1-Poetry Seminar

It was September, 1987. A senior in college, I remained unclear about what I was actually going to do with my life, unlike many of my friends who had already begun their paths and were approaching full stride. In some ordinary classroom, through the sunlit haze of a wood-paneled entryway, emerged Seamus Heaney, an affable, rotund Irishman who, some years later, in 1995, would win the Nobel Prize in Literature. My five classmates and I sat in wonder, pinching ourselves in disbelief at somehow falling into this inexplicable opportunity to learn the craft of poetry from a literary genius and world treasure; for most of us, Heaney was nothing less than a god. It was only my third poetry writing workshop, and I was absolutely petrified.

 

After the proverbial introductions of a new class beginning a new semester, someone asked Heaney to read a poem of his own. In that moment, time stopped; we didn’t know if he would feel put upon or put off by the request. But happily, he wasn’t. OK, he said, and, in his bold yet soft tonal resonance, recited the following poem easily from memory, as if the lines were just as elemental to him as his arms or legs, all the while looking directly into the eyes of each of us:

 

Scaffolding

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job’s done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall.

 

I remember his saying we all needed to write a love poem, and that this was his. Many years later, I read that “Scaffolding” was believed to be the most common poem used in wedding ceremonies throughout the world, translated into languages on nearly every continent, with the last four lines of the poem finding their way into countless vows.

 

2-“Walls of Sure and Solid Stone” Will Be Tested

Decades later, as a psychologist, I often find myself turning to Heaney’s small but powerful poem, enthralled by its wisdom, digging for its numerous complex insights. And in my therapy work with couples, many of whom come to me with their relationships on the brink, despite the complex psychological theories I have learned, admired and used in my interventions for years, despite the burgeoning scientific research on what keeps couples together, and makes and breaks relationships, in the end I always seem to find my way back to Heaney and his elegant poetic whisper.

 

For me, his poem speaks to the inevitable breaking of “old bridges between you and me,” the gradual loosening of “bolted joints” that aided in the construction of the wall. That is, just as falling in love evolves to a more mundane committed love, inevitably there will be challenges, and how two people came together in their original bonding — the mysterious bridging — will be scrutinized. Sooner or later, what brought any couple together will be tested, and the testing will reveal the nature and magnitude of the underlying strengths, and vulnerabilities, of the structure they have collaborated to erect.

 

I am reminded of the 2001 film “In the Bedroom” that masterfully depicts the implosion of a couple following the death of their son, and their inevitable reconciliation and revitalization. A fate quite different from that of the husband and wife featured in another masterpiece, “Ordinary People,” a movie that tracks the husband’s ultimate realization that the love he held for her, and she for him, was blemished and flawed.

 

I assume that each of us, when the difficult times come, wants the walls of our partnership to remain firm, confirming that the bridges built long ago between us were substantial and without deception.

 

3-When the Masons Are Called

In psychotherapy with couples, at least for me, I often envision myself as being one of Heaney’s masons, attempting to sure up the walls of the troubled couple, fortifying gaps, filling in fractures and fissures, tightening the disjoints, the regions of bonding that have gradually eroded over time by the arguments, by the conflicts, the natural expectable aftermath of all that seems irresolvable when two unique identities attempt to merge again and again.

 

In a recent podcast addressing how the coronavirus pandemic has been impacting couples, psychologist and author Esther Perel characterized the “fault lines” that emerge, the chinks in the armor of any couple, stress points that, ordinarily, day-to-day, are bypassed, but that in a crisis like COVID-19 can no longer be avoided.

 

For most couples, these areas of weakness are elusive, often unconscious, and are usually linked to, and limited by, each partner’s personal history and the memories, cognitions and emotional states that organized each one’s identity. This is why our capacity for, and mechanisms of, intimacy, crafted and defined by all that has happened to us, are ultimately primitive, preliminary. They need to be updated and refined, just as previous construction materials need to become modernized — Heaney’s wall, however long it has lasted, weakening.

 

4-What’s Next?

In the next article (Part II), I will describe the factors of resilience in couples I have observed in my clinical practice. These are the areas in which “scaffolding” is needed, i.e., the tendencies and beliefs that worked earlier in the relationship but that now have eroded and cracked, driven a wedge between the partners, and need to be revamped or replaced with stronger, more fortified ingredients.

 

James Tobin, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist based in Newport Beach, CA. His psychotherapy practice consists of individual, couple, and family therapy, with an emphasis on interpersonal patterns and relational dynamics that obstruct one’s access to truth, fulfillment and intimacy. The executive coaching component of Dr. Tobin’s practice focuses on helping executives and teams identify and navigate psychological dynamics in the workplace.