Relationships and Rubber Duckies: The Path to Authenticity

Recently, my husband of 22 years and I had dinner with a lovely couple, engaged to be married. Our very good friend wanted us to get to know his fiancee. As these things go, one of the topics of conversation was what shows we were streaming, and any recommendations. They had just watched the film Marriage Story the night before. They conveyed that while it was depressing to watch -- as they eagerly anticipate their own marriage -- there were many let’s pause and discuss moments. We shared that we had spent the last several Friday nights streaming the fifth and final season of Showtime’s The Affair. Speaking of pausing to discuss, each 40-minutes episode takes about double, sometimes triple that, due to the pausing, discussing, pondering. As the title suggests, The Affair is about exactly that, an affair. Since the complete series traces over three decades in the lives of the characters, it encompasses so much more than just it’s title. Love, marriage, sex, having children, not having children, undocumented immigration, veteran PTSD, therapy, cancer, lack of therapy, ageing parents, the “me too” movement, gender identity, and divorce are but a few of the topics touched. The biggest take-away is this: all our experiences, both then and now, are intertwined. Filing away the past, marking it “For Storage” can destroy you. Simply stated, it is the past, which dictates the future.

Trauma -- a deeply distressing or disturbing experience -- is such a big word, meaning so many different things. Life is full of wonder, hope, love and beauty. At the same time, people can also be affected by events in their lives that have had, or will have, a profound impact. Directly, or indirectly. Accepting and understanding this is a secret path of sorts -- a path that leads to a better way of living. A springboard, to give reason to the behaviours around us. None of us is a saint that walks around bulletproof, giving everyone a free pass, carte blanche to do and say whatever they want. Nor are we immune to the treatment (or mistreatment) from others. People hurt people. But suppose for a moment it was true: everyone has trauma. Everyone has gone through something. This knowledge can give us both insight, and pause. We can consider, in our calmest of states, what fuels the actions of others. And accepting that we all have trauma that guides our actions, is a huge a-ha moment. Further understanding that we all have to do the work required to recover from whatever has happened in our lives, is a huge gift we can give to the world, and ourselves.

My sister and I both loved The Affair. We struggled though, to find others that felt the same way. She told me a good friend of hers was at the end of the first season, and not really enjoying it yet. I wasn’t surprised for it is a tough watch. Many of my own friends disliked the main character, Noah Solloway (brilliantly portrayed by Dominic West), and the object of his desire, Alison Lockhart (Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson). Middle-aged and married Noah falls for Alison, a waitress at a rest stop, on a family road trip. And he falls hard. Many people are in some part, or at least fear to be, wife Helen Solloway (Maura Tierney is incredible). And this, witnessing Noah’s random (maybe not?) actions, is incredibly painful to watch. However, as the story progresses, we are given the gift of backstories. Ghosts in those emotional trunks marked storage. Each of the four main characters (the fourth being the amazing Joshua Jackson, as Cole Lockhart) is on a journey. And so, we are given the gift of understanding this: everyone has trauma. And the effect of that subconsciously guides us, dictates our missteps, and ultimately our personal path.

My filmmaker brother-in-law shared with me the book Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. In it, writer and producer John Yorke explains how characters “are victims of neurotic trauma...and in order to cope with that dysfunction, they have adopted defence mechanisms that help in the short term, but if sustained can cause permanent damage.” He references Silence of the Lambs’ Clarice being scarred by the lambs’ slaughtering. The two brothers being separated as babies in Rain Man. Louise’s rape in Thelma and Louise. Ilsa leaving Rick in Paris in Casablanca. “It’s the final piece of the jigsaw that magically explains who the protagonists are.” Director Sydney Lumet and writer Paddy Chayefsky call this the ‘Rubber Ducky’ moment. In Making Movies, Lumet writes it as “an incident in earlier life that supposedly ‘explains’ who the character is now, and why they are the way they are.”

Yorke further explains that usually “films don’t reveal this moment until at least the end of the fourth act...characters are taken on a journey to acknowledge and assimilate the traumas in their past.” Similarly, in our lives, we never know when trauma will reveal itself. It can manifest itself in our everyday existence, as we navigate through life playing a sort of emotional peekaboo. Sometimes we are unaware of why we are even living the way we are. Does this mean that in the past everyone has suffered some horrific event? Likely not. Perhaps it means that somewhere along the way, most everyone has experienced something in their life that was difficult to handle, which would leave a lasting imprint, making aspects of life challenging, at some point or another. Our own ‘rubber ducky’ moments. As we live, we endure hardship, in some way or another. Either slowly, and over time: an inconvenient marriage, a dysfunctional relationship, addiction in the home, abuse, racism. Or quickly through some large event: the death of a family member, a sudden monetary loss, a violent incident. Or merely through existence: being an only child, entitlement, parents that over expect, parents that under expect. Life can be difficult, and what matters is how the person themself experiences an event. One person can be fine while another is not. Despite going through the same thing. Unplanned, maybe even unnoticed -- the hardship may become one of those normalized elephants -- and can be (for survival purposes) parked away -- in the room.

It may seem quite elementary to say our past dictates our future: You never know the struggle someone else is fighting. Yes, yes, we know this. But truly understanding that the actions we, and others around us, take are because of those rubber ducky moments is something else entirely. And yes, we still have to do the work to heal. It isn’t enough to merely acknowledge victimization. Noah Solloway, upon reflection, says that his life was ‘pretty perfect’. Was it? For if so, why all the missteps? And yes, he must be held accountable for the pain he causes, as we all are. Bridges are definitely burned. But from all that carnage, can come a new existence. With bonafide homework completion can come progress that is epic. Just like those characters in film that Yorke writes of. “By confronting and coming to terms with the cause of their traumas they can finally move on.”

And so, when we can look at the people we interact with, the people we love, ourselves even, and understand that we are all dealing with whatever we are dealing with, this can be our magic compass for the world. In Season 4, Alison tries to explain her weighted past

to her friend Benjamin (Ramon Rodriguez). “And you carry this around with you every day?” he asks. The answer is yes. We do. There are many Noahs out there. Many Alisons. They represent the pain and anguish of life. They represent how we can sabotage those we love, as we emotionally punch in the dark at unknown assailants. And unless we do the work, and accept that people will come, and maybe even go, due to our traumas, we cannot live fully. When we look inward, at our flaws, and we let others see us and our flawed self, with as little ego as possible, this is authenticity. Further, when we then take those flaws and work on them, this is growth, and how honest and solid-as-a-rock relationships are built. If we take an inventory of the people in our lives, at our relationships, at ourselves, we can create and foster our own -- albeit small -- circle of real.

Sources:

Yorke, John. Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. Penguin Books, 2014.

Lumet, Sydney. Making Movies. A.A. Knopf, 1995.