I did lots of thinking this week and I owe you both an apology for letting you "hang" while I went quiet.
Jac, thanks very much for your words of apology for a sarcastic moment. I felt I needed to stop posting for a time. I apologize to YOU for letting you wait a week until I acknowleged it! (I just hate it when I've said I'm sorry and I'm left wondering...ummm, when do I get the, I forgive you, part??? Am I going to?) I find that a real emotional strain, so if you have felt that, please forgive me. It seems really clear to me that you and everyone has done such amazing work, truly amazing, this week...I'm very impressed. Thanks for saying it, though, (((((((Jac)))))). I know you didn't enjoy things going awry at all. No shame, no blame, and I'm glad we're most all still here!
(One startling discovery about being quiet for a while...I am not the center of the unvierse and the Board functions just fine without me! Hmmm. Do you suppose it was doing all right before I discovered it and will continue to after I'm gone? How is this possible? Sounds very familiar...hmmm. I have heard of this principle...somewhere...planet Nanus?)
Hi Hope [on edit--sorry, got my "CH" and my "LoH' wrong out of my fingers...drained brain, I know the diff!
]:
You are completely right that I was completely wrong about saying that you could't let it be after PB and RM made peace. I apologize. I considered your response, re-read the whole thread, and as you said, it was simply not there. One defense if I might...I was not "spreading lies" about you, CH. I would not do that. But I was reacting to you in an unaware way, projecting things about myself that I hadn't brought to the surface or recognized. I am sorry.
I thought about it several times this week, and asked myself: why did you display irritation in response to Hope, and misconstrue her response that way? What is that
really about? It took me some work but I did have some insights. I'd like to share them, and I hope I express it well. This is what I figured out:
--Often something in another that I respond to negatively, whether I'm conscious of what I'm doing or not--is often about something I don't like within myself. I looked. There it was. This is not a description of you, because we are different people, but it's maybe something vaguely recognizable. (At any rate, it rang this chord in me about myself):
At times I express my goodwill by almost going saccharinely good. It's sincere but also there's a thread of fear of being at ease with my whole, integrated self...that sometimes causes me to dollop on the sweetened stuff so heavily that for some appetites, it's cloying. What it reminds me of is the thing animal behaviorists say is behind some dog affection...we're busy thinking they adore us when sometimes they're saying, ooo, I now wag and roll on my back because that's just...the thing you do to keep the peace. (I refuse to believe that my dog doesn't adore me though.) IOW, you, just being your own innocent self, remind me sometimes of a disowned part of myself that I've done some battle with. I have found myself in my 50s moving steadily toward more authenticity in my voice and my intentions...but there have been times when people have challenged me on that. (I am no saint, I do not love people limitlessly, and although I'm quite serious about compassion I really don't want to look too closely when I lose my grip on it. Good friends call me on it now and then.) When your tone on occasion reminds me of the sweet-front part of me (not saying your voice IS over-sweet...I'm not hearing it clearly and it's not my place to judge!! It's just that I am sensitive to an oversweet, and sometimes very preachy, note in myself at times). I can react out of unawareness because this is a part of myself I have trouble accepting. (That's no excuse for hurting someone's feelings, though. I do sincerely apologize.)
I think another reason for this (painful) is that my daughter has been quite brutal with me this summer. I told her I was worried about her becoming mean, and she said, well you're
weak. She also once told me, "You've never taken a risk in your life!" (Oh, the stories she hasn't heard!.
) So...I hear what I perceive as a placating tone (as I have taken with her so often) or perhaps what I'm unconsciously reading as goody-goody or unctuous (NOT YOUR FAULT I heard it that way C-Hope!) and ... zing.
I hope you can see from this sort of unconscious association that this was
not about you, Hope. Nothing wrong with your tone or way of writing (you're a very skilled writer) at all. This was my projection of ---(hmm, Anansi)---my own shadow. More than one shade...(in fact, someone here, now gone, grumped once that she felt "covered with goo." She didn't say it to me directly, but my intuition went, my god, it was me she's talking about, I'm a goo factory. I must be a fake! All this work to be good and embrace compassion and it's just making her teeth hurt!)
Another thing, which is quite ridiculous. Or at least I can laugh at it (hope you can). This one went off in my head around Wednesday. Same question, now why did you feel irritation at CH?
AHA! Another piece of the puzzle! My Nmother was a librarian and absolutely relentless (is there a word stronger than relentless? If so, please place it here, in large letters) about telling me what to read. Articles. Books. More articles. 10-page letters of her opinions that were following on the previous evening's 2 hours' straight of her preaching, moralizing, pontificating, opining, regurgitating....
[This would be the point where whoever that observant person was who said wearily, isn't there, say, an upper limit of 6 posts a day or something? would point out that I talk so much it's a wonder there's any oxygen left in the room. Thank heaven we each have our own supply. Ooops, no pun intended. Anyway, my posts average is....well, never mind. That's like telling my weight. I'll just say I am aware I am...talkative. Garrulous. Verbose.]
New thought! (From me to me...) Talking so much it drains people is not equal to claiming your voice.
Those who've put up with me a while, particularly when I have talked about my mother, know that one thing that nearly drove me out of my mind was her inexhaustible appetite for the sound of her own voice.
Apple. Tree. Ow.
I could conjure up more free-associating but the main thing, Hope, is just that I recognize that I had assigned to you some shadows of my own. And that's the most significant thing to me in what was happening.
I hope this reads constructively, and thanks for wading through it. (That reminds me...I didn't mean "wading" as an attack on your person at all...but as you may see why now, about my mother, I can have that reaction to many, many referrals to readings or articles. I'm glad everyone said nope, they're just fine on here, because they are. I obviously don't have to read long "article posts" if it touches a weird place in me. That doesn't mean they come from a weird place in you at all...you are simply being helpful!) And considering that I have posted my poetry, multiple posts a day since November, a "sermon" and letters I wrote to Salon, I hardly think this pot should be saying anything to anybody else who has a lot of eager energy toward the board other than, hello there, sister Kettle.
I felt drowned out by my mother. Felt as though I couldn't find my bed for all the clippings. Felt like I was literally "wading" through all that lecturing. Which is, O Weary Irony, feeling very much like the combined noise of me, myself, and I.
Lastly, I was moved and very saddened by the great suffering you, and especially your daughter, have been through, Hope. I thought you were the little girl in her dream, and she was too, crying in rage, protect us!
I think you are doing just that by engaging in your work here.
In peace,
Hops
