When my best friend was married, it was to an amazing woman, but I admit before they wed I struggled with ambivalence. I was recalling the speech I gave as Best Man at the reception to someone dear to me a few nights ago, so I wanted to put it down here. This is the best I can remember of what I said, all those years ago. No doubt M and A remember it differently. But here is my recollection:
"I've known M for half my life. We've been through everything together. He's my best friend. I've always been fiercely protective of him and for years no woman was ever going to be good enough for him, as far as I was concerned. A, I know, is perfect for him and he for her; I think we all saw that clearly during today's ceremony, if any didn't believe it before.
"But today I got to see something no one except the groom, got to see. Standing to M's side and a small step behind him, I got to see over M's shoulder and into A's eyes. I got to look into her eyes as she said her vows; got to see into her eyes as she listened to M saying his. I saw a well of such deep love that I was dumbfounded. I already knew M felt as much for her. Today I saw her radiate as much for him.
"And a few paces away from them, I saw both M and A suddenly separate from the rest of us. We couldn't touch the thing they shared. They were too much a part of each other to share that paired isolation with us. So as we stood in the garden, and as we watched them, they were apart--in a clear bubble or orb that demarked a space none of the rest of us could enter into.
"That globe they were in, that they're still in--it's their relationship, and I saw it. They were suddenly within it, creating that new space themselves, that new thing out of the intense, perfect regard they gave each other. A new world within this one, that was made up of just the two of them, but was immediately more than just these two people. I don't know who else saw it, that bubble of otherness they shared, but I did today. I saw it. And I was humbled.
"So I propose a toast: to my best friend, and to his best friend."
Friday, April 22, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Forgiveness
I dream of one woman.
There are many characters that swim in and out of my dreams: men, women, children, and creatures usually confined to Henson/Froud collaborations.
But when I dream of my time with a woman, not just a romp with one, but a connection, I dream of one.
Every time, she's different. A different person, a different face, manner, voice. But despite the changes in costuming, if I look at her out of the corner of my eye, the differences fall away and I see the same woman looking at me.
She is not anyone I'd met, though she's often looked like women in my life. And she is, despite Freud's breathless insistence, not my mother.
What she is, though, is an unwavering thread that weaves through years of relationships, isolation, infatuations, flings, and slapstick sexual pratfalls. She is the Universe. I do not see God in the world, I see her. She is my own personification of everything. I say that as an atheist, and the admission doesn't change one iota my connection to her.
I am not visited by her regularly, mind. She has probably not been a companion of mine more than 30 times throughout my life. No doubt less; I haven't counted.
Her visits have been profound, and alter my state of mind for a month or more. Typically, such a change is not a happy thing. For years, when she'd visit, wearing the face of whatever woman was most prominent in my life at the time, we'd fight. The disagreement would be over nothing of consequence, but it would be accompanied by such unhappiness, such psychological unkindness and emotionally manipulative disrespect from her, that I would wake in a funk that might take a long time to shake off.
Her last visit was perhaps four years ago. Our relationship was changed in that one. We didn't fight. Or rather, the dream began after we had. She was lying on a couch, exhausted by our distance, and was dozing. I came into the room and looking down, felt all my feeling of betrayal and hurt bleed out, leaving only regret. I lay down beside her and tried to whisper to her how sorry I was.
But I awoke before I could finish and, apology unheard, we did not speak again. In the years since I journeyed through some of the darkest ages of my life.
Then the year just past turned around. And after such despair, I've clawed stubbornly out of that shadow and have nurtured my health and joy for a year now. From the worst, I find myself in what is becoming the best time of my life. Stubbornness and claws being what they are, I intend to cleave to this path for some time.
This week, she visited me again. And this time, for the first time in my life, we did not fight. We were all hands and bodies and mouths, pressing, seeking. And when I woke, there was no month of despair awaiting me, only sunlight and joy and the ludicrous, perfect sense that I am welcome and needed in this world.
There are many characters that swim in and out of my dreams: men, women, children, and creatures usually confined to Henson/Froud collaborations.
But when I dream of my time with a woman, not just a romp with one, but a connection, I dream of one.
Every time, she's different. A different person, a different face, manner, voice. But despite the changes in costuming, if I look at her out of the corner of my eye, the differences fall away and I see the same woman looking at me.
She is not anyone I'd met, though she's often looked like women in my life. And she is, despite Freud's breathless insistence, not my mother.
What she is, though, is an unwavering thread that weaves through years of relationships, isolation, infatuations, flings, and slapstick sexual pratfalls. She is the Universe. I do not see God in the world, I see her. She is my own personification of everything. I say that as an atheist, and the admission doesn't change one iota my connection to her.
I am not visited by her regularly, mind. She has probably not been a companion of mine more than 30 times throughout my life. No doubt less; I haven't counted.
Her visits have been profound, and alter my state of mind for a month or more. Typically, such a change is not a happy thing. For years, when she'd visit, wearing the face of whatever woman was most prominent in my life at the time, we'd fight. The disagreement would be over nothing of consequence, but it would be accompanied by such unhappiness, such psychological unkindness and emotionally manipulative disrespect from her, that I would wake in a funk that might take a long time to shake off.
Her last visit was perhaps four years ago. Our relationship was changed in that one. We didn't fight. Or rather, the dream began after we had. She was lying on a couch, exhausted by our distance, and was dozing. I came into the room and looking down, felt all my feeling of betrayal and hurt bleed out, leaving only regret. I lay down beside her and tried to whisper to her how sorry I was.
But I awoke before I could finish and, apology unheard, we did not speak again. In the years since I journeyed through some of the darkest ages of my life.
Then the year just past turned around. And after such despair, I've clawed stubbornly out of that shadow and have nurtured my health and joy for a year now. From the worst, I find myself in what is becoming the best time of my life. Stubbornness and claws being what they are, I intend to cleave to this path for some time.
This week, she visited me again. And this time, for the first time in my life, we did not fight. We were all hands and bodies and mouths, pressing, seeking. And when I woke, there was no month of despair awaiting me, only sunlight and joy and the ludicrous, perfect sense that I am welcome and needed in this world.
Friday, April 1, 2011
The Color of Winter V: Willingness
I can't describe how displeased I was as I took a seat in the waiting room. I was lost in that ire, until I heard someone crying to my left. At first, that made me angrier still. Late, odorous, filthy, tired, and now I was being made to wait in what was a nexus of woe, a hospital waiting room. Fucking GREAT. I turned to cast a baleful glance at the person crying.
I froze and fell to pieces in mid-glance.
The person weeping was a developmentally disabled boy of perhaps 14. He was in his wheelchair. Not a hospital wheelchair he was in for liability issues—his lifelong wheelchair. He was slumped over in his own lap. His younger sister was cradling him in her arms. She was dried-eyed and was looking over my shoulder with calm determination—I guessed she'd been through this scenario often enough to be inured to it. On the back of his wheelchair was a very large oxygen tank—I gathered he had enough difficulty breathing he needed to have a large supply at hand at all times. He was sobbing desperately against his sister, but his breathing was a terrible struggle. He wept, snuffled, shook, hacked, wheezed, gasped and cried out breathlessly. The woman at the counter, being helped ahead of me, that caused me so much frustration, was his mother checking him in. Tears filled me. I'm crying again, writing this.
The bottom dropped out of my anger and all my fixation on my difficulties came apart. What the fuck was I doing? What did I have to be anxious about? I needed a shower, had a sore throat and was late for dinner. It beat a large dose of perspective into me. I don't suppose that's surprising. But it occurred to me how much all our suffering would diminish if we'd have the mindful presence to step more often outside of our own narratives and offer consolation to one another.
I closed my eyes and pictured myself breathing in his despair, his pain, his suffering. Breathing it in like a poisonous black smoke, taking it from him into myself. And I pictured myself breathing out clean, crisp spring air, clear and sweet—breathing it out so that it washed back over him. I held onto that for several minutes. And then I prayed.
“Universe, my throat is sore, I'm on disability and I've spent years trying to overcome depression and social anxiety. But I recognize it's all a luxury. You can take my health, take my happiness, take my friends, take years off my life, take my prosperity, my peace of mind, take my home, take away the things that I love, or my sense of purpose. You can have any or all of these things already, I know. You don't need my permission. But I'm offering them freely anyway. Take them, if they'll help. Ease his pain. Take what I have in trade and bring that boy some peace.”
The family eventually went upstairs. The woman behind the counter called me over. She apologized extensively for the time it took. But by then, I'd let all that go. I smiled at her and said it was all part of life. She checked me in, I turned in the vial next door and I rode to dinner, smelly, dirty and late. And I had a great night. The next day I realized I couldn't let all my control mechanisms go. I tightened my grip on my diet and on my sleep schedule. I resumed meditating. I started managing my finances again. And in so doing found I had 500 dollars less than I thought and would be in the red by the time rent was due—I guess the universe took me up on my offer of prosperity. Honestly, it gave me a silly sense of warmth to see my account dry, thinking that.
And with that, my weight began to drop again, a goal coalesced a pace or two ahead of me, and I could hear the ravens laughing in this burgeoning spring.
I froze and fell to pieces in mid-glance.
The person weeping was a developmentally disabled boy of perhaps 14. He was in his wheelchair. Not a hospital wheelchair he was in for liability issues—his lifelong wheelchair. He was slumped over in his own lap. His younger sister was cradling him in her arms. She was dried-eyed and was looking over my shoulder with calm determination—I guessed she'd been through this scenario often enough to be inured to it. On the back of his wheelchair was a very large oxygen tank—I gathered he had enough difficulty breathing he needed to have a large supply at hand at all times. He was sobbing desperately against his sister, but his breathing was a terrible struggle. He wept, snuffled, shook, hacked, wheezed, gasped and cried out breathlessly. The woman at the counter, being helped ahead of me, that caused me so much frustration, was his mother checking him in. Tears filled me. I'm crying again, writing this.
The bottom dropped out of my anger and all my fixation on my difficulties came apart. What the fuck was I doing? What did I have to be anxious about? I needed a shower, had a sore throat and was late for dinner. It beat a large dose of perspective into me. I don't suppose that's surprising. But it occurred to me how much all our suffering would diminish if we'd have the mindful presence to step more often outside of our own narratives and offer consolation to one another.
I closed my eyes and pictured myself breathing in his despair, his pain, his suffering. Breathing it in like a poisonous black smoke, taking it from him into myself. And I pictured myself breathing out clean, crisp spring air, clear and sweet—breathing it out so that it washed back over him. I held onto that for several minutes. And then I prayed.
“Universe, my throat is sore, I'm on disability and I've spent years trying to overcome depression and social anxiety. But I recognize it's all a luxury. You can take my health, take my happiness, take my friends, take years off my life, take my prosperity, my peace of mind, take my home, take away the things that I love, or my sense of purpose. You can have any or all of these things already, I know. You don't need my permission. But I'm offering them freely anyway. Take them, if they'll help. Ease his pain. Take what I have in trade and bring that boy some peace.”
The family eventually went upstairs. The woman behind the counter called me over. She apologized extensively for the time it took. But by then, I'd let all that go. I smiled at her and said it was all part of life. She checked me in, I turned in the vial next door and I rode to dinner, smelly, dirty and late. And I had a great night. The next day I realized I couldn't let all my control mechanisms go. I tightened my grip on my diet and on my sleep schedule. I resumed meditating. I started managing my finances again. And in so doing found I had 500 dollars less than I thought and would be in the red by the time rent was due—I guess the universe took me up on my offer of prosperity. Honestly, it gave me a silly sense of warmth to see my account dry, thinking that.
And with that, my weight began to drop again, a goal coalesced a pace or two ahead of me, and I could hear the ravens laughing in this burgeoning spring.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Color of Winter IV: Willfulness
After tackling the bicycle problem head-on, I felt actually able to do what needed doing. I rode across town to the medical clinic and got my throat looked at. They found nothing wrong but took a culture to be tested at the hospital. I was handed a plastic bag with a vial inside.
“What's this?” I asked.
“Your throat culture.”
“And why are you giving it to me?”
“So you can take it to the lab.”
“Me? I thought you would do that.”
“Oh no. The lab's at the hospital. Just take it over and drop it off. You'll be in and out in two minutes.”
I was furious, and anxious because it was getting close to when I needed to be at a friend's birthday. I was in clothes that stank of sweat and I was still somewhat smeared with bike grime. But I had no choice, so I rode it to the hospital. It took five minutes to find the lab and when I put the vial on the counter, the man behind it looked at me like I'd just spit in his mouth.
“What's that?” he asked.
“A culture from OnCall.”
“Why is it on my counter?”
“I was told to drop it off here.”
“Well, have you checked it in at the Registration desk?”
“Uh...no?”
“Then take it away. We can't do anything with it until you've checked it in.”
By this point, I was livid. I found the Registration desk. The woman behind the counter was already helping someone. I stood a few paces back. She looked up at me, surprised.
“Are you waiting, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Well, here, take this pager. We're going to be a while.”
“What's this?” I asked.
“Your throat culture.”
“And why are you giving it to me?”
“So you can take it to the lab.”
“Me? I thought you would do that.”
“Oh no. The lab's at the hospital. Just take it over and drop it off. You'll be in and out in two minutes.”
I was furious, and anxious because it was getting close to when I needed to be at a friend's birthday. I was in clothes that stank of sweat and I was still somewhat smeared with bike grime. But I had no choice, so I rode it to the hospital. It took five minutes to find the lab and when I put the vial on the counter, the man behind it looked at me like I'd just spit in his mouth.
“What's that?” he asked.
“A culture from OnCall.”
“Why is it on my counter?”
“I was told to drop it off here.”
“Well, have you checked it in at the Registration desk?”
“Uh...no?”
“Then take it away. We can't do anything with it until you've checked it in.”
By this point, I was livid. I found the Registration desk. The woman behind the counter was already helping someone. I stood a few paces back. She looked up at me, surprised.
“Are you waiting, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Well, here, take this pager. We're going to be a while.”
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
The Color of Winter III: Not This Time
Two weeks ago I felt withdrawn. I was exercising a lot, but the effort to do so seemed inordinate. A few steps into my midweek dance class, I was lightheaded, weak, and a sore throat I'd had for two months became unbearable. I dropped out of the class and while it was a reasonable thing to do, I felt ashamed and shaken for doing so. I vowed I would finally get my sore throat tested the following day. That night, I had a terrible dream of both my parents telling me they were dying. I woke off center and couldn't find my momentum. The class had shaken my confidence in my body. The dream had shaken my confidence in my emotional state. Doctors' offices shake me in general. So it took the better part of the day to go. At which point, I realized I had a broken spoke on my bike.
I'd never replaced a spoke. It was on the right side of the rear wheel, behind the free wheel. I'd need to take that off before I could replace the spoke, then put it back on. I'd never removed or put on a free wheel before, either. I stood there, gaping at my bike, trying to make the logistics of how I would get the bike fixed, get to the medical clinic, and get through the next several days, come together. But they wouldn't and after a few minutes, I gave up and retreated inside. I felt the deep urge to hide. Beyond the bike and the trip to the clinic, I had plans for the evening. I contemplated canceling them.
And then I recalled the car I gave up almost a year earlier. Hiding hadn't helped then, and believing it might help now left me angry. I pictured everything paralyzing me with fear and pictured the hardest, most proactive thing I could do in response. I called a friend who'd know, O, and asked him how much damage it would do, riding the bike as it was, to the bike workshop. None at all, he told me. So I rode there. The place was deserted. I'd watched people do the procedures I needed to do to disassemble, fix and reassemble my bike. Once. I recalled it, held it in mind, and fixed my bike myself. The repairs were perfect. My dimmed confidence began to brighten. That bear's bellowing roar came back to me. I rode off to face the day, reinvigorated.
I'd never replaced a spoke. It was on the right side of the rear wheel, behind the free wheel. I'd need to take that off before I could replace the spoke, then put it back on. I'd never removed or put on a free wheel before, either. I stood there, gaping at my bike, trying to make the logistics of how I would get the bike fixed, get to the medical clinic, and get through the next several days, come together. But they wouldn't and after a few minutes, I gave up and retreated inside. I felt the deep urge to hide. Beyond the bike and the trip to the clinic, I had plans for the evening. I contemplated canceling them.
And then I recalled the car I gave up almost a year earlier. Hiding hadn't helped then, and believing it might help now left me angry. I pictured everything paralyzing me with fear and pictured the hardest, most proactive thing I could do in response. I called a friend who'd know, O, and asked him how much damage it would do, riding the bike as it was, to the bike workshop. None at all, he told me. So I rode there. The place was deserted. I'd watched people do the procedures I needed to do to disassemble, fix and reassemble my bike. Once. I recalled it, held it in mind, and fixed my bike myself. The repairs were perfect. My dimmed confidence began to brighten. That bear's bellowing roar came back to me. I rode off to face the day, reinvigorated.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Color of Winter II: Fade Out
Holidays are hard for me, typically. At my worst, the few years before this last one, I slid into hopelessness at the beginning of October and didn't crawl out again until April. This last year, I struggled some, to make social plans, but much of the rest of my life was unscathed. The hardest period was nothing compared to that black six months of years past, and it only lasted a couple of weeks around Christmas. But the holidays still wore at me. The weather wore at me. I was terrified to cycle in the snow and cold. And the prospect of moving, repeatedly yanked away from me, that wore at me most of all.
I managed a few great things over the winter. I applied for a job. The first time in six years of disability. I added two more dance nights, so that I was taking west African dance classes four times a week. I added another night of volunteering at the bike workshop, and I began to join the other volunteers in community activist projects. And I beat that snow and ice terror and got to cycling through the worst of the weather, feeling deeply empowered for having done so.
But with everything that wore at me, my social tendency suffered, confidence waned, direction became muddled. Trust in the universe and the sense that my path was open, beautiful and attainable, and the compassion that came with that sense, began to fade. I was still doing all the big things I'd cultivated over the last year, but all the small things I'd been doing to make it all flow smoothly were left unattended, and began to wither. And the scold of the raven, the roar of the bear--days passed, then weeks, where they would to fail to reach me at all. I wasn't in a nosedive, but my climb upward had become a precarious hang in space without my feet rooted in reality.
I managed a few great things over the winter. I applied for a job. The first time in six years of disability. I added two more dance nights, so that I was taking west African dance classes four times a week. I added another night of volunteering at the bike workshop, and I began to join the other volunteers in community activist projects. And I beat that snow and ice terror and got to cycling through the worst of the weather, feeling deeply empowered for having done so.
But with everything that wore at me, my social tendency suffered, confidence waned, direction became muddled. Trust in the universe and the sense that my path was open, beautiful and attainable, and the compassion that came with that sense, began to fade. I was still doing all the big things I'd cultivated over the last year, but all the small things I'd been doing to make it all flow smoothly were left unattended, and began to wither. And the scold of the raven, the roar of the bear--days passed, then weeks, where they would to fail to reach me at all. I wasn't in a nosedive, but my climb upward had become a precarious hang in space without my feet rooted in reality.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Color of Winter I: On the Road.
Over the course of last spring, summer and fall, I'd found, after years of faltering, a steady rhythm for my life. I found it by focusing on what I would do instead of what I wanted things to be, and by fostering trust in the path the universe had in front of me, instead of the dread and worry over whether or not I'd managed to cover all my bases. The patterns led me from one thing to the next, not through the fixation on long term goals, but by taking that which most enlivened me that was suddenly close enough at hand to be reached one step ahead of where I was already standing. And trusting as I was learning to do, every step, there was another deeply rewarding goal another step along. The sense that life is a journey was vivid and visceral.
So, after a progression of wonderful steps, I was offered a chance for my first trip out of Santa Fe in several years. I helped me friend, D, move his belongings from Santa Fe to Seattle. We cleaned, refurbished and then packed up the house, and drove the truck cross country. Over the course of the last several years, time away from home became unbearable. But the offer felt like the next step I hadn't realized I wanted, one pace beyond where I stood, so I took the opportunity. The trip was enlivening beyond description. I danced and felt my joy in that rekindled; I met with friends who I hadn't seen in 7 years, and some I hadn't seen in 20.
And while there, D dropped a bomb in my lap—he offered to rent me a room in his house there. I was being offered a chance to move. Anyone who's talked with me at length these last 8 years or so knows how often I've spoken of moving. I've never felt quite at home here. Just the offer was enough to kick my overplanning impulse into high gear. So I was knocked off kilter when the offer had to be rescinded. Shortly after, my roommate here in town offered to move my things up to Seattle when he moved back to Portland this summer. And shortly after that, THAT offer had to be rescinded. The entire issue of whether or not to move is a separate post by itself, so I won't get into that any more here, but I spent a large portion of my winter stumbling around due to the roller coaster the prospect turned out to be.
So, after a progression of wonderful steps, I was offered a chance for my first trip out of Santa Fe in several years. I helped me friend, D, move his belongings from Santa Fe to Seattle. We cleaned, refurbished and then packed up the house, and drove the truck cross country. Over the course of the last several years, time away from home became unbearable. But the offer felt like the next step I hadn't realized I wanted, one pace beyond where I stood, so I took the opportunity. The trip was enlivening beyond description. I danced and felt my joy in that rekindled; I met with friends who I hadn't seen in 7 years, and some I hadn't seen in 20.
And while there, D dropped a bomb in my lap—he offered to rent me a room in his house there. I was being offered a chance to move. Anyone who's talked with me at length these last 8 years or so knows how often I've spoken of moving. I've never felt quite at home here. Just the offer was enough to kick my overplanning impulse into high gear. So I was knocked off kilter when the offer had to be rescinded. Shortly after, my roommate here in town offered to move my things up to Seattle when he moved back to Portland this summer. And shortly after that, THAT offer had to be rescinded. The entire issue of whether or not to move is a separate post by itself, so I won't get into that any more here, but I spent a large portion of my winter stumbling around due to the roller coaster the prospect turned out to be.
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