March 8

Reading about Anne Hauerwas

The account Hannah’s Child is quite stunningly reminiscent of life with Bridget. “Double bind” games. Yet, it seems a little like Stanley is a little self serving in his account, even as I have thought I was probably being self protective in my own accounts. Wikipedia and An article.
I just have no doubt that I have had to live with craziness, and yet I haven’t figured it out quite so succinctly as has Stanley. Also, I am jealous of the fact that he evidently didn’t lose his children, but probably I should leave that aside for the moment. I am afraid for Lydia and Emma. After all, a significant part of his story is the connection between Anne’s history and her mother’s. What will be the legacy of all of this to the girls? Mary Pat is quick to point to them as the real victims in all of this.
But I could just try to dwell on my struggle to get free from over 20 years’ life with craziness that is still not perceived as craziness by some. I need to note that my spiritual director of some 7-8 years was an early advocate that I was living in a toxic environment that was self-destructive.
The other night we watched the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley in which Matt Damon plays a “socio-path.” Ebert had said of the movie that it was “excellent” because we identified with the protagonist, even though he was evil. Mary Pat and I commented on how he came out a winner, in the end, and against our every expectation. From the first murder on I anticipated the moment when his world would come crashing down. Instead, at the end of the movie, it seemed very likely that not only had he escaped judgment but that he had found success.

March 7

Time marches on

In the heavy duty meeting at school today, someone made reference to that truism. The meaning there was that while we fritter away at disfunctional inertia and back-tracking, stupid mistakes etc. The real business at hand must be attended to.
It reminded of the question from the past days about how to be a peacemaker in the midst of a situation that is so fraught, so tied in knots, the alienation and distrust so deep, that even simple, “Good morning” is not possible?
My intuition was to say that it’s not always possible to be a peacemaker. That making peace requires a kairos moment.
But I’m not really sure I believe that.

Julian’s call

I responded like the father in Chapin’s “Cat’s Cradle.” I was so grateful to get a call from my son. He was apologetic at having an over-busy life and not responding to messages. I was glad that he was ok and that we were now talking.
As parents the tables get turned at a certain point. Owen expressed his sense of responsibility for his mother, for her well-being, and for her future housing several years ago. I wondered then whether I would ever have that experience of a child thinking about me and my well-being. I guessed probably, “no” was the answer.
I thought about the cultural dynamics I have become aware of here in Hawai’i where parents and the elderly are held in high regard.
It makes me think of how our country gives mouth service to respecting elderly and children, but doesn’t really provide it.

March 6

from trial

haunted

by the woman who wouldn’t listen and announced that none could change her mind. I told the story to my class and to friends last night that she spent the full time of deliberations with her hands folded across her chest and making eye contact with the corners of the room. When she was addressed she made responses like, “Are you talking to me?”

I’ve said “angry”, but is it? Frustration? At the system? I was looking for a way to connect with her and ran out of time. My therapist cocked her ear when I mentioned my anger. She wondered whether I felt the anger directed at the woman herself in front of me. She asked whether I was angry at someone disagreeing with me or whether it was some part of the process. I said that, indeed, it was the process and I felt perfectly fine with someone coming to a different conclusion from myself.

what is the back story?

The same way that I look at people in airports or malls and immediately begin to imagine a lifestory behind the face or the posture or the movement of the person through the space. I feel guilty when I do that. I imagine that somehow I am reading something into the most fleeting of glimpses. At the moment I think about the cartoonist who portrayed the man and his dog walking through the streets of New York. I think it must have been from The New Yorker. That artist must have read much into the glimpses that he saw.


I also imagine that there may be something of the fiction writer in me. Perhaps it is just the rather developed empathy function that I possess.

why didn’t she sympathize?

My first thought was that the woman had been beaten herself and so traumatized by the event. Wrong assumption? Or that she was responding the way an abused woman acts when she can’t separate herself, physically or emotionally from the person who is abusing her. As the trial was in its early stages I had wondered about the gender makeup of the jury. It was approximately equal. It turns out that whether one is sympathetic to the man’s “less-than-credible-story” was not a matter of gender.