What's been happening here

It has been cold here for the last few days.  I went to the boat to spend the night in the worst of it.  And there was ice on the inside of the V berth bronze porthole when I awoke on Thursday morning.  I fired up the propane heater and the oven which helped to bring the temperature up to 70 F.

The cold would likely have killed a little puppy that I picked up off the highway when I was heading home on New Year's Day.  I had been to the gym in the early evening.  As I was turning onto our dirt road from the tarmac, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.  It was a puppy, scared and a bit wet from coming out of the field ditch.  I brought the little one home, fed him, and picked about a dozen ticks off.  We both thought that he was the smartest pup because he did not once use his crate for pooping or peeing.

I sent emails to the local vets and rescue groups with his cute photo.  Several people called about him. Last night, he was adopted by a couple who seem to be a good fit for the puppy.  As with any animal, I told them that if he didn't work out, to bring him back.  He definitely is adorable and very smart.

Sadly, there is tragedy already started so quickly in 2015.  Sickening world news of senseless killing, martyrdom, and all the other crazy happenings that make me want to retreat to the island, boat or barn and isolate. 

And locally, a man who I have known for over 30 years lost his only son to suicide on January 6.  The young man, age 22 was a senior in college, and had been distraught because of a breakup with his girlfriend.  I cannot begin to imagine this kind of pain for the parents or the kind of despair that the son felt to want to die.  

And I keep thinking to myself that I am lucky to be here. To have survived this long in spite of so many things that might have also taken me down.  I hope that my luck in living continues.  And I hope that those who are in despair today will find some comfort eventually.  I remain upbeat today.  Happy to be healthy and to have a lot of living to do.   

Thoughts on a full life and a life gone

Time has once again slipped away here.  I have been nearly consumed with the bathroom renovations, working out, gardening, horseback riding, sailing, working on lectures for a class, and going to meetings. Some days it feels as if I have taken on so many projects that I will not get any of them done.

I don't think that I am running away from anything by keeping busy. I have looked at my motives and find that I have so many interests and not so much time to get to them all.  At any rate, I am having fun with what I am doing. I suppose that's the important thing.

Today is my Al-Anon anniversary.  Eight years ago I walked into my first meeting knowing that if I didn't change my outlook on life, I would not make it. I was thinking that suicide would be a good way to end the turmoil in my life. After all, no one would really care whether I was gone or not.  That kind of thinking is what brings a person to their knees:  wishing that things could be different, wishing that words could be taken back, wishing to stop the anger and the fear but not knowing how to let anything go or make anything right.

Fortunately, a good friend in the AA program told me that I needed to go to Al-Anon.  I had resisted an earlier suggestion years before that I needed it, because I thought that therapy would be the answer.  Unfortunately, therapy didn't make me feel better about myself.  Instead, I felt more angry than ever because I tended to blame my feelings on what others had done to me.

And so here I am eight years later.  My wife is in AA, sober and loves me.  I have friends in the program that I treasure.  I no longer want to end my life but live it to the hilt. I have struck out to do new things, pick up some old hobbies that I gave up years ago, and have learned to not obsess about what others are doing.  I have a lot of joy in my life these days.  Every day is a new adventure and a chance to live as fully as I can.

I do have moments when I worry.  I sometimes feel sad that we have no family left, except for cousins.  I fully admit that I don't know what I would do without my wife.  She is my heart.  My fear of losing her is kept at bay for the most part. But as we age, it gets harder to ignore the ticking clock.

Her depression remains a concern.  For the most part, she is happy and stays busy. But then there are the quiet days in which I know instinctively that she is depressed. Alcoholism and depression are so often companions in destruction.

Occurrences like the suicidal deaths of Robin Williams yesterday and so many others, including friends of mine, remind me of just how fragile our psyche is. When my friend, K., decided to end her life a few years ago, I was distraught. She had 26 years of sobriety, died sober,  but had suffered terribly over the past year with severe depression which had occurred on and off throughout her life.

People are taken to the depths of despair by depression.  I watched my own mother struggle with deep depression. There is no way to know when a person has run out of options and has decided to make the final decision to end their life.  Most of us wonder if there was something that we could have done.  If any one of the people who decide to end their life had reached out, a dozen or more hands would have been there ready to grasp theirs. But would that make any difference?  I don't know.

Lots to think about today.  A full life, a life gone, and the circle repeats again and again.  Hope that you are all in an okay place today.

Senseless

I know that it is true that things can change in an instant.   Last night,  the mother of the young woman who looks after my MIL shot and killed herself.  J. and her fiance had just gotten home today from a week of much deserved vacation.  She got the call this evening about her mother's suicide.

I talked to J. a while ago about her dad's drinking.  Evidently, he had been sober for a couple of years but recently had begun drinking again.  J. told me that her mother really needed help because she was struggling with her husband's alcoholism.  And now this.  Alcoholism has claimed another victim.

C. and I cannot begin to imagine how difficult this must be for J.  She is an only child who has been planning her wedding to B. in February.  It's hard to make any sense of senseless deaths.  I don't have much else to say.  I'm just sorry for the misery that people have and the consequences of complete loss of hope.  It seems pointless to look for answers.  These words from David Foster Wallace who took his own life seem to help me somewhat understand:


"The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." 

The view from the bridge

We started the day with a nice walk along the dirt road leading to the farm.  The dogs were wild for sniffing at animal scent left from the deer, foxes, raccoons, opossums, bob cats, and other night creatures that come out to the road after dark.  After a while, the dogs settled into a rhythmic cadence, not straining on their leads as when we first started out.

It is warm today, nearly 75 F.  It still feels like fall to me.  But I will take it over the long days of cold weather that would permeate whatever I put on in Virginia.  Yesterday at the marina was picture perfect--blue sky, light winds, warm temperatures.  I watched the boats going past looking for the body of a young woman who jumped from the bridge over the weekend. Her body has not been found.

She was described as her room mates as cheerful, vivacious, beautiful, athletic, and from a loving family.  Yet, for some reason, she decided to scramble over the barricade that separates the walkers and runners from the precipitous edge of the bridge and jump over 160 feet into the water below.  A passerby said that she saw the young woman standing there, and she turned to smile.  A smile of resignation?  A smile of happiness at her decision?  I don't know, but I wonder what can be so awful at 20 years of age that makes you end your life.

The view from the top of that bridge is spectacular.  The harbor is before you, the church steeples in the city,  the masts of sailboats at the marina--all of it makes a breath taking panorama.  Maybe she was so caught in pain that she didn't really see.  But somehow I hope that she did ultimately see all of it rushing by as she took that plunge.  And maybe it made her feel peaceful for a split second.

Today is such a day

ON A DAY WHEN THE WIND IS PERFECT

On a day
when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a
day.

My eyes are like the sun that makes promises;

the promise of life

that it always

keeps

 each morning.

The living heart gives to us as does that luminous sphere,
both caress the earth with great
tenderness.

This is a breeze that can enter the soul.
This love I know plays a drum.  Arms move around me;
who can contain their self before my beauty?

Peace is wonderful,
but ecstatic dance is more fun, and less narcissistic;
gregarious He makes our lips.

On a day when the wind is perfect,
the sail just needs to open
and the love starts.

Today is such
a day.

~ Rumi ~

Thinking about a friend who killed herself a year ago today.  I wish that she were still here to enjoy the ecstatic dance. Today the sails have opened and the love has started.