Intensity

My first clear memory is of a trip I took with my mother and grandmother to the San Diego Zoo when I was about three years old. I remember a pole with three flat, circular wire baskets placed concentrically on it, and each basket was filled with fluffy yellow chicks that visitors were invited to approach and stroke. I remember being thrilled and running to them in my delirious haste to touch their tiny, soft bodies. But as I stuck my hand in the basket, they all rushed away from me and hurled themselves out of the basket. I remember feeling shock that I should come so close to something so wonderful and then scare it away. I knew that I wanted only to stroke them, but by my bold actions I frightened them. My intensity and desire to enjoy them chased them from me and left me with empty hands. I remember crying desperately about the lost opportunity. Thus, my earliest memory is about losing something not despite but because of the magnitude of my appreciation for it.

Many of my other early memories also have to do with feeling punished for being open about my feelings. I was not a drama queen; I had no tantrums, I didn't stalk anyone. In fact, I kept to myself most of the time, but when I did express myself, I meant what I said. And what I said was deeper and often truer than what others spoke of, much older and more thoughtful than my years, and such directness makes some people uncomfortable. Especially kind directness. Be sarcastic and folks may think you're bold and funny; be tender and honest and many people don't know what to do around such pure feeling. I've never liked to play games and pretend that I don't feel something when I do. Punished or not, I've always felt that, much as I wanted others' approval, I'm the one who has to live with myself, and if I'm not honest, I don't want to be around myself.

Sometime after the San Diego Zoo chick fiasco when I was perhaps four or five, my mother came home from work one day with a tiny chick in a shoe box. I don't know whether I was to have kept it or whether she borrowed it for the night from the Future Farmers of America advisor at the high school where she taught, but I knew it was mine for the night at least. At first I was delighted; here was my chance to appreciate and nurture an exquisite, vulnerable creature. But it was soon clear that the chick was in great distress. It peeped constantly and wanted nothing to do with me. When I went to bed, it was still peeping sadly. When I awoke, it was dead. I felt such guilt, even though I hadn't brought the chick home or failed to do what I was told to; I was a tiny girl, but I felt responsible for its suffering and death all the same, because it had been mine in some sense. I felt somehow that I should have known what to do to care for the little helpless bird, that somehow I should have known better, been cleverer, stayed up all night with it, something. It didn't occur to me that my mother had acted inappropriately in bringing home a tiny creature that needed special care, food, warmth and companionship and helped me to provide none of that. The feeling that my awareness and empathy required action stuck with me. Yet sometimes showing too much personal concern toward another's emotional situation can also be overwhelming to someone who doesn't have the energy to respond. I've had to learn to offer my feelings and insights, and step back so others have room to breathe.

There's always been a connection for me between feeling that my intensity has the ability to alienate others and also that my intensity gives me the responsibility to know more, do more, share more. I have often felt that because I have a capacity to show care and awareness of others' feelings, I should. And sometimes I'm conflicted because I feel that expressing myself might push others away, but that not speaking what I feel would be to be dishonest to myself or another. If I do what I most want and say what I feel deeply, I may make others avoid me or fear that I won't know when to stop. But I do know. And if I don't let them know what's in my heart, I've lost the chance to show them how much value I see in them and how much I want their happiness. Intensity and a willingness to speak openly and passionately has so much more emotional resonance to me, and the honesty of it makes me feel more real myself. But sometimes people just want to relax into shared good feeling. They have more unwanted intensity of other sorts than they can handle and just want some ease for a change. I can see it, I can understand it, I know that's a valid and even valuable point of view. But for me, that's a tricky one.