5/18/06

I had a revelation, a minor one, but it was something I’d not put together before. I was taking a hot bath and heard the lawn mower from next door start, and moaned. I got out of the tub to hunt for earplugs, and while getting back in I was thinking “This spoils my day to myself”, or shortens it somehow. Then I thought my standards for what qualified as a truly replenishing day off have gotten a little rigid, if a lawn mower next door can count as something that curtails the time off the way driving the kids yesterday would have. Then I realized—this whole awareness or mindset of these days off being interrupted, and therefore not counting as “true” days off, and then feeling deprived the way I would if I had missed meals—it’s also about being complete. Or that need to feel that every detail has been taken care of and satisfied in order for something to feel complete. It’s like having a high bar to jump. It’s the same thing that drives that feeling that I can’t rest and feel satisfied until something is done. Some criteria has to be satisfied before I can take satisfaction. Interesting. I just had not realized the more global scope of this thing, this need to complete. I wonder in what other dimensions this need is active and expresses very obviously, but is still invisible to me. Here it was influencing something big like the perception of replenishment in days off.

Another thought I wanted to get down is about moments having weight and texture. I remember very much being in my cousin’s room when we first moved to California, and the fabric of…ambient feeling…we wove together. I have moments in my life now that abruptly take me back to a feeling-state that existed in another moment some time ago. I had one this morning as I approached the house—a very clear reminder of the feeling state that existed when we first bought the house and the initial feeling-state that went with it. It is like certain memories are a bubble, a discreet unit of these feeling-states that go with certain people, situations, memories. When I think back on my overall childhood there’s a certain feeling-state…even a sense of being aware of looking out through my eyes at the world and being aware of the feelings, bodily sensations that went with the world view: physical, emotional. It really was like I was another self who was looking through the lens that is my eyes, senses, body. I remember a sort of mournful cast to that bubble. And I remember a way of being aware of it…like Lucy Grealy said in her book about pain: about experiencing it in an unadulterated, unfiltered way. No overlay of experience to interpret it through. And no resistance.

Just a quick mention that I’m rereading Lucy Grealy’s “Autobiography of a Face”. I’m reading it more carefully this time, because she had a beautiful voice, and a wonderful way of unlocking the description of experience and in a sense spoke universally. I certainly see myself in her when she describes her inner bubble through which she experienced the focusing event that eventually defined her life. Though I didn’t have childhood cancer, I still had a childhood, and my vision of my own becomes more accessible to me as I read her description of hers.

It was a good thing that I politely refused to drive the kids yesterday. That time home here writing about my relationship with Scott I think was very important. I imagine HIS bubble of experiencing the world—what’s coloring his perception as he looks out through his eyes. Sometimes I think I sense a solemnity feeling-state, but it may be just projection. Maybe mine was more accurately described as solemn, other than mournful. Anyway, just talking about the act of giving up the desires for myself for right now and giving him what he’s telling me he needs seemed to help me feel that I had more influence over my mood in my time with him. I did listen some to the radio on the way home, but I was prepared to turn it off if he needed to say something. I guess I was being broken in gently to this desire to give him what he needs and set aside my more immediate needs for just a little while longer: yesterday he seemed much more able to be satisfied with amusing himself where he didn’t need much of my input beyond the initial suggestion and getting him started. So I had less occasion for our needs to collide, yesterday. The test will be whether or not those needs can stay quiessent (mine, I mean, for the momentary needs—to hear something on the news, complete a task, etc). Yesterday it seemed that just proposing to myself the idea of returning to the role of being a mother who expects her needs to be supplanted, and has no problem doing it—knowing that it was temporary. It’s only temporary that Scott’s going to be needing at this level; maybe another year at most. That’s not that long in the great scheme of things. I kept the radio off this morning and didn’t have the radio on last night either, I don’t think. It did make for a more peaceful atmosphere, first the reduced noise level, second it relieved the strain I’d have of trying to catch what was being said on the radio and take care of the boys’ needs. Just having that feeling of anxiety of maybe missing something gone really did take down the tone a bit. It’s almost like something competitive—it just raises the feeling-pitch to a high whine.

So I’m hoping that today might be a similar day in terms of my ability to meet Scott’s needs without resentment and irritation. Not to say there will never be resentment, or irritation—it’s just that the chances for them occurring will lessen, and therefore their frequency. And that’s what I’m after—save the resentment and irritation for things I can’t control, and that warrant them more.

I was embarrassed in talking with Don yesterday where several times I lost my train of thought, in mid-sentence. That bothers me—first because I really wanted to express those ideas, and secondly because I felt really stupid. Incredibly ditzy.

Here’s what happened. We’d had a sort of theme. or at least one I kept returning to, about some of the unique things that can drive a parent crazy—things you’d never conceive of, because they’re at such an insignificant-detail level of a situation. It makes it hard to explain to somebody else. And maybe this is the crux of it: being home with kids involves managing so many details, and sometimes with kids it’s a moment-by-moment process. And little things that snag one moment can really complicate another. Sometimes there’s a sensation of juggling several demands of several moments at once.

Perhaps that’s because I’m not seeing the forest for the trees. That probably is related to the need for things to be complete—zeroing in on details. (And lately I’ve been having lots of thoughts about the level of detail—from war to household—from zeroing in to zooming out. Feeling the American people are too zoomed out—have too much distance from it, because we haven’t suffered invasion and anarchy.)

(anyway, as I wrote that I had a thought that developing some skill in knowing when to zoom out a bit when the details of parenting start to get overwhelming—that could be a good and helpful thing.)

Ok, back to the conversation with Don. He asked me what for me is the hardest thing about parenting. So we talked about it a little. You know, I’ve wanted to talk about it with him much more exhaustively, because I’d really like to get more of his perspective as an at-home dad. I feel very curious about what aspect of the experience that a man’s response differs from a woman’s—and what is similar, and maybe universal?

Later on, I had a question about the ages and stages his boys are passing through…Yes, I’ve been thinking about this, in terms of being grateful that when this is over I’m not going to have to do ‘preschool age’ ever again. There are things about this age and stage that I don’t cope with well at all, and that complicate the picture with a big brother in it. But I’m aware that this time is going to pass, and he’ll pass out of these preschool behaviors. I wanted to say something about that, and I think I asked him if he was aware of that in his boys—of the stages they were passing through, knowing they’re discreet and temporary and wondering if he’ll be grateful when the preschool age has passed at last. But as I started to lay this out for him and ask if he has any thoughts in common with it, I got distracted by an image that came to my mind. It’s like I saw Connor enclosed in one of those bullet-shaped trains heading upward, and Scott behind in one too, only with an overlap in their compartments. Yeah, Scott tracing Connor’s path and passing the milestones that Connor had previously passed. Sort of like a round (the song style). When I saw that image in my mind I completely lost track of what I was saying and was just speechless. Lost my whole “train” of thought. Shit. Ok, then later I think I got taken by the idea that had occurred to me before—sometimes an awareness of how very different life would be at this point if I were a parent of an only child, and the only child was Connor’s age. I admitted that I allow myself the luxury of considering how different life would be in that alternative reality. The shape of my very days would be dramatically altered, and in ways that would be more suitable for me. There would definitely be a realistic basis to have my wants factor into our daily decisions, and be meeting more of my basic need to have some quiet and to think. I said that no good mother would admit to having that fantasy, and I said that there’s no way I’m saying that I didn’t want Scott. Then I got distracted by a strong feeling that there was a vague frame around this that cast a light I didn’t like on it: that I really WAS sounding like I was saying that I thought I’d be better off without Scott—and I felt fearful—of being misunderstood, and of protesting too much and increasing the being misunderstood. So THAT distracted me from what I was thinking, which I think was the point that someday Scott would be 8, there’d be an atmosphere more conducive to asserting and meeting my needs—at least being able to get some of my more personal needs met—and some of the stuff that feels so important and big now is going to go away. I think that’s where I lost my train of thought again and couldn’t find the way back.

(Which reminds me, that the unpleasant things about this early childhood stage are going to be present whether I try to squelch them by force and intimidation, or whether I just accept and cope with them. They’re going to go away anyway, so I may as well be more humane about them.)

ANYWAY, it does appear there was some unexpected benefit in the unsatisfying hole in the conversation with Don—in that I came home and wrote and really looked at what’s going on with me and Scott. Which brings me back to the point that it was good I didn’t drive the kids. I really needed that extended thought yesterday. And today.

12/11/06

Gary got home yesterday morning from Asia, and it’s been very uncomfortable around here ever since.

Things have eroded between us to a point where we can’t even keep a decent atmosphere between us. He just took Scott to go get the Christmas tree; Connor didn’t want to go and my heart’s not in it, so I said I’d stay home with him. That’s not the way it should be. It should be a happy thing for us all to do together.

But it seems we’re not that kind of family, and my feelings about Gary and our relationship bleed into the atmosphere around us. He didn’t say goodbye when they left, and I only said goodbye to Scott and wished him a good time.

Maybe if I’d given him a warmer welcome after getting home yesterday. The dead-bolt had been locked, and he couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door. I had been nursing Scott, so it took me a minute to get up and get to the door. I suppose if I’d thrown myself into his arms and exclaimed over how much we’d missed him, maybe things would have been warmer. I suppose the neutrality of my greeting may have gotten us off to a bad start. The truth is, though, that I didn’t really care about him being gone, other than it means me being the whole show for the two kids. But this trip had seemed a little easier than the others. The boys didn’t ask for him, either—they seem to have just accepted that he’s absent a lot. It didn’t make any difference to me if we talked on the phone while he was gone or not. It bothered him that he’d tried to call a few times and never got hold of us. It didn’t bother me.

So I didn’t give him a warm welcome because I felt…basically indifferent to his being there or not. Perhaps if I’d feigned a warm welcome things might have been better…but I don’t think for long anyway. He’d have done something like he did—barking at me to help him get some things out of a bag and showing with his tone that he’d thought I should have known he needed help and should have just done it without him having to ask. Maybe it happened because he was unhappy that I’d not given him a warm welcome—but some version of it would have happened eventually had I given him a warm welcome or not.

It’s definitely a downward spiral now. Because I feel indifferent to him I treat him that way. And it’s clear he’s hostile to me, which increases my indifference and alienation to him and from him. It’s just a process of erosion. I don’t know if it’s even possible under these circumstances for us to be polite when we’re in the same room.

Looking eagerly forward to my affair.

12/14/05

A couple of themes to explore. Some thoughts as an observer on the last few days with Gary. I’ve been pretty low; right now I’m feeling, experiencing my Self as an Observer. It feels a little better to be in that place, then to feel so down.

So this Observer has a theory that there’s some sort of power cycle going on where because I was lukewarm about his return, he was late getting here Monday night without calling. Another brick in the edifice he’s building of treating other people at the standard that seems normal, but not me. It actually has happened quite a bit that he will say something in a tone that he’d never use on one of his co-workers or his mother, or he’ll do something like Monday night, which was to OFFER to take the boys to the evening movies I’d been planning on taking them to, agree that he was going to be here by 5:10 latest to be able to make the 5:30 show, then not show up until 5:40 with no phone calls. I told him that he’d owed it to me as another human being to have at least called when it was clear he wouldn’t be getting home by 5:10—so I could make a decision about maybe taking them myself. Had I known how late he was going to be, I’d have done that. So the Observer in me notices I was very furious.

And now the Observer in me wonders if it’s time to quit calling him on the things he does, and the lame way he defends it. When he was defending not getting up to get Scott something Scott was asking for while I was doing several things at once as “I don’t feel like it.” Like that’s a valid defense. Or, “I had things to do” while I was visibly doing other things like putting the groceries away. So far I haven’t been able to conceive of myself being able to let stuff like that pass without comment. My response has been to point out that the reason he’s giving is NOT A REASON (“I don’t feel like it”)

Well I was interrupted by a phone call and it was Gary. So we talked quite a bit about what I was just about to write about. I think what’s key to me in the conversation is that I said I’m asking for basic courtesy from him and that he’s giving it to everyone else but me. I told him that I think what he has against me is that I object when I think his behavior is objectionable. That I want to know what, outside of that, he has grievances about in my behavior. And I told him that I’ve been saying these things for years, these very same things, and yet the dynamic persists and is now getting more poisonous and rancorous. Hostile. And, I told him that he can’t keep ignoring this, he can’t be distanced and detached—that this situation calls for something from him. I guess his engagement. This one he can’t do the usual and wait for it to fix itself.

I have a thought that maybe he meant this call as an olive branch (he told me that he was out getting me a Christmas present) and that he’s offended because I brought this stuff up in a conversation where he was trying to make overtures.

Sigh. Trouble is, I can’t accept the overtures until the core stuff is addressed. I can’t just “start over” with an emotional blank slate and let bygones be bygones, without cleaning up the prior mess.

A few minutes later. I was just following up on a commitment I made to one of our former neighbors. While finishing up with that my thoughts drifted to my visit with x today. It was a fun visit with the kind of lively discussion I enjoy with him. And I seem to be moving away from that place inside that felt sort of…eager about spending time with him. I think it’s because we’re in the habit of relating entirely as platonic friends, and that’s the vibe between us when I stop by. It’s very pleasant, and a little less agitated than experiencing so strongly the sexual potential. I like it better. Kind of nice to have the reason for the whole moral dilemma blunted; makes the moral dilemma moot. I do feel pretty confident though that we’re not headed toward an affair, or even an acknowledgement that one is possible. It seems that the kind of friendship we have can go on at this level indefinitely. And that’s a good thing.