On the Law of the Harvest (Blog #822)

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Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

The above poem is part of A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (a long-named fellow). I memorized it in high school because my English teacher was a Nazi about her students memorizing poems. We’d start every class by reciting them. One line, two lines, one paragraph at a time. Each day or week we’d add on until our entire class had an entire poem memorized. Then it was on to another. Anyway, this particular poem has been on my mind the last few days because I heard someone on a podcast mention it and looked it back up. Sure enough, after just one reading, my mind remembered the whole thing.

Thank you, Mrs. Shipman.

In yesterday’s blog I said I wasn’t feeling great. Well, damn it, I woke up today with a sinus infection. So after breakfast I went hunting for kimchi, since it contains a bacteria (if you’re lucky enough to get a recently-made batch) that’s helped me a number of times in the past . Anyway, we’ll see what happens. If things don’t improve within the next two days, I’ll know I need to go a different route.

Recently I read a book about how to cure, or at least dramatically improve, essential tremors, an inherited condition I, well, inherited and basically amounts to involuntary shaking. My dad’s case is pretty bad–sometimes he can’t hold a cup of coffee–but my case isn’t as severe. Still, I don’t want it to get worse, so I’m trying to learn about its causes and treatments. Back to the book, the author suggests cutting out or drastically cutting back on–coffee, alcohol, liquids stored in plastic containers (like bottled water or milk), and all products containing heavy metals like aluminum (for example, most frying pans, soda cans, and deodorants). And whereas I’ve been thinking about attempting this plan, I haven’t quite been ready to bite the bullet because–in a word–coffee.

Y’all, I gave up coffee after my knee surgery last December for a few months. It wasn’t terrible. I drank a lot of tea. Still, I fundamentally enjoy coffee, so I let it creep back in. By creep I mean that I at first had a couple cups a week, and for the last three months I’ve had–on average–a pot a day. By myself. This, of course, doesn’t help the shaking, nor does it help my sleep patterns. Oh well. I’m not a perfect person.

All this (and I know it’s a lot) to say that when I woke up with a sinus infection today I thought, Let’s give up coffee! Because coffee doesn’t sound good when I’m sick, and if I’m going to go through caffeine withdrawals, I might as well do it when I’m already sick. You know, just suck it up and be one miserable-ass sonofabitch (nothing personal, Mom), which I’m quite sure is what I have been all day today. This afternoon my family had a cookout, and I don’t think I said three words to anybody. Still, this was authentic for me. I felt cranky. I acted cranky. To minimize the fallout, I kept to myself.

After the cookout, I took a nap. That helped. Then I painted a friend’s cabinets for a couple hours, long enough to apply one full coat over the already applied primer. Alas, I’m sure another coat will be needed. Now I’m blogging and doing laundry. Just before I sat down to write, I moved my clothes from the washer to the dryer and hung my shirts to air-dry on hangers. Whenever I don’t feel well (or am going through caffeine withdrawals, or both), I feel generally overwhelmed, so I keep thinking about all the projects I’ve started I haven’t finished–books I’m in the middle of, weight I haven’t lost. I’ve especially been worrying about the short story I started that I’ve yet to complete for the writing class I’m taking and is technically due this Tuesday. Seriously, it may not happen.

Who wants to write when you’re sick?

The line from Longfellow’s poem that’s been stuck in my head is “learn to labor and to wait.” In my experience, the waiting is the hard part. For example, with my sinus infection, there are certain actions I can take, but ultimately I have to give my body time to (hopefully) rebalance itself. With my essential tremors, the lifestyle changes may help, but nothing’s going to happen over night. Like painting cabinets, washing clothes, reading a book, or writing a short story (did I give enough examples?), everything is a process. Poems are memorized one line at a time. And whereas I wish almost everything happened at a faster pace, I’m learning to trust that if one is willing to both labor and wait, the desired results will come. This is the law of the harvest. You reap what you sow.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Bodies are so mysterious, much more complicated than car doors. They take more patience to understand and work with. They require more than a couple hours to repair.

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Unbound (Blog #821)

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Currently it’s almost midnight, and I’m just sitting down to write. Where has the day gone? Of course, I know. Last night I was up until four, so I slept in this morning. This afternoon I drove out-of-town to teach a two-hour dance lesson, and this evening I ran errands and helped my aunt assemble some new lamps she recently bought. Then I came home and surfed the internet to wind down. Now here I am, typing, trying to focus but mostly distracted by the fact that I’m tired and feel a little gross. I hope I’m not coming down with something.

I hope I can stop worrying about it.

For the last several weeks I’ve been attending a short-story writing class taught by my friend Marla. The idea behind the class is that we the students will produce a fully fleshed-out short story (of about 1,500 words) by the end of the class, this coming Tuesday. That’s three days from now. And whereas I’ve STARTED a short story and have about 400 words, I’m at a loss for where to go next. For the last four nights (including tonight), I’ve told myself I’d sit down and work on “that thing,” and yet it hasn’t happened. Instead, life has happened. There have been lawns to mow, lessons to teach, books to read, blogs to write, and interwebs to surf.

Ugh, this has caused a lot of internal tension. I keep thinking I’ve GOT to finish that story, that I’ve GOT to have something to read this Tuesday, and that it’s GOT to be good. Great even. And yet I haven’t made writing–or at least trying to write–that story a priority. Consequently, this has become a reason for me to–metaphorically speaking–kick myself in my own shins. Geez, Marcus, would you stop being so lazy? What’s wrong with you? Way to let everybody down.

Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Last night I started reading a book by David Spangler called Everyday Miracles: The Inner Art of Manifestation. I’ve read a lot of books along these lines, and, so far, this one is the best. At least it makes the most sense to me. The author says he’s always had difficulties with traditional approaches to manifestation like positive thinking, affirmations, and rote visualization, and that’s been my experience too. Anyway, I’m only about halfway through the book, but one of the things it suggests when you’re wanting something in your life to change is to 1) get in touch with your current essence and 2) get in touch with the essence of that which you desire. For example, because I get a lot of tension headaches, I’d like to manifest a life without tension headaches. (Is that so much to ask?) So when I did the “essence” exercises last night, my current essence felt like “tension,” and my desired essence felt like “freedom.”

As I’ve thought about this today, I’ve realized that more than feeling tension in my head, I feel constriction. Like things are clamped down, not as open as they could be. Also, I’ve realized that I feel constriction in almost every area of my life–in my finances (scarcity), in my body (in my head, neck, shoulders, and hips), and in my relationships (because, until recently, I’ve so often bitten my tongue or hidden who I really am). In this sense, the headaches I experience are a mirror for how I really feel deep down–bound up. This is what it feels like when I’m afraid of being sick or afraid of not producing a short story or anything else in my life, like I’m–um–frozen.

Stuck.

I’m working on this. Physically, I’m doing all that I know how to do–exercising, stretching, myofascial release. In terms of the pressure I put on myself to be healthy or “get shit done,” I’m trying to listen to my body. For example, when I finish blogging, I’m going to bed. Rather than force myself to stay up and try to write or do other work, I’m giving myself a pass. Hell, Marla told me that if I don’t finish my story, “that’s okay.” There you have it, permission from the teacher to not be perfect. Ugh. Trying to be perfect. Again, that feels like constriction. But permission to not be perfect, that feels like freedom. Going easier on myself, that feels like freedom. This is something I’m learning, that freedom, more than anything else, is a state of mind, a place you visit inside yourself where you can let go–let go of all constrictions and self-imposed expectations and be yourself, unbound.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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A friend’s laughter takes us backward and carries us forward simultaneously.

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On Rip Van Winkle (Blog #820)

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I’ve said before that I sometimes have dreams of yelling at people. Saying, “Fuck you, Nancy!” and things like that. Well, I also have daytime fantasies of telling people off, courtroom-type dramas in which I either replay a situation that happened weeks or years ago or imagine a future circumstance in which I get to tell someone to “Go to hell, Harry!” I don’t know if you do this sort of thing, but it’s fun. At the same time, it’s exhausting, since it’s like the past is never over, the future never safe.

It’s like you’re never–what’s the word?–free.

When I’ve talked to my therapist about these fantasies, we’ve agreed it’s because I’ve spent so much of my life not saying what I really feel. By trying to be everyone’s friend and get everybody to like me I’ve essentially created an imbalance. That’s what the dreams and fantasies are about, evening things out, since, really, I’m neither Mr. Nice Guy or Mr. Asshole. I’m somewhere in between I’m Fine and I’m Pissed Off As All Get Out.

We all are.

Because the pissed-off part of me refuses to go away on its own, I’ve been working on speaking up when I’m angry. Not because it’s fun or pleasant, but because, in my experience, every part of me deserves to be heard and–here’s something–staying silent doesn’t work. Well, it works if you want to make other people happy instead of yourself and–consequently–create a lot of internal anxiety, nervousness, tension, and stress. Not to mention a stomach ulcer and inauthentic relationships. Biting your tongue is great for these things. However, having tried people pleasing, biting my tongue, and being “nice” for decades and realizing (finally) that they can’t give me what I want (personal freedom, inner peace, and happiness), I’m trying something novel–honesty.

A couple examples.

Lately I’ve been posting my blogs to my Instagram account, and after I posted yesterday’s blog, someone I don’t even know, a mental health worker in Texas, commented, “Love this! Mental health is so important! Check out my profile if you’d like; I’m all about giving people the tools they need in order to get to be where they want to be!” Well, this immediately pissed me off, and not just because they used an exclamation point at the end of every sentence. I kept thinking of a business friend of mine who always says, “Build a relationship with me before you try to sell me something.” Anyway, two years ago I would have brushed the whole thing off thinking, What if I upset this person? What’s it even matter? But as I’ve said before, our emotions show up for a reason, and if we don’t listen to and honor them, we’re going to pay the price.

So I responded: “Thank you, and I agree. Also, my comments section is for conversation and isn’t intended as a billboard for total strangers to use. #boundaries”

Immediately, I felt better. And whereas part of me wondered if I ruined this person’s evening, the majority of me didn’t care. Because they showed up on my turf and started it. If they had a bad evening, they did that. Plus, and this is an important point, I wasn’t a total dick. In other words, although my pissed-off fantasies often involve name-calling and violence (and if yours don’t, you’re not being honest with yourself), I didn’t demean this person as a human or “fight dirty.” Instead, I firmly said, “I’m not okay with what you did there.”

Along similar lines, tonight my Dad and I went to Waffle House, and our waiter was, in my opinion, a little too friendly. I don’t know, I like space when I eat, and this fella was up in our grill, dancing and singing around our table. Then when he brought our ticket and Dad said he couldn’t read the small print and I said I’d help him, the waiter stood there watching and eventually said, “Are you gonna make him wait?” To which I replied, “Well, I’m waiting for to walk away.” (He did.) Why did I say this? For one thing, because I didn’t want to discuss money and this guy’s tip in front of him. For another, it was the plain, simple truth–I WAS waiting for him to walk away.

A while back I ran into someone with whom I’d had a bit of a falling out. In my mind the whole situation was a big damn deal, but, really, things were just awkward. In this respect, the running into each other was a good thing because it forced a changed in my perspective. Also, it gave me a chance to be honest. That is, when the falling out was eventually brought up by the other person, I got real serious and said, “We can talk about that if you’d like.” In response, they said, “Oh, it’s no big deal. Water under the bridge.” And whereas I was thankful they didn’t call me a bastard or throw their drink on me, I had a hard time believing it truly wasn’t a big deal, or at least a little deal. If that had been the case, they wouldn’t have brought it up.

My therapist says that most of us live our lives unconsciously. This means we’re not truly aware of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and THIS means we’re not truly in touch with our own behavior. Consequently, we say things like “it’s fine” and “water under the bridge” even if we don’t mean it. (Here I’m speaking from my personal experience, as I grant that I can’t know what was true for the person I mentioned above.) We play nice and bite our tongues, then wonder why our stomach hurts or why we dream about throwing things. The truth slips out in sarcastic comments and passive aggressive statements.

Remember the story of Rip Van Winkle? I read it tonight, and it’s about an unhappy, passive, “hen-pecked” husband who’d rather attend to anyone’s business but his own who falls asleep for decades. When he wakes up, his entire world has changed. There are new shops in town, his wife is dead. He’s absolutely elated–he’s finally free. Again, this is about living unconsciously versus consciously. When you’re unconscious, you “go along to get along,” you put everyone else first. When you’re conscious, you’re free, free to be yourself, whatever that looks like–happy, elated, somber, pissed-off.

Freedom is worth all the effort.

Sometimes my therapist shares helpful examples from her personal life, and recently she told me that she was involved in some difficult circumstances that required her being honest. And whereas my experience of her is that she LOVES confrontation (because she’s told me this before), she said that lately it’s been challenging. Because sometimes life is hard and doesn’t let up. “Would it be easier to roll over or let things slide?” she said. “Of course it would. But I did that for years, and I’m not going back to sleep.” Both then and now, this statement–I’m not going back to sleep–brings tears to my eyes. Because as difficult as it is to speak up, advocate for myself, and have difficult conversations, the consequences of staying silent are worse. I’ve been asleep, and it’s hell. And not that I claim to be fully awake, but, if like Rip Van Winkle, it takes me twenty years (or twenty lifetimes) to fully wake up, so be it. Having tasted freedom, I know freedom is worth all the effort.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Just as there’s day and night literally, there’s also day and night emotionally. Like the sun, one minute we’re up, the next minute we’re down. Our perspectives change constantly. There’s nothing wrong with this. The constellations get turned around once a day, so why can’t you and I? Under heaven, there’s room enough for everything–the sun, the moon and stars, and all our emotions. Yes, the universe–our home–is large enough to hold every bit of us.

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Let’s Talk about Poop (Blog #819)

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This morning I mowed my parents’ lawn, and because the grass was both thick and damp, made an absolute mess of myself. You should have seen my legs. They looked like they belonged to someone of a different nationality. I had my shirt off, and even my back was covered in filth. Afterwards, when I was in the shower, the water slowly washed it all away. For a moment the dirt, mud, and grass swirled around the shower drain then eventually went to live somewhere else, somewhere other than my body.

Last night I redecorated my room because yesterday afternoon I bought a new (to me) statue at an antique store and wanted to display it. As I mentioned in last night’s blog, finding a place to put the statue led to rearranging almost everything on the piece of furniture where the statue now sits. This “moving around” process has continued today. After I mowed the lawn and took a shower, I combed through all of my on-display possessions in an attempt to listen to the voice inside me that was telling me it was time to “purge,” to clean up my room like I’d just cleaned up my body. And whereas when it was all over I’d gathered up a handful of books to donate to a local library, I first had an internal struggle.

My “purge” voice said, “Get rid of that book. You don’t need it. Let someone else enjoy it.”

Then my “hold on” voice said, “But it’s pretty. It has a nice cover. I like it.”

Then my “scarcity” voice said, “What if we NEED it later? What if we never find another book like it? What if there’s NOT ENOUGH?”

Finally, Marcus at the Head of the Table made a decision. “We’re getting rid of that book,” I said. “End of discussion.”

Honestly, I was almost swayed by my “hold on” voice. I’ve let go of a lot over the last few years–most of my worldly possessions and not a few relationships. Haven’t I given up enough already? Can’t I hold on to a book if I want to?

Well, yes and no.

I’ll explain.

Our souls don’t cling to A Thing.

I have a lot of possessions that I like and enjoy but am not “attached” to. This means my butt might pucker a little if someone were to break or steal them, but, by the end of the day, I could gladly part with them. However, there are certain items that part of me clings to, that like Gollum in The Hobbit says, “We needs it.” This is when I absolutely know the best thing to do is buckle down and balls-to-the-wall set it free. Because we’re born into this life with nothing, and we leave with nothing, and I’ll be damned if a book or any other physical possession is going to turn me into a “hanger-on-er.” Our souls arrive free, and they leave free. They don’t cling to A Thing.

Byron Katie says that “letting go is sometimes experienced as sadness,” but that ultimately the sadness you feel isn’t about letting go of any possession (or person), but rather about letting go of your beliefs–the belief that you NEED something (or someone), the belief that you’re more or less because you have it (or them) or not. Yesterday I said that because everything in life is connected, changing one thing means changing everything. This applies to physical, outer-world changes, and especially to non-physical, inner-world changes, or–beliefs. As Katie would say, the letting go of a belief is the letting go of “a whole world.”

So of course you’d be sad.

Last night I went to dinner with my friend Kate and her four-year-old son. We all rode to the restaurant together, and at some point during the ride Kate’s son–out of the blue and unprovoked–said, “Marcus, let’s talk about poop.” Kate and I laughed, and I said, “Okay, let’s talk about poop.” Later I told Kate, “That’s going to be the name of a blog post,” and it’s pretty much been all I’ve been able to think about today, mostly because poop is the perfect metaphor for letting go and getting rid of that which no longer serves you. Sooner or later, you gotta do it. If you don’t, you’re gonna have a problem.

So get this shit. (See what I did there?) Today Kate’s husband, Aaron, posted a meme about that feeling you get when you’re ALMOST HOME but losing the “I gotta go number two” battle. I’ll spare you the visual details, but my initial reaction to his bathroom humor was the same as Aaron’s Mom, who said, “That’s really GROSS.” Well, Aaron, ever the comedian, responded, “The truth is gross, Mom.”

Amen. Truer words were never spoken.

In my adventures in mental health and personal and spiritual growth, the truth is nasty, filthy, a monster, and rarely fun. Like poop, it’s anything but cute. What I mean is that it’s hard as hell to get honest with yourself and others. Since starting this journey, I’ve had more difficult conversations with people I love or have loved than I care to recount. Often these conversations looked like confrontations, confrontations I either started or was on the receiving end of. My therapist says, “Is it fun to have these talks? No. Would I rather talk about something trivial? Yes. But uncomfortable, truthful conversations are the foundation or healthy relationships.”

In my experience, although I wish there were another way, this is accurate. For years, decades, I tried to hold on to my secrets until they were finally too much and I got the courage to tell my therapist, my friends, and family, “Let’s talk about poop. Let’s talk about the shit in our lives.” Again, these hard conversations, as well as letting go and changing, aren’t pleasant, but they’re the only reliable ways I’ve found to produce inner peace, further self-acceptance, and foster true connection with others. This is something Jesus forgot to say directly, that the truth will set you free–you’ll like the results–but you ain’t gonna like the process.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If life can create a problem, it can also provide an answer.

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Paix et Travail (Blog #818)

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Six months ago today I had knee surgery to repair my ACL. And whereas I still have progress to make–things aren’t perfect yet–I’ve technically reached all my milestones and hit the “all clear” point. As of now I can jump, spin, dance, and swim. Wow. Talk about the end of a long journey. Again, there’s still work to do. This morning I walked down a steep driveway, and my left leg felt a bit wobbly. My surgeon says it will take a full year to regain my strength. But I don’t have to limit my activities anymore. Now–supposedly–my new ACL is getting good enough blood flow to be considered “healed.”

To celebrate, this afternoon I ate a cheeseburger (and fries) and went shopping. There’s a shelf in my bathroom that has an empty spot on it (oh no!), and although I rarely shop for knickknacks (at least since I had my estate sale and became a minimalist over two years ago), I thought, Maybe I can find something to put on that shelf. And whereas I didn’t find anything for my bathroom, I did end up buying a medium-sized statue for my room at a local antique store. Basically the statue is a hot (shirtless) dude holding a flag. I’d admired him a number of times over the years, but–alas–he cost more than I wanted to spend. However (thankfully?), he was much more affordable today because at some point he’d been damaged. Like, now he’s missing a finger and part of his flag pole (and yes, I mean that literally). Oh well, I thought, I had knee surgery six months ago. I understand not being perfect.

I can’t tell you how exciting getting the statue was. For one thing, I’d completely forgotten about him, so it was like a surprise. Oh yeah, I like him! For another thing, the shop owner gave me a discount off the (already less than it used to be) sticker price. Knowing there would be some savings because they had a sale going on, I said, “Oh, that’s even better than I was hoping for.” Seriously, I almost squealed. On top of all this, I had the best time talking to the shop owner, who chatted with me for over thirty minutes about some of the pieces in the store and how she got started in the business in the first place. “The banker tried to convince me that a shop like this would never make it,” she said. “That was thirty-six years ago, and we’re still standing.”

Thinking about my knee and my anything-but-perfect life, I thought, Me too, lady. Me too.

This evening I spent over an hour shuffling things in my room in order to accommodate the statue. You know how moving one thing means moving everything. No kidding, over seventy-five percent of the books and other items I had on the piece of furniture where the statue is now got rearranged. This, I think, is why people are afraid of change (in their lives, not on their shelves). Because everyone, deep down, understands that you can’t change one thing without changing it all. The example I often use is that if you develop even one ounce of self-esteem (Oh yeah, I like me!)–watch out–every relationship in your life is about to be turned upside down. Said another way, when you change the way you see yourself, you change the way you see–and interact with–the entire world.

Moving one thing means moving everything.

You can’t change one thing without changing it all.

The statue I purchased this afternoon was originally sculpted by Charles Perron and is entitled “Paix et Travail,” which is French for “peace and work.” I didn’t realize this about the title when I bought the statue, but I think it’s one of those cool universe things, since my goal here (in therapy, on this blog, and in life) is more inner peace, and I often talk about doing The Hard Work. For me, the two go hand in hand. That is, if you want real peace in your life, there’s a lot of damn effort involved. It means looking at and cleaning up your past, owning your shit, having difficult conversations, and being willing for everything in both your interior and external worlds to change. Conversely, a certain amount of inner peace, or at least inner stability, is a prerequisite for doing The Hard Work because–again–it completely shuffles your deck and cuts it in half, and you’ve got to be centered enough to say, “Even if my entire world falls apart, I’m not going to. Instead, I’m going to come together.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We all need to feel alive.

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On Tick Bites, Emotions, and Self-Acceptance (Blog #817)

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This morning my dad said he had an area on his back that had been “itching for weeks” but that he couldn’t see. You know that spot in between your shoulder blades. Well, sure enough, he had what I initially thought was a mole that was red and inflamed. Pissed off, really. Dad said, “I’ve been scratching it with the back scratcher.” Alas, this story doesn’t end here. As I took a closer look at Dad’s mole, I discovered it was a tick. An honest-to-god, bloodsucking dog tick. And, y’all it was still alive. I can’t tell you how grossed out I was. (I’ll spare you the picture I took.) I thought, These things wouldn’t happen if you had your own apartment, Marcus. Still, I rubbed the tick with an alcohol swab, and it backed out. Then I flushed it down the toilet.

Following The Great Back Tick Incident of 2019, I rushed around today from one thing to another. First I taught a dance lesson. Then I saw my therapist. Then I saw my physical therapist. Then I saw my massage therapist, then my chiropractor. I know, I know, all this help, and I STILL have problems. What can I say? It’s hard out here for a pimp. Anyway, finally, this evening, I attended my friend Marla’s short story writing class. And whereas I stayed up late last night and TRIED to write the middle of the story I started last week, I didn’t get very far, just a hundred words.

When I confessed my “sin” of not having written more this last week, Marla said, “That’s okay, you got a hundred words. A hundred words is something.” And whereas my inner perfectionist disagrees and thinks a hundred words isn’t “enough,” I know she’s right. A couple months ago I completed what was supposed to be a 1,000 piece puzzle only to find out that a single, solitary piece was missing. Talk about wanting to pull my hair out. Still, the point remains, every piece of a puzzle is important. Likewise, every word, sentence, and paragraph in a story is important. For one thing, you never know where something will lead, what something is connected to.

This is what I keep telling myself as I’m working on my short story, that it’s just as important to get all the pieces laid out on the table as it is to put them all together. Indeed, when writing, you’ve got to find out what you’re working with. This means sitting down consistently and shaking your conscious and subconscious minds out onto the page. THEN you can begin to arrange, THEN you can begin to make sense of things. Marla says writing is “so healing” because, in effect, you get to use your characters to work through all your issues. I agree. Even though I haven’t written a lot of fiction, this project has taught me that if you want good writing, you’ve got to let everything inside you bubble up.

Lately I’ve been having dreams in which either I or someone else has been 1) yelling or 2) behaving like a slut. Always in these dreams there’s another person, or me, doing just the opposite–speaking calmly or being a perfect gentleman. My therapist says the meaning of the dreams is obvious. Good Boy Marcus and Bad Boy Marcus are “trying to figure things out.” This is what you have to face whenever you write or otherwise decide to work on yourself–that, in the words of Uncle Walt (Whitman), you contain multitudes. For me this means that although I’m almost always a “real nice guy,” I have the potential to be (and sometimes am) a real prick. (“What’s wrong with being an asshole?” my therapist says.) Though I’m usually a finicky prude, I have the potential to be a real whore.

As one book I read about one’s shadow said, the back is as big as the front.

Honestly, I don’t like this setup. I’d much rather think of myself as all this and none of that. However, having spent years believing that parts of me were bad and needed to be ignored, silenced, flushed out, or otherwise done away with and having tried unsuccessfully to eradicate these parts of my personality, I’ve finally come around to a rather novel concept–total self-acceptance. This means all of the Marcuses are welcome here–Marcus the Nice Guy, Marcus the Asshole, Marcus the Prude, Marcus the Slut (as long as he’s not stupid). Now, does this mean that I’m going to go to any of these extremes? No. (Don’t worry, Mom.) But it does mean that every part of me is going to be heard before any final decision is made about pressing matters.

There’s an idea in the world of healing that your body only creates pain or discomfort when it believes there is something wrong. For example, my dad’s back itched because his skin had a tick attached to it. So the itching was actually a good thing. It was a signal that something needed attention. This is what I’m truly coming to believe about our emotions–that every single one of them is there to help us. They show up to say, Houston, we have a problem. Or, if it’s anger that shows up, Houston, we have a fucking problem! Of course, at times our emotions can be explosive. In my experience this happens when I shove them down. Oh no, I’m not angry. Alas, ignored emotions, like ignored ticks, only grow bigger. So the sooner you listen to (every part of) yourself, the better.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Perfection is ever-elusive.

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On That Which Supports You (Blog #816)

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It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, and I’m in between appointments. Two hours from now I’ll be teaching a couple how to dance for their wedding. Yesterday they messaged me and said they’d been doing something few couples ever do–practicing. And whereas I’m hopeful (hope springs eternal), I’ve been in this business long enough to be prepared for mediocrity. Not that mediocrity would be the worst thing. Indeed, it would be leaps and bounds from where they started two months ago–rock bottom. That being said, mediocrity is not The Goal. The Goal is fabulous, stunning, like, oh-my-god wow.

Since I have a break in my day, I’ve stopped at a local park to blog. As the weather is gorgeous, I’d rather be outside of the shade of this pavilion, strolling and soaking up the sun. Alas, dear reader, I’m a dedicated and self-sacrificing daily blogger, so here I sit, writing. Truth be told, although this writing project has to happen at some point today, I’m using it to procrastinate another writing project. I’ll explain. Three weeks ago I started a short story writing class taught by my friend Marla, the goal of the class being to, by the end of the class (a week from tomorrow), produce a fully fleshed out and hopefully interesting short story, a short story being approximately 1,500 words. And whereas I’ve written more personal essays and non-fiction features of that length than you could shake a stick at, I’m not sure I’ve ever written a fiction short story of that length. Or any length.

In short (story), I’m terrified.

This feeling of terror is what I felt a week ago today when I first sat down to work on Marla’s assignment. At that point I only had a single sentence, a sentence that popped into my brain over two years ago like, Maybe that could be a story one day. Well, despite my all-day trepidation of I don’t know where this is going, shit, shit, shit, I don’t know what else to say, that single sentence, in the space of an hour, turned into three entire paragraphs, or three-hundred and nineteen words.

When I finished those three paragraphs Monday and read them in class the next day, I was elated. I felt like a rosy-cheeked kindergartner on show-and-tell day. Look what I did. As much as being enthusiastic as a writer, I was enthusiastic as a listener. Stephen King says that the author of a work is its first reader, and although my story is only a three-hundred word baby, I really do want to know how it’s going to grow up. I want to know what happens next, how this thing is going to end. Unfortunately, over the last week my wide-eyed enthusiasm about my story has turned to dread because–damn it–I’m the one responsible for writing it. In other words, if I want to find out what happens, I’m going to have to put my butt in a seat and do some actual work.

In terms of this blog, I’ve come to trust The Process. For over two years I’ve written daily and–I swear–most days I have no idea what I’m going to say. And whereas this used to scare me, now I just believe. There’s something there. Maybe I can’t see it, but I believe it’s there. Not because I have faith, but because I have over two years worth of proof. Something always comes up. My creative well is deep.

This creative confidence is something I’m trying to develop with respect to writing fiction. And whereas I wish it would simply show up and shine, I’m betting I’m going to have to work at it, to sit down every day, every damn day and practice like I ask my dance students to. Part of the problem, of course, is that I put a lot of pressure on myself. I tell myself, Let’s just sit down and play. Let’s just see what happens. Inevitably, however, I get one good sentence or paragraph and create a standard of perfection. I think, This can’t be mediocre. This needs to be fabulous, stunning, like, oh-my-god wow. This needs to pay the bills.

This, of course, is recipe for stress.

Recently I read something to the effect that when you have a longstanding desire or dream, you don’t have the privilege of getting to see from whence it springs. Think about how you can see a tree but not its roots. Or how you can see a building but not its foundation. In other words, our deepest wants for our lives (like, I want to be a full-time, paid writer) come from our subconscious, so although we’re conscious of That Which We Want, we’re unconscious of That Which Supports What We Want, of that which created what we want in the first place. I believe this is where creative terror comes from, believing that your dreams don’t have any roots or foundation, believing that you’re drawing water from a shallow well.

A few years ago I started a fiction novel. Like the short story I’m working on now, it excites me. Even though I haven’t touched in forever, whenever I think about my first paragraph, I absolutely melt. When I read it to my friend Marla way back when, she said, “Marcus, I can’t believe this is inside of you.” I think about this encouragement of hers a lot. As recently as this morning I picked up a random book and read things that I think will be useful whenever I get back to that story. My point is I think there’s something subconscious that wants me to write it, that’s supporting me in writing it.

There’s an idea if self-help and spirituality that we’re more afraid of being powerful than we are afraid of being weak. Because we’re used to being weak and we’re used to playing small. These things are comfortable, familiar. But being strong and big, being endlessly creative, the author of glorious stories? Whoa damn. My therapist says that getting what you want in scary. And although I’m not “there” yet, I agree. Just the idea of my dreams really coming true often keeps me from sitting down with my stories and finding out what’s there. Because getting what I want would mean really changing and not playing small anymore. It would mean no looking back. It would mean saying, “Here I am, World–roots deep, foundation strong–fabulous, stunning, like oh-my-god-wow supported.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can't build a house, much less a life, from the outside-in. Rather, if you want something that's going to last, you have to start on the inside and work your way out, no matter how long it takes and how difficult it is.

"

On Working with Your Body (Blog #815)

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I spent today with my friends Aaron and Kate. We were originally going to hang out on a river somewhere, but the weather didn’t cooperate. So instead we ended up with several other friends and acquaintances eating pizza and drinking Bloody Marys, and then later eating Mexican food and drinking margaritas. Y’all, this was an all-day affair, and I can’t tell you how currently stuffed I am. Stuffed with bad decisions. Seriously, I just got home thirty minutes ago, and my stomach is still cramping. I keep apologizing to my body. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just got carried away.

I just said I made bad decisions, but the truth is that I needed today. Most days I’m so uptight. Even when I don’t have a schedule, I make one. I make myself read, make myself write. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy these things. I’m no martyr. Still, I push, push, push. But today there wasn’t any pushing, other than carbohydrates and liquids down my throat. Instead, there was just story-telling and laughter. Nothing serious. Everything lighthearted. Just what the doctor ordered.

Well, everything lighthearted–and TUMS.

I’ve mentioned before that my neck and shoulder have bothered me for months. In short, although they’re not awful, they are really tight and sore. I get a lot of headaches. I can’t tell you how frustrating this is, especially since I’ve tried SO MANY THINGS in an attempt to feel better. Alas, healing continues to be a journey. That being said, this morning I woke up with a stiff neck and tried something different. First, I did my best to relax. This is difficult to explain, but my default, even when lying down is often to hold a certain amount of tension. So I tried relaxing–letting go–ten percent, twenty percent. I kept telling myself, Just give in a little. Nothing bad is going to happen.

Next I tried having a conversation with my body. I‘m going to be spending time with friends today and would like to not get a headache. I’d like to just have fun. Would you mind letting go? Could we try that? And whereas the relaxing and the dialoguing (monologuing) weren’t lightening-flash, Hallelujah-chorus moments, I do think they helped. I went all afternoon and most the evening without even thinking about my neck or shoulders. So maybe my body listened. Eight hours without a undue tension. This is a big deal for me. Granted, I have some tension now, but still.

Things could be much worse.

Now it’s nine at night, and I’m feeling better. My insulin has kicked in, and I’m not cramping anymore. Even the tension in my neck I just mentioned has slacked off a bit. The “big lesson” for me today is that my body is a living, breathing, moving, intelligent thing. So often I think of any tension I carry, any problem I have, as this static, solid thing. As if my body were carved out of a piece of stone and were completely unwilling and unable to change. But more and more I’m learning that my body is something softer (and no, that’s not just because I eat pizza), something wiser, something that’s on my side. Something that’s willing to work with me if I’m willing to work with it.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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For me, it's important to hang on to this idea that no matter how bad they are, your circumstances can turn around, to believe that if an elephant can show up in your life, it can also disappear, to believe that just as the universe full of big problems, it is also full of big answers.

"

The Prep and the Primer (Blog #814)

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This afternoon I helped my friend Kim start painting her kitchen. I say “start painting” because, like nearly every other damn thing in life, it’s going to be a process. (I hate that.) That being said, we made a lot of progress. Before today the entire kitchen–the walls, the baseboards, the molding–was apple green. Now only about half of it is. So even though there’s more to do, it’s clear you can get a lot done in a day.

So why not take a day and do something?

Kim said her least favorite part of painting was the prep work–scrubbing the walls clean, patching any holes. Alas, her husband, Grant, insists on “doing things right.” Personally, I agree with both of them–the prep work needs to be done, and it’s no fun doing it. Likewise, I don’t enjoy putting primer on walls, or, truth be told, the putting first coat of paint on walls. Because things still look sloppy, incomplete. No, for me, the fun part is the last coat of paint, when it all comes together. Then what REALLY thrills me is putting the room back IN ORDER, hanging pictures up and such.

Gay, I know.

The obvious point is that you can’t put pictures up without first doing the prep work, then doing the primer coat (if needed), then doing the first coat, and so on. Again, it’s a process, a process that if not “done right” is gonna be obvious. We’ve all seen rushed painting jobs before and thought, This person cuts corners.

Or is that just me who judges someone’s entire personality by how they paint a room?

Currently I’m house sitting for a friend and am in their living room. The last time I blogged here (in this particular room) was about six months ago. I remember because I’d recently injured my knee and–because my surgeon told me I didn’t need my crutches (because “you don’t need your ACL to walk”)–was re-teaching myself how to walk and negotiate stairs. Talk about things you take for granted. I remember having to lie on the ground to wiggle my pants on and off. Now, like before my accident, I can put my pants on standing up.

Don’t be jealous.

Everything worth having takes time.

This last week I was discussing my knee injury with a friend of mine who is a personal trainer and said that I have a ways to go. For example, it’s still challenging to jump using my injured leg, to use that leg to lower myself down (steps or into a chair), or to put weight on that knee. However, my friend said, “But look how far you’ve come.” Is that a wonderful encouragement or what? So often I get hung up on progress not yet made, on walls not yet painted, instead of focusing on That Which Has Been Accomplished. I want to get to The End, to the hanging pictures part, so the temptation is to half-ass, rush through, or get impatient with The Process. But if five years in therapy and two years of daily blogging have taught me anything, it’s that everything worth having takes time. Also, I’ve learned that the work that really pays off is the work that nobody sees. It’s the prep and the primer. That’s why they call it The Hard Work–because it’s tedious and boring and nobody is going to praise you for doing it (probably not even your mother). But damn if it doesn’t make all the difference.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Life doesn’t need us to boss it around.

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On Making Friends with Yourself (Blog #813)

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Today is the summer solstice, the longest day, the shortest night of the year. The day when the sun is highest in the sky. From now until the winter solstice, the sun will begin its descent, and our days will get shorter, our nights longer. That’s right, for those of us who love sunshine, it’s all downhill from here.

Other than today being the solstice, it hasn’t been remarkable. This morning after breakfast I read an entire (short) book about essential tremors, a neurological/movement disorder that runs in my family and amounts to involuntary shaking, usually of the arms. One of my friends who has it calls it Jazz Hand Syndrome. Anyway, I’ve been aware of this book for a while but have been putting off reading it because, What if the suggestions are too hard or don’t work? Alas, tired of this sort of thinking, I tackled the book today. And whereas some parts of its protocol for healing (with which the author has seen 80 to 90 percent improvement) are going to require vigilance (cut out coffee, alcohol, and products containing aluminum), I’ve done more difficult things before. And since my issue with tremors isn’t in need of immediate attention, I at least have the weekend to caffeinate, toss back a beer, and think about things.

All while wearing deodorant.

That’s right, deodorant has aluminum in it.

One of the contentions of the tremors book is that our bodies develop diseases and disorders when we are out of balance with our environment. This could look like something being off-kilter in your diet (like having a food sensitivity or, uh, just eating junk) or even in your job or relationships. Seen from this perspective, our bodies are our partners, not our enemies. They let us know when something needs our attention.

This is a viewpoint I’ve believed in theory for a long time and am slowly coming around to in practice and experience–that my body is my friend. Of course, this is difficult to believe when it’s in pain. For months my neck has been bothering me, and try as I might I’ve yet to figure out what it’s attempting to tell me. (Maybe “Stop pushing yourself so hard” or “Stop looking at your damn phone all the time.”) That being said, I’ve been working with fascial release lately and have seen improvements. Not miracles, but improvements. This afternoon I read an entire (short) book about fascia called Touching Light by Ronelle Wood that convinced me even more that our bodies are intelligent and capable of solving long-standing problems.

For a quick glimpse at the amazing web of light and water that lives inside of and is you, check out this video.

This evening I began reading ANOTHER (short) book, this one called Hear Your Body Whisper: How to Unlock Your Self-Healing Mechanism by Otakara Klettke. And whereas I just started, its main idea seems to be that rather than follow someone else’s diet or health regimen, you should learn to listen to and follow your individual body’s wisdom. Because only your body knows what you need to heal. Maybe you need whole milk, asparagus, and a divorce; maybe I need electrolytes, salted nuts, and a good lay.

I’m just saying–we all have our needs.

One thing all this reading has been teaching me is that nothing is ever truly hopeless. Well, maybe a problem could FEEL hopeless if you never read books. But if you read books, I swear, there is a veritable wealth of information out there to address, treat, and potentially cure nearly every problem humanity has ever faced. Is it overwhelming to sort through all this information? Yes, it certainly can be. But is it also fun to play detective, learn new things, and–more importantly–learn about yourself in the process? For sure. And here’s something. Once you learn to make friends with your mind and body, regardless of what the sun’s doing, your days will be brighter, I promise. You’ll walk through life lighter. When you make friends with yourself, it’s all uphill from there.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"There are a lot of benefits to being right here, right now."