Fight and Trust

Trust. Dedication. These are things that I thought that I understood over the years, and of course I understood bits and pieces, but now... Wowsa! Now I feel like I have the whole thing.

Nikola and I have been on a Friends binge. We are in season 3, where Ross and Rachel break up--- things get tough in their relationship and Rachel says that they need a break. Ross immediately goes out and sleeps with another girl, thinking that their relationship was over. Rachel finds out and while they are trying to figure out if they can make things work Ross points out how quickly Rachel gave up their relationship, the way that she didn't fight for it. (I wont go into how Ross failed to fight for the relationship either.) He needed to know that she was going to fight to be with him, and in the end she decided that, no, she wouldn't. Him sleeping with another girl had destroyed her understanding of him, because before she felt completely safe with him and thought of him as a man who would never, ever hurt her. After such a painful experience she could no longer view him the same and so the love had changed. Now, here I am suspending the fact that this is just a television show, and the fact that I am not really certain of the monogamy rules as the end-all of relationships to say: "I finally get it!" 

There have been times in the past that I was accused of not fighting for a relationship. Sometimes that accusation has been true. Sometimes it was, in my heart's view, unwarranted. However, whether I was fighting or not (I realize now), the fight was always on my shoulders. It was, ultimately, a question of my investment and how much I was willing to give up to be with someone. Was I willing to give up my location, my job, my school, my values? How much room was I willing to give? How much of them was I willing to take? This is not to say that there has been no give from my previous partners. The people that I have loved in the past have given quite a bit of love to me, and accepted many aspects of me. Some have been very supportive of this wandering game that I play and my thirst to find myself. Some have put up with large amounts of insanity. Some have not. Some left at the first sign of trouble, and some have stuck it out far enough to scar ourselves into a permanent remembrance. But it has never, never been the way that it has been with my husband.

 "How much are you willing to fight for us?"

With Nikola, for the first time, I feel like the question is not shooting directly towards me and only me. It is a valid question. But for the first time I feel that he trusts me enough to never ask, and I feel like I will never reach the end of his fight either. He knows that I want our life together, and I cannot question his commitment either. I have never really thought about it before, but I think about it often with him: I have a man that will never hurt me. Now, that is not to say that I will not suffer in our relationship, and that I will not experience hurt. But, that pain will never, ever be inflicted intentionally by him. I know that for sure. I know that he will support me in any way that he can and that he will always, always fight for our relationship. I can trust that. I never knew I NEEDED to trust that, but I do, and I can and it is wonderful.

I am the happiest woman in the world in this marriage.

God is Love

I spent the weekend with my friend. Technically we were supposed to be having my hen party, but for me that basically means doing all of the things that I love doing as a single woman... wine, dancing, and long conversations... one of the questions fell to religion and spirituality, which is a conversation that I actually enjoy and do not get enough of since I left the bay area, which was a land of spiritual wanderers, floundering through ethics and philosophy, drowning in the possibility of their lives and decisions. In Arizona I fell into another type of contemplation, which lasted well enough, for enough years, and I still grew. But then I joined then peace corps and the growth was in a very subconscious, physical manner. I feel that I learned a lot about humanity, life, love, living, and the body in those two years, but I did not have many opportunities to orally contemplate religion and the meta-living of life. It was the physical understanding of sunshine and tomatoes, of language and interaction, that did not require process for achievement. But there were a couple of people who shared their perspectives on religion with me in a non-threatening, non-judgemental manner, which I appreciated.

My conversation with my friend this weekend made me realize just how much I will miss her when she heads back to the states, because she is one of the few people that I have in my life that is on a similar level of exploration as me. Whenever we talk I feel regenerated, and back on track in my life, as if she inspires me to be a better person who questions things but also actively lives the decisions that I have made with passion and conviction. This weekend we started talking about religion and somehow got to the topic of, "God is Love." It is not a conversation that comes up with many of my Christian friends in the manner of God being love. Usually it somehow becomes translated to, "God loves you," which is subtly different and yet very far from being the same thing. For the first time in YEARS I felt a rush of understanding and thrilling acceptance. God is Love. I could contemplate on that for years. Just one simple sentence inspires so much interpretation and thought.

God is Love.

It makes me feel small and insignificant and yet large and part of something. It seems to be a very important truth, if it is a truth, and worth investing some time and energy in. However, I do have one problem with that from the Christian perspective. If God is Love, then where exactly does the knowledge of good and evil fit as a sin? Because now knowledge is a good thing, and even Christians are encouraged to learn and process and seek knowledge about the world and their religion. So, once that original sin of disobedience was breached, was a decision made for all humanity? Is the knowledge not so much the sin as the disobedience? As in, humanity as a possibility made the choice to live in this kind of world where we would thirst and hunger for understanding, and so here we are, and now knowledge is necessary and not the sin? Was the sin just choice different of God's? It doesn't seem particularly loving. I wish that I had more time to contemplate these issues with my friend, but for now a quiet meditation on a slow rocking train will have to be enough.

The time has come... part III- jealousy and rings

One ring to rule them all. What is a ring? In my paper on the symbolism of modern weddings I am briefly examining the modern abstraction of the ring. I take the ring off my finger and lay it on the table next to me. My finger feels naked without it, eveen though I have only been wearing it for a couple of months.
The ring is gold. I know this because it doesn't leave green marks on my finger, and because of the little number printed on the inside of the ring. It is light, and makes a delicious sound when placed on a hard surface. Although it is light and delicate it seems to also be indestructable. I know this is not true. Gold has a relatively low melting point compared to other metals. How did it get its shape in the first place?
Shape. It is perfectly round. Japanese monks spend a lifetime trying to draw a perfect circle. No, they do not try. Perhaps they try in the beginning, but eventually they learn to let go of the trying and to allow a circle to express itslef through them. I never finished that story- do they succeed? Can perfection be obtained? A circle is mathematical. Goldsmiths have moulds that have been designed by computers. They can make a perfect circle. The ring really has no beginning and no end. It hardened into existence complete.
The stamp tells me the value of the gold. Its purity. I have no idea how to read the stamp. Purity and value are foreign languages to me. I would rather wrap my tongue around whispered "I love you"s than to spend my time learning the symbols of every jeweller. I have no idea how to buy a ring.
It is his mother's ring. A symbol of family, that he handed to me. I took it with a cuirious furrow of the brow aand chewed on it for over a week before I burst with the question of whether he knew what that means to a girl. He knew.
Now we are getting rings of our own. His will return to his mother. My mother is bringing my grandmother's ring. It is another symbol of family. It is also a symbol of lasting, as my grandparent's marriage lasted until death did them part. It feels very different than the symbol of his family, and part of me wants to have a symbol of our family. But heirlooms are made through generations, not on arbitraty whims of the now.
The ring means forever. It is a sign of ownership, like the peircings and collars of slaves. It is a sign of fidelity. It is a sybol of wealth. It is so mixed up in history and society that I am uncertain how I actually feel about it.
We decided to get tattoos instead of rings. Tattoos are forever. You can not take them off. When a marriage ends and the ring is removed there is a period of aa tanline, perhaps, but it fades. We do not want the possibility of fading. Forever is something to be taken seriously.
Most of all, rings are a symbol of the modern christian monogamy. I am not a christian and neither is he, but he tells me that I am his only and I believe that he honestly is monogamous to the core. I wonder if that will change in time, and I want, most of all, to let him blossom without corruption. The thing is that he put the ring on my finger and he called me his, and he did so without the slightest hint of jealousy. How can a person be possessed without jealousy? What is possession? The modern feminist argues that we are all our own and no one can be possessed. Cyrano took ownership to mean a responsibility to the other. "The things you own end up owning you," is not far from the truth. So then, possession, the naming of something or someone as yours, is really a surrender to the desire to care for them, and take responsibility for them. It has nothing to do with jealousy and status. That came later. Love begets possession, and it feels beyond great to be possessed.

Intimacy

What is intimacy? Is it the vulnerability associated with nudity? Is it sharing your shame, or your dreams that you fear may never come true? Or perhaps it is less to do with vulnerability of any type and more about consistency- sharing regular time and experience together and being honest in your actions and reactions to things. I have seen couples search together for this elusive intimacy, and some succeed and some fail to find it. I have seen individuals yearn, thirst, beg, and desire for intimacy in all of its forms. And where can it be found? In a friend? A lover? Family? The unconditional love of a pet?

Last night at school we had a very intimate presentation topic. Our block dealt with Visual and Sensory Anthropology and our assignment consisted of bringing in 3 sensory objects that contextualized us in a cultural or political setting. I went directly towards scouting for my objects as my focus as scouting is full of symbolism, and experiential learning. However, as I listened to the presentations of my classmates I started to feel that I had ducked out of the assignment. They brought in such personal, intimate examples. From the football cards that one boy had traded with a now-deceased friend that contextualized the politics of war for him, to a cut-off dreadlock that helped a girl express her non-hetero-normative gender, these secrets were dark and personal. I could have brought in any number of secrets. I could have shared. Instead, what was most important to me was not secret at all. It was very open, and acceptable. Is intimacy only built in secrets and shame, and the strength to share what is unacceptable? Perhaps it is built in shared passion like the boy who charmingly spoke of his obsession with the ticking sound of clocks...

I came home and my boyfriend met me at the bus stop with a jacket. He wrapped it around me and took my hand. We shared a dinner, cuddled up to each other and watched a television show. We kissed. He read me a story. We made love. In the morning we cuddled and I talked and talked, telling him all about the class from the night before. I revealed to him my fear that I was loosing my academic touch, and my joy at the response I received from my instructor. (A very positive  response, which also contained specific areas to work on.) It is a relationship that doesn't lack for intimacy, for trust, for a depth of (Here I must insert a word that does not quite explain what I am going for, but there is no other) security. I have no fear with him.

Yet the teasing out of new intimacy reminded me not to get wrapped up in the soft love of a single individual. The intimacy of friendship, of family, of crushes, of animals on the streets and even the trees that grow around us are all intimacies that I need in order to be a happy, whole individual. 

I had forgotten...

I had forgotten that love could feel like this: this warm, this exciting.

When he got off the tram yesterday I saw him looking for me. Instantly I melted. No, beyond melting, I exploded. It was a complete dump of serotonin, and I knew that I was in for a joyous little night. A little pocket of happiness broke open and began to sprinkle out into my brain. In the beginning, the moments that it took him to see me, and to smile, and to walk across the street and greet me, my nerves grew excited- sensing more. The warm night air was better, the bosphorous was closer. He held me in his arms and I could barely locate words. My mouth felt cottony around the ones I could find, so they were better left unsaid. Mouths are better used for a different type of communication in those situations. He kissed me; warm and soft and playful and all the things that a reunion kiss should be. I felt drunk. Between the lights, the thudding bass of iskatel street, the tasty smoke of the nargile, and the boy wrapped comfortably around me I had lost my sobriety. Maybe it is somewhere on the street, still being trampled by the light feet of lovers and tourists, but I feel no need to return and search for it.

We fell asleep, exhausted but together. In the morning I woke up with the slightest of headaches, making it difficult to leave the bed that we had shared. Nothing feels better than that, except having no reason to leave bed.

I had forgotten how overwhelming and enticing love can be. I had finally forgotten how addictive it is, making you crave more until you just can't handle it. I had forgotten how it feels to trust this deeply and be so amazed. Or perhaps I never forgot- perhaps I never even knew. 

Slow like honey

People say that love is slow. It takes time to build trust and respect between two people. When I was young I believed them. I consented that my full, pulsing heart was nothing more than lust and hormones. I didn't really know my lovers. How could you possibly know someone in a month, or a year? People spend lifetimes not even knowing themselves. So I let the elders tell me that I was young and foolish, and that I didn't know what love was. I second-guessed all of my emotions and my values. They came too easily.

Now, I call bullshit. Love does not, by definition, come in slowly. Sure, it can be slow and quiet. It can be a whisper so softly that you risk missing it altogether. But it can also be quite sudden. It can roar like a lion, the saliva from its jaw smattering your squinched-up face. It can rain down like acidic stars falling from the night sky, piercing your shell of false beliefs.

When I was young I learned what I could from my elders. I learned about moderation, balance and reason. I learned how to keep my heart in check. Now that I am sliding up the scales I am seeing how much I need to relearn from those that are younger than me. Love is, above all, simple. Quick or slow, easy or difficult, it is at least simple.