Congested Emotion in Beds                 By Eli Siegel Over rooftops There are lost voices; Some not sadder Than voices on active streets. Supernatural sadness, The kind that goes through air Under sultry moons, Over blurred rooftops, Is no greater, as sadness, Than that which Annoys members of families, Deserted persons in cafeterias, Husbands busily puzzled, Wives not glad they are. Nothing strange to earth Is not equalled by what is on earth. Moaning we have not heard, Sighing that has not reached us, Sadness we can only surmise of, All are Equivalent (no more) To slow dissatisfaction here, Resentment checked in rooms, Emotion congested in beds.

Woman: Intensity & Ease

By Ann Richards

ike many women, I felt intensity and ease couldn't make sense in my life. I would go from feeling blasé in a conversation with a friend to getting into a feverish pitch at my job, barking orders at a coworker. I would have intense feelings about a man and then some months later get cool and think, “What was I so excited about?” I saw no answer to this dilemma. Then I learned from Aesthetic Realism that, yes, we can feel intensely about something and be at ease too—when our purpose with people and the world itself is to be fair, to see value in what's outside of us.

     I grew up in Oswego, New York, the youngest child of the family and the only girl, and I was made much of by both parents. I was energetic. I played flute and piano, sang in choruses, took tap and ballet lessons. I loved reading, especially stories about animals, like Misty of Chincoteague, about two children who wanted to tame a wild stallion. I felt there was something wild in me like that stallion, even as I could present a calm exterior.

     Then, when I was nine, my parents took me to see Guys and Dolls at the college theatre, and I was mesmerized. That people could show large, intense feelings on a stage, and sing about them in front of hundreds of other people, got me, and I knew what I wanted to do: be an actor.

     But I had another drive running counter to that desire: the drive to have contempt, to look down on people, which made for a terrific mix-up between intensity and ease in me. In her commentary to TRO 1698, Ellen Reiss writes:

The human self is an aesthetic situation. We have the opposites that are in every instance of art, but so often they are not one in us: they fight; we shuttle between them; we play one off against the other.

This is what I did.

Inaccurate Intensity & Ease

y father was the city judge, and as part of a family in the public eye I knew it was important that we children behave like upstanding citizens. At the same time, I saw flaws in my parents, whom I mocked in my mind, telling myself the whole thing was a big charade. At home I had an intensity that often took the form of anger and tears. If I hurt myself slightly while playing, I'd sob and carry on about it, making sure everyone knew this was a tragic situation and not to be taken lightly. Years later, in an Aesthetic Realism consultation, my consultants asked me, “Do you think anything you do should be treated casually?” I definitely did not.

     I was also imperious with my mother and refused to dress in the clothes she picked out for me, insisting on my own way with tantrums. I fought often with my brother Stewart over who would get to sit in the front seat of the car. I also used my father's position as judge to feel I was a superior person, and I flaunted that feeling, assuming an air of lofty nonchalance. I used my father to get to a quick ease—a feeling of carte blanche, that I ought to have my way with impunity, as if I were above it all. I remember, on the way home from school, two girls taunting me for my loftiness, saying in a mocking tone: “Judge's daughter! Judge's daughter!” I thought they were mean, but somehow I felt I deserved it.

     My superior, scornful attitude didn't change, however. In school, I'd call out answers when my classmates hesitated, and I thought I was very smart. But I'll never forget my first grade report card. Ms. McIntosh had placed a check mark in the category “Lacks self-control,” and I hated her for it, vowing I'd never get another demerit for bad behavior. I decided to keep my thoughts to myself, present a smiling exterior, and show only what would have people like me.

     But I wasn't at ease with myself. Often when I lay down in my bed at night I felt strangely alone and empty, that something big was missing, and I'd cry. I wasn't to learn until years later that I was against myself because in trying to get to ease through superiority and contempt, I'd gone against the deep purpose of my life: to like the world, see meaning, value people as much as they deserved, not secretly disparage them.

The False Ease of Vacancy

n college, I cultivated an easygoing manner. My friends called me “mellow Ann,” but for all my creamy, sweet demeanor, I was often agitated or bored, a painful combination of tense and vacant. In Self and World Eli Siegel writes:

We all of us are fond of vacancy as a means of combating the humiliating bumps and confusions of the ordinary, unsolicitous world. We certainly have a right to find solace in quietude and solitude; but does contempt go along with our attainment of quietude and solitude? [P. 16]

     Then I began to have Aesthetic Realism consultations, and through them my life began to change. Early in my study I told my consultants that on a recent trip to a museum I'd seen a Morandi painting I was disturbed by and wanted to understand why. Vases in the foreground were white and seemed almost like blank spaces, defined by tangible objects behind and surrounding them.

     My consultants asked, “Are you afraid of how empty you can make yourself?”

     Ann Richards. Yes, I am. 
     Consultants. What's the difference between Morandi's space taking the shape of a vase and the way you make yourself vacant?

They asked if I became vacant in order to be interested in the outside world or against interest. “Against,” I said. That, they showed, was different from what happened in the painting:

     Consultants. Do those vase shapes become more by taking on other things? 
     Ann Richards. I see! Yes.
     Consultants. That is like what Eli Siegel said about acting, which you asked about: in acting we become more ourselves by taking on what's other than ourselves.

The Real Ease & Energy

s my study continued I came to have a new ease. I had greater feeling—about books, art, music, world events, my family, and justice to people near and far. I learned that “the purpose of education is to like the world through knowing it”—the basis of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method—and I felt that using this method I could have a good effect on young people in New York as a teacher of drama and English.

     Christopher Balchin was a teacher whom I met in the education workshops at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation. I admired how he spoke about his students and his subject. One Sunday afternoon, my roommate and I had a number of our friends over, and we were all sitting around a big oak table, talking about what we were learning. I respected how Christopher listened, and how he spoke. I also liked his British accent. Through him I felt a world of distant places and culture was closer to me and friendlier. And instead of flattering me, he was critical of the superior way I spoke about one of my brothers. This surprised me, and right away I felt more at ease. That same night, my roommate and I went to a movie, and when I saw he was sitting a few rows ahead of us, I thought, “There's Chris, my friend.” I had never in my life felt that about a man.

     There were big things I needed to learn about love, and when Christopher and I began seeing each other, I was fortunate to be asked by my consultants, “If you do see something you respect a man for, do you want to encourage it or do you want to diffuse it?” In the past it was the second. But now I answered, “I want to encourage it.” To do so, my consultants pointed out, “is an energetic pursuit.”

     The knowledge Christopher and I have gained from Aesthetic Realism has made our marriage of twenty years a very good one.

Ease at an Intense Time

hrough my study of Aesthetic Realism my relationship with my mother had grown warmer and deeper. Then, when my father died, there was increasing worry about her living alone in the large house. She was ninety years old and was beginning to forget things. But the suggestion that she move into an assisted living facility made her angry; she wanted to stay in her home.

     As I spoke to her on the phone, she would ask me over and over again, “When are you coming to see me?” even though I had just been there. If I walked out of the room, she would follow and didn't want to let me out of her sight. I didn't know what to do. I felt very sorry for her, but I was also angry, feeling she was trying to run my life, and I was beside myself.

     In a class for Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates I spoke about what was occurring, and heard questions enabling me to be kinder and more useful in a situation that people all over America are in the midst of right now. I tell here about only a portion of the insight and comprehension I received at that intense time. It was a discussion every caregiver, home attendant, doctor, and child of an elderly person needs to hear.

     Ms. Reiss asked me if I thought my mother could miss something in me and not wholly know what she wanted. And she continued, “Could you ask her: what do you miss more in me—my physical presence or my desire to understand you?” I said, “I could ask her. She wants me there. She calls so much.”

     I mentioned that my mother told me she was sending a pair of binoculars to me for my birthday—a gift I found surprising. Ms. Reiss asked about the deep symbolism behind the choice: “Do you think she wants you to see more widely?”

     Ann Richards. Yes, I think she does. 
     Ellen Reiss. Does she feel, “My daughter Ann isn't sufficiently interested in understanding me”?
    Ann Richards. I think so.

     I said I felt guilty, and Ms. Reiss asked me if I had wanted to put my mother aside. Yes, I said. She asked, “Could you say to her, ‘The way you are in my mind you would like'?”

     I said that was what I hoped for. And as a result of this discussion, the kind of thought I had about my mother changed essentially. I came to have an ease I would have thought impossible.

     About my mother's constant repeating herself, Ms. Reiss had asked if it was just repeating or in any way was it different every time? After that I listened more intently. I asked my mother many things about herself and what she was hoping to express, and I consciously wanted her to be stronger. This had a deeply composing effect on her as well. One day I told her, “I will never stop trying to understand you.” And she knew it was true.

     I was experiencing something described to me in an Aesthetic Realism consultation. “Do you want to see people as having inner lives?” my consultants had asked. “If you do, Ms. Richards, you won't be in a certain kind of turmoil. No matter what occurs you'll have a kind of ease from seeing deeply.”