That Weight

Boy, you gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

I never give you my pillow
I only send you my invitations
And in the middle of the celebrations
I break down

Boy, you gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time

--Paul McCartney

“How are you doing?”

“So, so. Wondering if I’m a terrible person.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She laughed.

“What, wondering if I’m a terrible person?!”

“Yeah.”

That made her pause.

“You have made a lot of mistakes,” I continued “...and I can understand why you would be hard on yourself...

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about you, thinking about me. I’ve replayed the conversations we had, ones when you were having an affair but I hadn’t proof yet. I’ve thought about how you deceived me, hurt me...

“And I have thought over the 28 years we had together. Not to find how I was right and you were wrong, but to find the truth about it all. I want to be honest with myself, really know what was true, what was deception, yours, mine...

“I made a lot of mistakes... Knowing what was true is healthy...

“You have to come to terms with it too. You need to get to a place where you forgive yourself, like yourself again. That isn’t up to me, I am not responsible for your happiness, but you won’t get there as long as you are wondering if you are a terrible person. I hope you find your way.”

She took the boys to her sister’s for the day... I did chores around the house. It felt good to have time to do what I wanted to get done with the boys occupied elsewhere.

This is a good sign. I’m learning to be content with who I am, not dependent on my dreams to provide promises of happiness.

I’ve had some folks suggest I find someone, a girlfriend. I tell them I’m not interested in casual.

I had thought I would spend all my life with just one woman. That little fantasy is gone.

But that isn’t to say I can’t still have the second half of that dream... Just won’t be with that one woman. I might still find someone I can spend the rest of my life with... Someone I will bury, or will bury me.

I’ve even thought about future kids. Not sure I’m up to the starting from scratch thing, but I love kids, and I can see myself finding someone with a young child who needs a father and I can enjoy the raising of kids once more. But if not, that’s OK too. I can be happy and healthy alone.

I had an epiphany tonight. I was with some friends at Dairy Queen. One friend spoke of the lasting effect of his younger brother’s death to SIDS, how it still affected his parents.

Just the thought of SIDS a few months ago brought back waves of nausea and grief... until tonight.

See, just a few months ago I still felt tremendous guilt over Willy’s death... That I laid him for the first time on his tummy to sleep that day. That I had let him cry himself to sleep for the first time. That I had sat there and listened to his crying and forced myself to let him sleep without my rocking him... until his cries had faded and he died. That I believed, irrationally, that I was somehow at fault.

But tonight, I realized, I don’t believe that lie I’ve told myself for sixteen years. It was terrible. It was tragic. But... it wasn’t my fault.

I think that is a healthy sign. I have put that weight down at last.

I got a little choked up talking to Brenda about our failed marriage, but it was much, much healthier. It was put in a better perspective.

I still miss adult conversation at night. I still dislike sleeping alone. I still want to share my life with another... but it isn’t a terrible idea to imagine I won’t. I can be happy with whatever life lies ahead of me. I still get sad now and then... but, in a more balanced way.

I see that being nice can lead to being a doormat. I like to be kind, but being nice to appease someone isn't healthy. I want to be kind again, just for the sake of being kind, not to make nice.

That was another thing I carried for too long.

I think I’m putting that weight down as well.

I'm OK

She has moved on, is growing comfortable with her new life. Makes me wonder how I’ll manage the same.

Not ready yet... but I wonder.

A woman passed me in the store this evening. She looked familiar, I did a double take, wondered if she was the mother of one of my students.

She smiled, I asked if I knew her. Turns out I’ve never met her. We spoke for a little bit, a friendly little chat.

As she left I realized I had been relaxed, comfortable talking with her. It surprised me a bit.

A few minutes later I ran into someone else. It was very awkward.

She is someone Brenda had mentioned as a person who had married happily to someone she’d had an affair with.

This person is very kind, very sweet. But between us lay the understanding of her situation, mine, Brenda’s. She reached out, touched my arm, showed me she understood, cared.

I hustled away, forgetfully moving past several aisles I needed to shop. I didn’t like what I was thinking, feeling. Surprising how quickly my mood changed.

I think too much.

That’s OK.

Everyone is unique. Like everyone else.

Human beings come in variety. We think differently, look differently, have different histories, dispositions.

On my way to my bachelor’s degree I had to take a number of credits outside my major. I took a class called “Women in Culture,” categorized as a social studies course. I thought it might be interesting.

In the first class the professor spoke at length of how unfair men had been to women throughout history, throughout cultures.

There were several other men in the class with me, but only two of them were there at the next class.

In that second time together the instructor was harsher about men than in the first. I could see the other men making up their minds to drop the course ASAP. I told myself I wouldn’t.

The next class I was the only male there... except for the professor.

Strange course.

The professor encouraged the women to share the injustices they had endured from men. He spoke at length about studies of prostitutes in third world countries. Throughout the course he did his best to show how hurtful men have been, are, and will probably always be. He invited guest speakers who talked about the porn industry, salary inequities, and glass ceilings.

He hated men.

At one point several women targeted their vitriolic complaints at me. A kind woman said it wasn’t fair to dump that on me, but he said that since women had suffered so much, it would be good for me to feel it also.

I poured myself into that class. I was not going to get anything less than an “A” in the course. I would make every assignment I did the best the class produced.

He was impressed by my research paper. He noted it included sources that were authoritative, current, and well chosen for the topic he had assigned... menstruation.

I got the A.

Everyone is different.

I’m OK.

Sewing

The starched shirt, red tie, black slacks, clothing for meeting new students, is a bit much for my writer’s group. After checking in with my sons, learning how their day went, I went to change clothes.

A button came off the pants.

Since my domestic upheaval I’m recreating a decent sewing kit.

Opening the tin I pick up an envelope with thirty or so needles.

I’ve been making repairs on my clothing ever since I started hiking and hitchhiking. I used to use a spool of thin fishing line. Good for repairs of clothing, tent, backpack.

I’ve grown a little more sophisticated in my approach to apparel repair. Color does matter. Nearly invisible repairs are preferable.

Choices.

Fellas like me have a small disability... Clumsy fingers.

I’m tempted to pick the needle with largest eye, a nice wide opening I can see, thread that hummer with confidence.

My mind whispers: “Wimp.”

Hmmmmmm. I can do better. My fingers waver, back and forth, over the larger than necessary selection... The smallest ones are out of the question. I’m not sure I could even hold onto something that tiny.

I start to select a medium sized one...

I won’t be able to see that tiny hole well enough to thread it, but that doesn’t matter because I can't thread them by sight anyway.

“I might as well make it more of a challenge, I’ll use one a little smaller than usual...”

Threading a needle is a bit of a challenge. I usually bite off the tip of a section of thread, and twist it into a little point. Then I stab at the hole until it goes through.

Most of the time the thread bends over. Many misses in miniature darts.

Once in a while that tiny single strand at the tip goes through, but the rest of the thread hangs up at the tiny threshold.

When I pull on that single strand I create the tiniest snarl in the world just behind the tiny portal.

The needles came with a threader... A little handle with a trapezoid wire sticking out. When I used it one side of the wire broke.

I tried to use it anyway. It bent over, hanging up in the needle and twisting the thread. I’ve had more luck using a wrench as a hammer.

I have a second group of needles to choose from. I thought them pretty cool because they are “self threading”. On one side of the hole is the tiniest of gaps, set to allow a thread passing over it to slip into the hole without the usual hopeful yet futile jabbing

Clever.

Except it doesn’t work. Either the thread passes over the gap, or if it pauses a moment, and I pull hopefully, it resists, and either breaks or snarls the thread.

(I’m sure some of you out there are better at this sort of thing than I.)

I chose a needle a touch tinier than medium; I felt a little pride over my choice. A real man can do it!

The needles are held inside the envelope in tiny sleeves with tiny holes through several bends in a tiny slip of paper. I tug my slightly challenging choice out of its sleeve.

Needle in hand I feel a little dismay at the thought of replacing it in the envelope properly.

OK... Got the needle... now for thread...

I have a dozen colors of thread... None of them come close to matching the slacks.

Dang.

No time to get some... What to do with the pants?

I put the button in the pocket and lay the pants where they'll be in the way (so I won’t put off the repair for too long). I’ll replace the button later.

Now I've the sliver of metal pinched between my fingers and it needs to go somewhere.

Our old sewing kit had a red stuffed thing that looked like a smallish tomato, but I haven’t anything like that here, and threading the needle back into its place in the envelope seems to be a little more concentrated effort than I want to put forth.

Ah! I’ll get a rag, cut off a piece, and stab it with the needle.

Under the kitchen sink is a pile of rags, and in the middle of the pile is a red rag that would show off the needle nicely.

Armed with scissors I snatch up the red rag. The jaws of the scissors hover over it...

...the rag is a tiny pair of red sweats.

I hold them up. There is a tiny stain on one leg. The other, a hole in the knee.


Isaac wore these... When we first got him. He was always tearing around the house in these red pants. They were his favorite. (He liked fire engines.)

Scissors wavering over the leg, I look at the red rag.

I sighed, threw it back on the pile. I can use it to wipe up spills, wash the car, clean a mirror, but I can’t cut it up.

All the other choices are white rags. They won’t display a needle as well.

Snip, snip, snip, a square of white fabric is in the tin, the needle in place.

I need to get to the store, get better sewing supplies.

Dancing

Great day at work.

We have trimesters, three terms to the year. Today was the first day of the third trimester.

Today was my third first day of school this year.

(Take your time... think it over... Yup! Makes sense. Sounds wrong.)

Starched my white shirt, did the “dab of Brill Cream” thing, red tie.

I straightened the room thoroughly yesterday, sweeping away the remnants of projects just finished in time for trimester two.

At the beginning of each period I had the lights down a little, Bach playing through the speakers, a projector throwing a hypnotizing pattern on the screen.

No one got past me without shaking my hand and formally introducing themselves. Some tried. But none got past me without a few words and a hand to hand.

Some I had to teach to shake.

"Shake hands palm to palm, one doesn’t shake fingers."

"Look at the person you are talking to and not somewhere else. This is your chance to make an impression, so smile to someone you meet."

"Focus on what you are doing."

"Say your first and last name."

I sized them up quickly and assigned them seats. The ones who had a look of surprise that I was assigning where they sat caught my attention. They have tiny agendas of their own.

I began.

It is a sort of dance sometimes. Teaching...

I get their attention, focus them, on me, on the class. I walk them through how the lab runs, what we will do this term, my rules, what is allowed...

When the dance is going well I spot the restless ones trying to make contact with a friend, and I hear the whispers. Most telling... the one who makes a joke to get a laugh out of the class.

I dance smoothly over. Quickly, no fuss, the student is swept into the hall. It is clear, this wasn’t the time.

This first day was smooth. When their faces showed traces of distraction or fading off, I caught their attention moving things in the direction I wanted it to go.

There where with light bulbs. Those moments when a student suddenly understands something never understood before.

I’ve heard some say: “Those who can’t, teach.”

They don’t get it.

Teaching isn’t about content. It is about moving content.

Anyone can learn about anything they put their mind to. Especially if they have a natural interest or tendency... math, history, writing...

The task is to move that content into the minds and hearts of others. That is teaching.

It is about group dynamics, and individual perspectives, and about the best way to deliver content in a dance which keeps a class together and letting me do the leading.

Today the dance went well.

This first day is about setting tone. It’s about forming the idea in my twelve to fourteen year olds that Mr. G is in control and has a plan.

It's Pretty Cool

The trash cans weren't at the street.

One of my boys had brought them back in.

The mail was on the table.

Tonight Jeremiah made dinner. Tomorrow Isaac will.

Those two have changed so much in the last year.

Jeremiah is ALWAYS noticing things that need doing, and does them.

Isaac is starting to come out of his shyness, talking more, starting
conversations.

The boys are becoming self sufficient.

Both of them now do laundry. Though Jeremiah is still shakey on
selecting water temp.

They are happier, more capable and independent.

The issues regarding Jeremiah's lifetime care are a touch complex,
made more so by the fire, are only possible (various sources of
funding) because of the fire.

Isaac is washing dishes without bring asked. Tonight at dinner he
seemed more self confident as he began talking about his classes.

I get worked up over these new challenges in my life, but I see a lot
of progress in myself and my sons.

Last night I turned the alarm off and promised myself I would not get
out of bed until I had slept eight hours. I awoke several times
during the night, and many times early in the morning, but when I went
to work it was after the most sleep I have had in two years.

All in all, I think we are doing great.

Note: Thisentire post has been done on my cell phone. I will be able
to blog on my trip I'm June! Next, including a photo.

Sent from my iPhone

Antiques

Bear with me... I am testing to see if I can post like I have been using an
iPhone. It might be an off and an all day write...

Not easy to edit this on the iPhone. Must write it in code...

Went to the Expo Center to see the antique and collectibles show. I spent six or seven hours there.

I plugged the iPod in and went up and down the aisles (Music: Bach > BB King > Cream > Bob Marley > Joe Cocker > Paul Simon > Tom Petty). Funky sequence of music, the soundtrack, for a funky afternoon.

I didn't used to like going places alone. On a business trip to Florida, other trips...

But this was good. People watching and weird stuff. An elderly woman and I debated for quite a while about what the item in this photo is:



A strange silver and semi precious jewels in the shape of a monkey's head. The top of its head is hinged. A thin depression was embossed to look like a brain.

The dealer (after finishing up with another customer) told us it is from Tibet, around 1900. They come in various forms, but a person would write a prayer on a slip of paper and put it in, hoping the spirit of the monkey would grant it. This one was never meant to be used, it was created for the tourist trade.

In one booth a flat screen TV was showing It's a Wonderful Life. There were many photos from the movie on the table, and a book entitled Zuzu's Wonderful Life in Hollywood. The actress who played the little girl was selling the book and signing photographs.

We chatted about Jimmy Stewart.


The boys and Brenda were spending the day together and I was wandering.



I picked it up, turning it over... Someone had carefully stitched together snake skins over a straw hat.

"Now that's pretty weird!" I laughed, getting out my camera.

"Hey, put it on top of the cowboy boots! It'll look cool there."

The guy running the booth was grinning.

"Wanna Hear a cool story about the hat?"

I nodded.

"Well I saw that hat here at this show eight years ago. It was for sale for $350. It seemed too much so I passed, and then changed my mind. I went back for it but it had been sold.

"I was setting up here this morning, and in walks a guy carrying the same hat! I asked him where he got it, and he said here, eight years ago, did I want it?

"He sold it to me for what he paid for it."



The point is... I went out, had a great time.

Thinking...

I should be asleep... but...

Something sort of twisted around in my mind about this situation this past week.

I know I'm the sentimental sort... or at least... mental... and I care about a lot of things... But it doesn't stop me from thinking...

My life will be better without her.

Disillusioned

This is the third try at this post. If it doesn’t work, I give up on it.

I’m disillusioned.

Interesting word. To have one’s illusions removed.

Brenda and I have been meeting quite a bit.

Last week there was a meeting with various agencies. She was there, but I took the lead. She is subdued about decisions for the boys now.

On Tuesday the boys and I, Brenda and her mom, went out for Chinese food, Jeremiah’s choice. She and I shared the cost for his present. It was odd, all of us together in the restaurant, and then cake at home.

Yesterday she was here for a meeting with another case worker for another agency. Again, I took the lead.

We are trying to plot Jeremiah’s future.

After the meeting yesterday she became hurt and angry. She took control of one of the issues dealing with Jeremiah. She registered him online for summer camp, insists she will take care of his medical form with its accompanying doctor visit.

I waited for her outside.

She came out, still flustered, and had a tough time for a moment there. Began to cry. complained how God is unfair in giving us so many challenges.

I softened my body language, showed concern...

And then snapped out of it.

“Brenda. When you are upset, I put myself aside. I want to make you feel better. I want you to be happy. So I shove myself aside, my feelings aside. I don’t think about what is best for me. Because I love you.

“That isn’t right.

“I might still care a great deal for you, but I’m the one who should be upset, and I can’t afford to put myself aside for you. If you feel bad, I’m sorry, but I have to take care of myself now. Don’t complain to me.

“You left and none of this is your problem. It’s mine.

“I’m raising these boys. I feed them. I run this house. I care for them and I love them.

“I don’t need your self pity.”

Brenda is helping me. And it feels like the things she choses to do are simply taken over by her... but it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that once I let her do everything, and that was a mistake. Now, when she chooses something she wants to do, I get to consider it. My call.

Brenda is like all of us... a mixed up, confusing mess.

It would be easy to paint Brenda in a bad light, but that isn’t reality.

Just about any reality is colored by our views, how we feel about things, people...

We think we see things that aren’t there.

Illusions.

I’m disillusioned.

I know now the future I thought I saw was merely an illusion.

I’m not sure how I feel about ever finding such illusions again.

In The Cool of the Evening

There are so many ways I have failed. When I look at my errors, at my sin, I despair.

I see the part I had in my failed marriage. I was less than I should have been.

I see how I have failed as a parent. I failed to see all their needs and focused on things of lesser importance.

I see my weaknesses of character. I fall so short of what I long to be.

When I look at the mighty hearts of others, especially of Christ, I feel I have squandered much.

I know everyone else has failures too. For me, the glowing crimson moments in my life when I chose selfishly do not shine any less brightly because they fade into the overall greyness of a mighty universe filled with innumerable spirits who choose exactly as I.

I think Adam doesn’t get enough respect.

We look at the first couple, the parents of us all, and glower at their first sin, feeling it is their fault we don’t experience a perfect life.

I think if I spent a day walking around with Adam, the first man, I would be astonished at who he is.

He spent a lot of time alone.

He got to be closer to God than other men, perhaps a daily event.

But he spent most of his days working alone. That must have shaped his mind and heart.

I imagine he did a lot of walking.

I imagine him walking valleys of the world, finding his way over mountain passes and finding new worlds... deserts, jungles, infant valleys born of retreating glaciers.

I bet he was quiet.

He wouldn’t spend his time talking about the trivial things we talk about... gossip about the famous, speculations of what fictional events might happen in television shows, the price of coffee.

I think if he did talk, it was the sort of words, songs really, about what he saw, where he was, the wonder of the natural world.

I think he moaned a little at night, watching the gliding moon...

But I think he worked hard at what he did... He explored, and he gave names to all the things he saw. And, in the evenings, a great intensity of otherness would walk beside him, and they would share themselves with each other.

(What a strange wonder it must have been for God Himself to have a being He could talk with, who was perfectly free to reject Him!)

So... I don’t think Adam’s sin was all that bad. Not compared to mine. I haven’t any reason to point the blame of my failures on him.

Adam was given a mate. Someone he could talk to everyday, all day long. There wouldn’t be that intensity of The Presence of God.

I really understand Adam’s wish to do whatever Eve wanted.

First, she’s, well... a woman. Someone like me, but completely different. Different physically, different mentally, different emotionally.

There’s a need to share. Adam was a hermit for such a long time... with the exception of the intense sharing each evening.

Now he had someone to talk to. And not just about the strange creature he noticed under a rock, or the startling taste of a berry he had tried... but about other things, very simple things... Perhaps about the changing temperature, or what they could see in the shape of clouds, or how a tree bole looked like a face, or why some stars shift around the sky.

After being alone for so long, I would do anything Eve asked me to do. I’d be happy to listen to her, to agree with her, to do for her.

Eve may have taken that first bite, but I bet Adam’s was bigger. Mine would have been.

It’s strange I feel guilty. I know He doesn’t want me hanging onto my failures. I know He regrets the consequences coming from free will, but He’s enjoying us immensely. It must please Him to see so many of us struggling to be what He wants us to be, that He might get to know in the cool of the evening... someday.

Still... that is how I feel. Guilt. Shame.

Mostly for stuff that isn’t important.

Why do I feel guilty about the death of Willy? It was natural causes. It wasn’t my fault. But still, something shouts from deep in my heart that I WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS CARE!

Why do I feel guilty because my marriage had failed? I made many mistakes. She certainly did...

And this isn’t the sort of the thing the I Am is interested in talking about. It’s isn’t a good thing, wasn’t done for good reasons, wasn’t good for others, and it isn’t good because it doesn’t feels like it. It’s messy.

It’s like I have taken the trash out, and once I got to the curb where I could leave it, I stood there for a minute watching for the garbage truck, and as I left to go to work, I dragged the garbage with me.

This morbid little exercise this afternoon, this wandering post through guilt and sin, is partly born of other things, I know... It’s born of anxieties about my children, of work, of learning to be both parents, depression, and a huge sleep deficit.

The last few nights has been different than the last two years. I have gotten seven or more hours of sleep each night for the last four nights. About double of what has become normal for me.

There is much more time set aside for my mind and body to rest, but also, the doubling of dreams.

Why do I drag the sack of garbage still? Anxiety by day, metaphors of shape and color and smell in my sleep.

I feel best when I set the garbage aside now and then. There have been a couple of nice dreams, simply watching clouds glide past.

I need to set the garbage aside during the day too.

I do that best when I am thinking in such a way as to feel I will one day walk in the cool of the evening.