I haven’t been posting much in the morning this week. There’s no real reason for this other than I haven’t been writing as much in the morning – or what I’ve been writing hasn’t been finished. I’ve been reading a little bit about how different writers work and what they consider to be good output. I think I want to focus more on my poetry than on the journal style pieces… though I read that Sylvia Plath (at least I think it was Plath) was at her best when she was journaling. I’ve written close to twenty poems in the last half-year. I’ve been reading through some poetry journals to see if I stack up – do I have a chance of getting published? I still struggle with the question – to what end and for whom? But writing everyday has helped me get past that (for the most part).
I’m working on something tentatively called The Historian and the Cardinal (as in the bird). I don’t know if it will be a vignette/short story or a poem. I may toggle between a few forms and see how it goes. I’m also writing a little bit about how little we can possibly know about other people and their experiences. Reading an article on perimenopause and trying to read some women poets to get a sense of what their world is like has been broadening. I like to think that I’m somewhat of a woke man. I try to understand all people and where they’re coming from. I’m also learning that no matter how much I try, some people may not let me in, or may struggle to help me understand them. My friend Lisa and I aren’t talking precisely for this reason. She’s often upset, and I’m at the point of asking what can I do or say to help – I seem to trip at every turn. If I say her situation sucks, she corrects me, no it’s shitty. If I try to show her it might not be worth worrying over by offering a platitude like “you can only control so much” she thinks I’m being unsympathetic or dismissive. She said she needs to step back from our friendship. I’ve really tried to take the approach of wanting more peace and calm, pointing out that these are dumb little things to bicker over, but she sees that as trying to ignore the issue. I don’t know her well enough to suggest that she creates a lot of her own sorrow… and maybe I have gotten less sympathetic. Maybe the negativity wore the friendship down.
As for trying to “know” other people on a deeper level, I often turn to reading about experiences that I haven’t had. When I first met my ex-fiancee, B, I read up on some of the challenges of being in a relationship with a widow. The reading was prompted by my ex-friend Jen who suggested that B might not have finished grieving or that she might still be holding on. Not knowing anything about grief, it seemed plausible. It’s not like I was reading a how to, but I understood the very fundamental difference between having a choice (divorce) and not having that choice and why it would be natural to hold on. Since B left, I’ve read a lot more about the subject – this time as a way to understand my own grief. There is, of course, a huge difference between reading about something and understanding the experience of something. When she talked to me about experiencing complex grief, I again turned to whatever I could read on the subject – how to be patient during fight or flight moments, stories of spouses who’s partners suffered PTSD. When we were dealing with the possibility of cancer, again I read – both technical and personal stories. All of the reading for understanding was helpful and was meant as a way for me to be able to ask the questions “how are you feeling about it?” or “What does that make you feel?” It was the closest I could come to trying to identify with the experiences I’ve never had… trying to identify with this person across from and next to me. It’s what Adrienne Rich called “a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.” I tend to be pretty good at cognitive empathy and compassionate empathy, but I sometimes need help with emotional empathy.
Tonight I started to read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. The first page and a half were poignant. “That was how everybody loved Siddhartha. He delighted and made everybody happy. But Siddhartha himself was not happy…. beloved by all, a joy to all, there was yet no joy in his own heart.” This is an east meets west universality. How often do we come across people who radiate yet lack joy in their heart? It is the great internal struggle. I didn’t get very far in my reading – a combination of short attention span and a text from my friend in Omaha. She is struggling with her relationship. She feels like she fell in love with someone who she can’t fix. He gets defensive if she gets upset, as though he’s not good enough. She wants to be able to be upset and wants the reassurances that it’s ok. It’s not her job to fix him, but if it’s going to last, she has to be able to see those battles within and be willing to help him or stay with him. I suspect this will pass over, until the next time. I sent her one of the Esther Perel videos.
Then I watched a video by Perel. This one talks about all of the pressures we put on our partners because of the way modern society is set up… We used to rely on family, friends, work, and community to fulfill more of our needs. Now we expect our partner to be everything – I tried to write a poem about that (“I Want to be Her Everything”) and how real and also silly that notion is. I always took a very rational approach to the idea of “soul mates.” I figured there are billions of people – there can’t just be one. Then I fell pretty hard in love and realized how rare a good fit can be. B and I often told each other we found our person. We hadn’t figured out how to negotiate wanting everything and also wanting nothing… being complete as individuals who were effectively and completely dependent on this other individual.
What Perel says at the end was similar to the “reasoning” that I tried to do with ex-fiancee when she left. We were able to paint a picture, tell a story. It was never going to be perfect, and I knew that if it wasn’t her and her problems, it would be someone else and a different set of problems (not to mention all of my shit)…. I liked the story we were going to write. It’s easy to love all of the good things about someone else – can you love them despite the bad? I could and did.