Pollock

Movie Spoiler Warning!

Finally, after several years wait, last evening I watched Pollock. Starring Ed Harris, Pollock tells the story of the life of Jackson Pollock, the well-known artist.

The movie didn't disappoint. It didn't hurt that I enjoy Ed Harris' work, and Pollock's even more. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, I make a beeline for a Pollock.

I did find Pollock disturbing, though. It wasn't that the movie was dark, or that I had quite a few problems understanding the dialogue, or that the artist's life was a troubled one. The first was appropriate, the second annoying but workable and the third I already knew from previous study. The disturbing part was Harris' portrayal of Pollock. It was......I hesitate to say it, but it was familiar.

I'm tempted to say that Pollock was a disturbed man and write it off right there, but I don't know that that does it justice.

In the movie, Pollock's family, especially his mother, were all disturbing in their own rights. The mother seemed entirely oblivious to Jackson, whether it be his failures or his successes.

The more I contemplate the movie, the more disturbing it gets. From Pollock's girlfriend, and later, wife Lee Krasner's seeming inability to talk about anything other than Jackson or his success, to his mother's ambivalence, to Pollock's entire focus on HIS art, to nearly every other person around him with their own disturbing character traits, the movie is almost a study in dysfunction.

On purpose I'm ignoring the cliche of the tragic artist figure. That's not the point for me. It was the way I cringed when Krasner read Pollock an art critic's review, or the way I expected Pollock to grab the turkey carving implements and become violent. It was the display of entirely inappropriate behaviour that didn't make the perpetrator a complete pariah. It was the overturning of the dinner table, and the reaction from those seated. It was the mother at the dinner table peacefully eating whilst ignoring her youngest son, who was sitting next to her, having a break down.

It was Pollock adjusting the radio to his pleasure, entirely irrespective to the wishes of anyone else. That really is it. That's the nutshell. The core.

What's My Line?

I worked with a man who, along with his wife, had adopted eleven children from the foster care system. Each of the children had his or her own challenges. Some had been abused; some had learning disabilities; some had emotional problems. His wife had professional training in helping special needs children and they felt it was their calling to care for children who so badly needed a loving home. Theirs was a full and active house!

He would occasionally talk about the differences in his children's needs and the need to know how to handle each child individually. One that made a great deal of impact for me was how different children needed different kinds of discipline. For some children, "the look" was enough to communicate to them. For others, words or loss of privileges was needed.

I'd never seen human beings as that unique before. My world had been one-size fits all. With an egotistical, judgemental father, whatever he said was Right. Everything else was Wrong. Period. End of Story.

It's this need to cater to the specific needs of a child that has me puzzled when it comes to calling the way narcissistic parents treat their children abuse. It strikes me that perhaps what would be abusive for one child, is not for another. Yet, this idea of relativism bothers me, too. It's a slippery slope.

I'd like to think somewhere there's a pat answer, one that is reasonably concrete. I fear that I'm wrong.

My Compass Needs Calibration

As I read accounts written by other ACONs about their parents, events of their life, and familial relationships, I find myself thinking, "yeah, and...?". Many, many times I find myself wondering why some parental action would be odd/wrong/narcissistic.

I've decided I need to recalibrate my relational compass. My spouse grew up in a challenged household, but certainly not one devoid of parental love for their children. These same actions would NEVER happen in my spouse's FOO. NEVER. EVER. In a million years. In a million googolplexes of years. My mother-in-law and father-in-law often had trouble relating to things that happened with my parents. Now I know why. True to form, I always assumed that my family was normal and my spouse's atypical. It's something I still can't seem to wrap my mind around.

To Still A Mockingbird

I awoke just before sunrise this morning. I'm blessed to have a balcony off my bedroom and I wandered outside to enjoy the beautiful morning. All was quiet. Occasionally I could hear a car pass on a road on the other side of our woods. Birds of all kinds were singing their songs. A hint of colour was forming on the horizon. What an incredible creation!

I was lost in the birds songs when I heard an odd click behind me. I went back to listening to the birds, then I heard the click again. When I turned around to see where the noise came from. All I saw was a mockingbird standing next to a chimney on the roof. There just happens to be a nest in the chimney.

The bird clicked again, and then flew to a tree on the edge of the woods. There the mockingbird began to make an incredible racket. I enjoyed the fruit of it's distracting technique. I lost count at somewhere over a dozen different calls. It was quite impressive.

It's only been a bit over six months since I first learned of NPD. I still tend to see interactions through a lens coloured by the discovery of narcissism.

As I listened to the mockingbird's cacophony, I reflected how it was protecting it's young. It was behaving like a good parent should. My parents protected me from harm, sometimes this required great effort. Yet, I don't think of my parents as good parents. (Even typing that feels uncomfortable, but deep down I know it to be true.)

On reflection my mockingbird was only behaving according to its God-given instincts. It wasn't trying to distract me away from its nest out of love for its offspring. There was no reason involved, perhaps not even a decision per se.

So where am I going with this? I have absolutely no idea, but I know I will look differently at animals as they parent their young. They go through the motions, but it has nothing to do with love.

Stolen Childhood

That sounds harsh. It is. Yet more and more, as I reflect on my childhood, I see a big hole that normally would be filled with parental love.

As I think of what a stolen childhood is, my first thoughts go to children in impoverished areas. Their lives are plagued by not enough of life's necessities, perhaps not even enough to sustain life itself. Their childhoods are spent working to get food, or clean water, or shelter, or to survive without them. When I think of a stolen childhood in these terms, I had more than enough.

But...

Years ago when I was moving into my first house, I spent a day papering the kitchen cupboards with a good friend and my mother. Having company wasn't my idea, but that's the way it turned out. It also turned out that my good friend, M, didn't know that my mother was going to be there. M's mother had died two years earlier. Later, M she told me she was uncomfortable with my mother being there. It reminded her that she didn't have a mother anymore.

M's perspective surprised me. M had been very close to her mother. There was obviously a very special bond there. M might not physically have a mother any longer, but she carried her mother's love in her heart. I physically still had a mother, but love was a missing element of the relationship. To me, there was precious little value in having a mother. M had had a Mom; I had a biological parent. I'd gladly trade the latter for the former.

Well-worn as it is: "it is better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all" rings so true here.

OK, so what?

For human beings, life's necessities are more than simply the food, water and shelter that animals require. Humans need love. One morning at a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) meeting one of the discussion questions was: Did your parents give you unconditional love? Everyone, except me, answered in the affirmative. The follow-up question assumed unconditional love as a given.

In fact, I'm not sure there is such a thing as conditional love, but that's another entry.

Approval was the substitute for love in my FOO. Approval was doled out, sometimes lavishly, when I (meaning my behaviour) was good and removed when I was bad. I was perceived in terms of my behaviour. My childhood was spent working to gain my parents' love, to be "good enough", to give my parents enough of what they demanded. My childhood was spent trying to fill a bottomless pit.

No wonder when I see children, I feel sad for them. Maybe childhood doesn't have to be such a hard thing.