Breaking the barriers

 One of the biggest challenges is seeing a day through the eyes of someone else.  I do not mean when we try to see it from the other person's perspective, but in the flow of life, of deadlines and struggle. It can feel like capability to do so leaves us or at least becomes harder to attain.

As I look back on hills climbed and those I have climbed with, I can see that a good dose of perspective could have made a better day.  What are the possibilities? It is the wisdom of respect that stands out as the finest of efforts that could ever be made.

I am not focusing on regret here, I am actually giving it enough attention to keep this in mind going forward.  The memories created, the bonds made, the opportunity for learning explodes exponentially. The coffee, the song, the architecture, the sunrise, the landscape, the day, can be so much more, if I leave my limited and familiar view of them aside and look at them from your side.

We all show the focus we have even upon the smallest things.  Isn't it interesting that our perspective is best shared by quietly appreciating that of others? In turn we share ours in an enlightening way. Naturally.

November ends.  It is easy to continue to spiral into focus of November brownness, that feeling that spring lies 4 years down the road. Today however, I refuse to play. There is so much to do.  The best of it is the realization that I have the opportunity to see things through your eyes, not just when it is convenient for me to do so, but in any and as much as I can.

Look away down Gower avenue

For some, I was on the other side, an adversary. For those who loved me, a spectacle. No matter what, it was bad. Resigned to this failure, this me, the alien who I lived with but did not understand.  Even the self-deception. Absolutely ridiculous. 

There is low and then there is low. To live and die in disaster every day and console myself by dipping potato chips in teriyaki sauce. Alone.  There is no difference in the people around me from anything else as far as I can see. There is anger in them, in the air, the sun, and the trees. Running is no longer possible. If I don't believe it, just watch what happens when I try it.

I am angry too at the ones who can live my way and still stand at the common and be found acceptable. How do they do it?  How dare they? In my heart, I play out the day they too have to cash in, just as I am being forced to.  It will take 31 years for them to come to me to say, we should have listened. Instead of this bringing me peace it made me thankful they did not listen. Those bitter ironies inside of me can also be sweet.

Despite repeated warnings, I flee.  Running like never before, changing everything.  Maybe changing something. Anything? Anything at all? I push hard for the surface of the syrup like water and blast into the air where there is sun and blue sky and those moments are fantastic. Coming down from the arc I dive even deeper into the dark thickness.  New depths over and over that overshadow my climb into the air and light.  Less light, more darkness. Where is this going?

An old man passes by and throws me a line and I grab it. I rise determinedly from the depths into the living.  Dry ground, the first I have seen in a long time.  What I did not know, is that this is part of the healing as well as what happens next. Soft and friendly voices reassured me that I was safe and that my path was not as treacherous as I thought it was.   As I step across the welcoming threshold and turn, the heavy door of ancient steel bars slams hard to let me know, that I have betrayed myself and it is over.

I have written over a dozen times about who saved me from myself one night in September.  It was a man who could save me, but not himself.  For this, I am forever grateful and forever sad. What I had done until now was not living, it was dancing at the zombie zoo.  Taking hope from nowhere, I saw a way back to the land of the living.  I knew for sure this time, it could really be. I walked the piers late at night looking at the reflection of the lights in the water somehow believing that a vessel smashed into 100 pieces can become one piece again.

September 9, 1989, was the last time I ever drank alcohol.  If I had not stopped, I would not be here to tell you about it.  Here, now, 34 years later I still see it as just as dangerous and just as much of a risk.  Even in my worst moments, there was a glimmer of hope within me. That was me, looking away down Gower Avenue.

The politics of pain

 Amid great distraction in which survival could not be, the deafening white noise that I hate, shields me from what lies underneath.  The pendulum of merciless competition swings back the other way tearing me into the reality that in the politics of pain, I am losing.

Like the frog boiled slowly in the pot of water, a flash of recollection shocks me into a realization that this is not where I was, and not where I should be. Is there any way out? The masters who claim to know, full of knowledge that is only invented by bending chemical reactions into statistically elected outcomes of indentured servitude, compromise and ultimately, slavery.  These masters, preaching from the mountain of their college loans that they will die upon do not know me and in many ways, do not know much.

The pain is growing, exacting a retroactive vengeance upon me that I can now almost feel in my past. Talk about fighting dirty. My rage has acted as a shield for so many years, but it is being worn away and replaced with exhaustion.  The amount of anger that it takes to push past the gauntlet of pain and now exhaustion too is almost unachievable. 

Like being trapped in a room with limited oxygen, I am panicking to come up with clever solutions for my escape knowing that later, mental faculty will diminish. The pain is rewiring my brain and I worry about the person I am later on. The fight continues and I fight to hold the ground which is what I am made of.  Pieces of me get lost in the battle, I remember them, but know they are not coming back.

Do not misunderstand though, I know that beyond what I know, there is more tenacity in me than I have ever experienced.  The level of fight remains yet to be seen. I know that somewhere there could be a limit, but I refuse to give up and float into that oblivion.  I have always known, I go down with the ship.

There is a war...Part 4

 I find that there is always more to the end of the line, the walls, the fences, and the barriers.  We live inside them and they are forever telling us, "No".  But, what if I say yes?  There is always one more swing, one more push, I scream, reaching inside and pushing some more.  No matter the pain, the fatigue, the cold, and the wind.  

There is more to taste, more to see and hear and play.  When it feels like we cannot go on, that is when we throw everything we have at it, because no, just no.

I find inspiration in a simple conversation with my son.  He does not know that his taking things on to keep from having time to be idle, has more value than he will know until many years from now.  It means, inside he knows that it is all up to him.  This day is because of him and not merely happening to him.

From a great distance, there is an odd point of light, that I am doing everything I can do to not look at it, because I worry that attention makes it real. From another distance a voice from long ago is heard, fire-tested in the pathetic world that we have been subjected to in the last 30 years.  The gap in time comes with the automatic understanding that nothing is the same, we walked into this building as citizens with individual agendas, and now, we are all just fighting for our lives.  If you have any brain at all, you know that the priority is just to survive and to do that quietly.

Settling is not an option, the fight gets more intense.  It is really the only thing that can make me move forward. The key seems to be the wins.  These must be scheduled along the way and they have a direct connection to the destination.

One thing is for sure, as more milestones are achieved, the road, its debris, scars, and accesses rise into view.

My Wintery Mix of Perception

 On a cold Tuesday morning, the snowflakes fall from the dimly lit sky barely contrasting to the overnight white cover on the ground.  I hear the ash crackling in the wood stove.  Despite my denial, somehow we crossed the threshold of August 1st  but looked around as we stepped over only to find ourselves in mid-November. 

 

It is a time for lists, just like it should have been during those now missing-in-action months that I somehow, cannot account for. Each moment needs to count because eventually some things are not even possible and they become what they are.

Daylight is rare and sunshine even more so.  November impersonating almost an Atomic Age bomb shelter.  The great deception is that what there is now becomes longed for and perceptively wasted from where I stand in 60 to 90 days.

With surrender comes release.  Once the admission of defeat happens, the season opens to its warmer charms.  A season to cook, to care for all inside that we could not have given attention to, and to prepare for the outside days.  

Then, when I really gain incite, and go outside to live a day in the clean, quiet, beauty that winter can be, it becomes evident that this can be just as sweet as a walk in the middle of June.  It is in realization, that causes me to think that just maybe I need to rethink most things. The flavors of beauty each come in their own time and on their terms.  The resistance to it being an exercise in futility that I for one, never seem to learn from.

The girl who stopped waiting

 So long ago, there was a girl who landed the best job ever.  It allowed her to live a dream that most people could not even imagine. That was enough. One day she was asked to take on an assignment that defied logic and seemed to defy the job itself.  She said that she could not accept her assignment, but before she knew it, she was swept away to a faraway place, her and the boy.

He was older, however, his life changed course when he was 15, and ever since then, his life has not been his own.  He lived under great restraints of contracts, meetings, and expectations.  This burden takes away his normal growth and replaces it with great distraction and chaos.

Now, everything felt like the restraints were off on this great tour.  The girl was very grounded and she helped the boy in so many ways to learn about himself, but first, his untethered freedom demanded that he find limits to living without rules and restraints. In doing so, he brought so much controversy down upon himself personally.  But the girl did not walk away.  She was patient with him.

She continued to show him the best of who he was and piece by piece, helped him rebuild vital parts of his life, one relationship at a time. The people around him could see this.  Off in the distance the force that started this trip continued to make itself known daily, seeming to have no control over anything.

This growth and discovery of self brought him into one of the most creative periods of his life not only for himself but for others.  The girl somehow had the ability to show him that he was worth so much more than he ever knew, not because of what he could do, or what he was known for, but for the true person that he was.  That once 15-year-old boy started growing at this time, and despite all the things that would happen in the future, that growth the girl was able to help him realize could not be stopped.

The boy loved her like he could love no one else because of her selfless work to give him back the part of him that he lost.  Just like his growth, their love seemed unstoppable. What could possibly go wrong?

What happened next can never be understood.  The person who gave the girl her mission asked for a simple thing. The boy went to her, strong and confident, making changes to his life, unstoppable, happy, and content.  But that night, he did not return to the girl.

A few days passed when the girl and boy arrived at a previously scheduled event. They met face to face.  She saw something she had not seen before.  He was confused and disoriented. Something happened but she did not know what.  He told her that it was over for them and he did not say anything more.

She cried for her loss, and she cried for him too because she had helped heal one of the biggest casualties of his life and they had been going to leave on a great trip within days to change the world and most importantly his life and the life of a dear friend.

She wondered if the coordinator always knew this was how the mission ended, if the whole thing was planned to play out this way, the boy never really be hers. The loss was devastating because the greatest joy had been all of the healing he had found with her.  Their almost 2 years together were over.  Well, sort of.

The boy did still love the girl and he came to see her periodically over the next two years.  He knew that she had changed things in his life that would never stop growing.  It was a gift he could never repay and never put into words in her presence.

His own life had changed dramatically over the last two years and he gave up everything that he used to live with to focus on himself personally and his young son.  Two years after their incredible mission ended, the boy stopped visiting the girl, it was really over.

When he was alone, he thought about her often.  One afternoon while sitting at the piano, he played and sang the words that he wanted to say to her. These words would never be seen or heard by anyone else.  They were like a personal journal of sorts. Private, not seen by others, until November of 2023 when every person in the world would see and hear it.

And now and then
If we must start again
Well, we will know for sure
That I will love you

Now and then
I miss you
Oh, now and then
I want you to be there for me
Always to return to me

I know it's true
It's all because of you
And if you go away
I know you'll never stay

Maybe she told him to stop coming around.  Maybe she knew that despite their incredible journey, they could never have it again and that he was still growing in his life, a growth that she showed him how to find.  It was all because of her and he wanted to tell her.

She called out his name.

He called her Mother Superior in his composition.

She made such a difference in not only his life but so many others.  People were born, relationships healed, unending inspiration composed, and countless stories can now be told that would have never happened without the girl. She was the only one who seemed to have truly lost everything.

I know that in reality, that cannot be true.  Someone so giving will live a very fulfilling life.  As I look back over the last 50 years of her life, I can see that she did indeed live richly with family and friends.  It is incredible to think that so many things could have never been if it had not been for her. I am so glad the boy gave the girl the credit she deserved: "I know it's true, it's all because of you".

Now and Then

A long time ago, as the nights grew longer and the days grew colder, I welcomed a friend from the West.  Even at an early age at the time, I somehow knew that this visit was something to savor.  The cold and darkness that moved in, would only be a welcoming conduit for a wonderful tradition. The crisp airwaves that reached across the northern sky were not the same ones that brought me here, they were still fantastic in their modern sweetness. What could possibly go wrong?

The one with so little compassion, and so icy cool traveled a great distance to take away an entire universe, and unintentionally create an alternate one. American Pie had nothing on this twist of fate.  The world as it was known ended at 10:50 p.m. on December 8, 1980.  The great influence expands like an exploding universe, smothered like a colossal mudslide, putting out the fire and embers that are born in the future.

Then, in the silence, among the 43 years of tears shed, even in the past, we find that things can be sent forward to arrive at a time that they never could before.  29 years ago, the day after Free as a Bird came into the world, it was unbelievable that there could be new music playing, from something that was done 22 years in the past.  Then Real Love came along, and I suffered my biggest loss as that rose into view.

That was it.  Nothing more. I could only tell Liam, who was born 23 years after this immeasurable tragedy took place about how it felt to be here when a new composition happened.  I was five when the last Beatles song was played on the radio when they were a group still.  I was 30 when Anthology was released, with the 2 songs rescued from John's rough cassette recordings of them in 1977. Even this kind of experience, my son could never know. It is something that makes me sad.

Liam was struggling with a technical problem yesterday, but toughing through it as he does so well. I suddenly realized that just 2 hours earlier, Now and Then, the final Beatles song, miraculously rescued from John's 1977 Dakota boombox recording, using AI to separate his voice from the piano he was playing, was released to the world.  Other than the very poor-quality copy of the home tape, I had not yet heard of this new Beatles project.  Yes, it is a true Beatles song, as great love and care were taken to keep it that.

In 1994's Anthology sessions, Paul, George, and Ringo, with the help of Jeff Lynne, tried very hard to save Now and Then to be released as the 3rd song from the Anthology sessions. Unfortunately, 1990's technology could not succeed.  But, thanks to this effort, the studio tracks that George Harrison played guitar on for the song in 1994 were preserved for the future when Peter Jackson's AI called HAL was able to isolate John's voice, allowing all of the pieces to now be present to finish the song.

I went outside to Liam and told him how this all came to be. It was a series of perfect atoms, that were now able to be assembled lovingly, respectfully. I told him that hearing a Beatles song for the first time after it was released is a special thing now that normally could never happen,, yet today it could.  I told him that you will always remember where you were when you did.  I told him that we needed to go sit in my truck, stop everything else in our world, and experience it together, for the first time ever.  It was something that would never have been possible and can never happen again.  The final Beatles song there will ever be, he and I could experience our first listen together.  It would freeze those moments in time as long as we are here.  It would be something he could carry with him all his days. Something so indescribable in our relationship, and changed his and my day.  This beautiful thing happened because of all of these little pieces, coming together out of tragedy and love. 

The light that went out at 11:50 that night still shines bright inside of me, and now more so in my son.  We can never know how far, the things we do on a quiet afternoon in 1977 will reach in other people's lives and how far into the future. I am thankful for all of the love and effort that put this moment together for Liam and me.  I could have never imagined it.

Transitions

 Contrasts keep rising to the surface of the daily pond that is life.  It becomes more molecular.  It becomes more deconstructed.  It turns the tables. It smites denial. It mocks determination. It ridicules the core.  The words of my friend Leonard come to mind:

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

 

 

The wisdom and point of view of my sons amaze me on a level like I could never have imagined.  What they have gleaned from years growing up is beyond what I ever was conscious of. In the limited days that I had with my father, the words he left me with, what are their words for me when they have traveled so far beyond me?

It is one thing to feel the obsolescence yourself but to perceive it from your legacy is a sobering thought. Instantly I travel through time and space.  11:37 PM where the silence and darkness are cut and smashed.  That one moment happens.  You realize you should have spent more time being real.  I cannot change that moment that has been playing over and over inside of me for the last 27 years.  

Here today, I am drawing a line.  I know I cannot change anything about that night, or all the days, months, and years prior.  Today, however, I will not allow it to happen again.  Not to me, not to them. Of course, contemplating this allows me once again, to burn another breakfast.

There is so much that I can do.  Clearly, my sons have assimilated all of the tactical finesse that I live each day with.  It is so important to show them that there is more. When the moment comes when there is no way for me to say any words, I hope that I took the time to have already said them all.

 

 

It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far.

-Leonard Cohen, 1977

-Death of a Ladies Man