Milk (kind of - Lassis, really)... and Facing Ourselves

by Amy

She picked up Rosa and walked over to Clara’s cottage. Letting herself in, she found Clara where she knew she’d be. Ruth sat on the sprung and lumpy sofa that smelled of banana peels and apple cores and watched Clara at the easel, staring at Peter’s portrait.“Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair?” said Ruth.“The line from your poem,” said Clara, turning on the stool to look at Ruth.“I was asking you, Clara. Who hurt you once?” Ruth gestured to the easel. “What are you waiting for?”
“Then why’re you stuck? Like the characters in that goddamned play. Are you waiting for someone, something to save you? Waiting for Peter to tell you it’s okay to get on without him? You’re looking for milk in the wrong place.”“I just want to paint,” said Clara. “I don’t want to be saved, I don’t want to be forgiven. I don’t even want milk. I just want to paint.”

I don’t really believe her. We all want to be saved sometimes. We all want to be forgiven. We all, at least sometimes, want metaphorical milk. We all want to have someone to blame. We all enjoy the idea of right and wrong and the good guy winning in the “end”. There is comfort in “it’s not my fault”, “he started it”, and “I was just following rules”.

That’s milk.

The food of infants.

Ruth struggled out of the sofa. “I did.”
“You did what?” asked Clara.“The answer to that question. All those years when I couldn’t write, I blamed John Fleming. But I was wrong.”
Clara watched Ruth and Rosa waddle away. She had no idea what the crazy old woman was talking about. But sitting in front of the canvas, it slowly sank in.Who could do such damage? Who knew where the weaknesses, the fault lines lay? Who could cause all that internal bleeding?

One of the hard things about growing up (at any age) is that it can be disorienting. Babies and toddlers are so convinced that they are the center of the universe and that their wishes should be commands to all those around them, that they feel righteous anger and entitlement when they are contradicted or impeded.

As we grow, we realize that life, relationships, and interactions are dynamic. There’s give and take. Action and reaction. It’s so terribly easy to shift the blame. Like sibling squabbles. Most of us can relate. Even those who have no blood siblings know what that’s like in a classroom, a sports team, or something of the like. He did it first… But did you see what so and so did? Everyone is doing it… She’s breathing my air... Took my things… Messed up my concentration…

For those of you who are parents, you’re aware that one of the fascinating and magical aspects of childhood is that we are invited to “relive” these lessons as we teach them to our children. For years now I have found myself telling my son (again and again) that we cannot change other people or let our behavior be defined by reaction. We must own our mistakes. They can be explained, justified, or understood in light of what might have prompted or triggered our behavior. But, ultimately, the choice is ours and two wrongs do not make a right. Isn’t that the adage?

Viktor Frankl speaks of this when talking about his experience as a concentration camp prisoner.

During this psychological phase one observed that people with natures of a more primitive kind could not escape the influences of the brutality which had surrounded them in camp life. Now, being free, they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed for them was that they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects, of willful force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences.” (Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl)

Some, Frankl included, didn’t become enslaved to brutal behavior. Easier said than done.

I have found myself feeling like a hypocrite, time and again. As I counsel my child, I am faced with my own shortcomings. My own childishness, as it were. I like that he absorbs lessons and ideals. I like that he holds me accountable. I like that sometimes he’ll (almost always) respectfully challenge me or question my own behavior. But mom, you always say that…

Because it’s so, so easy to blame someone else for our choices. I am not saying our backgrounds, baggage, environment, context, preconceived notions, and experience aren’t part of us. They are. Our choices and behavior are, to an extent, a reflection of that. But we need not be limited to that!

When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation? If you confront insult or antagonism, your first impulse will be to respond in kind. But if you think, as it were, This is an emissary sent from the Lord, and some benefit is intended for me, first of all the occasion to demonstrate my faithfulness, the chance to show that I do in some small degree participate in the grace that saved me, you are free to act otherwise than as circumstances would seem to dictate. You are free to act by your own lights. You are freed at the same time of the impulse to hate or resent that person. He would probably laugh at the thought that the Lord sent him to you for your benefit (and his), but that is the perfection of the disguise, his own ignorance of it.” (Gilead – Marilynne Robinson)

Easier said than done.

It takes a big person. A grownup.

“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.” (The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman)

I’m not a grown-up yet. If these are the stakes, I’m not sure I ever will be. But since we’ve talked about setting high standards and being works in progress, I’m sharing aspirations. I’d like to go beyond the drinking (metaphorical) milk phase. I would like the toddler in me to step back, even during emotionally charged moments and interactions, and let a more mature version of me take over.

I’d like to learn to listen to intent, not just the words. I’d like to understand motivation, not just actions. I’d like to be able to feel the love, even when someone is muddling through the expression of it. I’d like to understand people’s gifts of their time and the things they value, even when it isn’t what I’d have otherwise valued myself. I’d like to read between the lines and grasp all the things we have in common, instead of letting my mind snag on points of discord and formulate answers and rebuttals. I’d like to grow in my quest for questioning my own ideas and beliefs. If they aren’t strong enough to withstand attack, they probably aren’t well rooted enough and they need to be fortified.

I would like to judge less and empathize more.

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. (Man’s Search for Meaning – Victor Frankl)

In many ways, I am a coward. I frequently choose to remain ignorant of pain and suffering that is too far away for me to be of any help, and yet too close to my own fears of pain and suffering.

We are all frightened of the ugly, the dirty. We all want to turn away from anything that reveals the failure, pain, sickness, and death beneath the brightly painted surface of our ordered lives. Civilization is, at least in part, about pretending that things are better than they are. (Becoming Human – Jean Vanier)

My true cowardice, though, was in facing myself. I do think I’ve grown. And learned. And become braver.

I, like Beauvoir, have watched Gamache bravely dive into himself and, in facing himself, become a man who can see the ugly and the dirty… and still find beauty. Like Clara, I have learned from Ruth and learned that the lump in the throat has to come out somehow. It demands that I smooth out the folds and questions and doubts in my own soul. I think I’m learning. I’m growing.

How difficult it is to accept our limits and our handicaps as well as our gifts and capacities. We feel that if others see us as we really are they might reject us. So we cover our weaknesses. (Becoming Human – Jean Vanier)

In my last post I spoke of how, before reaching competence, we have a phase of conscious incompetence. Before becoming a butterfly, there is a phase of self-digestion and cocooning meditation. Before getting better, we must admit how broken we are. Before we can truly be kind and forgiving to others, we must be willing to face our own humanity.

But then I began to realize that in order to accept other people’s disabilities and to help them grow, it was fundamental for me to accept my own. (Becoming Human – Jean Vanier)

In order to become the person I would like to be, I have to understand the person I am. Regardless of the context where I am in. 

IfIf you can keep your head when all about you// are losing theirs and blaming you, // If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, // But make allowance for their doubting too; // If you can wait and not be tired of waiting, // or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, // or being hated, don’t give way to hating…(Rudyard Kipling)

I am so, so very far from my ideals.

I am such a child, an infant, when it comes to my aspirations.

Clara picked up her brush and contemplated the empty canvas. She would do a portrait of the person who had hurt her once, beyond repair.With one bold stroke after another she painted. Capturing the rage, the sorrow, the doubt, the fear, the guilt, the joy, the love, and finally, the forgiveness.It would be her most intimate, most difficult painting yet.It would be a self-portrait.

And that’s where I propose to start. First to understand and capture, then to be thankful and forgiving.

Milk

I’m not a milk drinker.

Recently I reintroduced milk to my diet (by that I mean splashes in my black tea or coffee)...

Does anyone here still drink pure milk? Almond milk? Is milk something you only use as an ingredient for other recipes? Do you take milk in your tea or coffee? Or is it half and half? Does anyone make smoothies with milk? Or milkshakes? Do any of you not use any dairy at all?

I actually googled “milk for grown-ups” and discovered lassis. As far as I can tell, they’re basically milkshakes with yogurt. Kind of. There were many recipes with variations. The basic rule was having ice, water, and yogurt – about the same amount of each (although recipes varied). The salty and spicy ones added things like all spice, cardamom, mint, etc. The sweet ones (most common was mango) usually had fruit and sugar.

I made a lemon/peach version. Equal parts yogurt, water, and ice. A bit of lemon zest and one slice of leftover canned peach. I added ½ a tablespoon of sugar. Turn on the blender for a few seconds. Done. It was delicious, although wholly unsuitable for the cold rainy weather.

Later in the day I went back to my usual splash of milk in tea. Grown-up milk.

All quotes - unless stated otherwise - are from The Nature of the Beast, by Louise Penny