Quote from DevonB on June 2020, 5:29 pm

How has this crisis exacerbated pre-existing emotional patterns in your close relationships? What insights can you draw from these patterns, and what changes would you like to make moving forward in cultivating greater intimacy and emotional support? Be specific. 

 

One of my longest friendships has been shifting for a few years now, as I’ve begun to take up more space in my being.  Now that I’m seeking myself out, I’m revealing more about myself, including wants.  I want more time to be listened to, and am less likely to extend my listening ear.  This is a change in terms.  Still, we were adapting.  

Then this COVID thing happened and erased our usual ways of interacting. We’ve been art-buddies throughout the years.  We go to plays, concerts, movies, lectures, and art shows together.  Collective experiences.  Then we grab some wine and happy hour fare and deconstruct our viewing experience. Now that’s gone.  

Just before COVID, we had started singing lessons together with my friend Chris last March.  We were able to continue them over zoom when live-lessons became inadvisable.  Chris and I have been enjoying them immensely.  They bring us an emotive joy that seems to grow with each practice.  It is amazing to see the way I breathe and shape my mouth can alter my voice.  It is a new way for my body to learn , and heart to speak.  This has not been the case for that first friend. 

At first I thought she simply did not find digital contact satisfying.  But it’s not the form that she dislikes.  It’s true that she’d prefer all our practices be in person, but she is just not finding song a joy connection.  She’s not finding it worth her time.  

I’m glad that she was able to tell me that it just didn’t suit her heart.  I appreciate the fact that she gave it a try.  I can remember back to last March when putting my voice out there was full of fear and contraction.  

The experience has showed me some new aspects of her.  Some new vulnerabilities that I feel friendly towards, and seem to give our relationship more of a balance of power.  We are looking for other ways of connecting.  

She used to come to my poetry readings, when they were held at bars.  There’s now a monthly zoom version.  It allows observers, and we can talk about the poems and their presenters afterwards.  

This particular group is younger, with more of a  Burning Man vibe than  Ars Poetica, whose zoom episodes are for participants only.  The outcast tone doesn’t put her off, but I wonder how satisfying these events are for non-participants.  Sometimes our poetry is pretty awful.  

Oregon Humanities is doing a zoom tomorrow, a discussion on aging, and how and if it limits our community participation.  I’ve invited her to join me, in the hopes that this might be a format where we both find voice.    

Meanwhile, she has joined some committees around political action.  They do not entice me the way they used to.  It’s going to take more dialogue to find what suits us both, if anything.  If we end up on pause, I’ll have some sadness, but be okay, as long as we acknowledge what’s happening.