for some strange reason, today i keep getting the feeling that i want to dedicate something to people who have at times been a vehicle of difficulty in my life. let’s try this and see what happens.
there is a person who has made it possible for me and many, many others to communicate and support each other. let’s call him ian. he has worked incredibly hard for many years. sometimes he gets a little sharp and snarly, and there are moments when i feel hurt and disturbed by that. no matter what, though, i want to express my gratefulness to him because he has created an amazing community. i want to dedicate to him this white space on my computer. it’s a space i love, always so inviting and promising. here’s to you, ian!
then there is my ex husband. your typical eccentric artist, always full of ideas, often ready to transform them into reality. a person who has experienced a lot of hurt when he was a child, and he ended up passing that on to other people, often not knowing that that’s what he was doing. as a german, he perpetuated the good old prussian idea – discussed so thoroughly by alice miller – that being stern and unsparing was an excellent way of teaching. in fact, it’s his birthday today (maybe that’s why the idea of connecting with difficult people arose?) so – happy birthday to you, ex husband! after 16 years of not seeing you, the hurts you inflicted on us are slowly fading but the memory of your creativity lives on. so i dedicate this creative moment to you.
who else? let’s take an ex boss of mine. what should we call her – how about alberta. fortunately she was quite removed from me, never involved in my day-to-day activities. nevertheless, i let her be the bane of my existence for quite a few years. oh, the hours my other co-workers and i spent tearing our hairs out over her! we often felt paralyzed by her fear of doing anything wrong and by her bizarrely bureaucratic ways. over and over i would try to understand her but just could never reach her. the only thing i could understand deeply and sadly was that we must have been as much as a pain in the neck for her as she was to us. it was obvious that there was a very kind side to her, a sweetness, a desire to understand. we just never managed to cross the bridge to each other. so here’s to you, alberta. i dedicate my afternoon to you, where i will be working free of the problems that i experienced when you were in my life, and i hope for you that you will have an afternoon – oh, hell, a life free of the problems that i caused for you.
well, this was an interesting exercise. i feel space and light in my day. again, gratitude.
isabella mori
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