I haven't been writing much lately and I miss that. I miss it because the act of writing does for me what I can rarely do for myself. It gets me out of my head and down into my body. There is a quiet center in that down space, a spiritual place that is devoid of my anxiety and fears. I feel that is why I am so strongly drawn to gardening, besides the genetics of it. Gardening also gets me down into my body to that quiet center. It has something to do with feeling the dirt between my fingers and aroma of the sweet loamy soil wafting up. Cleaning the house while it is quiet does the same for me as does taking a passeggiata in my neighborhood in the late afternoon sun and people watching in the various parks near my home. Taking a drive out in the country is also a favorite of mine. My parents use take drives out into the country all the time when I was a kid. They called it "taking a ride". There was never a reason for it that I could tell. It always just seemed like a spontaneous act where they would say, lets go, and we would all pile into the car. They never had a destination in mind that I could tell. They just headed away from the house in a blind act of faith. In my adult years I started taking rides and like my parents, I would let the powers that be randomly lead me towards wherever I was meant to go. Often times I would find myself driving some back country road somewhere as I enjoyed the unfolding scenery or climbing a steep winding two lane road only to find the expansive Pacific Ocean open out in front of me when I reached the crest. The last time I went for a ride was about three years ago when Subie Deux was in the shop. I had rented a canvas topped Fiat 500 for the duration; the little Italian I called it. After picking the car up from a rental place around the corner I got the urge. I thought, what better way to spend my day then to open the canvas top and head out for parts unknown. Soon I found myself heading north across the Golden Gate Bridge, the great towers casting their momentary shadows across me as I drove. Hours later I was on a back country road in West Sonoma County heading who knows where. Somewhere along the way I found a perfect place to pull over for a nap. After turning the engine off and reclining the seat I found myself being lolled into a peaceful place guided by the utter quiet around me, a quiet that was, from time to time, interrupted by some bird song or the occasional warm breeze that rustled the gnarled branches of an old oak tree above.
Unfortunately I spend a lot of time in my head. I can't fault the fact of it. It's raison d'etre is designed to protect me. It knows it as much as I do that being fully in touch with my physical body brings with it significant emotional challenges. In the early years of my recovery my anxiety perpetually begot more anxiety feeding on itself like a virus until I thought I would go crazy. It wasn't until some years later that I learned the value of cultivating quietude. This is why I value writing and gardening so much among other things. It transcends that anxiety breaking through to a quiet grounded center that is my safe place. I learned during those intervening that most of my anxiety originated in the trauma stories of my childhood, tales that had lain unformed for many decades. I seemed to had always known that something(s) were amiss but they lacked both definition and clarity. To me they always seemed to be just a bunch of jostled consonants and vowels, ones that I kept nudging into. It's like those buzzing mosquitos circling above you in a darkened bedroom on a hot summer night. You know they're there but when you turn on the light....... The majority of these stories began to coalesce in my late Forties bringing with them the aforementioned anxiety. Thankfully, much of my recovery has coexisted side by side with my core group of close loving friends, confidants, and beloved animal companions. Their support and love has been essential to me. It was because of this that I was able to learn an important lesson, especially lately. It is the concept of living life on life's terms. I have to say this wasn't easy and lately it has gotten even more convoluted. Lately I have come to define this current phase of my recovery as me being in a non sexual polyamorous relationship with various parts of myself and my history, all of which are filled with loads of unconditional love, great joy, even greater sadness, and unending grief just to name a few. What did Churchill call the Russians? "A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." That is what this time in my life feels like. No wonder I have always had a strong affinity towards Russia, an affinity that has recently led me to buying my first icon, one I will soon be hanging in my hallway.
Life on life's term. This seemingly simple four word sentence is deceptively complex to me. It means that I must sit in acceptance even though I often find myself railing against the very situation I know I can not change. And afterwards when all is calm again I know I still have to face the inevitable fact of what I was trying to avoid in the first place; accepting the reality of my existence. This is not to say that anger is a wasted emotion. It is not. It can be a powerful motivator if it is not twinned with the act of causing harm. No emotion is wasted in my opinion. To have a rich full emotional life is a gift from the gods. They say in the rooms, feeling the full maturation of our emotions without being slaves to them. There is so much more to this grouping of words too. It is at once a powerful statement of awareness and acceptance and yet one of utter spiritual humility in the face of our emotional life.
We humans are an interesting bunch, a fact that has been amply highlighted in the past five years. We have seen the worse of the worse, the best of the best, and everything in between; and yet we are still here, still breathing, still walking the loamy earth beneath our feet. The Greeks had a good eye for the vastness of our emotion lives. Their pantheon of gods were based lovingly, or not, on the richness of our human condition. In Greek mythology the Greek god of fire was married to the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Aphrodite was purported to have been born in the froth of the sea when Uranus' genitals were tossed in, genitals that had been cut off by his son, Cronos ; and yet equally it is said that Aphrodite was born from the coupling of Zeus, the Greek god of sky and thunder and his mate Dione, the female side of Zeus.
Life on life's terms. It been a tough road, these last four years. Besides the normal challenges of my recovery I have been faced with a number of health issues, some of which have not yet been resolved and one of which will never be resolved. I have also lost many that I held deep in my heart. Beloved cousins and friends; my oldest friend Kathy who I met when I moved to Colorado in 1976; my friend Bebe who I had met in the early 1980's; the last of my animal companions, my beloved cat Larry in May of 2020; and six months ago, Guido, my closest and dearest confidant of forty-two years. I also retired last September ending my some fifty plus year relationship with the working world. What I face now is an unknown future, one without the intimate connection of those people who brought me joy, love, and stability. This is not to say that I haven't a friend left in the world. I have been deeply blessed over the course of my life and I still have many very close friends and family whom I love dearly and who are at the center of my life.
Earlier this evening before I started writing this blog I was reminiscing about the time I spontaneously hitchhiked half way across the country during the fall of '76. I was living in Colorado Springs at the time in a flat I had rented earlier that summer. I had been partied hard the night before and had slept well into my alarm the next day. When I finally woke up I realized I was quite late for work. I remember being utterly frustrated about everything and that I dearly wanted nothing more than to take a break for it all. I remember grabbing the phone to call Kathy not knowing why until I heard myself asking her if she would come pick up my golden retriever puppy Alexander Bryant and my car because I was going to hitchhike to San Francisco. When she arrived at my place she tried talking me out of it but I refused to backdown. After she left I packed my backpack, grabbed the only money I had, three dollars and change, and headed down the few blocks to the Interstate on ramp. That first night I stayed with my cousin Crystal and her husband in Denver. Throughout the evening and well into the night they both convinced me not to go west so I decided to go east instead. For the next week I had the best time. I never knew who was going to pick me up, or where they would take me. I never knew when my next meal would come. I got rides from a father and his teenage son who put me up for the night in Wyoming. I stayed with a geologist who had picked me up east of Cheyenne. I got a ride with a trucker, stayed with my friend Chuck in Omaha for three days spending most of my time with an elderly woman I had met on the streets, a woman who had just gotten out of the hospital and was hell bent on having a three day bender. I got rides from a gang of musicians who had just been released from jail, a randy monk, a gregarious guy in a pickup truck across Iowa, and an insurance salesman who took me into south eastern Wisconsin. For the entire week I was in no communication with anyone other those who I was spending my time with. Not once during that week did I feel in danger. Not once did I question my decision to leave. It was all about just living from moment to moment without knowing what my future held for me.
Life on life's terms. It's not a bad thing. It's rather liberating to tell the truth because as I walk my current path I know that it is the same act of faith that I had tapped into while hitchhiking. I know I will be taken care of by a power greater than myself just like I was then. And I know that I will be shown what the next right step is for me and that all will be revealed when it is meant to be revealed. And I know I will arrive at my next destination when I am suppose to arrive. In the meantime all I need to do is take one step at a time, then another, then another.
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