Touching Base

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Tale of Two Kitties

It is clearly the best and worst of times in our family.

Each morning this week, I have checked the website of “The Story” to see if this day will be the one they broadcast my interview on sub-prime mortgages (not yet). Happily, the powers in Washington are beginning to look past their own pocketbooks and realize that direct aide to the people who are losing their homes may be an important medicine for the economy.

Twice this week, my face has appeared on the local page of our newspaper. The missing cannon became a 24 hour hot topic around town as people wondered how such a thing so useless, but precious, could be stolen right out of a neighbor’s yard. With the first article, our grief changed to a glimmer of hope.

Amazingly, the publicity worked its magic and another neighbor called to say they believed it might be resting in a nearby cemetery. My son and I raced to the scene (well, limped, actually, since the poor fellow is on crutches), and gloried in the celebration that something lost has been recovered.

The hooligans apparently lost their will to make mischief about 400 yards up the hill when the 200 awkward pounds of cannon robbed them of their bravado. They abandoned it for the night in the cemetery where it looked like just another monument. When the liquor wore off, I suppose, if they remembered it at all, guilt kept them from returning to and completing their crime.

For us, the discovery was jubilant affirmation that despite swollen knees and broken homes, there is compassion and good fortune in the world. The odd little cannon from my mother’s childhood had stood guard nearly 50 years at my parents’ home. To bring it to my new place at Riverside was punctuation both of closing chapters in their lives, and the re-structuring of our own small family here. Since it also represented the time when it might grace the lawn of my son’s children, the loss colored a landscape bleak, while the recovery inspired fireworks in our heart.

Meanwhile, among the logistical decisions required to divide a home, and the 20 years of belongings it contained, our two cats faced various scenarios of disruption themselves. However much I would have welcomed and appreciated their company in my home (especially the orange haired Mookie who seemed cognizant and sympathetic to my transition, curling up quietly beside me in hard times), my children feared for their lives (the cats’) between my acre of woods and the busy road.

Sadly, from the day of transition to his new home at the other place, my favorite has gone missing. Still hopeful after two weeks that he might just wander back from some long adventure, or arrive at his original home after an incredible journey, we have not adequately considered his loss.

Last night, however, the sweet rapscallion Zahdie collided with her fate, the wheel of a too fast car on a quiet street, and was suddenly gone. It would seem no matter how much we try to control our precious possessions and beloved relations, so much is actually out of our hands. Rarely do we get a second chance. The gifts must be appreciated each and every day.

Through all the tough changes in these past months, my son has endured stoically with good spirit and quiet self-determination. Last night it broke my heart, and was comforting relief at the same time, to finally cry with him.

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Sounds of Silence Abandoned

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

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

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

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

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

But the seed once planted...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Tall Tale Told

OK, I’ll admit to having an incredible weekend of fantasy around the idea of my music aired nationally on the radio.

Locked away in my lowly cave, I practiced for hours to get the notes and fingering just right for today’s session. I played sitting down, standing up, leaning back and thrusting forward, changing tempos and reworking phrases. Because, living so long unplayed in its case, my guitar needs serious adjustment, I borrowed my friend’s handmade beauty to better caress the perfect action in hopes of playing the Perfect Tune.

More to the point, I reveled in an emotional bliss, ecstatic, I confess, that my star feels to be rising after so much troubled dark times. Music has always been an outlet of pleasure for me, but beyond gigs in smokey bars and local festivals years ago, never have I truly imagined music as a seriously mountable stage professionally. These last 20 years, I hardly played at all, so this opportunity coming so quickly upon the revitalization of my voice was just too exciting to remain humble.

I let it get to my head.

Imagine then my disappointment when the engineer’s Email arrived to say they were all set for the interview, but would not be recording any music. POOOOOOOF!! I could hold onto the last gasp of hope that no recording was necessary because they were satisfied with the songs I had dispatched after our conversation on Friday, but I knew this was wishful thinking. This is National Radio, afterall. Last week they played Dave Mason on the program, while I am just an out-of-practice amateur from Vermont.

A deep breath of release, and I regained my composure, recognizing that it is honor enough to speak my version of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco. I had a pretty fancy soapbox from which to emphasize the truth that our humanity, our connections to ourselves and each other, is more important than any elevated interest rate or the erratic swings of the stock market.

And, for the sake of drama and good writing, I exaggerate the span of my ego and its deflation. In actuality, I had already been sobered all weekend by the bravery and good humor with which my son has endured the pain of a knee damaged seriously in a soccer game also on Friday. Whatever levels of fortune we may attain in pursuit of our own self-absorbed lives, all falls quickly into perspective when told our child may need surgery and six months of rehabilitation.

I have already handed one drugged and limp toddler over to a surgeon’s care. No matter how grown is my son, that vulnerability of a parent so helpless is no less of an incapacitation. A mighty pen can fall silent contemplating the surgeon’s sword, and no amount of musical accolades could really distract me from the worry.

Still, I exhaled that deep breath of relief and drove to the studio. Dick Gordon of “The Story” patiently asked pertinent and probing questions that stimulated my tale of transformation into this new life. In a sound proof booth, isolated with headphones, surrounded by the reds and greens of the equipment’s blinking lights, I answered his distant voice, and learned more about myself and what really matters in this strange, terrifying and glorious world.

Still, the show must go on, and the story continued.

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