Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

This has happened to me several times and it came up at dinner tonight: someone that you don't know well--or perhaps at all--is having a crisis moment and grabs onto you as the person who can get them through it, and then associates you with that terrible moment such that the experience creates more distance between you rather than less.

Anyone know a name for that phenomenon?

This came up tangentially on my f-list and made me want to spread the idea a little further.

Watching kids develop relationships is interesting. A lot of their "friends" are what I've heard referred to as "Sandbox Friends". You know: here I am in this sandbox and look, you're here too--let's be friends! And they play together very happily for half an hour or three hours and may see each other there every afternoon, or once in a while--and the relationship picks right up again and works just fine--or never again in their lives.

As kids get older and start to figure out, for example, that other kids have names (it surprised me how slow this particular development was) and to recognize the same kids in different contexts and see the same kids on a regular basis, they start to develop relationships that become more and more like adult concepts of friendship. Let's call these Lasting Friendships.

Lasting Friendships aren't any more real than Sandbox Friendships. Sandbox Friends are important. We find ourselves in all kinds of sandboxes in our lives--classes and camps and offices and shows and units and campaigns and churches--and we need to interact and get along with the other people there in a cordial manner, to make the sandbox a pleasant space. And we continue to evaluate and differentiate between people in these contexts--the one who always brings the cool shovels, the one who has a knack for building sandforts, and the one who will kick sand in your face if they feel thwarted or are late for their nap today. We establish those with whom we have rapport and those from whom we prefer to keep a safe distance where possible.

Some Sandbox Friends become Lasting Friends. In fact, I think that most Lasting Friendships start in the sandbox. You find that your rapport with them extends beyond a particular sandbox, that you enjoy spending time together elsewhere, that you feel safe discussing less gritty aspects of your lives, that you keep in touch even if one or both of you stops frequenting the sandbox entirely.

And some Sandbox Friends don't. Even though you have a great time together in the sandbox and accomplish great feats of particulate engineering while laughing at each other's jokes, if you're not in the sandbox, there's nothing to connect you. If you run into each other on the swings, you'll say hi and smile and be glad to have seen each other, but you won't invite each other home for juice or even make a date to meet at the sandbox tomorrow. And that doesn't mean that what you share in the sandbox isn't real, or that your pal doesn't like you, it just means that your relationship is limited to that particular context.

Value your Sandbox Friends. Leave yourself open to pursuing Lasting Friendships and recognizing them when they develop. But don't expect the same things from both.

As most of you know, I record textbooks for Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. This week I was assigned to a textbook I've read parts of in earlier sessions that deals with language deficits and impairments. I was reading the chapter about school-age children and was impressed with how it outlined the specific and complex language tasks that are part of everyday school experience (e.g. quickly switching modalities between listening/speaking/reading/writing, following a story (holding information in memory and retrieving it to make connections with new material) and answering questions about it, participating in class discussions, etc.) and the ways in which even minor language impairment can make these tasks extremely challenging.

One of the issues that it raised was a completely new thought for me, although one that was immediately obvious once raised: people with language impairment have difficulty establishing close peer relationships. I thought about it, about how hard it is to be friends with someone who doesn't understand the conversational turn-taking exchange, who may not respond or respond with entirely irrelevant statements, who may respond to direct questions without adding anything or asking follow-up questions, who may have significant trouble retrieving words in realtime. Of course that would make things difficult.

Then I started thinking about my closest friends and the ways in which our very similar levels of language proficiency play a huge part in our relationship. Being able to depend on them to understand what I say and to explain what they mean and to be willing to do both is key. That led to thinking about the many brilliant and interesting people of my acquaintance who do seem to have the kinds of language deficits under discussion in the book, but whose high intelligence has permitted them to establish coping strategies and excel in other ways, such that their deficit is not perceived, or attributed to personality quirk.

I think this line of thought may be spooling through my general pondering for quite a while. Don't be surprised if I try to talk to you about it.

I am currently inundated by solutions to a problem I don't have. Printable gift tags! Gift tag hacks! Sale on gift tags!

When I'm wrapping presents, I take a strip of the paper I'm using and cut it into tags. I fold them in half, write "For Wumpus, Here's a silly clue about the contents. Merry Christmas! From Catter & Wild." Then I put a piece of tape on it and affix it to my package, under the ribbon where I will know to find it when I'm handing out gifts. It takes about 15 seconds. It matches the package, it's inobtrusive, but easily locatable.

What am I missing?

Tonight, while referencing this awesome essay about Fonzie as a shamanic figure, I was suddenly reminded of one of my key memories of Happy Days, a moment of pure female empowerment, reminiscent for me of The Feminine Mystique, the moment when Marion, fed up with all of Fonzie's preening, macho bullshit, says "Arthur, sit on it!"

I've been thinking about Juno and about Knocked Up, both of which deal with surprise pregnancies and the decision to keep the baby and both of which have inspired the critics to question why abortion isn't examined more closely as a choice in either movie. I haven't seen either one--I just don't get to the movies much these days--so I can't actually judge whether this is true.

But it occurs to me that the problem is that abortions don't make a good story. I mean "Julie found herself pregnant, examined her options, and decided to have an abortion. No one outside her family and the father--all of whom supported her right to choose--ever knew, she went back to school the next day, and while she occasionally wonders what that baby and her life with it might have been, she has no regrets." There's no hook.

This is unfortunate, because I think that's a pretty typical story and one that actually should be told. This is related to the gay-villain problem, I think. "Kyle realized he was gay in high school, came out to his entirely supportive parents, joined the Gay Alliance, had a couple of relationships and a few casual encounters before meeting Jim. They bought a condo together and had a lovely wedding. Both enjoyed professional success, neither succumbed to a tragic illness, and they lived reasonably happily ever after." Not really a movie in that, either.

A friend once sat next to a tv writer on a plane. He talked about his days on the staff of Dynasty and said that the secret to writing soap operas is that no one is ever allowed to have a healthy response, because that kills the story. If everyone always reacts negatively, then the drama never ends. I think of this often, from the comfort of my largely-boring, very happy life, and wonder how to make healthy reactions dramatic, how to tell stories about quiet contentment, how to create positive narratives about drama-free lives. Because those can be just as revolutionary as any shouting in the street and are, in some ways, more symptomatic of the real changes that our society is experiencing. And that's pretty dramatic.

One of the things that's frustrating about the whole issue of gay rights is that it often seems resistant to rational argument. What changes minds, all too often, is personal experience. This article in the Boston Globe includes the following story:

Candaras had voted for the amendment when she was a House member representing a relatively conservative district with a large number of elderly people in Hampden County; now that she is a senator, she said, her new, much larger constituency made its sentiment clear to her.

Some constituents wrote saying that they had changed their minds, like the elderly woman who said she previously asked Candaras to support the ban.

"But since then, Gale," the woman wrote, as Candaras told it, "this lovely couple, these two men, moved in next door to me, and they have a couple of children and they're married, and they help me with my lawn. And if they can't be married in Massachusetts, they're going to leave -- and then who would help me with my lawn?"

Candaras said that after living with gay marriage for three years, many Massachusetts residents have grown accustomed to it, even those who once had reservations.

"It's a cultural change, and for older people, it is a difficult cultural change," she said. "But I think people are coming to understand the issue and coming to appreciate the fact that the world is changing -- and that these people deserve to enjoy . . . the same rights of marriage."

So, maybe MassEquality.org or the Freedom to Marry Coalition should organize lawn-mowing teams and call up the local Councils on the Aging and say "We've got ten people in your community who would be happy to mow an elder's lawn on a regular basis. Just sign your people up and we'll show up to mow!"

I realize that the issue seems to be settled here in Massachusetts for the moment, but if it's going to take individual, positive experiences of gay people to change minds, then maybe that's where we should be focusing our attention.

This pretty much sums up what I don't like about reality television.

Once again, I am struck by the fact that my salt shaker and washing-up liquid dispenser always need replenishing at the same time.

I had a conversation this evening that was, in part, about how much enthusiasm it's good to show in the very early days of a relationship and how one can scare off potential partners by "coming on too strong". ( ... )