Microcosm

My husband and I don't get along very well.

It's not the he-beats-me, or he-drinks-too-much kind of not-getting-along. It's not the big, obvious, catastrophic relationship ending kind of not-getting-along. Instead of a tsunami, it's a drip-drip-drip that gradually wears away the fabric.

This has made the troubles of our relationship difficult to assess. I remember distinctly a feeling of despair, early on in our marriage when something that happened resonated so painfully, so frequently, yet on its surface was so minor that it was not worth leaving a relationship for.

Death by a thousand paper cuts is not only painful, it doesn't garner much sympathetic support. When I leave the relationship it will appear that my hand held the knife that caused the hemorrhage.

So be it.

This marriage is perplexing because on the surface it does look whole. However, the very atoms that make it up are corrupt. This has confused me for years. When the source of trouble is not obvious, my past modus operandi was to question myself, if not outright blame. Is x bothering me because I'm too sensitive? Am I being too critical? Am I taking something too seriously? Am I focusing too much on the negative? Why can't I look at the positive? This is so insignificant. Why can't I just forget about it? I must be unforgiving. Do I do this thing too, but I'm a hypocrite and I just don't see it?

Gary returned from Asia on Saturday. He'd gone to China 10 days prior to trawl for work. He was talking with several factories about the possibility of representing them to manufacturers of luggage, packs, bags.

In his employed days he'd take his own car to the airport and leave it in the longterm lot. His company picked up the parking tab, or the taxi.

To save money I took him to the airport on the 23rd. It's a measure of the reality of our relationship that we don't part the way people who care about each other say goodbye. I suppose we could kiss, but it would be a lie, a token gesture. I wished him luck and drove off.

While gone we communicated via email. He sent a copy of the proposal he'd pitched to this company. I was impressed by its clarity, and his ability to anticipate various scenarios. Organizationally I'm not very good at that sort of thing, and I admire it as a strength in him. He is also someone who people instinctively like and trust; he's therefore a natural at sales. If there's any kind of opportunity available in this economy, he'll be able to thrive in it. I emailed him this thought. We also communicated about one area that we can usually connect around with no conflict, our love for our sons.

It wasn't lost on me, the break from the day-to-day contact, the messages where we could express appreciation with conflict filtered out, was an opportunity to have a reset of sorts. Good will had been a predominant tone--how far would it go if we could keep it going?

I have an image of one of those tilt-table marble labyrinth games. The object is to roll a marble from point a to point b along a twisty path without it dropping into one of the holes on either side of the path. You move the marble by adjusting the angle of the surface it's on. How long, how far, could good will travel before dropping into a hole?

Gary was returning on a weekend that my book reading group was going to be at the beach to choose the upcoming year's books. Ordinarily I'd go on the Friday night for the opening festivities, even though we don't actually present our books for consideration until Saturday afternoon over wine and appetizers. Gary's trip meant I'd have to miss Friday night and travel over on Saturday after I'd picked him up. His flight was to arrive at 8:30, but there was some doubt because there were typhoons in the western Pacific. Connor was spending the night at a buddy's; this meant Scott, who loves his sleep so very much, was going to have to get up early and accompany me to the airport.

I was one of the providers of the appetizers, so Friday evening was spent with me dividing my time between packing for the trip, reading reviews of the books so I could do a good job presenting them, making appetizers, grocery shopping (so there'd be food in the house and jet-lagged Gary wouldn't have to), and juggling the needs of my hyperactive younger son. I was up late Friday, and early Saturday when I realized Gary hadn't really said what time he wanted me at the airport. His last email had been Thursday, and he'd said the flight was due in at 8:30, but he didn't make a guess about how long it would take to navigate customs and luggage and so when I should be at the arrivals curb. I'd kept an eye on the website anyway since the storms had been anticipated and I'd feared a delay or cancellation. I decided to allow about a half hour and leave the house accordingly.

As usual, it was very difficult to persuade Scott to leave his nest, but we set out around 8:15. I had the cell phone, but was feeling uneasy about Gary not having one so I could call him. My doubts were stronger. We'd talked a little about the possibility of him bringing the light rail within striking distance of home. Maybe he thought we'd agreed to that. We've had miscommunications like that before. How long should I circle the pick-up area before heading for the light rail station?

So I was relieved when I saw his orange shirt and him leaning up against the wall under the awning. He tossed in his bags, greeted Scott and the dog, and climbed in the passenger seat.

"Did you have to wait very long?"

"Yes. Didn't you look at what time the flight came in?"

"... ...I did. But you didn't say what time you wanted me here, and I had to guess about how long it would take you to go through customs and get your luggage."

"My flight arrived at 8:15. Didn't I tell you to check the website in case it came early?"

"I didn't know how long customs would take."

"Customs takes 15 minutes." As if this is a fact that is common knowledge. As if everyone knows it, or should. If you drop something it falls to the ground. Duh.

"I didn't know that."

"Customs takes 15 minutes." As if somehow my knowing this now should make me responsible for knowing it earlier, retroactively.

Not a hint that he's aware that it's not rational to expect this of someone.

I felt that weird, sickening feeling inside.

For a moment I remembered the idea of clean slate, reset button, good will. I wondered if I had squandered the opportunity--one of these strange theoretical instances of 'unconscious' self-sabotage. Wouldn't the first obvious step in a challenge of keeping the good-will marble rolling be to arrive on time in picking him up? Was there something I'd missed, some obvious choice I could have/should have made to keep that volley going? Maybe I should have asked him in an earlier email what time he expected me at the airport, when he thought he could be outside.

But, he hadn't told me what he wanted, either. If it was important that he not have to wait for me for 20 minutes, wouldn't it have behooved him to specify?

How often have I had to wait for him, come to think of it, when he has had a specific time to work with. How often at this very airport (come to think of it), juggling a pile of luggage and the safety of two small, restless boys who are oblivious to people dragging luggage by, or curbs with traffic whizzing by feet away from them?

It was his total absolution of himself, and his own role in his having to wait which was at the heart of the sinking inside. Not to mention his obliviousness to what it had cost me to get there, indeed to be there.

This is the kind of thing that seems too trivial to consider divorce over. It is just one moment, one component of the billions that comprise a relationship, a marriage. However, the sickness that is in this moment is present in the others. The other moments contain this same dna, this failed chromosome. It's present in the minor interactions, and it's there in the important ones. At the heart of our moments is a failure to connect--something crucial to their successful resolution.

I realize that my attempts to understand this were like the marble in the tilting-table labyrinth too. My line of inquiry would have dropped through the hole at the very first challenge. I would have wondered if the chill that hit me from the moment he said, "yes" when I asked if he'd waited long was legitimate. I'd have wondered if I was reading too much into it. I would have told myself to cut him some slack. I would have wondered at the persistence of the feeling of despair, would have accused myself of being too sensitive. I would have wondered if it was legitimate for me to hold him responsible for having not told me when I should be there; I would have wondered if that was evading responsibility myself. I would have wondered if I was "blaming" him. I'd worry that I was making a mountain of a molehill. I'd wonder if I was dwelling on the negative.

The cumulative effect of the above paragraph would be reinforcing a belief that there was something wrong with what I was feeling in that moment when I felt my good will ebb away, and that I shouldn't be feeling it. And I suppose the purpose of that is to deny the feelings that tell me this is not good for me. The purpose of the denial is for me to stay, by undermining the feelings that tell me to go. In a curious way, this denial helps me to tolerate the poison.

And I've been doing it for years. Including before I ever knew Gary.

Why does therapy take so lo-o-o-o-ong?!

Update: As I was headed to Scott's school for pick-up I heard an interview about "fair use" of copyrighted material. That reminded me that I had used material from J.R. Haule's book, quoting it extensively, but not specifically attributing all the in-quotes material to him. So I just wanted to make that explicitly clear.



OK, I think I've gotten it now that the ego is to the Self as surface tension or an oil slick is to an ocean (I'm imagining that place that holds a surface of water intact as a sort of "skin" on the water). My ego, my conscious mnd, received a gift. I feel as if my perspective, which has been very focused, has pulled back a bit, so I see a Bigger Picture. I have an overall sense of the Map, where I am on it, and where I am going. It's a lovely feeling to find confirmation for the work I've been doing.

I stumbled on it innocently. When feeling really discouraged last week at the array of mutually exclusive choices in front of me, I googled something on the lines of how long people typically remain in the type of therapy I've been involved. I've passed 2 years since my return to Sharon after our difficult ending so many years ago...periodically I worry about the addition of therapy to our monthly expenses and wonder if I'm getting anywhere near 'graduating'.

Among the hits my search yielded was a website called "Evolution and Archetype", a book in progress by John Ryan Haule. I'm grateful that he's posted his work here because it is a treasure trove for me. He is a Jungian analyst and this work puports to ground the theories of Jung into what's currently known about neurophysiology and evolutionary theory. Information that was not available in Jung's day appears to confirm some of his basic concepts.

Of particular interest was the section on "Complex Formation" and how this relates to neuroses, and healing.

The human psyche is dissociable. In extreme situations this manifests as multiple personalities where different ‘selves’ have a distinct autobiography within a shared skin. However, this is an extreme of a more commonplace fact of human life. We’ve all noticed ‘other selves’ within us. Each of these, too, has an identity which is located, anchored in, our bodies.

The human, and perhaps mammalian, and even reptilian brains have a task of developing certain efficiencies to speed the process of learning, recognition, decision/response. As the brain communicates with itself body circuits are established which become reinforced. Once a pathway is established it is predisposed to be reused:

Philosopher, Frédéric Paulhan, wrote a very influential phenomenology of the dissociable psyche in 1889, L'Activité mentale et les elements de l'esprit, that was read and cited by Janet, Alfred Binet, and Jung. It introduces three laws to describe the characteristics of dissociation:

1. The Law of Systematic Association: each image and memory tends to associate with others “which are able to be harmonized with itself,” work toward “compatible goals” and “comprise a system” (Paulhan, 1989: 88).

2. The Law of Inhibition: every such psychic element tends to interfere with and deny “the phenomena which it cannot assimilate in the interests of a common goal” (Ibid., 221).

3. The Law of Contrast: contrasting and opposed psychic states tend to alternate with one another and may sometimes function concurrently (Ibid., 315f).

For although each alternate personality knows only a part of the autobiography of the afflicted individual, each lives in an organized scene that is anchored in an experience of its own body. That somatic marker also grounds a relatively coherent partial history and a version of the individual's future. (highlighted text mine)

Often these patterns are anchored in our emotions. These are what Jung, and Haule, refer to as “complexes.”

Thus:

Whatever has an intense feeling-tone is difficult to handle because such contents are somehow associated with physiological reactions, with the processes of the heart, the tonus of the blood vessels, the condition of the intestines, the breathing, and the innervation of the skin. Whenever there is a high tonus it is just as if that particular complex had a body of its own, as if it were localized in my body to a certain extent; and that makes it unwieldy, because something that irritates my body cannot easily be pushed away because it has its roots in my body and begins to pull at my nerves. Something that has little tonus and little emotional value can be easily brushed aside because it has no roots.

And:

Jung often said: “Everyone knows nowadays that people `have complexes.' What is not so well known . . . is that complexes can have us ” (CW 8: ¶200). He meant that the “energy” of a feeling-toned complex, the way it can mobilize psyche and body, is often much greater that that of the ego-complex with its conscious intentions. The ego simply becomes “assimilated” to the intentions of the complex, usually without realizing it has lost its way (Ibid., ¶207) (highlights mine)

So:

In any event it is clear when a “feeling-tone” takes over, we are emotionally affected, and our capacities for reality testing and discrimination decline, along with the stability of our attention and the resolution of our will. Our “level of consciousness” (niveau mental) drops, and we can no longer criticize the plausibility and relevance of the scene that opens before our eyes. As in a dream, we have lost the capacity for critical reflection and slipped into “immediate belief,” the inability to doubt what we think we see.

In other words, we believe we are functioning normally. The information we receive from our senses tend to serve to reinforce the narrative that particular ‘self’ has begun, in terms of its understanding. When our ego has ‘merged’ with a complex we are no longer able to function freely and flexibly, either in relation to our inner Selves, or to the world around us. We may find that patterns repeat themselves. The details vary, but the underlying pattern is what the details coalesce around. We repeat.

Saint Paul put it this way: “I do not know what I am doing. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” And, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:15,24 New International Version) Religions call it human “sinful nature.”

There seems to be a neurological basis for this. Detailed studies of the brain reveal a network of automatic connections that run through mid-brain structures to the cortex through the amygdala and thalamus. Researchers have dubbed it “the wheel of fear”. It’s a very old structure evolutionarily and has also been called our “lizard brain”. It is about survival.

Later in development comes connections of the thalamus to the medial prefrontal cortex—the structure which provides judgement and perspective. Messages reach the cortex through the amygdala (“the low road”) and through the prefrontal cortex (“the high road”). “The high road” buys us time between a situation that triggers our memories, emotions, & automatic responses and enables us to evaluate. We are able to differentiate the situation before us from similar past situations and we’re able to consciously evaluate what is before us, rather than through the stereotyped circuit of a complex.

It takes a while for those circuits to be laid down and established. But more and more I’m seeing evidence that it can be done, and indeed it is:

Therapy is just another way of creating synaptic potentiation in brain pathways that control the amygdala. The amygdala's emotional memories, as we've seen, are indelibly burned into its circuits. The best we can hope to do is to regulate their expression. And the way we do this is by getting the cortex to control the amygdala (LeDoux, 1996: 265). (highlight mine)

There was genuine joy for me in reading this chapter. It helps me to see where I’ve been, what I am doing, and where I am going.

And also why it takes so damn long.

Well, I did ask for it...(interviewed by Mrs. Spit)

Mrs. Spit was interviewed on her blog a few days ago by one of her readers. She offered to return the favor to any volunteers and I foolishly put my hand up. She complained that her questions were hard? Look at what she gave me:

1. We all have a thing, that when we look back on our life, we wish we had done it differently, handled the situation with more finesse, made another choice, thought about more options. What's yours?

2. If you could be any age, with the wisdom and experience you have now, what age would you pick?

3. You speak about the need for solitude, how solitude recharges you. In what ways do you think the world might change, if we all had more solitude?

3. Coffee, Rain and Yellow or Tea, Sunshine and Green? Why? (pick the answer that most appeals)

4. If you could only teach your son's one life lesson, what would that lesson be?

5. You have been on a voyage of self- discovery. I suspect you have always been on this voyage, but have become, perhaps more intentional about it, in the last while. What one thing have you discovered about you, that totally took you by surprise?

Anyone want to answer my questions for me?

I've got a handicap and I should have remembered this before I put up my hand: I have a fickle memory. All kinds of memories come unbidden at odd times. But ask Memory a direct question and expect it to deliver and it goes all shy and coy. A practical example: No matter how many times I've heard of a particular movie and know that I want to see it, no matter how many times I've thought of it and resolved to get it, put me inside a Blockbuster Video and my mind goes blank. I'm left with an impression of the experience I want to have, but it's so faint it's more a torment than any use. Once I've left and gone home with an anemic second choice Memory awakens and supplies me with the missing name. So, question #1? Now I have those experiences so often (complete with the inner cringing and hopelessly wishing I could have a do-over) you'd think there wouldn't be any trouble pulling one out of the air. I'm not doing a GW Bush here (i.e. not being able to think of any mistakes he may have made because he felt he hadn't made any), it's just that in the forest of such incidents, no individual tree is highlighted. I'm sure I was thinking about one just the other day. ...Would it be the time I spanked my kid (yeah. I did it. Not one of my prouder moments.), a time I didn't advocate for myself adequately, something stupid I blurted out?

Shuffling through the card catalog of memories and trying to match one to the question has a side effect of re-living some of those tingly moments. (Thanks, Mrs. Spit) Here's a relatively benign one:

The preschool where my boys went in St. Louis is on the Washington University campus. This is part of an upscale municipality called Clayton. The school is in a neighborhood of graceful old trees and graceful old estates. My kids were attending school with some very wealthy children.

Every year, like most schools, this preschool has an auction to raise money. Each classroom does some kind of a craft which is part of the oral bidding. There is also silent bidding on some pretty cool stuff.

The year I went, my first (and so far last) fundraising auction ever, Scott was just an infant. We found some friends who were willing to watch him and Connor. Dress-up affairs were relatively rare for Gary and I so we approached this with a mixture of anticipation and intimidation. The venue for this gala was a preschool family's mansion in the Soulard neighborhood, sort of the old French Quarter in the heart of old (like 18th century) St. Louis. This grand house was on a square and one of the activities for the evening (besides eating, drinking, and bidding) was a carriage ride around it.

The good time was short-lived. When we called to check up on the kids we could hear Scott crying in the background. He'd slept for a while, but when he woke began to cry and hadn't stopped. Our friends weren't complaining and probably wouldn't have called us, but Gary decided he should go get them. He'd bring them back to pick me up. So much for the carriage ride.

The oral auction was just beginning when he returned. I was gathering my stuff to go when one of the mothers from Connor's classroom asked if I wanted to pool my resources with her and a few other families to buy the project our kids' classroom had made. I said sure. She asked what the maximum amount was I was willing to bid and I called back to her as I headed out the door, "Oh, five, ten dollars!"

It was the following week when the school newsletter revealed what some of the oral auction items sold for that I realized just how far in my mouth I'd stuck my foot. Connor's classroom project went for $600; another went for $1100. And I could see an image of myself walking out the door, calling over my shoulder, "Oh, five, ten dollars!" Oh. I get it now. Fund. Raiser.

Shit.

And that's just the first question.

2. If you could be any age, with the wisdom and experience you have now, what age would you pick?

Only I can make this one complicated. I keep thinking that my earlier selves are part of the bedrock that "makes me what I am today", and so if I picked one of those ages, would that change who I am today? Or, if I'd had the experience et al that I have now, would I have even known some of these people? I was adapted to the environment I was in then, with my inexperience; part of the package was gaining experience. The friends I had during that time fit me in accordance with who I was then. There are probably some relationships and situations I wouldn't even have entered, had I had the benefit of the 'wisdom' I have now. And yet, those relationships and situations I blundered into yielded some really memorable and rich experiences. So when I picture myself, say in my late 20's or early 30's when I was at the height of my physical strength and endurance and adventurous spirit it seems obvious to me that this might be where I'd put my present self: a nice blend of physical prowess and mental maturity (blush). Except that some of the friendships I associated with then and gave the benefit of the doubt for too long I'd have much more easily left, and then who would I be now? It occurs to me that the place that could benefit the most from who I've become--is early childhood! To have the perspective then that I have now would certainly have eliminated a lot of confusion that I've spent years unconfusing. It would have saved me a lot of heartache. In fact, now it takes me on a fantasy of what my life would have been like, the path of development I'd have taken, had I been able to approach it with my eyes clear and my spirit unfettered.

3. You speak about the need for solitude, how solitude recharges you. In what ways do you think the world might change, if we all had more solitude?

You know, I don't think solitude is for everyone. I think there are probably more people who seek to avoid being alone than seek their own counsel. Perhaps if we all had more solitude, it there would be more Big Ideas--at least there would be the stillness to allow them to emerge. Does blogging count as solitude? I'm not sure, since I'm partly talking to myself, but also partly talking to others out there. I would assume that other bloggers are also in that odd in-between: alone, yet in almost telepathic conversation. I've certainly received a lot of enriching inspiration and insight from the thoughts of solitary others I would never have had a chance to meet. I've had a utopian idea that in this the internet is a force for Good. Yet, there is the shadow too, of pornography and conspiracy and the seeds of destructiveness. To return to the question, my guess is that the world wouldn't change much because most people would see solitude as a hole to fill, rather than a gift to use.

3. Coffee, Rain and Yellow or Tea, Sunshine and Green? Why? (pick the answer that most appeals)

"They call me mellow yellow..." What have you been smoking, Mrs. Spit?

And can't it be Coffee, Rain and Green? Or Coffee, Sunshine and Green? When I engage my conscious mind coffee, rain, yellow appeals because I actually like contemplative rainy days, and yellow makes me think of light. And I prefer coffee to tea. Yet there is something Japanese-gardenish about TSG--hey! I just saw the acronym for CoffeeRainYellow! Is this a trick question? ???

4. If you could only teach your son's one life lesson, what would that lesson be?

I think it would have to be to trust themselves, and to grow a Self they can trust. My guess is that this is the root of all of their subsequent relationships, their ability to make good choices, the core of their self-worth and inner strength. It's their base from where they can establish nourishing relationships and keep healthy boundaries. And their base from where they can differentiate from their father and me and become fully their own people. As a corollary I'd like to guide them toward inhabiting that Self, and awareness that they are doing so.

5. You have been on a voyage of self- discovery. I suspect you have always been on this voyage, but have become, perhaps more intentional about it, in the last while. What one thing have you discovered about you, that totally took you by surprise?

One surprise is how long I've been willing to stick to a lost cause. The other is how suspicious I was of my own motives and intentions (yeah, yeah, you said "one" thing, but they may be somewhat complementary.). I'm surprised at how readily I attributed the worst to myself.

Thanks for the mental stretch, Mrs. Spit. My brain is sore and I anticipate a fog for a few days. Coffee, rain, yellow indeed. I'm going to cruise around to some of your other volunteers, and if you've soft-balled their questions....I'll...I'll...sputter helplessly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update:

As I followed up on my threat to go visit the other interviews, I realized the effort Mrs. Spit had gone to in finding just the right customized questions for all of her comers. It seems there are many who want to be interviewed by Mrs. Spit. And, I realized that the flip side to my complaints that the questions were hard is how hard she had to have thought to come up with them.

Thank you, Mrs. Spit, and this time there's nothing flip in that.