to save those I loved and those I hadn't yet met from hell.
But time has a way of tugging at the tangled threads. The intellectual conflicts, the theological discrepancies, the arguments online with people I genuinely grew to love about splitting hair differences... how did these show the compassion of Jesus or the relevance of spirituality in a globalized world of diverse expressions of reality? It hurt to think Christians couldn't even agree on very basic ideas and would be cruel and critical of each other arguing over what amount to technicalities, many times.
The rightwing vision of politics has also walked in lockstep with the evangelical vision. Since we grew up knowing we couldn't criticize theology (who could ask if Jesus really rose from the dead with a physical body or if the Bible has mistakes, and stay in an evangelical church?), we are also equally beholden to rightwing politics as naturally right, clear. If someone speaks with conviction, we tend to adopt that point of view as long as it leads us back to reinforcing those original tenets we were told to adopt (our membership in the community is at stake if we challenge those tenets - ask me how I know this).
To inhabit someone else's point of view, to give it weight, to care about its interior logic is not one of the values of evangelicalism. We are taught to convert people to our point of view and to understand theirs only enough to change their minds. We spend countless hours reinforcing our own beliefs in community contexts, privately, listening to sermons and tapes, reading books, listening to music. We adopt these views as our own, but from within the safe protected context of like-minded people (and we elevate those with more education as leaders as a way to tell us that we are thinking critically, to help us navigate the pesky incongruity or penetrating question of someone from the outside). We suppress our own questions. We avoid The Jesus Seminar or Richard Dawkins, because they are dangerous.
This is not to say that there aren't brilliant men and women on the right or in the conservative evangelical movement who have dug deep and have spent time drawing conclusions that they feel are both intellectually sound and honest. There are. I've read them, met some of them. What I reject today is that so many people have adopted their thinking second-hand. (To be fair: on both left and right, though I am less versed in how this happens on the left - what I have seen is much more arguing over nuances on the left - a chief value of theirs is dissent!)
If you haven't sat inside the point of view (letting it be "right" for awhile, looking for its logic, how it hangs together, how it creates a worldview that coheres and supports a vision of life and happiness for the one who holds it), you can't actually know if yours is true (or at least, "true enough" for your life). It's one reason I attend a black church. I was sick of secondhand reports about what black leaders are doing and saying or not doing and saying. I was sick of the myopia of white church that thinks reconciliation means having a sister church that is black, or getting more blacks to attend your white church. I wondered what the black community had to say about it. I wondered how they experienced America, and the church, and "truth" from their experiences.
I spent two years reading pro-choice literature, getting inside the mindset that saw being "pro-choice" as the higher morality (yes, they do feel that way!), as the obvious right belief system that is more compassionate and ethical than the alternative. I did this after we had been actively involved in Operation Rescue. I also wish pro-choice people would spend time understanding the radical commitment of those engaged in civil disobedience to stop abortion, too.
What's happened to me, then, is that I got tired of secondhand news, theology, sociological commentary. I stopped buying into the scripts I'd been handed and became unwilling to defend something just because it had always been "true" in the community I loved. If I had one piece of advice for those who can't quite grasp what it is that's happened to me, I'd say pick the thing you are most afraid of (the thing you most don't want to be true) and go read about it. Meet someone who holds that viewpoint and let that person influence you. Invite their ideas into your living room, care to understand the world from inside someone else's mind. If you do that for a little while, yes, you will change. But your compassion will also grow, and your insights will be yours, and your spirituality will deepen.
I'm also conscious of the fact that there is so much I can't possibly know well enough to make adequate judgments (how could I ever say if global warming is real or not? I'm not a scientist, have no training or tools to evaluate the arguments, can't come close to making a real case that isn't some watered down version of someone else's). So I hold my current "positions" with some guardedness, knowing that I'm a few arguments away from another shift. But I'm no longer afraid of getting it right or wrong. I love the process, and I feel privileged/relieved/blessed to have been able to leave behind the need to vilify "the other" in order to protect my point of view. (That doesn't mean I won't criticize the other, but I hope I do it knowing that I could again shift my point of view if the facts that I understand warrant it.)
Peace.
And like me, many of my friends have gone through significant shifts (either a deepening of loyalty to their original commitments, or a radical reassessment which led to a new, changed point of view).
I respect all of you (even when we disagree). I wouldn't keep you around on my FB if I didn't! In fact, I have kicked a few off my list when they've crossed that invisible line called "Coerce Julie back to what is good for her and tell her she is going to hell if she doesn't listen."
So here's the thing. For years (over 20), I adopted a point of view both politically and theologically that was rooted in a set of assumptions (these assumptions were handed to me with care and conviction, and they were based on the core doctrines of evangelicalism at the time). I remember once saying to Don Carson (some of you will remember him), the head of our Campus Crusade chapter at UCLA, "Why are you telling me that predestination as a theological tenet has to be believed in order to be a Christian? I haven't even had time to think about it yet." I had the same reaction to inerrancy (Is this really necessary to be a Christian? Can I think about it a bit?), to the doctrines of heaven and hell. I still remember saying at my first Bible Study at Kappa Kappa Gamma that I didn't like the idea of hell, after all, that would mean all my Jewish friends from high school and step relatives were going there... and I couldn't quite *get* that. I mean, it was one thing to believe in heaven and hell when you grew up in La Canada or Pasadena, where everyone you knew was Protestant. But what happened when you had to include people you loved, A LOT, in that number?
I found myself suddenly in conflict: to belong meant to adopt (uncritically, really) the values and doctrines that enabled me to remain a part of the community (this new, great group of people who were so much fun to be with), or I could reject those tenets and not be in the group, not have the love, worship, prayer, moral values, and community Christianity offered. So adopt I did (and worked to learn the apologetics for these tenets) and from then on, made it my chief aim in life to save those I loved and those I hadn't yet met from hell.
But time has a way of tugging at the tangled threads. The intellectual conflicts, the theological discrepancies, the arguments online with people I genuinely grew to love about splitting hair differences... how did these show the compassion of Jesus or the relevance of spirituality in a globalized world of diverse expressions of reality? It hurt to think Christians couldn't even agree on very basic ideas and would be cruel and critical of each other arguing over what amount to technicalities, many times.
The rightwing vision of politics has also walked in lockstep with the evangelical vision. Since we grew up knowing we couldn't criticize theology (who could ask if Jesus really rose from the dead with a physical body or if the Bible has mistakes, and stay in an evangelical church?), we are also equally beholden to rightwing politics as naturally right, clear. If someone speaks with conviction, we tend to adopt that point of view as long as it leads us back to reinforcing those original tenets we were told to adopt (our membership in the community is at stake if we challenge those tenets - ask me how I know this).
To inhabit someone else's point of view, to give it weight, to care about its interior logic is not one of the values of evangelicalism. We are taught to convert people to our point of view and to understand theirs only enough to change their minds. We spend countless hours reinforcing our own beliefs in community contexts, privately, listening to sermons and tapes, reading books, listening to music. We adopt these views as our own, but from within the safe protected context of like-minded people (and we elevate those with more education as leaders as a way to tell us that we are thinking critically, to help us navigate the pesky incongruity or penetrating question of someone from the outside). We suppress our own questions. We avoid The Jesus Seminar or Richard Dawkins, because they are dangerous.
This is not to say that there aren't brilliant men and women on the right or in the conservative evangelical movement who have dug deep and have spent time drawing conclusions that they feel are both intellectually sound and honest. There are. I've read them, met some of them. What I reject today is that so many people have adopted their thinking second-hand. (To be fair: on both left and right, though I am less versed in how this happens on the left - what I have seen is much more arguing over nuances on the left - a chief value of theirs is dissent!)
If you haven't sat inside the point of view (letting it be "right" for awhile, looking for its logic, how it hangs together, how it creates a worldview that coheres and supports a vision of life and happiness for the one who holds it), you can't actually know if yours is true (or at least, "true enough" for your life). It's one reason I attend a black church. I was sick of secondhand reports about what black leaders are doing and saying or not doing and saying. I was sick of the myopia of white church that thinks reconciliation means having a sister church that is black, or getting more blacks to attend your white church. I wondered what the black community had to say about it. I wondered how they experienced America, and the church, and "truth" from their experiences.
I spent two years reading pro-choice literature, getting inside the mindset that saw being "pro-choice" as the higher morality (yes, they do feel that way!), as the obvious right belief system that is more compassionate and ethical than the alternative. I did this after we had been actively involved in Operation Rescue. I also wish pro-choice people would spend time understanding the radical commitment of those engaged in civil disobedience to stop abortion, too.
What's happened to me, then, is that I got tired of secondhand news, theology, sociological commentary. I stopped buying into the scripts I'd been handed and became unwilling to defend something just because it had always been "true" in the community I loved. If I had one piece of advice for those who can't quite grasp what it is that's happened to me, I'd say pick the thing you are most afraid of (the thing you most don't want to be true) and go read about it. Meet someone who holds that viewpoint and let that person influence you. Invite their ideas into your living room, care to understand the world from inside someone else's mind. If you do that for a little while, yes, you will change. But your compassion will also grow, and your insights will be yours, and your spirituality will deepen.
I'm also conscious of the fact that there is so much I can't possibly know well enough to make adequate judgments (how could I ever say if global warming is real or not? I'm not a scientist, have no training or tools to evaluate the arguments, can't come close to making a real case that isn't some watered down version of someone else's). So I hold my current "positions" with some guardedness, knowing that I'm a few arguments away from another shift. But I'm no longer afraid of getting it right or wrong. I love the process, and I feel privileged/relieved/blessed to have been able to leave behind the need to vilify "the other" in order to protect my point of view. (That doesn't mean I won't criticize the other, but I hope I do it knowing that I could again shift my point of view if the facts that I understand warrant it.)
Peace.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Long term marriage.... Should we reverence it?
Jon and I are working through some of the deepest waters we've ever faced. I talked to him about whether or not to blog these journeys. He consented... nothing to hide, the motto. We got to talking about our situation - where we are today after about six months of separation (mixed up with some non-separation too). He made a bold statement that echoed something I had just written in an email to a fried: "I'm not impressed with longterm marriages." I blinked and responded, "Me either! I just told a friend that 60 years of marriage doesn't mean much to me, unless that marriage is healthy. I'm all about healthy first marriages or healthy second ones, healthy one year marriages or healthy 60 year ones. But length, by itself, doesn't impress me any more."
I remember last year someone announced on their facebook page that they'd celebrated 24 years of marriage. A commenter wrote: "Good for you, defying the odds." The moment I read it, I thought, "Don't ever let me stay married to beat odds." I don't care about statistics or the status quo or avoiding stigmas. I care about family health, which starts with a healthy marriage.
As Jon and I hashed through the muck, in that early tentative way you have to when separated, he made another startling comment. "I'm so glad divorce is 'no fault' in most of this country and that it's available to everyone. Divorce really may be the best chance for happiness and personal well-being for a lot of people. I wonder if more marriages need to confront their fears and face it down... or get one!" Then he said, "If we can't be happy together, I want us to be happy apart."
It was a moment for me. My parents are divorced. Divorce has loomed as the spectre to avoid in my adult life. Yet in that rigid fear of divorce, neither of us addressed in that radical, no-holds-barred way, the issues that kept our marriage handicapped. We're doing that now. And strangely, neither of us is afraid of divorce any more.
I want to close by sending a shout out to my courageous friends who have contended for healthy lives and have used divorce as the tool for getting there. I admire you.
I remember last year someone announced on their facebook page that they'd celebrated 24 years of marriage. A commenter wrote: "Good for you, defying the odds." The moment I read it, I thought, "Don't ever let me stay married to beat odds." I don't care about statistics or the status quo or avoiding stigmas. I care about family health, which starts with a healthy marriage.
As Jon and I hashed through the muck, in that early tentative way you have to when separated, he made another startling comment. "I'm so glad divorce is 'no fault' in most of this country and that it's available to everyone. Divorce really may be the best chance for happiness and personal well-being for a lot of people. I wonder if more marriages need to confront their fears and face it down... or get one!" Then he said, "If we can't be happy together, I want us to be happy apart."
It was a moment for me. My parents are divorced. Divorce has loomed as the spectre to avoid in my adult life. Yet in that rigid fear of divorce, neither of us addressed in that radical, no-holds-barred way, the issues that kept our marriage handicapped. We're doing that now. And strangely, neither of us is afraid of divorce any more.
I want to close by sending a shout out to my courageous friends who have contended for healthy lives and have used divorce as the tool for getting there. I admire you.
Monday, June 01, 2009
The path to authenticity
is paved with lies, betrayals and broken hearts. Harsh words, but I'm not even talking about the people who do that stuff to us. I'm talking about the lying, betraying and breaking of hearts we do to ourselves. It seems like an inordinate number of my friends are in relationship crisis right now (like attracts like), so I'm thinking about what it means to be healthy, authentic, rightside up in all of our lives.
Awhile back I realized that I spent a good deal of my time lying. Oh, I'm not the kind of person who would lie about something like, "Did you leave the milk out to spoil?" I'd say, "Why yes I did. Sorry." I'm talking about this other kind of lying where a person you're afraid of says, "I expect this of you" and you go along with it, not because you want to or believe in it, but to appease that person, to stay on someone's good side. I'm talking about lies like, "I"m happy for you" when really, your heart is being ripped into tiny pieces and you're pretending to be brave when you really want to put dead rabbits in their mail boxes. I mean the lies where you protect or hide part of yourself chronically, secretly.
When you get into the habit of lying, you even start to believe you're telling the truth. You convince yourself that you do want to be inconvenienced, that you're a generous person offering care and support (not that you're a weak person who has no boundaries). It gets even more complicated when you mix in some positive results. You compromise on one issue (because all relationships require compromise, so we're told) and believe you did it out of sincerity and a desire to be loving, when in fact you were hoping to buy some kind of "free from abuse" pass instead.
Compromise birthed from a desire to avoid being punished is not love. It's not even compromise - it's capitulation. Love, in healthy relationships, is genuinely recognizing someone else's needs/likes/habits/desires are different from yours, and that you can celebrate and support those choices, even while possibly not embracing them for yourself. Love is not giving up what you need or violating your conscience or hiding your true self as a way to keep the peace, to paper over differences, to keep the sex good, to preserve the intact family, to avoid ruining your public reputation, to outrun criticism.
Authenticity has such a ring to it, though, doesn't it? Like, who doesn't want to be known as "authentic" or "genuine"? Still, it takes a lot of work once you're in a relationship to preserve your "self." I remember Mira Kirschenbaum wrote that you live a lifestyle, not a relationship. The relationship is a support to a life, not the other way around. When you find that your lifestyle, your life's investments and interests, your values and aspirations, your habits and intentions don't match up to your mate's, the strain to the relationship can be profound.
In a healthy space, those differences are not up for negotiation. They need to be looked at squarely, then taken seriously. If you have a significant overlap in basic outlook and lifestyle, the finer points can be negotiated from the point of view of how to help your mate get what he or she wants out of life even if it isn't what you want. That can't happen if one is a controller, or if what you love/like fundamentally clashes with the value/belief system of the other person.
What I notice in me is that relational peace has been such a driving concern of my life, I've not known where I begin and end. My yearning to extend grace (believing it would be reciprocally extended to me) has led me into lying to myself, betraying some of my deepest felt convictions, and even to heartbreak (not attending to myself well enough for the sake of what I thought was love). I'm noticing even in my friends going through this same kind of sifting... authenticity at first looks like showing up in your own life. Then you can begin the hard work of saying what it is you need and want because you start to know what that is. Expressing that to a partner after years of "going along" takes so much time. It can't be worked out in a few weeks or conversations or therapy sessions. Sometimes it can't be worked out. But it has to happen in order for love to be real.
It's hard to know what you really want when coming out of the fog of appeasement. It seems to me that the first tentative steps to authenticity sound more like: "Not that, not that, not that..."
Awhile back I realized that I spent a good deal of my time lying. Oh, I'm not the kind of person who would lie about something like, "Did you leave the milk out to spoil?" I'd say, "Why yes I did. Sorry." I'm talking about this other kind of lying where a person you're afraid of says, "I expect this of you" and you go along with it, not because you want to or believe in it, but to appease that person, to stay on someone's good side. I'm talking about lies like, "I"m happy for you" when really, your heart is being ripped into tiny pieces and you're pretending to be brave when you really want to put dead rabbits in their mail boxes. I mean the lies where you protect or hide part of yourself chronically, secretly.
When you get into the habit of lying, you even start to believe you're telling the truth. You convince yourself that you do want to be inconvenienced, that you're a generous person offering care and support (not that you're a weak person who has no boundaries). It gets even more complicated when you mix in some positive results. You compromise on one issue (because all relationships require compromise, so we're told) and believe you did it out of sincerity and a desire to be loving, when in fact you were hoping to buy some kind of "free from abuse" pass instead.
Compromise birthed from a desire to avoid being punished is not love. It's not even compromise - it's capitulation. Love, in healthy relationships, is genuinely recognizing someone else's needs/likes/habits/desires are different from yours, and that you can celebrate and support those choices, even while possibly not embracing them for yourself. Love is not giving up what you need or violating your conscience or hiding your true self as a way to keep the peace, to paper over differences, to keep the sex good, to preserve the intact family, to avoid ruining your public reputation, to outrun criticism.
Authenticity has such a ring to it, though, doesn't it? Like, who doesn't want to be known as "authentic" or "genuine"? Still, it takes a lot of work once you're in a relationship to preserve your "self." I remember Mira Kirschenbaum wrote that you live a lifestyle, not a relationship. The relationship is a support to a life, not the other way around. When you find that your lifestyle, your life's investments and interests, your values and aspirations, your habits and intentions don't match up to your mate's, the strain to the relationship can be profound.
In a healthy space, those differences are not up for negotiation. They need to be looked at squarely, then taken seriously. If you have a significant overlap in basic outlook and lifestyle, the finer points can be negotiated from the point of view of how to help your mate get what he or she wants out of life even if it isn't what you want. That can't happen if one is a controller, or if what you love/like fundamentally clashes with the value/belief system of the other person.
What I notice in me is that relational peace has been such a driving concern of my life, I've not known where I begin and end. My yearning to extend grace (believing it would be reciprocally extended to me) has led me into lying to myself, betraying some of my deepest felt convictions, and even to heartbreak (not attending to myself well enough for the sake of what I thought was love). I'm noticing even in my friends going through this same kind of sifting... authenticity at first looks like showing up in your own life. Then you can begin the hard work of saying what it is you need and want because you start to know what that is. Expressing that to a partner after years of "going along" takes so much time. It can't be worked out in a few weeks or conversations or therapy sessions. Sometimes it can't be worked out. But it has to happen in order for love to be real.
It's hard to know what you really want when coming out of the fog of appeasement. It seems to me that the first tentative steps to authenticity sound more like: "Not that, not that, not that..."
Friday, May 08, 2009
Finding yourSelf
In the 70's, I "got saved" during the "I Found It" campaign. My very Jewish community put bumper stickers on their cars that said, "We never lost it."
Sometimes when I think about "finding myself" (that birthright of all Californians), I waver between these two feelings: "Aha! There I am! I found it!" At other times, I cynically look at the ways other people try to define me, tell me how to feel, what I ought to know, who I ought to be... and I feel like saying, "Buddy, I never lost it. I know who I am."
I don't know why it is that I'm compelled to work on mySelf. (Is it DNA? culture? growing up near the ocean? my astrological sign: Scorpio? my myers briggs temperament: ENFP? being parented by a mom who read I'm Okay; You're Okay at a critical juncture in my teen years - "You're in your child!" "But Mom... I AM a child!"?) So many people are completely able to disregard themSelves. They make big mistakes, they have affairs, they rage, they get addicted, they overeat, they lose jobs, they obsess over porn, they shame and abuse, they cavalierly break promises... and still don't go to private therapy, aren't compelled to drink cafe latte at Barnes and Noble poring over books in the "help thyself" section, seeking an answer for how they allowed themselves to wander into the black hole of dysfunction, abuse, and secrecy.
Sometimes these perpetrators of relationship dysfunction pop into the local counselor's office for a tune up (guilt combined with "relationship pressure" leads to a couple of sessions for many of these types). But that sustained curiosity for how their souls function, for why brokenness attends their most intimate relationships, for how they cause pain to the people they say they love is absent. In some cases, the partner who had an affair and returns to his wife is so relieved to escape detection, he lies in therapy! Not much self-understanding getting through there!
And weirdly, even with dramatic measures, some of these people continue on their self-creating, medicating, papering over, reframing, bubbling optimism ways about their newfound selves rather than the necessary deconstruction of their cavalier mistreatment and secrecy that would bring genuine healing to the people they've hurt.
Meanwhile, I know women who didn't have the affair, but who have read every book on affairs to try to understand the husband who wants to be forgiven and to come back (he doesn't read the books - she does!). I know men who were berated and beaten down by controlling wives and the ex husband lands in therapy for ten years, while the ex-wife carries on secure in their old friendships with seemingly few consequences. I know verbally abused wives who spend money, time and energy on becoming strong enough to withstand the nutbrain who will dog her life with complications for as long as they share children, giving away valuable hours and brain cells to the blackhole of brokenness, instead of her artistic talents or her generous nature.
I'm the therapy and self-help section gal. I've spent countless (really!) hours working on mySelf, wanting to understand how to be good, decent, fair, healthy, assertive, self-protecting, kind, generous, forgiving, line-drawing, boundary-making, communicative... hours I will never get back for writing books, painting paintings, horse-back riding, and surfing. The quest to know mySelf, of course, has yielded good things too. I have a firmer sense of what I will and won't tolerate, of what it means to hold out for healthy relationships, of what it means to be self-reliant in that "I know I can count on me" way.
But today... I'm sick of finding mySelf. I've put in a lot of time on this endeavor and so much of that work has been to shore up relating to broken people not similarly invested. I surveyed the landscape of my relationships. My yoga instructor gave us the following meditation on Wednesday:
My mother, five years after her divorce, gave me the greatest gift of all. She told me that she knew the divorce caused me pain. She also knew the pain would come in waves for the rest of my life. She said, "Julie, while I'm living, you may come to me at any time with your pain related to the divorce and I will hear you. I will hold it for you and let you express it. There will never be a day when I am done listening to you or what you've suffered."
That's a woman who knows herSelf.
Sometimes when I think about "finding myself" (that birthright of all Californians), I waver between these two feelings: "Aha! There I am! I found it!" At other times, I cynically look at the ways other people try to define me, tell me how to feel, what I ought to know, who I ought to be... and I feel like saying, "Buddy, I never lost it. I know who I am."
I don't know why it is that I'm compelled to work on mySelf. (Is it DNA? culture? growing up near the ocean? my astrological sign: Scorpio? my myers briggs temperament: ENFP? being parented by a mom who read I'm Okay; You're Okay at a critical juncture in my teen years - "You're in your child!" "But Mom... I AM a child!"?) So many people are completely able to disregard themSelves. They make big mistakes, they have affairs, they rage, they get addicted, they overeat, they lose jobs, they obsess over porn, they shame and abuse, they cavalierly break promises... and still don't go to private therapy, aren't compelled to drink cafe latte at Barnes and Noble poring over books in the "help thyself" section, seeking an answer for how they allowed themselves to wander into the black hole of dysfunction, abuse, and secrecy.
Sometimes these perpetrators of relationship dysfunction pop into the local counselor's office for a tune up (guilt combined with "relationship pressure" leads to a couple of sessions for many of these types). But that sustained curiosity for how their souls function, for why brokenness attends their most intimate relationships, for how they cause pain to the people they say they love is absent. In some cases, the partner who had an affair and returns to his wife is so relieved to escape detection, he lies in therapy! Not much self-understanding getting through there!
And weirdly, even with dramatic measures, some of these people continue on their self-creating, medicating, papering over, reframing, bubbling optimism ways about their newfound selves rather than the necessary deconstruction of their cavalier mistreatment and secrecy that would bring genuine healing to the people they've hurt.
Meanwhile, I know women who didn't have the affair, but who have read every book on affairs to try to understand the husband who wants to be forgiven and to come back (he doesn't read the books - she does!). I know men who were berated and beaten down by controlling wives and the ex husband lands in therapy for ten years, while the ex-wife carries on secure in their old friendships with seemingly few consequences. I know verbally abused wives who spend money, time and energy on becoming strong enough to withstand the nutbrain who will dog her life with complications for as long as they share children, giving away valuable hours and brain cells to the blackhole of brokenness, instead of her artistic talents or her generous nature.
I'm the therapy and self-help section gal. I've spent countless (really!) hours working on mySelf, wanting to understand how to be good, decent, fair, healthy, assertive, self-protecting, kind, generous, forgiving, line-drawing, boundary-making, communicative... hours I will never get back for writing books, painting paintings, horse-back riding, and surfing. The quest to know mySelf, of course, has yielded good things too. I have a firmer sense of what I will and won't tolerate, of what it means to hold out for healthy relationships, of what it means to be self-reliant in that "I know I can count on me" way.
But today... I'm sick of finding mySelf. I've put in a lot of time on this endeavor and so much of that work has been to shore up relating to broken people not similarly invested. I surveyed the landscape of my relationships. My yoga instructor gave us the following meditation on Wednesday:
I will protect myself from people who take more than they give.If you aren't invested enough in giving more than you take, you're on notice. I won't waste more of my life working on mySelf to adapt to you. Finding oneSelf is about becoming a peaceful, whole, authentic, ethical person of substance who can see across the chasm to another person's pain (particularly if you caused it)... and then doing something about it.
I will surround myself with loving, giving people.
My mother, five years after her divorce, gave me the greatest gift of all. She told me that she knew the divorce caused me pain. She also knew the pain would come in waves for the rest of my life. She said, "Julie, while I'm living, you may come to me at any time with your pain related to the divorce and I will hear you. I will hold it for you and let you express it. There will never be a day when I am done listening to you or what you've suffered."
That's a woman who knows herSelf.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Emotional Safety
I read this quote yesterday and thought it perfectly described the heart of a good relationship:
Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
~Dinah Craik, A Life for a Life, 1859
Thursday, March 12, 2009
You mean God hates happiness?
So my kids came bounding out of "Reset," their Wednesday night "small group wrapped in a big group wrapped in an enigma" at their church. They hurled themselves into my car, which literally rocked sideways by the force of their exuberance, oh wait, scratch that, their energetic gleeful annoyance. They relished their anger, diffidence, outrage.
"Mom, Mom. You can't believe what Carl (youth pastor) is making us do! He's soooo mean!"
Laughter, lurching bodies, locking doors, punching radio buttons, zwipped seatbelting ensued.
They were ooc. "Carl is making us love God this week."
Oh the horror.
"He says we can't do ANYTHING that we like. We can't go on Facebook, can't watch TV (even American Idol!), can't play Halo or the Wii, can't use the computer for any entertainment. We have to turn off our cell phones, can't text or IM, or even listen to our iPods (unless it's [here they did the mocking voice of preteens] 'Christian music' which totally sucks because we hate Christian music). This week, we have to give up anything that makes us happy so we can learn to be happy with God only. It SUCKS!"
Not to be stopped (because believe me, by now I was ready to kneecap Carl and give him a supreme noogie on his head for wrecking God by inferring he(sic) hated happy kids), my two wild-haired middlers went on, "We HAVE to do it. If we don't, Carl won't let us come back next week. EVERYONE has to. We don't have a CHOICE!"
My brain worked itself into a tizzy - two contradictory threads of thought:
1) What an idiotic idea - that God is somehow squeezed out of life because you are happily engaged in activities that bring you joy and connect you to other people.
2) My kids LOVE this. They can't wait to suffer!
A delicate balance had to follow. How do I subvert heresy (yes, I get the irony of calling it heresy since I don't subscribe to orthodoxy) while joining in on the fun of exuberant self-flaggellation? Basically I did a lousy job of both, but saved it by singing really loud to Flo Rida's "Right Round" as we got near home.
Kids flopped on the couch once inside to indulge in their last moments of electronic saturation (they had until midnight), literally clicking the remote, setting up the DVR, writing elaborate FB status updates to reflect their newly adopted ascetic zeal.
I asked at one point: "How will you know you're loving God better than you were when you were happy?"
Blink, blink.
Carl forgot to mention that. They had no idea. I asked if they were supposed to pray more, read the Bible, use their time to serve the needy... They couldn't remember, even between the two of them. Liam said, "I'm pretty sure he does want us to read the Bible, but he never said so." Caitrin rejoined, "I don't pray to their idea of God anyway. I pray to the Universe, to karma, to Buddha." The next thing you know, we were talking about God (what God is, how to define God). I shared about this translation project I'm watching unfold on a e-list where all the God references are being changed to Godde to reflect the divine feminine, not just masculine.
Liam mentioned that God is neither male nor female and we all know that. Caitrin countered, "Yes, but if you say 'God,' your imagination goes straight to the beard." Which is why, currently, she prays to the universe. :)
I found the whole thing a crazy study in how too many people miss the point. If God, if Godde, if Goddess, (invisible, not audible - except perhaps for a few lucky people in history who report otherwise), how else would you experience happiness in the divine than happiness in the fullness of life? Wouldn't joy at singing the lyrics from Rent at the top of your lungs count as connection? Wouldn't chatting eagerly with friends online represent a reaching out to community in love and fondness? Wouldn't time with family in front of a TV count as a happy expression of bondedness? Why do we assume the divine isn't already being loved, felt, honored and known when we are happy?
I don't get how teaching children, especially, to distrust their happiness (to see it as competing with love of God!! What a charge!) is productive spiritually, emotionally or mentally? In fact, I'd say the opposite. It creates that strange split where any time you feel good, you have to call it sin... And that leads to all the stuff we deal with in mid-life. But Carl is too young to know it!
And well, there is a certain happiness to be found in abstaining... we love that at that age.
Sigh...
"Mom, Mom. You can't believe what Carl (youth pastor) is making us do! He's soooo mean!"
Laughter, lurching bodies, locking doors, punching radio buttons, zwipped seatbelting ensued.
They were ooc. "Carl is making us love God this week."
Oh the horror.
"He says we can't do ANYTHING that we like. We can't go on Facebook, can't watch TV (even American Idol!), can't play Halo or the Wii, can't use the computer for any entertainment. We have to turn off our cell phones, can't text or IM, or even listen to our iPods (unless it's [here they did the mocking voice of preteens] 'Christian music' which totally sucks because we hate Christian music). This week, we have to give up anything that makes us happy so we can learn to be happy with God only. It SUCKS!"
Not to be stopped (because believe me, by now I was ready to kneecap Carl and give him a supreme noogie on his head for wrecking God by inferring he(sic) hated happy kids), my two wild-haired middlers went on, "We HAVE to do it. If we don't, Carl won't let us come back next week. EVERYONE has to. We don't have a CHOICE!"
My brain worked itself into a tizzy - two contradictory threads of thought:
1) What an idiotic idea - that God is somehow squeezed out of life because you are happily engaged in activities that bring you joy and connect you to other people.
2) My kids LOVE this. They can't wait to suffer!
A delicate balance had to follow. How do I subvert heresy (yes, I get the irony of calling it heresy since I don't subscribe to orthodoxy) while joining in on the fun of exuberant self-flaggellation? Basically I did a lousy job of both, but saved it by singing really loud to Flo Rida's "Right Round" as we got near home.
Kids flopped on the couch once inside to indulge in their last moments of electronic saturation (they had until midnight), literally clicking the remote, setting up the DVR, writing elaborate FB status updates to reflect their newly adopted ascetic zeal.
I asked at one point: "How will you know you're loving God better than you were when you were happy?"
Blink, blink.
Carl forgot to mention that. They had no idea. I asked if they were supposed to pray more, read the Bible, use their time to serve the needy... They couldn't remember, even between the two of them. Liam said, "I'm pretty sure he does want us to read the Bible, but he never said so." Caitrin rejoined, "I don't pray to their idea of God anyway. I pray to the Universe, to karma, to Buddha." The next thing you know, we were talking about God (what God is, how to define God). I shared about this translation project I'm watching unfold on a e-list where all the God references are being changed to Godde to reflect the divine feminine, not just masculine.
Liam mentioned that God is neither male nor female and we all know that. Caitrin countered, "Yes, but if you say 'God,' your imagination goes straight to the beard." Which is why, currently, she prays to the universe. :)
I found the whole thing a crazy study in how too many people miss the point. If God, if Godde, if Goddess, (invisible, not audible - except perhaps for a few lucky people in history who report otherwise), how else would you experience happiness in the divine than happiness in the fullness of life? Wouldn't joy at singing the lyrics from Rent at the top of your lungs count as connection? Wouldn't chatting eagerly with friends online represent a reaching out to community in love and fondness? Wouldn't time with family in front of a TV count as a happy expression of bondedness? Why do we assume the divine isn't already being loved, felt, honored and known when we are happy?
I don't get how teaching children, especially, to distrust their happiness (to see it as competing with love of God!! What a charge!) is productive spiritually, emotionally or mentally? In fact, I'd say the opposite. It creates that strange split where any time you feel good, you have to call it sin... And that leads to all the stuff we deal with in mid-life. But Carl is too young to know it!
And well, there is a certain happiness to be found in abstaining... we love that at that age.
Sigh...
Friday, February 27, 2009
Creating those conditions for joy...
From Getting Past Your Past:
Yes, you must do your work [internal, grief, recovery work] but you must also make your life a refuge from the rains and storms that come through every life (functional or not functional, that is just the way life is). Your life must be a warm cushiony place to catch you when you fall. A warm and loving place to retreat to, full of loving people and your own interests, and all the warm and loving things you have filled it with. If you do that you have the opportunity to not only have a firm foundation underneath you to weather any storm but you get the opportunity to feel JOY when it comes along. And it will come along.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Zen of Shoveling Snow
By about 5:00 p.m. yesterday, it dawned on me (ha! maybe it sunset-ed on me) that daylight was fading and the snow had not magically disappeared from the driveway. My car stood rooted to the icy ground, buried in snow and ice. The drive looked particularly long. So, I hoisted a shovel to my shoulder and got to work, digging out the car and clearing the cement of the 10 inches of accumulation. And I didn't mind. I like shoveling. It's a bit like mowing the lawn or ironing. You see instant progress, you get into a "zone" where each "row" feels like a micro-achievement in the larger project of clearing the whole. In a season where my internal world is at loose ends, where shoes rarely get put away, where days bleed into each other without much definition and no clarity about tomorrow, shoveling snow brought a profound sense of accomplishment.
While I shoveled, I plugged in my headphones... which had the annoying habit of popping out of my ears as my arms or the shovel handle snagged the cord each time I shifted my body. It became quite the antagonistic relationship - me and my white cord vying for control: that slippery snake with the earbuds marked R and L to tell you which ear they must go in, which I can't read without my reading glasses! I couldn't allow the music to stop (shoveling routine would lose rhythm) yet I couldn't seem to keep the earbuds happy enough to stay put. I tried hanging the cord off my back (but the twisting motions dislodged them again). I tried stringing them through my coat, putting the iPod in my back pocket instead of front. The whole struggle became epic, including a few choice words I launched audibly at Steve Jobs for not caring about me in particular, stranded here in Ohio in the knee-deep snow! (Uh, yeah, I got carried away.)
Eventually, I yielded to the halting success, enjoying the music while the buds stayed plugged in and stopping to adjust them as they subtly shifted. I focused on lyrics. I let Oasis blare guitars. They soothed and spoke for and to me. And weirdly enough, the mix began with my first scoop of snow (starting with song one "Wonderwall") and literally ended with the last scrape off the frozen windshield of my car as "Champagne Supernova" erupted and fizzled at the end.
The push, lift, hurl and retread habits of shoveling got all my body parts working. The music accompanied my loud (seemingly acapella) singing (I have a habit of belting out tunes while mowing too, but at least the mowers drown me out). I didn't care. The fading light made the icicles glitter. I even licked a few of them on a low hanging branch. The snow moved easily with a push and made a nice long row of mounds. I like to keep my edges crisp, so I would work a lane and then push the little scattered snowballs up the edges on a second pass.
As the moments went by, I felt an increasing sense of well-being. Words spoke to me:
While I shoveled, I plugged in my headphones... which had the annoying habit of popping out of my ears as my arms or the shovel handle snagged the cord each time I shifted my body. It became quite the antagonistic relationship - me and my white cord vying for control: that slippery snake with the earbuds marked R and L to tell you which ear they must go in, which I can't read without my reading glasses! I couldn't allow the music to stop (shoveling routine would lose rhythm) yet I couldn't seem to keep the earbuds happy enough to stay put. I tried hanging the cord off my back (but the twisting motions dislodged them again). I tried stringing them through my coat, putting the iPod in my back pocket instead of front. The whole struggle became epic, including a few choice words I launched audibly at Steve Jobs for not caring about me in particular, stranded here in Ohio in the knee-deep snow! (Uh, yeah, I got carried away.)
Eventually, I yielded to the halting success, enjoying the music while the buds stayed plugged in and stopping to adjust them as they subtly shifted. I focused on lyrics. I let Oasis blare guitars. They soothed and spoke for and to me. And weirdly enough, the mix began with my first scoop of snow (starting with song one "Wonderwall") and literally ended with the last scrape off the frozen windshield of my car as "Champagne Supernova" erupted and fizzled at the end.
The push, lift, hurl and retread habits of shoveling got all my body parts working. The music accompanied my loud (seemingly acapella) singing (I have a habit of belting out tunes while mowing too, but at least the mowers drown me out). I didn't care. The fading light made the icicles glitter. I even licked a few of them on a low hanging branch. The snow moved easily with a push and made a nice long row of mounds. I like to keep my edges crisp, so I would work a lane and then push the little scattered snowballs up the edges on a second pass.
As the moments went by, I felt an increasing sense of well-being. Words spoke to me:
And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
Maybe I will never be
All the things that I want to be
But now is not the time to cry
Now's the time to find out why
But the little things they make me so happy
All I want to do is live by the sea
Little things they make me so happy
But it's good it's good it's good to be free
I can feel the warning signs running around my mind
And when I leave this island I'll book myself into a soul asylum
Cos I can feel the warning signs running around my mind
But all the things that you've seen
Will slowly fade away
Gonna write a song so she can see
Give her all the love she gives to me
Talk of better days that have yet to come
Never felt this love from anyone
Cos all of the stars are fading away
Just try not to worry you'll see them some day
Take what you need and be on your way
And stop crying your heart out
The wheels of your lifeAnd because it was the last song:
Have slowly fallen off
Little by little
Someday you will find meDriveway looks great. I felt free of whatever oppression had settled on me in our blue box of a house.
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky...
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Female Brain
I sat in Joseph-Beth's on Sunday morning power reading The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D. Basically you can boil down the book to one thing: Hormones made me do it.
And while I pretty much agree that estrogen, testosterone, oxytocin and progesterone run our lives, it's always disappointing to read. For instance, as far as midlife goes, Brizendine lays it down. Women, who were wired to nurture, love, put their families ahead of themselves, who avoid conflict for the sake of familial harmony as young women (20's-early 40's), "flip" to a "me first" mentality around perimenopause partly due to the change in hormone levels!
... it is all down to Mother Nature unplugging the "mummy part" of the female brain which she does by reducing the supply of hormones which promote maternal, caring, peace-promoting instincts. ... this change comes about with the menopause - the last big hormonal change - after which the brain is no longer subjected to the surges and fluctuating hormones which came with the menstrual cycle and resulting in moodiness, depression and even the ability to see insults when they were not intended.She added that 65% of the divorces occurring in midlife (aged 40 or older) are initiated by the wives!
... throughout the child-bearing years, the female brain is marinated in oestrogen - a hormone which effects the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, the emotional processor and emotional assessment and judgement area of her brain. The effect of this heightens a woman's communication and emotional circuits, giving rise to those maternal instincts which tend, care and do the best they can to avoid conflict to give the family unit the best possible chance of survival.
The menopause ... puts an end to the fluctuating hormone levels and with it comes a much more stable brain and a less maternal woman. A woman who, says Brizendine, is "less worried about pleasing others and now wants to please herself" and that may mean taking on new challenges or a new job and leaving the old life, including her husband, behind.
This sudden need to find ourselves, to get out of the kitchen and into the world, our impatience with dependency of children, the intolerance for our husband's narcissistic habits might be tied as much to hormones (maybe more) than just co-dependency and dysfunctional childhoods, forgetting to go to the gym and not running businesses or cultivating hobbies.
It also hit me that if hormones have that much power, is it important to not make big decisions while in the throes of hormonal flux and assault? Or does it matter? What do you think?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
So what do you believe now?
That question is one I don't get asked as often as you might think.
One of my best friends, for instance, has staunchly defended me when I've been targeted as theologically dangerous. Yet she's never actually probed to find out what I believe today.
I told her once, "Please feel free to ask me anything. I don't mind sharing."
She replied, "I like you. I trust you. I don't ask because I don't really want to know. If you share something that I find contradictory to my beliefs, I don't want that to change how I feel about you. I don't know if it would. So I figure it doesn't really matter if I know."
I appreciated that point of view, actually. Mature and kind. And the truth is, my changed beliefs do impact my friendships adversely sometimes.
Still on the occasions where I've been asked, I do a profoundly poor (stunningly bad, inadequate, impoverished) job of answering that question. I fumble, mumble, stumble over big words and ideas, and offer something really lame like, "Well, I'm Christian, but not a Christian any more." Whatever that means.
On Monday, my therapist tackled the big question. What do you believe now? Do you have a Higher Power, anything from which to draw strength or help you define your purpose? Timing made sense. I was crying over things I can't change, won't change and what those patterns have cost me... maybe for good.
She flipped through her notes.
"You were an ardent Christian at one point in time. But you say now that you aren't. How is that for you? What is your spiritual life like now?"
"Religion, feh!"
She laughed. "I didn't ask you about religion."
Oh for the love of Schleiermacher! Hello. I tap-danced, sandwich-boarded, and Four-lawed that script: Knowing God is about personal relationship, not religion. Faith is about spirituality not religious practice.
But I knew she was broadening the search. What about Buddhism?
Ack! Sorry. Can't get into it. Something about saffron yellow robes and vegetarianism. When I read Buddhist writings, it's that hard-working place of foreign language learning all over again. Nothing familiar, strange accent, translation required. No peace.
Yoga works for me because it's the body not the mind, not even the spirit (though my yoga instructor might say otherwise). I just yield to it and stop processing. The readings are grounded in the real, not the virtual. I can do that.
Weirdly, I do attend church. Started up a couple of months ago. Downtown, inner city black church. I don't blog about it because it's not a project, it's a place for me to be in community. I do love it.
But the bottom line is, I don't have beliefs, I don't have relationship (with God), I don't have spiritual practices. And I don't want them.
For years Jesus stood in the gap when pain mounted, when I couldn't get the love I craved the way I craved it. I worshiped, sang, prayed my heart out, wrote thousands of pages of prayers and love notes, studied the Bible like my life depended on it (and in some very real ways it did). But the bottom dropped out.
I'm not in a search for meaning, for guidance, for principles, for tangible support outside myself (and I mean that humbly... I'm not relying on myself either; I'm bobbing along like a cork on the vast sea of life, letting life itself, and all of my interconnections developed over a lifetime, support me).
My mother prays for me.
My church prays and I hold the hands of the ladies in hats who sit by me and pray with them.
I find myself praying at the oddest moments... in the shower, sometimes in the dark at night, often in the supermarket when I'm alone. I usually laugh while I pray because I don't believe in what I'm praying or saying. It's reflexive. And comforting. And habit.
And helps.
And is a waste of time.
God from below is like that. It's not a head thing. Not even really a heart thing for me. It's more like dirt. Soil, out of which I grow.
One of my best friends, for instance, has staunchly defended me when I've been targeted as theologically dangerous. Yet she's never actually probed to find out what I believe today.
I told her once, "Please feel free to ask me anything. I don't mind sharing."
She replied, "I like you. I trust you. I don't ask because I don't really want to know. If you share something that I find contradictory to my beliefs, I don't want that to change how I feel about you. I don't know if it would. So I figure it doesn't really matter if I know."
I appreciated that point of view, actually. Mature and kind. And the truth is, my changed beliefs do impact my friendships adversely sometimes.
Still on the occasions where I've been asked, I do a profoundly poor (stunningly bad, inadequate, impoverished) job of answering that question. I fumble, mumble, stumble over big words and ideas, and offer something really lame like, "Well, I'm Christian, but not a Christian any more." Whatever that means.
On Monday, my therapist tackled the big question. What do you believe now? Do you have a Higher Power, anything from which to draw strength or help you define your purpose? Timing made sense. I was crying over things I can't change, won't change and what those patterns have cost me... maybe for good.
She flipped through her notes.
"You were an ardent Christian at one point in time. But you say now that you aren't. How is that for you? What is your spiritual life like now?"
"Religion, feh!"
She laughed. "I didn't ask you about religion."
Oh for the love of Schleiermacher! Hello. I tap-danced, sandwich-boarded, and Four-lawed that script: Knowing God is about personal relationship, not religion. Faith is about spirituality not religious practice.
But I knew she was broadening the search. What about Buddhism?
Ack! Sorry. Can't get into it. Something about saffron yellow robes and vegetarianism. When I read Buddhist writings, it's that hard-working place of foreign language learning all over again. Nothing familiar, strange accent, translation required. No peace.
Yoga works for me because it's the body not the mind, not even the spirit (though my yoga instructor might say otherwise). I just yield to it and stop processing. The readings are grounded in the real, not the virtual. I can do that.
Weirdly, I do attend church. Started up a couple of months ago. Downtown, inner city black church. I don't blog about it because it's not a project, it's a place for me to be in community. I do love it.
But the bottom line is, I don't have beliefs, I don't have relationship (with God), I don't have spiritual practices. And I don't want them.
For years Jesus stood in the gap when pain mounted, when I couldn't get the love I craved the way I craved it. I worshiped, sang, prayed my heart out, wrote thousands of pages of prayers and love notes, studied the Bible like my life depended on it (and in some very real ways it did). But the bottom dropped out.
I'm not in a search for meaning, for guidance, for principles, for tangible support outside myself (and I mean that humbly... I'm not relying on myself either; I'm bobbing along like a cork on the vast sea of life, letting life itself, and all of my interconnections developed over a lifetime, support me).
My mother prays for me.
My church prays and I hold the hands of the ladies in hats who sit by me and pray with them.
I find myself praying at the oddest moments... in the shower, sometimes in the dark at night, often in the supermarket when I'm alone. I usually laugh while I pray because I don't believe in what I'm praying or saying. It's reflexive. And comforting. And habit.
And helps.
And is a waste of time.
God from below is like that. It's not a head thing. Not even really a heart thing for me. It's more like dirt. Soil, out of which I grow.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Midlife Physical for Life Insurance
Besides all this crazy internal growth, apparently my forties are my chance to catch up to my female peers.
I grew half an inch this year... in height! I'm now a towering 5'3".
I gained a cup size. Victoria's Secret, here I come.
My feet shrunk a half size: from a 7 to a 6 and a 1/2.
WTF?
I knew I was a late bloomer, but this is ridiculous.
Whoever said the forties were the second adolescence got it right.
I grew half an inch this year... in height! I'm now a towering 5'3".
I gained a cup size. Victoria's Secret, here I come.
My feet shrunk a half size: from a 7 to a 6 and a 1/2.
WTF?
I knew I was a late bloomer, but this is ridiculous.
Whoever said the forties were the second adolescence got it right.
Monday, May 05, 2008
Smoking
When I finally got to Watsonville, where my mom lives, I let down. The anxiety of LA, the press of mid-life issues faded. I had time to myself. One of my rituals when I'm in California is to get alone, just me and a beach.
So my second morning at my mom's, I borrowed her old stick shift and drove to Manresa State Beach. I flipped on 1970s rock on the radio, rolled down the driver's side window, and drove like I used to when I was 16: down windy roads, steering easily, shifting confidently. It was unbelievably wonderful to drive like that. "Freebird" was playing and I laughed about it. Such an old standard that I usually would turn off. I didn't that day.
I switched stations as I swung into my parking space and Linkin Park sang: "And the shadow of the day, will embrace the world in grey... and the sun will set for you."
And because Linkin Park sang it, it was so: overcast and cold (which is just how I like the coastline sometimes when it fits my mood). I wore a brown sweater over a light blue turtleneck. I parked in the lot that overlooked the ocean. I strolled down the ramp to the wet sand below and stopped to watch the dozens of sand piper babies and their mothers scatter across the shore.
But I had come to the beach with a purpose so I set out to make it happen.
Several years ago, Claire, an online friend, gave me a pack of cigarettes as a joke sort of. Being one of the most drug resistant teens to ever have walked the face of the earth, cigarettes were never on my radar for experimentation. But midlife peer pressure exerted itself on me. Her gift became this taunt, this tease. Will you ever smoke me? the cigarettes nagged. And somehow, that invitation became a fantasy: I imagined myself smoking on the beach all alone some day in the future. Living in Ohio, that opportunity never came. And to be honest, I don't think I had the internal nerve to carry it out anyway.
But as I packed my clothes for the trip, my hand accidentally knocked against the little red and brown pack in my underwear drawer. On a whim, I tossed it into my suitcase with a book of matches... just in case.
By the time I got to Watsonville, I knew I had to, wanted to smoke, even though I wasn't quite sure why.
I can hardly express how weird it is that I would want to smoke, to light up, to put a cigarette to my mouth. I've been such a non-smoker, don't like how it smells on clothes or people's breath, always want the non-smoking section in a restaurant, saw smoking as something rebels or weak people did, etc.
But this was different.
It felt like one of those Sue Monk Kidd moments. She's the one who wrote Dance of the Dissident Daughter and is all about feminist spirituality. She cobbled together a spirituality of touch stone events and rituals that are personally meaningful to her using items like seashells, statuettes of the goddess Nike, candles and driftwood. I haven't related to that at all as I'm such a pragmatist at heart (not contemplative).
But I swear - that day - smoking on the beach was my spiritual act—a claiming of me for me—a refusal to allow conventions and fear to dictate my life. I smoked so that I could stare down the pride of non-smoking and the anxiety that goes with smoking. I smoked because it seemed like it might feel good to do it. I smoked because no one would expect me to. I smoked so I could simply have the experience and write about it authentically. I smoked because, dammit, I wanted to.
So of course, the lofty intention of smoking was immediately humbled when the first cigarette broke in two between my fingers. Six matches flared and went out before I even got them near a cigarette; my fumbling fingers knocked the book of matches to a wet sandy floor, nearly ruining their ability to ignite. It took me repeated attempts to protect the little match flame from the strong breeze that came from the north across my back before it singed the tobacco at the end. I tried to inhale but couldn't coordinate the flame, my cupped hand and my breathing over the course of the next three matches.
Persistence paid off, however, and I finally managed to draw the flame into the end of my very first cigarette and it lit—a soft orange glow. I turned around on the driftwood log to face the enormous grey-green ocean, rolling softly with waves. I sucked in the smoke; didn't inhale for a bit. I just got used to dragging smoke into my mouth, holding it, and blowing it out (like a pipe smoker might). I watched the ocean and then I'd watch my exhaled smoke float away in curlicues. My mouth felt tingly and tarry.
Exhilarating. I liked it. I crossed my arms, let the cigarette hang off my fingers like I'd been chain smoking for twenty years and took in the whole world. I could see the distant horizon as I blew smoke at it.
The next drag, I drew smoke into my lungs and that burned a bit and felt suffocating. So I went back to just sucking the smoke into my mouth, then holding it a moment and finally blowing it out. I loved to watch it float away.
My whole body unwound. The tension, drained. I rested, for the first time all week. I sat, staring, relaxing, thinking private thoughts and being unaccountably happy... while I smoked. I felt a quiet power—a secret I shared with myself... a breaking with the little legalisms of my past. I did not die.
Once I finished my cigarette, I took a really long walk and watched the sand pipers run up and down the shore. I passed two hot 20-something surfers, zipped up in wetsuits. The iceplant on the hills popped with yellow-orange and light purple flowers glowing against the green. The surf didn't roar, but raced quietly on and off the shore in a low hiss. The clouds burst into a shower so I worked my way back toward where my car was parked, not caring that I was getting wet. I lit a second cigarette, easily this time, and smoked it slowly all the way back. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... wisps wafting away in the rain.
I have now officially smoked two cigarettes by myself on the beach. Unforgettable, matched only by the strange, emotional week. Seemed to be the right symbol of who I am about now. For the rest of the day, any time my fingers were near my face, I could smell the lingering tobacco scent and it made me smile.
Bruce Springsteen says that sometimes we need to break our own narrative to find out what would happen, to surprise ourselves. That is exactly what smoking represented for me - a break with the good girl, the predictable, transparent, orderly Julie. I don't plan to smoke as a habit. But I needed to that day, for whatever reason, to make a mess of me. And it was good. I may smoke again; I may not. Who knows?
So my second morning at my mom's, I borrowed her old stick shift and drove to Manresa State Beach. I flipped on 1970s rock on the radio, rolled down the driver's side window, and drove like I used to when I was 16: down windy roads, steering easily, shifting confidently. It was unbelievably wonderful to drive like that. "Freebird" was playing and I laughed about it. Such an old standard that I usually would turn off. I didn't that day.
I switched stations as I swung into my parking space and Linkin Park sang: "And the shadow of the day, will embrace the world in grey... and the sun will set for you."
And because Linkin Park sang it, it was so: overcast and cold (which is just how I like the coastline sometimes when it fits my mood). I wore a brown sweater over a light blue turtleneck. I parked in the lot that overlooked the ocean. I strolled down the ramp to the wet sand below and stopped to watch the dozens of sand piper babies and their mothers scatter across the shore.
But I had come to the beach with a purpose so I set out to make it happen.
Several years ago, Claire, an online friend, gave me a pack of cigarettes as a joke sort of. Being one of the most drug resistant teens to ever have walked the face of the earth, cigarettes were never on my radar for experimentation. But midlife peer pressure exerted itself on me. Her gift became this taunt, this tease. Will you ever smoke me? the cigarettes nagged. And somehow, that invitation became a fantasy: I imagined myself smoking on the beach all alone some day in the future. Living in Ohio, that opportunity never came. And to be honest, I don't think I had the internal nerve to carry it out anyway.
But as I packed my clothes for the trip, my hand accidentally knocked against the little red and brown pack in my underwear drawer. On a whim, I tossed it into my suitcase with a book of matches... just in case.
By the time I got to Watsonville, I knew I had to, wanted to smoke, even though I wasn't quite sure why.
I can hardly express how weird it is that I would want to smoke, to light up, to put a cigarette to my mouth. I've been such a non-smoker, don't like how it smells on clothes or people's breath, always want the non-smoking section in a restaurant, saw smoking as something rebels or weak people did, etc.
But this was different.
It felt like one of those Sue Monk Kidd moments. She's the one who wrote Dance of the Dissident Daughter and is all about feminist spirituality. She cobbled together a spirituality of touch stone events and rituals that are personally meaningful to her using items like seashells, statuettes of the goddess Nike, candles and driftwood. I haven't related to that at all as I'm such a pragmatist at heart (not contemplative).
But I swear - that day - smoking on the beach was my spiritual act—a claiming of me for me—a refusal to allow conventions and fear to dictate my life. I smoked so that I could stare down the pride of non-smoking and the anxiety that goes with smoking. I smoked because it seemed like it might feel good to do it. I smoked because no one would expect me to. I smoked so I could simply have the experience and write about it authentically. I smoked because, dammit, I wanted to.
So of course, the lofty intention of smoking was immediately humbled when the first cigarette broke in two between my fingers. Six matches flared and went out before I even got them near a cigarette; my fumbling fingers knocked the book of matches to a wet sandy floor, nearly ruining their ability to ignite. It took me repeated attempts to protect the little match flame from the strong breeze that came from the north across my back before it singed the tobacco at the end. I tried to inhale but couldn't coordinate the flame, my cupped hand and my breathing over the course of the next three matches.
Persistence paid off, however, and I finally managed to draw the flame into the end of my very first cigarette and it lit—a soft orange glow. I turned around on the driftwood log to face the enormous grey-green ocean, rolling softly with waves. I sucked in the smoke; didn't inhale for a bit. I just got used to dragging smoke into my mouth, holding it, and blowing it out (like a pipe smoker might). I watched the ocean and then I'd watch my exhaled smoke float away in curlicues. My mouth felt tingly and tarry.
Exhilarating. I liked it. I crossed my arms, let the cigarette hang off my fingers like I'd been chain smoking for twenty years and took in the whole world. I could see the distant horizon as I blew smoke at it.
The next drag, I drew smoke into my lungs and that burned a bit and felt suffocating. So I went back to just sucking the smoke into my mouth, then holding it a moment and finally blowing it out. I loved to watch it float away.
My whole body unwound. The tension, drained. I rested, for the first time all week. I sat, staring, relaxing, thinking private thoughts and being unaccountably happy... while I smoked. I felt a quiet power—a secret I shared with myself... a breaking with the little legalisms of my past. I did not die.
Once I finished my cigarette, I took a really long walk and watched the sand pipers run up and down the shore. I passed two hot 20-something surfers, zipped up in wetsuits. The iceplant on the hills popped with yellow-orange and light purple flowers glowing against the green. The surf didn't roar, but raced quietly on and off the shore in a low hiss. The clouds burst into a shower so I worked my way back toward where my car was parked, not caring that I was getting wet. I lit a second cigarette, easily this time, and smoked it slowly all the way back. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... wisps wafting away in the rain.
I have now officially smoked two cigarettes by myself on the beach. Unforgettable, matched only by the strange, emotional week. Seemed to be the right symbol of who I am about now. For the rest of the day, any time my fingers were near my face, I could smell the lingering tobacco scent and it made me smile.
Bruce Springsteen says that sometimes we need to break our own narrative to find out what would happen, to surprise ourselves. That is exactly what smoking represented for me - a break with the good girl, the predictable, transparent, orderly Julie. I don't plan to smoke as a habit. But I needed to that day, for whatever reason, to make a mess of me. And it was good. I may smoke again; I may not. Who knows?
Saturday, May 03, 2008
When yin and yang are whack
Once I kissed my father good-bye, I hopped in the car for one of my favorite activities in the world: driving up the 101 ("Ventura Highway" of America fame). The ocean erupts on your left as you hit Oxnard and north. The beaches on the way to Santa Barbara are almost close enough to reach out the driver's side window to run your fingers through the surf.
Because California loves me, the sun shone and the clouds skipped town.
I made a quick phone call to my best friend from high school whose home I would stay in that night to give her my ETA. Dana answered, on her way to drinking mimosas with a friend who needed help preparing papers for a custody battle—midlife mess erupting on the phone.
"Aren't you glad your marriage and family life are sane?" I sighed.
Dana paused. "My life is not sane, Julie. We'll talk when you get here."
Thud.
I clicked "end" on my cell, preparing myself for news I immediately knew and didn't want to know.
A little historical context would be helpful right about now. When I was 16, Dana slept over the night my parents announced that my dad would move out. She and I were laughing and talking in my bedroom when my mom called me to the kitchen.
In the too-brightly-lit space, my brother and sister draped themselves over a couple of orange chairs and my mom fiddled with the pink saucepan she'd been given for a wedding gift 17 years earlier. My dad stood awkwardly in front of the sliding glass door, which showed me his back. He made a simple statement: he'd gotten one of those awful apartments with the incessant fruit fly problem over near the Topanga mall. He'd move out in the morning.
No conversation. No discussion. I walked back to my bedroom, a different person than when I'd left it: child of separation. Dana and I didn't laugh. The night was wrecked.
Of all the people in my life today, only a handful knew my parents as a married couple. Dana is one of them. She watched my family, so good, so wholesome, so together, completely fall apart. Her own mother picked up the pieces of my emotional life by serving me plates of the best spaghetti ever made and letting me drink big glasses of wine, even though I was only 16. Dana likes to tell me, "I've never forgiven your parents."
So there I was heading north aware that Dana's news would be of the particularly awful kind. Her daughters in high school and college were facing the very unforgivables I had lived already, at the same ages. And all I could do for any of them was show up, pour wine, and tell Dana that I wouldn't ever forgive her husband for what he'd done to her, either.
In the strange universe of yin and yang, we'd swapped places. Midlife takes no prisoners, apparently.
Because California loves me, the sun shone and the clouds skipped town.
I made a quick phone call to my best friend from high school whose home I would stay in that night to give her my ETA. Dana answered, on her way to drinking mimosas with a friend who needed help preparing papers for a custody battle—midlife mess erupting on the phone.
"Aren't you glad your marriage and family life are sane?" I sighed.
Dana paused. "My life is not sane, Julie. We'll talk when you get here."
Thud.
I clicked "end" on my cell, preparing myself for news I immediately knew and didn't want to know.
A little historical context would be helpful right about now. When I was 16, Dana slept over the night my parents announced that my dad would move out. She and I were laughing and talking in my bedroom when my mom called me to the kitchen.
In the too-brightly-lit space, my brother and sister draped themselves over a couple of orange chairs and my mom fiddled with the pink saucepan she'd been given for a wedding gift 17 years earlier. My dad stood awkwardly in front of the sliding glass door, which showed me his back. He made a simple statement: he'd gotten one of those awful apartments with the incessant fruit fly problem over near the Topanga mall. He'd move out in the morning.
No conversation. No discussion. I walked back to my bedroom, a different person than when I'd left it: child of separation. Dana and I didn't laugh. The night was wrecked.
Of all the people in my life today, only a handful knew my parents as a married couple. Dana is one of them. She watched my family, so good, so wholesome, so together, completely fall apart. Her own mother picked up the pieces of my emotional life by serving me plates of the best spaghetti ever made and letting me drink big glasses of wine, even though I was only 16. Dana likes to tell me, "I've never forgiven your parents."
So there I was heading north aware that Dana's news would be of the particularly awful kind. Her daughters in high school and college were facing the very unforgivables I had lived already, at the same ages. And all I could do for any of them was show up, pour wine, and tell Dana that I wouldn't ever forgive her husband for what he'd done to her, either.
In the strange universe of yin and yang, we'd swapped places. Midlife takes no prisoners, apparently.
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