06 29 11 A Year Passed

    A Year Passed 

I have lived a humbling existence this past year. My life has unfolded right before me, as well as right before anyone who would like to see. It is there, out in the open and out of the shadows.

I had lived for many years in a shell that I had gradually built up around myself over time. I was not truly aware of what I had accomplished, but I accomplished it none the less.

I had grown monstrously complacent. I knew what I had, and I knew what I wanted, or so I thought. I knew what level of comfort was best for me. My worries and fears and inhibitions had their own separate drawer in the bureau at the other end of the house, and they seldom came out to see the light of day.

I have talked about my inhibitions and fears and worries with my wife and family and a few counsilors in the past. I have recently talked in length about the struggles of mine with one of my sisters. I have shed some light on what had been going on inside my mind over the years, and how I feel that I am slowly starting to understand the mind set of the person who has been staring back at me in the mirror all these years.

I have been, for the longest time, very uncomfortable with my appearance. This has played a major part in my process of growth throughout my years, especially my adolescent years. I have hid my opposition to my looks from just about everyone. I may have hidden it from most people, but the one person that I could not hide it from was myself.

Yes I know all of the people and family that have told me forever that I am a handsome and good looking man, and I appreciate the hell out of you all for trying to instill this into me. For the most part, these positive affirmations have gone in one ear, and right out the other.

I have never been able to fully accept my looks. I just never thought I was anything other than hideous looking. My teenage years and all of the reconstruction procedures that I had done in Boston, took their toll on me in more ways than I had ever realized. It is my perception, and no one else’s. My perception is the one that played over and over in my mind. I could create positive scenarios here and there, but my own triggered reactions to what I saw in the mirror are what stayed with me.

Since my vision loss last summer, it seems that a tremendous weight has been lifted off of my psyche. It seems that I am finally starting to unravel the twisted cage that has kept me locked up inside my own perceptions. Without the visual input of my own self as seen by me, I seem to be able to learn about what is inside me. Rather than what is on the outside of me. I have always been more than my appearance. I have never given that much thought though. What I saw in the mirror was what I felt was me, inside and out.

Many times I would think I was having a pretty good day where I felt ok with myself, and then something would trigger a reaction that would usually send me plummeting to my frequently manufactured lows. This reaction was always brought on by a quick unannounced glimpse of myself in a window or a mirror, or by someone’s reaction when they saw me. My mind has been well trained to sudden knee jerk reactions that left me bewildered and befuddled and anxious and fearful and pathetically inadequate. My own twisted logic over the years has left me with a coping skill against myself. I had become my worst enemy. The battle of setting my spirit free was a daily encounter. Day after day my own perceptions riddled with false fears and made up logic would twist and turn their way into my life and convince me that I was only what I saw on the outside, and not what I felt inside.

I have spent this last year getting to know the man I am from the inside out. I have never paid much attention to this guy living inside of me. He seemed ok for the most part. He was always liked by most people. He had many loves and dreams and cravings and worries and legitimate cares and concerns. He was also gullible and naïve and believed what ever the guy in the mirror was telling him. He believed that anyone who saw him would surely see the hideous monster that was in the mirror. He had brainwashed the innocent little boy in the mirror. He had deprived this little boy from developing into the one that everyone else saw. He wondered how they could see something so drastically different than what he saw. He felt trapped and scared and alone so many days. The one looking back at him in the mirror had picked his pocket of youth

He has grown into the man that is starting to feel his life fully for the first time. I feel that I owe my wife and son and grandson so much. I have let this twisted voice inside of me talk myself out of so many wonderful feelings. I do not want to miss out on anything any more. I can not afford to.

I have met my life head on this past year, and if nothing else, I have discovered that I have more feelings inside of me than I ever thought possible. My emotions have taken over on a lot of days, and that has felt wonderfully frightening, but wonderful none the less. I have slammed shut my feelings for so long that I wasn’t sure how to handle all of them. One after another they did show their faces and I was re-introduced to myself again.

I am still learning every day what these feelings and emotions are. I am also learning that I am in control of them, and no one else. It is up to me to take these experiences and make something good out of them.

With the help and love and support of people in my life, and god, I will continue to grow into the man that everyone else has always seen. I always joke that I hope to be half the man my dogs think I am some day. I am starting to think that I hope I can be half the man that had been staring back at me from the mirror all those years. He is still me, and I am still him.

My future looks bright today. I never thought of my future as having bright possibilities before. A few doors have closed from behind me this past year, but that pales in comparison to the windows that are beginning to show signs of opening.

With help, love, faith and support, I plan to go through them all, one by one.  

Hopefully they are all on the first floor.

06 18 11 Lightning

06 16 11

With a loud bang, I woke up this morning very suddenly. The sound of the thunder rolled across Kennebec Valley in a never ending rumble. I could tell that our dog coco was a little surprised, but she soon let out a loud groan and laid her head back down on her blanket beside the bed.

I love thunder and lightning storms. Always have since I can remember. The true magnificence and power is something that I will forever be amazed with. This world of ours is truly amazing in all its grace and power.

I remember some years ago my wife, son and I were sitting on the picnic table out in the back yard. It was a warm summer day roughly 10 years ago. There were a few distant rolls of thunder that you could hear from the west. I knew a storm was heading towards us from the western mountains, as they usually do on those warm summer days.

We were just chatting away with our old dog Barkley sitting next to us on the ground. He was such a good boy. I don’t think I looked at him as a dog. He was one of us. My Barksey boy.

With a snap of a finger, all of a sudden there was a bright flash of light and a loud deafening popping sound at the same time. Instantly I felt a charge of energy rush up my back, down my forearms and down the front of my legs. I jumped up, hollered and screamed at the same time my wife and son also did. Barkley let out a couple of loud yips and started running around the picnic table uncontrollably. Matt jumped up, screamed, and ran into the garage as fast as I have ever seen him move. Lynne screamed and jumped up crying. We were all caught off guard, and were all in a state of shock. We were not sure what happened, but it happened none the less.

I do not know how close the lightning strike was, but it couldn’t have been very far from us. I have never had anything so wonderfully scary ever happen to me before or since.

It was apparent that each of us had an abundant amount of energy for the next few days. I know for certain that I did indeed. I just felt so different. I felt aware and alive and awake and alert. At the same time I felt like such a small intricate part of something so wonderfully enormous and powerful. I felt part of something that made sense and had bearing on the bigger picture.

We didn’t talk much about it. We knew what had happened to us. It seemed appropriate that something as significant as that happened to us as a family. It made us closer somehow.

There are a few things that have happened to us as a family that have engraved the feeling of family deeper.

The thunder on this morning has for the most part rolled on by and it feels like the sun is working it’s way through the morning commute of rush hour storm clouds. It really is a good warm feeling to have the sun poke it’s gentle hands out from behind darkened clouds. Magnificence unfolded.

I am not sure where the message of this all leads to. I am not sure what meaning I am trying to manufacture. I am not sure of a lot of things. One thing though I am fully aware of is the fact that I love chocolate. I love chocolate and I love thunder and lightning storms. I get goose bumps when I hear them coming at us from the west. I get excited and my pulse races and my hands get sweaty and I can’t sit still.

As quick as they come, as fast as they go, as awesome as they are, I will forever be amazed at their pure power. I wish there was some way to harness that power and put it in a pill that you could take once a day. I have never felt so alive before. Well maybe a couple times. The birth of my son. The birth of my grandson. The first time my wife looked at me. The first time she smiled at me. The first time she touched me.

Maybe this feeling is out there in many forms. Maybe this electric feeling is always within us, and certain things have a way of pulling it out of you.

Maybe that’s why I feel like this when I hear my grandson’s voice calling my name, or when I hug my mom, or the way  my dad winked at me in my youth.

Maybe this flow of life within us is our source of being. Maybe there is some way that we are all tied in with the powers of this magnificent wondrous place we call home. Maybe it is just god’s way of saying, “Hey down there, remember me?”. Maybe I could use a whoopee pie.

Maybe..

June 13, 2011 Lubec

Lubec

As a young lad growing up in Little Falls, I used to love our family trips down east to Lubec. The annual event produced some of the fondest memories I have from my childhood. There was just something about going to Lubec. The summer didn’t seem complete without it. We used to all pile in to the station wagon and off we went. Even the trip alone held some kind of magic of it’s own. It was along one for us back then. We lived in Gorham, so it was a good 5 hour trip.

 
The seven of us all piled into the family wagon was a sight to see. I can remember counting Volkswagen Beetles on the way, as well as pick-up trucks, blue cars, red cars, and so many other games we used to play along the ride to consume the time.

Of course we all got along like the angels that we were. Huh? As you can imagine, there were those rare occasions when we used to disagree on certain things. I can remember that I was the one who usually sat way in the back of the wagon making sure that we all knew what was coming up from the rear. I can remember my dad saying, “Don’t make me stop this car.”, or, “That’s it, no Perry’s Nut House for you guys!”. That’s the one that usually straightened us out.

I can also remember him looking at me in the rear view mirror and winking at me. That one always made me break out in an uncontrollable smile. He always had a knack for making me feel really happy. That sparkle in his eye lit up my heart.

It seems that we always had rituals as a family on these trips. We always ate at Jaspers in Ellsworth on the ride down. There were certain areas along the trip that marked our progress, and set in motion the process of getting closer to our destination. Lubec.

Even the name triggered wondrous and magical feelings from deep within. From Blueberry Hill, to the Blacks Woods, to the long stretches along Route 1 where the tracks ran along side the road for what seemed like forever, to driving through the area west of Machias that had been ravaged by wild fires some years before.

Another staple along the trip was when we stopped at Uncle Bobby’s service station in Machias and gassed up. This was the start of the last leg of the trip. It was all downhill from there, or downeast.

Once we hung a right in Whiting, the trip was just about complete. The last thing to me that meant we were finally there were the chicken houses just before the corner of West Lubec. Once we came up over the crest of that hill and saw those buildings, I knew we were home. It seemed like home to me anyways.

With all of the magic and wondrous feelings associated with Lubec, the feeling of love was the strongest feeling of all. Going down East meant one thing, HUGS! Lots and lots of hugs. Don’t ever think you have ever had enough hugs in your life, because you haven’t. I usually had the stuffing squeezed out of me more times than I could count, and a thousand wouldn’t have nearly been enough.

I never felt as much love and sense of family as I did on those trips. It seems that I have always tried to emulate those feelings in many things that my family has done since then.

There was just something about the feel and the smell and the cool crisp morning air and the fog and the list goes on and on. From the shirt tail parade at the festival of the 4th, to walks along the beach in behind the Seaview Restaurant, it all felt so safe and warm.

One summer I can remember the squid beaching themselves at high tide chasing mackerel and as I walked along the shore with a stick flinging them back into the ocean. They would run out, turn and beach themselves again. From what I was told, it was due to the red tide that was affecting the area that summer. I had never seen anything so strange and fascinating. Thousands of them lined the beach and I felt like I was watching a Captain Bob science fiction movie. The next day when I returned, they were all gone, like it was all a dream.

 Those summers somehow seemed like a dream for the most part. The family gatherings were an event to behold. The food and the laughter and the games and all of those cousins. So many cousins. I didn’t know half their names, but I loved them all. How could anyone have so many cousins? A family festival of fun and frolic and food. Oh the food. I loved the food. Mostly the seafood. Lobsters and steamers and haddock and pies and cakes and 5 extra pounds by the time we got home. I am sure that if you listen really hard, you can still hear the sounds of music and laughter from the family events of those years still lingering around today, echoing across the bays and coves of Lubec.

 I loved when we finally made it to our Grandparents Cleaves house. The first thing you smelled was the chocolate chip cake or the blueberry cake. Either way I was in heaven and usually was in her pantry for a few minutes sampling whatever the tasty morsels were. It must be rather apparent to you by now that I do love food. Oh how I do still love tasty morsels, and will until the day I die.

 Some of the cornerstones of Lubec were all so obvious to me. The light house at West Quoddy Head was certainly one of them. The old lady seemed to grow more majestic as the years rolled on. I would always walk up to her and pat her gently and say under my breath, “How are you ma’am? Hope you had a good year.” The walks along the trails and shores of the park are forever engraved in my mind. This past summer I had the opportunity to go downeast again with my sister, and I got the chance once again to say hello to the old girl one more time. I couldn’t see her very well, except in my mind, where the memories will never fail me. I knew and felt that she was still standing there in all her glory.

 From the trips to Campobello Island with Wilson’s endless beach, to listening to the lighthouse out in the bay as the fog rolled in in South Lubec, there are just so many portals in my mind that take me back instantly to those summer trips to the farthest corner of the country. Main Street over the 4th was always a beehive of family and friends in a never ending homecoming festival. It seems that we never took more than a dozen steps down Main Street without having to stop and meet old friends or family. They were everywhere, and my folks knew them all. It was just so wicked awesome to feel like a part of something so wonderfully cool. And then there was the Lobster Trap Gift Shop. I loved that shop and was traumatized when it finally closed some years later.

 I suppose that I could go on and on forever about the feelings and memories that I have from our trips to Lubec in the summer months. These memories are one of the staples in my life. They are a good part of why I am who I am. The feelings that I get now when I go downeast are a little different than they were as a young boy. The factories have for the most part all folded and left the area. The faces have changed, but the grip that Lubec has on the soul will go on forever.

 The grip that It had, that it has on me will linger in my heart and stay with me as I continue to gain in years. I will always feel like skipping stones at high tide, or jumping from rock to rock on the rugged shores in South Lubec with my brothers and sisters.

 From the hugs from Grammy Lyons, to the smell of cologne on my Grandfather Cleaves, the memories will always be there.

 I can only hope that everyone has the chance to live and breathe in deep the sense of family and love that I have had on those summer trips to my other home downeast. Nothing can ever compare to it. Nothing can ever replace it. Nothing will ever feel quite like it. The smell of salt in the air instantly takes me back to those treasured days of yesterday. Nothing will ever quite feel like the trips with my family to Lubec. That place of my birth, that little town wrapped in salty shores on the corner of the country will forever hold a cozy corner of my heart.

Songbird June, 1 2011

Bird Song  June, 1 2011

Well here it is, the first day of June. I guess that a lot of people would call this the beginning of summer. I couldn’t disagree with them in the least. The days are longer and warmer. Everything that is supposed to be green, is very green indeed. The humming birds are chasing each other around the feeder out front. I love listening to them squeak and hum.

I have my digital recorder sitting in the kitchen window pointing out at the blue spruce next to the garage in my front yard. I am trying to record the amazing song of a bird perched in the tree. I don’t have a clue what kind of bird it is, but it is one of the most beautiful songs that I have ever heard a bird sing. If I could figure out a way to post the audio file in here I would. It’s song is ever changing and ever so wonderful on the ears. I envy this bird. This guy, or gal, has no idea of it’s magnificence or amazing talent for song. It has no idea how beautiful it is, sitting there on a limb. It has no worries, or anger, or sadness or discontentment or resentments or misconceptions or any of the things that complicate our own lives. It is just a bird, plain and simple.

The life of a bird is uncomplicated. It lives to survive and care for it’s own existence as well as the  lives of it’s own offspring. It has no other predetermined plan other than to be a bird and sing out loud for all to hear. I wish our lives were that simple. I wish our reason for being here was so cut and dry. I wish I had a cookie. I wish I knew what I needed to do as well as this song bird does. Surely there must be a manual online somewhere that can better inform me of my direction and purpose? There must be some sort of guide that came inside the box? How can anyone make heads or tails out of this complicated chain of events without directions? How could anyone possibly know what to do next? There are just so damn many choices that we can make in our lives. So many paths we can choose to go down. So many directions that can take us in countless ways, but where can I find a map?

It seems that as soon as our feet hit the floor when we are born we are set in motion to create and experience our lives. And they are all magnificently different and unique. Our similar objective is to make it to the end, wherever that may be. The end is supposed to justify the beginning. The end is where it is all supposed to make sense and we are introduced to clarity. It is exactly the opposite of that bird sitting on the limb singing his heart out because he is supposed to.

Somewhere along the way we all get caught up in the blender of this big old blue marble that spins around the sun. We see what we want, and want what we see. We live in a world influenced by vision, sound and touch. If you can’t see it, hear it, or feel it, how would you ever know that you might need it?

There are so many different things that we as people are supposed to do. Or at least what we think we are supposed to do. All the predeterminations and plans are reset from our birth. I don’t think that many of us realize that we can reset the remote at any time in our lives. Just one push of the button and we can start over at any time, day or night. One click of the remote and we can change the channel at any time. We all have the choice to look at the situation and if we don’t like what we see, we can for the most part change it.

Change is a remarkable thing. Change is frustrating and wonderful and scary and frightening and all of the things that make it unique. Did I mention Change? Change is also one of the hardest things. With change comes all of the things that we love and hate. Change brings with it, well. Change.

I like to call myself a creature of habit. I, for the most part, do not like change. I like to be able to count on things being the way they are. I like knowing what’s around the next corner, and I dislike surprise. Surprise brings with it uncontrollable events that for the most part tear us away from our complacency.

My life up to last June was as predictable as I could make it. I liked to go through each of my days knowing for the most part what was around the corner. I had my place in this world and my role was pretty much established in my mind. It was what it was, and I was ok with it.

We tend to overlook opportunities that show up in our paths because we don’t make the connections between what is and what could be. There really is a fine line between what we are and what we could choose to be. All we have to do is insert ourselves into the cookie dough recipe and voila.

I have seen some ingredient changes in my life this past year, and for the most part the end product is one that I never would have  imagined. All I need to do is add some extra chocolate chips and I will be sampling another tasty tidbit of ever changing life.

For now I can sit here while pondering my own existence and listen to the wonderfully amazing song of the bird out front in the blue spruce. Sure is a beautiful song. It sounds very happy and content. I wonder what kind of bird it is.