“Turn it, and turn it, for everything is in it.” ~ Rabbi Ben Bag Bag, Pirke Avot 5:22
Friday greetings,
This week, we started watching Man on the Inside on Netflix. It's both touching, funny, and poignant, and also in some ways relatable as a daughter. (Head’s up: This Dispatch contains spoilers.)
In the show, Ted Danson's character, Charles Nieuwendyk, is a widower. His wife had Alzheimer's. Since she died, he has lived alone with the little crocheted dog he'd bought for her (she loved dogs, but he was allergic). A retired professor of engineering, he lives in a gorgeous mid-century modern home in San Francisco. His predictable days are marked by routines like measuring his coffee beans for the perfect morning cup, and clipping interesting newspaper articles to mail to his daughter Emily, who lives in Sacramento with her husband and three screen-addicted sons.
Emily urges him to get out of his lonely rut, and next thing we know, he has taken a job as a spy of sorts at Pacific View, an upscale retirement community in the city. He infiltrates the community, charms everyone (except for Elliot, who dislikes him immediately and thinks he's trying to steal his girlfriend). Before long, he has begun to make friends and develop genuine connections and affection for his fellow residents (even though we know he is not *actually* a resident).
One of those friends is a poet named Florence, who helps him begin reading (and understanding) Shakespeare, among other things. When Florence dies, he shows up unannounced at Emily's house for a night, in need of the comfort of being around family time. While playing video games with his grandsons, his raucous laughter turns to sobs, and the boys ask him why he is crying. He tells them he's sad because his friend died.
Emily learns about his loss through the teenagers and is upset that he didn't share with her himself. She drives him back to Pacific View instead of letting him take the train, giving them car time to talk about their relationship and the ways they don't connect easily.
He says he doesn't want to burden her. Her life is already so full. She tells him that not burdening her IS the burden she's carrying. He takes this in, looking genuinely surprised and contemplative. He says something like, "I honestly have never thought of it that way."
Then he starts to put his AirPods in. Emily is taken aback. "What are you doing??" she asks. He says he was going to listen to the latest Ezra Klein podcast. To Charles, life is a series of problems to fix. Once you fix something, you move on. "We solved it," he says.
She is understandably exasperated. She says something to the effect that they've just barely started talking.
Nu, why am I writing all of this?
As I think about the teaching by Ben Bag Bag, "Turn it and turn it, for everything is in it," I realize that what the rabbi meant isn't something quick or simple, like a reframe. Yes, seeing something you hadn't before, as Charles did in the car with Emily, is part of it. And that alone – this shift in perspective – can lead to all kinds of new understandings.
But it is only the beginning, not the endpoint.
It can be very tempting to want to fix and solve things. The absence of quick fixes and easy solutions can be a source of tension, sometimes even agony. On a collective level, we are certainly living this. It is also safe to say that most, if not all, of us have relationships that defy a-ha moments, which make previous snags and struggles click into place. These include relationships with other people, of course, as well as our relationships with ourselves, our bodies, our past, money, work, health, and religion; the list could go on and on.
I felt for Charles in that scene. Emily's insight obviously moved him. It may have even inched their father-daughter relationship towards more open communication and a deeper emotional connection, something they both clearly want. But – and this is where I am speculating (not to mention writing about him as if he is a real person and not a fictional character) – he has not developed a skill set that says, great, that's wonderful, that's a start... Now let’s turn it and turn it some more.
September brings Rosh Hashanah as well as M.J.’s and my anniversary; this year, we will celebrate 11 years of marriage. As I continue the work of Elul – a season of introspection and return – I am appreciating more and more with each passing year, each completion and new beginning, each turn of the ever-moving spiral of aliveness, what a blessing it is to get to see things anew, shed old ways, and grow more fully into who we are in our souls. This is relational work, to be sure, and it begins on the inside.
I think if Charles and I could sit down for a cup of his meticulously brewed coffee, we’d have a delightful conversation. But since he does not exist, I will invite such connections with the very real people in my very real life – and with you.
Shabbat Shalom and love,
Jena
What is the opposite of dispatch? Something like acquisition, a series of findings. Thank you for this morning conversation, you with coffee, me with tea.
Nu? Always new.
Hi Jena. We also really liked this show. And could not help smiling, knowingly, when Charles figured they'd solved the issue because it had been named and he now "got it". My husband laughed & said
"you'd never let me get away with that. You wouldn't let the conversation end there." 55 + years of marriage has many perks - one of the best being how much more we know and appreciate each other's perspectives and are willing to engage even the "tough stuff" we'd rather let slide.