Old friends and Leonard Cohen's - Book of Mercy

It's been awhile.  It's odd to me how it feels like I'm visiting an old friend when I return to write in this blog.  A satisfaction edged with apprehension.  How have I (we) changed?  Can we still be close?  Can I say something that cuts through time and artifice?  That resists nostalgia and habit to try to find newer if not higher ground.  Loudon Wainwright III song Old Friend comes to mind.



My wife Dorothy gave me Leonard Cohen's "Book of Mercy" for Christmas.  This was originally published in 1984 and has been described a "classic book of contemporary psalms."  For me this book is a collection of disturbing but oddly comforting prayers. Words that speak to me and for me. Unvarnished and unsettling, bubbling with hope, grounded in a deep faith.

"Blessed are you who has given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you.  You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it.  Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth.  Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy."

These words of haunting religious imagery summon up an unsuspected bridge towards hope and salvation.

"Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name."  This rings true in such an odd way for me.  It's like I'm in an empty room with a large metal church bell in the center.  When it first rings the sound is clear and pure but soon the overlapping reflections become dissonant and annoying.  I start digging beneath the words and end up falling through a hole.

Last week I drove to Albany to see some old friends.  It's now been two years since moving away.  I'm making a real effort to keep these friendships alive but time and separation take their toll.  Creeping tentacles of estrangement.  Trip home listening to Jennifer Warnes sing Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat. Captures my mood perfectly. Grateful tears of loneliness? Perhaps.

Sometimes I don't know if Cohen is helping me untie the knots in my head or making them more complex. In a prior blog I quoted his definition of grace. It seems to fit here.

 "a state of grace is that kind of balance with which you ride the chaos that you find around you. its not a matter of resolving the chaos as there is something arrogant and war-like about putting the world in order but having that kind of an escape ski, down over a hill, just going through the contours"

And so...

"Blessed are you who has given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you."

How strange and wonderful.

Truth, beauty, art, God and McDonalds

Yesterday afternoon I was driving around in our new/used Prius with my iphone hovering in the air supported by a holder designed to fit into the beverage holder hole in the console.  This same holder will fit into the beverage holder hole in a golf cart thus enabling me to easily view how many yards my golf ball is from the hole using a nifty GPS iphone app.  So the iphone is sitting with one wire coming out of the top connecting it to the car speaker system and another recharging wire ( inconvenient springy spiral thing) attached to the bottom. I'm slowly moving in the drive thru lane at McDonalds in Vestal waiting to pay 85 cents at the middle window for a senior coffee with two creams and Neil Young is singing "Out on the Weekend"  Bass pounding, harmonica soaring, I'm right in time with it and the the chubby girl with too tight blouse opens the window.  I give her a dollar bill and smile with the music blaring.  She looks annoyed muttering something I can't hear above the din and she jerks her hand away after dropping the dime and nickel change into my palm.  I drive to the next window to  pick up the coffee.  Iphone shifts to Tom Waits singing "Hold On" and things shift to a new level.   I'm swaying, right there with his gravely voice,  swaying to the music "but its so hard to dance that way when it's cold outside and there's no music"  and the red haired kid  with the tilted hat, ironic smile and sort of goatee sticks a bag in my hand.  Definitely not the senior coffee.  He apologizes and Tom's still singing and I'm still swaying amazed at the locale and circumstance of this ecstatic visitation.  And I'm sipping the coffee.  Perfect taste and texture and  Hold On is still there and I know what I want to do with the rest of my life its this.  Plain and not so simple.  I want to be in communion with whatever it is that was in my car with me in that drive thru lane.  I want to find a way to feel that chord change and that bass line as deep as I felt it while the girl was dropping the change in my hand and the goateed redhead kid was saying he was sorry about the coffee.  But it's more than feeling the music.  I want to find my own voice.  My own chord and bass line that will some how connect me with myself and others the way that those songs went right to my soul.

 I have only vague hints of how to get from here to there.  I think the biggest thing I have to do is stop being afraid.  Weird to say that.  I went to a meeting at church last night of a group called "Good God."  People shared spiritual/mystical experiences.  I tried to talk about my McDonalds trip.   It was the old problem of not having the words to capture what happened.  Someone said there is a language that works and that's the language of poets.  Yeah, and musicians and artist's of all stripes who have found their authentic voice, their original face, their window into the infinite.  I hope and pray that someday I may, in some smalll way, join their holy chorus.

Killing, or at least temporarily incapacitating, the beast

I golf a lot.  I love golf.  I hate golf.  This is obviously a serious relationship.  One of the truisms of golf is "Trust your swing!"  A tentative swing usually results in a poor shot.  This is true for long and short shots. Confidence and commitment are key.  There seems to be an inverse relationship between age and confidence.  TV golf commentators mention this often. "He's got  the nerves of a twenty year old."  Too stupid to be scared?  I don't know.  I do know that its true for me.  As I have aged I feel less sure of my swing (and myself?) Especially my putting stroke.

How does this fit with the "What Do I Really Want
To Do Before I Die" theme of the past three blog entries? Well, I obviously want to make more putts but I think there is a deeper, more important connection.

This is part four of an ongoing description of a coaching session I had recently and issues raised by that experience. Especially the coach's question about what I thought was keeping me from accomplishing my late-life goals.

Tough question.  It's been a struggle trying to sort out what's really going on.  The lines of understanding I've come up with seem to interweave and contradict.  All are a piece of a very complex puzzle that will probably never be solved.

In my prior blog I suggested that "part of the problem is that I didn't want to force the issue.  I didn't want to soldier on waiting for the heartfelt stuff to kick in.  I wanted my gut and soul to lead the way not my head."

True enough but not true enough.

There is a deeper and darker factor at play here.  It is a nagging, maddening sense that the things that I really want aren't worthwhile.  That they are suspect.  Illegitimate.

What's up with that?  

One problem may be that most of the things I told the coach I really wanted were all about me...my longing for passionate involvement in a creative process,  more intimacy with the people I loved and with God,  and improved golfing skills seem like typical baby boomer self-absorption.  There is a part of me, a big part, that's repulsed by this. Sacrifice and service are noble. Self-centered strivings are what other, less worthy people do.  Hmm.  So I'm repulsed by the idea of focusing on getting what I really want.  It's goes against some ideal I have about how to lead a good life.

True enough but not true enough.

I suspect the deepest and seemingly most immutable factor at play here is my sense that what I want must not be worthwhile because I'm not.  I'm bad. No good.  The part of me that say's "you asshole" when I look at myself in the mirror.  That part that rejects any child of my imagination as being invalid because of it's fetid source.  The shadow part that resists illumination by spreading a spectre of shame over my desperate efforts to break free of its grasping tentacles. The part that's sending a chill down my neck and across my shoulders as I write this.

True enough.

I don't want the reader to get the wrong impression.  I'm not constantly walking around in despair, thinking that I'm worthless.  But this deeply rooted negativity is part of me.  A part that, all to often, holds sway.  I never know when it will surface.  I could be standing over a putt on a golf course or sitting in front of a computer screen. I don't think I'll ever fully understand where it came from.  I do know my Catholic upbringing is a major, but not sole, culprit.  Full understanding is probably too big of a mountain to climb at this point. The important thing is minimizing the damage using what I do know.  My current strategy is to unabashedly recognize that it exists, develop a keener awareness of how it affects my day-to-day life and use this understanding to  push its ugly head back into the hell hole where it belongs.

At the end of the coaching session I agreed to tell myself at least four times a day, "I will work to accept and love myself as much as possible."

Amen.

What I Really Want To Do (Part Three)

Okay I'm still circling the room bobbing and wiggling and my new life coach then asks.

"What's keeping you from accomplishing these goals?"

This is a good example of how life can get very complicated.  I'm being asked to answer a question based on my incomplete answer to a prior question.

I suggested that part of the problem is that I didn't want to force the issue.  I didn't want to soldier on waiting for the hearfelt stuff to kick in.  I wanted my gut and soul to lead the way not my head.

I'm going to copy and paste a blog entry I made in April, 2011 just before my last day at work.  It fits here.  I love both of these Rumi poems.  I think the sentiments expressed capture why, at this point of my life, I'm choosing to "amble" instead of march.

From Ruminations published 4/19/2011.

A colleague gave me a copy of "The Essential Rumi" for a retirement gift. (my last day at my current job is this Thursday 4/21/2011)  I have had brief exposure to these writings in the past but tended to shy away from them mainly because the people who would refer to Rumi seemed alien to me.  Well I think I may be turning into one of those aliens. Either I've evolved or gotten desperate but most of what I've read have gone straight to my heart. (I'm also becoming a big Bryan Adams fan which I don't understand either, Okay that's Straight from the Heart... same difference.)

Every object, every being,

is a jar full of delight.

Be a connoisseur,

and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.

Judge like a king and choose the purest,

the ones unadulterated with fear,

or some urgency about "what's needed."

Drink the wine that moves you

as a camel moves when it's been untied,

and is just ambling about. 

(from The Many Wines, p.6)

and this from Burnt Kabob, p.8

But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings

dropping their blossoms

around you. God.

I hope that today I will be able to hear and feel the blessings dropping around me.  I wish the same for you.

What I really want (part two)

In my prior blog I mentioned that I felt like I was holding back something important when I tried to answer the question "what do you really want to do with the rest of your life?" ...some fundamental admission that might open the door to a deeper understanding..

There were some things I'd really want but I didn't list because they were too... outlandish? personal?  threatening?  Some of these certainly hover in the shadows of repressed desires.   Not all of which are sensual...things that I've put on a back burner because I have chosen other priorities.   I'm comfortable letting these sleeping dogs lie and I'm fairly sure that they're not the missing links in this puzzle.
 Take it away Mick... You Can't Always Get What You Want!   Earlier video of this song is an interesting contrast.

I wonder what Mick really wants to do before he dies?

What do I really want to do with the rest of my life

I recently had a "life coaching" session where I was first asked to dance around a musicless room and let my body do whatever it wanted to.  The coach said that often resistance we feel is trapped in our muscles and some free-form movement can help release it.  Okay.  So I'm walking in circles, simultaneously rolling my shoulders and head and bobbing up and down. Feeling silly but eventually looser and more at ease.

As I was moving  I was asked what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Say what?

My initial response to this surprised me.  I wanted to say "to hell with this" and stop the session. Whoa. Talk about resistance.  I held my tongue and decided to take a chance and go forward.  Choosing to let trust trump fear.

I don't remember exactly how I answered the question but I do remember the main things I said I wanted to do before I bit the big one...

- try to be as close as possible to the people I loved
- be closer to God.  (I can't believe I said that. Especially with a capital G.  I thought I chucked all that God stuff a long time ago)  Maybe another angle to approach this would be to say I'd like to be as alive and as awake as possible.
- be passionately involved in something bigger than myself that required me to use and develop my creative talents.
- be a better golfer

Hmm.  What about service?  How does the Buddhist concept of non-attachment fits these goals?

The fact is that while I was saying these things, there was a small voice telling me it was all bullshit. All these things are important and I really want them but why the hollow feeling after I say them out loud.  Why the empty and sad aftertaste?.  Is it because I'm putting my short-timer status in the spotlight?  Death lurking in the shadows? Yikes! Maybe a little but it probably has a lot more to do with the fact that I can't shake the feeling that something's missing.  Something fundamental.

That's pathetic.  If I was told today that I had one month to live I'm pretty sure I'd figure it out tout suite.  And the sad fact is I do have a terminal illness...life.  And I'm getting fairly frustrated with all this floundering around while the clock is ticking.

The other side, and it's a big one, of this multifaceted coin is that I'm pretty damn happy with my life.  I'm filled with gratitude for its blessings.  I just, selfishly?,  want more.   "Hey why not ask for more?" Once again Leonard Cohen is the man.

This  Peanuts cartoon ran in today's paper.



More on my coaching session next time.  Keep wiggling!

The Pain of Entry

For the past year or so I've been swimming  three times a week at a local high school pool. In order to get a lane to swim in I have to get up at 4:45 AM and be poolside by 5:30..  I don't mind the getting up as long as I go to bed early enough.  The toughest part, by far, is jumping into the cold water.  It only takes about a half of a lap of swimming to get used to it but the initial shock of entry is hellish.  I used to sit on the edge for awhile to delay the pain.  Now I'm forcing myself to get wet right away.  It's a lot better that way.  Still terrible but better.  I always feel wonderful after a swim and the sense of well-being I have lasts through most of the day. On the days that I swim  I consciously catch myself feeling good and tell myself to remember that that it's been bought and paid for.  It's because I pushed myself to get up at an ungodly hour and to jump in an ice cold pool.  Despite this, on the day before a swim, I  find myself dreading the coming morning.

I recently made a commitment to write for thirty minutes each day.  I've missed some days but overall I'm writing a lot more.  I've come to realize that the emotions I feel when I'm trying to begin writing are almost exactly the same as when I'm sitting at the edge of the pool bracing myself for the cold rush of splashdown. I don't want to get into it.  There's a strong resistance to turning on the computer and  typing the first words. I don't know what adjective to use to describe this emotion.  I do know it's extremely uncomfortable and is almost the exact feeling I have when I'm standing on the edge of the pool.  Likewise it dissolves almost immediately after I begin writing, just like it does once I start swimming.  Both activities are satisfying and comfortable once begun and rewarding enough to make me want to keep on wanting to swim and write despite the pain of entry.

What's going on here?   This is fascinating to me.  I understand my my reluctance  to experience the shock of entering a cold pool.  I'm not so sure why it's so hard to begin writing.   The fact that the feelings are so similar should tell me something. Shouldn't it?

If I can figure this out maybe my writing will improve or maybe the insight will be so profound that it will dissolve resistance to tackling any challenge.

 In talking this over with my wife it seems this resistance to taking on ultimately rewarding tasks is a fairly common thing.  We discussed how there's some things we do where there is absolutely no reluctance such as her playing piano or me playing golf. but we each also had a long list of things it's hard to get into such as exercise or writing.  What's the difference?

It's interesting to me that the word "playing" is used to describe the things we both are most enthusiastic about. Maybe that's part of it.  There's not much of a contest between doing a chore or playing.  So if I start thinking of writing, going to the pool and a whole bunch of other things "play" they'll be less of a struggle to get into. What makes something play and what makes it work?  This is getting messy.

When I was an addiction counselor one of the most effective tools was cognitive behavioral therapy.  One reason it was helpful is that it can be easily explained and understood.  It's as easy as A,B,C.

Activating event (sitting down trying to begin writing) + Belief ->  Consequence ( negative/reluctant/resistant feeling.)

According to this model a negative consequence to an event can often be traced to your belief about the event and not the event itself.  Change the belief and you can change the consequence.  Simple to describe but not that simple to do.

One of the tricky parts is figuring out what the operative belief is.  Sometimes it's easy...cold water is uncomfortable and jumping into the frigid water sucks.   Often it's not so obvious...resistance to writing.   Er..maybe the nuns at St. Joseph's scarred me for life by making me write "I will not be a bad boy." a thousand times. Writing equals punishment?  What about all those hellish term papers I was made to research and write? Maybe the belief would be "I'm writing because I'm being bullied into it.  I don't like being bullied.  Writing sucks."  All very deep and mysterious.

I think I'd probably need a long-term psychoanalyst to figure out some of this deep-seated crapola.  Short of that I've got this blog, but, as you may have noticed many of my self-exploratory adventures seem to turn into dog-chasing-tail cartoons. But that said, I do believe that much of my reaction to things is based on thinking that may have made sense in the past but often has no logical relationship to the current situation.  I think it helps to try to take a look at what I'm saying to myself and try to change the script if it isn't helping, even if I don't understand why or how the original story was written.