The Power of Love: Derek Part II
When I'm directing I don't feel the cold until I'm frostbit or the heat until I have sunstroke. I also don't notice that I haven't peed for six hours until I'm walking away from the set at the end of the day and feel the knife-like pain in my kidneys. I was feeling that at the end of the massively overtime Friday described in the previous post and expressed the pain to nobody in particular as I was walking to my car, not really aware of who was or wasn't within earshot.
On Saturday morning I got a phone message from Derek. Concerned that I hadn't been feeling well the night before and he was going hiking (we're an hour from the Rockies here) and would call me later. Such warmth and affection you have never heard in a phone message. I didn't return the call because, as my wife warned me, over-friendliness can be passive aggression's ugly cousin, and I needed to decide what I was going to say to him before he called back. And I was just too damn pissed off. He called again while I was having dinner with La Starlet that evening and I didn't take the call. But I called him back after dinner and got it all out, using the magic formula for all difficult inter-human encounters:
"When you__________, I feel_____________."
I used no sentences that began with "You." I told him that when he got irritated with me when I simply wanted help or information I felt scorned and hurt. I gave a couple of instances, always talking about what I felt, not condemning his actions.
Of course he had called in the first place not because he was worried about my health but because he wanted to work it out, so he was wide open to what I was saying. And work it out we did. It turns out the overpopulation of producers and production supervisors, and the frantic energy they channel through me, has been making him feel like he's being treated like a beginner or a naughty child--which has made him act like one. So he copped to his immaturity and I copped to my franticness and today on the set we were back to being the great team we started out as, he answered all my questions patiently and fully, we laughed, we devised great shots together, and we finished fifteen minutes early! The whole set felt different. Everybody was in a better mood because Derek and I were having a love fest.
Now how about that?
On Saturday morning I got a phone message from Derek. Concerned that I hadn't been feeling well the night before and he was going hiking (we're an hour from the Rockies here) and would call me later. Such warmth and affection you have never heard in a phone message. I didn't return the call because, as my wife warned me, over-friendliness can be passive aggression's ugly cousin, and I needed to decide what I was going to say to him before he called back. And I was just too damn pissed off. He called again while I was having dinner with La Starlet that evening and I didn't take the call. But I called him back after dinner and got it all out, using the magic formula for all difficult inter-human encounters:
"When you__________, I feel_____________."
I used no sentences that began with "You." I told him that when he got irritated with me when I simply wanted help or information I felt scorned and hurt. I gave a couple of instances, always talking about what I felt, not condemning his actions.
Of course he had called in the first place not because he was worried about my health but because he wanted to work it out, so he was wide open to what I was saying. And work it out we did. It turns out the overpopulation of producers and production supervisors, and the frantic energy they channel through me, has been making him feel like he's being treated like a beginner or a naughty child--which has made him act like one. So he copped to his immaturity and I copped to my franticness and today on the set we were back to being the great team we started out as, he answered all my questions patiently and fully, we laughed, we devised great shots together, and we finished fifteen minutes early! The whole set felt different. Everybody was in a better mood because Derek and I were having a love fest.
Now how about that?
posted by Tom at 8:46 PM
5 Comments:
I think it takes relative healthy people to go from hate to love in a day about stuff that's actually important to both of them. That's cool. And thanks for the compliment on my post. For me :) Jesus is the model of that process. "Not my will Father [who I TRUST loves me], but yours be done." Surrender, acceptance...
What a turnaround!
It's amazing what patience, a deep breath, and careful wording can accomplish.
I gotta print out that little sentence you used to help you communicate. :)
As for not peeing for hours, I understand completely. I went 8 hours this past Saturday, and I decided that self catheterization may be appropriate. Call me if you want one.
A perfect way to handle things, Tom.
It so much better a life when our little worlds turn the way they should, isn't it?
Now if I could just get my aunt off my back about offing myself... It's to the point that I'm considering it just to shut her up.
wow, i'm impressed. you handled that far more maturely than i would have.
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