V and I have had a series of conversations that have been percolating in my mind of late. In attempting to illuminate the female to him -- her mind, her heart, her rituals, her relationships with friends and lovers, her communication styles -- I've found that I've shone a light on a few of my own hidden little creatures. Even though I fear my student is deaf, dumb and blind and I grow increasingly aware of the futility of my efforts, I keep plugging away. If nothing else, finding these hidden things within myself is worth all the rest of it. It's an unforeseen but wholly delightful benefit of my teaching.
So I've been thinking about fences.
So much in life is about the "can"s and the "cannot"s -- fence words. It's not really as much about the "will"s and "won't"s because what people will and won't do is so very flexible. The "will"s and "won't"s are limits that spring from within each person so they're personal. They stretch and change with age and wisdom and circumstance. No, the "can"s and "cannot"s are different because they spring from without. They are imposed, not generated....accepted, not self-determined.
When you meet someone and you enmesh your life with theirs it is such an incredible ride. You plumb their depths -- physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally -- and you grow to learn their limits and biases and needs and vulnerabilities. You become something else together and not only you by yourself. You give birth to something, or create it. That process satisfies just about every human need that can be quantified.
Somewhere along the way you learn that with this new little creation come rules that must be followed to keep the whole viable and the other half secure. Often these rules are never spoken but simply understood. Each part of the whole learns of the soft vulnerable underbelly of its other half, the sensitive places where even the lightest touch may cause revolt. It's the classic give and take. One half needs more emotional space. The other half needs more physical gratification.
Most of the time these various needs can be adjusted to but every so often -- and more often than most like to admit -- one part may want to explore and continue to grow, or actually does grow and change, and the other part may need to freeze time and remain the way things were for all eternity. What happens when this comes to a head? How does this get resolved?
If one part of the whole "will" sacrifice their desire then a simple solution is found. If the other "won't" it becomes the decision of the other part to accept that. As said before, the desire to do something is an internal and flexible force. But when growth in a relationship is stalled because one part of the whole knows that the other will not allow for growth and imposes that rule upon the whole it becomes you "cannot." No more give and take.
Unless a person willingly sacrifices a desire or a need it never goes away. When the words go from "will" and "won't" and become "can" or "cannot" -- an external imposition -- a subtle power struggle between the parts of the whole ensues. Once begun, it is rarely stopped. It becomes a battle to win with one's independence and personal growth as the stakes. It becomes a battle that is an internal one as well as an external one because the party fighting that battle is well aware that fighting it risks everything. On the one hand, acceding to the other's demands because you value them and the whole that was created together -- and on the other realizing that to accede stunts its continued growth or renders the whole unrecognizable....a fake. No longer that which could be depended upon.
I have wondered if much of the conflict in relationships is because of the "can"s and the "cannot"s. The desire of one half to possess, control, guide or limit the other half. To keep what is known and comfortable over what is unknown and frightening. To reduce risk. To stunt growth due to fear or anger or any one of any number of paralyzing emotions.
When often, permission is the only key. The only way to open that fence. To say to the other half....you "can." Whatever it is that you feel you "cannot" because of what the whole was or used to be? You "can."
And more often than not, they won't. They just needed to know that they could.
((Song: "Don't Fence Me In" by Bing Crosby. Lyrics here:
http://www.mathematik.uni-ulm.de/paul/lyrics/bingcrosby/dontfe~1.html ))
1 comment:
Thanks for de-lurking. I want to learn more about what you're doing here, too.
Post a Comment