Spin Doctor

My paternal grandfather lives within me each time I take fingers to keyboard or moving lips to my vocal chords. Some think of me as their own personal word master asking me to craft the right words to say. I know I don’t possess this power it is only a perception. What I do have is the gift of making words land softly so that the listener hears the message not an agenda.  Grandfather showed me just how to validate the feelings of others and yet persuade them to see more of what they really want.  

A spin-doctor carries a negative connotation but I try to play my records at the right RPM most days and if I’m lucky without skipping.  

My Life

Where have I been all my life? I know I have lived it but somehow it escapes me why I did some of the things I did. Some acts were extremely egregious to those I have loved and those that have loved me. I can only pray to make amends now to my heavenly Father because many have turned a dear ear to me. It is not a case of “poor me” rather it is accepting the responsibility and being able to move on despite the pain I have caused.  I never meant to hurt anyone and I also know that I am the only one that knows that truly. Some might love me and some might hate me but one thing is for sure they all knew I passed through their lives for better or worse.  

I am on a new path this I know and with a Rosary in my pocket I choose to pray as my childhood religion taught me. Together with sobriety prayer is part of my life and I know my angels have been working overtime for years. It is now time for them to rest but I just hope they keep one eye open in case I forget to keep my head where my feet are as I so often still do.  Some one told me that my angels are with me now I just hope I can make them feel at home.  

Our Expiration Date

We all face the same fate our expiration date. Whether it is the end of a relationship, the death of a loved one, and end to a career, losing a job we loved and the ultimate expiration date our own life. 

You’ve heard the expression: Everybody plays the fool, there’s no exception to the rule. Well the same holds true when the sands of the hourglass are in the bottom of the receiving globe. Some of these expiration dates can signal the end of lives, as we knew them. 

We might have a dream life all of our wishes have come true and as we navigate this idyllic life without so much as our hands on the wheel something unexpected happens and we are lost and can’t make bare steerage way in the waters of our altered life.  

We can choose the easier softer way and just let life pass us by or we can claim responsibility for our part and take action and let the results take care of themselves. The oars are there we simply must pick them up and row and not expect rescue simply because we are feeling sorry for ourselves. The pity pot is one we swim in alone and there’s no need to drown in our own wading pool.  

Our expiration date will one day be at hand it’s what we do with each day beforehand that insures regret is the last thing on our mind. 

Shark's In the Water

The year was 1975 and just two years earlier The Exorcist had terrorized America but before we could breathe a sigh of relief Steven Spielberg tattooed us with high anxiety about going in the water. I recall one scene where one of the swimmers knew the shark was hot on her frantic kicking feet and as the camera scanned back and forth from the shark to her and the waiting floating dock no one was sure if she would make it before she was literally devoured by  Jaws  from the bottom up. The brave kept their eyes open but if you were like most of the audience your hands never moved faster blocking your view of the big screen.  

Fortunately there’s no terror closing our eyes in spin class and what so appeals to this rider is the fact that I can see more with my eyes closed than with them open. Today as I concentrated on my pedal stroke I could feel my toes floating in the shoe box where I never gave even a passing thought to that nuance before and it was merely indicative of my heightened attention of just how deep my focus has become.  Breathing in through the nose has always been a daunting task for me and it was only through a determined conscious effort was I successful for a few minutes in the 60 minute ride.  Now though with assistance from our sensory deprivation technique of   closing our eyes even breathing in from the nose becomes a more natural experience. My sensory acuity takes on another dimension now as my effort has risen beyond what my body thought was the limit. Now I am convinced I have broken through a wall and I see a higher sky even with my eyes closed.  

Dana’s discography was flawless today as each song she plated fit the choreography of her deeply cognitive instruction. 

Inside the Pain

When I heard these words I said: Oh yeah! God does that make sense I thought. The alternative, avoiding the pain or trying to fight the pain was not courage it was in fact cowardice. Yes that’s right you heard me correctly. Resisting pain unless we are Zen masters is futile. In fact surrendering to the pain carries with it priceless experience and motivation. Because when we surrender to the pain, it loses its power over us. Let’s examine that. When we struggle against it pain becomes a more formidable foe.

Think about it. We create a resistant energy that becomes fuel for pain. We think it lessens or alleviates some of its force. Oh but quite the contrary, pain sucks up resistance like oxygen added to a fire. It becomes a bigger inferno! The protection mechanism, the defensive posture that we adopt to avoid the pain gives it a wonderfully robust added excruciation.

Little do we know that if we slip into the pain we start to lessen its vice like grip and we can start to use its energy for our own purposes? Imagine having power over the pain. Think of the things we could do as we start to function in extraordinary ways that the pain kept us from even imagining.

What do I mean though? Let’s take my spinning class as an example into our little expose. When I get in that seat I know that not only will I not move from that spot I am in physically atop that stationary bike nor will I be able to get out of the seat to take a breather. After all I am locked in via my shoe clips and there is an inner voice that I must obey when Kristen says reach down for “more road” I am compelled to turn that resistance knob to the right. Now I hope I have set the stage for you because in her class pain is inevitable.

I try not to look at the clock via the mirrors in the cycling studio for at least what I perceive to be 15 minutes because that gives me time to adjust to the discomfort that I start to feel in the sides of my feet and how quickly my breathing starts to get out of control. Or as Kristen says “touching anaerobic” Touching it? I am caught in its web. She says breathe in through your nose and I see this as an exercise to deepen my characteristic shallow breathing.

As my discomfort sets in, I become accustomed to the feeling. And my brain starts to function inside the pain. This is not to say that it doesn’t exist but because I have accepted the pain I no longer have to think about avoiding it. Its just there and I can start actually thinking I can take on more pain. Because what lies beyond pain? Whoa have I ever given thought to that? I can eliminate death for sure so what does lie beyond pain? I think it’s a new set of rules that I can write. Because once I have surrendered to the pain, I might not only be able to tolerate it but also become stronger living with the pain instead of something I dread. Yes that’s it I befriend the pain because it starts to tell me where I am and I can start to see even greater God given talents I have never explored.

Bare Steerage Way

There comes a time when a relationship will not respond to the helm and if there’s not enough freeboard between the deck and the waterline it’s a long drop to the sea. Winds blow and no matter how true the course the ship heads for a dead reckoning beyond the blue horizon.  Narrow straits can be tough to navigate and if there’s not a give and take a collision is bound to sink what might have been a blissful voyage.  

God Willing

This past week I watched with more patience and tolerance (mainly because of prayer) the further disintegration of the man I once called my Dad. This being occupies his body but his speech and memory have been redacted and even he cannot put the words together to utter anything but when is breakfast, lunch and dinner.  

One source of anguish is that there are intervals when he is cognizant that his short-term memory is gone and that the content of each conversation we speak becomes lost like the steam one breathes on a cold day. Increasingly now a memory from the past will arrive on the doorstep of his consciousness and he becomes obsessed with the idea that visitors are about to arrive and as he checks his watch he will even pinpoint their arrival time. 

The filter of social etiquette is gone and as he becomes more and more combative the challenge of not engaging him is a double-edged sword: anger for him and frustration for my sister and her husband of endless patience. How my dear sister and brother in law have managed his care these past 7 months is beyond comprehension. The week away for them was long overdue.  When I arrived to take on the second day of relief my youngest sibling as she exited the driveway was exclaiming: I’m free! For most of my stay he was manageable so long as I kept him busy with as many morsels of food he could consume and I made sure that if there was a baseball game on he was watching it. 

The most painful task is at hand which is a home for those afflicted with dementia. We visited one and as if my mother was by my side during our tour a beautiful patient stepped in our path and told our guide that she was afraid. I looked on in amazement as her hand was gently clasped in reassurance and within a moment a gentle staff member took her from our midst in a way that gave me a live illustration as to how my father would be cared for. 

I have been praying to my departed mother for guidance and I am not ashamed to say that I wish God would call him home but its clear he’s still here for a reason and I am sure it will be revealed to us God willing.