mood music.

Why would you do that to me?





There are two ways one can ask this question:

#1 - (selfishness, not helpful) You jerk, why don’t you care about me and my tenderness and aching and smashed ego!

#2 - (empathy, more ideal) What experiences must you be having that would naturally lead any person to that choice of behavior?

* * *

em·pa·thy \ˈem-pə-thē\
noun
1: the action or capacity of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, experience, and point of view of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner;



What do you do when you find yourself asking of someone that you care about:



Why would you do that to me?



I’d like to say it was something noble, but it took the failure of approach #1 to lead me in defeated exhaustion to try again more honestly with #2.

Why would someone act with anything less than enthusiastic adoration toward someone they love?
Yes, yes, ego, you’re right, it could be because Nobody Loves Me and I’ll Never Be GoodEnough. But if that were the case why would this someone have put up with my ass this long, insisting on his love all the while?
But the only way I act like that is if I feel hurt or neglected or uncared for somehow, like now... Oh...
Oh yes.
Duh.
Maybe its because this someone has some hurt of his own.
Oh my poor sweet thing! I hate to see you hurt!

And then
it’s amazing how one person's understanding can dissolve so much of two people’s ego problems in a wink of an eye.


Problem is, that after a lifetime of letting my ego get smacked around, knowing the effectiveness of this compassion doesn’t make it easier to practice. I mean,
what if I don't get it back? I admit: I'm terrified of what it means to really do this task.


Thus this task.

Self-interest, I call on thy power, in the name of strengthening the love in my own heart and the attachment of my beloved to me:

I could use some practice seeing from another’s point of view.

So, maybe I’m not fulfilling the task to the letter. Flag if you want.
This is for me and for him.*



Way of seeing #1:

Given enough time for a good night’s sleep (more precious a resource than it sounds) I am generally quite skilled at understanding (and caring deeply about) my own and others' view and mysterious, self-esteem driven behavior.
The hardest part is simply remembering to do it.

The hardest part is mindfulness.

The hardest part is looking past the obstruction of my own ego for a minute.

* * *


In Buddhist temples and centers, yogis chant over thread, charging it with loving kindness and good intentions. Then they tie a bracelet of it on each who held it throughout the chanting.


These threads have served me as a reminder of this moment of meditation. This shared instant when we remembered we were connected to something. Every time you look at your wrist it’s there. Until you have another such moment and get a fresher reminder.



A couple of months ago my someone came through the door with a bracelet of thread. Time well spent in the company of four year olds had yielded a friendship bracelet.


With four year olds one never asks “Whats in it for me?” And “Why are you being so selfish and mean?” One expects a four year old to act like a four year old. Which is to say: self-interested, moody, pushing of boundaries, shockingly honest or transparent, helpless, needy, vulnerable, unjaded, and easily fascinated and delighted.
It is in a four-year-old's nature to be thus. So we let them off the hook for it, and can be inspired to open caring by their vulnerability and helplessness.

Why can we do this with four-year-olds and not with adults? It is in every living creature's nature to be self-serving, to push our boundaries. Why can't we forgive them for this? Why can't we forgive ourselves?

My someone selected me to be the friend who will don his jolly evidence of minute upon meditative minute spent in tying knots and tugging strings without any demands, judgements, or expectations.



So, no, I didn’t personally make it**, but I have nonetheless turned this thread into a device for seeing from my someone else’s Point of View.
This was my first (1/3) reminder to engage in empathy and compassion toward my beloved.

This "device" actually did its job well. It reminded me that my world is not the only one. The love implied in it fortified me to face my shadow, the side of me that lets me slip unconsciously into selfish thoughtlessness. It has not stopped me completely from becoming self absorbed and careless, but it decidedly helped me to reduce those times or derail them sooner, or at least to sack up and apologize.

It stayed on for over a month, and though there are some additional factors involved in this,*** I think perhaps it was one of the most lovely months in our beautiful, if challenging, relationship.




Now all this is well and good, you are saying to yourself, but this bracelet business doesn’t make for much of a task! And though I maintain that #1 is the hardest of my attempted PoV ways, I have some things for those looking for praxis thats a little more tasky (though perhaps no more strictly adhering to the task. Fuck rules).




More mood music.

Way of seeing #2:


My someone only sees with his right eye:



In fact, many people in my life do not see from their sinister side. From my grandfather to my favorite teacher in high school (climbing, of all depth-requiring subjects!), to even my newest friend, left-eye blindness in my companions seems to be good luck for me.



If you gaze at a left-blind person long enough, you'll begin to see how, as my someone says, their right eye can show you how they see the world around them, while the left, can show how they see their world within.

When my someone and I are nose to nose, he never sees me distorted with four eyes and two noses like I do him:

Ain't he beautiful?

My face is as clean as a picture to him. Like this:



Cycloptic since birth, my someone's brain has developed differently and thus, covering one eye can only vaguely approximate his experience, but nonetheless, in order to get a little closer to literally seeing as my right-eyed someone does,

I determined to (temporarily) blind my left eye.


Fortunately, I live just a couple of blocks from The Pirate Supply Store,


A haven for those of us with facial hair deficiency.

where I had a large selection of fashionable eye patches and a helpful attendant.



My attendant behind the eye patch racks demonstrates how not to use eye patches.


I had no idea how hard core this would be.

I wouldn't have believed me if I'd heard me whining about it on the praxis, especially after seeing the ease with which my someone appears to navigate the world.

For two weeks and several days on and off afterward, unless I was sleeping or with my someone, I wore the eye patch.



When I finally took it off, my pupils would remain dilated differently for a long long time, my eyes felt very strange and imbalanced.

NOTE: Though my someone does not seem to experience this, I will note that one of the effects of sudden prolonged unnecessary blocking of the vision of one eye is headache. Aching, splitting, swelling headache. However, due to a full-body case of osteoarthritis, I'm pretty accustomed to a fair amount of pain, and I determined to continue even so. (I do love a good whine though).

One other difficult part of this which is unrelated to my someone's Point of View, was surprising: The embarrassment of walking around with an eye patch. For one who has been known to get very serious about her business, my shyness surprised me.
Perhaps because it was not as evident as usual that I was not taking myself seriously.
Perhaps because I was taking this very seriously.

One thing I love SF0 for is that time and again it makes me suck it up and force a healthy jolt of bravery. Explaining to roomates and roomates' friends, plumbers, coworkers, employers, store clerks, homeless, etc. caused me to feel as mortified as a middle schooler caught in flatulence. Many wanted to know whether it was for fashion or for health. They gave me blank stares when I told them it was to better understand my boyfriend. One person asked if my boyfriend was a pirate. The rest just nodded, as though the sense of my plan were self-evident (or at least like they want the crazy lady to remain harmless).



As to the seeing part:

I am astounded. I never realized how reliant I am upon my depth perception.

The first day, I just sat around on teh internets all day. But I still had trouble. Even seeing flat things that wouldn't seem to require depth perception was difficult. Textures and colors were flattened and lost their detail and made far less sense, requiring furrow-browed hunching in toward the screen.




Cleaning my room became such a daunting and slow process that I actually gave up in spite of a feverish desperation for cleanliness!

(Don't worry, I became less of a wuss with time).


Even playing with Lunch was overwhelming and a little dangerous.


The next day, I forced myself to be a lot more adventurous. I hopped on my bike and went to do errands for future tasking supplies. I don’t think I’ve been that terrified and slow on a bike since I first let go of my training wheels.



Suddenly traffic passing me on the left was adrenaline-inducing.
Left turns presented a major challenge and a neckache.
Pedestrians and bike cross-traffic coming from the left nearly met my front tire on several occasions.
Potholes: how deep are they?
Is that a small man on a small bicycle very close or a large man on a large bicycle far away?



Plenty of SF hills are scary on a bike even with two eyes. The terrifying steepness of this one between his house and mine does not show in this photo.

At the fabric store, I just simply couldn’t make sense of velvet, black on black, piles of fabric. I made my way round the store almost entirely by feel.



At the hardware store I suddenly gave up my cootie-fearing tendency to never ever touch a stairway handrail.
At home, I couldn’t tell how deep my cereal bowl was filled and ended up stuffing my fingers in to see before adding milk. (I learned over the next few days to look at the bowl sideways).



Mood music continues.

I had a big debate with myself about whether go so far as to actually wear the eye patch to work (where my appearance is very important), but decided that, since I am a fortune teller, it would actually not look too outlandish and that if anyone asked I’d just tell them that if they looked into that eye they’d see their own death.


No one asked, it turns out strangers aren't too comfortable asking about something that may be a disability (other people. Not me, I asked my someone about his eye on the first day we met. Whether this makes me annoying and socially inappropriate or refreshingly honest and comfortable, I'm not sure).



A passenger on the drive to work, I began to understand my someone’s tendency to gasp, white-knuckle the arm rest, and use his invisible-break whenever I’m driving.

When the old same old job I always do started to look different:



...I found that I had to change my thoughtless habits. I had to rely on using my fingertips more and I had to get unusually intimate by putting my face very close to people's hands.


Touch. Texture is difficult for me to see without two eyes. Objects make little sense to me without texture.

But because my someone has as much brain space to devote to one eye as I require for two, I'm don't think he has this difficulty.


Unlike my someone, it takes both eyes for me to be able to see all the lovely little pores and imperfections in my someone's skin. With one eye surruptitiously closed staring at my someone's arm, I can see only vague smooth whiteness.


Time. It required moving toward or away from something to judge how close and large something was.

Sound. Especially in my left ear. Left turns. People coming up from behind on the left. etc.

Of course. Time and sound. Of course. It is suddenly obvious to me why my someone would have music as his calling. Of course. Even if he hadn’t been born with a melodic brand of magic, this time-and-sound-dependent art would seem a sensible choice for any creative person with visual issues. Thus we get to:


Way of seeing #3:

If I am trying to see from my beloved's point of view, it is clear that the most important aspect of it has less do with the view than with the sound.

Music is why my someone gets up in the morning; It is how he knows he’s alive and that the world is full of magic. My someone never looks less like a fish out of water, than when he’s flooding the room with chords and crooning. He can tear open a poor girl's heart when he's in open D.

And above all music, my someone loves Bob Dylan. The first time I was invited to stay at his house I knew it because he played me this song:

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When I go home for vacation its:
You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go.
I know he needs extra tenderness when its:
Not Dark Yet.
I know I needn't take a cranky mood too seriously if he plays:
Bear Mountain Picnic.
A jolly old time can be predicted if I hear:
Country Pie.

So just listening to Dylan, especially as interpreted by my someone, is a useful tool for seeing from my someone's Point of View.



In my dreams, my someone and Dylan are often conflated. They even look alike!



1 year ago, when I met my someone, I knew nothing of Dylan except that I didn't like his voice. My preliminary chronological study of my someone through Dylan has been 12 months running. I am currently 17 albums in, only arriving at 1971.

My research has thus far yielded these gems of understanding of my someone:

Dylan changes styles like my roommate changes outfits (thoroughly and constantly). He explores the outer limits of his own possibilities without concern for what will be popular or even, ultimately true. He is unshakably driven by the process. Not by arriving at any end result. And not for anyone but himself.
Though he seemed to be ravenously driven to search and explore, uncertain who he was, he had the kind of serious integrity that allowed him to dive face first into something and then completely (and constantly) change his mind.



Every album that came out seemed to be a deliberate confrontation and refutation to all the expectations placed on him by others. Albums that now are regarded as some of the best American music of all time regularly met him with angry booing audiences at the time. These audiences thought they understood Bob Dylan, that he understood them, and they felt betrayed by his changing.

It takes strength and work to be in that much constant motion. To be that staunchly yourself when you're not even sure what that means. To be always welcoming in a new beginning.

My someone is like this. Its beautiful to watch it unfold before me. And it keeps me on my toes.
This will never get boring. But it will take strength and work to allow someone to be in that much constant motion, to be that staunchly himself when he's not even sure what that means.


With the perspective of compressed years, all of Dylan's change has surprisingly provided me the chance to see what is truly unchanging and essential to his playing, and maybe his nature.

Perhaps this eternal element is what all his change was about.

Perhaps this is what relationships are all about.

(Oh yeah. And I love Dylan now like a teenager loves Justin Timberlake. Swoooon).


So unBearably beautiful.

Whenever my sagging bagging eyes are not hanging wearily over my homework (or job applications), my someone endeavors to get me to sit next to him on the piano bench and sing along with him. He explains that he wants me to understand how different hearing the songs he loves is from the experience of singing them,
which still pales in comparison to playing them. This understanding of music is an understanding of him.


So.
Though I am not a piano player, I taught myself a couple of songs my someone plays.****
The process of this trying trying trying to get inside the soul of the song is my last "device" for getting perspective on my someone's Point of View.

I did not kid myself that this would sound as good as I wish I could make it for him. But I put my whole heart in it. And when my someone went to work and I was left alone with his piano and his book of songs, I worked in secret on these two songs.


First I chose a song that I love which might be easy enough for a beginner to figure out on the piano. Its a song that I have never heard as performed by Dylan, but only by my someone (I'm not there yet in chronological order). In some ways I think this makes my focus on my someone's Point of View a little purer. He plays it with devastating, haunting emotional power. So I didn't sweat getting the notes (and especially the rhythms) right, but really tried to feel it deeply.


Shooting Star


Second, a little homesick and lost with my lifeplan lately, I chose another, nonDylan song as well, because I knew I could play it and mean it with my whole heart and soul.
(Though I know that original version of "Oh My Sweet Carolina" by Ryan Adams, I copied my someone's rendition, for better absorption of his Point of View. The recording is a little quiet. Please forgive my chunky and arhythmic playing, and try to hear how I almost cry in the last verse and chorus instead).


Sweet Carolina

After trying this, I'm more certain than ever that my someone's best talent with music is not just his skillful arrangements, performances, innovations, and explorations, but in his ability to force you to feel what he is feeling when he plays. He can use music to throw his life force around a room.

Its downright spiritual for everyone involved.

And it is a lucky, unignorable, and constant reminder to empathize with my someone. With tools like this at my disposal, it is easier to do the work it takes to know what to do with:

"Why did you do that to me?"



* But if you're interested, this task can be for you. For those of you who are still unsatisfied by the fact that I didn't make a device to see someone's point of view, I submit to you this: I bravely made this little write-up. And you can use it as a tool to see quite intimately from my point of view.

** I thought about adding him as a collaborator, since he created the first "device," but the best gifts are those where you can convince the recipient that there was no gift and no giver, but just a lovely lovely world that they created all themselves. So then I decided against that and against telling him about this project at all. He rarely checks his SF0 anymore (much to my moping and whining) and I'm pretty sure he never looks what I'm up to (why bother when he can just ask me?). I was gambling that he would miss this. That this could be my silent Valentine to him.
But now I think he needs every word I can offer.
But my main goal in this was that the experience would effect (and would keep effecting) how I relate to him. And I hope it can tell him more convincingly than any words in any praxis that, baby, sometimes I'm not everything I wish for you to have. But know this: I will try try try my damnedest, for both of our sakes, to make our every interaction into a gift from me to you. I will let you see yourself reflected from my Point of View this way: Radiant, beautiful, brilliant, wise, strong, adorable, sexy, magical, supportive, inspiring, rare, fascinating, loving, infinitely forgivable, and utterly lovable.

*** None of your damn business.

**** I wish I could include my recordings of my someone playing these songs, but music is deeply personal for him and I wouldn't want to violate his privacy any more than I already have here.