The Traveler

I stood on the edge
Eyes locked with destiny.
The world stopped spinning
For a moment.
A thousand miles away
I land in a strange new world.
The land has given rise
To pauper and prince.
Yet some stand apart,
Alone in a journey
taking them beyond.

A mountaintop of smoke...
Driven to the edge once more.
No stop to save us, no savior.
We leap, crashing on rocks
Cold and hard. And yet,
As our energies dissipate into the abyss;
We see a glimpse,
What could have been..
Had we not...
At that moment
Given up hope,
Swallowed dreams,
Allowed the earth,
To swallow us whole.

Music

Music has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a kid, music painted a religious landscape. Church was a space of sound and singing, a way to form community and worship. I learned to play piano, a skill I let fade as an adult. As I got older religion faded but music continued to be a refuge. "Songs of punk and songs of joy/Love songs about girls and boys/Songs of metal and English stuff/And some hardcore songs to make us feel tough" Sad, angry, anxious; there's a song to feed or fight that. Music became a way to express myself, to form friendships, find community, explore myself. There was always something playing, in the car, at work, at home. My tastes ranged all over the place and I was the person my friends came to for new music.

Age and working the music industry changed my relation to music. I still love it, I still feel the emotional aspect but it's not constantly on, hundreds of shows a year means I get an intense and visceral dose of music on a regular basis. I'm not as well versed in new music, new sounds aren't something I seek out anymore. But I found the joy of house music in a dimly lit club. Smart bar is a space beyond description in some ways, it's full of folks from all walks of life. There's 35 years of history in the building. Hell I saw Frankie Knuckles last show there before I even knew what house was. Spoiled beyond belief to call that space home and to call so many talented artists friends. Music returned to a feeling of community, but now it wasn't just with the crowd. It's a feeling of family and love with regulars, it's DJs that become friends you grab a beer after work with or a meal on a random Tuesday. I found the joy of being surrounded by queer artists, teachers, blue collar guys, all sharing a dance floor, dance became a way to let go of the worries of the world. Though I still dance for shit, I can dance now, I can let go and be one with the music and energy of the space.

I noticed another change in music, one I attribute mostly to age. Particular songs call up moments from my life or being a vivid experience of a person to bear on me. It's more than nostalgia, nostalgia is why I can still crank a Casualties record or Agnostic Front... this is something more. Often they're artists or songs that aren't usually my thing, Drake, Dierks Bentley, Wiz Khalifa. Sometimes they're artists I like but don't listen to often, Corinne Bailey Rae, Lennin, Rusko. When I'm lucky they hold this and nostalgia, Blink-182, Alkaline Trio, Lower Class Brats. These artists or particular songs let me have a feeling of someone I love being there with me, even when time and distance have passed. They let me remember moments I've loved with a sense of being there normal reminiscing doesn't contain. Music has become something more than joy and sound, it has become this thing that emblazons seminal moments on my soul, bringing me to a place nothing else seems to have the power to.

I am...

I have been the tops of mountains

peering at the world through the cumulonimbus haze

I have been rushing rivers

dragging all manner of things

down my course

I have been the tree in the field

sentinel witness to the beauty of solitude

I have been the wisp of smoke

last reminants of energy released to the winds

I have been the pebbles on the beach

standing in the laugher and joys

I have been the calm face

of the lover that holds you while you cry

the twisted limbs

of the bodies you broke

to build your cities

and when your cities crumble

when your last tear dries upon this soil

I will be here to remember

the legacy of your ancestors

is safe, in my outstretched arms

March of the Wallflowers

Pain is fleeting and fickle

It’s the buzz, the dirge

Of anxious energy

Following anticipation

Choking smoke of what if, it could

Here and now fade

To a cacophony of past and future

We live a world of smoke and mirrors

Afraid of who we are under the masks

The great dramatic performance

Our lives curtain call isn’t so pretty

No whoosh and bow

A somber march to the grave

In silence, unable to reach one another

For there is no I with which to reach

Bounce from pleasure to pleasure

Hide from the depths

I am the monster

That goes bump in the night

Not for violence or fear

I am the monster that tears away the mask

That places the mirror

The siren cry of self-discovery

And like all monsters

Where I rest is cold and damp

Echoes of the horrors I’ve caused

My eternal companions

Sleep now beautiful

In the morning

The monster disappears

Replaced by a mannequin man

Who’s much more palatable

Satiated Soul

Your words, are ashes
In the mouth of a generation,
Of child soldiers

Mud cakes, of platitudes
Filling
Your soulless eyes.

Another cattle car
Your Facebook click,
Can't stop.

Drown your sorrow.
Wake up; repeat it.
For the next generation,
Will inherit your ashes

Saving silence

We rose as kudzu
Our of the irradiated soil
Thriving off the acid rains
We were never meant to survive
Sheared, undone, by the master's scythe
Hydra vines, each cut suffocating his unknowing blade
A toxic landscape, a voice
Forged of silence, tones of freedom
Echo in our hearts

Hidden dancers

Our shadows danced
As our bodies could not
Deep ancestral drum beats
Of the soul
Twirls of hope; leaping against the wall
Blended and blurring ecstatic pirouettes
The rhythm of a time before words
The universal word of the body
Shadows melting together; spilling love
Into our mouths
Waterfalls bathing spirits
In cool repose
We soak our bodies in each other
Melding our flesh...Our souls
In the ether
We move and shake
The earth herself trembled
White super nova
In that moment
We are one
We are nothing

Being Soft and Getting Hard

Originally an essay (reflection) written for Dr. Ann Dolinko's Feminist Theories class at Shimer College. I've hesitated to share the two pieces I wrote for this class as they are incredibly personal and revealing but much like wearing the feminist label if I am unable or unwilling to step into vulnerability and fear how can I ask others to do the same.

Be a man. It is a simple imperative, repeated over and over to men, starting when we are small boys. The phrase usually connected to one man’s demand that another man be ‘stronger,’ which is traditionally understood as the ability to suppress emotional reactions and channel that energy into controlling situations and establishing dominance. (Jensen, 2007, p. 5)

This clarion call is one that takes many forms throughout a man/boy's life: "positive" forms like 'man up' or 'be a man', negative forms like 'what are you a pussy', 'don't be a faggot', and strange guilt ridden forms 'I've made a grown man cry', 'I miss back when there were real men'. All of those phrases are ones that I've heard in my life and their message is the same, "you're soft and should be hard"; they are the self-effacing call to manhood. I'd like to do two things here, I'd like to trace what those imperatives mean to one particular soft little boy who as a means of survival takes up the masculine call to hardening and I would like to think, to share, possibilities of escaping that hardening into a space of intimacy and vulnerability.

            I've covered details of my upbringing elsewhere but there are a few things I'd like to highlight before I get into stories of both my internal softness and the hardening process which I undertook. While I grew up at a young age without having gender or gender roles pushed on me from a large majority of my community by the time I'm 8 this is no longer the case. By 8 I live in suburbia with my mother and little sister, I go to public school, we go to a 'normal' church. I see my father regularly, we live with my 'uncle' Eric, as a child I don't see either of these men in my life as masculine because I don't have the concept that I need role models from different genders, the gender construct isn't there strongly enough for me to separate people like that. It's not to say I didn't 'play doctor', or realize that there were people with different genitalia but in the same way that I would say 'gay' for years without understanding the implication of it I saw sex differences without understanding the implication of it. Additionally, the utopian genderless space of my early childhood while maintained in theory is also tainted by a strong anti-masculine feeling. I can't place this into concrete examples but I can tell you that I have even to this day internalized masculinity as evil. "men are monsters", is a statement that reads as unequivocally true. While I criticize Jensen in Getting Off for constructing masculinity as only negative traits, domination/violence/oppression, I do not disagree with him. Men rape, men murder and wage war, the great horrors of civilization tend to be perpetuated by men and we simply don't have a matriarchal history to look to in order to see if women would do the same things with the same privilege or not. As a child and young adult what this means is that I didn't identify as masculine despite being anatomically aware I was a 'boy'. It is not until my 20s that I internally identify as a 'man' despite a large part of my life being read by others as such, and only then because that reading was true of people in the most intimate of spaces.

            The transition period into middle school is a trying time for everyone, hormonal changes and new social pressures mount to fundamentally change the structures of us both internal and external. The little boy standing at the edge of this transition in 5th grade is a soft and fragile thing. I cried openly, I was told crying even in public was ok, crawling under a seat and bawling for hours when I got on the wrong bus. I was fat, physically soft, I didn't play sports and my peers had no end of insults to hurl at me for both of these things. My parent's divorce and court battles were ongoing, a process that started when I was 8 would not completely end until I was nearly 18. The Christian doctrine I was raised in taught compassion, love, care, traits I saw (see) as universal but which the cultivation of only enhanced the external view of me as soft. I was an odd kid with little to no exposure to TV and enough books in my head to compete with most adults on literature read. I spent time with other outcasts, children outside the norm because of race or family structure or behavioral issues. By the middle of 5th grade I'd taken heaps of insults and occasional physical because I was soft, and the pressures of my home life were mounting. So I cracked, I spent 2 weeks in a mental hospital and 2 months in a day treatment program for a suicide attempt. The suicide attempt was on the heels of an uncle committing suicide by hanging, the method I attempted. I just don't think until that moment I had thought of self death as an out and the minute I saw it, I thought I found a solution. The child that returned from that experience was bound to be a different kid but that difference was as much predicated on how people reacted to me after as it was on the experience I had in those spaces. Upon my return the fact I shared my story openly, the reason for my absence etc, got me quickly labeled as 'crazy'. While the school had me in a peer mediation program that fostered skills like active listening, conflict resolution, compassion; it also had me seeing the social worker and monitoring me closely adding to my 'crazy' persona. I learned pretty quickly the power that being seen that way had. People were by no means kind to me because of my psychic fragility but I learned they were less likely to be mean to me when they saw me that way and so my hardening began.

Real little boys, as psychologists William Pollack writes, will do almost anything they can to avoid being seen as soft. […] Sometimes, parents will encourage their sons to ‘toughen’ up. […] The first time La Hoya boxed, he was punched badly smack on the nose, and ran home in tears. But, as he reports, he soon ‘learned to manage’ his fears. Since he went on to become a prize-winning boxer, this initiation could be read as the prelude to a success story. But a price is paid for the ‘hardening’ of boys (as Pollack calls it): they learn to become anesthetized to both physical and emotional pain and to keep it to themselves. […] Boys are ashamed to tell others when they are injured; the simple act of telling is an admission that they are not bearing their pain silently, stoically, ‘like a man’. (Bordo, 2000, pp. 56-57)

Part of what Bordo is drawing attention to is that even a man like Oscar de la Hoya, a man who literally beats other men for a living, is at risk of being seen as soft. It is only because he is now a world class boxer that he can tell the story of running home in tears at all. Hardening isn't just the emotional stoicism, it isn't just the anesthetizing of pain, it is also the embrace of violence. I learned this almost as quickly as I learned to embrace my new found crazy persona. I'm not sure where my first act of violence happened, I can't trace it back to a single moment where I realized being violent was an option. What I can tell you is that early in 6th grade my capacity for and frequency of violence was enough to get me placed in a self contained special education classroom. I learned that violence, and later the mere threat or potential of violence, kept me safe. Children tend to stop hurling painful words at the kid that will smack them for it. That violence for me wasn't just expressed at my peer group, at home my mother and I got into increasingly violence physical altercations. My anger, a protective emotion both physically and psychically for me, reached uncontrollable levels spurred into murderous rage by reactions to drugs meant to prevent me from killing myself. Sharing stories of my violence from this period is hard, I was a kid that was pretty fucked up in a lot of ways and it is painful and embarrassing to think both of what I did and what perhaps some part of me will always be capable of. I think everyone, all human beings, are capable of violence, of truly awful atrocities, but feeling that darkness as part of human nature doesn't make confronting it in yourself any easier. Perhaps the worst violent act I produced in school was in 7th grade. I had a shop class which was one of the few spaces I worked quickly and diligently in, the teacher thought it was because I was good at it and enjoyed it. In reality I did it because once my project was done I applied the tools of the shop to making homemade weapons. That 7th grade me was better prepared for prison than a classroom. I spent hours honing bits of copper wire into hooks and blades, attaching them to pens and lanyards. The incident happened in gym class, in that space of so much pubescent anxiety, the locker room. I'm not sure what the kid said, I know he was one that hadn't learned the lesson to not be cruel to me through rumor and threat. I know that whatever he said that the reaction I had was disproportionate. His words were met with my weapons, a sharpened piece of copper wire attached to a lanyard opened his arm up from shoulder to elbow. The cut was deep enough for blood to run pretty good but not enough for him to need stitches. To highlight at this point how much I'd changed is what I did after I tore open a wound like this in another person. The same kid that 2 years earlier had cried getting on the wrong bus, who had trained in compassionate conflict resolution, handed the weapon to the kid with a handful of paper towels and told him that he fell into one of the lockers. I could feel my heart beating in my throat when the gym teacher came and saw the blood. I thought I was done, this final act of violence would end up with me kicked out of school. It didn't occur to me that it would also probably land me in jail. But that's the thing about violence and fear, they work. He said exactly what I told him to and while the teacher I'm sure didn't believe it for a minute that poor child was so terrified of what I might do to him if he told on me that he stuck to that lie. Often when I think of my childhood I think of the trauma and pain that pushed me from a sensitive caring kid into the monster of middle school but I was also that trauma and pain for others. I cannot imagine how he recovered from my abuse, what hardening he had to go through to survive me, I try not to think about the wake of pain and suffering my transformation left behind it.

            The thing with using fear and violence to make yourself safe is there's always someone scarier and more violent than you are. Ivan was this person for me. In 7th grade Ivan was a 17 year old angry and violent gang member. My first interaction with Ivan was him telling me in no uncertain terms while sitting behind me that he was going to shove a pencil into the back of my head. A combination of fear and anger welled up in me and my cold response was for him to do it because I'd pull it out and shove it in his neck. Thankfully he didn't take me up on the challenge, thankfully he was also probably not bright enough to realize that if he did it I was not actually going to be capable of following through on my threat. See Ivan over the course of a year taught me a few valuable lessons. 1) there's always someone bigger and tougher than you 2) being friends with the top of the violence food chain is almost as good as being the top 3) manipulating those powers allows you to change not just your world but the world. I straddled an odd position, my violence and being in a self contained classroom meant I was friends with a lot of juvenile delinquents. I didn't shy away from my intellect though, nor did they as having someone who could do things like make explosives fed their own love of destruction and violence, and so I also had friends that were the geeks playing geeky games and reading books. Straddling these two worlds was what allowed Ivan to teach me that third lesson. When popular kids would mess with my geeky friends, Ivan and I would mess with them. Ivan enjoyed being able to torture anyone for any reason so channeling him was pretty easy, and his gang values meant that being part of his in group meant being protected and by virtue of that so were my friends when I was around. The popular kids and jocks didn't get to pick on the geeks anymore, at least not when we were around and that was my little band aid for the awful things I did that I was using this new found power of violence to protect those weaker than me. I wonder if Ivan, who I would later see smash a kids head into the wall so hard he required 10 staples, thought the same thing about his protection f me.

            The system may have problamatized my violence but it also excused it. I had a hard life, boys get violent, I just needed to learn to control it all. My external violence was met by a therapeutic model that would teach me emotional stoicism. I needed to learn to control my tonal inflection and volume because the way I said things made people react a certain way even when I didn't intend that meaning. I needed to learn to take deep breaths and relax, to control the rage because my violence was keeping me in a self contained classroom and preventing me from exploring my intellect the way I should. And let's be clear, that emotional control covered my sadness (learning to suppress tears on my own) and my depression (suicide and self harm could never be an option again)as well. My emotional volatility got me labeled as bipolar and the psychiatrists made it clear, I'd learn to control and modulate my own expression of emotion or they would chemically regulate it for me. My choice was express emotion both appropriately and less intensely or be chemically restrained with atypical antipsychotics and benzodiazepines. If you've never had the experience of literally drooling on yourself because your brain has been so chemically restrained I don't suggest it. Needless to say stoicism was something I learned out of necessity as much as I learned the violence there.

            8th grade holds the event that taught me I needed to reign in the violence, that swords aren't just sharp bits of steel, they are tempered to create a beautiful killing machine. Note even now as an adult who feels well adjusted I cannot help but see beauty in and use poetic language to explain these processes. The forging of a sword in fire (the trauma of my life), the beating of it into a shape (my early use of violence and anger), the tempering of it in oil (learning stoicism), and finally the sharpening of that shape into an elegant implement of death is a metaphor I cannot help but romanticize and that is terrifying. It's not my last act of violence, it's not even the worst act of violence I've done, hell it's not even the most violent altercation between my mother and I, but it's the one that makes it completely clear to me that how I used violence had to change. My mother and I were fighting (verbally) about something, I don't remember what we fought a lot it wasn't exceptional. I lost my temper and hit a bookshelf, it didn't break I didn't hit her I didn't even threaten to hit her, I just lost control and lashed out as per usual at an inanimate object. This pushed her over the edge, she shoved me and started swinging at me. I'm not sure why I did it, I didn't intend on using it as I told the police later, but I stepped back and pulled out a knife I had in my pocket. I wouldn't have stabbed her, as I later told my lawyer the blade was pointed away from her if anyone was even going to get accidentally stabbed it was going to be me and not her. I was getting beat and I didn't want to get beat anymore, I wanted to scare her into stopping and it worked. When she called them she wasn't in any actual danger though I suspect she was still terrified and would remain terrified for a long time. I was in my room when she called the police, I knew she would so I barricaded myself in my room. The police were not amused and when I finally let them in they came in guns drawn. Having a loaded weapon pointed at you is another experience I don't suggest.

            They frisked me, put me in handcuffs and took me to the station. I got lucky, granted I gave them a written confession because I thought in my youthful naïveté that they would see what I did. Turns out even if I was right and she would have hurt me they didn't care, parents have a right to beat their kids and no one ever has the right to pull a knife on another person. I got lucky because my mother said she'd take me home, I got lucky because despite the fact the uniforms disagreed the detective made them take me back home. I'm thankful, time in jail would probably have forced me to harden more, a moment that made me realize I needed to step away from violence could easily have become the moment that forced me to become the hard and evil monster I was on a path to becoming. I cannot imagine the fear my mother went through, I knew I wasn't capable of really harming her but I'm not sure she knew that. I spent a year and a half on probation, an excuse to stop doing drugs, to stop fighting, to stop a lot of stuff without losing face. Even other hardened boys understood not wanting to go to jail, understood the pressure of probation. I could turn down drugs, because I was on probation. I could talk out conflict instead of fighting it out, because I was on probation. At the same time I was taken out of public school for high school doing catholic school instead. This meant that my reputation needed to be rebuilt, I found my own hardened group of punk rock kids to do that with, but it also meant that all my juvenile delinquent friends fell to the wayside as we no longer had classes together and my social life tended to naturally revolve around people I went to school with.

            I learned through life experiences the hardening of violence, I learned through therapy the hardening of stoicism, I'm learning through feminism, theology, and life to balance being hard and soft. I still see men as monsters and masculinity as evil. I still look on my violent past with a deep sense of shame, with a worry that the monster I was then is still with me today, he's just hiding. Life has taught me that the monster of masculinity takes other forms, forms not so obvious, he can be selfish and manipulative as well as violent and domineering. Neither form of masculine domination is a good thing, neither is a person I want to be, both are paradoxically modes we push men to be and admonish them for becoming. I've focused on the violence because I've overcome it, but also because it's the one society is the least comfortable with and so the easiest to recognize the damage with. The stoicism is a much harder pain to explain but I'll offer one last example of this hardening before I work through some experiences and possibility of leaving it behind.

            It's 2008, I'm 22. I've climbed the corporate ladder and am sitting in my own office, a special education coordinator for one of the largest busing contractors in the nation. At 22 I have only one person above me at our location, I'm literally one rung from the top. I'm also in excruciating pain. I'm in my first flare up of Crohn's, I've been in flare up for weeks. I've lost at least a pint of blood, I tell myself I'm just sick I'll deal with it when my work is done. In pain so bad I can barely, and sometimes not at all, stand up straight I work 10 plus hours a day to finish billing. I spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, the blood there makes me think I'm dying. After 3 weeks of the pain and blood, with billing diligently finished, I calmly tell my mother I need her to drive me to the hospital. I explain my pain and the blood but with as little tears as I can muster. I spend 7 hours in an ER refusing pain meds, toughing it out because I think I need to. In some ways I need to, they poke and prod asking if this or that hurts, 7 hours later finally accepting Dilaudid nothing hurts anymore I feel wonderful. It's later explained to me that the pain I experienced is more akin to labor pain than any other pain, I'm assured breaking a bone would have hurt less. I don't disagree, the experience completely changed my pain scale, what was a 10 for me is closer to a 5 now.

To be exposed as ‘soft’ at the core is one of the worst things a man can suffer in this culture. Tears are permissible, even admirable, when they fill the eyes of an old warrior reminiscing about battle or a jock talking about his teammates. In such contexts, tears are like the soft penis after satisfying sex: they don’t demean the man but make him loveable and human --- because he has proved his strong, manly core (Bordo, 2000, p. 55)

            That's the dangers of a masculine hardening to pain and suffering. I lost blood, I was in excruciating pain but I both didn't share that and I didn't deal with it until I'd 'man'd up' and gotten all my work done. All that hardening of youth and even as an adult and I didn't feel like I was 'man enough' to cry, to express pain, to ask for help. "Never again" or so I tell myself; but looking at it I still do this, I come to class some days at a 7, I push the pain away to go to work or write an essay, I wait to see the doctor when the appointment is a week or two out because I can manage until then. This masculine suck it up mentality has real cost, my intestine has scarring that would be much less, in reality I'll need surgeries and interventions I wouldn't need if I'd taken care of things earlier. I cannot help but be aware I will face those things with that same masculine stoic edge, the pain of surgery, the fear of both a low quality life and the possibility of death will be fears, anxieties, sadness that I will likely never express to the outside world. I justify this as pain, suffering, death being experiences we all inherently face alone, the reality is I'm afraid that sharing those fears will make me be seen as weak, will garner sympathy and not empathy, or worse that I'll actually be left alone, seen as too weak to be worth investing in, another broken toy cast alone onto an island of misfit toys.

            I can't leave it here. I can't just tell the story of hardening. I can't just share the tragedy that even a soft little boy, raised in a space so close to utopia, even he hardens, even he feels the pressure to become a man. I have to share the possibility of vulnerability, I have to try to find the intimate spaces where care and compassion can break through. I have to not leave myself open to the same criticism I had for Jensen, that his deconstruction project was so strong but that he left us with so little to build up from. He did however leave us with a wonderful abstract vision:

I believe that love (based on a commitment to equality articulated in our core philosophies and theologies), compassion (based on our common humanity), and solidarity (based on our need to survive together) can anchor our lives at every level from the intimate to the global. I believe those things in part because of my necessary faith in 'the better angels of our nature,' as Abraham Lincoln put it, but also because of my experience. In my life, weighed down as it is sometimes in struggle and failure, I have experienced that intimacy. Once experienced, it's difficult to return to the illusory. (Jensen, 2007, p. 179)

I wish Jensen had shared his experience of intimacy with us, given us more than abstract vision but a concrete example to look to and hold as we stumble and struggle together in the dark to create the world he sees and to experience the intimate care we all so desire. I'm going to attempt to share a few intimate moments, hope that in these tiny stories of love, compassion, and solidarity that we can find some experience or pattern to carry on in our hearts and into the world. I also want to make it clear that I hold paradoxically the need and desire to do that with a clear need and desire to be read as effective at the masculinity project. Being read as 'man enough' protects me but also allows me to challenge that paradigm in spaces I otherwise couldn't (hardened men will allow me to challenge them to compassion and love because they read me as 'man enough', to have earned the right to make that challenge), I also admit that some of it is a fear of giving up the safety of privlege being read as a man and as effectively masculine enough gives me. We are all but human and accepting that, the reality that this means we will misstep and fail I think is the first step in the journey toward a better world.

            I want to share an early act of intimate compassion, one that is absent from my earlier stories because it felt disjointed there. When I was hospitalized I didn't share that experience with anyone until after I was out of day treatment. I had my parents, a little sister too young to understand, who knew because of their proximity and position but open sharing wasn't until much later. Even in my return to school the experience I shared was as much a tale spun as a sharing of reality. My dearest friend Chris is the one exception to this. He was my only peer I talked to on the phone while institutionalized. He is the person who I shared my fears and feelings with, the only peer I admitted openly to still wanting to die. At such a young age the fact that he embraced me and my suffering with such love and compassion is a testament to him as an individual and to the possibility of the good in humanity in general. Chris shared his own pain, at the possible loss of me, at how what I did made him feel. There were many late nights talking, enough tears to fill an ocean, deep hugs and embraces meant to help each other feel grounded to something in a world that felt like it was spinning out of control. Chris didn't shy away from that compassion and love in the face of others, willing to embrace me as a greeting or in need regardless of who was around. We created in that space a group of us that shared our feelings, our fears, our loves, our desires, openly powerfully a group of men vulnerable at their core to each other. That core expanded to a church group, a group that fostered that sharing around a rope symbolically and literally binding us each to one another. Our core group took that into the world, shared that space in phone calls and in darkened rooms at sleepovers. We boys from 13-18 did something I've seen so few men in my adult life be able to do, to hold each other, to cry, to share hopes and fears, to be soft and gentle with one another. Maybe that's the space Jensen calls us to create, the embrace in compassion regardless of who is around us. The sharing of hopes and fears with each other, face to face without having to stick it between macho chest beating or stoic lies of it all being fine. Maybe telling each other how loosing each other would leave us broken and in pain, not lying about being able to just suck it up and move on when the world rips away someone we love. Maybe that's what intimacy looks like. It's that great hug, tight enough and long enough you feel like you're melting into the other person, a hug filled with such love and care that you can feel some part of your stress and pain melt away even if it returns the instant later. Maybe it's about expanding that feeling beyond just those moments into spaces, times, places, that cause that feeling to continue on.

            Physical care and intimacy is hard. I've spoken a lot here about physical hardening to pain and through violence. I'm still soft, both in terms of embracing the love and compassion, empathy, in me but bodily I'm soft like cuddling up with a giant teddy bear, a huge organic pillow. A good hug from me is filled with warmth, emotional and physical, it's the feeling of being enveloped in a warm blanket on a cold night. I find those moments with a partner are what make intimacy for me. There's a rhetoric of men wanting to sleep after sex and women wanting to cuddle. This isn't my experience. I always want to cuddle, I like the feeling of physical desire slacked meaning that our embrace can be nothing but care, love, intimacy. I try to set that intimate space around the act of sex as often as possible. I enjoy a partner with light touch, with massage, with kisses and hugs and cuddling, before and after the actual acts of sex. I like the idea of blurring that space, of thinking about sex as that whole process and not just the explicit acts of sex we do in the bedroom. By not separating foreplay and sex in my head I create an intimate space that flows and feels much warmer but also much more natural. I find doing this means that the intimacy isn't restricted just to the cuddling after colitis that most men pretend to hate. I find doing this means that touch does something different something new and wonderful. And frankly, if men need a selfish 'hardened' reason for trying this out, it makes sex better and easier. My challenge though is to ask men to think beyond performative benefits, to ask what it would feel like to put the feeling of intimacy and care before the feeling of physical pleasure. And to explore physical pleasure in that space, to not make it about 'getting off' as quickly and efficiently as we can but allowing ourselves to enjoy the intimate journey to pleasure and orgasm and to revel in that same journey in our partner. Yes, getting off feels good but so does a lot leading up to and following that. Yes, getting someone off feels good, but so does exploring their body, their pleasure, their world.

            Act first and always out of a space of compassion. That's the call I give to myself, the standard I want to live up to, the standard I so often fall short of. It's a call I want to share with the whole world, it is I believe consistent with what Jensen wants to create in the world. I am hopeful that my two little vignettes of that intimate space might help shine light on what those ideals look and feel like, that they can help us find other spaces in everyone's stories that bring those things to the fore. I hope that someday I can let go of the hardening, to be the soft person that hides so often at my core surrounded by all kinds are armors safe from the vulnerability of exposure but also hidden from the joy of intimate connection.

Bibliography

Bordo, S. (2000). The Male Body. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Jensen, R. (2007). Getting Off. Brooklyn: South End Press.                                         

Monsters

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you." ~Friedrich Nietzche

Everyone has a monster inside them. If you feel like it isn't true then you're either not being honest with yourself or you should stop reading. And the abyss is real, either you're delusionaly optimistic and refuse to see it or you just gotta accept that there is a world out there and there's an abyss.

Of course it can work both ways, it's not just a caution when fighting monsters. See sometimes when you stare into the abyss you see that monster within. Sometimes the problem with letting yourself linger too long looking over that edge is you actual get to see the truth within and it's not pretty.

My monster is a shape shifter. He's not the same today as he was years ago. The monster from my past is not one I ever wish to share a life with again. But that monster was easier to see, overt and loud. Rage was what brought him out and he was mean, vile, awful. But he was also born out of fear, insecurity, trauma. He had a strength in that anger that I in my day to day did not have. There was something in the power of that anger that allowed me to survive. I do not mourn its passing. I worked too long and too hard to ever yield to such an awful thing. Admittedly at times I feel anger and I can even see in unkind words the echo of that beast. But it is slain. And for a while, for a long while I thought I had slain the dragon; that within me no longer was a monster.

The problem with idealism is that when you cling to ideals to strongly they take over. The other issue is that of righteous indignation. The feeling of being "right" being on the side of "good" is a powerful thing and a dangerous one for sure. Confidence is something for me that waxes and wanes depending on the day and the subject. But slowly I've noticed it growing to be something more common for me. Adding work into the mix definitely gave me access to an authority I was only tacitly aware I could call up. That authority and the space created in the job added to the confidence. Things with women starting to go my way added confidence to the mix. Spending years working on school to finally start to see my academic mind stretch and grow. Stepping up to new challenges in the intellectual sphere that I could not have surmounted before starting that path added confidence. The problem is there's a monster lurking there.

This monster isn't anger it's confidence or perhaps pride. I'm never sure how to label it. But when your father talks to you about it and then someone else sees it too... yeah it's not a possibility anymore... I have to accept this monster is here and I need to work on him. The problem is he's harder to see. See turns out all that work I did to get rid of the first monster, well this monster decided it was easier to build on that work than start somewhere new. See I learned to be an island. It's not always pretty but honestly I don't need others to find emotional stability, it might be a low stable orbit sometimes but fuck you it's stable. It's what happens when you decide you never want to ask for help but you still want to work through all your past trauma while learning to control your moods. Add into that a genuine compassion and desire to nurture those close and well, it's like a emotional recharge island. It's a weird stability, the whether is always different. And it's fair to say it's intense a lot of the time but the island is always there. And so as I worked and grew I became more a force. Learning in a great books environment means being more sure of those few personal convictions I have. It's not that I'm sure they're objectively right but I can articulate them better now and I find that helps. So I know what I want Love to look like as an ideal, I know what I mean when I talk Loyalty, I understand the value of Compassion. I am more solid in these ideals now than I have ever been in my life. I know what I want to value and have some idea of who I want to be and that adds to the confidence that builds this monster.

See the monster is a manipulator and a force of will. His coming out means that by sheer strength of conviction and confidence the side he stands on gets a little extra sway. And he's convincing, he's mastered discussion and dialogue and all of that turns into more force of will to his side. My father's caution is that this monster needs to be fought with openness to feedback and the ideas of others. I'm usually really good at this. I adore discussion and even have come to like debate. I'm fascinated by how the walks we have in life give us perspective that is unique. I like learning new things and seeing new sides. Unless we're working in reality and something real is at stake. Then if the monster is around I just kinda want to do it my way because the cost is too high for me and you to see that another way doesn't or does work when I have one that will work. And so the monster argues for it and against any alternatives and suddenly I watch as he's done it again... through sheer will the monster made reality what it wanted. And so he has to get put in check without loosing so much work and a part of me I've come to enjoy.

But maybe beating this one is as simple as keeping myself open to feedback and the input of others. Maybe the trick is to recognize him myself and acknowledge he's there. Maybe nurturing others in their authority and confidence the monster meets his match and he's not such a worry anymore. Maybe the answer isn't just in working on me but lifting while climbing. Maybe the trick is to give whatever I can to help those that come behind me have a little easier path than I had. And maybe the answer is that I'm just as lost as anyone else and all the confidence and answers will fade when the facade crumbles in the face of a new trauma; maybe life and experience will slay this one all on its own.

Revisiting

My mind is one of those parts of me that I actually lump into my positives. I turn everything into a rubix cube, I twist and turn facts and ideas until it all clicks into place. For school this has been nothing short of a godsend. I read something and let it roll around for a few hours and boom an essay is ready in my head. Granted sometimes it's meant that some piece hasn't clicked making it doubly difficult for me to discuss something I feel I have no grip on.

I wonder though if sometimes the rubix cube trick isn't bad for me. Not with school stuff but with other things. I'm not impulsive, never have been. Yeah I had a reckless youth but that wasn't impulse stupidity, that was well thought out eyes wide open reckless behavior. But it's not the risk aversion that I see as the main problem. I get focused, too focused even, on events, on people. Thing roll over in my head, over and over. My mind twists every interaction around in an attempt to do with people what I do with ideas. Did I make a good impression? How did that interview go, what are my chances of getting the job? Is she interested in me like that?

I don't think I always make the best first impression. I do however make up for it in the long run, not so great for jobs but great for friends. But as is so often true, I am here to talk about that third area... love. In love both the risk aversion and my rubix cube mind may be a disservice. I'm slow to ask for a number, slow to ask on a date. Sometimes the risk aversion means by the time I'm ready to "ask out" someone we're pretty good friends. Sometimes the risk aversion means by the time I'm ready, the person at the bar is already gone. The solution has to come from my mind, the same place as the problem. Others can drown their brain in liquor, I've found this ineffective at best. The risk aversion is why I'm not good at bars or clubs. The rubix cube is why I'm not so hot with people within my social network.

I have amazing friends. Most people get one or two really awesome people in their lifetime, I get on or two new awesome people almost every year. I've been blessed with super great people in my life all of the time. You want to find the most badass group of people, just collect all my dear friends from over the years in a single room and it's done. I told a friend once that attractive people tend to be friends with attractive people. Because I have so many awesome friends, their friends also tend to be awesome. Dating friends is hard, it risks a friendship often neither is willing to risk. Dating friends of friends is supposed to be the ticket (so I'm told). You're not risking a friendship, and "the worst case scenario" is that scheduling social things becomes a touch more complicated. Sure, my risk aversion still ques. She can still say no, and even the softest turn down stings a little. But social circle means I'm at so much less risk. I can poke people to see what they think, what my chances are. It's a calculated risk, and much like the reckless calculations of youth, knowing is enough for me to leap. But that asking is part of the downside, the rubix cube. I run each moment through my head. Each tone, each gesture, each movement, turns and twists in my head, as though they might reveal some magical answer. Is she more or less touchy with me, what does that mean? Her voice shifts in conversation, is that a good shift or a bad one? She moved from next to me to the other side of the room twice, what does that indicate? And on and on until I've bled dry every moment. As though if I just have enough tea leaves the future will come screaming out of the abyss.

The secondary part of the issue is why I am not good at polyamory/non-monogamy. I fixate. One of the things I find fascinating about ADHD diagnosis is that the lack of attention (focus) also has a hyper focus component. That is to say many children with ADHD either cannot focus at all on the task at hand, or become so focused on the task at hand that task switching becomes nearly impossible. A curious balance of things. Intellectually, non-monogamy makes sense. I can go through the very solid reasoning. It's unreasonable for one person to fulfill all your needs. To ask a single individual to support you physically, emotionally, and intellectually is unreasonable. We're not all looking for the same things from each other. The person I want emotional connection and support from may just want physical affection and release from me. Non-monogamy allows everyone to get what they want from the other person, it opens up a vast well of support. Traditional monogamy restricts in theory only the physical realm allowing for the partners to seek other needs elsewhere.In practice I've found it is more about the level of connection. Monogamous couples often want physical exclusivity and emotional intimacy that is deepest between them. That is to say being more emotionally connected to another is as big an issue as being as physically intimate with them.

But I'm deflecting, avoiding my first train of thought here. I wasn't so good at polamory because I didn't want to be with other people. I get in a relationship and I don't want to be with other people, the desire just evaporates. Interestingly I find this true of others in a relationship, when someone chooses to be in a monogamous relationship I find zero attraction to them, the relationship ends and I'm like "jesus X is attractive, how did I not notice that before". What makes me a good friend, also makes me a great lover. I'm naturally nurturing, the soft calm caring presence that surprises people when they break through my mask only increases as the intimacy increases. I'm good at emotional connection, I love big and I don't withhold (at least not once I open that door). It means the timing of gifts, the gifts themselves, are these targeted missiles that light up the other person's heart. It means I know when to just cuddle on the couch after a long week, I know the impact a little note in the pocket to be found later can have. The problem is in gaining the courage to ask someone to dinner or for their number I tend to cycle through things too long or too much. I find my head rolling over my time spent with them too often or too much. The reality is I need to bite the bullet before I get to that point. Once I feel that rush of desire I should leap. Make my reaction to wanting a number or a dinner date to ask for one, not spend days divining what the answer will be.

Well my head just fizzled out and though this feels unfinished I'm hitting publish anyway.

Light the world on fire!

My work in the political arena these last few months started tugging at some pretty old threads for me and over the last few weeks I think that thread is finally fleshed out.

See, the work I've done in life has always been in a service industry setting. But, I think too often the focus is on industry and not service. Granted this makes sense in things like retail. I've been blessed to work both direct care and management positions in industries that work with people with disabilities.

Often when I talk about my past work I talk about the not so positive things I did and not the positives. Admittedly all those things still stand. However, I have tried to remember service as an ethos. In school busing I can say I kept my integrity and was always honest with my employees and customers alike. I didn't have company employees  I had "my drivers" I knew everyone by name and really miss them some days. They didn't drive packages of salt they drove "our kids" and we were acutely aware that every child that got on a vehicle was someone's most precious and wonderful baby. Granted we were also a business and we made decent money but it felt secondary most of the time.

Camp is a lot easier to highlight the service on. This is because I worked directly with the kids. It's hard not to take a service perspective playing with kids, doing art projects, teaching a kid to swim. Again, these were "our kids". A group of 16 to 20 year olds were handed someone's special baby and they knew that the care their child got was the absolute best. Money doesn't buy that kind of care, we loved those kids, we loved our jobs. Sure, there were regulations to deal with, cleaning to do, and all those sorts of things. But the core of it all was the kids. That kind of work forged friendships and experiences that can't be beat.

But political work expands this idea of service. I wasn't just serving the campaign or a wonderful candidate, we were serving the community. It wasn't just about winning, it was about sending someone to office that would raise up everyone in the community, especially those most at risk. I was blessed to enter politics not via a drive to win or make money but to make a difference. I worked for a campaign that felt more like family, with a candidate that felt closer to a friend than a boss. We bled for our win, most of us working deathly ill through GOTV. And as we held our breath looking at a loss before the early vote numbers turned it into a win, we knew no matter the outcome "we left it all on the field". Let's be fair, we got paid too and no one works for a candidate they agree with 100% of the time (unless you are the candidate and then my hat's off to you).

So that's the connection, service. I've listened to a lot more by Cornel West lately and maybe that's what has me thinking this way too. The truth is being successful isn't enough. Raising myself above where I am or was isn't enough. I think this is why the nice car, good money, etc wasn't enough for me. I want to raise more than myself. That's how the world gets better. If we raise not just ourselves but those around us. If we raise our friends and family we may just raise a community. Raising a community could expand to a city, a township, a county, a state, a country, maybe even the whole world. I don't just want to do well, I want to look around at a world of people doing well. That's it, that's really lighting the world on fire. The flame of hope passed from one person to another has the power to push back all the darkness. So pass that flame to your neighbor and let's set this world aflame.

Another Random Poem

Untitled

Lightning bug lighthouses

Warding the boats of our souls

From the shores of peril

Some boats dark as night

Built of the abyss

Some boats shimmer

Little suns on the cool glass waves

Lost we search

Arrogant we stumble 

Off the edge

Waking to a world lit by those little suns

In the all too rare friend or lover

Bro Hugs

So my last post touched on friendship but I wanted to make a short post addressing a tangent of that… The Man Hug.

                I was watching a documentary earlier in the week call South of The Border. Now I’ll spare you all the geopolitical lessons and thoughts the movie brought up for me and pick something really tiny the movie itself doesn’t touch on. Central and South America are known for having a culture we label as machismo. That “man’s man” sort of masculinity. While on a whole this may or may not be true something struck me. South America politicians hug! I wish I could remember who is was hugging but there’s a clip in the movie of Hugo Chavez hugging another South America head of state. I can’t imagine politicians in the United States hugging like that. I know, I’ve hugged politicians and watched how uncomfortable the situation makes them. But here’s a man that is the leader of Venezuela, a man that many would credit with the movement in South America to socialism and he’s hugging in front of documentary and international news cameras. Granted Chavez is a unique guy but still.

                So it got me to thinking. I wasn’t a hugger for a long time but as I’ve gotten older I’ve become one. I’ll hug people I count as friends as long as they seem comfortable and people that I’m really close to get hugs (fuck em if it makes them uncomfortable I’m hugging). This led me to think about an observation a friend who grew up in Mexico made; men in Mexico and men in the United States hug differently. In America (he’d remind me here America is a continent the United States is a country) men don’t really hug, we turn so our shoulders touch not our chests; we pat each other on the back (pat not hug, your hand better not rest too long) and we separate quickly. This isn’t the case in Mexico. The handshake moves to a hug and that hug is important. “Heart to heart” is the explanation I was given. You hug so the left sides of your chest (where your heart resides) touch. There’s still the back pat but it’s a full embrace first. This tends to end with another handshake at the end, not the quick separation of the man hug. There’s such beauty in the symbolism of the hug of Mexico. Showing the connection between two people by embracing “heart to heart”, highlighting the closeness with a real embrace. Shaking hands before and after displaying such a level of comfort and connection. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, Mexico clearly has a better handle on male relationships that the US does.

Now I understand that I’m talking about this as a cis male and through a particular cultural lens. Don’t take my language to mean that I’m not aware of this; it’s just easier and more understandable for most if I leave them as separate talking points. That aside, I encourage all of you to become huggers too. Think about not just whether you hug people but how you hug them. I’d advocate we all adopt a Mexican style of hugging. I’d also advocate you think about what you convey in your hug. Those of you that have spent time with me, think about the last time we hugged and how it made you feel. Think about the difference between how we hug to say hello and how we hug to comfort one another. And at the end of the day, get rid of the “bro” hug. If you’re too scared to show affection to your friends, then that’s a sad thing for you. I for one will hug anyone that wants one and a handful of you have no choice in the matter.

Rules To Live By

1. Act always from a space of compassion
2. Find a partner to share life with and be a safe haven and support beam for that person
3. Find the amazing friends in my world, cultivate and care for those friendships
4. Learn something every day, teach your passions

That's it. That's what life has narrowed down to for me. And honestly I'd be ecstatic to hit any of them. I've had a lot of conversations with people recently about what I'm like as a person, as a friend, as a partner. It's interesting to get the outside observations. It's especially interesting to hear feedback from people about how I can change from one environment to another.

Act Always From a Space of Compassion
I started on this path listening to things like the Dali Lama's conversations from The Mind and Its Potential Conference and Karen Armstrong's Charter For Compassion talk. Compassion is a pretty hard space to create at all. Compassion isn't just about empathy but action. I can feel empathetic all the time but compassion moves one to action. Sometimes these actions are easy. I see someone at a party alone and I go over and talk to them. I see someone I know crying and offer a hug. Sometimes these actions are hard, I'd give examples but honestly I'm still working on growing in this area. I'm not looking to turn myself into a "save the world" type of person. Honestly, I'm not even trying to make a dent. I want to have people find some small solace in their interactions with me. I have what it takes to become the  next Martin Luther King Jr; but I'm hoping I have what it takes to have a beer with him/her and be a space he/she can recharge in to create a more beautiful world for us all. Don't get me wrong, I can effect minor change. I can call out injustice and bigotry, especially important as part of a privileged group as I can do this relatively safely. I can be a safe haven for people in my life that are out struggling both on their personal journey and journeys which may some day change our world.

Find a Partner to Share Life With and Be a Safe Haven and Support Beam for That Person
I've given up on the whole actively seeking a partner thing. It'll happen or it won't. I'm not expecting to stumble into my fairy tale relationship, but I know what I want and if it comes through my life I'll act to seize that opportunity. Until that time, I need to make me the best person I can be. I've done a lot of that over the years. There's this idea that you shouldn't look to enter into a relationship until you've done half the work you need to do on yourself. I spent a long time where I could say that wasn't the case with me. Frankly, while I've done at least half the work I need to I'm still not a finished product. Likely I'll never be finished, human life is about growth and change. But I've come to realize who I am, good and bad, and have cultivated the best in myself while working on the rough spots. I've come to embrace my personal struggle, to have faith and see the beauty in the resilience of the human spirit. I've come to understand that sometimes protecting yourself is denying the rest of the world seeing beautiful parts of you. I still need work, and I'll keep working on me so that when opportunity on this front comes knocking... I'll be ready.

Find Amazing Friends in My World; Cultivate and Care for Those Friendships
So I'm awesome at the first part of that. I can tell fantastic people really fast. Hell, sometimes I can tell them from across the room. I read people fast and incredibly well. And I've found some really awesome people in my world over the last year or two (not to discount my old friends at all). The thing is I'm a shitty friend. Like not so much the whole being a friend thing. You need help moving, no problem. Shoulder to cry on, done. Support, love, fun, whatever you need; I got you. Problem is I'm shit for keeping in touch. Every friend I have that goes out of their way to call, txt, email, write etc I cannot ever express fully how much that means to me. I'm shitty at keeping in touch so those that do that part of friendship for me get a full throttle version of me. I'm loyal honest and caring. Seriously, I may suck for keeping in touch and doing shit on the regular with (unless you just decide we're partying every Friday or Saturday then I know to just show the fuck up) you but in a pinch when your world is falling down around you, I don't panic and I generally know just what to do. Also, loyalty is primary for me in all relationships so once I count you as a friend... it really doesn't matter if you melt down sometimes or have shitty days. It happens we're human, I really don't care and don't judge. Seriously, if I am up at 2am I'll answer for any friend. If you need me I'm there. I just need to get better at sending txts/emails/calls to see how people are doing. Maybe throw a dinner party monthly to get people close enough together on a regular basis.

Learn Something Everyday, Teach Your Passions
I'm a sucker for falling passionately for some new idea or activity. But long term passions are... well... mercurial moods don't exactly lead to consistent anything. However, I love beer and mixed drinks and share my love of that skill set and tastes as often as I can. I love cooking and food, recent conversations with a friend have reminded me how awesome sharing a new dish or cooking with someone can be. This is what makes me think a dinner party or pot luck would be so awesome. A bunch of people cooking and eating together... seriously this is what connections are built on. Plus, trying a new dish especially something outside your normal cuisine is a way to travel via food. Food is a big part of culture and so seeing what and how others eat, seeing what meal time is for them gives you this very human glimpse into their experience. I've got a great passion for information and learning in general. A passion for taking everything apart and discussing and analyzing the hell out of it. I know it drives a fair numbers of you bat shit "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". Yeah, well, most of the time it isn't. Frankly, there is value in taking things apart and having dialogue and discussion. I understand that learning to live on and appreciate the surface is something I need to work on. But I also understand I'm happier underneath it all. I'm glad people are out there that are the opposite of me. People that live mostly on the surface. Because frankly 50 ft under is only beautiful if someone is tending to the surface as well. The world needs both kinds of people in it. I really do tend to learn something new every day whether it's from a person, a talk, a movie, an article, or a book. I probably need to spend some time thinking about what teaching my passions looks like and thinking about how well I'm doing on that end of things as well.

Hope my random posts give you all a smile or a thought!

Clueless

Soft echoes of haunting rooms
Thin sheets of bent emotion
Worn thus on edges of mist
Thick hanging regrets upon the hatpost
A shadow filled lightless space
Devoid of shoulds and coulds
Release is a pen
Held in suspension
Just before the ink
Taints the page

Sometimes my head just fills with words, thoughts, ideas. I don't usually write them out. Today I happen to be sitting in-front of the computer anyway so, why not. Most of it isn't poetic at all. Once upon a time words in that format flowed from my brain as readily as water from a faucet. My head doesn't seem to flicker that way much any more. Honestly, I think I've dulled my mind with tv and internet. So goes life.

Milk Mathmatics

There is a popular belief that what men want out of relationships is sex (or sexual intimacy if we're feeling generous). Women on the other hand are said to want emotional support and intimacy out of relationships.

"Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

This is the sage wisdom told to women who are "too" free with their sexuality and struggle to find a partner. But I think it works both ways.

Here's the bottom line. I think that relationships are much like a free market system. I remember they used to have sites where you could name your own price for things and wait and see if anyone bit at that price. In some ways this is how sex and emotional intimacy work. It is a barter with most people. Sexual act A grants B degree or amount of emotional intimacy or B degree or amount of intimacy grants A sexual act as the case may be. This usually is based on who "has hand" at the present time.

Except there are a handful of a certain type of individual that flip this equation on its head. Woman who are free with their sexuality, who do not make men pay the toll of emotional intimacy for sex. Men who offer emotional support with out demanding sex before or as payment for. Yes, these types are rare.

Now, to be fair, I assign a moral judgment to my gender. Oddly I do not have this same judgment cross gender. But for me it is morally wrong for me to withhold emotional support. I should support, care, be emotionally there from the moment I count you as friend. And even before that for some cases. I think that men who trade emotional support for sex are asshats.

I think it is rare for two atypicals to connect. I just don't think there are many of us. There was a research study done (I can't find it at the moment) but what it found was that most men found physical infidelity worse than emotional infidelity where women found them to be equal with a very slight amount more saying emotional infidelity is worse. Now I could make an evolutionary psychology argument for this but who cares. I have found that I find both equally painful. However, the line for physically infidelity is one less blurred for me. Emotional infidelity is tricky to spot, it means I care for and ostensibly love the other person to the same amount or in the same way as you. This is hard to find. I think this is why women are hard pressed to say strongly that the emotional is worse. Because you never are quite sure he loves her just like he loves you until you find out low and behold he is sleeping with her too. That some how signs and seals that the emotional infidelity was there. A blurry line as I said. I also think that it is normal and perhaps even good that we love our friends. As such I am hard pressed to find a clear line with emotional infidelity though I know it exists.

I think that atypicals are hard on each other. Imagine a woman who is free with her sexuality. She will spend a lot of life not only being judged but hearing "why would he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free." Her emotional needs go unfilled because she doesn't see sex as a big deal and she doesn't want to wield it as a weapon. But when she finds people that she connect with emotionally, BIG deal. And so what, sex is sex. Separate. And so she continues with sex as not a big deal and being free, liberated. But the emotional intimacy is a big deal. huge in fact. These people are special. There may only be a small handful in her whole lifetime. Often, the other side of atypicals is in the same position. Emotional intimacy is easy. They care easy, they love big. But physicality is a rare the thing, again maybe a handful in his whole lifetime. And I think this difference in world views makes connections between these two elements high octane. But oddly, I think they are good for one another. They may try and test one another. But in the end they force one another to grow. And in the end they have what the other needs, with out reservation. She can come to him, no matter the time, no matter the situation, and she can know that he will emotionally support her. And he can come to her, no matter the time, no matter the situation and get physical intimacy. But they will wound each other nearly as easily. She will have others and that will pain him. And he will support and care/love others, and this will hurt her. And neither will really quite get why or how they have injured the other. In his mind he obviously cares about her more or in a unique and special way. He sees it clear in the openness physically, sees it in the custom fit of emotional support and not just the general support anyone can get. And she feels the same way, obviously he's special, she's opened up her heart and mind to him. And this is a space rarely shared and offered. And sex is not that big a deal.

I'm not sure the resolution to this equation. I'm not so sure that there is one. I think it, like most relationship equations is a minefield that simply must be walked and risked.

Twist

I tend to do two things here. The first is to start to write a post then get distracted or loose my thread and stop. As such, I have a million threads started but few posts. The second is that I go through old posts and threads not posted to see if I have brought up a thought before.

And this leads me to this post. Instead of finishing up one of my terribly negative threads I have entered into this post with the hope of something a touch more positive. I'm not sure if I've written about it before and honestly, if I have, I could use going back through it again anyway.

I spend/spent a lot of time thinking about what makes me happy, and what seems to make others happy. One of the things I noticed is that we all seem really stuck on this idea of home. Now for most people it is a place they go to at the end of the day. For some it is an idea that hasn't made it into the world yet but someday, someday, they'll build it and decorate it and fill it with stuff. Now don't get me wrong, I love my stuff. And I appreciate a nice house, a well designed room. But I learned over the years that where I live and what I live in is not the primary factor in my happiness.

What is primary is this feeling of home. So I thought a lot about those moments where I feel like I am home. Those moments where if feels like all the pieces have clicked into place and I know I am where I am meant to be. And after years and years I realized that for me, and I would venture for a lot of you, home is not a place. Home is a feeling, and more specifically home is people. Home is the friend from childhood that got your through the darkest hours of life. Home is the sibling you soldiered on through the muck with. Home is the soft space created between lovers that makes you feel safe. I have often wondered what a map would look like if I put a pin in every city that holds a person I call home. I think it would be far more populated that I could guess. I also wonder what it would look like if people that thought of me as home put pins in their home city as well. What if it was yellow for places I see as home, and blue for people that see me as home. Would their be more yellow or blue I wonder? Would I find yellow dots and blue dots next to each other most of the time? How many dots would not be paired? I'm not sure the answer to these questions, but I know that it would be a colorful map indeed.

There are little things that remind me of those people, those moments, of home. I remember home in a song. Some are songs of my generation Blink-182 anyone? Others are unique to my experience, The Bodeans- Still The Night. I sense home in tastes, home-made macaroni and cheese or a can of jam. Some are scents, the sleepy relaxation of jasmine and lotus or the rush of desire of Paloma Picasso. Others are sights, african statues and warm colored walls.

I hold all of those talismans of home close to my heart. I listen to songs, taste foods, seek scents; when home feels too far away or when I am in dire need of a recharge.

I know too many seek home in a building, believe that 4 walls will create that feeling for you. I promise, set that aside and look for the people in your life, past and present, that make you feel like you are home. Then strive to keep those connections. Never let go of one another, create home in your heart. The place your pins in your map and smile.

If you can find but a handful of people you can call home, you will have your own constellation of homes throughout the world. And when you let go of the place, and focus on the people... you realize that home can be anywhere, made of anything.

Telegraph

It's amazing to me the difference between how I perceive myself and how others perceive me. I've spent years feeling like the emotions I feel are either BIG or little. I never felt like I had medium, or normal, sized emotions. I experience frustration or rage not anger. I also feel like I telegraph these things out to the people around me.

As a result I spent time working on controlling these outward appearances. Worked hard to learn to pause before I speak when I'm angry, breathe deep and gain control when I'm sad. These things took a long time to learn and longer to master and honestly I don't always feel like I'm where I'd like to be with them. Then suddenly something will happen where I feel the total opposite way.

"You have an excellent poker face." It's a great thing to hear tipping back a few beers while playing cards. Hell, hearing it in the business world I crack a smile. I don't want to be an easy read, mystery is intriguing and not revealing your hand in business or gambling can make all the difference in the world. I wonder too how much of that poker face is from all the hours playing cards with my father and grandfather, I still loose more than win but hey. But sometimes you want people to know what you're thinking, what your feeling. Sometimes you want your intentions to be clear.

I generally dislike direct statements. I'm not going to be doing therapeutic "I statements" anytime soon. "I feel scared when you scream at me" And all I can think is, yeah no shit. And that's about the reaction such statements have garnered for me when I have tried them. But I don't do them sorta across the board. It's unlikely I tell someone whether I like or dislike them. I'm not one to "ask out" someone. But I feel like I telegraph these things anyway, my emotion and thought is palpable in the room for me so I simply ass-u-me that it is to others as well.

In spoken and written word I think I come across very clearly with what I am trying to convey. I've been blessed with that skill set and couldn't be happier for that. But face to face most of our communication is not in words but in "body language". But when someone that knows me really well tells me that I'm not so easy to read in this venue I have to accept that they are in a much better position to see this than I am.

So what to do? Start making declarative, direct statements, unlikely. It simply isn't me. Maybe learning to be more clear is something I can do over time. Until then I simply hope that people that know me can translate the little touches, the little oblique comments, the tones.

I don't regret my "poker face". I am glad that my anxiety doesn't show through in spite of the fact I feel like I am shaking so bad it borders on vibrating and I'm sure I look ill. I am thankful that I can feel seething rage and not have the whole world wonder when I'm going to finally crack. Yes, it also means that people have a hard time telling the difference between a "date" and coffee with a friend. Yes, it means that only people with whom I have an intimate connection know when I need that reassuring word, or a pick-me-up hug. So yes, I trade some level of connectivity with the general population in exchange for this safeguard, this armor.

Do I want to be known, of course. I believe that it is one of the great human needs and wants in this world. To be known, to be seen as who and what we are, this is what we crave. Without being known we feel small, alone, unimportant. But I don't want to be known by a large group of people, I want to be truly and deeply known by a few outstanding people. Maybe the subtlety of my "tells" is not obvious or loud enough for most. Maybe I loose out on some great people as a result. But I know that those that see me, that hear me.... I know these people understand a depth of my being that is exceptional.

FB and my return

"If we are connected in spirit then we are never alone. And yet, dark nights and foggy days can feel like such a vacuum. May the pieces of my heart I have given radiate for you as the pieces of your hearts have radiated for me. We are the light in the darkness."


That was my FaceBook status a few days, well nights really, ago. That status is the reason I've returned to this space at least for a short while. I can promise I am not likely to become a daily blogger. As was pointed out to me, I do have this space and it is a shame for it to lie quite so stagnant.


I write updates like those in the twilight moments just before sleep. They are nearly as random as my posting here. They come without warning and I feel some odd compulsion to post them. I guess a way to get whatever it is that is in my head out into the world. Sometimes they a good, other times bad. Usually they are only a fragment of some thought and by putting it into a post like that the rest of the thought is able to form in my mind and sleep soon overtakes me.


Do I know exactly what was in my head at that moment, no. I sure didn't expect any reaction from my friends to it. But I wanted to look back on it now, if I am to return to this space it is only fitting.


Alone, lonely, feels like a vacuum. Alone is a dark space, alone is not solitude. Solitude is restorative, solitude brings us back to our center. But if we remain without others for too long, then solitude breaks to become loneliness. Some say we should simply will our way through this feeling. They believe that it is learning to conquer this feeling of loneliness that leads to enlightenment.


I'm not so sure about enlightenment. I do know that I've tried to will my way through it and while I can come very close, I do not want to learn this skill. I both love and hate needing people. I am no extrovert by any stretch but I love a good conversation.


My head especially can feel like a lonely place for me. My "ivory tower" of thought and ideas. I hide there, I hide because it is safe. I like that tower because I am in control. I know my worth in the world of ideas and thought. I know whether I am a bb gun or a panzer tank. The world of ideas though is a lonely place.


It's funny how the world inside of us so often reflects the world outside of us. Governments, countries, face this sort of dilemma every day. This is freedom vs safety. How much of your freedom would you give up for how much safety. I find for me that I struggle to risk coming out of my tower sometimes. After a while away from people I can even dilute myself that I don't need people, like I am some android that has no need for something as frivolous as social interaction. I learn, as my ivory tower becomes a dark abyss that swallows me, that indeed I do need people and that damnable social interaction. So, I climb out of my tower and try to find what it is that I need.


But I digress.


"If we are connected in spirit then we are never alone."


I'm a firm believer that in the realm of the heart, in the realm of the spirit, distance does not exists. I believe that when I think of someone, wish them well or wonder how they are. I believe that somehow the universe transfers that good intention out into the world to them. I'm not sure how it works but I know that it does.


Honestly, just knowing that there is someone out there that has gone or is going through something similar to me can be a great help. Knowing that there is someone, even if it is just one person, out there that cares how I am doing and what is going on in my life. That for me is a godsend on dark nights.


I think it has to do with wanting to be known. To be known is one of the greatest human desires. We want others to understand us. We want others to feel empathy for us. And more, we want to connect with others on a level that is visceral. Something beyond our control or understanding. I think of it as spark. We can spark with millions of people. It is a choice to develop that spark into a fire. When we have nurtured our bond with another long enough, well enough. When we have drawn a line from the core of our being to the core of their being. Then we are connected in spirit.


I'm not sure how many people we could do this with in a life time. A great many I would suppose. Most of us however do this with a very few people. This is not the guy you share an office with, or have poker night with, or talk around the water cooler with. These are the people that have seen the core of who you are. These are people with whom you have been bare, and they too have been bare with you. This connection of spirit is one that is powerful. It is people you have called "best friend", "lover", "partner". These are the people with whom you know the nooks and crannies of their world and they know yours. While there are always shadows in the light, you no longer fear what little darkness there is. For if we know someone this deeply, even when we do not know "all" of them we do.


"May the pieces of my heart I have given radiate for you, as the pieces of your hearts have radiated for me."


Love is one of those words that scares people. Well, scares or gets distilled to stupid little lines. Love is a choice, love is an action. Most of the western world can recite at least part of 1 Corinthians 13 "Love is patient, Love is kind...". But all of these things are trying to describe something that is beyond description. All that I can tell you is that you will know love when you feel it, when you give it, when it touches you. I agree, it is a choice. I agree it is an action, it is things we do and say, thoughts we have. It is something beyond this world and yet so of it. Love is alive, an entity all its own. But I also believe that certain kinds of love require that we give a part of ourselves. I am not one that believes we can only do this so many times before the store is all gone. I am one that believes in the infinity of our capacity as individuals to love. But having a place in our heart that is just for a certain person, that is a unique kind of love. I used to call it big LOVE. Now, I simply think it a particular kind of love. And I have given this way to some who have come and gone, some who are still here. But this love transcends time and distance, those people always have a place in my heart. Even if they never use it again. I gave a part of myself to them. It cannot be taken back, it cannot be given back, it is done. And it is beautiful. And I know others have done this for me. And so when the darkness of the world sets in, even when I cannot find another to be with. I can close my eyes and I can feel and see those pieces of hearts that are open for me to be with. I know that from California to Florida I have pins in the map. Pins that are "home". Home in the hearts of those that I love and that love me.


"We are the light in the darkness."


That's what that home experience is. That's what we strive for. And is what I think we are built for. I once said that we are reflections of the divine to one another. I believe that if there is a divine being then that being resides to some degree in each of us. This means that the greatest thing we can do is show the face of god to each other. The divine is the experience of compassion, of empathy, of care, of love. When we show each other the good inside of us, we should the god within. And we show all that is good and right and wonderful in the world. We become like a million candles in a dark room.


The world is a dark and evil place, but we do not have to bow down and accept that it is always this way. Every tender touch, every kind word, every unspoken favor, you light the candle. Every time you speak the truth of love, of justice, of kindness, into the world; the darkness and evil gets beaten back a little. Just because we cannot reach bliss in our lifetime does not mean we should stop striving for it. It means we should push harder, try to come further. Every dent makes a difference.


I once had a million things I wanted to be, no longer. I want to do good for one person, show love to one person. If I can make the world a better, brighter, safer, more loving space for just one person... then I have lived a good life. And if we each strive to make the world a warmer place, for just one person... the world itself will become a warmer place for everyone. The world is large but the changes it needs are small.