{"id":48042,"date":"2011-10-29T15:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-10-29T19:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=48042"},"modified":"2011-10-28T12:38:47","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T16:38:47","slug":"keeping-it-real-%e2%80%93-real-interesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/polyamory\/keeping-it-real-%e2%80%93-real-interesting\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping it Real \u2013 Real Interesting"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It hits me in the oddest times and places. I\u2019m just pulling up to the school the other day, to pick up my daughter, and there it is: I\u2019m actually doing this. This is really happening<\/em>. <\/p>\n

\"Poly
Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Later that night, when I went to see the acupuncturist, it happened again. She looked at me and said: \u201cThis is your magic. You made this happen. You\u2019re surrounded by love now, and you thought that would never be possible. But it\u2019s real. You brought this into reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next night, I had a long phone call with my best friend — the other best friend, the one who knows I\u2019m poly. I was discouraged about writing, mostly, and many other things, and full of despair that I\u2019d ever really get my work out there and get it seen. \u201cThere are so many sensationalist crap books out there,\u201d she said. \u201cAll that I was a call girl<\/em>, and I was a geisha<\/em> stuff. Maybe your story is just too real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember you talking about this before the person even came into your life — you were thinking about it, working it through, trying to bring it out into the open. And then the right person was just there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know,\u201d she said, \u201cI think people would accept someone being a crack addict before they\u2019d accept being polyamorous. You know, the way all those right-wingers who are addicted to painkillers and whatever that stuff they\u2019re taking is? That\u2019s easier for people to accept. Because that\u2019s not something they can control. People see it as something that just took over, that they couldn\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But this is a choice, a decision, a conscious and deliberate action. Something I\u2019m trying to make happen in a way that I dream can bring more love into our lives, and might happen in a way that doesn\u2019t hurt but helps. I\u2019m smiling to myself now, thinking of that mighty Rev. Ike quote: \u201cIf you can dream it up, you can dream it down!\u201d It works both ways.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a lot of talk around polyamory about authenticity, about what is honest, about what is real. This is natural enough, since it\u2019s a practice that involves being open with the people you love about what you\u2019re all doing together. What distinguishes it from affairs is that the people involved know what\u2019s going on, talk about it, have the ability to choose how they\u2019ll do it, etc. But how real is real? How much truth must you reveal, and to whom, to get your poly honesty card punched? Do I tell my husband about sex with my boyfriend, or vice versa? Do I come out to my mother-in-law, or my employer? What makes it real?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an old-school meme from 4chan (the image site that spawned Lolcats, among other things) that bounces around in my head all the time: You\u2019re Doing It Wrong<\/em>. I do a lot of it wrong. I\u2019ve been told, even on this website, that I\u2019m doing polyamory wrong. Because I have to work this magic with care and craftiness and wit and, I hope most of all, grace, doesn\u2019t make it any less real. <\/p>\n

When I get discouraged about whether my writing will ever find readers, I think of all the crazy poets I most admire, and the top of the list is Emily Dickinson. You could say she hid away and refused to engage with the world, that she lived in fear of people and society and how she might be treated, that she didn\u2019t \u201ccommunicate her needs,\u201d that she was dishonest with others and herself about wanting recognition, understanding and love. Say all you like, but no one could ever say that what she wrote was not real — probably the most intensely real poems ever written. A thousand others might proclaim their poetry that comes so sincerely and honestly from their hearts, and they won\u2019t even come close; I\u2019m sorry, it\u2019s harsh, but you know it\u2019s a fact. Your sincerity alone won\u2019t measure up. She was possessed of an extraordinary sensibility, an ear, a capacity for making profound distinctions and linking them to ordinary, absolutely clear and understandable natural metaphors and details. There was magic there, and painstaking craft.<\/p>\n

Most of the artists I admire, particularly the women and gay ones, had to (and often still have to) do this balancing act, make these choices, recognize these compromises and keep them from killing off their work and their souls. You do, too, don\u2019t you? How much energy do you give your day job so you\u2019ll have something left for your lover? Do you choose to have a lover and a child? What do you give your art, and what do you give your family? Do you make a casserole or a poem? The money from painting the cathedral will keep me, my family, and a dozen assistants alive for years, and it will enable me to paint my masterpiece, and it comes from that corrupt, murderous, pedophile they call a holy man. <\/p>\n

What do you do? You write poems full of riddles, all the richer for what you can\u2019t say outright. <\/p>\n

That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,
\nAnd yet it may be said I loved her dearly;
\nThat she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,
\nA loss in love that touches me more nearly.
\nLoving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:
\nThou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;
\nAnd for my sake even so doth she abuse me,
\nSuffering my friend for my sake to approve her.\u2028
\nIf I lose thee, my loss is my love’s gain,
\nAnd losing her, my friend hath found that loss;
\nBoth find each other, and I lose both twain,
\nAnd both for my sake lay on me this cross:
\nBut here’s the joy; my friend and I are one;\u2028
\nSweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.<\/em><\/p>\n

That one is Shakespeare (and I don\u2019t find it impossible to believe that a glover\u2019s son could have written it). This to me is what is greatest about being human: the times I\u2019m fully aware of the contradictions and disconnects and compromises, too, in human life; wabi<\/em>, the crack in the cup or in the voice that gives it beauty. Not having everything I want, a little difficulty, a little friction, makes everything more interesting.<\/p>\n

There are many points of intersection among polyamorists and those who practice radical honesty and its variants. The jargon of Honesty permeates the poly world, many of its writings and conversations. Being an artist, I find all manner of codes and conventions at best something new to work with and at worst an irritation, and I won\u2019t have Honesty, self-improvement and enlightenment declared off limits for play. Being a contrarian, I don\u2019t necessarily want to improve myself. I mostly want to enjoy myself, although I\u2019d also love if everyone in America had decent health care — including dental, goddamnit — and child care. <\/p>\n

This has actually been one of the hardest things about polyamory for me. There\u2019s so much talk about working, working, working at it, always healing, healing, healing. We will all be more open, more honest, more ourselves, more healthy. It starts sounding like a stint at the Kellogg sanatorium, although at least masturbation is allowed. But I\u2019m on the crooked path, the one of Mercury, patron of talkers and thieves. I\u2019m more inclined to, as Emily says, \u201ctell it slant.\u201d<\/p>\n

This short video<\/a> has provided me with an excellent guideline for relationships for the past year or so. (Isaac just walked by while I was choosing that clip, and I told him this was my ideal that I tried to live up to. He said he was going to jump out the window. He\u2019s a triple Virgo: perfection is achievable and desirable. But he\u2019s obviously willing to make an exception in my case.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not perfect; everyone knows that. My friends aren\u2019t perfect. My guys are not perfect. They\u2019re fascinating, they\u2019re interesting, they\u2019re sexy, they make me argue, they make me laugh. They\u2019re not infallible, not in their honesty or in their moods or in their actions. Clark Kent is hot. Superman is boring.<\/p>\n

My relationships aren\u2019t perfect. I\u2019m not always sure of what I\u2019m doing. I hurt people. I hurt, too. Maybe there are ways to lessen these hurts. But if you have a magic program that removes all hurt, I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m buying it. I need to do things the hard way.<\/p>\n

Am I just turning it around and saying the radically honest, the self-improvers, the tireless relationship workers are Doing It Wrong? I\u2019ll always reserve my right to poke at any system. But no — there\u2019s an enormous amount to admire there. I might try it your way from time to time, but I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll make it through the first course. I do recognize that what I\u2019m able to do in these relationships wouldn\u2019t be possible if you, the insistent on absolute honesty and some perfection of open love, weren\u2019t trying so hard. And here is a question to answer, honestly: Can you value what I bring to the table as much as I value what you give? Can you even see it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maria Padhila It hits me in the oddest times and places. I\u2019m just pulling up to the school the other day, to pick up my daughter, and there it is: I\u2019m actually doing this. This is really happening. Later that night, when I went to see the acupuncturist, it happened again. She looked at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48042"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}