Human relationships: is there any greater test of wisdom, compassion, sanity than this? Ayurvedic doctor Vasant Lad speaks of "the mirror of relationship:" for what we are doing in relating intimately to another is confronting our own deep-seated patterns, insecurities, karmic tendencies. Some relationships fall prey to overbearing expectations, some to doubt; some to fear of failure, some perhaps to fear of success. Some trundle along for years in second gear, belching foul exhaust and jolting all those in the vehicle, out of inertia, fear of being alone, fear of change. Change. Yes, change, the great constant, the elephant in the room, the skeleton in the closet and the monkey on your back. [Anitya, anitya, intones Goenka-ji's voice: impermanence, impermanence...]
As if one person's issues weren't already difficult enough, the partner brings with them a complementary set. In relationship, I figure one is doing pretty well if s/he can determine whose issues are at play in a given scenario, or even start to get a handle on how both partners are contributing to the conflict. It's endless work, and there's no telling where it leads. And yet we do it, almost all of us: we form bonds, share visions and dreams, interlock our bodies and mingle our fluids, generate new life so the process can repeat itself. We have our highest highs and our lowest lows in relation to others, to an Other, another. If I weren't so caught up in the cycle myself I might find it amusing, the predictable quality of it, like watching a cartoon mouse go around and around in a washing machine. Here at the end of the spin cycle, I'm a little less tickled, but more aware if anything of the powerful gifts we receive in relationship, and the profound teachings.
In this blog I often keep personal content between the lines. I can rarely resist the journaling impulse entirely--Illwind started out as "an open journal of my time in Nepal," after all--but have tended of late to keep this aspect subdued, secondary. Not today. I and Thandiwe--my partner of the past 20 months and co-pilot on so many of the interior and exterior adventures detailed on this site--are splitting up. I want to acknowledge in this pseudo-public way the relationship we've shared, the incredible journey we've taken each other on, and mark its end consciously.
"Break-up," we call it, suggesting the jagged edges and suddenly disjunct pieces that are an all-too-common part of parting. I am lucky today in that this parting of ways feels unbroken. Our love's vessel has not been smashed on the ground in anger or jealous rage. And yet, however neatly, it is splitting, and even a neatly split vessel spills its contents. Memories, dreams, visions, plans, all become visible again, more so than ever, before gradually being absorbed into the earth.
In theory, in the quiet of pre-dawn on a sleepless night, in between the times of anguish, it's so uncomplicated. Legendary hellraiser and songwriter Townes Van Zandt: "we had our day/and now it's over/we had our song/and now it's sung/we had our stroll/through summer's clover/summer's gone now/our walking's done." Moments of such simple lucidity are a gift in these times, and yet it's never quite as simple as that. The song continues "so tell me gently/who'll be your lover/who'll be your lover/after I'm gone." Interlaced with endings are new beginnings, and it's hard to face up to beginnings we aren't a part of. A rephrasing of impermanence: to everything its season. Buds, leaves, flowers; pollination, fruit setting, swelling; ripening, sweetening, falling from the branch. Rinse, repeat.
Relationships are complicated--that's one generalization I'll permit myself. In casting them in words, we risk freezing them into one pose, capturing only one aspect. Our words tell stories that carry grains of truth, but none of them can support the full weight of our lived experience. Words, however, are what we humans have uniquely got, and we need our bits of story, no matter how inadequate they may be.
This past weekend was Thandiwe's and my last together as a couple--or so we must tell ourselves, not knowing what the future holds. It was a beautiful and bittersweet few days, a stolen time out of time, filled with love and tears and, inevitably, with words. Between bouts of loving and crying we struggled with how to tell our story, not just to others but to ourselves. Were we simply "in two different places?" physically and metaphorically? Was it a question of expectations, or one of our own challenges of doubt and insecurity? A story we liked best goes "we loved each other so much we had to let each other go." Catchy, dramatic, romantic--what's not to like? It's as true as any of them, and it may be what we need to believe.
What remains is to honor the relationship, which in its less than two years has been an overwhelmingly positive and formative force in my life. I want to set in stone, here on the aether, an expression of my love and respect for Thandiwe. Thandiwe--Zulu for "beloved"--has given me so much: without trying, she has drawn me out of my shell, pulling me again and again into immediate relation with others. She's opened my heart, helping me to live with compassion and see the best in people. She's taught me, quite literally, how to smile. I go forward carrying so much of her with me, as she carries so much me. (We spoke of how I've gifted her with physicality, a sense of living in and increased awareness of the body; I taught her to love food, and how to cook it.)
And there is still one more story. This one is about a beginning.
* * *
Thandiwe came back into my life two Springs ago, in Kathmandu. I had known her from our study abroad program back in 2005, when we'd been friends and had stayed loosely in touch. Now she was crashing at the Fulbright apartment I shared with my friend Alden. It was a funny, funky place--pink cement walls, tacky Western-style furniture, a toilet that never flushed properly--and small by expat standards, just one bedroom. I slept on a pallet I rolled out every night on the living room floor in a routine I'd originally intended to last me only until I found a place of my own. I was in and out of the Kathmandu Valley doing my Ayurvedic research, and Thandiwe was on her own volunteer's schedule of field visits to rural parts of Eastern Nepal, so we passed like ships in the night for the first month or two of her stay. Finally in May, as it was getting uncomfortably hot in the Valley, we both settled into the apartment in Bhatbhateni and started to spend more time together. She'd sleep on the couch in the living room, not far from my pallet, and we got into the habit of reading aloud to each other before bedtime: Tolkien is what I remember. I was in a tenuous long-distance relationship at the time and wasn't sure how to feel about the response the sight of Jyoti (Thandiwe's Nepali name, meaning "light," and the name I then knew her best by) with her radiant smile, in her well-worn green T-shirt and thin, faded cotton pyjama pants elicited in me. Thandiwe claims not to have noticed at this point, but from my point of view there was some definite tension crackling in the muggy air. There were also starting to be a lot of mosquitoes, and the window screens seemed only to keep them in. In what turned out to be a fateful move, I bought a mosquito net in the bazar. It was sea foam green (the old Crayola marker color) and hung from the ceiling, making my little nest into a canopy bed of sorts. For a few nights Thandiwe must have stoicly slapped herself awake or suffered the incessant whine of skeeters in her ears while I lay under my sea foam shield. Realizing this, and with a motivation I convinced myself was pure, I invited her to share the net with me. After some hesitation and assurances on my part that it was OK, she accepted, and under the net's drape we read together. I remember not being able to get any sleep that night, hyper-aware as I was of the compact, taut, fragrant body and glowing spirit next to me; she remembers me inching myself closer and closer and deciding, eventually, that she liked the feeling. Innocently, we began to make contact, to cuddle, and soon were sleeping in each others' arms. With my status as decidedly not single, we drew the line at that: kissing was strictly off limits. This code of conduct, arbitrary though it was, put my mind at ease, and we indulged night after night in this sensual ritual, the tension waxing. It reached a breaking point soon enough, I dashed off a conflicted but all-too-clear email to the States--Waverly wasn't reachable by phone--and the next night gave Thandiwe a quick and annunciatory kiss. Enough was enough; there was no holding back the flood now. Still, we took things slow, savoring getting to know each others' bodies. Our worlds focused in on the confines of that mosquito net: the moonlight on our bodies, the intoxicating scent of huge, white, trumpet-shaped Datura blossoms drifting in through the window screens. For almost a month, it seems, we hardly slept. We walked dreamlike through our days and, after telling each other we would get some sleep that night, would lie awake 'til until dawn. Then some days I'd walk her partway to the office where she worked, or we'd stop at the favorite expat breakfast joint for some pancakes. (I remember feeding the rail-thin cat there a dish of milk and butter under the table.) It was a charmed time, the most absurdly, unequivocally happy one I've known. Free of analysis, planning, logistics, anything but moonlight and folds of pale netting and new love, our relationship gradually took shape, and we realized it wasn't going to remain confined to Nepal. It eventually brought Thandiwe to Vermont, both of out to the West Coast, me to Chicago, and the two of us back to Nepal and India, all in the past 20 months. But that's another story.
As if one person's issues weren't already difficult enough, the partner brings with them a complementary set. In relationship, I figure one is doing pretty well if s/he can determine whose issues are at play in a given scenario, or even start to get a handle on how both partners are contributing to the conflict. It's endless work, and there's no telling where it leads. And yet we do it, almost all of us: we form bonds, share visions and dreams, interlock our bodies and mingle our fluids, generate new life so the process can repeat itself. We have our highest highs and our lowest lows in relation to others, to an Other, another. If I weren't so caught up in the cycle myself I might find it amusing, the predictable quality of it, like watching a cartoon mouse go around and around in a washing machine. Here at the end of the spin cycle, I'm a little less tickled, but more aware if anything of the powerful gifts we receive in relationship, and the profound teachings.
In this blog I often keep personal content between the lines. I can rarely resist the journaling impulse entirely--Illwind started out as "an open journal of my time in Nepal," after all--but have tended of late to keep this aspect subdued, secondary. Not today. I and Thandiwe--my partner of the past 20 months and co-pilot on so many of the interior and exterior adventures detailed on this site--are splitting up. I want to acknowledge in this pseudo-public way the relationship we've shared, the incredible journey we've taken each other on, and mark its end consciously.
"Break-up," we call it, suggesting the jagged edges and suddenly disjunct pieces that are an all-too-common part of parting. I am lucky today in that this parting of ways feels unbroken. Our love's vessel has not been smashed on the ground in anger or jealous rage. And yet, however neatly, it is splitting, and even a neatly split vessel spills its contents. Memories, dreams, visions, plans, all become visible again, more so than ever, before gradually being absorbed into the earth.
In theory, in the quiet of pre-dawn on a sleepless night, in between the times of anguish, it's so uncomplicated. Legendary hellraiser and songwriter Townes Van Zandt: "we had our day/and now it's over/we had our song/and now it's sung/we had our stroll/through summer's clover/summer's gone now/our walking's done." Moments of such simple lucidity are a gift in these times, and yet it's never quite as simple as that. The song continues "so tell me gently/who'll be your lover/who'll be your lover/after I'm gone." Interlaced with endings are new beginnings, and it's hard to face up to beginnings we aren't a part of. A rephrasing of impermanence: to everything its season. Buds, leaves, flowers; pollination, fruit setting, swelling; ripening, sweetening, falling from the branch. Rinse, repeat.
Relationships are complicated--that's one generalization I'll permit myself. In casting them in words, we risk freezing them into one pose, capturing only one aspect. Our words tell stories that carry grains of truth, but none of them can support the full weight of our lived experience. Words, however, are what we humans have uniquely got, and we need our bits of story, no matter how inadequate they may be.
This past weekend was Thandiwe's and my last together as a couple--or so we must tell ourselves, not knowing what the future holds. It was a beautiful and bittersweet few days, a stolen time out of time, filled with love and tears and, inevitably, with words. Between bouts of loving and crying we struggled with how to tell our story, not just to others but to ourselves. Were we simply "in two different places?" physically and metaphorically? Was it a question of expectations, or one of our own challenges of doubt and insecurity? A story we liked best goes "we loved each other so much we had to let each other go." Catchy, dramatic, romantic--what's not to like? It's as true as any of them, and it may be what we need to believe.
What remains is to honor the relationship, which in its less than two years has been an overwhelmingly positive and formative force in my life. I want to set in stone, here on the aether, an expression of my love and respect for Thandiwe. Thandiwe--Zulu for "beloved"--has given me so much: without trying, she has drawn me out of my shell, pulling me again and again into immediate relation with others. She's opened my heart, helping me to live with compassion and see the best in people. She's taught me, quite literally, how to smile. I go forward carrying so much of her with me, as she carries so much me. (We spoke of how I've gifted her with physicality, a sense of living in and increased awareness of the body; I taught her to love food, and how to cook it.)
And there is still one more story. This one is about a beginning.
* * *
Thandiwe came back into my life two Springs ago, in Kathmandu. I had known her from our study abroad program back in 2005, when we'd been friends and had stayed loosely in touch. Now she was crashing at the Fulbright apartment I shared with my friend Alden. It was a funny, funky place--pink cement walls, tacky Western-style furniture, a toilet that never flushed properly--and small by expat standards, just one bedroom. I slept on a pallet I rolled out every night on the living room floor in a routine I'd originally intended to last me only until I found a place of my own. I was in and out of the Kathmandu Valley doing my Ayurvedic research, and Thandiwe was on her own volunteer's schedule of field visits to rural parts of Eastern Nepal, so we passed like ships in the night for the first month or two of her stay. Finally in May, as it was getting uncomfortably hot in the Valley, we both settled into the apartment in Bhatbhateni and started to spend more time together. She'd sleep on the couch in the living room, not far from my pallet, and we got into the habit of reading aloud to each other before bedtime: Tolkien is what I remember. I was in a tenuous long-distance relationship at the time and wasn't sure how to feel about the response the sight of Jyoti (Thandiwe's Nepali name, meaning "light," and the name I then knew her best by) with her radiant smile, in her well-worn green T-shirt and thin, faded cotton pyjama pants elicited in me. Thandiwe claims not to have noticed at this point, but from my point of view there was some definite tension crackling in the muggy air. There were also starting to be a lot of mosquitoes, and the window screens seemed only to keep them in. In what turned out to be a fateful move, I bought a mosquito net in the bazar. It was sea foam green (the old Crayola marker color) and hung from the ceiling, making my little nest into a canopy bed of sorts. For a few nights Thandiwe must have stoicly slapped herself awake or suffered the incessant whine of skeeters in her ears while I lay under my sea foam shield. Realizing this, and with a motivation I convinced myself was pure, I invited her to share the net with me. After some hesitation and assurances on my part that it was OK, she accepted, and under the net's drape we read together. I remember not being able to get any sleep that night, hyper-aware as I was of the compact, taut, fragrant body and glowing spirit next to me; she remembers me inching myself closer and closer and deciding, eventually, that she liked the feeling. Innocently, we began to make contact, to cuddle, and soon were sleeping in each others' arms. With my status as decidedly not single, we drew the line at that: kissing was strictly off limits. This code of conduct, arbitrary though it was, put my mind at ease, and we indulged night after night in this sensual ritual, the tension waxing. It reached a breaking point soon enough, I dashed off a conflicted but all-too-clear email to the States--Waverly wasn't reachable by phone--and the next night gave Thandiwe a quick and annunciatory kiss. Enough was enough; there was no holding back the flood now. Still, we took things slow, savoring getting to know each others' bodies. Our worlds focused in on the confines of that mosquito net: the moonlight on our bodies, the intoxicating scent of huge, white, trumpet-shaped Datura blossoms drifting in through the window screens. For almost a month, it seems, we hardly slept. We walked dreamlike through our days and, after telling each other we would get some sleep that night, would lie awake 'til until dawn. Then some days I'd walk her partway to the office where she worked, or we'd stop at the favorite expat breakfast joint for some pancakes. (I remember feeding the rail-thin cat there a dish of milk and butter under the table.) It was a charmed time, the most absurdly, unequivocally happy one I've known. Free of analysis, planning, logistics, anything but moonlight and folds of pale netting and new love, our relationship gradually took shape, and we realized it wasn't going to remain confined to Nepal. It eventually brought Thandiwe to Vermont, both of out to the West Coast, me to Chicago, and the two of us back to Nepal and India, all in the past 20 months. But that's another story.
A beautiful testament to a beautiful truth. Told, of course, in your articulate, poised, poetic voice. Thank you for this. It is pure gift.
ReplyDeleteWith love,
Thandiwe
This is so beautifully written and such a wonderful sentiment. I'm so sorry to hear of the heartache, but it sure sounds like two people as open-hearted and loving as you two are, will be fine. I too, a couple years ago, "loved Noah so much I had to let him go." Somehow we found ourselves back to each other when the time was more fitting, and now we're building a house together. Love is a funny thing. My love to you both during this difficult time. It will get easier.
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