How many years since puberty? How many years, indeed, since the 6th, 7th or 8th grades (at least in the US) a time and place where secrets are leaked like we might see done by the "best of Politicians?"
Sally kissed Jimmy!
I saw them passing notes, too.
Did you know that .... ?
What a great and painful time to be alive, those early teenage years ... what a disquieting time for parents and teachers. Maybe curiosity is at its peak during those years? We've, typically -- at or just before that age -- been introduced to death. Somehow, we process that or maybe we deny it. The great secrets of sex await us. What does it feel like to join with another? To be penetrated? To penetrate? Will there be pain? Will there be the greatest of unspeakable treasures? Will eyes be opened like Adam and Eve's ("and were opened up the eyes of the two of them") or will the realization of vulnerability ("and the two knew they were naked") overwhelm them with shameful feelings related to (in)adequacy, (im)potency or (in)sufficiency.
If the values of both Trust and Mistrust are laid down in the preschool years, they have, perhaps, a broader impact when novel relationships take on additional meanings. Trusting Mom and Dad to hold us securely, to be there when we need them, etc. ... all these must be difficult for a toddler learning to walk through their own Garden of Demons and Delights. Those years, I suspect, the need for faithfully dependent caretakers gets spread around between Mom, Dad, Sibs and Others.
First love is different and not just because body and emotional parts are touched in ways that we don't quite understand. Later in life -- in the Second and Third Quarters -- one sees how how difficult it can be to maintain that Trust. Fights and Divorces aplenty! Putting all our Easter Eggs in one basket (mutatis mutandis -- all our Matzos on one plate) maybe requires certain new levels of Trust and Mistrust ... or, maybe, they're just rehashings of earlier conundrums. Either way. I don't think it has anything particularly to do with whether pants are on or off in the relationship. Friendships during this period (early teens) become all important guideposts on the way to trusting love relationships a bit down the road.
In myself, I have noticed curious changes, though, in the Fourth Quarter. I think of two related ones.
My sense of curiosity about others near and dear to me has dampened. If a child or grandchild is unwell, I find it sufficient to make it obvious that I can listen to whatever it is they want to share ... and wait for the rest. A friend shares a confidence with me and I am far more affected by their willingness to share what they have than to fret about what they haven't told me. Freud was prone to cite Goethe's comment:
Mach es Kurz ... Am Jungsten Tag ist's nur eine furze
(someone can help with spelling)
Make it Snappy ... Fuss not.
On the Last Day (of Judgement), it is little more than a Singular Fart.
I find myself, that is, interested in the feeling of sharing the intimacy much more than in its details. Truth be told, the details do seem to be of interest to certain people -- we refer to them as Gossips, Yentas, Yachnas ... I'm comfortable every language has a word for them. I remember as a young man, one night each month a group of us would meet at Bev's house to discuss puzzlement about our professional work. Her neighbors would be sitting out on their City Stoops and very slowly articulate:
I ... see ... you people ... are ... back ... ... again!
Lord knows what lascivious thoughts preoccupied these ladies (LOL) ... about 3 men and another woman visiting a single woman. I guess we could've told them but sometimes leaving a Yenta hanging in the Public Square seems consistent with Lex Talionis ... with an Eye for an Eye.
The second has to do with the other side ... a willingness to Self-disclose ... to talk about my own experiences ... maybe typical? maybe not-so? I don't particularly feel like I have my pants down when I do so ... don't feel ashamed about my sadnesses and vulnerabilities .... Most of them I see as -- if not Universal -- rather common, even if we don't speak of them very much. Just recently, I was flying and watched the movie about Alan Touring (Imitation Games?) in flight. It touched me deeply and -- with my earphones in place -- I found myself quietly weeping about his pain ... or maybe about my own. Did other folk see? Who knows? I have shared many personal hurts in these notes. Most readers are willing to serve as witnesses to these, perhaps, quotidian human experiences ... of Joy and Loss in the Last Quarter of Life.
There are occasions when some reader contacts me ... deeply dissatisfied that I haven't shared more. To do so would -- in many of these cases -- break a confidence with someone else. In the language of my profession: the Other person holds the privilege of whether I discose about them or not. In the end, perhaps many of us (not the Gossips) are quite honored to share what was shared and to hang our curiosity on some hook we made for it during our adolescence ... or to just let it go.
Am Jungsten Tag ist's nur eine furze -- Indeed
There is a sentence in Leviticus 19 that has long grabbed me. In the tradition of cantillating this, it washes out, as follows:
1st Quarter: Don't go loose-lipped among your people.
2nd Quarter: (but) Don't stand idly by as your neighbor bleeds.
2nd Half: I am God.
Maybe Godliness is about juggling the need to protect confidences with the equal need to protect life -- no easy task.
Happy Holy-Days to anyone reading.
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