Blog 87 Fear (Gary)
Fear (Gary)
My core wound is abandonment. That I knew. I learned how to model that well. I learned how to abandon myself by not being seen. My wife recently complained that when I came home from work I was depleted because I hadn't taken care of myself. I believe that if I sacrifice enough my heroic gesture will be rewarded someday. (One of my mother's words: "Someday.")
I see now that I want to do things for others in a way to get what I need without being seen, more accurately without any need. Just like I had as a child. “Invisible” means to neglect myself as I was neglected. Ignore my needs as my needs were ignored. I can’t write a book because then I would be seen. Being seen scares me as much as going back to Vietnam.
I don't know how to be seen except in small venues. I just don't have the experience yet. If I want to make a more significant difference in the world I will have to be seen. In order to do what I want to do, which is write a book, I will have to become visible. It's time that I allowed myself to be seen and not abandon my Self and my dreams to old fears and a role of suffering my abandonment.
Old habits die hard or never do if you medicate yourself. Mark and I chose the pain and pleasure of being awake and we hope this inspires the same in you.
I vaguely remember my parents arguing around me and the job I took on must have been to be invisible or at least quiet. That’s it. Now I remember my mother saying that she had to keep me quiet because we lived in a small apartment, and she didn’t want to upset our neighbors (and the landlord). That must have included restricting my breathing, thus causing frequent colds and respiratory ailments. It is now easier to breathe. Thanks for another day, different mountain, same spirit. Ah-HO.
It's an interesting shift for me. I am at an age where I will soon qualify for Medicare. There is the confrontation with getter older, but there is also the positive side of being able to save about $300 a month on medical insurance. I was getting to like that idea and what I might do with the money until my wife brought up the fact that I didn't really carry enough life insurance to care for her if something happened to me. The needed increase would be about $300 a month.
I got angry, felt many feelings including feeling cheated, resentful, confused. I ruminated for several days. Then suddenly all those feelings went away. On my walk I asked myself what happened. I unwound the process. I came to a place of feeling wise. The $300 held no energy for me.
I had surrendered to my adult partner’s needs. I was in relationship with her. I no longer had to fight for me. I trusted she would be there for me as a partner. I had come a step closer to home. I was no longer in survival from childhood dislocation. I had let go of FEAR of being abandoned. Actually I had let go of FEAR.
I used to think of myself as highly sensitive and some saw me that way. My first wife called me her "baby doll" because of it. There are books written about highly sensitive people. Now I see the deeper truth for me. I was a highly scared person, which made me highly sensitive.
You see, through all this the most important thing that was revealed to me in my miles and years of walking, and trying to come home, was my fear. Only in absence of fear could I come home. Only in absence of fear could I find my home, and claim it by being present to the moment without fear, and old pictures coloring my catalog.
I had to walk away my fears and grieve in order to find my place. Presence is being in a place without the cloud of fear. I visited a lot of pictures on The Hill until they distilled into a common cauldron. Vietnam wasn't the first place I had visited fear. It was only a reminder. It brought me back to where I had come from. From there I had to go back to my first fears. And I knew those fears were about absentee parents and my attempts to control my inner toddler’s reality.
What might you be afraid of facing?
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Recent Review: Walking The Hill The Art of Accidental Transformation:
"As someone who has more than once done his own hard walking, through ADHD, fatherhood, and reinvention, this book hit me where it counts. If you've ever felt alone in your head or stuck in your story, these two guys walking up a mountain will remind you you're still moving forward, even if you think you're not."
Peter Shankman
Author: Faster Than Normal: Turbocharge Your Focus, Productivity, and Success with the Secrets of the ADHD Brain
Thanks Peter, Gary
Blog 86 Being Home (Gary)
Now, after a lifetime journey of fantasy I am feeling what it's like to be home. I am going through some withdrawal, and hence some mild depression, but that's okay. The Hill has brought me back to myself.
As Joan Halifax offers a poem by Nancy Wood (1979, p. 107):
Here on the mountain I am not alone;
For all the lives I used to be are here with me;
All the lives tell me now I have come home.
And, typing her in, I write: “Sweet sorrow, I am here.”
Note: the best thing you can do for me on Memorial Day is to say: “Welcome Home”
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Blog 85 Being Here (Gary)
In absence of myself I go somewhere else. Can I not just be here? What is a more compatible way? I see desirable objects now, but I have attained an emotional distance. I am detached and relaxed. There are definite benefits to being without desire, enjoying what I have and where I am, who I am when I have cut out the critic, the evaluator, assessor, comparer. I am enjoying being in a relaxed state. Now I need to let go of money. Approximately $3,000 till the truck is paid off, $10,000 to pay off the Volvo, $2,000 more to pay the Keogh. I need to let that craziness go, too.
I get out of the car at the stable where my daughter keeps her horse. Next to us is a beautiful black Jaguar sedan with an almost perfect front that is creased under the grill. I am distracted by its beauty, but I assess the flaw, and see the deceit of design much like what I discover about the beautiful woman who owns it. I share my impression with my daughter who discloses that all is not well within the woman. Illusion or truth? A friend now deceased used to love to ask, “Do you want the truth, or do you want me to bullshit you?” I love that.
What kind of a bullshitter are you? Most importantly how do you bullshit yourself? It’s a common male trait so don’t judge yourself for it. Just know it, because the knowing helps preserve your integrity.
I walk through the barn and am greeted by horses’ heads. My daughter's horse is beautiful and unflinching as I talk to him and stroke his jaw line. Finally he pulls back just a little and wants my shirt buttons.
I have left my money distractions for the illusions of beauty. Yet beauty quickly shows me its shadow side. Perhaps what is ugly could be the shadow side of beauty. So the comfort comes in not caring, as I move on the dirt floor through the barn, and say hello to more horses. I am in the moment, enjoying myself, and I've forgotten the beauty of the automobile and the woman I just passed. I am free. “Free of what?” you may ask. Free of any attachment other than to the moment.
Now, later in the evening, a more difficult task: can I close my eyes and detach? Tomorrow there will be another hike and a new moment of truth. Awe: the beauty of being in the moment. Time to sleep.
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Blog 84 All the Pieces Fit (Gary)
I am supposed to walk The Hill today. However, I have just come from a recruitment meeting at the California Army National Guard Armory. Now it's fair to spend some time with my wife, so I am home with her.
Friday I had a meeting with Sgt. Mike Frankadakis, who is a real estate broker here in Los Gatos, and we shared old war stories from Vietnam. I had called in response to a newspaper ad for the National Guard and Homeland Security. The ad said the opportunity was open to people up to age sixty. I was frustrated and disappointed for weeks (I was sixty-three) then decided to call anyway. I was determined to serve. Mike said the limit is extended up to age sixty-three with prior military experience, and so we set up a time at his office.
He said he had a calling to serve after 9/11, but the local recruiter laughed at him. It was three years ago that he learned about the California Guard from another realtor who had recently retired from the Guard at age seventy. I agreed to meet him on Sunday for a further briefing. So a couple hours ago I was inside the California Army National Guard Armory, which incidentally is across the street from the probation department where I worked as a juvenile hall counselor and a probation officer for twelve years.
Mike showed me around until another man came in for recruitment from Sacramento. I could look up to see the window of my old office on the fourth floor (the executive offices) at the Juvenile Probation Department where I was Assistant Coordinator of the Juvenile Court Work Program. I remember looking down and across the street at the Armory and wondering what was in there. Now here I stand looking back. Seems very déjà vu. While we were waiting a man came in from the Air National Guard. He is based out of Moffett Field with the 129th Air Rescue Wing. Of course I was interested since I was former Air Force. He supports communication for air rescue of downed airman. Wow to me! My inner kid wants to play! Where's the choppers? Sometimes I wonder, is this life I’m leading already scripted?
Mike gives me a tour of the building, and tells me that this building could be available to me for an event in the future if I wished, and he showed me the kitchen. Oh yes, this would work.
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Blog 83 Time to Stop: Time to Climb the Hill Again (Gary)
I have seen cloud formations that come out of the beauty of a severe storm blowing in, rabbits that come out of hiding to take advantage of a warm morning search for food, coyotes that move when few humans are willing. I love those days when Mark and I have The Hill to ourselves. When the mountain bikers decide to stay home. Then animals roam. I see deer and fox running together. What a treat. My spirit loves it. I feel a connection with their wild spirit. I am one with them.
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Blog 82 Coming Home (Gary)
This is a section I have just added after a period of time away. First it was a trip with my brother to Panama City. Why "Coming Home?" Because all of this, all of my writing, I now truly realize, is part of my journey of coming back home. Coming back to myself. It's not out there. It's in here, as many know. Oh, I knew that too, but only intellectually. You see, the way I learned to survive my dislocation was to look out there. It must be better out there.
For me this journey started almost sixty years ago. Sixty years ago. Sorry I have to look at that twice in print to get it, and I am still not sure I "get it."
I find myself returning to the experience that took place when I was just four or maybe five years old. You may think I am repeating myself, but it is even more significant now. An older boy came up to me on the corner near my home and said there was going to be a fight and we would all need something to help us win. He gave me a Three Musketeers bar and implied we were together in this just like the Three Musketeers. The only thing I understood was that he wanted to be my friend, there was some danger, we were going to be together in this, and he gave me something. That felt good. There was no fight, and I never saw the boy again, but he delivered something to me in that little package. I can still see the illustration on the wrapper, The Three Musketeers.
The symbolic gift, an element of fear, the invitation to join, joining, bonding, feeling safety and power in being part of something bigger than myself set a tone and a mission for my life. I didn’t really understand just how powerful that was until our walks and downloading my story with a witness such as Mark.
What part of your story have you buried that might benefit you as a valuable lesson and guide for your direction?
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Blog 81 Alone (Gary)
Alone (Gary)
Ah, a walk by myself again. I pass two ladies and wish them a "Good morning, ladies," and get a very pleasant "Good morning" back. I appreciate their warm response but as I get a distance past them I can hear their continued talking and wished they weren't here. I love the feeling of being alone. It is part of me. I spent so much time alone as a child that today I love it. I have done well in other parts of my life to ensure that I never feel alone.
Today I take in how much I owe to Essie and Alan Nichols. They were my caretakers when my mother worked and I would stay with them for a week at a time. They had about four acres, five apple trees, a hammock in the summer, a dog (Skeeter would excitedly run in circles when I came to stay), berry bushes, a small forest, a wood pile to build forts, a place to shoot my BB gun, an awesome swing (you could go so high you could feel the rush in your balls), homemade tapioca pudding and date nut bread, chickens, my toy box, and so on.
I realize now that this memory of Essie and Alan's home has been a power source for me, a reference for me to return to again and again as a source of solace and grounding. I now realize I use the trail on The Hill as a resource for some of those same feelings, or maybe I have always known this. I am aware today that I need to transfer that power place to something here now, and my little kid is resistant to letting it go. I am getting closer to doing that. I tell the child within, “You need to find your home here, little kid.”
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Blog 80 The Great Mystery (Gary)
I reflect back to my deceased friend and me working together at the probation department before Rick eventually went to another job. We shared many ideas spiritually and creatively. We talked about doing workshops and how we might put something together.
We took our sons, both named Chris, to fish at my secret spot on the Stanislaus River. He showed me how to prepare a fish. We promised to repeat the experience or reconnect, but we got too busy with work. I was at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View by then and kept telling myself I should call.
It was almost the end of the summer, as I remember. I was working the evening shift at the Trimble Road and First Street hospital office in San Jose. I was sitting at my desk, and I suddenly felt a warm tingling running up my left arm akin to a low voltage electrical charge. I thought it strange and turned to see if I was feeling the setting sun behind me, cast upon my shoulder, but the sunlight on the floor was a distance away. I thought, “I need to tell someone.” I wanted a witness to my experience. Maybe this was the sign of a heart attack, but it seemed too electric and without pain. I opened the door and realized that no one was there. It was about 6:20 p.m. and I was the last person on duty. I took in the feeling, and within three or four minutes it was gone.
I went home and found out that Rick had been badly mangled in an auto accident, his left arm almost torn off, but that he had amazingly lived a short time in emergency care. The accident had occurred about the same time as my experience. My wife told me that a book Rick had loaned me—Seven Arrows by Native American writer Hyemeyohsts Storm—had fallen off the bookshelf at home at about the same time. I was stunned, shocked.
I had witnessed my friend in love and dating his wife, I had been at their wedding, we had fished with our sons, and I was at his grave. It was all back, on the mountain today. I relived those moments, and grieved not just for him, but this time, for her as well.
We had a deep connection, deeper than I had been aware of. We had spun dreams together over lunch but we were too busy and too driven to create together what we could have.
What friends have you lost track of because you or they were too busy? Lead, make the call, or wait until . . . what?
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Grief/Relief (Gary)
I am by myself again today. It's a warm afternoon, with a light shade of smog over the valley. That means it looks pretty good. I have yet to see the smog so bad this summer that I can't witness the east foothills. Part of me wants to believe that the air quality is actually improving.
I leave from the parking spot that is closer to the trailhead. It just means about ten minutes less of black asphalt and fewer cars on the narrow road. It also means a longer hike on the mountain in order to get in a one-hour hike. I’ll end on a steeper grade beyond the Tree of Healing in what Mark describes as “the desert” because it consists of the dry road traversing a portion of the mountainside that is all rock above and below the road without a trace of green. I like the flavor of that challenge. At the highest point is an overlook with a round, brass marker that identifies the name of The Hill and declares that it is a preserved wilderness.
It is definitely harder to hike when it's hot, and I feel the burden of the hot air hitting my lungs. I persist and the hike is going well. Well, that is, until I get just about to the beginning of the Hill of Cruelty. Deep sighs, more sensitive, cry. Feeling grief at a depth I never felt before. I find myself suddenly feeling emotions, and reflecting on the loss of one of my close friends some years ago.
I find myself choking on my breath, and I keep pushing despite the emotions trying to take away my air. Tears come. It's ancient grief, but it is back to visit today from a very deep place. I go further into the feelings, and find not my grief, but the grief of my friend's wife.
An event a long time ago: my friend, Rick, has died.
My wife and I go to his wake at their home. The bar is open and everyone is having a drink. My friend’s wife, now his widow, who is a very pretty woman, pulls me into a side room that is partially curtained off. She sits me down. I am simply following because I am here to honor and respect my friend, and I do what she wants without hesitation or thought. She surprises me by kissing me. Simple me, I think it is just a simple kiss, until I realize she wants to keep kissing me. I feel her lips now. They are not seductive or sexual. They are lips that want connection, and here on the mountain I now feel the grief those lips carried.
My friend and I looked alike in many ways, fair skin, Nordic type I guess you would say. I would also say we had a gentle and happy presentation. People could have thought we were brothers. I am crying now as I let in this ancient memory, and really get the depth of her grief and the depth of her need to reconnect with her man, her lover, her friend.
I stamp forward and eventually catch my breath without ever giving up a moment toward the top. Only then can I let go. I promise myself I will allow relief at the top even though part of me wants to throw up. Ah, the top. I made it in only one second behind my last time. And I found relief from an old grief that I have carried since 1986.
The mountain has done it again. It seems each step is a page, and every climb is a deep process of unwinding and releasing feelings long held. The return is but a re-entry and a release from what I carried up the mountain.
How do you release the tension you carry in your body? How do you process your grief, and does it provide you with relief? You may want to take a moment and put words to it. We all need to grieve to have a tomorrow.
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Blog 78 Empathy for My Friend (Gary)
It's August and the leaves are just starting to dry and fall this morning. It's about 9:00 a.m., and the air is very cool and crisp. We begin to see the fog that rolled over a distant mountain range from the coast. It's refreshing, and a reminder that summer is waning: a time of change, another transition.
We are like the environment in which we live. This is why man has survived for so many thousands of years, because we adapt so well. However, as we get older it becomes harder and harder to adapt.
Today we start out fast. Mark is not talking. Usually he talks, and I fill in the blank spots here and there. Today Mark is silent. This is a first.
We make it to The Tree in a great time. A time we haven't hit in a couple years: fifty-six minutes and forty-four seconds. I know my best ever time was fifty-six-something. Today was good. We are cleansed again and we turn back down The Hill.
Last night we went to see his new house, which is a down-size from his more upscale neighborhood, but it's a cute house in a quaint neighborhood. His wife is sick from what I call “executive toxic smelt.” The corporate world can begin to smell, and the person affected by it perceives that smell. She melded into it, and it’s making her sick. Like putting metal in a forge. I remember that from high school, and the welding of pipe when I worked for the gas utility. There are toxic fumes that come from the intensely heated metal. Spend enough time in the heat and you become one with it, or smelt. Melt and mold into another shape. However, some can't mold; they just burn up or out. The cultural changes that have to be made by the individual have become repulsive.
Mark is also looking for a job now that he has his PhD. He has another obstacle: finding a job to fulfill his hours for licensing. He is preparing one house to sell, buying another house and planning its refurbishment, has a smelted wife, and no job. Add the usual man-woman relationship stuff in your late 50s, and aw shit. It's a truck full. I feel for him. He's my brother and we walk, just walk together. Our pace is not only quick, but also like two men marching. We are a machine: two wheels on a two-wheel tractor, if there was such a thing, climbing The Hill.
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Blog 77 Connection (Gary)
I walked The Hill this morning alone. Alone is good sometimes. There is that paradox of being alone, and yet never really being alone. I feel the truth is that we are never alone. It just feels that way sometimes. I know I feel freer when I am by myself. That is when there is no one physically present, yet we are always connected to someone. If I have a conversation with anyone, I feel connection.
Connection: interesting word. I feel that there is always a connection going on. People remember you, think about you, or reflect on the things you have said and done. You would have to be pretty isolated to not be connected.
Writing is now more passive than active. I made a commitment to write for two hours a week thinking that meant pen on paper. Now I realize it's more of a revealing, meditative state that precedes the pen moving to paper. I cannot “fix” a book as a man would fix most things.
Notice not
the applause you receive
but rather
the sound and feel of the footsteps
beside and behind you.
So, another day of discovery. Have I walked? No. But the motion is set. Walking is more the catalyst, or perhaps the oil that lubricates the imagination and the mechanism of feeling. But of course, it's the endorphins. Another way of being here now. Everything points toward calming. Now every time a car fantasy comes up I ask myself, “How do you feel right now, and is it not good or okay to just be here?” I am finding that I am comfortable and I don't need anything. I pause in this moment and enjoy the truth of that. Can I just be okay the way I am? It feels like I can. Now comes the work to maintain this.
A suggestion might be that I need a vacation, that a time to be quiet with myself could become a choice. A vacation is different from a desire to fill an empty space. I need to schedule vacations, and for the right reasons. Maybe I don't need to keep looking for magic. It seems the world, the universe, my body—even my clients—have conspired to get me to be still. And it's not so bad.
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Blog 76 Relationship (Gary)
While hiking today a mountain bike rider suddenly appears and tells us there is a wild cat a short distance away. I pull out my camera hoping he is in the light and that he hasn't gone back into the dark brush, which is his protection.
Let me see the tiger! Let me witness this darkness! I go to fantasy about all he might be. But he is not. That which I wanted so much never appeared in real form. As my mother said, "What does it matter?" It matters not mother, for you are dead. I am alive and it matters not. Thanks, Mom. I learned how to witness darkness in relationship.
She said, “What does it matter?” in her depression many times before she died, but I think she realized a deeper truth, that there is little in this world that really matters. What matters to me in this moment is the light connected to another soul besides myself. You see, to me what matters is not doing life alone. he was very alone because, being in survival all her life, her ego and her fear pushed people away. She kept herself in a dark place. I understand why, and cast no judgment on her, and thank her for helping me choose light over darkness. It helped me to understand the darkness in relationship in my work with couples. Feelings expressed aggressively or passively have the contrary effect of pushing people away from each other. Alternatively, it is hard to resist hearing the truth spoken from a caring place if it is delivered eyeball to eyeball, with ownership of one's feelings and using “I feel” NOT “You feel” messages, accompanied by a touch of the hand: I, eye, truth, and touch. That’s communicating with love. The partner has the other half of the job, which is equal, and that is to listen without anger or repulsion driven by ego, the ego being the enemy of relationship. The listener has no obligation to give an immediate response, but, rather, has the opportunity to take it in, and consider what is true for them, and respond in kind after consideration. It is not a battle to see who wins, as is almost always the case with couples.
We live in a culture that worships logical, rational, linear thought processes, and disdains and ignores feelings. Feelings are seen as uncontrollable, unnecessary, and dangerous. Yet, it is our feelings that make us human. That’s what I learned from the book, Women Who Do Too Much, by Patricia Sprinkle.
I ponder the “sin” part, and my first marriage, and here’s my thinking. If you communicate from a place of love, which I've just described, and you still think you should leave (as most leave too soon) remember that you made a commitment. Ah yes, a commitment before your community. You gave your word to witnesses—including God—that you would hold this as sacred, yet most take it as just something to get through. Then, when up against it, the vows fold because they were never taken seriously and owned, truly owed. And there is no accountability other than to the court and financial institutions. No one in the community stands up and says, "You made this commitment. Now you go the distance." We quit too easily in my opinion because we don't know how to work through the hard times, and no one holds us accountable in more than a financial sense.
Where do you quit? When do you sell out on yourself and the relationship? What are your stops?
Our society needs to return to the basis of all life: relationship. It starts with a spiritual relationship, with a higher power, elder, parent, and community. Ideally, all of the above stress the meaning of relationship. It is interesting to me that this reinforces my belief in a need for God. That is, a higher power invested with wisdom tells us the way. Unfortunately, religion has failed, or the people who organized the religions have failed. What we need are wise elders who show us the way with conviction (that’s an example of commitment) to communicate and hold us accountable to what we commit to. I sure wish I’d had that.
I think it is only due to family dysfunction that my first marriage failed. At the age of sixty-three, I now see the need for a higher authority, and I see what is created by its absence. Now, because of the obvious corruption in church, state, and family, we have turned to other higher powers for direction, or one could say, false gods.
Video games and starlets are modeling directions and consequences for actions, and kids are eating it up. Starlets don't necessarily give us the consequences directly, but they sure do show us the result of their actions in the bright lights of their own lives. Video games, just in case you haven't played one at all, require a strict set of guidelines that you have to actually study and integrate or you don't get very far, and the whole idea is to be able to stay alive by figuring out the rules.
So where did I leave off? My humble opinion is that it is never okay to get a divorce unless you have exhausted elder direction (okay, therapy). Unfortunately for us, our elder direction either came too late or, in my opinion, was not forceful enough to get us to look at what we, each of us, were doing that was wrong. It wasn't just a failing of the marriage. It was our individual failings that were never addressed. That would only bring us back to another failure in relationship between others and ourselves. How sad. Fortunately, it brought me to about eighteen years of off-and-on therapy to overcome most of our generational inability to promote healthy relationships.
I don't blame anyone. I only accept responsibility for what I can do now. Now is what matters. I prefer conservation of energy. Life is too short. I am committed to learn and grow until I die.
What are you committed to do?
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Blog 75 Just Fix It (Gary)
Just Fix It (Gary)
Anyway, I felt the world was in chaos, and my mother’s whining about work and relationships (be they friends, coworkers, or lovers) certainly reinforced my feeling that the world needed to change. I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but I was going to search hard for the core problem so I could fix it. It must have been the beginning of the search for manhood because God knows men love to fix shit.
Even now, as I grind my way up The Hill, I am plotting on ways to fix it. The world, that is. What can I do to make a greater difference? I don't even think about what I have done being a therapist. That's just what I do. I want a sign that tells me in big red letters, or something. Good question. How will I know I’ve made a difference? I think I will see something somewhere that quotes me, repeats my lines and moves a whole lot of people to action. Yes, and, I really like the idea of something I say on a big billboard somewhere. Red letters would be good: “World Peace now effected by Walking The Hill, written by the clods, Mark and Gary.”
No, I don't necessarily need my name on it. I just like knowing that I created a ritual that is in use by the local men’s organization, Momentum, which formerly was called Nation of Men. That's pretty cool. I don't see my name, but I see my imprint, and see the energy that comes from it. That works for me.
Have you ever asked the question, “What will I leave behind?”
Money is fun to spend, and it can fill your bank account. But filling my spiritual account means more to me. That never goes away, and that matters, not when I’m standing at the gate of heaven: It matters here.
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Blog 74 Death (Gary)
It seems I am ready to write this time. I could never focus in the past but now I am ready. Perhaps I feel I now have enough wisdom, enough proof from my learning that I am clear I have something to say. Or perhaps it is knowing I will die. It always felt like death was something other people did, especially older and unhealthy people. Another fantasy dispelled.
I recently saw myself dead on a table in a dream that quickly brought me awake. I don't know if it was an omen or an inspiration. I decided to take it as an inspi ration. I like that idea better. I have had times when I have felt my heart might stop. It was probably part of what I have determined to be my digestive disorder, or was it? I just know I hit the wall, and had to have naps.
No matter the cause, I figure it’s time I get it done. The book, that is. I would like to leave something behind besides pictures, memories, and a few thousand bucks. I want to feel I made a difference. That has been important to me since I was twelve.
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Blog 73 Important Companions (Gary)
Just back from a couples session for my wife and me. Yes, I believe in therapy enough to do it for myself. And today I got from my wife how important I am to her. I needed our therapist, Beth, to say that to me, translating what my wife was saying, in order for me to get it.
I never felt important as a child, so even when I felt I was doing something important Sue would put me in my place by saying, "It’s not about you." I understand now that was about my ego, not about my "self." Tears run as I lay on the bed writing this. She wants to make me happy because I am important to her, very important. So at this stage of my life I have to decide what will do it. I think I have been waiting for that someday when I, “Big *I*,” deserve to do what I want.
On The Hill today the horizon to the west gives us a view of the sky above Santa Cruz and Monterey. It is clear, a sighting that is usually clouded from here. The perspective is grand, to know the beaches are warm and sunny as well, which is not always the case.
Stacy waits for us just above The Respite. We invited him to join us for the hike today. He is leaning against the fence that keeps people from short-cutting and eroding the trail. He started out early with the plan of meeting us up here. He looks spent and his shirt is soaked. It is not his day to do a timed climb to the tree. Here, his back to a fence post, he has processed his grief. Not that it is done, but he makes a sort of impassioned plea for support. I retell him what I know of his story as a way of letting him know I empathize. I also tell him that I support him doing grief work. He says, “The way you can support me is to call me to hike with you.” Basically he doesn't want to do life alone. He had a lot of aloneness in his life, as Mark and I have known in our lives. That must be our bond, or certainly part of it.
I always say, "Doing it alone sucks." I ended up having that conversation with my good friend’s husband this same day. He had relapsed into alcohol and lied about it to his wife. He was dealing with his wife's anger over his dishonesty, calling him a liar. He said, “I lied, but I am not a liar.” This is another time when a man feels alone and needs the support of other men. That is why the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous can make such a difference. Many in recovery try to do it alone; most tread water for a while and then relapse, or become so intense about their sobriety that no one wants to be around them. I told him my theory and suggested a men's group. This time he is ready.
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Blog 72 Perfectionism (Gary)
Perfectionism (Gary)
All beings don't have to be perfect to be loved. I guess that's why today I eat my beets from a can. My wife hates that. What can I say or do (smile, laugh)? I am still lovable aren't I? Aren't I? Maybe that's where my anger comes from.
In a perfect world everyone would love one another. So I try for another day to be perfect, and strive for a perfect world. But I am constantly frustrated. Let go, and accept what is shown. Love Mark's dark side as I love my own. Can I quit my assignment with “The Perfect Police?” Imperfection is everywhere. What would I do with all that extra time and energy? Ha. Sounds good. I Quit! Or at least I am off for now. I am off. I am off duty.
As I begin to sign off from perfectionist duty, I look to my left and notice a newsletter from Massachusetts General Hospital, and my eyes go right to: "Research published in the June 12th issue of the journal Neurology suggest that reducing negative emotions may be one way to significantly reduce the risk of developing memory troubles." God is always watching and willing to teach if you pay attention to your surroundings.
“Notice, just notice,” I say to my clients and I have to repeat the phrase to myself on occasion. It sometimes feels easier to just follow a familiar old script rather than open up to noticing the world where we live, and see it in a new way.
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Blog 71 Honor (Gary)
Honor (Gary)
Mark calls me late. It is his anniversary, and he calls later than we agreed. I wish them both a happy anniversary. Mark agrees to pick me up in forty-five minutes. I prepare not thinking too much about it until he arrives. I jump in the car and pick up on his energy, and his run-out-of-the-house (hair on fire) look. I get it immediately. Yeah, ladies, sometimes we are a little slow. We drive up to the parking area to start the hike up to the trailhead.
I say, “Hey, Mark, it’s your anniversary. Want to make a hundred points? Go home and tell her you realize you need to be with her, and take her to breakfast. You love her dearly . . . blah, blah, blah.” Mark asks me, “You don't mind?” I reply, “Hey, drop me off, and I’ll walk back to my house or have Sue pick me up.” Mark says, “I'll come back and get you in what, two hours and ten minutes (that’s the length of the hike at a good pace)?” I say, “Forget it.” Mark says, “Awright!” I can sense his relief after having to choose between honoring his brother and honoring his wife and their relationship.
Hey, the walk is beautiful, and I am feeling spry. My side seems totally relieved. Hey, maybe I’m cured. I am free to ponder life's questions by myself. Today I ponder marriage and divorce, having been through both.
When is it okay to divorce? Suppose you are no longer attracted to your partner or whatever? I always tell people that it’s important they give it their best to make the relationship work. Internally, what I do not say, is if they have given their best, and it still doesn't work, then it's time to consider letting it go, and that needs to be said by them, first.
Actually the question I am resistant to ask is, “When is it a ‘sin’ to divorce?” No, that's not it. Is divorce a sin? Most people aren’t aware that the word “sin” in Latin simply means “if on the contrary.” In Old English it’s used in archery and means “missing the mark.” But for Christians today it means you have violated your relationship with God. Let's look at that.
I "feel" (okay, now we are going deeper) it's a sin unless we have battled it out. Most will immediately take this as expressing anger with each other, and that is not what I mean. What I mean by “battle” is a strong inventory of the truth and the expression of it.
What is my foundation for considering all of this? Internally, where am I coming from? Marriage and divorce are issues that depend on history. But that is not what I’m about; I’m not about being haunted by the past and old decisions. With my relationships, my clients, friends and acquaintances, I know where I stand about the past. My past is no longer important; now it's my present I hold dear. It’s a simple philosophy. Strike from the heart of passion. The time for fantasy is over. That window is closing. And if I don't close it, time will. (Five steps later I find a tail feather of a red tailed hawk and retrieve it. Grief, aha. Tears release as a wounded warrior finds the luxury of feelings inside the battle of the ego.
My Wednesday night men’s group is an example. I am sitting in the circle next to a man who relates the story of his father who was a charming, gambling, womanizing alcoholic, and a wife abuser. He had just described my father. Ironically (or is it?) the man next to him has an almost identical story. One of his issues is making a decision about his relationship with his wife from whom he has been separated for two years. He has told us she is overweight. In his story he tells us about his mother and father getting drunk and fighting, and both of them falling down. He had to pick them up, except he couldn't pick his mother up because she was too heavy. He suddenly had an Aha! moment. We then discuss how he was there to rescue his parents, but learned to abandon himself. I learned that one too well myself.
Another gentleman in the group, sitting next to the man who just shared, is over seventy and has told us how difficult it has been for him to share his feelings. He has just recently, after many years in the group, become razor sharp in his expressions. His wisdom has nailed some men in describing their situations to the appreciation of all of us. It's a bonding moment when all of us hear it and become silent in appreciation of his direct hit.
Most often divorce happens out of allowing a negative pattern from the past to live in the present. We unknowingly allow the past to be in charge of our thoughts, emotions, actions, so that what is happening right now takes a back seat to something that no longer even exists. The thing that holds a man (or a woman) in check is an old source of pain, and once that is clearly seen as something he is defending against, he has a choice; he can let that pain continue to be in charge, or he can break that pattern and become the leader of his life.
What will he do without the pain? It has run things so well up to now. It’s comfortable because he knows how to do it. What will LEADING his life look and feel like NOW? We are all creatures of habit, and it is scary to change. Even if it’s dysfunctional we prefer to follow something we know rather than lead something new. The habit of maintaining old patterns is an allegiance to the parent imprinted in the brain at an early age.
I preach “Leading,” rather than following an ancient script that is no doubt centuries old, a negative script that has been passed from generation to generation. No shame, no blame, just dysfunctional now. A Native American belief is that we are affected by seven generations before us. We need to be conscious of what we are doing in the present as we will have an effect on seven generations after us. It is never just about us. I used to think it was. My wife, Sue, corrected me and she is right (yet again).
What are the sins of your past? Make a list and see if you are leading or following. Are you a leader to the future or a follower of the past?
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Blog 70 Continued
You see I was an original latch key kid. My mother had to work and she didn’t have a car. That meant I had to spend a great deal of time alone. It was just the two of us after my brother left for the Air Force. I think I was nine or ten. I spent most of my time evaluating things. I remember walking upstairs and going down and doing it again just to defy logic and feel what that felt like. I studied the clock on the stove to the point of being very accurate about time without needing a watch. I became, very often, accurate to the minute in guessing the time. I had my chemistry set and microscope as well, but wasted little time doing homework. That was boring. I was most interested in introspection.
What was love? I was twelve. I figured I would learn that later on. I remembered the query. Ah the gifts that come from our wounds. See Blog 71 Honor (Gary)
Blog 70 The Gift of the Wilderness (Gary)
Mark and I hit the trail and I think of our walks as a rock crusher. Not only are we grinding tiny rocks into the earth, we are talking through our own rocks. We process stuff out loud for the other to hear, but much of what we are saying is for ourselves to hear. The hard stuff goes into the machine whole and comes out a much finer compound, laying down a softer ground upon which to walk. Life is somehow easier having dumped our load of rocks into the machine and allowed the earth and sky to work it out. Nature has a way of doing that. She is the silent observer. There is something alive and working all around us as we talk and walk the earth.
We often put out our fantasies so we can gnash our teeth about what we wished we had. Those fantasies, too, seem to go through the rock crusher and become fine sand. What we used to talk about is rarely mentioned. The earth has claimed it.
I look over the valley and am aware that very few of the million people below ever get this perspective. They may see this expansive valley from a plane, but to see it looking down from the ridge is quite different. It is the shades of green in each mound of foliage of each hill. On rare occasions, it gives you the total expanse from San Francisco to the south end of the East Bay. Now is the height of summer and we see the green and the red coming in. The red is the poison oak in its glory.
The flies love me today. They try hard to bite me. I am not used to this as they usually leave me alone. But today they are particularly hungry. It is morning and they search in vain for their breakfast as I flail away at them with my hat. They are persistent even when I know I have hit them. No more shorts and short sleeves for the season. But it’s just another struggle I somehow enjoy, as I keep moving up The Hill, now focused only on the ground and my shadow. I can see them circling back. Hah, it is all part of the struggle for life, and I endure it with that feeling of aliveness. Perhaps like Moses in the desert. I would bet he enjoyed eating honey and locusts because he knew in his struggle that it gave him spiritual energy and a sense of purpose. That is it. It is a spiritual energy, a greater sense of my own spirit when I struggle a bit. My body thrives on its aliveness. It keeps saying I am alive and I thrive here mentally, physically, and spiritually. Getting bitten by life once in a while awakens you or keeps you present.
H0 brothers and sisters! I say go into the wilderness and find your spirit. It does not dwell in the city. The city is to exist; the wilderness is to thrive. Spirit is nurtured here.
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