Tag Archives: relationships
Photography 101: Connect
The prompt says, “There are many ways to interpret this theme: from a gadget to a handshake, from a bridge to a gathering among friends. What’s yours?” Well, I have two. One is quite literal, and I think it’s a strong image:
“Blessed be the ties that bind….”
If you’re a sailor, there’s nothing more important than well-connected lines. This is concrete understanding of the physical world. It means something right away. Here’s one that’s a bit more intuitive:
Sisters
How strong is this image? Well, it is emotionally powerful to me. These are my two living sisters. We had just learned that Sarah’s husband has cancer. I was visiting them in California. We get together; Dharam greets Sarah with a hug, I pull out my camera. How do you connect? (I hugged her, too, BTW)
Photography 101: Bliss
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” – from Les Mis
Touch
I promessi sposi
Weekly Photo Challenge: Zigzag
“The quickest way between two points might be a straight line, but it’s rarely the most interesting one. ” So begins the teasing prompt for this week’s photo challenge. I’m a pretty straightforward kind of person, myself. Steve calls it “The Train”. I get my sights set on a goal, and I steam on ahead without getting diverted. And often without being aware of people and feelings and other things that are, well, rather important.
Now, I’m not saying this is a BAD way to be. It can be useful. I get things done. But it’s not the only way to be, either. Steve is definitely a preferred zig-zagger. He calls it playing his “bowling pin” game, which goes something like this: set up the pins in their starting formation and bowl. Wherever the pins have been scattered, set them back up exactly where they are now. Continue bowling toward the pins in their new place. Eventually, you get a game that has ranged all over the house, the yard, the neighbor’s yard, and down the block. Hey! This could go ANYWHERE!!! Isn’t that EXCITING?! Yup, he’s an adventurer. And life with him has definitely opened up new possibilities for me.
We have managed to travel pretty successfully for more than 5 years now. I am pretty good at going off track now and enjoying it greatly. One bit of advice, though. If your GPS system should happen to fail, don’t ask him for directions. Ask me. You’ll be at your destination in under an hour with plenty of gas to spare. Trust me. 🙂
© 2014, essay and photographs, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved
Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections
This week, in a post created specifically for this challenge, show us an image that says REFLECTION.
It could be a person who helps you see things clearly, a place you go to collect your thoughts, or an object that reminds you of your achievements. You could also go for something more literal, like a reflection in water. Or something that demonstrates both interpretations of the word.
Creek crossing
“A person who helps you see things clearly…”
What would you say about someone who meets you in your greatest grief, who doesn’t turn away but faces the tough questions with you, offering presence, not answers? Someone who challenges you to pursue those questions and discover the emotions they evoke, the hopes, the fears, the identity that emerges from within…and who then asks you to decide who you want to be? Someone who promises simply to be aware and who asks simply for your awareness?
Steve met me 8 months after my husband of 24 years died. I was in a state of profound transition, the fabric and framework of my homespun in complete collapse. On our first date, we hiked around glacial terrain, enjoying the fall colors and talking. Beside Nippersink Creek, I stopped. I became silent. I no longer wanted to fill the space between us with words and thoughts. I was finally unafraid to be aware that I was with him, in a new place, with a new person, as a new life was beginning. He sat beside me, quiet and reflective as well. What I saw clearly was that Life is beautiful and that death does not diminish that one bit.
Relationships: Why U R Doin’ It Wrong
Steve brought me a book we’d sold. “There are a few light pencil marks in the quiz section. Could you please erase them before we ship this out?” I glanced at the cover. Getting To “I Do”: The Secret to Doing Relationships ‘Right’ by Dr. Patricia Allen.
Oh, dear.
I breathe a sympathetic sigh. I grieve for our culture, for social creatures with neuroses fueled by the media, insecurities about whether or not we will be loved, cared for, valued, mated and saved from personal extinction. Our fears are inflamed, and then ‘experts’ step in to tell us the magic or the scientific formula that will save us. Just take a look at the Yahoo! “Dating Tips & Advice” section: How to Stop Falling for Ms./Mr. Maybe, Happiest Couples, Tips to Get the Love You Want Instead of Settling, Traits Unhappy Couples Have in Common, etc. I imagine it’s big media business. How many of these articles simply recycle the ‘statistics’ from identical studies which probably report varying results? We are in a research culture that strives to control and predict, a desperate attempt to apply a balm to those neuroses that we irritate with obsessive attention.
Let’s take a step out of that arena, shall we? Let’s take the relationship out of the Petri dish and place it back into the organic garden. How do you learn about a growing organism? Attention, observation, action and response. Over time, the bloom becomes less a ‘specimen’ than a personality. It is unique. It is dynamic. It is not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. It IS. And the more honest you are in your interactions with it, the more you trust it…to be itself.
And where do we find guidance in this garden of real relationships? In stories. There are billions and billions of relationship stories out there. Some are fact, some are fiction. Many of the fictions center around the magical or formulaic as well, but the ones that really inspire are the ones that are singular and sincere. They give us the hope that our own inimitable story may be just as satisfying.
I have relationship stories of my own, and they are very important to me. I have a yearning to share them, with my children and with anyone else who may be listening. Why? Because I hope that my practice of observing and appreciating the slow unfolding of a delicate bloom will spark the same in someone else, that our posture in relationships will become less that of a victim on the couch, more that of a poet in the garden.
© 2014, essay and photograph, Priscilla Galasso, All rights reserved
Advent Day #24 – Love
This is the last entry from my series of posts two years ago. Not much has changed in my love for my family, except that those “significant otters” have become more formally (and legally) incorporated into the clan and that the arena of family celebration has moved from my duplex to my daughter’s house (and will take place on Saturday). The snow is deep and sparkly here in Milwaukee. Steve was out the door before 6 a.m. to deliver mail and packages for the US Postal Service. Last night, he didn’t come home until 8:30 p.m. The temperature is -2 degrees Fahrenheit (without the wind chill factor) this morning. If you get a mail delivery today, give your carrier a warm smile and your gratitude and appreciation. Remember the free gifts that come to you each day, regardless of season, with no carbon footprint. Live life in gratitude and happiness and peace. The world will benefit.
How About Love?
My December countdown was completed yesterday. I did not have a chance to post about the gift of love because I was living it. My four children plus two “significant otters” came over for feasting and gifting and sleeping over. All six of them ended up on the living room floor under mountains of sleeping bags and pillows and blankets, just like they used to when they were kids in a cousins pile. Except now, they’re all adults — beautiful, interesting, caring, amazing adults who actually like each other. And me. How did I get to be so blessed? This morning, I repaid them all for years of running in and jumping on my king-sized bed full of eager energy at an early hour on Christmas. I dived onto their sleeping bags one at a time and gave them a great big hug and kiss.
We have lived through a lot together. And we have lived through a lot separately. Their lives matter to me in a way that I can barely describe. Steve keeps challenging me to come up with ways to articulate what this is. He has no children, and philosophically wonders why family is esteemed so highly. “Oxytocin,” my daughter replied one day. That explains one level of it, I suppose. My biology has loaded me with hormones that make me love my kids. My religion loaded me with beliefs that urged me to love my kids. My experience of life has loaded me with the joys of loving my kids. And my kids are just plain lovable. I can agree with the reasoning behind his argument that all people are equally valuable, but I just can’t help feeling that my kids are more valuable…to me. Yes, I’m playing favorites shamelessly without really understanding why. Is it possible that evolution favors fiercely loving families? Do they tend to be larger and survive better? This might have negative effects on the planet in terms of population. Would it be better for the world if we were less filial and more agape in our love? Less sentimental and more altruistic?
Table fellowship
I don’t think that I am going to do justice to the topic of love in a scholarly way when I am full of mince pie, chocolate, and happy memories of the hours I just spent. I am starting to sink into that melancholy that bubbles up when all of the guests have gone home and you ask yourself if you can be truly happy without that rush of energy and affection. Of course, I am happy and even more peaceful living without all my children still under my roof. I am in love with the world, in love with my partner, and in love with my children every day. And it is marvelous.
Advent Day #20 – Wisdom
Wise and Otherwise
December 20. The 20th free gift of the month is something that can be acquired, but cannot be bought. I don’t think that it can be given, either. The gift is Wisdom. According to Wikipedia, “Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding.” In other words, “To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) However, “We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” (George Bernard Shaw) And finally, “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” (Mohandas K. Gandhi)
It would seem, then, that wisdom is something that can be acquired in living with awareness and engaging humbly with experiences. It seems to me, though, that you can’t give someone the benefit of this process. You might point out the process and talk about its benefit, you might set up the beginning of the process, but you can’t impart the journey or the result. It has to be lived. I’m a mother; trust me on this. I wanted to give my children wisdom more than anything, probably for selfish reasons. I wanted to be spared the pain. I wanted to spare them the pain. I asked God to give them wisdom…like on a magic platter descending from heaven…but spare them the pain. Can’t be done. Wisdom is born of pain and suffering and effort and failure. You have to be awake through it all as well. You can’t gain wisdom while you’re anesthetized. I’ve made a great discovery, though. This process is a great equalizer. Keeping Gandhi’s wisdom in mind, my children and I are fellow travelers on this path. We share our stories as friends, we perhaps contribute insights to this process, but we cannot assume the roles of provider and receiver. I try to remember that as I talk to them. It is too easy for me to slip into the “teacher” role and begin to spew language about what they “should” do and what is the “right” way to do something. I often issue too many reminders and begin to sound like I’m micro-managing them. They notice. They mention it. I have to challenge myself to be wiser and trust them to be wise.
I remember the day my father told me that something I said was wise. It felt like a great victory for me. I was 19 or 20. I had been talking to my oldest sister about some article I had read in an evangelical Christian newsletter taking issue with science and carbon dating. My father was eavesdropping from the breakfast room and jumped on the subject by voicing some objection to the fact that the money he was paying for my college education hadn’t stopped me from discoursing like an ignoramus. I was scared of his strong emotion, ashamed of myself, and angry at his insult. Embarrassed and hurt, I fled. We didn’t speak for 3 days. I realized that he wasn’t going to apologize to me or mention the event on his own, so I decided I needed to take the initiative to talk to him about my emotions, clear the air, and try to restore our relationship. I’d never talked to my father about our relationship very much before. He was always right, often angry, and anything that was amiss was my fault. I also knew that he would not show his emotions, that it would be a “formal discussion” on his part, but that I would probably not be able to contain my tears, making me feel foolish and not his equal. I decided to brave the consequences and approach him with Kleenex in hand. I began to talk, and cry, and tell him how I felt. Then he asked me if I wanted an apology. “What do you want me to say?” I told him that part was up to him. My dictating an apology to him would be meaningless. That’s when he said, “That is very wise.” Suddenly, I felt I had grown up and been respected as an equal to my father in some way. What I understood or didn’t understand about evolution and carbon dating and creation didn’t matter to me any more. That I had been able to navigate emotions with my father and repair a broken relationship was far more significant.
Dad & me in 1992. Photo by my 8 year old daughter.
Wisdom isn’t easy to get, but it is available. If you pursue it, you’ll probably get it eventually. It’s completely avoidable, though, if you so choose. I know which way I want to go, so I’ll keep paddling my canoe and checking the horizon. For those of you heading the same way, STEADY ON! I salute you.
Advent Day #18 – Honesty
Honestly!
Where is there dignity unless there is Honesty? — Cicero
Today I’m parading Honesty around the block, free for the taking – a gift for December. Does it cost to be honest? There definitely are consequences to being honest. Integrity, for instance, but sometimes something much more harsh. Here’s a Socrates Cafe question: is it ever morally defensible to tell a lie? Here’s a Biblical philosophical question: what is truth? (For 3 pieces of cheese, tell me who asked this question to whom? For all the cheese in Wisconsin, tell me why that person never answered?!) *n.b. – My father used to play a game with us that we called “Bible Questions for Cheese”. He would quiz us on our Biblical knowledge after dinner and reward us with bites from his cheese platter as he finished off his bottle of wine.
Which kind of honesty is the most difficult for you and why? Telling yourself the truth about yourself, telling someone else the truth about yourself, telling yourself the truth about another, or telling your truth about another to that other?
Self-deception can be pretty intractable. How do you even know that you’re not telling yourself the truth about yourself? Do you have to depend on someone else telling you the truth about you? How would someone else even know the truth about you? I suppose I approach this by going the second route first. I try telling someone else the truth about myself to see if they can believe it’s the truth. This would seem like madness to some people. Why are look looking outside yourself? Why wouldn’t you trust yourself to know yourself? How could anyone else know you better? I have heard quoted many times, “Lean not on your own understanding”, and I suppose I took that to heart. So now, I’m working on trying to be honest with myself and to trust myself. This takes some courage and a lot of forgiveness.
Telling the truth about myself to others is something that I want to do. It saves me the trouble of having to come up with a lie. It allows me to get that feedback I need to find out if I’m deceiving myself. But sometimes, I detect that TMI reaction. Too Much Information divulged to your own offspring, for example, is not at all welcome. Especially when they’re young. I’ve done that a few times. More often, I told them the truth about things, facts, at an early age that others did not think was appropriate. For example, I told them that Santa is fictional. I told them the correct names of body parts. (My oldest was 4, I think, when she gave a word for the letter ‘V’ that rather shocked her nursery school teacher.) I told them that their father had coronary artery disease. (Again, my oldest could draw an anatomically correct heart from memory at the age of 6.)
Ducks can walk on water. It’s the truth!
Telling myself the truth about another has been difficult only on a few occasions that I recall. Telling myself that my father was not God and was not perfect was one. Telling myself that my husband was dying was another. However, in those situations, the truth was very valuable, and the difficulty was well worth it. I guess that means I defend more delusions about myself than about those whom I love. I believe that shattering delusions about myself will be similarly painful but beneficial, so I’m willing to keep at that.
Telling ‘your’ truth about another to that other is what Steve likes doing the most in relationships. He doesn’t usually “tell” so much as he questions in order to draw out an opportunity for the person to tell the truth about him/herself. He calls it “being challenging” or “being intense”, and he considers it a supreme act of love. And he does it kindly, in my opinion, but more importantly, he is conscious of trying to do it kindly. It isn’t always received that way, though. Sometimes, no matter how tactful and kind you try to be, that ‘other’ is not going to want to hear your truth. Hopefully, that reaction is only temporary. Getting to the point of engaging with truth in a relationship is an important step to intimacy. It’s what being ‘truly loving’ is all about. It takes grace to invite someone to that point in a way that is non-threatening. I appreciate therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists everywhere who take up that practice in the name of love.
Advent Day #17 – Companions
A truly wonderful aspect of Life: that we never walk alone. Counting the days and the ways that we are given good things in abundance.
Who Could Ask For Anything More?
Companions. The gift of friendship, togetherness, to know we’re not alone.
Steve brought me breakfast in bed this morning. I am having one of my cyclical let-downs, when I have wearied myself in contending with life and death and love and loss. We were discussing E.M. Forster’s novel “A Room With A View” when this came on. Hormones, of course, have everything to do with it as well. Lucy Honeychurch gets “peevish” when she plays Beethoven, and I get “peevish” reading Mr. Emerson’s speech on life and “muddles”. Steve gets Slavic and moody listening to Mahler, or perhaps he listens to Mahler when he feels moody and Slavic. We are beginning to know each other’s moods better and better. And I really believe we are lucky, blessed, in a state of grace in that we accept those moods and are not threatened by the most peculiar of them. That’s why he’s my best friend.
I’ve never had a lot of friends, and all of my best friends have been male. Maybe that’s because I grew up with 3 older sisters. I am a little suspicious of females. I have a feeling it’s because I compare myself to them far too much. A sly competitiveness creeps in and makes me uneasy. I pull away. With guys, I don’t compare. I can be ‘other’ and so can he. It seems simpler. It’s a mindset that should apply to females as well except for my own perverse insistence that it can’t. Growing up, I played with a boy who was a year younger than I and lived two doors down. We were best friends for 9 years. We played in the woods across the street. We played house and wedding, and he was always the bride. He had older step-sisters who kept being married off, and I think he found that really enchanting.
Brother & sister and best of friends
Friends to suffer with your moods, enjoy the stuff of life, travel with you through adventures of all kinds. Old friends, new friends. Situational companions. Steve likes to imagine how he’d be if he were stuck in an elevator with a few people for hours. He would definitely skip the small talk about the predicament and enjoy a captive opportunity to get to know them really well. He’s kind of intense like that. Scares some people. Yesterday, I saw a news video about a policeman who crawled under a bus to hold the hand of a 24 year old woman who was run over and pinned. The photo of them together on the asphalt and his interview afterward just filled my heart. I know what it’s like to be so afraid and just to cling to another person for the reminder that we are never alone in our fears. We suffer together. We are interconnected. And if anything is God, it is there as well. Presence. Abiding. Being with each other. It is the ultimate ‘yes’ of living. Which brings me back to Forster and Mr. Emerson. “In his ordinary voice, so that she scarcely realized he was quoting poetry, he said:
“‘From far, from eve and morning/ And yon twelve-winded sky/ The stuff of life to knit me/ Blew hither: here am I’
“George and I both know this, but why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another and work and rejoice. I don’t believe in this world sorrow.” Miss Honeychurch assented. “Then make my boy think like us. Make him realize that by the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes — a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.”
Ah, Yes. To love one another and work and rejoice. Companioned. Who could ask for anything more?
scillagrace 
