My Dreams Are Trying to Help me

Thanks to The Princess for this:

Kali says, "Men of Earth, sexual responsibility is yours too. This sense you have that women are sex, are responsible for your sexual urges and choices, is wrong, deadly, stupid, childish, and simply not up the par of any real or serious masculinity. I will crush you like bugs."

The thing is, the dreams keep putting it pretty clearly. He is either not answering the phone, or he’s telling me straight out, “I can’t help you.” Or, he’s off, all dressed up, and won't tell me where he's going.

I've been having these dreams since I first got to know Metal Ox. Almost six years ago. In one early one, he was an astronaut on the space shuttle. All the astronauts' partners were calling them to say hi to them in orbit, and it was on TV, like it used to be during the Apollo program. But he wouldn't answer my call. I kept calling and calling, and he kept ignoring me. We could see him doing it on the TV! Finally, he answered. Told me he was busy, hung up. This is the pattern of the dreams. They follow life. But I stick around, off and on. Friend or lover. What am I hoping for? That he'll learn what he was never taught?

So the dream I had on Sunday night after I called him and asked his help exploring the possibilities of paying his mother a visit on my way home from Michigan, the dream in which there was a gang rape in progress, on me, and led by his brothers and buddies (though I doubt there is little to the presence of his brothers in a way that’s personal to them – it has more to do with MO's failure to stand by me with his siblings, and their way of ganging up on “outsiders”), and when I pleaded to him for help he said, turning his head away from me, “I can’t help you,” right there, in the dream – it was clear that his concern was that he look tough, look like he’s one with the men who are doing something manly, that he was not "pussy whipped" -- standing up for me would demean his standing with his brothers and buddies. “You’ll be alright,” he says, “There’s a long tradition of this.” (This "tradition" thing sounds close to arguments for stripping and prostitution, that they've always existed and so will always exist and ending them is just a silly endeavor; this is logical fallacy, of course -- that something has always existed is not a valid argument for the impossibility of ending its existence.)

Now, having this dream at Joyce and Tony’s had a particular effect. I know, from years of being near them, that while theirs is not a perfect relationship (since such does not exist), it is one I would be more than pleased to have. Largely, this is directly due to their integrity as individual human beings. For whatever reason, I have not been exposed to copious amounts of integrity in men. Nor politeness. And politeness, to one’s partner in particular (for many people seem to overlook the role of good manners in a successful relationship of that sort), is, it becomes more and more clear as I mature, critical to harmony in the home. If you will.

Good manners. Taking responsibility not only for one’s own actions but also for one’s own thoughts, for Christ’s sake. Seriously. The way I see Tony, he has accepted the necessity of controlling his own mind. Joyce and I talked about this, referring to ourselves. Then he and I talked about it a bit. If this sounds like repression, it’s not. It’s integrity. Yoga and other forms of meditation teach it – part of these practices is keeping the mind focused and clean. The man who was just arrested for trying to make arrangements to have sex with a five year old? He had clearly allowed his thoughts to follow a train they should not have. At any point, he had the choice to stop, move his thoughts in another direction. In my view, people like Metal Ox who have a porn habit and all the other roads that leads to (while denying to themselves the harm that comes from it, on a jillion levels) are displaying a weakness of mind and a lack of integrity, and the two operate hand in hand. Strength of mind that leads to integrity need not be repressive; one needs, though, to be intelligent enough to understand oneself in the context of all the aspects of one’s environment. Refusal to consider one's role in the functioning of that environment is a kind of denial that makes self-regulation seem like repression. In the end it's an adolescent mind set: "I'm a free person so no one call tell me what to do!" and is unproductive. The mature, intellegent mind/personality can see and accept the consequences of its words and actions and it has accepted its own investment in helping to create a harmonious environment, and environment of trust, in order to benefit itself and its co-inhabitants.

Or, maybe it will work is one is just innocent and protected enough, but dumb. Most dumb people, though, aren't innocent. Not any more.

The way I see it, Metal Ox. having not accepted any responsibility for his integrity and its impact on his relationships, is allowing himself to follow unworthy thoughts. And he has never been taught the role of manners in relationship. These two factor together, though i thought at first they wouldn't do so, are depleting even my wish to be his buddy. It’s just tiring. There’s never a time when I can count on him not to get rude and selfish (much less seedy and gross – but the idea was I’d leave behind caring about that when I left behind being his “girlfriend”) at really bizarre moments. You would think that, even if he didn’t care about helping me out, he would have wanted to facilitate helping his mom. And it’s not that he doesn’t want me to visit her. He’s always suggesting I call her, or asking me to go with him to see here. It’s not that. It’s carelessness. It’s lack of Home Raising. It’s mind caught on tracks that require secrecy and selfishness.

So maybe it does matter to me that Metal ox, “as a friend,” is a porn and strip club frequenter. Maybe it’s just an iciness I don’t want to have to tolerate. And maybe I do think that there’s addiction there, and that addiction feeds his insulation against really sharing his life. And that growing up watching people treat one another with rudeness and disregard, and having never questioned that, he is continuing it. It sucks that there’s this generous part of him that makes him, for instance, one of the few “friends” who felt it important to remember my birthday. There is the sweet side of him. But isn’t there always?

So, visiting J&T I get the reminder: it’s possible to have a relationship that’s not conflicted issues of basic integrity. There are men who feel, and not because of a religion or a fear of freedom, that responsibility to integrity is indispensable. That there’s no excuse for violating that responsibility. And that, damn it, good manners are important.

I don’t get that close to many other couple’s ways of seeing, behaving. And even outside of coupledom, just visiting them as friends, it’s very comfortable to know that issues of mind and manner are at an agreeable baseline. This reminds me how conflicted I feel on this level when I’m spending any time at all with Metal Ox. Sure, I love him like a brother, and he’s important to me. And sure, he is one of the few people who remembered my birthday and he brought me very sweet and thoughtful gifts. But there’s a price for all of that, and ultimately it’s my peace of mind. For there is always that moment when he turns his head away.