Intro: back into blogging
I started up the blog again because I want to use it to help achieve certain goals I have with writing and because the bottleneck of communication that I was experiencing broke open recently and I figure blogging is one of the things I can do to keep it from building up again. The next challenge is the filter. I know from reading the past entries (and deleting certain things) that there are some topics I would regret discussing and other subjects where I would find it helpful to use writing to organize and record my thoughts.
I will disclose here that certain things started happening to me that led me to question their cause, talk about them, and by virtue of that discussion realize that other people had insight from similar experiences that shed light on my own situation and re-awakened my interest in how the mind functions with relations to emotions, the physical body and other human beings. Essentially, what an English professor of mine used to refer to as someone's "mental economy." Beyond intuitive knowledge, I think I would be interested in learning about the technical language and contemporary research on the subject of psychology, both theoretical and applied.
____
There is one encounter from 2008 that I had which really stuck with me. It must have been early spring after an winter of drearily repetitive Portland wetness because everyone was out to experience a break in the rain. I was at a coffee shop, outside in the "sun" (read: 60 degree weather) and next to me was a man I would later learn was named Kevin. Kevin had the type of grizzled thinness that could have put him anywhere between 40 and 60. White tee shirt, sandy hair and skin, brown boots, chain-smoking: If an actor, he could just as easily have been cast as "aging rock star" as "former addict." My imagination led me to choose the second as he indicated to me that he lived in a room in the building across the street, where there seemed to be two types of people coming and going: those who looked like him and those who looked like young professionals. In short, it fit the bill of a half-way house. Kevin wore sunglasses but the childlike openness of his smile still shone through. I remember thinking that it was rare to meet someone of that age that still let their innocence and vulnerability show on their faces like that.
I believe that he started talking to me about the weather and I recall that I was not in a very talkative mood and was very hesitant about sending him any signals that could be received as "initiating/accepting friendship." The main reason for this is that, in my experience, those who are open with vulnerability on display become easily attached at even the mildest encouragement and then experience any subsequent efforts at detachment or distance as deeply painful. In short, I was distant to begin with. However, as I can never not talk to a stranger who is making efforts to talk to me except in moments of extreme suspicion or crankiness, even with treading carefully we had a decent exchange with stretches of silence, not the awkward kind but ones that indicated we were still two separate people who just happened to be at the same place.
Then I got a phone call. As Kevin had set off my "my feelings get hurt easily" meter I was more polite than I may have otherwise been and said excuse me before I took the call. Then I saw it. "It" being the visible signs of a person experiencing rejection and reverting back into himself. His lips pursed, he looked down, his spinal alignment went from erect to concave and even with the sunglasses I could see that he was retreating into his own mind. It's the human equivalent of when a snail goes into his shell because he senses danger.
It didn't make any sense for me to keep sitting there, so I got up to start walking but before doing so I told the person on the line to hold a moment and said to him, "it was nice to meet you, have a nice day." Too late though, as he had already shut himself off and his lips stayed pursed, his eyes downcast and he made not the smallest acknowledgement of what I had said. That was very hard to watch.
I wondered then, and still often do, about personalities that find it easy to engage with people and who have facility and charm with initial conversation but find the pushes and pulls, the infinite small rejections and offenses that are inevitable in a relationship of any length, almost or entirely heartbreakingly challenging. It's all or nothing: the cords of attachment go out like the web from Spiderman and stay there at any hint of human connection. Maybe everyone has this to a certain extent; this capacity for a wildly open heart. Perhaps the difference is in the interpretation of the actions of the others. There are times when one understands someone just has to leave, there are times when one doesn't.
