relationship

i don't feel alone today
hey, hey delilah

what's the story with your man?
hey, hey delilah

sing a sad song, sing betrayal
sing the lessons you have heard
sing a sad song, sing your beauty
you're a beauty, delilah, i want you to know

i don't feel alone today
hey, hey delilah

i don't want to go away
hey, hey delilah

i'm not gonna give you chase
hey, hey delilah

where's your head at? where'd you head to?
where's the lessons you have heard?
sing a sad song, sing excuses
it's a beauty, delilah, i want you to know

i don't want to go away
i'm not gonna give you chase
hey delilah

delilah, it's okay
i am not afraid
and if you are

oh delilah, now i'll go my way
oh delilah, now i'll go my way
oh delilah, now i won't complain
hey delilah

From Noah:

Today, James and I took a long walk along the river and we began to discuss, among other things, our feelings about certain interactions on the blog.  The specifics of our conversation are not that important.  At a certain point, after asking James some probing questions, he began to feel quite anxious.  I could tell because he started talking quite rapidly, flying off on innumerable tangents.  And as this was happening, I started to feel extremely sluggish and disengaged.  In the beginning I disingenuously passed off my fatigue as tiredness and low blood sugar.  But I knew that what was really going on was that I was no longer feeling recognized or spoken to.  I felt that I was being talked at. 

This has been a dynamic in our relationship for a long time--though we frequently have great conversations, when we approach real intimacy, I experience James as  verbose, anxious, and totally in control.  As the possibility for vulnerability arises, he tends to use his anxiety to create a huge wall of words, and I retreat into passivity and silence.  James will speak for huge stretches of time and after a while, I will disengage, occasionally picking up on a thought or two, but mostly feeling completely lost and unnecessary.   Often, I will wonder if he notices that I am gone and if he has, why has he not asked me "Where are you?  Why did you disengage?"

In these situations, James and I are both, in our own ways, not fully responsible to our relationship.  I am no longer expressing my needs or taking action to reconnect.  I feel at these moments no ability to "take care" of James in his anxiety; what I want is to be recognized in conversation and questioned (challenged, pushed to engage with my feelings).  I want a shared space of mutuality. 

Today, as this dynamic began to unfold, something was a little different.  As James was being carried by his anxiety, he acknowledged it in passing.  He was aware of what was happening, but felt unable to control it (and so was letting it control him).  I was walking beside him, flitting in and out of contact, growing very upset with what was happening, and struggling to overcome my strong feelings of shame around telling him what I was really feeling.

And then something new happened.  James got to the end of his 20 minute long monologue and said to me, 'what do you think?'  And I started to say something disingenuous like "sounds really great."  But he stopped me.  He said, 'Noah, what happened, where are you?'   I said, 'James we are no longer having a conversation.  You are talking at me.'  He said, 'Yes I know.'  

This exchange was a revelation.  It led to the most frank and important conversation we have ever had.  I told James that what was important for me was not simply hearing about all his thoughts and feelings about other relationships or anxieties, but grounding those details in the context of our interaction, our relationship.  That I wanted to understand his anxiety in relation to me--what are you concealing from me?  And James began to talk to me about his fear of being recognized (and of me recognizing his fear). 

And of course we came back to the blog.  How our practice in this space, especially in the last few weeks, has allowed us to have this conversation in the flesh.  I am very grateful to James for being so open and for encouraging me to use our progress as grist for this wonderful blog mill.  And to all of you for creating an environment  in which practice is joy. 

From James:

i flew away from Noah today, and he confidently and sensitively brought me back, back to our relationship. we were chatting about the blog; about the recent back-n-forth (as i've taken to calling it) between Caterina and me, and about last night's exciting new step forward for the blog, with me in the role of Example. i was very glad to fill that role-- i felt well suited for the job, and, as i said, i'm excited by how much i am going to gain from it. though we were only chatting for a few moments. then i started to get anxious, and speaking very quickly, and moving around a bit; my entire disposition was... jittery. and i started to pull away from Noah, and from our relationship. i could feel it... and when we took a walk up to my apartment to grab some things, i kept quiet a moment, and finally said, "I'm gonna try to slow down a bit." and a few moments thereafter, "I'm anxious, ya know." (and he knew.) to slow down. i was saying -- largely, if not entirely, to myself -- "I want to open up space for Noah to enter into; I am closing the window." and then, despite my consciousness of my anxiety and its effect on my ability to relate; despite my decision to support a more conversational space: i failed. i was thinking i was doing a better job, until Noah poked into my little shell and told me we were no longer having a conversation. i was disappointed. i was resistant and defensive for a moment... and i tried to keep quiet and still, and to sit with what he had told me. and i shared with him, "I knew I had closed the door, that is why I wanted to slow down... I had thought I had been at least a little successful... I'm disappointed..." it hurt a bit. it took me a little while, but we stayed with each other, and i began to accept what had happened-- i had indeed failed to open back up to the relationship, i had flown away entirely. when Noah poked through, and when i had let down some of the defenses, and i could see Noah again: i silently rejoiced. he was so direct, so straight and clear about it! and so honest and compassionate! i know that Noah has struggled, and very much with me. i'm a bit of a large presence when i get going (i've learned a bit from my father, who has an enormous presence!!), and he has often, i believe, felt unsure how to approach me. recently i started pushing him a bit, and pushing our relationship, to enter into a bit more intimate a space... we are both so capable of being present to each other, of helping each other meet our needs, and yet we have mostly turned from this honor and responsibility. but that was just a preview, just a test run. this was what we have been practicing for. i drifted away, and then he went for it; he challenged me, and forced me to come down from outer space  and to return to him, Noah, right here, now, in this very relationship. and, finally, i came back down. later, when we realized we had entered into a much deeper part of our conversation, and a much calmer, safer, more intimate space, he asked me what my anxiety was about sharing with him; what had caused me to flee, even when i knew and tried to keep myself from doing so? i had an intuitive response, one which i still don't quite understand. i trusted it and said, "i was anxious that you would recognize me." i realized that telling myself to be more present will not make me more present; we have to be more intimate than that. it must be relational all the way. he pulled me back down, and we began to ask, "what was it that kept me from being able to share? to relate? to 'converse' with Noah?" and our conversation has finally begun.

In the discussion regarding "Behind the Fence" Anonymous writes:

The woman is not just in a bad mood. She is standing with her arm on her hip and to me, her body is saying, stay away. She not only has a fence around her; she has a wall.

This series of photos troubles me--in many respects the subject feels objectified. Just look where she is: between two fences, penned in. I think there is good cause for Anonymous' feelings of discomfort with the previous photo (as well as this one). The photographer (myself) is not only separated from his subject by a fence, he is observing her from a vantage point that makes her appear as though she is in a cage.

The other photograph suggests to many that this woman saw and responded to me with suspicion, anger, or both. That however closed and divisive it may have been, there was a moment of mutual relationship between us. I, for one, am not so sure. This photo is easier to take, in many respects, because she is interacting with the child. We can be voyeurs without confronting the mirror of her gaze.

However, if you look carefully at her posture in this photo, it feels similarly guarded. I took this photo before the other one, before she ostensibly saw me. To me, she is equally difficult to reach here.

These two hurriedly snapped photographs fail as investigations into the subjectivity of this woman (in my mind) because there is no subject-subject relationship established between us. It becomes a sort of reflexive photograph, a photograph about me, the way I am looking at her (as a person who is difficult to reach).

What do you think might have happened if I had taken this photo from inside the fence? Or lingered longer and tried to contact her? I can tell you that I didn't because I was afraid that the mothers and nannies in the park would think I was some kind of creep or pedophile for hanging around snapping photos of their kids. I don't doubt that I was worried this woman might suspect me of some sort of racial prejudice (I am white and after all, and aware that I feel guilty in these situations.)

Can we know anything about this woman from these photographs? Maybe, maybe not. I think James' and Herman's theories regarding this woman's feelings are both potentially valid. However, I do think Anonymous is correct in reading some racial tension, or a derivative thereof. I suspect that feeling comes not intrinsically from the photograph's ostensible subject/object, but from the way in which I took the photograph. Who is the real subject of this picture? Perhaps, Anonymous, you are reading suspicion in the woman in so far as she is mirroring my own suspicion, and by extension, yours.