pay-what-you-can pawpaws
sweet sweet relational distress
Hi friend, I’m slowly coming back here. I’ve been so tired and trying to catch up with the grief of the times and my own personal losses and recoveries. Moving is so hard and strange, bringing all parts of myself with me has been a disjointed experience. During my last few weeks in Massachusetts, I thought about how altogether lovely the four years I spent with myself there were. There was an uncategorical amount of pain that sometimes surrounded my whole constitution, but there was also so much beauty in my days in the valley where grief and kindness often met me together, holding hands. More than anything, I’m realizing my years back in Massachusetts allowed me to develop my inner world when I had previously thought I did not have one. That makes me sad to write, but it’s true. I wasn’t sure what it meant to have an inner world because (I am beginning to understand) so much of mine was consumed by how to orient to and satisfy others. While I do think of myself as someone who is fairly self-possessed (or otherwise able to put that image of myself forward to protect myself), I am deeply and easily preoccupied with the function of my relationships and my role in them. But in between the moments that I was dealing with relational stress and growing pains, I find myself remembering now how often I was alone with myself driving in my car, walking in the snow at night, sitting with a body of water, and experiencing a solitude that was so utterly and enjoyably mine. During my last few weeks in Massachusetts, these are the moments I felt so grateful for, and I realize that they allowed me to be out in the world with much fear but armed with great insistence. Those moments got me where I am now and surely will assist me in what’s next.
The photo below was taken by my brother, Geoffrey, in the sparse living room of the first apartment I shared with Clara in Northampton, 2020-2022. Xx
A couple of years ago, I briefly dated someone who I frequently refer to as The Arborist. This denotes his occupation, which I am told is a normal way to reference lovers come and gone when you’re in your 20s and dating miscellaneously. Plus, it kind of adds to the mystery of the lore — I can say The Arborist, The Neighbor, The Divorced Capricorn, and if you know, you know.
I feel a lot of warmth towards my time with The Arborist because it granted me an, albeit brief, genuine understanding of what it was like to date someone I actually liked, who was unafraid to meet me in our shared interests and seemed to really be in his own life. Ours was, I thought at the time, a compatibility I didn’t know could exist for me. Having previously enmeshed myself in the lives and personalities of ex-partners, I felt relief that I could easily tell the two of us apart, which felt novel and exciting. He seemed to me to be a practical and grounded person who loved working outdoors and was renovating and building out parts of his home with his own hands. He also really loved poetry and was unafraid to engage in the excitement of words and literature with me. I recently read through an email thread containing a weekly challenge we did together two summers ago (as friends), sending our own poems back and forth. I still hold this vision of his practical, poetic, and kind nature to be generally true, though there are many things I learned about him later that feel less shiny. So much can be true about a person; limerance grants a layer that, gratefully, will always reveal more if I stay dedicated to reality.
Early on in our time together, he expressed his desire for a dynamic that favored interdependence over codependence as a basis for how a healthy relationship might take shape. I felt a great comfort hearing this, and I agreed, though I was also very scared. During quarantine, I had disentangled myself from a deeply codependent relationship, and the whole time we were together, whenever I had a flash of emotional sobriety, I could feel myself understanding that this was not the kind of relationship that I wanted— one where I felt I had to monitor someone, keep them honest, control both of our experiences. But with very little trust and security between us, that was the relationship I found myself choosing to be in for nearly three years. There’s an urgency and insistence that codependence created in me; I always had a need to sort out what was happening and fix it before it could get any worse before the anxiety of not knowing or having control made me self-implode. But it caused a lot of fog and disorientation and a false sense of control, to boot. So when The Arborist expressed what he wanted, I said, “Yes, of course! Me too!” almost like, Duh! What else is there? Because that is how I felt; that is what I wanted and still want. But I had little clue what that actually looked like in action.
Whether or not I know now is still up for debate. At the very least, I think I am able to identify and cultivate the secure relationships that I do have, and that is quite a relief in itself — to put down my checklist of constantly monitoring. And when I feel insecure or avoidant about my connection with someone, or worse, grasping for something unavailable, I know I have lost some touch with reality. I know I have a choice to make about how I will communicate what’s up for me and take care of whatever need is presenting itself. Do I always make that choice? More often, I think, yes. But also, often, no. I’m learning to feel these moments more, pace, and trust myself. I can do that.
Earlier in October, on my way to a dance rehearsal, I passed by a small wooden table outside of someone’s home in Easthampton — they were giving away pawpaws that I assume grew on their land. I pulled a haphazard U-turn, got out of my car, arranged a pint of 3, and scanned the sun-washed sheet of paper displaying a Venmo QR code for the pay-what-you-can pawpaws. In a few days, I would complete my Shiatsu program, and after that, I’d bring myself back to my new home, in my new city. I was feeling my 6 months of running around, going from place to place, coming to a close. Thus, my four-year chapter in Western Mass was finding its end as well.
I thought of The Arborist, I wanted to share the pawpaws with him. I remembered that he loves pawpaws, though he may have only spoken about that once. While I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over a year; the urge was strong and insistent. I slowed myself down. I wondered if I was using fruit as a bargaining tool. If I bring The Arborist some pawpaws, he will provide me with some kind of temporary feeling of love and affirmation that I can carry with me while my self-confidence is on vacation during this moment of transition. Back in my car, I thought of the other times I had bargained for love or care where there was none or very little available or being offered. This seems to be, at times, the easiest reservoir to tap— one that is empty and outside of me. I find myself turning the soil of my lost and lacking relationships over and over, hoping for fertile land to appear.
I brought the fruit to dance rehearsal for my friends to try, and I took the rest to the hill towns that night, where I was having dinner. Ellie, Tori, and I devoured one together and spent a lot of time marveling at the beautiful, dense, dark seeds inside. We each held a seed up to the light in between our fingers; I wondered what kind of conditions this needs to grow.
This is so damn good.