Day Six: Friendship Gone Wrong

Day Six: Friendship Gone Wrong

There are three types of debris floating in the ocean; flotsam, jetsam and trash. I grew up in a place where if you saw trash on the beach, washed up by the tide – you picked it up. We prize our beaches and natural environments. We’re taught to care for the world we live in, the places we occupy and for what we leave behind. 

I don’t understand what it takes in a person to throw trash on the side of the road or over the back of a boat. It seems like the most simple of basic behaviours to demonstrate conscientious choices, intentional decision making. 

There are three types of debris when friendship goes wrong. Flotsam is anything that accidentally and unintentionally ends up overboard because of a shipwreck or emergency. It comes from the French word ‘floter’, which means ‘to float’. Anything that floats has buoyancy – it contains hope. 

Jetsam is slightly different. The root of the word is found in the word ‘jettison’; when something is thrown deliberately overboard. In a crisis or moment of emergency, you make an intentional choice about what you throw away, what you are prepared to sacrifice in order to stay afloat. It’s a way of trying to create stability. 

Trash is simply what you throw away without concern, trusting the tide to take it away from you and bearing no mind for where what’s no longer useful to you ends up or what impact that choice has on the environment around you. 

Sometimes how you lose something matters – while flotsam and jetsam are both expected to float or to create buoyancy, trash is meant to disappear. If you throw something overboard intentionally, you divest yourself of any claim to it. Finders keepers, regardless of the value. But if you lose something by accident, if your friendship ends up shipwrecked through crisis or disaster – you’re entitled to make a claim on flotsam that belongs to you. 

See, belonging is the hard part of friendship. At our best, like Kahlil Gibran says – our friend is our needs met but if you don’t care for the balance, it can all turn to shit. We decide what we are prepared to throw overboard or we encounter the grief of accidental loss. Typically however, the one who accidentally loses is rarely as wounded as the one is accidentally lost. We hope that we belong to each other but in the moments of crisis, we learn whether we are flotsam, jetsam or trash. We learn what we are capable of, when we’ll do anything to stay afloat ourselves, at any cost. 

There is usually some truth or a distortion of truth that disrupts the necessary equanimity of friendship. It usually happens when someone is trying to usurp the balance of power, because they want to keep the distortion or avoid the truth. Friendship and love (one is dependent on the other) both require equanimity. Loss of it is your ship beginning to sink. When friendship goes wrong, it doesn’t matter whether you’re flotsam or jetsam – what matters is finding your float and getting your equanimity back. 

She Undresses.

She Undresses.

It begins with the shoes. The red shoes. They hardly come out of the closet these days, but when they do – her walk is lifted, the tilt of her hips just ever so much more swung from left to right. Everything else is for her or for them, but the shoes – the shoes are for you.

Layer by layer she dressed this morning, knowing whichever direction the day thrust her, she would need to be ready and prepared to stand her ground. Calendars matter, to this woman. The schedule of roles she will play that day; friend, colleague, sage and unclaimed lover. The precise number of minutes given to eyeliner, perfume and mascara are counted out in the rush towards beginning the day. Every task their due and nothing other.

Layer by layer, her costume slides on dictated by what others need to see in her, or of her. She catalogues the demands inside her head.

Be soft, be warm, be strong, be open, be commanding, be wise.

Jeans and a casual shirt, because nobody wants to appear unapproachable. Business shirt and pencil skirt, or hip grazing, cleavage revealing black dresses with variations of red, navy and lace for days when she walks with people as powerful as she. Black when she needs to hide and red when she is feeling most alive.

Jackets and scarves chosen by necessity. She dresses first with perfume; in a sanctuary of scent she feels herself and then clothes rush on at the beginning of the day. Layer after layer dictated in the morning rush by how she will undress at the end of day. Not what you need to see but what she wants to show you.

After dark, things slow down.

Last on in the morning, at night first her jewels come off – pendants unwound from ivory neck while her fingers follow the slight curve where the artery rests. Hair pulled back exposing neck, an invitation offered gently in the night, only ever in the night. Cool night air whispers ‘welcome home’. Rings of heavy gold slide from fingers except the one band that never leaves her hand. That band that carries precious stories in its rubies. And now you know that ring is a symbol, you will want to ask.

Then those shoes, her arches sighing in relief but they give her calves a certain elevation and as her hips find their gravity again, she feels warm. The shoes were for you, but maybe also for her. There is no part of her body that does not come to life as she unclothes it.

The rest comes off even slower, the layers for them – demanding crowd. Off comes cotton, denim, polyester and ponte. Cuffs, collars and shirts unbuttoned one by one. Skirt unzipped and allowed to drop, kicked by painted dark red toe up into the grasp of hand and cast aside to laundry pile or hung up.

In this, she is most graceful and more so than in other parts of day. Dressed, she is more clumsy than most. More likely to stumble than to dance, but as layers slide off the dancer re-emerges. Back arched and ribs held high as joints flex and bend to undo all that is held together during the day. The collarbone emerges and the shape of her hits the light, curve and strength and softness. There are symbols and stories painted on her body in scars and ink; some of them you know but others you have not listened to yet.

Then silk, satin and lace. A dozen shades. Under the plainest of wardrobes, she is always silk, satin and lace. Stockings unclipped and eased down past bended knee; balanced in warm lamplight. Garter undone but she is not yet undone, there is still more to see, even more to know below bustier and corset and teddy barely containing soft breast. Still she is not undressed.

Here she is, left perfumed in the sweet musk and salt of the day, still layers of vanilla, sandalwood and orchid. High notes of orange, jasmine and patchouli. And this is her, both earthy and sweet. Vanilla, bergamot, florals and earthiness the essence of whisky, which is the other name by which you know her.

Still, layered in perfume she is not yet naked before you. She undresses but she does not leave herself unclothed.

It is beyond silk and lace, beyond what the skin wears and beyond costume of the day. Even removing silk and lace, undoing self entirely to the response of air against skin; all sharp pucker and caress. In undressing there are all elements of ache and relief, until she meets you, skin to skin and eye to eye. A dozen stolen, fleeting touches and then the eyes meet.

There is the wall you could not see til now, where every brick is a shout that said ‘Too much’, ‘too loud’, ‘too smart’, ‘too physical’, ‘too sensual’, ‘too strong’, ‘too intense’, ‘too present’ and the wall is hidden there, beneath blue eyes seeking out yours. Just one word is all she needs to hear – Leap!

Now, eyes upon eyes – back in a room full of strangers but where a glance and a look was true. There in a moment, her eyes slide from blue-gray flecked maybe to truest blue; she undressed for you.

A woman undresses from her eyes; as the shadow lifts and grey-blue hue turns to summer light – she is naked for you now. She leaps over the wall of misread doubt from voices past, while still clothed and disrobes for you.

It might happen in a room full of strangers; deep in the night while she pushes all noise and interruption to the side. Perhaps it happens while you’re not watching but she is thinking and assessing to one side. It is most likely to happen while you also, are watching her – the slow, steady and soon-to-be reliable slide of public to private sight. But whether she is still clothed in silk and lace, or wearing denim or corporate suiting for the day – she undresses from her eyes.

There is one story that is not told upon her skin, or in the ache of body that is expressed between the light and dark of night. She tells you only one story in the light of eyes unveiling into sacred, private sight. There is only one story that remains under cautious and wary eyes. The story of the Phoenix and the girl who rises.

I am the Phoenix, bold and wise. I am the Phoenix flying high and true and firm, but I will acquiesce for you. I will let you touch and hold my burning wing, hold my sharpened voice and sing, I will burn and rise again for you.. and let you see me, see me shining through. I am the Phoenix, I will rise again and rise and rise and rise again.’

And there she is, exposed at last – she is a creature of the myth. She undresses and you find her in between the grey and blue, the Phoenix, who rises and looks for you.

Beyond The Brick (The Story-trader).

Beyond The Brick (The Story-trader).

‘You can read it, if you like.’
(The story written to explain the chapters of life before now, where we intersect.)

He said it with nonchalance and maybe because the words were light leaving his tongue but heavy by the time they landed in my ear, I was struck off-balance. I imagine at least, that the words were not heavy with meaning for him, because how would I imagine that those words leaving his lips are as costly for him as they are valuable to me on hearing them?

They landed in my ear and my hand at the same time, little stones dropped into a lake and their ripples sweeping out and down my limbs.

I do not trade in stories lightly, I want to tell him. I hold the stories of others as precious as I hold my stories close. Stories are secrets and trust and truth.

Truthfully, my stories are kept safe behind a tall, brick wall. Stories of my doing, they are like climbing roses on the outside of the wall. Pretty, sweet and sometimes funny I can tell these stories easy and only those who pay close attention will see the bricks behind the flowers.

Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.

Beyond the brick is a wild garden. It is fragrant and sweet, full of fruit and nut trees. There is a river through one corner and the sun falls nicely on the grove of trees. It is both wild and well-tended and it cannot be defined as one thing or another. It is not English nor tropical. It is all things, all being, all stories in their raw and imperfect state. Unfiltered, unrestrained.

Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.

It means something to me, this exchange of the wild, unbound stories. Stories are trust; credit in the bank of understanding. Not understanding as assurance of anything but acceptance and the safe bravery of being Known.

Grace and meaning come from trading stories in my world. Knowing your stories is one step closer to knowing you, the real you – outside the carefully polished mannequins we live inside. At least, I assume it is that way with others, as it is that way with me.

It is a precious thing to hold somebody’s story in your hand. And it is never one story but a collection of tales that weave together one and then the next and the one after. You can traverse sideways, backwards and forwards through the story of another; moments of history and glimpses of the future. So one story could mean all the stories, if you navigate well.

“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” James Baldwin

I keep a rose garden, that grows on a brick wall. The roses thrive on the sun, strapped in obedient lines against a sturdy spine. Well-practiced stories chosen for each moment. A careful selection of which practiced line is safe to use.

Here is the secret, buried in the brick. If I say the wrong thing, tell the wrong story, express the wrong feeling or tell you what I think before I know what you expect, need or want for me to say – then you, whoever you are, will disappear. A terrifying fear that I am responsible for my aloneness by never being the right thing; good enough, funny enough, wise enough, sweet enough, fierce enough, never enough. 

Not an uncommon secret, but mine nonetheless.

Beyond the brick, there is a garden I have come to love. I’ve been living in it, behind the wall my whole life. And lately, I have been thinking about taking down the bricks.

There are some brave and patient ones who have made it far beyond the bricks. They have found crevices through which to crawl. For them, the wild and untamed self delights uninhibited. The storytrader gives freely there and the garden is bountiful. People eat and find shelter and laugh and love is made the whole day long and into the night. The land is good. I peek over the wall and through the window in the gate I hid so well and wonder now, whether I dare wait for those intrepid enough to make their own way through the wall.

Life beyond the brick is good and sweet and sensual and gritty. Lately, I have been thinking about opening the gate or taking down the bricks.

Poem: Counting Stars

Poem: Counting Stars

When does discovery end? How do you know when you have learned enough or all things? I think ‘discovering’ is a present art; could we not practice it endlessly, traversing ever deeper and higher and wider? When can you say you are known or know another enough? We are ever-changing, ever-expanding and always being re-shaped by our being known and knowing another.

 

19th

this then, is how it can be

in the midst of a storm on the sixth day

of the seventh week but only the 19th hour

now making a star map from definitions

 

this then, is how it can be to know

but not make knowing a cage

instead just knowing, a long intention

and a longing for safe and true and kind

but knowing is measured so differently

 

this then, is how it can be to halt abruptly at the pass

the knowing and unknowing

one counts in minutes and hours and questions and answers and singular actions

and the other measures the expanse of singularity

like the universe, one ever expanding idea of another

a deep, blue diamond erupting from an earth stone

a long unceasing listen and look

 

this then, is how to see one thing as another

by definition of all things and nothing

a half of a half and a whole and an inversion

an upside-down moon, to see a star and not a starry sky

 

this then, is to kiss your counting – minutes, hours, touches, questions

with a soft, warm, expanding idea to hold them all

your knowing which is one thousand cuts in a stone chiseling me out

and my knowing one gleaming stone that holds the deep ocean and expanding sky

 

this then, is how it can be

to learn to count stars and the passing of time

in hours, words, questions and answers and

the size of an idea by the weight of warm navigation

from 19 to 20.

 

 

Welcome to the Lonely.

Welcome to the Lonely.

One morning last year, I woke from a dream and my head was full of thought; hanging like a wave waiting to crest for some time. The kind of billowy thoughts that are undefined; really more of a feeling. It was heavy and I searched to define it until I remembered the word; melancholy.

On this particular morning, I struggled to find reason for my melancholy. I was in the middle of an adventure overseas, I was surrounded with friends and I was drinking whiskey, not gin. I was not unhappy. I was content.

I made coffee and sat at my favourite window in a house I love. The sun was warm on my back and I was without obligation but to embrace the moment. Still my heart would not quicken and I could not lift my soul. And I remembered then; this is the Lonely. There was something within me longing to be heard; but the one to hear was not with me.

So I let it sit, let it dwell with me for the day. Loneliness becomes a more tolerable companion as soon as you acknowledge its presence, I’ve found. I let others assume the reason for my quiet reticence that day and then in the evening, alone in the quietness of my room, I said to the Lonely, ‘Thank you for today and good night.’

The Lonely wished me a clear night of sleeping and gently exited the room. What happened so that when I woke, the Lonely was no longer with me?

What the Lonely Is Trying To Tell Us.
Scientists speculate the human brain contains over 100 billion nerves, communicating complex messages. These nerves are responsible for communicating pain, injury and harm. But the soul, the spirit has no such system – or at least, not one so clearly defined or as understandable as neurons. So the intangible self must find ways of alerting us to when something is wrong with our spirit.

I believe that much of what we feel, sense and experience in life, good and bad – is part of the complex communication between the articulate mind and the intangible, voiceless soul. When change is required, when change is happening, when something good or when something bad is emerging – feelings emerge to guide us down the way.

The challenge is that we confuse these feelings for being a ‘state’ rather than a message. A message is something to hear and respond to; a state is something you have to morph from. The Lonely is trying to tell us something and the lonely won’t go away until it’s been heard.

I was talking with a friend who is recovering from a relationship breakup, the real kind where your whole being is redefined in moments. He spoke with sadness and tenderness about the emerging loneliness in his life and I witnessed many of the ways he tried to change his state of being. And this week, I’ve heard the same from many others as Valentine’s Day approaches.

“If I can just find plans for the weekend, I won’t be lonely.”

“So long as I’m with friends on Valentines Day, I’ll be ok and not think about it.”

“I’m not going to be alone, I am going to find a new relationship.”

Judge a person by their questions, not their answers.
That morning, I woke and encountered melancholy and realised my soul was trying to send me a message.

“Why are you here today, while I am in the company of so many friends? What are you trying to tell me?”

I asked the Lonely what it was saying.

Over the years, the Lonely has visited me before along with Sadness, Frustration, Hopelessness. At other times, Joy, Anticipation, Delight and Contentment have visited me too. But for today, here’s what I’ve learned the Lonely is trying to tell me.

I might be isolated. With people or alone, but either way disconnected. Usually it’s when my thoughts have traveled inward and haven’t been expressed. I have something that ought to be shared with someone but I haven’t shared it.

I might feel invisible or unnoticed in a crowd. This is the plague of the third-wheel, the calamity of the social single. It’s not always, but sometimes you feel you could be lost from the moment without people noticing you were gone.

I am lacking in intimacy. A thousand people to small talk with but no-one to understand the bitter-sweet irony of a moment or a glimpse of something we’ve seen before. An absence of shared memory or history. Often, loneliness exists in the midst of our dearest friendships and relationships because we’ve fallen into the habit of being with someone without being present to that person.

I am not engaged. For human beings, Bored and Lonely are sometimes telling us the same thing. We’re not engaged in the present. With the ones in front of us or with what might be discovered in front of us. We see things as they appear to be. We assume the blue hat is on the hook by the laundry door because it is so frequently there we forget to look for it. We stop noticing the small changes in the pattern of what we see everyday.

I am feeling uncomfortable or in a new environment. I long for something familiar. I long for security.

I feel Other and insecure. I feel alone and unlike anyone else. I am without a sense of home in this moment.

Sometimes I am just longing. Loneliness tells me my body needs touch. I need the embrace of another, the warmth of human skin and to share the breath of life. I need closeness and for my pleasure receptors to be firing. I need to respond and be responded to. That may not mean sex and sometimes it might. Loneliness reminds me that my body, mind and spirit are connected. Two cannot carry the load of three endlessly.

“Why are you here today, while I am in the company of so many friends? What are you trying to tell me?”

In the simplest of forms, loneliness is most often telling us that we need interaction and engagement with other human beings. The burden is that we may not always be able to dictate what kind of interaction we have. But be disciplined and choose which desire to feed.

Which do you feed?
There is a Cherokee story about a boy and his grandfather. The grandfather explains there are two wolves in battle within us; one that is good and represents hope and peace. The other evil and represents anger, sorrow and ego. The boy asks his grandfather which wolf wins and the old man answers, ‘The one you feed’.

When we assess data and information; we have to be careful to not let our assumptions lead to the wrong conclusion. You can find evidence for nearly any hypothesis, depending on the question you ask. So, if you assume that loneliness is a state and you must simply wait until circumstances change so that you are no longer lonely – you are using the wrong data. You have to be careful not to feed your loneliness based on the incorrect data.

But wait about on Valentine’s Day? Or family holidays? Similarly, it is incorrect to assume that a single form of interaction might appease the loneliness or need you have. It is madness to assume that any single relationship can satisfy the needs of a human being. We are complex and multifaceted creatures with maddeningly simple and complex needs. When loneliness enters your life, it’s not because you are single or unhappy in your marriage. It’s because your mind and body is trying to tell you something. When you respond to the message, things will change. Respond to the message first and then deal with the circumstances later.

I will not be any more or less lonely simply because I might one day share my Lonely with another. They will not be able to banish the lonely, but they may share it.

Today, I am single but that’s irrelevant. I am a person who is connected, engaged, present, intimate with a few, friendly with many. I can reach out for a hug when I need it or caress the cheek of a friend. I could take a lover or I could find a mate. But I will not be any more or less lonely simply because I might one day share my Lonely with another. They will not be able to banish the lonely, but they may share it.

You can hear me this Sunday night (February 14, 2016) talking about loneliness on NewstalkZB with Sam Bloore from 6 – 7.30pm.