soul

Last night, my wife and I were talking-really talking- over drinks, when our lovely three year old came upstairs and crawled on my lap. Now, I am the first person to admit just how much I love this, but my schedule hasn’t given me much opportunity to take advantage of this as of late. Even more than this, however, I have had instances where I actually found other things to do rather than stop and take the time to just BE with either of our daughters or my lovely wife: BE understanding, BE patient, BE kind, BE loving.

BE there, no matter what.

So, little Ramona takes her place on my lap, and while I am conversing she nuzzles deep into my chest and turns her head to look up at me. I look down at her, smile and there it is… right there in those stunning blue eyes is her whole future right before me. I don’t, of course, mean anything like proms, college, or her first kiss. I mean her entire being; completely guileless. In her three years and odd months on this earth, I, her father, had never seen this before. I can’t help but wonder if that is the gift a new mother is given when she sees her newborn for the first time; the ability to look deeply into, and see a soul peer back at you. Not existing; being.

Existing in the moment involves an ability to remain calm and open to what life brings you; skills I need to perfect. Or maybe that’s just it. Maybe there’s nothing to actually perfect; nothing that involves the distraction of, or consuming yourself with. Maybe it’s the act of learning to accept things with honesty, openness, and without pretense. Learning to be may just involve the simple act of actually being.

no apologies

“Our Ultimate Freedom Is The Right And Power To Decide How Anybody Or Anything Outside Ourselves Will Affect Us” -Stephan Covey
I will never apologize for loving you. I will never be able to apologize enough for HOW I loved you. That no longer defines me, however. I am not the sum total of others’ experiences of me; my book has too many chapters not written in my own hand, too many passages that were carved, not written into it. Allowing the voice of other to dictate me to myself is the greatest Sin an individual can bestow upon himself- upon his progeny.
I am free.

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” –Richard Bach

As I lay awake last night, thinking on things, the quote which has become my wife’s new mantra kept playing over and over in my head:”Let It Go”. So simple, so deliciously succinct and applicable to virtually any situation; it is, at the same time seemingly impossible to master. Then came the above quote, and suddenly it became clear. The key is to stop, shut up and allow the gift to come to you. Now, I am the first to admit that two of my flaws which are deeply ingrained are: jumping to defend myself the minute someone has something to say about my actions, and forcing things into my own perceptions of how they should be in my own narrow minded model of life. Let It Be.

It has taken a monumental upheaval to teach me that my first reaction is NOT the correct one, and that shutting up and letting things be may open doors that I never even dreamed existed. By my listening, I heard wisdom.

So, for you, my (ironically) new found muse, I am Letting It Go. There are things out there beyond the scope of my knowledge and abilities, and I am letting their wisdom teach me. I surrender everything that was the past and the anger and sorrow and heartache that goes with it to a realm I cannot begin to understand. I forgive those who have, either intentionally or not, hurt me, and I forgive myself. No more energy devoted to lamenting the shortcomings I feel my life has become, and no more tears for those who could not be who I wanted them to be. No more seeking in others the void I feel within me. All is in the past, all is forgotten. You showed me the power of being in the moment, not chained to what was.

Let It Be, Let It Be.

refuge

It is a soft breath that kindles an ember;

Turns it to love, or by tempest, extinguishes…… soft spoken breath

That surrounds in comfort; a word in anger that forces a gale

   That tosses the fragile craft of a soul and dashes it against the shoals, rending it and

maiming its passengers.  Trust broken, when gentle

            takes flight. 

   It is good now that you look within yourself

To seek solace,  and self. I stand apart from you now,

Speaking soft breaths, hoping to help rekindle the you -my harsh words

Having exploded your life-

      Dashed your heart and drove you away. 

I gather strength within myself, carving  a place for you that you might discover a haven

From the storm that was once me.

I hope you find you and your heart again

    I hope you take refuge

In the softness that is me. 

Things lost...

    There are places in each of us that we stuff away, hidden from all those around us; and especially ourselves. The recesses and catacombs that form each of our psyches and harbor our triumphs and dismal failures contain what might be the bulk of who and what we are. Much like an iceberg, we present only the tip of ourselves to the world and drift comfortably along with the mass of our burden lying beneath the surface. I am now finding that as the tip remains exposed, it erodes and what emerges from the water is a previously raw and unexposed portion that needs to be dealt with, in order that it may cease to be such a weight. That we may rise a little higher than that which surrounds us. It must be, that we can be.

    In the tumult and subsequent erosion of my relationship with my wife, I have found that my empathy and compassion I once possessed has become a suffocating blanket of anger and resentment- not at her, or my two beautiful and wickedly sharp daughters- no; my anger lies in my laziness and acceptance of the mundane and the paralytic indecision that haunts me every day. What would hold someone back from taking chances when something far better may lie around the corner? Why would someone take the easy approach and yell at a child, rather than guide them gently when they do not perform the way we adults would? Why would a parent teach a child through actions that the mediocre is acceptable? Laziness. The choking clot of bile that fear of rising above the tonnage of an iceberg constructed of insecurity and a loathing of the realm that laziness and poor choice led you to. The kind of weight you feel in the pit of your gut when you go to bed sunday night dreading the monday morning workday; the wanting- the needing to just step back but finding yourself walled in by you. The wrath that those nearest to you incur when your sympathy finds itself stuffed down deep, under layers of inaction and empty words by a fist clutching years of repressed hostility and quiet, burning, palpable hate. Such a pure, clean word, despite all it connotes... hate. 

    So now, having made poor choices which at one time affected only myself, I find myself with a family that includes a wife who is done accepting scraps from one who never really took the time to let her know that she really is one of the most exceptional people he was ever lucky enough to know, much less have the daughters that are every bit as fragile as they are wonderful, and who now hurt the way I remember I hurt. No five or three year old should ever have to feel alone, especially in their own home, and the crying jag I was witness to tonight finally wore that frozen tip away and allowed me to glimpse two little girls who are frightened of something they can't understand, but which is crushingly real. They feel ALONE... left by a father who chooses to take selfish time away from the ones who need him most and waste it in a beer glass. The shell that was once a vibrant and engaging woman has become a resentful and sullen mother and spouse by poor, thoughtless choices which had no more forethought than what I wanted; how I felt I was entitled to take some time for me. By a husband who chose to be lazy. Quite possibly the deadliest of sins, as it slowly kills all around it, laziness is a choice. To do the RIGHT thing, or to do nothing, give in and take the easy road.

    Laziness has been my bugaboo my whole life. I have squandered my life to it, and hurt many along the way, because I wouldn't take the extra effort to even try.... and the aftermath is so obvious in the response I saw in two little tear stained faces that were wailing tonight as mom left to go out.. two little kids alone and unsure of what it is that they're feeling. The wraith of loneliness wrapped snugly about them, because daddy was always "too busy"... when in reality, he was just too lazy to make the effort to invest in the three people who should never have found themselves at the bottom of my priority list.

     The iceberg is there. With determination and persistence, (the opposites of laziness), it might just get overturned.