Vulnerability

 

January 11, 2023

Dehumidifier guy makes an appointment for 4. At 4:50 I call the office frantically, reminding them that I have rehearsal at 5:30, which I told them when the appointment was made. Mitch the dehumidifier guy phones and says, laconically, “I’m about twenty minutes out from you.” There are so many more provocations to murder than there are murders. We should rejoice.

Rehearsal showed me how far I am from being ready for Friday’s concert. The basses may be the least shaky, I say in our defense. Symphony Chorus has tripled in size. Maybe they wanted to get past the opera. 

Akron in the news for an arrest in which the arresting officer smashes snow into a citizen’s face while he was in cuffs and down on the ground. Three times. 

Went to get the egg tempera piece framed for Bekka’s daughters. I mentioned how I hadn’t painted in two years because of a flood in my studio, and the frame woman told me that her house in Wilmington was swept away by a hurricane. She insists that Asheville is much larger than Wilmington, which it is not. The idea of moving here to get to a “big city” was odd to me. If an 8x8 costs $70 to frame, I won’t be doing much framing in the near future. 

Watching road rage videos on You Tube. My fuse is too slow for there to be much danger of involvement in a road rage incident. 

Giving thought to the concept “vulnerability.” Never know what people mean when they talk about it, assuming that all souls at all times are vulnerable to the missiles of existence, and that it’s not something needing to be cultivated. But perhaps it indicates the willingness to express needs and desires without regard to reaction or consequences– saying “I want” without fear of scorn or indifference.  If that’s the case, I have been bad at it, and my lack of this particular quality has been a central factor in my life. At Christmas my sister observed this of herself, confirming it’s a family trait. In my defense, there was at no point (before right now) any reason to assume it was a wrong approach to life. Thinking back, I cannot recall one time when I was candid or forceful with my desires that did not end in emotional disaster. I accused God in my prayers of using my prayers as aiming mechanisms, so he could annihilate whatever I most desired. He waited to hear my deepest longing before He struck. I revealed, He destroyed. It was like saying “yes” when the Nazis asked if you were hiding Jews in your basement. I do not accuse people of the same malice, but I do assert that “being vulnerable” has never produced a successful outcome for me. I do not ask for what I want, but try to maneuver around to get it by earning it or deserving it or simply being there when it was handed out. I never assumed, from earliest recollection, that anyone would be moved by my deepest emotions. This is not exactly a complaint. I managed to make a life, and did receive much that I needed without asking. My whispering “I love you” never once elicited “I love you too,” but silence and some confused version of, “well, that’s not what was in my mind at all.” Wanting to present my art, I opened a gallery rather than asking to be in someone else’s. Want to be published, I founded, ever so briefly, a publishing house. Wanting to be produced, I ran a theater. I did this because I never assumed that the response to my asking would be “Yes,” and in this way some shred of dignity might be preserved. Was that wrong? How was I to know? Every response to “Please may I have–” was “Hell no.” Perhaps vulnerability can be taken too far. You leave the gate open wide and the enemy streams in. I have put vulnerability to the test, with a failure rate approaching 100%. What should I have done? I was not able to be someone else, the only full cure I could imagine. 

What flashed into mind when I thought of “vulnerability” was the time when father intended to get rid of my dog Kim. He had his reasons–mostly to do with his innate timidity–but I consciously determined that my great need, my unfathomable need, my unanswerable need to keep my dog should overcome his reasons. I pleaded my case. I said, literally that I should win this because it was important to me and it really wasn’t to anybody else. He responded that Kim would go, nevertheless, “because I said so.” I knew in that instant that our relationship would never recover, and it never did. Why leave yourself and others open to that? I could have said all those years, “He really didn’t know how much I wanted it.” 

Long ago my mother wanted to go to her family reunion in Pennsylvania. Father refused, and as I didn’t want to go, he and I formed a wall against her. She took to her bed for two days, in a dark night of sadness. That was a lesson to me. Never say how much you want what you want, for cruelty will align against you. In my defense, I was probably 9 or 10. I also smile to think that her reaction to sadness is mine now, go to bed and sleep until you can stand it again. Also in my defense, years later when she wanted to go again, I not only went, but drove. My 21st birthday dawned in the house of my great-aunt Beatrice who is gone, and the farm with her never to be seen again. But for two days my mother was happy among people who had always loved her.