i caressed her lightly across the nape of the neck
because such touch signals connection
she turned her head to see who it might be
and it was me
i wasn’t expecting fireworks or glee
and certainly not my perplexity
her eyes remained passive
no upturn of lip and no instinctive lean or reach toward me
it was apathy, and observation
reciprocity of reaction is what we take for granted
where interest or love intertwine
i turned and let my feet fleet me away
i left changed
knowledge is pitiless
X
In October 2020, I had a gong go off in my head. One consequence is that after 40-something years, possibly 50, I stopped biting my fingernails. The other result was that I lost a chunk of my body. On purpose, even though a sword chop at times is likely.
Recently, I realized that I had transitioned from nibbling my nails to biting them like a rabid hyena. Looking closely at the photo, you can see the ragged mess I’ve made of my fingers. This is an example of the subconscious and anxiety fighting its way through the layers we use to camouflage ourselves. I don’t know if I will get another gong about my nails. So, I might have to resort to old-fashioned and punitive behavior modification. I could go and drive a few dozen nails with a hammer. My dubious accuracy will result in painful fingertips. I’m not proud that I’ve returned to nail biting. Weirdly, though, I don’t keep it secret. My self-image is acceptance. I rarely get self-conscious. It’s definitely not because I look like George Clooney. My spirit animal is much closer to Danny DeVito. I’d rather post a picture of it than attempt to keep it secret foolishly. For anyone young reading this, no matter what you do, age is creeping up behind you. You wake up one morning and realize that you can’t sneeze without risk of injury and that parts of your face look like road maps.
The second part is the date behind my hand. On March 4th, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and revert to my infallible weight maintenance method. While I was only up to 175, I had recently attempted to motivate someone to start the difficult process of reaching their goal. I hit my March 31st goal yesterday. And I’ll be down 10 more soon enough to return to 160, where I belong. I can’t explain how I have so much confidence in one area of my life yet consistently fail in others. Once you realize the problem is you and in your head, the lever is consistency. I don’t count calories – and not only because I lose count after ten fingers. I eat a lot of unhealthy foods when I’m doing my thing. And I hate the word “unhealthy” in this context. During my recent excursion, I cooked my first filet mignon. No one vomited or passed away as a result, so my effort was at least minimally a success.
So many of us fall into the trap of reminding one another that it’s just a question of mindset. But so many things are complicated. Even though we sometimes act like we’ve been recently hit over the head repeatedly, the truth is that thinking and cognitive ability often lose the war to reality. We know, but we don’t act. Or, more likely, we rationalize. Push it off until later. We all know how that works out.
One of my brilliant ideas is to offer someone the right to smack me in the face if they see my fingers near my mouth. (I surmise people would gladly do it for free and often, so the additional carrot of money is a sure-fire option.) It’s ironic that one of my weight loss mantras is “Don’t put it in your mouth,” yet that won’t translate to me not biting my nails like I’m using an old-school typewriter.
In the I-dodged-another-one part of my life, I found out that my equilibrium issue was caused by an ear infection. They didn’t do a brain scan because the last time, it took them 42 minutes to find mine. As most of you will testify, I usually keep it unplugged anyway. I can’t leave it unplugged long, though. The last three times I tried to live without my brain, I received 16 promotion offers. (Something about being the ideal candidate.)
Love, X
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Take all the time you need. It’s infinite, after all, isn’t it? I’ll not take offense at how you apportion it. For in the apportioning, we gauge our importance. The pie is of equal radius for each of us. How we slice it is for us to determine. And for others to wonder why they go hungry in the apportioning. My words sometimes lean towards cynicism. For that lesser emotion, I can only ask for forgiveness. Cynicism is at its heart both frustration and anger. We imagine how things should be or how we wish they would be. Sometimes founded with experience and sometimes amplified by a dark filter we hold in front of our eyes. We judge others for how they slice and apportion their pie. Even as we fail to measure our own. If you are not deliberately apportioning your pie and life and giving your time to the things that matter to you, you’ve lost. You’re supposed to listen to me about some of these things. Because I sit and contemplate my hypocrisy when I write things like this.
Love, X
Personal words and a truth to be understood.
Age
You wouldn’t enthusiastically take advantage of another opportunity to return to your youth. Invariably, when discussion of such a fantasy arises, the older giveaway their intentions by framing it in terms of money. Money gives options. But there are few among us who truly shine in the application of appreciating that time and experiences are what makes life worthwhile. Stop telling the younger generation to take advantage. With your wrinkled brow, we see you. Failing to balance the opportunity of the day or the years ahead of you. No one knows when the shadow might darken their door. Your age and experience should push you to squeeze out both simple pleasures and large. The decades behind you paved an infinite path of choices. Just as the young people in front of you might if they’re lucky. It’s hard to expect yolo or carpe diem from the younger generation because we have the disparate expectations of responsibility and stability. For similar reasons, the older among us can’t let go of the stability tethers that we need. Both groups are in the same boat. Regardless, living by example is the best sermon you can give anyone. Words are easy and change is hard. Most of us can’t even gleefully listen to another genre of music without being dismissive. Much less trying new foods, new words, or mindsets that might serve us better. We reach the point where we decide we’re done. Routine and stability bring comfort. But they also suffocate the opportunity to become renewed.
Love, X
“The ax forgets. The tree remembers.”
Once you’ve let someone down, it tends to leave a scar. Once those words escape your lips, they could echo forever to the person hearing them. It’s impossible to know the alchemy in someone’s brain and heart that converts something seemingly inconsequential into a wound. If you speak in anger or through the bravado of substances, though you said or did those words or deeds solely with the desire to inflict pain, these things break both trust and connection. I’ve been both the guilty party and receiver many times. Once words are born into the world or behavior is demonstrated, the ripple effect may be permanent. If you say the words in anger, it demonstrates the urge to cause pain. If you say them under the influence, it is truth exposed only through the virtue of a lack of inhibition. If you commit words or behavior to a chapter in your life without the intention of pain, an apology born in one’s heart is the only place to start. Ears and hearts conceal scars inflicted long ago. And they shape the perspective and outlook of the person receiving them.
Love, X
When you are interested in many things, it’s bewildering for someone near you not to want to experience it. Especially the expressive parts that reveal not only the goings-on of the day but glimpses into the invisible world each of us has in our own mind. It is sacrosanct that interest and enthusiasm at least simmer in one’s direction, if not boil effusively.
People are never complete unless they are finished. There’s always something new about them if their mind is fresh and their attention is focused.
We’re supposed to reward those who don’t conceal themselves. It’s authenticity rendered in flesh and bone, words and behavior. Such people are making bids without thinking.
Gottman studies the role of bids in romantic relationships. (And some can be applied to worldly interpersonal connections.) The higher the bids toward another person, the deeper the relationship and connection. As these bids lessen or go unreturned, you can chart the connection’s demise. If you’re unfamiliar with the Gottman research, it’s extensive and provides words to frame many of the things you already know and feel.
I feel strongly about all of this. I’m one of those people who unobtrusively shares a hell of a lot of myself, whether you’re standing in front of me or whether I opt for the virtual world. My bid is constant. I’m meeting people more than halfway. I scratch my head in puzzlement and then bewilderment when people sharing my lane fail to understand that time is taken rather than made. People say they seek connection and understanding. But then many engage superficially or let the external intrude where it should not. It hasn’t helped that we now carry universal entertainment and distraction devices in our pockets.
PS I’ve said it 23,467 times: everything that matters is invisible. Among those are love, kinship, friendship, energy, enthusiasm, and interest. Each of us has limited time; your choices indicate what holds value for you.
Love, X
So many people complicate it.
Or insist that it’s a control issue.
When done maturely, both people decide what’s right and important for each of them. Each has free will and choice.
Love, X
NSFW due to a wild mix of subject matter and personal commentary…
My brother Mike died without fulfilling my desire that he write a book. He absorbed the false honor narrative of some of my family members. He was a big man, my brother. I took these rules from conversations that Mike and I had on the phone when he was winding down. I’ve shared pieces of them before. My brother Mike had an interesting life. He was a great writer. We both recognized that between the two of us, we might be able to capture the horror, dark humor, and insights that we experienced. Of all the things that piss me off about the way he went out, it’s that he didn’t have enough clarity to see that he should pull up and find a way to live a few more years. Had he chosen to find a way, the resulting book we would have written would have been an irreverent mixture of Pat Conroy and Stephen King.
I’m paraphrasing my dad: “You’re going to get punched in the f mouth. There’s no doubt about it.”
My brother Mike saw a few fights that I didn’t. While I did witness my dad getting his ass whipped, Mike saw a few more of these than I did. Dad had whiskey courage. He read a few too many Westerns and got the wrong lesson out of most of the movies.
Take them for what you will. My dad was a walking contradiction. I despise a lot of what he did. But I understand it a hell of a lot better as I get older.
Rules:
If you’re going to drink in a bar, you’re going to need to be deaf or have a thick skull.
If your buddy is getting his ass whipped, you have to get your ass whipped too.
If someone threatens you… There are no rules, no warning. Do not think about it. Start hitting.
If someone says they’re going to whip your ass, don’t wait for them to prove it.
If they’re close enough to hit you, hit them first. Don’t stop hitting until they’re down.
The most dangerous man is never the loudest.
Don’t punch them more than you need to. But if they are intent on killing you, don’t walk away when they’re on the ground.
If they dress like a dandy, they will not want to get dirty. If they wear a tight shirt, it’s a sure sign that their muscles are for show. Except if they have dirty, scruffed-up boots. You don’t mess around with people who work hard for a living.
Nuts, throat, nose. If those don’t work, bite anything that gets near your mouth.
There’s no such thing as fighting dirty. If they are coming for you, everything in the room is fair game.
If you deserve to get punched, let them hit you in the face. If they attempt to give you more than what you’ve got coming, remind them that you’re a dirty bastard.
Once you’re done fighting, men have a drink. If you can’t have a drink with a man you just fought with, you’re not worth the hat that sits on your head.
…
Dad tried to make a man out of me. Whatever that means. He had his demons. A great deal of his alleged teaching resulted in me choosing the opposite. I never could get my head around that kind of violence. But if you ask me if I understand it, the answer is yes. Especially so when the universe fails or when people fail to honor the fact that violence should never be out of proportion to what caused it. Dad scrambled my brains a few times, but one thing that came out of it was that I learned that many fights come out of nowhere. And a few people who should have scared me didn’t. That’s a part of the Bobby Dean legacy that fills me with contradiction.
I’m forgetting a few of his rules. Despite some of the negative things I have to say about him, he surprised my brother and me many times with how he phrased things. I sometimes forget that he was smart. I would snarkily mention that he often failed to incorporate his intelligence into his behavior. But I’m tired of getting hit by a bolt of hypocritical lightning.
I’ve confessed before that my brother and I actively thought about killing my dad more than once. I’m not proud of it. But if Dad had survived a few more years, he would have appreciated the dark humor of this truth a lot more. Mike realized when we got older that it probably would have been me who would have done it because I experienced and witnessed a lot more of the violence. When my brother Mike got older, Dad looked at him much differently. Mike would have hurled him through the kitchen window like firewood.
Knowing them both, I am 100% certain that one of them would have pulled out the whiskey bottle and poured the other a shot.
They were the kind of men I did not aspire to become. Whatever dark streak ran through them has luckily remained mostly dormant in me. I’d love to have the devilish prankster spirit. I wouldn’t tie someone to a hunting camp tree stump and light it, but I would enjoy making someone think it could happen. There is a fine line between lunacy and free-spiritedness.
I’m sharing this because it’s supposed to be a tip of the hat. It’s not an accusation. The history is there, written as fact in my mind. One of the crazy lessons of ambivalence is that you can witness a tornado but fall in love with how the lightning looks across the sky. Life can be appreciated similarly, even if you would rather flip the light switch off for some moments.
Love, X
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I’ve reminded many people about this because it infects many relationships. Pay attention to what your person says they want or need. They’ll repeat it – until one day, they go silent. That silence equals danger.
Love, X
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 