In the roots of a sycamore tree where it had hid so long
Happy Friday. It's a glorious sunny June day outside as I type this, around 5:00 PM. I have a beautiful view of the San Francisco and Oakland skylines from the fourth floor suite that houses our offices now, but today I am working from home, which also comes with a nice view out of the patio door. The sun is blazing, but it is not particularly hot. The summer has been mild, here in Livermore, so far this year.
It is wisdom, I am told, to pay attention to what one is feeling. I suspect that the world is full of people who have no understanding of why that should be an aphorism, because perhaps it comes so naturally to them. Knowing themselves has, all their lives, has meant knowing what they're feeling, and probably why. I have spent much of my life being so careful about not engaging with my feelings. It is not that I don't have them, but I have a lot of practice "tending" them, herding them off of my face and out of my consideration when they have been inconvenient.
Why would someone do that? In the past couple of months or so, I have come to understand a bit of the why behind that habit of mine. I grew up in a dysfunctional family. As a child, I did not need to be told that it was probably better that people outside of the immediate family circle not come to know this. It is a secret. There were no need of fearsome oaths or threats to impress upon me the need to keep my own counsel. Living with people who have secrets, it was easy for me to learn the value, the necessity of secrecy.
When there are secrets to be kept, emotion Is not your friend. Emotions can betray. If someone sees sadness, fear, uncertainty, confusion, frustration, insecurity, etc. on your face, they are apt to be curious. If someone wanted to know about that emotion on my face I was left with a daunting task: tell a decoy of a story, plausible enough to satisfy their curiosity and far enough away from uncomfortable truths I would not want to make known, or else convince them, through subtle means or otherwise, to take their curiosity elsewhere.
All strategies, all choices, impose opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of banishing emotion is in the curiosity you turn away. Curiosity is love. Moreover, banishing feelings means that they do not inform. The practice of banishment becomes a habit. From long habituation, the practice becomes unconscious. It becomes a blindness, not a trained myopia where I know I have to squint or relax my pupils to allow things to come into focus, but the kind of myopia where one believes that the world is naturally fuzzy. Moreover, the blindness becomes and obliviousness to self.
Later 10:00
Today I keep having these pangs of sadness that come and go. I do not know their origin. I was texting with L. and I told her:
I remember you telling me about some guy with whom you had spoken who was making a practice of purposely provoking his sadness. How odd. Mine just kind of drops in and flops on the metaphorical couch: "Hi Buddy! I just thought I'd drop in to hang out. No, I'm not wanting anything in particular, at least nothing I'm going to spell out for you. I'm thinking I'll just hang around for a few minutes, distract you for a bit, and then hit the road again. Pardon my ambiguity! Gotta run. Bye now. Might drop back in a bit later, or not. Chao."
What is this? I'm somewhat stumped. After thinking about it for a long time today, I came to consider that it may have had the flavor of longing. Is that close enough? I don't know. Perhaps it was tinged with grief. I have been a long time alone. I have told myself that being in a relationship is nice, even wonderful, but solitude too, has its benefits. There is peace and order, such as it is. Ever since L. made that metaphor about intimacy and challenges being like wind to a tree, that caused it to grow and develop and acquire enough rigidity to bend just enough. She spoke of trees in the Biodome Project, that drooped and did not stand straight and strong, having never been exposed to wind. I have realized that solitude or companionship is not a question of a coin-toss, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. To maintain my course is to kill off something in me, to abandon it and leave it to languish. I cannot be at peace with abandoning that part of me, Hoss, I have called him, to languish. Contrariwise though, or perhaps standing athwart desire may be a fear of Hoss and his passions, or a fear of being able to find what would satisfy those desires. Blast, that woman has a talent for saying innocuous things, small observations that cause me to have flashes of insight.
Writing here brings things to mind. There used to be so much more life here. I find myself missing the experience of new posts from people whose writings I used to anticipate finding on my Friend's Page. Where have they gone? Have they become different people now? I've lost touch with so many. I remember a Yeats poem, posted by a friend. It was one that I too found meaningful and emotion-provoking. She and I exchanged a lot of comments. I don't think I told her how much I too was moved by the Yeats poem. I was tempted to go find that entry and post a comment there, spelling out these thoughts and ask what had become of her. I may. I may not. People do things for reasons. If someone doesn't find LJ or blogging or journalling to be their thing anymore, maybe they have their reasons. Maybe they are, in their own estimations, "putting away the things of youth." Who knows?
Back in an entry in October I mentioned writing to another friend I met on here and in whose company I had spent some quality time. In March, I actually did manage to sit down and compose a letter to her to say hi and see if the email address still worked. She answered and seemed open to conversation. In April, I managed to sit down and put together some thoughts about the time we had spent together and how I should have been better at connection and more open with her, and it was indeed my fault whatever disappointments she may have had about what developed or did not between us. I haven't heard anything from her since. I have wondered what may be on her mind with regard to this topic, but perhaps she did not feel inspired to entertain such a conversation. I hope I didn't offend her or cause her to feel awkward. I don't know. I've been tempted to write again, and ask, but I've been hesitant to do so. Silence, too, speaks. Maybe she had enough closure long ago and does not seek more. She owes me nothing. I do miss her, but I am not entitled to her time or her words. Our time, as Hemmingway put it, is in another country. The exercise was for me, and it concerned things I felt the need to own and tell her that I didn't back when. I actually learned some interesting things about myself composing the letter.
While I was writing, I realized that I was not groping for my words and trying to find the right ones. I was inspired to say clearly what I had not really been able to say then, and take ownership of that. I realized that I was not in my typical mode while I was writing. I was in touch with what I was feeling. "Hoss," that part, was composing. Strangely enough, he was not just writing to her. I got this weird perception, as if that part of me were metaphorically looking back over his shoulder at "the rest of me" while writing and that part was feeling a resentment that I had suppressed him, and not allowed him his voice in the time where it would have actually been relevant.
I was shocked. I have perceived some cynical, perhaps regretful, part of me that is very critical of myself. I never saw that Hoss part of myself as being also like that other part, and harboring resentments I had not previously perceived. Interesting. Maybe that is what that ghost of longing is doing, gnawing on me today. I wonder if, into the future I can resist the habit, the temptation, to shove Hoss into the inner dungeon, if he should become inspired by someone in the future. Will I let him speak more often and more plainly, should the opportunity present itself with someone? I'd like to believe that this is possible. I have learned quite a lot in the last decade. Have I learned enough to trust myself, to be more open and real? I don't know.