I'd better write this down

Coming out of the bathroom this morning something popped into my mind that needed getting/doing/something-like-that? So I headed down the hallway ten feet toward the bedroom.

By the time I got to the bedroom, I stopped, looked around and realized I'd forgotten what it was I had come to do or get. SO I turned around and head back out the hallway. When I got to the other end of the hallway, maybe twelve whole feet, I remembered!

So I turned around and went back, now energized in my purpose. But alas! at the other end of the hallway, I'd again forgotten what sent me to the bedroom; so back out again I headed to find something else to occupy my clearly mottled brain wiring.

"One more time for the gipper", I thought to myself, as upon reaching the doorway at the end of the hallway my original quest was clearer than ever. So back again I went, now annoyed that this silliness had gone on so.

Sure enough at the back end of the hallway, I drew yet another blank. I thought in my frustration, "this must be early Alzheimers", and headed back out, this time clear that even if I did remember upon gaining that end-of-the-hallway threshold, I was not coming back for anything!

I stopped at the end of the hallway to see if anything ticked. Nope. Nothing. A total blank. Now what was I doing before I thought of what I was wanted to do/get back in that dungeon?

Me, my Hat and I

I recently experienced a bout of separation anxiety. I lost my hat!

"What?" you say. "Separation from your hat?"
Yup, my hat. You see I and my hat have been mates since 1993 when I bought it at JC Penny. I couldn't believe I could find a hat this nice in a store like that, but I didn't 2nd guess my luck and I snapped it right up. And from the moment I tried it on, I knew it would be a long time friend. Although I was already bald, I was still young enough that my brain programming told me I was hardy and didn't need a hat. But somehow I just needed to by this hat.

Now of course, I realize I was already, despite my middle aged macho social characterization, programmed to be a hat guy. You see, I got my first hat to go with my Sunday-go-to-church outfit as you see in this picture of my family when I was in fifth grade.

Hat's were in back then and they were considered to be part of a well dressed man's wardrobe. That's me on the left next to my mom ( I think). This is where my hat training/tapes started.

Of course like all trends that one passed and wearing hats went away. I became the typical male who was sure I didn't need on even as I lost my hair. The lowest I would stoop was to wear a beany in really cold or snowy weather or specialized hats for things like fishing, or sailing, or golf - you know, the kinds that sort of go with the shtick. 

Fishing hat

My Bahamas sailing captains hat

My golfing hat

Then there's graduation

and Mexico

 

and Wisdom Cruises

and Italy

and fun

And more fun

And Oh, did I say fishing?

But I digress. Back to my special felt hat. You see the first time I tried this hat on it was like, it and I were made for each other. It fit perfectly. And when I looked in the mirror I was transported to somewhere between the old west, Crocodile Dundee and Indianan Jones - I leaned toward Indiana.

You've heard the saying, "the hat makes the man"? Well in this case I can attest to some truth in that saying. When I put that hat on I can do almost anything. I can even walk to the car , open my rider's side door and get in - all by myself!

So a couple weekends back when we visited Philly and visited our friend Mary Ann and went out to dinner at the Hattery (of course) in Doylestown, and it had stopped snowing, I went into my senior funk and left my hat hanging back at the Hattery when we left.

So when we got home we called Mary Ann in a panic and asked her if she would please call the Hattery and recover my precious bonnet. I'd left it sandwiched over top of another man's hat (the Hattery is decorated with men's hat hanging all about) that was hanging on a post behind the booth we sat in for dinner. So of course it was transparent to everyone at the Hattery when she called to ask them if it was there. But Mary Ann, who had a picture of me in my hat and knew what it looked like, persisted. She trekked on back to the Hattery and retrieved my identity and sent it back to me. And much to my relief, it arrived yesterday.

So what's all the fuss you ask? I could for sure go out and find another black felt hat, a new one. But it wouldn't be the same. This black felt hat is not only broken in, it knows me. It's got a few of my hairs inside of it (it's takes one or two from me each time I wear it just to be sure I don't get to uppity) and it's formed just the way I like it. I've brushed it and gently washed it over the years to keep it looking good and feeling good and I have a special place on my hat shelf in our coat closet just for this hat. I mean how many of you can claim a 23 year friendship with a hat?

So Mary Ann is my latest savior. She's made me whole and complete again. Maryann, I and my hat thank you.

The poem Shapeshifter

The following poem was written by Jessica Colker to her husband and just found again before the memorial service for her in PHL on April 9, 2016. As you can see from this poem, Jess's death was not just a loss to her husband, but to all who will miss the authenticity with which she lived her life.

Shapeshifter

If I could slip
inside your skin,
slipper my feet into your soles, 
shrug on the heavy leather of your hide, 
What might reside there?
What tickle and brush of fur -
the surge and slack of muscle
against tendon, against bone?
What shape may our body take?

If I could merge
the roadways and tunnels of our vessels, 
tangle the highways of veins, 
reroute our arterial surge, 
What shunted path may our blood make?
What fresh map, inked red, inked blue,
May be drawn with you?
What foreign soil may our footfalls grace?

Tell me
If I could cradle your heart
within mine, flap in time
with the wings of your valves,
what thrust of love may we make?
Your heartbeat -
slow, definitively assuredly slow,
and mine with the quickened pace
of something startled,
what music might we create?
What rhythm may ricochet
from this eight-chambered part?

And what if
I could pour my emptiness into yours -
trust your hollow spaces with mine?
What places could nothingness find -
unnamed rooms, unnamed streets,
the vast span of constellations and solar dust?
How must we travel these empty ranges?
With the blood with flesh with teeth,
with the timbre of our trembling cords, 
and together, my fingers gloved within yours.

To Brian Melito from Jessica Colker

Now maybe you can see why we'll all miss her.

The wonders

Have you ever had a bout of the wonders? This can be a very debilitating disease.

For me the bad ones usually show up between two and three AM. Oh, I have one or two during the regular day, but they're fleeting - a momentary wonder then gone. I had one yesterday when playing golf. I asked my buddy Eddie, if he knew which was the more economical golf cart to run - electric or "gas" (propane). We talked about it for a minute, then it was time to hit our next shot, and the wonder was gone.

But my two AM wonders are really nasty! They can be about just about anything. I wonder about (things, or people, or places). I wonder, "What if...?" I wonder, "What would happen if...?"  Sometimes I wonder around - as in around inside a question from a lot of different angles. Then there's "wondering who...?" And wondering, "What is that...?"

There's no telling the topic. It can be anything. Sometimes I have great epiphanies, but mostly I'm just nagged by a mystery - mystery that never gets solved by-the-way. And the good ones go on for a long time - at least at that time of the night when I want to go back to sleep, it seems like a long time. A good wonder often lasts for an hour or two!

Last night at 2:17 AM (I know because my clock projects the time right above my head on the ceiling and I can see the time by just opening one eye.), I had a what-iffer take me over. What-iffers tend to be among the worst because if you think about it there's lots of branches on that tree. You can go off in many directions and none seem to lead to a definitive answer.

So here I am at 2:17 AM wondering, What if Donald Trump gets elected President? Now talk about a troublesome wondering!. It then morphed through Ted Cruise, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, each one in turn leaving me unsettled and in despair. So I found myself wondering, "What's going on in this country that we find ourselves in such a divisive quandary?" That one was worth another 45 minutes just by itself!

Somewhere after 3:52 AM ( I peeked) I finally fell into exhausted oblivion and the nattering in my head let me go. When I woke up this morning at my normal time, I was still tired from my mid-early-morning-mental assault , so thankfully being retired, I rolled over and went back to sleep for another hour.

It was after I was finally fully awake I remembered my wee hour mental excursion and realized it was all for naught. About the only thing clear to me was that we (the people) actually want the political theater that we all seem so incredulous about. If we didn't, if we really didn't want it go on, we'd stop going to these political events, we'd stop following the news people (whose job it is to dramatize every little instance of stupidity and controversy), and the politicians would have no audience for their rancorous performances.

Ok, I admit that's not going to happen. We're addicted to this kind of in-your-face-theater, much to the puzzlement of the rest of the world, thank you. And yes, I know we certified Americans don't really care about the rest of the world. We think, "get over it!" But you get the point. We are the responsible parties! It's certainly not the Brits. Right about now, they're probably thankful they let go of that colony.

And this morning after being fully awake I had one of those one-line wonderings: I wonder if anyone else has this disease? So tonight the sequel will likely be, " I wonder why I wonder?" Wondering why is the granddaddy of wonders. That one can go on for a lifetime.

We Have Come To Be Danced

by Jewel Mathieson

We have come to be danced
not the pretty dance
not the pretty pretty, pick me, pick me dance
but the claw our way back into the belly
of the sacred, sensual animal dance
the unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
the holding the precious moment in the palms
of our hands and feet dance

We have come to be danced
not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
but the wring the sadness from our skin dance
the blow the chip off our shoulder dance
the slap the apology from our posture dance

We have come to be danced
not the monkey see, monkey do dance
one, two dance like you
one two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
tearing scabs & scars open dance
the rub the rhythm raw against our souls dance

WE have come to be danced
not the nice invisible, self conscious shuffle
but the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
the strip us from our casings, return our wings
sharpen our claws & tongues dance
the shed dead cells and slip into
the luminous skin of love dance

We have come to be danced
not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
but the meeting of the trinity: the body, breath & beat dance
the shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
the mother may I?
yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
the Olly Olly Oxen Free Free Free dance
the everyone can come to our heaven dance

We have come to be danced
where the kingdom’s collide
in the cathedral of flesh
to burn back into the light
to unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
to root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
WE HAVE COME

Confronting my death

It's occurring to me that death may be more difficult for the survivors than for the person who's died. As I've reflected on the death of the wife of a close friend, and then some more on a couple of old golf buddies from the neighborhood, I've realized my attitude toward my own pending death - no I'm not expecting it to be near-at-hand - has shifted sometime in recent years.

I don't mean by shifted that there has been some dramatic epiphany. I teased a younger golf buddy last week that old age doesn't arrive via an announcement. It's not like there's a ceremony with trumpets and a flourish! For me it's been more like a gradual acceptance, accompanied by an easing of the fear of death.

As I've worked to ease the pain of my friend and the people who constituted her community, I've had to confront the impact that one's death has on one's community. In this case the death was one of those horror deaths, unexpected, before-her-time, and violent. It left all of us who knew her, and him, impacted and struggling with the unfairness of it.

Today I was watching the morning news about a man in Kansas who went on a shooting rampage and killed several of his co-workers. The reporters succeeded in getting interviews with the loved ones of a couple of the victims, and as they shared their anguish, I realized it was very close to that experienced by my friend when he lost his wife.

Shortly thereafter the news was showing pictures of disasters from storms in the Pacific, where entire villages were wiped out by cyclones, and the survivors were receiving no aid due to the wide-spread nature of the storm and the isolation of these villages. More people living the shock of instant loss.

I recall thinking as I watched, that at any given moment there are likely to be thousands of people on this planet who are dying in unexpected circumstances each and every day, leaving behind tens of thousands of people who had to deal with the tragedy and consequences of those deaths.

It got me to thinking about my death. That's when I realized there was no fear about it. I can authentically say, if I were to unexpectedly die tomorrow I would be OK about it. I'm happy and fulfilled in the life I've lead. At the same time I began to think about the impact on my family and close friends, if it was sudden and tragic. It occurred to me it would be harder for them to accept than it is for me to contemplate. Of course! Once I'm dead, I don't really have anymore thoughts about it.

I could see that much of the sadness and grief we experience after an unexpected death, is not for the person who has passed. It's for those of us who have survived. It's not about the death, it's about the loss. And while there's a bit of that dynamic with an expected passing - as in old age death, or death from a long illness - it is greatly tempered by the lead time we have to prepare for the final occasion..That time to prepare seems key to the degree to which we are impacted. It seems to soften the grief. It seems to allow us to more clearly celebrate the life of the person who's passed and less necessarily deal with the loss in our own lives.

Another piece that's become clear to me is how much each of us, to a greater or lesser extent, is surrounded by a community of people who love us. It's not so apparent to us in our day-to-day existences, as we are focused on the business of survival. It's not there like a presence, even with our closest friends and family. It's almost as though if we are not confronted by it in some way - a spoken word, an act, a gesture, an acknowledgement of some kind - the background of love becomes transparent. It disappears.

Like ripples in a pond we each have communities of families, friends, and those who respect us, that emanate out into the world to impact hundreds or maybe thousands of others. Each direct relationship constitutes another whole set of relationships who though they may be one step removed are also impacted by the first circle. And the second circle begets a third and so on, out into the world.

In these moments therefore of unexpected deaths, the grief pours out into those circles, that community that is attached to and surrounding each of us, such that the entire community is impacted and needs to deal with that onslaught of suddenness, and sadness, and loss.

What I am wondering is how, during these moments of community grief, we can rise above the suffering to celebrate the life and contribution of our loved one. Cathartic if we can? Yes. Easy to do? No.

And how, before my own pending last moment, do I prepare my community to be able to celebrate our relationship and the time we have enjoyed together, so that the loved ones who survive me, can go about living their lives to their fullest?

And oh, by-the-way, we have a choice! We all have a choice. We can deny, avoid, or be numb to, the circles that constitute our community. It's easy. Just go on living with your head down, attending to your survival, and your community will disappear. Outta-sight-outta-mind.

We can also choose to confront, be concerned for/responsible for, the existence and import of our relationships. There are the villages that raised us, the communities that love, accept, and support us. There are the colleagues we work with and with whom we share purpose, the family that puts up with our idiosyncrasies, our religious and political families, our sports and adventure families; the people we drink with, dance with, laugh and cry with; the people who know and love the people we know and love, and so know of us and accept us as part of their world. And so on out, out personal ripples on the lakes of our lives.

Choosing to be responsible for our communities begets integrity. And in some circles it's called wisdom.

There's Hope On The Horizon

What's occurring to me as I listen through the noise and drama of U.S.our political discourse, are the signals as to where our collective psyche is heading. OK, maybe discourse is too polite a word. Still, as distressing as it can be to listen, it leaves me somewhat optimistic about our future. Some of you may, of course, think I've finally devolved far enough into old age, that my senility is showing. Just humor me.

It's occurred to me there is always an emerging redirection between the young and the old, in today's terms, between the baby-boomers, generation X, and the millennials (gen Y) so-to-speak. As our elders (now the baby-boomers) age, they seem to naturally drift more to the right, wanting to maintain the familiar - keeping things as they have been. And to be sure, it's a drift, as distinct from a conscious choice.

According to brain scientists, as we age, and more of our thinking has become hard-wired over the years, we want things to stay the same. Positive neuroplasticity gets more difficult and our negativity biases begin to drive the bus so-to-speak. According to experts, ""The brain continuously scans for bad news; as soon as it finds the bad news, it overly focuses on it."

"Negativity bias is really good for animals surviving in the wild. It's what Hanson calls the "eat lunch don’t be lunch" mentality. But these days, we aren't exactly running from predators, yet our brains are still functioning as if we're in the wild."1.

So drifting to a more conservative view of the way things ought to be (i.e. keep-things-the-same) makes coping in the moment appear desirable. Keeping things the way there have been seems to reduce the scariness that comes along with living. Almost all core value change is a surprise and seems threatening when we're older.

And it seems from my own experience that this shift begins to occur especially after aging into the early 60's; not for everyone mind you, just the critical mass. And with such large numbers of people in the baby-boomer and early gen X grouping, that majority adds up to a big opinion block.

Juxtapose that aging let's-stick-with-what-we-already-know attitude, against the newly forming beliefs of the young(er) generation(s), who have in their youth, naturally arrived at more socially accommodative thinking regarding the biggest social issues of the moment, and you may get a glimpse of the immediate disparity as well as the future that's in the wings and ready to unfold.

These attitude changes seem to come along about every 10-20 years or so, although the ubiquitous media environment we live in today seems to be speeding new attitude adoption more quickly across our young cultures, accelerating consensus in their "community". Back in the 60 and 70's, even with TV, it took a little longer for each new set of mores to formulate across the high school and college populations, and subsequently take root in those subsequent in-power communities.

Now no generation is in complete accord. Each generation brings along its own outliers. And each generation formulates what we could think of as the core values of its community. The power isn't in the attitudes of any single individual in any of these groupings, it's in the thought and leadership community they become as they age into their 40's and 50's and take defacto control of our culture what I'm calling here the in-power community..

Once an in-power community ages into their 40 and 50's they naturally embody and determine the core attitudes of our national social and economic discourse. Of course, they aren't one voice, but many. And they don't completely agree among themselves. Yet the core of what they do agree on, will have noticeably shifted when compared to the core agreements among their elders. And so each succeeding generation brings with it, a wave of new standards, ideas, and social and political agreements.

Today's teens and millennials are already settled on issues about which we are still arguing in our political debates and diatribe. They do not dispute global warming, but instead are focusing on what there is to be done about it. For them, it's personal. It's forecast to have a direct and dramatic impact on their lives and their ability to succeed. And so they are quite concerned about it and focused on it, despite the current political arguments about it.

Our next in-power generation is not concerned for getting rid of illegal immigrants.As far as they are concerned, those people are already here, and the children of those immigrants are already sitting next to them in school, or working next to them in their jobs; and so have already been accepted as belonging.

Our next in-power generation is increasingly tiring of religious righteousness. They are voting their tiredness by participating less in religious institutions. Current poling projections are that our national majority will claim no religious affiliation within the next two generations. What will happen to the tea party in the U.S. when our national majority is atheistic? Or maybe agnostic? Or maybe what we are currently calling "humanistic"?

Imagine a generation of 40 and 50 year-olds, the critical mass and leadership of whom, have already accepted full racial and religious integration, women's rights, LGBT and immigrant acceptance; along with an active commitment to countering global warming, and implementing public policies based on sustainability. If that attitude were in place today, would we be listening to these bazaar 2016 political conversations that assault us every day?

When I confront the available pointers toward the attitudes of the coming Z generation (my grandchildren) and beyond, the preceding is what I see coming. Current political, cultural and institutional resistance aside, this is the now forming core attitude of those who will be the in-power community in the U.S. and maybe the world, in another decade and beyond.
As I said in the title: There's hope on the horizon.


1. - Rick Hanson, neuropsychologist and author of the book Hardwiring Happiness