Another step in the progression

4/11/09

Darlene (my mother-in-law) finally left. I can’t help but feel that ‘leave’ must be sticking out of me. After a certain amount of time, always long before she’s ready to go, I’m ready for her to leave.

She invited me to go to two things with her. One a tour of the construction site of the new headquarters for a charity she supports with a reception afterwards at Kell’s; April 30, and then something in May, some sort of “Hunger Hero” dinner or awards or some such. Perhaps I should have just said no and gotten it over with. But I opted for the coward’s way out which is to call tomorrow when I know she’s in church and say no then.

The bottom line is I don’t want to do it with her.

It was nice of her to invite me. It was nice of her to offer these gifts. I don’t feel ‘yes’ though in accepting them. I feel no. It would make me sick to think of the prospect of attending that tour/reception with her. I would dread it for weeks

4/12/09

Anyway, I did call, taking the coward’s way out, and left the message with Darlene telling her thanks but no thanks to her invitations. And I was honest about the causes not being something that reflects my own investment or interest, and so I don’t want to go.

I’m glad to have it over with, politely refusing Darlene. When I was thinking about it last night, I realized that should any of my friends asked me to go to those events I probably would have said no to them too because they’re not things I have an emotional stake in right now. As far as I know, invitations are not mandatory, otherwise they’re not really invitations. They’re meant to be voluntary, and refusal is an ok option.

4/13/09

Which is the other thing I wanted to write about: the feeling in my body which is a response to having refused her invitation.

I feel lighter, and maybe elated. The feeling of elation I’m aware of as a bit problematic for the ‘older’ me. The ‘old-pattern’ me, I guess is a more accurate description.

First, I do feel some compassion and responsibility for the person that she is who possibly is feeling hurt. Who made herself vulnerable in extending the good will to invite me, and who has made other overtures. Accompanying this the sense of responsibility toward her: shouldn’t I just go ahead and see her every so often in order to preserve her feelings? Just to be nice, kind? Do I owe that to her?

Gary conflated my refusal of this invitation with the (probably correct) notion that I will not do anything with her one-on-one, ever. “Never??” he said.

Because technically, saying no to an invitation to an event I’m not really invested in does not mean ‘no forever’. In a sense though I kind of feel that that’s the context that is coloring this. I suspect she sees it that way too. There is cover for her, in that she can tell herself that it’s as I said: I’m not really interested in this event and so choose to not go. Then just not make any more invitations. Prior to this it had been a long time since she’d made one; invited me out to lunch—a year and a half ago or so, to celebrate one of my birthdays. It was before Christmas and I think I said perhaps after the start of the new year and then we just never broached it again. So we can treat this the same way, and she won’t have to confront the truth explicitly: that I really don’t want to engage with her any more than we are now.

So, the feeling inside as I wrote that is part of what I thought bears looking at. I suppose there is a certain schadenfreude element (I just looked it up: “malicious joy at the misfortune of others”). That definition sounds pretty ick. Not to be proud of, and a pretty mean way to feel.

I didn’t say no to be mean, although I guess the fact that I feel a kind of liberation, an undeniably pleasurable feeling, and it’s in context of a person I don’t particularly like—I could label that feeling meanness. I would have been consumed with tail-chasing self-doubt before. It’s legitimate to feel liberated whereas before I felt chained. Chained to some notion of politeness that demands the necessary hypocrisies of periodically swallowing my ‘no’ feelings and doing something I really don’t want to do. Pretend to like her and go to lunch, or any other event she wants to go to. Doubt myself and my mean spirit, wondering if I’m ‘clinging to things past’, and if the ‘things past’ are ‘just’ misinterpretations I have and have magnified in my mind (because I’m just the kind of person who’d do that), accuse myself of being childish; try to overrule the negative feelings and ‘focus on the positive’. Yeah, that all feels familiar. As does the insistence of the magnetic pull toward the feeling of no. Trying to banish it.

There is often the feeling with her that refusing something she offers is not acceptable and it will hurt her feelings if you don’t ‘accept’. That gives me the inkling that when she got my message she took it as ‘no forever’ and is hurt/angry.

It feels explosive to consider that I might feel pleasure in association with that. It feels charged, and like I want to step away and deny it. Because I don’t want to be a person who feels pleasure at the pain I’ve inflicted on someone else.

I think where the pleasure comes from is that I no longer feel sentenced. Under the social convention of politeness I’m required to go through the motions with her. I’m required to see her an acceptable number of times socially. I’m required to at least act like I want to. Under those ‘rules’ I’m always vulnerable to her whims, ‘required’ to accept her ‘generosity’. And feeling free to tell the truth now—and indeed if she presses this with me I will tell her the truth: I feel no inclination to engage with her any more than I already do.

I think she may know this.

And I’m more aware of the process by which pure feeling becomes contaminated by thought, and all that it sets off. And again, the accusation model fits. That I would feel a sense inside that’s positive when I consider having refused an overture—and having told the truth in doing it, not leading her on—it’s often followed so quickly by a thought that the feeling and thought get fused. The thought is that I am taking pleasure in her pain, that I’m being mean to “someone who only wants to reach out to me”, that I’m taking malicious joy, and that I’m trying to deny it or call it something else in an effort to rationalize it. Well, I’m going to settle the matter out of court. It is legitimate to feel a sense of liberation, as well as a sense of having been True to mySelf, and refusing to be apologetic. And, having felt under her thumb for some time, as indeed I have been when playing by the rules of her perspective, there is some glee in being out from under. I suppose a childish part of me wants to stand outside the boundary of the fence and ‘nyah nyah’ the junkyard dog, and perhaps there’s an element of that in me too. But even thinking it, I act as if she’s present and I’m doing it. And I censor myself. So fearful about pride coming before a fall. That if I allow a little triumphalism inside of me at this that on some energetic level it’s the same as doing it to her face. I feel the impulse and I reign it in, even in the privacy of my own thoughts.

I’m reminded of the concept of ‘winning’, which I guess is what triumphalism suggests to me. And that scares me a little, because in the past when I’ve allowed myself to have such a feeling somehow she’s pulled a feint at the end and I’ve felt like I lost. That’s why I shy away from the feelings that resemble triumphalism. It’s easy to conflate liberation with triumphalism, I guess. Yet, it’s the Truth that I feel that very force inside of me…that is aware that in refusing to play anymore there is a kind of victory. So my next step in the thought is that true triumphalism is rubbing someone’s nose in it, and forcing them to admit they’re beaten. I see that this is possible inside me; and I feel a sort of accusation forming about it. It comes in the form of a prohibition: I cannot even let myself picture in my brain the satisfaction of ‘winning’, knowing I’ve ‘won’, and knowing SHE knows I’ve ‘won’.

Those have always seemed like such dangerous thoughts, forbidden thoughts. The fear is that if I think them they’re true. And confirm a Really Bad Place inside me.

*********************************************************************************

I've called and set up a consultation appointment with an attorney who specializes in collaborative divorce. I told Gary that he is free to come with me, or not.

Presumption of guilt

I wonder if "The Trial" that Kafka wrote about was allegorical, a story of his inner life. Now I'm hesitant to reference him, because I find I'm not sure: was the Trial always pending? In the story was he actually on trial, or was he merely awaiting it as he tried in vain to discover what the charges even were?

A good deal of my life has been within a trial context. I've been the police (a 24 hr guard I imposed on myself in attempt to preempt any transgressions, or at least intervene before anyone else felt they had to: to even have my behavior corrected was cause for great shame.), prosecutor, judge. I've even been a (weak) defense attorney. Evidence is presented, and attempts to cast doubt on witnesses for my defense are employed. To prejudice an already prejudiced jury. Motives are examined minutely.

I've wanted to fire my defense attorney, who seems befuddled and fragmented in his (I call it 'he'? ???) thinking and can't present coherently a reasoned argument. I need him to convince a jury, and he seems unable.

It just now occurs to me that the field has so been tipped toward guilty that it doesn't really matter what the defense attorney comes up with. I'm imagining a field so tipped that the witnesses on my behalf, and my attorney, and I are clinging to it , even dangling from it. Something has never quite let me just let go, though, and completely believe the accusations. Still, it's kind of hard living suspended like this, amid the fears that maybe the accusations are in fact, true.

To be moving toward a life that's on a more level playing field brings a chorus of objections:

"Without the presumption of guilt you will run amok! You'll throw your weight around! You'll be a bully! You won't meet your obligations to your friends and family! You'll be abusive! You'll absolve yourself from your own mistakes and give yourself permission to do and say stuff that you'd think unforgivably rude if other people did it!"

As if I have a gorilla, or a Ms. Hyde in a closet somewhere that this presumption of guilt is employed to keep restrained.

What a curious thing; presumption of guilt as an organizing principle of a personal universe. It seems almost as fundamental as whatever mysterious forces are the organizing principle of the particles of matter that make up our physical universe.

How in the world do you undo that?

What are your underlying principles? How do you see the world and how do your own underpinnings influence that?

I'm very curious.

Guess what I did today?

This is actually what inspired me to go ahead and make the appointment.  I'm sure Barry would be pleased.  Maybe I can still get the certificate he promised.

BYLINE:  By Dave Barry,
>>> McClatchy  Newspapers
>>> 
>>> OK. You turned  50. You know you're supposed to get a colonoscopy.
>>> But you  haven't.
>>> 
>>> Here are your reasons:
>>>      1. You've been  busy.
>>>      2. You don't have a history of  cancer in your family.
>>>      3. You haven't noticed any  problems.
>>>      4. You don't want a doctor to  stick a tube
>>> 17,000 feet up your behind.
>>> 
>>> Let's  examine these reasons one at a time.
>>> 
>>> No, wait,  let's not.
>>> 
>>> Because  you and I both know that the only real reason is No. 4. This is
>>> natural.  The idea of having another human, even a medical human, becoming
>>> deeply  involved in what is  technically known as your "behindular  zone"
>>> gives you the  creeping willies. I know  this because I am like you, except
>>> worse. I yield to nobody in the  field of being a pathetic  weenie medical
>>> coward. I become faint  and nauseous during even very minor medical
>>> procedures such as making an  appointment by phone. It's much worse when I
>>> come into  physical contact with the medical  profession. More than  one
>>> doctor's office has a dent in the floor caused by my  forehead striking it
>>> seconds  after I got a shot.
>>> 
>>> In 1997, when  I turned 50, everybody told me I should get a  colonoscopy.
>>> I agreed that I definitely should,  but not right away. By following this
>>> policy, I reached age 55 without  having had a colonoscopy. Then I  did
>>> something so pathetic and embarrassing that I am frankly  ashamed to tell
>>> you about  it.
>>> 
>>> What happened  was, a giant 40 - foot replica of a human colon came toMiami
>>> Beach.   Really.   It's an  educational exhibit called the Colossal Colon,
>>> and it was on a nationwide  tour to promote awareness  of colo - rectal
>>> cancer. The idea  is, you crawl through the Colossal Colon, and you
>>> encounter various  educational items in there, such as polyps, cancer and
>>> hemorrhoids the  size of regulation volleyballs, and you go, ' Whoa, I
>>> better find out if I  contain any of these things, ' and you get a
>>> colonoscopy.  
>>> 
>>> If you are as  a professional humor writer, and there is a giant colon
>>> within a 200 -  mile radius, you are legally obligated to go see it. So I
>>> went to  Miami  Beach and crawled through the Colossal Colon.   I wrote a
>>> column about  it, making tasteless colon jokes. But I also  urged everyone
>>> to get a colonoscopy.  I even, when I emerged from the Colossal Colon,
>>> signed a pledge stating  that I would get one.  But I  didn't get one.
>>> I was a fraud, a hypocrite, a liar.   I was practically a member  of
>>> Congress. 
>>> 
>>> Five more years passed. I  turned 60, and I still hadn't gotten a
>>> colonoscopy. Then, a  couple of weeks ago, I got an e - mail from my brother
>>> Sam, who is 10  years younger than I am, but more mature.  The e - mail  was
>>> addressed to me and my middle brother, Phil. It  said:
>>> Dear  Brothers,
>>> I went in for a routine colonoscopy and got the dreaded  diagnosis: cancer.
>>> We're told it's early and that  there is a good prognosis that they can get
>>> it all out, so, fingers  crossed, knock on wood, and all that. And of
>>> course they told me to tell my siblings to get screened. I imagine you  both
>>> have.
>>> 
>>> Um.  Well.
>>> 
>>> First I called Sam.
>>> He was hopeful, but scared.
>>> We  talked for a while, and when we hung up, I called my friend Andy Sable,
>>> a  gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.   A few
>>> days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a
>>> lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing
>>> briefly through Minneapolis.
>>> Then Andy  explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough,
>>> reassuring and  patient manner.  I  nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really
>>> hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, "HE'S GOING
>>> TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!
>>> 
>>> I left Andy's office with some  written instructions, and a prescription for
>>> a product called "MoviPrep,"  which comes in a box large enough to hold a
>>> microwave oven.  I will  discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now, suffice
>>> it to say, that we  must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's
>>> enemies.  I  spent the next several days productively sitting around being
>>> nervous.  Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation.
>>> In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that  day;
>>> all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with  less
>>> flavor.  Then, in the evening, I took the  MoviPrep.
>>> 
>>> You mix two  packets of powder together in a one - liter plastic jug, then
>>> you fill it  with lukewarm water.  (For those unfamiliar with the metric
>>> system, a  liter is about 32 gallons.)  Then you have to drink the whole
>>> jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes (and here I am  being
>>> kind) like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a  hint of
>>> lemon. 
>>> The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by  somebody with a great
>>> sense of  humor, state that after you drink it,  "a loose watery bowel
>>> movement may result."
>>> This is kind of like  saying that after you jump off your roof, you may
>>> experience contact with  the ground.  MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative.
>>> 
>>> I don't want to  be too graphic, here, but:  Have you ever seen a space
>>> shuttle  launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as
>>> the  shuttle.  There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt.
>>> You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting
>>> violently.  You eliminate everything.  And then, when you figure  you must
>>> be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at  which
>>> point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and  start
>>> eliminating food that you have not even eaten  yet.
>>> 
>>> After an  action - packed evening, I finally got to sleep.
>>> 
>>> The next morning  my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not
>>> only was I worried  about the procedure, but I had been experiencing
>>> occasional return bouts  of MoviPrep spurtage.  I was thinking, "What if I
>>> spurt on  Andy?"  How do you apologize to a friend for something like  that?
>>> Flowers would not be enough.
>>> 
>>> At the clinic I had to  sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and
>>> totally agreed with  whatever the h**ll the forms said.  Then they led me to
>>> a room full  of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little
>>> curtained space  and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital
>>> garments designed  by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on,
>>> makes you feel even  more naked than when you are actually naked.
>>> 
>>> Then a nurse  named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand.
>>> Ordinarily I  would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already
>>> lying down.   Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their
>>> MoviPrep. 
>>> At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I
>>> pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the
>>> bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode.   You would
>>> have no choice but to burn your house.
>>> 
>>> When  everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where
>>> Andy  was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist.  I did not see the
>>> 17,000 - foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere.  I
>>> was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left  side,
>>> and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in  my
>>> hand.
>>> 
>>> There was music playing in the  room, and I realized that the song was
>>> "Dancing Queen" by Abba. I remarked to Andy  that, of all the songs that
>>> could be playing during this particular  procedure, "Dancing Queen" has  to
>>> be the least appropriate.  "You want me to turn it up?" said Andy,  from
>>> somewhere behind me.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> "Ha ha," I said.
>>> 
>>> And then it  was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a
>>> decade. If you  are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell
>>> you, in  explicit detail, exactly what it was like.
>>> 
>>> I have no  idea.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Really. I slept through it.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> One moment,  Abba was shrieking "Dancing  Queen ! Feel the beat from the
>>> tambourine . . ." and the next moment, I  was back in the other room, waking
>>> up in a very mellow mood.  Andy  was looking down at me and asking me how I
>>> felt.
>>> 
>>> I felt excellent.
>>> 
>>> I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over,  and that
>>> my colon had passed with flying colors.  I have never been  prouder of an
>>> internal organ.
>>> 
>>> But my point is this: In addition to  being a pathetic medical weenie, I was
>>> a complete moron. For more than a  decade I avoided getting a procedure that
>>> was, essentially, nothing. There  was no pain and, except for the MoviPrep,
>>> no discomfort.
>>> 
>>> I was  risking my life for nothing.
>>> 
>>> If my brother Sam had been  as stupid as I was, if, when he turned 50, he
>>> had ignored all the medical  advice and avoided getting screened he still
>>> would have had  cancer.
>>> 
>>> He just wouldn't have known.
>>> 
>>> And by the time he  did know, by the time he felt symptoms, his situation
>>> would have been  much, much more serious.
>>> 
>>> But because he was a grown - up,  the doctors caught the cancer early, and
>>> they operated and took it out.  Sam is now recovering and eating what he
>>> describes as "really, really  boring food."  His prognosis is good, and
>>> everybody is optimistic,  fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that.
>>> 
>>> Which brings us to  you, Mr. or Mrs. or Miss or Ms. Over - 50 - And - Hasn't
>>> - Had - a -  Colonoscopy yet...
>>> 
>>> Here's the deal: You either have colorectal  cancer, or you don't.  If you
>>> do, a colonoscopy will enable doctors  to find it and do something about it.
>>> And if you don't have  cancer, believe me, it's very reassuring to know you
>>> don't.
>>> 
>>> There  is no sane reason for you not to have it done. I am so eager for you
>>> to do  this that I am going to induce you with an Exclusive Limited  Time
>>> Offer.  If you, after  reading this, get a colonoscopy, let me know by
>>> sending a self - addressed  stamped envelope to Dave Barry Colonoscopy
>>> Inducement, The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla.  33132.
>>> I will send you back a certificate, signed by me and  suitable for framing
>>> if you don't mind framing a cheesy certificate,  stating that you are a
>>> grown - up who got a  colonoscopy!
>>> 
>>> Accompanying this certificate will be a square of  limited - edition custom
>>> - printed toilet paper with an image of Miss  Paris Hilton on it. You may
>>> frame this also, or use it in whatever other  way you deem fit.
>>> 
>>> But even if you don't want this inducement,  please get a colonoscopy. If I
>>> can do it, you can do it. Don't put it off. Just do it.
>>> 
>>> But be  sure to stress that you want the non - Abba  version.
>>>  

My life as a fundamentalist

Did I ever mention I was a fundamentalist Christian in my teens?

The day before yesterday the mom of one of Connor's school friends called. Her son wanted to invite Conrad along on some sort of program that had to do with their church.

Her husband is the pastor of a church on Lombard; they live in the parsonage. One time I looked up their church online and it was clear that this is a congregation that believes the Bible is the final authority in all areas of human life. The site declares that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, literal word of God.

They're very nice people and have never imposed their religious beliefs on me. Their son skateboards with mine in the outdoor and indoor parks--religious belief doesn't seem to put restrictions on him in any way that would distinguish him from his peers. As far as I know, the subject of religion hasn't come up between them.

{"Mom! Mom! Come check this out! Come on, I want you to see this. Mom, you're taking too long. Fine. I'll print it...I don't know how to print it...can you help me print it ...you're addicted to that white computer...I'm hungry...you're going to fix me pancakes" (already had a grilled tuna-and-cheese sandwich)}

The Conference is a youth ministry outreach. It's taking place in Seattle, several hours away. He would attend a 'drama' tonight, spend the night with the youth group of a church up there, spend the entire day in conference and community service (and evangelizing? One participant's experience, posted online, did include "witnessing"), spend another night, and come back Sunday afternoon after worship.

I went to the website and realized the nature of event. This is like Billy Graham--it's being held in an arena that seats 16000 people. I found a page that describes the ...strategy of the thing:

1. It is a neutral ground.

   ...There is something about getting students out of the same building and into a new climate that opens the doors to their hearts to hear and receive.

2. It is an electrifying atmosphere.

   The atmosphere of an arena or auditorium crammed with thousands of teenagers surges and pulsates with excitement and anticipation. Before the first session ever starts students are already excited, screaming, yelling and pumped. This electrifying atmosphere prepares the way for spiritual impact. (Studies have shown that many movements have been launched by large group meetings, i.e. 1st & 2nd Great Awakenings.

3. It builds a reaffirming climate.

   Over the course of a conference weekend, students build strong bonds with those in their youth ministry group(s). But they also are building an invisible bond with every student in the auditorium. They are together experiencing God and the mission he has called them to. This reaffirming climate insures positive reinforcement for teenagers when they stand to give their testimonies on the Saturday night portion of the youth ministry conference weekend. Student after student is applauded and affirmed by the teens that hear their stories.

4. It produces a "movement" mentality in youth ministry.

   Students need to feel a part of something bigger. It is the way that God has wired them. Being a part of a conference where thousands of students gather for a common mission, many of these teenagers know for the first time in their lives that they are not alone. There is an army of students from across their city with the same passion, purpose and cause. The more students there are, the more this feeling is punctuated. The more it is punctuated, the stronger the likelihood that students on the fence will choose to be more than a spectator in the coming student awakening.

OhhhhhhhhKaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

{now he's on his rollerblades, round and round the circle that is our upper floor plan. ker-chunk--clunk--clunk--ker-clunk Constant stream of chatter: "If Cody died, it would not be the Humane Society's fault." "When you get sick and you die...you go...to Heaven". "..Hell, is where there is a...Daredevil...that's Hell" "...Eighteen thousand miles an hour is very fast. Twenty-five miles an hour is too slow. Isn't it, Mom? Isn't it too slow?" Me, mind numbed, trying to think of how to explain that in different settings 25 mph might actually be fast, but he's moved on. "If Connor falls down that hill without a helmet on, he will injure his brain. He won't be able to talk, or to walk, or say anything, and he won't be strong..." "You have to pay lots of money to go to Africa. You have to pay ALL your money. If you go to Africa it's farther than going to Hollywood..."}

I remember big arena Christian conferences. Some version of that, come to think of it, is how I became a fundamentalist Christian in the first place.

We're a secular household now. Not hostile to religion, respectful of people's beliefs. And I understand that from the point of view of a fundamentalist Christian, all religions, including no religion at all are trumped by all-humans-are-sinners-and-Christ-died-so-his-blood-can-cleanse-your-sins-and belief-in-him-is-necessary-if-you're-to-have-eternal-life-in-heaven-or-eternal-torment-in-hell--your choice! Coming from there, then of course it seems a duty to 'save' humankind by bringing them the message of salvation.

To send Connor to such a conference, knowing no one but his friend, far from home and totally immersed, seems like tossing a glass of water into a river heading over a falls and saying, "your choice...make up your own mind".

Evangelists love this age group because their minds are just beginning to open into a whole new dimension of comprehension and thinking. But they're only at the very beginning of the ability to make meaningful choices and informed decisions. He may come to this path on his own, someday in the future. Putting him in a situation where the field is so steeply tilted in that direction seems foolhardy, though. To have his allegiance and heart captured now before he's had any other life experience seems rather like getting married at age 13.

It would be different if he was already a Christian, or inclined in that direction. The difference that makes a difference is that he'd then be strengthening and revitalizing his faith; celebrating it with other kids his age. To have him in a situation with strong peer pressure to make a decision that will affect much of his life's orientation, well that is not an informed decision, freely made.

So I told Eddie's mom that it didn't work for Connor to go this weekend. I debated the merits of a fuller explanation. I really do like and respect this family and would like to show that by being forthright. If she would have asked I probably would have been more frank. The adage about parenting, making sure you're not giving a child more information than what he's asking for, applies to adult relationships as well. She accepted my refusal and nothing further seemed necessary. Did we need to have the talk that acknowledges our religious differences last night? No, not really. Do we need to have the talk at all? That remains to be seen.

Trenches

...as in 'down in'.

Scott woke up with a low-grade temperature this morning, and since it was high well into the afternoon yesterday I opted to miss school today. It's only a half-day anyway.

On any other school morning Scott would be hell to get out of bed. This morning he's up, totally cheerful, at 7.

He has an obsession about model rockets that seems to have sprung to life this morning. In the few moments I've been sitting here he has called me to come and see the rocket he's found online--5 times.

He doesn't realize that getting up is a factor. I have my laptop on my lap, on a portable laptop "desk" deep in an easy chair. To get up I have to transfer the whole shebang to the coffee table, but first I have to move my coffee cup, which is sitting where the computer usually lives. I have to heave the chair into an upright position and heave myself into an upright position to walk to the kitchen and ooh and ahh over something I'm not interested in...at all. And know that my future for today is other interruptions to "Come look!" "Mom! Come see this!" It is as much effort to fend him off as it is to go and look.

And the entire time I'm explaining yet again that I am doing something I don't want to be interrupted in, that when I get up I will come and see what it is he's found--I'm aware of the irony of how often I interrupt him in something he's interested in doing to have him go do something he'd rather not.

Effing hypocrite.

Really down

I was really looking forward to today, as it is one of the two days each week where I am free of obligation while the boys are in school. A week ago I got Thursday, but it was at the expense of Tuesday: Connor was sick Monday and Tuesday. And in one of life's little ironies, that Monday kids at his school were in testing, so that would have been a day I wouldn't have volunteered.

The week before that there was a teacher's planning day on Friday, so no school. And the day before that, "my" Thursday saw Gary staying home from work because he didn't feel well. Next week is spring break: one week for Connor, and two for Scott.

Guess it's obvious that I'm not alone today.

Scott was restless in the night, complaining of being too hot. Gary: "Do you think he has a fever?" "Well, I don't know; he usually sleeps hot" (please let it be that he's just sleeping hot, please, please, please). Scott got up to use the toilet and threw up. I tried to take his temperature, but I couldn't get him to keep the thermometer back, under his tongue. He held it in his front teeth instead. I quit taking it before the alarm rang, when I saw that he did have a temperature that was above the threshold for keeping him out of school. He complained of headache; I gave him ibuprofen.

Which brightened him considerably. If he'd been behaving the way he is now, cheerily hyperactive, huge appetite, and talking non-stop, I'd probably have sent him to school (without a temperature, of course). It's probably an artificial bump up from the medication. Guess I'll know in about 6 hours. In the meantime he's fully active.

And I just feel...really down. Not a very good sport.

I remind myself of managed care health insurance, the kind that's "capitated". That means, the plan allows for a certain amount of services and money to be spent per patient per year. Whatever is left over the provider gets to keep. What this has done is set up an incentive to not treat, because the parties involved have come to think of the money as their money.

Just as I've come to think of school days as my time.

Poor Scott deserves a mother who is not plunged in the doldrums at the thought of spending a sick day home with him.

A Really. Big. Deal.

In the past 2 days a confidential document that was prepared by the the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2007 was leaked. It is among the obligations of the Red Cross to visit prisoners of war, check up on their condition and the compliance of the captors with the Geneva Conventions. The report was only for the eyes of the acting general counsel of the CIA, John Rizzo, and whoever he would choose to show it. It concerned the 14 high-value detainees who'd been held in the so called black sites, out of reach of Red Cross monitoring, in some cases for years.

The document states definitively that the treatment of these detainees was torture.

Now that looks like a smoking gun.

Considering the audience this report was intended for, this is a very significant conclusion.

The United States engaged in torture. It was under the direction and approval of the highest officials in the land, who in turn say they were backed up by the United States Justice Department. We have the paper trail of some of the memorandums that detail the efforts to find legal underpinnings for what the Bush administration was doing with detainees. They were later repudiated and withdrawn by the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith, a Republican appointed by Bush.

The United States engaged in torture, and our president and his secretary of state bald-facedly lied when they denied it.

"The gloves came off" after 9/11, said Cofer Black, former head of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. He was quoted multiple times, including an article by Mark Danner in the upcoming New York Review of Books. The remark hints at one implication for me, and a different one, equally true, for Danner. The implication Danner highlights is that 9/11 happened because the gloves were 'on'. 9/11 was not a result of infighting between US agencies, a "failure of the imagination" of these agencies, miscommunication between agencies, and failure to take the threat seriously enough--no, 9/11 happened because of fetters that had been placed on the US executive after the abuses of the Nixon presidency. The lesson: the President needs monarchical power to "keep us safe".

For me the implication is that the ideals that democracies are founded on, of rule of law, due process of law, humane treatment of prisoners and human rights that make us a free people, are fine in times of peace and stability. But they can be wiped aside and dismissed in the wake of crisis. In other words, our rights and ideals as a nation are for 'sissies'; the real world says when there's a war they no longer apply.

That doesn't say much about our allegiance to these ideals if we fold them up and stick them in a closet when attacked. It seems to say that we believe in them when it's convenient, and when they become inconvenient we put them away.

Perhaps I'm remiss in generalizing my own response to the ICRC report to the American populace at large, but I've not sensed an upwelling of outrage and repudiation. Is apathy an American trait, or could it be a sort of fatigue? Maybe it's because this isn't really news; since the revelations of the torture memos in 2004 and the black sites in 2005 we've seen a steady dribbling of leaked documents, accompanied by official denials. By time the facts are confirmed and summed into a conclusion by a document such as the ICRC report it's not new really, just a rehash of what has been known already. I can't deny that the whole issue seems an abstraction to me (and perhaps the American people? Which is why there isn't a wholesale expression of condemnation at this fresh reminder?), and that bothers me. I should feel outrage, as tangible as nausea, pressing against my insides.

I think I'm overwhelmed by this stark question: is it naive to believe we can behave decently and still keep ourselves safe from enemies? Or is there a dirty little secret that our ideals rest on a basic bedrock of thuggery, face it like a big girl, this is reality? And if so, how do we reconcile this with our beliefs? Can we really tout our professed values and ignore the core?

To begin to answer this question, the American people need to investigate this for ourselves. We need to know what torture gained us, and what it has cost. (As Danner pointed out, one of the prices we paid was the ability to bring the 14 detainees to justice. How can they be tried if the evidence was extracted under torture? Does this amount to justice for the people who suffered and died in the twin towers?) We need to assess whether it was worth it. There needs to be a strict examination of the details of the assertion that torturing these men prevented and foiled further attacks. We need to be able to answer the question for ourselves: Can we behave decently, and still be safe?

Excerpts, Spring 2007; Choice vs Decision

From a journal two springs ago

3/05/07
Mon 1034

Perhaps something I should do is to take notice of each moment that requires a choice from me; and of each moment I make a choice

There’s a deeper, more automatic level of choice, such as, even though I choose each minute I sit in this chair, I don’t have to think over it each time I choose. That’s one of those things I guess our minds recognize, that this is not a choice that needs to rise to the front of someone’s awareness.

This idea of making choices intrigues me. It’s another thing like matter breaking down to molecules down to atoms and etc. How far into infinity does it go? Because if I’m making choices about who I think I’ll marry, or if I want to go to Colo or Alaska, those are obvious points of choice, but how intimate do these choices go? Can we really take responsibility for every choice, no matter of how micro a level it is on? I choose to sit in this chair; I choose to be writing this…are we ultimately operating from increasingly smaller levels of choice that go very deeply into our very moments?

Perhaps these are the things that Sharon can give me support it…to see if I’m on the right track.

What kind of choosing is involved when there are positives and negatives regarding either alternative. I guess it means there might be a part of me that is driving the choice a certain direction—some old belief, or maybe some circumstance—legitimate situations where there either is no choice, or at some level we perceive there is no choice, I mean, to us it feels as if we had no choice.

Like I had a choice about leaving home today and maybe visiting with Don. I felt ambivalent about it. And I remember a real pull of tension inside when I was making the choice. My pleasure at being home conflicting with feeling (with some intensity) that it is time for a visit. That’s where the desires that influence the choices conflict and seem to be at an impasse. And it does have that two immovable forces in collision feeling to it too. Lots of energy pushing in opposition.

Perhaps it’s helpful to have an ability to assess more consciously the choices we usually don’t know we’re making.

What Tina said really struck me; about how all the time she and Gene ‘choose’ to be together.

It’s on a deeper level than the fact that

Joy called, quite a while ago, and so I didn’t finish that sentence. Maybe I’ll remember it later, just like I remembered what I’d read in the Buddha/Married book…something one of her interviewees did: set his watch to beep every hour so he would be reminded to check in to himself and be aware of how he felt. I didn’t set my watch, but I’ve been reminding myself to do it. Probably not regularly, but still, I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of having that kind of awareness.

So Joy and I talked about choice. I almost get this apprehension of ‘choice’ being a sort of core of being. Something elemental, as if ‘choice’ is the essence of god. Like maybe it’s choice that holds our very atoms together—if it is random where an electron will be, isn’t it a matter of ‘choice’ where it is?

So anyway, at any given moment we are making a choice. Doing nothing is a choice. We often feel as if there IS no choice, when that is a mistaken belief. Joy said since she’s been a teenager she’s lived her life at that level of choice—knowing she’s choosing something and what the consequences are, I have lived long at a level of believing my choices were limited. That there were areas I believed I didn’t have a choice.

And choice implies responsibility, which I guess means knowing and accepting the consequences of one’s actions.

I suppose knowing yourself, means knowing when you’re making a choice at many deeper levels of choice. It’s funny how the word “choice” differs from “decision”. Or decide. Now I can choose whether to pursue that or not—the difference between divide, and choose, and if it means anything.

A little later yet:

I wonder if some of it is the beauty of this day. I felt a desire to go out and explore our property. This is a good time for it because the new growth hasn’t choked off the deer pathways. I saw a herd of elk a few weeks ago heading for the little creek and they made some pretty clear paths. I’m a little surprised at just how spongy the ground feels, though. It’s very soft and it just makes me wonder about how solidly some of the trees that are close to the house are rooted. Anyway, there was a very pretty light on the ferns and trees. A lot of moss. I felt happy, or buoyed, or something, walking in there.

I was also heartened by some insights yesterday afternoon before they came home. The fact that the ways I object to Gary’s treatment of me—has to do with my sense that he’s treating me as if I’ve meant him ill will. As if a question I’ve asked him has been directed personally at him to criticize him. I think that’s a lot of what I react to, is he’s treating me like someone who has deliberately done him harm. It’s just never occurred to me to step back from my reaction and address that. Perhaps in each of those moments I can stay present long enough to tell him that when I say something, my intent is to inform, and not wound. Perhaps he really believes I’m trying to wound him deliberately when I ask him to change his behavior.
Somehow, yesterday, I saw a logical way where maybe we could find our way back to being warmer with each other.

Sometimes, I’m honestly not sure if I loved him for the right reasons. At the time I thought he delighted me, but had I known then what I do now (and I did have some hints), would I have assured myself I loved him? Maybe the main reason I “loved” him was that he seemed like a suitable partner to marry, and I was tired of being single. Maybe he was just the most likely person around when I began to really WANT to have a marriage and a family. That made him look pretty good, and tipped my perceptions toward feeling I was “in love” with him. I honestly don’t know whether that was the case or not. I should have gotten it how he takes honest communication personally, feels criticized and then behaves resentfully; there were strong messages in the doubts I had about his mother. So I’m just not certain from this vantage if I’d REALLY loved HIM, or if I loved the possibilities of getting on with my life that he represented. Which may have led me to see a relationship with him through a softer lens than I might ordinarily. So the standard idea of trying to recapture something lost by thinking of what drew us together in the first place; I’m not sure that’s really valid here. I don’t think I’m really choosing Gary…I’m choosing AGAINST disrupting our household, putting our boys through a few brutal years—I just don’t honestly know that this is something they could pass through unscathed. If Gary and I can’t do marriage very well, I can’t imagine that we could have anything but an emotionally upsetting divorce.

I AM going to try, though, to stay present so if he acts passively aggressive to me I can breathe a little space into it and instead of “hit him back”I can reveal myself instead.

Anyway, all this stuff I’ve seen in him these past years tells me that if I feel he resents me, then that means he must feel he has a reason to. And perhaps what’s been missing is that I haven’t explicitly told him in those moments that I haven’t intended to wound him.

I had a thought, an optimism, maybe that that could turn around our dynamic. Maybe let us feel friendly toward each other again, even affectionate, and be able to have the boys have a home grounded in good will, if not necessarily romantic love…

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.

Holy Grail, or Coyote Universe, Or Sigh of a Spoiled Mom (on a spoiled day) Waaaaa

(background soundtrack: "I'm ba-a-a-a-a-ck!! Back in the saddle again!")


I do love my kids.

I remember when Connor was first born and all I wanted to do was be with him. I couldn't relate to moms who complained when school was closed--how could they not want to be with their kids?

As with all things parent, I Learned. I've eaten more humble pie than is comfortable, and then I've eaten more.

It's become a quest of sorts, to have an entire school week intact as far as solitary time. For some reason psychologically I feel incomplete when I look back and see that it's been since before Christmas that there's not been one unspoiled week. Either illness or holiday has marred the perfection of the Uninterrupted Week. (Well, aside from Scott's half-days on Fridays and the voluntary interruptions of helping at the schools .)

Typical week:

Mon: volunteer at Connor's school

Tues: free!!!!!

Wed: volunteer at Scott's school.

Thurs: free!!!!

Fri: half day for Scott

This week Gary scheduled an architect and his wife to come over Wednesday morning to discuss what might be possible with a hypothetical garage. I received a call from a home appraiser to tell me he was scheduling his visit for Thursday afternoon. No negotiating about what works best for me--that's the only slot he has take-it-or-leave-it. Rash of home appraisals takes any choice out of my hands.

So today, this week was to be my one uninterrupted day. It was threatened by a forecast of snow. This morning a half inch sat on the ground, not the 3" predicted. As I sat down after dropping Scott I contemplated the notion of having cake and eating it too. I thought about making a post about it--the moment of perfection is in getting home and taking off my coat. All the rest is a relentless march toward the end of my one solitary day. I thought what a pessimistic orientation that was.

The phone rang, just as the laptop whispered, "It's ten hours," the number for the public school system came up on caller ID. I'd personally given a check to the lunchroom lady yesterday so it couldn't be about Connor being in arrears. The Responsible Parent in me (yeah, she's in there somewhere) (and she parents me as well as my kids) picked up the phone. Yeah. Connor. Stomach ache and Diarrhea. Yeah. How does he look? OK, guess I have to come and get him. (The Responsible Parent in me didn't put it quite that way.) (The Responsible Parent in me did allow me to finish a comment I'd been in the middle of posting when the phone rang. The roads are lousy; it's going to take me a while to get there anyway. He can wait.) On afterthought I called the school secretary back and asked her to tell him to go to his classes and collect all his homework assignments. So there.

He can't be sick on a day when solitude is going to be interrupted anyway.

"I'm ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-ack!!!!"

Next week won't be a Perfect Week from the get-go. President's Day.

At least it falls on a volunteer day and not on one of my 'free' (yeah, right) ones.

Counseling Session with Sharon

Dream:

I dreamt last night that Gary and an old boyfriend were kind of interchangeable. They wanted to do things with someone: Charlie with Nancy, the woman he’d been involved in before me; Gary his mother. Maybe there was a bit of John D. in there too, with that woman he was interested in at a restaurant we used to go to. Scott needed something and Gary/Charlie wanted me to take care of him while they took out Nancy/Darlene. In this dream I wanted to go with them; I didn’t want them going somewhere with these women without me. And one of the men asked me why not? And I said, Because I’m jealous. And I realized in the dream there was a time I would have rather died of shame than say that. I would have self-censored it; I would have tried to keep daylight between me and it. I felt good in myself saying I was jealous. Not relieved, particularly, but the sense of integrity from telling the truth. I said, “I’m jealous” and I let it stand. I may have even thought about it a little more in the dream, comparing the term with my insides and checking its accuracy. ...After I’d told him I was jealous, I ate a blue m&m off the floor.

There was another part of the dream too where I’m out in my yard and there is an azalea plant. There was something I was expecting from it—maybe some pretty foliage or something. Instead, it was studded with buds and beginning to bloom—beautifully. It surprised me because it was not what I’d thought was the normal bloom time of an azalea. It seems it was blooming—what, later, or earlier than what’s usually expected. Maybe it was early, because I remember having an idea in the dream that it must be a plant that’s meant to provide winter color—and it was gorgeous. A prize and point of pride. I was proud that I had this plant and proud to show others this unique and beautiful thing, growing in my yard.

Sharon said that it seems kind of funny that we humans have developed this great big brain, ostensibly for thought, and then choose feelings, Feelings, as our guide. Yet, the brain developed so we humans could figure out how to live with each other, because we had to, for survival. Our brains are about ‘how to get along’ with other humans. For safety. It’s not about Truth.

That surely makes sense. I mean, it kind of explains my whole upbringing and the unspoken ideas I was supposed to absorb and implement. There were certain forms of ‘getting along’ that I was supposed to comply with. Necessary hypocrisies, like pretending deference to adults who were being unreasonable. Denial of self. What I’ve been coming up with in terms of ‘erasing’ myself fits in to that model of the brain developing as a means to figure out ‘getting along’. It makes sense that I would be considered the faulty one if someone stepped on my feet and I called their attention to it. I was not supposed to notice, and if I did, I was not supposed to let the offender know, meaning I wasn’t supposed to let the offender know I knew. I was supposed to protect the offender’s sense of everything being right in his/her world.

So, at least intellectually I can see that I am going against a Pattern of being with other people; this is counter not only to the way I was raised, but to something that’s almost genetic in humans. To go against, to not get along, to not fit in, with other humans, to say no to them, declare one’s own Self as distinct from the group—is dangerous. Witness Galileo.

I think I’ve spent a lifetime denying my Self my feelings—such as the jealousy I mentioned in the dream. Basically these feelings were assertions of myself; a demand that my needs and priorities come first. And I could not insist on that and back it up, because I was ashamed of feelings that supported that impulse. I’ve spent a lifetime beating them back.

Certainly ‘getting along with others’ is very different a goal than that of being True.

Something here reminds me of the military. The way that the men in a combat unit aren’t fighting for an ideal, at least not in the heat of battle. They’re fighting for each other. Something about that seems kind of horrible. It’s like that natural impulse of humans to care for each other is being exploited. That’s what the cutting edge looks like. To a military strategist the fighting troops are the cutting edge in achieving their goals. Taking a key piece of ground; denying the enemy some need. For a blade to be able to cut it needs to be sharp. The love of these men for each other is what sharpens the blade, so they can act as a cohesive unit. This seems very wrong. To the strategist it looks like lines on a map. On the ground it looks like men loving each other and trying to protect and help each other as they strive to advance that ‘line’ a little bit forward.

So I guess that one of the socializations that human beings have taught each succeeding generation is that getting along with each other is the key to survival. I suppose some of us learn it more forcefully than others. I see what Sharon means about the Conscious Mind and the Heart. Very different agendas, one toward getting along in the world; the other toward the Truth. Religion and the traditional socialization mechanisms would become very important here: church, respect for Authority. Perhaps these conventions functioned to protect the person with an erased self. If there are strict rules guarding, say, one’s sexuality, then the person who’s been taught to submit their will toward others isn’t as likely to be ‘persuaded’ by the demands of someone who hasn’t sublimated their own sense of self quite as much. The erased self then feels an entitlement, indeed an imperative to resist the Other's persuasions. And these imperatives have to be backed up by Something or else they’re meaningless. So God becomes helpful. Interesting to conceive of religion in the service of socialization, rather than seeking the Truth.

There are people who don’t seem to be ashamed of demanding their own way. There are others who permit them. There are people who aren’t at all ashamed to say no, and have none of the phobia about doing that.

Is it possible that this conflict between my inner truth with what I was taught about what it takes to ‘get along’ is the core of the pattern that has run my life?

I do find, in my reading back over what I’ve written, that there is some terror of not-belonging in the phobia about "No" (not being able to tolerate that moment afterward without struggling shamefully to fill it with apology, with promises, or reasons). There is also some kindness, too, motivating that. There is both.

I also see in my writings a lot of turmoil, and a desire to erase my own feelings. Feeling unentitled to ask anything for myself, let alone demand it. That’s because I couldn’t, not without all those parts of me that had had to go dormant, because they wore such an ugly mask if they surfaced. I see now they weren’t monsters at all. And, I see that they were what was sacrificed in my effort to ‘get along’, which was pretty highly valued in my family. And I see I blamed my feelings for 'telling' me the pain of being erased. I wanted to erase the pain, and I blamed myself for having it.

So, if mainly all the years of writing I’ve done is to get me to here, to "claiming my disowned parts" without shame or apology—to acknowledge their truth…do I have as much need to write? If a great deal of grief in my life has come from the dynamic of taking seriously doing whatever it took to get along, and I’m unwinding that, then what? Do I start to move past the fierce need for such solitude? Do I move past the need to write?

All my life, any situation that involved me asserting my preferences and priorities put me into a huge bind because I’d really come to believe that I shouldn’t. I was dependent on Others to grant them to me, but I couldn’t insist on it. So when it came to a conflict between “me” and “thee”, the default setting was for ‘me’ to accede. Anything different from that was just crippling with anxiety. And it certainly meant a leakage and hemorrhage at the interface, the microscopic interaction of personal boundaries. There was a permeability of boundaries there. To define mine was to state that my preferences in that area were more important than the Other’s. Sharon and I talked about my perplexity about where I really do end and begin in my interactions with others, if it’s true that everything that comes into me is filtered through…me. If I say I’m feeling something from another person, is it just my projections, or is it for real? If I feel a sense that someone wants something from me, does that mean that they do? Or is it me filtering all input through my history, selecting out certain elements to form a pattern that I then identify a certain way? Where if I was different, the same set of circumstances might find me selecting other elements out of the Ground and perceiving an entirely different pattern? Does this invalidate my feelings?

Guess I was well socialized.

I wrote this in January of 1982; 27 years ago. It’s an example of a dynamic of accusation I unearthed a couple years ago. To rise, to accomplish something, to do something new and different that required some courage—it loosed an avalanche of self-accusation in me, because it seemed that to rise beyond my family was to somehow accuse THEM. There was this hint, or ghost of that:

I realized a dilemma, earlier, thinking about writing to John and telling him the things I’m doing lately. And cringing because I feel I’m doing it from a smug, self-satisfied, bragging, conceited motive. A fear of stepping outside of my bounds by saying, “I’m important” (For who would do or talk about these things unless they would think these things are important, and they for doing them—I feel like I haven’t a right to say “I’m important.” And I don’t know—how to let myself say, “I’m important" without being uncomfortable—or feel like I’m pushing on other people. When I consider my accomplishments & imagine talking about them I see a picture of me getting bigger, spreading out, and impinging on people’s space. Shoving them aside. I feel I’m putting them down ...

OK, so there’s a concrete example of how that dynamic worked in my life. The thread of the pattern definitely weaves through here. I accused myself of self-aggrandizement, even in talking about the things I was learning and doing. Because there was a ghost of a feeling that I was accusing the people I was talking to, in daring to emerge from the usual, do something that distinguished me. Highlighted the ‘not-me’. Which seemed exceedingly disloyal; so disloyal I had to accuse myself. It’s kind of amazing I kept going.

Because, painful as this thing was, I was on the cusp of a brand new life; the start of an amazing life, actually, of adventure. And of seeing myself rise to its demands. Where I met some very important friends, some who I still have today. Who influenced who I married which gave me my children.

So, beauty came from this. As Sharon once said, years and years ago, “You’ve managed to carve out a good life for yourself.” So, despite the very hampering effects of the pattern, I was able to lead a life that gave me great pleasure and satisfaction.

And if the dream is any indication, my life is beginning to bloom.

ofergoodnesssake(dotcom)

The kids had Martin Luther King's birthday off two weeks ago. They got another holiday this Friday just past (two adjacent 4-day school weeks). Connor was sick Monday and Tuesday last week. At least I didn't have to go to his school to volunteer.

I started a blog post then. Thought better of posting it, maybe because of the whiny tone:

Sick (?) kid

The oldest this time. His dad had a cold that laid him flat out, so I'm hoping to head that off by keeping Connor home for today. As far as solitude time goes this week is hosed anyway: reading with a student at Connor's school on Monday, opthamologist (now why the heck am I getting the red line of misspell under that? Blogger's dictionary doesn't recognize this word? It's not like it's that uncommon.) appointments tomorrow afternoon. I'll have to take them out of school, assuming they go. That subtracts 2 hours from alone time on a day I ordinarily have a full school day's worth. Wednesday 2 hours in the afternoon at Scott's school. Friday this week the school system has a teacher learning day. Scott's school has half days on Fridays anyway. They had MLK day off last week.

So I get a pass today on reading and library work.

This boy is my Chatty Cathy. I sent him in to do homework and he's still talking. I told him that I hope he's never in a situation where his life depends on his keeping his mouth shut. I told him he should tell them to just shoot him and get it over with. We had a good laugh.

At least the dog's doing great. The dental work has given him a new lease on life. He'd better live a long time.

Another grim piece of silver lining to the thing is at least Connor's being sick (?) coincided with a snow-and-ice day. Two home days for the price of one.

I took the Myers-Briggs personality assessment years ago. At the time I tested as an extrovert, but just barely across the line from introversion. Something about having kids has pushed me deep into introversion territory. I get kind of twitchy when I don't get a certain amount of alone time. Solitude is a commodity for me, like money in the bank, or water in a bucket. I dole it out very stingily. I hoard it. And if the level dips below a certain amount I start to feel deprived. Particularly when it's been a long patch.

Last week I considered lost since they were going to be off on Friday. I think that's what helped me keep some equilibrium when I decided to keep Connor home from school. Last week was lost, but at least this week would be the start of a two week stretch of 5 day school weeks. The climax of the last two weeks of disruption was the superbowl party I let Connor throw. He invited 6 boys. From the get-go I told them that they were confined to downstairs, or outside. The noise leaked though. Gary had been wise enough to lay a tarp over the carpet in the area we allowed a food table. (Ordinarily we don't allow food and drink downstairs for kids; the several stained areas testify to the need for that rule.) I'd thought the kids were mature enough that they could have a party with food and drink and not trash the place. Now I'm thankful for the tarp.

Today was my holy grail. I didn't realize how much I was counting on it as I drove Scott down the hill to his school. I noticed that street parking was easier than usual. I noticed the van of another student's dad drive by. As Scott and I were crossing we waved. Before we could say hello the window was down and Emma was saying, "No school today." What????

God!

And dammit!

I mean, damn it

There is no such thing as aloneness with kids around. They are the antithesis of being alone. Even when they're downstairs watching TV and not directly demanding my attention I'm feeling guilty because they're downstairs watching TV.

At least I don't have to go to Connor's school to volunteer.

And the dog is still doing fine.