Reflections

What I'm Thinking About

I'm thinking about intuition. Noticing how when I know something, I know it.  I may story it differently, that is, I may attach different explanations, fictions or truths to how or why I know it, but...I know it.  For example, I may stop and "tune into someone's energy" and know what kind of mood they are in.  Or, I may decide I know this because of our recent conversations, and the path they were going down.

I notice a temptation to story things with less tangible narratives, and how that temptation has lately been giving in to a more rational bent--that is, I'm feeling more likely these days to look for the empirical, or scientific story to make sense of something. A crisis of faith?  A rise of skepticism? The veneer of Northern California finally wearing thin?

I'm thinking about whiteness. How white people almost never bring whiteness and white privilege into a conversation, or want to talk for longer than say, oh, fifteen seconds, about how it might factor into a given issue, even while I'm thinking, Wow, I have a whole whiteness narrative I could attach to this that might illuminate a number of things.

I'm thinking about narrative.  About narratives, AKA truths, fictions, stories, explanations, and how these structure the way we understand our worlds.  Now I'm thinking about thinking about narrative.  (Don't worry, I don't need to regress further than that.) Here are some of my thoughts about thinking about narrative.  First off, if we never think about narrative, that is, if we never stop to ask ourselves what story we're attaching to a given phenomenon, moment or event, we take our own stories as truth. When we think about the way we're understanding something as "a story" rather than "the" anything, we open up the possibility for seeing it from multiple perspectives.  When we have multiple perspectives, we have greater possibility choice: of point of view, of action, of result.

I'm thinking about how sometimes intuition comes first, and story later. About how emotion is different from intuition, but overlaps as well.

I'm thinking about consciousness, and stages of development, and how I used to twist my perceptions around some story about how we are all equal.

We ain't.

We're at different levels of evolution, and not just skewed by age.  Our consciousnesses differ radically in how developed they are--along many axes. Knowing this helps me have more compassion, more acceptance for people (sometimes even including myself) for exactly where we are. It also helps me stand in my unapologetic hunger to be met exactly where I am, to have my consciousness mirror, be mirrored and reverberate with a similarly capacitated being.

Dayum, that feels soooooo good!

Sexual Disjuncture

I am at Harbin Hot Springs feeling defensive about being inside on a computer when there is so much available outdoors.

Screw you and your judgments.

You see, that was a projection.  The whole drama is between me and me.

Anyway.  I've had lots of blog entries in my head recently and have chosen to allow one thing or another to prevent me from writing them.  Not so now--it's just me.  And my sleeping best friend, and those two interesting bi poly people I met at breakfast.

Screw them.

Not really.  I mean, someone should, but I'm doing this now because I can, okay?

Anyway.

Even though I'm salty and scrappy and sassy I'm quite spiritual.  Really.

What inspired me to write this was a passage from a healer's website--a healer who will be giving me a session in a couple of hours.  Here's what I read:

Shtie, I can't cut and paste.  Anyway here's a summary:  What we experience as reality is really a composite of memories and expections projected into this moment from our unconsciouses.  We are taught to conflate memory with reality, never given any tools to get present with the undefined moment.

And it dawned on me--maybe this is why people--many people--seem to have such disjuncture between what they say and do and want in the realm of sex, love and intimacy, and what they actually do say and do and want.  Lately I have been hearing people talking about what they do and don't want, and behaving quite differently.  It's almost as if thinking-about-sex happens in a different part of the brain than doing-sex.

A friend of mine, L, told me that she had been meeting a lot of women lately who have said point blank "I don't want a relationship."  So she's said, "Okay, we're not having a relationship, we're just f**king." Totally on board with the program.  Then the woman turns the tables on her and says, "Well why?  Why don't you want a relationship?"

I had another friend, R, years ago who would flirt with me pretty consistently, outrageously at times, then deny he had done so.  My friend B told me on the way up to Harbin her latest guy did the same thing, raised serious sexual energy, with palapable intention behind it, then denied his intention.

Does anyone else see a big, fat opportunity for learning and growth here?  A need to learn and teach conversancy in identifying, raising, holding and managing sexual energy and intention, our own and other people's?

Well, I did.  Almost a decade ago now I wrote a book proposal for The Zen of Getting Laid.  I gave ZenFlirtation workshops locally, and some in different states, as well.  I got a reputable New York agent who shopped the book around and...it never sold.

This morning, during my lovely conversation with the bi poly couple (lovers, really, not a domestic partnership), B learned of my work and told me of a marketing person in touch with thousands of people who might really dig my work.

Could I get it up again to give ZenFlirtation workshops and finish the book?  The workshops sure were a hell of a lot of fun, and the people who took them gave great reviews.  And from the looks of it, a lot of us could stand to take a look at the disjuncture between what we think we're saying and doing and wanting, and what a jury of our peers would agree we're saying and wanting and doing.  Because isn't sex, love and intimacy best when all parts of us are aligned?

Speaking of sex, love and intimacy, I'm about to embark on a Level Two HAI workshop here at Harbin.  Stay tuned...

Love, love, love. All we ever do is love...

Painting by Alina - click to enlarge

Inspired by Shuna's post on love, I wrote a comment which I'll now turn into my own post.  Viral blogging at its finest.  Shuna asked, What is Love? I wrote:

I think love in a universal sense has an "is" ness, in fact may be all there "is".  But love in a human, day-to-day sense is much more of an action verb than a to-be verb.  We choose to love when we choose to make eye contact, to let in a touch, or phrase, or to offer same; when we move from kindness and compassion rather than fear and contraction; when pay deep, close, unadulterated attention.  When we do this, the objects of our love open, blossom and grow.

And now I continue over here: Perhaps this last part comes from my experience as a parent, and the immediate and stark correlation between whether and how I pay attention to Cainan, and what his state of mind is like.  But I got long ago the part about love being in the action.  I had a lover, now some twenty years ago, who framed my requests for more demonstrativeness as a "need for reassurance."  For him, love was something he felt deep inside himself, a private experience between him and himself.  He would occasionally tell me he loved me "more than you will ever know."  This took me by a bit of surprise and also annoyed me a bit.  Why hide the depths of his love?

For me, eye contact, affection, interaction, were not reassurances that this love existed somewhere deep inside him.  They were (are) the love itself!!!  At least the kind I prefer.

I've since learned I'm a "kinesthetic" being, meaning that I experience the world and make meaning through my body, as opposed to primarily auditorily, or visually, though all of us use these things as well.  There are people I don't connect with well verbally but with whom I have great cuddles or contact dances at places like Barefoot Boogie.  I've also learned about the Five Languages of Love, a theory that says that folks differ in how they understand and receive that they're being loved through words, quality time, physical touch, gifts and acts of service.  To that I'd have to add food! I feel deeply loved when someone makes or even buys a meal for me.  Food is also a primary way I love others.  I find this to be an especially, though not exclusively, Jewish thing.

Years ago, not twenty, maybe more like sixteen now, I had a Jewish lover who lived in a house with his two WASP exes and his son by one.  I was visiting one night when J made dinner, and he asked, Do you like it?  What do you think?  Immediately S & M starting making fun of him. "Oh, J always wants to know what we think of the food."  I was indignant.  "Of course he does," I retorted without even thinking, "FOOD IS LOVE!!!!"

J looked at me like I'd dropped a truth bomb, and later told me, Wow, S has known me for fifteen years, and she's never gotten that.  You just took one look and understood immediately. That was one of my defining moments as a Food-Loving Jew Who Gets It.

In retrospect, I realize that T, the lover from long ago I described above, was primarily into gifts, acts of service and words.  He was always sending little cards, making me cookies or dinner, and once ran a full pot of chicken soup over to my dorm room when I was sick.  He was extremely devoted and spent lots of time and energy doing things like this. Yet I missed something about direct attention...maybe frequent and sustained eye contact...not sure if that falls into the physical touch category or if maybe we need a seventh category.  I know I loved the words on his cards, but also missed those uttered out loud.

Another friend of mine, whom I've also known for twenty years, has never, to the best of my recollection, told me she loves me or even signed off any written communication using the word "love."  I don't think she's ever expressed any compliments or verbal appreciation toward me.  But she has on many occasions showed up with beautiful, heartful, obviously well-thought-out gifts.  And, when we are in the same city, has always made time for me and been there for me when I've needed her.

Understanding different languages of love, and understanding my own kinesthetic and culinary orientations to love (I am also very much a word person) has helped me accept and understand other people's love languages, and depersonalize when they don't speak mine.  To really take in that B is a quality time person, first and foremost, who hugs deeply when she's sure it's okay, and more and more comes forth with verbal appreciation, but hardly ever a gift.  To forgive myself that I will never get around to sending gifts to extended family, but will write lengthy emails when inspired, and love them with my words.

And undergirding all that understanding is still that first insight that we *choose* to love, in whichever expression we select.  Yes, big feelings may overtake us, we may roll in profundity, endless orgasmic bliss, or sail into an infinite spiritual horizon of cosmic connection, but what sustains love are not these peak moments, which may come and go, or not.  What sustains love is the choice, made again and again, to show up and tell, offer, perform, bake, touch, listen, or just hang out.

Okay, that sounds alright, I think, but what about the people I love from afar, with whom, for whatever reason, I do not have regular contact, or any contact?  I guess it is still a choice to hold them in my heart in a place of love, of positive regard and well wishes, rather than of contraction and fear.

But given the choice I'd rather convey--and receive--love in an up-close, to-your-ears, and preferably on-your-lap maybe in-your-mouth (if there's food, and/or if we are lovers) mode rather than have a private love party in your honor with just me and me, the depths of which you will never know.

How Are You?

A - Still a little shaky from the panic attack I had in the car earlier, and my anus is still sore from the really amazingly large, hard poop I had 20 minutes ago (funny, Alex had the same poop a little earlier, as big as his arm he said, we were puzzling over what, why, when and how we both came to produce same), and my tummy’s a bit full from the scone, chocolate, cheesecake, cheese course with quince, puttanesca with organic spinach pasta and salad cascade of food I pulled together, roughly in reverse order, tonight.  But I’m looking forward to the remainder of Shabbat, and the rest of this weekend when we bring in the Gentile New Year and continue to figure out how to respond to people who ask us if we had a good Christ-o-centric-mas, without biting their well-intentioned heads off.

B - A little tired and wigged out--having some ups and downs lately, but generally okay.  Looking forward to my creative life these next few months.

C - Fine.

D- All of the above

And you?

BTW, A, B and C are the cranky, G.I. tract-obsessed Jew, the restrained citizen and the stranger, respectively.  As strangers we exchange niceties about exteriors: the weather, traffic, things on the material plane.  Interiors—of bodies, of hearts, of minds—are reserved for those in close proximity, if at all.

The higher someone’s social rank, the more white, well-off (to a point), the more Anglo, Protestant their roots and blue their blood, (or the more identified they are with this same dominant culture) the more likely the answer to “How are you?” is an exteriorly-focused “fine,” or some such facsimile. As Matt Damon’s character in The Good Shepard put it to a fellow “Harvard man,” when asked by a fellow ruling-class WASP, So, Italians have family, other groups have their traditions, what do we have?  “The United States of America.  Everyone else is just visiting.”

When you have a lot to lose, and no one in your corner unconditionally, and you’re preoccupied with not slipping a rung on the social ladder, you damn well better convey you’re “fine.”  I rarely if ever hear blue bloods talk about poop. Rather, I tend to hear those descended from the British, Anglo’s and other northern Europeans, say they’re “fine” even while sliding by in quiet desperation. We Jews, Italians, Irish and others who probably aren’t going to run the country anyway enjoy a comparative freedom to open the window on our inner workings: emotions, sex, poop, vital organs.  Isn’t this why we’re so often the purveyors (or butts) of humor about these aspects of life?

Comedy, in part produces laughs by turning things “inside out” at times and in ways we don’t expect.  Making fun of the foibles of celebrities and politicians, exposing one’s inner workings contrary to expectation (as I did at the start above), or revealing some unspoken emotional truth, like a yearning, a crush, or a secret habit.  The laughter releases the tension we hold between the selves we present to the world—the exterior—and the rich inner life we reveal in measured doses.

How close or far apart is this split, between our experience and our representations, reflects the comfort and freedom we feel with others at a given moment, as well as often, how much we have to lose by breaching that gap.  Those who do breach it against social consensus, get called sociopathic, or at best, “have poor social skills.”

Sure, not all Jews talk about poop.  And not all Anglo’s avoid it.  But notice who among your friends reveals their innards, and how close they are to the top of the socioeconomic social ladder.  Of course those at the very top, folks often say and do what they want without regard to any social decorum—they have nothing left to prove to anyone.

The truth is, and the reason I started off on this track was not to do a Cliff’s Notes version of Fussell’s Class, but rather to bring up how when I ask someone how they are, even if it’s in passing, it’s usually because I’d like a little more information than I could get just by looking at them.  If they’re walking on two legs, or sitting in their usual position, I can pretty well gather that they’re at least “fine” enough that they’re not about to keel over.  For me, asking how someone is and hearing “fine” has the content of equivalent of,

“You’re not about to keel over, are you?”

“No.”

“Okay, good.”

Unless someone has recently been in a state of emergency, “fine” tells me very little new or of interest.

So, if I am interested in connecting with someone in passing, is there something I can say to take things past preliminary social inanities? 

Maybe it’s that round one is just for making sure neither person is about to keel over—perhaps in the days of cavepeople, we really did need to make sure we weren’t talking to corpses, because people died with a lot more frequency, and we encountered them directly rather than sequestered off in a hospice.

I have noticed that I usually give one or two word answers about my state of being during a “first round,” then when the conversation gets going more, I will reveal complete sentences of information, and if we really get into things, I might even tell you about what I had for dinner.  I don’t usually go into what happened to yesterday’s dinner, but I needed to above to define the ends of a continuum, if you will.

So, how are you?

(Answer, then pause 30 seconds)

So, how are you?

(Repeat above)

So. How are you?

Now please write and tell me!

You're Using More Words Than I'm Enjoying Hearing

So I'm hopping about singing "Monogamy...ba dee be deepee..." to the tune of Kermit-thee-Frog's jazz riff (you either get it or you don't), and Alex says my energy is a little too high for his midnight toothbrushing routine. "Okay, just one more verse," I insist, singing into his various concave body parts for the baritone word "monogamy."

Then I go on to something else, non-musical while he sits on the toilet brushing his teeth reading a textbook about nuclear reactors that his equally geeky mom gave him.  Please do not ask.  And he says, Would you please stop talking?  Waah, I say, that's not very nice.

So he looks up and with a big grin utters a phrase that's often used in Nonviolent Communication to indicate when someone is having a hard time staying engaged: "You're using more words than I'm enjoying hearing."  I  smiled--and got it.

I haven't yet mustered up the chutzpah to actually say this to someone--usually I find a way to exit a conversation that I'm not enjoying rather than voice what's actually going on.

But what if I were to actually unveil my sentiments in the moment?  Marshall Rosenberg talks about interrupting boring conversations and having folks moan with relief, including the person speaking.  No one wants to continue a disconnected conversation, he maintains, even if they're the ones fomenting it.

I'm not so sure about this, nor about how much I'd want to reveal about not enjoying the amount of someone's words, particularly if I didn't know them very well.  I have been known to ask someone in the middle of a conversation how they are feeling, and I find it interesting how many answers people offer other than to that question.  Mostly people say what they think, and cannot actually notice nor reveal what they feel without me repeating the question several times.

I once felt disconnected with someone in an instant message conversation and asked them how they were feeling.  They said, "Uh, fine, why?" or something like that, and then asked me how I was feeling, as if they perhaps needed permission to tell the truth.  I said I was feeling uncomfortable and disconnected and wondered if s/he felt the same way, and if so if we might talk about something that felt more alive for both of us.  I remember hoping I wasn't alienating this person.  But the truth was the interchange had gone to a very abstract place I wasn't really enjoying and suspected s/he wasn't either.  I think I was right. 

But I wonder if the pleasure in terminating a merely tolerable conversation outweighed the awkwardness of violating a social norm by revealing how I actually felt about the conversation itself.  Sometimes proponents of transparency hold up honesty as if the fact of truth somehow trumps all other concerns, whereas the fictions that hold up many forms of comfort.  If you're gonna yank a pillow out from under someone, at least think about what they're going to rest their head on once it's gone.

In Alex's case, he knew and trusted our relationship enough to be able to speak his truth (okay, with a bit of a prompt) in a way I could hear and also enjoy.  With others, it may not be so clear cut.  I suddenly wondered whether I was rambling, but am now remembering that if I am using more words than you're enjoying reading you can always stop.

Pieces of a "Bad Girl"

An old friend of mine, Ann Tinkham, whom I knew from Jewish Employment and Vocational Services back in my Philly days, and also from later  when she hired me as a workshop leader for World Game, recently found me and asked me to be interviewed for her book on "bad girls." I was honored.  Here's an excerpt:

We say that bad girls get where they want to go with style and beauty? Does this describe you?

Whew, there’s a lot in this question.  For one thing, I wonder what “style” and “beauty” mean.  I’m aware that I get a lot of preferential treatment on those occasions when I’m perceived to  fit a mold of conventional attractiveness, i.e., thin, pretty and white.  And “young,” on those days I’ve gotten lots of sleep (-:.

Though I use this privilege, it also bothers me.  What if I were short, fat, dark-skinned, or had less European-looking features?  Disabled?  Facially disfigured?  Would anyone see any style or beauty in me?  Would I get where I want to go as fast or as easily?

So many of us go through life thinking our skill and determination alone have landed us what we want, and yet study after study shows people with light skin who appear conventionally attractive have a much easier time of it.

So, do you mean using our style and perceived beauty as props in getting where we want?  Yeah, mea culpa (-:.  Or exhibiting these traits incidentally as we climb our mountains

My hope is that I move toward what I want with openness and consideration of others along the way.  It doesn’t matter that much to me whether I look good doing it, but apparently it matters to others who may or may not offer help along the way.

We have a chapter in which we identify assumptions, rules and myths accepted by good girls. We believe that these assumptions, rules, and myths are questioned and challenged by bad girls. Although bad girls are influenced by the same myths as good girls, bad girls tell them to go to hell. How does this apply to you?

One thing that comes to mind is my and my partner’s last names.  For a variety of reasons, when we married, I kept my last name and my partner hyphenated his, tacking on mine.  I have noticed that still, most male-female couples use the husband’s last name exclusively. 

Occasionally a woman will hyphenate, and rarely, both couples will hyphenate.  So far I have not encountered a single man (other than my partner, though I have heard of others) who has altered his worldly identity in any way to reflect his partnership with a woman.  It’s overwhelmingly expected that only women will do this, because our identity is expected to be malleable according to which man we’re with, a reflection of how we used to be men’s property. 

The classic example is how a couple gets called “Mr. and Mrs. Bob Smith,” with the woman’s lifelong name completely erased.  Often just-married women will get presented this way at their wedding, as if to say, now, I have become Mrs. Him.  I just cringe inside.   

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, I kept my name and my guy added it on.  That choice continues to speak volumes, and I’ve actually written an essay called “Mr. Somebody” which goes into the various emotional concatenations we’ve both been through as a result.  By the way, this guy is no shrinking violet—he’s actually the only man I’ve ever loved whose will truly matches mine.  He just isn’t (usually) ego-driven in traditional male ways. Thank Goddess!

What are some sassy comebacks you have used to set boundaries with people who’ve violated them?

One of my all-time favorites was when I was a Resident Advisor in the dorms in college.  Like so many students then, I had a write-on/wipe-off memo board on my door.  One day I woke up to find this message:

“Dear Jill: May I please have sex with you?  P.S.  I’m serious.”

I left the message there and thought about it for a while, then wrote the following underneath the original message:

“You can’t be too serious, you didn’t leave your name,” and left both messages there for the rest of the week.

Another time, I was making out with my girlfriend in front of our car, and a young guy entering a building yelled out,

“Hey, which one of you’s the guy?”

At first we bristled, but then recovered ourselves.  One of us shouted back,

“We take turns!”

Then we yelled to the guy, who was with a young woman,

“Which one of you’s the guy?”

Surprised, he also conferred with his girlfriend, then shouted back with a smile,

“We take turns!”

We all wound up giggling.

Again, it was the position I or we chose to occupy.  Even though the guy in the first example gave me sexual attention I didn’t want, I didn’t “act like a victim.”  But neither did I demonize him—I bantered back, putting the ball in his court—“like a man,” you might say.

When chat rooms first became popular, there were times I entered with an androgynous handle, like JCN, and people accused me of being a man trying to pass myself off as a woman.  At first I was baffled, but then realized how unusual it was for a woman to speak (or type, rather,) with the confidence and assertiveness that I did.

A couple of times in the last decade or so, when I’ve gotten unwanted sexual attention on the streets that’s especially hostile in nature, rather than ignore it or flipping them off, (both of which perpetuate the victim-perpetrator dynamic) I will look the guy in the eye and tell him that I feel uncomfortable with it, human to human.  Both times, I’ve gotten what sounded like a sincere apology.

I find that most people are actually relieved when presented with a way out of the victim-perpetrator dynamic, and it’s usually as easy as connecting with my own, and also their full humanity.  I think this is the key to resolving conflicts of every magnitude.

In Praise of Use

Today I wore a pair of green medical scrubs whose waist is permanently tied in a double knot, because the string deteriorated to where it can no longer be tied and untied.  The circumference has stretched (or perhaps I have shrunk) so that I have to fold down the waist so the pants stay up by sort of hanging on my hips. Usually. The fabric has worn to a soft, suede-like texture and the crotch sports a gaping hole big enough that I can't sit down with company and expect things to go normally.  Most people would throw these pants away.  Yet they're just at the point where I'm really growing to love them.

I'm sort of embarrassed about the hordes of t-shirts, some dating back decades, that I refuse to throw away, yet don't dare wear in public.  I actually have to make a point of purchasing new clothes to wear in front of others because the threadbare ones I favor never leave the house.  Unless I'm headed out of town and want loungewear for behind closed doors.

Sometimes I'll inadvertently run across a colleague of Alex's while still clad in the stained, torn clothes I've likely slept in.  Usually I've had the couth to don a jacket, but not to comb my hair.  More than once someone has asked me if I'm sick.  No you idiot, I'm just a slob, I want to retort, haven't you ever seen someone mucking around their own house in used clothes?  Okay, maybe I am a little sick.

But it's not just clothes--more than anything in a kitchen I love seeing pans, colanders, griddles and giant spoons with so many dents they look like they've been resurfaced.  I still remember the aluminum pans from my first job at Lorimar Hoagie Restaurant in Miami, Florida.  So many times had greasy eggs been flipped over and over in those pans that they had a sheen unmatched by any factory patina.

Repeated contact with human bodies renders inanimate objects altered: softer, shiner, more dented, because of our use.  In a friend's white t-shirt with the collar almost fringing away I can smell dozens of loads of laundry fresh from the dryer.  I can almost see the fading of the white.  In a still kitchen I can hear hundreds of vat-like pots boiling stews and sauces, pasta and soup for hungry beings in wait.  My black Softwalk shoes are starting to peel where my feet meet the insides.  My friend T jokes that they're from another fashion era anyway.

The funny thing about me and this fashion thing is that when I was a skinny nervous kid, I worked in fancy, and some very fancy clothing stores, like where a blouse cost $600, and that was in the early 80's.  My coworkers spent all their money on fancy clothes and bars.  I spent it on food, though I did spring for some lovely clothes, which I wore as long as I was a size four.

Maybe that's why I love my flannel sheets so much--they're like a worn t-shirt, only covering my whole body.

Faux use, which falls in and out of fashion over time, just bores me.  I like the real deal, with threads frayed by sweating, washing and wearing.  Schmutz I can do without, I'll bleach away anything yellow or worse.  But give me a soft cotton pullover any day.  Oh okay, I did spring for a gloriously butterlike black silk pajama top which was almost as good.  To paraphrase an old quote, yes, used clothes is best, lest you can find a new clo you wanna make a used one out of.   Points if you identify the original quote!  Points redeemable for chocolate.

Out of Time

The passage of time, and my response to it never fails to captivate me.  How I can return to a house I grew up in, with everything replaced (as our bodies recreate themselves from the cells out every seven years) and be able to let go of the idea that somehow this structure, this piece of land, held something of mine without which I could not be whole; be able to reclaim that part of myself I had put on layaway in a place that no longer existed.  I could welcome myself back.

Sure, seeing the new place helped, but really, I think the time did the work.

Some say time is an illusion, that we who process the world through these organs of miniscule capacity called brains need the space between events, thoughts, lessons, that time provides.  Presumably God, angels, higher consciousness, ourselves in the "place" or "time" after death, or someone, perceives and processes without the heuristic of time.

I have enjoyed imagining what such a consciousness, such an intelligence would be like.  Relished thinking of myself as the tip of a pinky on the hand of a limb of God, or some such entity, whose omniscience encompasses mine.  How my evolving consciousness moves slowly toward an awareness whose vastness would dwarf mine, yes also encompasses it holonically, like the ocean depends on and also comprises the molecules that compose it. Somehow I think these inklings exercise my consciousness much as incremental increases of weight strengthen my muscles. By intentionally stretching my mind to imagine higher-order functions of consciousness, I move closer to performing them.

"What's the point," Alex has asked in prior conversations.  "We can no more know omniscience than Tail-r (our old Lab) can do crossword puzzles.

"Yeah, but we can conceive of omniscience (for want of a better word).  And more important, thinking about this stuff is FUN, dammit!"

Meanwhile, we mete ourselves out in increments of seconds, minutes, hours, days.  By these measures, we're on time, we're out of time, we have no time. We're in time with the music, we share time, we spend time, we waste time.  I see a cluster of wrinkles.  I see a few gray hairs at my temple when I hoist my shaggy main on top of my head.  My best friend, who's had gray since early twenties hoots, "It's a about f**king time!"

It is, indeed, about time.  Sometimes fucking time, a particular favorite, where time loops around like a funhouse mirror and a weekend in bed passes like a couple fireflies off to mate and die.

The other day my mother, who had a birthday at the end of June, said, Who's seventy-three?  Not me; I'm about twenty-eight.  I too feel an odd relationship to my age.  I got the following in the mail from my friend Marie, known by some as Mer (rhymes with purr) in deference, I guess, to her affinity for the sea, and to her butchness:

As a younger person, I thought "old" people were a static thing...that people were just born into the state of age where they remained relatively constant as I grew into adolescences, puberty and teenage-hood.  My parent’s generation, with their grey hairs and freckled skin were simply what adults were and I gave no real thought to the continuity of their lives...I knew that they had been "young" once...but that reality seemed fractured from the people I knew.  Their youth was an abstraction, a collection of narratives to be used for entertainment, learning, amusement....but really, had nothing to do with the static entities that made up the group of adults around me...my parents, coaches, teachers, and friends.  To be "old" was simply to be what you were, not the culmination of experiences and physical maturity, not a point in the progression of a life. 

Perhaps this perception is hinged in the nature of youth where changes are fast an obvious and the narcissistic preoccupation of youth....where one day you are flat as a board and the next day you have tits and hips...but mom and dad look relatively the same.....

But there comes the strange Tuesday in November when the light is strong and you look over to see that your mother has changed....her face furrowed and her skin more translucent revealing the blue of her veins... and as you study her face you realize that she too was once a young woman whose sense of time was so firmly grounded in the present….the concept of time was still an abstraction....and with this realization comes the knowing that you sit at a pinpoint in a progression, a progression that will end for each of us....

Years later, when your mother and father are gone, in strong light you will look down at your hands and see that they have changed....the smooth skin of your youth now bares the wear of years in the sun and physical labors and you will be reminded that you sit at a pinpoint in a progression, a progression that will someday end.

Age is the only social grouping that everyone moves through in exactly the same order, and at the same speed.  Yet in ignoring or putting down both young and old, we somehow disidentify with where we've been and where we're headed.  We are that pinpoint in time.  Or we feel we're the one years before, but for the creaks, swells and wrinkles.

This post was mainly an excuse to post Mer's stuff.  I may expound further shortly. Or not.

Can I Get A Witness?

I’m thinking about the place of the witness.  She who observes, takes in, maybe reflects back.  This culture so values action, visibility, audibility, that I can fail to see how quiet and stillness sometimes figure more prominently than I might suspect.  I often think about being present to a person or situation, or to my own inner state, and I think witness has a slightly different connotation than presence.

Being present is about the state of our own mind with regard to what’s outside us. Witnessing is about embodying and taking seriously the role of the observer.  Witnessing privileges that which is observed, rather than the observer herself.  If I intend to be present, I am most present to my own presence.  If I intend to witness, I am most present to what’s happening outside me, and my own sense of presence or lack thereof becomes almost irrelevant.  At the same time, I become acutely present to what’s happening in my surroundings, or at least a subsection of my surroundings.

When I encountered Quakers through my bi activist work in Philadelphia in the late 80s and early 90s, I was impressed with the way they walked their talk: religious meetings without leaders, where people who felt moved to speak did so, consensus decision making, lots of social justice organizations.  Mostly the bi activists were Jews and Quakers, a couple hybrids, a few African-Americans and some other non-Quaker Euro-mutts. One Quaker, who would become a dear friend, even came into her bisexuality through a Quaker concept.  Quakers believe there’s god within everything and everyone.  She reasoned, if there’s “that of God” in men and women equally, why could I not love a woman?” And so she did.

I learned that Quakers, avatars of peaceful resistance, had a history of showing up to scenes of injustice and quietly watching. Not interfering, carry signs or otherwise influencing the course of events—simply bearing witness.  This struck me as powerful, even as something in me—perhaps my Jewish background which values overt struggle and opposition to injustice—decried the passivity in that posture.

Still, I’m thinking about witnessing.  Maybe it’s because the quiet observer position appeals to me in this rather introspective moment of my life.  Maybe it’s because I’m older and more weary of struggle.

Perhaps it’s because a big part of a parent’s role is witnessing.  Standing guard while Cainan climbs as high as he can on a wall not designed for daring tots. Turning my eyes to him for the nth time while he cries “Watch me!” and sails from the arm of the couch down to the cushions, falling into a fit of giggles.  Lying next to him while he sleeps, completely transfixed by this mini-human, his rounded little features, creamy soft cheeks, rosebud mouth and audible breathing.  Thinking how easily he falls asleep next to me, how his little body knows mine somehow as home.  No matter how old we get, how far we travel, my body will always have been his first home.

Aside from touch, eye contact is the main way we first learn that things are okay, that others are around who care.  Adults, if we are lucky, bear visual witness to our unfolding being, and as we grow, our becoming.  So yes, witness is high up there on my job description as a mom, right behind giant nose wipe, trash receptacle, crying post, jungle gym and busy box, all of which I’ve learned to toggle on demand.  If I’ve got my witness wits about me, I can pull off that part of it too, although with Cainan I think what I strive for is more like presence, really bringing me into being with him.

With adults, a more selfless witness can hold a space, can occupy a third side when two find themselves at odds.  Mediation involves a lot of witnessing, which alone can help transform the content or tone of much discord.

Often when I’m writing about a theme at least a part of which can be distilled to a single word, I’ll look at the dictionary definition.  In this case, the dictionary has little interesting to say about witness, mostly involving observation or legal matters.  I am reaching for the spiritual, social and energetic nuances of witnessing.

A witness validates, makes real, helps us know we aren’t alone, crazy or deluded because of what we perceive.  Yes, I was there, I saw it too.  Or gives reality checks: No, actually I observed a different scenario.

The seat of the witness helps those witnessed to occupy themselves more fully.  A witness can give testimony, can reflect back what she sees, and help carry forth a story of what happened there, how things are, or how they came to be here now.

The other night I watched three people I know in the throes of becoming a triple—that is, three people romantically involved with one another, each with the other two.  An electric triangle that goes both ways.  I shared with them how it felt to feel the energy traveling among and between them, to see them express affection so openly with one another, and to feel welcomed rather than excluded in their dynamic.  I felt pleased to be able to reflect to them what I, as a witness saw, that they could not as easily have noticed.

There’s the rub: A witness stands outside and helps us see ourselves.  Or they just show up and watch, transforming things in ways we may not know.  Either way, someone is watching.

The Poverty of Apology

Recently, someone I know wanted an apology, and I coughed something up, trying to please her.  It didn't feel authentic.  She didn't like it and neither did I.  I realize now that most times when social rules require an apology, I would prefer to offer something that meets my needs for connection, and the other person's needs for empathy and acknowledgment. So, I propose we do away with apologies altogether.

Why?  Because apologies are a sorry-ass stand-in.  At best, they're a thin euphemism for what people who are hurting really need.  Emblematic of the disconnect required to "succeed" in this culture, they get us through the gateway of polite company, while leaving wounds unhealed, discussions unhad, feelings unacknowledged.

Quoted by my friend Joel, another cool Jew we know, Miki Kashtan, writes about how we get offered certain "privileges" as poor substitutes for basic human needs: comfort substitutes for pleasure and joy, security for community, success for a sense of purpose, productivity for creativity; the accumulation of wealth substitutes for freedom, and control replaces a sense of real power in the world. These privileges, we are told, are scarce, commodities which must be worked for and hoarded; but the real needs which they purport to replace seem so impossible to meet, and have gone so long unmet, that the privilege is all anyone can hope for. So we struggle ever more desperately to accumulate privilege, wreaking untold harm to others and to the planet, yet we are never satisfied because the needs remain.

One of the definitions of apology itself is "substitute," as in, this piece of foam is a poor apology for a bed.  Recently I've been invited to apologize without being told what for, and as a condition of possible friendship.  When I got beyond my initial rage at feeling like a rat in a maze, I began to explore the notion of apology, and what it might mean, should I discover the transgressions I was meant to apologize for, to issue such an apology.  What I came up with was this:

            Apology is a formality we rely on to acknowledge when we have hurt someone.   Sometimes it meets human needs, sometimes it doesn't. Some situations are quite straightforward. I step on your foot.  You say, “Ouch.” I say, “I’m sorry.”  Simple enough, right?  I didn’t mean to hurt you.  In a way I recognize and understand, you let me know how I hurt you.  In a way you recognize and understand, I say, “I’m sorry,” to let you know I acknowledge your pain, and wish I hadn’t caused it.

What if I don't then get off your foot?  Suddenly the apology begins to ring hollow.  You might think, She's not really sorry.  But then what if we are piled on top of each other in a crowded bus, and I cannot move my foot?  You might think, Sure, she's sorry, but she can't do anything about it.  Or what if we are doing a yoga exercise we both agreed to that involves taking turns stepping on each other's feet?  You might think, But I asked for this.  I was just saying "Ouch" because it hurt, but I assumed it would because we were told it would.

What if, in any of the above situations, I said, Tell me about the pain.  You begin to share: I feel like my bones are cracking, please help.  No matter what the situation, I instinctively shift my weight as much as possible.  Because I am tuned into your experience, and working with you to heal the damage.

Isn't that better than being sorry?

Like the substitutions above, apology, too, stands in for a more meaningful exchange, where we might really get what's going on with another person, touch their heart and give them empathy or help them in some way to meet their needs.

A formal apology from, say, a head of state, or someone in a public position, at its best says, I understand that what I did affected many of you adversely.  I hear your pain.  If I could undo it, I would.  Sometimes the apology actually acknowledges and empathizes with those affected.

But many times, an apology simply serves political ends.  Someone is expected to apologize, and so they do, but, like the other substitutions above, those affected come up short of empathy and acknowledgment.

Our culture is based on retributive justice: when a “perpetrator” does something to a “victim,” he’s “punished” because he “deserves” it.  Retribution means a “wrong” act warrants a “punishment” to “make up for” what has gone “wrong.”  Retribution seeks to reinstate balance through punishment.  Executions typically show the faces and quote the words of those close to the families of the dead victims.  The execution of the criminal is supposed to “help make up for” the families’ losses.  Restorative justice, a movement to address human hurts in the deeper, more connected context I desire, has a completely different approach (I may be augmenting my mediator training to do restorative justice work in the near future--stay tuned!).  And--surprise, surprise--restorative justice programs boast much lower recidivism rates than their retributive counterparts. Meaning, when "criminals" truly connect with their "victims," and empathize with their pain, they are far less likely to repeat the harmful behavior.

As part of my current drive to understand apology in this context, I read an interview with Marshall Rosenberg, who in other contexts has equated apology with doing violence.  The reason he gave is that apology replaces connection and empathy with reference to right and wrong.  It makes one person wrong, and the other right, and just like the rest of our retributive system, seeks to rectify the imbalance left by the wrong.  This very powerful example, involving a prisoner apologizing for a rape and Marshall not letting him get away with it because "Apology is too easy," clearly illustrates for me the poverty of apology and its correlate, "taking responsibility."  Not that these don't have their places, but when we treat them as if they exhaust the complexity of what goes on between two humans when one is hurt in response to another's actions, we miss some of the richest opportunities for the kind of healing, empathic connections that really allow people to move beyond their pain.

In an everyday interpersonal context, if I take responsibility and then attempt to move on in the conversation, I may have deprived someone of the opportunity to tell me how they feel.  I’ve foreclosed what might have been a richer discussion by reducing it to an issue of right and wrong.  I’m wrong, I’m responsible, I apologize, end of story. 

The other day, when I was hosting the Coop (yes, I found a new toddler daycare coop, and I love it!), without thinking, I grabbed a handful of magic markers and gave them to the five tots to decorate Valentine's Day cards for their parents.  One of the little girls (there are four girls plus Cainan) decorated approximately 10% of the surface of her body with black marker. 

Too late, I realized with horror that it was permanent marker, and probably therefore toxic.  I picked up her tiny body and explained that I was going to clean her.  Frantic but calm, I found handcleaner in the utility room, and slathered her up and down with it.  Again and again.  Then I took her into the bathroom to wash off the heavily-scented, creamy hand cleaner.  She remained calm as a full moon throughout it all.

When her dad arrived, I told him what happened.  I said that I was not thinking when I brought the markers in, and that I would not let it happen again.  He was unperturbed.  If it were me, I would have been more scared and angry, but then I have stronger reactions to Cainan being exposed to foreign substances than some other parents do with their kids.  He was pretty mellow.  It was clear to me that I did something I wish I hadn't, it affected his child adversely, I was fully responsible, and I would take full responsibility for preventing it in the future.  Pretty straightforward. 

All of the above felt important to me to say.  Why didn't "I'm sorry" get included?  I think if the child's dad had gotten upset, I might have said "I'm sorry," but even then, that could be a substitute for, "I get what you're feeling--you are angry/hurt/scared because your deep need for your child's safety was not met."  I think I would have preferred someone tune into me that way.  Too often, I have uttered or heard "I'm sorry" on top of lots of anxiety on my own part, or someone else's part, because one of us couldn't deal with the other's feelings. 

"I'm sorry" can mean "the conversation's over--I've done my part, now you're on your own with your feelings."  It certainly doesn't mean the same thing as "Tell me more about how you're feeling," as anyone who's ever been on the other end of a shouted, "I'm SORRY, okay!?" knows all too well.  Oh, and how about, "I SAID I was SORRY!" to reinforce that that is supposed to be the end of the conversation?

I might have met his and my own needs better to say, How did it feel to know I allowed your daughter to decorate herself with permanent marker?  Are you afraid I might do something like that again in the future?  I think I did say, Again, I want to reassure you that it won't happen again.  He was so easygoing, I perhaps needn't have, but I really did want him to know I was looking out for her welfare.

As another example, I spent many years finding fault with my biological family.  I didn’t even try to have them guess what they needed to apologize for—I spelled it out for them.  Forget apology--I would have settled for a single sentence that contained something remotely relevant to anything I had said to them.  Dialogue. An adult conversation.  Still, I got nothing.

I remember talking to Baruch, a man closer to my parents' age than my age, about wanting them to acknowledge how they had hurt me, and feeling pretty righteous about it.  I still remember the tone in his voice as he responded to me, if not the exact words.  Baruch, who has a Master's in Divinity and is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met, said, If you want someone to repent, to confess their sins to you, you might be waiting an awfully long time.  The tone was one of a wise master warning his protégé about meandering down a path that would not bring the desired result.  The conversation came back to me many times, as I imagined this huge-hearted person and the way he would hold others in compassion in contrast to my own attempts to elicit apologies.

Years went by.  And more years.  And then I began to work on forgiveness.  And acceptance.  Now, I can no more imagine trying to extract an apology from my parents than getting them to do handsprings.  Besides, an apology means, I did something wrong to you and I wish I hadn’t.  I’ve had apologies; they don’t hold much, or have much staying power.

What I would like is connection.  For them to hear how sad I have been not to have been in contact with them all these years.  How deeply I need family, and how sad I am that Cainan still has not met his only grandfather.  And a big part of me would like to say, I am sorry.  Or rather, I feel sad about how I behaved toward you, because it clearly did not meet your needs for respect or safety.  I wish to treat you in a way that you can tell you are respected and safe, I'd like you to tell me what would meet your needs in that regard.

I know someone who reconnected with her ex, even though technically her ex owes her tens of thousands of dollars.  She decided she would rather have love than an apology, rather be happy than right, rather have connection than an I.O.U.  I may have gotten some of the details wrong, but the outlines of the story are a parable for me: as Alex reminds me, you can be right, or you can be happy.  If you owe me an apology, I will remain right.  I'm deciding right now to be happy.