On Receiving
the anesthetics of beginnings
In the beginning, you throw yourself in something. a person, a book, a city, an idea. and something in you goes... quiet. the experience almost feels anesthetic. you meet someone or something you like and you’re just completely overwhelmed by the experience of it. ow how they talk, how beautiful they are, how mirculous it is that they exist. but then...
Then you get to know it, them, and knowing is it’s own sort of violence. you start to see them, their flaws, and you start to put it all together. Oh this is why they have this habit, this why they’re neurotic in this particular way, this is when they reach for their phone, oh this is what makes them look away. And you think you know it all, and then they do something that utterly surprises you, and then you think: maybe I don’t know them at all. And you’re back to the beginning.
In the beginning, there’s anesthetic quality to finding something you really enjoy. You throw yourself into it, it takes you out of yourself. You stop thinking. And then as your relationship with it deepens, you gain a new consciousness that isn’t purely pleasurable. It’s mixed: both bitter and sweet. That knowledge is the price for deeper intimacy with the object of your affections.
In the beginning, but no, no it’s the not beginning anymore, and it is not the thing anymore, but it’s a door to that thing. but then those doors are not rooms. you go deeper. The knowledge as you go deeper, not everyone enjoys that knowledge. I have found that writers are exceptional at romanticizing pain. but I wonder if they’re exceptional at romanticizing commitment of staying, the grey tuesdays of it all.
As a kid I was so dismayed by the way all the adults I knew talked about love. No they must be just bad at it I thought, I would be better. These days, as my friends & my love life will attest to that I’m no better than anyone at love. but now I conceive of the real battle as enjoying the experience.
From Henrik’s wonderful essay:
Love is the thing we turned our resonance into through years of conversation and care. Just as this essay is the result of me sitting down at my desk four nights in a row after putting the kids to sleep, writing though I feel too tired. Showing up. Making space for the love of words to come. Letting something grow.
Yeah, I think love is like that for me. It is not about attraction or good feelings or needing someone. It is a way of showing up for others with care & curiosity. Last night I saw what B did to the people she met on the street, when she attended to them with open curiosity & kindness. and I though it’s like that except you do it for sevral years instead of a few minutes. and the person you do it to returns the favour.
S said something that made me think a lot this week. I’ll paraphrase it here: I’ve noticed that a lot of people want to take care of you but you’re trying to figure out what kind of care you need. I do have a lot of trouble receiving care, in many relationships, I’m really focused on the other person’s needs and meeting them, but when it’s time for my own, it’s more often than not quite flailing. No I wouldn’t say, avoidant, but often what I need is in the negative... more time, more space to think, more room to be myself. Or kinda abstract... emotional support, help brainstorming, just presence.
I know this may seem kind of vague, so ill use dating as an illustration. In the beginning stages of dating someone, say you’re seeing this guy, and he’s v.nice and all and would make polite gestures like paying for dinner or buying you flowers. yeah it’s sweet and all, and you appreciate it. but obviously in the beginning stage of a romance spans way more than that. for eg you want someone to be interested in your life, to be supportive, to make time to meet your friends, to introduce you to theirs, to open up. So if someone is going on really nice dates with you every Friday, but they’re not doing any of the rest, they’re not actually meeting your needs. And well sometimes you might hold hands, but the hands don’t fit. And sometimes someone might think they’re meeting your needs because they’re being nice and attentive on a surface level, without actually extending themselves to dig deeper.
There’s this line from this essay on Schuyler:
“Negations that express presence. This effect he borrowed, perhaps, from Marianne Moore, with her predilection for words like “unegoistic,” “gossipless,” “unexaggeratedly denominated,” and “unpanoplied.” Such negatives provide the pleasure of an atmosphere half-there, half-gone.”
In describing all of the things I no longer care about, am I also explaining what still grips me?
Yours, etc.,
Kay.