More thoughts on connection vs separation
4/18/07
1406, Wed; Gary’s & my 15th anniversary
Monica was over for a few hours this morning. That was nice to spend time with her. I don’t feel as anxious today about the solitude time lost.
Several dreams last night:
First:
In some sort of math class—geometry. Figuring out a concept of “the egan” which is the distance between the apex of a triangle at a right angle to its base. Something about its square equal to the length of the sides. I’m having trouble with this concept & with holding it firmly in my mind.
I keep getting muddled. Then I’m told I have books that are late for the library—“unforgiveably” & I’m afraid I may have my borrowing privileges revoked. Then awaken
Second:
Mash potato dinner—it’s supposed to be topped, Kate is coming with Vincent & going to the park first. She’s bringing the potatoes—I’ve given her the recipe but forgot to ask her to double it.
So there’s not so much as I’d like, & it sort of changes the meal, but its ok—I’m serving in the garage & Kate, Vincent & another girlfriend are in the kitchen. I’m looking for teriaki sauce for the potatoes; can’t find it, so settle for soy sauce. My grandmother is there and she’s Kate’s grandmother too. Kathy hugs her in a very dignified & affectionate way. I tell someone that she is the grandmother of both Kate and me.
Third:
This one is the longest with the most coherent narrative. I’m travelling alone, for pleasure, with Darlene. I think she may be driving, or maybe we’re on a train, or maybe there are elements of both. We’re taking her home, and making a pleasure trip out of it by seeing some interesting things on the way. There are several unique towns we pass through and stop. We walk through bed and breakfast places that have spiral staircases and each level is really beautifully and unusually finished. Bright colors and unique art. Throughout is the feeling of warmth toward
Darlene, pleasure in her company, along with the awareness that it’s remarkable that I would be feeling that way. There’s the notion that once she gets home it will be too late for me to drive home, and I will probably spend the night there and it will be ok.
4/19/07
1215
I did dream last night. I’m ashamed to say that I woke distinctly once and ignored the call to write; with a fully coherent dream in my head. And now it’s gone. The dream I woke up with today for some reason I’m reluctant to write down. I feel some sort of brake inside. It would be ok with me if that dream had sunk out of sight too.
It wasn’t on the face a bad dream.
I was at a concert. There seemed to be elements of the classic arena rock concert, but also some sort of classical, but with a classic rock concert audience. I can no longer identify who I was with. Curiously, I have a hint of the ‘signature’ of this group; a type of sesnation inside that I associate with that group—actually it may have been the mountaineering group, Blair, Rich, etc. Gary was probably there too. OK, I was able to identify this group by their ‘signature’/smell—it really is like an experience of smell. So I think it’s intermission and there might be some sort of buffet food service. I seem to have that ‘scent’ of a long food-laden table. Here I encounter a man that I’m very attracted to. He’s really good looking. (In some sense I associate him with the Jerry group I met the night I had taken my comprehensive exam for physical therapy.) In another sense he reminds me of a husband of a friend of mine. There is a sense about forbidden fruit to him, regardless, and I’m delighted when he starts joking with me. And there’s the feeling of ‘I shouldn’t, but I want’ as we walk through this auditorium with his arm around me. We’re joking as we walk. I feel sexual in his proximity. He says something to me; something about the gist of wishing he could say the right thing to turn me on (or maybe make me love him, I’m not sure.) I lean my head on his shoulder and whisper in his ear that he already has done it. And I keep my head on his shoulder. I can feel his joy. But there is still the feeling that it’s risky for us to have our arms around each other. We separate in the crowd, and I think return to our own groups. I have a sense of seeking him, though…maybe that was later.
Jerry was an interesting short story in my life. I’ll be getting to it soon in my transcriptions.
So it’s a little while later; a little less than an hour before the boys get home.
I feel a little infected with the restless spirit I had when writing back in the early summer after college graduation. I think I probably had reproductive hormones in overdrive that manifested as feelings of loneliness, restlessness. And I turned to reminiscing about romantic encounters I’d had before with important people like Jeff.
It seems it both satisfied, and sharpened the restlessness. Perhaps my dream last night was speaking to this.
It’s just kind of interesting, to not be having inside a sense of striving toward Something. That’s been the motivating energy behind all this writing. All of my diary-keeping years. Writing has been filling a yearning; and I think it’s a yearning to understand, and I had that yearning because I lacked that sense of my place in the world. I guess that’s what I mean by “understanding”. A sort of sense of my base, my launch point for my actions in the world.
So I saw Sharon last night. She confirmed that she believed my fear last week that I’d mess up this new way of being in the world was my way of experiencing the fear of going further into this Consciousness of the world. I can sense a ghost of it as I write, and I think I do have an idea of what it means. Like the first experience of being picked up and moved in a certain direction may activate fear and an attempt to pull back.
There are things she said that I treated as old new, and now I’m suspicious that that feeling of knowing already may have been used as an attempt to ‘not hear’. We discussed the concept of experiencing the polarity of longing for closeness and longing for separateness in only the pole of wanting closenesses. So in being unable to experience my desire for separateness I was only aware of longing for connection.
I had a desire for separateness from my parents that I didn’t recognize. I wanted so much what would have made me feel connected to them, but since it wasn’t available, I HAD to move away, but that didn’t stop me for longing for the things that would have brought connected feelings—the ability to help my insides feel peaceful, and to limit the spread of the pain when my insides weren’t peaceful.)
So, I’m still not quite sure of the significance of the fact that I
a) did not have from my parents the things I would have needed to feel connected toward them; including an ability to reconnect when alienation did occur
b) this often resulted in pain
c) I had to remove myself from my parents to an emotional distance because it wasn’t safe to move closer in the absence of the ability to connect and reconnect
d) I still longed for the things that would enable connectedness with my parents
e) So I experienced the longing part of the polarity, not the separateness part, even though on some level I’d desired separation; for my own emotional safety. I didn’t WANT to have to need separation.
So back again to missing the Presence of something that should have been there and I had had every right to expect. And, it is significant in the overall picture that I needed separation
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