Learning To See Past The Mask
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| Photo Credit: alicepopkorn |
Now a
photojournalist living in New York, Richie had recently married Carly, a Caucasian
woman he’d met at a meditation class, and he wanted to talk with me about her
family. “I knew what I was getting into … country club, conservative, the whole
nine yards … but I had no idea it would be this hard.”
“From the
start,” he told me when we met, “Sharon [his mother-in-law] was dead set
against me and Carly getting together.” While Carly’s father seemed willing to
support his daughter’s choice, her mother had fought the marriage vehemently.
“She warned Carly that we were too different, that we’d end up divorced and
miserable. Well,” he said grimly, “we love each other deeply, but she’s
succeeding in making us miserable.”
On their third
and most recent visit, Sharon had refused to attend a community theater
production with them. She later told Carly she couldn’t bear to encounter her
friends from the club: “As soon as I’d turn my back, they’d start gossiping
about you and Richie.” At dinner Sharon ignored Richie’s compliments about the
salmon, and gave vague, noncommittal responses to his questions about a recent
trip to Italy. When Carly confronted her mother privately upstairs, Sharon
acknowledged her behavior. “I admit it, I’m being awful. But I can’t help it,
Carly. He’s a good person, an intelligent person, but you’re making a terrible
mistake.”
Carly wanted to
stop visiting—they could just skip Thanksgiving and Christmas, she said—but
Richie insisted on hanging in there. “It’s not that I’m trying to martyr
myself,” he told me. “Sharon’s a racist, self-centered asshole, and it might do
her some good if Carly refused to go home. I’d be gratified. I’m way pissed.
But something in me feels like she’s reachable.”
As part of his
meditation practice, Richie had recently
taken “bodhisattva vows” with his teacher. These express a basic commitment
to let whatever arises in our life awaken compassion, and to dedicate ourselves
to actively bringing this compassion to all beings. For Richie, these vows had
a very specific meaning. “I don’t want to give up on anyone, give up on who
they can be,” he told me. But Richie knew that before he could approach Sharon,
he needed to connect with his own
anger, and what was behind it.
“That’s what I
wanted us to focus on, Tara,” he said. “I wouldn’t be so pissed if I didn’t
feel insecure. It’s that basic issue of being worthy—she’s telling me I’m not
worthy enough for her daughter.”
“Is that feeling familiar?” I asked.
“Oh yeah. This
has been the kind of thing I’ve told myself ever since my dad left. Back then
it was that I’m not enough to make my mom happy.” He sat quietly for a few
moments then went on. “I thought I was supposed to fill his shoes and I
couldn’t. She was always depressed, always anxious.”
Richie sat back
in the chair, deflated. “It’s always this same feeling … that I’m the kid who can’t make the grade, who doesn’t deserve
good things. And it didn’t help
going to that vanilla college of ours …” he flashed me a smile, “or working in
a white profession. I know this unworthiness thing’s in the culture, Tara … but
that kid still feels like he’s young, and just not cutting it.”
“As you pay
attention, can you sense what that kid who feels unworthy most wants from you?”
He was quiet,
then nodded. “He just wants me to see him, to notice him and to be kind.”
“What happens if
you offer your kindness inward?” I asked.
For a few minutes Richie sat silently, then said: “I guess this part of me
needs some reassurance, some care. Just now I felt like I was looking through a
camera at this kid who was failing at an impossible task. There’s no way he
could make things okay for his mother.”
We talked about
their upcoming Thanksgiving visit, and how Sharon might activate his
insecurities. Richie came up with a plan: “I’m bringing my camera. I’ll keep my
eye on the kid inside, and on Sharon, both of us with kindness.”
I heard from
Richie again right after Thanksgiving weekend. Sharon had treated him with
polite formality—everyone else was family, he was a guest. “But I kept
imagining I was looking at her through a camera viewfinder,” he told me, “and I
saw she was in pain. Behind that coldness was a scared, tight heart.” He had a
freeing realization: “It isn’t really me she’s afraid of. It’s of Carly being
unhappy.”
A day or so
later he e-mailed me two standout photos, both of Sharon. Carly’s sister had
just had a baby, and he’d caught
Sharon cradling her new granddaughter, looking down adoringly at the infant.
The other was of a playful moment when her husband had pulled her down to sit
with him and she’d toppled over on him. Richie took the shot just as they were
looking at each other and laughing.
Then came
Christmas. Early on Christmas Eve, Carly’s dad (playing Santa) placed two boxes
in front of Richie. Sharon had ordered some socks for him online (too large)
and had wrapped a box of chocolates (he rarely ate sugar). Sometime later,
Sharon opened her gift from Richie. She found the two photos he’d taken weeks
earlier, simply and elegantly framed. Sharon started trembling, then sobbing.
Her husband and Carly came over to see what was wrong. There were the pictures
of Sharon with her granddaughter and her husband, looking radiant, loving, and
happy. And here she was weeping. When she calmed down, she still couldn’t speak
and she waved everyone on to continue the gift giving.
Richie had truly
“seen” Sharon—her vulnerability and spirit, and he’d expressed his care by mirroring her goodness. It took
another year and a half for her to tell him what those gifts had meant to her,
and to apologize. But because he hadn’t given up on her, a thaw had begun. She
too was able to see more truly, and come home to her heart. The following
evening Carly’s sister asked Richie for a lesson in swing dancing, and he
showed her some steps to the jazz music
on his iPod. She caught on quickly, and the others applauded as she and Richie
spun happily around the living room. Carly glanced over at her mom, who was
standing behind the others in the doorway. She was watching with a slight
smile, her eyes wet with tears.
Adapted
from True Refuge (Jan. 2013)
True Refuge is now available for purchase
