Wednesday, January 27, 2010

More Alone = More Alive

I want to write about my aloneness. And, I want to write about my aliveness. I am uncomfortable with this marriage and, yet, there it is. Fully formed and fully real.

I have learned through direct experience that the deeper I go into my development - the more I am willing to face - the more I am transformed; separated from the older versions of my self, stepping into a new inheritance, a new way of being in the world. The problem is, this "stepping into" isn't at all a singular act or moment when what was unknown is now known. The transformation happens in complete darkness. Faith is required at the very moment when I have none. Dark is scary. Scary is intimidating. I want to go back.

Enter aliveness. It is the very fear of the dark, the aloneness that is paired to me like a twin, that reminds me I am wholly alive. It is in the desperation of the feeling that the transformation is not really happening, the evolution is not actually real, that I feel most aware of my own presence, my own inhabiting of the world. I never notice the air except when I cannot breathe.

I am involved in a quiet war with my coercive self. It is telling me an old story about who and what I am, attempting to drown out the new self that is emerging. The enemy says that I fight alone, that there is no help for me. And, though I am rationally aware that help is all around me (the air I breathe, for starters) it is easier to succumb to the old story of abandonment.

David Whyte's poem Sweet Darkness captures this perfectly:

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone,
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your home
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

Yes, I think, there is so much that is too small for me. Too small to help me become what I must become to fully live. And so I can simply leave that behind. Arriving at this comfortable conclusion I hear the poet discussing his work. He tells us that the poem cuts both ways, and asks us to confront how we may be seeing others, limiting our view of others and making them too small to bring us alive. Not fair. Not fair at all.



The challenge to me is to see more. To see the help that is there. To "live from my innocence" and believe that though shrouded in darkness the transformation is happening, is real and must be carefully midwifed into existence.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

When to sprint

How often have we heard this gem: life is a marathon, not a sprint? One step at a time, keep the pace, steady as she goes and all that jazz.

I get the wisdom of it, I really do. In fact, I find myself preaching somewhat relentlessly that we must "go slow to go fast." Further evidence: I attended a wonderful workshop by poet/author David Whyte over the weekend - to say this guy has been influential on my personal and professional development is to say that rain is wet, grass is green and the Chargers are lame. Duh. He said "velocity is not the answer to complexity." Cheers to that! And, yet, sometimes you've just gotta run like hell - fast and hard and no looking back.

The day after I listened to the poet I was treated to another source of inspiration. My wife ran and (successfully!) completed her first half-marathon. Actually, her first running race of any kind. Until this, she would tell you she was not a runner. She definitely is now. And, having run with her a couple of times I can assure you, she is strong and she is consistent. The tortoise, not the hare.

On a beautiful and cold Sunday morning she joined the throng and took to the streets. We saw her at mile four - keeping the pace - and again at mile nine - steady as she goes. We then bee-lined it to the finish line to see her close the deal. It took an act of God to navigate the parking and the crowds but we got there and I figured she'd be coming in pretty soon. What I didn't count on was how.

One second she was nowhere in sight and the next she was SPRINTING to the finish line. I wish I had my face on film because I was awestruck. I just couldn't believe it. The plodder, the 'ol steady and reliable running like a woman possessed. She went by so fast I couldn't get it on film. And so I just laughed and celebrated and cheered. Later on I asked what had gotten into her and she simply said "I just wanted to get the thing done." Indeed.

Sometimes, the goal is so near, we just have to give it the gas and go. Sometimes there's no holding back, no hesitation, no second-guessing. Just a determined, focused commitment to finish and finish strong.

I hope I always remember to take it slow, to trust the process, to be steady and measured in the pursuit of my dreams. And, I hope that when the goal is in sight I have the courage to leave nothing in the tank, to aim right at it and seize it as mine.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Courtesy Rant

Courtesy is dead.

I'm fed up. I'm over it. I'm done.

It got sick in the 80's. It went on life support in the 90's. It came back briefly after 9/11 and now, in the wake of cynicism, loss, bailouts and self-infatuated, self-inflated, self-righteous, self-loathing boredom, it is dead.

In the swirl of self-serving, self-fulfilling, self-centered, self-importance, courtesy took one last gasp of breath, buckled at the knees and face planted into the muck that we claim to be a civil society.

An overreaction? Maybe. But consider what you accept today as "courtesy", "good manners" and "thoughtfulness" and you'll see just how far the bar has dropped. If it's not scraping the asphalt I'm guessing you're in denial or just not paying attention.

To wit: my wife hand-writes invitations to our daughter's 6th birthday party for about eight kids in her kindergarten class, ATTACHES A BALLOON TO EACH ONE, and delivers them in person. How many phone calls do we get in a week? One.

She puts a reminder in each child's "mailbox." How many more calls do we get? One.

Seriously? It's enough to frustrate a guy. Just enough.

So, we think it through: people are busy, they are stressed, they have massively full lives, they have circumstances we can't even consider or imagine. And, yet, there was a time when "common courtesy" was not a convenience, it was a rule of law. When someone extended an invitation, no matter how minor, you responded. You took the one minute necessary to pick up the phone, dial, listen and leave a message. We screen our calls so we make it VERY EASY FOR PEOPLE TO SAY "NO, THANKS!" Ranting now...sorry.

But I'm not sorry. To hell with that. I'm mad. We're trying to teach our kids some fundamental stuff like "please" and "thank you", like hand-writing "thank you" notes (I actually told my 10 year old son at dinner tonight that the discipline and commitment of hand-writing "thank you" notes would differentiate him from the pack some day, the way that spending a summer studying the Incan ruins used to and now I cynically consider the fact that the people he will be trying to influence probably won't give a shit because they never had to and can't recognize the handwriting because it's not a font).

I choose life. I'm an ER doctor with paddles in hand, shocking the you-know-what out of this fading life called "Courtesy." I choose to deny its death, hoping for a miracle.

I recently read about a woman and child who were both believed dead due to complications during birth. Mom was dead for four minutes. She came back. And so did her child. They both had a lot to live for.

It's not too late for Courtesy.


Thursday, January 7, 2010

Bubblegum, RIP

We are not "pet people." We are "kid people." And, whenever our kids ask us "can we get a dog?" I like to say, "as soon as you come up with the $15,000 to fence our property, yes, we can get a dog." But, I don't really mean it. Pets, as a general rule, just aren't our thing.

As you may know, however, children are persistent. And, in the face of this persistence from our now 10-year-old son, we decided a couple of years ago to become pet people, at least in a very small way. We bought a rat, and our son named her Ginger. As in the Gingerbread Man from Shrek. We soon learned (or were ruthlessly sucked in by the "Fancy Rat" branch of PETA) that rats are social animals and unless you're going to be playing with your right all the time it's important for rats to have a companion. And this is where we meet Bubblegum.

Bubblegum joined our clan about 6 months after Ginger. She soon proved herself an annoying cage-mate for her "older sister" but settled in and then just proved herself slower, fatter and more susceptible to biting off the end of your finger. That said, we had her and she had us and we were pet people times two.

About a week before Christmas Bubblegum fell. She landed hard on the concrete as our son was tending to the chore of weekly cage cleaning. To say he was sick about it is an understatement. To say she was OK would be a massive understatement. She most definitely was not OK. We took her to the vet (words I can't believe I'm writing because we aren't "pet people" so certainly we must not be "Vet people." Alas.) and learned that while nothing was broken, per se, she clearly had suffered some head trauma and we needed to give her a week or two of serious R&R. I don't exactly know what that means for a "fancy rat" but for us that meant separate her from Ginger, put her in a smaller, simpler cage (we have a five-story Waldorf-Astoria rat tower) so she wouldn't climb and just watch her and hope she improves.

She did and then she didn't. Immediately after the fall as we were assessing Bubblegum's condition, I gently but firmly attempted to prepare him for the worst. I explained that we would not be taking extraordinary measures to help Bubblegum but that we would do what we could and involve the experts at least a little bit, but certainly not too much. He understood or at least he lied to me very convincingly. That first night we even talked briefly about the possibility of her death, as the natural result of her fall or perhaps through "putting her to sleep" to end any suffering. We had that discussion through tears. Me, my son, in our kitchen, crying about the possible death of our pet rat, Bubblegum. Oh boy.

Two weeks came and went and she was getting worse. She couldn't do normal "rat stuff" like climb or balance and she definitely wasn't eating or drinking enough. Back to the vet we went. And, of course, I was thinking that three of us were going there but only two of us would return home. I was right about that.

The doctor was wonderful. She asked us how Bubblegum was doing. We explained through our tears. She explained her theory about what was wrong. We cried. She explained options -steroids, more watching/waiting and finally...euthanasia. We cried some more. Obviously her quality of life was gone. Obviously she didn't deserve to live like this. Obviously I wasn't going to spend a bunch of money on a fantasy. That may sound harsh. Maybe if it was a dog. I don't know.

We made our decision. We left her in the doctor's care. We cried some more.

When we got home, I told my son that I would clean out her cage. I figured that the least I could do for him was to honor both him and her by putting things right again, such as I could. He stayed in the car. In the process of my cleaning-up I retrieved the trashcans from the curb and as I was pulling them back to the side of the house, he hopped out of the car and said, "I'll get those, Dad." I don't know what it was about those words or about how he said it but we connected deeply in that very brief moment. He told me with that comment that he appreciated my being there for him, for loving him through a tough ordeal and for helping us to move on.

In her death, Bubblegum brought us together. She allowed a father and son to have their first shared experience of loss. An opportunity that is sure to live inside both of us through the years, providing a foundation for the difficult and painful transitions that await us in the years ahead.