One Writeous Chick

Member that class in grade school? Where they explained Relationships? That I missed? Well, this week, I feel like someone(s) slipped me the notes!

Thank you for the incredible response to my last week's newsletter about "The Last Kiss," and for sharing everything from personal stories and concerns, to relationship coaches and workshops! I am so grateful for all your thoughtful emails and comments, that I'd thought I'd share a few of "the notes" this week.

Overall, the overwhelming response was that - and this may be incredibly obvious but is worth stating I think - committed relationships require kept promises, work, and well, commitment. Without any further adieu...

"...Relationships are just like your job -- it you coast in the office, you get canned. If you coast in your relationships they fall apart. A lot of people refuse to acknowledge this fact. They figure you fall in love and you can go on auto pilot. Nothing could be further from the truth. The longer you're with someone, the harder you need to work."

"You ask a lot of good questions. Relationships ARE tricky, and, I think, inherently difficult, but doesn't something difficult make the trying all that more rewarding? Media tends to view modern love relationships with with either a rose colored lens or an eye of skepticism and what I call the eye of the "Casualty Vampire." How many magazines have you seen that suck on the "what went wrong" of this or that relationship? Purely for balance do you see one that focuses on "what's going well"? We have become a society that loves to look at what is going badly because it makes us feel better about ourselves and puts our lives in perspective. However, it has become a fear-based obsession. It seems to me that, like Zach Braff's character, many of my friends are avoiding relationships for fear of what might go wrong, and many more avoid marriage for the same reason. I strongly believe that were America to turn off its televisions, we'd have a much easier time living in relationships and letting them evolve without judgment."

And one of my personal favorites:

"Amen, sister."

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So, with love (and how does it all work???) on the mind, I got an email this weekend with the subject line "baby pics" from a friend I haven't been in touch with for years. I met him three and a half years ago on a yoga retreat, and at that time he was in his mid-40's and recently divorced from a woman he had been married to for 17 years, lived with for two years before that, and dated for three years before that even. And this email I received, three and a half short years later, contained pictures of his second wife's sonogram, along with her upcoming due date. I didn't even know he was dating anyone!

I emailed him to congratulate him and get up-to-date, and it turns out that he met her a few months after the retreat when they were seated next to each other on an airplane, they got married last year, and now they are expecting their first child. He is so excited, and says he feels like he's started his life all over again.

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So there's a huge divorce rate. And stories. And movies. And TV shows. And magazine articles. About infidelity. About problems and fights, disagreements and disappointments. About how men don't understand women and women can't understand men. About how marriage will forcibly, violently, suck all the life and joy out of you and then leave you for dead, emotionally wasted at the side of some ditch (See: Fox's "'Til Death," and don't even get me started!). Or about how relationships must be perfect or you need to get out, and fast! (like, now for instance) and hurry up and get something/one better, setting unrealistic (See: impossible) expectations, that nothing/one could ever live up to.

But still. I know way more than 3 couples who are happy together. And Zach Braff's actual, unparaphrased line in the movie "The Last Kiss" was that he will marry his girlfriend when she can name 3 couples that have lasted for more than 5 years. And I know way more than 3 of those, too, who have been together for way longer than that. Hey, I know someone who started over and is starting a family at 49.

I am reminded of the title of the Raymond Carver story I read in college "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," and that I can choose what to talk about, what to think about, and what to believe, when it comes to love, and when it comes to everything really. So despite the numbers that are being thrown at me, at us, by society, and the media, I have my own numbers to go on, and they have taught me that I enjoy a good, real, true love story with all its juicy up-and-down-ness - all the complexities, complications, triumphs, and more - and that above all, I believe in love.

Stay tuned for next week, I have decided that October is the official month of OBSTACLES, namely, KICKING THEM TO THE CURB! And there might be some John Mayer mixed in there somewhere, you know how I love those pop influences. I'm pretty sure I can make it relevant...

Until then, Happy Writing, and live and love it up this week!

xoxox!

Jen

I was listening to Z100 yesterday, the Top 40 countdown (as I've already established last week, I love pop music and I'm proud of it!), and there was an interview with Zach Braff so I listened harder. He was, of course, talking about his (great!) new movie "The Last Kiss." I don't want to totally misquote him or anything, so let me just toss out a disclaimer up front: what I am going to do is hugely paraphrase what he said, and then mostly extrapolate what I took it to mean.

He said that the institution of marriage is in trouble, and it is like this big pink elephant in the room that no one is talking about. And it just kinda seems like that is what everybody does - go down that Marriage/Baby Track on auto-pilot, without stopping to question some of the problems, or think about the 50% or whatever divorce rate. And he talked about how, in the movie, his character (Michael) says to Jacinda Barrett's character (his pregnant girlfriend, Jenna) something to the effect of (to paraphrase): "I will marry you when you can tell me three couples you know whose relationship isn't in trouble." And then Zach went on to say that he actually tried to play this game with people who interviewed him, but using only Hollywood couples, and no one could ever come up with three, and the happy couples they could find were all on their second marriages...

Anyway, his overarching point was, or what I took it to be at least was, that this movie opens up a discussion about what nobody is discussing.

Ok, I know three couples who have great relationships! Actually, I know (at least) NINE couples who have great relationships, who are wonderful together, and happy. So if you see Zach, tell him I want to play that game with him and I will WIN IT times three (!), because I love competition, even when something (like, uh, this) is clearly non-competitive. But maybe this is just a statistical anomaly. Back to the movie (for now).

I loved it. So much. I want to marry it. I heard that it had gotten terrible reviews, so just to be journalistic-ish and try to see both sides, I looked up the review in The New York Times http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/movies/15kiss.html. Which (paraphrase!), basically says that Zach/Michael is unsympathetic, and that Jacinda/Jenna has the potential to be a strong character, but isn't fleshed out enough. However, this is what I loved about this movie: It is honest (this is something The Times review and I agree on). And the characters are so flawed, and so struggling, and so lost, and so scared, and making mistakes left-and-right, but for the most part, they are trying. They are doing the best they can, which often isn't good enough (do you know that feeling?), but it is. What it is. An attempt. And a big ol' mess. All at once.

And this is where I diverge from The Times and we go our separate ways, because I felt for Zach/Michael, in a sympathetic way. Which, I am totally not Pro-Cheating, and if you ask me to take a stance on cheating I will come out very strongly in favor of Anti-Cheating, in a No-Exceptions kind of way. But this movie does not make it so easy. It does not say: here is a Bad Person doing a Bad Thing - hate him!!! Instead it paints this murky picture of right and wrong, where things are not so clear-cut (um, like things are sometimes known to be in real life), and people make mistakes, and it is the opposite of easy to just dismiss them. It is rip-your-soul-apart-feel-the-consequences painful, confusing, and just plain old-fashioned sad. And by the way, ZB has one of the best, most agonizingly edge-of-your-seat human moments I have ever seen in a movie when he has to make a tough decision and it - his face, his decision, this moment - is so scarily real I could feel it from my seat (which I was at the edge of and) which was so very far away from him, across the country even, and to me, that's a pretty good and rare movie to do that.

And as for the conversation that no one is having, I have often said that I feel like I was absent the day that Relationships were explained in grade school, and no one gave me the notes. What seems so obvious and easy for others has traditionally been confusing and difficult for me. I have felt like I am the only one who doesn't get it. Like, why won't anyone talk about the complexities and challenges of relationships? Not the (often self-created) "drama," which people do talk about, myself included, but the nuts-and-bolts of how two individuals can become one loving, healthy, couple in a loving, healthy relationship that really works, that isn't in trouble, that makes its participants more happy than sad. I know and believe it's possible but. I have questions! I want answers!

Well, this movie will not give you any answers. What it does do is ask a shitload of questions. I hate rules, and if you ask me to take a stance, I will come out very strongly Anti-Rule, Anti-Grammar, Anti-Punctuation, Anti-Everything!, but what screenwriter Paul Haggis does in "The Last Kiss" is one of my favorite "rules" of writing: always. Always. ALWAYS. ASK MORE QUESTIONS THAN YOU ANSWER. This is why I aim to do this in my own writing: I don't have all the answers (no one does!), and I could not even begin to think about pretending to. And also. What this does is: it starts a conversation. I hate. Hate. HATE to the point of RAGE (which is potentially my own, separate issue), when books/movies/plays/anything give me all the answers and then tie everything up with a cute little pink bow (even though I love the color pink). First of all, I feel like doing that assumes the far below-average intelligence of the reader/viewer/anything/me, and I hate being assumed to be below average; I find it offensive and, as previously stated, rage-inducing. And also: the neat little bow is a huge conversation-stopper. After you get the answers spoon-fed to you, who cares anymore? Unanswered questions and unwrapped bows leave something to wrap your brain around, something to haunt you, and most importantly, something to discuss. And maybe some clarity will emerge out of that discussion. Nothing will ever emerge out of the idiot-proof pink bow.

So, in conclusion, keep asking, keep talking, and if it is what you want to do in your life, KEEP WRITING! To quote Tom Wilkinson's character (Jenna's father, Stephen): "Do whatever it takes." And maybe some clarity will emerge...

Lots of love!

Jen xoxoxo