"Your mother recognizes all you're desperate displays And she watches as her babies drift violently away 'Til they see themselves in telescopes Do you see yourself in me? We're such crazy babies, little monkey We're so fucked up, you and me," Adam duritz, 'Recovering the Satellites'
Before I go on, I'd like to go back. Back to something I said when I started this:
I said that the life I live is, more accurately, one I'm part of, a participant in. I said it seeks it's own level, and resists the one sought by my ego. I'm one stitch in the fabric of life, that's all. And I was intended. I'm not here for immortality, or popularity, or perpetual joy. I believe the same holds true for everyone.
I believe Life has an objective, a vision, it's trying to construct with everyone who's living their own. And everyone living, now or before, is imperative to its manifestation.
If I'm vital to the world, it's as a vessel for that expression. I believe what I believe for the following reason: Quite simply, it's the insurance policy I've chosen.
If I didn't believe Life is it's own attempt at something better, or that it's trying to converge with the life it initiated, but lost, I'd have very little to cling to. If I didn't believe in a Life that values people equally, and sees every contribution as indispensable, none worthy of more celebration than another, I would consider everything I've told my sons to be a lie. And if I didn't see clues in my life that embedded those beliefs, I wouldn't bother waking. I'd do my morning routine of coffee, light reading and a doughnut, walk into a forest, and die.
Or just sleep for a really long time. Anyhow, you get the point.
You Can't Help Out If You're Looking In
As I've been writing my family history, and my intentions to honor the dictates of my heart, the opportunity for the application of both was forming. I almost missed it in the same way I've missed thousands already. My gaze was set inward when it should have been cast out. So when I put the relationship between the two together it was humbling. I'm gonna need more diligence than what I have. I'm gonna need to take bigger risks.There's a young man in my community who I've known for almost a decade. He entered my life as most have, through one of my sons, and exited as most have, without ceremony. I didn't think anything of it. After all, he's my son's friend, not mine.
I'd heard rumors that he was struggling, and that his struggles had become defiant. I wasn't alarmed by anything I'd heard, nor was I overly concerned. He's a teenager, and teenagers do odd stuff. They do stuff they think is original. They get stoned. Seen it. They disagree with their parents, and get bad grades. Seen it, and seen it. They climb on rooftops and howl at the moon because no one understands their pain(seen it), or the troubles that beat them down(seen it). They convince themselves that no one, not a single one of the 7 billion people on the planet, gets them. And, from their perspective, they're right.
Except they're are some who do see them.
They just don't know it yet.
You Have A Call Coming In
I didn't set out to write about myself, or my family, in the manner that I have. It emerged as something that needed to be addressed, and acknowledged. Because of that, I'm more conscious about how I got here, in my man-skin, than I've ever been. I'm more aware of the key events, and decisions, that propelled me into being a middle-aged idealist, and ponderer of death. I'm also painfully cognizant of what could have been easily offered in assistance, but wasn't. I didn't intend the direction of what I've written. Once again the intention found me.
The epigraph on this post pins me to the mat every time I hear the Counting Crows sing it. Parents will be heartbroken by the turning over of their children to the world. They'll be embattled by their decision to deliver more innocence into a world infected with so much violence. Unless, as one child moves out, and away, he turns back and realizes, finally, that he's looking at himself in everyone.
Do you see yourself in me? To the young man I know who is struggling, the one that is, in fact, my friend too, I say I see myself in you.
I'm preparing myself to offer the help I waited for to you. I'm using the omission of a caring adult in my life as the education that prepared me to, at the very least, offer to be one. It's ironic that the worst experiences in my life have become my best teachers. I may be at the threshold of a new lesson.
Life's been driving the entire time, while I sat on her lap pretending to steer.
I can't guarantee anything except an investment. I can't ask anyone to admit anything that I won't admit to myself. I can't offer direction before I've learned to ask for it from others. And I won't risk failure until I'm well-versed in the regularity of its appearance.
I have no excuses to offer if I don't get involved where involvement is deeply needed. I don't want to hide behind one, either. I'll do my best to provide an alternative perspective for you, and truth that's unpleasant, but revealing. I'll lock every door that leads to an easy way out, and wait patiently as you exhaust yourself trying to go through them. And I won't pull the plug until it's clear there's no pulse. In me, not you.
So on that note, let's be clear. This isn't an allegory about a Knight, or shining armor. I don't need to save anyone, or have the ability to do so. I don't care if you like what I have to say, or if you don't want me checking in. I don't care what you believe, or reject. I only have two things on my list that I intend to address. The first is selfish, and involves a paradox. The second involves Kinko's.
The paradox is the paradox of healing, and it's equal parts empathy, and selfishness. The only way I repair the damage in me is by trying to prevent its occurrence in you. And the only way I have to show forgiveness to my parents is the transformation of harm done into a lesson that instructs it's becoming undone.
Kinko's is my really bad metaphor. It's a reference to the need for replicating the original of anything to insure its existence, and how the frequency at which it's done supports a chain of enormous blue buildings furnished with copy machines, computers, paper clips, and the people of the blue shirt tribe.
I'd like to see if certain things can be banned from duplication. Like the mistake in me that turns into the mistake in you, that turns into whatever hatches from the eggs you lay, and so on. I'm not sure how to do that, so I start with this: If you believe you've been 'called' for something make it your obligation to take the call when it comes in. Don't worry if it caught you off guard, or that you feel unprepared. If the preparation you've done has you up to, at the very least, being able to pick up the receiver to say "Hello?", you're fine. The race isn't what's difficult. It's the preparation that you undergo to earn a spot at the starting line that hurts.
