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Antigone canadensis

 

Blood Flowers, collage by Travis Bedel

One of the many unforgettable vistas from Glacier National Park a couple of summers ago

I have been sleeping a lot in the afternoons these days. Up until 11:30 or so. Up at 4 or 5. Work until 4. Sleep until 7. The weather has definitely turned. Winter is around the corner. The nights are cool enough now for the windows to be closed, and the air off. I answered the call and made lentil, carrot, spinach stew with chipotle and cayenne pepper. It's one of the fat stretches of the school year, through October, with solid weeks of classes and few days off, before the weird, disjointed holiday season starts. It's still dark out for a while after I get up at 5. Some of my New Mexico friends are mentioning starting to see Sandhill Cranes. 

Antigone canadensis

The tracking data from a single Sandhill Crane migrating from its arboreal summer in Russia to southern NM

Everything starts to move, to prepare for the winter. A friend of mine from the Great North posted snowstorm pics today. There's not as much drama in SoCal of course, but there are noticeable seasons. The Hunter's Moon on Halloween approaches. 

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha

"You may have a lot of sadness. Acceptance often goes with a lot of sadness actually, but even though you've got sadness, there's a feeling like a burden's lifted. Usually if you've accepted, you feel, well, ready to move on with your life. Sort of feel free, ready to move. So that's what it feels like.

Let's keep going. Pain is pain. Suffering, agony, are pain plus non-acceptance. So if you take pain, and add non-acceptance you end up with suffering. Radical acceptance transforms suffering into ordinary pain." —Marsha Linehan, founder of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

"Let's keep going." Ha, simple. 

I learned a lot from being with a partner who did Dialectical Behavioral Therapy for a long time. The workbook was around and often discussed. There's a few phrases I picked up from it, such as "emotion opposite action" (like, if one feels defeated and hopeless, doing a workout; or if one feels like dying, staying alive instead. For example). One of the phrases and processes that stuck with me was "radical acceptance," as well as "radical validation," starting with simple framework of "observing and describing." 

Although I do not have the symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder, I have benefited from a lot of Marsha Linehan's approach. Thinking about radical validation and radical acceptance helps me get some traction, when I am otherwise struggling, or fighting with reality. "Shaking my fist at the ocean," a friend of mine used to call it. The idea of radical validation has helped me become a much better listener, more tuned to holding space for the experience of other people without trying to "help" them or even think of "the right thing to say." 

This is a good summary of Linehan's "six levels of validation"

1. Paying attention and being awake

2. Accurate reflection

3. Put yourself in the other person's position (read emotions and thoughts, check for accuracy)

4. Validate based on history

5. Validate based on current circumstances

6. Open, nondefensive, radically genuine ("You're feeling this way, because it IS this way.")

Radical genuineness is a true way to meet people, not just a skill for therapists. 

Marsha Linehan herself on radical acceptance:

So, for Linehan, radical acceptance came through a kind of Westernized Buddhist practice, along with other insights. I think this is a common path toward this way of life. 

There's also the famous passage from one of the stories in the back of the book Alcoholics Anonymous. 

My resistance around these themes of radical acceptance has to do with a misinterpretation, that acceptance means either a passive total resignation in every case, or an endorsement of the way things are. I think it's more accurate to say that this kind of acceptance is simply making friends with what is, and, instead of starting from a defiant, oppositional place of struggle, working to begin at the start of what the actual reality is. That contact with reality is truly my version of a power greater than myself. 

I am not naturally predisposed toward this skill. But I feel like I'm getting better at it.  

Point Doom

Point Dume State Beach, north of Malibu

My visitor and I went to Point Dume yesterday, which, thanks to the pandemic, was comparatively unpopulated, for a Saturday in October. I remember when I moved to Los Angeles the last time, back in 2002, and hearing people talk about "Point Doom," and wondering why it had such a dastardly name. it turns out that the beach was named in honor of someone named Dumetz, but the name on the map was misspelled "Dume," and that was never corrected. 

It was a glorious beach day, the perfect temperature, a great onshore breeze, and lots of happy people everywhere, but all masked and distanced. The visit was low key, social, relaxing and with zero anything weird. She and I are both late September Virgos and we see the world in a ton of similar ways, even with the age difference of 32 years. She got some time to work out some clarity around how and why her relationship ended. It seemed helpful to run things by me and get that outside perspective. For example, she has to have a difficult conversation with the guy who broke up with her via text, because now he wants to get back together, and she definitely is not into it. She was wondering if she should text him and tell him to be sober for the conversation or she won't come over. I get it, but it struck me that a). let him do what he always does and see, b). it wouldn't change that she doesn't want to be with him romantically, and c). if she feels she has to warn him to be sober, isn't that just even more clear info that this thing is not going to work? These are the kinds of clear thoughts that people outside of a situation can be capable of. 

Mostly, for me, it was astonishing to realize that, apart from a new faculty orientation day that was in person on August 5, and the CPR training that I did in September, and brief interactions to get takeout or groceries, I have not socialized with anyone since May. She and I were sitting across from each other talking and I was feeling that it was super awkward. Just doing this normal thing, having a conversation. I felt very out of practice. It is also the case that, even before the pandemic, I had entered full hermit mode. I think the last real social engagement with a friend was when I defended my dissertation and one of my most long term brother-friends made the trip out and we hung out. February 29. But, even before that, hardly any social time for so long. The PhD process enforced a ton of solitude. Being in a long distance romance enforced solitude. Being myself enforced solitude. For months. 

The visitor with her meme mask

The interesting thing about the visit, also, was that it reminded me to carve out the time to get out into the great places that are not very far from where I live, and that, oddly, the pandemic is the perfect time to do so. Since California is relatively sane and everyone is masking up, for the most part, and traffic is lighter than it otherwise would be, it makes for good timing. Even so, traffic was very slow coming back down the PCH, after we took a short drive up into Ventura County for me to revisit some beaches I used to go to with my dog back in 2002/2003. But it's not an unpleasant slow down along the ocean.

Toward the end of the afternoon at Point Dume, a dense fog bank rolled in. I love the Pacific fogs. This morning it was thick as "pea soup," as the saying goes. Probably a sign of the weather turning toward winter. 

 

Beach Day

 A friend and former student, who was just dumped by a long term boyfriend via text message, is visiting, and we are headed up through Malibu to Point Dume. I wonder how crowded it will be on a pandemic Saturday in October. It's one of those blue sky, clear October days, made even more so by the usual clearing effect of fall winds (which, sadly, also lead to fires). 

I always mark Miles Davis's beachfront condo when I drive through Malibu. I forget exactly how I found out the address. But it's right along the PCH. 

This past week teaching was nuts. If I didn't have a visitor, I would probably just sleep all day today. It was just one of those huge tidal wave weeks of being very busy. Even after 33 years of teaching, I don't fully understand why some weeks come along that are like that, and others are very chill. 

Anyway, a series of Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa flower pics, all from the same hillside, near Florence, showing the incredible variety of flower color morphs. And a few scenic shots of Florence AZ. Go easy on your eyes. Walk in beauty. Look both ways, though. 

When she came into her power

 Some good new This is the Kit, coming out October 23. 

Haiku

 

From last year in AZ. I keep wanting to buy sunflowers here, but all the ones I have seen look awful

A sort of amusing meme resurfaced thanks to FB memories, this morning. 

And this reminded me of someone I knew whose partner didn't know what haiku was, and they had this visceral reaction that, really, they just needed to get out of the partnership. Some of you instantly know this moment, and it makes perfect sense. Others might find it weird, or an overreaction, or perhaps fundamentally unkind. Why not just explain to one's partner what a haiku is? 

All well and good. But some know the beleaguered experience of having to explain jokes to the person with whom one spends the majority of one's time. My own long term thing with A that ended in 2017 was characterized by these missed references, tiresome moments where she "just didn't get it," and me telling myself it was okay, it wasn't that big of a deal, but feeling more and more lonely. 

The plain truth is that there's a real fundamental benefit to two people sharing common cultural knowledge. There's no imperative to be with people who don't know what we know, who don't "get it." Preferences are very real and completely indifferent to ethics. I agree that this person could have just educated their partner as to what haiku is. But there's also just that resonance that two people have. I think the moment for this person was more of a final straw kind of thing. There are these huge abysses that open up between two unsuitable partners sometimes where it suddenly becomes very very clear just how unsuited they are, and sometimes it is some of these seemingly "small" things. 

Also, as Carl Jung and others have pointed out, erotic and romantic love plays a cruel joke on us, as it presents the beloved in an idealized form, where we find even their most glaring deficiencies and actual character flaws, let alone the weird ways in which they are just annoying, to be charming and attractive, or at least we think we can overlook these realities. When the charged atmosphere of eros wears off, what we start to long for, in addition to continued passion, is a more authentic friendship connection with our beloved, and there's a deeper kind of resonance that becomes more important. I think most of us if not all have had the utterly astonishing experience of "waking up next to someone" and suddenly feeling that surreal tumble into the dread of knowing with absolute certainty that we feel like can't bear another day with them, in spite of the fact that, early on, they were our raison d'etre and our delight. This goes to the core of the unethical and even cruel nature of eros, as it has been so accurately depicted in all stories and tales. Sometimes these moments of astonishing clarity, and that sudden truth of the fundamental unsuitability of someone with whom we have thrown in our lot, are the worst moments of our lives. I think this may be especially true for women in cis het relationships, as the patriarchy enforces "commitments" more severely for women in a wide variety of ways. 

Sometimes it is some odd thing, like a person saying "I don't get it," and the entire abyss of loneliness, unsuitability, longing, anger, resentment, annoyance, bewilderment, and  the terror of being "trapped" all come tumbling in. For a few months with A, I didn't even know what was going on, consciously, but I do recall trying to take a nap one afternoon and lying there in bed, thinking to myself, "this can't go on. I cannot keep doing this. This can't go on." I didn't even know what "this" was referring to. My denial was thick. 

The pier in Ocean Beach, three years ago

The person whose exasperation reached some kind of inscrutable limit found ways to continue the partnership, and I think many people do. There are all sorts of ways people rediscover things they initially appreciated, bathed in that weird numinous glow of eros, and those qualities are still there, and still admirable. Forgiveness is huge. A friend of mine says, "The only healthy relationship is reciprocal mercy." I appreciate that. I have never been the recipient, nor the practitioner, at least not for more than about five years. 

Another pic of the pier in Ocean Beach from 2017

Being sort of demisexual (? semi-demisexual?), I am usually not even capable of feeling sexual attraction, let alone flat out heart squashing, bone powdering eros, if the fundamental connections are not present. Similar sense of humor, getting it without explaining, friendly likes and dislikes (within reason), that resonance energy. Very important. It is what turns me on. Then I fall in love. Then the problems start, because, it turns out, I was maybe ignoring some of the lack of resonance. I think my denial around this is fiercely low right now. I am not ignoring anything. But in the past, I used to imagine all sorts of connection when it was not there. How do I know it was not there? When the charge of eros wore off, it turned out that basic abysses were indeed present.

CW: trite analogy. It's as if the heart has a blind spot, like the optic disc, and when we are in love, we perform a ton of optical filling, but when things get more real or familiar and less charged, we stop doing so much optical filling. The only difference in this analogy is that instead of seeing that annoying blind spot everywhere, we see more clearly. Nothing new here. Just the usual meditation on the disillusionment that is somewhere at the core of every human relationship that's worth having. How people navigate that disillusionment is what stories get a lot of juice from. 

I have also been made aware over the past decade or so tha not everyone really gives a shit, so much. For me, losing a partnership is like a death. I feel similar ways to when someone dies. I used to think this was universally the case, but I have learned it is not, not at all. Many people wear their connections with others much more lightly. I am wired for a heavier experience. 

After a Death

by Tomas Tranströmer 

translated by Robert Bly

Once there was a shock

that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.

It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.

It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.

Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat

but often the shadow seems more real than the body.

The samurai looks insignificant

beside his armor of black dragon scales.

Haircut Adventure

 Los Angeles is a chaotic place. One of the ways this manifests is that everything one needs or wants is only blocks away, especially in my West LA neighborhood, and yet the simplest of excursions can sometimes take up a lot of time, be very complicated, and involve all sorts of weird and unplanned aspects. Spoon available last night for a haircut, I decided to go to the chain, Floyd's Barbershop, which I had spotted a couple weeks ago. It's down at Santa Monica and Butler, not even a mile away. 

But, in typical fashion, once I got there, it was at least an hour wait. I decided to put my name in and just walk around for an hour. And what one often finds in a lot of cities, as well as here, is that there is a whole new cultural zone within walking distance. In this case, down Sawtelle, to Japantown. This is a small cluster of restaurants and shops almost entirely focused on Japanese food and culture. Not Japanese American, so much. Traditional Japanese. I used to hang over there back in the early oughts and get the best noodles, sushi, etc. I'll have to pop over there, a mere five blocks from here, soon. 

Wandering around with a camera to try to capture not just what's noticeable but some aspect of the mundane, one of my favorite pastimes. 

So much empty real estate everywhere. 

Shops and restaurants along Sawtelle

Must return when it's open

Catastrophe and obscene wealth

? will see if this gallery is open sometime

Starbucks, Olympic and Sawtelle

Beloved Strelitzia, always love seeing it

The story of why some old buildings have not been razed interests me

I had no idea there was a golden age of hand painted movie posters in Ghana

bossy

blazing white flowers

not very nice

you know you're in a big city when there are veterinary specialists

always that warm and inviting architecture

I walked back to Floyd's and a barber gave me a pretty good haircut $50 (with a 50% tip; I'm tipping service people like mad these days), and we talked at length about the ins and outs of city life. He was that type of city guy who is always looking for a bargain, an angle, a way to *work* the city. It does get to be like a huge RPG, and one does start to think about all the ways to get the best of everything. It's a fascinating part of city culture. The best rent, the best rent control, the best routes to take to get from A to B at the best times, the best restaurants, the ones that are overpriced but used to be great, etc. The more complex a city is, the more avid people get about all of these strategies. All of these stories about this or that incredible deal, or weird situation that saved a lot of money, or ways neighborhoods have gone downhill (it's almost always that they have changed for the worse). 

I had left at 7:30 and didn't get home until 9. In spite of everything being close, sometimes it takes a ton of time to get something done. I think this contributes to the whole spoon issue. 

But a haircut was accomplished. And a reminder of the endless portals and surprises of the city was given. And more reminders of how much things will improve here when the city finally comes back to life for real, and the pandemic recedes, someday. 

Meanwhile, I do wonder how I survive, living in such close quarters with an abuser. I ought to just leave. But no matter where I go, there I am.