Truth, Trust, & Lies
Startled awake, I ran barefoot across the gravel in the laneway. Past the driving shed and full tilt into our lit barn. The chains were out, my Dad was on a knee, and in silence I joined him in pulling out the most beautiful calf I’ve ever seen. I stood up, examined the meconium smeared across my white summer nightgown, and asked in whisper why the heifer had trusted him. He looked deep in my eyes and told me, “When your life depends on it, you’ll trust anyone you think might save you”.
I told him I thought he was wrong. I was certain cows had the capacity to feel deeply, to trust.
I argued that I had found cows to be excellent listeners with extremely high emotional quotients. I pointed at a cow I had named Samantha, citing her contagious contentment until the day she was separated from her calf. She grieved, vacillating between a low moan and an open mouth devoid of sound. …For months.
My Dad smiled softly and kissed my forehead.
Watching the steam rise off the calf and listening to the rhythmic sand-paper licks, I was filled with a love so deep it ached: for my Dad, the calf, the heifer, their bonding, and the seeming suspension of time on this cool summer night.
I put my hand on my heart.
For years, I’d close my eyes and recall the enchanted feeling I attached to this night. Believing my own narrative, that the heifer chose to trust my Dad not because she or her calf might die, but that she somehow had a “knowing” about him. Recognizing now, that “knowing” requires a serious conversation between head and heart, I’m willing to admit that it’s possible, I gave way too much cognitive credit to the bovine brain.
I continue to contemplate my definition of trust and all the ways it can be eroded. Whether it’s earned or gifted or something in between on some sliding scale of give and take. I’ve examined pretty adjectives preceding the word: implicit, sacred, absolute, and childlike, each leading me into the next, like neatly stacked Russian dolls squeaking with each turn.
While talking to a breathtakingly beautiful Canadian Olympian, I realized how unimportant the descriptive words are. How spending any time categorizing “types” or measuring “levels” is wasted labour. We’re either trusting and honouring others in relationships, feeling safe, significant, and situated to share the fullness of our authentic selves, or we’re not.
I’ve never presumed to know why or how or when others come into my life. Or, the role they will play for me or I for them. But I was crystal clear on one thing: I cared more about honouring this Olympian not as a professional athlete playing a role for our country, but in her entirety. In the glorious fullness of who she was.
I’ve never presumed to know why or how or when others come into my life. Or, the role they will play for me or I for them. But I was crystal clear on one thing: I cared more about honouring this Olympian not as a professional athlete playing a role for our country, but in her entirety. In the glorious fullness of who she was.
For hours she shared how her trust had been eroded by past relationships with the media. How despite sharing the most meaningful details of her life, every article would inevitably run with the same headlines, serving an “inspiration porn” agenda.
Our conversation morphed into all the ways she had self-betrayed, how she’d become complicit in creating the illusion of a character she now played in the story of her life.
How she had ultimately agreed to allowing the half-truths and outright lies birthed when ink hit the page, growing in size and stature through social media, until they resembled nothing of the life she was living.
All because, she was attached to wanting to please, appease. How holding others accountable to correcting the lies now circulating, would bring a shitstorm of conflict. Leaving others uncomfortable. How she cared more about keeping the peace than calculating the mathematical equation before her: A quarter lie and half a truth would never add up to the wholeness of who she was.
Our exchange was beautiful. We had gone deep and wide and both of us left with increase when the conversation ended. We laughed about the math and the masterful ways we lie to ourselves in an effort to stay safe from dangers real and perceived.
And so, we’ve both committed to “new math” – to lying a little bit less to ourselves, every day.
Truth, Trust, & Lies
Startled awake, I ran barefoot across the gravel in the laneway. Past the driving shed and full tilt into our lit barn. The chains were out, my Dad was on a knee, and in silence I joined him in pulling out the most beautiful calf I’ve ever seen. I stood up, examined the meconium smeared across my white summer nightgown, and asked in whisper <em>why</em> the heifer had trusted him. He looked deep in my eyes and told me, “When your life depends on it, you’ll trust anyone you think might save you”.
I told him I thought he was wrong. I was certain cows had the capacity to feel deeply, to trust.
I argued that I had found cows to be excellent listeners with extremely high emotional quotients. I pointed at a cow I had named Samantha, citing her contagious contentment until the day she was separated from her calf. She grieved, vacillating between a low moan and an open mouth devoid of sound. …For months.
My Dad smiled softly and kissed my forehead.
Watching the steam rise off the calf and listening to the rhythmic sand-paper licks, I was filled with a love so deep it ached: for my Dad, the calf, the heifer, their bonding, and the seeming suspension of time on this cool summer night.
I put my hand on my heart.
For years, I’d close my eyes and recall the enchanted feeling I attached to this night. Believing my own narrative, that the heifer chose to trust my Dad not because she or her calf might die, but that she somehow had a “knowing” about him. Recognizing now, that “knowing” requires a serious conversation between head and heart, I’m willing to admit that it’s <em>possible,</em> I gave way too much cognitive credit to the bovine brain.
I continue to contemplate my definition of trust and all the ways it can be eroded. Whether it’s earned or gifted or something in between on some sliding scale of give and take. I’ve examined pretty adjectives preceding the word: implicit, sacred, absolute, and childlike, each leading me into the next, like neatly stacked Russian dolls squeaking with each turn.
While talking to a breathtakingly beautiful Canadian Olympian, I realized how unimportant the descriptive words are. How spending any time categorizing “types” or measuring “levels” is wasted labour. We’re either trusting and honouring others in relationships, feeling safe, significant, and situated to share the fullness of our authentic selves, or we’re not.
I’ve never presumed to know why or how or when others come into my life. Or, the role they will play for me or I for them. But I was crystal clear on one thing: I cared more about honouring this Olympian not as a professional athlete playing a role for our country, but in her entirety. In the glorious fullness of who she was.
For hours she shared how her trust had been eroded by past relationships with the media. How despite sharing the most meaningful details of her life, every article would inevitably run with the same headlines, serving an “inspiration porn” agenda.
Our conversation morphed into all the ways she had self-betrayed, how she’d become complicit in creating the illusion of a character she now played in the story of her life.
How she had ultimately agreed to allowing the half-truths and outright lies birthed when ink hit the page, growing in size and stature through social media, until they resembled nothing of the life she was living.
All because, she was attached to wanting to please, appease. How holding others accountable to correcting the lies now circulating, would bring a shitstorm of conflict. Leaving others uncomfortable. How she cared more about keeping the peace than calculating the mathematical equation before her: A quarter lie and half a truth would never add up to the wholeness of who she was.
Our exchange was beautiful. We had gone deep and wide and both of us left with increase when the conversation ended. We laughed about the math and the masterful ways we lie to ourselves in an effort to stay safe from dangers real and perceived.
And so, we’ve both committed to “new math” – to lying a little bit less to ourselves, every day.
I’ve never presumed to know why or how or when others come into my life. Or, the role they will play for me or I for them. But I was crystal clear on one thing: I cared more about honouring this Olympian not as a professional athlete playing a role for our country, but in her entirety. In the glorious fullness of who she was.
I’ve never presumed to know why or how or when others come into my life. Or, the role they will play for me or I for them. But I was crystal clear on one thing: I cared more about honouring this Olympian not as a professional athlete playing a role for our country, but in her entirety. In the glorious fullness of who she was.
For hours she shared how her trust had been eroded by past relationships with the media. How despite sharing the most meaningful details of her life, every article would inevitably run with the same headlines, serving an “inspiration porn” agenda.
Our conversation morphed into all the ways she had self-betrayed, how she’d become complicit in creating the illusion of a character she now played in the story of her life.
How she had ultimately agreed to allowing the half-truths and outright lies birthed when ink hit the page, growing in size and stature through social media, until they resembled nothing of the life she was living.
All because, she was attached to wanting to please, appease. How holding others accountable to correcting the lies now circulating, would bring a shitstorm of conflict. Leaving others uncomfortable. How she cared more about keeping the peace than calculating the mathematical equation before her: A quarter lie and half a truth would never add up to the wholeness of who she was.
Our exchange was beautiful. We had gone deep and wide and both of us left with increase when the conversation ended. We laughed about the math and the masterful ways we lie to ourselves in an effort to stay safe from dangers real and perceived.
And so, we’ve both committed to “new math” – to lying a little bit less to ourselves, every day.