Tag Archives: intimacy

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Intimacy

What IS intimacy? And what is love? And are they the same thing? Do you have to be intimate to love someone? Not meaning sex, but what level of intimacy is “normal” and “appropriate”?

I am thinking of my mother. When I was just starting college, she started talking to me about my father and about his drinking. I became more and more uncomfortable and finally asked her to find a counselor or someone other than me. The thing is, she refused to DO anything about his drinking and in fact, covered it up. The two of them would scream at each other at 2 am and fight when I was in high school. It would wake me up and I would think, I wish they wouldn’t, because I have school tomorrow. But I certainly didn’t go say anything because then they would have screamed at me. And as I got older, I wondered if my mother was drinking heavily too. Because why would she argue with someone drunk at 2 am, that makes no sense. Unless she either was drunk or loved to argue or both.

It is clear that she was drinking heavily at that time from her journals. Over and over she writes, I drank too much last night. Hard to blame her for not intervening with my father if she is drunk too. But she was using him as her cover up. Her family blamed him. My grandmother, her mother, didn’t blame him. She loved them both.

When we had guests, my mother would turn on the charm. She could mesmerize a room and entertain people with stories. My sister and I and others would be the butt of the stories. My father too. After the guest left, she would often talk about them. Analyze them. Talk about their faults and weaknesses. I was fascinated but a bit horrified too. She seemed to like these people so much and to charm them and invite them back, but was talking about them behind their backs. Ick.

So intimacy interests me. I wonder how to do it “right”. Maybe right is not the best word. How to do it “functionally”. I really don’t know what normal is, my maternal family certainly did not model healthy intimacy. My generation still gossips about each other. I quit that at age 19 and refused to be part of it. I don’t think anyone saw my rebellion except my maternal grandmother. She did not say a word but I knew that I had her respect. She did not play the family game with me.

I don’t think that gossip and triangulation are a good form of intimacy or love. Person A talks to person C about person B. Word gets around and sometimes it is person D that says something to person B and person B gets upset when they realize where this came from. And how twisted and one sided the story is. And aren’t we seeing this play out on a national level? All these people saying that THEY KNOW the status of the President’s memory. I don’t. I can’t judge it from a debate. And frankly, if we are going to do a psychiatric evaluation of one, I think we have to do BOTH. Stop following stupid rumors. Why not require a neuropsychiatric evaluation on every candidate for President and Senate and House of Representatives and the Supreme Court. And make them public. That would cause some chaos, wouldn’t it? And how do you decide who is “sane” enough to govern?

I think that gossip and triangulation is a dysfunctional form of intimacy. People feel closer when someone is whispering a secret to them. I don’t think it’s healthy. It might be normal for our culture, though. Normal does not mean healthy, after all. What do you think?

This election is like a bad hallucination. Why do we accept candidates that behave badly? Are we so addicted to television and movie drama that we want it to happen in our government? I don’t. How about you?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: hallucination.

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trauma bunnies

We can work it out, the song says. But no, maybe not, not always.

Trauma bunnies together. Walking. Why would you walk with me, I am so down? Oh, you are a trauma bunny too. Walking on the beach, slowing down, looking at rocks. The walks get longer and longer. You bring FOOD and tell me I have food insecurity. I laugh. But it is true.

Comparing notes about childhood. You say yours was worse. Yours was terrifying. You ran away over and over and over, but came home. Small children need food and shelter. You get older. A neighbor says if you run away now, you will never stop running. You do not run away permanently. But you still run.

My childhood has no bruises to the skin. But the bruises to the heart are a nightmare. You finally say that I win, my childhood was worse. But I was not trying to win, I want to say. I was just telling you as you’ve told me.

We have both survived damage and coped. I have the resource of a grandmother with money who paid for medical school. I apply without telling my parents, after my mother says, “You don’t want to be a doctor. It’s too much work.” I am a poet, a writer, being a doctor so I can study people and have children and be certain there is food. Job security. And food security, true. With a husband or without.

You fight school all the way, but when you are told that you will be a failure or in jail, you decide that you will prove them wrong. You are still proving it. You won’t tell how you make your money, not to the locals, but the new car every two years tells them you have money. And it’s the wrong kind of car: a liberal car for a professed conservative. It stands out.

We start playing trauma bunnies after six months. You want me to come to dinner and I turn New Yorker and direct: is this a date? You are surprised. I set the boundaries and you think about it. And say yes.

But trauma bunnies is not as much fun as the beach. We get close and intimate and then you run. When you run, I run too: the other way. I don’t chase you. You haven’t experienced that before. You keep coming back. Why aren’t I chasing you? Because I too am a trauma bunny, remember?

Back and forth: close and far, together and apart. All holidays become times when you run, so that I will not be part of the family. I announce that I am now your mistress and you can’t be with my family either. Back and forth. Closer and then you refuse to come to my son’s wedding. Far again.

You say the summer will be very busy. You say your focus is music. You say we can go to one beach. One beach? For the whole summer? I run to europe and you are surprised. I ask, are you too busy to have me around? No, you say. But when I return, you have a friend staying with you. Intimacy disappears.

I am tired of it. My daughter is here.

At last I bring up sex: are we done with that?

No, you say. We have visitors.

Wouldn’t stop me, I say.

You say, sex is still on the table. Then you hem and haw. You say sex is not important, you can take or leave it. The friendship is more important. Well, the friendship is most important, but sex IS important to me and hello, it’s damn insulting of you to say you can take or leave it. Leave. This is all triggered by your yearly family get together. You need me at a distance so you won’t be tempted to invite me. You don’t want me there so I am distanced again.

And I am done, done, done. I dream of a small child, a wild woman, a woman doctor and someone new: a quiet woman. I think about the quiet woman and I ask the other three. Yes, they say.

The quiet woman is the adult. Not the mask of the professional, not the wild defense fighter, not the small child. The small child has healed. She is the connection to the Beloved, to the source of the poems. She blesses the others. The quiet woman takes over.

The quiet woman takes over. She says goodbye, farewell, Beloved keep you and bless you, you may contact me any time.

You are in your cave alone and do not answer.

You may end up there, alone, alone, alone. You want freedom most of all, you say. Another song: freedom is another word.

Yes it is. People can change and grow. But some want to and some don’t and sometimes we don’t grow at the same time.

Yes, says the quiet woman. Sometimes we don’t grow at the same time.

Fade to quiet.

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I took the photograph from a canoe at Lake Matinenda in Ontario, Canada.