Dear Reader,
Hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving. If you want some rather dark laughs in time for the turkey eating, you can instantly download my holiday collection "That Special Time of Year," or order the print-on-demand book from Lulu in time for that other big holiday that's coming up more quickly than any of us really care to admit. Either way, it's cheap fun!
Today I want to write about my reluctance to go to the doctor and in doing so tease out a paradox of personality by which our own self-destructiveness appears to us as self-preservation. This will take a lot of work so there will not be time to also answer a letter today.
Last week, knowing that I had a cancer that might have been detected as much as a year earlier, I was crushed with the weight of fate and my own fear and pride and resistance. My insistence that I knew what this pain in my lower back was, was groundless, born of wish -- in part a wish to avoid learning the truth but more, as I discovered, a wish to avoid doctors and hospitalization.
Basically I ignored the pain in my lower back for the better part of a year. I was strangely, irrationally evasive about it. I refused to see the doctor. I told my wife I would and then I failed to do so. I was even aware, myself, that I was acting irrationally, that I was avoiding and procrastinating.
Having since been diagnosed, aware that I had a tumor, I was writing last week when out of nowhere a phrase came to me about a boy's fear of going to the hospital, and I recalled that I had had a kidney ailment when I was about 2 years old that required me to be in the hospital for weeks.
When this memory came to me I was overcome with tears. An old, childish fear came over me, a fear of dying and being abandoned, and I remembered how I was put in the hospital when I was very young, perhaps 2, for a kidney ailment, and how I was left there.
This traumatic memory was enveloping, pre-verbal, pure emotion, pure fear -- fear of dying, fear of abandonment. As I choked my way through this, I became aware of a voice, or you could say a voice came alive within me. This voice I recognized as a protective entity, like an internal older brother that long ago, when I was very young, had made a pact with the even younger and helpless part of me, saying, "I will protect you; here is how: You must never tell if you are in pain or you'll end up in the hospital again."
And the younger, frightened voice was grateful. And the pact was made: Do not tell. Do not ever tell if you are in pain or they will put you in the hospital.
So it was suddenly clear to me that below the level of consciousness, my long and perverse refusal to see the doctor was a survival strategy adopted as a very young child.
This realization was very real and emotional, not an analytical thing: I thought I was saving my life by avoiding the doctor.
Perhaps I am not the only one who has had early traumatic experiences with hospitals and doctors, and whose adult behavior is rooted in an unconscious pact of survival through silence about pain.
I know that women also avoid the doctor, but not as much as men, it seems. So I wonder if girls in general have different early medical experiences. I know that in the rural and small-town South of 50 years ago, boys were supposed to be "brave." I remember that word "brave," when they stuck the needles in. I was not brave. I was in fear of my life. I was in fear of abandonment to strangers. I was afraid of pain. But I was supposed to take it like a little man.
Now, we know that the emotional life is fraught with paradox and mirroring, that what we seek in ourselves we find in others, that what we despise in ourselves we find in others. But still, suicide vexes us. Self-mutilation vexes us. Our own perverse, self-defeating behavior vexes us. Addiction vexes us.
I'm thinking that certain contradictions of self make sense if we view the self not as a unified being but as a collection of avatars. What if none of us is a unitary being? What if we are all collections of beings at different stages? The child who fears the doctor is still there, as is the older voice of comfort who promises delivery from danger: You will never have to go to the hospital again as long as you don't tell anyone that you feel pain.
But why? Why would this immature, illogical part of myself still be operating in my adult world? What good is it? Why hadn't I jettisoned this ridiculous, superstitious, illogical child-self long ago, in favor of a rational, grown-up, educated, modern perspective?
To jettison the child meant to jettison not just his irrationality but also the wonder and pure creativity that was embodied in the child.
A child can stare at a bug for a long time, enjoying it. A child can look at bubbles bursting on a foamy ocean surface, fully enjoying the miracle of it. This is something we would like to carry into adulthood with us but often cannot because adulthood requires us to mortgage our attention. We mortgage it to the bankers of adulthood. This wonderful, enriching practice of close, sustained attention to the wonder of the world is interrupted by the classroom discipline. Suddenly, the child's attention belongs no longer to him but to the teacher and the class. The child knows that this practice of wonder is a life-giving activity; the child knows that the world he has come into is marvelous beyond measure and that every inch of it deserves unbroken scrutiny. Yet he is upbraided for being dreamy or inattentive. He learns that his attention no longer belongs to him alone, but is now the property of the state, the school, the public. He must be attuned at all times to their instructions. He is called upon to abandon his inner world. If his obeisance to the glory of tiny naturalism is unrepentant, he may be labeled with a learning disorder. If he is so absorbed in the majesty of bugs and leaves that he seems resistant to contact, he may be sent to a hearing doctor or to a specialist in child development.
Something in us resists leaving all this behind. They try to scorn it out of us or beat it out of us but we children resist because we know, with the deep knowledge of our spirit, that the natural world is our home and our ally.
Science, at one point, appears as a possible avenue by which the child might continue his rapt worship at the altar of bugs and flowers. But as the child grows older he is told of the drudgery of science, that it involves long repetitive experiments, much waiting, much adult patience and hard work. So he despairs. Later he finds that even with all that drudgery, he still would be in the environment that he loves, but by then it is too late.
What would be necessary, in the child's life, for him to retain the creativity and wonder of a child but gently let go of the superstition and fear? He would have to go through stages of life consciously, letting go of certain things, acquiring other things.
As I went through this episode of crying last week, at the recollection of this early fear, it came to me that today I can address that child and say that these doctors we are seeing are going to help us, that they are gentle and loving and know what they are doing, that he is going to be safe. I can do that. I can reassure the child in me.
So as I walked on the beach along the ocean toward the cafe this morning, watching the waves, marveling at my good fortune in having this walk for a daily commute, and as I watched the sparkles of the waves, I entered into that childhood dialogue with the natural world once again, and wondered at the tiny explosions of light along the retreating wave-wash, and saw that they were the explosions of tiny bubbles, and looked with wonder at the small jellyfish that look like oblong glass marbles, and I thought of how the child's mind tries to categorize and understand. Things that look like glass must be glass. But what kind of glass is soft? the child would ask. When would glass be soft? And the adult would answer that glass is soft when it is very, very hot, too hot to touch. So the child would think that the jellyfish must be very, very hot. But it is in fact cool to the touch. So what is what? Such is the world of the child.
But how do we keep that childlike wonder and yet make good adult decisions? We must be in touch with that child.
One more thing, if you please. In the writing workshops I conduct, I read aloud every time the five essential affirmations and the five essential practices from Pat Schneider's book "Writing Alone and With Others." They are articles of faith and instructions both, and the only one with which I ever inwardly quibble is the one that says, "Everyone is born with creative genius."
How can this possibly be true? Does that mean that everyone is a Michelangelo?
I believe it is true that everyone is born with creative genius in this sense: The child has a capacity for sustained, uncritical attention to phenomena. The child has the ability to engage in unfettered fantasy and rearrangement of the world, to make up rules that defy what we "know" to be true; the child has the capacity to create whole worlds, and that can be seen as creative genius. That is not to say that the child will mature into an adult who is a recognized artistic genius. That is to say that the kernel of genius is in the preverbal capacity to see fully without thinking first, and to rearrange and hypothesize and create a world based on one's own system of causality and myth, however far-fetched and strange. And so, if we can find methods to reignite that capacity through supportive exploration, we can tap into some of that long-dormant genius.
So we might say that the genius of the child is that the child is not yet at war with himself; the child is completely of the world. And only later must the child create these chilling and baffling pacts to ensure his survival -- pacts that in fact do not ensure his survival but threaten it, and must be unearthed decades later like tombs in which the living are buried.
Thank you for sticking with me through this piece; we now come to a rather abrupt end. It has truly been, in the very French sense of the word, an "essay" -- an attempt, a stab at finding meaning in the void.
What? You want more advice?
Dear Reader,
Thank you for your letters of support over the past few days. I feel gratitude beyond words.
Writing about this illness requires one to feel fully. Evasion turns out to be impossible. Rather than an act of will, truth-telling is forced upon one; where I try, out of habit, to minimize or evade, the way is blocked, as though the road had narrowed and strong guardrails had been placed alongside. It is impossible to do anything but go forward into the face of it.
I am in it fully.
Which gives rise to the wish that one might similarly be in it fully in modes of fiction, poetry, song, etc. -- to be in a realm of the imagination fully as I am in this fact fully. That is something to be sought. That is an ideal to reach for.
One other thing. As I considered whether to make my illness the subject of this column, or to conceal it and go on as if nothing was the matter, the choice was quick. It was definitional. Whatever experience I am given, it is my job to try to understand it and pass it on so that others may take some courage from it. So the decision to "go public" was a no-brainer.
We are still waiting for the doctors to schedule the series of treatments. I will write every day that it is possible to write, and will tweet some of the daily errands and so forth, to stay connected with the many marvelous people around the world who are going through this with me.
And now, let's consider the plight of another!
Dear Cary,
I'm a college student and a reporter for my university's paper. I'm a good writer -- my work has shown up in publications beyond the university, and since arriving here I've established myself as "one to watch" in the English department. I really don't intend to sound cocky, but I'm not affected with false modesty. I have a lot to learn, but I know I have a knack for this.
I'm in a fairly new relationship of about three months, with a boyfriend who so far has been entirely wonderful. We're both ambitious types with busy schedules and social lives, but we make the time. I think it has been a revelation to both of us just how extraordinary it is to have another person who is truly in your corner.
Here's the problem -- he's my boss. He's two years older and is the editor of the school newspaper, while I'm a staff writer. We met outside of the newspaper, and other people are in charge of how much I get paid and where my articles run. We've had several serious discussions about ethics, during which we emphasized that I'd never, ever ask him to do me any professional favors, and he would never give me any sort of special treatment. The relationship is more public than I'd like at such an early stage -- we've both gotten long personal lectures on ethics from the head of the journalism department, and how he heard about us is anyone's guess.
The thing that bothers me is not the ethical question -- I feel like we're managing that. It's that I'm entirely fed up with being "the editor's girlfriend" and not defined as a reporter in my own right. I have never, ever been the kind of woman who would be defined by a relationship -- it is extremely important to me that I be defined by my own actions and my own work.
I've been doing good work at the paper, and I'm likely to be getting a promotion in the next couple of semesters. But I'm so, so sick of having to hear jokes about my sex life every time one of my stories runs in a prominent place in the paper or I pick up a particularly coveted assignment.
These aren't serious allegations -- the newspaper staff knows that it is not my boyfriend who makes these decisions, and people from outside the staff are only kidding. My friends say to laugh it off, but the fact is that those small successes are things that I earned through a lot of hard work, and the suggestion that I'm somehow trading sexual favors for good assignments truly offends me. I worry that the staff will take me less seriously and that this could endanger my future at the paper.
I know that having a happy relationship and a successful career are not mutually exclusive, but I feel like I'm too young to be dealing with such a minefield. I don't even know whom to talk to about this -- my boyfriend and I are handling it as best we can, but I don't know how to tell him that although I'm pretty attached to being his girlfriend, I'm getting damn tired of being "the editor's girlfriend." I'm not giving up on my work, or on my relationship, I just need to figure out how to reconcile the two.
Her Own Girl Friday
Dear Girl Friday,
I suggest you try to be a little lighthearted about this. Imagine strutting around campus wearing a T-shirt that says, "I'm sleeping with my boss and enjoying it. You got a problem with that?"
Picture yourself walking amid these yahoos with your head held high. Imagine striking them down with wit and glamour and sophistication. Imagine shutting them up and putting them in their place.
Do you feel better?
Keep going with this. Conjure up an image that makes you feel powerful and proud. Make it vivid and real. Draw some cartoons or make a collage. Create the image of the superhero you are. Inhabit her skin. Name this woman. Give her special powers. Keep her image close to you. Appeal to her for strength and guidance.
And know this: Sexism pervades our culture. The assumption that a woman's achievements stem from her value as a domestic, sexual and romantic companion rather than as a skilled worker is evidence of that sexism.
You know what else exists in our society? Morons. The world beyond your college gates is a nightmare of hulking, mouth-breathing morons. Morons even run newspapers. So be ready. You're going to be encountering a lot of sexist morons.
So that's the sociological part of this.
The other part is psychological: By mixing creativity, sexuality and power, you run the risk of incurring deep psychological wounds if things go wrong. By hooking up with your boss, however much you trust him, you have placed your fate in the hands of someone who may damage you, even if he doesn't mean to.
That is my opinion, but I assume that it is also a fear of yours. If you sense that you are in dangerous territory emotionally, I would agree that you are.
Stuff can happen in such a relationship to shape the rest of your life. Sometimes people make decisions in such circumstances that last for decades. "Oh, he told me I'd be happier if I wasn't writing, so I quit." You know, crazy stuff.
How power, sexuality and creativity combine to damage the psyche is complicated. Let's assume that our emotional responses are rooted in invisible structures formed very early. As a baby, you must be loved unconditionally. You are helpless. You have no vocational skills. You are just a cute, wiggling bundle that eats and shits and throws up and makes noise. You are not a cowboy or a princess. You must be loved and cared for unconditionally. We get older and develop skills, but underneath, our need to be loved unconditionally persists even after we develop great skills and charm and form adult relationships. One area where this need for unconditional acceptance seems to persist most deeply is in the area of creativity. Why is this so?
Could it be because creativity is our one way back to that primal state?
That would be my guess. Betrayal of this creative self reaches beyond personality self into some realm of existential pain and fear that is difficult to find access to. So if you are exposing this fragile, unprotected, raw creative pre-verbal self -- the one that cannot protect itself but must be cared for unconditionally -- to the upheavals of romantic and sexual relationship, you are in frightening territory. If for instance you were to break up you might feel unconsciously it was because you were not a good reporter. That may sound stupid. But these decisions, we do not make consciously. They are made by this pre-verbal, emotional self that reacts to rejection as if it were an existential threat. So I assume you feel concerned and confused for good reason. You are exposing your psyche to risks that you might not consciously understand.
What can you do? For one thing, you can begin getting assignments outside the school. You can strike out on your own so that there is no question in anyone's mind how you did it. And I would suggest, if possible, that you find some ally, a therapist or counselor or older friend, and go through this with that person, checking in frequently, discussing this, asking for protection, watching for ways that you have placed your fragile creativity in danger. If you are in self-doubt, ask yourself why. If you feel like quitting, interrogate your feelings. Honor them but interrogate them. It might be this frightened child who wants to quit. Beware. It's complex. Keep moving forward.
p.s. You know that Yeats poems that ends, "I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams"? What a lovely and moving poem that is.
What? You want more advice?
Dear Reader,
Not much new on the cancer front. I'll let you know when I hear something. I'm just heading out to pick up pathology slides.
Maybe I should start twittering again. Come to think of it, picking up pathology slides is perfect Twitter material -- concise, time sensitive, etc.
I'm @carytennis on Twitter.
Dear Cary,
I feel paralyzed and stuck in a rut. I recently graduated from college without a clear path and a hazy focus at best; I am lost and confused and can recognize that I self-sabotage any efforts to find my path and start my journey. I truly seem to be my own worst enemy yet I am clueless how to escape this vicious cycle.
Since a young age I have deeply desired to be an "artist"; though my true passion is music, it seems my natural ability lies in storytelling. Despite my limited attempts at creative writing, I have received quite a bit of praise and encouragement from my teachers and peers. Yet I feel guilty for wanting to pursue such, what I believe to be, a narcissistic path -- that of the artist. I also have an interest in pursuing psychology, which is clearly the more acceptable path according to society and my parents, but only as a fallback. I think I would be selling myself short by not giving writing a try, yet I feel ashamed wanting to apply to an MFA program.
My immense fear of failure affects me in many aspects of my life. I rarely, if ever, take chances. If I do not feel I am in a safe and welcoming environment or if I am not positive I can succeed, I simply do not try. In regards to romantic relationships, I push people away and often am too afraid of rejection to go on a second date. I long for love, but I do not allow myself the chance to experience it. Similarly with my writing, every now and then I can get a few hours of productive work in, in which I feel open and excited, yet afterward I am consumed with self-condemnation.
I seem unable to make a decision by myself. I am always asking permission, whether it is from my parents or my friends. I rarely do what I want, so often preoccupied by what others will think, expect and want from me.
Whenever I appear to be on a streak of positive thinking and proactive habits, I find myself struck down by my own head. I am terrorized by an endless loop of destructive thoughts in which I tell myself I'm a fool to think I could ever be a successful writer, that I'm a spoiled brat for wanting to do so, that no one could ever love me.
When I am not working at my soulless and demeaning job as a waitress, I busy myself with television and the Internet. When I run out of shows to watch and blogs to read, I am filled with a sense of terminal dread and panic, a gnawing sense of avoiding something, but I can't seem to face it. I feel the clock ticking, ticking, yet I lay frozen in my bed, staring at the ceiling.
Only alcohol seems to free me of my inhibitions. I drink pretty regularly to open myself, to afford a few hours of simple pleasure, yet the alcohol just as often turns on me, resulting in weepy self-pity or a nostalgic, heady swoon for the recent past if not for memories that never existed except in my imagination.
I so desperately want to upstart my life. I want to experience this world as much as I can -- love deeply and fully, express myself, live without wondering "what if?" But something inside me is preventing me from change and so clearly doesn't want me to find inner peace, yet I don't know what it is. How do I move from here?
Dazed and Confused
Dear Dazed,
I sense that you are on the cusp of letting go of your adolescent dependence on fitting in and belonging, and you need a great challenge that will propel you over the canyon. Its depth terrifies you as you peek into it and see how high you are. You think of how groundless you will be when you step off the cliff. But you need to step off the cliff. Your soul cries out for the unknown. You need nature and danger. You need something outside yourself that is not ego-related, that is not your guilt-ridden ego trying to perfect a beautiful image to be admired by others; you need the wild self not ruled by need for approval; you need a skin that is unknown; you need the growling bear of your inner truth, your soul erupting, trying to be born. What dread beast is this?
You must find out.
You must take the journey to the underworld. It is not a metaphor. You must get outside yourself and encounter some dangers and some strangeness. (Isn't it sad that adults today, trying to protect their children from anything alien, have them chant "Stranger Danger"? Isn't that emblematic of our sickening obsession with the pristine and antiseptic?)
This is what I understand today about our necessary progress out of adolescence into adulthood: We must face confusion and surrender to it. We must face the unknown and grapple with it. We must go into nature and experience its alien embrace. We must lie down on the earth and allow our cruder nature to be held.
So go somewhere. Maybe you need to sit in a bus station in a quiet dusty town where no one knows you and wait for the bus to take you farther away from everything you know. Maybe you need to sit under the stars in the middle of the night, or sit in your room in the middle of the night, empty your mind of ego and allow the voices of the world to speak to you. If you sit quietly and listen, if you allow yourself simply to see what appears before you, then you will begin to find your way. The night may tell you strange, unbelievable things. It may tell you things that don't seem suitable to you. That's exactly the point. You need the strange and alien voice of nature and the world to leaven your stagnating and suffocating soul.
At the same time that I speak in these poetic terms, know that this action is empirically necessary; it is not hocus-pocus. It is emotionally and spiritually necessary. Our culture's language for such things is depleted, so it is no surprise that we laugh at the idea. Our cultural forms of adulthood are corrupted and geared to the continuation of military and industrial power. So it is hard to find the confidence and support you need for this time-tested journey out of adolescence.
Yet you must go into mystery and struggle. It is right there in front of you. You are right on the cusp of it. Your agonies are proof of this. Your agonies arise because you are fighting your own growth. The world is calling you. The world is telling you to grow.
The world is alive and wise and full of grace and power and savage beauty. Open yourself to it. Lie on the ground and open your legs to the sky. Lie in the sand on the ocean and let the waves cover you. Stare deep into the immensity of lost time and slow light traveling on a slow train across the cosmos. See the bigness of it. Find a tree and sit before it and ask it where to go. Do these things. Put yourself in the world. The world will answer you.
If you are to be an artist, what you learn and gain through this will be what you offer, what you craft. What you take from this will be your gift to the world.
There is no need to be cynical. Nor is there time to be cynical. You and I both know how much stupid crap there is in the world. Do not allow it to make you cynical about your own miraculous being. The crap in the world is about power and control and wealth and status; as such, it is an outgrowth of fear, the ego's silly fear of dissolution and nonexistence; the crap in the world is not the world's essence; it is our fear-filled distortion. Surely moguls and hustlers fill the streets and boardrooms; surely the bullshit machine of need hammers at us day and night to buy more, to keep these fearful moguls in trade; surely there is plenty of crap in the world. But the world is not crap. The world is glorious. The world is an out-and-out miracle. The world is yours. The world is calling to you.
Creep out into the night on your hands and knees and look around. Listen to the leaves snoring away their chlorophyl dreams in the night, waiting for the recharging dawn. Listen to the congregation of dew collecting in its pews. Listen to the whispering stars. This is your world. Let it strike you dumb with awe. Let it speak to you. Let it guide you. Do what it says. It will take you where you need to go.
What? You want more advice?
Dear Reader,
Yesterday I recounted as clearly as I could what is going on with me.
Wow.
Glad that's over.
Today I feel a weight has been lifted. I hope I have not simply transferred that weight to you. (I guess that is one of the fears we have in speaking the truth about ourselves -- that the truth will unduly burden others.)
It took a few days to gather the strength to inhabit the truth for even a few minutes -- even though, as you will see, this thing is treatable and survivable.
Nevertheless I did promise you the song. And I did sing it at the house the other night, joined by friends including members of the Backyard Tarzans and the Dark Hollow Band, the latter of whom will be performing at the Riptide out on Taraval Street in San Francisco this Saturday night, Nov. 21, and we plan to attend, because it is our neighborhood and we need some entertainment.
I haven't gotten up the courage or possibly the idiocy to sit down and record this song for you, so I'll just say that the title is "My Chordoma," it is in the key of E major, it is not sung to the tune of "My Sharona," and the first few lines are as follows: "My cancer sounds like a 1970s two-door Chrysler convertible / I know it's bad, I should be scared, I should be more uncomfortable. / But I know / It ain't no big deal / Yes I know / It ain't no big deal / On the big wheel / We all ride / On the big wheel / We all ride."
So the title is your clue for the day. And the other clue is that it's a real pain in the ass.
So here's one more little observation: The side benefit of answering your questions is that it takes the focus off me and my little problems and puts the focus on you and your little problems, which are a whole lot easier to solve, or at least to imagine solving.
One more thing. It is an absolutely glorious mid-November day on the Pacific coast of California.
Dear Cary,
I cannot stop feeling bitter, mean and resentful.
I can't remember when I first started feeling this way, and there have been times when it has lifted, although I do remember being angry and depressed as a teenager. My childhood was quite difficult. I am an only child, and my parents were not that easy to get along with. My father was often angry and sometimes violent. I had a relationship with someone much older than me at the age of 19. He was my teacher at school and an alcoholic. I became pregnant and had an abortion. The relationship ended in my first year at university, but not before he had threatened suicide and broken into and trashed my room. I had always done very well at school and used that as a way of feeling better about myself. I then floundered for a few years after a degree at a "top" university, doing various temp jobs and feeling horrendous about my lack of achievement. I then decided to train as a lawyer, which is what I do now. I remember thinking that if I had professional respect, then I would feel OK about myself. The feeling OK hasn't happened; I can't seem to feel any real sense of satisfaction from what I have "achieved." I am now in my mid-30s, in a fairly serious relationship but no children. My parents live abroad, and I have very little family here in the U.K.
My partner and I have plans to move in together early next year. Although I want the relationship to progress, I am frightened that he is not really committed to me and that is the reason why he wants to cohabit. He knows that marriage is important to me and that I want to be a mother. For some reason that I cannot precisely identify, I am really angry at the thought of moving in with him. I am scared of losing the last few years of my fertile life to someone who doesn't really love me. I am not sure if I love him either. He is a kind man, but very introverted and finds social situations difficult. He seems happy to work all day and spend the evenings and weekends surfing the Web or playing on the Xbox. He is intelligent but doesn't seem particularly interested in life around him. Also, I think he is addicted to porn, something he does not try to hide from me.
No one who knows me would guess that I feel this way. I come across as fun, easygoing and reasonable. Inside I often fantasize about meting out death and destruction, although I never would. I want to step out of my life and start again. I have thought about suicide but am too scared.
I did see a therapist for 18 months, stopping quite recently. She wasn't that much help to me. I did start to believe that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with me, and that I had a lot to deal with as a child which may still be affecting me. I lost my trust in her when she started comparing my progress (good, apparently) to that of some of her other clients, whose sessions she described as sometimes "soul destroying." I have always been the "good student" and hated that I had become this again in my relationship with her. So I quit. Also, I couldn't bring myself to tell her things like the fact that my partner seems to be addicted to porn.
The underlying feeling in all of this is a lack of trust. Of myself, of life, of my partner. I don't know which of my feelings are worth acting on and which are just echoes of an uncomfortable past and will lead me astray. I do appreciate the good things in my life: physical health, useful work, a reasonable standard of living, some good friends -- but I am haunted by a tight sadness I can't seem to shake. I am frightened it will leave me isolated, but in some way isolation is what I crave. I don't understand why.
Please help. Thank you.
Bitter and Resentful
Dear Bitter and Resentful,
As often happens when I write this column, I wrote a first draft at the cafe and then after walking home, wishing I had more time, I read your letter again and felt my response did not address the emotional depth of your condition. It is, I see now, a profound lack of trust brought on by past betrayals and disappointments.
So I am going to stick to the conclusion I initially reached -- that cognitive therapy may help -- but will also try, right here, right now, to say the thing that leaps out at me: the big issue, the issue with great power and magnitude, is this issue of trust. Your therapist blundered into losing your trust by comparing you with her other clients. That is indeed a shame. Perhaps she will realize what happened. But you have to find somebody new. Your reaction makes perfect sense. I have a history similar to yours, so I have no problem seeing why you reacted as you did.
You need to find someone you can trust with your life. You also need to find someone with a good, workable method for combating some of the destructive thoughts you are having.
One method is cognitive therapy of the type found in Dr. David Burns' book "Feeling Good." (May I say, though, that I do not for the life of me understand how a man with any deep understanding of the human condition could allow on his Web site a photographic portrait of himself wearing such a ridiculous-looking turtleneck. It is simply beyond me. Maybe I'm being petty and shallow, but hey. I have cancer! Cut me some slack!
Betrayal by people in positions of authority can be devastating. It is often difficult to accept and understand the full impact of it. The fact that one of these people was a teacher and the other a therapist makes a perfect storm of boundary-crossing, against which of course you had next to no defense.
Also: You do not trust the man you are with. That is another dangerous relationship. I would not suggest moving in with him. You need to find the courage to be alone until you reestablish your trust in the universe. Until you find your own strength, until you find a way of living in the world that gives you the confidence you need, until you can sleep soundly at night, you are safer alone.
This is important. You must find a trained person you can trust with your vulnerable self, and you must explore these undermining events in order to find your strength in them. How will you do this? How can you trust anyone after what has happened?
Here is one idea. Do not look for someone you respect. Do not look for someone who impresses you. Look for a person you can trust with your life.
It might not be someone you admire. Your admiration may be a dangerous, seductive trap. In place of admiration, put trust. It might be someone rough around the edges, seemingly unintelligent and uncompromising. Would you trust this person to watch over you while you sleep, to mind the tiller of a sloop as you sleep below during a storm? Would you trust this person to deliver your baby? That is the kind of trust I mean. Because of these past betrayals, in order to re-encounter your wounds and find trust in the universe, you will have to find a special person. I hope it is possible for you to find this -- trust in someone or something. Trust. Trust, in some form, is the key.
So that's it for today. I'm going to try to enjoy what life offers, I'm going to trust, and meet my commitments, and see what I can do to go through life just for this day like a pretty decent person.
I'll let you know how that goes.
What? You want more advice?
Dear Reader,
Something has come up that I must share with you. I have been diagnosed with a rare cancer. The recommended treatment involves surgery and radiation. The surgery is complex but we are in excellent hands. It is slow-growing and treatable. My prognosis is good. In the days ahead, I will tell you more about it.
The last two weeks have been spent acquiring the diagnosis, choosing a surgeon and undergoing various tests and procedures. As a result, I have been a little rattled. Though physically feeling OK, I took a few days off from the column. I am sorry I did not let you know ahead of time, but it overtook me; I found myself unable to write in my accustomed way.
Yesterday I determined to write a column with a short introduction telling you of this situation. But after drafting it, at the last minute, I found I was still not ready to tell you what is going on. I retreated. This sudden and powerful reluctance informed me of something. I must shed yet another layer between me and you.
What was this sudden reluctance, this witholding? Was it a symptom of my outsize desire to control? Was it simple modesty? Was it wise management of scarce emotional resources, a symptom of exhaustion?
The difficulty I have disclosing this fact may come as a surprise to you. Compared with other writers, I do disclose a great deal. But writing is still a shield as much as a window. One of the shields I have to lay down now is the shield of bravado. I cannot summon much bravado. I retain a sense of humor but it is freighted with tears. Last week on a sunny morning I wrote a song about the tumor. I sang it through tears. I would like to share it with you soon. It's just a little song. But I will try to share it. It captures how I feel.
Walking up to the cafe this morning, looking for a way to reclaim the serenity that has attended so many of my days, I thought of the term "groundlessness," as the Buddhist Pema Chodron uses it. I feel groundless and I also feel weighted. This groundlessness is the "platform" on which my serenity rests. I am aware of the irony.
With this weightedness and groundlessness comes also a gentleness as I sit in the cafe, a feeling that everything in the world, everything I touch is impossibly fragile. The fake leather of the couch I am sitting next to in this cafe feels cool and fragile; everything I see has an air of translucence and impermanence; I am reminded that if not for certain atomic attractive properties, all this would easily fly apart, as though the electricity had been turned off on a magnet.
I am not afraid, exactly, so much as weighed down, profoundly slowed, ballasted as if with grief or pure gravity itself. I must take this on its own terms, not mine. I have surrendered to this situation.
This morning I woke up eager to begin treatment. I am eager to get to the other side. I am ready. But I am not cavalier. I suppose you could say that yes, I am appropriately afraid.
Oh, damn. My mind just drifted again. That is how things are going. I enter into a feeling, and then just as quickly I began scheming how I am going to get this done and get that done.
Before me, indeed, are many practical matters. The writing workshops and retreats we started two years ago have become a source of joy, community and creativity, which must continue. So the Tuesday evening groups will go on as scheduled, starting Tuesday Nov. 24. The January getaway at Marconi Conference Center will happen as planned. On the other hand, for the time being, the weekly Saturday group will be suspended, so that we can have one day off to recuperate and handle the workload of recovery. We may begin a monthly all-day Saturday workshop, but have not firmed up plans yet.
I will let you know of any further changes, both in this column and also via my e-mail list of participants.
Let me be clear: This is a fully treatable cancer. If all goes well, the tumor can be completely removed and all traces of the cancer can be eliminated. In two or three months, I may be back to my old cheerful and energetic self. But we know, too, that cancer cells are strong, determined, clever and patient. So there are no guarantees.
There is much more to be said. As I go through this experience, on some days I will respond to a letter in the usual way. On other days, such as today, I think it likely that this column will consist of reports and meditations on the situation at hand. I do plan to write every day, whenever possible, to keep our connection and conversation going. Sometimes what I have to write may not be very carefully crafted; there may be times when the experience is overwhelming and what I have to say is commonplace. I do not have much defense against that.
So I invite you to help me.
Join me. Take my hand. Help me through this.
What? You want more advice?
Dear Cary,
I've recently realized that I am atheist. Now being that atheists are 1 percent of the population, this could produce a lone sense in anyone. However, I feel especially alone. My husband's family -- I have no family of my own to speak of -- is intensely Roman Catholic and close-knit. I love them very much and have for many years, but their Catholicism is their identity. The holiday and social gatherings all revolve around a conservative Catholic faith and a conservative political base. I have always been the token liberal, politely placing counterpoints to their own. Or simply staying silent with the more reactionary members of the family. It is a somewhat lonely existence as a result of the only other liberal being a poorly read and largely ignorant knee-jerk friend of my husband's.
I just had a baby and do need the support of my husband's family but the constant silence and playing along is causing me depression. I have no real issue with religious people, I'm certainly not one of the in-your-face New Atheist types. But to be unable to share this with even my husband forces me to live an endless lie of church services and religious gatherings. I do not believe in the miracles they constantly trumpet or find comfort in the theological books they offer! I do not feel any kind of supernatural presence in my life or feel that birth control is inherently evil. Yet if I shared these beliefs I would be shunned faster and with more passion than a leprous Nazi with a rotting cheese on her head. I hear the passionate gossip they speak of other wayward family members all the time!
I look down at my son and realize I even must lie to him. I must parrot the tired myths to him or else risk the natural talkative nature of children to spill my words to everyone. While there is no real evil in living out religion, any more than there is deciding to dance in a circle in your yard with a flowerpot every day, it is not some truth. Nor is it a surefire cure for what ails you. To me it represents wasted time and effort. I do not know what to do because I love these goodhearted people. They are the only family I have. My constant silence and lies depress me greatly because I love them so much.
Thank you for your consideration of my issue.
Surrounded by Saints
Dear Surrounded,
Is faith a matter of choice? Is it an act of will? Are we therefore to be held accountable for the presence or absence of faith in our lives?
I don't see how that can be.
Is it not possible to be a person of goodwill who honestly has no faith? If people who profess to have faith cannot accept that, then it seems to me they lack some essential element of understanding.
How could people of faith accept as a miracle an event in which faith came unbidden to someone, and yet condemn the opposite but equally plausible event in which faith did not come unbidden, or departed unbidden never to return? Why should one occurrence be treated with reverence and the other with scorn, if they are both equally mysterious in this putatively mysterious, god-infused universe?
I would think that people of both good faith and goodwill would accept your atheism as simply another miracle.
But I am obviously not living in the real world.
If the people around you lack deep understanding and intellectual capacity, what is to be done? I do not know. Can they be educated? Not by you.
If they cannot accept your difference then that is their own personal hell; that is their tragic incapacity of perception.
If you would like something to read, let me suggest the estimable Terry Eagleton's small book, "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate."
Let's hope that there is a God, and that she shows her hand in such a way that these people are struck with sudden holy forgiveness, and that they see, in this moment of wholly improbable struckness, how you, too, and your atheism, are part of their perfect godly world.
And let us hope that this merciful God tells them, in a few simple words, to leave you the fuck alone and not try to convert you.
Wouldn't that be a nice kind of God to have?
What? You want more advice?
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