Getting By

The events of the past month have been unsettling. So much tragedy that I can't wrap my head around it.  So I do what I can to stay insulated by not watching the news, reading the paper, or doing outreach in the community.

I know this isn't good, but the feeling of being overwhelmed is real. Somehow, if I stay in my world, it feels better than constantly rehashing mass murders and the lack of our elected officials to do anything about it.

That the Orlando massacre nearly coincided with the anniversary of the Emanuel church murders in this city was difficult.  And I ask myself, "How many more?". I did not participate in activities planned to honor the dead. I worked on my boat, went to meetings, met with my sponsor, rode the horse and gardened. I feel jaded and tired of the arguing about guns, politics, religion and racial injustice.  Maybe we are moving forward in inches.  I can't see that, and it certainly feels as if we are moving backwards when it comes to giving up hate and divisiveness.

The summer heat has moved in and feels unrelenting.  I do most of my work in the mornings and evenings, otherwise it is unbearable.  Last night, I had terrible leg cramps which I tend to get when I have sweated to the point of dehydration. Irrigation is saving the garden which is producing well.  We are picking blackberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and green beans.

I have learned in recovery to not take things personally, yet I still do that on occasion.  I fight with the notions of rejection and abandonment.  Probably this will be a life long struggle for me.  My father comes to me in dreams. I wait for him and he does not show up. Instead, I find him drinking in a bar, or I walk home and find him drunk at the kitchen table.

In my last dream, I was pouring out bottles of booze while saying the Serenity Prayer.  I awake from these nightmares, shaking and disoriented.  It is PTSD, and I know that the best thing for me to do is to get busy and remember that the dreams are feelings that are coming up, flashbacks to pieces of events from long ago.

Am I happy?  I believe that I am optimistic and reasonably happy.  Some moments are filled with such joy that I feel incredible gratitude.  Other days, I am getting by.  Today is one in which I am getting by.  But that can change if I take some action to make the day better.  I plan on having a good dinner with C. after riding this evening.  Then we will pick blackberries and maybe watch a movie.  I have the ability to make the changes needed to have happiness.

 

Drunk dreams

I awoke from a terrible dream this morning that my wife had started drinking again.  I was re-living in the dream the nightmare of being with her at a concert where she was drunk and stumbling.

These dreams are not new.  The venue may change but the recurring theme is that we are to meet somewhere, but I can't find her.  When I do find her, she is drunk. The dreams are vivid and realistic.  Fortunately, this is the first such dream that I have had in a long time.

I've read that dreams about something traumatic are common among those who suffer from PTSD.  A therapist once told me that she thought that is what I had from all the years of being around alcoholics.  I don't know whether that is true or not.  I have often been baffled by my dreams though.  The ones that I remember the most are troubling and leave me with a feeling of fear and great anxiety when I awake.

I wonder if the events of the past are encrypted in the neural pathways of my brain to such an extent that no amount of recovery will erase them.  Maybe not.  I have found in recovery a way to understand the nature of my anxiety around alcoholism.  But there are still unresolved aspects that no doubt spill over into dreams.  Yesterday, I was meeting with a fellow I sponsor who is doing his fourth step (a searching and fearless moral inventory of self).  He brought up his feelings of guilt and shame towards his parents and brother.  Some pretty stark and ugly emotions are discussed in the process of recovery.  Maybe those emotions in the unconscious mind spill over into the dream world as a reminder of what I have experienced.  Maybe there is something that I can learn from these dreams.

What I realize after waking from the "trauma" of a drunk dream is that:

• Drunk dreams are not unusual for either an alcoholic or a person affected by someone else's alcoholism
• Drunk dreams aren't reality but a recycling of something from the past.
• These dreams are a part of processing emotions.
• I can use the dreams as tools for self-discovery and spiritual progress.

Here are some more thoughts on the power and purpose of dreams from Gayle Greene, Ph.D. :

When people are awakened out of REM and given a word to associate to, their associations are more novel, more original than in other stages of sleep; they "ignore the obvious and put together things that make a kind of crazy unexpected kind of sense." Dreams..... are where we bring things together in fresh, often startling ways, drawing on stores of knowledge from the past, the present, the possible, to find new associations. Dreams may help us find new patterns and create combinations that break through well-worn ruts. 

I swear, I write better when I awake out of one of those intense, thrashing-it-through dreams. Even a troubling dream, a dream that churns up stuff I'd rather shove under the carpet, even a dream barely remembered, much less understood, seems to provide some kind of fluency, dream energy, fuel for thought. Those are the days that the words and images come, tumble out so fast that my fingers on the keys can barely keep up. I don't know how it works, but it does seem to work. 

And creativity isn't just for writers or artists, it's about basic survival, about finding new paths, figuring out what to do when something goes drastically wrong on the highway, in a marriage, in a work situation. We live in a complex world. We need our brains to be firing on all cylinders; we need to think creatively, flexibly, as we negotiate relationships with colleagues, co-workers, family, friends.

Much food for thought.  I know that the visions of that dream are still in my head. Maybe by putting these thoughts down,  I have a better understanding that what was once a reality for me has been transformed into a new awareness in recovery.

Crippling so many of us

I woke up discombobulated this morning.  Bad dreams last night that left me feeling out of sorts: The old abandonment stuff that seems to recycle every few months, bubbling up from some part of the mind that has held onto yesterday's fears.

It takes a few moments to remember that none of the dreams are real.  And the fears, well, those don't have to be made real unless I allow that.  It's best for me to get up and get moving, rather than to lie there and let the mind reel.

All that abandonment stuff seems so real when it plays out in technicolor when I'm asleep.  Maybe it is there with me even when I'm awake, just lurking beneath the surface, ready to come out and wipe away peace of mind.

Once traumatized, do we ever really rid ourselves of the feelings and images that have held such power in the past?  Maybe the point is to not have to rid ourselves of anything but to simply acknowledge the feelings, check the barometer of life on this day, and make a decision on how to proceed.  I found the following from the psychologist, Carl Rogers, to be interesting:

"I sometimes fantasy about what it would mean if a child....never had to disown his feelings in order to be loved. Suppose his parents were free to have and express their own unique feelings, which often would be different from his, and often different between themselves. I like to think of all the meanings that such an experience would have. It would mean that the child would grow up respecting himself as a unique person. It would mean that even when his behavior had to be thwarted, he could retain open "ownership" of his feelings. It would mean that his behavior would be a realistic balance, taking into account his own feelings and the known and open feelings of others. He would, I believe, be a responsible and self-directing individual, who would never need to conceal his feelings from himself, who would never need to live behind a facade. He would be relatively free of the maladjustments which cripple so many of us." ~ Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person


I suppose it's easy enough to be crippled by what happened in childhood, what our parents did to us, what others did or said that made us feel less than or fearful.  So many people are wounded today.  That wounding comes from all manner of things--loved ones, jobs, the economy, life.  But it doesn't seem to be so easy to be whole again. Or is it?

It seems easier to blame others for unhappiness.  Or perhaps to find fault with others rather than looking inward at myself.  I like what Rogers describes as ways to live a "good life".  It makes a lot of sense to me.

1. A growing openness to experience – move away from defensiveness and have no need for unconsciously applying strategies to prevent something troubling from entering the consciousness.
2. An increasingly existential lifestyle – living each moment fully – not distorting the moment to fit personality or self concept but allowing personality and self concept to emanate from the experience. This results in excitement, daring, adaptability, tolerance, spontaneity, and a lack of rigidity and suggests a foundation of trust.
3. Increasing trust – Trusting my own judgment and ability to choose behavior that is appropriate for each moment.  Not relying on existing social norms but trust that by being open to experiences, I will be able to trust my own sense of right and wrong.
4. Freedom of choice – not being shackled by the restrictions that influence an incongruent individual (= a false individual in pursuit of personal regard), I am able to make a wider range of choices more fluently. Believing that I play a role in determining my own behavior and so feel responsible for my own behavior.
5. Creativity – feel more free to be creative without feeling a need to conform.
6. Reliability and constructiveness – Acting constructively. An individual who is open to all their needs will be able to maintain a balance between them. Aggressive needs will be matched and balanced by intrinsic goodness in authentic people. 
7. A rich full life – he describes the life of the fully functioning individual as rich, full and exciting and suggests that they experience joy and pain, love and heartbreak, fear and courage more intensely. 

Here is Rogers' description of the good life:

This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-hearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life.

I like the idea of launching myself fully into the stream of life: the good, the bad, the perceived, the real, the imagined, the ugly, the beauty, the wonder and the joy.  Let's do it. 

Walking away and diving for dreams

We had a nice afternoon, deciding to go to a movie with an early dinner afterwards.  The movie was Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the 2011 release, and was excellent.  I spent some time in Stockholm, so it was nice to see the old city with its narrow streets and cobblestones.  I have been in December when the snow was coming down in a blizzard, and the windows were lit by the Julstacke lights.

The movie had a lot of powerful scenes but perhaps the most disturbing was the terrible rape of the heroine, Elsbeth.  I had not realized that the author, Steig Larsson, had witnessed the gang rape of a young woman when he was in his teens.    Failing to help her,  he was haunted by the brutality of men against women.  We talked about that after the movie, both of us expressing that there are terrible people who are within our midst, perhaps that we know, who do awful, unspeakable things to others.

I also didn't realize that Larsson lived in fear of his life because of his anti-establishment views in which he sought to counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people.  Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

And finally this sentiment:
“Always retain the ability to walk away, without sentimentality, from a situation that felt unmanageable. That was a basic rule of survival. Don't lift a finger for a lost cause.” ~Stieg Larsson

Walking away without sentimentality is one of the most difficult things.  How is it possible to not have some sentimentality, some grief, some regret?  I have too much sentiment,  I think.  I have found it easy to walk away in the heat of anger. That's the self-righteous part when anger fuels the feet and the mind to distance itself.  But, that fuel gets reduced to fumes when the reality of regret, sadness and great loss come in.  I would like to not lift a finger for a lost cause, but I am a sucker for them.  The underdog, the lost, the downtrodden have intrigued me for a long time.  It is a reason that I was attracted to alcoholics and the unmanageable life.  Sometimes you just have to trust your heart, dive for dreams,  and see where that leads you.


dive for dreams
dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at the wedding)
never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for good likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth)
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neating each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.


silently if, out of not knowable


silently if, out of not knowable
night's utmost nothing,wanders a little guess
(only which is this world)more my life does
not leap than with the mystery your smile
sings or if (spiralling as luminous
they climb oblivion)voices who are dreams,
less into heaven certainly earth swims
than each my deeper death becomes your kiss
losing through you what seemed myself,i find
selves unimaginably mine;beyond
sorrow's own joys and hoping's very fears
yours is the light by which my spirit's born:
yours is the darkness of my soul's return
-you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars 

~ee cummings

Little Cat's Feet

We had another nice day on the water.  The fog was thick this morning when we left the boat landing.  The world was grey, soft and had an ancient feeling.  It's not hard to imagine what it must have been like to look at a coast line and not see any homes.  The fog does that--it has a way of hiding a lot of things. Later in the morning, the sun began to burn off the fog and the shoreline was, once again, obvious.

We caught a few fish, enjoyed being on the water, and headed back to the landing just as an evening fog bank was rolling in from the ocean.  After cleaning up the boat,  we both were tired.  I feel as if I have been steam rolled from the sun, the wind, the fishing.

I did head to a friend's house to help him with some calculations that he was having difficulty with on the Captain's exam.  He is a non-linear thinker with ADD.  Even the most simple math problems throw him into a panic.  I helped him to work through the problems, although I don't think that he understands much of what we did.  He has a dream to get a 200 ton license, yet I don't think that he will be able to pass the test on navigation problems.

What do you do when the thing that you want to achieve is beyond your grasp?  I think that he knows this, but says that he wants his life to account for something.  Most of the early years were spent being drunk.  And now, he has a dream to be a success at something.

My mother used to say that it was important "to cut the garment according to the cloth".  When I was a kid, I didn't know what this meant.  But as I grew older and wiser, I knew that it was a metaphor for having realistic resources before undertaking a task.  I hate to see someone try so hard but not succeed because they lack the educational background to pass the exam.

Dreams are important and keep us moving forward.  Perhaps we don't always succeed in making our dreams become reality.  I have had to settle in this life for something less than what I set out to attain.  It is a disappointment but something that I got over.  I hope that my friend will realize that he is still worth a lot regardless of whether he passes to get the license he wants or has to settle for a lesser license.  There comes a point that it is time to fold the tents and move on.

Here is what Rumi has to say:

Outside, the freezing desert night.

This other night inside grows warm, kindling.

Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.

We have a soft garden in here.

The continents blasted,

cities and little towns, everything

become a scorched, blackened ball.

The news we hear is full of grief for that future, 

 but the real news inside here

is there's no news at all.

I believe that in the chaotic world that often makes no sense, the real news is inside here, and there is no news. It reminds me of what I heard recently that the soul does not wish to move; the soul wishes to be at rest. The soul doesn't need to accomplish anything.  But the ego and society pull us away from being rested into chaos.  If we all truly lived in the no-news inside,  I believe the affect on the outside world would be one of tremendous peace.

Sunday afternoon

It is already Sunday afternoon, and it seems that the weekend has flown past. I did not get any varnishing done because of a few stray rain squalls. The wind has been howling for a few days and will likely continue over the next two. I am hoping it will lay down for the sail up the coast on Thursday.

I am gradually getting over the respiratory virus. I am still coughing some and my appetite is negligible. Maybe I am done with being sick for the rest of the winter. I hope so.

For some reason, I had thoughts of the little place that I rented when I was in graduate school. I was in love and living alone. But, C. and I managed to spend our days working together and most of our nights sleeping together. There were parties then--wild and crazy intellectual conversations fueled by drink and marijuana. Some parties were about ten people getting together, while others included all the students, staff and professors. There were great bonfires by the water in winter, while in summer, we swam and played volleyball.

So many of us went on to be professors, federal or state researchers, heads of agencies. We played and worked hard, mostly taking ourselves very seriously. I remember how incensed C. was when she was asked by a dean of a prestigious school to which she had applied for the Ph.D, "Are you coming here to study or will you look for a husband and then leave?" She was one of the few women in the field then. Having to be better than the men was necessary, and there was a lot of bias against women. But she persevered, wrote the Dean to say she would not be coming after she had been accepted, and opted to complete her Ph.D at William and Mary.

I have enormous respect for those who overcome obstacles to achieve their goals. Some days, I miss our impetuous youth when anything seemed possible and nothing seemed too difficult. I remember those days like they were yesterday. Is this what happens when you reach middle age--remembering what it was like back when?

Dreams

Art walk on Friday night was so cool.  ran into some friends and got a chance to catch up.  Downtown was breezy and surprisingly cool.  We only went into three galleries, but there was much to see.  I thought that there was some world class art.  Very inspiring. I feel as if I would like to start painting again.  But I would need to start from scratch.  I haven't done any painting since the early days of graduate school.  I have my old kit but doubt if any of it is any good.  A lot of excuses about not doing it, but there is an awakened passion for doing it.  More will be revealed, I'm sure.

Yesterday, it rained and was a good soaking rain.  The garden is still yielding tomatoes and eggplants. I will get out there and weed this week.  With the raised beds, it isn't as much of a chore as it would be with rows on the ground. 

I went to an open AA meeting last night and Appendix II--Spiritual Experience from the Big Book was read and discussed.  It is no coincidence that the Al-Anon meeting on Thursday was about having a spiritual awakening.  I cannot remember reading Appendix II before.  But reading "Willingness, honesty and open mindedness are the essentials of recovery" sure says it all. 

I have been having a lot of dreams lately about my wife and my father.  They are both drinking or drunk.  I am looking for them and have to search and search until I find them in a bar.  I have had these dreams before, and they are unsettling.  I awake and shake off the feeling of the dream.  But having these dreams night after night up until this weekend suggests anxiety in my subconscious. 

And there are other dead relatives in these dreams as well.  All sitting around or walking in and out of rooms. What are they trying to tell me?  One morning I awoke and thought, "Is this the transition to death for me?".   I don't think that it is, but such dreams are so real that they are unsettling.  I remember my mother telling me a couple of days before she died suddenly about her dream of dancing with my father.  Her dream was a happy dream, filling her with delight.  These dreams of mine were not happy but filled with angst and seeking.  I am glad that for now, my dreaming mind is free of them. 

We are off to do some things about town.  Maybe we will go to see a movie about the loggerhead turtle later.  The day is ahead, and it appears to be full of promise.  Hope that yours is also.

Anxiety and dreams

After the way my day started yesterday, I thought that I would have nothing but a great evening and some good sleep.  Unfortunately,  I had a sad conversation with a friend, slept badly and had terrible nightmares.

I have written before about my friend D. who has been in a recovery program for nearly two decades.  Because of the decline in demand for the type of work that he does, he hasn't been employed for a while.  He has had a long-time dream to get his Captain's license.  And for the past few months, he has been studying hard to sit for the exam.

That all sounds good, but he doesn't have a good grasp of even the fundamentals of algebra.  A simple equation such as the 60D=S x T equation makes no sense to him.  I have gone over this with him, showing him how to solve for S and T.  He just can't seem to grasp it.  Last night, he was trying to work on some basic problems for the piloting part of the exam.  He felt utterly defeated because he did not understand the math concept.

I listened as he explained that he never did have any scholastic skills but was simply passed along in school.  And now, he thinks that his dream of becoming a captain will not be realized.  He has no idea what he is suited to do, other than dig ditches.  He is out of money and down on his luck.  Of course,  I felt terrible for him.  And I have suspected for some time that he may have ADD.  I want to encourage him to keep trying but can see how frustrating it is to not be able to understand some of the concepts needed to pass the exam.

School was easy for me.  So when I see a good friend struggling, I want to help.  But the math that comes easily to me, seems like Greek to him.  I am sure that there are tutors who work with learning disabled people and would do a much better job than I at explaining the basics.  But I realize that it is not up to me to make these suggestions to him.  I cannot fix this problem.  I may want to, but I can't make him succeed and achieve his dream.

So after our conversation,  I read for a long time hoping to relax.  I suppose though that the old anxieties of mine were awakened.  I had one terrible nightmare after another.  I was being chased by people who were trying to kill me, including my own mother.  I was being shot at and running for my life.  I jumped out the second floor of my childhood home and ran next door to my grandmother's house to escape the killers.   But my grandmother didn't believe me and let them in.

These dreams are in vivid color and seem so real.  I woke up, pulling myself out of the terror, and stayed awake for a long time not wanting to go back to sleep.  What kind of snakes are coming out of my head to cause such dreams?  I don't know but thought that they had something to do with anxiety awakened in me--fear of failure, unease about people, new challenges that are coming?

Thankfully, today has been laid back.  I went to a birthday party for a friend, went down to the marina and talked with some friends there, talked with D. who feels much more positive today, talked with my sponsor to make sure he is okay since there have been some health issues lately, and am now getting ready to read a bit before turning in. 

I am glad that I have a much more positive feeling tonight than I did last night.  I know that all will be okay for those that I love.  I have a lot of trust in my Higher Power.  I am not the solution, simply a fellow traveler on the road.

Sweet dreams to you.

Thus far

We have had a full day so far.  I started the morning out with the Al-Anon All Day which runs all day; but with so much to do I stayed for the morning.  The theme was freeing up our lives, being free in our spirit, daring to be free and enjoy life.  I am the poster boy for that these last few years. 

I had to smile to myself when one of the ladies said that we should live our dreams.  I thought of my beautiful sailboats and thought that I am living a dream.  I am glad to have stepped outside of the box most of my life.  But only in recent years have I given myself permission to go for those things that I used to only dream about.  Living the dream is a wonderful thing.

I drove from the meeting over to see Sojourner who has a nice beautifully painted brick red bottom.  She is looking really good.  Soon there will be new cerulean blue boot and cove stripes painted on her.  And her hull will be waxed and polished.  After that she will be making her splash down in the water, christened with her new owners.

Last night, we went to see the movie Secretariat which is a really great movie to see whether you like horses or not.  It is as much about stamina of people as it is about the horses.  Without a belief in yourself and the horse, none of what happened would have made history.  I remember when Secretariat won the Triple Crown.  I watched him race past Sham and smash records at Belmont Park.  And did you know that he did have a great heart?  His heart at autopsy weighed 22 lbs. which is the largest on record for a Thoroughbred.  So when people say that race horses have to have heart, they aren't fabricating.

Anyway, that has been the weekend thus far.  Later, who knows.....dinner at a sushi restaurant, a walk on the beach, a meeting?  There are no plans, just a lot of spontaneity on this beautiful Saturday.  I hope that you enjoy yours.

Dirt under my nails

 Today we had a grand time together.  We worked in the garden in the morning when it was still cool.  It was a little sad to pull up all the tomatoes and the cucumber vines that had produced so much for us over the last few months.  But they have run their course now.

So we weeded and pulled vines, leaving behind those plants that were still producing.  This is what the garden looked like when we were done.

The peppers are still prolific.  I picked one that was at least 12 inches long.  It was a Mexican sweet pepper.  We will make some pepper jelly soon with the hot and sweet peppers.  It is my mother's recipe and the jelly is generally a big hit with people, especially at Christmas when we give jars to friends.

The okra is still producing little pods.  Okra loves the hot weather that we have had.  We will probably get another month of pods off the plants. I will hate to see the okra go because it has truly been hardy. 

We also aerated the compost so that the soil can be amended prior to planting.  I really like these compost bins. The soil is already rich here because the property was once part of a large plantation and all the land was cleared and planted, probably in cotton.  The fields were allowed to grow up and now mature trees of pine, oak, sweet gum, and magnolia cover a lot of the property. 

And here is what we picked today.  For lunch, C. made a bastardized version of ratatouille with the peppers, okra, eggplant, onion, and some tomatoes.  It was awesome.  Look at the size of that sweet pepper--huge, right?

After lunch, we went to buy seed to plant: beets, carrots, broccoli, winter squash, kale, mustard greens.  The actual sets for some of the plants that we want to put in weren't in yet so we got a few fall flowers to plant in the front flower beds.  I was looking for clematis because it smells so sweet this time of year.  I'll have to check at another garden center in town for it.   But we bought some globe amaranth,  a plumbago, and some mondo grass to put in large pots.  We also picked up a few cacti for the little desert gardens that we have going in some ceramic containers.

There is something so neat about being among the plants and looking for a few new varieties to try.  It was just a fun day.  Working side by side with dirt under our nails was fun.

It reminded me of the time when we had our first house, and I made a round flower garden for C.  I filled it will all kinds of flowers.  And we had our very first vegetable garden at that first house of ours.  That was a while ago.  We were much younger and filled with all kinds of ideas and dreams.  Now we are older and still filled with ideas and dreams.  And today we shared those things together without distractions.  Amazing what the promise of the coming season can do.

Let me live until I die

I have been lazy today. Well, I did get some things done. I ran some errands, paid some bills, and spent a lot of time looking on my favorite eye candy site Yacht World.

Yes, I have the bug back about getting a bigger sailboat. So I read up on several of my favorites like Shannon, Valiant, Cape Dory, Hallburg-Rassey, Island Packet and others. I also talked to a yacht surveyor today about doing a survey of a 36 foot Cape Dory that I have had my eye on at one of the local marinas.

I have this notion that I want to do some coastal cruising, like head up to Cape Cod. Some of this seafaring lust may be coming from a great desire to escape the heat. Lord, it has been really awful here this week. Who wouldn't want to go on a cruise to northern climes in this weather.

But like with most dreams, reality has to settle in. The surveyor has some concerns about the age of the boat. She was built in 1979 which means that she has a few years on her parts. And I have nothing against a tried and true beauty with some age, but when you hear words like blistered skin, old cracks, and hours of use...well, it takes a bit of the fervor out of my desire.

I'm not giving up on her but have decided to have her tested thoroughly before I propose. Jumping into a relationship with this boat could be like a marriage. So I had best gather as much information as possible and not get too carried away.

And maybe that is what I have mostly done all my life--get the information before getting carried away. Well, I know that I failed to do that with my wife and look at where we are--still married after the many naysayers said that our being together was doomed to failure. And most of them are divorced. Miracles never cease.

If I don't venture forth and take some risks in this life, it seems pretty boring. I can come up with many reasons to take the safe route in life, relationships, jobs, and many other things. But somehow that seems to be less and less appealing as I get older. I am beginning to think that the old prayer of "Lord, let me live until I die" makes a lot more sense.

I have spent enough time doing what had to be done, and I have had a really good time doing some exciting things with my work. But I won't be one who wants to dream from an arm chair. I want to be out there living and doing.

We'll see how my dreams of the boat go. Maybe this old girl won't be the one, but there are lots of beauties out there. One of them might just have what it takes for us to have a serious love affair. In the meantime, I am planning to live as much as I can each day. And find time to explore other dreams as well.

We all need sabbaticals

A sabbatical is not rare in academia.  Most professors will request a sabbatical at some time. They provide an opportunity for refreshment and new experiences.  It's a chance to get away from your normal routine - a time to immerse yourself in a different environment, a chance to see your life from a different perspective.

I think that perhaps I am going to call retirement a kind of sabbatical.  The Director came in today and told me that I can keep my office and computer here should I desire to continue to work on some manuscripts and projects.  That was a surprise to me.  We have had our differences over the years, but I told him that I appreciated the offer and would take him up on it.  I have a couple of books that I want to publish, a series of statistical lectures to complete, and some other opportunities to participate in scientific endeavors.  It sounds good to me because I will only keep the schedule that I want to keep and not one that is a must.   

I read this morning that Mary Christine, who has been writing daily for over 5 years, has decided to take a sabbatical from blogging.  I think that we all get tired and need a break from routine tasks. I like to think that those who are taking a sabbatical will connect with the dreams that can inspire them on the next stage of the journey. I certainly wish that for Mary as I have followed her flowers, her running, her work and her sobriety since I was blogging.

I am feeling inspired to dream today.  My dreams aren't elaborate ones.  They are mostly about having more time to spend at home or on the boat.  It seems that in those two places, I have the utmost freedom. I don't want to take a sabbatical from life, just from structure.  My desire is to create more space in my life so that people and opportunities will present themselves in unexpected ways. I hope to keep that spirit of openness, spaciousness, and surprise alive.  And I wish that for each of you. 

"I still recall how, with my bag on a pole, I forgot my yesterdays.
Wandered the hills, played in the water, went to the land of the clouds.
The lift of an eyebrow, the blink of an eye -- all of it samadhi.
In this great world there is nowhere that is not a wisdom hall."

Ziyong, 18th c. Chinese nun

What a dream I had

I had another of the anxiety dreams about alcohol last night.  It was about my father.  He has now been dead for over 25 years.  And yet, there are times that he comes back to visit me.  Seldom are these dreams happy.  That makes me sad because I know that he was such a good person.  It seems unfair that he only comes to me through these dreams that are unsettling. 

The dream last night was one in which he had stayed away for days.  My mother and I presumed that he was drinking.  He never did this in reality.  He would simply sip his bourbon on his days off, starting about 10 AM and be fairly drunk by dinner.  Then he would go to bed.  He was not a binge black out drunk.  Yet, in this dream, he is gone, and we are dreading his return. 

I tell my mother that it is time that she left him.  I suggest that she sell the house and move someplace else.  These dreams are so unsettling because my parents were married for over 50 years at the time of his death.  I don't think my mother ever thought about leaving my father who eventually quit drinking altogether as he got into his 60's.  But in this dream, she thinks that it is the best idea. She will sell everything and move away.

I know that these dreams are my anxieties surfacing.  They leave me feeling unsettled and disoriented when I awake.  But then I can reach over and hug my love who is lying next to me.  She drowsily asks me how I slept.  I tell her about the dream, and she says that it was just a dream.  I look at the slumbering dogs lying on the floor.  One is chasing something imaginary in her sleep.  Just like me.

I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams. Jonas Salk

Asking for what I need

When I was going to a therapist to try to understand why I felt so rotten and unhappy, I was told to be assertive and ask for what I need. I've read that one of the things that fosters co-dependence is not having needs met as a child. I certainly had the material things but emotionally I know that there was something missing. I think that my father was emotionally distant and perhaps gave me a message that I needed to "suck it up". Somehow along the way I learned that expressing and asking for what I needed wasn't a good idea.

In my close relationships, I have historically depended on the other person to give me things that I need such as attention and love. I have had expectations that these things will be there--and in some ways I have taken these for granted. But these expectations have bred unbelievable frustration when I don't get what I want. I have blamed the other person for not "delivering". When I was in therapy, the concept of asking for what I needed seemed so foreign. What I thought was, "I don't need to ask. You should know what I need." What I have since learned is that I need to speak up and ask in order to improve my relationship with others.

It has taken quite a bit of work to quit expecting others to read my mind and to openly talk about my needs. This involves the assumption that I can ask but not get my way. There are compromises that occur. And in doing so, I learn that what I want doesn't align necessarily with what others want. This has helped to deepen my compassion and to see the opinions of others are as important to them as mine are to me.

The dynamics are different between men and women. My wife has told me that as a young girl she was told to obey her father and to respect authority figures. That's not much different from how I was raised. But I also learned to stuff my feelings and to deny them. The pain that I felt had to be hidden. It wasn't until much later that I learned to put feelings into words. And by doing that I became fully engaged with others. To this day though, I still feel a bit clumsy when sharing the deep personal stuff in a group. I can do it with my sponsor but for some reason it seems too raw to be put out there for the entire fellowship to see. I guess a part of me still wants to keep the pain hidden.

It's also easy for me to replay the old tapes that others should be able to know my needs. And sometimes my asserting what I need may seem selfish when it's really about understanding how I fit in with the rights and responsibilities of those around me. I now seek a balanced approach in which I embrace what I need and can express my hope and dreams.

When dark hits light

It was a lovely day on the beach yesterday. Walking and walking for miles. Doing photo after photo. All the things that make a day pleasant with sunlight dancing on the water and the sun warm on my back.

Last night though I had a dream from the past. My wife was in a bar and I was looking for her. I was wandering through rooms of a large hotel--like a maze. I finally found her and asked her to come with me as she was obviously drunk. She said that she didn't want to be with me and was fine where she was. Then she looked through me as if I was invisible. I woke up, reached for her, touched her back, and knew that she was right where she needed to be.

I haven't had the drunk dream in a long while. I used to have the dream that I had missed a heavy course, like differential equations, in college and had never attended a single class. I had to take the final exam to graduate and didn't have a chance in making up or cramming to pass.

But in recent years since she's been sober, it's been the drunk dream. Only on occasion does the old fear come out. It chased away the sunlight, the beach, the salt air and tried to cast a dark shadow over me. Touching her next to me, molding ourselves together chased that darkness away.

Today I prayed to do God's will and to stay in this day. I don't need to revisit the past, even in dreams.

Saturday at last

I'm up early this morning. It felt good to have the work week be over. Some weeks everything just feels draining. Maybe it's because I've felt a bit under the weather with a cold that's settled in my chest. My SO has been sick most of the week and now I've got the start of what she has.

I've been looking over plans for the dinghy and will go get the plywood this morning. I've never built a boat before so this will be a great learning experience. It's only 7 feet long but will require about 30 hours of work in order to complete it.

I've been reading a book called Adrift which is about a fellow whose 21 foot boat cracked up after being hit by a whale and who is adrift in a life raft. It makes me really reconsider my idea of making a crossing to Bermuda or the Caribbean some day. I've actually thought about the goal of a trans Atlantic crossing. It's a lofty goal and dangerous. Maybe time for a reality check.

Hope that you are enjoying your weekend.

To err is human.....

"To err is human; to forgive is divine." Alexander Pope

Last night's meeting topic was forgiveness. It was a topic that a lot of people had different views about. Some didn't want to forgive but get even. Several people including me talked about how working Steps 4, 5 and 9 made it easier to learn forgiveness of ourselves. And by doing that, we are able to be more accepting of the difficulties of others.

For me, I knew that the effects of my father's drinking and my wife's alcoholism had caused a lot of pain. But through the program, I learned that it was important for me to forgive them. As I worked the steps, I realized that the anger I carried was hurting me, making me feel sick inside with resentment.

I know now that forgiveness helps me, not the person that I resent. We are all children of God, and some of us are sick and don't realize how our actions have affected others.

And this brings me to the dream that I had last night. In it, I was back at the home place. I came into the house and there were several people standing around. Someone told me that my father had died. My mother was crying. I was stunned and bereft. I went into the dining room and saw a coffin up on the big table. It was a simple box and my father was inside. I kept saying "He can't be dead" over and over again. Finally, I went over and leaned down to touch him. His skin was warm. And just as I grasped him, he opened his eyes and looked into mine and said,"I'm not dead. I love you and am here with you." I had this feeling of relief and joy. And started yelling, "See, he's not dead!" After that I tried to hold onto the dream because it was so good but gradually woke up.

I'm not sure what to make of this dream. What I think it means is that my father's spirit is still with me, telling me that in spite of the troubles that happened between us, he loves me. I have made my amends to him and maybe his spirit is now filled with love and can be at peace.

The circle game

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you're older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him,
Take your time, it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Joni Mitchell

I've always found this song by Joni Mitchell sad yet filled with promise. It's true that when we're young, everything is a wonder. I can remember clearly that the days of summer seemed to be the happiest because I could play with my friends or by myself and be happy either way. Everything was new and exciting.

Just as the lyrics say, it wasn't long before I saw that time was fleeting and life was changing to focus on responsibilities. But now I'm seeing that I don't have to get lost in drudgery. I can still dream, and those dreams are just as good and maybe better than those that I had when younger. I think that there will be lots to enjoy in life before that last revolving year is through.

Rocket Man

Most of us on board were able to see the shuttle launch. We were about 70 miles from Cape Canaveral when it went off. It was good to see it go up and I couldn't help but feel pride in the technological accomplishments that we have made in science. Maybe because I've spent my whole career in science, it just seems a marvel that we have accomplished so much technologically, yet there is the flip side in which I wonder have we made a difference for the planet.

All signs point to the fact that things aren't getting better--water quality isn't better, air quality isn't much better, habitat is being lost, fisheries are depleted and global warming is looming. The populace seems to care more about Paris Hilton than about education or the environment. Those kinds of things are really disturbing. But for at least that brief shining moment last night, I could be a kid and look at that big rocket booster and the tiny shuttle being propelled with human cargo into space. We all cheered as we watched the orange ball and the contrail streak across the sky. Makes me want to be a rocket man for a day.

Life's Choices

I was talking to a good friend on the ship. He thinks that it's time that he decides what he wants to do with his life. At 44 years old, he works as an AB on the ship. He's worked on tugboats for several years before being on here. Before that there were "lost" years though that took him in a downward spiral from which he thankfully escaped from over 16 years ago. When I listen to what he says, I think that he has these dreams that may or may not be fulfilled. He really wants to be a tugboat captain which is attainable if you can pass all the tests. I know that he has the intelligence, but he has a hard time with testing. He said that a career would make him successful in terms of American expectations. I really hope that his dreams are fulfilled and for the right reasons.

Too many of us have dreams that are a result of what others want and expect us to do. I have spent the greater part of my life trying to please others, achieving because that was a way to fill the emptiness. Now, I just am pleasing my self. Maybe the difference is that I have achieved and after all is said and done, I wasn't any happier. Now, I'm happy because I don't have to prove anything. I've done what I need to do and can look forward to doing what I want to do. That's a neat position to be in.