Sweeping

I was browsing my favourite design site when I heard it coming. Down the street at 3 am came the street sweeper. Who drives it? Who are the people who sacrifice their nights to maintain our city streets - snowplowers, streetsweepers, construction crews - and why do they do it?

Reminds me of . . . how some of us want to sweep things under the rug.

This has come up in relation to:

-my daughter's habit of hiding toys and her feet under our living room area rug
-my own resistance to change and avoidance of one recent most stressful, most important issue
-how a couple of my friends have avoided speaking to me after I've wanted to talk about said stressful, anxiety-provoking issue
-my recent reading in Hold Me Tight about how intimate partners avoid addressing vulnerabilities by masking them with anger and how troublesome this can be to good relationships

I suppose it is all about managing anxiety. So is writing, to a certain extent - because it contains and structures experiences, difficult or troublesome, or otherwise. It allows a critical distance. It offers consolation. Which is why I gravitate to writing.

I ask my boyfriend, "Can I complain?"

And he generously listens.

I knew we would get along on our first real date date when he launched into a story that figured him as an awkward observer to his own experiences, complete with emphatic hand gestures and rueful looks. I can't remember the story, but I remember noting the performative aspect of his telling and how he looked framed against the window of the Italian restaurant and how good it felt to be sipping red wine on the verge of intimacy with this intriguing stranger.

What I appreciate about this man is his ability to hold and contain difficult emotion, even if it scares him. He is someone who deals and that is a rare thing. That's the only thing, really.