Tag: life (Page 2 of 2)

The Roles We Play

December 12, 2019 / Tom

The jester says,

You cannot survive this. It’s too much for you to handle. You must surrender, give up, leave the field of battle. Give up the ghost, bend knee to the wicked wind, find shelter from this storm. You are nothing but a shadow meant to hide in the dark corners of the cave. The pain is too much, the risk too great, the mountain too high. Save yourself. Run and hide.

The beast says,

What life is there in running from the rain? I cannot, I must not surrender, for enslavement to the fear is a lifetime spent in death. I will set my feet, tighten my grip upon the sword of my own power and fight until my dying breath. I shall light the torch of my own ferocity and banish the shadows in this cavern. I bear the pain as a symbol of my victory, reap the reward from this refusal to surrender, and climb until the view promised my upon that summit is, at last, seen. I have saved myself in standing firm, and in pressing on beyond my mind’s limitations.

The warrior says,

I may retreat, but just to find more stable footing. I may drop my sword, but only to remove the shackles I have placed upon my soul. I may hide, but only to attack at the time of my own choosing. I may surrender, but only to free the parts of me enslaved. I am the fire that lights the torch that all shadows fear, and the storm that sets the trees to dancing in my wake. I am the hawk who sees and knows when to set upon the voices within, and the wind that carries angels up to heaven. Attack me at your peril, for if I so choose I shall crush your head under my heel and leave your carcass to the whims of the Sun.

Some moments I play the jester. Others, the beast comes out. Yet, I always try to summon the warrior, that wise part of me that always keeps me going. After all, life seems to be one successive act of survival after another, one role followed by another, multiple lessons followed by multiple tests followed by even more lessons. The essence of life seems to be in the way it flows; sometimes fast, sometimes slow but rarely stagnant for long.

The Door to Eternity

December 5, 2019 / Tom

I felt she was ready. For all the clinging of those who loved her, she needed to leave. It was her time, and when the door opened she looked back, smiled, and passed through the threshold.

Behind her was the anguish of her humanity, in front was something more. Before the door had closed she paused to glimpse one last time as the path that was. She saw the joys of her life planted neatly along the way, and relived the laughter and the smiles and the intimate moments where love had swaddled her soul. She also saw the pains, the suffering, the anguish and the rush of fear that being human had created. In joy she was so mindless yet in fear the mind was all she had.

The look back, it seems, is something all souls do. When they look back at their lives most know it is time to move on. Those who are not ready, though few they be, they return to their humanity to be celebrated for their unpreparedness. Yet that door is something we shall all see, and it is something we shall all pass through. She was ready to pass through before she had actually seen it. She had felt it before she saw it, and it’s pull began to build as her pain increased.

As she reached the end of her humanity she recognized something. While her body was wracked with pain, her heart had jumped for joy. As she neared that door she ceased being completely human and became a part of her divinity. At the end she was ready to let go of being human and open the door. It was time.

She felt the tears of those she loved and the pain of those who wished she’d stay. This was, finally, her journey alone and she could no longer submit to the whims of others. Her soul called for home, her heart begged for love, her humanity desperately wanted to know its divinity. And so, with a final view of the forest she had planted, he closed the door and walked into eternity.

There would be sadness left behind, but joy would return. That’s the thing about both, the return in our human experience with equal vigor. Yet, what lies on the other side of that door leaves one of those behind.

One Pane of Glass

November 26, 2019 / Tom

Outside, a blizzard rages. Inside, I am comfortable, nestled nicely on a sofa beside her warm body, watching the driven flakes of snow head to meet others that have fallen before them. There is but one pane of glass that separates me from the wilds out there. Just one pane of glass between the me found in this comfortable place and the me begging to be in the place that calls me.

The slow drum and dribbles of the washing machine fills this space, a rhythmic, modern tune hummed inside while the wild, ancient song of winter whips outside. Still, in this comfort and safety my mind wonders out there, to the place where deep snow has buried the earth, where the winter winds blow hard in autumn, where the parts of me that existed well before my flesh was formed once played. I can feel the discomfort of the cold air on my skin. I can feel the challenge of moving in deep snow. I can feel the desire for survival well up inside me. It is a fire I’ve known well, built in the moments of darkness where no light was assured, kindled in those times when I was frozen to the bone.

The wild part of me wants to be challenged. The hunter in me wants to stalk his prey. The hunted in me wants to dare the hunter out from behind his tree. The beast in me wants to prove I can survive. The coward in me wants to push the beast out of his cave. Nothing brings me to life like answering the call of the wild, and nothing says home to me like the wilds themselves.

I once believed I had surrendered to fear. That was a lie told by fear itself. I had but given myself pause to regroup so that I could move forward a little bit more. Sometimes victories are not measured in miles but in inches, and sometimes victory looks like defeat. Defeat cannot, however, stain the soul that moves past the fear within him. Defeat cannot pierce the heart of the warrior who stands firm against the onslaught of the demonic hoards born inside his mind.

I fear heights, so I’ve climbed tall ladders to protect my brothers facing fire below. I’ve feared death, so life brought me to its doorstep to show me a truth. I feared sharing myself with others, so I tore off my veils and became a naked warrior ready to just be me. More fear comes, and I challenge it, often discovering what I will do and won’t do now has little to do with fear, but more with desire. While I fear skydiving, I answer less to that fear and more to the fact that I simply have little desire to jump out of an airplane.

If that desire grows, I will jump with a wild yell. That truth I learned, the one I mentioned before, was that a fear of death is a fear of life. I choose life, living as fully as I can in any moment even in those times when victory looks exactly like defeat. I will not let panes of glass get in my way, instead honoring the oath sworn on my lifebed. I will splinter any walls that get in my way, and step over the shards of windows shattered in answering the calls within.

I wonder if there are others, those intrepid souls who hear the calls of life lived before this one, and answer with all the might their hearts can muster. I wonder if there are souls out there now trudging through the deepest snow just for the challenge of it. I wonder if there are warriors out there who hear the call of hunter and prey, beast and coward, sinner and saint simultaneously and who, like me, feel at home in the forests that echo those calls. I wonder if we speak one voice, hear one song, and peer at hope through the same, lonely pane of glass.

Life is what we are given as a promise of our birth. Love helps us overcome the obstacles to life we are blessed to have fallen across our path. Truth is what binds life and love to a single, simple calling. Find life, discover love. Discover love, know truth. Love life in truth and never die again. Even as your final breath is drawn, it is the one who has discovered life who can never truly die.

The Fragility of My Mortality

November 4, 2019 / Tom

It was bedtime and, as often the case, I went in to sit with my 13-year old son to end the day. Being a parent can be hard and sometimes the lessons we need to teach our children can be tough, but at the end of the day I like to reinforce to my kids the truth that I love them and that I am their Dad. That means that I am not just a teacher, but a role model and a man who will always do the best I can. For me, being a Dad isn’t just about teaching hard life lessons and preaching a certain kind of virtue. It is also about being vulnerable and exhibiting strength in that vulnerability.

After our talk, I ended with a “Good night, my son. I love you. You are my favorite boy in the entire Universe.” That had been my agreement with my son since he was born, and I’ve stated it so many times I could not hope to count the recitations. Despite our familiarity with that mantra, it never seems old to me. Each time I say it brings a certain amount of truth, newness and commitment into the space we share. I know soon, if he still allows me, the word boy will change to “man”. The one thing that won’t change is that he is my favorite man ever born.

The conversation used to go like this:

“I love you, bud. You are my favorite boy in the entire Universe.”

“And you are my favorite Daddy in the entire Universe.”

“I’m your only Daddy.”

“And I’m your only son.”

He has an advantage over his sisters. My middle child is currently my favorite 15-year old in the Universe, and my oldest is currently my favorite 25-year old. My son is simply my favorite boy, young man, male, whatever. He need share that favoritism with no other in his gender. He is the only one of his kind, the “man” of the house when I’m not around although his sisters have no need for a “man” of the house. They’re quite easily the strongest, most able and most independent people I know.

“Dad, give me a big hug.”

I certainly don’t say “no” to those opportunities. I assume, with some wisdom gained through the experiences I’ve had with his sisters, that those hug requests will diminish in time. This was the first year I wasn’t invited to walk with him on Halloween, that privilege being extended to his friends alone. My middle daughter didn’t even dress up this year, deciding to attend a high school haunted house with her friends instead. My oldest gave up doing those things that remind parents that they have children. Now, I have adults, and with them nothing but memories of smiles coming through princess makeup and GI Joe camouflage. I can still see each of my kids in my memory, their bags and plastic pumpkins in hand, running in dresses and scary costumes, enjoying that holiday as only kids can.

I used to be Daddy. Now, I am Dad. I used carry them on my shoulders, now I can barely lift them. They used to rely on me for so much, now I am barely tolerated (even when they rely on me). So I will never say “no” to a hug request, and I will put all my energy into that hug while it lasts.

Last night’s hug filled me with great joy, but also with great sadness. I could feel the fragility of my mortality looking over my shoulder. I could feel the moments fading. I could sense my end, although with that sense came an intense focus on the moment I was in with my favorite boy in the entire Universe.

I realized in that split second that I would not be around to see much of my son’s triumphs, or be there to help him in his tribulations. I would not be there to hug him when he needed one, or talk him through a question that entered his mind. I would not see so much of this young man’s life. I could feel a tear being born in my soul, but he would not see it. For now he would just be hugging his Dad, oblivious to the fragility of mortality that plagues us all. I could give him the gift of presence, knowing full well that one day he would fully understand the burden that mortality brings all of us who love someone deeply. The way I love my son, and my daughters, who will one day need me only to find I am gone.

That is where my “fuck” comes from. That fuck I give in this life, that fuck that says I want to be there for them, see their lives unfold, experience their joys and help shoulder their sadness. Mostly though, I know the sadness they will feel in my passing and I want to spare them from that burden. I know, however, that is a wish that will never be granted.

I woke up this morning understanding what this experience means. It means that I can’t be wasting time on the mundane, the meaningless drivel that often permeates our lives. Instead, I need to focus on the remarkable, and sharing that remarkable with those I share a love with. I need to leave a legacy of love, of words, of lessons and of memories because one day those things are all that will be left of me. I have spent a lot of my life focused on nonsense and I’ve wasted my energy on plenty of endeavors that have little meaning to those parts of me I will leave behind. I cannot build my memorial on fiction, I must build it in truth.

Perhaps that is what being a parent teaches us. Perhaps it need not be so much about “raising” our children but more about leaving them a legacy. Not a legacy of wealth and comfort, but a legacy that they can lean on when times get tough. Perhaps our role is not just to warm them, but teach them how to warm themselves and not leaving them to wander on their own, but to share with them a compass of morality, of character, and of love. That way, when they call for me and I can’t come they can still hear my voice, feel my hug, and know that I have never, ever, left them.

And I will always be their Dad.

The Captain

October 25, 2019 / Tom

I see you, old man.

Some may call the light in your eyes crazy, but I see the pure, unshackled joy in them. I see each ray of your light as a synopsis of an untold and unedited story, a magical journey most would not understand because you have written it all by yourself. I see the love pouring out of you while you draw your art, ready to share it with a world that does not understand you. You put your purest thoughts in colorful shapes on a poster board, hoping to share a bit of your light with others and that they return the favor with a few quarters lying without purpose in their cup holder.

I see the way you smile, the way your light shines through the spaces where teeth once lived. Your weathered and aged skin bears the lines of a billion smiles and signs of a billion tears, and your lips curve naturally upward as though you sleep with a perpetual smile. When you smile I notice one eye closes just a bit, like an old sea captain mastering an aging schooner. I see you looking at each approaching car as though they were stars in the nighttime sky being used to plot a course to lands still unknown. I see you weaving a tale in your mind, each footfall a word spoken to those deafened by their own imprisonment. I see a bit of you in a lot of me, and I don’t even know your name.

Yet through what I can see, I can also feel. I can feel the heartbreak, the loss, the misery and the chaos. I can see your joy but I can feel your sorrow. I can see you arguing with invisible antagonists and hear your voice holding firm against their tide. I feel them teasing you, poking at your wounds, reminding you of why you ran away to take your place among the anonymous. I can feel them breaking your heart over and over again, and I can feel you wanting them to leave you alone even as you grasp tightly hoping to never let them go. You are not anonymous, my brother, not to some of us who can dream, who can feel, and can sense the currents of life under the hull of own ship. Those of us who know we are but seconds away from being just like you honor your kingship, while those of us who fear being like you turn our heads in ignorance, ignoring that part of you that is so much a part of us.

I’ve seen you walking, pushing your overflowing cart for miles to that island where you spend your days. I once wondered how you magically appeared until one day my question was answered and I saw your old body pushing that cart at least a mile and half from your destination. I came back that way an hour later and there you were, sitting in your own world, drawing on your poster board while waiting for the stars to shine. I’ve watched you walk up and down the roadway, art in hand. Once in a while someone would provide you a gift, yet very few of them would seem to appreciate the gift you were in return. If only they would exist in the experience, they would have seen the glory of the moment. They would have seen your smile and felt their own. They would have known something unique, maybe for the very first time.

Yes, I see you, old man. Not that you’ve asked me to, but because I can’t help myself. You’d likely wish to stay anonymous, just a crazy artist most would believe lazy and inept. Yet I know you. You work harder than most, trudging up lonely highways with nothing but the voices to keep you company. You live for a smile and a few shekels, and the liberation your flight has given. You talk to yourself in the open unlike me who is too afraid to let those voices roam in that ether. You have built your ship, raised its masts, and found one port nestled on the island where you tell your stories. I know there is a part of me who is jealous of you while there is another part of me who fears being just like you. The two may never reconcile themselves, but I know I am more like you than you are like me.

Tonight, I will hop in my car and head to a comfortable place with comfortable people. You will pack up your cart and walk miles just relish in your anonymity. I will find some distraction to keep my voices subdued while you engage in a lively debate with your own. I will seek refuge tomorrow among the beasts and hills and the open trails, while you will seek to engage others who fear you, who ignore you, or who give you a tiny bit of their refuse as a gift. I will bask in the beauty of nature while you deal with the insanity of people who see you as insane yourself. Yet both our ships will sail in their own way, and the seaworthiness of our souls will be challenged in the journey ahead. We’ll both beg for winds to fill our masts while cursing them as they seek to drown us in our misery. One of us will dress the part of the Captain while the other works naked in the rain. Just know I see you, and that part of us that exists in reflection, and that the part of me that is speaking to you is that part of me that is you.

Take care, my brother. In truth, Namaskar.

My Last Day on Earth (If Only I had the Courage)

October 9, 2019 / Tom

It’s almost become cliche. Actually, it has become cliche. We’ve turned a profound question of introspection into one that bounces off our exterior, often finding it hard to penetrate the wanton shrouds we place on our every day life. Still, though, the question remains a powerful one, even if it seems lost to the swirl of our common personal insanity.

What would I do if this is my last day on Earth?

I ask mys elf this question while sitting in a whirlpool of daily existence, head throbbing with the weight of the day on my shoulders.. This time, though, I want to answer it honestly and without reservation. I truly want to discover my long-hidden truth.

The first thing that I realize is that I would not be wasting time as I do. I would not give a fuck about my job, although I would still care about the people I serve. I would not care about the mundane things I give so much attention to. I waste so much of my life in the mundane, struggling to grasp at golden rings that always seem just beyond my reach. I spend much of my life threading water in a mundane pool of worry. There, I worry about what would happen if my car broke down, or I got sick, or if something happened to one of my beloveds. Perhaps knowing that this would be my last day on Earth would free me from such worries. Perhaps I’ve enshrouded my life with so many veils of worry that I can’t see what life is anymore. Perhaps my throbbing head offers me an answer.

Yet it seems I’ve started answering the question of what I would do by suggesting what I wouldn’t do. That seems to be because I spend so much of my time doing things I would not do if faced with the end. Perhaps there is a sapling rose in the weed-filled garden of my life, a garden that I first must weed just to get to the flower. Maybe there is so much shit in my way that a clearing is necessary. It’s time, perhaps, to burn the fucking thing to ash just to clear out the trash. Maybe that is what my response is telling me. End the patterns that have never served you well, and let those that do bloom in their sacred majesty. Let me now pull out the most easily pulled weeds in my garden.

So, I would not be sitting at this desk wishing I was on a trail somewhere. I would not be looking out this window at the gorgeous blue skies wishing I was under them unimpeded by the glass, wood and nails of the box I am in. I would not be sitting alone wishing those I love were near, sharing in the glory of the moments we share alive and in health. I would not be asking myself questions the betray the misery of American human existence. I would not need to learn, or teach, or ask for the truth. I would just live, and life itself would be my teacher, my instruction and my honest breath.

I would be making love in the mud, dancing in the rain, searching for the rose in the weeds. I would be laughing an honest laugh and walking the hardest trail. I would hold your hand with all the vitality of a man in love with his mortality can muster. I would hold your face and kiss you with the knowledge that I don’t have many of those left, and I would cherish that kiss with all the attention it deserved. I would hug those I love with a heart wide open, and they would return the love because they, too, realize the frailty of our interaction. I would bask in such glory, having found heaven in my midst and hell in knowing I would be leaving it all behind.

I would write my book without the distraction that lives outside my soul. The words themselves would shout with the exuberance of a wild beast in his element, and they would shake your heart to its core. You would feel a pulsing in areas that may have been long-dormant and I would quake with you in an ecstasy of connection. You would tingle, and I would dance, and that majesty would wake up the world to a truth we’ve often left lost in the madness of our distraction. That rose would bloom in being free from the weeds. Free to bask in the sun of its day and the moon of its night.

If only I had the courage.

This morning there was such a sweet meditation. I was walking in a beautiful and lush valley, teaming with life and basking both in the light of the Sun and the shadows created by a ring of high mountains. I loved the way I felt in the valley, allowing the chill of the shadow to give the warmth of the light its meaning. My fingertips draw funny shapes in the dew that clings to the large leaves, and my eyes close in a silent prayer as nature plays around me. I can hear a distant waterfall mixing with the rush of a spring stream and I wonder if there is anything else I could want.

Those mountains. Their peaks begin calling out to me with a siren’s song, That is where I need to be. My heart pleads for me to go, but my feet sit idle. My soul screams at me to move, yet my mind stays still. All of me wants to sit on their summit, all but the part of me that needs to make it happen. That part of me holds firm to what it knows, what it was taught, lost in the fear of what lies just beyond. I am sure the view is beautiful. I am sure the climb is majestic. I am sure that the thought of moving scares the shit out of me.

My god, if I only had the courage.

I am awakened from this vision. Swirling in that brew created with parts of thought, parts of soul, and parts of heart is a stew meant for great consideration. Perhaps there would be no fear if this was my last day on earth. Perhaps the views would worth my final breath. Perhaps the climb would be worth each drop of sweat left in me. Maybe I could rise from this valley I feel stuck in if only I had no repercussions to face. Then I wonder what the repercussions would be if I stayed and failed to climb the mountains that promised at least a view of the promised land.

Now, however, I have no time to think about such things. I have to get to work, to meet my responsibilities. I have to bathe in mundane waters that keep the trail dust from settling on my skin. I have to hide in this box telling the world that “I am just like you” while knowing I am not like them at all. I have to lie just to find the truth, and I have to reconcile my wild nature with rules I had no hand in creating. If only I had the courage I’d have if I knew this was my last day on Earth. If only I could move.