One of these nights

"Someone to be kind to, in between the dark and light"
 
One of the more classic displays of growing older is cribbing about how things ain't how they used to be. But seriously, why does no one write lyrics like this anymore? Some of the best ways to define love and growing up in just a few phrases. Here's the rest of this one:

Catching up

"I once saw a two year old at a fair, wailing and rolling on the floor, throwing a tantrum of her life. Her mom guessed she was hungry. So, she started, “Honey, would you like a banana?” “Nooooooooooooooo”, shrieked the toddler. “Would you like apple sauce?...Would you like to have some cheese...maybe some yogurt.... how about some grapes... would you like to have some milk? Some pasta? Some french-fries? Mac and Cheese? A smoothie? A pretzel? That ice-cream over there?A nice sandwich? Some gummy bears”....
And all the while, the toddler wailed and screamed and kicked and consistently shrieked, “NOOOOOO!”

It seemed simplest to start this post as it began in my mind, with these reflections from my friend. Her words,
in the context of a different conversation with another friend, helped lay at ease several uncertain echoes in my mind. I've written of some of these here, this sudden lack of time and constant sense of being stressed out in my efforts at relaxation. These friends and others have been reminding me, in the sweetest ways possible, to stop trying to do it all. Garden, paint, write, keep a good home, work out, dress well, socialize, work, dance.. my growing list of activities that enrich and rejuvenate the soul have left me only wanting to curl up and whine for a trip home.


Home, as in India. Which I make sound idyllic when it is anything but, which more importantly, feels idyllic. I return from these trips with my soul rested and eyes refreshed, though I could never explain why. Perhaps it is as simple as my friend's observations with the two year old. India does not often give me choices. When I am hungry, there is food. When I must go out, there are a few options for clothes to wear. Rarely is a sari inappropriate, just as jeans are equally accepted (at least in the places I visit). In the absence of a million options to define myself, it is easier to find who I am.  When I can do it all and have it all, it is so much harder to find a comfortable space.

And so, I am learning to find it instead in taking the time to do less. One pot of tomatoes, one of basil. No more. Put away the weighing scale, and picked up my phone instead. Walking as I talk to a friend, counting the good memories and ignoring the calories spent. Ignoring the instructions, skipping a day of dance practice to just lie back. Saying no to contributing to a friend's blog. Eating the rice and vegetables my husband cooked for lunch. Just as satisfying and flavorful as my organic salad was yesterday.Remembering that instead of always seeking silence and time to myself, sometimes all I need is the words of friends like these.

What no-one else has

A series of minor incidents culminated in the substance of an e-mail I received last night. “You’re exceptional”, it began, then continued with a string of cumulative compliments to a group of us before ending with, “it was a tough decision, and I regret..”. As the implications of the e-mail sift through the layers of plans I’d laid out, at each level they cast a familiar echo.

I am exceptional. I am bright and talented, with international experience and a flair for language etc. I could go on for a bit like that, just as the e-mail did. But in the end, the list of adjectives ends with what is not. It fails to mention the one thing I didn’t have that someone else did.

“It’s not personal” (Yes, I know), “They don’t know what you’re capable of” (maybe they do), and “Hey, they're just saying you’re so good you didn’t need that acceptance” (No, they're saying I wasn’t accepted) are the most common rejoinders I have heard when I share this. My family is up in arms, ready to reassure my wounded ego and remind me of something I am not sure I understand- what it is I have that no-one else does.

What makes me unique must be something beyond this conglomeration of facts and compliments. I don’t know if I have an answer to what this is, or if I ever will. If there even is one such uniqueness. For now, I pick up my metaphorical pen to compose a reply. “Thank you for your kind words. And while I have your attention, could you tell me how to achieve _, and point me to resources for _?” For today, what makes me unique is only this, this capacity to reach for answers everywhere and say, “It doesn’t hurt to ask, right?” (even though it does, a little).

Exchange

When I don't speak, it does not always mean my listening is available for you.

When I listen to you, I assume you will take only as much of my attention as I give. You ask for more.

When I give you object X, I assume you will not also demand objects Y and Z.

Perhaps we should have made these rules of exchange clearer. Perhaps I should have named a higher price. Not because I think my attention is particularly priceless or in great demand. Only because I now struggle to regain what I gave thoughtlessly, assuming there was more where it came from.

Sshh

This silence of politeness and distant affection terrifies me, the way it smothers insight and voice in the mind-numbing nothingness of small talk. I feel stripped of familiarity when I hear nothing but echoes of inanity bounce around my head. This is what torture must feel like, I imagine. (cue dramatic laugh)

Forgetting the self, forgetting who I am and what I like in this listening to another's litany. All I want is to scream, to drown these voices out so I can hear my own again. Or simply hear nothing. I don't always need to listen to my own voice either. But sometimes, just sometimes, I want only to be quiet, to hear what there is to hear. And instead there is the TV, and screeching laughter, and endless chatter about what someone cooked today and why a particular kind of paper towel is better than the other.

And so I try this silent shriek. Even if I cannot hear silence perhaps I can drown out the noise. But all I am left with is a toneless arrhythmic clatter that is neither peaceful nor resolving. Even after the chatter has died and the TV is turned off, this echo of my own drowning-out screech remains. Really, all I want is a moment of quiet. To stop hearing myself scream. Perhaps this will take a moment of opening the door to let the echoes out. But I am afraid of what else might come in to take this space I guard so closely.