Milestones in Tiny Steps

A few days ago, I did the marketing must of a good business and sent out a newsletter to my email list.  Although there is little income for my efforts at this point, it was remarkable to notice how busy I am, how many pies have been created for my fingers to nibble.

            Days slip through our grasp and race around the corners of each season.  Before we know to look in the mirror, grey hairs and wrinkled skin overshadow the youthful vigor still so rich in our thoughts.  Insidiously, we consider more often the big decisions in terms of how much time we have left instead of with the open-ended assumption of how much lies ahead.  As the sense that time runs out grows stronger, the urge to evaluate proportionally vies for control.

            Not yet supporting myself in this time and therefore accountable to my father and family for his help, the pressure is even more severe.  By the measuring stick of not paying bills from my own pocket, I fail to meet standards that have been in place for millennia.

            With time and money in short supply, it would be easy to dwell in depression. This two year anniversary of my fall from the scaffold celebrated last weekend could have been the milestone of an event that spiraled me onto a couch from which I might never have risen.

            Instead, the best parts of my family heritage kicked in and I have not only restructured my concept of myself, but taken bold steps to embrace the man who has emerged from his cave, creating opportunities from disaster.  The process of the newsletter provided a summation, in part, that declared to myself more than anyone else that I am already fully recovered.

            Regardless of time and money, my head is full, my heart is open and I move forward every day on the projects that bring joy to me and seem in some small ways to have values to others.  Rather than sitting around with the television droning on and on, with the amazingly fortunate support of my father (giving credit and appreciation where they are due), no matter how frustrated and bewildered he might be, I have the rare gift to transform the "y" in busy to an "i" in business.

            A more important measurement than dollars and days is value.  Here the increments have no relation to quantity, but flounder and thrive according to the perceptions of each indidual.  Nearly desperate to justify the price others have had to pay for me to change in these last years, I can easily be my own worst critic.

            The newsletter puts forth in a sudden blitz of apparent ego a list of activities that would make any mother proud.  Several manuscripts are fast approaching publication.  A CD of original songs nears completion, a project for which I even dare to request your financialsupport through kickstarter. 

            In addition, this flurry of self-promotion includes appearances on public access TV and online interviews.  Suddenly I am producing videos and a tele-seminar about staying spiritual during the holidays.  Creating connections to make this happen requires a full time job of networking without pay beyond laughter and benefits more solid than friendship.

            The most difficult piece in the puzzle is the very central notion that the product of my business is me.  Manufacturing myself as a commodity, I have to also produce the unmitigated gall to imagine my songs and words have value and my efforts are worth publicizing.  Asking for the donation of your dollars, and more importantly, your precious time, requires a leap of faith on my part, an inordinate trust in your good patience, kindness and understanding as well.

            Only the result makes the difference between a hero and a fool.  Attitude and motivation are not so easily quantifiable as the money and time we are so comfortable using to judge the actions of ourselves and others.  What we do with ourselves, how we spend our precious time, whether we help or hurt those around us, should bear far more weight on the tablet of our lives than the size of our bank accounts and the facade of our house.

            Time will prove if I have the ability to push these projects to completion and time will also tell if the general public approves the effort. Between the two, there is a huge difference and a life to lead.

            This essay began for me as a commentary on how we decide if we are good enough to strut our stuff, but as in life itself, has evolved from what I first imagined.

            Like the days when whole families depended on my payroll and houses stood or fell with my decisions, I awake this morning with rampant thoughts of all the things needing my attention, but at long last, am sleeping well through the night.  Dollarless and years beyond the life expectancy of the Middle Ages, for better or worse, I find myself in a renaissance of my own and have never been happier.

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In the Stars

Stimulation and healing come in many forms. To take an alternative look, I gave my date of birth and time to an astrologer last week and got some interesting results.

Pluto, which moves very, very slowly, not making it even half a circle around the sun in a lifetime, seems to have an earthquake effect of influence on the various planets it encounters along the way. In my case, during the most intense days of the recovery from surgery to my groin, it will be in conjunction with Mars, a planet that is all about sexuality in particular and masculinity in general.

Any surprise there?!

Possessing absolutely no background information beyond the fact of the injury itself and its planned repair, she was immediately curious, when we met, to know what was going on in the fall of 1973 into '74 when there was a similar energetic opportunity in my life. It astounds me that without a prompt she would accurately pinpoint the only other time in my life when I have been significantly unhealthy.

In a soccer game, a hit to my lower back shifted a vertebra, causing chronic pain for months. Finally, a look at an X-ray brought the dire warning that I should avoid all contact sports for the rest of my life in fear of another jolt that could leave me paralyzed. This negative attention to my pelvic area, a wound to my sacral chakra again, took me twice to the infirmary that fall and dropped me into a deep depression.

After that Christmas, complaining of bizarre symptoms, a neurologist prepared me for exploratory brain surgery, convinced I had one of four ailments, all of which ended with death in the near future. Fortunately, my mother had just read about a new technology for scanning named after some sort of cat and got me into the University of Pennsylvania hospital where they learned it was just a pernicious variation on Mononucleosis.

Emotionally, at the time, I was in college discovering things about my manhood that a particular young woman was able to arouse in me, feelings that made my face and other parts blush, my heart pump strongly, but my mind turn over and over and over, hot and cold, depending on her proximity. The affair was so confusing because my feet each morning were still very squarely on the ground, not at all the ten feet above that I thought was the proper definition of love.

My astrologer and I discussed the possibility that this previous time in my life was a missed opportunity to fully embrace my masculinity. When considering the differences between now and then, I recognized that in the first, I was very shut down and detached from the process, too frightened and overwhelmed, barely able to find the energy to stabilize my body, much less learn what it might take to heal my wounded soul.

These many years of business and two failed marriages since seem like so many stumbles and bumbles as a result. The powerful force of Pluto behind Mars, combined now with all of this emotional study, ripens the medication to catapult me into a new and better way of being in the world.

In early 2012, my astrologer continued, Saturn will have completed its second cycle in my lifetime, a transition typically into a period of living that benefits from the wisdom and understanding gained through experience. She wondered, therefore, what of significance might have happened around my twenty-eighth or ninth year when the first cycle was nearing completion, a time of movement from youthful adventure to a more substantial adulthood.

Immediately, I remembered a month of working on a house far enough down the Coast I stayed there for days by myself between trips home, pretty much the first time to be alone since adopting my family. Being off-season and very private, I witnessed three different episodes of sex on the beach directly below me, strong and compelling evidence that other people really liked to have fun too and I might not be so strange as I feared for the ways I wanted to play. I know I behaved differently after that month.

In retrospect, however, I do not believe I fully absorbed this confidence into my heart, and every other aspect of my life, so much as act occasionally so when it is convenient. Living largely as a mealy-mouthed visionary, I have hoped for something better, but not gone “balls-out” to get there.

Believing a kinder-gentler man is possible, I patiently asked my employees for better workmanship, forgiving their sloppy mistakes instead of demanding the same accountability and integrity I expect of myself. Surrounding myself with less, I ultimately am less and receive, in return, an exact measure of what I produce.

Grateful to have someone to love in my life, I have been less concerned about being loved in return.

My work as a new warrior teaches me that assertiveness is plenty fine and definitely sexy in a man. The dominant, controlling and insensitive characteristics that sometimes come along hand-in-hand have never been appropriate and are no longer welcome. The kinder man can still be firm, however: fiercely direct and hot-blooded, standing his ground, even gaining ground, but able also to give it up when he is not right.

I have adopted a mission statement that says, “I create a world of passion, prosperity and tolerance by loving action and celebration.” The words are tacked up before me on my bulletin board, a measuring sentence for every other word I type. What goes outwards and comes back is a reflection of what goes on inside, an ever-evolving process regardless of Saturn, Pluto, Mars or the state of my urethra.




Unbalanced or walking straight and tall, I must at least be conscious.

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Ruminations on Sexuality Part 7: Purged

After all of these ruminations, I pause to wonder, then, what is my ideal view of sexuality. A long stillness of pen produces no set answer except to reassert it is probably as varied as the number of people walking this earth and the moods they might be in.

The important thing is that we face the demons of our morals and reconcile our various scriptures with our true desires. We must be comfortable with ourselves and our bodies, true to our natures and respectful of our partners.

Trouble comes when we restrain and repress natural urges, holding ourselves and others to some standard high or low that is not fully our own. The force of desire is formidable and nurtured falsely, twists into ugly states of mind and being. The flame in our heart must be allowed to burn freely through any precepts that might be binding us, holding us down. We must accept our individual truths and embrace our lust as a healthy expression of a passion for life.

With a partner, mutual consent is everything. The ecstatic communion of two souls for pleasure and intimacy is a wonderful purpose. Connection in a deep and heartfelt way ignites the mundane into a glittering celebration and creates a bond that holds us steady through tougher times, the life blood of our spirit aroused.

When two (or twenty) are together and in connection, anything goes. We should dance and play, expose our hearts and explore the bodies that contain them. Life is short and making love oh so sweet, vital to our health and well-being, something beautiful that invites sharing, deeper connection, if only in the moment, spontaneity and trust. Sex makes the world a better place.

After dropping my son at a dance the other night, I peeked inside for a glimpse into his world of play. Barely started, various couples were already erotically entwined so clearly in the doggie position of raw sexuality, I wondered why and how they managed or even bothered to keep their clothes in order. He confided the next morning that often clothes conveniently fall aside.

Like my own parents who witnessed only a little of my escapades, the humor that I was at first so shocked did not escape me. Dance that left nothing to the imagination when I was that age was impossible. My friends could skinny dip together in darkness, but it was all so new and daring, there was never the group snuggles on the living room couch where I see this generation so comfortable today. Such adventures into more open play was an exception of wonder, less normal behavior.

Quickly, I understood that they exhibit the comfort with their own bodies and each other that my generation revolutionized, but has been troubled to fully embrace. We were raised one way and tore up the rule book to experiment in another. We broke down major barriers, but some of us were more able to dance into the sunshine than others who were dazzled by the brightness and had to shield our eyes.

So much of my writing these days concerns the lessons about living fathers have learned to hand on to their sons, the importance of the torch passing in more conscious ways so that we can move forward with less pain and insecurity. I advocate openness and honesty, truth and acknowledgment over innuendo and denial of the obvious inadequacies and thoughtless mistakes of which we are all so obviously capable.

From a place of hope, I share my own struggle because I believe so strongly that as much as we want to do well in the world, the messages we receive at our earliest ages can affect our whole lives, unconsciously sabotaging our efforts to have a positive impact on the world around us. Living half-heartedly--not in spirit, but stunted in consciousness--clouded by scars unknown or obvious, we can inflict damage, continuing cycles that could be healed.

My father and I have learned to talk more openly and share the deepest places of life and death. He has a unique perspective being near the end of such a long and prosperous life and still faces forward. He considers his regrets and accomplishments, contemplates a wealth of adventures and the great fortune of a love for a woman that lasted many years at the center of it all. He will likely take to his grave the fact of whether or not he ever knew another woman intimately. It makes no difference (I believe) to any of us.

The promise that I create this connection sooner with my own son seems well-delivered when I see a young man standing straight and strong, taking confident steps into a world of his own, attracting young women who recognize his finest qualities. It does not stop here: our futures will be forever entwined with conversations of meaning and support that has no boundary in subject I can imagine, only in detail. We hug, shake hands, high five and slide some skin, adapting and growing together, sharing our struggles and celebrating our successes, better men for being father and son together.

In the middle of my own life, I have known women intimately for brief moments or in long marriages that needed to end, always in search of the kind of commitment, love and partnership, for better or worse, my parents seemed to exemplify. With the opportunity to play rampantly, I have paused instead, choosing to consider connection and spirit, and my body conveniently provided an excuse to feel less attractive. My heart expands with every day of the recuperation and I am so ready now to be rid of this physical metaphor of a life lived in orgasm without the ability to ejaculate.


Whether the surgery can repair my internal and rid me of the external tube or not, I am ready to go boldly forward in my life, a man among men. I am ready to dance.

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Prayer for Normalcy

Even in my journal writing I am compelled to tell a story. If days or weeks are missed between entries—as has happened in this blog—there is a strong urge to make a full account of the time passed, clearly a result of that obsessive trait in my family that insists on always being productive and accountable.

A blog or journal is especially challenging for me precisely because there are dates and progressions so easily identifiable. Gaps stand out like a bulls eye, drawing my attention as tautly as a bow string and sighting down the shaft.

What happened there? What have I done in these last weeks that I could not scribble on these pages? My days are a blur, unfocused, slow-motion movement, unable to find that target of a story to tell, a moral flaw to expose, or a precious moment worth celebrating at the top of my lungs. In regular discomfort, I hold my belly tightly, trying to cushion the sensations instead of projecting outwards the joy that could resonate so freely.

Having written words that have inspired flattering compliments, I notice my approach to this blank page has a greater sense of purpose and responsibility, a splash of pressure to write profoundly. Appreciating that I have gained a few faithful readers, the desire grows to make new words worthwhile or, failing that, remain quiet.

Understanding that a good portion of you are friends and family who would remain so whether I write or not, I recognize this pressure is entirely from within. My internal critic is much more harsh than any reader pausing for a moment for a small distraction from their busy day.

The self-censoring voice is strong in so many of us. Conventional wisdom raises us to be modest, blend into the crowd, take risk so cautiously we may never gain the speed necessary to leap ahead. For so many, we believe it is far better (safer) to fit in than to stand out.

In these last two years, so many have acknowledged with kind and sympathetic compliments my bravery for exposing myself so openly , admitting they could never be so open themselves. I think I am not so radically different from anyone else, certainly no better or worse; these are value judgments far too subjective to support any weight.

In fact, what I have learned is that such exposure invites a compassion that wraps me like a blanket. Being so open reveals friends and strangers willing to reach out and share a little of themselves as well. The fear that holds us back is eased by the welcoming, embracing arms of others, loosening their own grip on themselves.

These essays may begin with an idea in mind, a story to tell, a moment to celebrate, but often surprise me by venturing down a path I had not anticipated, teaching me things I had not realized I needed to learn. Writing grounds me. The flow of words, in an anxious and unsettled moment, calms me. Within the count of 750, my perspective can be changed, anxiety dispelled. What felt at first confusing or frightening, becomes just another stone in my path to support my steps from here to there. Once again, I see the destination matters less than the process.

My challenge in these months of injury and physical suffering has been to sit quietly with patience, without judgment of the silence or lack of production in words or action. I have been forced to sit, to ponder the tube in my belly, to learn to be grateful for each breath, experience chronic pain in the most sensitive and intimate part of my body and learn to accept each moment as somehow still precious.

I am not yet good at it. I moan and groan, whimper in despair to select friends who have the patience to hold me squirming. My frustration leaps tall thoughts and drives me deep into the folds of my couch from where I fear I may never rise again.

Bills pile up, people live their lives outside of my little dark cave with its view of the woods, car wash and those people rushing by. Opportunities have come and gone. I have pushed myself to be normal and collapsed, and I have embraced the silence to learn how sweetly other voices can sing.

This month of March, grey wet and cold, is fecund with life bursting. In this part of the world no buds show, crocuses have poked out, but flaunt no colors, settling back into the mud, frozen. New life is about to burst forth, but tantilizes. Tomorrow may be completely different.

For me, so used to kicking a soccer ball in the bursting of spring, taking long walks or short bike rides, digging a foundation, fully participating in the busy-ness of life, I sit here now one step removed, reconciled that this summer for me—requiring surgery—will be like no other I have experienced.

Still, stepping onto the porch, the fresh air is lustrous. I am grateful that I can walk at all, that music has come back to my voice and a pen scribbles thoughts at the tip of my fingers. I experience love in many forms, impoverished in my pocket, broken physically, but so very rich in my soul.

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The Road Goes on Forever

In a borrowed pick-up truck, new contractor shorts, and a sturdy new pair of heavy shoes, I worked all week as a carpenter (mason actually) and whistled much of the time. It was not long before a distinct familiarity with this old persona settled in and I recognized much older, more established pieces of the man I have always been.

Perhaps these two years have been more of a crisis than a revolution after all, a flirting with dreams that never were but always could have been until I could fully grasp the pesky distractions, wrestle them down to finally put them aside. Now I have written voluminously and played lots of music with kids whose ages combined are less than my own. Having danced, perhaps it is time to return to my seat against the wall.

The project this week was to support the rooms over a garage, detach the walls and replace the cinder block foundation that was cracked and crumbling. Although it was hot, I worked in the shade. Music on the radio danced around me. The work proceeded peacefully one block at a time.

My client—a jovial man in his eighties—could not have been happier, writing out a check as soon as I presented the bill. I sauntered to the bank and celebrated over dinner Friday night with a good friend and my son.

This was so different than my company days when I begged and scrambled for the dollars to make payroll and raced to the bank where my guys were waiting, making bets on the chances their checks would be any good. From hour to half hour my day changed constantly as I adapted to the urgency of one site or another and the impossible demands needing solutions.

Did the stress of the work ruin my life at home? Or was it the other way around? By now, the complications have grown too muddied to ever understand for sure. It became clear to me that the crash and clatter of both home and business would soon kill me. Change—so apparently inevitable—was required no matter the pain on myself and others the rupture would cause. Continuing became no longer an option.

There are some who would say it was a meltdown and have chosen not to see me since. Most who know me now seem to celebrate with me the fresh air I breathe. Adventures are rampant, and somehow, returning to ride in a pick-up and see a project finished is grounding, as solid and real as the foundation I am repairing.

Not long ago I worried that, being happy, I might lose this creative surge so recently resurrected. Art comes from suffering, some say, and though I have had my share, it would be awful to think I might have to live the mixed up complications of needing pain to enjoy the thrill of creation.

But I write this tonight, sitting at the Bitter End in New York City again, having played a rocking set of new songs. I have tasted the possibility of love and am willing, even eager, to continue sipping. I have a son who is a best friend and a daughter whose boundless joy makes me so proud. As I accept projects to rebuild homes, my own life is rebuilding, discovering the balance of practicality and creativity.

The adventure continues.

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Balancing, Balancing

To protect the innocent, I have purposefully refrained from writing about relationship in this very public forum. My personal laundry is one thing, but the linen of others—no matter how clean it might appear to me—should be kept off the line.

That being said, a friend of mine suggested recently that as much as I may be tempted by this fine spring weather and the fragrance of a particular blossom, I am not yet ready to embark on the slippery slope of a committed relationship. Since she has come to know me well over this past year, her advice shook me for several days.

So much of our lives, we are trained to believe we are not complete without the partnership (or at least the shell) of a committed companion. Until recently, it was defined specifically as marriage. Anything less than that invited whispers and sympathetic or judgmental nods of the head.

Today, there are more options approved by general society and tolerated by even the strictest moralists. It is even acceptable to believe a man or woman could be OK living emotionally independent, but I assert that deep down in our hearts, not very many of us trust this model.

So I went back into my cave, nursing my cold and thought long and hard about the pronouncement of my friend. Did this make me unwell? Unhealed? Emotionally unbalanced? No matter the solid ground I begin to confidently leap from under my feet, I wondered if I appear palsied and pitiable to any who see me, a friend to embrace, but only at arm’s length.

This woman has been cheerfully bearing the brunt of my euphoria and bravely dispelling the clouds of my little depressions over this past year. She has edited the first drafts of many a scribble and critiqued some songs practically verse by verse as they came out. Better than anyone, at this point, her insight has the power to stop me short, and knowing this, she is careful how often and with what gentle words she doles it out.

Though I have silently wrestled with it throughout my life, her finger landing on the pulse of my priorities interrupts the flow like an alarm clock in the middle of a sweet dream. From the distance, detached and admiring, each one, or a few of my activities together, may appear as a noble endeavor, enviable and worth celebrating with accolades.

Closer in, however, the ensemble burns with an overwhelming chaos in danger of consuming itself with unleashed, unfocused energy. One hour I am a musician singing away, working on a CD, and finding others to make a band for a merry trip down the proverbial road. Moments later, my latest blog entry adds words to the fantasy of publishing a book and appearing on Oprah’s show as the newest expert on midlife crises and new warriors who will no longer suffer abuse.

I have become fitness compulsive, throwing myself down mountainsides on two sticks, or standing in the way of a soccer champion built like a tank, thinking I am happy to get the ball away from him one in ten times. Desperate to avoid a paycheck attached to carpentry, I am thrilled to frame paintings for another friend and install window trim for yet another.

Needing to get a Real Job with benefits and paid vacations, I volunteer instead to write a grant that might pay a small stipend to help organize youth around the world working for a sustainable planetary community of peace. Another friend offers me just enough dollars to write some publicity for his production that lets me talk as if I now have a career in film-making.

Scratch the surface and I am a whirlwind, making plans and rescheduling to fit some thing or some one else into the mix. Enamored of one flower in particular, distrusting myself, I gaze across the entire garden, wondering if others might ignite an interest so sweet. This morning, I nearly accepted a place on a board starting a school, simply on the basis of having done so twice before.

So why not now?

I paused in my cave and listened to the words of my dear friend resonate profoundly off the silent walls. A week later, I find myself no better prepared to answer the question, but willing to explore it whole-heartedly, to try to dance in the rain and learn to sit in the shade when the sun shines too intensely. I continue to play music, enjoying last night the wonderful response to the premiere of my new band, and type away gleefully this morning when I should be finishing the renovation of my bathroom.

This mixture of priorities, all individually reasonable and commendable, resembles the diverse series of building projects I took on that combined to destroy my business, and ultimately my marriage, forcing me out of my home and family. Without a clear focus in my personal life, a commitment to some thing or some one else is hard to make, and harder still to keep. No matter the longing to feel the embracing arms of comfort and security, love, passion and reassurance that is possible in the middle of the night, it cannot be sustained in the daylight until we are strong enough within ourselves to select, organize, prioritize and finally reject things that ultimately do not serve us well.

This I could not do in my business and previous marriages. I was lost though I thought I was found, and in longing for that completeness, I was overwhelmed by the complications of giving and receiving from a less than whole place of heart.

Healing is taking place. Day by day, doors open wider and priorities now allowed to prosper, watered by kindness and encouraged by my own tender attention, seem to thrive, while others take care of themselves. Am I so different now? Perhaps more cautious, probably more self-directed, definitely more soulful.

In the meantime, I am grateful to the good friends, sisters and brothers all, who can poke me so gently with their sharp fingers of discernment.

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A Tablet of Marble

The word “crisis” may be a bit of a misnomer as I look back on several years of transitions in my Mid (hopefully) Life, each chapter being critical to the next. This change to a new life has been a long, slow process, racing along day to day at breakneck speed, but taking years to fully mature.

The contradictions are evident when I pause to read pages of entries in my black composition journals. I can ponder the immensity of differences a year has developed in so many ways: from location to occupation to spare timed activities. The scribbles are fraught with angst, paranoia and self-doubt as much as ebullience, braggadocio and lofty predictions (just multiply the substance of this blog by a thousand to get an idea).

For a few days now, my mind has been focused on measurements, calculations and emotional assessments. Using the change of season here and there as metaphor has not satisfied the process, leaving me floating somewhere in transition.

Curiously last night, a pile of boxes still stacked in the corner seemed suddenly conquerable and I could finally attack and sort them, clearing out the imposing disorder to improve my bedroom’s Fung Shui. “Poems” from my childhood, song scraps, and sweet cards from my own children could be scanned and re-stored; other mementos I could ceremoniously toss to the dumpster with only parting regret. Only after the purge, talking to a friend, did I recognize that this week marks exactly a year that I have been living here.

The true beginning of my crisis, I believe—besides an abiding pain and discomfort over work, financial and marital stress—surfaced upon the move of parents to an assisted care facility. Dividing the treasures and the personals, emptying out and giving over the unique family home to a new family was traumatic. The dinning room table, a huge slab of marble as much a symbol of a Camelot as any could be, was cut into five pieces, but mine as a coffee table in my own home holds nowhere near the power of anchoring my soul to place.

Once adrift, at long last, it had become time to grow up and take charge of my life.

My business had to be ended. No matter how well-intended and hard I focused on details, personal distraction and vanishing dollars made for chaotic sites and disastrous results. Although the finished product always looked impressive, not enough clients were fully satisfied and way too many subs and vendors were not getting paid. I could not continue to hurt all those who depended upon me.

My son regularly complains good-naturedly about shifting belongings from house to house every weekend, acknowledging the clear impact my decisions have had on his life. If I apologize, he quickly reminds me he no longer lives behind a closed door, shutting out the angry fights, and can sleep at night, no longer afraid and bewildered that parents who loved each other at times could hurt each other so horribly as well.

As much as I loved writing and music, in comparison to my family, while the focus of raising and supporting them was so intense, I easily and cheerfully abandoned the creativity, hardly even noticing the loss. There was so much gain that culminated in our beautiful little house on Hayward Street, the hard work to support it seemed just the natural price to pay. That the stress was crushing me and actually shredding the very fabric I loved so much seemed just the product of my own faulty frailties which could be easily adjusted and surmounted…if I just worked a little harder.

Once I realized how thick was the brick wall and impenetrable by the same choices and efforts, no matter how determined, when my energy was finally exhausted and none of the usual resources could be rallied, as I finally and fearfully understood in my soul what it means to “let go, let God”, the resistance evaporated. The wall has crumbled of its own accord.

In my I group last night, the question was posed: “if you did not have to work for a living, how would you spend your time?”. Instantly, I could answer “write, play music, ski and play soccer.” And I am doing all of that with my son close beside me.

Sure, I will need some help from my father this month again to pay the rent. He will ask again if any of this is actually making me any money, and for the first time I can honestly answer, “YES!”. For me, the important thing is that I am bringing all of these pieces of my own particular marble table back together again, stronger than ever.

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Rules of the Game

By definition, a midlife crisis is a middle ground, a turning point balanced with half your life behind and half before. In truth, there is nothing symmetrical about it. A crisis, also by definition, is lopsided, ugly, uncomfortable and disorienting, often painful to suffer as well as to witness.

A midlife crisis is difficult to identify and easy to ascribe to someone’s behavior we might consider to be out of character. Immersed in our own dramas so deeply, it happens to people we know slightly, but is just Life as we know it to those immediately around us. Though it might be ignited by one or a series of particular events, it creeps upon us as warmth under a blanket, surrounding our bodies seductively until the shock of cold feet on the floor.

Death—the cruel jester and constant companion on our shoulder—whispers louder in our ears.

Amidst the turmoil and discomfort in my own life that was so consistent it felt normal, moving my parents out of the home that had been ours forever was the catalyst to ponder my past and futures. As my mother’s clarity of mind dissipated, my conception of the shape of my own life began to weaken, then gave way in a torrent.

Typically, in crisis events unfold with a speed too fast to contemplate alternatives and forge a plan. Reactions without thought recover the stumble or swerve away from the on-coming crash.

But in this, the changes are much more subtle. There is time to review the places we have been compared to where we wanted to go. Evaluation of our circumstances, our relationships, and our priorities takes on a certain urgency as we are confronted by the reality that--sooner than the way-later it used to be--this will all end.

Questions abound, quality is examined, quantity is determined, calculated and judged. The realization of our limits places a value on each aspect and we begin to understand that some dreams will be abandoned while others must be pursued.

For many, this might require only slight adjustments of routine, or a recommitment to finally take that trip. A thoughtful person has hopefully been aware of their movements all along to be aligned with their heart and comfortable with their decisions.

Others, confronted by reality of death’s whisper, discover a great mismatch in how they are living and the value of their dreams. Sometimes the lessons we were taught by others have rooted so deeply in our psyches as to smother completely the joyful desires that had once been our own. Influenced by the love of our parents, our significant others, and even our children, both blatantly and subtly, we have made choices for what is "Right", over-shadowing what we might have really wanted.

The degree to which we have followed more than led ourselves dictates the severity of the crisis. The amount of passion suppressed needing to escape the container defines the quality of the sigh or the force of the explosion.

Our purpose, I believe, is to become the best that we can be. No rules of engagement or packet of instructions are included at birth. We must fend for ourselves and rely mostly at first on those who have brought us into the world, fed, clothed us, and taught us how to live.

Along the way, we shed skins and experiment with outfits. We forge alliances and discover solitude both bitter and sweet.

Ultimately we are living our own life and are responsible to ourselves. Accountability to others is important, but critical to the success of our own lives. If we are not honest with ourselves, our challenges multiply, our hurdles loom larger in number and size until the one fine day we trip, stumble or fall heavily enough to ask the questions that have been avoided.

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Collision of Mars and Venus

On a day way too bitterly cold to ski more than a run or two, and in the sublime spirit of celebrating a brand new year, I stopped on the way home to visit an old friend.

A surprise, being unannounced, and probably a year since seeing each other, we sat comfortably in their kitchen, his family and my son, sharing tales as if the days between visits were as few as the miles between our homes. True friendship is a blessing revealed when pieces can be so easily picked up as if never dropped.

Focused for so many years on the attempt to save my marriage, several strong bonds were tested by such neglect, friendships withered to near silence. In the process of reconnection, powerful lessons intensify the differences of the masculine and feminine energies in my soul.

Four sisters and a strong mother influenced my childhood deeply. No matter the rough and tumble world I juked and jabbed outside the home, my mother was always present to listen and advise, encourage and stimulate. My sisters shared their lives openly around the table. I learned to emote more than wrestle.

Despite adopting two brothers for balance, I have been most comfortable emotionally in friendships with women, hanging in dorm rooms, visiting with neighbors, standing in the kitchen instead of in front of the TV. With no girlfriend in high school and one sporadic relationship in college, when I became involved, I quickly married emotionally.

It is significant that I am turning from an uncompromising need to please to a more self-centered life, paying attention to the things that make my spirit soar. So willing to defer to the choices of others in my past, I begin now to choose for myself, accepting companionship or solitude, but following my own special needs.

In this process, I begin to notice that my gifts to others are actually stronger, more heartfelt and true.

Perhaps this has little to do with masculine or feminine influences, but it feels to be a likely categorization, given the evidence of activities supporting my observations. My dependence on social relationship and interaction (largely female) gives way to action-directed movement and problem-solving concentration.

Nearly a decade ago, on walks through the park with my family, I discovered a soccer game regularly occurring which stirred my desire to run and kick. The next summer, I interrupted the family weekend, playing a few times and returning home exhilarated and satisfied. Over the years, the game became important to my week, so difficult to leave the home, but wonderful to get sweaty and dirty shoving other men. My return home in better spirit would not always ease the interruption, but my heart was better for the exercise.

In my adult life, I have adopted another brother, a man who invites me to help with projects on his home. Over the years, we began to meet for lunches, talking furtively at first about our relationships and our other dreams for life. Creating tension at home where I was wanted for more lunches, I discreetly continued this affair of friendship because it served me well.

Joining the Mankind Project, it was enlightening to find so many men willing to take emotional risk to elevate their lives to authentic passion. Looking hard at the confusing shadows that hinder us from attaining our dreams, we support each other to lead ourselves forward without compromise, to love and be in relationship with all our hearts, not just our fearful or dutiful hearts.

So today, I visited my friend, a man I have known since we were little, little boys. Over so many years, we have played so much together, shared wonders hysterical and mischievous, and learned lessons of life profound. It is a shame that I allowed distance to settle between us, and others as well, as marriages and busyness grew complicated. Had I maintained a better balance in these years, perhaps I might have been more true to my marriage and career.

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Kipster the Trickster

The loss of my truck has cracked a solid blow to my optimism and good cheer. So deeply weary of the struggle to thrive, I ache to awake, and wander through my day wondering how and in which direction do I take another step.

Firstly, I blame myself for this newest failure, expensive and inconvenient. Changes of oil are the minimum requirement of maintenance which I—in my constant state of hurry and paucity—have neglected. Foolish enough to put off and put off, the engine seizure is the reward.

This is the perfect example of the natural consequence of living in the belief of scarcity. If I live as if there is not enough money or time to take care of such basics, I create a world of problems that need to be fixed. As if this is not big enough, I take this opportunity to confront the very core of my being, the constant, prolonged struggle to reach a place of financial comfort in my life. The broken rods in the engine are like the bonds holding me to the habits that have driven my life. Something has snapped, and I am broken down on the side of the road.

Last night, in my group of men, we set up two chairs to ponder two voices that resonate within me. In the one, sat the healthy Kip who recognizes that Life is not working and wants to make changes. The other chair represented Kipster the Trickster who plots and schemes and wallops his skis through mogul fields of trouble so forcefully, he invites whoops and hollers of appreciation, but is still well back from the medal stand at the end of the day.

This little devil slouches comfortably, arms crossed, the cool cat, joking and jibing, a gleam in his eye, and the best intentions in all the world to juggle the many needs of himself and others to a glorious conclusion. He means no harm, but is really like a little boy, excited by what lies before us.

“Oooh, look at this glitter, look at that shine! You know you could really do this, or even better, really do that. If you just squeeze a little here, tuck a little there…”

All day long, throughout my entire life, this little trickster has whispered tempting distractions in my ear: easy shortcuts, big plans for glorious results, and convincing arguments to think if one such task is easily accomplished, why not three? Shirking on the details to actually complete any motion, he steers the eyes ahead to the infinite possibilities that lie just beyond our sight.

My trusty brothers forced me to run an exercise where first I spoke as the trickster, ogling and inveigling. Then I sat and spoke as the healthy Kip, the man who was tired of working so hard through so many obstacles, mistakes and misfortunes, always jumping right back to the task with a smile and encouraging cheers of bravado.

It is time to stand up to him, to put the trickster in his place, to say “no, let’s do it sensibly.” Not to diminish the spirit, or belittle the efforts, the time has come to tame the rebellious, rambunctious trickster, to invite him to rest and observe how moving with the flow of others, harnessing the mind which currently leaps six steps ahead, could better simplify and create a world of calm cooperation and successful endeavors.

Sometimes the wheel does not have to be reinvented, but can spin productively just the way it is.

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Giving Thanks

So focused on where we want to go, it can be easy to forget where we have been, and how far we have come.

This holiday for me, crosses all lines of religion, ethnicity, and economics to be truly American. Only on this day do the roads empty, most stores close, and everyone has a common purpose, celebrated in one basic form. “Over the river and through the woods”, we go to celebrate the loved ones, the rock solid foundations in our lives. Priceless moments of conversations light and deep are cooked over the hard work of preparing the food, smells that linger a lifetime. Since living in town, I have enjoyed a walk outdoors at dusk, breathing in the silence of everyone feasting, gathered across the country in families together.

This year, my family is broken and my younger kids will be with their mother. My own sisters and parents are scattered. My friends all rightfully have plans of their own. A co-worker graciously invited me to join his family for a day of feast and football, but I have declined. Not to be pitied, or feeling depressed, for the first time in my life, I am thankful to be alone.

Fortunately, I am in no way truly alone. If I could get there, my children and sister in Oregon would share food and celebration with great spirit. In Pennsylvania, I have a father and sisters who would watch the Eagles with me in the same combination of hope and dread that plagues their loyal fans of 50 years.

And I have a mother whose eyes, as bright and blue as ever, might show the tiniest flicker of recognition at the sound of the voice she raised.

In this year of turmoil and change, one friendship has deepened into brotherhood, a man so there for me, and I for him, I joked yesterday that a day without at least a phone call causes withdrawal symptoms. Other friendships have blossomed or wilted according to the natural choices of sides. Some very old friendships have been re-ignited, and some great new friends welcome and support my current journey.

One year ago, I said I needed to hear my own voice. In the wreckage of homelife, work, and all that was not working, I was trying so hard to fix it all so fast, I could no longer tell what was truly my own, or just words I thought I was supposed to say. A second divorce, just like a bankruptcy, were options outside the strong family values I have known, but the din was overwhelming and could have led to a very real and awful silence.

So for better or worse, I am thankful today to be alone, to write and sing and do my work as best I can to put humble bread upon my table. I laugh, I can make others laugh. I cry, and am beginning to understand that it is not my job to keep others from crying. My inappropriate compulsive behaviors have vanished. There are those who congratulate me and others who admonish, but I am doing my best to hear those outside judgments as just votes of confidence, allowing my voice to be altered perhaps, but in no way diminished.

In this same circumstance twenty years ago, with the same guitar, piano, and dreams of writing novels, I felt half-complete. For life to be right as I knew and wanted it, all was second best until I had a mate with whom it could be shared. Having met a wonderful woman, I was determined to make our union work, no matter what. These many years, full of joys and pain, have provided lessons I needed to learn, as great and as hard as they have been. I have few regrets.

Today, I am liking the voice I hear. Always in need of refinement, still, it carries itself well, sings a song, alone or in a crowd, to make my mother proud.

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Up on the Roof

For several weeks, I have been considering an entry on the relentless pace I lead daily and the fear that it will eventually cause collapse and misfortune. Just a few minutes of half-dreams cushion the time between alarm and my leap from bed each morning. There is hardly a pause before the night is late and lonely, and I fall asleep with a book in my lap.

No question that this is of my own doing. I am generating all of this activity and have the power to curtail it at anytime. Writing blogs, playing music, finding cannons, or telling a sad story on the radio does nothing to satisfy my need for food, clothing and shelter, yet this has all become a need as basic as breathing and, without realizing it, I had been suffocating before.

Influenced by the other need, the realistic need to pay my cell bill, and glad to have work, given the economic fears, I have been replacing the roof of a house more than an hour away, consuming more than usual time to make a living. Working with a couple of friends, it is a mellow job, high up the mountainside, over-looking miles of hardwood forests and open hayfields. While gas prices have fortunately dropped and temperatures for late fall are pleasantly high, we are pushing hard to get it done efficiently between rain storms and the expanding darkness.

Sunday, I worked by myself, methodically laying shingles and singing my new song. At lunch, it seemed silly to sit safely on the ground by my truck when the view was incredible from up on the roof. I imagined a perch out of a Carole King song, balanced on my ladder (strapped in, of course—OSHA approved!), munching my turkey sandwich meditating on the awesome vista. Unable to sit so pleasantly still, however, I had to scramble back down for my notebook so I could eat with one hand and write an essay (that was later abandoned) with the other about the wonders of the panoramic vision spread before me.

Well, after bragging a while back about rarely being sick, this pace has fulfilled my prediction, delivering a second punch of a stuffed head and aching cough in a month. Not listening to my own warnings to take a rest, my body captured the germs to make it so. Still, I have worked miserably right through it, determined to take advantage of the great weather and necessary paycheck.

Some times, I do just stop, and looking at myself like the snapshot of a stranger, I am amazed. Tonight, for example, I sit with a hamburger and a beer in a corner booth of a family restaurant (I am a trattoria kind of guy), yellow pad filling with black ink. Rain puddles outside, neon lights splintered in the drops. Guys step up to croon at an open mic. In my own neighborhood, it is Saturday night, and I know no one here.

Times like these, the momentum of the last months of change overwhelm. Twenty years of life everyday with the same good woman creates such a basis of existence, a reference point around which all else revolves. To break that anchor tumbles me into a swirling world with no boundaries and unexplored vistas over every rooftop.

Some friends are rediscovered, others drift away, still coupled themselves, or at least attached to my other half. Alliances are shifted and some encounters are suddenly awkward. New friends and companions are just at the confluence, merging or submerging with no rhyme or reason. Who can know? Recognition of my old self is hard to find.

No wonder, then, my head fills and my body aches, racked with coughing fits, slowing me down to ponder the view. The redefinition of self is hard work, the pace relentless. Some days feel like a blessing of banter with a son to be proud of; others are best passed curled up in contemplation, as if thumb in my mouth. Too many mistakes have taken their toll, but the blanket of fear must still be thrown off.

The best are those days when the sun shines, the conversation buzzes. Work gets done, laughter blows through the trees. The rustle of the wind promises that life only gets better and better, and the memories of the past never lose their luster. Today, I will make one of those.

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Touching Base

Response to my interview on “The Story” has been gracious and incredibly kind.

Two hours before it aired in Vermont, fear buckled my knees, wondering what insanity had possessed me to expose such business incompetence to so public a forum?! People later complimented my courage, but at that moment it felt like such foolish behavior. Having done so poorly to provide for my family, clients and staff, I should more likely hide my head in shame, especially remembering Dick Gordon’s shocked question, “You didn’t even consult a lawyer?”

At the last minute, I considered the comfort of friends to listen to it (share the embarrassment), but all were wrapped in their own lives in the middle of the day. The interview with the baker I heard while unloading asphalt shingles at the dump, feigning non-chalance. A few minutes later, I pulled into a parking lot over-looking a small pond and quietly pondered my own voice aloof and alone.

We all know our recorded voices sound differently than what we hear so familiarly in our own head, but this sounded even more different than that. I pictured a white haired codger in basball cap, pencil tucked behind the ear, something like (I realized later) Paul Newman in “Nobody’s Fool”.

The editing was fascinating. Technically, they spliced separate sentences together and created a flow out of a conversation that had been somewhat bouncy when it was recorded a week earlier. I was pleased with the coherence.

To me, however, the interview ended abruptly at the bottom of that tar-pit, that forlorn place where the wretched carpenter covers his homeless, shameful losses with a thin shroud of dignified resignation. “We make our own mistakes.” He was no one I recognized. No wonder the calls and emails are so full of consolation and re-assurances.

The second half of the interview, the part that never made it to air, the piece that really excites my interest, is the tale of the man I do know, the man who is taking charge of his life and learning to live with more authenticity and integrity, less desperation for the wrong reasons. Here is a story with a happier ending, a tale of inspiration and enlightenment, something I think is worth sharing.

I have no interest in pity, nor undeserved flattery. My heart appreciates, but does not require, emotional bolstering at this point (but please, folks, keep those cards and letters coming!). Learning to nurture myself, my own voice sustains me right now. My mind explores the mysteries to discover easier paths to reach the resting places each day, always moving forward to opportunities just over the horizon. Glances back on the landscape left behind are for guidance, not instruction.

No over-wrought or deranged ego has forced me to reveal these failures of my business, home and family. Rather, I share the journey with an extended hand, a move, in fact, towards sanity, offering a place where we can stand together in understanding; naked truth allowing us to feel compassion and heal our hearts.

I am so proud of the embraces this foolish bravery seems to inspire.

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Sounds of Silence Abandoned

Now the piece I wrote on the loss of my cannon has generated a full featured article in our local newspaper.

It was my wish that such publicity might appeal to the guilty parties and bring about the return of the heirloom in my sleep, but I submitted the words with little expectation. In light of the NPR story, it was actually forgotten.

A good friend, meanwhile, confronted me the other day around my revitalized energy towards creativity. Observing me from our relationship with many angles, he probed my enthusiasm with pointed questions that uncovered points of tenderness.

Likening my movements to a cool cat, a cartoonish feline with whiskers, a beret and long cigarette holder, he sensed a façade that really masks a tar-pit of ugly soulful work still to be done. Complimenting my intellect and eloquence, still he challenged me to ask more of myself. Dare to go to places that feel like certain death, he encouraged, and explore the revelations discovered that will eventually fulfill your longings for prosperity and celebration.

Blinded by an emotional exhaustion, I retreated from his doorstep, unwilling to accept this challenge. I have worked too hard in these last months, in these many years. I would rather relish these small victories beginning to come my way.

But the seed once planted...

Another friend agreed that given all the losses, my grief has only partially been exposed and expressed. My external façade shines forth as one of hope, optimism and good cheer, while deeper inside, the murky blood of grief reaches a boiling point and must be stirred to be truly released.

Soon after, I was cheered by an email unsolicited from my sister, saying while she knows I have more emotional work to be done, I am just where I should be right now (loving praise so like my mother's!). My creative energy had flowed freely 30 years ago, a portfolio of successes beginning to thicken. Truth be told, however, how much veracity and depth could realistically be found in the fingertips of one so young, with so little Real Life experience? A firm believer that all happens the way it should, she congratulated me on now speaking with more clarity and knowledge, having lived and suffered some.

I am beginning to understand that this many years of creative retreat cannot actually be blamed on marriage, children and the relentless demand of a construction business. Although legitimate cause for attention, these would not have to be impediments to creativity.

Fear rears its ugly head, caught momentarily dead center in the searching light.

Years ago, in another marriage, with as much distraction, I was still producing stories and songs with a fervor, and risking judgment from editors and promoters with mixed results. Articles were published and I played on the radio and sizable stages back then.

There was, in fact, enough success to make encouragement begin to feel like a Demand. There began to be expectations around the quality. I had deadlines and pieces were returned covered with red ink (literally red!). I was tender, sensitive and gullible enough to read the criticism as if it were an attack. Praised so much as a child, the exposure to these hurts was enough to make me stop dead mid-sentence. Like any child once burned, I chose to not go any closer to the fire.

But the real truth is that I could handle that external criticism. It was my own voice that struck such fear in my soul, fear of its unmined power and depth. Not believing in myself, I silenced myself.

So today, I sing with a voice revitalized, and write with a pen and keyboard that can no longer concentrate on spreadsheets that do not add up, or sign checks with no money. Lessons have been learned. I have loved and lost.

Forgive me, then Dear Reader, if I seem to bask in the pleasure I receive from your generous comments. I use them to arm myself against my own very palpable and ever-present fear that I have nothing worthwhile to say.

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Broken Mirrors

Well, I didn't really think it was possible, but apparently there may still be a song or two left in this Old Dawg:



Broken Mirrors
Who was that stranger standing just in front of me?
Was that really someone I used to know?
Shoulders stooped, he was no one I ever wanted to be;
He looked so brave, but I know it was all just for show.
That’s alright; he can come round any night
I can’t really see him anymore;
I can leave him in pieces on the my floor.

Seems like I used to work so very, very god-damned hard
But life didn't get easier no matter how hard I tried;
Love dies quickly when you don’t water the grass in your own back yard;
And pain doesn’t stop just because you’ve cried.
But it’s OK: I’ve learned to keep on anyway
I can’t let it stop me anymore;
I don’t have to keep on keeping score.

Been so long since I stood this free and clear on my own;
Seems like I’ve never felt this strong.
A lion’s roar grows out of the seeds I’ve sown.
You can hear it in this song.
It’s all fine! Sunlight is on my mind;
I don’t have to be afraid anymore;
Love can heal this heart so sore.

Take heart, step into the playful light;
Dare to sing this song at the top of your lungs.
We’ll help each other celebrate days beyond dark night;
Climb the ladder hand in hand each and every rung.
It’s alright! Step into the Light
We don’t need the darkness anymore;
No, we don’t want the darkness anymore.
Anymore!



Once I have my new-fangled home recording software under control, and the words have slithered down into their most rhythmic form, I'll post the actual song.

Editors note: click here for a preliminary listen

Despite beautiful weather and magnificent mountainsides of fall splendour, I huddled all weekend in my home like a hermit, working on several projects. The creative energy is too strong too ignore. One just has to step aside and let it through.

Several times, I was dressed and ready to go forth, yet drifted back to computer and instruments, to polish, refine, play and explore some more, looking up suddenly to realize the days were done. I believe there is nothing special here, simply the willingness to follow my intuition, to listen to silence without judgement, to sit with humor and humility, to feel fear and pain, and notice how easily these feelings can be transformed, put to good use and made into gifts.

To offer them up to you, Dear Reader, is perhaps an act of foolish bravery, but I dare myself becasuse I am equally comfortable with being seen as a brave Fool (typically Shakespeare's most profound character).

For better or worse, each new post rewards me with encouragement (internal and external) to dig deeper and share further.

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Stuff In the Corners

My apartment—like the rest of my life—is so full of clutter and half-packed boxes, it reminds me of the game where one piece must be moved to the open space to make room to move towards another.

The carpet and freshly sanded floors are covered over with boxes piled up, needing to be condensed and stored away for another decade. Each time reopened, a precious story falls out, a trinket outlived, finally to be tossed on, replaced by some new momento with a more powerful luster.

Since the walls of shelves are mine alone, this time several objects long stored away make it back to the light of day. Additionally, there is the added wealth of treasures from my mother’s collection, a bronze purse and sacred (to her) shards of glass.

With little rhymes and lots of reasons, these objects resonate with symbolism for an era, holding their places of honor to remind me of the boy I was and the man I wanted to be. My heart fills when my eyes land on the St Bernard’s brandy cask (she actually wore it at ski lodges), the boomerang (that took 45 years to circle back), the antique carpenter’s plane (that formed the logo for my new business), or my daughters’ artwork. No amount of dust obscures the force of energy these pieces inspire.

Outside, the ghost of the cannon still hovers, marking a place of grief and hurt for all that has been lost in these two years between packing up my parent’s lifelong home and my own of Marriage and Family. Come spring, this spot will be a garden, a shrine seeded with memories and bursting forth in colors of renewal.

Beyond this little oasis slowly transforming from cave to vibrant home, the details shift the open space elusively just beyond my sight. Boxes full and partial still are sorted and ferried from our house to my house, hers, the dump or recycling center. Tasks of complicated paperwork and a simple punchlist distract my attention from the limitless future to be created.

With each box condensed and stored, each task checked off, more light floods into the corners of my heart, even as the leaves burst and drop, and the sun races towards its darkening solstice and the long winter ahead. Music is always at my fingertips now my piano fills half the living room, my guitars hang on the wall within easy reach. A new network of friends are face-to-face, or just a finger-tip away through Emails, entering my home to keep me company.

And at any moment, a glance to the corner shelf, like donning a favorite jacket, slathers that exuberant teen-age boys grin with a St Bernard’s kiss, giant paws on the shoulders, or awes the young dad with his child’s wondering eyes and proud excitement, unquestioning trust.

Zenlike, we are only in the One moment, the Now, but it is colored—like the leaves on this brilliant Vermont crisp morning—with so very much more.

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A Loose Cannon

I was planning to write a blog entry celebrating my cannon and the family value it represents.

That’s right, a cannon; a 300 pound cast iron signal cannon that was taken off a World War I battleship and given in honor to my grandfather.

I wanted to tell you, dear reader, how my mother remembered it in her yard, her older brother allowed to light the fuse to fire it on the Fourth of July. I wanted to tell you all about the patriotism I felt one Memorial Day in my early years, after the parade, when we loaded it into the trunk of my Uncle’s convertible and drove with the top down, John Phillip Sousa blaring, and delivered it to our own yard.

For many years, it was sentinel to our home, central to the games I played with my buddies where the enemy marched uphill towards our cannon. Our Dads never trusted it to fire, but occasionally let us throw fire-crackers down the barrel, which worked just fine for us.

Then for years, it guarded us silently, nearly forgotten until grandchildren rediscovered it and fell all over it again. When they had moved on, ivy grew over it, covering it completely, forlorn and forgotten until the emotional upheaval of moving my parents and selling their home forced us to decide its future.

As the only son, I was tempted, but my wife understandably could not envision the little cannon on the front step of our city home, and I agreed. Once separate, however, I remembered the cannon. My son and I made the trip and happily brought it to Vermont, invested in the tradition, envisioned it someday moving on to his yard and children.

I wanted to tell you how we set it on the hillside, facing out to the river, over-looking the banks where Indians had actually fished and camped. I wanted to tell you the pleasure it gave me to see so many people notice it from the bike path, especially children who I would invite down for a closer look.

It was nothing high-tech and incredible, but it was a cannon, and no matter the age or culture of the male looking at it, he wanted to know if it would fire.

I wanted to tell you, dear reader, all of this with the happiness and pride I felt for this 300 pound funky, quirky family heirloom. Instead, I write with grief because over the weekend it was stolen.

Although it probably had value, I do not imagine it had enough to be worth a man enlisting buddies to help him brazenly steal from my yard. Someone suggested it might have been stolen for scrap metal. Probably, it was college kids on a drunken prank or senseless initiation task.

If they carried it away, they may have grown bored and tired, and tossed it into the woods two hundred yards up the road. If they came back with their car, it might sit on a porch somewhere until June, then be discarded carelessly with all the other junk left for someone else to clean up.

No one will know the honor with which it came into our family, the fun having it gave us, and the pride I imagined of passing it on. It can never be replaced.

I feel so stupid. Many people advised that it was too tempting and should be secured. I considered it, had a plan and even the materials in the basement. Nothing stopped me but a list of more pressing matters and a few leisure activities.

And my indefatigable faith that no one would harm such a valueless and precious object belonging to someone else, and so obviously cared for, grass cut carefully around it. Now, my cannon is gone, sadly, that barn door of optimism gets another lock.

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Men Created Equal

When first seeing the list of who planned to attend our weekend retreat, I Emailed back a joke about “…mixing with the Big Guns.”

Since my initiation weekend a year ago, I have witnessed daily correspondences between members on a listserv. In most any new group, like stepping into freezing water, there is a hesitation to immerse oneself fully, particularly hard for me not being a “joiner”.

So easy to imagine others knowing more, fearful of appearing foolish, unconfident amongst such confidence, I still dared to share some short stories and blog entries relevant to men’s issues that were flowing through me. On that forum, trusting the promise that it goes no further than between these men, I even shared the other half, the ugly half, of the reasons for my impending divorce.

Several men I had not met supported me well, and I now looked forward to matching faces to their generous words. Others had familiar faces, being on staff at my training, which I could connect to names, and I looked forward to sharing with them the accelerating events that have so changed my life since that weekend. Largely, I expected to observe quietly, converse modestly, and, in my own corner, reaffirm some of the lessons gained a year ago.

To my surprise, I discovered the power and confidence in each of them burned no less within me. An air of complete equality lay between us all where bank accounts, resumes, and educational credits were completely irrelevant.

In fact, I was astounded to be greeted immediately by my corresponding friends, and complimented enthusiastically by a reader of my Artisan Workshop blog. Introducing myself to others whose names I recognized, it was gratifying when my name sparked similar recognition.

One of the facilitators at my training had just received national recognition and would lead a session in the morning. I wanted especially to connect briefly with him for a little better understanding of my process, if he could spare the time. Instead, I learned—when the Universe delivered my mentor to the bunk below me in a cabin of six—there is no more equalizing lesson than trying to avoid stepping on someone’s head in the darkness of night.

Actually, it made no real difference if these men liked me or not. I liked me. The power came all from within, not from their approval, judgments, or beneficence. There, I was a writer and musician, face-to-face with compassionate brothers, with no stigma of a failed business or marriage. Some men had read this story, and by the end, they all heard me sing it out fully.

A man with an open heart, the power came from deep within, and stayed with me upon my return to my tasks of turning my old home over to new owners and dealing with an economy that bodes badly for carpenters. The timing was perfect to feel strength, and then be so tested here, faltering only slightly as I watched the last remnants of my marriage dumped into the machine to be swallowed and crushed.

Then, wiping away a tear, I moved on.

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