Sunday, August 5, 2001
Terminal Self-Centeredness - To LTF
I had a similar occurrence, well, not really, just sort of, a few nights ago; but I was the Terminally Self-Centered. My mother and I were sitting on the floor folding clothes, two loads. When we finished I leaned back against the couch and put my feet up on one of our cat 'teepees'. Mom teasingly drew her fingers lightly up and down and around the soles of my feet. She always forgets that I'm not ticklish on the bottoms of my feet. I am, though, pretty sensitive there and if someone runs a finger around the bottoms of my feet like they are trying to tickle me it feels really, really good to me, like getting a back rub. I experience those pleasure shivers over and over and over and over and over...anyway, I reminded her that I'm not ticklish there but told her that what she was doing felt great and asked her to please continue. She did, for about 30 seconds, with a devilish grin on her face, then stopped.
"C'mon, Mom," I said, "don't stop. That feels good."
She laughed, threw up her hands, and turned away from me.
I guess I really needed it because I didn't give up. After a few more tries, one of which was, "Seriously, Mom, do it seriously," (can you believe that?!?) I was reduced to, "Mom (elongated "ah" sound); please (even more elongated), just for a little while?"
With each plea, including the last desperate one, she glanced back at me and offered a generic smile, then turned back to the television.
I suppose it could seem like she was the terminally self-centered but she is beyond being either self or other centered anymore. I know this (although I don't think she does, she's beyond even that) so I was the one wearing the crown (of thorns, I guess).
The major difference from your set-up is that it did make a difference to me. I was momentarily hurt. I mean, I massage the woman at least once a day, I thought, sometimes twice, depending; is it such a big deal for her to stimulate my feet (thus, the rest of me) for awhile? Even The Girls pet me with their tails when I'm petting them and if I concentrate just a little I can activate the same pleasure-shiver mechanism from their tail-pets. If the cats can do it, I reasoned in my self-centered delirium, she can. Then I realized that there were countless times during her mothering of me many years ago when she stimulated me without considering the possibility of getting it back from me. When she used to read to us, for instance, I'd get those same pleasure shivers listening to her voice, from the head down instead of the feet up, and ask her to read "one more chapter", which she always did. When I was learning to read she'd sit with me and listen to me read while I purposely made all kinds of mistakes (I had an uncanny grasp of reading and picked it up quickly and, I think, on my own; it was almost like I was born knowing phonics; she knew this; it's hard to hide this stuff when you're three and four) just because listening to the words when she was correcting me or telling me to "sound it out" caused exactly the same pleasure shivers. So, although I know she isn't thinking of her refusal this way, I have the choice of considering it part of The Ultimate Reciprocity (which isn't really reciprocity, at all), as, when I was very young, I was also incapable of being "adequately" self or other centered. I was a neophyte negotiating the beginning of life with fierce determination, just as she is a neophyte negotiating the end of life with equally fierce determination.
It was a potent reminder that the Golden Rule, one version of which is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," does not also append, "and it will be done back to you." The Golden Rule isn't meant to be a two way street. It's meant to encourage empathy, which is not a place of "ways": Which means it is also not a karmic rule.
So, I must tell you, and, I hope I can keep it short, that your centrifugal force method of bringing people around to your direction has worked for me once again regarding Christmas in Prescott. I've been contemplating what this will involve and although the graphic of "Our Family and Extended Family at the Base of Thumb Butte On Christmas Cozy in a House in the Forest Surrounded by Snow in Front of a Fire in High Spirits and Full of Holiday Food" would make a decent season's greetings card it hit me exactly how much work this would be and who would be doing the work. That didn't deter me until I realized that in order to pull this off we'd actually have to move up here for the month of December after settling down in the Valley for the winter and starting all the projects waiting for us there. I don't consider this production beyond my energy but I do consider it beyond our sane scope with everything else waiting for us (like replacing and shoring up the side of the Mesa house, hopefully replacing the flooring depending on whether the stock market rallies, putting that house in some much needed living order, etc.). So I sat with my mother the night before last and said, "Okay, this is what we're going to have to do to pull this off, Mom."
"I don't want to live in Prescott in December."
"Well it's the only logical way to pull this off. It'll be beautiful, Mom! We can have fires every night, it'll probably snow (I surreptitiously noticed her shuddering), we'll bring up all the decorations (my motherowns about 16 semis-full of Christmas decorations and insists on getting more every year); our tree will last longer up here, we could even have a live tree, it'll be so warm and cozy doing all that baking we're planning, the cats will love it (and probably ravish the tree), it'll be like those old Christmas cards with pictures of Christmas of yore. The stockings on the hearth, people sleeping all over the place, people eating all over the place..."
"Maybe I should have thought more about this before I invited [MPS's] family up for Christmas."
That's how this whole thing started. She has this old midwest cultural habit of inviting everyone "over here" for everything. Now, though, she does it without thinking ahead. When MPS and MPNC and MPNP were here she invited their family, including in-laws, up for Christmas, as she does every year. This year it backfired -- they accepted within a week. "Now that I'm thinking about it I'd better call [MPS] and tell them it's not a good idea." She (I told her she'd be doing it, with my supervision) will be making the call tomorrow night.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you, LTF! Thank you! Thank you!
"C'mon, Mom," I said, "don't stop. That feels good."
She laughed, threw up her hands, and turned away from me.
I guess I really needed it because I didn't give up. After a few more tries, one of which was, "Seriously, Mom, do it seriously," (can you believe that?!?) I was reduced to, "Mom (elongated "ah" sound); please (even more elongated), just for a little while?"
With each plea, including the last desperate one, she glanced back at me and offered a generic smile, then turned back to the television.
I suppose it could seem like she was the terminally self-centered but she is beyond being either self or other centered anymore. I know this (although I don't think she does, she's beyond even that) so I was the one wearing the crown (of thorns, I guess).
The major difference from your set-up is that it did make a difference to me. I was momentarily hurt. I mean, I massage the woman at least once a day, I thought, sometimes twice, depending; is it such a big deal for her to stimulate my feet (thus, the rest of me) for awhile? Even The Girls pet me with their tails when I'm petting them and if I concentrate just a little I can activate the same pleasure-shiver mechanism from their tail-pets. If the cats can do it, I reasoned in my self-centered delirium, she can. Then I realized that there were countless times during her mothering of me many years ago when she stimulated me without considering the possibility of getting it back from me. When she used to read to us, for instance, I'd get those same pleasure shivers listening to her voice, from the head down instead of the feet up, and ask her to read "one more chapter", which she always did. When I was learning to read she'd sit with me and listen to me read while I purposely made all kinds of mistakes (I had an uncanny grasp of reading and picked it up quickly and, I think, on my own; it was almost like I was born knowing phonics; she knew this; it's hard to hide this stuff when you're three and four) just because listening to the words when she was correcting me or telling me to "sound it out" caused exactly the same pleasure shivers. So, although I know she isn't thinking of her refusal this way, I have the choice of considering it part of The Ultimate Reciprocity (which isn't really reciprocity, at all), as, when I was very young, I was also incapable of being "adequately" self or other centered. I was a neophyte negotiating the beginning of life with fierce determination, just as she is a neophyte negotiating the end of life with equally fierce determination.
It was a potent reminder that the Golden Rule, one version of which is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," does not also append, "and it will be done back to you." The Golden Rule isn't meant to be a two way street. It's meant to encourage empathy, which is not a place of "ways": Which means it is also not a karmic rule.
So, I must tell you, and, I hope I can keep it short, that your centrifugal force method of bringing people around to your direction has worked for me once again regarding Christmas in Prescott. I've been contemplating what this will involve and although the graphic of "Our Family and Extended Family at the Base of Thumb Butte On Christmas Cozy in a House in the Forest Surrounded by Snow in Front of a Fire in High Spirits and Full of Holiday Food" would make a decent season's greetings card it hit me exactly how much work this would be and who would be doing the work. That didn't deter me until I realized that in order to pull this off we'd actually have to move up here for the month of December after settling down in the Valley for the winter and starting all the projects waiting for us there. I don't consider this production beyond my energy but I do consider it beyond our sane scope with everything else waiting for us (like replacing and shoring up the side of the Mesa house, hopefully replacing the flooring depending on whether the stock market rallies, putting that house in some much needed living order, etc.). So I sat with my mother the night before last and said, "Okay, this is what we're going to have to do to pull this off, Mom."
"I don't want to live in Prescott in December."
"Well it's the only logical way to pull this off. It'll be beautiful, Mom! We can have fires every night, it'll probably snow (I surreptitiously noticed her shuddering), we'll bring up all the decorations (my motherowns about 16 semis-full of Christmas decorations and insists on getting more every year); our tree will last longer up here, we could even have a live tree, it'll be so warm and cozy doing all that baking we're planning, the cats will love it (and probably ravish the tree), it'll be like those old Christmas cards with pictures of Christmas of yore. The stockings on the hearth, people sleeping all over the place, people eating all over the place..."
"Maybe I should have thought more about this before I invited [MPS's] family up for Christmas."
That's how this whole thing started. She has this old midwest cultural habit of inviting everyone "over here" for everything. Now, though, she does it without thinking ahead. When MPS and MPNC and MPNP were here she invited their family, including in-laws, up for Christmas, as she does every year. This year it backfired -- they accepted within a week. "Now that I'm thinking about it I'd better call [MPS] and tell them it's not a good idea." She (I told her she'd be doing it, with my supervision) will be making the call tomorrow night.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you, LTF! Thank you! Thank you!
