Feliz Navidad

A few strange thoughts rolling around in the space created by traveling and solitude. 

1. Disintegration therapy: deeper work involves not learning how to function under soulless, intolerably superficial and basically un-sane conditions, but rather the task of disintegrating and then establishing a more congruent and authentic self out of the ashes, so to speak. Therapists who are just advocates, or who are all about trying to train people to be happy with bullshit life are no better than denial peddlers. The fact is that the bargains in a lot of the life we have created are extremely thin and one would have to be dead inside to settle for them. Rather than learning how to be happily un-sane the path of becoming established on much more solid and real ground is available. But disintegration is dangerous, of course, so it's best to have assistance. Just reiterating old Carl Jung's take on alchemy, solve et coagula and all that. I just hadn't really thought of it along these lines or really gotten it on a gut level before. Anyway, who would want to go through such a process? It seems a lot more attractive to just learn how to be a normal person and be happy with all the fucking stupid shit we are told to accept. 

2. The problem of desire. It became clear to me a couple mornings ago how weird the experience of desire is. This was around coffee in the morning, but it applies to the whole pattern. When I first wake up, the thing I desire the most is some coffee. It's a super addiction. It feels urgent. Once that little bit of caffeine gets across the blood brain barrier, and my endocrine system switches up, there is a moment of what we call "satisfaction." Desire sated. But this is a fleeting experience, of course. When camping, in particular, while I'm "enjoying" my cup of coffee, I'm usually also breaking down all my gear and getting ready to move on. I rarely stay in the same place more than one night on these Baja trips. While doing these mundane tasks, the coffee gets cold. Then it's not so good. Then I sometimes start to feel obligated to finish it. And the Jetboil and coffee mug are the last things to clean, and they go in the kitchen  Sterlite and often sort of hold up packing the car. So then it becomes this weird feeling of "having to finish the damn coffee." Compounded by how the caffeine makes me cranky and restless, what was urgently needed becomes problematic. We want, and would be bereft if we couldn't have, and we're briefly sated, and then we're done, we don't want anymore, and in fact, what was wanted is a source of obligation, irritability, regret, a "problem." This is not a profoundly new insight into human experience, I realize. But somehow I became acutely aware of this baffling cycle. Entire philosophies and religions have sprung up to try to wield this aggravating pattern in a positive way, or to do away with it. 

3. I should trust my intuition more. The whole time before I headed down here I was thinking, "You should get a full size spare tire." Of course, I did get a flat—I whammed into a gigantic rock on an otherwise pretty good road to Punta Baja from El Rosario, and a couple days later the sidewall exhaled it's last breath. It was a strange experience, because I had driven out the very rough and rocky road toward San Francisquito from Bahía de Los Angeles, and had taken the road a little too hard for my touring-rated tires. Warning lights and so on went on. I drove all the way back to camp, parked the car and was sitting in it, reading about what all those warnings meant, when I heard a very loud "whooooooooooshhhhhh." Aha, so that's what. I drove 120 miles on the smaller, temporary spare, to Guerrero Negro, and a tire shop had a nueva llanta, an exact match. Lucky. I never really had an offroad vehicle before so now I know that it should be equipped with properly rated tires, and even with the ability to go fast, slow is better, and I'll be getting a full size spare. But the main point is that I ought to trust my intuition. I often feel like I need proof, solid evidence, definite information. My gut is in fact providing very solid and definite information and I am often choosing not to listen. For example, when I don't trust someone or think they are lying to me and hiding some whole part of their life. I talk myself out of it. There's no evidence. There's no proof. But yeah, yes there is, the lack of trust itself. That is all the proof I need. I don't need the facts of situation. I just need to realize that *not trusting someone* is very important information, in and of itself. 

Anyway, here's some pics from the trip. Media management is fairly hopeless in Baja, given the shit wifi and my own technologically weird realities—slow computer, dying phone, etc. 

But I don't come down here for connectivity anyway. 

hmmm, haha, well, no pics. Not working, of course. All of my 16 avid readers will just have to wait. At least you don't have to experience the crushing disappointment of having your desire fulfilled. 

Travels with Sappho 3: Silent Desert, to wild Baja

 Opuntia basilaris in Anza Borrego

 C. ganderi and Echinocereus engelmannii

The little Xmas tree at Carlee's restaurant in Borrego Springs

 My two favorite things?

 A Ferocactus emoryi baby

 Bursera microphylla, the only one surviving in a little wash where there used to be several, in Anza Borrego

 Mammoths

 Free camp

 Druid engage

Timelezz barber shop in El Centro. Sappho approves

Artist's idea of the incredible Pleistocene giant vultures from the area. Aiolornis incredibilis, previously known as Teratornis incredibilis. This species is fairly poorly known; finds from Nevada and California include several wing bones and part of the beak. They show remarkable similarity with merriami but are uniformly about 40% larger: this would translate to a mass of up to 23 kilograms (51 lb) and a wingspan of about 5.5 metres (18 ft) for incredibilis. The finds are dated from the Pliocene to the late Pleistocene, which is a considerable chronological spread, and thus it is uncertain whether they actually represent the same species.

A vulture with an 18 ft. wingspan send me on my way south. At higher altitudes, overnight lows were in the high 20's, and my old sleeping bag has lost a little bit of loft, so I'm headed for more warmth. Last night, the low was about 40. Much better. 

Wrangling my way across the border, headed down MX 5 to Laguna Chapala. Leaving the holidays behind. I had been trying to avoid holiday music, but this Starbucks in El Centro features the worst of the worst of course, except for that old Nat King Cole, for which I still have a soft spot. 

Back to the States on Jan 3, two holidays down. 

some San Diego

 Point Loma Seafoods

 Ocean Villa Motel, Ocean Beach

 Night bird of paradise, Pacific Beach

The OB Xmas tree in fierce winds

Hillcrest for a great dinner at Parma Cucina 

Travels with Sappho

I wrapped up all of my teaching obligations for the semester, managed to get a fully formatted draft of the dissertation to my committee chair and then, yet again, move out of where I was living. Having discovered that Subarus are stereotyped as "cars for lesbians" and being quite proud of that fact, I realized of course my new car's name is Sappho, and Sappho and I embarked on a strange phase during which I don't know exactly where I am going or what I am doing. I was awarded a completion fellowship from the School of Life Sciences, which is basically the same pay as a TA-ship (including health insurance), which means there is no need for me to be in Arizona, and Sappho and I are on the road. 

The first stop was the Binational Baja Botany Symposium, an annual event that is usually south of the border but was in San Diego this year. I presented the research I had done on the ancestral biogeography and evolution of the cacti I worked with, and attended at least 20 other presentations, all of which were great. Saw some old friends, made new ones. 

 From the Salvador Dali Universal Tarot

A full December Cold Moon

 Let's go!

The marina in Point Loma, from the hotel balcony. 

And so, now what? 

Sentimental

I recently set up a Johari Window online and invited Facebook friends to visit and pick some words that they thought describe me. It's a fun game and it was somewhat revealing in a variety of ways. For one thing, no one out of 33 respondents so far chose "sentimental," which surprised me, because I feel like I goop up Facebook fairly frequently with love songs, poetry and sentimental posts. On the softer side, people did choose "caring, kind, loving, responsive, and warm." That's great, since I think a few years ago a lot of those qualities would not have been associated with my Facebook persona at all. 

A friend of mine responded to my wondering why "sentimental" wasn't chosen by anyone at all by pointing out that "sentimental" has all sorts of negative connotations. This took me aback somewhat, as I had in mind the positive connotations only. But, upon investigation, "sentimental" ends up being one of those odd words in English that has both positive and negative connotations, and it got me thinking. 

Definition from Merriam Webster:

1. marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism; resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought

2: having an excess of sentiment or sensibility

From some other sources, the negative aspect of "an excess" of sentiment seems most applicable to literature or art, but also is used along with other pejoratives, such as a phrase like "sentimental old fool." 

I tried to explain to my friend what "sentimental" means to me in a positive light, and the best I could come up with was describing a single instance of a triggering memory involving a Krispy Kreme donut sign (of all things), followed by the cascade of details that tumble out for me, and the attendant softness, tenderness, and heartache. This psycho-emotional reality for me is probably why I immediately understood the sentimentality in the stories of James Joyce, for example, and his "epiphany" approach to telling tales.  

I think a lot of what I mean when I describe myself as "a Romantic" is related to this incredibly vivid memory and the feelings that are attached to those memories. The mode of consciousness and the gestalt of experiencing attachment in these ways makes for intense love, but also some challenges in letting go and moving on when things come to an end. I guess I picture other people being much more skilled at forgetting, or at least de-sentimentalizing their memories. 

Sometimes I feel like I am more present in the memory than I am in the present, and I can also get swamped by overwhelming feelings as a result. I have had memories that have taken my breath away, also. And it is often an experience of an unmanageable consciousness, with triggers and contents "invading" unbidden and sometimes unwanted. I am often tumbling through all of these multi-layered associations, triggered by a smell, or a location, or a distant and mysterious association. 

I think the transmuting of the searing, stabbing memory that is only a reminder of what is no more to the same memory or memories becoming softer, happier, and a source of gladness is a huge part of how these things work for me. I do not forget, so it is futile to try to shelter myself. I have only ever increased my suffering by trying to force myself to direct my imagination more or kill my feelings. If the memories were without affect, my emotional life wouldn't be so stormy and labile. I don't forget, but the feelings do soften. Acceptance and resignation set in. It was, it was great, it was unforgettable, but it no longer feels like it can kill me. 

But I carry so much with me always, once it has embedded itself. I am learning to live with it. Learning to make friends with the plain fact of exactly who I am and how I operate. 

In the doing of it

A couple of riveting conversations with a woman who is a transformation and change manager (like, for a living) got at something that has been bothering me about any kind of efforts to dismantle the patriarchy. There's a ton of books about attitudes, values, changes in perspective. But what will really matter is actual behavioral change. Maybe an entertaining book would be a behavioral change workbook. Like, a daily exercise for dismantling the patriarchy. Maybe combined with ways to track the results of changed behavior. 

I wonder what women would say, if they were asked what behavioral changes they would like to see. I mean, I imagine, of course, anything that would de-sexualize public spaces and make it safe to be a woman. I'm not sure how that hugely vital topic could be included in my idea. I'll have to think about that. One way that comes up immediately is around the practice of total indifference that I have been trying out at Arizona State, when I am walking on campus. Passing through the world with total indifference toward women. No looks, no objectification, no imagination, no involvement of any kind. Absolutely desexualizing the experience for myself of being in public. That has been a revealing exercise. In particular, it has provided stark contrast and shown me that I have a conditioned, sexualized way of seeing women in public. My default setting is much clearer to me, since I started the total indifference experiment. 

But beyond the transformation of the world into a space that is safe for women, which is an absolutely essential transformation, I wonder what kinds of specific behavioral changes women would like to see. Maybe I'll ask on Facebook and only let women respond. 

At any rate, I am a lot more interested in this project with this focus on lasting, daily behavioral changes, rather than just a bunch of think pieces or recommendations for attitude adjustments or whatever. For one thing, when I followed up with my own behavioral changes, domestically, erotically, conversationally, etc., a lot of attitudinal changes and deep shifts in perspectives followed, much more powerfully than they would have just from "realizations" or "epiphanies."

Thanksgiving

There's a shit ton I still don't understand, and I forget that at my peril. Forgetting is great in a lot of ways, especially if it's enhanced by some kind of weird delusion that everything is just fine. It's a respite, for sure. One can even convince oneself that one has achieved a healthier detachment, a freedom long wished for. Finally! 

But sometimes there's a reminder, like a punch in the gut, a rusted dagger in the heart, a slap right in the fucking face. And in those moments, it suddenly becomes completely clear that it was only forgetting, it wasn't really the freedom and healing that comes from actually letting go or moving on. Yikes, one thinks to oneself, I sure am capable of incredible levels of denial. Aren't I. Why yes, yes you are.

I wonder if I'm too idealistic around this, and if forgetting ought to just be good enough. If so, creating circumstances where forgetting is far more likely would be in order. But I am not interested in that currently. I'm interested in goddamn motherfucking flat out straight up reality. And if people want to fuck around and perform or present or waste time and energy on a look good or an easy oblivion, that's great for them. It's not where I am currently. It's not what I want.

Anyway, an old friend of mine invited me to her house for Thanksgiving, a holiday I have really hated for the past several years, just because of all kinds of baggage and heartache. It was a great time, though. Incredible food, interesting people. I had a conversation about shit I actually care about with an interesting person for the first time in a long time. It may have been somewhat inappropriate for a dinner party on a holiday, but I didn't realize how intense the conversation was until we were already way, way inside of it. The other person didn't seem to mind. It felt like a huge relief to me. It may have been a relief for them as well. 

I was, earlier in the afternoon, absolutely dreading the social time. It was, in fact, the very last thing I wanted to do. I had had a slap in the denial face and the rusted dagger earlier, and realized that my usual response is to hide, hide, hide. Like a wounded feral cat. Just crawl under the porch and be alone in the dark and that is that. If I had been able to cancel, I bet I would have. But I was actually staying at my friend's house, so I could hardly just close the bedroom door and lock it and not come out while 20 people had a nice Thanksgiving dinner right outside. 

I had a ton of echoes of my family situation come back to me. Some years in adolescence where the last thing I wanted to do was join the family at the table for the big holiday meal. 

Anyway, I girded my loins, wandered out into the living room, and steeled myself for hours of social interaction when I really just wanted to curl up in the dark and think of doom. 

It turned out okay. There were people genuinely interested in my PhD research, for example, who had at least a passing familiarity with enough of the technicalities to have a conversation. I was doing okay at small talk. I was surprising myself. 

But over dinner, the conversation in our little corner turned to dismantling the patriarchy, and freeing women, and I really felt a surge of energy around all of that. And it had been a long time since I had found someone fascinating to talk about it with. 

By the time I went to bed, or at least by the time the morning rolled around, I had reached a resigned place around the tearing away of denial and the reminder of the day before. People have lives, and they have every right to pursue happiness, and who am I to kick against any of that. Blessings to all, peace, purpose, freedom and connection and love to all, wherever they may find it. I felt a cosmic shrug, and the full understanding that I had always been a total outsider in this case anyway, and what could I do about it anyway? Except never, ever, fucking ever, never ever ever again let myself be put in such a position. Ever. 

For the rest, fuck it all to hell. 

And I decided to stay in Santa Fe another couple of days but in a hermit hotel room, and I'll drive back on dry roads on Sunday and push my way through my last week of teaching human anatomy at ASU, and into the unknown of the next several months. 

La Cieneguilla Petroglyphs, where I had driven on Thanksgiving, in the glorious snow. 

And maybe that is as close to letting go, but not forgetting, as I can get. 

Free falling

In an ironic answer to my endless bitching about poor financial treatment from ASU, the graduate college decided to throw me a fully funded, non-teaching completion fellowship with health insurance for spring. This means I get paid but I'm under no obligation to be in Tempe. It also means I have far more time to finish the dissertation, get published, look for work, and reframe my existence as I transition out of this grueling Ph.D. process. I'm giddy with relief, really, having gotten this fellowship. They also added an extra couple of grand as a scholarship. I guess I should bitch up a storm more often. 

But it's strange, also, because, as of December 15, I have no place to live, and I was thinking of not living anywhere anyway for a while. Un-housed by choice, with very nice camping gear and intimate knowledge of dozens of places around and outside of the country, including places outside of the grip of winter, where that gear can be put to use, in many cases for free. But it is a weird, total free fall feeling, after having been in such a straitjacket for months on end. The dissertation draws to a close, the defense date looks likely to be February 28, publications are in the offing, with one committee member already greenlighting the submission of something we co-authored, etc. Frankly, I am grappling with anxiety caused by all of this good news. 

It's strange to take note of me not being used to taking a risk and succeeding. I am far more comfortable not taking a risk and succeeding. For example, the easiest thing in the world for me for decades was to apply to private schools and get a teaching job. It was always great to get hired, and I enjoyed that teaching life, but I never really rolled the dice on anything very high stakes. It was success of a sort, but not the kind that arises from truly putting a lot on the line. 

This transition feels much more high stakes. The thing I really want to do is a self-directed two year post doc where I would have lots of support to conduct a major conservation biology research project. If I get chosen for that competitive situation, there's an example of what would feel like success, to me. Not because it's competitive, but because I am aiming high in applying, and it is really what I want to do. I also would love to teach at some of the primarily undergrad places to which I've applied, and two of those feel sort of high stakes also. 

I think one of the great obstacles in my life has been a haunting fear of being rejected, of failing. In the face of that, I have not even tried, a lot of the time. But now I am experiencing some success. I got a new car that I love. I have a wide open semester to dedicate to the best activities, while getting paid. I am not bound by a lease, or by any feasible or accepted affections. A rare moment that, taken together, absolutely marks an ascent out of this katabatic journey through hell. Coming up into the light, up for air. Being set free. The price that I've paid has been fairly heavy, but it does feel like everything is shifting. 

I think it may soon be time to call it on this blog, also. Maybe I'll start another anonymous one. But it doesn't feel as much like katabasis anymore, after almost three years. 

Knocking on wood of course. 

Para-domesticated

As the holidays approach, I'm reminded of some templates for how all of this stuff works. For example, there's blood family, then there's family of choice, which sometimes includes blood family members but often is completely separate. I stopped trying to do blood family holidays a long time ago. I think the last Christmas I tried to do with blood family was in 1990. Engaged to my first wife, I went to Santa Fe for the holidays when she and I lived apart (I was in NY). Then, I moved out West permanently, and never went back for holidays. In fact, I only visited back East again once, in 1999, and then not again until my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, in 2003. Since 2003, I've been back for summer visits in 2008, 2012, and then every summer since 2017. So, five visits in 20 years. None of which have been around holidays. 

In July, when I was driving from Ann Arbor and close to Minnesota, I was fantasizing about seeing someone in that state. But then it occurred to me that I had not been invited. And then it really hit me how much effort, time, energy, money and planning I have put into visiting where I have not been invited, a lot of my life. I have initiated a lot of visits. "Hey, I am going to be in such and such a place, let's get together!" The last long distance relationship, it was very mutual, almost every time, until the trailing end of things, when I kept asking if I could visit. Or jumping at the slightest hint that it might be possible. The last visit was around that kind of energy, but then I was an imposition and inconvenience when I was there, and that's a shitty way to have things reach a conclusion, but it is almost inevitable when one codependently keeps pushing oneself on someone who is clearly preoccupied and not into it. It is revealing to realize that the last really unfettered, enthusiastic and eager invitation there had been seven months earlier. 

I can count on ten fingers the number of times people have taken any kind of effort to visit me, my entire adult life. This is revealing also. And I have invited people too. And I have been living either in an incredible tourist town that's very expensive or a fucking winter paradise for the past 20 years, so you think more people would have taken me up on it. I feel some resentment and sadness about this dynamic. But, I also realize that my anxiety around the motto "go where you're invited" has been that I would never be invited anywhere. 

However, what's actually happened since I made that resolution is that I've been invited repeatedly to all kinds of places, and all kinds of interaction with great people. Most recently, I got a kind and generous invitation for Thanksgiving including a place to stay. It's funny to note that I have been resisting accepting it. But I finally did today, and let's see how it goes. I am feeling sad, lonely, angry, and very hermit-like. My romantic notion is to pile my gear into the new car and go hide out in the back country for days. So I am going to do some of that, but I am also going to be with family of choice for Thanksgiving. Balance!

It all kind of reminds me that I have a lot of the personality traits of a feral or more accurately para-domesticated cat. I want to be invited, but when I am, I often hang back. I want to be within sight, but hiding out. Hovering on the edges of the property so to speak. This goes back to the utterly savage, chaotic, emotionally unsafe way I was raised, where I honestly felt homeless from about the age of 5. Like a guest in a house full of strangers who were not to be trusted. That's the primal foundation of all of the ways I have dealt with the entire concept of "home" and "family and friends" since I was a tiny boy. I have tended to connect best with other such alienated misfits, who have duct-taped together barely workable living situations (even when doing well financially) or found some kind of uneasy domestic peace by just jumping into the scenario. 

It's been a toxic aspect of my partnerships in the past, either with women who were far more comfortable with the idea of home and family than I (or at least trying), or with "homeless" women, living out of boxes or always halfway packed, ready to fly. I've never really understood women who have legit healthy, supportive and intimate relationships with their parents and/or siblings. Who honestly miss them and want to spend time with them. There's a reason the weird phrase "family obligations" has always resonated with me. I have since made peace with my blood family and have enjoyed visits (that I have arranged, planned, initiated) in recent years. Yet it is still true that, if energies were to take their simple, natural course, I doubt there would ever be any real interaction. If you asked any one of my blood family members what is going on with me right now, they would probably either shrug or make up some kind of strange, fantastical tales. 

Anyway, this para-domesticated beast is doing a para-domesticated holiday, with the hermit wilderness first and a family of choice experiment second. 

I'm already feeling this weird sense of having to brace myself. And that's around the prospect of being with people I actually like. 

Failed negotiations

I read a daily meditation in Melody Beattie's The Language of Letting Go last night that put some things in perspective. There's the old framework for the "grief process," a la Kübler-Ross: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Of course this was oversimplified and has been subsequently shown to be neither linear nor universal, but it still feels helpful to me. The daily writing from Beattie that I read last night was, in part:

"One of the most frustrating stages of acceptance is the bargaining stage. In denial, there is bliss. In anger, there is some sense of power. In bargaining, we vacillate between believing there is something we can do to change things and realizing there isn't."

I had been aware of every other "stage" of the grieving process but had been in denial, ironically, about aspects of bargaining going on. I think in the midst of anger and depression a lot of the bargaining has been diminishing lately. It sometimes flares up but I can see it a lot more clearly now. I think the main form now is the fantasy that I can somehow change someone's mind about a decision they made. I get a strong impulse to woo, persuade, convince, etc. As if I would be able to turn the tide myself, and get what I want, and make everything right. 

Embroidered patch by Amrit Brar

But there is also a lot of bargaining in the attempt to manage my own feelings. For example, okay, I'll indulge my romantic impulses or memories for a bit, but then I have to kill all that, so that I can "move on" or function or be safe. I have been bargaining a lot around the idea of reciprocity, also. Trying to make the deal that I will only respond reciprocally, in emotional situations. This is partly behavioral, and there's nothing wrong with that, as it observes a boundary. But I think the trouble is in trying to force my feelings to be reciprocal. Channel, suppress, deny, get angry, etc. It's a lot of turmoil in resistance, a lot of thin and ultimately bootless bargains. 

I feel like things generally go better when I just stop all of that, when I am able to stop it. I think I am often astonished that merely making a decision does not in fact change how I feel. I mean, even deciding NOT to FEEL doesn't work, at least not for me. It has the appearance of working for some people, and I sometimes catch myself trying to make the bargain with the universe, "Universe, please grant me that magic power of not fucking feeling any goddamned thing, like some people seem to be able to do," but then I neither get what I asked for nor do I really want it. I want to be connected to my heart. 

Honoring the decision can change my behavior though, and lead me to honor boundaries of myself and others. There is such a shit ton of stuff I would communicate in a particular situation if I were not honoring someone else's boundaries, or my own, right now. Then the bargaining becomes, okay, I wish I could express myself freely, on safe ground, maybe I can finagle that somehow? But then it becomes clear that is actually NOT possible or at least probably not advisable or safe or supportive for the other person, so away goes that bargain. 

All of these strategies are ways of trying to deal with missing someone with whom I cannot interact or spend time, not being able to communicate to a level that I would if I were free, working on whatever ways of letting go and taking care of myself seem effective, but being in "the struggle," so to speak. 

Art by Amrit Brar

I do find myself wondering if there is a bargain, or a set of bargains, that I actually could negotiate with my heart and the universe, and get at least some of what I want. I definitely have a whole set of ineffective bargains for contrast. How can I step into a position of bargaining power, given the current reality? This connects up with the question "what is my choice or what are my choices in this situation?" It's easy to feel that one has had choice taken away when someone else makes a decision one would never have made oneself. It's important to reframe that in ways that put me back in more of a center.  

From The Marigold Tarot, by Amrit Brar

I'd come back

In a recent epiphany, I felt to my core the strangest sense of complete willingness to go through life on Earth again if it meant a shot at something that seems not likely in this lifetime. It felt to me like a particular definition of love. Would you be willing to come back for it? Yes. The yes was unequivocal and unconditional. It was a strange and luminescent moment. 

But: YES, definitely and absolutely, yes of course. 

And it was such a strange commitment, considering how tenuously attached to this life I am, and how much of a relief it is to imagine that, sometime, probably not all that long from now really, the bullshit will cease. I mean, even if my natural span is out to 90 or whatever, that's not all that far off, in the big scale of things. But given this ill fitting life, and the sense of things being amiss, how weird to be visited by any kind of unconditional yes, let alone one toward the imaginary proposition of having to do this whole shit show over again just for that shot. 

It reminds of Jesus saying: Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.  But isn't even bigger to stay the fuck alive for one's friends? and then to be willing to even do the whole fucking circus over again? That feels bigger to me. Maybe it was what he meant, too, somehow. 

Another thing that hit me hard recently was moving from wishing something would manifest to realizing that I had to find a way to just keep the memories and treasure those and that was that. It hit me very hard that I had been fighting this fact that things just become a memory, that there is no "more" but only never anymore, except for what we remember. The OK Zharp/Manthe Ribane song, Treasure Erasure, captures this evocative holding to what we have had, but have no more. 

Don't forget. Don't forget to remember. 
The time we shared will always last forever.
Don't forget, don't forget to remember, 
The time we shared will always be my treasure. 




And it helped frame for me a lot of what I have been fighting, not that the insight was pleasant or made anything easier, but simply, time was, rather than anything possible or even present. All time was. Accepting time was is the grieving process, basically. Coming to terms with never again. Never ever. And the plain fact is that what is, just as soon becomes never again. This is the weird world in which we live all the time of course, but when what is was cherished it's "never againness" is extra rough. I think there's a moment in every grieving process where it really gets into one's cells. It's gut level truth. It's inescapable. 

Never again. 

Which makes the weird epiphany of hell yes, I'd come back and do all this stupid shit again in the bother of being alive, just for that shot, extra surreal and odd. It felt like it had space because of the acceptance of never again. 

I lay no claim to understanding any of this. I do know, however, a new meaning for the word "unforgettable." 

Growing out of acceptance

On a recent overnight camping trip to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the main purpose of which was to test out the Subaru on the somewhat difficult Puerto Blanco Drive, I got "caught up" on Melody Beattie's daily meditations that are in her book, The Language of Letting Go. I have the tendency to not read those little one or two page essays for days on end, and then read maybe 10 or 20 of them in a row. It's not the best way to get what she is saying, a lot of the time, because each one can be fairly pithy and provide a lot to think about, as befits the purpose of the book. 

I have some serious issues with her, especially when she leans hard into her archetypal combination of 1980's self help positivism and GOD TALK, just God this, God that, blah God Blah God Blah. It annoys the fuck out of me, frankly. And yet, in one form or another, her writing has provided me with some of the strongest recovery concepts and reminders. As is often the case with recovery literature in general, let alone "self help" books, I am often faced with having to tolerate a ton of ways of putting things that I myself would never employ. Take what works and leave the rest is what recovery people say. Sometimes I have to completely reconfigure everything to even make some of it work at all. 

My recent resistance, funnily enough, is around a few of the themes of acceptance and "plan" or "purpose" that often arise in recovery lit, not only with Beattie. For example, a couple of the entries in a row that I read on this camping trip, October 25 and October 26, go to the heart of what I simply do not believe. Her entry for 10/25, in part: "Our past is neither an accident nor a mistake. We have been where we needed to be, with the necessary people. We can embrace our history, with its pain, its imperfections, its mistakes, even its tragedies. It is uniquely ours; it was intended just for us." And her entry for 10/26, in part: "Today, I will trust that the events in my life are not random. My experiences are not a mistake. The Universe, my Higher Power, and life are not picking on me. I am going through what I need to go through to learn something valuable, something that will prepare me for the joy and love I am seeking."

Okay. Give me a fucking break. Now, I know that a sponsor or another person in recovery would say: "acceptance is the answer to all of your problems! why are you fighting these ideas?" That is the infinite tautology syndrome of a lot of recovery talk that ultimately means jack shit. I want to have conversations with people in recovery who are not buying this crap, though. I want to know that I can reject these ideas of "everything happens for a reason" and, at the same time, stay in recovery. I want room in my recovery for a deeper and more conflicted view of my personal history and of how this shit works. 

Instead of trying to adopt a life philosophy that is abhorrent and seems frankly idiotic to me, as well as fundamentally based on manifest lies, I have had to re-frame these themes of purpose, intention, "everything happens for a reason" and so on. I've arrived at the middle ground of an existential position which is that I am capable of constituting my own sense of the meaning and purpose of my own life, especially in tune with, in an intuitive relationship with, the universe. Here is where I exist, now is when I exist, and I have to have some kind of relationship in that with where I have been and what has happened. 

I do not need to try to force myself to believe a fucking fairy tale, however. I only need to make creative use of my own narrative. I am free, one percent. I can reject whatever the fuck I want or "accept" whatever the fuck I want, and I am not under any obligation, either for recovery or for happiness, to accept "everything." I am responsible for weaving my own tapestry of my own purpose and experience. I have the creative power to make whatever sense out of what I have been through that I feel I need to make. Beyond that, I can just let go and stop trying. 

This works much more powerfully for me than this strange idea that "everything happens for a reason." It works a lot better for me when dealing with tragedy, abuse, trauma, unacceptable loss and change, excruciating suffering and the bare, plain, utterly clear facts of being alive on this planet. It feels to me like it's a bigger way to meet the realities of life. NOTHING happens for a reason without me weaving it into a narrative that works for me. And that narrative ONLY has to work enough for me to continue in recovery. And if I can't weave it into something meaningful for myself, then the skill I truly need is the skill of being in mystery and uncertainty, not the faux certainty of an unacceptable proposition that, in my very gut, feels like a damnable lie.

This gets close to how it is that I am an atheist and yet work, on a daily basis, with a Higher Power. I sometimes say that my Higher Power is reality. Reality is a power greater than myself, that is for damn sure. And if I can be a lover of reality and radically accept that here is where I am and now is when I am here, then I have a very powerful place to start living. I don't need to accept bland and fairy tale style propositions and try to get next to the idea of a "loving God" who is somehow "guiding all of my life" or whatever. All of that shit is just abhorrent to me, and to many other people I know who are growing in recovery just fine without it. What I do need is to live my life with courage and authenticity, and take responsibility for making sense of my experience, and stop trying to explain those aspects of my experience that are inexplicable. For me, this is rigorous honesty. 

The path is co-created. I have agency in all of it. And in these ways, I leave behind all of the recovery philosophy of "surrender" to a power greater than myself. Shared creation, shared care, and a responsibility for making sense of myself in my experience is the way my past becomes "useful" or "purposeful" for me. This feels like moving from a spiritual childhood with a parental Higher Power, to more of a "grown up" life, with a co-creative call and response, intuitive presence and narrative making consciousness that rejects comfortable lies. 

Chronic

My affections in the past have been intense, but relatively brief, or at least easily obfuscated by new affections, or new experiences that have been distracting. I had long considered myself loyal and devoted, until I did a thorough relationship inventory in 2007, at three years sober, and got it all down on paper. I realized that, even in the process of extremely painful breakups, my attachments would fairly quickly either disappear or at least be forgotten. It was jarring to realize that I had been performing a self image of being a deep feeling and devoted person, when in fact it was more accurate to say that I was deep feeling but capricious and flighty. 

The alacrity with which I have jumped from one "serious relationship" to another for much of my life is a part of this. As I have mentioned before, I think a very few, core, primal wounds were never healed, from my family of origin and then a couple of early romantic-sexual attachments, and a lot of my serial monogamy has been simply affect looking for content, as Marsha Linehan calls it. I rarely saw women very clearly for who they actually were, since I was using them, at least in part, to work my stuff out 

I'm experiencing something altogether different now, and it's definitely painful, but also seems like a sign of growth. I have not reached for the distraction of new affections, even though I have been sorely tempted to do so. I have made it so that I have no choice but to deal with things that have long been not dealt with. It's very slow and painful. It's not got that alacritous, bewildering feeling of "whoa, okay, here I am in another relationship! Cool!" feeling. Combined with my realization that I am demisexual and need to be emotionally connected with someone before being very interested in sex, I feel like I am honoring myself a lot more these days, and making different choices, and living a different set of behavioral norms. 

It's not enjoyable in the least. 

I keep finding myself with the plain realization that it is the way it is, and none of it is a problem to be solved or necessarily even a state of suffering to be endured. Yet my unconscious dynamics are powerful, and have not been inclined to a fundamental shift. Given the reality of the situation, I have been left with only acceptance, plain and simple,. No despair and no hope, when I am able to be in the present. Just, well, this is this. 

My oracular friends, the tarot and I Ching, keep basically reassuring me that everything either is or will be okay, just keep showing up. It's a funny contrast to my negative thinking. 

It is odd to discover that I actually meant what I said. It's a benefit to learn to trust myself more, and honor what is really happening for me. I have said a lot of things in the past, made a lot of promises, spoken a lot of vows, and I certainly usually thought I meant them at the time, but have so often experienced my own total unreliability and fickle nature, and have abandoned myself and betrayed myself first, and then others, many, many times. The opposite is occurring now, in unexpected ways. 

All of this shift is directly related to recovery from codependency. In particular, the basic idea of not trying to manage or control my feelings or the outcomes in my relationship life. In letting go, there is a truly weird combination of vast relief and terrible grief. I have been avoiding the experience for decades, enacting a repetition compulsion of distraction after distraction in the hopes of "getting it right" this time. These patterns have caused me and others a lot of harm. 

I do find myself wistfully wishing there had been an easier way for me to have this experience. Futile, of course, but a natural impulse. It's also very challenging for me to avoid catastrophizing into the future: "I am always going to feel this way. This is never going to get better. How can I possibly live like this?" That's natural too, at least for me, but not useful in any way. 

Honoring myself, stepping into my power (as the self help movement puts it), taking myself seriously, not abandoning or betraying myself, accepting reality in as radical a way as possible, and taking refuge in the present. That's my to do list from here to the grave. Well, the urn, since I want my body to be incinerated. And the ashes thrown at the foot of some cactus somewhere. 

Doing Things

Impulsively, I bought a ticket to the FKA Twigs performance in Chicago on November 15, and used travel funds from a canceled flight from last February to buy a plane ticket, and reserved a room and a car, and arranged to go to Chicago from Nov. 14 to Monday, Nov,. 18. In typical fashion, I am now feeling anxious about that maneuver. I have another couple of days to cancel the trip for free, and I'm tempted. It's weird, too, because I also really want to go. I am alternating between feeling like it'll be a great thing to do and you only live once, versus a sense of wanting to consolidate, save money and energy and "be sensible." I did work in a brief visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden, where my application for a post doc is being considered, and the PI with whom I would be working is interested in meeting with me, and introducing me to a student of his who is working in Cactaceae. But it's not a scheduled interview and I am not feeling like I am a strong candidate for that opportunity, so, really, I mostly did that just to try to justify the trip. The room is only about $225 for four nights, and it's in a guesthouse a block from the lake, in what looks like a great neighborhood. 

Still don't know what to do, but maybe I'll decide or just let inaction decide for me and just go. 

Prostate cancer follow up was good news, with PSA levels back within the relatively normal range, at 3.6. I still might have the one year follow up biopsy, or I might wait for year two, which is the conservative recommendation these days. Consultation appointment for cataract surgery tomorrow morning, and it will be great to ge that out of the way. Manuscripts moving toward being ready to submit for publication. 

A friend of mine is visiting from the 8th to the 11th, and then another friend is visiting the afternoon of the 11th, and I met yet another friend for lunch yesterday, so it's been weirdly social. The friend visiting from the 8th to the 11th will be staying here, and we've skirted romantic interest in each other for years, but this visit feels 100% platonic, which seems to be the only thing I can handle these days, battered, bruised and bewildered as I am. She and I have always been 100% up front about where we are in life, and I find it so much easier to enjoy people's company after a couple years of CoDA recovery too. "I am not emotionally available and look forward to seeing you but I don't think I'll want to be physical and I'm absolutely in no shape for a relationship." Sentences I have traditionally not been able to utter. I feel capable of causing a lot less harm than I used to, which harm often arose out of my selfish desire to get what I wanted without regard to either my own or the other person's well being. Combined with my tendency to want to be nice, and do what people want me to do, so they will like me; a tendency that also causes harm. I also will have to work while she is visiting, and instead of being weird about that, I communicated it, which helps relieve a lot of my anxiety. In the past, I probably would have thought I had to clear the schedule for the visit but then been anxious and wishing I could get some work done the entire time. 

I finally girded my loins and bought a new(ish) car, a 2013 Subaru Crosstrek. I had been wanting a Toyota Tacoma, but the Crosstrek is pretty highly rated for offroad, and it has great gas mileage. The one I snagged is in great shape, it seems, knock on wood. It's so weird to be driving a car with air conditioning, a stereo, etc. Like, a rental car., But it's mine. Well, it's the bank's. 

The next thing on my list is to buy some clothes. The last time I bought myself a new shirt was 2011. People have given me shirts as gifts or whatever. Well, I did buy a special button down shirt back in August of 2017 sort of in response to a request, but that shirt accrued some weird symbolic significance and last New Year's Eve I incinerated it. Haha. So, I want to get some new clothes. Maybe I will be more comfortable and confident at interviews if I look a little bit less like a poverty stricken grad student, although I'm sure that people, especially interviewing for post doc positions, are used to that. It amazes me how expensive nice shirts are though. Wtf? It's a shirt. But it is what it is. 

One other self care thing I've continued is canceling all screen time about 90 minutes before bed. I cheat sometimes, but in general, I haven't had any technology in the bedroom with me at all, overnight. That has been very helpful. Facebook continues to be a mixed bag. Sometimes it can still feel so fucking toxic, but generally my approach has been to post and run, and not get into much stuff with anyone. I do sometimes scroll through other people's posts, but that can be fraught. 

Storage unit now for down comforter, car title, printer. Doing things. Might as well. Why not? 

The Big Getting It

Talking at or past or around. It's strange how it feels. There's an effort involved. It's not only about common ways we construe successful interactions, like "understanding," or "being heard." There's an extra element. 

Getting it. 

I have started insisting on that element if I am going to spend much energy to get intimate with someone, friend or otherwise. And it's an absolute, in a lot of ways, because it can't be manufactured out of conversation. Consensus or improved understanding can, definitely. Or at least a kind of shared whiteboard with certain things in common, illuminated and in clear print. But the real thing, getting it, happens. It doesn't take labor, effort, negotiation or explanation.

It's similar to a joke in that way. There's people who get a joke, and there's people who do not. There's not really anything in between. And the people who get it need no more words, and the people who do not get it, well, no matter how much explanation, that mysterious moment of getting it will never happen. Other moments are possible. It's even possible those who did not get it will eventually laugh and say, "Oh, haha, I get it now, thanks." But the real juice, just getting it? Never going to happen. 

I am looking back on my life and realizing that I didn't really pay attention to this a lot of the time. I figured, well, it's too much to ask, that the people I pay attention to get me. And that I get them. I have long reinforced my own sense of how "weird" or "different" or even isolated I am, by staying in efforts and attempts with people who just do not get it. Social media sure presents a shit ton of chances for people to just not fucking get it. More than anything, I think that's the issue that reinforces loneliness for me, on social media. 

I'm not talking about disagreeing or engaging in other ways. Those dynamics are rooted in getting it, when they are at their best. There's the disagreement that arises out of not getting it, and then the labor of trying to reach a common language, and sometimes, with some people, that labor is worth doing. Most of the time, it's a fucking waste of time, and I engage less and less with those efforts. I operate from a whole set of axioms. It can be exhausting to try to get someone up to speed on those axioms and find out what theirs are. Sometimes worth it, sometimes not. 

Then there's getting it. I know many friends who get at least parts of it. There's my free jazz friends who get that, who at least seem to. Cactus and botany friends who get all of that. Recovery friends who seem to get that. Etc. So compartmentalized getting it is definitely possible and can be okay, even if partial. It is demonstrably true that a great many of my cactus friends do not get my radical, patriarchy dismantling politics, that is for damn sure. There are some compartments that very rarely even come close to each other, let alone lend themselves to natural understanding. 

But getting it for real is way beyond these compartments and categories. Getting it and being gotten with another person is a global experience, a 360 degree intuition. There can be moments or even entire areas where there is a lack of understanding, but that doesn't affect the overall, global getting it. My oldest friends from elementary school and college both get me in the global way, and the details sort themselves out. 

But I have tried to go for the deepest connections possible with some people who I think just did not get me, nor I them. I took partial understanding and some compartments, both ways, and told myself it was okay, the Big Getting It was not realistic anyway, and not to be expected. After all, you're weird, no one ever gets you. 

The last partnership had a lot of this. A definitely understood certain things about me, and I understood things about her. But the two of us did not get each other. And yet we tried to make a life together, and spent almost six years "working on" getting each other. 

This is exactly like trying to explain a joke for six years. 

I'm acutely aware of it now. I can't picture ever trying something so futile as that again. It's lonely, it's too much work, the joke isn't funny if it has to be explained, everything has to be limned out and explained, everything has that risk of falling flat. Big huge swaths of deeply held values can easily be abandoned or left clunking around, misunderstood. A, for example, never got how I can be simultaneously the most optimistic, compassionate, kind, tender, vulnerable and idealistic person as well as dark, cynical, into the darkest and most grotesque humor, sarcasm, and the darkest comedy. I never got how earnest she was about everything. Her intellect does not play around, and mine is always playing around. These are not trivial differences. 

Lately, I've made a point of sharing things that are important to me with people I am somewhat interested in or attracted to and observing very carefully if they get it or not. Or exploring what they love and are enthusiastic about and seeing if I get it or not. I don't have to like it, or agree with them about it being incredible, but do I get it? Do I get them? Do they indicate that they get me? This is not trivial. I've abandoned the requirement so many times that it astonishes me. I've also taken it for granted. I am not inclined that way anymore. I have known a lot of people who tried, and with whom I tried. I can see the practical benefits of trying, with certain people. But not with my intimates. No wonder I have had deep trust issues in so many of the most intimate connections I have "tried to" form. We just didn't really get it. 

If I am going to go deep with anyone from now on, itself a doubtful proposition, but if I am, I don't want to always be explaining the goddamned joke. 

My Foolish Heart

Fuckin' A, I have been dealing with a wealth of anger and self criticism, combined with embarrassment and shame. I hadn't exactly identified what was going on until I went to Prescott for a couple days and pretty much avoided social media. It was funny, because I had resolved to greatly reduce my social media time and be more introverted up there, but then I tried to use the hotel wi-fi and it didn't work, and I felt betrayed. Like, I wanted it to be MY CHOICE to avoid social media, not because I COULDN'T get online. We can be odd that way. 

As it was, I spent most of the time eating, sleeping, reading the extraordinary Make Your Home Among Strangers by Jennine Capó Crucet (which I had heard of only because it was burned by idiot white people at Georgia Southern U), and feeling angry. I had some radioactive sentimentality around A, since Prescott was a "romantic weekend getaway" town for us when we were together. In fact, we had reservations for Valentine's 2017 before she dumped me to fuck my former college roommate. I was somewhat surprised by the various memories of our visits there. One in particular, when she was waiting to hear about her post-MBA job with the big corporation where she's now an executive, and they were delaying, and she was distraught on the way home, sobbing so hard with disappointment that we had to pull over. A day or two later they did call and offer her the job, but the whole thing cast a weird pall over Prescott. 

I had wild dreams, both of the nights I was there. Deeply numinous, symbolic, disturbing and feeling cathartic. In one dream, I was attempting to make amends to A over the phone, and she was moaning and moaning, having orgasm after orgasm, as if that was the appropriate response. It was super strange. There were many other very vivid dreams that I failed to write down. I consciously avoided lying in bed, scrolling on my phone, and I think that opened up a big space for my unconscious to show up. I think I'll avoid screen time for an hour or two before bed for a while. 

As I kept experiencing the anger, I was finally able to put my finger on the cause. I was cutting into myself, angry at my own gullibility and foolishness, as I was characterizing it. My enduring tendency to believe what people say to me rather than observe their behavior. My easily hopeful response when a kind word is spoken every several days or so as proof, in spite of days or months on end of being way down on people's lists. Of blaming myself for things that are not my fault. Of feeling ashamed and foolish for having a wild and open heart willing to take risks. 

It was important to me to make contact with this and realize how poisonous my own company was. I have since started easing out of a lot of that excoriation. But I still look back on parts of my life and wince and just feel like a goddamned idiot. Like, dude, the writing could not have been more clear on the wall. What incredible contortions I went to, to try to ignore it or minimize it. How blinded I can be by a promise, a statement, a sentence, as if it is a tiny floating scrap of wood to grab onto in the middle of a goddamned ocean of indifference. 

I look forward to releasing a lot of this feeling of being a fucking idiot. I want to learn from it. I want to be far more discerning, self protective and sharply realistic in the future. I don't want to be overly guarded or bitter or mistrusting, but I definitely want to take whatever fuckers say to me with a grain of salt, and watch the goddamned movie with the sound off. Lean harder into the actual behavior. BELIEVE what people show me. 

It has become brightly obvious to me that people really do show me who they are. All I have to do is believe them and stop buying the bullshit that they speak with their mouths. This has been such a self-destructive and toxic pattern in my life. Awful especially because of course human beings are capable of saying anything at all. As I've mentioned before, if one is also capable of *believing anything at all*, well, it's a recipe for a fuck of a lot of gullible fucking foolishness. He said, kindly, to himself. 

And another area where a lot of anger was coming up for me was around the strange endeavor of wishing it were true, or wondering whether or a bunch of experiences in my past were true and real, let alone the words, at so many junctures of my life. And then it hit me: judge by the fruits. Judge by the results. Of course it wasn't fucking true or real. Stop making excuses for people. Stop being Mr. Existential who rescues the appearances by strategies like "well, it was true at the time, but it isn't now," or whatever. That is just noise. Judge by the fruits. As harsh as it may seem, look at who is showing up for you. If they aren't showing up, then fuck whatever they said in the past. The truth is right here in my face. I simply have to accept it. One can't be important to people and be disposable at the same time. One can't be loved and not worth someone's time. One can try to tell oneself a thousand stories to make these things true. True love is measured in attention, time, interest, connection, appearance. Showing up. Asking. Wanting to know. Giving time and attention. True love has nothing to do with utterances. People can say any goddamned thing any time. 

But the truth is, people show me how important to them I am. It doesn't matter what they say. If people behave like I'm disposable and an afterthought, then that is simply what I am. All the words in the world, no matter how much I might want to hear them, mean jack shit. I *know* in my mind that love is a verb. I feel like I'm getting it in my guts.