the bubble.

When I was about five years old, I contracted a rare, severe case of the chicken pox — a neurotropic strain that entered my central nervous system and caused me to lose my eyesight for a week or so. At the time, they had no idea that I would ever regain my eyesight, so it was a particularly stressful event for my parents. Just prior to the chicken pox outbreak, I had seen the movie version of the rock opera, "Tommy" (yep, don't judge my parents too much...the soundtrack was by The Who after all). I suffered horrible nightmares while blind, including thinking that the itchy pox were spiders crawling on me, and the nightmares were scored by a running loop of the movie soundtrack. In the movie, the main character, Tommy, goes into shock after a traumatic event rendering him blind, deaf and mute — all of it self-induced. 

Also in the mid-1970's, Aaron Spelling gave us a made-for-tv movie starring John Travolta called "The Boy in the Bubble." A story based on the real-life experience of David Vetter, a young Texas boy with a rare and deadly immune-deficient disorder. He spends his entire life living in a sterile bubble with zero flesh-on-flesh contact with another human being. In the movie, he falls in love with his neighbor and then takes the risk to move out of the bubble and they ride off on a horse. In real life, David underwent an unsuccessful bone marrow transplant and died at the age of 12. 

Depressed yet? Where am I going with all of this?

I've had a lot of instances recently to think about the concept of intimacy. How we crave it and need it and when do we shut it out. And what does real intimacy look like? I think we often mistake it for concepts like 'unconditional love' or even just love in general. You don't even have to be in love to know someone intimately or exist in an intimate relationship. Intimacy is loosely defined as 'a close personal connection that is developed through knowledge and experience with another person.' And this level of knowledge and experience is achieved through dialogue, transparency, vulnerability and reciprocity. Thus I think back to the bubble and to "Tommy" - both of which had barriers to intimacy in their story lines. Can we really live, or should I say, thrive, without intimate relationships? 

I read an article recently (although it was from January of this year) about punk guitarist (slash) actor (slash) co-creator and writer of the IFC series, "Portlandia," Carrie Brownstein and her co-creator and co-star on the show, SNL regular, Fred Armisen. 

 - - - I have to diverge here a bit and say that I am more than a little fascinated by Carrie. For starters, she is listed in Rolling Stone as one of the "25 Most Underrated Guitarists of All-Time," - yep...of all-time. Further, she specifically was named as their highest-rated female guitarist of all-time. She's also a writer and an actor, and in the various roles she co-authored on "Portlandia," I believe she's as good as any sketch actor I've ever seen. I am so interested in women who are creative in a gritty, outside-of-the-box way (i.e.: punk guitarist) but even more so, I am interested and inspired by Carrie's ability to feed all of the different sides of her personality - and well. She claims she doesn't see the contradictions that maybe we see, i.e.: sexy, roiling presence onstage vs. the wry social portraits created for "Portlandia" vs. the more cerebral, modest personal side (as described by the New Yorker article). She doesn't see these things as contradictions because she understands exactly how each thing relates to who she is, i.e.: when she's performing, she is very aware that it's a performance. She is ultimately feeding her passions through utilizing her talents. I honestly believe this dichotomic problem exists for most women, and maybe even people in general, and I applaud anyone who can so elegantly develop all sides of who they are. It is something I am working on for myself. I'm sure there is a blog entry in my future on this one. - - - 

Back to Carrie and Fred. Here's the article if you want to gander at it sometime:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/02/120102fa_fact_talbot

The part that relates to this big idea of intimacy is that Fred and Carrie seem to have an off-screen plutonic relationship that I think many of us would want in our romantic relationships, minus the no sex (insert smirky emoticon). A 'like-family' feel that, even after nearly ten years, still gives them, in Fred's words, "that sense of anticipation about seeing the other person, the secret bond...I'm not thinking, I'm doing this because you are my girlfriend, I'm just thinking, I love Carrie." And Carrie, "I told Fred he could stay in the car. But he insisted on joining me out on the wet, muddy grass, tolerating not only the elements but a typical dog-park lady who overshared about her pair of jacket-clad whippets. When I saw Fred bundled up in his parka, wearing his brand-new REI hiking boots, I felt so happy and lucky; there are few people for whom Fred —a classic New Yorker, not a nature guy at all—would brave the outdoors"..."Sometimes I think it's the most successful love affair either of us will ever have."

Doesn't that feel all fuzzy and good? So then what is it that challenges us from creating bonds like this, plutonic or romantic? What are our barriers to intimacy?

Tying back into my illustrative examples above, is it some trauma, like in the case of the Tommy character? Or is it a barrier that is self-constructed that leaves us isolated like the bubble? A barrier created because of some dysfunction in ourselves? Like an intimacy auto-immune disorder?

I am very lucky in that I do have some successful intimate relationships. And they are successful precisely due to the definition above: dialogue, transparency, vulnerability and reciprocity. And for me, vulnerability was, and still is, the most difficult. When I was younger I suppose the barriers were self-created: I am an only-child who is very self-reliant and independent. I was raised to be self-accountable first and foremost, tapping into my own well of strength or motivation as the first line of defense. Solid traits, but they don't leave much room for an outside helping hand. As an adult, some 'traumas' were added to the mix—life-changing professional, personal and financial stresses and divorce. Initially these traumas forced me to pull deeper into my self-reliant self, but as the stresses overwhelmed me, those closest to me initiated the kinds of transparent dialogue needed to open up my vulnerability and 'break the mirror.'*

*In "Tommy," his mother, out of frustration, smashes the mirror that he had always looked into without registering what he was seeing and he then was cured of his sensorial afflictions. 

Somewhere along the way, even as I was struggling with my own ability to be vulnerable, I was able to be transparent and present with others on things related to their lives. We have shared an extraordinary amount of dialogue and experience and it's that reciprocity that makes it all work. I reached out of the bubble and they reached in just enough to make the kinds of connections that would eventually lead to greater bonds. And I think this takes courage. Courage to reach out and courage to reciprocate. The times in my life when I have had the greatest amount of faith in myself and others, I have found the courage to be vulnerable. I am keenly aware of the delicate balance of it all. The vulnerability in the quest for vulnerability—it's an axis that is hard to always rotate smoothly around. 

So now I think back to Carrie and Fred, and Tommy, and the Boy in the Bubble, and I see all the ways in which we struggle with but need intimate relationships in our lives. I understand what it feels like to see someone you love standing in the rain in new REI boots just to be with you. Friend or love. What it feels like to smash the mirror and see your life in front of you. To touch someone through the bubble and simultaneously crave the real touch but fear the life-altering result of doing so. It took me a very long time to understand that being vulnerable would give me the courage to be in that cycle of intimacy that I so crave and need. 

I think it's ok that in the movie version of the "Boy in the Bubble" he falls in love and rides off on a horse. I like that version. Tommy ends up singing in front of an enormous crowd— a song with the apropos title of, "Listening to You." My sight was restored and I suffered no long-term affects of that trauma. My love has symbolically stood in the rain for me, wearing uncomfortable new boots, over and over again. And just last week, on my 40th birthday, my best friends gave me an artist engraved silver bracelet with the quote, "Courage, strength and hope possess my soul...I will stand firmly and without fear." ~ Goethe. I cannot think of a more appropriate gift from these people who know me so well.