carl jung and his long-term mistress toni wolfe spent sunday dinners for many years with his "regular family".
when francois mitterand was buried, his mistress anne and their daughter danielle stood beside the casket, with madame mitterand and their two sons. the photos made cnn and front pages worldwide. outrage bloomed in france not from the mistress sharing the stage with the wife, but because the press intruded upon their shared grief.
spencer tracy died in katherine hepburn's arms. they were a legendary hollywood love story, and had been together 26 years. (they began their affair while she was on the rebound from john ford. he was a devout catholic and married father of two, whose wife hunkered down and girded for a fight, using the children as weapons. he enlisted and went to war to escape the mess.) when hepburn called tracy's wife louise to offer condolences, the latter replied, "i thought you were just a rumor."
somewhere between full disclosure and utter denial lies the more usual foggy minefield of extra-marital affairs, methinks.
certainly, friends and relatives have been on the receiving end of infidelity. some have been the agent too. thankfully, i don't know anybody who has suffered the humiliation of being found, or finding their s/o, in flagrante delicto. but the one who wakes up *betrayed* seems instantly to become consumed with what the other woman is like. she becomes this compulsive measuring stick and every fleeting thought and every passing word is now relevant to her.
have i had straying mates? of course. but my instinctive response has always been vastly different from anybody else i know. i never cared about *her*...
from my first b/f with a wandering eye, the script seemed always the same. he wanted to confess everything and beg forgiveness. on my end, it wasn't the infidelity that i saw as wrong, but the lying. this was incomprehensible to all of them. because i didn't see his sexual escapades as the issue, it meant i didn't want or need to know about her or about anything they did. all of that was between them. our relationship was not a threesome. typically this drove the man to fits. it didn't allow him the psychological unburdening he sorely needed to assuage his guilt. another paradox: he assumed monogamy to be a tenet of the relationship, while i never did. by enjoying the illicit company of another, he saw himself as having failed. so he felt guilt. that was all him, and i refused to be held responsible for any of it. for me, it was his choice to lie that provided an opportunity for emotional exploration, and honestly? few of them were up for it. rather than seeing it as a contest--her vs. me-- i saw the experience as an opportunity to look inward, and to move forward. if he felt like he *should* stay, but strayed, well, why? stood alone, the "other woman" had nothing to do with me or *us*. instead, i faced the question of what was lacking between us that he needed? was i deficient somewhere? inattentive? uncaring? selfish? overly occupied elsewhere? were we just not a good fit? was he a serial philanderer?
she was a symptom, not the disease. tingling fingers usually just mean you're cold. then again, you might indeed be having a heart attack.
i've never thought monogamy a true measure of love. i've never needed love as a prerequisite for sex. but then, i've never been able to fuck someone i've stopped loving.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Thursday, June 29, 2006
the significance of others
back when every home owned a buggy whip and the ringlets under women's bonnets were as impenetrable as their corsets, very few went very far. travel was arduous, dirty, and could be dangerous. transatlantic voyages were wildly expensive. those with "derring-do-dna" (another post...) may have followed greeley's wild advice to "go west", but battlefields and klondike gold notwithstanding, few went further than the county line.
most people were born, raised, married and died within the circumference of a few yards. aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors were coming and going, bringing pies and gossip. "he helps those who helps themselves, " raised many a barn.
as an only child, i remember reading histories of that agrarian lifestyle and wanting to scream with claustrophobia. seemingly noone ever had a moment to themselves. later i realized that thoughtful solitude likely was a very foreign concept to those always industrious idle-hands-are-the-devil's-workshop lutherans.
heading in-town to the more "urban" centers like chicago and boston, horse carriage and perambulation remained the mode of transport. so manure and mud prevailed as limitations to travel. and still, most lived within easy strolling distance of family, if not in the same brownstone.
so by long way of much wind, i've always wondered how, or if, this close proximity of so much family moderated *indecent* behavior. dalliances and illegitimate offspring have been around since the concept of monogamy began with its judeo-christian judgement on cohabitation. some men and women seem almost pathologically driven to seek sex outside the box, if you'll pardon the pun. although william the candlestick-maker never got much ink, people like hamilton (who nearly ruined his career over his affair with the sister of his wife) fdr, and his infidelity with his personal secretary (eleanor actually hired her, but upon the discovery, went anorexic and lost many of her teeth) to the mitfords, to the tired cliches of the kennedys and bill clinton, there is a decided category of cake-eaters.
i'm descended from a long line of promiscuous players, both male and female, so have what at worst might be considered a deviant morality, while at best perhaps viewed as a more "old world", ahem, take on the whole thing.
nature or nurture? clearly, there are those who believe in monogamy, and feel more comfortable within those bounds. but for others, is it the concern of what others might think that make many remain faithful? the bitter thought of a biddy spilling the beans? or are some of us just wired to seek what we want, driven under the conviction we won't get caught ?
no statistics will convince me infidelity is anymore prevalent today than 100 or 200 or 2000 years ago. it's a truth that people lie on those surveys anyway.
are cake-eaters a different gene pool? or just selfish hedonists?
most people were born, raised, married and died within the circumference of a few yards. aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors were coming and going, bringing pies and gossip. "he helps those who helps themselves, " raised many a barn.
as an only child, i remember reading histories of that agrarian lifestyle and wanting to scream with claustrophobia. seemingly noone ever had a moment to themselves. later i realized that thoughtful solitude likely was a very foreign concept to those always industrious idle-hands-are-the-devil's-workshop lutherans.
heading in-town to the more "urban" centers like chicago and boston, horse carriage and perambulation remained the mode of transport. so manure and mud prevailed as limitations to travel. and still, most lived within easy strolling distance of family, if not in the same brownstone.
so by long way of much wind, i've always wondered how, or if, this close proximity of so much family moderated *indecent* behavior. dalliances and illegitimate offspring have been around since the concept of monogamy began with its judeo-christian judgement on cohabitation. some men and women seem almost pathologically driven to seek sex outside the box, if you'll pardon the pun. although william the candlestick-maker never got much ink, people like hamilton (who nearly ruined his career over his affair with the sister of his wife) fdr, and his infidelity with his personal secretary (eleanor actually hired her, but upon the discovery, went anorexic and lost many of her teeth) to the mitfords, to the tired cliches of the kennedys and bill clinton, there is a decided category of cake-eaters.
i'm descended from a long line of promiscuous players, both male and female, so have what at worst might be considered a deviant morality, while at best perhaps viewed as a more "old world", ahem, take on the whole thing.
nature or nurture? clearly, there are those who believe in monogamy, and feel more comfortable within those bounds. but for others, is it the concern of what others might think that make many remain faithful? the bitter thought of a biddy spilling the beans? or are some of us just wired to seek what we want, driven under the conviction we won't get caught ?
no statistics will convince me infidelity is anymore prevalent today than 100 or 200 or 2000 years ago. it's a truth that people lie on those surveys anyway.
are cake-eaters a different gene pool? or just selfish hedonists?
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
bff
when you're a kid, it's easy. when you're really young, you just need a pusher for the swings, or a counterbalance on the see-saw. somebody with whom to trade lunches. "i'll be your best friend if *fill in the blank*". all day long, you've got potential pals climbing out of the sandbox and dangling from the monkey bars. what kid really has a concept of forever anyway? but my point here is the vast pool from which to choose. alliances wax and wane, but if tomorrow it all blows up into "I HATE YOU!!" -- it won't matter because you can just sit at a different lunch table and make mean "i'm-so-over-you" faces at her.
you get bigger and you're no longer in line for the slide, but you've still got an enormous circle from which to choose, and gradually you're divvied up into common interests like advanced placement classes or vo-tech studies, then after-hours by either sports or more studious pursuits. even just hanging out in the woods getting high. however you pass time, you're surrounded all day by friends and the possibilty of new ones.
you never run out of things to talk about, and YOU TELL THEM EVERYTHING. there isn't enough time in the day to discuss it all. hours on the phone, yakkity-yakkity during breaks, notes passed, letters sent. an endless stream of sharing.
you graduate college, and if like me, you're in a vibrant urban area, chances are a fair number of your friends will stick around while they sort out either careers or relationships. things start to shift. someone takes a job in l.a., and another follows her boyfriend to chicago. your circle starts to get holes in it. some are better than others at keeping in touch, and you figure a few calls/notes a year from your end will give you somebody to visit when you go to san francisco. thailand or tibet. or finland.
jobs are as demanding as we allow them to be, but when you're a professional newbie, lots of folks around you are in the same boat, so you've got fall-back for drinks after work and weekends on the beach.
soon people start pairing off and signing on, and you find yourself in one hilarious bridesmaid outfit after another and thanking whatever irishman (it had to have been a paddy) came up with the concept of open-bar at these hoo-has. the back of your closet is a crinkly riot of noisy pastels and you've got more dyed shoes than you care to count. although that sassy red pair flung from the catwalk at 3:00 a.m., which tinted the pool deep crimson (thus closing it for 12 hours), obviously never made it home.
you've always got a boyfriend, so they don't feel weird including you at parties and dinners. you still see the ones you care to see. you don't always like how they morph into "spouse-tron", so choose to drift away, rather than judge. you begin to notice that at more and more weddings, the singles' tables grow fewer and fewer.
then the march of the spawn begins. you throw showers, you buy gifts, you coo at the infant(s), but it's not long before you have little in common. their life now is diaper changes and midnight feeds, and you can only feign interest in so many gurgling bundles before it grows thin. they don't have time to read a paper or see a flick and for them it's more rewarding anyway to share with other new parents. the real divide begins.
you're busy with life, kids are of no concern, but you occasionally feel the pang of wishing you could call *him* or *her* and share something funny or challenging, but know he/she will be otherwise occupied. you have no desire to waste long-distance money on the obligatory phone conversation with the two-year-old. so the call goes unmade. sometimes, it's that you're crying, and want to call, but you don't want to burden a busy dad/mom with all that. what's your sadness compared to a baby? so you sob in the dark, and that's that. you've got fewer and fewer places to distribute your heart.
a book called "bowling alone", issued a few years back, is getting some interest again. who knows why the cultural zeitgeist has burped it back up, but it chronicles the growing personal isolation of americans. i-m, cellphones and texting were all in their infancy back then, and have only exploded since the book's release. who had heard of blogging (woo-hoo, look at me) in 2000? yet membership in things like local bowling leagues and dart clubs is way down. so, while we remain ephemerally connected, we have fewer and fewer real friends. think about it. right now. whom could you call and know they'd drop whatever they were doing to meet for coffee or a pint? a recent study found that most americans feel they have "one true friend" in whom they could confide anything. one. true. friend. loaded words, together and separate.
in a perfect world, wouldn't your one true friend be your significant other?
what then do you do when a tornado of unimagined power whisks him away? it blows the roof off the house you shared, demolishes every stick of your emotional furniture and explodes every cushion of security. all you have left are shattered pointy shards and the sound of featherdown drifting into a pile at your feet.
how do you rearrange both your personal inner significance, and your concept of his? indeed, when your confidante can't or won't hear you over the wind, it's a cold realization you never bought bowling shoes.
you get bigger and you're no longer in line for the slide, but you've still got an enormous circle from which to choose, and gradually you're divvied up into common interests like advanced placement classes or vo-tech studies, then after-hours by either sports or more studious pursuits. even just hanging out in the woods getting high. however you pass time, you're surrounded all day by friends and the possibilty of new ones.
you never run out of things to talk about, and YOU TELL THEM EVERYTHING. there isn't enough time in the day to discuss it all. hours on the phone, yakkity-yakkity during breaks, notes passed, letters sent. an endless stream of sharing.
you graduate college, and if like me, you're in a vibrant urban area, chances are a fair number of your friends will stick around while they sort out either careers or relationships. things start to shift. someone takes a job in l.a., and another follows her boyfriend to chicago. your circle starts to get holes in it. some are better than others at keeping in touch, and you figure a few calls/notes a year from your end will give you somebody to visit when you go to san francisco. thailand or tibet. or finland.
jobs are as demanding as we allow them to be, but when you're a professional newbie, lots of folks around you are in the same boat, so you've got fall-back for drinks after work and weekends on the beach.
soon people start pairing off and signing on, and you find yourself in one hilarious bridesmaid outfit after another and thanking whatever irishman (it had to have been a paddy) came up with the concept of open-bar at these hoo-has. the back of your closet is a crinkly riot of noisy pastels and you've got more dyed shoes than you care to count. although that sassy red pair flung from the catwalk at 3:00 a.m., which tinted the pool deep crimson (thus closing it for 12 hours), obviously never made it home.
you've always got a boyfriend, so they don't feel weird including you at parties and dinners. you still see the ones you care to see. you don't always like how they morph into "spouse-tron", so choose to drift away, rather than judge. you begin to notice that at more and more weddings, the singles' tables grow fewer and fewer.
then the march of the spawn begins. you throw showers, you buy gifts, you coo at the infant(s), but it's not long before you have little in common. their life now is diaper changes and midnight feeds, and you can only feign interest in so many gurgling bundles before it grows thin. they don't have time to read a paper or see a flick and for them it's more rewarding anyway to share with other new parents. the real divide begins.
you're busy with life, kids are of no concern, but you occasionally feel the pang of wishing you could call *him* or *her* and share something funny or challenging, but know he/she will be otherwise occupied. you have no desire to waste long-distance money on the obligatory phone conversation with the two-year-old. so the call goes unmade. sometimes, it's that you're crying, and want to call, but you don't want to burden a busy dad/mom with all that. what's your sadness compared to a baby? so you sob in the dark, and that's that. you've got fewer and fewer places to distribute your heart.
a book called "bowling alone", issued a few years back, is getting some interest again. who knows why the cultural zeitgeist has burped it back up, but it chronicles the growing personal isolation of americans. i-m, cellphones and texting were all in their infancy back then, and have only exploded since the book's release. who had heard of blogging (woo-hoo, look at me) in 2000? yet membership in things like local bowling leagues and dart clubs is way down. so, while we remain ephemerally connected, we have fewer and fewer real friends. think about it. right now. whom could you call and know they'd drop whatever they were doing to meet for coffee or a pint? a recent study found that most americans feel they have "one true friend" in whom they could confide anything. one. true. friend. loaded words, together and separate.
in a perfect world, wouldn't your one true friend be your significant other?
what then do you do when a tornado of unimagined power whisks him away? it blows the roof off the house you shared, demolishes every stick of your emotional furniture and explodes every cushion of security. all you have left are shattered pointy shards and the sound of featherdown drifting into a pile at your feet.
how do you rearrange both your personal inner significance, and your concept of his? indeed, when your confidante can't or won't hear you over the wind, it's a cold realization you never bought bowling shoes.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Sunday, June 25, 2006
how then to determine value ?
over the last few weeks, the art world (and anybody else who might have chanced across the info) has been shocked by astronomical sums fetched at auction for three paintings. the most recent jaw-dropper was lauder's purchase of a klimt for $135 million. that was preceded by a modigliani for a relatively modest $30 mill, and right before that, a picasso for a cool $95 large.
these sorts of things defy logic and it's mind-bending for most of us to think that checks in the range of $100 million represent essentially disposable income for the buyers.
beyond the staggering size of the transactions, what drew my attention is that the three portraits are of the artists' mistresses. eventually all the women were discarded. one became a recluse, and the two others committed suicide.
all three geniuses viewed these women as dispensable, replaceable and so, by inference, worthless. what is it then that now makes them so valuable to another man?
to begin...
emotional distress has always led me to mental disorder. my brain gets distracted by the strangest diversions and my thoughts seem impossible to organize. or even maintain, for that matter. threads get frayed and ends unravel. the days dissolve one into the other. it's exhausting simply to get through the 24 hours without accidentally using ky as mascara-remover, or to make sure i get on the train indeed going in the direction of my destination.
brain research shows that, like any other muscle, unless its exercised often it becomes less elastic and begins a sorry descent into atrophy. for maintaining mental alacrity, verbal sparring has always been my favorite activity, but my most treasured partner in that is currently m.i.a. reading has always been a voracious pleasure, but my concentration now fails after just a few pages. so we go to number three on the list -- writing. i've decided i'll dive into this pool of self-indulgence floating in the ether, and see if i can retrain my slowing brain to pick back up the pace.
bear with me as i noodle through the formatting and coding here. salonierres don't easily thrive in this tech-driven world.
bear with me as i noodle through the formatting and coding here. salonierres don't easily thrive in this tech-driven world.
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