Real Dishes Break

(somewhat) from the archives

(I created a playlist for this essay. You can listen to it here. )

I love the photo of the solitary leaf above. I have taken so many photos like this over the years. There is something that captures me when I see one leaf, one stone, one tree off on its own, especially when there are thousands and thousands of them within a few yards away. I don't know why I always seem to be attracted to them, but once again I found a leaf and a dried Queen Anne's lace, all alone, out on the semi-frozen pond. I also found a teeny tiny turtle, frozen into the ice—and that leads me to the words below. I've been feeling more vulnerable than usual, perhaps because I've been skimming along with a lot of unknowns again, and too many uncertainties cause me to feel rootless. There is something that connects my need for validation to the feeling of being rootless. Sometimes I think I might come across as being confident and strong because I can be so upfront and honest in my writing, but this couldn't be further from how it really is. The state of the world right now, especially the continued unprovoked and criminal invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine by a war criminal and having blood in the game (this personally affects people I love) still unsettles me to my core.

I'm one of those people who lives with that physical presence of aching in my heart almost every single day. I don't remember a day that I haven't felt it for one reason or another; it's not necessarily a bad thing either, sometimes it comes from deep joy.  It's where I have always felt things, good or bad—straight in the center of my chest. When I write, I think it's one way to give that aching a release point, let some of the pressure out, and it's also a way to make some sense of it now and again. Even so, it's often scary to click the "publish" button, and would be even scarier to read it out loud in front of others. My knees don't knock, and I try to act nonchalant, but trust me, inside I'm a ball of wax, not sure if I want to harden up or melt into a gooey mess. Dear reader, I am a vulnerable soul. It is an act of courage to write from the heart. I am a courageous and vulnerable soul.

“Real dishes break. That's how you know they're real.” 
Marty Rubin

This tiny soul was frozen in the pond. A naturalist friend said that can survive this, yet my heart still ached for his tender vulnerability for days.

Many years ago now my former in-laws had a dog named Annie, short for “Little Orphan Annie,” the lovable character from the poem by James Whitcomb Riley. She came to live with them after they kept seeing her wandering around the local farmland they walked through each morning. She was skeletal, mangy and kept a safe distance from them, but after some time she began to let them come closer and closer to her. One day they noticed that she was wandering around their yard, so they left her some food. She ate it, and came back again and again for more. I don’t recall how many weeks it took for them to coax her near enough to pet her, but soon enough they had welcomed her into their home. 

Annie had a long road back to health, but not nearly as long as her battle to regain trust in humans. It was painfully obvious that she had been abused in her past. She was already at least five years old, and any time you approached her to pet her head she would quickly cower and retreat. My in-laws were both very kind-hearted toward animals, and they showered Annie with love and affection and a safe home. Both of them understood her hesitance for trust, and were incredibly patient; they were rewarded with the kindest, most well-mannered dog I have ever known. Even when all of the family would gather (there are nine grandchildren) Annie was warm and gentle and a constant, humble presence in any activity we engaged in. She adored the kids. But the thing is, no matter how well-adjusted to love Annie had become, whenever you approached her with a gentle hand to pet her on the head, she cowered and winced. I learned to not go about it in a way that distressed her, but every now and then I would forget. It was heartbreaking to realise what damage someone had done to her in her past. Some things that happen to us are simply impossible to forget; even if we have no conscious memory of it, the imprint of it might always surface. Even if we learn to trust. 

The beautiful thing about Annie was that she did learn to trust again. She became a joyful presence and reaped a whole lot of love from her new human family. You could say she took a risk. Somehow it made her even more lovable and special to all of us. Indeed, it did.

The word vulnerable comes from the Latin verb vulnerare, “to wound.” Vulnerability in its essence means to be susceptible to physical or emotional harm, but the other side of it can be to invite intimacy, connection and joy. You see, what I’m beginning to wonder is that without taking the risk and opening our whole selves up to the possibility of being wounded, how can we be receptive enough for the beauty of true connection? 

E.M. Forster once wrote, “Only Connect.” It’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Without connection to other living beings, what would be the point? What would life be like without looking into the eyes of another human being and seeing your own loneliness and neediness reflected back? Even if we cannot see, we can experience connection through touch or sound. Connection is about realising that together with someone else you can temporarily overcome a sense of isolation. A sense of failure or deep sorrow or regret. Together you can move past shame or even great fear in a way that might seem impossible on your own. Connection is what it means to be human at its most instinctive level.  What I am learning is that there is no connection without vulnerability.

Think for a moment about the times in your life when you have felt the most possibility for being wounded. I would guess that at least one of those times would have something to do with falling in love. If we are lucky, our romantic relationship has the potential to be the most intimate relationship of our lives. Think about the vulnerable state of being naked for the first time in the presence of the person you have fallen in love with, and then think further about the first time you make love with them. Is it not possibly one of the most beautiful rewards of being human? Even with all of the awkwardness, clumsiness, compromise and risk of pain and loss that can accompany it? I’m not talking about gratuitous sex, but sharing physical intimacy with the one true person you have risked giving your heart. 

For the majority of my long first marriage to a diagnosed narcissist (which I learned about only years later), I refused (was terrified of) that kind of intimacy. I had learned after being emotionally wounded over and over again that it was a place I just could not allow myself to be vulnerable. I don’t think I let my husband see me undressed for the last fifteen years of our twenty-three years together and I grew a suit of armour that was impenetrable. This might be a very personal matter, but it feels important to say, because I know there are other women and men who have suffered the same kinds of wounds. It’s not easy to talk about, or write about, but it’s real. It brings up those taboo feelings of shame, fear, unworthiness, and most of all the disappointment in myself for allowing it to affect me in the way that it did. Where was my sense of worthiness and utter confidence that I had in me once upon a time? It was lost somewhere, buried deep. 

The good news is that it was possible for me to excavate it, to an extent, but the deep wounding and scars have also presented as a type of Betrayal Trauma (with PTSD-like symptoms) that my therapist has said might never be healed. To pair that with the intense betrayal of his multiple infidelities is a sure recipe for life-long Betrayal Trauma. It’s difficult to not be psychologically wounded when you are struck down emotionally, repeatedly, by a person that should be someone you hold in joy and trust and connection. It took a lot of courage and the love and understanding of some one very special, my sweetheart Rick, to help me arrive at a place where I could be intimate in that way again. Yes, it took opening myself up to risk and being vulnerable, and it is also a fear of which I may never be completely free. Some things that happen to us are simply impossible to forget; the imprint of it might always resurface. Even if we trust.

The experts say that our greatest obstacle to connection is the lack of authenticity because we fear we are not worthy enough. That in order to have that kind of connection we have to be willing to allow ourselves to be seen. Really seen, with all of our flaws, our fears and our shame. It takes three things to be able to feel worthy: courage, compassion and authenticity. It requires the courage to be imperfect. It means that we have to have compassion for ourselves, and also for others, to allow them to be imperfect, too. And it takes the willingness to let go of who we think we should be in order to be who we really are, our authentic selves. All of these qualities require vulnerability. To experience true connection we have to be willing to put ourselves in situations that have no guarantees, that we have no way of knowing if they will work out in the ways that we hope they will. But these kinds of connections that come from a place of vulnerability have the potential to be the most fulfilling and meaningful of our lives. 

There are so many situations in life, so many kinds of relationships that are affected by our fear of connection; it’s not just the romantic relationships, but they can be the most dramatic of examples.  How many times have you been in a place where you encounter new people and running through your mind are thoughts like “Am I good enough? Smart enough? Rich enough? Thin enough? Attractive enough? Athletic enough?” I don’t know, maybe you are one of the lucky ones who has an unfailing sense of self-worth. I just don’t. Oh, there are many things about myself that I feel good about, that make me feel worthy; there are also some that make me feel insecure. What if by admitting those flaws and insecurities and not always trying to predict how other people might perceive me because of them, I could allow people to see my authentic self, someone they could relate to because of their own flaws and insecurities? Even if we don’t publicly admit to them, we certainly know that we have them. We all do. What if instead of disguising our fears about our flaws and unworthiness we could have a sense of humour about them? What if we dared to believe that despite our imperfections that we are still enough? What if we believed that we are really enough, and worthy of love and belonging? What if being vulnerable was what made us perfectly beautiful, in our own unique way, after all?

I keep going back to thoughts of Annie and how her willingness to trust us made us all hold her so dear. Of course, the complexities of human emotion are quite a different thing than that of an animal, or so we believe. Sometimes I believe our animal friends have much deeper capacities than we give them credit. The thing is, thinking now of Annie, after all these years, I can be more compassionate toward my own wounds. I can be more understanding of the instinctive reflexes that surface in me from time to time, reflexes that come from my most vulnerable places inside. And when I think of how I loved Annie, how much I wanted her to feel loved and to trust me, I know that it’s possible to find that kind of compassion in many other ways in my life. The beauty of vulnerability is in allowing ourselves to be really seen. Sometimes it can feel like the scariest thing imaginable, but I have discovered that it’s a risk worth taking.