“Ain't no time two people staring at each other, or standing still, loving both with their eyes are equal. Truth is, someone is chasing someone. That's the way we's built. So, who's chasing”?

This sentence is proof to me that genius can come from some truly awful places… The above quote is from M. Night Shamalyan’s “The Happening”… not a great piece of film to say the least... Nevertheless, well past the point of no return in the film, this thought was brought up by a character of insignificance… The thought has stayed with me quite some time, I continue to dwell on it now and then and have come up with these personal notions and feelings regarding the misplaced gem, found in an unfortunate movie.

First, I don’t agree with the quote completely. I think that it is possible to reach a moment of true and beautiful reciprocity in a relationship…

What are some of the mistakes that keep us from that???

I think a common mistake people make is that once their partnership becomes solidified, whether legally, verbally, blood oath, etc, they feel that “they” will cease to grow change and evolve… As individuals, we grow older, learn valuable lessons, make fresh mistakes, assimilate, evaluate, and continue to churn meaning from experience…

So why would we expect are relationships to remain still and stagnant??? Our relationships grow, change and evolve just as we do, most likely the dynamic of a “you and I” will change much more than the “you” alone...

I’m certainly not saying that we must “redefine the nature of our associations” on a daily basis…. However, I am saying that the human race by and large does a poor job giving our most valuable relationships any “regularly scheduled maintenance”… We speak to our accountants regularly, we take our cars into be serviced, we’ll go well out of our way to insure that we have the absolute best cable package… but more often than not we put our most meaningful relationships on “auto pilot”… ignoring the stressors and changes that we all under go daily…

I’m not talking about some general fact reporting either, it is of the utmost importance that you know how my day went, and that I know how your day went, etc… there is no debating that topic… I’m talking more about taking ultra seriously the thoughts, feelings, wishes and wants of your partner… Being “plugged into” one another isn’t of any real value and use unless you’re communicating these feelings and thoughts to one another…

Growing apart doesn’t have to happen, I think it’s possible to love and grow, evolve and change together… That beautiful reciprocity in a loving monogamous relationship can’t happen… unless it happens every day…

“Staring at each other”… yet another impediment to our beautiful reciprocity is that we stop staring at one another… By this of course I mean to say that we lose balance with one another and forget how in love we “could” be… We lose that moment to moment amazement with life and with one another…

Communicating with one another with constant caring intent, showing up for one another every single day, focusing on loving, not being loved, holding, not being held…. Surely this can help keep us “staring” at our loved one…

Being “obviously together”, I think is another way we should celebrate one another…

If you walk into a crowded restaurant, or church, or shopping mall, observe how many couples you see together who appear to be totally oblivious to one another... No smiles, no laughter, no expression that even somewhat suggests anything close to adoration or an expression of gratitude for the person they are with…

I always feel compelled to meet those who will immediately take this to an ugly extreme… I’m not talking about endless, gratuitous PDAs… Certainly, some PDAs can be healthy and just, some can be excessive and unnecessary, even to the point of being unflattering…

All I’m saying is this… when I see a couple, sitting together, walking along with one another, whether they are 80 years old or teenagers, if they are holding hands, my heart leaps a little bit for them.. THAT IS EFFORT in keeping a connectedness and natural attraction that keeps your partner from becoming your roommate or stranger you go to sleep with… I’ve never seen a survey, but I’d love to start one up… I wonder if couples who hold hands most of the time they can, are happier in their relationship than those that don’t??? I’d be willing to bet that they are.

I only go off on the tangent about holding hands to also add that if we can start with holding hands, maybe keeping the “stare” for one another will feel more natural regardless of time…

Also a very thought provoking notion in the quote about “standing still”… I would imagine, somewhere between courting and the 2.5 kids, you find yourself, with your partner… saying “now what” ??? To that, (yes my expertise is all theoretical at this point), but for my life I would hope to say, at that point, we can fall into one another all over again, the toil of career and raising children will inevitably take time away from you and your partner…

Of course, in a relationship that’s pushing daily for reciprocity, whether no kids or 10 kids you’re making a daily effort and commitment to celebrate and remember that you and your partner are the heart and soul of your family… I would hope very much for my life that whether courting or approaching “standing still” the daily remembrances of the beginning of our life together will be the foremost in both of our thoughts and actions…


Lastly we come to the notion of chasing… This is one of the more simple thoughts to me… Someone may be chasing more at one point than their partner, the degree your able to chase may slow down and speed up as “life” continues to happen around you both… I want to live and believe in the notion that you should always be chasing and never become reticent in your affections for one another…

We must keep chasing; keep making a daily affirmation to make loving choices, for ourselves, for our partners, for our families… I see a strong correlation to chasing and loving; if you really love someone you’ll chase them, how fast for how long is irrelevant, if you truly want them in your life, you’ll never grow tired of the chase…

One of the opening statements I made was that I think that it is possible to reach a moment of true and beautiful reciprocity in a relationship… I think its two people chasing one another around, in varying speeds and at various intervals, as they go through life and all of life’s challenges… together…




Tune of the day:

“Ain’t Gonna Lose You”
By Brett Dennen