I like to unwind from my day when I get home from work. It's quiet time for me after a hectic day of running around followed by work. Generally I end up on the sofa with some small snack, the boys having been fed, watered, and cuddled. They lay contented, purring their siren song, sometimes on my lap or next to me though more often than not in the favorite places. Tonight I happened upon an episode of Charlie Rose. His guest, Zanny Minton Beddoes, was speaking about Trump, Brexit, and the rise of Populism. I listened intently to her take on things. Most of what she said I agreed with but some things I did not. Being the Editor in Chief of The Economist, she was of course all in on free trade acknowledging though that it does has knock-off effects. I am not in favor of free trade but I'll save that for later.
I'm very interested in Europe and its history, have been for a long time even before I went to college. That was my main reason for choosing a Minor in European Area Studies. What I learned is that in many ways the U.S. is such a young country where the Old World is not; however, even at our young age we share many of the ideological struggles that they have had over the centuries. This current resurgence of Populism and the rise of Trump is not an isolated incident. It is the logical end in a long line of connected events that can be traced back to the creation of our country. History tells us that many of the immigrants that arrived here were economically disadvantaged and religiously oppressed, that they came here to be free from tyranny, to live the life they chose, one that they felt was divined by God. What we are not readily taught is that within their respective colonies these colonists formed their own version of tyranny and oppression based on their religious and social beliefs. Routinely people were banished, left to survive in the wilderness, more often left for dead. And after the formulation of our country there were routine, almost like clockwork, religious re-awakenings that were rooted in these early definitions of traditional values. Preacher's would hold tent revivals whipping up religious and social hatred with their fire and brimstone stump speeches. What also came with this was anti-immigrant uprisings, the earliest aimed at the Irish Catholic laborers who migrated in the early 1800's. There is a well documented account of a massacre in Philadelphia of Irish laborers in 1832. Draft riots during the Civil War where Protestants attacked Irish and German Catholic neighborhoods, burning houses, and murdering their inhabitants. Populism is not new here. It has a very long and storied history. Two names come to mind, that of Charles Coughlin, a priest who was in Detroit and Senator Huey Long of Louisiana both active during the 1930's. Father Coughlin initially supported F.D.R. and the New Deal but soon turned populist and antisemitic. Senator Huey Long also took the populist road and was a well known demagogue in the South. One could categorize Nixon as a demagogue too for using the anti-democratic post civil rights fervor in the New South as a politic tool to gain and hold the presidency. Reagan can be defined as a populist as well. His well worn generalizations tapped into that yearning for a less complicated time when things were predictable. This long history of populism seems always to happen during or after a time when there is great change or fear of change. Trump is just another in a long line that can be traced back for centuries here and beyond in Europe. It's fear of change and the loss that accompanies it that drives populism. Europe is in the gripe of that now. In almost every country in Europe populism is on the rise and taking political control. In many places these far right parties are in government or rule in partnership with other right wing groups. Fear is the driver. Loss too. And abandonment. The Tea Party here is the current driver of populism coming out of the fear that whites are losing power. Their anti immigrant platform is filled with the vitriol that would make any demagogue proud. Trump's crime, if it can be called that, is his predatory use of that existing fear and loss his for own personal power. It doesn't help that our political system has been shown to be wildly corrupt and at the beck and call of the moneyed oligarchs who pick and chose their candidates as if they were shopping for loaves of bread.
Our world is changing and we are powerless to stop it. Globalization and the free trade that it needs is a fact of life if the current form of capitalism is to survive. Moderating it is problematic at best because the vested interests are not able nor willing to let go. Investment follows where profits lay. Profits are made by producing things better and for less with innovation at the root of it all. We are told that we must innovate, that new is necessary, that change is good, that old is bad. We are conditioned to want these new things faster and cheaper while being told that with one click we can have almost anything delivered to our door within days, sometimes within hours. On a grander scale we are sold into the idea that the latest gadget, a better car, a bigger house can be ours, all while our desires are satiated by corporations who blind us with a constant stream of slick ads. It's a vicious circle that we willingly buy into. Who doesn't like new things? Or something better for less? But what that chase leaves us with is a sense of insecurity, that we are never enough, that our happiness is just beyond our fingertips. It also tells us that things mean more than our authenticity, that our self worth is what we own instead of who we are. And that is what this is all about; it's powerlessness with a capital P. Powerlessness is a very heady emotion rooted in our insecurities. Powerlessness warps our perceptions to a point where we can no longer distinguish between reality and illusion. It taps into all the baggage we carry from our life experiences exponentially growing that baggage into the monsters that haunt us both during our waking and sleeping hours. And we are angry because of it! Couple all of this with fear, loss, and abandonment, and we are all ripe for a demagogues picking, like low hanging fruit on a tree. Populism is not the purview of the unintelligent or the uneducated either. That's too easy of a definition. We all are subject to these powerful raw emotions. It's just that some of us seem more inclined to navigating them better. So what can we do? How do we address the Trump's of the world and the populism that reappears as regularly as clockwork? Good question. I want to say I do not know. And I don't. Maybe though, we can decouple from the vicious circle of our current form of capitalism and come to the understanding that a kinder and gentler form of it can retain good jobs locally and still thrive but it will mean that we will pay more and have less. That free trade is not the be all end all. That innovation and profits have less value than attaining a quality life. That maybe we don't need the latest gadget or the latest fashion to feel whole; that connection, self worth, and authenticity does have more value than the products we buy. Whatever the answers may be, we must continue to fight the demagoguery and the political, social, and economic corruption that it feeds off of because the alternative is just too horrifying to imagine.
Friday, October 14, 2016
Friday, July 15, 2016
The Nature of Racism
I was speaking to my ninety-two year old father yesterday. I could hear him flipping the pages of his local paper while we were talking about family. Finally, after the sound of paper rustling had ended dad said what he was meaning to saying;
"Pastor Dave was in the local paper speaking about Racism a few days ago."
I was understandably apprehensive being that Pastor Dave is the minister at my fathers church, a church that is rooted in a peculiar brand of christian fundamentalism. For a few moments after my dad stopped I had visions of Pastor Dave waving his bible in the air from the pulpit saying the kind of things my mom use to say about gay people; about me really. After I collected myself, we went on to talk about other things, the weather there, how Lars was doing in his post surgery recovery, my niece and her health. We never did discuss what Pastor Dave had said in his sermon.
I got up early this morning. Sleep has always been elusive for me, more so now that I am trying to keep an eye on Lars. Since I was up I decided to go online and balance my checkbook and look at the local news. One item caught my eye immediately. The KKK has been recruiting in San Francisco. I read the article with fascination as the regional leader described the recruiting as a response to increased calls for information, that people are scared, and that, incredulously, the "new Klan is not interested in fomenting violence, does not support it, that their efforts are only about information sharing. That got me thinking again about Pastor Dave's sermon so searched and found his sermon on a podcast. I have to say he is not the best public speaker I've ever heard. In fact I found it was a bit difficult to follow his sermon. I suppose that is why he hands out notes for the congregation to follow along with him as he preaches. I also suspect that some of my difficulty was trepidation, that I was expecting the kind of preaching I had heard at my mom's funeral service; a mix of Sunday sermonizing about God, salvation, and the glory's of life everlasting in heaven served up with a benediction at the end. What I heard though was a rambling quoting of scripture, one that was rooted in not only respect for authority but also of a plea against racism, that no one should be judged by the color of their skin or by their gender. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised. He also talked about how he had never had a black friend until his early adulthood and how that had shaped his perceptions. He talked about the idea of the United States being a melting pot but that now it seems more of a cauldron then anything. He talked about the loss of black lives and of police. That we can not discount the fact that racism is very real in our society and we have a responsibility to fight it. All in all not a bad sermon. It got me thinking too about my experience with how systemic racism has influenced my life and my perceptions.
I grew up during a time of turmoil in the middle to late Nineteen-Sixties when race riots and protests were commonplace and where dusk to dawn curfews existed during hot summer nights. (Why is it that no one protests during the dead of winter? Just wondering.) I did not grow up in the South. I grew up in southern Wisconsin in a medium sized city on the shores of Lake Michigan. Racism in my birth town was systemic. My dad used to say these about how neighborhoods came to be; the Danes founded the city, when the Armenians moved in the Danes left, when the Mexicans moved in the Armenians left, when the blacks move in the Mexicans left. There was no mixing, no shared spaces, the racial lines were distinct even when I grew up. Our neighborhood was white, across the river from us it was black. My junior high was mixed but not as much as my high school which was located across the river. I had a few black friends, a few of mixed race; they were called Mulattos at that time. My parents never said I couldn't hang out with my friends, there was just a sense of wrong to it. The best way to explain it is like this; for a time in high school I succumbed to the hate filled presence in my home and church about being gay. I knew I was gay for most of my childhood but for appearances I chose to act straight starting in the tenth grade. I met and dated a hispanic girl named Rose Hernandez just after I started the tenth grade. My parents suggested I take her to church as she was Catholic and that was just wrong in their eyes. They didn't see her necessarily as Mexican but more as lost soul that needed converting. So off to church we all went, me in my sunday best and Rose in a beautiful blue dress that fell just about the knees, a impeccably ironed white blouse, and knee high white leather boots. The looks that she got when we walked in said it all. It was one of utter revulsion, mind you no one was outwardly mean to her, they just made it clear with their frosty looks that she was not welcome, that their church was intended to be white only. Systemic racism works that way. It is the unspoken but clearly present things that lie just under the surface that speak volumes, the kind of things that predispose us to not be intentionally racist but to be racist non the less.
My experience with systemic racism works like this: when I hear the words drug dealer, I immediately have a visual of a young black man pop up in my mind's eye. It is not a conscience choice on my part, it just happens. That's how being conditioned works over time. Over and over again we are exposed to a daily diet of news reports that say young black men are drug dealers, that they are a threat to law and order. that we should always be on guard especially when we are in "their territory". My personal baggage plays a part as well. When I use to see a police car pass by or a policeman walk by my body would tense automatically, the hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end, and my breath would become animated coming in short bursts instead of deeper more slower ones. For years I despised the police. As a young gay man I was harassed by them, subjected to taunts by them, and generally disliked by them because of my sexual orientation. My response though was outsized to my experience. I didn't realize this until I started recovering memories of being sexually tortured in group settings by off duty police and sheriff deputies between the ages of eight and twelve. That anger and angst fed into my adult experiences with police and in some minor ways it still does. It took an altercation with one cop some years ago on a Sunday afternoon downtown that finally shifted my understanding. I was coming back to work after lunch and wanted to regain access to the lot behind the building but the street was closed due to filming. I was bristling with anger and the cop picked up on that and we nearly came to blows when he threatened to drag me out my car and taser me. I backed off only because I needed to get back to work. These two things among others I feel are at the root of systemic racism. That for most of our lives were are conditioned by outward stimuli and inwardly by our personal baggage in how we respond in certain situations. I feel that this auto conditioning is the hardest type of racism to fight too. We recoil at our auto responses, feel shame for having them in the first place, and then try to do whatever is possible to change those internal things that make our personal and collective lives unmanageable. Outward racism, the kind that is pedaled by the KKK is easy to point at, its message is clear and unequivocal, white supremacy is the rule of the day. However, the internal stuff of what I have talked about is much more pervasive and controlling. I feel that it is these auto responses that the police act upon more than anything, that when a black person is stopped they too have auto responses and that nothing good can come from this. It is appalling, however necessary it is, that black kids are being taught to be fearful of the police, that one wrong move on their part could result in their death. Bill Maher said something profound last night while talking to Stephen Colbert. He said that some police join the force in response to their junior or high school experiences of being less than or being on the outside, that having or gaining authority as a cop feeds that lack of self worth. Plainly put Bill Maher said that no person should join the force in an attempt to work out their childhood angst. I heartily agree.
I feel that we need to continue our deep and abiding personal and collective ongoing dialogue about the nature of systemic racism so that we can find ways to reconcile ourselves and our country to how these pervasive things predispose our experiences. Until then I fear that this endless cycle of violence will just continue to take innocence lives and that family's will continue to be torn apart.
"Pastor Dave was in the local paper speaking about Racism a few days ago."
I was understandably apprehensive being that Pastor Dave is the minister at my fathers church, a church that is rooted in a peculiar brand of christian fundamentalism. For a few moments after my dad stopped I had visions of Pastor Dave waving his bible in the air from the pulpit saying the kind of things my mom use to say about gay people; about me really. After I collected myself, we went on to talk about other things, the weather there, how Lars was doing in his post surgery recovery, my niece and her health. We never did discuss what Pastor Dave had said in his sermon.
I got up early this morning. Sleep has always been elusive for me, more so now that I am trying to keep an eye on Lars. Since I was up I decided to go online and balance my checkbook and look at the local news. One item caught my eye immediately. The KKK has been recruiting in San Francisco. I read the article with fascination as the regional leader described the recruiting as a response to increased calls for information, that people are scared, and that, incredulously, the "new Klan is not interested in fomenting violence, does not support it, that their efforts are only about information sharing. That got me thinking again about Pastor Dave's sermon so searched and found his sermon on a podcast. I have to say he is not the best public speaker I've ever heard. In fact I found it was a bit difficult to follow his sermon. I suppose that is why he hands out notes for the congregation to follow along with him as he preaches. I also suspect that some of my difficulty was trepidation, that I was expecting the kind of preaching I had heard at my mom's funeral service; a mix of Sunday sermonizing about God, salvation, and the glory's of life everlasting in heaven served up with a benediction at the end. What I heard though was a rambling quoting of scripture, one that was rooted in not only respect for authority but also of a plea against racism, that no one should be judged by the color of their skin or by their gender. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised. He also talked about how he had never had a black friend until his early adulthood and how that had shaped his perceptions. He talked about the idea of the United States being a melting pot but that now it seems more of a cauldron then anything. He talked about the loss of black lives and of police. That we can not discount the fact that racism is very real in our society and we have a responsibility to fight it. All in all not a bad sermon. It got me thinking too about my experience with how systemic racism has influenced my life and my perceptions.
I grew up during a time of turmoil in the middle to late Nineteen-Sixties when race riots and protests were commonplace and where dusk to dawn curfews existed during hot summer nights. (Why is it that no one protests during the dead of winter? Just wondering.) I did not grow up in the South. I grew up in southern Wisconsin in a medium sized city on the shores of Lake Michigan. Racism in my birth town was systemic. My dad used to say these about how neighborhoods came to be; the Danes founded the city, when the Armenians moved in the Danes left, when the Mexicans moved in the Armenians left, when the blacks move in the Mexicans left. There was no mixing, no shared spaces, the racial lines were distinct even when I grew up. Our neighborhood was white, across the river from us it was black. My junior high was mixed but not as much as my high school which was located across the river. I had a few black friends, a few of mixed race; they were called Mulattos at that time. My parents never said I couldn't hang out with my friends, there was just a sense of wrong to it. The best way to explain it is like this; for a time in high school I succumbed to the hate filled presence in my home and church about being gay. I knew I was gay for most of my childhood but for appearances I chose to act straight starting in the tenth grade. I met and dated a hispanic girl named Rose Hernandez just after I started the tenth grade. My parents suggested I take her to church as she was Catholic and that was just wrong in their eyes. They didn't see her necessarily as Mexican but more as lost soul that needed converting. So off to church we all went, me in my sunday best and Rose in a beautiful blue dress that fell just about the knees, a impeccably ironed white blouse, and knee high white leather boots. The looks that she got when we walked in said it all. It was one of utter revulsion, mind you no one was outwardly mean to her, they just made it clear with their frosty looks that she was not welcome, that their church was intended to be white only. Systemic racism works that way. It is the unspoken but clearly present things that lie just under the surface that speak volumes, the kind of things that predispose us to not be intentionally racist but to be racist non the less.
My experience with systemic racism works like this: when I hear the words drug dealer, I immediately have a visual of a young black man pop up in my mind's eye. It is not a conscience choice on my part, it just happens. That's how being conditioned works over time. Over and over again we are exposed to a daily diet of news reports that say young black men are drug dealers, that they are a threat to law and order. that we should always be on guard especially when we are in "their territory". My personal baggage plays a part as well. When I use to see a police car pass by or a policeman walk by my body would tense automatically, the hairs on the back of my neck would stand on end, and my breath would become animated coming in short bursts instead of deeper more slower ones. For years I despised the police. As a young gay man I was harassed by them, subjected to taunts by them, and generally disliked by them because of my sexual orientation. My response though was outsized to my experience. I didn't realize this until I started recovering memories of being sexually tortured in group settings by off duty police and sheriff deputies between the ages of eight and twelve. That anger and angst fed into my adult experiences with police and in some minor ways it still does. It took an altercation with one cop some years ago on a Sunday afternoon downtown that finally shifted my understanding. I was coming back to work after lunch and wanted to regain access to the lot behind the building but the street was closed due to filming. I was bristling with anger and the cop picked up on that and we nearly came to blows when he threatened to drag me out my car and taser me. I backed off only because I needed to get back to work. These two things among others I feel are at the root of systemic racism. That for most of our lives were are conditioned by outward stimuli and inwardly by our personal baggage in how we respond in certain situations. I feel that this auto conditioning is the hardest type of racism to fight too. We recoil at our auto responses, feel shame for having them in the first place, and then try to do whatever is possible to change those internal things that make our personal and collective lives unmanageable. Outward racism, the kind that is pedaled by the KKK is easy to point at, its message is clear and unequivocal, white supremacy is the rule of the day. However, the internal stuff of what I have talked about is much more pervasive and controlling. I feel that it is these auto responses that the police act upon more than anything, that when a black person is stopped they too have auto responses and that nothing good can come from this. It is appalling, however necessary it is, that black kids are being taught to be fearful of the police, that one wrong move on their part could result in their death. Bill Maher said something profound last night while talking to Stephen Colbert. He said that some police join the force in response to their junior or high school experiences of being less than or being on the outside, that having or gaining authority as a cop feeds that lack of self worth. Plainly put Bill Maher said that no person should join the force in an attempt to work out their childhood angst. I heartily agree.
I feel that we need to continue our deep and abiding personal and collective ongoing dialogue about the nature of systemic racism so that we can find ways to reconcile ourselves and our country to how these pervasive things predispose our experiences. Until then I fear that this endless cycle of violence will just continue to take innocence lives and that family's will continue to be torn apart.
Monday, April 25, 2016
A Distant Voice
I am having writers block and it's driving me bat shit crazy. When I went out on disability in the middle of March I had high hopes of finishing I am an Old Soul. I though, when Jack and Craig make it to San Francisco, that is when the words will really flow onto the page; well onto the computer screen. I thought, I have lived here in the City since 1978. I experienced the Castro in it's heyday. I lived the life of Reilly in Polk Gulch when it was a full on gay neighborhood. I got this. I will write about what I know. Isn't that what they always say; write about what you know. I know this; but, as soon as Craig drove that blue '68 Skylark off the Bay Bridge, onto 101, then down the off ramp at Duboce and Mission, the words stopped. Do you know how frustrating that is? I've been working on this bloody novel for eight years; and, there are two more novels waiting in the wings for their day in the sun, not so patiently I might add. Little Anna Thorensen, the little girl who lived through the 1906 earthquake and fire and Harriet Beecher-Stowe's son Fred, the one who disappeared here in the City just after the Civil War are already telling their stories, their voices competing with those of Jack and Craig's. Some days it's like an out of control party in my head with everyone talking over each other and the surrounding din just so they have the chance to be heard. I do ask them to quiet down and be patient while I sit in frustration feeling my angst.; and thank the Goddess they listen; well sometimes they listen. What's equally frustrating for me though is that I know how this writing thing works. If I can get out of the way and let the characters tell their story then everything will flow. Lately though I have been wondering if Jack and Craig may be angry because I am attempting to overlay my experiences onto theirs. Maybe, then maybe not. Who's to know. Either way they're not talking, at least not to me and probably not to each other. That's why I decided to dig out my little mini recorder from the back of my bedside table. I thought, OK, I'll drive from Duboce and Mission with the recorder on and let Jack and Craig speak their truth. Maybe that will work.
My mini handheld recorder has been buried in my bedside drawer for years. I can't even remember why I bought the damn thing. I think I got it because I was planning to record lectures at State in my senior year but I'm not even sure if that was the reason. Anyways, after thinking about digging it out for a few days I decided to just do it and at least see if it still worked. I wasn't even sure if I had left batteries in it or not. I though, correctly so I might add, I need to be careful when I open it up. I've accidentally dealt with that corroded battery thing before when I opened the remote for my VCR/DVD. No groans please. Yes, I do still have a VCR/DVD combo AND another VCR in reserve stored away in the closet just in case; and yes, I still have blank T120 tapes in the closet too. Now if you're done nitpicking...... Anyways, when I opened the remote battery acid went all over the place and it took a lot of time and patience to clean up the sofa, the remote, and more importantly me. This is why I decided that this time I needed to be more careful. So I took the recorder into the kitchen, spread paper towels down on the stove, and very gingerly opened the back of the mini recorder. To my surprise I found the batteries in pristine condition. I guess that tells you how long the recorder has sat unused in my bedside table. Carefully, I removed the old batteries putting in the new. While I was doing this I kept wondering if I would find a few old art history lectures or something maybe more interesting, not to say art history is not. To me it is very interesting. To you, probably not so much. When I finally turned the recorder on I heard me reading from my journal about what survival tools I had as a child versus what tools I had as an adult. I sat transfixed as I listened to every intonation of every syllable of every word. It was me in the distant past speaking to me in the very real present. I listened as I read passages from Survival to Recovery and more importantly the Promises. I heard me speak of very tactile memories from my childhood, the particular sound the old window fan in the basement made as the slightly loose fan belt slapped against the cog wheel as it went round and round during the summer nights. How the warm night air felt as if gently flowed in the window and over my body. I heard me talk about how the boxes sounded on a Saturday morning as the delivery guy behind Chopyaks store slid them along a metal conveyor ladder, the barrel wheels spinning fast then gradually slowing again as each box slid into the basement. I heard me telling me how to become grounded in those early days of my recovery in 2005, just one short year after my abuse memories started coming to the surface. I had forgotten how hard those days were, how I never knew from one moment to the next whether I was going to slide deep into another anxiety attack. I remember when I was called in for jury duty and how I had to leave the jury room so I could press my face and body against the cold stone walls, how I called friends in program for help just to hear a sane voice. I remember laying in bed at night listing off the sounds I could hear; the refrigerator humming, a distant car horn, a train whistle echoing up from south of the slot, a garbage truck rumbling down the street just before dawn, saying to myself each time, that is reality. In those early days I never knew what was reality and what was not. A lot has changed in eleven years. Sitting here on my bed I know what reality is and what is not. I know my connection to my Higher Power is real, my connection to my own body is real, and that I am sane, well most of the time. Thats why I consider myself to be an eccentric. It's not a bad thing, being an eccentric. It's actually quite a good thing. Being an eccentric is my authentic self. That was one of the things the speaker said today at Avery's graduation ceremony. In essence, be your authentic self. In 2005 I was my authentic self. I was a very scared forty-eight year old man struggling almost every minute of every day with very deep and abiding childhood memories. Eleven years on I can say I am still my authentic self, only this authentic self is much more grounded, much more resilient, and much more trusting of a Higher Power greater than myself, a power that both guides me and protects me, but more importantly a Power that allows me to move about this world each day in deeper vulnerability and presence. This is my life now and what a fabulous life it is!!
My mini handheld recorder has been buried in my bedside drawer for years. I can't even remember why I bought the damn thing. I think I got it because I was planning to record lectures at State in my senior year but I'm not even sure if that was the reason. Anyways, after thinking about digging it out for a few days I decided to just do it and at least see if it still worked. I wasn't even sure if I had left batteries in it or not. I though, correctly so I might add, I need to be careful when I open it up. I've accidentally dealt with that corroded battery thing before when I opened the remote for my VCR/DVD. No groans please. Yes, I do still have a VCR/DVD combo AND another VCR in reserve stored away in the closet just in case; and yes, I still have blank T120 tapes in the closet too. Now if you're done nitpicking...... Anyways, when I opened the remote battery acid went all over the place and it took a lot of time and patience to clean up the sofa, the remote, and more importantly me. This is why I decided that this time I needed to be more careful. So I took the recorder into the kitchen, spread paper towels down on the stove, and very gingerly opened the back of the mini recorder. To my surprise I found the batteries in pristine condition. I guess that tells you how long the recorder has sat unused in my bedside table. Carefully, I removed the old batteries putting in the new. While I was doing this I kept wondering if I would find a few old art history lectures or something maybe more interesting, not to say art history is not. To me it is very interesting. To you, probably not so much. When I finally turned the recorder on I heard me reading from my journal about what survival tools I had as a child versus what tools I had as an adult. I sat transfixed as I listened to every intonation of every syllable of every word. It was me in the distant past speaking to me in the very real present. I listened as I read passages from Survival to Recovery and more importantly the Promises. I heard me speak of very tactile memories from my childhood, the particular sound the old window fan in the basement made as the slightly loose fan belt slapped against the cog wheel as it went round and round during the summer nights. How the warm night air felt as if gently flowed in the window and over my body. I heard me talk about how the boxes sounded on a Saturday morning as the delivery guy behind Chopyaks store slid them along a metal conveyor ladder, the barrel wheels spinning fast then gradually slowing again as each box slid into the basement. I heard me telling me how to become grounded in those early days of my recovery in 2005, just one short year after my abuse memories started coming to the surface. I had forgotten how hard those days were, how I never knew from one moment to the next whether I was going to slide deep into another anxiety attack. I remember when I was called in for jury duty and how I had to leave the jury room so I could press my face and body against the cold stone walls, how I called friends in program for help just to hear a sane voice. I remember laying in bed at night listing off the sounds I could hear; the refrigerator humming, a distant car horn, a train whistle echoing up from south of the slot, a garbage truck rumbling down the street just before dawn, saying to myself each time, that is reality. In those early days I never knew what was reality and what was not. A lot has changed in eleven years. Sitting here on my bed I know what reality is and what is not. I know my connection to my Higher Power is real, my connection to my own body is real, and that I am sane, well most of the time. Thats why I consider myself to be an eccentric. It's not a bad thing, being an eccentric. It's actually quite a good thing. Being an eccentric is my authentic self. That was one of the things the speaker said today at Avery's graduation ceremony. In essence, be your authentic self. In 2005 I was my authentic self. I was a very scared forty-eight year old man struggling almost every minute of every day with very deep and abiding childhood memories. Eleven years on I can say I am still my authentic self, only this authentic self is much more grounded, much more resilient, and much more trusting of a Higher Power greater than myself, a power that both guides me and protects me, but more importantly a Power that allows me to move about this world each day in deeper vulnerability and presence. This is my life now and what a fabulous life it is!!
Friday, March 18, 2016
The Authentic Self
I ate an entire chocolate bar a few hours prior to bed. Within the grander scheme of things this is not a particularly bad event unless you have lived a caffeine free existence for the last twenty years, which I have. So this is way I happen to be up writing another blog at twelve minutes past Three A.M. much to the dismay of my boys, who I might add are wandering about the apartment howling their displeasure.
While I was staring at the darkened ceiling over the past, oh, four hours, I was reflecting on what it means to have an authentic self. Until I entered recovery fifteen years ago I never really understood the concept. I had, for most of my life, been driven by the dark demons of my childhood experiences, not that I had remembered them. That was my unique situation from about age twelve until well after I entered recovery. I had an unmanageable life which I didn't know was unmanageable for reasons that were so deeply buried or jettisoned so far into the stratosphere that I was completely unaware of their existence. Sounds maddening doesn't it. I guess it was, not that I knew it. In hindsight it was really the only option available at the time. I get that now. How does that old saying go? Hindsight is twenty twenty. It's also easy to say…. if I had known then what I know now….. but I didn't.
I started to lose my authentic self when I was eight. That was when all the trauma started; however, I does serve any purpose to rehash old events, that is not the reason I'm writing. I am writing in the middle of the night because I ate that damn chocolate bar….. no, wait, there is a point here, I know there is, if I could just focus….. Oh, right, recovering my authentic self. Sorry for the momentary rambling, sleeplessness does that to me. I do have empathy for my friends, they put up with so much of my rambling. My former therapist use to say that I spoke in paragraphs, not an entirely good thing to do when you're a budding writer. But I digress. Do I even know what that word digress means? Sorry, rambling again. My authentic self. God I hope this is not an example of my authentic self. Oops, rambling again…..
Excuse me while I take a moment….. Ok, I think I'm firing on almost all my cylinders.
My recovery! My recovery has been a lifetime exercise of relocating my authentic self. No easy task I might add particularly because I had no idea where it had gone or how I could find it. There were hints of its existence, in my eyes when I looked in the mirror, in my spontaneous sense of humor on those rare occasions when it revealed itself, in a deep sense of empathy at witnessing other people's powerlessness. I remember back during my college days, in the mid Nineties, before I had ever entered the rooms, I was required to take two art classes outside my art history major. It was part of my undergraduate requirements before transferring over to State. I enjoyed working with my hands and I enjoyed photography so I decided to take both Photography and Ceramics. As I said I enjoyed working with my hands and ceramics gave me the opportunity to play with clay. The tactile experience of handing and forming things was very satisfying; however, I can say now that my future DIY abilities where subtly being forecasted and they were not pretty. (Just ask my friend Paul who recently helped me with my latest DIY disaster.) While others in class where turning out beautifully formed tea pots and vases with gorgeously fired coloring I was turning out lopsided things that looked like a kindergarden copy of the leaning tower of Pisa. Only not so good. When I turned to photography during the next semester I was much more hopeful. I already owned a camera, one that my friend Mr. Mark had given to me, and I had created some really beautiful photographs. I actually loved going out with Mr. Mark. He has a really good eye for things and the talent to make them happen. When we went out I enjoyed taking photos of iconic things like the Golden Gate Bridge and the more subtle things like a father and his son sharing a beautifully intimate moment together in Union Square. When the photography class started we had the usual assignments. Take photos of this tree or that landscape, take a photo at night, or using this exposure and that F stop. As the semester went on my teacher started to notice things in my work not that she told me about it. It was just after the midterm that she pulled me aside with one of my photos. It was an intimate setting I had created in my kitchen, one where I had an open book on the table, a crumpled cloth napkin, a plate of cookies, and a cup of tea. I had taken a long time to create that scene. I had placed everything just so, crumpled the napkin to mimic someone who had just tossed it aside. I waited for the afternoon sun to hit the edges of the book cover in just the right place I wanted before I snapped the shutter a few times. I was convinced that it had all the hallmarks of a dutch light painter's still life only in a photograph. My teacher was sweet. She pulled me aside with my photo in hand and said very gently that there was no humanity present in my scene. I was crushed to say the least. She explained that everything was set up perfectly but that there was no evidence that anyone had, say taken a sip of the tea, or taken a bite of a cookie. There were no crumbs on the table, no drips of tea on the side of the cup. It was perfectly perfect in every way except for being a part of a living experience. And so the class went on. Photo after photo was essentially a repeat of the last. I did try but to no avail. I just couldn't create humanity in my work. Near the end of the semester we were told to plan a finally project. I already knew what mine was going to be. I had thought about it for months, had already done some of the planning, and had asked my friend Ralph to assist me with being the person I would photograph. When the time came we both went out, me with my camera and tripod, Ralph with all the costuming. My final project was set in Lafayette Park near where I lived. The premise of the project was a guy (Ralph) was walking in the park on a warm afternoon enjoying the beautiful day. Then, while he walked down one of the paths he happened to experience a random meeting of his former self, essentially, he and his former self would pass through each other as they walked in opposite directions. The series of photos would show how the random experience happened, how they both knew on some level that it had happened, how they then purposely forced another encounter, and finally, in the last photo, how they rejoined each others body's crossing the spans of time and place. We did the photo shoot over the course of an afternoon. All the joint photos were done using double exposure. The others were just regular photographs. That next day I took the finished film to the school lab, developed it, chose the seven photos I was going to use, printed them , and mounted them. The second to last day of the semester I handed in the project. I received high praise from the teacher and my classmates and I got a A for my project and for the semester. I didn't realize it at the time but this project was a telling sign for me. This project was my first deep subconscious understanding that my authentic self still existed and that it was out there waiting for me to reconnect with it. It wasn't until ten years later, during my third year of recovery, that on a much deeper plane, my authentic self would reemerge along within the first signs my childhood trauma. Twelve years on I have a very different view.
If I were to describe how I see my authentic self today, through sleep deprived eyes I might add, I would say this: my authentic self is empathic, compassionate, and loving. It is less anxious than it use to be but can sometimes still be angst ridden. My authentic self has a spontaneous sense of humor when not controlled by me and a deadly one when it is, kind of like a comedian dying a slow and painful death on stage as he tries to tell joke after joke to an increasingly comatose audience. My authentic self can be frustratingly fixed on controlling situations and others especially when that little kid inside is bouncing off the walls. My authentic self can also be vulnerable, willing, and trusting. In fact that is more often the norm now in opposed to being the aberration. The difference between that guy in the park who happened upon his former self and me now is that I have found out how to nurture my moving from an "I" existence to "We" existence, from existing in a perpetual state of survival where I had to be in control of everything and everyone to a place where I actively attempt to continually right size myself in relation to my Higher Power. Where the "We" is the continual movement of my life towards a place of subtly prayerful actions in an attempt to seek the guidance I need to live more fully in the body and spirit of my authentic self; and I have to say I'm not doing too badly in this present moment, which is all I have right now, at least until the next present moment reveals itself.
While I was staring at the darkened ceiling over the past, oh, four hours, I was reflecting on what it means to have an authentic self. Until I entered recovery fifteen years ago I never really understood the concept. I had, for most of my life, been driven by the dark demons of my childhood experiences, not that I had remembered them. That was my unique situation from about age twelve until well after I entered recovery. I had an unmanageable life which I didn't know was unmanageable for reasons that were so deeply buried or jettisoned so far into the stratosphere that I was completely unaware of their existence. Sounds maddening doesn't it. I guess it was, not that I knew it. In hindsight it was really the only option available at the time. I get that now. How does that old saying go? Hindsight is twenty twenty. It's also easy to say…. if I had known then what I know now….. but I didn't.
I started to lose my authentic self when I was eight. That was when all the trauma started; however, I does serve any purpose to rehash old events, that is not the reason I'm writing. I am writing in the middle of the night because I ate that damn chocolate bar….. no, wait, there is a point here, I know there is, if I could just focus….. Oh, right, recovering my authentic self. Sorry for the momentary rambling, sleeplessness does that to me. I do have empathy for my friends, they put up with so much of my rambling. My former therapist use to say that I spoke in paragraphs, not an entirely good thing to do when you're a budding writer. But I digress. Do I even know what that word digress means? Sorry, rambling again. My authentic self. God I hope this is not an example of my authentic self. Oops, rambling again…..
Excuse me while I take a moment….. Ok, I think I'm firing on almost all my cylinders.
My recovery! My recovery has been a lifetime exercise of relocating my authentic self. No easy task I might add particularly because I had no idea where it had gone or how I could find it. There were hints of its existence, in my eyes when I looked in the mirror, in my spontaneous sense of humor on those rare occasions when it revealed itself, in a deep sense of empathy at witnessing other people's powerlessness. I remember back during my college days, in the mid Nineties, before I had ever entered the rooms, I was required to take two art classes outside my art history major. It was part of my undergraduate requirements before transferring over to State. I enjoyed working with my hands and I enjoyed photography so I decided to take both Photography and Ceramics. As I said I enjoyed working with my hands and ceramics gave me the opportunity to play with clay. The tactile experience of handing and forming things was very satisfying; however, I can say now that my future DIY abilities where subtly being forecasted and they were not pretty. (Just ask my friend Paul who recently helped me with my latest DIY disaster.) While others in class where turning out beautifully formed tea pots and vases with gorgeously fired coloring I was turning out lopsided things that looked like a kindergarden copy of the leaning tower of Pisa. Only not so good. When I turned to photography during the next semester I was much more hopeful. I already owned a camera, one that my friend Mr. Mark had given to me, and I had created some really beautiful photographs. I actually loved going out with Mr. Mark. He has a really good eye for things and the talent to make them happen. When we went out I enjoyed taking photos of iconic things like the Golden Gate Bridge and the more subtle things like a father and his son sharing a beautifully intimate moment together in Union Square. When the photography class started we had the usual assignments. Take photos of this tree or that landscape, take a photo at night, or using this exposure and that F stop. As the semester went on my teacher started to notice things in my work not that she told me about it. It was just after the midterm that she pulled me aside with one of my photos. It was an intimate setting I had created in my kitchen, one where I had an open book on the table, a crumpled cloth napkin, a plate of cookies, and a cup of tea. I had taken a long time to create that scene. I had placed everything just so, crumpled the napkin to mimic someone who had just tossed it aside. I waited for the afternoon sun to hit the edges of the book cover in just the right place I wanted before I snapped the shutter a few times. I was convinced that it had all the hallmarks of a dutch light painter's still life only in a photograph. My teacher was sweet. She pulled me aside with my photo in hand and said very gently that there was no humanity present in my scene. I was crushed to say the least. She explained that everything was set up perfectly but that there was no evidence that anyone had, say taken a sip of the tea, or taken a bite of a cookie. There were no crumbs on the table, no drips of tea on the side of the cup. It was perfectly perfect in every way except for being a part of a living experience. And so the class went on. Photo after photo was essentially a repeat of the last. I did try but to no avail. I just couldn't create humanity in my work. Near the end of the semester we were told to plan a finally project. I already knew what mine was going to be. I had thought about it for months, had already done some of the planning, and had asked my friend Ralph to assist me with being the person I would photograph. When the time came we both went out, me with my camera and tripod, Ralph with all the costuming. My final project was set in Lafayette Park near where I lived. The premise of the project was a guy (Ralph) was walking in the park on a warm afternoon enjoying the beautiful day. Then, while he walked down one of the paths he happened to experience a random meeting of his former self, essentially, he and his former self would pass through each other as they walked in opposite directions. The series of photos would show how the random experience happened, how they both knew on some level that it had happened, how they then purposely forced another encounter, and finally, in the last photo, how they rejoined each others body's crossing the spans of time and place. We did the photo shoot over the course of an afternoon. All the joint photos were done using double exposure. The others were just regular photographs. That next day I took the finished film to the school lab, developed it, chose the seven photos I was going to use, printed them , and mounted them. The second to last day of the semester I handed in the project. I received high praise from the teacher and my classmates and I got a A for my project and for the semester. I didn't realize it at the time but this project was a telling sign for me. This project was my first deep subconscious understanding that my authentic self still existed and that it was out there waiting for me to reconnect with it. It wasn't until ten years later, during my third year of recovery, that on a much deeper plane, my authentic self would reemerge along within the first signs my childhood trauma. Twelve years on I have a very different view.
If I were to describe how I see my authentic self today, through sleep deprived eyes I might add, I would say this: my authentic self is empathic, compassionate, and loving. It is less anxious than it use to be but can sometimes still be angst ridden. My authentic self has a spontaneous sense of humor when not controlled by me and a deadly one when it is, kind of like a comedian dying a slow and painful death on stage as he tries to tell joke after joke to an increasingly comatose audience. My authentic self can be frustratingly fixed on controlling situations and others especially when that little kid inside is bouncing off the walls. My authentic self can also be vulnerable, willing, and trusting. In fact that is more often the norm now in opposed to being the aberration. The difference between that guy in the park who happened upon his former self and me now is that I have found out how to nurture my moving from an "I" existence to "We" existence, from existing in a perpetual state of survival where I had to be in control of everything and everyone to a place where I actively attempt to continually right size myself in relation to my Higher Power. Where the "We" is the continual movement of my life towards a place of subtly prayerful actions in an attempt to seek the guidance I need to live more fully in the body and spirit of my authentic self; and I have to say I'm not doing too badly in this present moment, which is all I have right now, at least until the next present moment reveals itself.
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