THE ESSENCE OF KINDNESS

August 18 2012                     

Two or three weeks ago, I wrote that one of the reasons Joel and I flew the coop was to experience ourselves in unfamiliar places in the hope that we would “discover the unfamiliar in ourselves.” But today I discovered something and as a result would like to amend the quote to: “uncover the familiar, which has become unfamiliar.”

Both Joel and I are interested in the essence of people, places and things; that characteristic at the core of everything which is essential to being and without which we become unrecognizable, unfamiliar. I suppose another way of defining essence is “true nature.” Joel, for instance, has been working – and continues to – on a body of work called “Elements” in which he tries to connect with an element, say water, in such a way that he can capture with his camera the essential nature of it. Who knows what is really at the core of that? What is it about water that makes it so essentially itself, not in scientific but spiritual terms.

Today, what came up for me is the way in which I have defended against an essential part of myself until it has become more like a hardened, unyielding nut.

We all do this to some degree, depending on our backgrounds and the stories we weave from them. And we do this in relationship, too, allowing some element of the relationship, which in the beginning was an essential part of what attracted us, to become a bargaining chip, withheld without honest explanation as to why: an implicit “if you don’t give me such and such, then I won’t give you such and such.” All it takes is that first nick in an old wound and off we go,

Joel and I seem to be entering a phase of our journey into the unfamiliar where we are discovering our nut. The details are not necessary, suffice it to say our nut is as defended and painful as anyone else’s. And we’ve been tricky with it. By that I mean we’ve got away from acknowledging it on the deepest level because (a) we have a relationship that is rich in many other ways and (b) because we are each, in our own way, able to mask it, or in the worst moments, blame each other for things that seem embarrassingly trivial but which, in fact, we have built into magnificent armor against the pain of truth.

So the familiar in me, that has become unfamiliar, is my essential kindness which I have managed to cover up, gradually hardening myself until, in the places where true kindness is essential, I show only judgment and anger. Again, when I say essential, I mean the quality that most defines a person place or thing. By hardening against our essence we become unfamiliar, especially to ourselves. 

Today my husband showed me such kindness in the face of my withholding that I found myself melting. It was painful, as melting must be, to begin to feel how far I had come from my essential self while over these same years making so much progress in other ways: getting sober, becoming a better mother, earning a Master’s degree, starting a business, writing and performing a play, becoming a life coach, publishing books, creating financial solvency (and, when it came easy, showing kindness to others). And for sure all these things have merit. But they also can become the things we flaunt in order to cover up the one thing we refuse to admit.

Maybe the heat has been good for us, helping to soften resistance. Maybe having my daughter here for 10 days was a gift beyond words; the 3 of us learning how to be with each other in a way we’ve haven’t experienced before. There was a lot of kindness going on. And, maybe, this Flying The Coop thing was an even better idea than we thought it would be.

You see, we have nothing to blame anymore – if you don’t count two and half months of mind numbing heat. Well, there you are, maybe mind numbing was another necessary element. We can’t blame New York. We can’t blame the stress of debt. We can’t blame having to be on a schedule. We can’t blame death. We’ve reached a station on this journey where the only person on the platform is one’s self.

My teacher once said that in any difficult circumstance between people, the person in the room who has the most emotional capability at that moment must take responsibility.Today, I admit that in the one place where emotional responsibility had been needed in our relationship, I fell short.

It was Joel, who, in this essential place where we had become estranged from ourselves, and therefore each other, showed true kindness, and in so doing helped me reconnect with my own.