Topic: Relationships

We often don't realize how sometimes, when we get ticked off at someone, it is less about what s/he is going and more because s/he's messin' with our heads.  While we may not like what a person is doing, we may not like, even more, what it does to the internal unspoken but very real story we have about

• who they are,
  
• what they mean to us,
  
• what that says about them,
  
• what it says about our relationship with them, and
  
• about my place in the world

I was reminded of this delightfully in the Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Committed, A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. I know, I know, I have referenced this book before, and regular readers may wonder when my periodic blurts about the book will stop. There were more corners turned over than I could write in a single blob of blog entries, so likely there will be one or two more quippy excerpts to pop up yet.

She writes:

Felipe [her partner] has the bad habit of sometimes snapping impatiently at people he feels are either behaving poorly or interfering with the quality of his life….All over the world I have watched this man bark his disapproval at bungling flight attendants, inept taxi drivers…and the parents of ill-behaved children….

I deplore this.

Having been raised by a self-composed Midwestern mother and a taciturn Yankee father, I am genetically and culturally incapable of handling Felipe’s more classically Brazilian version of conflict resolution. People in my family wouldn’t even speak this way to a mugger. Moreover, whenever I see Felipe fly off the handle in public, it messes around with my cherished personal narrative about what a gentle and tenderhearted guy I have chose to love, and that, frankly, pisses me more than anything else. If there is one indignity I shall never endure gracefully, it is watching people mess around with my most cherished personal narratives about them.

 

Love that quote…I giggled and giggled about that. I love it that she has the insight to notice her anger at her violated personal narratives, and then, that she has the chutzpah to aknowledge them publically.

It is annoying when people violate who we think they are or who we imagine them to be. Makes the world, and our assumptions about what we know it a little less certain. Our world becomes a little more complicated, and that just makes a person grumpy.

• Ex-husbands are supposed to be complete jerks, and when they turn around and act extraordinarily civilly or even kindly when you hit a rough spot, it’s easy to dismiss it, rather than see it as an important nuance in who he really is and the effort he is making to co-parent. A woman wants to write it off as insignificant and meaningless because it doesn’t fit with her desired picture of him as a complete jerk with no redeeming qualities. 
• A wife is troubled by seeing how much a job loss rattles her husband…she sees him as a pillar of strength generally, and not only feels badly for him, she begins to wonder who he is, if this upsets him as much as it seems to. It makes her world seem a little less safe when he doesn’t behave like the rock she has in her image of him…like the internal image she has come to rely on.

I remember getting more annoyed with my toddlers’ naughtiness when I was around my parents…I felt that when my kids disobeyed me it made me look like a bad mom to my mom—who I wanted to show that I was a good mom. Now, I’ll be quick to add that part of my personal narrative of my mom was that she was judging my mothering on my children’s obedience level to me in my presence…I’m not actually sure she was, and if she was, I’m not exactly sure what the enduring impact of that opinion was. Seems pretty silly now…but it wasn’t then, at least not to me. I remember noticing this, and thinking how unfair to my kids it was that my level of discipline was “edgier” when my mom was around. This time it was my own personal narrative that was getting threatened in the situation…and I didn’t like it. My children were supposed to be perfectly behaved to show the world (or more accurately, my mother) that I was a good mom. Am I the only one who doesn’t want the personal narrative I want others to have of me messed up?

How much space do we give each other to be authentic and transparent? How quickly do we get angry when people don’t conform to who we want or need them to be? How much do we unconsciously give those around us messages to conform to the boxes we have for them to fit into our world? Think about it.

Guessing what the puzzle looks like when you haven't got all the pieces means you end up with something that feels right, but may be far from the truth.

That isn’t rocket science. But unwittingly, we live out lives in the fantasy that we know what the puzzle looks like, even when we don’t have all the pieces. And we behave out of “knowing” what the complete picture is, not even realizing that we have filled in the blank spots in the way that makes the best sense. Best sense doesn’t mean accurate.

Case in point: I LOOOOVE cherries. They are my favorite fruit. This is cherry season, and I splurge on cherries, buying a container from Cost-co, and eating little else for days. Love them. I. LOVE. CHERRIES. Yum. 

When I was young, cherries were a rare treat…very rare. There might be one small bowl for the whole family once in the summer. They were like red gold. So, when I could only pick 5 cherries to eat as my share, I would very carefully select the ones I thought would be the tastiest. That meant the deepest, darkest, black-red cherries I could find in the bowl.  The bright red ones that were almost pink were quite beautiful, but tart, and a little crunchy—and to be avoided when you had precious few berries to quench the appetite.

My mom sold me on that. I’ve been looking for the deepest colored cherries possible for years when I buy them in the store.

I was at Cost-co this week and looked for cherries. No red ones. Boo.

But there were the yellow-red Ranier cherries. I was sorely tempted to go without cherries because these cherries, well…they just look….wrong. They look like they won’t be tasty, because they defy my “yummy-cherry rules”. They look like they will be sour, and bitter, and unripe.

However, I was talking with someone the other day who raved about these yellow Ranier cherries, and so, as skeptical as I was, I decided to give them a try.

Skeptical no more. Fallen in love with Ranier cherries—yellow gold. My perception that cherries had to be dark to be sweet doesn’t fit with my new understanding of cherries. Ranier cherries are yummy, even though yellow. Who knew? It still tricks my mouth as I was a bowl and try the first one of the day and it gushes with yumminess.

 Turns out that when I made my policy on “deeper red cherries are yummier”, I was operating on partial information, never having met a Ranier cherry before. I had to reconfigure my thinking on that one. Turns out my assumptions based on my limited fruit knowledge very nearly had me missing out on one of the highlights of my summer (yes, cherries are a genuine summer highlight for me).

Another case in point: I was speaking with a friend who was talking with her friend. This friend adopted a beautiful toddler from Africa. Adorable little guy. As he gets older now and he has learned English, they have spoken with him about his memories of his home country, and of meeting his new parents, and of travelling to Canada. One of the things he remembers is that the first day they met him, they rubbed him with a white substance all over his body.

They were white, the substance was white. As a small child, he put “2 and 2 together” and concluded that they were making him white to be like them. Pretty clever thinking for a small child who doesn’t understand the language, and is trying to make sense of things—he is putting together a puzzle without knowing all the pieces and coming up with a logical picture that his new parents are trying to change his skin color to be like theirs.

Ouch, though. What a painful thing to hear that this soul was thinking.

What was really happening was that they were putting on cream that were told was necessary to ensure that he would be healthy, and wouldn’t bring home any skin disorders or microscopic creatures that tend to exist in tropical climates. They wanted him to be healthy.

They loved him—the whole package, including his browned-ness, and wouldn’t have wanted him any differently.

Another case in point: I work with couples in crisis. Very typically, one partner will see a behavior, tell me what it means, and be very hurt by that meaning. 

Example #1: At most every disagreement, he leaves. Walks away. She “knows” it’s because he doesn’t care about their relationship, and doesn’t want to invest in the concern she has.  

And she weeps at the sense of abandonment.

What she doesn’t know is that he becomes internally highly agitated when he feels like he is letting her down, when he senses he is “screwing it up” in a way that is upsetting to her. That internal agitation carries with it a sense of failure and shame that is almost intolerable, and so he leaves the situation to escape the internal awfulness that he can’t bear to feel.

Hard, if not impossible, to know this by watching his behavior, so she works to put “two and two” together, in a way that makes sense to her. Thing is, even if she asks him what’s up, he may have trouble explaining himself to her.  He may himself have trouble figuring out why he leaves without someone to help him sort out and slow down his inner reactions so he can figure himself out. He does know he cares and wants her to be happy—but there’s no way to convince her of that because she’s already decided how he feels. Talk about tricky sticky situations, eh? 

Example #2: She’s had an affair.  Was unfaithful. Cheated. Betrayed his trust and ripped his heart out. He hurts. He wants to talk about it, needs to ask questions about it, needs to hear how sorry she is, what she learned from it, how she would never do it again. She’s cheerful, chipper, and ignores his pain—clearly she doesn’t think her infidelity was a big deal, and doesn’t care he’s hurting.

Guess again.

I have met women in this situation that are horrified at their actions. They have violated their own personal code of conduct; crossed lines they promised themselves they would never cross; looked to see a profound level of excruciating pain in his eyes, in the eyes of someone who has long been a good friend and close lover—to know that that pain was created by themselves. They’ve shattered their own sense of integrity in a way that brutally hurt someone they care deeply about. Those are unbearable feelings to face, shaming to have the wounded partner bring up, and has a woman do anything to change the topic, to “cheer the other up” with jokes and frivolity. Not because the infidelity doesn’t matter…but because of how very, very much it does matter.

Sometimes what seems obvious as the meaning of another’s actions isn’t actually the case. Sometimes it’s hard to see that there might be another way of seeing it. Sometimes it’s ones’ own internal realities that “clinch” the meaning that is assigned to it, and reacted on, regardless of what the other person is really feeling.

What you know isn’t always complete. There is information you may not have access to, that can convincingly change your understanding if you allow yourself to embrace it. And in relationships, the stakes are generally a lot higher than with fruit. (Even though a great cherry is truly delicious. Just saying).

For relationships to be authentic and move forward in a way that is truly respectful of each person, it is essential to check those understandings out, hold them loosely to allow for a different interpretation and understanding, to enlarge the understanding. To allow the other person to feel what they are really feeling, rather than be assigned a position by yourself. Tough stuff. But worth it.

As you probably know, the Amish believe in living a simple life--no electricity, no telephones, no motorized vehicles. Yet in many of the communities there is a pay phone.  When asked about this apparent discrepancy one elder explained, 
'If the telephone were in our home it would control us. 
As long as it is out here we control it.' He went on to say, 
'Most people drop everything they are doing the instant 
the telephone rings and run to answer it. 
In their lives the telephone takes precedent over everything. 
(Of course cell phones have only made this addiction far worse.) 
The pay telephone, on the other hand, is our servant. 
It is there if we need it but we do not allow it to intrude into our lives.'"




I was having trouble sleeping last night.  And no, not because it was too unbearably hot--it had been a very warm day, but there was a slight breeze coming in the window that was gradually cooling the room.  And no, not because the wedding I attended had me thinking about the beauty of love.

I had trouble sleeping because it was too warm to use my quilt.  It was one of those nights to sleep without covers.  But that doesn't work for me.  Let me explain.

When I was a small child, I lived in a house with a back lane.  In my back yard, there was a telephone pole.  At night, when it was dark, cars would travel down the back lane, and the light from their headlights would shine on my ceiling.  As the car moved down the backlane, the shadow of the hydro pole would travel across the ceiling. The movement on the ceiling seemed monstrous, horrifyingly attacking, and it created gut wrenching terror in my little belly. 

I was convinced this combination of light and shadows would be the end of me.  Although my parents explained that it was the shadows and headlights and was harmless, it was irrelevant.  I was terrified anyways. I don't think it was that I didn't believe them when they explained what it was. I think it was more that I thought they were out of touch in not realizing the danger of these dancing monster lights and shadows on the ceiling.  I mean, they were parents and all, so how could they possibly understand how very frightening my little world was.

But these monstrous shadows and lights came nightly, and with parents who, after providing reassurance, left me to be in this terrifying situation on my own, I was left to my own devices to figure out a strategy to deal with this.  I was genuinely frightened night after night, and as there was no immediate solution with someone helping me, I was going to have to figure it out myself.

I found that if I pulled the cover up over my ears, I could feel the weight of the blanket on my head, and it kept me safe.  I suspect it also helped to shield my eyes from the ceiling's dangerous light dance, rather like a brim on a baseball cap.  In any case, as a very young child, I associated comfort and safety by having the weight of a comforter well up on my head.

Problem is, that is still my cue to fall asleep...the weight of a comforter on my head.  I'm loooong past worrying about dancing lights on the ceiling coming to get me.  It had been a long time since I thought of those days. When I go to bed now, I don't think about needing to cover my ears with a blanket so the monsters I used to be scared of won't hurt me.  See, when I want to fall asleep, I automatically pull the blanket up over my ears without planning it or thinking about it.  I just do it.  That's the natural thing for me to do.  I don't think about it, I'm not aware of it.  It's a long standing pattern of falling asleep. I don't cover my ear with a quilt because of the monster, I cover my ear with a quilt so that I can fall asleep.

So, last night I lay in bed working to fall asleep, wondering how I could accomplish not overheating myself under a heavy quilt but still feeling the way I need to feel to fall asleep.  Don't suggest a light sheet...sheets don't work...too light.  I wrestle with this annually, and I resorted to the tried and true method, (that I rediscover every summer) which might look a little odd, but no one is looking:  The quilt is behind me in the middle of the bed, and I sleep without covers EXCEPT for the corner of the quilt which is pulled up over my shoulder to cover my ear.  It worked.

It reminds me of how we all have patterns we use which we learned in childhood.  Patterns which arose out of a certain situation, and worked well there.  They served their original purpose, and allowed us, as children, a way to establish safety and security for ourselves.  And. They. Worked.

Then. 

They were important strategies for us to use as children as we sought to survive in a big and scary world.  Sometimes, our fears were real, but the threat wasn't (like the moving lights and shadows on my ceiling). 

Other times, the fears and the threats were real...alcoholic parents, an uncle who was uncomfortably friendly, or a parent who left and stopped living with you.  There were things you did to cope which worked.  However, those coping patterns become a habit because they feel good, are comfortable and provide security.  You continue to use them, without even knowing that you have them.  You use them because they give you a feeling of safety--without even realizing that you do is "this" way, rather than "that" way.

At some point though (like for me when it was quite warm last night) the way you naturally do something becomes a problem and it no longer works.  And that is when the challenge rises to free yourself from what you've always done, to a greater variety of strategies.  

• a best friend died when you were a child, and you remembered how much it hurt.  You decided to never let someone get that close to you so that you couldn't get hurt like that again.  Only as the years pass by, you notice that sometimes it feels lonely
  
• someone on the playground gave you a compliment, but in a mocking way.  You misunderstood at first and thought it was genuine.  It seemed like everyone was laughing at you for you actually thinking that he thought you were pretty.  Now you can't take a compliment if your life depends on it.
• When your dad yelled, he swung.  You learned that the hard way, and were very good at ducking.  Now, when anyone raises their voice, you shrink from the conversation and do your best to exit the situation.  This is a bit of a problem because your boss says you have every quality to be promoted except dealing with conflict.

Sometimes the root is obvious and a person is conscious of it.  Sometimes...well sometimes, not so much.  Sometimes it takes a little pondering to start to understand the root cause of a behavior.  Kinda like taking a car in for repair when it is making a strange noise...addressing the problem once you know what is causing it makes it easier. 

Last night, as I was trying to figure out why I was having trouble sleeping, I realized it was the "blanket over the ears" that was causing the problem. Once I realized that I didn't have to have the blanket over my whole body (which would have cooked me to well done last night), I made a goofy looking adaptation and it worked!

I've helped people similarly...

• someone discovers she hates winter at 5:00 not because that is when her husband comes home from work (which was the only thinking at the time), but because that is dusk and that creates a feeling inside of her that is noxious.  It was at dusk that she had been assaulted.
• someone feels like he is spending too much time with his girlfriend...he wonders if he should be using that as a cue to break up.  Then we explore and discover that what really is the issue is that the amount of time he is spending with his parents has been drastically cut because of this relationship.  His parents are an important part of his stability and well being.  He is relieved to know that he will feel better when he spends more time with them.  Breaking up with his girlfriend is not necessary.

You get the picture.  When your body is trying to tell you something, listen carefully, and allow yourself to choose an optimal strategy.

I was out in my front yard this morning, pulling weeds and putting in  a few late plants to fill in the holes that are left by some of the early bloomers.  The lilies will bloom soon.  I noticed this morning, in the early morning sun, how they are oriented:

I had the camera straight up and down...it's the flowers that are leaning.  I had noticed that they were not vertical before, but had never thought much of it.  The way they are leaning is away from the sidewalk, so the passersby will not get the best of the beauty of the lilies when they bloom.  The way they are leaning is towards the morning sun.

See, the thing of it is this:  they don't get any afternoon sun, or evening sun.  The elm trees that line the boulevard provide a thick shady canopy that blocks the sun.  The only time they get the sun is in the morning, and so they reach towards it, big time.

Flowers aren't so different from people in that way, huh?  We naturally lean towards sources of warmth in our life as well.  People who exude safety and comfort in our lives are attractive and attracting.  Those who provide us with nourishment for our soul are people we long to be with. 

There are those you long to have close to you...people who you care about, want to be with, who you want to protect and love.  Be like the sun to them and allow nature to take its course.  It's not always easy, and people aren't as simple as flowers.  I get that.  But to deny the power of being a safe, warm, nourishing place for someone you long to have close to you, to cynically brush the power of that off is a cop out. It makes a difference.

If your spouse seems distant, your child hostile,  or your friend has given you the cold shoulder...take a deep breath, (supporting yourself big time as you do this) and show some sincere warmth to the other.  Stick with it, not being a door mat, but being a constant warm presence. See what happens.

I was talking with Nicole Dube of Global News today as she was doing a piece on fighting via SMS/text messaging.  She let me know that recent stats suggest that cellular devices are now being used more for texting than for voice communication (aka "talking on the phone").

That means that cell phones are being used more for short telegraphic 140 character messages than for real conversations. Conversations with laughter, anger, tearsm, warmth, distance coldness, varying volume, hurt in the voice, pure joy in the voice. Now...just words in print.

Instead brief half sentence conversations that don’t give any indication other than the words themselves about the context—the mood of the speaker, then intention of the communication, the spirit behind the message.

Talk about being set up to be misunderstood, huh? And we’re doing more and more of it all the time.

As we talked about the issue of fighting via texting, we quickly identified several issues:

• How easy it is to be misunderstood:  So much of conversation is non verbal…what is said in between the words. The “how” of what is being talked about, not just the “what”. When I argue with someone face to face, I can see how the other person responds to what I say, they can hear how I say it—when my voice gets quiet, when I am upset or teary, how much energy my body carries. When I argue with someone on the phone—something I avoid doing, I can’t check with them to see how they are hearing me, what their response is. And while they can hear my voice inflections, they miss so much of how I’m trying to say something. With text, even that is lost. Nicole talked about sitting down with friends trying to guess at what a text “really means”
• The clumsiness of telegraphic communication: Trying to explain something in a message that fits into a text is like trying to draw a detailed picture with one of those big fat crayons. While the crayon isn’t useless, it doesn’t color in the lines very well, you can’t draw detail, and subtle nuances are impossible. Ditto for texts.
• Easy doesn’t mean more effective:  It’s easy to be honest, even brutally honest in a text. People can text things they would never say if they were looking at the recipient in the eye. It’s easy to say what you mean when you can do it without having to watch the other’s reactions, and you can ignore their response for as long as you want. But does this work? I haven’t met a person yet who finds texting more effective than talking with each other when it comes to real communication. Texting is an easy way out to say what needs to be said—but quite frankly, won’t work nearly as well. It takes guts and courage to bring up a sensitive topic in a face to face conversation—but generally in life, isn’t the payoff comparable in size to the investment? Texts are great to ask hubby to pick up milk, but not to deal with a relationship issue.
• Texting can stunt relationship skill development: One of the greatest gift parents can give their children is a stable home with 2 parents who are in a loving committed relationship. Those relationships require a skill set where each partner has learned to collaborate, negotiate, communicate effectively even when upset, express love openly and honestly, etc. etc. Marriages like this required effective communicators—and that requires lots of practice in real situations in real relationships all during childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Texting can rob people of the chance to be fully present with one human being and really connect them, even when difficult—to follow a conversation through, to see the effect of one’s behavior on another.  The ability to relate effectively to someone in the intensity of an intimate relationships develops over years and lots of practice—texting can take away from those opportunities to practice.
• Texting cheats the recipient of a full response:  When you text someone in an argument, they respond…and the venue of texting constricts their answer in a way that likely won’t allow a full explanation that allows the other to feel heard and understood.
  

Real conversations of meaning and depth don’t generally work by text. The tough stuff is tough enough without the confusion and brevity of texting. Save texting for simple tasks and unambiguous support and encouragement. Save the tough stuff for when you can look each other in the eye.

 

One of my favorite little people has a hedgehog named Harriet.  I'd never been up close and personal with a hedgehog before, and frankly, I won't need to have this experience often!

Hedgehogs are a lot more like porcupines than anything else. Porcupines may have needlesharp quills, whereas hedgehogs have quills that are rather like sharpened pencils. Despite the fact that these quills don’t penetrate the skin, they are NOT cuddly creatures.

Harriet is cute though:

 

 

Taking these pictures required patience. Harriet doesn’t show her cuteness, only her prickles when she’s nervous. I’m new to her—so she was nervous…could only see her prickles for the longest time…eventually she relaxed enough for me to see her face. 

I dared to touch her back (or rather, the quills 2 inches off her back) a few times…she would recoil in panic and chatter nervously. (I can't say I was a particular fan of touching her, either though--she was a little scary to touch)

It was suggested L that he turn Harriet over because apparently she has very soft and velvety fur on her belly. L turned her over so I could feel the soft part of Harriet. This is what I saw:

 

Harriet has the amazing ability to curl up so that absolutely none of that soft belly shows. I will have to take it on faith that she has a soft furry belly because she just wasn’t going to let me see it or touch it or even know that it exists.

I snapped this picture of Harriet because I had just come from the counselling office and she reminded me of the “prickly factor” that I so often see:

When a creature is frightened, it closes up and protects its soft parts.

When a creature doesn’t trust a person or a situation, it does what it takes to be less vulnerable.

Makes sense, huh? 

The challenge is, though, that I genuinely wanted to get to know Harriet. I wanted to stroke her soft belly to see what it was like—and what animal doesn’t love it? However, both of us missed out. Harriet was safe. But we didn’t connect.

Harriet would rather be safe and possibly wrong about the level of danger, than open and possibly hurt. 

I’m not sure I blame Harriet…she weighs a couple of pounds…and well, I weigh, well…considerably more. She doesn’t know if I’m safe or not…and I have the potential to really hurt her.

What is happening though is that Harriet is responding to me as though I am dangerous…she treats me as dangerous (even though I know I’m not). I can handle it…Harriet is a hedgehog, and our relationship isn’t really all that meaningful to me.

However, there are Harriet’s in our lives…people who curl up and avoid showing us their tender parts, who actually look fairly prickly. They might even seem hostile—which is confusing when we actually haven’t done anything hurtful (nor intend to, either). But that doesn’t matter, because they would rather be safe and wrong, then dangerously open and vulnerable.

The Harriet’s in our lives have often been previously hurt, and they (often without even realizing it) will ensure they aren’t hurt again and will close off the soft parts, be all prickles, even if we have not done anything hurtful. 

It can be confusing, but it is understandable. It requires compassion and extra gentleness. I have this feeling that if I had tried to get to Harriet’s soft belly against her will, I would have had less success than if I had just hung around her for a while and spoken very gently and moved very softly. 

That can be counterintuitive though, when we care for someone and we see them pull away—the natural thing to do is to pursue hard and force the person to open up. Doesn’t. Work. Well.

Notice your own Harrietness…are there times when you shut out people based on previous bad experiences that they weren’t even a part of? Are there people in your life that deserve a chance …that you might want to dare open up to, even just a little, to see if it feels safe…even good? Think about it.

And… be gentle with the Harriets in your life.

I was at a family wedding shower last weekend.  Brave girl, the new cousin-to-be, daring to walk into a room full of aunts, cousins, and second cousins all of whom are related to her fiancee, and most of whom are complete strangers to her.

She did great, and now has enough small appliances to stock her kitchen.

There are enough of us that unless it’s Christmas or the annual summer BarBQ, or someone is getting married or buried or born, we don’t see everybody all that often. So it was good to be together…to catch up on the ages of kids, find out about new jobs, health struggles, and just share lives with as many as I might get around to…which isn’t nearly everybody.

As is tradition at these things in our family, there was a contemplative time where it became quiet (this was after the bride to be ended up chewing far too many pieces of gum in the required silly-but-necessary shower game) and we were challenged to focus and contemplate the sacred union that S and J are preparing for. Marriage—many of us are married, will be married, or have been married…showers a good time to do some ponderin’ and prayin’…the task of marriage is awesome and a sober thought to challenge and inspire is welcomed.

We started off with each of us reading some quotes by children. Here are a few of my favorites:

• “Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” ~Bobby, age 7

• “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.” ~Noelle, age 7

• “Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.” ~Elaine, age 5

• “Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” ~Chris, age 7

• “You really shouldn't say “I love you” unless you mean it.  But if you mean it, you should say it a lot.  People forget.” ~Jessica, age 8.

There were some giggles, and then some nods as these were read, before my cousin went further in reminding us of core values of marriage.

I love the one that I pulled from the basket and read when it was my turn:

• When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different . You know that your name is safe in their mouth ~Sara, age 4

It reminded of me of a childhood memory that is near and dear. Mrs. M was my childhood babysitter. She was of retirement age and had no children. She came to babysit me and my siblings when I was a child on occasions when my mom went off to work…not nearly full time, but at least every week from the time I was an infant until I was in Grade 5 or so. She didn’t have housework to do when she came, she didn’t make meals (for the most part anyways—she was a terrible cook), she didn’t read or watch TV at our house—at least, not for herself. The sole focus of her energy was to play with us, read with us, talk to us, and enjoy us.  And she did. I think she really liked playing with me. I know I liked playing with her and I liked the feeling of how important I was to her, and how much my opinions and thoughts mattered, and how much she would listen to me—to what I was wanting to play or read together. We would have our little routines that I shared with her, only her. We would have milk in my china teapot for tea parties with her, I and the dolls that got invited…I would pour, and if I did it carefully, and “just right”, we would look up at each other with sparkling, knowing eyes and say, “and not a single drop” in rhythm together as we celebrated a rare lack of spillage.

Mrs. M called me “Caroline”…always, for as long as I knew her, until the day she died. My name is NOT “Caroline”, it’s “Carolyn”. I generally don’t like it when people call me “Caroline”—to me it signifies that they have not taken the time to learn what I am known by, and it speaks to a lack of caring. I don’t make a big deal out of it generally, but I really am not crazy by people not calling me by my given name. Except Mrs. M. My name was safe in her mouth. I don’t know why she called me “Caroline” and not “Carolyn”, but I could hear the love in her voice when she said it. And I didn’t mind at all when she called me that…in fact, I loved it. I loved her.

I remembered how important she was to me, and the truth of Sara’s line helped me understand something about me and her. Helped remind me of the importance of creating relationships where people feel safe with their name in another’s mouth.

I, like the rest of Canada, was well aware of the final day of Olympics this last weekend.  The hockey game between Canada and the US effectively shut down the country as we all joined together in watching the game, and in joyful anticipation of the eventual victory.  Wow...Sunday felt good, eh?

But the moment that keeps coming back to me this morning as I am at the counselling office is not one at the hockey game, but one that occurred at the beginning of the closing ceremonies.

The moment I most remember opened with humor as a mime in maintenance garb pops up from the non-functioning arm of the Olympic cauldron, and with great showmanship, connects the cord and with all the strength a mime can muster, pulls the cauldron arm up, bit by imaginary bit, into place.  (We remember how only 3 of the 4 arms arose during the Opening Ceremonies, and how the event of having 4 Canadian sporting legends light the Olympic flame together is marred when only 3 can participate.  Catriona Le May Doan just stood there not able to actively participate in the honorable task.  The others contributed and she just stood there.  It was unfortunate.)

But on Sunday afternoon, at the closing games as the giant arm goes up, out of the ground comes Catriona Le May Doan, an Olympic superhero star that was denied her chance to contribute at the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Olympics. And then she lights her arm of the structure that together formed the Olympic cauldron.

I LOVED it when Catriona arose out of the ground, and she lit her arm of the cauldron.

It was beautiful.
It had humor to it.
It righted a wrong.
There was a sense of empowering justice.
It did so without shame…the whole thing was done proudly at the Closing Ceremony.

But it was a tangible way for the people that “blew it” on the Opening Night with the arm malfunction to express their apology. To visibly and concretely and positively make a wrong, well, to make it right. I respect that. I chucked at the moment, and smiled widely when Catriona got her moment.

It just felt like an apology done well…it “closed the loop” to the initial error in a matter of fact way that says to the world, "We've righted a wrong". 

Thanx, VANOC, for showing the world many good Olympics moments- in my eyes, this was one of the best!

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.