Old Artificer, Stand Me Now and Forever in Good Stead

The above, the apartment that Lovejoy found in Durham- a note written in her hand- just noticing now the strange placement of the apostrophes, no dot on the i. It's fascinating to me that, when I'm in love with a woman, even her handwriting turns me on. Finding that note and seeing her handwriting reminded me of all the letters we wrote, discarded years ago in an attempt to get free of her (in spite of hanging on to the above note for 40 years- don't judge me- I do what I want). Google maps says the apartments have been torn down and replaced by condos. Zillow says the median rent in Durham now is $1135 for a one bedroom. It turns out the Douglas Street area is highly gentrified now, a little over a mile from Duke U, and a studio in that area is $1950. That boggles. 

Somehow, my mother and father and one of my siblings and I were gathered in the living room, maybe at Thanksgiving. It seemed the opportune time to announce that I was moving out, and that Lovejoy and I were going to live together in Durham. My father laughed so hard, he feigned falling off the piano bench. "As water is for fish, so is contempt for the contemptible," says my old pal Wm. Blake. This was the atmosphere in which I tried to navigate a transition to adulthood. I can understand why my father thought it was unlikely that I would make a go of it as a writer, I can understand why he thought I was not college material ("based on how you finished high school and how you're acting, it would be a total waste of money"), and I can understand why he thought my plan to move in with Lovejoy in Durham was flimsy. I had provided him with ample evidence that I was none too functional- in fact, the kind of evidence that, these days, would land an adolescent in some serious psychiatric and therapeutic care. But his Kronos-like devouring of even the last shreds of self worth, dignity and a sense of manhood were sick and poisonous, rooted in his own history and really, God knows what else. I have since done repeated work around my resentments toward him, and have made great headway. A great gift of the programs of recovery- to let him off the hook for the unskilled ways he responded to my stumbling attempts to become myself. But the fact remains- at a time of massive upheaval, confusion and lack of skill and experience for me, I had no father and no other adult mentor- in fact, more accurately, I had an active adversary. I knew nothing about the practicalities of life. I had, also, little emotional intelligence and had not been nurtured for emotion regulation, validation, perspective or any other kind of even baseline wisdom. 

So I left home, under an archetypal father's curse, mother's anxiety and moral judgment, Lovejoy's parents equally appalled, everyone playing all the expected roles given the situation. I vividly recall Lovejoy picking me up predawn, January 2 1980, the big old Buick which her parents had given her (in which we had had dozens of makeout sessions just two years previously- nothing like the capacious cars of the '70's and bench seats!) packed to the gills with our meager possessions, and off we went to Durham, making the drive in one day. 

I also vividly recall my jumble of feelings, which had no outlet for expression. The surface transaction was ugly and angry- my father saw me off by saying that he thought it was a huge mistake, and that we couldn't expect any support. Something like: "I can't believe you're actually doing this idiotic thing." I told him as kindly as I could that that was fine, we knew what we were doing and we wouldn't need any support. He was disgusted. One thing about my father that was always true was that he wore his emotions on his face, and however he felt was always clearly visible no matter what he said- he provided me with all of my early training in becoming enmeshed in facial expressions and body language. And at this time of my life, anything and everything that I planned, thought of, valued and the entire way I saw the world was all shit, as far as he was concerned- unrealistic, foolish, stupid and "boneheaded." It somehow never occurred to him to approach me with understanding and respect, and say, let's talk about how we can collaborate on your transition out of here. He didn't have any fathering or mentoring skills at all. I was absolutely not worth his time. 

My mother, on the other hand, said she was worried, drive safe, call us when you get there, and she was trying to be cheerful. She did not wear her emotions on her face or anywhere else- she had three emotional settings, basically- pathologically cheerful, childishly sad or insanely enraged. Otherwise she was always distant and inscrutable, and, obviously, provided a completely different kind of training from my father's. Her only available counterweight to my father's global disapproval of me was to cheerfully say "you're great, you can do anything you set your mind to." I didn't exist in any real way for either of them. 

If I had been constitutionally more oriented toward believing in myself in the face of their abandonment, resilient and confident and less sensitive and prone to take everything they thought of me to heart, I may have been able to navigate my way clear of these realities more successfully. I have always been amazed by and envied people who do not take things to heart. Instead, they look at themselves with some perspective, try to see if the criticism is valid, and make their own judgment. This is a skill I have only started cultivating in the past 10 years or so. I've been greatly assisted by recovery people in this- a simple question like my first sponsor's in regard to my father's opinion of me as a writer- "has he ever read anything you've written?"- sets the stage for having a more clear-eyed response to criticism. 

It's helpful somehow for me to recall that my father was 38 and my mother 37 at this time. And they had had 18 years of failures as parents- so many stories I could tell of all the ways the family dysfunction played out for me and my three older sibs. And my father's life was falling apart at work (which meant that his entire identity was falling apart), and my mother was soon to find out that he had been having "an affair" with a sex worker in Pittsburgh for years (she found a canceled check "for a lot of money" made out to a woman- who does that? A man who wants to get caught, probably- and this is still the "big family secret," relayed to my sister by my intoxicated mother in the Rainbow Room in New York City, relayed to me by my sister while I was a sophomore at Racism College- more on all of that someday). All of the transitions out of the house for all of my siblings were either still underway (my oldest brother still living at home at 24) or had been extremely rocky (my sister having gotten married at age 18 to the boy next door who was 27, and the two of them running off to Long Island), and the brother two years older than I toeing some kind of weird line and going to the Naval Academy- the one thing that ever made my father proud about any of us- and yet, quite soon after my departure and while I was "shacking up" with Lovejoy, my brother would face the choice they force you to make at the Naval Academy after two years: sign on for at least 7 more years, or leave, no questions asked- and he left, and got back together with his high school sweetheart, and they got married, and he went to seminary- intending to join the priestly class, which my father utterly despised. 

In all of these ways (and more!) all of his children were a complete disappointment to my father, and he wore his contempt openly. Individuation was not a thing. None of us existed in any real way for our parents. Our existence was entirely contingent and relative to their own, and they were largely ashamed. (Picture also that my father was a diehard Nixon fan even after Nixon's resignation, a dyed in the wool conservative first utterly appalled by what he saw as the complete collapse of America in the '60's and then the repulsive disco/sexual revolution/drug insanity of the '70's- so that the microcosm of our family echoed the chaos and dissolution of America- the one bright spot for my father at this time must have been Reagan's election, finally the country got something right, it was the dawning of a new day to make America great again, no more apologizing and no more handouts! etc.)  

Anyway, I felt all of these things: enraged, frustrated, vengeful, humiliated, belittled, embarrassed, self doubting, anxious, rebellious, excited, shunted into total enmeshment with Lovejoy as a result of total abandonment by everyone else. But, and this is only natural, yet provided disturbing contrast- I was sad to be leaving home. I wasn't ready to leave home. (Counselors I have worked with over the past 30 years: "Why are you sad to be leaving this 1000th incredibly toxic situation you've been in?" Me: "Flummox.") I was sad to be folding myself up into Lovejoy's existing life, and not setting out as the proud male artist writer musician individualist. I was scared shitless. 

This emotionally dislocated transition, covered over by "ugh, I am so fucking glad to be leaving, so glad we are doing this, how exciting, I love you, good riddance to bad rubbish" set the stage for many other dislocating transitions in my life. Especially the face and pretense of The Chariot, the heart more like the Six of Swords or Eight of Cups. 

The three departure cards in the tarot- The Chariot is the archetype of swift, triumphant and free departure. The six of swords is the card of mournful departure into the unknown, while burdened by many thoughts of the past and projecting into the future. The eight of cups is the card of the mysterious and sad emotional departure, leaving behind a loved one, grieving the end of a valued phase of life. 

What also occurs to me is that the only other transition I had known up to this time had been 13 years earlier, when my father announced at dinner that we were moving from our house in Dunellen NJ to the house in Bethlehem PA. What I recall was looking up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the spinning angel Christmas contraption, spun by the hot air that rose from the candles lit below. Listening to the bells, which little metal rods attached to the angels struck, as they went around and around. 

Feeling terrified. I was deeply attached, at five. to my life in Dunellen. I had a girlfriend down the street, a cute blond kid named Cindy Dayton. I had the familiar life there. I didn't want to move. Yet- everyone was expressing such cheerfulness and excitement about it. I don't think I showed my fear and inner resistance to moving, or my sadness. I don't recall the kind of reaction my feelings would have gotten, typically: "It's silly to feel that way! Everything will be so much better there!" I don't recall much else, except that I know that I went from teacher's pet in my kindergarten class in Dunellen- quiet, shy, well behaved, diligent- to class clown, problem child in the kindergarten in Bethlehem- notes home all the time, disruptive, show off. I was in that mode of arousing frustration and exasperation in my teachers for the next five years or so. I also have a ton of memories from ages 3-5 in Dunellen, and hardly any memories at all from 5 to about 7 in Bethlehem. 

I have often wondered why transitions are so fraught and sudden for me (not to mention so frequent- and I acknowledge that transition is difficult for everyone, at any baseline), laden with layers of mixed feelings that are usually unexpressed, forced or not well planned, and it's obvious that many moves and transitions have been an attempt at re-enacting this primal move with Lovejoy but getting it right, finally. "Getting it right" has appeared in many different forms: basically, it looks like I know what I am doing, I'm throwing my lot in with a woman where "it will be different this time," (often with more or less "you and me against the world" energy) and I am displaying competence and wisdom in the move. Or, when I have been ejected- sudden and fierce pulling of the plug, total change with no plan, no steps, nothing processed. As recently as two years ago, in leaving the house with A- our final fight was Feb. 27, and all my stuff was in storage March 1 and I was gone. After a six year partnership. 

Some psychologists find the re-enactment compulsion to be the main motivating force in the lives of dysfunctional people, and I am a prime candidate for that. The whole plot line of a tangled life from age 15 to now comes into crystalline and clear structure seen through that lens. Compulsively re-enacting my transition to adulthood, to manhood and sexual prowess; compulsively re-enacting either the intense oceanic falling in love of the Lovejoy Experience or the friendly, detached and safe Painter experience. Compulsively searching for some way to get it all right, to prove to myself and my introjected parents that I am not the insane, foolish, unskilled "problem child." While my oldest brother was definitely the black sheep of the family for most of the family mythology (including, in my parents's opinion, to this very day, even though he is a pathetic figure dealing with loss of short term memory from having had a stroke, living with his oldest son), I had become the identified patient in the family system. Least Likely to Succeed. "Different" and "with a nervous disposition." "That crazy Percy!" "My address book is full of five pages of your addresses!" hahahahaha. hahaha. ha. 

Anyway, obviously, Lovejoy and I were bound for a life of domestic bliss, excellent communication, mutual support and understanding. The sheer power of our love for each other would magically transform the vast warehouses of dysfunctionality, assumptions, expectations and intense pain we both brought with us, even at 18. That is exactly what happened, and we stayed married for almost 40 years, and now the whole community looks up to us as model partners, parents and functional, kind, wise and emotionally intelligent spiritual leaders. Our Instagram, a couples account, @lovejoynhadesforevs, is the envy of all of our sad and broken, cynical and lonely friends. Our couples Facebook, plastered with college graduations of our successful children and adorable grandchildren, vacations in beautiful places, adoring couples selfies, a source of amazement and inspiration for all. Not to say we didn't go through a lot- but through it all, we always communicated with love and respect, kept the flame of passion for each other alive, and love each other now more than ever. 

I guess we showed them. I guess we finally got it right.