Only a Matter of Time

It has come to this.  Just five days into the life of this blog, we have arrived at the inevitable, the perennial issue of mothers and children — raised in yesterday’s post re Kevin’s website and Darla’s comment.  I suppose it was only a matter of time.

Well, specifically on that perennial issue of mothers and children — least said by me, soonest mended.

More generally — childhood losses, finds, and adult re-connections — Bugs was all of that, wrapped up in one willful, confounding gray-and-white furball.  I had moments of piercing joy, just looking at him — of excitement at the potential for more lasting and durable connection with him — and of bafflement and, at times, of sheer despair at how to proceed with him.

My life as a child?  Like I said, least said, soonest mended.

Back then, were it not for Albert Payson Terhune’s Lad of Sunnybank

and Farley Mowat’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be –

and I wanted to die, I felt I surely would die of a broken heart, at the end of Old Yeller –

In my adult life I’ve re-entered that kind of intense feeling.  I’ve felt the joy of the material-self through the FELDENKRAIS work:  Laying hands on another person and, together, entering a domain of ease and well-being that’s been endlessly sustaining.

With Bugs?  No dice.  My hands literally itched to touch him. He  would have none of them.  Like I said yesterday — I couldn’t even sit next to him.

I’ve felt the joy of the emotional-self through the NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION work:  Connecting my own feelings and deepest aspirations with those of another person and, together, entering a domain of understanding and communion that’s been endlessly refreshing, sustaining.

With Bugs?  Nuh-uh.  My heart, my soul, yearned to understand him.  In vain.

He was so beyond my reach.  Out of my hands, utterly incomprehensible, and inflicting pain not pleasure.

That’s what I meant when I said, yesterday, that I needed help.

So maybe now we’re ready to talk about Mother Teresa.