Do-Over, #13

My Banger Playlist of the Week:

Second Song- TV on the Radio
I Chase The Devil- Max Romeo & the Upsetters
Helplessness Blues- Fleet Foxes
A Long Time- Mayer Hawthorne
Angel Dance- Robert Plant
Love Lost- The Temper Trap
Everything- Jehro
Tower Seven- Thievery Corporation
Amor Fati- Washed Out
Lifetime- Maxwell

The reason it's been since April that I've posted here is that I have heretofore been minded toward essay within this blog, pressuring myself to craft something weighty and profound every time. But that kind of takes the fun and immediacy out of it. People lose interest, and this turns into another "assignment" in my life. So how bout this? Shorter, more from the hip, and a lot more often, mmmkay? Mmmkay. Agreed.

A brief recap of summer: It was hot. We were poor. I was in class for May and June, and took July and half of August off. After that, I Pee-Wee Hermaned my one-speed Peugeot all over Asheville. I read half of East of Eden. I tended a garden that yielded very little literally but a frickin' bounty figuratively. I had time and space to think and observe my own mind. I could see a maturity and new pathways of thinking that I feel really grateful for and am proud of. Knowledge and understanding really are the most valuable things one can acquire in this life and for this reason, suffering a mostly sucky summer was worth it.

Now, Year 2 of Counseling school (and my fourth consecutive year of full-time studentship) has begun. Every day I feel full from the richness of all I've learned and amazed that there's still so much more. I am practicing learning how to chill the **** out, while at the same time, maximize my potential. This balancing act often feels ridiculous, like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. I am also learning how to be 39, which is to say that I am trying to write my own age-appropriate script for how to live between the two extremes that this culture offers us: Youth's wild-eyed indulgence and Agedness's curmudgeonly reticence. I think I am doing alright, but the question of what to wear everyday, what to eat and drink, and who I can and can't call "dude" is on my mind a lot. In a way it's nothing, but it's a funny thing to have to think about.

This here, I do believe.

Here is an essay I was asked to write for my Cross-Cultural counseling class. We, the students, expressed frustration at not getting the opportunity to learn as much about each other as we had hoped, so the Instructor asked us to write a short essay modeled after NPR's "This I Believe". This is the uncensored version of what I wrote. Hope you enjoy it.


This I Believe
I believe in the perfection of the imperfect.  I believe in the poetry of the accident, the value of damaged goods, and in the hidden symmetry of all that appears misshapen. I believe in the inherent goodness of the universe, even in our suffering. I believe that I understand what it means when it was said that the meek shall inherit the earth, which is that we gain nothing from ego and everything from humility. I believe in the wisdom of the earth, and in its clever ways of keeping us humble. I believe that is why God made us taste delicious to bears, if you follow my logic.

I believe a lot of stuff, but mostly, I believe in the unfathomable vastness of all that I don’t know, and it thrills me to death. I believe that humor is medicine and the truth will set you free, so I must exercise those beliefs in the following confession: I believe that it was really hard to resist beginning this essay with “I believe the children are the future”. I believe that it’s cool that I found a way to slide that phrase in here anyhow.

Speaking of children, hanging out with them has taught me one simple belief: Playing rules, everything else sucks. If something sucks and you still have to do it, make it fun. Hanging out with old people has taught me another simple belief: Don’t freak out, you’ll be alright. I believe in listening to old people and children. Like good advice, I believe that the best things in life are free. In order of importance, they are as follows:

1. Natural spaces that are only sparsely populated by large, hungry carnivorous mammals such as those previously mentioned in this essay.

2. Fruits and vegetables. (They just frickin’ grow out of the frickin’ ground! Crazy!)

3. Public parks. (You can do almost anything there except be naked and drink booze. Sometimes one needs a break from these two things, and I believe there ought to be a space for it.)

4. Libraries. (You can be like “Hey, can I borrow this?” and they’re like “Yeah.” Crazy!)

5. Riding Bicycles. (Okay, they cost some money to buy but are cheap when you find a used one and cost almost nothing to maintain, and besides, your quads will be totally jacked.)

I believe this list could include other awesome freebies like making friends, dancing, swimming in the ocean and something that rhymes with HEXUAL PINTERPOURSE but in the interest of brevity and avoiding disciplinary action, I believe I will stop. These things are free, and I believe that for everything else, God created Target.

I believe that looking for the positive in everything is much better in the long run than dwelling on the negative, however I believe that this is incredibly hard to do sometimes. For that reason, and because I believe that no emotion is without teaching merit or spiritual value, I believe that feeling-bad-for-a-while kicks not-feeling-anything’s ass almost any day of the week. I believe that this is also why God invented Country music.

I believe in the power and ability to transform and to be transformed. I believe that I AM SOMEBODY. I believe that YOU ARE SOMEBODY. I believe that BELIEF is the most powerful force there is and I believe that being a counselor is about helping people to believe that as well. I believe in not letting my mouth write a check that my butt can’t cash so I believe in going out everyday and trying to get better at seeing the SOMEBODY in EVERYBODY which starts, of course, with this guy.

I believe that just about covers it.

Descending

Today: Bed rest. Ginger ale. Saltines. Cat naps. Magazines. Vicodin. Youtube.

By January of 1986, my eardrum in my right ear was so weak and brittle that it virtually collapsed, and I went into surgery to receive a transplanted eardrum. By all reports, I came out of my anaesthetic fog belligerent and cursing up a blue streak, announcing in no uncertain terms that I had to "take a piss" and wanted to know what was "so goddamn funny" to everybody, a tirade that came to an abrupt halt as I became coherent enough to recognize that our minister was standing there doing his pastoral damndest to keep a straight face and deliver a prayer for my recovery.

Several days later, layed up on the couch at home, watching Love Boat reruns, doped to the nines on an  opiate-enhanced analgesic, the ABC affiliate broke away to broadcast the live launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Though miffed at the interruption (I was a 13-year-old home from school on pain pills being entertained by the wacky hijinks of Issac, Gopher and probable guest-star Charo- not too shabby) I'd understood the importance of a teacher going into space, and thus decided not to throw my slippers at the Zenith.

Of course, we all know what happened next. After coming down from marveling at the beautiful, omnidirectional chaos of contrails and burning projectiles descending from the sky, I, like many others, realized something was wrong. I picked up the cordless phone (about the size of a toaster in 1986) and called my dad at work to tell him the space shuttle had blown up. Considering I had been spent the previous few days asking who put these gloves on my hands (no gloves, of course), it is understandable that he told me it was the medicine talking and sent me back to rest with a chuckle. Minutes later, my hallucination was confirmed as a somber reality to him and the nation as the news spread. He called back and apologized.

The operation replaced a dysfunctional organ but did not improve my already sub-average hearing. I began wearing a hearing aid in that ear, as I have ever since. My other ear slowly declined some as well. I kept waiting for it to get better. At 13, all I wanted to do was fit in and belong, and I tried to forget that there was anything that might prevent me from fully participating in any socially inclusive experience. I pretended to hear everything, but I knew that I missed a lot of it.  Only recently have I begun to understand the ways that this has influenced my social relationships, my interpretation of the world and my self-esteem.  I am only beginning to acknowledge and validate my own experience as a hearing-impaired person.

2011. 25 years later, the surgery needed a major revamp, as my right ear had become chronically infected and my hearing virtually gone. A "Right Side Revision w/ Mastoidectomy" to be medically precise. There was some concern over damage to the bone that separates my middle ear from my brain. I was referred to a guy that is pretty much the Maharaji of ear surgeons. The dude literally told me "I can do this stuff in my sleep." That's confidence.

This time, there was no swearing, just a groggy peace and a craving for strawberry ice cream. Sam and my mom kept me comfortable and supplied and the nurses took my BP and temp about 200 times. I had just been morphined when the doc came in and said that he had successfully managed to repair the damage and  reattach the eardrum to the hearing bones so that my hearing was probably going to improve considerably in that ear..."watch this", he said. As he plunked a tuning fork and held it there, my breath caught and tears formed. Even through the bandages and surgical foam packed into my ear, I could hear the resonant hum. He gave me a proud smile and I breathed in deeply and cried, feeling as though I was the one now descending safely after 25 years in my own version of outer space, having survived the long journey. It's too early to tell, but this time, no one is saying it's the medicine talking.

Poison & the Antidotes

To some, I disappeared. I stopped blogging, facebooking, emailing, phonecalling, contacting, and visiting. I left almost everyone in my life hanging. Old friends from 15-18 years ago, recent friends from the past couple years, everyone except Sam and except me.

Part of me, the polite, people-pleaser, wants to say I'm sorry, and that I didn't mean to. But another part of me, the one writing this wants to say that this leg of the journey has been so privately intense that all my energy has been focused inward and on my relationship with Sam. The creeping sense that I have not nourished important friendships has weighed heavily on me, but it has also afforded me the space and time to explore just what I was looking for in my friendships in the first place- acceptance. I have been hearing a voice say "I don't really need all these friends like I used to" and have been embarrassed and a bit horrified that something so arrogant and selfish could be rattling around in there. But now I am in the second semester of a graduate program for clinical counseling, which thus far has been an AMAZING experience in self-discovery and promises to continue to be, and I think I may be ready to admit that maybe what this voice is saying is that I am OK now. Not that I don't need my friends, but that I am no longer desperate for validation from them, and this insight puts the past several years into such rich perspective that I can really see just how far I've come.


Ok, now, I want to do this. I have a new responsibility to myself, and writing this blog is part of what my instructors in the WCU Clinical Counseling program call "Self-Care". This concept, which would seem to be elementary and enticing to most folks is astonishingly difficult for me to grasp, as it requires a deliberate mindfulness and mild indulgence. I WRITE. It helps me make sense of things. Making sense of things makes me feel better. Feeling better is good. Therefore I must write. Duh.

The first thing anyone studying counseling will tell you is that, whether you like it or not, YOU are your first client. You can't help it, every new empathic and psychotherapeutic concept you inhale is digested and processed and self-compared. This can be transformative, at best. At worst, it's a set-up for major self-criticism. There's a mantra you are given that guides all behavior of the therapist: UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARD. I chant it constantly like a psalm. No judgement. Nevertheless, much of the time, I have been a real dick to my first client.

All this self-analysis can make you want to sit in a room by yourself all winter and not come out 'til the dogwoods bloom. That, and a manageable case of mild seasonal depression that you acquired (likely by way of genetics) and the fact that you are assigned enough reading to permanently fuse your neck bones into a right angle and the fact that your gorgeous and supportive life-partner can throw four random vegetables into a pot and have it come out tasting so good that your tongue wants to reach up and smack your brains out and that living on a student budget automatically precludes you from participation in retail or entertainment activities outside of the home and that your girlfriend's dad asks you at christmas if you want this old Nintendo Wii lying around collecting dust to which you say "umm, I guess" and because for the first time since that one detention you had to do in 1989, you have class on FREAKIN' SATURDAYS. Oh, and because it's cold.

More and more I can see that this culture force-feeds us total bullshit that we use against ourselves and each other. The whole point of Advertising is to create a sense of lack in the observer, and our culture is saturated with it. Even in our conversations sometimes, we are trying to sell ourselves, leaving out the details, the side effects, the fine print. Being a more authentic and self-efficacious person is about recognizing the poison we have drunk, and finding the antidotes for it. The therapist-in-training has to try the magic potions on himself first, before he can administer them to anyone else. It can leave you tired, and you have to know when and how to get your rest.

I caught you a delicious bass.

Heroes: Job in a friendly lil' neighborhood coffeeshop, Bicycle commuting, Irish Breakfast tea, The National's High Violet, Maxwell's BlackSummer'sNight, Somerville Public Library, $8 Indian buffets, World Cup Soccer games beginning, temporarily consuming internal crises that morph into lessons and growth opportunities and deeper, richer wisdom and it is revealed that things are not only not-shitty but in fact they are even better now, efficient public transportation, a pretty woman that can cook her ass off.

Zeroes: $4.50 high-lifes, humidity rivaling NC in June, So many books, so little time, wiping up daily cat vomit, New Englanders that think my southern accent is an invitation to be imitated, bad taquerias, increased population density, fewer trees, less natural open space, unsweetened iced tea, the insufferable drama of all families, being in a dog-eat-dog world wearing milk-bone underwear.

It's going better. The first few weeks were tough- Is there anything more ego-deflating than looking for a job? Add to that culture shock and urban geographical unfamiliarity and you get a brother with a little bit of a complex. Shook it off, though. Landed a solid 30 hr + slangin' coffee and scones at what is probs the closest thing to a friendly neighborhood cafe I could find. Free staff meal, caffeinated beverages, wage+tips, biking distance, nice people, I pass the library on the way. Throw me in the breyer patch (for clarification, ask a southerner over 60).

Now, cohabitative bliss w/ the Armenian Princess can settle in, my ego can return to a status resembling confident and I can do this summer right. Just before I left NC, I grabbed a stack of old journals for shits and gigs and figgered I'd go through them and see what's different, what has stayed the same. Found one from the summer of '90, 20 years to the month, the first summer after High School. Can tell from the first couple entries that all l I wanted to do was bike to parks and read library books and write, listen to my jamz in headphones, play some guitar, eat vegetables and fruit, pine after a beautiful lady and dream of a future pregnant with possibility. Aint a damn thing changed.

Return of the Red-Eye

I am going to have a good day. I am already aligned with this intention by virtue of committing to stay in bed for as long as my body can stand it today, and the fact that I am writing a blog entry for the first time in almost two months, something I have been avoiding. Why have I been avoiding this, this blog that I started with such pride and enthusiasm last fall, intending it to be a kick in the pants to stay accountable for producing good, creative, insightful writing? Since December, it became a self-induced responsibility I came to dread. I realize now that it's because I haven't been reading. Oh, I've been reading alright, thick, dry drivel on the relationship between genetics and environmental influences on human behavior, the proper way to conduct a One-Way Anova analysis on an independent variable, and so on, along with other titillating page-turners.

I mean reading for pleasure, of course. Wordcraft, not just the bland transfer of academic information. I think most writers will say that they write better when they are reading. I've found that everything I tried to write here since January was totally saltine. This may even be included in that, but I decided I needed to write anyway, kick my ego out of the driver's seat and just write. So, Let's do dis.

I am four weeks away from graduating college 20 years from the year I began it. Think I'm a little antsy? You have no idea. I have the hottest, deepest, raddest mamacita in all the land waiting for me in Boston the second I'm done, and if you know her, you'd know why this psychological research proposal (20 plus pages) that I have to do before then is a little hard for me to focus on. Add to this big decisions about an ear surgery this summer, employment in Boston, and getting set up in Asheville for grad school in the fall and let's just say it's hard out here for a pimp. (For my older readers, this is a reference to a hip-hop song from recent years in which it is proclaimed that being a young man who seeks modest prosperity in a challenging economy can by trying to one's self-esteem and perserverence. This is stated in the form of "dope" rhymes over pleasantly "tight" beats).

I am changing. It is happening fast. I am seeing the world so differently thanks to some good teachers, some bad ones, the bureaucracy and artifice of academia, a great counselor who teaches me how to think healthy thoughts, an amazing partner who lets me be both confidently strong and a sniffling, defeated mess and loves me either way, a higher power that is teaching me how to be a man in a whole new way. I am about to embark on the life I have always wanted and I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small part of me that is scared that I can't live up to it. But, thanks to the aforementioned reasons, and others to be explained and explored in entries to come, that little voice of doubt is rapidly dimming, and the other 90% that knows what it has taken to get here is telling me that I'm the man.

Thanks to all who have read this, I'm sorry I kept you without a strong rhyme to step to (another reference to a classic of the hip-hop canon) and I hope you'll keep reading as I try to get back on this horse. It's gonna get a little better, I think.

2010 (or) Two circle stick circle.

Two thousand and ten, you better be ready, 'cause it's on now. I have worked hard to to get here to meet you, and I ain't about to let you outta here without you delivering on your half of the deal.

LAST UNDERGRADUATE SEMESTER of the 20-year plan. GRE down, grad school application almost down, this is it. This is the gate, and I'm a-knockin. We shall see how this plays out.

Since my last official blogpost, I had a week of exams, then the second after I finished my last exam, it snowed 15 inches in Asheville, which rendered me housebound and disoriented for 4 days. With no option but to stay in, I had a prime opportunity to clean house, begin packing for my two-week holiday trip to Boston, do some good writing (perhaps on this blog) and catch up on books I can't read during the semester. But as you may know, there's something about the snow that triggers a pavlovian regressive response that goes "I see white stuff - It's sticking - Abandon all responsibilities and activities that require even the slightest delay of gratification."

I drank lots of beer. I read year-old issues of Rolling Stone. I called all my friends in the middle of the day. I napped. I conducted culinary experiments with saltines and condiments. I talked to myself. I did not bathe.

At some point, despite all efforts to look the other way, I felt the cerebral itch of dignity commanding some attention. It said "drinketh some water, wash thyself" (my conscience speaks King James english). So I got it together and did all that, then I sat down and wrote the best song I have ever written.

Being in love with Sam boasts a list of pleasures too numerable to list here, though I will get to a few in later posts. One that is particularly of note is that she inspired me to write music from a place I have never written before: happiness. For the few people that have heard my music, it is a running joke that I can't write music unless I'm miserable or heartbroken, and heretofore, they would be correct. But I knew exactly what I wanted to give Sam for Christmas/Her birthday (they are days apart)- a song. I sat down and it just poured out.

It's totally a pop song with an uplifting singalong chorus that borders on cheesy, but as any man who has ever fallen retardedly in love knows, all self-conciousness goes the way of the dodo, and suddenly you are crooning squintingly upward, beating on your chest and outstretching your arms to the heavens in a brazen expression of romantic ecstacy, or perhaps you are just unconsciously imitating stuff you saw in an old Boyz II Men video. Either way, this is not something you could not predict you'd be doing so unabashedly and it will feel shockingly AWESOME.

Yeah, and so then I went to Boston and we had a very good visit :)

More to come...