When I abruptly entered this world as a baby I was delivered
into the arms of a woman, my mother.
What few moments of tenderness that happened at that time I’ll never know
but I know a habit of sweetness was not initiated and it was a fight ever since
to allow my place in this world to be valid.
I was not nurtured with love and grace rather tolerance and impatience. What sweet mystery that is behind the face
of a woman was never revealed to me other than a countenance that displayed
rancor and disappointment. I was never
to know the beauty behind the secret smile, the tender guile behind gentle blue
eyes. No my mysteries were more the
raging tempest of unpredictable storms, the stringent sting of a whip on my
backside. The humiliation of waning
trust turned into a shallow bitterness weathered constantly in front of family,
friends and the occasional feminine interest.
I felt more of a social experiment in a lab craftfully built to look
like a home, a family, a den of safety. My siblings mere players witnessing the
same force taking their cues from whatever source they artfully hid from the
grand director. My dad, a cow chewing his cud balefully off to the side of
whatever event unfolded that involved feelings or understanding. But a family
we were and off to the world we were sent to double as adults in all matters of
import, recreation, love and depth.
Spoiler alert, the depths were never deep enough.
So when my therapist asked me to write what scares me about
being with a woman I had to bark out loud.
“Scared of women? Why I was
whittled by the finest blade out of the toughest wood to be where I am today.” Single.
Two marriages behind me, countless relationships strewn on the rocks of
a typical Maine coastline. Or as I call
it, a Maniac coastline. Was it fear
that fell those affairs? Or was it too
keen an understanding and getting out before the cut? Why I don’t know if it was fear or straight
up terror that cut me up into ribbons.
When a woman says she loves me, I think I initially cringe. Oh god, what am I going to have to deal with
to satisfy that love? What trick pony
will I have to turn into to keep that feeling alive? Isn’t kissing you and saying I love you every
night not good enough? What does it
mean? Even if a woman says I’m loved in
a strictly platonic sense I pale and recede into myself. Don’t single me out with that word. I’m
probably no more going to answer this than to blurt out clever little sentences
until you give up reading this waiting for an answer.
I went to a recovery meeting the other night. It is recovery based on Buddhist principles
which I’m in infancy stages of absorbing into my life. It was my first time going to this group as I
had just heard of it a few days before.
I bought the book they were reading, “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach
and read the chapter 6 that that night’s meeting was to be based on. She was talking about desire and the
suffering it creates when you attach too strongly. Hmm nothing I’m not aware of acutely. But the point I want to make is that some
people that were scheduled to go canceled (men) and it ended by being 5 women I
did not know and me, the sole male occupant.
It was in someone’s house (uh oh an intimate setting) and we all took
off our shoes (way getting uncomfortable intimacy now). I sat or rather balled myself up on the end
of a couch, the very end of the couch and opened my mind. The way an oyster opens ups to reveal the
pearl inside. I was just sitting there
waiting to be open, to be comfortable, and to share whatever it was we were
going to share. And then the meeting
started and each woman opened up to the miracle of over sharing. Tara’s section in the chapter was aptly
titled, “The Emergence of a Wanting Self”.
I wanted self to split and call it a tie. When it came my turn as in everyone talked
and the silence in the room seemed to indicate a certain share to be revealed I
squeaked. My body contracted into itself
and I physically posited each word carefully and doggedly. Not words of
strength but wavers of sound and each syllable painfully painted on to an easel
of a moth’s wing. I just felt so
uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to being in the “inner” circle of such
intimate sharing with such ease and assurance.
They made an AA meeting sound like we just bang on the table with our
coconut shells with swarthy grunts and oomphs.
I was clearly out of my league. I
wanted my fucking shoes back on! There
was a little dissent in the group towards the end as one woman didn’t feel that
they were sharing deep enough. Deep
enough? I just started taking the nails
out of my palms and feet when she was saying that and realized the holy terror
of being so out of touch with myself.
Why was I so frightened? What
made me any different than these women that I couldn’t feel completely
comfortable sharing my wit, my sarcasm, oh god, my truth?
So what scares me about women? I truthfully don’t know. I think that I don’t know is what scares
me. When they love me, what does that
mean? I want it to mean that I can be my
broken self, healing with unconditional patience. I got off to a bad start and yeah it was
years ago but I never knew the beating I took until each relationship started
to go south and I would try to play catch up.
In the heat of broken heartedness I would fall into another affair and
it was mixing oil with water. I no sooner was whiplashed by a woman and by my
nature to dodge whippings I would dodge the feelings that cut to close to the bone
and just bury my hatchet into another woman.
I would jump in knee deep and just start acting the role of concerned,
collected, funny, incredibly witty part.
I could be intimate sounding because I knew the value of protecting my
ass. It was wholly inconsistent and that
would always catch up to me. I had to be
the number one man, center of attraction all the time or something was wrong
with me. It had be loving attention or I
was doing something wrong and I would over compensate in small ways, in big
ways, in a lot of ways. Each day a part
of me would die when I felt that hot pain of failure. I would give up in molecular ways and after a
while it would build up to a white heat of misunderstandings and
uncollectivness. I would drift away in a
cloud of accusations and find myself with the worst friend I had, me, again.
I will go back to that meeting and I will keep going until I
feel no fear to share to be equal to everyone in the room. I won’t let the aliens get to me as strong as
they typically do in their mild and secretive temperament. I won’t contract when I talk. I won’t squeak
or bellow, just enrich the room with my mellow. Ha ha, bad poetry isn’t a good
sign that I’m taking this seriously enough.
If someone tells me they love me, I want to just let them love me in
their way and accept it like breathing in and out. I know I want it but I don’t need to strangle
it to keep it. I’ll stick with Buddhism and Beethoven and ride the ride with
loose garments and worthiness.
1.
I’m grateful I can still write with passion.
2.
I’m grateful for my neighbor inspiring me to
write.
3.
I’m grateful that I take my neighbor’s garbage
out every week.
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