Soon after we moved in together she was showing me how to use the clothes dryer (it had been hers). I did know pretty well how to use a dryer, so I took the lint screen out and found it completely packed with lint. I asked - sort of without thinking, "Don't you clean the lint screen regularly?" She said "Oh, yes, of course I do!"
It was such a silly little thing, but a darkness touched my heart because I knew in that moment what she'd just said was a purposeful lie; in fact it was the first lie she had ever told me. It wouldn't be the last.
"But all of that is in the past," you might accurately say. True. But every time I do laundry, and slide out the lint screen, I am reminded of that tiny lie, four years ago, and then my skin heats up and my breath catches, because I know I will - without fail - remember all the gigantic things that have gone wrong since then.
Can the breakup of a relationship cause PTSD? Can a lint screen be a PTSD trigger?
Monday, January 4, 2010
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
She is benediction
One winter evening, I was starting a fire in the living room fireplace. I'd put music on, soulful music, when Mary suddenly danced in from the next room. She glided smoothly, but it wasn't because of her stockinged feet nor the well-buffed wood... it was she - her arms and legs, her breasts and her hips - which danced across and around the room, back and forth, suspended in air, suspended in time - not heedless of me, but regardless of me - around and back and forth, like a satyr.
If I wasn't already in love by then, I fell in love with her in that moment, when she surprised me with her dancing - she was a 51 year old mother of 3 grown children who danced like a wood sprite, a nymph - who made me want to be a puddle of melted ice water rippling at her feet, who made me as happy as I will ever be, that evening...at least. After the day's chores and travels were done...she danced for me...she danced before me...like a garlanded queen of times long gone.
If I wasn't already in love by then, I fell in love with her in that moment, when she surprised me with her dancing - she was a 51 year old mother of 3 grown children who danced like a wood sprite, a nymph - who made me want to be a puddle of melted ice water rippling at her feet, who made me as happy as I will ever be, that evening...at least. After the day's chores and travels were done...she danced for me...she danced before me...like a garlanded queen of times long gone.
In ancient Mali the people told stories of the great deeds of the legendary (though once very real) King Sundiata. In these tales Sundiata faced seemingly overwhelming challenges, and through wisdom, bravery, cunning, and strength, he always won out, usually over tremendous odds.
Mostly of the time the telling of these tales was idle recreation, but in times of trouble or indecision, the griots (a role akin to bard or shaman or shanichee) would gather the people and ritually recite one particular tale or another, as it fit the situation. The ritual tales of the griots were mostly true, though they also contained "additional" and sometimes fantastical embellishments, and they evolved over the years (Sundiata lived, I believe, in the 14th centuryCE). These tellings were treated as virtually sacred, and often took several days, with competing versions of details being offered, and with considerable debate also.
Such part-real, part-embroidered tales would, in such times, help to inform the people about what the wise and great Sundiata might do in such troubled times, and how they might follow his example. In a non-literate society this process played a legal and/or political role; the tales were a sort of "constitution" to be guided by.... Read More
I think stories like those above play a similar role for us today - in that they give us an almost idealized - though true enough - role model to follow. If the times in the stories weren't tragic or troubled, they would have less to teach us.
Mostly of the time the telling of these tales was idle recreation, but in times of trouble or indecision, the griots (a role akin to bard or shaman or shanichee) would gather the people and ritually recite one particular tale or another, as it fit the situation. The ritual tales of the griots were mostly true, though they also contained "additional" and sometimes fantastical embellishments, and they evolved over the years (Sundiata lived, I believe, in the 14th centuryCE). These tellings were treated as virtually sacred, and often took several days, with competing versions of details being offered, and with considerable debate also.
Such part-real, part-embroidered tales would, in such times, help to inform the people about what the wise and great Sundiata might do in such troubled times, and how they might follow his example. In a non-literate society this process played a legal and/or political role; the tales were a sort of "constitution" to be guided by.... Read More
I think stories like those above play a similar role for us today - in that they give us an almost idealized - though true enough - role model to follow. If the times in the stories weren't tragic or troubled, they would have less to teach us.
late last night I watched a documentary on the immediate aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. Though no one's behavior was inexcusable, the men involved acted in sometimes animalistic ways...RFK, LBJ...all of them. The women, on the other hand, were all the paragons of class.
Though Kennedy's shattered body was in a casket in the rear of the same plane, with Jackie sitting nearby still wearing clothing stained with her murdered husband's blood and brains, Lyndon Johnson refused to allow Air Force One to leave Dallas until he had been sworn in as President. He also wanted Jackie standing next to him as the oath was being administered (he may have been cold and calculating, loose-limbed and shambling, but he was anything but stupid). Despite her sorrow, when an aide told her of Johnson's request, Jackie responded, "Of course, it's the least I can do."
After the plane departed Lady Bird Johnson walked past all of the angry and suspicious Kennedy staffers gathered in the plane's rear and sat with Jackie, comforting her in a way no other person present - perhaps no other person in the world - could have at that moment.
When Johnson called Rose Kennedy - from Air Force One flying from Dallas to Washington - to offer his condolences, Mrs. Kennedy answered the call by saying "Hello, Mr. President..." Though he'd been surrounded by hundreds of people in the past few hours, she was the first person to call him that. Though she must've been inconsolable, at that moment she remembered who he was now - and, more importantly, who SHE was.
When JFK lay in state at the White House, a military honor guard was stationed around his catafalque. When Jackie saw the men arranged with their backs to their dead commander (thereby symbolizing their place as his guardians in death, though they could not protect him when he was alive), she asked them to turn around and face the casket, so her dead husband wouldn't be so lonely. Though it represented a unique and immense contradiction of protocol, of course they did as she asked.
These things symbolize why, if forced to choose, I'd prefer the company of women to that of men at almost any time. They are simply more humane.
Though Kennedy's shattered body was in a casket in the rear of the same plane, with Jackie sitting nearby still wearing clothing stained with her murdered husband's blood and brains, Lyndon Johnson refused to allow Air Force One to leave Dallas until he had been sworn in as President. He also wanted Jackie standing next to him as the oath was being administered (he may have been cold and calculating, loose-limbed and shambling, but he was anything but stupid). Despite her sorrow, when an aide told her of Johnson's request, Jackie responded, "Of course, it's the least I can do."
After the plane departed Lady Bird Johnson walked past all of the angry and suspicious Kennedy staffers gathered in the plane's rear and sat with Jackie, comforting her in a way no other person present - perhaps no other person in the world - could have at that moment.
When Johnson called Rose Kennedy - from Air Force One flying from Dallas to Washington - to offer his condolences, Mrs. Kennedy answered the call by saying "Hello, Mr. President..." Though he'd been surrounded by hundreds of people in the past few hours, she was the first person to call him that. Though she must've been inconsolable, at that moment she remembered who he was now - and, more importantly, who SHE was.
When JFK lay in state at the White House, a military honor guard was stationed around his catafalque. When Jackie saw the men arranged with their backs to their dead commander (thereby symbolizing their place as his guardians in death, though they could not protect him when he was alive), she asked them to turn around and face the casket, so her dead husband wouldn't be so lonely. Though it represented a unique and immense contradiction of protocol, of course they did as she asked.
These things symbolize why, if forced to choose, I'd prefer the company of women to that of men at almost any time. They are simply more humane.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Is Same the Opposite of Opposite?
It’s an axiom among many thoughtful people in our culture that our world is a collection of opposites. We’ve all heard it said that for every action there’s a reaction; for there to be up there must be down. In implies out; day, of course, has night; on has off. Black is paired with white; bad with good. Yin is entwined with yang. It seems intuitive.
But a question occurred to me this morning: what's the opposite of a mountain? The first, reflexive answer is, of course: a valley, but that’s plainly untrue. Valleys and mountains aren’t created by opposite (or even similar) geological forces. Some valleys cut through flat plains; in many cases mountains are crisscrossed by brooks and creeks that carve valleys from the mountainside, but that’s hardly what we’d consider an “opposite” relationship.
Is earth the opposite of sky? If so, when we look into the night sky we can see millions of miles into the sky, but we can’t see a foot into the earth (if we dig a hole we can see some small distance, but the deepest holes we've ever made only go maybe a couple of miles - the earth is 25,000 miles wide). And even if we could see through the earth, at some point we’d start seeing sky again on the other side. That hardly seems like an opposite to me.
Do we consider our friends opposites of our enemies? Not really. What’s the opposite of old? Young? How can that be? Doesn’t the concept of opposites imply that it works in both directions? Young is a step on the path to old, but the opposite isn’t true. The opposite of broken isn't fixed, is it?
And what’s the opposite of dog? If we lived in the world of 1940s and 50s cartoon movies, the opposite of dog would be cat. But we live in a different, less sensible world, where dog and cat can’t be considered opposites any more than birds and humans can. One could ask: is a white dog the opposite of a black dog? But then, what would a border collie’s opposite be? Or a zebra’s? Or a greyhound’s? By the way: what is the opposite of bird? Fish?
And here's a big one...what is the opposite of me? You?
But a question occurred to me this morning: what's the opposite of a mountain? The first, reflexive answer is, of course: a valley, but that’s plainly untrue. Valleys and mountains aren’t created by opposite (or even similar) geological forces. Some valleys cut through flat plains; in many cases mountains are crisscrossed by brooks and creeks that carve valleys from the mountainside, but that’s hardly what we’d consider an “opposite” relationship.
Is earth the opposite of sky? If so, when we look into the night sky we can see millions of miles into the sky, but we can’t see a foot into the earth (if we dig a hole we can see some small distance, but the deepest holes we've ever made only go maybe a couple of miles - the earth is 25,000 miles wide). And even if we could see through the earth, at some point we’d start seeing sky again on the other side. That hardly seems like an opposite to me.
Do we consider our friends opposites of our enemies? Not really. What’s the opposite of old? Young? How can that be? Doesn’t the concept of opposites imply that it works in both directions? Young is a step on the path to old, but the opposite isn’t true. The opposite of broken isn't fixed, is it?
And what’s the opposite of dog? If we lived in the world of 1940s and 50s cartoon movies, the opposite of dog would be cat. But we live in a different, less sensible world, where dog and cat can’t be considered opposites any more than birds and humans can. One could ask: is a white dog the opposite of a black dog? But then, what would a border collie’s opposite be? Or a zebra’s? Or a greyhound’s? By the way: what is the opposite of bird? Fish?
And here's a big one...what is the opposite of me? You?
Two Seasons by Galway Kinnell
I
The stars were wild that summer evening
As on the low lake shore stood you and I
And every time I caught your flashing eye
Or heard your voice discourse on anything
It seemed a star went burning down the sky.
I looked into your heart that dying summer
And found your silent woman's heart grown wild
Whereupon you turned to me and smiled
Saying you felt afraid but that you were
Weary of being mute and undefiled
II
I spoke to you that last winter morning
Watching the wind smoke snow across the ice
Told of how the beauty of your spirit, flesh,
And smile had made day break at night and spring
Burst beauty in the wasting winter's place.
You did not answer when I spoke, but stood
As if that wistful part of you, your sorrow,
Were blown about in fitful winds below;
Your eyes replied your worn heart wished it could
Again be white and silent as the snow.
Galway Kinnell
The stars were wild that summer evening
As on the low lake shore stood you and I
And every time I caught your flashing eye
Or heard your voice discourse on anything
It seemed a star went burning down the sky.
I looked into your heart that dying summer
And found your silent woman's heart grown wild
Whereupon you turned to me and smiled
Saying you felt afraid but that you were
Weary of being mute and undefiled
II
I spoke to you that last winter morning
Watching the wind smoke snow across the ice
Told of how the beauty of your spirit, flesh,
And smile had made day break at night and spring
Burst beauty in the wasting winter's place.
You did not answer when I spoke, but stood
As if that wistful part of you, your sorrow,
Were blown about in fitful winds below;
Your eyes replied your worn heart wished it could
Again be white and silent as the snow.
Galway Kinnell
Spicy
Shovel chew dip shovel chew chew pause oh I thought this was the medium salsa oh that’s where’s the water has the waiter brought the water yet oh thanks gulp gulp oh that’s better no it only went away for a while gulp gulp could you ask him for more water I wish they were clearer about which is spicy my mouth is on fire can I drink your water until gulp glug (I’m gonna have trouble tomorrow morning) you’re right eating some chips might help I’m not usually such a baby but I usually like it milder gulp glug.
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