After hitting publish this morning on a post that took me a lot longer to pull together than I expected, I had some lunch, did some editing clean up, and went out to the balcony with my afternoon cup of coffee and the book of essays I’m reading. Naturally, picking up in the last three pages of the essay on silence – Dunn hits it out of the park as he begins to talk about silence in his relationships. They were some of the more relatable (for me) passages I’ve read.
He admits that he was much better talking with women, one-on-one than he ever was in other settings – suggesting that the language love allows (both physical and beyond) is a type of play that encourages being un-selfconscious. Like Dunn, playful and in love is probably when I’ve felt most comfortable. I think men, as a small act of rebellion against the cultural norms of being tough and stoic, secretly want to be vulnerable. Dunn writes: “If a man can speak intimately, can get off his high horse, most women will offer him all the latitudes of speech that he might need. If also he can listen, it’s likely – other things being equal – that he’s entered the realm of what intelligent women consider truly sexy.” He then suggests, that this is also where the problem starts. As intimacy begins, so does concealment. Dunn gives a simple example “I don’t like the way she laughs at the end of her sentences. Even though her sentences are beautiful.” He says this is where the silence begins and for the novice, the congenitally honest, he will speak of his withholding out of guilt and probably ruin everything. He says his controlling silence in these instances have only brought him short term joy, calling the silence a “taker” and a “self-protector.”
“The true lover wants to give everything away. This is why a writer should never be expected to be a true lover. The writer, shortly after great love, uses.” That line hit home. I have wondered aloud on this blog if I would feel compelled to write if my ex-fiancee and I had stayed together. I have wondered if there is such a thing as a happy or content writer. I think given the choice, I’d rather have the joys of giving my all to someone…but perhaps if it were another artist, an understanding would emerge that something needs to be held back?
He continues to have good self-effacing lines like “Emotional generosity – I like it more than I deserve it.” As he talks about marriage he recognizes that there’s an accumulation of silences, and that when the withholdings become intolerable arguments ensue. He suggests that silence is a type of freedom and that a marriage that works allows for silence… but Dunn recognizes the difficult balancing act:
Sweet moments between people rarely need articulation. when things between us are askew, each wants the other to put into words what the problem is. I can’t think of more delicate junctures: to say enough truth so that you won’t be lying, and less of it so that you won’t be killing.
There are a number of things (lessons, observations) I hope to carry forward with me. When I re-read the texts with my ex-fiancee, I was struck by how little space an “I love you” or “Thinking of you” text takes up compared to the texts in which points are being made and each person is trying to be heard as they share their side of the story… trying to do it in a way so that nobody gets killed in the process. The arguments wore on her – they created stress. For weeks after she left I tried to point out all of the good things, the things that required little articulation. When I started this blog, I posted pictures of us. One of her parting shots was that she was unhappy every day in the relationship. I had hundreds upon hundreds of texts and dozens of pictures that showed otherwise. At the time, I needed those texts and pictures – to prove to me that I wasn’t making it up. She would say things like “I was there, and it wasn’t good.”We both have our version of the story. I can’t speak to her version – perhaps the unhappiness was there… perhaps it was in those concealments and it finally burst forth. I guess I just prefer my version of the story – the happy one that was full of possibility and lots of delicate junctures.
Last night my friend from Omaha texted a whole bunch of obscenities. The guy she was falling for, the one who after three dates she felt had better promise than most (she was gushing about this guy), completely lost it on her and walked out. She was shell shocked. She hasn’t shared any details, and I’m trying to avoid saying that she should have waited to date. Today she reviewed their texts. She can’t understand how they could connect so well and he could say the sweetest things, and then in an instant it’s done. She’s only known this guy a week, but I’m trying not to diminish what she felt or is feeling. She’s already blaming him…. my concern is that this is the type of thing that makes people jaded, makes them feel that everybody will tuck their crazy in just long enough to get you hooked. I’d hate to see her become jaded – I hate seeing anyone become jaded.
I recently re-connected with a woman in southern Kentucky who I had talked with for a few weeks. She reached out through Facebook. She’s a kind and deep soul, and seems to have found a good guy. He’s a photographer, and she just posted some pictures of herself that he had taken. She feels that he really sees her. For the most part, I dislike Facebook, but I have a few connections that either make me laugh or post things that make me think or make me feel. I seldom interact with any of these people, but I’m thankful for the nuggets they share. In the few days that we’ve been FB friends, she’s posted some things that seemed worth sharing. She had a difficult relationship with her mother. Just like Father / Son relationships can be difficult, Mother / Daughter relationships are often very challenging. I think nearly every woman I’ve been involved with had a strained relationship with her mother. I appreciated that my new friend shared.
Meanwhile…. this is what I shared on Facebook. The context is that my friend Tim posted a pretty bad picture of himself – the quintessential middle-aged, beer-bellied, balding dad picture. What he was trying to point out was how the little hair he has left is going crazy without a haircut…. I poked fun at him for it, but then decided I’d share my own goofy picture. When I was a kid, I was teased for having a hair helmet. It wasn’t until middle school when I got my hair feathered that I started to be cool. I won’t go into the mullet phase that I had, or the tail that I had and promptly had to have cut off at my father’s insistence. My hair is thick and gets pretty curly when it grows out. I haven’t grown it out since middle school. I don’t plan on it. I tried to make fun of myself by posting my hair helmet picture and comparing it to Bret from Flight of the Conchords. I was going to try to mimic his look of skepticism, but couldn’t, so went with the normal smirk.
