love

Mental sorbet: Live out, outlive, feel, unfeel

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A short exchange on how strange Danes can be – or at least their language – and I recall a Danish man who thought that to “to live out” and “to outlive” meant the same thing.

And yet, I live out my life in outmoded ways – or with outmoded views – that have outlived their time. If they ever had a time.

My life has made me be the person who favors the scrappy stray mother cat scrounging through garbage in order to feed herself and her kittens rather than be the person who fawns over her adorable little litter. Always the one who looks past the surface, I value her experience and tenacity over the fleeting cuteness of her kittens.

My life has also made me be the person who sees someone who is lonely, something of a misfit, hurting, ostracized, struggling or troubled, and I feel a need to reach out to them, help them – sometimes in misguided ways (particularly when I was young and very shy myself – hard to step outside of my own confines to intervene in someone else’s being). This never necessarily works out well, but I always thought my heart was in the right place. I somehow imagine(d) that what you put into the world is what you get back from it. But this is naive: even if you put out compassion, you are likely to be met with disappointment. You have to learn either to dismiss the urge toward compassion or dismiss the disappointment that often follows.

I see and feel the rarity of my way. I am not a surface-level person (other than the initial cold read people may get from me). The surface always has the power to sway and seduce. Most people don’t look beyond it.

But then, it depends on what they’re looking for. Mismatched intentions can be crushing. Initially of course I think of my own crushed feelings throughout life’s less triumphant moments, but I recognize that it can work both ways. In my supposed compassion, I might, as I did as an adolescent, reach out to someone who had no friends, spent his time hanging out with the school’s science teacher, and try to be friendly, boost his confidence – and in doing so, give him completely the wrong idea. My actual intentions were entirely different from how he received my intentions, and the situation did not end well.

Even when your intentions match up with someone else’s – those intentions can shift, creating unstable ground. It could be that I, like most, hope to be blindsided in amazement at the unconditional and expansive love and understanding that another person can give/show. Because that is how I am (or strive to be). (But this never happens – it is not part of the surface world we live in and, in all honesty, opens up the person who shows this kind of expansive love and/or understanding to some vulnerability.)

But it could just as well be that I, in my insensitive, less than impeccable or admirable moments, wonder if a person is, disposably, just a sorbet, a palate cleanser, making way for some other main course – or perhaps that person is the main course, and I pass on it, claiming not to be hungry?

…I know what is good, and conversely, not good for me, and I know what I need to do. Live out my days and outlive my usefulness. But do I act accordingly?

What form of akrasia is this?

It is only partly true that I act against (or for) my own best interests. I often compare the ‘doing versus thinking’ concept because I am both a thinker and a doer. And most other people seem to be much better, more active thinkers but not great doers. One day, I said to someone who insisted he would take action but frustrated me for years with his all-talk, no-action behavior: “You will have many hurdles to jump to become a doer like me, and I am not even half-motivated. But for you, it’s probably a priorities issue. Some things, some people, are important, and some are not. If you really wanted something, or someone, or wanted to do something, you would do it. The end. Someday maybe you will be a doer, and that will change my mind about you. But today, and for as long as I have known you, you have not been a doer unless it required absolutely zero effort or thought on your part.” In truth, as I could see plainly in that moment: if there is no feeling behind the doing, why should it ever go beyond thinking?

I rarely add ‘feeling’ to the equation. ‘Doing-thinking-feeling’. But would most people feel motivated to think and then do without that spark of feeling to push them to take action? I take plenty of risks and live freely in the thinking and doing realms. Ultimately, I may not make the riskiest choices from the heart’s standpoint. It makes me think a bit about school days, when teachers would tell certain kids that they really have a lot of potential but no follow-through. I was always the thinking-doing overachiever but had “a lot of potential but no follow-through” when it came to feeling, which is not to say I did not feel: Only that feeling did not, and could not, come first, lest it crush me. Perhaps I have always felt much too deeply.

Even this, I sometimes think, is not entirely true. My life has made me a person who prefers to be alone, who is mostly not interested in personal intimacy while at the same time being overly curious about other people’s personal intimacy. That is, I am less a partner or lover and more a would-be, unqualified, armchair therapist, wanting to know people deeply and intimately, but only from an observant and almost clinical distance (but not entirely dispassionately).

I am still trying to figure out whether – or how – feelings just leave, like a flock of birds migrating away for winter, or whether feelings morph into this “observant-supportive-caretaker” mold that I seem to adopt. I am not afraid of feeling now; I do not suppress it now. But no longer trying to control feeling, I find that feeling is much more unpredictable than I would have imagined. Yes, I knew feelings like love, as an example, were uncontrollable, messy, sticky, and up, down and all over the place, but I did not fully appreciate that they could be as fickle as they are. That, for example, one could be completely in it one day and wake up the next morning feeling absolutely nothing. Is it some unseen barrier that the inner, protective self builds? And if so, how can the lack of all feeling – this indifference – feel as real and as deep as the love once was? Did feelings, however briefly they lived, outlive their expiration?

Photo (c) 2008 Angela Schmeidel Randall

Settle the horses

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You know the anger and frustration you feel when you lose a document you’ve written but not saved? I just had the same experience only much more crushing. I had been reading this book aloud and recording it but had only paused the recording – not saved – when I was about two hours into what would have been four hours of reading (to complete one long – very long – chapter). The computer restarted. I lost everything. Now I have to go back and repeat this stuff again, and it feels very painful to think about.

Like so many things today (inauguration day in America). Avoid avoid avoid.

Almost daily now, especially needing the calm and the avoidance, I come back to “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver.

The lines: “You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your
body
love what it loves.”

I really disliked this poem when I was younger, when teachers would force it on us, year after year, and it never really had the chance to sink in. That is to say, I never gave it a chance to sink in. Now older, more reflective, I think of this letting “the soft animal of your body love what it loves”, and it has deeper resonance and meaning. How simple sounding but so hard to actually do.

Settle the horses that so eagerly and anxiously want to bolt thunderously away. Advice from all sides, every day, every source: Give it time.

The drone of years

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Almost 20 years had passed since she had last seen him; both had weathered the time with at least some grace. Perhaps they told themselves this, awkwardly embracing, pushing aside the thoughts of the kinds of things they used to do together. Cordiality ruled the day now, over 40 and discussing blood pressure medications and carefully controlled diets. They were polite, discussing many things, but at the same time, not very much. Controlled, too, in how they spoke, the words they chose, the topics they discussed – directly and indirectly – never wanting to cross a line or appear indiscreet, despite their history of nothing but indiscretion. They had work in common, this business-like demeanor, that is, their shared workaholism, which seemed to substitute for the children that neither of them ever had, for the partners each of them seemed to have for lengthy intervals during their otherwise lone(ly) adult lives but who always disappeared eventually.

After a confidence-bolstering few glasses of wine, and many hours of conversation, which had lifted slightly in tone as the hours flew and the hour grew later, he leaned in toward her, very close, and she saw the old glint in his eye, the disarming smile that had so weakened her resolve two decades ago, and she saw past all the little things the 20 years had done to him – and to her. It was as though no time at all had passed.

He gripped her forearm tightly and looked into her eyes before lowering his gaze, as he had done many times before in brief fits of shyness that belied the exterior performance, “I loved you then, but I thought something was missing. But I see now – it was there…

…I just didn’t know what was important.”

Photo (c) the late and lovely Paul Costanich

Fullest

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An excerpt:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
If I have made of my life something particular, and real,
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
Or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.” – Mary Oliver

One of life’s greatest missteps and misfortunes is to not really live. To question what might have been, to let opportunities and people go who might have helped us grow, explore and see things in new ways – to question because we did not choose to experience those things for one reason or another. Our practical lives and minds steer us toward clear and safe paths: keep the miserable job because it is stable. Stay in unhappy relationships because you won’t find someone better suited or because you can’t bear to be alone. Don’t spontaneously travel to a far-flung land because it is dangerous – or because you just can’t see yourself being that spontaneous. Stop listening to music because it’s… I don’t know, what young people do? (As the lovely, old Australian film Strictly Ballroom reminds us: “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived.”)

Without really living – embracing, learning, loving, doing – haven’t you only visited this world?

The abuser
I had a job for many years that, in no uncertain terms, was bad. I liked the actual work and subject matter (I did learn a lot) and loved many of my colleagues. But the organizational culture and company – totally delusional. And they played the role of abuser. Most people there were zombified automatons, brainwashed to think they were making a difference, to think they could do no better elsewhere, that every place is the same or would be worse or – god forbid – that the way this place operated was normal. But my nomadic nature taught me better – I had changed roles and companies frequently and was doing other work in parallel that showed me just how miserable that place was.

Almost everyone with whom I worked closely has left and all of them express to me this feeling of having left an abusive partner – having been told repeatedly, “You will never find something better. You aren’t good enough for something else. Nothing else will be better than this anyway.” As soon as they left, a giant weight lifted from their shoulders, and they realized, “Wow, I can actually do things. I am actually effective and smart.” And the toxic nature of the relationship and culture of the previous company becomes clearer than ever.

But while there are the few who have been “liberated” there are still the herds and hordes who haven’t and probably never will be. Mostly “lifers” who have nothing to compare it to and would not have the skills or sense to make it anywhere else.

I wonder when I think of these people whether they are truly living. In some cases, I would say, no, they are not living according to my definition of living – but then they don’t have to. They can define it for themselves. Some people there are just going for the paycheck, camaraderie and flexibility on holidays and their external/non-work lives are full of living. Some like the exceedingly family-friendly nature of the company and stay for more than a decade while having a family. These things make sense. But the die-hard, drank-the-Kool-Aid types don’t make much sense, and I can’t compare what they are doing to living. (At least I would ask in the end of my life “if I have made of my life something particular, and real…” –and the answer would be no.)

The seeker
What would life be without music? It’s something about which I am passionate – even if I have never been one to make music (which I kind of regret – but at the same time, it’s not such a deep regret or loss that I will ponder it at the end of my life wondering why I didn’t do something about it).

But no, I am on a constant journey of discovering new music – and sharing it (like it or not). I’ve written about this before, and about the supposed drop-off in music discovery at age 27 (or something similarly strange. Oh no, 33. As if that is so much better). I will never understand this.

The other day I told a friend I might be in Gothenburg for a concert; she asked me what show, knowing full well she would have no idea who it was because she is just not into following music. It defies all logic for her – and for many of my friends – that I can put together a mix of music several times a year with so many things they have never heard of.

But for me I can’t say I think I would be living without constantly seeking out new music. To fully live life, it needs a soundtrack.

The lover
I do not love easily or often. When I do, on these rarest of occasions, I know it. I know I love and there are no questions or doubts about the feeling or what it is or what it means. (Does it mean there is no fear? Of course not. But there is no doubt whatsoever about what the feeling is.) When I love truly and deeply, pulled by an undeniable force that I can’t control, I would go to the ends of the earth. Despite my infamous insular, self-driven and independent nature, I am, by love, transformed to become expansive in my inclusion of the person I love, inviting them to also inhabit the world we create together – a person for whom I would go anywhere, do almost anything and defend, support and love through dark and light, bad and good. This all-encompassing approach should make it clear why I don’t and can’t feel this way about just anyone (as much as I simultaneously revile and admire people who think they fall in love with every person they meet – the whole thing must be very easy for them. Not to be dismissive, of course).

It happens that this infernal New Age book I recently read (yes, I keep referring back to it) described well how I might describe it. In addition I would say that love is… or, maybe no, not love, but loving – active loving – is fundamentally a conversation. A conversation that goes on, lingers, does not end, that continues even in silence.

“…the value and process of soulful romance rests in what he calls radical conversation, in which one intends, continuously, to discover more and ever more about oneself and the other. Through such an exchange between two mysteries, one draws nearer to the central mystery of life.

Loving the otherness of the partner is a transcendent event, for one enters the true mystery of relationship in which one is taken to the third place – not you plus me, but we who are more than ourselves with each other.”

“Radical conversation has emotional, imaginal, sexual and spiritual dimensions as well as verbal ones. And the conversation is approached not only with skill and intent but also with innocence and wonder. Neither the other nor the self is a fixed thing. The bottom is never reached. One hopes to be forever surprised.

But of course it’s not all delight and ease. Far from it. We are constantly discovering how we project our shadow – both its light and dark aspects – onto each other. The dance of soulful romance always includes owning back those projections and transferences. Our relationship will expose all the places we are emotionally blocked, blinded, wounded, caged, protected, or otherwise limited.” -Bill Plotkin, Soulcraft

Does this mean no doubts ever creep in? No. But they don’t negate, erase, eliminate or diminish the underlying feeling or its strength.

Doubt’s a constant stream of questions (these don’t all apply to me; just a generic list): Am I rebounding? Am I clear-headed enough to embark on something significant? Am I repeating the exact same pattern that got me into a long and one-sided love affair from years ago? Am I ready for this? Or, for example, as one friend pointed out about people ending long relationships and possibly heading into new ones, have they really grappled with the question, “Who am I outside the old/long relationship?”

Yes, questions and doubts because that is what it is to interact and be with those with whom we are in love: to shut out the noise of too many superfluous questions and practicalities, all of which do not matter at the core of it all, and to find a place together (emotionally more than physically) that is both centered and calm at the same time as setting you alight and keeping you deeply rooted in the moment, wanting more but being content all at once.

At the core of it all, I will still live fully. I am fully alive. And I love. And I know I love.

Photo (c) – the late, great Paul Costanich

Lunchtable TV Talk: People meet… what comes next?

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With the ever-expanding variety of TV-style content available at the ready, old themes are taking on new polish. It’s no secret that storytelling is becoming more nuanced and diverse, and storytellers are becoming freer to tell their stories without the constraints of things like network TV schedules and limitations, demands for typical romantic sitcom tropes or pandering to certain audience demographics. Within this landscape, different kinds of romantic comedies are finding their “hour upon the loom of days” (cannot resist, however inappropriate the tone, an Ezra Pound reference…).

In the middle of these emotional days, I watched the widely praised little comedy, Catastrophe, which chronicles the accidental relationship borne of an accidental pregnancy resulting from a casual one-week fling. The couple decide to make a go of it, with the American half of the couple moving to London to pursue a relationship with the Irish woman he’s knocked up. I won’t heap rosy praise on it (other viewers have done this enough), but I will concede that it can be quite funny and “real” in ways that most sitcoms laboring under this premise could not be.

Given my state of mind, though, it mostly made me sad and reflective. Thinking about how people meet and what propels their relationships forward. How is it that they decide, “This is what I want. This is the person I want to be with”? It would be easy to say that the characters here chose to be together only because the woman was pregnant, neither party to the couple is particularly young and perhaps neither felt they had much to lose. The show did a good job at making the relationship feel more deliberate than that by highlighting the doubts and fears the characters felt – particularly the woman. The man seems quite sure (and reassuring) and never strays from this underlying conviction, even when friends, family and circumstance try to convince him otherwise.

Perhaps it was his commitment and willingness to work at it and to “put up or shut up”, in a sense, that struck me.

Overall, Catastrophe, despite having a few semi-crass jokes and whatnot, is sweet and gives the viewer a palette on which it creates two whole, three-dimensional adults who find themselves in a surprising situation. How people deal with the unplanned is telling.

The unplanned and unpleasant drives another surprisingly sweet (and short) sitcom, Scrotal Recall, which, despite its raunchy name, is both worth watching and not at all what you think it is. It follows (without bothering about chronology) the story of a guy who discovers he has an STI and needs to inform all his previous sex partners. The show finds its comedy not just in the awkwardness of trying to break the news (“Hey, sorry you’ve not heard from me in a year, but congrats! You may have chlamydia!”) but in the retelling of the stories that led the character to get into all these sexual situations in the first place. Bubbling along in parallel with these flashbacks is the ongoing, years-long tension between the main character and his friend/roommate (the old story about close friends of the opposite sex – one has a crush on the other but is scared to say or one of them has a relationship already so the timing is off… and the timing always seems to be off. It’s another version of Ross and Rachel but … cuter and less important to the storytelling). In fact, Vox compares the show to How I Met Your Mother without the irritating pomposity of Ted and without the sociopathic tendencies of Barney. I agree but add that it is much more relatable and less formulaic, and actually, in its own slightly bumbling way, quite sweet.

While this pair of sitcoms (both with roots in the UK) resides at the “sweet/nice” end of the spectrum, it stands to reason that there would be similarly angled sitcoms at the other end. That is, sitcoms that go against the grain, challenge one’s perception of a “relationship” or “dating” comedy. (This does not take into account recent takes on the ennui of marriage, such as Togetherness or Married, neither of which is perfect but both of which finally do away with some of the stupid/schlub husband + hot wife making fun of him trope that has long populated the mainstream TV landscape.)

Perhaps most routinely misanthropic and sometimes annoying but nevertheless funny and human is You’re the Worst, in which two young… let’s call a spade a spade here… assholes hook up after getting drunk at a wedding. They are both firmly convinced that they are not relationship material, commitment phobic and perfectly happy with a casual, no-strings setup. But most of the first season is spent making us – and them – realize that they’ve been wrong. It’s a little bit cliche when you write down the premise, but the execution makes it what it is. I honestly did not think I would like it. The advertising I saw surrounding the show struck me a lot like the Comedy Central advertising for Broad City and Inside Amy Schumer. The ads made these shows look offensively bad (not in a good way), while in fact, both are genius. You’re the Worst won’t make any “genius” lists, but despite it being ages ago that I consumed the first season, I remember a few gems that pulled me in – from the Phil “Groovy” Collins v Peter Gabriel argument between the show’s leads to the “Sunday Funday” (although if I recall these were in the same episode, and I think the guy who plays Pied Piper CEO Richard in the brilliant Silicon Valley plays one of the poseur-follower idiots copying the Sunday Funday). At its heart, the show does display two people who are actually the worst (you would hate these people if you knew them in real life) but find each other, defend each other, fall in love with each other… and I suppose that things boil down to that kind of cliche. We go through life hoping to find that person we can relate to, be completely our ugly selves with and land, as someone once said to me in better times, “land in the tall grass”.

On an entirely different plane, particularly as it borrows liberally from fantasy and the grotesque rather than grounding itself in reality, Man Seeking Woman explores the dating life of a single guy after a breakup. On one of his first post-breakup outings he meets a woman who is portrayed – literally – as a troll. In another episode, he is invited to his ex-girlfriend’s party to find that she is dating Hitler. Yes, that Hitler. He is not dead and has just been hanging out/hiding out, is ancient and rolling around in a wheelchair. Each episode ups the ante with this surreal take on the world, with one equating marriage with a prison sentence – you become a useful penis in the suburbs with a drill sergeant wife – life sentence without possibility of parole. Some insights shine through the absurd concepts and visuals, even if some things go too over the top for me. The absurdity, though, almost always serves to channel some more basic truths: the concept of remaining friends with members of the opposite sex once you have moved on and how partners may have different rules for that depending on the relationship, the nature of marriage, the cocoon-like pod people that new couples become and much more along the same lines.

The Call of the Millennial – The Rebel Yell?

Apart from the aforementioned Catastrophe, which features basically middle-aged people, the other shows and television in general have been flooded with shows featuring millennials on the hunt – for fun, for sex, for love, for drugs, for something. Sometimes they don’t even know what they are looking for but find something anyway. Perhaps this aimless search is how and why these shows work. Familiar themes explored through a new lens – but with a slightly rebellious twist?

the rising voice of discontent

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At a loss. I have written before about loving an addict. Or someone who clearly reaches a stage at which he is no longer fully in control of what he is doing. The first reaction is always hurt because his first action is to lash out and take a swipe. It’s textbook self-hatred seeping out but nevertheless taking its toll on unintended targets.

My next reaction: self-preservation and anger. By this point, though, he has moved to the next stage of his oblivion. Self-pity festooned with self-destruction. Empty promises strung like burned-out Christmas lights on a dying tree.

Watching this play out, I don’t understand what I should do, if anything. I talk to his family, and they have been through this before. They kind of have to be part of it. Maybe they could practice some of this ill-advised “tough love” but what should I do?

It’s a rough question and for my own sake I should just do nothing. Wash my hands of the whole thing.

I question, even if only academically, how to give someone like this the “community” he apparently lacks when he is demanding, insufferable, compulsively lying. As I wrote when I originally posed the question, “Of course I’m all for discoveries that help us better understand the nature of addiction but would also appreciate knowing on an individual level: if addicts lack connections and relationships and a sense of community and connectivity – and that partially explains what they are doing – how can an individual help? How does an individual, the non-addict in the addict’s life, cope? Every study in the world, every book in the world that explains what addiction is does not change the day-to-day challenges of living with, loving or trusting an addict.”

Indecision

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When it comes to emotion and love, it is terribly hard to trust. And then when someone messes with that, especially after you trusted and felt like you were “all-in”, recapturing the trust doesn’t happen easily, if at all. When indecision has crept in once (on the other side – not MY indecision) then everything is in question and in doubt. Is there a way back from that?

Fie on Love – Daily Dose of Poetry

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Fie on Love
-James Shirley

Now, fie on foolish love! it not befits
Or man or woman know it:
Love was not meant for people in their wits;
And they that fondly show it,
Betray the straw and feathers in their brain,
And shall have Bedlam for their pain.
If single love be such a curse,
To marry, is to make it ten times worse.

Acknowledging Humanity and Love

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“Love is not a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” – Fred Rogers

Mr Fred Rogers on love

Mr Fred Rogers on love

It’s no secret that I am a hater. Or at least a surface hater. That is, I am impatient, don’t like crowds, don’t like slow drivers, don’t like the people at the store who block the entire aisle or wait until their huge cartload of groceries is fully checked before getting out their debit card, or people who treat motorway onramps like that is the best possible place for viewing the scenery (i.e., going slow and not accelerating to the speed at which they need to go to merge). I don’t know why I am in such a hurry – but I just can’t fathom why other people are so myopic and inconsiderate – they go slowly (fine) but do so it seems largely because they think they are the only people in the store, on the road, in the world. Thus, I go through life a wee bit irritated, and I cope with this by making my little hate lists, or ranting briefly but not very seriously, about my annoyance. And then it’s done.

(I have never really met anyone who understood this – but when I did, I knew I met my match.)

Apart from this, I tried very hard today to keep things off the hate list. It was the most gorgeous day – warm, sunny, really indicative of why I live here. I had to go out to do a lot of errands, and I am not the biggest fan of Sunday driving in the country, particularly when the weather turns nice, Norwegians come to Sweden in droves – and worse yet, Germans and Dutch will soon arrive. But I kept my cool for the most part. I almost got mad in the grocery store because an old man kept getting in my way. But, despite not interacting with him, I tried to view him in a different light. He seemed to have gone to the store just to get out for a while – and in the end selected carefully and bought himself a bag of loose candy (which all Scandinavians seem to live for). Then he drove himself away at a snail’s pace in an old, original VW Bug. I had passed by the car in the parking lot wondering to whom it belonged (I was parked across the parking lot and had to put my groceries in the car and return my cart and somehow still ended up finishing before this old man got to the car). Once I saw him drive away – slower than slow – it was impossible for me to hate him. He probably owned that car since it was brand new (or at least that is how I like to imagine it). Imagining that he fired up the old car just to go get candy on a Sunday!

This shift in perspective was quite conscious – and although we did not, as I said, interact, acknowledging his humanity made a difference. When I got home, I stumbled on an article that reinforced the same underlying themes. We all follow unspoken social rules and don’t generally make eye contact or strike up conversations with strangers – and I must say unequivocally that this is almost an absolute in Sweden. This article, however, examines some evidence gathered by behavioral scientists who contend that interactions with strangers improve our mood – maybe first by forcing us into a “pretend friendly” mode – but usually by the end of the encounter, the pleasantries and positive interaction has created genuine positive feelings.

“One of the perks of being a behavioral scientist is that when your partner does something annoying, you can bring dozens of couples into the laboratory and get to the bottom of it. When Liz tested her hypothesis in a lab experiment, she discovered that most people showed the “Benjamin Effect”: They acted more cheerful around someone they had just met than around their own romantic partner, leaving them happier than they expected.

Many of us assume, however, that our well-being depends on our closest ties, and not on the minor characters in our daily lives. To investigate the validity of this assumption, our student Gillian M. Sandstrom asked people to keep a running tally of their social interactions.”

Another point is hard to gauge in my current environment; I just had a conversation about this with a colleague the other day. The seeming social taboo of acknowledging strangers you pass in the street (here in Sweden). (I have encountered exceptions but it is usually because something happens requiring conversation, and then you can’t get them to shut up.)

“Simply acknowledging strangers on the street may alleviate their existential angst; and being acknowledged by others might do the same for us.”

When I lived in the US, it was common courtesy to acknowledge someone passing you on the street while walking past. Maybe not in a big city but certainly in small to mid-sized towns. I never liked it much, but I made eye contact, said hello. It was so ingrained despite my dislike for it that I continued to do it after I moved to Iceland – but quickly learned to stop because I was looked at as though I had said something deeply offensive or threatened the other person. I have comfortably filed right into the sheep herd here in non-confrontational Scandinavia – sometimes it’s sad but it’s how I have always been (as a shy person). I have always relied on other people (and you could always rely on Americans – or even other members of my family, who fall far afield of anything resembling shyness) to make the first move.

Whatever the case, the casual can be difficult to deal with but I am actually a pretty sensitive, shy and loving person somewhere underneath. And when I do love I really love – whether that is a love for my friends, a partner or a cause. I become fiercely protective of those people and things. And, like the Mr Rogers quote above explains, I love actively – it is a constant state of accepting – I may not accept or like everything someone does, but that does not change that the love I feel is unconditional. I also love myself unconditionally, and sometimes that means that even if I do love someone, it is healthiest to move them out of my life – but even that won’t put conditions on how I feel about them. Their role just shifts.

It is all very complex but at the same time strikes me as very simple – whether it is accepting and even embracing the idiosyncracies of strangers in public places and seeing them as more human or loving and accepting those closest unconditionally.

“Fear and Love” – Morcheeba

“Fear can stop you loving/love can stop your fear – but it’s not always that clear.”

Love Convenience

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Twenty-one winding kilometers to go, and as always on these long drives, my thoughts are random. Last night, it was this vague thought about love in all its forms – what is “real” love, how much of it is informed by “settling”, “convenience”, not having bigger or grander expectations? I have been thinking the last two days about how love is often dictated by convenience for some people. These people may not even recognize that they have chosen convenience – and even if convenient, it does not negate that love plays a part.

Sometimes convenience would make so much more sense. I have often asked myself why I could not just love the guy in Gothenburg who professed his love to and for me confidently and completely. He wanted me to live with him and move forward with a future together, and that would have been a really easy option, especially given my “homeless/hotel existence” in Gothenburg for much of the last year. He was a great guy, very nice, honest, direct and decisive. But there must have been something missing – or at least there was not enough there for me to submit in such a committed and tethered way and give up what is otherwise a very happy life being on my own. Being nearly 40 years old and not having any strong desire to have a real, committed and serious relationship has not given me cause or evidence to believe or know that the fabled and storied idea of “love” was something real – certainly not something that a rational, older, experienced sort like me could connect with. The case could be made for consciously choosing to be with someone who meets all kinds of positive criteria even if there had been no “falling madly in love” on my end of things. But that is not me.

I had never seen or felt this elusive “click” – certainly not mutually. I have made a lot of choices and decisions in my life based on the assumption that I never would.

As people tell you, though, you can be hit by this powerful feeling at the most unexpected and inconvenient moments. If you plan it or are looking for it, it probably won’t happen. You will probably find something – maybe even the set of positive criteria outlined above – but it won’t be this bolt of lightning that somehow makes all the sense in the world while simultaneously being totally crazy. And naturally, it being an unexpected, unplanned and inconvenient – but not at all unwelcome – intrusion on the grind of daily life, it has none of the calm outlines of something well-considered or rational. It may turn out to be rational – or may work in a fluid and beautiful way – but it never makes sense at first. How does one reconcile falling in love with someone far away – and all the waiting, distance and inconvenience of that?

Only because love cannot be another way.