Housing a growlybear

I’ve been reading a lot today, and yesterday. I sound so redundant, but there is so much added to my  perspective when I read some of you, some of your words. It’s always worth the time spent.

That’s not what this post is about, but the idea to write down these observations was inspired by some of my reading this morning, and a conversation I got into last night.

Last night I was talking to my S.O. about global warming or climate change. The Obama administration is trying to alter the verbiage to global climate change, because that’s just more accurate based on our level of knowledge at this point. 

The fact is, the results of excessive pollution in our atmosphere are complex and not well understood. There are so many changes taking place since the advent of human progress, and the earth’s systems are so intertwined- ocean currents affect storm-fronts in the mid-west- radiation melts the ice-caps which tend to reflect the sun, and when it gets hot, other natural systems kick into gear to compensate- the threads and inter-connectedness are endless. We don’t really *know* what will happen, and when. What we do know is that stuff is happening faster than we expected.

It’s possible that the opposite extreme could result- a global ice-age instead of global warming. We will probably end up first observing an exaggerated effect of what has already started- hotter temperatures in warm places, colder temperatures in cool places, and storms that are more violent and more frequent than human history prepares us for.

But this isn’t a two plus two equals four scenario. Two plus two might equal four hundred, or even a negative number. 

And that whole thing- the acknowledgement that unforeseen results can appear in complex systems- that’s what is kind of bending my mind today. That possibility sort of sets human nature on edge, because no matter how flexible you think you are, there’s like this inner need for people to feel in control. 

That’s why we live in climate controlled boxes, and why we freak out when things happen that we don’t understand. That’s why a person might pray for mercy if they plant a field of corn and end up with hybrid tomatoes. It’s kind of disturbing when two plus two equals -312.

I’m going to condense this down to a personal level. Lately I have been bending over backwards to be present and responsive to my daughter. I am interested. We make lots of effort to do things she wants to do, to go that extra mile. I’ve tried to give generous attention, and not have her be in the position of asking for it and not expecting to receive it. 

And she’s a really good kid, mind you. She has always been patient and understanding, especially considering what a small sliver of me has been emotionally available at times.

So what do you suppose my efforts have resulted in?

*grins*  I think this is a line from a movie… No, no! It’s from the West-Wing: Josh’s therapist goes, “I know you think I’m telling you that two plus two equals potatoes, but… ”

My daughter is mad at me.

Uh huh. She’s mad, and dismissive, and frustrated. She turns half our outings into exercises in patience, if not out and out tests to see if I will, in fact, sell her to the gypsies if she pushes me too far.

To go  by a few hours from the past week, she sometimes doesn’t appear to like me.

That’s such a weird thing, isn’t it? She’s absolutely wonderful when her parent is sort of a crap parent, but when I’m going the extra mile, she’s making me feel like a repugnant nazi.

I was pretty discouraged when that trend started surfacing, but now— I hafta view it as hopeful. I really thought about it, and the fact is… she’s starting to trust me. The tragic part is that she actually didn’t feel she could act out around me before, because she feared losing whatever portion of mom she had. Now I’m really trying to be all here, and it actually makes sense in a way that first she’d test it out. Try and find out just how solid and reliable this version of mom can be.  

Secondly: She didn’t really ask for a change in our dynamic, it was simply delivered. I don’t know about you, but I get somewhat pissed off when my expectations get turned on their head. Even if they aren’t good expectations, or even if they’re replaced in a positive way, it leaves you in a position of kind of reacting rather than acting. And that’s just not comfortable.

So this all makes sense, if I think about it. And it comes as little surprise that there are parallels between my relationship with my daughter, and my new romantic relationship. I have been getting the idea for some time that my ability to connect with her in a healthy and positive way will precede any lasting meaningful connection with anyone else.

I mean, good or bad, at the most basic, animal level, I’m a mother. I cannot go forward and leave my daughter behind.

So there’s this guy… 

And it’s weird. It’s always weird for me to be in love. Being loved back is weirder still. To be accepted and to feel secure, to feel that someone *likes* you, even when fear has turned you cold and sarcastic- to have that affirmation that someone still delights in that form of you, is…

wow. I’m aware that there are people with healthy relationships who have never known anything else, so it might sound goofy to be constantly surprised that love can be such an amazing experience.

I’ve done things that might have screwed it up in the past months. But when that verbal ambush forms, he firmly takes it and turns it around, and I’ve learned the trick for when it’s just me: Simply turn it around. I want this. I don’t hafta screw it up. It’s okay to acknowledge that this is important to me.

So the feeling grows that this is both solid and flexible enough to survive.

So what do you think happens? Now that something good and strong is added to my life? Do you think I wake happy and invite the world in?

lol

Nope. I’m housing a growly bear. Not toward him or my daughter, but toward the rest of the world. I feel critical. Closed.  There’s sort of an ungiving nature under my nature.

Weird. 

Jung would say this is my human nature trying to be in balance- negative trying to balance out the positive. That would happen in dreams if I could ever sleep.

Don’t really buy that, though.

Today, I couldn’t believe someone intelligent and expressive liked American Idol. I couldn’t believe another person took themselves so seriously. I sat there and scowled over the predictability of my ex. These are little growls, and they’re really uncharacteristic. I went to church, and I sat there drawing in from the people, the infirmity and general dowdiness of the crowd. I felt a sort of distaste, a desire to be around people I relate to more fully. (I never go to church) It took the remarkable intelligence and compassion of a palm Sunday sermon (which is worth a blog itself) to kind of crack me open and not sit there in my growlybear ugliness looking askance at everybody.

Why is this? Why is it when I feel loved, accepted, secure… when I have this source of joy, why am I being so miserly in spirit? 

Possibly this isn’t new, but just a result of spending so much time concerned with whether others liked me, that I didn’t have a chance to figure out if I liked others.

I don’t think I’m superior. Wait a sec, Yes I do! Me and my brain… it takes a hell of a lot of intelligence, compassion, or some form of talent/understanding for me to admire you. I just haven’t had the emotional leisure to acknowledge the arrogance of my standards.

I still hafta figure out who I am in the context of others, and if she’s a decent person. I suspect there’s  room for improvement.

This sure isn’t what I thought would happen, internally, upon meeting the love of my life. But there you have it: Unexpected results from complex systems.

(Oh, you can go ahead and feed my inner growly bear, but mind your fingers. She bites.)

Tidbits sans Panda Porn

Julian was the one who found this, but… woah. Remember the Wolf Point Meteor thing that several of us did a couple weeks ago? Yeah. Well, early this morning a fireball soared across the Oregon sky and made a sonic boom felt for miles around where they estimate the impact may have been.

I’ve discussed the fact that the local weather seems to reflect my mood sometimes; the worst storm of the winter coinciding with the worst turmoil of my stormy soul. That kinda thing can’t help but give you a a complex after awhile. It’s an amused, indulgent complex. A “Yeah, I know my mood doesn’t control the weather, but gee, I feel a little like God.” kind of thing.

So you can imagine what this news is doing for my complex. I… I conjured a meteor! Holy bamboo rattan, batman. What should I do with these new powers? Gonna try and go for good as opposed to evil. I could, you know, use this new evidence of my omnipotence to be a badass, and score free cheetos and stuff, but I think I’ll try to remain a benign and cheerful minor deity. You’re all safe. Someone inferred that I was ignorant last night and I didn’t even smite them, so you know I’m not gonna mess with my weebles, except maybe a few inexplicable goat sightings. Who can resist a few enigmatic goat pranks to pass the time?

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As long as we’re talkin’ about the cosmos, in case you didn’t hear, a full lunar eclipse is taking place tonight at 8:43 pm EST. That’s 5:43 pm here in Oregon, when it isn’t quite dark yet. The eclipse will last about 3 hours and twenty some minutes. I know it’s February, and freakin’ cold in most areas of North America, but this is a pretty early eclipse and your last chance to see one until December of 2010, so give it a look. Might be fun.

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I haven’t been visiting blogs very much this week. I apologize. Sometimes I feel like sticking to my little corner of cyberspace, writing my thoughts down, and not much like venturing out. That’s defining it imperfectly, but sometimes I kinda feel like gathering in, and other times I’m directed out. I guess. I haven’t been feeling very gregarious in real life, either. Maybe a reaction to the non-stop company of my birthday week/weekend.

Anyway, I’m not meaning to be snooty and certainly don’t expect you to read me when I’m not reading you. Just having a down time at the moment.

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I’ve been going about the last couple weeks feeling a little like someone has died. No one I know has died, but I still feel that kind of emptiness. It’s hard to say just what prompts such feelings, but it’s like a low-level reaction to accumulative loss. I am feeling the absence keenly of people who have gone out of my life. Particularly the last big love, but other loves and friends before that.

It shouldn’t bother me this way. I compare my feelings to the gaping yawn of other people, who lost loved ones yesterday or lost their husband, their child, their best friend.. and it seems like a self-indulgent thing. But then, I donno; letting go, moving on, it’s always something I’ve had trouble with. It feels a little callous to me, the expectation that healthy humans do this swiftly. It’s also always felt a little impossible.

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Finally, an excerpt from a book I’m reading that struck me as particularly relevant today:

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much- the wheel, New York, wars and so on- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man- for precisely the same reason.

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth, and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the “Star-Spangled Banner,” but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.

In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted the relationship was entirely according to these creatures’ plans.

-Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Wolf Point, Montana: What Hell Looks Like

I’ve been glued to the news, but it’s weird cus for once you don’t have all this footage to go by. The impact took everyone out that would have been close enough to record it, and knocked the power out too. It’s like getting pushed back from the information age into the dark ages.

Well, almost.

I tried to find something besides the satellite images and found really disturbing videos on YouTube about meteors and the end of the world. There’s already a fake viral going around of the meteor impact that says ‘countdown to global catastrophe’. With 800 comments, and people freaking out, even though the fireball footage is identical to the fake-meteor Tacoma commercial.

On channel 10 they gave a pretty straightforward, scientific account of just what North Dakota/Montana is probably experiencing: It’s light in the central states now, but it’s actually getting darker over Montana and North Dakota. They’ve estimated the dimensions of the meteor at between 50,000 and 100,000 tons. It punched the earth at a speed faster than the rate of sound. Nothing is standing for miles around. There’s probably what looks like a meteor shower all around the immediate vicinity, shooting out from the blast, and if there were any trees somewhat near that did not blow up, they’re flattened now, and they will explode as the hot debris touches them.

Which is really bad news for anyone living in Eastern Montana/Western Dakota. Those who survived the blast must now survive the debris and the fires. Tons and tons of the earth’s crust got blasted into the air forming something like the mushroom cloud from mount St. Helens, and all that debris and shit is going to be branching out into the stratosphere before coming down. None of the stupid news organizations can say how big a swath of the nation is going to be under the doom cloud.

In fact, none of the freakin news channels seem to have anything to say at all, they just keep repeating the same things over and over, although one was helpful enough to point out that meteors are what knocked the world into several ice ages and made the dinosaurs go extinct. Helpful. Thank you for not inducing panic there, sport.

Oregon is in the influence zone, but we’re over the mountains, so I don’t know if we’ll see the dust cloud, or what’s going to happen. I tried to look up ‘Wolf Point’, but it loads really slow. I just got a welcome page and it looks nice. Quaint. The kind of place you’d want to visit before it resembled Hades.

I feel kinda shaken, like this thing has rocked the foundations I’m standing on. Like dynamite, close enough to feel. It’s ugly…. the videos and the ice-age commentary: When people are freaked out and looking for information they try to go and inject even more fear and drama into what’s already a horrifying situation for thousands and thousands of people.

It’s kinda sick.

Additional Resources:

Chaos to the East

Sketchy News

Did the Government do this?

The News reaches China

Some Local Perspective

Impacts East

About Wolf Point