Fear was never my father's first reaction.
Do you have ANY idea what a gift it was to be taught that lesson?
You know what's funny about this? I didn't even realize until sitting here, at age 42, right this very moment when I typed that sentence what it was that my dad had shown me. I've spent a lot of my life looking head on. Even though the lesson influenced me profoundly it hadn't been something I could see directly. (Now maybe you understand why my heart starts to get happy when I sit down to write this every month.)
One of the memories I have of my mother was of her getting off a long phone conversation. It was maybe an hour long call.
A call from a wrong number.
Yes, my mother could talk just as long to someone she didn't know, with just as much laughter and enthusiasm as someone she had known for years. And it almost appeared to dawn on her later, with a little surprise when she saw in everyone else's reactions, that this was probably not typical. As if she had never considered that "wrong numbers" were mistakes and such mistakes needed to be corrected as soon as possible because one simply doesn't talk to strangers for no good reason. She always found a good reason for them to have called her, mistake or not. She might even give them a good recipe while she was at it.
"Stranger" was never my mother's first assessment of people.
And do you have any idea how much love has come in to my life by learning THAT lesson?
It's ironic because had you looked at them as a couple, in the center of your vision, you would have seen two people who simply co-existed in our house for a long, long time. My parents divorced after 28 years of marriage. Why they weren't able to give each other what I saw them make available to strangers time and time again, I don't know. Maybe it's like the sun. Maybe real love is that strong...you can only handle the periphery of it. Maybe there is a risk that if you go fully, directly in to the belly of the thing that it will consume you.
I don't know. But I do know that a lot of times people shy away from intimacy. How long are you willing to let someone just sit silently, openly looking you directly in the eye before you look away? We don't always like to be seen that fully. We can't always handle the direct focus. Maybe for some of us, the periphery is the only place we really feel safe enough to let ourselves connect.
For myself, I want to practice using my full field of vision while I have that option.
Article comments
1 - Geek's Girl
What a lolvey,well written piece. A pleasure to read, thank you.
2 - gypsyman
I know there is something I should say to you about this post, but it's not coming easy. I'm probably trying to hard to see it.
Both of your parents sound like extremely gifted individuals for being able to recognize love in all it's many shapes and sizes and how to share it with others.
My wife is quite similar in that she will sit on the street with a homeless person and talk without any self consceousness or effort. She says it makes her feel like she has acomplished something real if she can touch a person's life through whatever personal hell they might be living.
Like your father she is able to have wild creatures come up to her and feed. If we go for a walk we usually have to tell all the cats who have followed us home that they can't come in.
To be able to offer genuine unconditional love to the world is a wonderful gift, but like all gifts is two sided. The other edge of the knife is the amount of pain these empathic people could potentialy be feeling at any time.
When you love that much you also feel the pain of others with equal intensity. When you live with a person who feels that much pain you have to be prepared for the depth of their emotion and how it will affect you. They need uncoditional love to prevent them from becoming sick.
I'm not like my wife, except for being able to provide her with what she needs, perhaps in the case of your parents, who were so alike, neither was able to offer the other the support they needed.
You are a very wise woman to have learned those lessons. So many people see the actions of people like your parents as abnormal and dismiss them as strange.
Thank you so much for telling this story today.
gypsyman
3 - Laura Young
Thank you both for your kind comments. gyspyman, you are right...when you open up you open up to everything. It takes a lot of work to be healthy in that. It's hard to keep your heart open no matter what. I'm committed to living that way but there are certainly easier paths. But none quite so rewarding...