was tidying God’s closet, and how to notice my mind as the source of my suffering—and my pleasure. Through many years of meditation, community living, and hard work, I had watched enough knee pain disappear, frustration lead to softness, exhaustion turn to energy, and hopelessness morph into random moonlit bliss to know that my feelings functioned independently of what was going on around me. So it made perfect sense to me that the way I thought about my past was distinct from what had “actually” happened. In other words, there are the facts, and then there’s the perception of the facts.
There’s breastfeeding, and then there’s a mother’s attitude toward breastfeeding.
There’s the observable world, and the internal state of being.
There’s what happened to you, and how you feel about what happened to you, and the story you tell about it.
There’s information, and there’s excellent information.
I would later learn that in the AAI, a person’s story is coded on the left for “probable experience,” as in: What kind of parenting did the person experience? Was the parent loving, rejecting, interfering? And on the right, the person’s story is coded for “coherence of mind,” as in the excellence of their information. As in: How excellent is this informant, regardless of what they report happened to them?
One wow factor of the AAI is the lack of obvious connection between the right and left sides of a transcript. Someone can report abuse with great coherence and excellence, and be considered secure. Likewise, a person’s happy tale of childhood won’t lead to a secure score if the story is difficult to follow or lacking in detail—if he or she is not considered an excellent and reliable informant.
And it’s the right side of the story—the coherence-of-mind side of the story—that gets transmitted to our children. It’s the interpretation of events—what happens on the inside—that has the most lasting impact.
I considered this very good news. The other thing my Zen practice had taught me was that if there is anything I have the power to truly transform, it’s my mind—notwithstanding the Herculean effort involved.
* * *
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SOON AFTER OUR friends’ visit, I became completely obsessed with attachment and the Strange Situation. I started reading scientific studies like religious texts, seeking answers to what had become very personal and existential questions: How can I be so mean to the person I so love? What comes over me? What is love? What is “me”? And how on earth does this Strange Situation answer these questions? What kind of magic trick is happening in those twenty minutes?
I began looking at my whole life through the lens of attachment. And I was scared, haunted by the ideas behind the Adult Attachment Interview, worrying that some ugliness inside me would be passed down to Azalea. Because, of course, I couldn’t see into the future, to Azalea as a preteen, on the brink of her own becoming. I couldn’t see her still holding tightly to her beloved stuffed bunny as she falls into a solid stretch of sleep, her body and mind wiped clean from a hot summer day of swimming with her best friend. I couldn’t see her delighting in tacos, or asking politely, “Mommy, can I have some privacy?” while she plays in my shoes in the yard. Or the gentleness of her hands as they hold a slice of nectarine in the morning or open a can of dog food.
I didn’t understand that the love between us is ultimately not even a feeling, or anything to do, but a way of being. And that it gets passed down—not like a name, but more like a face, something you’re born with but that changes over time.
* For a more nuanced conversation about this 75 percent correlation, please see the endnote.
part v
strange situation
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MOTHER
This is a set of instructions to explain what will happen from the moment you arrive at Room —— in ——. Here we will discuss any questions about the observation of the baby in the strange situation, and leave coats. When we are all ready to proceed, you will be shown the door of the observation room,