“Holiday Notes From Across the Divide” - Zurich, Switzerland

It is nearly Christmas now, and I am flying back from Zurich after screening FLYING and teaching at the University of Zurich for the first time. The screening was lovely, and the Swiss approached the film in a way that was different, yet similar, than in other countries and other screenings. I felt people were dubious at first – why would I want to put myself in a film? Did I think I was so important? And then the same people confessed afterwards that they planned to only watch 2 hours, but that they remained in the theater all day because they were so engrossed. At the end men and women came up to me and thanked me for the film. One man said, ‘you have described my life with my wife, she always wants me to talk by I don’t know how to. I feel like I got an insight in to her world that I didn’t understand before.’ Another man said: ‘You talk about yourself, but we think about ourselves….’ I was really moved.

Now I am on a flight back to New York. Beside me, on the plane, sits my boyfriend of several years. He has upgraded us to business class at the last minute before getting on the plane – and I am enjoying an unexpected moment of luxury. What strikes me most right now is how hard it is for me to surrender to his love and affection. To be really honest, it terrifies me. I find myself constantly looking for flaws in him – even after many years. And my terror is a constant test of our relationship. I see ‘control’ everywhere; I see failure ‘everywhere’. Each fight leaves me wondering if part of the reason for my fighting is to see if he is still left standing at the end of the tornado: Does he still want to love me? Does he really love me? So far, he has weathered every storm.

I am beginning to realize I am like a badly traumatized child who cannot recover. I see abuse everywhere. I feel safer alone than in a couple. I know how to survive alone, but with two? If the ship is sinking and I have to save both of us – how will I do it? Furthermore, I have no idea why this man wants to be with me; and certainly why he wants to be with me after all I put him through. ‘Why does he love me?’ I constantly ask myself — and I cannot think of one good reason. Equally, I doubt my love for him. I laugh with him, am silly with him, make up games with him, tell him my dreams at night, listen to his dreams, ski together, swim together, work together, and try to communicate together. And this is what makes me most suspicious of him: he is not like me, he doesn’t feel things like me; he doesn’t think like me; he doesn’t talk like me; he is not a female like me.

When I accuse him of any of these things, he agrees. Yet I know he is lying: if he really wanted to, he could learn to be like me; if he wanted to, he could become my twin. He complains about this need of mine to be the same; he says he likes our differences; he says he likes arguing because it makes him see the world from another perspective. I am suspicious of anyone who likes conflict; I like consent; I like compassionate agreement. I am a female after all. And my fears are female fears: he cannot understand me; he does not know how to listen; he will try to control me; I will loose myself. No matter how old I get, I am still afraid of men taking over my life. It is hard because my fears are not just psychological – they are born out of years of experience as a girl and then as a woman, and years of watching other women suffer. It would be easy if I could just chalk it all up to fantasy.

It is hard walking this double line – the line of someone who has been abused and watched abuse and being someone who hopes for communion with a person of the opposite sex. I often feel like a war survivor – except the war continues to wage all around me every day. Thank god I have a patient boyfriend who wants to cross the divide; a man who believes in cross-cultural exchange. He may even teach me about love, if I don’t run away first.