Experiments in Living and the True Nature of Love, Part 17

(My $pread article is now online!)
Apologies for disappearing off the blog map for so long. I've been bizy but not a day goes by where i don't think about my loved ones at home. I get precious about my writing and then recently had a big email meltdown. I've lost about 40% of my contacts so if someone you know didn't get this, please forward it and let them know to send me their email. thanks!

I'll get to describing my everyday life—but frankly I don't find that stuff interesting. “I went here, I did that.” So what? I'm more interested in the machinations of the heart so that's what I'm gonna talk about.

Oct 5
I think about love a lot. In fact, I spent all day yesterday at home doing nothing but...thinking. I just decided i needed some time to process so i canceled all my plans, stared at the wall, had various imaginary conversations in my head, wrote some of the more interesting bits down and thought. I figured out love by about 11 am then i spent the rest of the day mulling over more mundane things like lust, caution and lunch.

I've been trying to understand love for years. I felt I had some understanding of the nature of most of our feelings--except love. What is it? A feeling, a commitment, a projection? What's happening when we differentiate between love and infatuation? Why does it last for decades or evaporate in one afternoon? What is the best way to love and be loved?

My years of ruminating culminated yesterday. So wanna hear my deep revelation about love? It's radical acceptance. That's it. It means to see and accept someone as they are, without the desire to change or improve them, without fantasies, denials and projections. To adore their “themness”. Love is like cleaning a smudgy windowpane. Finally, you can see the person, as they are, with their flaws and problems. They no longer have to improve or correct themselves to be worthy of your love. You love them when they're wonderful but you also love them when they're terrible, selfish dishonest little shits. It's all in.

This is painfully obvious to some people. People like my friend Vanessa who, upon hearing about My Great Insight, said, much more kindly than this, but essentially “um...yeah. You didn't know that?”
"Well, no. You did?"

For the rest of us however, here is the coles' notes version: think about the kind of love you've felt for a kid or a pet. These loves are often unclouded by judgments and expectations. You don't expect a cat to suddenly behave like a bird. When she keeps you up at night and gets hair all over your black shirt, you still love her and don't blame her for her catness. You just love your adored cat, as is. I'm sure i've read this in book somewhere many times but it meant nothing to me till i experienced it.

The impact of loving in this way is pretty big. For one, it means I love without a lot of attachment. The person does not have to be available to me exclusively. They don't exist just to serve my happiness so even if they disappear completely, I might (will) ache with longing but I'll still love 'em the same. There's a lot of freedom.
2. I don't take their behaviour personally. I see that it's not all about me.
3. It lasts. It transcends distance and time apart.
4. I have no goals for them. or for us. I just want them to be happy.
5. There is no distinction between being “in love” and “love”. I've been falling “in love” with friends all year and sometimes it feels as big as anything i've felt for a lover.
6. In those cases where it has had a sexual element, it's still not primarily sexual. I'd call it “romantic” more than sexual. It's not defined by the typical craving to do something about it though the connection is often still incredibly fun. Intimacy is more interesting to me than anything else and so far, sex is occasionally, but not at all exclusively, the medium of connection.

Sometimes i feel like I'm exploding with “like” if that makes any sense. My cup runneth over and I'm overwhelmed with love and happiness for someone. Fun eh? So just in case i start to think i'm a genius, Vanessa, whose known me for 20 years, is the voice of humility: “great, you're becoming more like me!” (Love her!) In fact, it's a great litmus test for whether i love someone. If i want them to be someone just a liiiitle bit different (a better version of themselves, in my mind) then no. If i want them to give me what i want more than i want them to be happy, also nope, not love. This unconditional acceptance is the kind of love i am working on cultivating for everyone.

I know. it's weird.

Oh, i've become so woo-woo as they say. Oh well! On a spiritual journey! When i went to save this document, i accidentally typed in “experiments in loving”. Ha! Can you imagine the book cover? Me, with a rainbow behind me, a beatific smile on my face beaming out the message of love and joy. Hilarious.

Anyways, yeah, so as i was saying, love=awesome. It's not very dramatic, this loving thing. I'm not giving away the shirt off my back, I just avoid judging folks and remember to be kind. And, um, I actually am conducting various experiments in living and loving. I'm all the way over here so i might as well try some new things out i reckon. I want to experiment with who i (think i) am, with my friendships, with money, sex, being alone, with what i believe in, how i love, listen and how i wanna live in the world.

This is what i saw the more privileged (or just less fearful) kids doing when they were 21. But fueled as I was by the terror of getting stuck in the poverty i was raised in, I focused on being a straight-A student and then an ambitious hard-worker making her way up. For all my political commitments, I've never been so fiercely dedicated to anything as I have been to getting away from my childhood of cramped apartments, fried smelts and clothing from Zellers, once a year. I would do anything, make any sacrifice to avoid this—and I sacrificed play and travel. Even when I was supposed to be at play, as with the bathhouse committee, I took it all so seriously.

I graduated university with the top GPA in my department, got scholarships for grad school began working and haven't stopped since. At 25 I began studying to become a gestalt therapist and by 29 had a small therapy practice, was managing Good For Her, had a national sex column, a long-term partner and my own apartment. Ready, set, adulthood.

I got some kick-ass skills and confidence out of all this but i also missed out on some stuff. Like irresponsibility, feeling like i have safety net and the freedom to not know what I'm doing. Playing, just being, hanging out aimlessly. (Hanging out unproductively is the most ludicrously luxurious thing i can think of. Who the fuck has ever had time for that??) So guess what I wanna do now?

I am still a Type-A. I have prioritized lists and make carefully considered decisions (even if it doesn't look that way!). But I feel less fear of falling, less like I'm just running away from my mother's life. Not that there's anything wrong with my mother's life! (*cough* Hi mom!)

The Homo Panopticon
Now in order for me to conduct my little experiments in living, I need a bit of space. And privacy. I've missed having my community around me but in it's absence (in your absence), I've felt less self-conscious and a lot freer. For the first few months after i left, I was haunted by the imaginary presence of various members of the “the toronto queer community” looking over my shoulder. Ugh! I'd internalized the panopticon! I couldn't escape you folks, even in remotest Cambodia! Thankfully the ghosts (which were much less benevolent than my friends actually are) eventually went away.

And now I really enjoy the sense of privacy and freedom i have being on the other side of the planet. Being unknown, i get to see which patterns i quickly and easily reproduce (I couldn't avoid a queer community if it were on fire, it turns out. I love me the homos!) and which ones were always expendable (three jobs, two volunteer gigs and four lovers? um, no. I'll take a plate of calm with a side of reflective thanks!) To protect this, i have to make sure i don't make “too many” friends (!) and end up with an Aussie version of Toronto. I want to remain a bit on the fringes. I avoid parties unless it's for a good friend, am only slowly getting involved in volunteering and I spend lots of time home or working.

Big Revelation #2
is my developing spiritual life. Surely you saw this coming--so obvious! Oh, it's been so amazing! It all began one day in Laos when I closed my eyes to meditate and it's become this brilliantly lovely part of my life. I still can't actually say the word “spiritual” without a cringe-that-verges-on-a-gag but I'm just trying to accept the cliched geekiness of it all. Because I too get to be a recipient of that unconditional acceptance. In fact, I'm first in line.

I am in the midst of a passionate love affair with meditation. I do it for anywhere from 20-50 minutes a day (doing 40 minutes feels the best but sometimes I'm rushed). I just never imagined meditation would be such a thrill ride. I mean seriously, you're sitting there, not moving, but it's a party up there! So when someone asks me how my mediation went, I have a lot to say (“oh today was hilarious because I never even got past stage two of Metta...”). I go to the Sydney Buddhist Centre maybe once a week and attended my first weekend retreat with them. I practice a kind of meditation called Samatha, though sometimes I throw a Tonglen in there for fun (actually, it's a bloody heart-wrenching meditation but in a nice way). At some point, I'm gonna try Vipassana again, see how that flies. Sounds like a riot, eh? What can I say—it is to me. And Buddhism? Well, yes, that too, though more cautiously. I'm balancing my concerns about cultural appropriation with my easy affinity for a philosophy/religion that is for the most part utterly in harmony with what i already believe.

I have no idea what it means to have a spiritual life so i'm just feeling my way along, asking a lot of pointed questions and staying open. Some days I call myself Buddhish. I don't proclaim any exclusive commitment to buddhism (but then of course, being the way they are, that's exactly what they encourage. The funny thing about (mahayana) buddhism is that there's no way to rebel against it. There are ethical guidelines but rules do not trump kindness. Effectively, they have taken all the glee out of being bad!) I missed a Patti Smith show so I could go to meditation class and talk about the meaning of wisdom within buddhism. I know! that's how much I love it!

As you can imagine, all this dovetails nicely with my recent thoughts on love. One supports the other. One of the coolest things about meditation is that it is probably the most self-lovin' thing i can do without using my hands. heh. No matter which meditation i'm doing, my first job is simply to observe, not to change or correct. No matter how messily it goes, it's going perfectly. That means that for those 40 mins, I am already perfect, as is. It is the only thing I'll do all day where there is no right way to do it, so no way to assess if something went “well” or not. It just went. No goals, just kindness.

Experiments! With! Living!
So this is the “here's what i did” part.
Oh y'know, stuff! Lessee, I went on a 3 week road trip with 3 folks who've become like my family here, I take every opportunity to see some new part of Australia, had this little hitchhiking adventure and am learning to do things like: talk to (a lot of) strangers, dumpster dive, steal a postcard, sneak in, be a good guest, hitchhike across the outback safely, be comfortable with being invisible, bake a gluten-free vegan cupcake, know when to tell a story about myself, watch out for snakes in the water hole and spiders in my boots, not flirt or seduce, cry on my yoga mat, roll cigarettes, have a good fight, live with 4 flatmates, ease up, talk about racism with white people, be a faraway friend, stay home alone, swallow my pride, go on a date, take a valium recreationally, write, tie someone up, be the one non-drinker at the party, make new friends and of course, be still, love and learn.

As for how i'm paying for all this? that's coming a future post. Stay tuned, my pretties.

I'm living in a shared house and have a landline, should you want to call me, send me love letters or copies of $pread magazine (except the current issue. They sent it to me cuz i'm in it)

Herself
67 Station Street
Newtown, NSW
2042
Australia

lots of love,
cg