Love Over Gold

          The test of my true faith has come upon me.  Far later than is healthy for any man, I have accepted one last parting gift from my father and step out into the world once again on my own.

          No longer tested like some Job broken-hearted on my sofa with a tube in my belly and dreams in my head, today I go forth strong, healthy, and loved to find my way, earn my keep and leave no mess behind. 

          Life is wonderful.  I have no cause for complaint, no reason to doubt myself. 

            The test of my faith is the belief that I deserve the riches of love, trust, loyalty and good fortune here laid before me.  The true challenge is not to qualify and prevaricate, wonder about my worth and settle for half, thinking I am lucky enough for that.

            When disaster has struck in the past and hopes were dashed, I have consoled myself with the belief that life comes with both the good and the bad.  Lumps must be taken and swallowed, and the pieces picked up.  My faith seemed to be hinged on survival and pushing forward against the trials, over-coming instead of embracing.  My story reflects that belief.

            Today, I walk boldly into a new life with the restructured understanding that my mind creates my reality and I expect to find the world of my dreams where I live my passion, celebrate my joy, learn from my pain and live fully from my heart.  There is no more or less.

            Love over fear.

            The victory is mine.  Each and every moment, I have the choice to look at the two diverging paths and remember one is not one and the other the other.  Both are love and the choice vanishes as soon as I step forward in either direction.

            If we let it, fear creeps in and delivers doubt, creates an insidious dissonance in the question of whether I go this way or that.  Fear pretends there is a better choice between two equals and pries open an unsettled feeling that diminishes the power of faith.  Through that weakened crack pours the negative energy that makes us sabotage the very actions we wish to take.

            Like a mother and father who had divorced.  Trying to find balance in that separation, I have heard one voice urging me to follow dreams and another to just get a good job.  Somewhere my filters distorted the message that the path could be one and the same and both were about love.

           For every "what if I could..." that came to mind, a resounding "What if you can't..." has inevitably followed.  The last fifty years has answered the latter and proven I can still be okay, one foot moving inexorably before the other again and again and again.

            These last four years have put into words the faith that grows stronger within me.  The first heart-felt, intuitive, open-ended and loving question that moves my soul along with my feet is the one worthy of my focus and attention.  I set out this morning by sitting on this couch first moving my hand across these pages with scribbles no less important than the real steps I will take later this afternoon.

            In my head resounds the wonderful memory of the little boy on his mother's lap, one of their favorite books in both their hands, after his father has said good-night with a hug and a kiss and another playful shove.  Her voice so cheerful and strong repeats what she has read to his sisters before and would again many times after, "I think I can, I think I can, I know I can..."

Please share with your friends

Tweet

MC Squared

          Calories are energy, a unit of potential heat most often measured in food and calculated in how we feed our body.  A clear and quantifiable amount, we can see what goes in and link it directly to the exercise and activity necessary to burn it off, what must be accomplished to get it back out.

            ...or we get fat.

            Money is energy.  Likewise, we produce in fits and spurts or methodical routines and track our bank accounts like so many meals.  We accumulate and compare, struggle to make ends meet or hoard our stashes like squirrels preparing for winter.

            In this case, obesity is often considered a good thing. People envy the man in his castle on the top of the pile, the hearts of women and respect of fathers laid on the mantel like so many trophies.   More can seem better and there are many of us who are raised with our focus on the calories more than the taste. To some, there can never be enough and it must be flaunted brazenly to cover over the holes of fragility in the basic structure.

            Love is energy.  Our hearts expand and flow without measure, swell to the point of aching.  We speak in poetry of "bursting" when it is accepted and "broken" when it is not, but either way, the passion is energy that fuels our existence with vitality as succulent as the most exquisite meal.

           

              Sexuality is energy.  In our most sacred practice, we unite with our beloved, making love, creating joy and discovering passion that feeds our soul as much as any food can enrich our body. Two souls connect and become one with source, ecstatic and entwined, passion for life, creating a life of passion.

            Fear is energy.  It blocks all that we might do with billboards that can turn us in wrong directions, create doubts about what lies ahead, temptations of disasters that may or may not be actually lurking, luring us from our determined roads.

            In so many ways the quality of our lives can be measured.  We seek definitions to account, justify and explain our actions and behaviors.  No matter how hard I try to stay in the beauty of the moment first waking each morning, my mind bounces from past to future, evaluating and promising, missing out on the grace of the sunshine that dawns through my window for another day.

            Meditation helps to find the quiet place of gratitude, but in the bustle of the day, it is a constant battle not to judge each moment, quantify and articulate the progress and regressions as good and bad.  Calories in and dollars handed over the counter.  Am I loved? or so desperately, painfully alone when I settle back down into dreams at night?

            As if a message from my mother herself, so long ago lost in Alzheimer's and finally death, a postcard greeted me from my kitchen table this morning, tossed down by my son who shifts his belongings to live with me full time.  Of a painting in Paris by my father, on the backside she wrote a gushing note about the wonder of the trip they were on. 

            Her delight was so contagious, even now, fifteen years later, her love and gratitude so plentiful, it is easy to conjure the vision of the woman scribbling on a cafe table, thinking of her grandchildren, surrounded by the simple pleasure of a market full of life. Tears I had not felt since her graveside (a year ago today, I suddenly realize) welled from deep within as I remembered how much grateful energy she allowed to flow from within and without.

            Life is energy.  We expand and contract with every breath, opening our hearts to what is available or shutting ourselves behind walls of fear.  Each moment lies before us to make a choice.  We have the power to act or re-act, doing over and over and over again until the lessons are learned.

            Intuition is the voice within that truly knows the best path for each of us, ignoring the billboards of fear and guiding us towards fulfillment of our highest interests.  Listening carefully, like a heart beat from exercise and nurtured by diet, if we let it, the voice becomes stronger and louder.

            Gratitude is energy, a celebration that invites more love into our lives.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Finding the Pot of Gold

Starting with a swollen head and more rainfall, the day seemed like a slog through thigh deep mud until I realized it was the first anniversary of my mother's death. No matter how normal we want to be, there are times the quagmire is real and we just have to sink into it and allow the time to be what it is.

The single blessing of Alzheimer's, I answer people's condolences, is that it gets you used to the loss and even makes their passing a relief. After a decade of coping, despite the gaping hole, we can get back to our own lives, remembering who and where we are, maybe even a little clearer about where we want to go.

My mother was a grand woman of hope and encouragement. On the cloudiest of days and in the thickest of mud, she could open a closed heart just by stopping, listening and offering a hug. If people's greatest need beyond food, clothing and shelter, is to be heard, she could feed the world.

No one was too small or unimportant to become the focus of her attention. She was never too busy. The hard work of my father provided her the canvas, but she applied the spirit that made portrait after portrait of conversations that inspired people young and not so young to follow their dreams.

Her boundless optimism could be irritating to me who shivered in wet clothes and would prefer changing in the tent to coming back out to see yet another rainbow. It was contagious, however, and has seen me through problems that might have settled me otherwise into harmful depressions of immobility.

This morning could easily have felt like that. My problems with money and frustration with apparent unemployment could feel overwhelming. No lover's eye to brighten my breakfast might immerse me in loneliness. The steady drizzle outside could pour misery into open wounds.

Instead, acknowledgment of the day and remembrance of the woman who was so steadfast beside me creates a meditation that keeps her spirit alive and close within my heart. Disdaining celebration of Mother's Day, she requested honor every day or none at all. The little things to her made all the difference.


So I learned to put one foot forward, and then swing the other past. When looking at too many piles of leaves, she taught me how to focus on one and drag it to the corner before raking the next onto the tarp.

Today, I start with the dishes in the sink, sweep up the floor and sit down to scribble a few humble words. It is the Labor Day weekend and instead of bemoaning no job to take off from nor picnic in sight, I do the work of every day in honor of my mother who is no longer here. Her spirit still influences and her heart still warms.

Her encouragement so consistent from so long ago still pushes this pen and I respond as if she still sits at the end of this marble table waiting to read. Only if we allow ourselves to be lost in the moment do we lose the love that has brought us so far.


Awareness shows us the rainbow and stops the shivering, warms our heart and gives us reason to come out of the tent.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

ROAR

At the peak of my warrior initiation, I was offered the opportunity to face the ugliest demons in my soul. Having watched other men break down and sob, I still struggled, but ultimately could not release control of myself and let the deep emotions overtake my consciousness.

The leaders teased and cajoled my tougher inner man, tried to humiliate my little boy, angered my sensitive self, but I would not bend. Even after banishment to a dunce’s corner, on the next try, I merely went through the motions of my sixth grade self, giving them a piece of what I knew they wanted me to do.

The process brought me home to begin leaving my home. It returned me to my passions of writing, music and skis, but with nearly a point of stubborn pride, I looked at the part of me that refused to let go.

This impending surgery offers a bigger and better chance. If I fail here to take the risk, explore the darkness and make the leap, I am frightened to imagine what the Universe might deliver next for me to learn my lessons. The odds of success are very high to survive and thrive after this surgery, still I feel this is a fight for my life, a fierce battle, if not against death itself, certainly for the quality of how I will live on from here.

In my I-group last night, it was easy to see how much, in spite of my wound to the groin, I am too stuck in my head. Always the story-teller, so comfortable with words, phrases and volumes of sharp analyzations, the time has come to set aside all of the intellectual processing and “simply” get more settled into my physical body, no matter how aching and full of spasms it pretends to be.

We pushed back our chairs and I began to growl. The first sounds were too wimpy and awkward for a strong man claiming to be a warrior. I sputtered and fizzled a few times with embarrassment, rocking on my toes with eyes closed to my brothers who were fully there in support.

Gradually, the growl grew into something more affirmative. My nervous chuckle punctuated the in-betweens that could have been reverential silence of mounting energy. I had to breathe, plant my feet more solidly, center my soul and open my eyes to the men still there surrounding and supporting me.

On the next push, a roar was born, feeble and fragile as a baby, but growing stronger with each breath, a roar that sounded like a lion giving warning, establishing its territory. The others joined in and I reached for the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars.

From the back of my throat, the strong belly that sings, even lower to the sacral region that needs to be healed, my roar bellowed forth with more confidence, urgent and aroused, impassioned. Anguish and frustration released full volume, shaking my body.

I gathered more breath, rocking in silence hands twitching. My groin thrust forward, pulsating with twitches of energy, shocks of twinges, building up again for more release.

The primal roar blasted outwards. My brothers urged me to go farther, deeper, get pissed that I cannot piss. They supported my anger like a foundation to a home, and then quickly let it crumble to nothing as I released the tears that cried out that this ordeal was all too much to bear.

Still, again, I stood in silence, breathing and twitching, building myself back up again. Shallow and deep together, my breath brought relief. The exhalations cleared the toxins. My heart raced to embrace the love so anxious to be expressed.


No longer do I want to wait. No more hold back. For far too long, perhaps a lifetime, I have held myself in check, twisting and contorting to be my mother’s son, my father’s man, something in between for my sisters, brothers and lovers along the way.

Love for one in particular, love for all, needs to be expressed and the final set of roars became the affirmation that I am no longer blocked, no more holding back, unwilling to accept half-hearted effort and lame excuses from myself in my life.

My love is worthy, my heart full of gold; shadows evaporate in the bright light of a man accepting his power. The roar of my rebirth erupted from my sacred chakra, an ejaculation of soul no longer ruptured, but flowing free, proud and magnificent.

“As a man among men,” I shouted, eye to eye with each man in the room, “I go forward in celebration at the top of my lungs.”

And finally, one held up a mirror and I had to face the deep and dazzling clear and tear-filled eyes of my own self, wash the sheepish shy grin like mud off my own face, and repeat the loudest of all, “As a man among men, I will come back into this body healed and in celebration, love to the fullest of my heart and at the TOP OF MY LUNGS.”

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Ruminations on Sexuality Part 3: Shadows

The sad truth is that something that feels so wonderful as sex and connects two people in such a beautiful way is often twisted into perverted distortions that can harm a person for life. Wishing to heal and celebrate as I move toward my surgery, I first have to mourn.

Because it is vital to the continuation of life on this planet and it unites souls intimately, sex is associated with love. We want to see the act as a healthy expression of joyful caring and commitment between two lovers.

In the pursuit of that love, and because it just plain feels so good, the dance between strangers begins across the room (now adays often across the internet), a courtship of rituals designed to create safe boundaries for exploration. When attraction is strong, the dance might be short before clothes are shed and the embrace electrifies. Sometimes it takes an exquisite amount of tantalizing time and patience.

In perfect scenarios, the mutuality of courtship creates a sparkling and precious bond that makes life worth living. The dazzle of discovery and consummation—if only for a night or a lifetime—burns brightly in the heart ever after.

There are times, however, when the lust of one does not equal another and if it happens at all, the ultimate meeting is dis-jointed, awkward and uncomfortable, painful and disappointing. What seemed like perfection is tarnished by the reality of every day hardship or roses that turn out to have too many thorns.

Unfortunately, much too often, the mutual respect is not part of the agreement at all and one takes advantage of the other. This sometimes can be in the form of a woman—often described as the “weaker sex”—using her body to man-ipulate her target by the gift or withholding of her sex.

Mostly, it is a man (or men) dominant and aggressive, forcing will over seductive attraction who will have his way no matter the protest, resistance or resignation of his victim. Too many perversions have been invented by tortured souls to be worthy of description, the point being that lust, anger and frustration can combine in a perfect storm of brutish behavior that gives shame to our gender.

History has witnessed innumerable ways that power and domination have forced unspeakable transgressions on women too vulnerable with only screams to defend themselves against rape and emotional pillage. In a war lasting thousands of years, men have surrendered their honor using their tool for love as a weapon for destruction of masses.

Individually, at the hearth of a home, husbands (often under the influence of alcohol) desecrate and de-sanctify their marriages both Godly or convenient, forcing themselves upon a wife they see as property, some thing owed to them. Date rape is common and women are viewed as objects, tools to meet a man’s satisfaction. Heartless cruelties abound.

Research begins to clarify that so often these crimes stem from the residue of some childhood abuse inflicted by a tainted adult, vicious cycles passing through generations of pain. Wounds that never heal create more wounds as men mistake lust as an outlet for pain they cannot identify within themselves, finding no relief in their mindless actions and causing only more pain.

These perversions of sexuality make us all cautious, painting fear on a canvas that should be resplendent with colors of joy. A universal shame settles upon us and the subject that should be celebrated becomes taboo, something whispered about and explored behind closed doors. Beautiful feelings are judged as something to hide.

As a young boy, growing aware of my body and the pulse of blood that made my heart race and my penis expand with pleasure, standing comfortably emboldened was not appropriate. The messages came quickly and clearly to cover myself and move out of the light and into the shadows. Even as she tried to say it was natural, the tone of my mother’s voice was most definitely uncomfortable and my father was not around to speak at all.

This energy, I quickly learned, was nothing to share. If I should feel it at all, it should be in a room alone.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Long Live the Queen

Nearly a month has passed since my mother’s ashes have been laid to rest. Almost a year ago, my scaffold collapsed. This crisp day, so clear, bright and full of color seems loaded with more portents of things past than vital with future dreams.

Uncharacteristically, my pen has lain still, silent as the breath no longer flowing. Even as I stand poised over an insurance career, play music and cherish times with a friend, my heart lags as if a few steps behind.

Alzheimer’s insidious hold had been strong on my mother such that not only were we not surprised by her death, but in the past year had been wishing for its arrival. My last sight of her was of a wasted spirit in a fragile body, too weary to raise a hand and eyes long unfocused. Recognition was brief, erratic and rare. Resignation was evident, the fight long over.

Reaching for a morsel or some glitter that had caught her eye and no one else could see, she reached forward and fell out of her chair, breaking a leg. My sister Lane imagines she jumped. However it happened, the event triggered the inevitable. My four sisters were at her side to keep vigil with my father, singing “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” in a four part harmony at the moment of her actual passing.

Strangely content not to rush to her bedside with the others, I stayed in Vermont to fulfill a show commitment, singing softly to her throughout the days the songs I remembered as her favorites. The only son, we had a bond of our own which was honored by a vigil of my own from a distance.

Once there, I absorbed the reality of her death by witnessing her cremation. Lane and I drove across the county, catching up after more than a year of separation by a country. My mother’s body lay in a simple box, little better than cardboard. I had no need to see her, but stood with my hand on it, staring into the flame, controlled and intense, waiting to consume her. I pushed her in with little effort and Lane pressed the button that closed the door and released the fury.

Outside, we sat on the curb, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. The late summer morning, crisp and clear, was a Mom kind of day. We could hear the roar muffled by the walls and meditated on what was happening inside, profound and simple, an ageless process of life.

The task of the urn somehow fell to me, by action, probably the least artistic of the bunch. I liked the idea of copper and held a vague concept in my mind of a cylinder, but once back home, did nothing about it until it was nearly time to head south again.

On my piece of the marble table that had been the center of her home for fifty years, where pumpkins had been carved, egg nog served and millions of words exchanged, often with laughter, I cut and shaped the pieces of her urn. Soldering them proved difficult and frustrating until I utilized a pair of horseshoes that had been lying around since I had grabbed them with the marble after selling our home.

It looked dented and burnished to me, unworthy, until I remembered her loving energy and could almost hear her voice reassuring and encouraging. That patina of scars from the soldering flame that had tarnished the purity of the copper, she would have said, was the most beautiful part and I was the little boy again, glowing, so pleased she loved it. I twisted and soldered one last piece of scrap as a flourish on the lid and rested comfortably with the idea that my first real effort of art would be hers forever.

On another Mom kind of day, we took her to St Peter’s, an exquisite oasis in the middle of the suburbs, timeless with pre-Revolutionary graves and sheep keeping the grass low. Most memories of my grandfather include visits to tend the family plot and his reminder that my mom would one day be there too. This day had come and her little boy shoveled the dirt carefully around her.

Each of us in some form has acknowledged that in the past ten years, the frail, demented and failing woman grown more helplessly childlike every week had distracted us from our memories of the strong Mother who had gifted us so much. Now with the death of the physical, her vital spirit embraces each of us, my father especially.

Her energy has been revitalized. The woman who saw beauty in everything, found joy everywhere and inspired the best in everyone around her has returned.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Safety Belt

A snap of the fingers and the shake of a few hands turn me into an insurance salesman. Well, I have to take a test and go through some training, but the hard work of deciding is done.

The visions of a man paying his bills, taking his woman on a trip, putting his kids through college are just too strong to ignore. I have struggled so long and so hard to keep my head above water, it should be an amazing experience to actually swim.

My background and emotional training rebels to this move as if it were a sell-out with a capital “S”. I can feel my mother rolling in her bed of Alzheimer’s disbelief.

Despite or because of our comfortable circumstances, we were raised to question authority before the phrase had become cliché. I went to a school that encouraged reinventions of the wheel. My mother’s pride that my father’s rank earned him an invitation to shake the hand of Henry Kissinger was surpassed only by her satisfaction to look the Secretary of State in the eye and refuse to do so. My family has honored success in spite of the rules, not because of them.

Yet as affectionately as my father tells the story of his rebellious wife, he tries to mask his disappointment in the financial dependence of his only son. He carried the mortgage on my first home and opened the door to my others. He bailed out my business several times, losing considerable money, and now has given me the time (credited against my inheritance) to recuperate emotionally from my failures and physically from my accident.

His push for me to find a job has been overt, but compassionately understanding and supporting my quest for passion and creativity. He followed his brother into his father’s business and hated that part of it so much, he rarely invited me to even see his office, much less get a sense of what a working environment actually looked like. Without clear guidance, his shadow has influenced my every decision about earning money. This decision being made coincidentally on his birthday delivers the perfect gift of irony that at long last I have chosen a near guarantee of financial success.

In the days since, the magnitude of the change seems both invisible and immensely apparent. Life goes on as usual, balancing my limited resources and coaxing the Redster to carry me a few miles further along. Internally, the smile shapes the growing vision of soon being able to pay cash for something more suitable for transportation and looking for a brighter place to live.

The upheaval of time has yet to color my reality. I book shows and volunteer for some projects as if without the slightest constraint on schedule. Harkening to their demand for 50 hour weeks to start, my consciousness has not assimilated the red and still lives in camouflage. The shift to accountability is a pink elephant, lurking in the next room.

My real fear is how the embrace of this “straight” job will affect my internal organs. As I have been writing so passionately about following dreams, living authentically and from the heart, I struggle with the loss of integrity this might bring, as if once again truly on the verge of being the writer my mother always knew I could be, fear rushes in, turning me in another “safer” direction.

All the rationalizations about flexibility of schedule, independence, and the security of financial vehicles are easily conjured because they have rolled off my tongue so fluently for thirty years as my construction business got more complicated and consumming. I blame its failure squarely on the heart wanting to be occupied elsewhere and risk that same half-hearted, self-sabotaging effort even more now.

Dostoevsky remained in his rented rooms, largely alone, wrestling his addictions and writing profoundly and passionately. Fitzgerald drank and Hemingway romped with bulls. Kerouac’s energy for the road sputtered out of gas much too early and I wonder about the spontaneous fireworks he could have generated with a laptop from his watchtower, but the contributions he did type transformed a generation.

Me? I sing my songs, write my wrongs, fit in with the throngs, selling insurance and living happily ever after.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Roads More Travelled

Last week the band took a little road trip to play three shows in three nights in three states. Ian called it a tour and talked a lot about the RV we will soon have to ride in style. In heavy traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, we even spotted a nice van pulling an equipment trailer and all agreed that set-up would serve us well to drive across country next summer…if only…

As it was, we were in two tiny cars. I drove the Redster with Ian, Dan and Sawyer. Kent followed my every turn (and there were way more than was needed to find each gig), his efficient little blue Toyota right on my tail, loaded black with all the gear.

He had a cooler full of juice and bologna sandwiches and got many miles to the gallon. We had a few McDonalds and quick-stop munchies and kept adding duct tape to hold on a piece of side stripe that was blowin’ in the wind. In Connecticut, I was pulled over for having a head light out, but we were rarely going too fast.

The conversation was crisp and funny, poking holes in each other without offending, and there were long comfortable silences when each was sleeping or drifting under their Ipod. I enjoyed adding the ages of my three passengers together and still coming up short of mine—further proof (if I needed any) in my red “sports” car that I am in a crisis of youth.

For why else, given my age and tiny bank account, would I take to the road, treat the band to unhealthy burgers (I can still feel them in my belly) and sleep on couches to play for small audiences and a smaller percentage of the door? Too easily acquaintances must be snickering behind my back, shaking their heads with pity. I have close family members who clearly do.

The truth is that it did not cost us so much (and we did get a few dollars back) and I had a lot more fun than on a long week-end at the shore or in the mountains. Along the way was so much music, good laughter and lots of family and friends, I do not fault myself in the slightest.

Two nights the guys stayed with my sister outside Philadelphia. We came into the house very quietly very late. Most of the day in between—with little travel necessary and lots of time available—the instruments were cleaned, plucked and strummed. I learned how creativity thrives in that atmosphere of comradarie as we tossed chords and rhythms around as if we had no where to go, nothing else to do, and not a care in the world. Practicing a little, we experimented a lot, toyed with harmonies and challenged each other with cover tunes in alternate styles.

The first night was a small coffee house with a good reputation for music. My cousins and a few others showed up and the owner promised that on other nights—not to take it personally—the place could just as easily be packed. Road weary, the light was golden and the adrenalin strong, rousing us to play a strong set, solid and vibrant. The list pointed towards practicing for the culminating show, with several highlights I wished had been recorded.

The next night we were headliners for a venue that was probably better than us—impressive names posted on the walls—but I invoked the home town advantage by creating a mini-reunion to get enough high school friends there. We felt like royalty with a real Green Room, soft sofa and a fridge stocked with water. The soundman set us up sweetly so the songs really resonated as best we could play them.

Wanting so much to play, sounding so good to ourselves, when the opening act failed to show, we were even happier to add a second set, eliminating the need to cut out any of our favorites. Again the adrenalin flowed, the audience was loaded with friends, family and well-wishes. Except for confusing the names of my band mates, we rocked and soulfully crooned as well as I ever imagined we could.

The final night was at the Bitter End in New York City, a stage that has hosted the finest names in the genre. My third time this year, the aura is no less intimidating and exhilarating. Even playing acoustically, that we were a band with a drum kit stretched the limits of the singer/songwriter ambiance, but it is just too much fun to play with these guys to leave them behind. I had no interest to stand on that stage alone. It was bliss to play the grand piano on “Times Like These” and a few days later discover a video of Nora Jones fingering those same keys.


All of the excitement was punctuated most clearly by a side event Saturday afternoon that crystallized miraculously why intuition is leading me so strongly towards playing more music. Describing a vivid dream to my son a few days before we left where both my parents died within hours of each other, I said it was so real I would not be surprised to receive a call later that morning. Instead, I made the call to the administrator at their home and requested that to warm up for our show in the evening, we could play acoustically for the residents in the afternoon.

On a quick visit in the morning, my mother, deep in Alzheimer’s, had not the slightest recognition of me, just another strange face looming in front of her. Spruced up and wheeled in to our impromptu performance, however, the music clearly reached inside and aroused her confused soul. Her eyes grew wide. Her foot wrestled to find the beat. Even her lips worked to mouth the words to songs she had once known so very well and loved so very much.

My father, beside her, held her hand, radiant in his slight smile with a love that has connected them for seventy years. My eyes locked on hers, my voice scratched with tears, I choked on notes as they reached into all of our hearts. Each in the band was touched powerfully, remarking afterwards in our so many different ways how profoundly humbling it was to be a part of creating such a moment.

So we spent more money than we gained, travelled so many miles in so little time, ate and slept in such unhealthy ways. The balance of friendships, family and musical moments was tipped so heavily to the positive, however, I am no sooner home than sending out emails to arrange the next trip, hoping it goes farther and longer to spread the excitement we are so grateful to feel.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Fresh Air

"Breathe...reeeeelax...let it go." I used to chant to one of my soccer kids sprawled on the ground contorted in agony and fear.

"Breeeeeathe," I used to say to my own little kids sucking on a pinched finger or vomiting into the toilet bowl in the middle of the night.

"Easy for you to say," they can sulk today, "You never get sick."

It used to be true. Or if I did, I did my best to act like I was fine, as if by pretending to be normal, I would be. Symptoms disappeared if I gave them no attention. Standing straight and tall made my breath much more full and my back ache go away. A simple smile can cure so many ailments.

So just days out of the hospital, I asked a friend to drive me to the venue and I mustered all of the energy I could to sing one song, following through on my commitment to participate in the contest I had waited a year to enter (I did not win, nor even made the finals). As quickly as I could, I dropped the splint off my wrist and scribbled words until the ache screamed, then scribbled some more after a rest.

This past week, I have been grumpy and ornery, wanting to do more, alternately optimistic and discouraged. My intention to regain normality in my life is constantly thwarted by the reality of a daunting fatigue and the irritating pinch from the catheters. I feel like I can do so much and just as soon as I try, I have to collapse on the couch no matter the will to continue.

"What's the matter with me?" I wonder, watching out my window as everyone else goes to work.

The week started with Kip'n'Co playing two hours in a club to a tiny audience, but streamed across the internet by a local entrepreneur, the music reached hundreds of people around the world (the program kept track of number and location). My elation to feel so stimulated by the good sound was tempered by a long rest the next day, but not drained enough to cancel a rehearsal and audition to add another lead player.

Each morning, I perused the classifieds, imagining many different ways my varied construction management, book-keeping, and counseling skills could be translated to a different sort of work. I sent out resumes with excitement, intoxicated to think I could recharge my life in a completely different context than by wearing a nailbelt.

Expecting to have one catheter removed at our appointment, however, the doctor decided another two weeks with both would maximize the opportunity for healing without further surgery. My best friend doctor buddy came with me to ask pertinent questions and we got a sobering picture that while I will continue to recover, it will be long and slow, even without the surgery that looms as fifty percent likely.

Amazingly, he predicts I can ski soon (even with the one catheter still in my belly), says I am free to drive now and could return to carpentry whenever I want. I just have to be careful, moderate my energy and rest whenever tired. All that seems pretty far-fetched to me today, But I will myself to trust him.

The assessment hit me hard. Despite the fact I know people who have not, or will not, recover from their particular challenges, my own story seemed bound for the happily-ever ending. The Kool Kat was determined not to lose his slick demeanor, but this news finally brought on the depression I have feared since the scaffold collapsed. I wallowed on my couch in a stupor, talked miserably and full of self-pity to friends on the phone and Facebook. I understood at last with tears in my throat how people could feel the best was all behind them.

Looking in the mirror, my skin has grown flabby and stretched limp, dried and scaley. My hair is unkempt, half the time my cheeks are scratchy. I am afraid this is the event that people say makes a man suddenly grow old. One day I was playing soccer against 20 year olds (hardly bothered by five stitches), anticipating for the first time in 20 years a winter full of skiing, and the next I am supine in misery on my couch, making a slow effort just to wash dishes or get up the bank to my little rumbling redster.

And then I drank more Jack Daniels than I had in college days when I thought (mistakenly) that it would be fun.

Thirty-six hours (and one hang-over) later, I sit writing these words from the seat of my car halfway out onto a beach in Massachussets. The seat is pushed back and bolstered with a cushion. My window is open to breathe fresh air. The sun shines warmly and bright into my little red cocoon. An expanse of Boston Bay shimmers before me, crowded with long boats and stroking oars.

I have brought my son to a rowing regatta, the beach pulsing with the shrill energy of high school students competing. His team is doing very well, a fine example of synchronistic behavior well focused. Parents roam about proudly.

I am surrounded by life and loving it!

Alternately, I put down this pen to rest my aching wrist. I wrap myself under my heavy suede jacket, like a calf against his mother, closing my eyes as comfortably as if I sit at home on my couch or am still buried under the heated blankets and cushioned by pillows in the hospital, tended by a soothing nurse's hand.

Only here the view is much more inspirational. As easily, I dial my phone and connect with friends and family around the country, weighing my energy and considering options for the next few days of this Thanksgiving adventure and how far I might have the strength and stamina to wander before returning to Vermont to recover in the isolation of my home.

"Breathe," I keep chanting to myself, "Breeeeathe!"

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Surrender

I am raised in a family of achievers.

Before the age of five and entering kindergarten, I knew well it was my German ancestor, a century earlier, who had “invented” the concept that children, like flowers, should be raised in a garden of opportunities to discover, whose hand carved pony in our living room I could rock so fast. Long before a picture surfaced on the internet as proof, I believed without wonder that my grandfather had worked with Einstein, Roosevelt and others, an industrialist “responsible” for sending tanks to England and rebuilding Austria after the War.

My mother constantly identified all the incredible accomplishments of my father, tales remarkable enough embellished with such awe I was impressed and proud on the surface but hopelessly intimidated deeply underneath. Not only could he master any task he tried, I was constantly told by relatives and teachers that I too had the gifts that would create success for myself wherever I might choose to wander.

My two older sisters were such organizers and so popular, when my name was recognized entering high school, the expectations were made clear that I should make important contributions in and out of the classrooms. It seemed easy to become officer of so many clubs, the class and student council. It was no surprise to win the scholarship to be a foreign exchange student and the day I wanted the individual soccer trophy, I simply played my best and took it home.

My mother’s love and faith in me was rarely tested and never faltered. Even at twenty-three when I married a recently widowed, now pregnant, older woman with two other children, my mother took them in and made them her own. She read every story I wrote and listened to every song, convinced far more than I that I had things important to say and my passion to create was the purpose of my life.

As I narrowed my choices and construction was more and more required to pay my bills, she rarely showed disappointment, but reminded me that even without an architect's license I was still designing homes for families. As my business was in trouble, she contributed money and after declaring bankruptcy, she offered no judgment, but total support to pick up the pieces and keep on working. The strife in my marriage growing ever more apparent (still, I hid the worst from her), she never suggested I end it, but advised always to keep my children in mind to do the best for them.

All of my life, I believed anything was possible. Hard work, open heart and determination could overcome any obstacle. If what I wanted was not working out, I just had to want it a little more, work a little harder. There was nothing I could not do.

Yet, today I lie on my couch with a limited view of trees, sky and a neon carwash out my window, in the basement apartment of the crumbling home on the “wrong” side of town, smelling the sewer treatment plant next door. My body is broken. My second marriage is well-ended in failure, my business in ruins. A daughter will not acknowledge my existence in her life. I rely on my father for money and have no idea what my work might be a month from now whether my body has healed or not.

It is my upbringing to remember I have other children who love me, call me regularly and stop by everyday to play Parcheesi. I have renovated my apartment into a comfortable space with beautiful hardwood floors and I have the skills to build new cabinets in the kitchen when I am better. My father, though from a very different generation, still has faith I will find my way whatever I do. My mother, though uncomprehending, still tears up with distant memory when I play her a song. I have more friends than ever who invite me to share my life no matter how humble.

The challenge for me today is to remain on my couch for now and do nothing. Between each sentence written on this yellow pad, minutes float by as I stare out the window, search for meaning, understanding and awareness, and pray for reassurances from deep within. After 55 years of pushing forward with unabashed determination to conquer the shrill voice of unworthiness that has plagued my every effort, this accident has forced me to finally surrender. It has facilitated a complete giving over to God and the universe, a submission to faith which I have never been able to accomplish on my own.

For this I am grateful.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Let Go, Let Love

For a lifetime, I have had my mother to talk over the joys and pains in my world. Even with four other sisters vying for her attention, she always had an ear for me.

There was the usual and customary place at the end of the kitchen counter where I stood on a little foot stool—no matter the age—and shared my stories while she cooked dinner. A great marble table was the energetic center of the house and she held court around it for fifty years, listening with heart and doling out wisdom I rarely had reason to question.

When I lived on the other coast, the phone line became a lifeline as I described the little steps of her grandchildren and the bigger strides that led to the dissolution of a marriage. In her final years of awareness, I called her daily from a cell phone to remind her of the roads, towns and views of Vermont she had loved so much, until she could no longer remember how to answer the phone.

Next door neighbors in Oregon, my oldest sister Lane absorbed the role. She witnessed first hand my desperate leap into a ready-made family at the ripe age of twenty-three, when it was too scary for me to look out on the horizon of the vast open world alone. She was at my daughter’s home birth. Tom and Lane offered me shelter in Oregon and encouraged me to explore the world, open my heart and reach for the divine.

As my mother’s perception closed down, I burdened Lane more and more with binding the wounds that kept opening in the bosom of my second marriage. For twenty years, she listened to tales of my compulsive behavior to win love at any cost, driving my business to ruin to support dysfunction in the family. Despite her struggle with no perceptible progress in her little brother’s maturity, she valiantly prayed in myriad voices that I would “Let go, Let Love”, get out of my own way and ultimately accept the energy of God and Spirit so available and surrounding me.

Over the years, I have developed other lines of support, like octopus tentacles, utilizing deep friendships and total strangers to hear my stories, confirming my justifications and rationalizations. My great pal, the Doctor, has been like a brother to me and many more sisters have been added to the original four.

Two years ago, after twenty (or forty) years of being so stuck, so compulsively determined, I finally understood I had to shift my energy or die.

The relief of family and friends that my emotional tales have movement at last is immense. This burst of creative energy in song and words is joyfully celebrated, supported and encouraged. Letting go of the struggle to solve it all on my own allows for brilliant colors to be painted on horizons that are much more inviting.

Curiously, I have attracted into my life a woman who challenges me to confront so many of my old compulsions and inspires me to rise spiritually into a kind of friendship I have never known before. At my best, my stories to her are less about myself and my perceived suffering and more about our common blood, our journey of spirits trying to be soulfully human in the body.

This accident provides the opportunity for me to stop telling stories entirely…well, almost. Lane and I decided I did not need her to cross the country to be at my couch-side. The good Doctor is recovering from surgery of his own. My dear friend has had a broken car, a full work schedule, and other serendipitous events to make visits too short and sweet. For long, long, long hours in the darkness and the light, I am largely alone.

Although able and encouraged to walk across the room or out into the yard, I am mostly confined to the couch. Sharp bites in my wrist renders making music virtually impossible and every sentence written here is a labor of mind and body.

“Let go, let Love,” I repeat over and over to myself, head supported by cushions, eyes half closed looking heavenward, hands dropped and listless at my side. There is nothing for it but to let the voice grow quiet and the heart strong.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Roads Taken

Full of ice cream, mango and a break-a-leg bon voyage from a good friend, my son and I redstered into the sunset, on our way at last to play music in the Big City, may show at the Bitter End. Happily, traffic on this holiday weekend was not flowing our way, so we cruised along in an easy gear with reggae soaring.

A road trip feels like one of our best activities together. We wander with purpose, redefining adventure, relaxed in our rhythm, banter bouncing between us, comfortable in our shared quiet and exuberance. Currently we have our favorite tunes, live sets of two rousing bands with vocals that compel us both to join in with full harmonies at the top of our lungs.

It astounds me to realize on our next trip, he will be able to help me with the actual driving, his grown hands on the wheel. Even more so, his voice has found the confidence that, if he wanted, he would be welcomed on stage to sing with me.

Through the late night darkness, we covered the miles with bits of conversations about romance and relationship, parents and children, the dreams that have been celebrated or dashed. The final hour he slept and I faught to stay awake, intoxicated with joy and dread for what lies ahead.

Having made it by the middle of the night, we stumbled into his apartment with laughter that we don’t need to be very quiet since my dad sleeps without his hearing aide, but we whispered anyway, exhausted adrenalin painting it all surreal. I poked around my father’s little apartment, identifying all of the precious pieces that once defined our anchoring home, but seem only transient here.

In the morning, I recognized my little show-and-tell self in my father as he represented his simple life to me in the tiny details of a fragile man nearly blind and deaf trying to keep his way. Simple tasks like unpackaging a new mouse for his computer, or changing a light bulb, are piled up and waiting for help when his children come to visit. The cabinet is empty, but he has what he eats exactly where he can find it, and carefully scribbles what is missing on the list for his weekly travel to the store.

His age, his weary aspect, his frailty are the constant subject at hand, yet a new sculpture of an old couple resting on their bench sits modestly in process. An alabaster whale has revealed itself on the cushioned (against a fall) coffee table and another larger block of stone awaits his definition on the terrace outside. He regularly checks his email and asks questions about posting messages to his facebook account. A man who talks so readily about impending death, praying it will take him swiftly, still living vitally.

My mother has lived in the ether of Alzheimer’s for some time now, having long lost her ability to pray for anything at all, sitting in silence or delighted by some shadow we cannot see. The pain of witnessing such a vacuum in someone once so robust with wisdom is daunting. Were I to live nearby like my sisters, I could understand my visits might be fewer and fewer, but living far away, I packed several into a small day like my suitcase over-flowing.

She sits in her wheel chair, propped with a pillow, surrounded by others in their chairs, oases of souls in a wilderness of lost minds. In her own room, I brought out my guitar to her wondering eyes, but the pluck of first strings opened them wide with amazement and she shivered with remembrance of things she cannot articulate.

At first, shy and tentative to play for my estranged mother, respectful of the institution where she now lies, I played quietly, fingered notes too deep for words. No matter the shell, however, I soon realized this is my mother, the woman who always listened with rapture and critiqued with honesty, celebrating my achievements and guiding disasters into learning opportunities, consoling my broken hearts. Given the burst of creativity that ignites my living these days, I owed her no less than the true story of my being, whether she could hear me or not.

Tears enveloping my words, I sang to her of perpetual motion and dances in the rain, broken mirrors and the commitment to this new life of passion that I knew she had always wanted for me. Voice scratched with emotion, I told her of the stories I am writing, the tale I tell in this blog, and the project for peace that would, if she could understand me, make her so proud. None of this would be happening without steadfast encouragement she gave me through all of those many years before.

A glimmer of her soul came to the surface as the music unfolded, the heart-splitiing gnashing of her teeth sub-sided slightly as her lips tried to form the words to the folk songs she had taught us on camping trips and in long lines to an artful event, or around the marble table on mornings of waffles and posing for my dad’s portraits.

For an instant, her eyes shimmered and danced, her body shivered with a delight so beautiful. Our tears mingled in an embrace, even as she just as quickly slipped away into that darkness again, leaving her only son alone, but OK.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

A Little Help from Our Friends

As a parent, it is a constant challenge to decipher the appropriate moments to just witness or actually step in to save the day. Having begun our journeys together nurturing and caring for our children in every way, it is an agonizing process to watch a difficult lesson be learned.

Just as we are given eight or nine months to get used to the idea that our life will so radically change with the birth of a child, this process naturally begins in nearly unnoticeable ways. We recognize easily the difference between offering bites—no matter how distracted the toddler might be—and jamming the spoon down its throat. Later, we wrestle with the proportion of dessert to a clean plate. And later still, we agonize how to make the connection between the number of Big Mac’s and their hesitation to go to the beach.

We hold their tiny and trusting fingers reassuringly as they take their first tentative steps and excitedly let go when they are ready to waddle three steps to our partner across the room. We cheer loudly at the soccer game and cheer them up afterwards. Our hearts swell with marvelous pride to see them step to the podium to accept an honor or speak lessons of their own. We are proudly tearful to see them walk down the Aisle.

This morning my son awakens before dawn to continue work on a rough draft of a world civics paper due today. Despite an important trip last week with his mother and an impressive weekend effort at a model United Nations conference, there was time to sketch out the themes along the way. Instead, he struggles in the early hour and the work suffers a lack of quality. He knows I cannot write it for him, but pleads I at least write a note requesting an extension.

My heart aches to see him suffer, nodding off in his seat at midnight, rising slowly to try again to find any light in the darkness this morning. I have the ability to dictate the copy and have to restrain myself.

So clearly I remember thirty years ago the impotent concern in my mother’s voice, understanding I had already committed my heart to a grieving widow ten years older and her two children. She could only watch and celebrate over the years as life went well and another child was born, and worry when I called across the country with my voice full of pain and fear. It would never have benefited to utter the slightest phrases resembling “I told you so,” or “Perhaps you should…”

My father also has been constantly challenged by my need for money. After bailing me out with thousands for a business that ultimately failed anyway, despite my optimistic promises, he knows the day has come and gone when I should be walking on my own, yet finds it impossible to deny my plaintiff plea for help with the rent while I abandon that work and just focus on rebuilding my life. He wants to see the results in my pocket and loves enough to discern that things do not always turn out the way he might want or even understand. This time, at least, he can see my focus strikes more directly at the true heart of my problems.

We were raised to know that it was alright to make mistakes. To achieve higher goals, one has to take risks. That same child who crashes to the side, bumping his head painfully in the steps between parents, is comforted and set back on his feet, eventually making it all the way across, and even later, steps beyond, through the door and out of the nest.

We stumble, we fall. We pick ourselves up. Hopefully, there is always someone nearby to embrace us, dust off our knees, and send us on our way again.

I cannot write my son’s paper for him, but I can make him breakfast. I can encourage him to complete another paragraph and submit the rough draft as best it can be this morning. Knowing that he has done his best today, after he has gone, I can write an email to his teacher explaining that though his paper is not finished, he really needed that time last week with his mother.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

A Turn Taken

It feels strange this morning to not be in ski gear headed to the mountain. Yesterday, a second sunny day after five had snowed five feet of luscious powder, conditions were glorious and today will likely be almost as good.

Every turn was silent with a puff of spray, a whoosh of delight and wonder that anything could feel so sweet. My pole jabbing in to help me come round continually sank up to the handle. Falls began in slow motion and melted into laughter, lying half-buried and in no hurry to begin the arduous task of digging back out to get upright.

Chairlift conversations were simple acknowledgments that rarely are days this fine, then wander into blissful silences, absorbing the sunshine and staring uphill in contemplation of the past or future turns. Passing one of my new instructor friends, there could simply be a nod, an “Unh-hunh, this is what we’re here for!” kind of grin.

In the middle of one of the toughest trails, near the end of the day, I paused, surrounded higher and lower by no one but the soft moguls who had also become my friends. My eyes rising to the forest stark green and silent, higher to the mountain peak frozen in thick white, higher still to the brilliant blue so deep and rich beyond belief, I pondered the wealth I have received this winter.

At an age when many groan, wince and complain, when parts fail and can be replaced, and hearts give out completely or cancer invades insidiously, my own body has rediscovered a rhthym it had known thirty years ago, refining it into a more graceful dance. Instead of limiting myself by thinking the sport is too expensive, I found a way to earn my pass to feed my passion, opening the door to a season of adventure.

What began as a tribulation, almost a sentence, rolling my eyes back with wonder that I as a rookie could be stuck with the youngest, weepiest, frightened and obstinate four year olds has turned into a blessing, a bond I cherish. These Skatter Monkies (as we call ourselves) are as tough, resilient and determined as they are playful and adorable. Their hugs and smiles are such sweet reward for this Skatter Brain (as they call me—more aptly than they could ever know!).

As so many already have the fortune to know and the wisdom to appreciate, by far the greatest thrill has been to witness the growth of my son. Just last year, he stood lower than my shoulder, contemplating his first field of moguls of any size, and now I follow his trail, face splattered by his powder, struggling to keep up. We teach together, equals in charge of our little monkies.

His constant commentaries and banter breaks out my laughter. Simple statements sometimes silence me by the power of their profound perspective. His heart open, his joy apparent, he flies past me on his way to better turns than I will ever know, our poles clicking together in the skiers’ toast.

For a long moment, I stood on that mogul yesterday, in the middle of that trail, countless more bumps to handle lying below me. In life, my trail is not so clearly laid out. No matter how much I love this skiing, it is not paying many bills. Health problems, tuition and braces payments loom largely. I have to recognize that my retirement plan will hopefully allow me to ski, not the other way around, and no matter how awesome the conditions, I will have to come in for a landing and find more stable employment.

I looked down the chairlift line and suddenly recognized that instead of counting how many people might take notice (I admit it), I actually was looking for a string of empty chairs to witness my next burst. With one more glance upwards at that brilliant blue against the alpine glow of the dawning sunset, in perfect peace and unspoken clarity of purpose, I finally pushed off.

Not for my skatter Monkies or other friends on the mountain, or strangers on the chair, not for my best buddy laid up in the hospital with a broken knee getting replaced, not for my son who opted out this day in exhaustion after so many great days, not for some future lover, or even for my mother who can no longer remember how she loved to watch me ski, these turns were purely for myself alone.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

Mountains Crossed

The shock of visiting my parents was more a glacial freeze, I think, than a tumultuous emotional blow. Upon my return, my movements are thick and slow, ponderous with a sludge of uncertainty, and my thoughts heavy with fog.

My son and I made another quick road trip to Pennsylvania for Christmas, a grounding with family to enliven us with a little of the holiday spirit, a touch upon our heritage amidst all the transformations of this past year.

On the surface and deep into the heart, there was such pleasure and satisfaction to spend time with my father in his little apartment. He gave us open views into his daily habits, the struggles that an 85 year old nearly deaf and blind encounters in every direction. I could appreciate the strength it takes to maintain independence against the growing urge to simply pass on and be done with it all.

Although he speaks clearly and regularly of his readiness to die, in fact, there were several paintings, fresh in frames, I had not seen, and yet another on the easel. Nearly as often as I in my home, he would lumber into the other room to check his email, a large screen TV magnifying words 10” tall to keep him connected to friends and family in the world. Unable to follow the movement in most sports, he has switched to baseball and celebrates it being the year his home team wins the World Series.

Breakfast out to a small place nearby is an adventure enough to him who has eaten in exotic cafes on all continents. We accomplished several simple errands for clothing and items that had caused him worry. I could provide some relief to my sisters who tend to him lovingly, but constantly, in the midst of their own busy lives.

The fact that he has been somewhat of a stranger to us most of our years—interpreted through my mother—evaporates when hearing him manage his catheter two or three times in the night. It is so humbling to help the man who has been so strong in my life from car to curb to cart ever so slowly, carefully, and patiently. He complains with a shrug and apologizes as he accepts my shoulder to lean upon.

Deep into a world unknown, my mother spends her day in a wheelchair, teeth gnashing with a painful sound that causes her no visible discomfort, surrounded by others—mostly women—mouths open and eyes closed in their own strange worlds. The staff banters amongst themselves, good-spirited but worn weary by the daunting task of keeping their charges safe and fed.

Warned to have no expectations, I am pleased and amazed to see her pulse quicken each time she turns her head towards me. She utters some guttural piece of thought I cannot recognize, still we nod, eyes locked, as if understanding. Her hand explores mine as if surprised and wondering, something she knew once, but just cannot explain.

I cherished this time with my Dad and was unabashedly teary-eyed sitting with my Mom. My energy poured toward them unreservedly as if I could somehow replenish all that they have given me.

Alas, they are at this place in their journeys and our best efforts are to keep them company and ease the details where we can. Two sisters living nearby are much more practiced than I—both more burdened and blessed. To an outsider, it is a lonely and dwindling road they wander, but the dignity and peace with which they carry themselves is a heart-wrenching inspiration.

My son stayed behind with his mother, allowing me the long drive home alone to contemplate past and futures, interrupted by miles of scenery I have traveled many times with numerous companions enroute or awaiting. This time, I had the sense of leaving my parents behind, their hugs still available, but our relationship forever changed, what once was now petrified in that glacier of shock under which flows a stream that is my own life moving onwards.

Please share with your friends

Tweet

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.

Please share with your friends

Tweet