The same coin

I have a very very good friend- I say best friend, accepting all the childhood connotations without the childhood fluctuations. For the past ten years, give or take, we have been building on this friendship, and I am often quite amazed at it. We met my freshman year, for all of thirty seconds, when she was singing at a retreat for Campus Crusade for Christ, and I went up to tell her how beautifully she sang. She thanked me rather curtly, and seemed very distracted, so I assumed I was telling her something she already knew very well, thank you, and there were other things to think of. The funny thing is I wasn't really bothered- I had no hard feelings about it.

This girl was, whenever I saw her over the next year, so self-contained. She seemed to be so calm, so detached. She always dressed well, looked put together, presented a very tidy front. It felt like she was smooth-faced, nothing to grab hold of. These kinds of people always fascinated me.

I had a friend in high school who felt similar to this- quiet, seemingly assured, never gave too much away. I always felt calmer in their presence, since I felt like a roiling ball of static electricity and chaotic emotions. I felt like I swung wildly from one extreme to the other, and though I could be comfortable swinging unchecked, I would have loved to have been tidy.

A year after we first met, we were roommates. She had the single attached to the double I shared with another friend- one who was much more my kind of messy and odd. It took us a few months to really talk. I will never forget the bus ride we took together from the dorms to campus. She said something that immediately hooked my attention. "People think I'm a bitch, but I'm really not." I remember that. If you asked me what came before or after, I can't recall. But I remember that. I nodded, even though I hadn't seen much other than the smooth face she presented- I agreed, because I had known and been great friends with girls who were the very same.

We were so different, and found each other intriguing because of it. And beneath our differences, we found this common nature, and all our differences had sprung from different reactions to the same feelings and experiences. My fascination with the fringes of society came from feeling so not normal- and her tidy front came from the same. She wanted to blend in, and I thought I never could.

We became very close, as close as two girls still learning themselves could be, and things happened, life changed course, and we were not so close in contact. We suffered separate woes during the same period of time, and when we started to talk again, we had been...mmm...shall we say battle hardened? More familiar with the ugly things of life. Like two men in a bar will eye each other and know that they are soldiers.

She was not nearly as tidy. And I had had my frayed ends burnt off some. And we were still the counter swing of the same pendulum. It was amazingly wonderful work, to get close again, to climb over all the stupid stuff that got between us before, and to get right down close. God blessed me with a friend who wanted to be understood as much as I did, who understood the desire, and who, like me, wanted to grow, even when it hurt.

Over the past year, through all the difficulties, I knew that while my life seemed to be shaking on rocky terrain, I could call my friend, who still presents a wonderfully calm face to the world. She is loving and wise, and I value her conversation and understanding and all her hurts and worries more than she knows, because she's like me, and we're very good at self-deprecation. I am finally beginning to understand that I can mean that much to someone so wonderful.

The thing is, all of this will still apply, because she's just moving down the coast. It's just that she'll be far. We always met for coffee for hours, at least four hours of talking and coffee. We worked out hard life stuff, face to face, and now I'm gonna have to get good at the phone. She better get a land line because this cell phone static is totally killing me.

I am so getting skype.

Takes two to tango, or the Tragedy of the Duchess

I recently watched the movie "The Duchess" starring Keira Knightley, and I am still wheeling from it. I have heard, of course, that it was not historical on some things, but to be honest, I am not terribly interested in that.

It was a story of a woman born to privilege, who was married at seventeen for the politics and status. Her husband wanted only to have a son, and she had no idea what the hell she was getting into. From the beginning she was uncomfortable with her husband- who did not woo her, talk to her, or even get too affectionate while making heirs, if you get me. At one point her dear friend tell her to imagine a man kissing her back as he unfastened her dress, and she replied "They do not do such things." Oh how sad.

Suffering miscarriages and stillbirths, she believed that she as a woman was incapable of carrying a boy to term, as if it was her biological inability. (Oh the irony that it's the man that determines the sex of a child) Her husband had many affairs, sired a daughter out of wedlock, and Georgiana suffered quietly. Dressing extravagantly, going to parties and striving to be winsome and winning, she succeeded in being adored by everyone but her husband. When she did have an affair, one that may have promised love, she was forbidden by her husband to see him, and told her if she did not turn from him, she would be denied her children. (four, by now)
She bore a daughter to her lover, Charles Grey, and went off on "vacation" to be pregnant, and then hand over the tiny infant to her lover's family.

If ever there was a scene that ripped my heart from my chest and stepped on it, it was this. Accompanied by her best friend and her husband's mistress, she took her tiny baby Eliza and in the middle of nowhere, handed her over to a nurse. The baby was silent, until the carriage began to draw away, and then when her daughter began to cry, Georgiana flung herself forward, but her friend was there to hold her, whispering in her ear as G wailed and floundered.

Can any mother watch this, can any woman watch this, and not wither in horror and grief? A loveless life save for her children, a friendship that struggled to continue through the affair wiht her husband, and now this? The abandonment of her only chance for affection, and the giving up of her baby?

My poor husband didn't know what to do with me, as I quailed and silently sobbed as the baby cried. I went and held my sleeping boy in my arms for a long time, savoring his healthy adoring weight.

I watched a portrait of a woman whose extravagant exterior and social life belied a miserable shriveled marriage and a lonely interior life. Her children were her only source of love, and at the same time her burden. There was no blessing without it being mixed. How should I come away from this?

A selfless woman, who sacrificed her own happiness for the well-being of her children? A poor mistaken soul who suffered for no good reason? I think the movie lends itself towards the former interpretation, but truly, there was no overwhelming moral lesson. I found one moment interesting.

She confronts her husband after many years of affairs and failed pregnancies- after he has bedded her best friend. After exploding at him, she finally, in desperation and pure vulnerability, asks him "What is wrong with me?" implying his lack of interest in her. He goes to her, face full of concern and sorrow- and she leans towards him. Before he touches her, though, she shudders away and shakes him off.

There was one single moment where there might have been something real- a seed of possibility. Personally, I believe that no matter how ugly, a marriage can be patched up and given some kind of life. It takes a hell of a lot of work, and requires that one be completely vulnerable, and then be willing to continue with that. If she had let him hold her, as she so desired, if he had accepted her as she so wanted, (which it seemed he would) then their love might have become real. I believe the movie does make it clear that she wanted her husband to love her more than any other.

And the truth is, it takes two to tango, right? She wants his love, and he only has so much to give. He has a set idea of what will come of this, and does not believe that he is willing to change. But as the movie proved, he was willing, in some extent. If only they had read "The most important year ina Man/Woman's life." then maybe they would have had some luck!