Gan Mao Ling

 My boss always puts a Chinese herbal supplement called Gan Mao Ling down in the greenroom of the theater because she swears it helps people not get sick (and sick actors are a big pain in the showbiz-making ass of a theater company).  Last winter I started taking some when I felt like I was starting to get sick, and damn if the stuff doesn't actually seem to help.  For me, the effect is kind of like taking an ibuprofen or two and drinking a third of a Coke.  So now I buy my own Gan Mao Ling and I have an industrial sized bottle that I keep in my car and try to take every morning.  I think they help with my mood.  

U2 has a new song out and I was listening to it at the gym last night (my daughter likes to go to the YMCA with me because she gets to walk on an elliptical machine and watch Youtube shorts) over and over while I ran and I felt pretty exhilerated. 

Does this Blogger platform not have a spellcheck?  I don't know how to spell exhilerated!  How can this not have a spellcheck?

Anyway, I was at the gym, and running, and listening to this U2 song (yes, I know that I should not still be listening to U2, that they are way past their prime, that they are annoying, and rich assholes, and hipocrites [another need for spellcheck here], etc. etc. etc, but I still do.  And actually I love some of their most recent music) and feeling exhilerated, and the point is that I think the exhileration was about 30% due to the running, and about 30% due to the music, and about 40% due to the Gan Mao Ling.  

I today I thought that Gan Mao Ling would be a good subject for a blog post.  We all now know that I was horribly, horribly, wrong.  

After returning from the gym, I went for a walk with Sam, and it was absolutely perfect.  Every year I love my kids more and more.  He was making an argument to me (that humanity should go back to caveman times.  That we've lost our connection to everything that gives human life meaning and purpose) that I used to make.  I don't believe it anymore, but it made me smile, and I loved to hear his reasoning and passion as he argued.  I reminded him that he liked to eat 3 meals a day, and is not so big on the the killing of things or the farming.  And I gently pointed out that, while his argument isn't water tight (because of the aforementioned love of 3 squares a day and the aversion to killing/farming) it IS pointing him  in the direction of his own understanding of what's important to him.  What does he think is important that humanity has lost?  How can he try and get it back in his own, modern, life?  And that, if he understands what's important to him, that will help point him in the direction of a life he loves.  And then I said we should switch sides and argue again.  An old trick of my dad's whenever we used to argue:  "Don't hold on to your beliefs so tightly that you lose sight of the other side."

Flames, on the side of my face....heaving...breathless

The title of this post is a quote (paraphrased, probably) from one of the funniest movies ever, Clue.  It's from a woman describing how much she hated her ex-husband.  

It's apropos because today Jeannie and I will be having a meeting where she tells me many of the things that I've done wrong over the course of our relationship, and how those wrongs have affected her emotionally, psychologically, and physically.  My job is to listen and reflect.  The meeting, at the Jeanners' request, will be attended by both of our respective therapists. 

 I'm not entirely sure what's coming my way, but for the last couple of days, I've been filled with this feeling of radiance and lightness in anticipation of it.  I'm sure I'm not going to enjoy or agree with everything that Jeannie says, but I'm so glad that she'll be saying it.  I admire the strength and guts it will take for her to say what's going on for her, whether I agree with her reasoning of how/why she got to where she is or not.  I'm expecting that I will not.  But, I love her, and I don't think there's anything she can say that will change that.   I suppose I will find out.  I want to hear what she has to say and take it in.  

In a weird way, I feel like an athlete the night before the Olympics.  My job for the next 12-24 hours or so will be to be to put everything I believe about Zen, Taoism, Christianity, meditation, codependence, etc. into practice:  LET GO.  GIVE UP CONTROL.  BREATHE.  KEEP QUIET.  LISTEN CLOSELY.  MOVE LIKE WATER.  BE IN TOUCH WITH THE LOVE AT THE CENTER OF MY BEING.  

I feel like I've been training for this my whole life.  I learned from my older brother at a young age how to take a punch (or body slam, suplex, etc) and keep going.  I learned from my dad how to go through unpleasant things and keep smiling and finding the good stuff all around.  I think I will need both of those skills today as I listen and reflect.  

........….............................................................

This post is feeling both way too real, and way too woo-woo at the same time.  Therefore, let me ground things with a little bit of poop talk: My poop has been textbook lately.  I swear, Olipop is great.  The stuff WORKS.  Bristol 4's every day.  

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

I Hold the Line

           I'm a bit obsessed with this Peter Gabriel song lately:

I've always liked it, and I always knew it was vaguely Native-American themed, but I recently read an account of where the idea for the song comes from, and now I like it even more.  Apparently, it's a fictionalized account of a coming-of-age ritual where 14 year old Native American boys would accompany the Medicine Man up the mountain, where the Medicine Man would take a rattlesnake out of his bag and let it bite the boy.  The Medicine Man would then travel back down the mountain.  The boys would hallucinate for a few days, and then either make it back down the mountain and become a man in the tribe or they would die.   

I've been finding it very inspiring.  Strength and hope in the face of uncertainty and pain and fear.  Holding on.  Maybe failing/dying.   Plus I love that repeating sample pattern that runs through the whole song.  

I'm a different person than I was a year ago.  

Not better, not worse.  Or maybe both better and worse.  Happier and sadder.  

I've noticed that the songs I've written over the last few years all refer to feeling empty.  

I no longer feel empty.  I feel pain, I feel joy, I feel calmness, I feel anxiety, but I don't feel empty anymore.   I feel everything moving through me constantly changing.  It feels good.  Even when it feels bad.  

Why is this text center-aligned?

What am I holding on for?  

What comes next?

 

Yes, John Mayer, My Body IS a Wonderland

 Today in the car as I was driving from therapy to work, I was thinking about the seat warmers in my car, which I seem to enjoy using even on 80 degree days, and I decided that the two best physical sensations I have encountered in my life thus far are:

1.  In college, when I would save my first cigarette of the day until after an enormous breakfast in the dining hall.  Holy hell was that first cigarette wonderful if I could hold out until after breakfast.  

2.  The feeling of my car seat warmer on my butt.  If I'm being honest, it feels good on my butthole.  Perhaps that's a little too much information.  Let's pretend I didn't say that and I just said my butt.   It feels good on my butt.  The cheeks.  

I haven't written in awhile, and it's because life is...well....it's hard to write about.  It's hard to fit the enormity of all the things that are going on into one stupid little blog post.  Sam is going to turn 14 soon, which is nearly unbelievable.  He is a funny dude.  I enjoy his company more than I would've ever imagined that I could enjoy the company of my kids.  Same with Anna.  When I am with them, I feel love flow back and forth that is unlike anything I've ever known.   They are fun to be with, and I think they're well on their way to becoming good folks.  Time will tell, I suppose, but I'm proud of the work that Jeanners and I have done.  

What some people who read this (is there anybody out there?) might know, and other people who read this might not know, is that Jeannie has been diagnosed with a blood cancer called Myelodysplastic Syndrome.  About a year ago.  It has been scary and life changing and it has affected her energy level and the amount of oxygen that is available to her organs, and has turned life a bit upside-down.  Her time is spent shuttling between numerous therapies and mind/body practices, getting the kids to and from school, resting, managing an incredibly complicated diet and supplement regimen, meeting with friends, practitioners, and supporters, getting weekly blood draws and, when necessary, blood transfusions, and of course being a full-time mom and working on school applications and finding summer camps and the million other things that being a full-time parent entails.  It has also caused a deep examination of the things that she keeps close in her life, the things she holds onto and the things she lets go of as she moves forward.  The jury is still out as to which side of that equation I will end up on.   We don't really talk much about relationship stuff anymore, but it's pretty clear that I am not on the list of people she feels safe and comfortable with.  It is unclear (at least to me) whether that means she no longer wants to live with/be together with me.  Though, with the diagnosis, I am at least somewhat necessary to have around.  Maybe.  It is pretty painful to live in that place of uncertainty, but I am at least certain of how I feel about her and the desire inside of me to stay close and provide whatever support I can until she doesn't want it anymore.  I try and focus on the feelings that I have inside of me rather than trying to predict or guess or control the feelings she has (or doesn't have) inside of her.  I will keep showing up until I am asked or told not to.    

So the last 8 months or so has been an exercise in simultaneously holding on very tight through challenging times while at the same time learning to let go.   Relearning what life is like outside of a close relationship.  The last 30 years have been spent trying to figure out how to crack open my life in order to share it with another person, how to offer up what I have and how to take in and blend it with what they have.  How to compromise, how to try and make one shared life that serves two very different people.  And then try and figure out if they're interested in doing the same thing.  It has been difficult, and painful, and joyous, and scary, and sad, and rewarding, and often unsuccessful, and if you asked me today if I would do it again I would say 'in a heartbeat'.   Because I think, ultimately, it's what life's all about.  Though I wish the process of getting through it all didn't hurt so much. 

And then, when I get sucked into thinking about relationships, and feeling anxiety about it, and pain, then I think about the diagnosis.  And then that's what matters.  That's it.  Whether Jeannie and I are together or not, I want her Here.   I want her to feel safe and comfortable and healthy.  And it's something that I have very little control over.  It's something that's happening inside Jeannie's body.  So then what to do becomes very clear:  show up.  if you see that something is needed, do that thing.  if you're not sure if something is needed, ask.  find the good shit that is around and take it in.  make sure that you're paying attention to and really feeling that good shit.   take as much off her plate as you can.  listen.  let go.  rest when you can.  see the beauty of it all.  beauty exists outside of pleasant or unpleasant.  outside of easy or difficult.  beauty can exist in pain.  find the beauty.  show up some more.  hold on.  let go.  

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!!

Link to Jeannie's CaringBridge blog is here.