Coaxing

[love to know what I was planning to write here - this was a post that never happened... Bet the muse, er, hope she will strike again :) ]

Months later, we return to our heroine. Or is that hero-ine (are they spelled the same, the drug and the character? Can I be a writer if I don't know?)

I think this was to be a post about how coaxing people, plants, animals, art, music, craft is better than forcing.

Nudging has become a gold-plated, jew-jitsu for me :)

It occurred to me several years ago, musing with my BDNHTPATBU (beloved dear now-husband, then-paramour, about to break up), one summer night after a lovely, rare trip to a movie.*

I had been noodling over this idea for a while.  Slowly it came into focus.

(How sweet and lovely are these moments of revealing clarity. It's why focusing a camera is so much fun, to me.

If you wait for it the bread rises, the fudge sets, the child walks, the film negative transforms into an image, the sock emerges, the thought coalesces.)

We had been discussing the difficulty of radical LGBT protests and harsh insistence on their rights. I support their goals - perhaps even all of them. I'm not sure.

What I was and am sure of is that, while it seem important to force change in some instances, it is also rife with risks.

I wonder if true change can ever be forced??

After all, I've watched the gay rights movement become more and more "mainstream", over the last 30 years. Over time society does seem to figure a lot out. With any luck we don't slip back into old, messed up ideas, like slavery and genocide (no guarantees tho - see recent post on global warming).

Along the way they have pissed off a lot of people. Did the strident, arduous protests have to happen? Maybe. I won't deny that it could be that change would not have come without it, without the pushing and shoving or demands for attention.

Stan's amazing contribution, the catalyst to my swirling thoughts, was to comment that he did respect that people are entitled to their life styles and beliefs, but he hated having it, their views, shoved down his throat.**

When raising children, I've learned that it's helpful to remain dispassionate. When working toward solutions with peers, authority figures and those who look up to me, I've noticed stating "my" truth and detaching from the outcome is key. It allows space for movement toward a resolution or even a synthesis of ideas...

I wonder how much it could help to be firm to our world/national/community in our beliefs, without demanding that they accept them.

On the other hand, maybe if we didn't push hard, society wouldn't  grow up. Grin. After all, that is what siblings are for.
v

* movie night, for us, consisted that night of driving for 30 or 40 mins to a theater, watching something fun (I think it was the new Star Trek movie?) and driving all the way back to the farm. I had dressed up, something I had never done there, and I remember sitting on the porch at the barn (a pole barn), having a beer or wine after. Stan took my picture with his phone, or tried to. It was a sweet moment of his looking at me with "fresh eyes", as if seeing me anew.

**I remember well the sense of various lines of thought coming together, that evening, in the moment, and talking this idea over with him. It seemed that he appreciated being a catalyst, and he knew he was, as much as I enjoyed it. He loved the exchange of ideas and synthesis of his thoughts and my own. This was somehow a key moment for us; something intangible quality shared that also came into focus, along with our ideas. We began, I think then to recognize our ability to complement each other, to both challenge and support our thinking.  Maybe it is/was just synchronicity - or maybe it's more than that.