In the beginning...
As I write this, I’m 35,000 feet in the air, flying from my home in Denver to my home in Boston on the way to my home in Maine. I’m listening to Bob Marley sing “Redemption Song.”
I’m continuing my celebration of life.
Out of all the people in the universe
Bobbi and I loved telling each other the story of how we met. It didn’t get different—the facts were the facts. But it did get better.
I wrote an abbreviated story in this post:
… we met when we are both at the Scientology center in East Grinstead, England, at Cooper’s Wood where Bobbi was staying.
A friend wanted me to meet Bobbi’s friend Liz Ausley. I thought Liz was OK, but I fell hard for Bobbi. I can still remember (or imagine that I remember—same thing) the first moment I saw her. I remember where she was sitting, what she was wearing. I remember her eyes.
If Bobbi hadn’t gone to England to “rescue” Liz from Scientology, we would never have met. If Ed Anderson hadn’t introduced me to Scientology, we never would have met. If I hadn’t been friends with John and Roz Mustard who I worked with at Scientology in New York, we never would have met. If John and Roz hadn’t known Liz and thought I’d have been a good match, we never would have met. If Bobbi hadn’t been living in the same place as Liz and wasn’t at the party where I was supposed to meet Liz, we would never have met.
(And you kids, you wouldn’t exist!)
Bobbi and I came to believe that finding each other was a kind of miracle.
In the vastness of the universe, we had somehow found the ideal person—not just a really good person—but the best possible person.
We were grateful.
And we ended up in near-perfect alignment.
It took a lot of work to get there, but we both believed that relationships took work, and we were willing to do the work.
When we were first together, we had disagreements, sometimes pretty strong ones. Strong enough to consider splitting.
But we had agreements that helped us get past the disagreements. We learned and invented techniques to get us past the rough spots. We got pretty good at it.
A few basic agreements
Bobbi and I started with similar ideas. Our ideas were compatible with many of Scientology's ideas. That’s how we got started.
We found that Scientology put our ideas into words in a helpful way. We found that Scientology added some new ideas that we tested and found useful.
(There were plenty of batshit ideas in Scientology, too. We never accepted the batshit ideas, and Scientology never required acceptance. That was one of the fundamental ideas that we brought with us. Everything was open to question. Nothing needed to be accepted on authority.)
(Also, we always distinguished Scientology from the Church of Scientology. Scientology is a thought system, a philosophy, and a set of practices. The Church of Scientology is an institution that attempts to promote and realize the benefits of Scientology. Well, maybe bureaucracy is a better word. Whatever. Bobbi and I were pretty aligned with the thought system but not so much with the whatever-you-call it. As time passed, we found ourselves less and less interested in engaging with the Church, which seemed increasingly batshit.)
But we never regretted Scientology. It not only helped articulate our ideas, but it also gave us practices that helped us realize our aspirations.
The most fundamental idea was that we were Beings. Beings were non-material entities that had minds and bodies. All apparent problems and conflicts were conflicts at the level of mind and body, not the level of being.
Beings were basically good.
When Bobbi and I had “unresolvable” conflicts, we’d put ourselves on the path to resolution when one of us would say, “Remember, we’re beings.”
Too bad we didn’t always grab that tool right away.
But if nothing else worked, that one always worked.
We were Beings, and we loved each other. Everything else was a detail.
We used other tools, and the other tools were often sufficient.
Scientology's idea of “understanding” was a useful tool. What do we mean by understanding? What causes misunderstanding? What do you do when you don’t understand? What do you do when you try to understand and can’t? Scientology had answers.
ChattyG explains it better than I can:
In Scientology, the structure of understanding is often represented by what is called the "ARC Triangle." This triangle consists of three interrelated components:
Affinity (A): This refers to the degree of liking or affection one has for someone or something. In Scientology, affinity encompasses the range of emotional states one can experience towards others, from hate to love.
Reality (R): Reality in this context is the agreement on what is real. It refers to the shared understanding or agreement about the physical universe and the circumstances within it. In Scientology, reality is seen as what is agreed upon by people.
Communication (C): Communication is the exchange of ideas or information between people. It is considered a fundamental aspect of understanding and is critical for establishing and maintaining affinity and reality.
These three components are interconnected and interdependent. According to Scientology, improving one aspect of the ARC Triangle can enhance the other two, thereby increasing overall understanding and harmony. The ARC Triangle is a core concept in Scientology's teachings about human relationships and communication
The technical term in Scientology for an upset was an “ARC Break.” An ARC Break could be repaired by attending to its component parts, Affinity, Reality, Communication.
The splitting up agreement
Bobbi and I agreed that we would not split up unless we both wanted to, and both felt good about it.
The “felt good about it” part was key. It came from our application of Scientology principles. If one of us got upset, it meant that there was an ARC Break. While a person had an ARC Break, all decisions were suspect.
More than once, over many years, one of us would say something like: “I’m so upset that I want to split. So let’s work on getting rid of my upset so we can split.”
Guess what? When the upset was resolved, love returned in full.
Whoever was upset no longer wanted to split.
Pretty tricky!
Early on, we agreed that we would never go to sleep with an ARC Break. When we had a conflict, we’d work it out. We did that until we had children (plural) and found we were too fucking tired at the end of some days to repair our ARC Breaks. But we worked hard to maintain Affinity, Reality, and Communication—between ourselves and everyone else.
Advanced tools
Bobbi and I never stopped looking for better ways to maintain ARC (understanding) and eliminate ARC Breaks (misunderstanding.)
We knew we loved each other.
We knew relationships took work.
And we were willing to do the work.
I’ll write a post later about some of the techniques we learned and invented.
Meanwhile, let’s celebrate life.
Grateful to have you and mom as my guides. I love you both.