Last Thursday, in fact. I usually have no shortage of ideas for my essay responses to Museguided, who writes great essays a couple of times each week. But this time, nothing came to mind. I gave her a like, but that’s it. While I’m in Melbourne, she’s an Eastern European in Paris.
Often my ideas dwindle when I’m under stress. The cause of the stress: a friend I’ve known from school, decades ago, has 3 sons. He doesn’t like that I don’t agree with his one ‘gay’ son who ‘married’, without even telling me, his Godfather. I’m Roman Catholic. He called me a bigot, but I’m certainly not that. I’m simple following Church Doctrine. Civil commitment ceremonies I’ll accept, but not marriage, which is between a man & a woman. His unwillingness to accept my point of view may end the friendship.
I detect a metaphor: the immature plum wine as a diary entry, or at least a 300 character essay not ready to publish.
I doubt he’ll call, & I’m happy with that, as his self-focussed calls were tedious. And it does confirm that my intuition that the long-term friendship was fading over the last 3 years. In contrast, I will answer a call, & end it only if he’s abusive.
I take my approach from my Christian upbringing, & my natural personality. There was a Pope, St John Paul II, who visited the prison which held the man who tried to shoot him dead, to speak with him, to try to understand him.
A couple of years ago, a driver crashed into my car. After sorting out details, I shook his hand: he was visibly surprised. He called me some time later to see how I was (there were no injuries). It disarms people’s defenciveness & anger, but of course doesn’t work with psychopaths.
I would add that I’m the one who does pick up the phone. He has however evolved so much on a different trajectory, that I find myself going home less happy after, than before we meet, for social gatherings. We used to go camping, skiing, bushwalking, etc. but he’s not interested in that now. Just sits durn & watches tv.
It’s time that I move separately from him. I’ll always answer the phone, but his conversations are now always one sided, floating & boasting about him & his family, not about me & mine. It’s called selfishness.
Indeed, as you write, “decades don’t rebuild”.
For a sentimental person such as me, who treasures the past, the inevitable end to the friendship has an unwelcome sting in the tail.
You wrote them. And you put them in a diary instead of in a reply to Tamara. The private thing got a private place, and the essay stayed clean. Most people do it the other way around, and then wonder why the writing came out strange.
I've never met your friend, so I have nothing useful to say about him. Only about what you've written down.
You gave me three paragraphs of reasons and one sentence of feeling: an unwelcome sting in the tail. The reasons are longer. The sentence is the one that will still be there next year.
That doesn't make the reasons wrong. It means you can be right about a thing and still mourn it, and the mourning doesn't undo the decision. Don't let the reasons talk you out of the sting. Of the two, it's the truer one, and it's the one worth writing from later, once it has cooled.
I notice you've already described the arrangement you want. "I'll always answer the phone." That isn't the end of a friendship. It's a smaller one. You may not have to declare anything at all — stop organising the gatherings, and answer when he calls. Endings that get announced usually need repairing later. Ones that are simply lived don't.
You said there's far too much to write here. Then keep the diary going. Not for publication, and not now. You write best late at night and you already know that about yourself, which is more than most writers ever work out. Those pages are not nothing.
On the lighter note — plum wine is made here in June, from green ume, while the fruit is still hard. Then it sits in a jar in the dark, and we're told to leave it a year before anyone opens it. There's no way to hurry it.
There’s much to think about in your deeply considered response. I have indeed written those 300 words, but not to Tamara at Museguided. I’ve written them in my diary, so I can clear my mind for the other matter. She will release her next essay later today.
I’m up very late this Saturday night, not tired. It’s so peaceful & quiet at night, when I have my deepest thoughts, & write the best.
Regarding that other matter, I’ve noticed that he’s become more insular, more narrow, & less patient with discussion over the last 3 years. When he called me on Thursday he was unhappy that I didn’t gush congratulations when he announced the engagement of another son. I explained that it was because his girlfriend insulted me last time we met. There’s far too much to write here: I could write a book the length of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
Suffice to say that he mistakenly thinks that my criticism of the ‘gay’ ‘marriage’ was an attack on his qualities as a father. Very successful as a medical specialist, his emotional intelligence is that of a Patagonian gnat. The friendship is over, from his point of view. He cannot tolerate difference of opinion in a friendship.
On a lighter note, I love Japanese food, & also Sake & plum wine. The best cuisine in Asia for sure.
Russell — thank you. You answered the question more honestly than I asked it.
Let me be plain about one thing first. I am not going to tell you which of you is right. Not to avoid the question: it isn't mine to settle, and a verdict from someone reading on the other side of the world isn't the thing that would help you.
What I can speak to is the part you asked first.
When my own writing stops, it is almost never that I have run out of things to say. It is that something else has taken the chair. Last Thursday you sat down to write with a friendship of decades already sitting in the room, and then wondered why the essay wouldn't come. Nothing was wrong with your ideas. The seat was taken.
So don't write about it. Not yet. Write 300 words on something with nothing at stake — the light that morning, what you ate, someone you passed on the street. The point isn't the piece. It's keeping the habit alive while the other thing takes the time it needs. In the letter you replied to, I wrote that the line worth protecting is the cadence, not the quality. This is the week that line exists for.
On the other matter, only this.
One phrase in what you wrote has stayed with me: "without even telling me, his Godfather." You built the doctrine around it, but that phrase isn't doctrine. It's the sentence of someone who wasn't told.
A position and a relationship are two different things, and you are allowed to keep both. You can leave your belief exactly where it stands and still be the one who picks up the phone. Decades don't rebuild.
Is he someone you still want in your life? That is the only question I would sit with this week — and it isn't a question about marriage.
Last Thursday, in fact. I usually have no shortage of ideas for my essay responses to Museguided, who writes great essays a couple of times each week. But this time, nothing came to mind. I gave her a like, but that’s it. While I’m in Melbourne, she’s an Eastern European in Paris.
Often my ideas dwindle when I’m under stress. The cause of the stress: a friend I’ve known from school, decades ago, has 3 sons. He doesn’t like that I don’t agree with his one ‘gay’ son who ‘married’, without even telling me, his Godfather. I’m Roman Catholic. He called me a bigot, but I’m certainly not that. I’m simple following Church Doctrine. Civil commitment ceremonies I’ll accept, but not marriage, which is between a man & a woman. His unwillingness to accept my point of view may end the friendship.
Your thoughts?
Hiro,
I detect a metaphor: the immature plum wine as a diary entry, or at least a 300 character essay not ready to publish.
I doubt he’ll call, & I’m happy with that, as his self-focussed calls were tedious. And it does confirm that my intuition that the long-term friendship was fading over the last 3 years. In contrast, I will answer a call, & end it only if he’s abusive.
I take my approach from my Christian upbringing, & my natural personality. There was a Pope, St John Paul II, who visited the prison which held the man who tried to shoot him dead, to speak with him, to try to understand him.
A couple of years ago, a driver crashed into my car. After sorting out details, I shook his hand: he was visibly surprised. He called me some time later to see how I was (there were no injuries). It disarms people’s defenciveness & anger, but of course doesn’t work with psychopaths.
Do you have any religious faith, & if so, what?
Russell.
I would add that I’m the one who does pick up the phone. He has however evolved so much on a different trajectory, that I find myself going home less happy after, than before we meet, for social gatherings. We used to go camping, skiing, bushwalking, etc. but he’s not interested in that now. Just sits durn & watches tv.
It’s time that I move separately from him. I’ll always answer the phone, but his conversations are now always one sided, floating & boasting about him & his family, not about me & mine. It’s called selfishness.
Indeed, as you write, “decades don’t rebuild”.
For a sentimental person such as me, who treasures the past, the inevitable end to the friendship has an unwelcome sting in the tail.
Russell.
Russell,
You wrote them. And you put them in a diary instead of in a reply to Tamara. The private thing got a private place, and the essay stayed clean. Most people do it the other way around, and then wonder why the writing came out strange.
I've never met your friend, so I have nothing useful to say about him. Only about what you've written down.
You gave me three paragraphs of reasons and one sentence of feeling: an unwelcome sting in the tail. The reasons are longer. The sentence is the one that will still be there next year.
That doesn't make the reasons wrong. It means you can be right about a thing and still mourn it, and the mourning doesn't undo the decision. Don't let the reasons talk you out of the sting. Of the two, it's the truer one, and it's the one worth writing from later, once it has cooled.
I notice you've already described the arrangement you want. "I'll always answer the phone." That isn't the end of a friendship. It's a smaller one. You may not have to declare anything at all — stop organising the gatherings, and answer when he calls. Endings that get announced usually need repairing later. Ones that are simply lived don't.
You said there's far too much to write here. Then keep the diary going. Not for publication, and not now. You write best late at night and you already know that about yourself, which is more than most writers ever work out. Those pages are not nothing.
On the lighter note — plum wine is made here in June, from green ume, while the fruit is still hard. Then it sits in a jar in the dark, and we're told to leave it a year before anyone opens it. There's no way to hurry it.
Hiro
Thanks Hiro,
There’s much to think about in your deeply considered response. I have indeed written those 300 words, but not to Tamara at Museguided. I’ve written them in my diary, so I can clear my mind for the other matter. She will release her next essay later today.
I’m up very late this Saturday night, not tired. It’s so peaceful & quiet at night, when I have my deepest thoughts, & write the best.
Regarding that other matter, I’ve noticed that he’s become more insular, more narrow, & less patient with discussion over the last 3 years. When he called me on Thursday he was unhappy that I didn’t gush congratulations when he announced the engagement of another son. I explained that it was because his girlfriend insulted me last time we met. There’s far too much to write here: I could write a book the length of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.
Suffice to say that he mistakenly thinks that my criticism of the ‘gay’ ‘marriage’ was an attack on his qualities as a father. Very successful as a medical specialist, his emotional intelligence is that of a Patagonian gnat. The friendship is over, from his point of view. He cannot tolerate difference of opinion in a friendship.
On a lighter note, I love Japanese food, & also Sake & plum wine. The best cuisine in Asia for sure.
Russell.
Then there’s the matter of our PM, who I don’t like, & the melons. I think he prefers China to Japan.
There are two aspects to this of course:
Managing the stress so I can write.
And dealing with the cause of the stress.
I’d be pleased if you could offer advice/your perspective on either or both.
Russell — thank you. You answered the question more honestly than I asked it.
Let me be plain about one thing first. I am not going to tell you which of you is right. Not to avoid the question: it isn't mine to settle, and a verdict from someone reading on the other side of the world isn't the thing that would help you.
What I can speak to is the part you asked first.
When my own writing stops, it is almost never that I have run out of things to say. It is that something else has taken the chair. Last Thursday you sat down to write with a friendship of decades already sitting in the room, and then wondered why the essay wouldn't come. Nothing was wrong with your ideas. The seat was taken.
So don't write about it. Not yet. Write 300 words on something with nothing at stake — the light that morning, what you ate, someone you passed on the street. The point isn't the piece. It's keeping the habit alive while the other thing takes the time it needs. In the letter you replied to, I wrote that the line worth protecting is the cadence, not the quality. This is the week that line exists for.
On the other matter, only this.
One phrase in what you wrote has stayed with me: "without even telling me, his Godfather." You built the doctrine around it, but that phrase isn't doctrine. It's the sentence of someone who wasn't told.
A position and a relationship are two different things, and you are allowed to keep both. You can leave your belief exactly where it stands and still be the one who picks up the phone. Decades don't rebuild.
Is he someone you still want in your life? That is the only question I would sit with this week — and it isn't a question about marriage.
Hiro
ヒロのしんさん
実は私もペンギンさんの診断を受けました。
実に詳細で、対応のヒントも具体的で、凄いなあと感心しました。
ありがたいことです。
私も消えないように、月に４本はキープします。
芳賀さん こんばんは♫
本当ですね。
仰る通り、現状をしっかりと分析されていて、それでいて今後の方向性なども詳細に記載されておりました。
めちゃくちゃ有難いことですね。
お互いに消えないように、ぼちぼちと文章を紡いでいきましょう。
いつもメッセージを頂き、本当にありがとうございます。
ヒロのしんさん
こちらこそ、ありがとうございます。
大切なつながりが、広がりますように。