(continued)
My teenage best friend once told me, 'You can't help but turn around, pay attention to whoever is next to you'. It may be my instinct, I don't doubt it, but perhaps it was reinforced by the fact that my gaze had a swing as a reference point. You know, like following a tennis match where instead of the ball there is my sense of survival, my search for a centre where I can rest, where my intellectual and emotional means can be worth something to live by.
The two extremes of the oscillation were the only constant: from 'your father left me with three children', to 'he is still your father'. These revelations were not conveyed in an intimate family gathering, perhaps with an explanation of where we stand. I often heard them in brief comments between my mother and relatives and acquaintances. But then, like a shift in a theatre stage, when my father appeared once or twice a year, apparently nothing had ever happened. Except when it all ended with my brother freaking out even after my dad had left.
I didn't complain about my mother handing me her shoes, for which I was teased at school, whereas later, on a visit to London, my father would buy me a fancy dress. He always got us nice houses, but for my mother our daily livelihood was always a precarious matter. Above all, I didn't say anything that time when in London, my brother attacked my father brandishing a kitchen knife, threw him on the ground and stood over him shouting "I'll kill you!". I stood by and watched, with my father's partner. Then the fury subsided and no one ever mentioned it.
When my father told me that he wanted me to follow in his footsteps in banking, I expressed the desire to attend the faculty of banking sciences at uni in Siena. I got no reply about it, but by then my father had decided that I would go and live with him in Milan. A few years ago my mother told me that the decision on my studies had been made because my brother's university had been a dramatic story, but that she had regretted letting me go away.
Anyhow, I accepted willingly, for me the idea of living with my father was like a mirage. I'm sure he wanted me to soar, if only strictly in the way he opened for me. I left Modena when I was 19, illiterate in the sentimental/sexual sphere: I used to be startled by the little hints of malicious curiosity my mother would throw at me during a period when I was receiving a long, respectful courtship from a young man whom everyone in the house knew to be respectable. Although I liked him very much, I didn't know how to speak or behave, and then we lost touch. When I arrived in Milan, I was no different:Looking back on my life, it seemed that my receptors did not 'recognise' kindness and deep respect in social relationships, least of all if a romantic proposal was involved. I remember now that I rejoiced inside, but kept it all hidden.
On the 7th of May 1984 I enthusiastically started my job at the bank. I had a friendly and lively relationship with my colleagues, a wonderful city to discover, my salary! My critical relationship with money began at that time. In today's light, I would say that the problem is that I have never (so far) structured money with the past or the future, but only in the present. That is, I have always spent in order to shape myself in the contingent moment, and for me that means giving as well as receiving, also to express cooperation, love and gratitude. In short, I used money like a fuel ... in my twenties looking for my self-image, with clothes, cosmetics, objects, going almost every weekend to my mother's was really expensive, I liked to buy nice things for my baby, also paying for household expenses to avoid arguments with my husband. Then I paid to study art, then to create art, and then to sell art - maybe because I unconsciously thought that my art would not be appreciated if I did not have to make a great effort, even economically, to be accepted. It was wrong, indeed I pretty much always had a positive, real feedback from customers, but I couldn't capitalise on it because money was slipping away from me. While all along maintaining a close relationship with my old family, I have always cultivated the seeds of my creative nature, of my aspirations, using money for good, I believe, and those seeds have regularly grown. But, as soon as I succeeded, confirming to me that I was on the right path, and when I should have put down my roots, I remember feeling that it would take me away from always being ready for my mother and the tantrums of the old family. And I would run, only to start all over again.
P. was twice my age. We were colleagues, and he would show me his interest with sarcastic criticism of my clothing, or the way I walked, or talked... then suddenly a sporadic statement of compliment, almost without intonation, would come. His gaze was veiled in sadness, he was a beautiful and well liked man, but he always seemed to be struggling between asserting his great humanity and culture and a bitter resignation and scepticism that sank into the past. I was optimistic and hard-working, and I thought that, like me, all these beautiful things would make him forget the bad things. Especially when our little girl arrived. He adored her.
He rightly saw things that I did not yet see about my family, but he opened my eyes in a brutal way. For example he violently criticised the fact that my father had bought a house for my sister and not for me: I know that he was not a materialist at all, he had many resources and was very generous, even towards my relatives. He saw the injustice. Like a robot, I spoke with my parents, and of course it was a big mistake. He and I had every chance of paying the mortgage through our work, and I dreamed of a family of my own, free from the past. Instead, he kept pushing me back into it. It would have been normal to receive a gift from a father, had he wanted to, but he hadn't, he just payed the installments until we stayed married.
My husband was an alcoholic. The crazy thing is that for so many years I only had a tunnel vision. I was aware of his excessive drinking of wine, only wine - in fact, I am convinced that the addiction had grown with him out of habit and family tradition, and that as an adult he drank not just anything, but only the 'comforting' substance of painful memory. Indeed, he had control over time, alas not over quantity. His father's death was probably the only reason he mentioned to me how much he hated him, only hinting at facts that had clearly traumatised him. By contrast he would recall his playful love for his mother, whom he believed to be the main victim. But for a long time I did not connect the suffering of our relationship with this problem, perhaps I was simply trying to live in my own world 'in spite of' the terrible moments. I asked for professional and spiritual help during and after the separation, because my priority was to protect our daughter, but also to present him, myself, our situation to my daughter on a daily basis, through right words.
LiOr (continued)
This is the third week of the Omer, dedicated to Tiferet: Compassion, Balance, Beauty, Truth. The 16th day of the Omer is Gevurah she'be Tiferet, Strength within compassion. When God decides to destroy Sodom, where Abraham's nephew Lot lives with his wife, Idit (this is her midrashic name which means witness) God sends two angels to save Lot and his family. While Lot, his wife, and his two remaining daughters are leaving Sodom, Idit looks back toward the burning city and is turned into a pillar of salt. Why does Lot's wife turn to salt? One ancient interpretation suggests she looked back in order to see if her married daughters were following her. Her looking back was not an act of disobedience but of compassion. In the Bible, a pillar is often a memorial. By turning back, Lot's wife makes herself a memorial pillar to her two daughters who have died, and a witness of the past to her living daughters. We bring Idit into our lives when we have the courageous compassion, the gevurah shebetiferet, to bear witness to the pain of others.https://www.ritualwell.org/ritual/omer-16)