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Category Archives: Culture

Don’t Touch the Lava

17 Mar

Tenth graders jump in the halls,
leap
from one sparse gray tile
to the next,
avoiding the vast field of
lava
that has magically appeared
during lunch.
White tiles burn.

I poke one in the back
as I walk by.
He staggers,
lurches forward,
touches lava,
screams and falls,
pretending to burn into nothing but
giggles.
Leapers, one by one,
stagger, fall, burn
as the whole corridor descends into
giggles.

High school.
Tenth grade.
They write code.
Build robots.
Judge science fairs and

they still play fort
I bet. I know
I do.

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2015 in Culture, Education, Poetry

 

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Listen

08 Sep

Listen.

A year ago, maybe less, maybe more, at dinner, a discussion.

It was an evening designed for people to get to know each other. I desperately wanted it to go well.  I don’t think it did.

One person talked while the other listened. One felt the other had no interest because she was not being asked questions.  She felt asking questioning was how someone showed interest in another. The other person felt the first wasn’t listening because she was asking questions but not hearing the narrative, looking for answers instead of stories. Both were exploring the other the way they felt the other person would feel valued and wanted, sure to feel the interest flowing.  We so often relate to others the way we wish them to relate to us, regardless of our different ways of being.

It didn’t work.

I am thinking of Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Played by Whoopi Goldberg, Guinan was long-lived and came from “a race of listeners.” She ran Ten Forward. Café, bar, meeting hall. She was a bartender, but, like the archetypal bartender, she was a counselor, psychologist, and, when her patrons needed it, when a crew member was confused, she listened. She listened long, and deeply, and, on rare occasion, cut through the morass of conflict and over-thinking with a single well-placed question one could only form after deep listening.

Guinan is the only action figure I own.

Some of us see our lives as points. Events. Memories.  Some of us as narratives, stories, chronologies with highlights. And we so often wish to learn about others in the way we see our own lives.

Maybe it runs in families. My son, he listens.  I can’t really remember Lee asking people many questions at all. She would know you or would not, and the facts rarely mattered. My daughter, Sef, too.

Arlene likes to ask questions, and be asked questions. It is how she feels one shows interest in another. It is also how she feels someone shows interest in her. Fair enough. They are good, solid questions. Questions of meat and bone. Helpful and direct. And she listens too, picks up on subtle things, notices nuance. Still, the questions have taken me a bit to get used to.

And I know she often finds my lack of questions befuddling.  Mine are few. I like to make them count.

Craig asks questions which are intense and probe deeply. It is quite a skill. He asks them with near surgical exactitude. He has noticed I take much delight in derailing his attempts at interrogation.

Trish asks rapid-fire questions and rarely waits for an answer before the next. I usually just stare at her until she stops.

Alicia rarely asks a question, but when she does, it is thoughtful, wide, and beautifully ambiguous, and I have to think to answer.

Susie. Other than “What are you doing Sunday?” “Can I put a load of laundry in?” or “Can I help?” has not, that I can recall, ever asked me a question.  But she knows me. She listens well. Yet, she, and others, know me. Each differently, for we are never exactly the same to each person we know, but, each in their own way, has come to know who I am.

We each have our own way, and sometimes those ways cross and we find we don’t quite know how to relate to the other person. It can take some adapting, some getting used to, some cutting of slack, as it were, and some understanding that we all relate to the world, and each other, in different ways.

As for me:

I want to discover you,
To listen to you,
Wander with you, ramble
The trails of your life
As your stories
Give away the who of you,
The how of you.

I want to press my ear to you
And sound the depths,
Hear the murmurings
Of desires and disappointments
And wander within the walls of you
Feeling for the edges,
The borders hard and soft.
See the flashes in the dark
stumble upon the permanent midnights,
Your heart, your soul.
The who of you, the how of you,
Even the why of you,
But the what of you,
If it should come clear
In the course of time, that is fine,
But I’ll not ask.
The data points and trivia of you
Will come as needed,
I’ll not ask,
You needn’t tell.
I know what I need to know.

Others will ask questions,
Probe, collect information.
It is their way to discover
What they feel
Is the measure of you.

But I say, come,
And let us walk a while.
I want to listen.

I love to listen to people ramble.  That is when I learn the most. As they go on, I learn their history, likes, dislikes, pet-peeves, I hear what makes them tick and what makes them sick, what makes the glow and what leaves hem cold. I hear where their heart is and where their soul resides. Rarely will I ask a question unless there is something I find confusing, or I see confusion and it occurs to me a question might bring clarity. But they are few. I want them to count.

Like Guinan, who stands on the sill over my computer, I want to listen.  Always listen.

 
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Posted by on September 8, 2014 in Culture, Family, psychology, Social

 

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Einstein’s Bagels And Why They Apparently Think I’m An Illiterate Putz.

24 Jan

I have a big superego. I freely admit that. I think a person should go out of their way to do the right thing and if something is wrong then you just don’t do it. That doesn’t make life in this culture very easy sometimes.

I am what the gamers, the folks who play Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games, call Neutral Good. As a player, that would be my moral alignment. Good, and Evil, come in three flavours—Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Lawful Good follows all the laws. That defines his or her idea of goodness. The means justify the ends, whatever those ends may be. Chaotic good follows no rules but acts on the ideas of outcome only, saying the ends justify the means. Neutral Good is defined this way:

A Neutral Good character is guided by his conscience and typically acts altruistically, without regard for or against Lawful precepts such as rules or tradition. A Neutral Good character has no problems with co-operating with lawful officials, but does not feel beholden to them. In the event that doing the right thing requires the bending or breaking of rules, they do not suffer the same inner conflict that a Lawful Good character would.

When I see a rule being broken, and I think it is a good rule, a law being scoffed, and I think it is a good law, one that makes sense, one that deserves to be followed, I find myself wanting to do something, and that oversized superego means I have no problem doing it. And I’m a fixer. When I see things that aren’t right, I want to fix them. Need to fix them. Even if I’m hungry.

And I was.

I was up early. Too early, really. At five-fifteen. Why? Because I’m the only one who shows up to Wednesday six a.m. spin class and I don’t want Tammy to lose her income for that class. So I went, even though I hadn’t slept well and even though I had to be back at the gym an hour later to see a string of members for short, introductory sessions of assisted integrated stretching from eight am through six that evening.

Spin class over, I ran home, showered and, after feeding Dusty, let her out. In the meantime I was going to make my own breakfast in my beautiful (and it is) healthy (and it is) lovely (and it sure is) Vitamix. Looking out the kitchen window I notice something. I notice that I don’t notice Dusty. She has leapt the fence again. So much for my salad smoothie. And so much for my coffee.

I walk out the back door and she isn’t there. I walk out the front door and she isn’t there. Down the street to where she plays with Rank and she isn’t there. It is five to eight and I can’t do anything but hope she likes her new family, wherever that is.

So much for breakfast. Sure, Dusty gets to eat and play, but I don’t. Off to the gym.

Two hours and six patients later, I’m hungry. I have a break and my blood sugar is low enough that I know for sure I’m headed for a bad choice. Luckily, Einstein’s Bagels is a block away, on Babcock and Palm Bay Road. A salt bagel and coffee. Maybe even some lox.

Without enough time to walk, I get into the truck and drive over. I park and have my Einstein’s cup, my cup about to be filled with free coffee, in my hand. Coffee. Bagel. Salty salty fish. But first, the bathroom.

On my way in, I see the community board. The last time, there was barely anything on it. An announcement or two. And it was neat. Not now.

The fact that I can barely hold it (and why didn’t I go at the gym? Oh, yes, I was hungry and my blood sugar was dropping) doesn’t keep me from staring at the board and noting that most of the things on it are not supposed to be there, according to the big old sign smack in the upper-middle of it all.

OK. Bathroom. Then I can talk to the fellow at the register as I order my bagel and coffee.

Back out. No line. Here I am. “May I take your order?”

“I’d like a salt bagel please. Toasted, and coffee.”

“Anything else?” I look at his name tag. He is the manager. Perfect.

“No thanks. But I wanted to mention that there is a lot of stuff on the community board that doesn’t adhere to the guidelines.”

He looks at me as though I had said, instead, “Excuse me, but there is a dead body in the bathroom and your mom is standing over it with a knife. Oh, and he’s not got pants on.”

Slowly, with a great deal of emphasis on the last word. “What sort of things?”

“Lots of business cards. And political advertising for candidates. I saw that the sign said no advertising and no political campaigning.”

“I’m offended!” He says this as though I had said he mom hadn’t any pants on either. And I am quite well confused. I can’t imagine how I could have offended him.

“I’m confused. You’re offended? By the political advertising?”

“No, by you. Everything up there has been approved by management.”

“So, you’re offended? I really can’t imagine how I offended you.”

“Well, you did. I’m very offended.”

I’m not going to win this one, so I might as well have at it. “Well, you must be incredibly easily offended. Exactly what offended you?”

“Your suggestion that we did not follow the rules on the community board.”

“That offended you? My, you ARE easily offended. It says clearly no advertising. And no political campaigns.”

“That campaign is a non-partisan race.  And those business cards and advertisements are not for food. It only appIMAG3762lies if it is for food that competes with us.”

“Come with me, please.” I gave him a follow-me index finger and walked over to the board about four feet away, the order area being at the end of the long counter and just before the short hallway to the bathrooms, halfway down, on the right side off which is the community board. I point out the sign.

“No advertising. It does not qualify that in any way. This is full of advertising. No political campaigns. It doesn’t say unless it is a non-partisan race.”IMAG3763

“Well, it means that though. That’s what it means. You know, you could have just asked if you wanted your cards there.”

I cocked my head to the side. The way a puppy does when he’s confused. I find myself doing that quite a bit.

“Now I am offended” It is his turn to look confused. “You are telling me” (and I step very slightly closer to him) “that I am either illiterate or I am a putz!” I take care to pop my P like I’m trying to explode a microphone.

“I would not ask to put up a card because this clearly states no advertising. If I did ask, that would make me illiterate. If I wasn’t illiterate and I asked anyway, I would be assuming you would break the rule just for me and that would make me a putz. So which is it? Am I illiterate or am I a putz? Which one are you accusing me of?”

I walk back to the counter. He follows. Each of us on our proper side.

Grimly, he looks at me and asks, “Did you want anything on your bagel?”

“I’m not handing you any money! I won’t give money to a place that can’t even follow its own rules and has an illiterate manager. And NOW you can be offended, because that one I meant!’

I walked out. To the car. I get my phone. I walk back in, camera on.

He follows me. “I really can’t let you take pictures of this store.”

“Really? People take pictures when they check in on Facebook. There are pictures on Yelp. On your own Facebook page, people upload pictures. And how are you going to stop me?  Afraid some other corporation is going to copy your community board?” I take one picture. “Besides, how else will I spread this great story all over social media without a picture?” I take a close-up of the sign. I smile and walk out.

Back to the gym I go. I’m still hungry. But I know the bagels are no good for me anyway and now I certainly won’t be having any. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not soon, unless they are really really good ones.

No matter. Right is right.

But I sure could have used some coffee.

 
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Posted by on January 24, 2014 in Culture, Education, Food, Social

 

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Win a Copy of my Newest Book : Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin

20 Aug

Want to win a copy of my newest book? Of course you do.  Goodreads is holding a give-away for ten copies. Just click on this link.

From the back-matter:

“Whatever ‘the Jewish experience’ might mean to the modern reader, Adam Byrn Tritt’s approach is uniquely his own. He is ‘observant’ in the sense that he carefully observes, as you would expect of a man who is, at essence, a poet. As a self-described ‘Jewitarian Buddhaversalist,’ he is aware that each tradition illuminates the other. This collection of essays and poems provides us with good talk. Conversation is the highest artform, and Mr. Tritt invites us in most kindly, with insight, erudition, humor, and compassion.”

—Wayne McNeill, author of Songbook for Haunted Boys and GirlsImage

Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin explores—in essays, poems, and creative nonfiction—the tension between cultural heritage and contemporary society, between religion and spirituality, between the family you inherit and the family you create. From early-morning wrestlings with God to portraits of three remarkably different family funerals, from Kabbalist chants at a pagan bookstore to the humorous “What Do Jews Do on Christmas?,” Tritt’s writing taps into themes nearly universal in today’s world in ways that will resonate with readers of all backgrounds and faiths—or no faith at all.

 
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Posted by on August 20, 2013 in Books, Culture, Family, psychology, Religion, Social

 

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The Wheaton Test Or What I Need to Know About You Before the Second Date: With an Amendment Three Years Later Regarding how Completely Wrong I Was and a Further Amendment One Year Later that I was Not

03 Aug

Amendment
02/22/18

I wasn’t wrong.

Sometimes love alone isn’t enough.

Some people are set in their ways. Some people don’t fit. It doesn’t matter if it is one, or the other, or both, she, I, or us.

I think, in the end, I was sold a bill-of-goods. But it wasn’t she who did the selling – it was me. I sold myself on a dream, on a life I could have. This is on me.

I told my son, never feel badly about being a fool for love. If you are a fool for anything, let it be for love. And love her, I do.

Sometimes love alone isn’t enough.

Amendment
12/26/2016

There is a picture on my bedside table that was not there yesterday morning. It is a picture of a gloriously beautiful woman, sky and sea behind her, smiling. It is in a frame of gilt and funk and sparkle and it makes me smile nearly as much as the beauty in the photograph. It was a present from Arlene for Chanukah. And it is perfect.

Beside me, as I write this, is another picture, a drawing, actually, by Brian Andreas. We were in a gallery in Charleston, South Carolina. She was looking at Christmas ornaments, hand-blown globes, from Glass Eye Studios in Seattle. Each globe, multicolored, swirling, translucent, reflective, unique, blown with ash from Mount St. Helens. And she was going to buy one. The problem was that I had already gotten it for her, months earlier, in Tacoma at the Museum of Glass.

There they were, something I knew she’d want, right next to something I didn’t think I’d see anywhere but online or in a book. She recognized Andreas and how much I liked his work, how much it made sense to me, and asked me to walk away while she looked through them. I did, and visited with the gallery owner.

“I hate to ask this, but, she is looking at something I already got her as a surprise. So, please don’t let her buy an ornament.”To not sell something is not the best thing to ask a shop-owner. He listened kindly, I explained, he smiled.

That ornament, made with ash from deep within the heart to the Earth, from the heart that is the birth of all hearts, the hearth that is the mother of all hearths, is hanging from her tree. And I am looking at the print now.the-edge

They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world & after awhile they forgot everything but the good & true things they would do someday.

She had picked one of my favorites. Just like that. I picked what she would have gotten, she picked what i would have. We knew.

It has been three years and a few months since I wrote The Wheaton Test. And here is what I’m telling you – I was wrong. Wrong wrong. Not just a little wrong. Utterly wrong. Not fun-sized snack wrong. Elephant wrong. Blue whale wrong. The Earth is flat wrong. The kind of wrong that can leave one wondering if brains actually have any use if, after all, they can be that dreadfully wrong.

Here is what I wrote to Wil.

Good evening and happy Thanksgiving to you! I’m writing because I wanted to say that three and a half years after The Wheaton Test was published it is: 1) One of my most hit posts, 2) my most shared post, 3) is used on dating sites, if seems, as a litmus test and, most important of all 4) terribly and completely wrong and I am engaged (a few months now) to that very same young lady. What I’d have missed out on if I had taken my own advice! So, thank you. The ride would not have been quite as interesting otherwise. Blessing Always.

The reply was short and simple. “:-)”

Three years and then some. I have memories of my granddaughter, Sadie, at a year and a half old, sitting on the hearth (notice how close hearth is to heart?) of Arlene’s fireplace Christmas morning after a sleepover night so my kids could go out and have fun. Videos of her opening presents from her. Pictures of Sadie with Arlene’s kids, G!G! And Jules. Memories of wonderful moments on the beach, shared rainbows, amazing concerts. Memories of helping her eldest set off for college. And Arlene’s smile. Always that smile. And memories of kindnesses – kindness unsurpassed in any person I have ever met. I never thought I’d have new memories, domestic memories, memories with other than my own children, that would be important to me again. And here they are.

So, while she does now know who Wil Wheaton is, I know it also doesn’t really matter. I know, now, that, if we know something, we are often surprised others don’t. The knowledge we carry we feel is common. If we know something about quantum physics, we somehow feel it is not abstract, not uncommon. The same is true for literature, or popular music, or TV shows. Anything. Knowledge. Skill.  We can’t imagine others don’t know, can’t do, what we know and do.

So I was wrong. Or, rather, she was right. I draw that distinction because she is, to my recollection, nearly always so. When she tells me something, I may not get it right away (I am slow, I think), but given a bit to sink in, there is that moment of realization that she is correct. Now, even if I don’t get it, even if I immediately disagree, I won’t discount anything she says. Instead, I sit with it, let it sink in, roll around, because I know, given an hour, or a day, it will dawn on me not only that is is correct, but how as well. All I need to do is wait.

And wait with her I’ll gladly do. I will sit with her at the edge of the world and dangle my feet over, over into the nothingness, until all is forgotten but that which is good and that which is true.

All. Even Wil.

*****

Original Post
August 3rd, 2013

Sitting with a young lady, I was, at a Japanese restaurant. The kind where they cook the food at a table in front of you and you sit with people you don’t know and the chef makes noise banging salt shakers and scrapers and juggling shrimp and squirts saki in great arcs into the mouths of gulping diners. The kind that leaves one waiting an hour. But this time, we waited nearly two and a half. It gave us plenty of time to talk. Or try to. It didn’t go so well.

I tried physics.  No good. She tried current movies. No dice. I tried Eastern philosophy. No way. She tried popular music. No go. I mentioned Facebook. AHA!  Yes, we both knew Facebook, of course.

“Did you see the video today of a mother asking Wil Wheaton to give her infant daughter a pep talk? It was brilliant.”

“Who?”

Uh oh!  “Wil Wheaton?  You don’t know who Wil Wheaton is? You know, sort of like Nerd King.”

“Oh, nerd is a label. I don’t like labels.”

“Well, labels make it a bit easier to talk. You know, like saying mayonnaise instead of that stuff made with eggs, and going on to list all the ingredients. Agreed upon meanings.  As long as a label isn’t used as a pejorative.”

“What’s a pejorative?”

Uh oh! “Wil Wheaton. You know, Star Trek The Next Generation.”

“I never saw it.”

“But most people know who Wil Wheaton is.”

“I bet most people don’t. Go ahead. Ask.” She looked around us. Plenty of people to ask, for sure.

I did. Ten out of ten asked didn’t know.  I shook my head.  “Well, most likely, they wouldn’t be my friends.  She looked at me. It must have been the sight of my foot so tightly lodged in my mouth that did it.

I texted my friends. They did. They knew. Every one of them. She did the same. They didn’t. Every one of them.

We tried talking some more, once I dragged my foot from my gullet. But anything I wanted to talk about, I had to build background, step by step, first. That would have been fine, except she made it clear she didn’t care about any of it by saying, “I don’t care about that.”

Dinner was interesting. Nice young lady. We sat in her car and didn’t talk.

The next day, walking home from my office, I wrote these rules.

Over hot dogs at Mustard’s Last Stand, we edited them.

Craig put them on a poster.

Someone tweeted them.

Wil Wheaton got a hold of it. He posted it on his blog. “This is wonderful and I’m honoured to be included.”

It was shared and reblogged over a thousand times in less than two hours.

“Using this for all future relationships.” And “This. This and a thousand times this.” And “This is SACRED. Never Mind The Bible.”

“I’m well-beyond my second date, but I’m adopting this anyway. If not for my partner, just to make sure *I’m* following it.”

“I’m not sure if I would say all of these things about myself because I know myself. I know my insecurities. But I would like to be like this and I would like to think I’m at least a little like this. Maybe someday I’ll find someone to work through the little things and we can both appreciate the crazy, stupid, and amazingness of the world together.”

“The Wheaton Test is now one of my favorite things.” “Fabulous.” “This is perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

“These are like all the things I wish I could have conveyed but didn’t know how.” “This is beautiful!” “YES. All of this. All of it.”

And on.

Enjoy.

Use it in good health.

PS. What else did I write, other than this poster?  So glad you asked. Look on my blog (above) under books or look here.

The Wheaton Test. Or, What I Need to Know About You Before the Second Date.

What else did I write, other than this poster?  So glad you asked. Look on my blog (above) under books or look here.

 
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Posted by on August 3, 2013 in Culture, philosophy, Poster, Social

 

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Link
19 Jul

Enter to win the Songs from the Well revised and Expanded edition, in paperback.

Enter to win the Songs from the Well revised and Expanded edition, in paperback, to be release on Yom Kippur, 9/8/13, along with my latest book, Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin.

 
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Posted by on July 19, 2013 in Books, Culture, Family, Religion, Social, Suicide

 

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Something My Mother Taught Me

07 Jul

Something My Mother Taught Me.

I know this is not what she set out to teach me, but I am grateful for the lesson about life, even if it cost my mother her own.

 
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Posted by on July 7, 2013 in Culture, Family, Poster, Social, Uncategorized

 

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Hair

14 Mar

I had pulled the car out of the garage and set up a chair.  Months earlier I had purchased a Norelco family hair cutting kit, and electric razor and attachments, for next to nothing at a garage sale. I had no idea why, but I brought it home, and now, now, it was plugged in and ready to be used.

The chemotherapy had left your hair in clumps.  It fell into the shower drain, left bits on the pillow, left itself on the couch. Each bit that fell, you cried. I watched as you turned once, as I held you up in the shower to see your hair on the drain.  Out of the shower, you stood, facing the mirror, clutching at your hair, pulling it out in clumps, tears falling, falling into the sink with the strands from between your fingers.

Hats you didn’t like. The scarves you used have been all given away.

You said you wanted your head shaved. I offered. You said no. You didn’t want me doing it. You didn’t want that to be the memory of my hand.  You wanted Unena to do it. Only she would do.

We were sitting on the couches in the living room. We wanted to go out, the three of us. It would be one of the last nights we would go out, you and I. Maybe second to last. But first, your hair.

How did it come to this? Who once was the patient, now helping care for you. Who once you treated, now holding you up, walking with you, one of the few people you trust.

And she fell in love with you.  And you with she.  And I with her. What a strange circumstance. You, with barely a female friend all your life—you, straight as an arrow—seemingly, obviously, so in love. And it bothered me not one bit. That a blessing of love would come to you, with so little time left, made me smile. How much bigger our hearts were now that our hearts were breaking.

A folding chair in the garage. Craig’s chair. The one he left here for himself to use, unfolded, set by the open garage door. You, helped to the chair, sitting. A towel around your shoulders, on your lap. The razor plugged in. Hesitation. And she starts.

I can barely look at the razor as it glides over your scalp, and look down instead. Hair falling. Falling to your lap. Falling at your feet. Falling to the floor in soft puffs, blowing as the breeze would catch it, swirling around the garage and, then, out the door.

What did not swirl out of the garage, I swept out. Out, over the drive way. Out, into the grass. Let the birds have it, you said. Let them. What good to hold on?

Others might have saved your hair. But we discussed it. Decided no. Let it blow. Let it sail. Let it be carried by the wind, by birdwings and raindrops. Let it become the stuff of nests, work into the soil, seeds will grow, eggs will hatch and new life will come into the world nestled in your hair, and your hair will be all around us, around me, surrounding your home, in the ground and the trees, in the water, always there, always there, like you. Always there. Some of you, always there.

And the razor stopped. And all I could do was kiss your head. But I think Unena got there first. And that was OK. It was her hand that had done the deed, performed the mitzva, loosened further your already tenuous connection to this world.

I have a picture of the two of you. A month later. The last time you were out. The night you made her promise to take care of me. The night you made me promise to take care of her.  Your heads are pressed together. Your smile. You smiled like that when you held your granddaughter. You smiled like that when you saw me. You smiled like that when your children came to see you after long absence. In less than a month you would leave us, and I don’t think I ever saw you smile quite that big.

Lee and Unena August 2011

 
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Posted by on March 14, 2013 in Culture, Family, Social

 

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Love Means Never having to Apologise for Saying “Sorry, You don’t get to treat Me like that.”

13 Mar

Loving someone, even deeply and completely, does not automatically confer a sprinkling of pixie dust that creates compatibility.  It takes work. And even then, work will not make two people fit who do not. Like sanding, it may take off rough edges, but will not make something into a new shape. That would be to make a new person in a shape that fits. Such love is not for the person, but an image or ideal, an imagining. Work will not make a miss-sized or miss-shaped shoe fit. You may get it on, but it won’t get you anywhere.

There have been a spate of “Love me as I am” graphics on the Internet lately. The latest says “The person who really loves you sees what a mess you can be, how moody you can get, and how hard you are to handle. But still wants you in their life.” Bad punctuation aside, this is a load of trite, treacly tripe not worth the pixels it takes to render it. The “hard to handle” part of the poster is the part I find most, well… hard to handle. Sure, no one is perfect. As one friend said, we are “Perfectly imperfect works in progress.” But the poster isn’t saying that – the poster is saying this : “Hey, even if I’m a complete and utter basket-case that makes you crazy, so inconsistent that you cannot even build trust in me, if you love me, you’ll put up with whatever the hell I do to you.”

There is a quote that has been going around that is attributed to Marilyn Monroe. “I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”  Let’s look at this. That’s a bit like saying “You love me, so I’m going to feed you fishsticks. If you don’t like eating fishsticks, you sure as hell don’t deserve to eat fresh salmon.”   What we should be saying, both men and women, to our lovers, is this. “You love me and you deserve my best all the time. I love you and want you to have my best. But sometimes, like all people, I’m at my worse. And thank you for dealing as best as you can with that as well.”

Love doesn’t mean putting up with abuse. And love should mean doing our best to modify the inconsistencies, the moods, so there is stability.  Without stability, nothing can be built.

Look at is this way -these posters usually come with graphics that have beaches, and hearts, and flowers, denoting femininity in some way, so we know it is aimed at men and regarding women. What if we changed the graphics to denote something that is culturally understood as masculine.  For the sake of argument, perhaps a garage. Or a beer can. Telling women that, as a guy, I can be unstable, inconsistent, moody, snappish, and hard to handle but, if you love me, you’ll put up with my lack of desire to control myself, lack of interest in seeing how my behavior affects you, and whatever nonsense I dish out.  How far would that get?

And a guy who puts up with that, no matter how much he loves a woman? And, to be fair, any woman who puts up with that from a man? We’d say they have a lack of self-respect. Maybe they don’t love themselves or respect themselves enough. Or perhaps they feel they can’t do better or don’t deserve to be treated better.

These posters perpetuate an idea that any feminist, female or male, should rail against. The idea that a woman isn’t responsible for her behavior and, if a man loves her, he’ll just deal with it. That men are, by duty, stable and consistent – the emotional anchor in a relationship – and that women are creatures of emotion only and may be absolved of responsibility for upheavals in a relationship. Upheavals that men must simply weather. It’s time for these posters to go and for women to stop posting them. They owe it to their daughters. They owe it to their sons. They owe it to their lovers. They owe it to those who fought for women to stand on equal footing.  They owe it to themselves.

 
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Posted by on March 13, 2013 in Culture, psychology, Social

 

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Sleep

03 Mar
I have attempted to chronicle each step in this journey of grief and healing. Each time I do, the openness of sharing it has been, I am told, of service to others. Each time, others have found it helpful. I have done my best to live openly, and lose openly, to the fullness of my ability and knowledge.

I wrote this about a week ago.

I posted it that night.

At least I thought I had posted it. I have never had trouble posting to my blog before, but this ended up, each time, in the Drafts folder. I asked my editor, who has access to my blog, for help.

He read it.  He said he was glad it seemed stuck as a draft. He was afraid that giving this voice might make it become so.

I erased it.

I have learned, through years of teaching and using narrative therapy, that the best way to move an emotional state out is to bring it out as fully as possible. Putting it into words, as fully, as accurately, with as much detail, emotion, and directness as possible, is one of the best ways to do that. It also means it is then outside, not being repeated in one’s head, all day, all night, on and on.

My editor showed it to my psychologist. Dr. Sarah Arnett. She explained to him that writing about it or talking about it, was far from dangerous: not talking about it was the danger. And, as scary as it is, people who feel this way must be allowed to talk about it. Not told it is wrong. Not given trite reasons to go on or have clichés foisted upon them, not told they have so much to live for, not told there are people who would miss them. They know this. But none of that helps. They need to give voice to the sorrow, or the anger, so it can come out.

My friend Joyce, she got it. She and I laughed one evening over the ways we’d end it. How we could do it without it looking like we had any real part in it. It was good to know someone understood.

So here it is. After checking with the kids, letting them know it was OK, here it is.

Maybe reading this, more people will know it is OK to listen, without fear, to a friend or loved one who feels this way. It is not a plan. It is a feeling. It is loss and longing and anger and sorrow looking for cessation, surcease, palliation. It is not life that wants the end, but the pain.

Maybe reading this, more people who feel this way will know it is OK to say it, to write it, instead of letting it grow inside, instead of letting it eat one up, take over. Instead of doing it.

The moon doesn’t change as I walk. It doesn’t move. Not perceptibly. The wind pushes steadily in the direction of the incoming waves so that I must push back to keep myself at the shoreline.  A little struggle, a bit of resistance, friction, is good, if it is tangible. If it is clear.

I know, over time, the moon will rise. I can watch it as much as I like, but I’ll never perceive the movement. Yet, over time, move it will, higher and higher, then set again, and be gone.

Over the last two years, if I look back, I can see where I’ve been, what has changed. The pace is, perhaps, glacial. But I think, at last, it, too, is setting. I don’t want to watch it anymore.

I have a good life. A wonderful life. I have been the luckiest of men. I have, in the real sense of what one needs, wanted for nothing. I want for nothing now. I am surrounded by goodness and love. A splendid family, children anyone would be proud off, friends anyone would be blessed with. I was married for nearly thirty years to the most wonderful of women. There is nothing wrong. But I don’t want it.

I don’t want to linger anymore. I don’t want to just wait for the day I can see her again, or discover there is nothing to see, but rest, and darkness and nothingness. I can wait around, and just be. But there seems little reason. No motivation.

I know my friends, my family will differ with this, but the last year and a half has proven life goes on, that things happen, and we continue. I’m just choosing that I don’t wish too. My kids are off and fine and my wife is gone. So, no need.

I promised her I’d go and be happy. It may be the only promise to her I didn’t keep. I’m trying to. Leaving feels more like keeping it than the intangible struggle of the day to day. The struggle to be, to find reasons to wake up.

I don’t want to hear about the little pleasures. I know about them. Flowers. Hugs, sunrises.  But the last few nights, I have had dreams: sitting and talking with my Lee. All night, just talking, like the best friends we are. And that is all I can want.

I promised her, as well, I’d not join a monastery. That I’d not become a Buddhist monk. I’ll keep that promise. I promised I’d not allow myself to spend my life alone. But I am a shy creature, and do not venture out by myself, do not mingle, meet, join, talk to people I don’t know. I don’t party or partake or parlay or participate in things social. So I am left with a second promise it appears I cannot keep.

Being alone is not a problem. Lack of contact, feeling isolated—that is. I can feel it. And to not feel it, I have to deny it.

I don’t want to deaden anything with alcohol, or take pills. I don’t want to not feel. But it seems most feelings are disappearing on their own. And I am left with…what?  A sad nostalgia of belonging to a place and person not here. A feeling for which English has no word.

I’m going day by day. Making plans for the very near future only.  Living today for what I need to do today. Tomorrow will be for today. The next day will be for today. Only today. Give me a task, I’ll do it. Why not? For now.

Real plans I have none. No goals. Nothing to aspire to.  And I have no real plans to end anything, but each night, I wonder, how do I not wake when the sun rises? How can my sleep be one from which I do not wake? How can my dream go on and on?

Suicide is not illegal. Only doing something to oneself that is obviously designed to lead to termination in the very short term. One may not poison oneself with a vial but one may with chemicals, knowing that time is all it takes. One may not do without food or water, but one may choose things which will hasten one’s end. One may not leap but one may walk too close. And one may slip.

I am taking excellent care of myself. I may be in the best shape of my life. And getting better. My life is simple. I do nothing that may immediately lead to my leaving. I do nothing that anyone can look at, can point to, can identify as a cause, of it being my fault. So I exercise, eat well, rest. But neither do I do anything to prolong my stay.  I no longer put on my seat belt. I am careless. I pay little attention. Most of the time, I am just thinking, how much more sweet to sleep.

I have no plan. Just opportunity.

I grew tired of people saying things were God’s will, that it was time, that there is a plan. Fine, I say, then. If something happens, it happens. It was a plan. Whatever happens, if I was supposed to take some strange comfort in there having been a plan for my wife’s hideous, painful death, then those who believe such can feel the same way about whatever happens next as well.

I don’t want anyone to suffer. And I was told, over and over, not to care so much about others that I let myself suffer as a result.  OK. Now I’m listening.

I was told I wasn’t needed by others as much as I thought. That I could live my life for myself, for my own desires. I said don’t try to convince me of that. I said it would be a bad day if ever I believed that.   Now, I believe it.

I’m tired of it. I just want it to end. The day-to-day drudge of just waiting until I see her again. I used to feel that tomorrow would be fine, or next week, next year, or forty years. It didn’t matter. But now it does. I wasn’t meant to do this by myself and I want out.

I have cancelled my appointments. I don’t need them. No doctors. No psychologist. Let the appointments be for someone for whom they will be of some use. Someone who wants to stay.

I asked my daughter once, after she tried to take her own life, to promise she would not hurt herself. She said she could not make that kind of promise. I understood. I never asked again.  My psychologist asked me to promise I would not hurt myself.  I could not make that promise.

Sometime, soon, I can hope, emotion and opportunity will come together, for a moment.

Tomorrow I will go for a walk. Next week, I have a call to make, and a book I might put together. That is the extent of my life’s plans.

The moon tonight is full. I can look at it all night, and it will never seem to change. It will be like that, forever. Or so it seems. And that is enough.

2/27/2013

 
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Posted by on March 3, 2013 in Culture, Family, philosophy, psychology, Social, Suicide, Writing

 

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