*** This entry was originally posted to LiveJournal March 14, 2008 ***
This is not the second installment of my latest philosophical rant--the one in which I hold forth on my opinion that the concept of god is more of a hindrance to hope than a help to it. I accept your disappointment, indifference, or relief about that. :-)
No, today is an update on things in Doug-land. I accept your disappointment, indifference, or relief about THAT, too. :-)
This morning I learned that I'm more than a little distracted. I went to trim my beard, for the first time in a couple of days actually, and I neglected to notice that I didn't have the guard on the trimmer before I started shearing away at my jaw. I usually start without the guard and trim around my moustache before attaching the guard and doing the general trimming. Today, without thinking, I started doing the general trimming without the guard. After a couple of strokes and after noticing just how much hair was falling onto my hand, I realized my error. Crap.
So then comes the great debate: take all the rest of it off and start over, or deal with it. I chose the latter; I didn't want to take the time to shave it all clean, and I DON'T want to start the whole process over. I don't want to take it down to a Van Dyke in the interim either. Nothing against wearers of Van Dykes per se, but *I* don't want one. Sooo, I used the lowest guard instead of the middle guard and trimmed the rest shorter than usual, but still there. Even so, there's rather a prominent notch on the right side of my jaw. I'm hoping that by making the rest of it shorter than usual it'll be easier for the notch to catch up, and then I can go back to the middle guard and back to normal.
This is the price I pay for being distracted. I get to spend a few days (I hope not longer than that) with a not-quite-but-almost blank spot in my beard. Damn it. I'm giving a couple of presentations tomorrow, too. Double damn it.
I am reminded of the words of Master Yoda: "Always a Jedi's mind is on where he is. What he is doing." Master Yoda would be furrowing his little rubber brow and shaking his little rubber head at me this morning (yes, rubber--not CGI; the puppet Yoda runs CIRCLES around the CGI Yoda for life-like-ness, IMHO).
So anyway, oops. On to other matters.
Some of you may know that for a while now I've worn a bone fish hook around my neck. I got it when I was in New Zealand in 1991. The Maori there wear these "hei matau," as they call them, as a symbol of leadership and authority and as a talisman. I bought mine because I liked the way it looked (it really was quite a beautiful specimen) and because it was one of the least expensive and most easily transported Maori items I could think to buy at the time. Well, especially in the past couple of years as I've grown more comfortable with my own leadership and power, I'd been wearing it every day. Well, last month, on the very day I returned from the MKP annual meeting in California, my hei matau broke. Snapped right in two. I didn't notice it until I got on the plane, but in hindsight I can figure out right when it happened. Anyway, it's bone, so even though a man found the other piece and offered to return it to me, there's nothing to be done with it, really. That bovine is well past the point at which its bones will re-stitch themselves (they're cattle bone these days--apparently in ancient times the Maori would use the bones of beached whales). I thought about asking a Warrior brother from Auckland whom I know to pick up another one for me. But I ended up just ordering one online instead. It was important to me that this one be MINE, chosen by me, with full awareness of its symbolism and with the intention of wearing it FOR that symbolism instead of just because it looks cool (which it also does). So I have a new hei matau now. It's smaller, it's not quite as ornate, and it's more stylized than potentially functional in shape. My old one was totally fish hook shaped and quite sharp. This one is curvier and more blunt, which is how most of them are (though again, in ancient times they were functionally shaped--if you got lost at sea or something you ALWAYS had a fish hook). It's also thicker and presumably less prone to snapping. I believe events have only whatever mystical significance I choose to give them. What I choose to give to this event is that as my leadership and my comfort with my own power enter a new phase, so too the old symbol passes away and I choose a new one. It is sitting around my neck next to my skin right now, reminding me and--as the Maori believe--absorbing my essence.
While I was shopping for my new hei matau, I was looking at other necklaces the Maori wear. Among them are carved twists in gorgeously interlaced patterns. In reading about the symbolism of these, I discovered that they are symbols of joining and of eternity. The particularly fancy double and triple twists symbolize the joining of cultures or the joining of the physical and spiritual realms. The simpler single twists symbolize the joining of two people in an eternal bond. Did I mention that at the time I was doing this, Valentine's Day was approaching? :-) Now, most Maori carvings are of bone or greenstone (jade) or paua shell (abalone). On this site I happened to notice that they had some carvings of red agate. Did I mention that red is Catherine's favorite color? So for Valentine's Day (though I confess it arrived a little late), I got Catherine a single twist Maori necklace in red agate. Hardly the world's most expensive jewelry, but that's not the point. It's about what it MEANS. She gets that, and she absolutely loves it. And forgive me if this strikes you as TMI, but I have to say that DAMN but it looks sexy next to her skin! Whew!
Oh, another amusing story from Valentine's Day. A week or two before Valentine's Day we were in Borders, and we saw a book that we both really liked. The price struck us both as a bit high in proportion to the size of the book, and neither of us bought it. Well, on Valentine's Day we each unwrapped our packages and what should be in each of them but a copy of that very book. The best part is that we missed each other by less than an hour when we later went back to Borders for it. Now by that time Borders had moved the book from the display. Catherine asked the staff and they helped her find it so she got it for me that night. I was there right before the mall closed and I didn't see it so I didn't get it that night. I picked it up later and elsewhere, for a slightly lower price even. But the point is that we each got the book for the other when we weren't prepared to get it for ourselves.
Before I depart entirely from the subject of Catherine and the giving of symbolic jewelry, no, Catherine and I still have no impending wedding plans. The engagement of Brian and Monica (congratulations again, you two!) brings up the question in our (my, anyway) and others' minds. Her opinions on the subject remain essentially unchanged, and now I'm increasingly going back and forth on it myself. Historically I've figured we'd be moving in that direction, just in no special hurry. Now I vacillate in my own mind. Not about staying with her or not staying with her, but about getting married or not. At New Year's and again in recent days I asked myself whether I would eventually reach a point of saying that marriage is what I want and if she's not up for that then I would need to move on and find someone else. I reserve the right to change my truth in the future, AND at New Year's and now I simply can not begin to fathom the idea of doing that. I can scarcely even complete that thought in my head. It seems completely ludicrous. Being with Catherine is WAY, WAY more important to me than is any ring and piece of paper. So what I believe is that regardless of whether we ever get married or not, I am with Catherine. For now and for any future I can even pretend to foresee. Period. Lucky me! :-) Maybe we will get married someday and maybe we won't. There may come a day when it will seem to both of us like a terrific idea, but I really don't resonate with the notion of NEEDING that to tell me where my heart--or her heart--is. Either way, we're having a great time now and we're both enjoying our independence as well as the lack of even the opportunity to take each other for granted because we have to be so intentional about spending time together. At the same time, there are still times when we both think it sure would be nice to have each other around all the time. So we'll see. I'll keep you posted. For now, I sincerely celebrate with Brian and Monica and I have no plans to follow their lead.
In other news, Barbara and I are no longer friends, it would seem. She's the sort of person who--I don't want to be judgmental but I really think that "demands" is a fair word--a lot of contact, attention, and reciprocation from everyone with whom she's in relationship--family, friends, etc. My personal judgment around that is that she's rather high-maintenance. Anyway, in her judgment she hasn't been getting that level of reciprocation from me for a long time now, and as of a week ago she basically let me know that she's reached a breaking point around that. So apparently that's it.
It's true, I do overcommit and keep myself way too busy and distracted from my life and therefore neglectful of people in my life. That's my piece, and I own it. And I can see that my piece will not be a good fit with her (in my judgment) high-maintenance piece. So there we have it.
I'm sad about it. There's even some anger percolating around the edges, in that reflexive use-anger-to-cover-and-protect-sadness kind of way. AND, I also accept it. Part of me, I confess, is even relieved not to have to worry about whether I'm meeting her standards for contact or not (apparently, worried though I was, I wasn't measuring up). Her need for contact and affirmation and the associated conditions she places on her love and on allowing people to be in relationship with her are about her, and there's nothing I can do about them.
Moreover, I've been really happy to note how well I have dealt with this. I didn't plead or try to convince her to reconsider, I didn't freak out, or anything like that. I accepted and I accept it. People don't always love unconditionally. Friendships end. It happens. It's true we'd been growing apart for a while; for me that didn't spell the doom of our friendship, and for her it did.
In this I can see another example of how much stronger I've become. I learned a lot from my connection with Barbara, and I'm grateful. AND, the one thing about a mentoring relationship--ask Joseph Campbell--is that at some point it ends. The mentor imparts all he or she has to impart, and the student grows past his or her dependence on the mentor. Thus is the way of the world. For a long time I did look to Barbara as a mentor, and she was a good one. Class, it would seem, is over.
At the same time, I don't think I've done a good enough job of just letting myself BE SAD about this. Yes it's okay and yes I'm relieved and yes I'm ready to move on. AND, I'm sad. And that's okay too. I'm telling this to myself, not so much to you--thanks for your patience and indulgence while I do that. :-)
So yeah, I'm feeling lots of joy, and I'm feeling sadness and a bit of anger. I bet if I poked around I could even find some fear. I don't seem to feel any shame, though, so I can't say I have all of the five basic emotions going on. Close, though. Here's an analogy for you: I am to my feelings as dentists are to recommending Trident. Four out of five.
After all this, I'd say you're pretty well up to date.
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