I have now told this story enough times that it has that feeling of both comfortable familiarity and a little distance. Not the raw disorientation of where the-hell-is-the-ground-to-walk-on-I –am- turned-inside-out-feeling that I had at first. At this moment I am numb and I am hoping that writing will take me back into the honesty of my feelings.
The Vanilla
Vanilla cracked me open.
Of course, it was not the vanilla itself, but the miracle that happened after I stood up for the Vanilla, and then was denied, that began this story. Really, it was me standing up for myself, not for the vanilla.
Oh! I am scared to write, but I must write. I have resisted feeling this pain - pain that I have comfortably avoided for 18 years. Until now I did not have to be conscious of the lie. Now there is no turning back. Before the vanilla, I lived day by day in the illusion of contentment, the illusion of a strong and healthy marriage. Now, I have opened to feeling honestly, rather than stuffing feeling, making excuses, glossing over the details for the grandeur of the big picture, or denying that I feel anything. It is the vanilla experience that woke me up to feeling pain and deep hurt in my marriage. I began to FEEL - and the castle walls crumbled.
It was a simple request. I wanted to have plenty of vanilla even though the price of it had skyrocketed. I asked my husband to put the vanilla in his yogurt in the kitchen rather than bringing the bottle to the breakfast table where 8 people of varying fine motor abilities were likely to over use it. I thought he agreed. The next morning however, the vanilla was brought to the table and a bold statement was made in front of the household. I felt shamed and so hurt. I left the room and wept. I cried initially because my request was denied and even ridiculed. I felt ashamed. I cried and cried. I didn’t know why I wept, but the floodgates had opened and there was no stopping the wave of pain that crashed, hard onto a very thin shoreline.
It has taken weeks to sort through the rubble to discern what actually happened in my psyche at this excruciatingly painful moment. A bit of history helps to make things more clear. Fred and I have been together since 1986 when I was 24 years old. We were full of more than our fair share of idealism. We first met through the intense and transformational umbrella of Vision Quest work. Through a series of healing sweat lodges we got to know each other on a deeply personal level. I was thrilled when romance entered into the dynamic – I had been attracted to his charisma for a while – and was ready, after several painful affairs, for the “real” thing. I opened my heart and wanted to be with him. At some point early on however, he put the brakes on and I got scared that I would loose him. He wanted to work together to create a wilderness/ vision quest program and suddenly our ideals became the center of our relationship. We had meetings where we would sit naked at a waterfall in the glittering sunlight and plan programs – programs in which we would guide people to uncover their full potential. I wanted to be with Fred, and if this was the only way he would have me, I was willing to do it, even if I was suffocating my heart.
The problem is, or was, that I did not know that I was suffocating my heart. My pathology, which is all about living life for other people, matched his lofty ideals perfectly. It was far too scary for me to be honest and tell him that I wanted more in our relationship – especially since it was likely to push him away entirely. I settled for what was safe and slowly, romance entered back into our relationship, but by now, our driven idealism was secured in the front row position. Over the last 18 years, we led many wilderness programs together and spent endless hours and thousands of dollars trying to strengthen a Waldorf school that closed just as our own children became school age. A central theme throughout the years was that of intentional community living. We initiated, with others, hundreds of letters and meetings in the hopes of creating a living community that would meet our ideals. Our relationship, in the mean time, was challenged continually by my inability to be intimate and Fred’s attractions to other women. Yet somehow we stayed together – both by a deep love and by the strength of my pathology. I now see that my pathology protected me from feeling the deep pain and hurt has been present from the very early days of our relationship.
My work for the last few years has been one version or another of “Feel your feelings!” Ever so gradually the miracle has been happening and I am distinguishing the difference between the “noise” of my more familiar angst from the peacefulness of simply being present. My homework dream during the vanilla experience, was:
A man, the Animus, was showing me a window by my bed that looked out onto a beautiful garden. This was a revelation since I had been looking out the window that faced the noisy road. He reached up into the curtain and picked up a large spider. He gently brought it outside and began looking at it very carefully. Then he squashed it! The dream shifted and I was standing beside the Anima at the sink feeling very peaceful and there were flowers and clear water in the sink.
Right now, I am struck by the image of the Animus looking so carefully at this spider before killing it. I had another dream after this one in which the animus and I are looking at a gruesome dead monster. These moments of close inspection, of carefully looking at something that is a bit repulsive - something I don’t really want to look at – this is what I am needing to do right now, with my past. And then, I must quietly stand beside the Anima, feeling the peacefulness of her presence wash over my wounds.