The other day, I woke up tired. As usual, I headed for the stairs, since my husband was still sleeping. Legs that felt like they had been weighted with sand bags rebuked me for making them move. I compromised with my body and told it that if it moved left foot in sync with right arm (translated: walking) in order to get down the stairs without falling to my death, there would be no morning exercise, whatsoever.
Before I trotted downstairs, I glanced at the clock on my husband's phone. It was 5:40--this is sleeping late for me. It is like 10 am for regular people. I looked over at him, still wrapped in his blanket like meat stuffed-cabbage. (My writing includes a strict no-vegetarian policy, even with adjectives.)
I felt positively reprieved for all the early mornings that I make him groan. And we are not talking about an erotic groan. It is the pain in the ass of having a wife who wakes up early. Consistently.
Ever since my transition to an all-meat diet, I generally require even less sleep. I like this for two reasons: The first is obvious. I can do much more because I have an additional 5 or more hours tacked on to my day. The second reason may stretch your belief, but stay with me: It is that my early rising stimulates irritation in my husband and releases some of my innate aggression. It is a partial antidote to being civilized and yet, wanting to tear someone’s throat out. The inner turmoil is there whether you acknowledge it or not.
Robert Bly called it the Human Shadow. Jung called it the unconscious. I think of it as the inner animal. It is that part of you that rages when someone cuts you off, or that fantasizes about what folly you wish on someone who you dislike. It is that which induces you to eat with your fingers if no one is watching, and do all sorts of things with your fingers when you don’t have an audience.
Our shadow is kept under wraps in order for us to be deodorant-wearing and law-abiding citizens. But we all need outlets to absorb its reverberations. It was not that long ago that we were clubbing each other over the head, grunting, and rubbing sticks together to make fire.
I am not suggesting that the answer is to revert back to the fossil stage. I like luxuries of our century such as my new high gloss lipstick from Sephora. But I understand that my primal aspect is always lurking. And this is alleviated with habits that couples have which annoy each other. When I wake up at a different time than my husband, or he goes to bed before I do, it reminds us that the environment is not controlled. We may feel disgruntled, or put off, or maybe it is so subtle we don’t notice. But it stimulates our hostility and the disquieting sense that we are alien to comfort. It is a salute to that inner animal in each of us.
There is more to a relationship than love. It contains light and darkness and this is frightening if you see “romance” as a Disney movie. I stopped seeing it the Disney way in my late thirties. There is an unwritten agreement between my husband and I, which I am now realizing. This is what comes on pontificating about waking up early. The “contract” is that not only do I promise to love, respect, and not steal all of his socks (I do, on occasion), but also to engage and stimulate him to release some of his tension from having to be a human who doesn’t get to scratch his privates in public. He is not so annoying as me, so I get a lot of my stimulation elsewhere.
The waking is just one example of what we do for each other. We have a particular script to enact this. He plays like he does not know what is happening, and I play like I am not doing what I am doing—waking him up and initiating a response.
We always make it seem new. It begins when he asks me "what time it is." I act as if I am trying to leave the room quickly, but my shadow will take just a bit more time than necessary. He will pretend not to know that it is early so he can be disgruntled when he hears the “too early” time.
Until this morning, I didn’t realize I was prolonging my exit from the room. He never complained and it was not simply because it didn’t bother him. It’s in the “contract.”
If you do not understand why anyone would need this kind of relief, then perhaps you are one of those individuals with a perpetually sunny disposition. Maybe you get special massages. Or you drink lots of caffeine and pop pills while your liver screams. Life involves degrees of suffering and it is sheer suffering NOT to acknowledge this. Part of this suffering is being forced to quiet your urges and stilling the desire to fly off the handle, so to speak.
There is a story that once when Julia Child mentioned that she had vegetarians coming over for dinner, she had to clarify with, “Not for eating.”
You cannot escape your true nature.
Even the rich have lots of problems. People are often baffled by this, but life pops up regardless of your bank account level. Control all your irritants and then you may resort to slamming phones into people’s heads when the inner animal in the cage begins to rumble.
Bothersome things act as a sort of multi-vitamin against forgetting our animal-nature. People need their aggravation because the wild animal is not welcome in our society and it must creep out covertly. Everyone has their own "hot spot" that makes their blood boil. Maybe for you it's pedophiles, murderers, SUV's, or people who prune their flowers too low. Try being oblivious at a green light when I am driving behind you and you will see my animal emerge.
That is why I write. Otherwise, people start to look very tasty to me. This is where the people close to us have an unacknowledged purpose, in addition to bearing our children, and sharing romantic sunsets with candlelit macaroni and cheese in a bowl. I am not being facetious. Except for the part about the mac and cheese, because you will not catch me eating that shit no matter what.
Lots of people are with others so they have an outlet for their aggression. But they prefer to cover the “smell” with the idea that their love is all rainbows and roses. They will only consider all their wonderful qualities that bind them to their mate. But their union is also cemented by unacknowledged “bad” traits: slobbiness, thoughtlessness, recklessness...lots of "less."
Less is actually more. It gives us space to breathe and stimulates our bloodthirstiness. There is so much lurking around in us, that is pushed away because it is considered ugly, negative, unattractive. There are people who completely deny the existence of their “bad” shadows. What they repress will express itself like a tsunami.
My husband and I work hard to provoke each other with the perfect balance. Like Goldilocks: not too hot, not too cold. Just right. Not very romantic way of looking at things, you say? I think it is. Understanding this motivation means I do not have to act this out unconsciously by waking up my husband. Or doing something worse. My unforced act of waking early is not done to annoy him. But recognizing that part of my delay in leaving the room is intended, and is something I can change.
I don’t need to worry about taking away a habit and his chance for relief. Stress will pop up elsewhere and it is like weight-lifting for the soul if you don’t resist. If the abused and often maligned “stress” vanished, I contend that you would begin to chew at your own fingers and start to crave blood as a means to express the inner turmoil that already exists.
That innate turmoil is why I will feel hostility from a simple act of hearing a spoon clack on someone’s teeth. Let me hear THAT NOISE and my animal wants to let loose and break into pandemonium.
I knew a woman who did not allow her shadow to exist and believed there was only love. She barely ate because she did not believe in food, she bowed every time she saw a person and mumbled yogic sayings to appear holy. She felt guilty about driving a car, she didn’t wear makeup because she did not believe it was dignified to try and “pretty” her outside, and she spared herself the most basic comforts. She did not express her needs because she believed that there was only love. But she ground her pelvis into you every time she would greet you. She was distressed if you took an extra napkin, but she didn’t mind dry-humping this same you when she said hello.
This is what denying the shadow looks like.
Without your stress from your life, you will not go quietly. As the poet Dylan Thomas said, you will rage into the night. You will rage at the person who stops short, or parks long, or smells a little.
It is precious little things that bother us that appease the animal underneath. The insufferable “habit” of another, allows you to more easily endure being a wolf in people’s clothing. It allows you to feel less frustrated that you cannot just hop on the first rump in the distance without inquiring about birth signs.
And when you see as I have, that you stimulate your mate and others, you can choose not to do it. I will still do it in spite of myself. I still wake up early. And my habits that annoy abound. But now I remember to watch my tendencies to drag everything out just a bit longer.
I did not wake my husband this morning when I got up at three. He will have to find another way to feed his animal.
We have to find a way to feed the animal.
No comments:
Post a Comment