nancy my dear,

i can really see how my way of being leaves you feeling un- or under-related to. frankly, i have no idea of how to grow out of it. i  really think it's a shame that you are involved with a man whose stature doesn't match yours.

for instance: in the rich mandel instance, i recall my own feeling of insecurity at the table that night and my sense of estrangement from all the confidence-in-vulnerability that i felt around me. what could i have done about that? i don't know. would i be different now? i don't really know that either.

for instance: with dave and marsha i can imagine that sometime or other i might feel free to address the crowded atmosphere and insert myself into their show, but when i think back to that night, i can't see myself being very different (maybe it's a version of not going where i'm not wanted)

for instance: when you respond to my enthusiasm about a vista by saying 'how is it different from any other view?' it recalls to me your equation of walmart and the woods. it says to me that the thing that's putting me in touch with the sublime is really not special, in fact not worthy of admiring.

and i hear it this way even after reading what you wrote. how is it different from any other view? doesn't make me feel related to, it makes me feel like you took my enthusiasm and used it to begin an argument for some philosophical point.

i don't want to talk about filing cabinets, i want to argue: i don't want to tell you that i understand how you could ask that,i don't naturally turn to 'nancy, i felt misperceived' i want to tell you that you got it wrong.

and when i replay it in my mind, even with the most loving will in the world, i can't see it much differently.

on the other hand:

when i think back to wellfleet, i can see myself being more concerned for you and therefore more aware of the wind.

when i think back to vernick, i can imagine being in a studier place with the waitress.

when i think back to tango, i remember our do-over and i see it differently because i have some new information.

when i think about dave and ally,i think i felt shy.  i think i could have prepared my thoughts beforehand so that i would have felt sturdier and therefore spoken up.

---

---

taking in everything, i can see why you would be disappointed. i see that my limited filing categories and response-ability make it hard for you to be my friend. it is largely on me and it makes me very sad. i see too how this limits your sense of possibilities for us going forward. 

perhaps i've been too optimistic in thinking about a future without offering you the necessary personal infrastructure. i certainly accept your reticence and dampened curiosity as inevitable sequilae to my limited filing space.

so what shall we do? i would hate to lose you and to give up the vision i have of the mutual healing and creative doing we might experience. l love you.  but i also won't hang around (won't be where i'm not wanted) and be a pest if you are feeling pessimistic. i thought we were making progress. perhaps you do too. maybe my pessimistic take on your letter is a pure projection and in itself an example of the limited filing categories of which you complain. i don't know how to read your energy about this, so:

i am here for you to make it better if you want to take it one instance at a time. i'm willing to look at myself because i know that you'll do the same. i love you and i also recognize that for you, this may be a case where love is not enough.

holding you tenderly in my heart, lev

-------------

ps. on the matter of 'people who like wine and beer....' i think i'd like to discuss that in front of lance

we're missing each other here and i think those words have aroused something that we could take a look at.

The Irony Angel

Every couple of weeks, the woman i'm in love with tells me that we're just too different, that she worries about our future. The night before last, she said it again with emphasis. we can't be partners, we have different paradigms.
now the truth is that we slept together that night and last night too. but this morning i told her that these ruptures make me physically sick: that just as she worries about our 'incongruity' giving her cancer, i see our ruptures working on my heart.
she explained again about all the ways in which we are different. she went over every incident of my handling something in a less friendly, less relational way than she would have. she says i'm 'sub-social' and what's worse, i blame my sub-sociability on others. i don't chat because x doesn't seem interested, i make a sharp response to what i see as rudeness.
these episodes are the mythic tales that form her perception of me. they have changed in her re-telling. changes in myth are interesting, they reflect the shifting social basket in which they're held. what makes me sad and sick is that the changes don't seem to me to reflect any growth on my part. all of her re-tellings instead seem like adding another course of bricks to the wall between us.

she also tells me again how difficult it is to be with a man whose main energies are not directed to personal growth. i see myself as an advocate for her feelings and i see how it would look that way to her. i also hear the tone of her description getting darker and darker. she says that maybe we can't be together at all, she wonders if we could be friends, not partners, not lovers.

and what i'm hearing is that she's already made up her mind. maybe she doesn't admit it to herself, but she sounds like someone planning the kindest, gentlest break-up in the history of  love. she promises to let up on the relentless barrage of earnestness that sounds so angry and tests the limits of my growing residence in my own self. even the quality of her voice has become softer, less strident.
--
so: back to me.

i ask her for a reprieve. i say 'let's explore these differences for a fixed period' i suggest that we talk for a few weeks-'til new year's day. i ask for her co-operation in my pursuit of non-defensiveness. i ask her to be as skilled with me as she is with her clients. i remind her that she has a lot to gain and grow from being with me (she thinks of me mostly as entertainment, not education)
at the moment of asking her to take her time with this separation, i'm thinking 'if i can persuade her to support my growth, she'll see that the gap between us is narrowing'. it feels to me that if she gives us a chance, we have a chance.
but i'm also thinking that this is a shot at some personal growth that doesn't come along often. suppose i just assume that we're not going to make it. suppose i use the next two weeks as a growth intensive. how can i do this knowing that the outcome is going to involve a heartbreak? how can i not do this?

so there's the Irony Angel-i have to keep my head about me and my guts inside while going through a tragic loss. the payoff will be attaining that state of non-defensive, loving being that i'm being faulted now for not having. my lover, who is no longer invested in the long-term with me has become kinder. one possible outcome is that i will become who i want to be and who she says she wants me to be and lose her at the same time.
and my poor twillow? she will think herself better off, she will certainly be more at peace

here's why i hate the irony angel:
•in order to endure the next two weeks, i will have to act as if i didn't know this is the end and acting inauthentically in order to acheive authenticity is the self-defeating instruction of all time.
•twillow may leave me authentic and authentically in mourning for our love: i may end up loveable and without a love.

so: here it is my dear. i'm greedy to continue the work i started at hoffman, i'm hungry to be my self,
to find a calm center from which to reach out to the world. if i pursue that in the hope of keeping you in my life, then i'm not really pursuing it, i'm pursuing you-which is self-defeating. so i have to calm my yearning for an 'us' in order to find my 'me'. and if i calm myself by assuming that you and i are done, then i may be fulfilling my own prophecy, acting inauthentically in the process and doing myself the second-greatest damage imaginable.

what i need to say to you is this: i want to be me. that's primary. and one thing that 'me' wants is 'us'. i am torn. part of me needs to pretend that we're finished in order to pursue my hoffman mission without giving it the secondary job of keeping our relationship alive. and an authentic part of me is so sick at the thought of losing you that it's hard to imagine standing in that space and functioning as a seeker.
ps. maybe that's the key. maybe i have to be in the misery to be true to myself. maybe i just have to shut up and do it anyway. wish me luck.

A Reservation Concerning Complete Openness and Truth

Be it known:

that i am irrevocably placing the following restriction on the Agreement Concerning Complete Openness and Truth that exists between me and one Dr. Nancy Dreyfus.

i hold in perpetuity the right to keep certain secrets. to wit:

•any considerations, preparations, experiences, feeling, thoughts relating to a surprise delight for said Dr. Dreyfus are my privileged territory.

•any humorous reservations i hold about her high seriousness that soften such seriousness' landing without diluting its importance may be taken as an internal higher counsel.

•any pissy, pedantic thoughts that arise in the course of our conversations shall be kept in a playroom of their own where like can frolic with like.

The Life I Want and Never Talked About

how odd to finally say it:

i want to make utterances and have them heard. and i want to hear back from beloved others and reply. yeah, i want conversations, gentle and stimulating and weird and outrageous and private and public. i want to hear and i want to be heard.
here are some pieces: i want to make pictures, i want to write poems, jokes and stories. i want to promulgate silliness. i want to create fun because i think it's the raw material of joy and joy, if it isn't nirvana, is at least the earthly paradise. my joy is in creating joy. students applauding at the end of a semester isn't about my ego, it's about the joy.

and to make that all happen, i want to teach. there is a part of me missing when i'm not teaching.

and there's love. i want this woman. i want her to want me so much that she's willing to listen and trust that i'll be there for her. i want to do with her and be with her. i want declarations, celebrations, pronouncements, awesome silence, electric contact. i want to make love with her once, just once and i want that once to destroy time or at least mock its seriousness.

and i would like rituals. i want the doing that has the meaning that supports the feeling in a big geertzian triangle. i left judaism, but it left me first and i want to feel in the sacred without feeling silly.

and of course, there's me and the outside. i need to feel, not just think, my connection with the world. i need to deny what i was told-that it's not real. i need trees and bugs and butterflies (oh, butterflies!) i need to see the birds and watch sun coming through green leaves and smells and the wonder of it all.
i know i am forever when i take my temporary self out into the forever and i see there's no distance.
i do this best on the water. i need to be near water, it's my truth.

and i need the city. i need the bop-biddy-bop of new york and philly. i need the smell of deli and cheese shop and the taste of beer and fish and fruit like at uncle charlie's. (funny: that silly guy knew me so well that it freaked me out and i never let myself get close to him). i need the variety-vitality of the mix. when i die, i want a city street named after me. if i can't have that, a library will do. or a three-tap beer bar where the management swore allegiance to delicious.

I couldn't do without old friends and the simple love of them: the whole Silkman family, Nyheim, Julio, Gilmore, Welsh. And of course-I'm almost too scared to say it: my darling Spencer who's turned into an amazing human being (and i wonder if it's in spite of me.)

and i need the non-human beings-the dogs and cats, those friendships that have no ego, just love and touch. i want to sit at the magic dinner table with bill and spike and muscular and lola and bodhi and frankie and jersey. and i don't want to have to apologize to a single human being for the holiness of these other beings.

i would like to thank Nancy Dreyfus, Lance Roberds, the Hoffman Process, Stuart Shils, Hal Sirowitz, Kathy Bonanno, Jon Deutsch and Spencer Hoffman for keeping this vision alive even when i forgot to give it water and light. oh and did i mention Nancy Dreyfus? she's the woman in question, the woman i want for the rituals, and the talk and the joy and the one-time only love.

it's odd that i got this old before she came along
it's odd that i got this old before i said this all aloud
but life is odd and that's what i want: life.

What to do if you're too angry to Do-Over right.

There's a moment when you know: this argument has gone the wrong way, things are out of hand, no good can walk through the door we just opened. The realization may hit you on the head or it may sneak up on you.
If you've been practicing the art of the Do-Over for a while, you'll probably get that sense pretty soon.
But sometimes, if you're new to it or if passions are running higher than usual, you may find yourself angry or confused. You may sense that you'd end up repeating that same agitated, angry or off-center rant that got you into this in the first place.
You need a safety net. You need to climb back down from that high horse, take off the armor and meet your partner (remember, this is your loving partner) in a gentler place.
--
What makes this so hard is that you and your partner may find your very voices distorted by the anger that comes up. You want to stop the fight-cycle but even your request for a Do-Over has a toxic, hostile ring to it. The Do-Over itself may be doomed by the tension between you.
One proven way to neutralize the poison and get back to the love is to remove your voice from your words. You could point to a favorite biblical verse, I guess or dig out a particularly apt Valentine's Day card. But if you want to be sure your message fits the circumstance, there's another, more efficient solution.

Chapter Y: How (Why) it Works

   Chapter Y: How the Holy Do-Over Works

• We understand your skepticism. You may feel that what's done is done and if you could have done better, you would have. It may also seem that looking at a better way to do the same thing can only lead to pessimism about ever getting this relationship stuff right.

If you regularly pretend to be a fireman, that doesn't mean you should rush into a burning building to rescue someone's puppy.We began this work only because we were so frustrated with our merry-go-round approach to working through a conflict. We had an awkward conversation one night: someone was testy, someone else got defensive. It didn't get better from there.
When we tried to talk about it, we repeated the same pattern as we talked. You said, I said turned out not to be very productive. We love each other, we wanted to work this out and we each wanted the other to feel heard and respected, but explanations and self-justification just weren't doing it.
We decided that we just had to do the damn thing over again, go back to that stupid conversation and do it right this time. After a few false starts, we got it right.

•This approach works by modeling behavior that leads to both people feeling better and their relationship working more smoothly. The good feeling (positive reinforcement) attaches to the new behaviors themselves and the content of your Hold Do-Over quickly becomes part of your repertoire of inter-personal skills. It works because you feel better immediately.

•Holy Do-Over has been used in  tens/dozens/hundreds of situations by real couples who have  faced problems like yours.

•The approach works whether you "believe in it" or not. There are two negative outcomes possible. The worst possible result of a Holy Do-Over is a repeat of your first conversation. Everything is the same as it was, you each do what you did in the Original Incident.  Less worst is the possibility that you go through a HDO and you still don't feel any different. (This can happen for several reasons) in that case, what you've done is modeled a different approach to your problem. When the problem comes up again (and it will surely come up again in one form or another), you'll have an alternative way to deal with it and each other.

•There's research behind it.

The Holy Do-Over

When I was a kid in Brooklyn, we played a lot of games that were improvised versions of the serious, canonical games that we saw played on television. There was stickball which looked like baseball with a broomstick bat and a pink 'spaldeen' ball. it was played in the street, usually with a manhole cover as home plate and temporary bases assigned to car doors or fire hydrants. the rules were sort of ad-hoc and in the absence of umpires, there were a lot of disputed calls. since the game was far more important than the outcome, we never let a disagreement over a fair or foul ball stop play.

If we couldn't agree on a call, the most common result was an agreement to do it over. Once both sides acknowledge that the other isn't willing to concede and neither is interested in taking the ball and going home, we'd agree: 'okay, it's a do-over'. A do-over wasn't, of course, a replay of the original event: that would have been impossible. Instead, a do-over was a completely fresh iteration of the opportunity that had just occurred. It's still two strikes and one out and you're still up and we take it from there.

A Holy Do-Over in a relationship is a little like that. Something bad happened: something where neither of you did your best and the outcome isn't very satisfying. He was accusatory, she was defensive. He sulked, she yelled. She was unkind, he was deaf. The outcome sucked, you both feel terrible. Chances are that you can't unwind the event, you can't blot it out and your mutual failure sits like a smelly embarrassment between you. You can't have an Undo, but you can have a Do-Over.

A Do-Over is an agreement to suspend your feelings for the moment, to see them as mere artifacts of a need, whiskers to be shaved off and allowed to grow back in a different color and texture. In a Do-Over you return to your needs, consider your love, take up your courage and act the way you might have acted the first time if you had been true to yourself.

Of course, the kind of Do-Over we're talking about here has higher stakes than the street ball version.You're playing with each other's humanity, which is to say that your staking your own on the outcome. In a Holy Do-Over, everybody wins.

Guidelines for a useful Holy Do-Over

•wait as long as you need to, but no longer

one necessary pre-condition is that both of you have taken a step back from where you were emotionally. you now see your behavior as a 'thing-you-did' and not as 'you'. As long as you're still identifiied with what you just did and said, you can only have a Repeat, which is not the same as a Do-Over.

with practice, the latency period can be very short. Couples who have learned to play the game can sometimes regroup immediately as both of them realize that their best selves weren't operating.

•replicate, don't duplicate

in so far as you can return to the place where the first event happened, do so. if you can make the situation similar in any other way, good for you. it's a mistake to strive for cinematic perfection though. For one thing, all that obsessing just gets in the way. More importantly, you want cues in the environment that tell you that this is new, that you are free to do and be as you didn't the last time.

•immerse yourself in the feeling, but don't rehearse.

the point of a do-over is to enlist your best self to show up and be you. one way to scare that best self away is to give yourself a script.

it doesn't matter if you wrote the script or if you borrowed it from someone else: a re-do is not a performance, it's a natural emanation 

of your reflected, refined essential self. if you be you, but don't be rehearsed.

Magic has responsibilities. 

Religions have forbidden magic for a reason. Salem witches, ecc. the magician abrogates the powers of the divine: 

in truth the magician commands what the religious supplicant begs for. 

When you mess around with the laws of  nature, you're very much obliged to respect the outcomes of  your experiments.

so what you're doing here is dangerous stuff: powerful and sacred. done frivolously, it won't work; done half-seriously it could make you crazy.

you're playing around with two natural laws. 

first, you're denying time; you're going backwards by acting as if time hadn't elapsed and you have your hands on the hands of the clock.

second, you're screwing with cause and effect. you're taking the effect of some previous act and using it as the cause of the original act itself.

(stay with me now) your do-over is an effect that's (in effect) becoming the cause of its own cause.

dizzy yet? good.

so that's why you have to approach the act of the do-over with a certain gravity if not outright reverence. you're bending the laws of nature for your own interests. make sure it's worth it. don't joke, pray.