the last burnt sienna crayon

So now I have a new companion and a constant friend.

Solitude.

My companion is not yet often an easy one, nor one that I have always wanted or desired to be with, but I am told that the relationship will be worthwhile, that it will be something rewarded if worked at. And if I learn to accept my friend, that I will find richness in the world and the life around me.

Solitude.

Solitude is now to be my companion, not my loneliness, which should be displaced in time. I am told that Solitude is not an absence of friendship, but the very core of the abundance of Things. I think I did accept it once. . . but as I have said, I have forgotten and need to be reminded how.

I have returned to the Old Places (those words, those thoughts that manifesto that I told you about) that I left and forsook so long ago. I returned to to an ideal, an essence, an emotion to look for my Solitude, to see if they could still hold any affinity for me. And I see it; those sparks of life, of love, of creativity, of abundance; I do. . . but only yet for a moment here, or a reverie there.

I am still learning how to be patient.

I tried to run away once.

I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going and I didn’t take anything with me, I just ended up under the bridge over the old creek bed behind the school and cried and didn’t know what to do.

I was probably about 10 or 11, and I failed miserably in my attempt to run. In fact, each time, still, I fail in my attempts to run.

But actually, I was certain I had it all worked out a long time ago, and my failure to carry it out has not put a stop to it once and for all.

I’ve known the answer of how to live without feeling sad or troubled or sorry or judged or hurt or worried or. . . well, add your favourite negative emotion.

I realised when I was about 9 that my friends could make me feel sad because they were mean and disloyal and that they said things behind my back and excluded me from things. I realised when I was about 12 that I was a sponge and I could feel the sad of others. Then I started realising that bad things happened to other people too and it made them sad and so I would feel sad because I didn’t want them to be sad and I was helpless to change it. When I was about 16, I thought that I finaly realised that all of that was probably more likely than not, my fault.

It took me a bit longer to realise that there was probably only one option left.

I was going to become a hermit.

Absolutely, that was the best way to live, I decided, being alone I could do and be whatever and whoever I wanted and no one would make me sad because no one else would be there. I wouldn’t be sad because of something they had done to me nor sad for them becasue of something somebody/something else had done to them. I would choose not to care about anybody, be nothing but a bit lump of introspection and no one else had to get involved.

When I ruled out a mountain cave in Tibet, I decided that I would never get married, never have any close friends, never talk to anyone, I would have an apartment full of cats and floor to ceiling books and would earn my living by being an anonymous author with some cryptic but vaguely mysterious and intriguing pseudonym. Me, myself, and I. . . and the cats. Yes, I had always known that running away was the answer.

And all that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out

Well, so much for my grand plan at life. I joined a church and settled in a community at 20, got married at 21 and now have a daughter at 33. And although I do have two cats and a lot of books, I have never been published under a false name (other than this blog) nor have I ever succeeded at locking myself away from other people. When it comes down to it, I’m a bit of a people addict.

So I have lots of people in my life and I get it wrong. . . and they get it wrong and other people get it wrong and all the things we can’t control or stop from happening so often make it wrong and I have spent a lot of time sad. Because in this world nothing seems to work the way it should, and like I’ve said before, my storybooks said that there would be happy endings galore. And there aren’t. There just aren’t. I don’t like that.

On top of that, people hurt other people and there’s nothing you can do about it. And even when you’re not hurting there is probably someone that you love, or at least care a lot about, hurting which invariably makes you sad because you really don’t want them to hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it. When it comes down to it we all just want to be happy and want everyone else to be happy and for fortune to smile and be fair and for all of our stories to have happy endings.

There’s a part of me that has given up the happy ending, but there’s a bigger part that keeps waiting for the surprise ending where everything is happycheesyok.

But it’s that first part of me that every so often still toys with running away. It’s toys with that mountain cave in Tibet or even better that cat and book filled apartment in another place or a busy buzzing city where no one would ever find me through all the people.

And all that stays is dying, all that lives is getting out

It’s the part of me that rails against the tragedy of life, the part that wakes up in the morning and says “No, No, NO!” to everything that isn’t happy, the part of me that is all too aware that as long as I have friends and family and care for anyone else, that I’m going to be unhappy, regardless. My personal sense of denial is big enough to fantasise about being able to run away and not accept this vision of life, but not big enough to ever actually do it.

So instead I try to keep to myself for awhile. I try to run away. Mentally far away while being bodily present. I try to step out of the bustle and the ties and the responsibilities and don my invisibility cloak, because in my woeful, selfish, vanity and pessimism I know no one will notice.

But every time I try to shut everyone out, I tend to get lonely. It never works, I go looking for where everyone has gone, then realise that it was probably me that shut them out, and I couldn’t really expect anyone to come looking for me, as I’m not 10 anymore. So, I always fail in my attempts to run, just like I did when I was 10. Then they looked for me. Now, I always end up looking for everyone else.

I’ll ply the fire with kindling now,
I’ll pull the blankets up to my chin
I’ll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in…
When the sun turns traitor cold
and all the trees are shivering in a naked row

I get the urge for going but I never seem to go.

So why did I post that poem?

It had been posted a time ago on somebody else’s blog (because they actually liked it), but I had it taken down and thought that it made more sense to have it on my own, but more than that, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about vulnerability.

An old friend (we met at university when I was still living in the Homeland about 15 years ago) called me the other evening. We hadn’t actually spoken (other than e-mails) in a long time, hadn’t seen each other in about 5 years, so we talked for an hour and a half. . . internationally. We talked about some difficult things, and it surprised me how easy it was to confide. When I hung up I briefly worried that I shouldn’t have been so honest, I mean, at least here on the blog, I know that if people didn’t want to know, then they wouldn’t bother clicking, but on the phone. . . well, you know how the ‘worst case scenario’ thought process works.

But my concerns were soon alleviated when I quickly received an e-mail from my friend saying that it had been good to talk and a very kind and empathetic comment on some things I had said. Acceptance from my friend, and relief from me.

I don’t lose friends easily or lightly.

You see, a very long time ago (shortly before I met my friend who phoned me, actually) I had another friend, this time from as far back as childhood, who I had thought would ’stick around’. But when our lives travelled different paths, the communication stopped, though I tried to reestablish it many times. No responses. None. I had thought that whereas you could ‘dump’ a boy/girlfriend, that you couldn’t dump a ‘friend.’

I was wrong.

I had, in the distant past, confided many things to this childhood friend, but when life changed, when we suddenly were no longer children or even ‘youth’, those confidences didn’t seem to matter anymore. Perhaps he needed to sweep the past away. Perhaps I have been unfair to not understand my old friend’s side.

I saw this earlier friend when I recently travelled back to the homeland. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over 15 years and it surprised me how easily we slipped back into conversation. We talked for 3 hours over lunch about many things, about music, about our marriages, about mutual friends, about the old days. Almost like neither of us had ever left home or lost touch. . . but I have had no communication or replies since, and again I have tried.

No contact. None.

I heard or was told somewhere along the line that there can be no true communication between two people, no real friendship, no love, familial or otherwise, no meaningful interaction with God, and no honesty without mutual vulnerability that stems from trust.

On the whole, I agree with that. You, reader, of all people, if you visit here regularly, know that I can be quick to risk vulnerability, and I’m sure I do it for that reason. And generally I have trusted you with that vulnerability, though I may not even know you. Perhaps too quick to trust in strangers, too quick to establish impossible relationships between writer and reader. But for the most part I have found that in doing so, I have been greatly rewarded with the friendships that I have both reinforced and have found. By friends that see my blemishes, and ’stick around’. I’d rather show those blemishes, as I’ve never been any good at hiding. I’m always found out.

But where there is trust, there is vulnerability and where there is vulnerability there is a risk of rejection, like with my earlier friend, and where there is rejection, there is hurt. I guess I got my hopes up after the reconnection.

There’s a part of me, actually, that doesn’t mind being rejected, as long as it’s early on in getting to know someone, as long as it happens before I have made myself too fragile in the face of the prospect of that rejection. If I say “this is who I really am” and you reject me, before I have a chance to lose too much, that’s ok. I can accept that. But if I spend years establishing a friendship, I will feel like my vulnerability has been trampled on under foot if they suddenly turn and walk the other way. (Thus an old, perhaps bitter, poem, written to an old friend, who didn’t ’stick around’.)

So why do I put myself out there? I guess, because I think that if I do, put myself out there, warts and all, and you keep coming back to read, or to speak to me, or to waste/spend your time with me, then perhaps you won’t reject me. But there’s always a chance with friends who aren’t honest with each other that the secret of warts will be found out and the rejection is sure to follow. That kind of rejection hurts because it is never expected. So, I guess I’d rather show my warts. Because I know they’ll be found out anyway.

I write all of that because I was reassured by my university friend after our phone call the other evening, that my warts aren’t so repugnant and there would be no rejection today. I write this, not to mourn a lost friendship, but to celebrate a good one. When I wrote that poem so many years ago, a rejection was fresh and raw, and I was still willing to reestablish a friendship. But after talking to and being reassured by my other friend, it has reinforced the idea that I think I’ll just concentrate on the friends who ’stick around’.

—————————————————-
“Time it was and what a time it was it was,
A time of innocence a time of confidences.

Long ago it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they’re all thats left you.”

Have been reading curiously through an old journal from 1997. What a facinating journey! Have just read:

Monday, January 13, 1997
As I was standing at the pier watching the waves on the rocks, I looked up and saw M and A standing a way off. I know that A saw me, but he said something to M and they both turned and walked the opposite direction. I think I would have turned and walked away too had I been them. The ‘me’ they knew was a strange creature. . . problem is that she is no longer me. So I do not mind having been snubbed by them, for I know they only snubbed the person they thought they saw standing there. . . not me.

How shockingly gracious of me!

I never thought that I would do that. I never thought that I would stop appriciating what I had. But perhaps one only knows exactly what they have when it begins to fade.

I know now that I never fully appriciated my first family until it began to die, disappear and break apart.

Then, I chose a new family. A new family, not of blood, and not of marriage, and not of relation. It was bigger than any of those. Family was suddenly wider and all emcompassing. Bigger than a surname, than even a way of life. It was extended family in the truest sense. How could I have found a new family so large without those natural ties? I took for granted that it could stay the same forever, and I would never lose that again.

I know now that I never fully appriciated them.

My first family used to gather, and tomorrow would have been one of those significant dates to gather. Gathering was a way to reaffirm that family is family, blood is thicker than water, that despite the rest of the year, at least we still gather on this day and ‘do this’, because we are family and this is what we do and this is who we are, whether we like it or not. It wasn’t always pleasant (because family isn’t easy), but it was affirming.

My second, chosenfamily, as well, used to gather. Again, it wasn’t always pleasant, but to me, it was reaffirming, a way to define ‘this is who we are’ and who I am. I knew who I was in the midst of them. But now the whole looks a lot smaller to me, a bit more fragmented.

And rationally, I know that’s ok, and I know that moving on is a normal and grown up thing to do. But emotionally I fear the segmentation. The move from defining that ‘we are we’ to ‘I am me’ looks scary from this angle, because suddenly there are fewer landmarks, fewer guideposts. And I continue to try to find a cord to tie the parcel back together again. Whether it’s the right thing to do, or not.

It may be the grown up thing to do, but for this disabled woman, who has spent so many years leaning on the crutch of her new family, going out into the big wide world looks a bit scary and I simply want to have some chicken soup and go back to bed where it’s safe.

Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?

But, again, rationally, I know that the best families help their children to stand on their own two feet. To leave their father and mother and do their own thing instead.

Thing is, when I left my father and mother, the thing I chose to do. . . was to form a new family.

So now what do I do?

I had a long conversation with a friend once.

I was about 18 and as we were both from one of those ’small towns where nothing ever happens but everybody listens’, for some reason, we often found that sitting in the middle of my street (i mean actually on the street) was as good a place as any to have a long conversation at 3 am. I don’t know why, but then I don’t know why we did half the things that we did when I was 18. There really wasn’t anyplace else to go.

He was the kind of friend who didn’t pull any punches. And neither did I. (I probably still don’t, for that matter) After several hours of him telling me (in the kindest possible of ways) exactly what he thought of me and what my place in the world should be I said “D, is there anything good about me?” (remember, this was a friend. just an honest friend. And I actually liked that about him. You never had to wonder where you stood.)

He thought for about half a minute and replied, “You care. . . You care about things, but you care too much.” And I couldn’t begin to even comprehend what he could possibly mean by that. How could it even be possible to care too much? Is there a “too much”? It bemused, perplexed and stayed with me for 15 years.

However recently, I began to understand, and I now accept his assessment of the character of my former self. Because I am completely aware that it could also describe my current self. I don’t think I’ve really changed that much.

I had a conversation with my husband not long ago. And somewhere in that conversation I remember him concluding that “Unfortunately, you’re a bad kind of combination. You’re a nonconformist who is sensitive to rejection.”

I understood and accepted that assessment of my character from the start. Some things can’t be denied when they’re as plain as the nose on your face. And again I think it all comes down to caring too much. And it has caused me a lot of grief over the years. If I could manage to be a ‘nonconformist who didn’t care’ then I could just get on with doing and saying things that confuse people in a parameter outside of the norms, and being different wouldn’t cause me any bother and I would be perfectly happy.

But I can’t. And I’m still not sure that I’d really want to. I don’t think I’d really want to stop caring. I’ve tried, completely unsuccessfully. Perhaps there’s just a way of doing it better? I don’t know.

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest, and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” — Marcel Proust – Rememberance of Things Past

I returned to my homeland to find, to my surprise, that strange things, small things, unimportant things, were suddenly strange, big, important, distant and annoying things to me.

Friendliness. Speaking. I hated being approached in a shop. Something that my chosenland has taught me. We do/should not engage in conversation with others unless we want or need something from them, and therefore should generally avoid making too much contact with the outside. There are people who speak a lot. . . and we’re not meant to like or trust them.

“Hello! Can I help you?” I felt violated.

“Those are two for one today, by the way.” I was certain I would be exploited.

“Isn’t it hot today? I can’t believe these temperatures in April!” No, I’m not going to buy whatever it is you want me to in order to make me cooler!

Why had I become so suspicious, so skittish, so warry, so paranoid, so certain that friendliness was only a mask to cover manipulation? Did I act like this most of the time now? I do. I don’t speak to anyone unless they are ‘approved’, ‘vetted’, ‘ok’. How did did friendliness for friendliness’s sake become “hello my name is… what do you do? weather’s terrible isn’t it? well, mustn’t grumble.” Certain of the worst. And so used to mistrusting people that I even suspect the worst from vetted friends now.

what a way to live.

by the middle of my second week in the homeland, i began to fall easily back into my old way of acting, of being friendly. i began to realise that random conversation was no more than random conversation, and we all have to make it through the day in some way, and being friendly sure beats being stand-offish.

and i began to chat back. no one asked me to buy anything.
“ok, just let me know if you need any help.”

I got chatting to the lady in the candle shop and told her that I was only visiting, told her where I came from and where I live now. More information than some people I’ve known for months or years know. I told her: “I don’t need to have ‘things’ from my home country around my house, I don’t need to speak the language or eat the food. I just want it to smell like home.”

And I do, I realised, I want the smell of hazelnut coffee and scented candles and cinnamon and apples and lilacs and books in the air when I walk through the door. Those smells have more power to strike a chord with my heart than any story or even photographs.

I bought some candles from her. And she never once asked me to.

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.” — E.B. White (from Charlotte’s Web)