Loving the Men

I’ve been pondering my next post..clearly, nothing has changed about the ‘dreadful lull’ for many of us, me included, so who needs to hear about that? I’ve braced myself for the idea that it’s gonna take however long it takes to get a permit and start the rebuilding process and there has been some kind of peace along with that. But my life partner, well, I worry a little, because this is taking a serious toll on him and on all the men who find themselves suddenly charged with this ENORMOUS TASK. Trust me, I know that women are carrying this load as much as the men. But what’s different is that we have outlets; group therapy for fire victims, EMDR treatments, spas, massages, talking to one another, shopping, all of that gives us a little bit of relief and kinship.

Not so for most of the guys. They are being stoic, shouldering the load with a kind of resigned weariness that breaks my heart. It’s a classic, archaic challenge; ‘losing home”, and “shelter”. These are the elementary things in Maslow’s pyramid. Bedrock stuff. On a subterranean level, there is a huge cloud of fear activated when those things are suddenly taken. These are fundamental. These are what keep us from our biggest nightmare, to be homeless. And does it help that we walk among the ghosts of those who are living the nightmare, the ‘homeless’, who are increasingly making themselves visible in our otherwise pristine landscape? On some underlying level, that has to be frightening to those of us who are desperate to fight the good fight, get the permits, do it right, and make a new home on top of the ashes of the old.

We already know that men internalize feelings more than women, as a general rule. As much as we’ve advanced culturally, this is something that remains a constant in most cases, IMO. I see it around me in the husbands who are trying desperately to keep the ball rolling in their working lives while at the same time make miracles happen for their displaced families. How heartbreaking when a man who has built so much of his home with his bare hands, (as mine did) stands and watches that labor of love disappears in a wildly destructive wall of flame. Everything you think you can depend on, the land, “home”, so easily vanquished! The fear and despair that this can generate are powerful indeed.

Looking into the faces of the newly homeless in Eric Myer’s powerful exhibit “Malibu After” revealed more of the same. The women, for the most part, looked enigmatic, withdrawn, stricken, but the men, the men looked like quintessential masks of grief. I know my man did. It hurt me to see it. As much as I share this burden with him, he is carrying more of it and that’s a fact.

I don’t want to insult or minimize the many single moms out there, handling this entire catastrophe on their own, or maybe, in your marriage, you are the woman who handles everything. That deserves its own special recognition. But today I’m thinking about the men, the baby boomers who went from free-spirited hippy-dom to the task of “growing up”, facing the ‘real world’ and buckling down to become providers, to take care of things. There’s a bunch of worried providers out there, trying valiantly to battle the obstacles and get a new phase started, to put shovels into the ground, to make shelter for their families. Again.

I wish I had something more helpful to say to them. But one thing I can say is;

Dudes, you deserve to mourn, you deserve to cry, to scream, to rage. This is not only an affront by nature, this is injury by the bureaucracy that has grown too many legs, and is strangling us. This is humiliating and debasing, and it takes huge strength of character to keep fighting. And I want you to take care of yourself, and to find friends to confide in, and reach out for help, and stop being perfectly stoic, because we need you.

The fire has taken enough from us. We’ve got to keep our perspectives and pace ourselves for this marathon. And find some relief along the way.