"Let the river answer..."

Sometimes, the river knows better than we do. In a comment to my last entry luis_mw nailed a lot of my issues around taking the caretaker role. In a small, dark place I fel as if I have to take that role, because if I don't, no one will want to be my friend/care about me in return/etc., etc. I've got a strong sense of needing to *earn* any sort of regard or kindness, as if there's something about me that would prevent anyone from giving me those things because of *me*. Oddly, this makes perfect sense, although I certainly can't articulate why, I just feel a sort of factual acceptance, an "Of course I have to find some way to earn it." It makes sense to me that I would, it truly does. There's a nagging feeling that that's wrong, that there's something strange twisted up in there, but once again, I can't seem to articulate it.

There's also a good bit of transferance going on for me when I take on that role, as if when I'm caring for an other, in a sense I'm caring for myself as well. I can work with that, although I wish I understood it better, it's just another of those things that makes perfect sense to me, like rocks. No one needs to explain rocks, after all.

I'm searching for an answer to a question Sir asked me about all this - what does nurturance look like to me? It's a difficult question, for a lot of reasons. Part of it is a small, insidious sense of it being diminished somehow, if I have to explain it piece by piece. Expecting mindreading will get me nowhere, and is terribly unfair. Another aspect is fear, fear of feeling/being greedy, demanding, wanting to be catered to, spoiled. I have trouble asking for anything, and this feels like an enourmous asking-for. On a simpler level, though, it's just damned hard to explain, one of those "I know it when I see it" sorts of things. Regard, showing someone that I'm thinking of them, like when firinel mentions in a letter that she saw a skien of hand-painted yarn, and it made her think of me, or when my father clips an article he thinks I'd like, and sends it to me, or Sir making sure the blankets are pulled high over my shoulders, just the way I like them. Those things are easy to point out and explain, but they're symbols, signposts of a feeling. It's the feeling itself that's important, but without a communication of that feeling, how would the object of it know it's there?