New Warriors

         Men do not just talk about sex and football anymore.

            This generation still known as baby-boomers, even as we settle towards our time of rest, relaxation and retirement, was raised quite differently than we have actually behaved.  What was envisioned by our parents as a right of ascension has been, for better or worse, supplanted by the realities of sustainability and justice.

            A standard of abundance and prosperity was achieved and celebrated post-war and Great Depression, bottled and marketed through the marvelous invention of television, and imprinted on our souls to influence these many years since. The stereotype of the man with his briefcase home from his commute, kissing his wife in heels as the children marched off to bed, was certainly not that far from my own childhood.  The scene played out night after night as families nurtured the seed of the dream into the souls of their children, spreading expectations across the suburbs of America for bountiful harvests to come.

            Stated far too simply and without proof, power and greed assassinated Kennedy, shattering the Camelot that never was, but we refused to believe it and hired a commission to report that Oswald had acted alone.  The ubiquitous "they" then fed us a war against communism on the other side of the world to support our growing economy.  No one was supposed to get hurt, but the draft invaded our happy neighborhoods with funerals for the boys next door and the Middle Class began to take notice.

            Martin Luther King reminded us that some neighborhoods, both black and white, had been left behind and Bobby Kennedy repeated the call.  It got ugly. In Czechoslovakia, Chicago and Kent State, Ohio, the established authority tried to shut our freedoms down and it felt like a battle raging.

            Amidst that anger and violence, this generation of not-so-innocents was able to see beauty.  Some of it induced by drugs, for sure, and largely in a state of privilege, ultimately we imagined a world of love that was based on spirit and inclusion, envisioned Aquarian values dawning.  It felt like we had ended a war and embraced a lifestyle that could set us all free.

            The murder of John Lennon by an obsessed fan dashed the purity of that dream and turned us towards the responsibilities of raising our children to a better world.  Hippies became Yuppies.  Slums were gentrified into chic districts and any open land in the suburbs was filled in with mcmansions. We went about our business as usual, another generation exhibiting its share of Wall Streeters, Main Streeters and back road strollers.

            The change in most of our hearts took hold, however, in many different ways, some subtle and others overt.  Women were now side by side in the marketplace while dads learned how to change diapers and took off time to attend parent conferences, or stayed home while their partners provided.  Yoga, meditation and gym memberships, coaching soccer and joining food cooperatives translated the dream into a busy reality.

            Men, paying better attention, also learned how to cherish their women with praise and heartfelt gestures as much as with a secure home and a dozen roses on Valentine's Day.  Words like "feel", "trust" and "commitment" became commonplace and therefore far less frightening, no longer anathema.  We discovered eros simmered more fiercely in one place than scattered like sparks in the wind, even if that particular one lasted only for a decade instead of a lifetime.

            Communication became more comfortable, not just with our spouses, but with our best friends.  In pairs and small groups, men compared notes and discovered companionship and support for this new masculinity.  The three martini lunch was replaced by a bagel and intense discussion of self-help books and romantic tips that might nurture our lover as much as arouse. Foreign to our DNA, the struggle to be vulnerable became easier, confiding our frustrations and bewilderments to each other as opposed to holding things stoically inside or releasing it in a good, clean fight.

            Ironically, going against the grain is not without its proportionate amount of chafe, denial and disorientation.  Women seemed to adore the refocused attention, but in their loins, apparently, having had the same training, still lust after the strong provider, all sensitivity aside.  Men remain at the check-out uncomfortable not whipping out our wallets to buy lunch even if the woman is just a colleague on a similar expense account.

            Centuries of habits are difficult to erase in a single generation.  Confusion is understandable.  The true advance is that the men of today have thrown off their brutish cloaks and glittering chains of male testosterone in favor of coming together more in collaboration than competition.

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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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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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Uncached

Over the weekend, I received an uncharacteristic phone call from the other guitarist in Cache. The night before, we had played at a private party, the very first time in front of anybody, and though it was hard to hear, lacking all the right equipment, I was pleased and excited with the blends and the confidence that grew with every song.

But there was a clue in his message, a phrase about hearts and minds, that tipped me off, so it was no surprise the next day to get a follow-up message that I had been voted out of the band. My initial reaction was a bit of a snivelly little boy whine (“…they don’t like me, boo hoo”), followed by a defensive snort (“…well, I’ll show them!”).

The truth, I told my son a few minutes later as we fiddled around with instruments in a music store, is very understandable and should be expected. If it is so difficult and takes such time, effort, risk and patience to find a girlfriend, multiply that by four and remember that everyone has to get along with everyone else.

Each member of Cache contacted me individually to express their respect and support for my music. Their insistence that I should be pursuing my songs whole-heartedly without distraction removed much of the sting. They felt I would do better staying focused and not side-tracked trying to accommodate the taste and directions of others.

Hrrrummmmph!

It was a curious burst of emotion to absorb, especially on my birthday and combined with a similar heart throb that stole my breath for a little in the afternoon. Each event, however, was so full of appreciation and the promise of wonderful, exciting and ever unfolding adventure, like getting comfortable with not seeing any whale spouts, I found the joy in the day and reveled in the sunshine and companionship that was right in front of me, enjoying the best birthday ever.

Sharpened and inspired, the next morning I immediately placed an ad and scoured Craig's List for potential matches. Like the search for a date, I looked at bios and pictures, listened to voices, wondering how that keyboard might sound, judging this style too punkish for me, that finger too fast and wiggly.

Quickly, I received a message back from a young drummer who was very enthusiastic about the sound, my sound, and had some impressive local credentials, having already played with people more known than little old me. Emails turned into phone calls, and his excitement hurdled my concerns over his age and maturity.

On the way to the audtion in his home, I still had low expectations because he is just graduating high school, after all, and getting a driving lesson from his mom. Into the first song, however, it was clear that he paid a lot more attention to his drums than a car. By the third song, I was amazed by his ability to read my body language and change the beat as the song stopped short or raced ahead. By the sixth, we were rocking like we had played music together for months, his flourishes and rolls perfect on the crescendos and backed off on the verses.

Two hours flew by faster than most fifteen minutes. In the same way I might peek in and introduce myself to a new friend of my own son, his mother came down to say she liked the music, and was relieved, I imagine, to see the kind of man who might soon be taking her son to dark (and no longer smokey!) bars.

Other drummers, I know, are available, but my intuition tells me Ian is worth the risk. So the landscape of my musical avenue has changed as radically as the highways we traveled last week in Oregon, my vision turned sideways and re-routed, but more focused and immediately achieving a more stimulating result.

Likewise, by having the intuition to trust me so quickly to frame her paintings, a marvelous woman has also contributed to this lesson that the ones who do actually reveal themselves are able to honor, support and hold precious, with leviathan strength, our creative journeys no matter how young, or beautifully petite, these whales may appear.

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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.

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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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Complimentary perspective

Today is my father's 84th Birthday.

What began last week as a "Roast & Toast" in the moment has been reenforced this week by seeing it archived on video, and continues each day since with EMAILs scurrying around the world describing just how much his life has meant to his children and our children.

I include this one in particular from my next older sister, Cathy (I'm in the middle), as an example of a continuing thread that tells a story. This is not to draw particular attention to our family as something special, but to share in a world too full of doom and gloom a story of love and appreciation, a happy-ever-after tale that seems to have no ending, but continues to grow, to ripple, like Love, shining a bright light into dark corners.

"The gifts and the examples are huge, unique and precious. They formed us.

...And taking on Granny without any hesitation in the midst of a new marriage, a new baby, and building a new house (himself). Especially after I had kids of my own, I marveled at what an incredible thing that was and tried to learn the lessons - be generous even when it seems hard, and then just do what it takes. Dad did the same thing for Geeg, though I know it was hard to come home every night to find him still holding court at the table.

Dad, I also want to thank you for how you handled our teenage years.
I know it was a busy time for you at work and you were gone a lot.
But you showed a tremendous, quiet respect for our questioning of the status quo (and thus your own life and choices). You also showed a remarkable understanding of teenagers when you built the Octagon. Not only was it the perfect building for the purpose, but the idea behind it - giving you and Mom some distance and us some private space - was sheer genius and generosity. Most of all, it showed that you trusted us, which my friends could never believe, in a way that made us respond in kind. (And I don't think I would have had any social life at all if it weren't for that combination. As it was, people thought I had the coolest house and the coolest parents in the world. I was along for the ride.)

I am also grateful for the relationship you built with your grandchildren. Few families I know have the kind of bond my kids feel towards you. As Vicki said, you have created ripples that go on for generations. Thank you for those generous summers with Jesse and Hans (thanks Meg and Lauren, too).

Last week's visit reminded me of how much we laughed (and still do), and how many funny/fun things we did together, instigated and spurred on by Dad. And all of your images, Meg, bring up more vignettes. ...
... dancing polkas every Saturday in the living room to Charlotte Shed on the radio, swirling until we collapsed
-- the time when Dad labeled everything in the camper - was that on Swans? - the lamp, the books, the bananas in the bowl, even Mom, as I remember
-- Dad reading that creepy ghost story about willows on an island, when we were camping with David
-- playing baseball on the beach, at Beach Haven, when Dad told the awestruck kid that he played for the Boston Red Sox and I was proud of him, because it seemed for a minute like it could be true
-- building and icing toboggan ramps down the front hillside, and then telling us not to be scared ... Piling us on top of each other on the bed until it collapsed under our weight ... Painting the totem pole up the wall of Lane's bedroom ... teaching us to write old english letters, and painting easter eggs with our names on them ... jumping jacks and peanut butter sandwiches in the Howard Johnson parking lots on the turnpike (while other families actually went inside and ate hamburgers) ... soaping the rocks in the creek in the Poconos so we could slide down them faster ... making up "Tom Swifty" jokes in the car - "I love hamburgers, she said with relish"
... joking in the elevator at the hospital in Denver as they wheeled him away with a kidney stone ... holding up the sign for Richard and Pat Nixon in Swarthmore - I was sure they'd stop just to take a closer look at Dad's brilliant caricatures ... and the accordion - who could forget the accordion?!?!
... watching Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Ed Sullivan and Hogan's Heros on TV ... reading the history of architecture book aloud at every building in Europe ... drawing diagrams of cantilevers at the dining room table for Lane's homework assignment ... "Cocktail time!"
... Eating a bowl of peanuts, one at a time ... Dad's guilty look when he roughhoused too hard and somebody got hurt, and then how he stroked our heads to say he was sorry, but did it so hard he practically knocked us over, making us forget the original transgression ... Packing the car for a trip - the assembly line to load and unload the car; waking us up in the middle of the night to leave so we could get past New York by rush hour; sleeping on a flat bed of duffel bags and waking up to the streaks of dawn and breakfast.
... watching people count us in the car as they passed us on the turnpike, and holding up our fingers to show them "5"
... Playing double solitaire, Dad's accompanying monologue, complaining that we were going too fast and then beating us. (Vicki sliding cards in so nobody would notice) ... Scrabble - "Oy!"
... buying our first TV just in time to see Mary Martin do Peter Pan live on TV and then, a few years later, watching Lee Harvey Oswald get shot as we painted murals for the Christmas Fair ... going to Linville Orchards; cider and ginger snaps (I still eat them together) ... dropping us off at church every Sunday, coming back to pick us up with a new painting in the back seat (I can still hear the sound of the paintbrush swirling in the jar) ... the pride I felt, every time we drove past the TWA building at the airport!
... breaking down on the Tapanzee Bridge ... Listening to Adlai Stevenson on the radio from the political convention (John says I couldn't possibly remember, but I swear I do) and staying up late to hear the Nixon/Kennedy election results on the radio ... sitting for pastel portraits (sit still!) and for the Christmas photo (smile!) ... the Christmas cards - taking for granted that each year would be better than the last - didn't everybody's father draw?
... Learning ballroom dancing by standing on Dad's feet - side together, step, step ... Eating in the make-shift dining room (feeding Meg, I think, in the high chair) during construction of the addition, with a flapping tarp for a wall ... Meg, you say that you wished more people saw our house, but I remember the stream of cars that went slowly by on Sundays when the addition was built. We would stand proudly at the window and count them. Sometimes people were brazen enough to come to the door and ask for a tour.
... playing touch football, Dad demonstrating the moves on your stomach, poking so hard it hurt ...or tickled ... watching To Kill a Mockingbird (we went with Grandma). Everybody thought that I looked like Scout, but I thought Atticus looked (and
behaved) just like my dad.

Which reminds me of one more story, a birthday story. I remember sitting in the Octagon minding my own business when Dad came out and said casually, "you know I'm kind of depressed today because I just realized that I'm too old to be the president of the United States."

It must have been his birthday. I was stunned by this, but I assured him that according to what I'd learned in Mr. Kline's class, Dad certainly was not too old to be president. And he replied, "yeah, I know. But it's too old to start in that direction. All the local and state politics, the elections. I'm too old to start down that path.

It's a funny feeling to know it's never going to happen." I was stunned by several things - 1) my Dad was confiding in me about something really big, 2) he was telling me the height of his ambition, albeit fleeting (I had always thought he could be president anyway) and 3) that he questioned himself and his own life, which seemed from the outside to be such a smooth, steady, confident path.
I have thought about that so many times since - the dual message that you should always think big and that, though every choice you make closes a door, you can be at peace with your life's journey.

There is no way to say thank you enough for any and all of it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!! I hope you can look back on your life with as much joy and satisfaction and you gave all of us.

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Confession of a Bad Boy

When things go wrong, a man wants very much to look for the cause and find a simple fix. On a roof, I like to call it the “Poke and Hope” method of repair, where we look for a hole, fill it, and wait for the next rainstorm to see if it still leaks.


In my own life, it takes a second failing marriage, a perspective of constant financial struggle, and alienated children to realize the extent of the leak. Simple pokes at making more money or bringing home more flowers have not stemmed the flow. The time has come to strip and rebuild the roof.

There are some who judge that I will never be able to take responsibility for myself and the “real” truth behind my recent changes. They surmise that even this blog is an effort to shape my world in a favorable light, to cast myself as a compassionate, sensitive soul of the best intentions and boundless love, when in fact I am a mess of self-delusions and inappropriate behaviors.

Although in many ways, I admit to a perplexing blindness of my own foibles, I have no misconceptions about the pain and suffering my choices have caused. It is easy to see the stains on the walls and, disregarding the other 50% that is the marriage dance, attach enough blame to myself for the damage that has caused the imminent collapse.

I choose to go deeper.

In the past, with incredible optimism, confidence, and determination to do the best for my family, I have launched into my own construction business, secured enviable projects, only to be overwhelmed and plummet into huge debt—not just once, but several times. So many broken promises to clients and subs, so much money desperately spent to plug holes and pay the mortgage, I have squandered my integrity with people who trusted me, were willing to back me. Sometimes, it would be far easier to run away in the middle of the night than to just move across town.


At home, the financial and emotional stress has undermined every activity of the family. Beyond bills being late and the TV inconveniently shut off, my kids have been subject to relentless and harassing calls from creditors, and lived under the shadow of a tax lien. They have witnessed their parents' humiliation when their card has been declined to buy groceries. They have opened our door to the sheriff delivering papers to their father.

I have been unable to adequately communicate the love I felt for my wife. She has suffered an emotional loneliness that I have failed to fill. Worse, in my despair and insecurity, I have compulsively explored internet chat rooms as if some relief could be found in a computer, an anonymous woman, who “talked” back. And for many years, to avoid looking at the truth of all this pain, I misled, then outright lied about the business failures, the unpaid taxes, the time on my computer.

I write all of this not to prevaricate or flagellate, nor to throw myself on the grenade to excuse or protect my partner from her 50%. That could easily be done in the silence of my own misery. I regret my mistakes and am so very sorry to have caused such pain to so many, but I cannot stop there.

This blog is about making change. In the humility and embarrassment that is common to all of us, we could walk with our heads down, eyes lowered, our fences high. But out of this pain, I am learning the beautiful lesson that in sharing our vulnerabilities, there comes union with ourselves and others.

There is new growth.


I have a great grandfather who, as county treasurer in 1890 Texas, kept the People’s money in his own small safe. When it was robbed, he was held responsible and worked for years to pay it all back. Though able eventually to settle his debts, he could never ultimately reclaim his honor. He chose to leave his family and end his life.

I will not do that.

Instead, I choose to go deeper still, to uncover the muck of personality and old habits that keeps me from living an authentic and satisfying life. It is cowardly to hide. Emotionally, it creates so many more problems to take the path of suicide. A true man, a warrior, identifies that something is wrong and seeks resolution, choosing the time to be patient and the place to do battle.


As a New Warrior I am beginning to use the circumstances of my environment and relationships to mirror the aggressor in my own soul. I am learning from my ancestors, honoring my own journey, and considering my effect on future generations. Instead of waging war, I am turning inward to fight my own shadows, fears, and misconceptions; turning inward to find balance in my life.

And only being victorious there, can I walk peacefully upon this earth, and in love with others.

I am willing to replace the roof to save the structure.

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"Photographs and memories..."

I relinquished the photo album today.


Throughout my life, my father has painstakingly cropped and glued pictures onto black pages, filling album after album. Often, we would pour over them, alone, together, or with friends and partners, eventually (especially) with our children. As part of his final efforts to archive our family, he has scanned them all to digital (1,200 pages!) and given us each a DVD for Christmas.

Beginning my own adult life, I naturally embarked on the same effort, covers not as nice and matched, but still cropped pictures on black pages, monthly documentation as I had learned. I wanted my own children to enjoy them, show their friends and partners, have the tangible proof that simple days were full of fun. And I wanted them to recognize that the blank pages would eventually be filled.

It was devastating, a final blow of punctuation, to lose those albums to divorce.

This album can be scanned and the evidence of those memories shared. I can let go of the album today, having the photos saved on the computer and backed up on a disk, augmenting the memories preserved in my heart.

Although this marriage seems also to be ending, I can see the days of courtship and remember the hope and excitement that filled my thoughts. Pictures of the wedding and square dance after are treasured tokens of the best party EVER. An incredible moment is captured forever of a birthday in golden sunlight, seven months pregnant, and standing on the land that would become our home, house under design and yet to be built.


Pictures too there are of my daughter’s birth, followed later by a son, moments of joy so exquisite, impossible to tarnish by time and separation. And, equally, such simple days, a cup of coffee and a walk in the garden.

In 20 years there is so much to celebrate, so much happiness, like sunshine mixed with clouds, I can choose to describe them as warm, bright days, feel the heat linger on my skin. These pictures tell of vacations in Maine, countless explorations of tide pools; in Florida where dolphins danced in the wake of my in-laws boat; in Central Pennsylvania where I was welcomed into a community of family and friends.

A marriage involves whole families. We share in the celebration of other marriages and anniversaries. We cheer for the births of nieces and nephews, and watch them grow, delight in their transitions onto bikes, into new homes, out of schools, onto their own relationships.

So much can be destroyed and lost. I pray we can hold onto what matters.

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Twilight

Recognizing the number on my cell, I was immediately prepared for the worst news about my mother or father. My sister said it was pneumonia and would probably be fine with an antibiotic, but we were right to be prepared. The rest of the conversation was about living wills, hospice care and my Dad’s attitude that he was tired at 82 and ready to go.

So many of us are dealing with the loss of our parents. As a child, the idea is incomprehensible, and even once we understand that death can happen, just a remote, very impossible possibility. As adults, we begin to prepare for the loss of our parents, yet even now it comes almost as a surprise.

My father is far more ready than I am. So preoccupied as he was in his own life all those years ago, the imminent loss of him now is more devastating as we are finally getting to really know each other for the first time as human beings as well as father and son.



But to an only son in a family of sisters, the loss of a mother, even this grown-up age of mine, still feels like being thrust out on a girder high above the city, dizzyingly high.

This is the woman whose arms held me through every crisis as a little boy, and sat with me calmly as a young man forlorn with a broken heart. Across the soccer field on a wintry day, she would be the lone fan. 3000 miles apart as an adult, I found great comfort in her reassuring voice over the phone line. Perhaps it has been her descent into a mindless sea that has stirred my own mind to examine so many of the paths chosen, abandoned, or passed over in my own life.



It has been the memory of her unwavering faith in my skill as a writer that has inspired me to take up pen again. At Christmas, though she showed no understanding of what I said, it felt important to tell her that I was writing, remembering how she relished the moment I handed her a fresh story or played her a new song.

She could wax our dining room floor on her knees one afternoon, then attend a gala international ceremony the next evening. When given the chance to shake the hand of an important statesman whose policies she did not like, she was strong and brave enough to refuse, and loved to tell the story forever afterwards. Now she seldom recognizes anyone, and sleeps much of the day.

Still, my father faithfully goes to visit, sits with her silently, sweetly, holding her hand. He misses her, sitting beside her, wishes an easy death for her as he does for himself. Interviewed recently by a student, he took offense when asked what he looks forward to.
“Death!” he cried, “What else can there be?”


Still, nearly blind and barely able to hear, he has a new sculpture cast in bronze. He serves on a committee researching computer software for the aged and infirmed. He has started an exercise routine. He is interested in the lives of his children and grand-children. He converts the family photo albums to digital, and has written a family history.



And still, every evening, he sits with mother, holding hands, gazing out across the meadows where they used to walk.

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Story Book Romance

My Father was captain of the football team in high school, my mother captain of the cheerleaders. In a small town outside of Philadelphia, he worked for the local pharmacy and no matter where the delivery, he made sure the route always took him past her home.

Their senior year was shadowed by Pearl Harbor and the certain knowledge that all the boys were going to war. My mother went to college, living 3 years in constant dread, despite his constant letters of reassurrance filled with characitures and limericks. To the end, they stare lovingly at each other as she recounts the tale of reunion when in the dark and deserted train station, they nearly missed each other, but instead ran from opposite ends across the tracks to the embrace of a lifetime.

After a one room apartment just off the Penn campus finishing school, they moved to an acre of land and a little hand-built house (http://www.artisanbuilders.blogspot.com/). They began their family. Five children and five additions to the home spanned the next years as his architecture flourished and she pioneered an afterschool program.


From designer to leader, he became president of the International Union of Architects. As their children became parents, my Mother and Father travelled the world. For a decade, they returned home with tales of adventure and appreciation. A south African took them on a safari, hearing lions practically in her back yard. They toured a temple buried into a Middle Eastern cliffside, radiant in the sunrise as no tourist could see it. They were backstage at the Moscow Circus. And as Lech Walensa led Poland towards freedom, my mother arranged exchanges for students she had met there.

Although it was like any marriage that suffered winters, they celebrated regally their 50th anniversery, surrounded by two generations of offspring. He gave her a ring inscribed in characteristic simplicity "No regrets".

After 60 years, my Dad organized nearly every step to move them into a community where she has marvellous care in an Alzheimers unit, and he has his own apartment 150 yards away. Most evenings, he sits with her in the garden appreciating her joy at rediscovering roses over and over again. Returned to his quiet little space, he writes us EMAILs to reveal his love for her is stronger than ever.

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