Post Mexico Post

Hello loyal reader(s),

I just reread my long-ago prior post "Shakytown" and was struck by the nakedness of my words. Reading it was like watching myself undress.  I found myself trying to consciously suppress my conditioned embarrassment. Real but uncomfortably revealing.  On one hand I felt proud, or at least accepting, of who and what I am and have become and what I was trying to express in words. On the other I could feel the cold, critical, self-belittling voice, which I fear/know will always be in the background watching and judging.  This push and pull's been going on for most of my life.

The "episodes" I wrote about have, thankfully, pretty much stopped. There have been maybe two or three over the past four months. The last one was the last week in January at the beginning of our five week Mexico trip.  I was standing in a line at the Teatro Macedonia in Oaxaca and felt the same nauseous/dizzy/near passing out/fearful stuff.  I stepped out of the line and noticed, I don't know if I mentioned this in earlier posts, a "zooming out" sensation.  Like turning the lens of my eyesight, moving from a close up to a more distant, wider, blurrier, darker view.  Unsettling but interesting in retrospect.

Mexico was wonderful.  We spent a week in Puerto Vallarta and Yelapa and four weeks in Oaxaca.  One of the highlights in Puerto Vallarta was a whale watching excursion into Banderas Bay where we saw Humpback whales flapping their flippers over and over.  Not sure what it meant but it sure was interesting to see.

 It felt good being around the ocean again but PV was way too crowded with tourists.  Much preferred smaller beach areas like Playa Chacala and Yelapa.  Here's a photo from our dinner table in PV

It was our third trip to Oaxaca.  We've stayed in the same hotel each time.(Las Mariposas) It's starting to feel like a home away from home.  The staff and the other guests are pretty much the same each year.  It's friendly, comfortable, convenient, safe and cheap ($35/night). I bought an inexpensive Mexican nylon stringed guitar and played regularly with a guy from Connecticut who plays harmonica.  Great fun.  We even played a couple of times in the hotel's main courtyard for a group sing-a-long. Here's a picture of the courtyard looking through the front gate.

Dorothy and I have seen most of the tourist sites in and out of town.  On this trip we spent much of our time walking the ever fascinating streets of the city.   People were consistently friendly, helpful and would always smile back if you greeted them with a smile.  Streets were busy with cars and at times demonstrations and blockades.  Political groups and unions are very active and militant in Oaxaca.  The teacher's union, Seccion 22, had regular marches in the street and were occupying the downtown zocalo throughout our time in town.  They were protesting an new educational reform law.  I am generally supportive of workers rights but the occupation of the zocalo ruined the atmosphere of what in the past was a wonderful respite from the busyness of the rest of the city. 

Oaxaca zocalo scene February 2015

Here's how the zocalo looked in prior trips.

Here is a video The video's main focus is the street art one finds all over the city.

The music in this video is Gracias A La Vida written by Violeta Parra and sung by Mercedes Sosa.  

There's a lot more to show and say about our trip to Mexico and I hope to do so in future entries.

As always, thank you for visiting. 

Shakytown

I don't usually treat this blog like a journal.   I'm generally more interested  in the questions that day-to-day events help surface.  What's the lesson/meaning of events not the events themselves.  But...the last few days have been pretty tough and I don't I have any understanding/lesson to share here.  So I'm hoping spending some time writing down specifics will help guide me toward a better understanding of what's been going on and what I should do.

They started about five days ago.  "They" is an interesting word here.  I know it is the proper plural of "it" but it seems to give "it" a more personal character.  Like "it's" alive and in many ways it feels alive to me. "It" is a mysterious being that comes uninvited into my body, heart and soul that scares the hell out of me.

"It"/"They" have been visiting several times a day.  The first conscious thing that happens is that I feel sharply nauseous.  Very close to vomiting.  This startling discomfort makes me aware that I have been daydreaming about something disturbing.  The maddening thing is I can almost grasp what I was thinking about but can't get it.  It keeps slipping through my hands like night dreams/mares I try to recall when I find myself suddenly awake.  The nauseous feeling passes after a few moments and then I feel immmediately blanketed by a deep feeling of dread.  I force my self to breath slowly and focus on my breath like I do during meditation.  This begins to calm me down and I gradually feel less panic.  Each episode lasts less than a minute.

I've had around ten of these episodes during the past week.  I've never experienced anything like them before.  I don't like them.  It makes me feel as if the ground I'm standing on is being pulled out from under me and I don't know what/who's doing it,  why it's happening or when it will happen again.

I've just stopped writing to do a web review of anxiety disorders and panic attacks.  What's happening to me doesn't seem to be a classic panic attack which apparently last longer and usually have more physical symptoms such and chest pains, difficulty breathing and heart pounding.  The symptoms I can identify with are feeling nauseous, dreamlike sensations and, excuse the word, terror. The description I found of  the feeling of terror was appropriately frightening, "a sense that something unimaginably horrible is going to  happen and one is powerless to prevent it."

What is happening is clearly related to anxiety, which is probably related to many of the issues I've talked about in this blog over the past several years.  Retirement, aging, loss of (fill in the blank), yadayadayadah.  Excuse the self-deprecating tone here but it does get old talking about all of the same age, life-stage issues ad nauseam.   Ah there's that nausea stuff again.  Interesting.  It's like I'm getting a wake up call.  I need to pay attention.  But to what?  What's different? What's causing this crapola now? What should I do?

Things have gotten uncomfortable/scary enough that I have started reaching out.  Yesterday I talked at length about this to my wife Dorothy and my friend Bill.  Both were great listeners.  I felt their care and support and talking out loud about this stuff was helpful and hopeful.

Today I'm writing this blog as a selfish, therapeutic tool.  It feels right even though I know such an extremely personal expose (put accent over last e) might be crossing a boundary and a turn off for some readers.  Again, this still feels right.

So I still haven't looked at the Why Now? question very carefully,  Here's a few off the cuff ideas.

Tomorrow's my 67th birthday.  Hmmm.  Why does 67 seem like such a bigger number than 66?

Golf season is ending.  I've been spending the last six months golfing three times a week and practicing often on the the days I don't play. This has been a convenient, fun, and in many ways satisfying past time. but I have a strong sense that it's losing its utility may be fading as an effective diversion from looking at, and dealing with the BIG questions.  This is the first Fall in recent years where my enthusiasm for the game started to go south before the snow fell.  Hmmm.

Boredom.  I've now been retired over three years.  Much of this time has been wrapped up in the excitement of building a new, post-employment life in a new community.  It's been a challenging adventure getting settled into a new home. We now are active  members of a wonderful church.  Dorothy and I are involved in many church-related activities which we both find satisfying and enjoyable.  I have a group of guys I play golf with regularly  who are usually fun to be around.  I keep a regular health regimen.  I swim, walk the golf course, eat well, drink in moderation, and take my meds and supplements religously. I meditate daily.  I spend lots of time playing my guitar and singing.  Most always to myself but once in awhile there's a couple of guys from church I play with.  All this sounds great. These are all accomplishments of the work Dorothy and I have done to establish a new life and home in Binghamton.

So why did I start the above paragraph with the word "boredom"? Because it's true.

Perhaps my life  has become too predictable and safe.  The sense of adventure, which I crave, is rapidly fading.  Is this all there is? If it is, why the fuck can't I be happy and content. I have so much to be grateful for. Why do I feel I want to turn over the apple cart and take a hike into the unknown?

What's next?  What should I do? I don't know. I do know that these "episodes" I've been having are telling me something I need to pay attention to and that talking to people I trust and love and writing this blog entry have been helpful.  Thank you for reading.

Solipsism and me

 Today is July, 11, 2014 and I once again have opened my blog with the intent of writing something.  In an attempt to be inspired I reviewed a draft of a piece I started to write last December.  Here it is... It was entitled "Dark"

The beginning is an end.  The middle becomes an end before I'm ready.  The cycles are exhilarating, dizzying but ultimately depressing and debilitating.  My enthusiasms transport and elevate me than leave me stranded on a hill of denied expectations.  Reincarnation into repetitive circles of duka.  Unsatisfactory, dis-ease.

I believe if I''m going to be as present/alive/awake as I can be during this last portion of my life I cannot turn my back and wishfully ignore the sadness and discouragement I often feel.. I have a storehouse of philosophical and physical strategies I use to stave off this darkness but it seems very skilled at finding a chink in my armor.

Today is Wednesday, December 7, 2013.  It seems like its been cold and cloudy for weeks.

No wonder I stopped writing that. Dark indeed but it still rings true. Using that as a jumping off point is like a pre-sex cold shower.  Chilling but somehow still hopeful something will rise up from the depths.

It is now glorious mid-summer.  The grass, flowers, trees are spectacular.  Greens of every shade and hue bring not only pleasing beauty but a satisfying, nurturing comfort.  Maybe this sense of well-being  is some sort of atavistic response to nature's bounty that's triggered by a relaxation of the survival instincts/pressures.

In any case, my wordy analysis above only clouds what I truly want to say, which is simply, It's beautiful outside and the beauty makes me feel wonderful....at times.  There's still some of the dis-ease/duka mentioned above but it's continually morphing into new forms shaped by my ongoing struggle to sort things out.

sol-ip-sism

1. Philososhy, the theory that only the self exists, or can be proven to exist
2. extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one's feelings, desires, etc; egoistic self-absorption.

That's it.  That's the heart of this blog. Egoistic self-absorption.  Ferdrightnow is my full Monty egoism untempered by fear of social reprimand. Screw it. Let 'er rip Ferd.

So here's what I really want to talk about.... (to be continued)

Musical Resurrection

I'm playing guitar and singing again. It's been at least ten years since I've been into the music like this.  It's wonderful..  I'm spending hours in the basement with my old Guild acoustic, my new Fishman Loudbox Artist amplifier and a mishmash of new cables, microphones, harmonicas, mic stands. electrical leads, etc.  I'm having a wonderful time playing old and new songs.  It's fascinating to me that I still remember the words and chords to so many songs - well over fifty. Lots of 1970s singer/songwriter pieces - John Prine, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Jackson Browne.

Why now? Not sure.  Maybe a comment my daughter made about how watching John Prine on TV made her cry because it reminded her of my playing.  Her telling me that stirred a memory of the deep satisfaction and joy I used to get from music and am now experiencing again. Another factor is the new amp.  I consciously bought it as an incentive to play.  I figured if I spent that money I'd feel obligated to make the most of it.  It also helped stoke fantasies of playing out at small venues. Probably a pipe dream but fun to think about anyway.

I haven't posted a blog entry in months, almost a year.  I wonder if my playing my heart out for myself in the cellar has replaced my tortuous efforts to express myself in words trough this blog.  It's very difficult for me to write something that feels as soulful and good as wailing on the harmonica while strumming a blues chord progression.  I know they're totally different things but the truth is I want the same thing from each...to get outside of my skin and fly.  Not into a blissful, gauzy emptiness but into a rawness and realness that makes me feel alive. It's beautiful and it's those moments that help me make sense of my life and perhaps make life worth living. I can't help but believe this expansive, connected place holds the same wonder and importance for others.    It makes me think of the the last lines of  "Gracias a Vida" by Violetta Parra (which I've sung over and over over the past few months.)  "El canto de ustedes es el mismo canto, el canto de todos es mi propio canto."  "your song is the same song.  the song of everyone is my own song."

I long to find the music and the words which transport me into the ether of our shared humanity. That reminds me I'm not alone in my loneliness and my joy.  An ending and a beginning. A resolution and a resurrection.

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.