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March 2010 Edition
Editor's Note:
Conversation first appeared in the July 2007 edition which would explain the reference to a "video store." In the age of Netflix, it's hard to image that people once left their homes at night to go to a brightly lit store where they paid 4 bucks to take home movies packaged in little boxes. What strange days we have seen.
Conversation
by Michael Sherman
The trip to the video store. What seems like such a perfectly cozy invitation to intimacy with your partner can be as treacherous to a relationship as the opening scene of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” A walk down the the “New Releases” aisle with all the attractive and alluring DVD boxes may seem like the perfect antidote to a long week of work, until you open your mouth and say what it is you’ve been dying to see. Maybe you’ve been waiting for “The Illusionist” to come to the little screen, so you can check off that line on your “must-see” list of avant-garde independently produced thrillers that make you sound so intelligent at the water cooler on Monday. But she’s got her heart set on catching Hugh Grant sing like he was a member of “A Flock of Seagulls” with Drew Barrymore in “Music and Lyrics.” Not exactly a match in tastes, and possibly even the kindling of a simmering dispute next to the microwave popcorn stand.
While watching a film in the comfort of your home can feel like the sweetest romance and reconnection, actually getting that DVD box out of the store can seem like a preface to couples therapy. As seen in the YouTube video “The Conversation” by Lev Yilmaz (one of a series called “Tales of Mere Existence”), the decision to rent has the same impact of choosing the right neighborhood to raise your kids. The narrator of the animated short responds to his honey’s seemingly honest openess about what to watch by saying: “I’m not that picky either, whatever you want is fine.” Clink the link below to watch as terror unfolds.
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Randi & Douglas
by Alixe Thompson
Randi and Douglas, both New York natives had very different upbringings. Douglas remembers his family as relatively normal, "not a lot of action," he says. Randi recalls her family as "jet set hippy types, sex drugs and rock and roll." Where they do find common ground is in the pain they both experienced during their childhood.
Randi recognizes her step-father as the person who showed up for her in her life. He was the one at her wedding and at the birth of her child. Without sounding self-pitying, she also recognizes that she was not her mother's “primary focus." She had feelings of being abandoned by her mother and sought refuge in the care and attention of her step-dad.
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Separate and Together
by Gene Shelly & Alixe Thompson
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In relationship, we are in a continual dance of coming together and coming back to ourselves. The more conscious and fluid we can be with this oscillation, the more we nurture our own wholeness and that of our relationship. Neither tendency is inherently healthy or unhealthy. We naturally need both. Some are more inclined to be joined at the hip, while others need their space. Selves can get lost in relationships especially if they weren't very sturdy or fully formed in the first place.
These tendencies may be a sincere expression of our desires and love, or they may be motivated by fear and discomfort. How conscious are you of maneuvering between yourself and the other? Pay attention to what is motivating your choice to move toward or away from your partner. Is it motivated by love, fear, wisdom or obligation?
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