And Then Again

"I don't want to be kown as just the friend."

"I fell in love with him, but he didn't fall in love with me."

...sentiments expressed by Ms. Bachelorette on "The Bachelor."

I have the benefit and challenge of housesitting and decided to watch TV tonight. "The Bachelor" was on.

What a mistake...or rather, actually, a blessing that reminded me of why I don't own a television.

The best thing about hiking is not hiking, but that is only true when you're hiking

The Crows Are Returning

It is a beautiful fall day and the annual migration of crows has begun. It is fun to hear their cackles as they settle back into winter haunts along my street.

This morning, a hawk landed in the tree above me as I drank my coffee. Lots of bird activity. I even heard some Sandhill Cranes in the distance.

I will speak at Intel twice today to encourage their employees to give to United Way, which helps to fund our shelter. Then we host a BBQ at the shelter to help raise funds. A good fall day.

Cleaning Out

I filled our trash barrel this week with old stuff that I'm tossing out. I'm not dumping everything, but I am getting closer to more simplicity in my life. It's part of the "Tea Life, Tea Mind" kind of thing and feels really good.

Anonymi Are Right

(What is the plural for “anonymous” anyway?)

Once more, then I’ll shut up about it all and move on.

I think that my old patterns of falling silent and becoming reclusive, or at least keeping my deeper emotions to myself, are being summoned. I tried at first to stake out a different route this time. I confronted X with my perception of his convenient busyness that just so happened to coincide with my sharing uncomfortable truths. Was he simply avoiding me?

He admitted as much. I hoped to have reason to believe that ours would become an even deeper, stronger friendship. And I still do. But experience teaches me otherwise.

I can’t help but learn that relationships simply fade into history, deflecting awkwardness, when they are presented with uncomfortable truth. As the comments by anonymous(i?) projected, it does seem to be true—in my experience—that people like intimacy so long as it does not threaten the desired status quo.

Tell the truth and you get burned. Or at the least are avoided. It explains a lot of faded relationships in my life. They purport to welcome honest, frank openness, but when confronted with exactly that, there is suddenly a flurry of unavailability.

Some would argue that society teaches us such (in)action.

Society, hell. It isn’t society that teaches me to guard my emotions, to display only what is pleasantly accepted. Concretely, it is X and people like him—not society—who choose to become aloof, who teach me that I lose even what friendship I have and enjoy currently when I bare myself.

But then none of this is about X or anyone else but me. I am learning from this experience more about my own flaws. I don't negotiate the waters of emotions and friendships very well. But I'm learning and hopefully getting better at keeping to myself emotions that are inappropriate to share. I think that will lead to better overall health...for me, first of all, and subsequently in my relations with others.

Talking

When I feel love and attraction for someone, it is in part because I sense (and the love itself engenders a sense) that I can share true emotions. Even when those emotions are difficult, I feel free to share because my love tells me it is safe to bare all.

When "all" includes the love itself for that person, I share it.

However, when the recipient does not feel the same love--a love to receive anything--the person might still kindly assent to listening like any good friend would do. But, not possessing a reciprocating love--a true desire to share all emotion--the person may listen while becoming uncomfortable in hearing what is difficult to hear.

I share because of a love he does not feel. Not feeling it, he listens out of duty of friendship, but lacks the capacity, the love, to truly bear it. Our time together becomes strained, restrained, and while wanting to be available, he does not know how and time spent together diminishes, first in quality, then in quantity.

(De?) Evolution of Language

When did something that is ironic become "ironical?" And why is something problematic now "problematical"? Origins show early years, so perhaps we are simply repeating what we once heard.

One Step At a Time

I attended a meditation last evening and was instructed to visualize the relationship I want. Immediately, visions of a home arose, awakening beside someone in bed, a life together, perhaps kids, etc.

Then I realized that this is step 2, the outcome of a relationship. Step 1 is to envision the person with whom together I can mutually create a shared life. Someone who now wants to be in my life and I in his. I must first visualize the kind of person with whom I want to create shared outcomes later. All of the home stuff comes after I am in the relationship.

X has so much of Step 2--what I want in a person with whom I can feel safe to create a shared vision--so much so that it is easy to jump quickly to that vision and see X as a part of it.

But he lacks a huge element of Step 1, of what I desire in someone: namely, that that person has an equal attraction to me, that he loves and desires me, that we share an excited energy of wanting to be together.

The person I desire, my vision of the person with whom I want to be, has a desire for me. X does not have that. Thus he is not the person I want because he lacks a major trait I desire and seek in another person.

I'll return to envisioning the man I desire, Step 1. That includes someone who can reciprocate. The home vision and life together, Step 2, comes later.

Tea Break

Lots of reflecting requires lots of tea, so let's take time for tea.

(From "Tea Life, Tea Mind" by Soshitsu Sen XV.)

Times of quiet and being alone gain significance in light of their relationship to noise and company. (That's me, not Sen.)

The negative space of the painting is a testament to the artist's restraint.

Know what you know and know what you don't know, for only then will the limits of your strength become evident.

Peace through sharing a bowl of tea.

Tempest II

The second box is bigger and contains all of the rest of why I enjoy spending time with someone: s/he makes me laugh, we share common ideals, I feel safe and that I can continue to grow and change with that person, when I want to share a joy or sadness it is that person that I think of, when I have some spare time it is that person with whom I most often want to spend it. You get the idea.

Maybe there is even a small third box of all of the rest of things, stuff like being able to accept the little idiosyncrasies of the person, that I enjoy being seen together in public, that our taste in decor is compatible.

I personally want all three boxes to be in place...and I seem really good at getting two boxes full only to at last discover that the third box is mostly empty or missing altogether. Sometimes, I admit, I know that one box is not compatible but I proceed anyway, telling myself that it is okay to just have a couple of boxes and to go after that.

Others tell me that my expectations of the second box are too idealistic anyway and that what I describe as friendship is only intended for a relationship like marriage. Maybe I am trying to squeeze the contents of box number one out of box number two.

Or perhaps I do expect too much out of friendship.

Tempest

A previous anonymous comment to a posting said that “whatever it is, it’s sex.” Well, actually, no; I don’t think so. I do agree, though, that sex is perhaps the most highly charged component in relationships.

In general, I can imagine boxes that hold stuff about my relationships together, physical sex and attraction being one of them. There are undoubtedly scores of little compartments within that box.

To move from generalities to the specific, I am really talking about my own relationships. Yes, sex is important and highly engaging and consuming. It can generate the strongest of emotions (and most bodies respond to what feels good, regardless of the giver). The attraction for me, however, is not merely physical for I find that people in my life quickly become more or less attractive as I get to know their personalities.

I figure that most humans are probably not 100% straight or 100% gay, but that we likely fall somewhere along a moving continuum. That’s because relationships and attractions are only partly informed by physical sex.

There is another box of pertinent stuff that informs my desire to share life with another person.

Tempest in a Teapot

At left: image I took during Saturday's mass launch of the ABQ Balloon Fiesta.

I have a lot of reflective writing to do (that's the tempest part--relationships). And there is obviously some writing to post discussing the previous postscript. And I have a little to post regarding daily activities.

But first, let's have another cupt of tea (from "Tea Life, Tea Mind," by Soshitsu Sen XV):

While loving their beauty, we must appreciate the effort that brings these same flowers to full bloom.

A tiny sprout has no choice; it must grow or perish.

Adhere to the state of being that is you.

To escape from the eternal round of passions, desires, and suffering, and realize contentment one must know one's limits.

Efforts must not diminish simply because of the absence of the 'proper' qualities in the place where he serves tea.

Tea seizes insufficiency and builds upon it.

Have Another Cup

Furyu: fu=wind; ryu=flow.

Our spirit should flow through life like the wind that flows through all of nature.

We are not emotionally swept away by the marvels of nature; we appreciate them within the natural course of existence.

The feeling of nature is not easily or precisely evoked if one is lacking furyu. Furyu points out only what is absolutely essential for balance and proportion. It includes the imperfect.

With mountains, streams, flowers, and the passing of the seasons kept in mind, with the spirit of furyu, we make a bowl of tea.

The realization of non-duality applies to all the dualisms that plague man: vanity and envy, happiness and sorrow, life and death, wealth and poverty, love and hatred--these can all be integrated.

Appreciate that whatever season we are now experiencing, it is the best.

P.S. I got the job!

Time & Self-Hypnosis

Weathered through the weekend's sadness. Some self-hypnosis last evening seemed to do the trick. Awaiting word regarding employment. That's all for now.

Yesterday was strange. I awoke early and ready to go to church, but decided against the crowd. Instead, I enjoyed the peaceful morning outdoors with a cup of coffee. But then, slowly, an anxious depression settled in. I went to Target to purchase some contentment, but they were out of stock. Spent the afternoon with a friend, but still couldn't shake the sinking feeling. Even tried lying down to think my way through to what was the source of my gloom...thoughts don't lend themselves well to discovering emotion, especially not in thinking one's way to happiness when one is starting from a depressed state. I went to bed early and watched "Brokeback Mountain" to really sink into the sadness. Fell asleep thinking that perhaps I would get up, cancel my second interview for the executive position and just wander off to some remote remoteness. But here I am at a cafe, drinking coffee and attempting to outwait the feelings. (Is outwaiteven a word?) It has worked in the past and I am sure that it will again this week.