don’t tell me what to do (blog #17)

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This afternoon I went to Crystal Bridges Art Museum in Bentonville with my Aunt Terri, my cousin Dustin, and Dustin’s fiancé, Christy. (They’re all from Tulsa.) I assume the trip was something they planned before today, but I just found out about it when I woke up this morning, or as some people call it, afternoon. Since I didn’t have any plans, it was a lovely surprise.

On the drive up, I played my two current-favorite songs on repeat, and I looked at the mountains and the trees (and sometimes the road), and I thought, God, life is great.

After meeting Terri, Dustin, and Christy at Christy’s parents house, the four of us proceeded to the museum, and we decided it was more important to sit down and have coffee before checking out the exhibits. Well, everyone got a small coffee—like, honestly, they looked like shot glasses. But I got a sixteen-ounce coffee, the largest on the menu, because I have a problem with moderation. (I don’t like it.) So when we got ready to look around, I just picked up my drink and took it with me.

The first big exhibit we saw was—and I’m not making this up—a ton of hard candy (all green) on the floor in a rectangle with a light shining on it. (Later, when we saw a large canvas that was simply painted all gray except maybe a couple small dots, Christy said, “We’re in the wrong business.”) Despite the fact that it was just bunch of candy on the ground, the exhibit was really beautiful in its own way, and the deal is that you’re allowed to take a piece of it, so the art is constantly changing. Pieces of candy go out, and then more pieces come back in.

About fifteen minutes into the exhibits (after the all-gray canvas that someone probably got paid a lot of money for), a member of the museum staff came over and very nicely said, “Sir, drinks aren’t allowed in this area, but there’s a trashcan in the restroom just around that corner.” But what I heard sounded something more like, “If you don’t put that down right now, I’m calling your parents and sending you to the principal’s office.”

Maybe I should get my ears checked.

So I threw the cup away, but not before I finished drinking every last drop of the coffee because I wanted to have the last word and feel like a rebel.

Well, I really, really try not to obsess about stupid shit like this, but I’m rarely successful at it. Like, I remember being at a water park once as an adult, and some lifeguard (who probably had acne and drove a scooter to work) blew his whistle and pointed his finger like one of those angry cops in the middle of a traffic jam, telling me I was in the wrong part of the water. So I just swam away, sort of like I threw the coffee cup in the trash, and even though part of my brain understood that it’s not personal and he’s just doing his job and he doesn’t hate me, I still felt like I’d gotten my name on the blackboard.

The good news is, the incident with the cup today didn’t bother me as much as similar incidents in the past. Like once I got a parking ticket during a trip to Knoxville, and it totally ruined the dinner I was having with my friends. It was all I could think about. It’s like the people pleaser in me just wanted to jump up and invite the meter maid to join us for pizza, in hopes that I could convince her what a nice guy I am, that I’m not a bad person for parking in the wrong spot. It was a mistake. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But today wasn’t that bad.

I’ve talked to my therapist about these sorts of situations before, and a couple of things always come up. First, I don’t like authority, and therefore I don’t like being told what to do. Second, I don’t like authority, and therefore I don’t like being told what to do.

Any questions?

I always assumed my problem with authority came from the fact that Dad was arrested and sent to prison, that I actually sat in the courtroom and watched twelve jurors, one by one, say, “Guilty.” Like, I’ve got plenty of emotional reasons to not like authority and to be afraid of getting in trouble. But my therapist says there’s more. (Heads up, there’s always more.) She says that because Mom was sick when I was growing up and Dad was in prison, I pretty much raised myself (and did a damn fine job, thank you). So since I’ve spent so much time being my own authority, outside authority and I don’t mix well.

How a person can hate authority and being told what to do and still be a rule follower, someone who’s afraid of getting in trouble, I’m still figuring out. (Job security for my therapist.) Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.”

Sometime last year, I got pulled over for using my phone while driving, and I lied and told the police officer I was looking for directions, but the truth is that I was actually texting. (This is my finding out if confession really is good for the soul. I’ll get back to you on the results.) Well, I didn’t get a ticket for using the phone, but I did get a ticket for not wearing my seatbelt. (Have I mentioned I don’t like being told what to do?) When I told my therapist that I felt bad about lying to the police officer, she just said, “Fuck tha police.”

Apparently “Fuck tha police” is a rap song my therapist likes. (I didn’t know that she was such a thug, but then again, she also likes the roller derby.) Anyway, ever since then, Fuck tha Police has become the phrase we use to describe that part of my personality that has authority issues. And it’s not like she was encouraging me to break the law or do something stupid, but she said that particular part of my personality is always going to be there, and it has to be satisfied in some way, which I guess is why the lie didn’t bother her.

A lot of times after therapy, I go to lunch with my friend Ray. We call it “therapy after therapy.” Ray is honestly one of my favorite people, and I think it’s partly because he’s a priest but sometimes talks like a sailor, so I never feel like I need to clean up my act or put on a show in order to be around him. When we talked about Fuck tha Police, Ray told me that sometimes you just have to not give a shit—pig out on junk food and feel gross for a weekend—break the rules you’ve imposed on yourself—drive your car faster than the speed limit. So that day I drove home at a hundred miles an hour, maybe not the whole time, but for a while. And nothing bad happened. And Ray was right. It felt amazing.

Before we left the museum today, my aunt asked one of the ladies who worked there (whose hair looked like a bird nest, we all agreed) if she could take our picture. She said she couldn’t—they weren’t allowed. Then she added that she wished she could, which just made me mad and at the same time happy that I wasn’t the one talking to her. (As it turns out, when you have a problem with authority, you don’t like being told no. I’m working on it—I’m in therapy!)

Only somewhat dejected by not getting our picture taken, we went outside, and Christy asked another employee (whose hair did not look like a bird nest) if he could take our photo. And he didn’t even hesitate—he said sure, he’d be glad to.

YAH! A rule breaker! Fuck tha Police!

By the time I got home this evening, I noticed a definite change in mood from earlier in the day. I no longer felt like life was great. I mean, I thought it was okay. (You know, I’ve had better.) And I don’t think I can completely blame the incident with the coffee cup or being a little irritated about the lady who wouldn’t take our picture. But I think they played a part, just like I think the fact that I was tired and hungry played a part too.

I have this fantasy that one day I’ll go to therapy or read one more self-help book and wake up the next day transformed. Like I’ll never be in a bad mood again, and I won’t feel like a five-year-old when a total stranger says, “No drinks allowed.” But I get that it probably won’t happen that way. No, my experience of life is more like that exhibit of hard candy. Some days, it feels like a bunch of pieces of me are missing, and when the light hits, all I can see are the shadows. But then other days, it feels like all the missing pieces have been replenished, and when the light hits, the shadows scatter. As I see it in this moment, all of it is art, constantly changing. I, too, contain multitudes.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. And whereas it's just a single step, it's a really important one.

"

happier than a pig in a shed (blog #16)

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I first started swing dancing in in 1999, and my sister was my dance partner. We were both living at home (kind of like I am now), and after class each week, we’d put music on in the living room and show Mom what we learned. I remember being really excited about it.

In 2007, I got interested in Lindy Hop, which is a more advanced form of swing dancing than the one I already knew (East Coast Swing). So my friends Greg, Rita, Krista, and I would travel each spring to a Lindy Hop convention in Houston called Lindyfest. Our little group called ourselves The Lindy Dogs, and we even had matching shoe bags—like a gang—well—a West Side Story kind of gang. I remember being so starry-eyed the first time I walked into the Melody Ballroom, into the midst of hundreds of Lindy Hoppers. There’s nothing like it. It’s magic. Even now, I can see Andy Reid doing a move in my mind’s eye that I later learned and still use and teach. (If you don’t know, Andy Reid is a big damn deal in Lindy Hop.)

I think those first two or three years at Lindyfest were the best because it was all about my love of swing dancing and time spent with my friends. I remember once when all of us Lindy Dogs were in the car together, and I said that I was “happier than a pig in shit.” Well, Greg thought I said “happier than a pig in a shed,” so that kind of became our group’s inside joke, and it still gets used ten years later.

But despite hundreds of great memories like this one, something happened over the course of the last ten years that quite frankly, sucks. Simply put, I started judging myself and comparing myself to other people on the dance floor. I imagine it all started out pretty innocently, mostly because I wanted to get better, and being a rule follower and a teacher’s pet, I wanted to do things “the right way.”

I used to watch the television show Once Upon a Time, and the character Rumpelstiltskin always said something like, “Everything comes with a price.” And whereas I’ve known for a long time that the price of judging yourself and comparing yourself to others is being less creative on the dance floor, I’ve been thinking lately the price is even higher than that—you also lose your joy—which, at least for me, was the reason I started dancing in the first place.

Tonight I taught a beginner East Coast Swing lesson to a large room full of mostly college students. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve taught the exact same material, but something was different about tonight, and I think it had to do with the fact that pretty much every single person in the room didn’t know shit about swing dancing. Basically, it was a room full of virgins. They don’t know Peter Strom from Peter Rabbit. And they were SO excited. There was a guy named Chase (wearing a shirt that said “I am the best” except “the best” was crossed out and replaced with “blessed”) who asked me to teach him the pretzel (a move where your arms get all twisted up like, well, a pretzel). I don’t think any self-respecting Lindy Hopper would be caught dead doing the pretzel, but almost all new swing dancers love the shit out of it. I remember enthusiastically asking my teacher when I could learn it. So I showed it to Chase—because it’s fun. The result?

More joy.

There was a kid named Jake there tonight, and he was happier than a pig in a shed. He had the biggest grin on his face during the entire lesson. Like, he was dripping with glee. Personally, I usually play my emotions pretty close to my vest, so later I just asked him, “Why are you so happy?” And get this shit. He said, “I’m just glad to be here.” Like, it was that simple. Nothing about self-judgment or comparing himself to others.

Since starting this blog, I’ve had a number of people tell me that they admire my courage, my honesty, and my vulnerability. I appreciate all of those comments, but it usually feels like they’re talking about someone else because I was literally shaking when this site went live, and there’s still part of me that likes to pretend that no one’s reading it.

I was telling one of my friends tonight that the primary goal for this blog was and still is for me to write on a more consistent basis. So far it’s working. But tonight I noticed an added benefit that I hadn’t anticipated. But before I can tell you what it was, I need to back up a moment.

For the longest time, I’ve only presented a certain side of myself on social media and in my dance classes. And whereas that side was honest, it wasn’t complete. As I think about it now, it felt like being a half person, a person who didn’t have a sexuality, a person who didn’t talk about feeling embarrassed or less than, and a person who didn’t say fuck. As a consequence to living that way, I am almost always nervous in social situations. Like, I’ve been comfortable as a teacher, but not as just a person who walks around and introduces himself and asks people how they’re doing or if I can help. I can only assume that was because I wasn’t really at home in myself, and I always felt like someone would discover that other half of me and judge me for it.

And it’s not that I intend to talk about every single thing in my life on this blog, but my therapist says that part of the goal of being authentic is to have as few secrets as possible. So that’s partly what’s happening here in a rather public way. It’s a place where, having been honest with myself first, I can be honest with others. I have a sexuality, sometimes I’m embarrassed and feel less than, and I say fuck (every fucking day). And I think Jesus is okay with all of that, thank you very much.

So about that added benefit. I was more relaxed and less nervous tonight than I have been in years. I felt at home in my own skin. I didn’t fiddle with my phone so I didn’t have to talk to people. I just talked to people, and I never once thought, What if they find out about that other part of me? And guess what?

More authentic joy.

I told some of my friends tonight that I envied the virgin swing dancers because their excitement and enthusiasm for swing dancing was untainted by self-judgment and imagined standards of “good enough.” But I think that if you love something, that love never goes away. It’s like you can run yourself ragged working for this standard of perfection and you can get really far away from where you started. But the good news is, that love inside that shows up as joy or enthusiasm is your authentic self, and it just sits there, patiently waiting for you to come back to it, to come back home to yourself and remember that not only are you good enough exactly as you are, but you’re also—just glad to be here.

[Special thanks to Greg, Rita, and Krista (pictured first, with me) for you authentic love of swing dancing. You’re like family. Also thanks to Sydnie Meltzer Kleinhenz, who helped me teach the virgins tonight and also provided the additional photos. You rock step like a rock star. Lastly, thanks to the NWA Swing Dance Society for a truly beautiful evening. It was magic.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Sure, people change, but love doesn't."

about going to therapy (blog #15)

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This evening I went for walk and listened to a segment on NPR called The Secret History of Thoughts. The program focused on weird or dark thoughts that people have (like “I’m a loser” or “I should kill myself” or “I should kill my wife”) and whether those thoughts are normal or not. Fascinating, but the part that caught my attention was when one of the reporters said something like, “If I were going to see a therapist—not that I need to—” and then continued.

And it kind of pissed me off, and here’s why.

Since starting therapy a little over three years ago, I’ve been pretty open about it. Granted, until this blog, it’s not something I’ve posted about on Facebook—like, Hey everyone, I cried in therapy today!—but all my family and plenty of my friends know. In fact, they’re probably sick of hearing me say, “My therapist says” because I say it A LOT, to the point that even I think, Good God, Marcus, stop talking about your fucking therapist.

Not that I actually stop.

But the point is that therapy hasn’t been something I’m ashamed of. It’s actually something I’m proud of because it’s helped me so much. And whereas most of my family and friends are quite supportive, and although there are some exceptions to what I’m about to say, the feeling I get from most people who hear about my seeing a therapist is like, “I’m sorry your life sucks so bad that you have to do that.” And behind that feeling there’s another one that goes, “I’m glad I’m not as fucked up as you are.”

Now let me be clear—I’m not a mind reader. I don’t really know a hundred percent what people are feeling. But I’ve had a number of friends tell me that they thought they needed to see a therapist because they’re dating a serial cheater, or because all their friends are users, or because they got drunk and started crying in the backseat of an Uber. But they don’t go. One friend told me straight up he knew he should see a therapist, but he couldn’t go because people would think he’s crazy.

Sadly, I don’t think my friend’s alone in his perception. I think it’s why the NPR reporter qualified her statement about “if I needed to see a therapist” by saying “not that I need to,” like, “not that I’m crazy.” (By the way, my therapist says everyone is bat-shit crazy; some of us just hide it better than others.)

To be fair, I think there’s a big misperception about what therapy is. And all I can speak about is my experience with one particular therapist who approaches therapy in one particular way. I’m also very aware that just like medical doctors, dance instructors, and prostitutes, not all therapists are created equal. And a lot of it comes down to whether or not your therapist and you are a good match for each other. All that being said, it’s not lying on a couch and talking for an hour while someone else nods her head and takes notes on a scratchpad. It’s also not taking LSD, which I just read was Gloria Vanderbilt’s experience when she saw a therapist. (Apparently that used to be a thing.)

Honestly, I used to think that I didn’t need a therapist too. Knowing what I know now, it would have been helpful a LONG time ago. But I ended up in a relationship that was a big mess, and somehow was lucky enough to notice something, and here’s what it was. My grandpa always took care of my grandma, who was mentally ill. My dad has always taken care of my mom, who is mentally ill. And I was starting to take care of someone who was, quite possibly, mentally ill. So really, I was curious if I was repeating a family pattern, if I was attracted to someone largely because they felt—familiar. (Spoiler alert—the answer was yes.) On top of being curious, I was fucking miserable (because there were a lot of other issues in addition to any that related to my family history), which was a big motivator. So I made an appointment.

Before I went to therapy that first time, a friend of mine sent me a 22-minute YouTube video about psychotherapy that I can’t recommend enough. It features two psychoanalysts talking about their profession. One of the things the guy in the video says is that we all have a basic understanding of our emotions, and that’s like having a high school diploma, which is fine. You can get by with that. But going to therapy, he says, is like going to college. It’s a way to better understand your emotions, and therefore better understand yourself.

For the last three years, almost every time I have a therapy appointment, I’m excited to go. I’m almost always in a better mood when I leave than I was when I got there. It’s an hour totally about me and my well-being, I always feel listened to and supported, and I never feel judged for anything. And in the last three years, my relationships have improved, there’s way less drama in my life, and I treat myself better. I don’t mean to sound like an infomercial, but who wouldn’t want all those benefits? Who wouldn’t want to spend an hour with someone who tells you, “You’ve got to stop using Tinder because the quality of guys you’re meeting is ZERO POINT FUCKING SHIT”?

To be fair, there have been times when therapy has been really difficult. I’ve had some tough confrontations with people that I love, and I’ve seen more than one long-time friendship come to an end. (My therapist told me that at one point during her own therapy, her therapist was her only friend.) But despite all the changes, I’ve always felt like there was someone there to help me. I’ve never felt completely alone.

Caroline Myss, a spiritual teacher who’s one of my favorites, says that truth and change go hand in hand, that the reason we fear the truth, that we don’t want to admit to ourselves that our partners are cheating or that a loved one is doing drugs, is that we are afraid of change. She says you just can’t have the truth and not have change. So inevitably we end up running from the truth or any place we might find it. Change is just too scary.

So I get why people stay in bad relationships and don’t do anything about it. I get why it takes being fucking miserable, maybe hitting rock bottom, before you’re willing to go to therapy, or see a medical doctor about that lump in your breast, or go to twelve-step program. It’s probably less about what other people think, and more about the fact that it takes a lot of courage to face the truth and the change that comes with it. That’s a hard thing to do. I won’t lie and tell you it’s not. But I believe it’s worth it, and I believe we’re all courageous, and I believe that no one is alone.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Perhaps this is what bravery really is--simply having run out of better options, being so totally frustrated by the outside world that all you can do is go within.

"

on patience (blog #14)

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This afternoon I submitted an essay I wrote in a writing contest, and I noticed I felt uncomfortable as I was completing the online submission form. Well, wait. My therapist says “uncomfortable is not an emotion,” so I guess it would be more accurate to say that I felt nervous, or anxious, or afraid. Honestly, it’s probably the same way I felt when I hit the publish button for this blog—vulnerable—except I wasn’t shaking as much, and I didn’t feel like my bowels were about to fall out in the middle of the magazine section of the Fort Smith Public Library.

So it could have been worse.

My first thought about what I was feeling is that it had to do with my fear of being judged. My second thought is that it had to with fear of being judged. But after banging my head against the wall for the last thirty minutes trying to figure out where this story is going, I think that feeling of nervousness, anxiety, and fear had more to do with the fact that I’m not being patient with myself.

I’ll explain.

About a year ago, I noticed that I was getting really frustrated with just about everyone in my life. Sometimes it was my dance students, sometimes it was my parents, and sometimes it was the checkout person at the grocery story. It was like I just wanted to scream, “Why the hell can’t you figure this out?” to everyone I came in contact with. When I talked to my therapist about it, I said, “I wish I could be more patient.” And I don’t even think she thought about it very long before she said, “Well, you’re not very patient with yourself.”

Well, for someone who spends a lot of time reading self-help-spiritual-love-your-neighbor books, this was a real buzz kill because I thought I was further along the road in terms of patience. I must have obsessed about it for a couple of weeks. I even talked to my friend Craig about it. (He’s a retired therapist, so I guess it counts as an official second opinion.) Craig said it was possible for me to be patient with myself, but just not in certain circumstances.

When I took this second opinion back to my therapist, she agreed. She said, “I imagine that you’re really patient with yourself when you’re learning to dance.”

This evening I taught a dance lesson to a couple who are getting married later this month. The guy has a SUPER deep voice and sounds like what might happen if James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman had a lovechild. I mean, if cognac had a voice, it would sound like this guy. Every time he opens his mouth, I’m mesmerized. Like he could ask me to jump off a bridge, and I’d probably do it just because he sounds like God. Throw in a burning bush, and I’d be headed for heaven.

Well, the guy has seemed frustrated with his progress so far, even though he’s pretty much right on track with what’s average. Last week he said, “I have to do things over and over again before I can get them,” and it felt more like an apology than an explanation. My response was, “Good, repetition is how everyone learns best.”

When I see students get frustrated, I always try to be over-the-top encouraging because dancing really is difficult. It’s like learning a new language or learning to play an instrument. There are so many moving parts and so many things to think about all at once. It’s virtually impossible for someone without prior experience to come in and pick things up quickly. It takes time. It takes patience.

And whereas I know how long it can take to be a proficient dancer, it’s a really hard fact to get across to people. It’s like their expectations are too high, and they’re usually too hard on themselves.

Well shit.

So that’s the thing with the writing contest. My expectations are too high. I’m being too hard on myself. I’m thinking that everything I do has to be absolutely stunning, and it has to be recognized–now. But if I could take the patience I have when it comes to dance and apply it to writing—Wow—I can only imagine how much better all that nervousness, anxiety, and fear would be.

Before my lesson with the couple ended tonight, the guy said (in a really deep voice), “I’m going to get this.” And I think that’s the perfect thing because he didn’t say, “I’m going to get this—tonight.” He’s giving himself time. And isn’t that what time’s for? What I’m realizing is there’s often a long road between where you stand and where you want to be. But with patience as your traveling companion, the journey is much, much smoother.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Give yourself a break.

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the great letting go (blog #13)

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Several months ago, I sold most of my possessions in an estate sale. One by one, all my things were picked through, broken up, and sent in different directions. Before the sale, all my shit fit comfortably into a 3,000 square-foot house; now everything I own fits into my Honda Civic. There’s part of me that’s still shocked by what I did, willingly starting over and effectively hitting a giant “reset” button. Some days I wake up and think, I really should have kept a few more t-shirts or maybe a chair. It would be nice to have a chair right about now. But for the most part, I feel a lot lighter, less weighed down, and less attached. Plus, dusting goes A LOT faster.

I’ve noticed that when I go shopping, my experience is greatly different than it used to be. Before, I’d see so many things that I wanted, things I thought I had to have. Now, I see very little that I want. It’s like it’s got to be really attractive and useful (and be able to fit into my car) in order for me to even desire it, much less buy it.

The only piece of furniture I kept (other than a couple of lamps) is a mid-century modern bookcase. When I had the estate sale, I went through hundreds of books, and decided all the ones that went with me would have to fit on the shelf, which only has a capacity of about fifty. I told myself I would only keep a book if I truly loved it or thought it was important enough to read within the next year.

Well, the process did a few things. First, I’m left with the cutest little bookshelf, and I love every book that’s on it, so it brings me a lot of joy. Second, it took off the pressure I was putting on myself to read all the books I had paid for. In one big stroke, that was gone. Let someone else read them. Lastly and most importantly, it proved that I could let go of things that I love. (This is huge, since I’ve been hanging on to stuff since I was a child.)

I can’t say that letting go was easy. There were some bookshelves that my sister and I grew up with, and I thought she could get them in the sale, but she didn’t. When she found out, she cried, and some days I still wonder if I made a mistake in letting everything go. But then I think about one single book I found at a junk sale in Tulsa, and how that one book deeply changed my life. Someone decided to let that book go so that I could find it, and along with it I found my meditation practice, more peace, and more compassion for myself and others. So I can only trust that the things I let go of are working similar miracles for those who own them now.

My therapist says that a positive thing about “the great letting go” is that it’s helping to make me more discerning, that I’ll be more careful about my purchases in the future. Also, she says that letting go of all your stuff makes room for more stuff/better stuff. Well, I think she’s right about the discerning part, which is why I haven’t bought a lot of things in the last six months. As for the making room for more stuff/better stuff part, there’s definitely a lot of room over here, but the stuff hasn’t so much shown up yet. So I’m going to keep waiting, and I’ll have to get back to you on what happens. In other words, don’t go sell all your stuff and think that more stuff/better stuff is going to show up on your doorstep the next week. The universe doesn’t work that way. Apparently.

Tonight I had dinner with a dear friend of mine who’s one of the few truly magical people that I know. What I mean by that is that she hasn’t let life make her jaded. She’s still in love with the sound of leaves blowing in the wind.

When we said goodbye, my friend gave me a belated Christmas present, five crystals spheres made for hanging in a window, breaking up the light, and sending it dancing in different directions. “It’s for your new home, whenever you arrive there,” she said. “Every window should have these.”

So maybe more stuff/better stuff does just show up on your doorstep. And whether it happens little by little or all at once, I’m sure that at some point “the great letting go” will become “the great receiving” again. And whereas I used to think that the receiving was the exciting part, I’m starting to see the letting go as equally exciting. Just like light that hits a crystal, isn’t it beautiful when things are broken up and sent dancing in different directions?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Rest gives us time to dream. One day, for certain, you’ll wake up. And you’ll be grateful for the time you rested, and you’ll be just as grateful that you’re different, far from the person who fell asleep.

"

believing in magic (blog #12)

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​About a month ago, my therapist gave me a book called Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There. She kind of stuck it in my face and read me the title three times in a row–I guess for emphasis. Maybe she thought I needed to chill the eff out. (She probably got this idea from me, since I’d just said that I needed to chill the eff out and stop judging myself for sleeping in and not being productive constantly.)

The book is written by Sylvia Boorstein, a Buddhist, and is about developing the practice of mindfulness, or being in the present moment. (Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a Buddhist in order to be mindful.) There’s a concept Sylvia talks about called “seeing with fresh eyes” that’s been popping into my head a lot, especially today. It’s the idea that you can look at something as if you’ve never seen it before.

So tonight I drove about an hour to Springdale to teach a dance class, and on my way home, I kept noticing the full moon. And it’s like part of me thought, Oh yeah, there’s the moon. But then I thought about seeing with fresh eyes, and it was the most gorgeous thing, this floating, glowing, giant orb, hovering over the shadowy mountains, illuminating the night. I mean, have you ever just stared at the moon? (If not, I don’t recommend trying it while you’re driving. But still, definitely try it.)

The poet Rumi says, “Trade your cleverness for bewilderment.” I could be wrong, but I think this is the same idea as seeing with fresh eyes. I know that for me it’s so easy to look at things like the moon, or another person, or the fact that I don’t really have a job right now and automatically label or judge it. It’s easy for me to be clever, to think that I know what something means, like, this sucks because I said so. But I think what Sylvia and Rumi are suggesting is that fresh eyes don’t judge. They look at things in wonder. Every moment, every moon is new. Each face is beautiful. Sitting there is just as good as doing something, maybe even better.

After dance tonight, I had dinner with my friend Andrew. (That’s his picture above. Obviously, he blinked.) When I told him I didn’t know what I was going to write about later, he asked what I did today. I told him I went to Springdale to teach, so he said I should write about the tunnel you have to drive through to get to Springdale. At first I thought that was a terrible idea. I mean, it’s just a tunnel (it’s just a moon), but then Andrew, who recently turned twenty-eight years old, kept talking. He said that every single time he goes through the tunnel, he holds his breath and makes a wish. Well, he also touches a piece of metal (like his key ring), which I didn’t know was a thing, but he said was “basic wishology.” He said this hold-your-breath-and-go-through-the-tunnel-while-touching-a-piece-of-metal ritual had been going on for close to nine years now.

Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever heard?

Honestly, I think it’s beautiful. Maybe it’s a little superstitious, but beautiful nonetheless. I think it’s like looking at life with fresh eyes, trading your cleverness for bewilderment. Andrew called it believing in magic. And whereas I don’t know that I want to start holding my breath every time I go through a tunnel (I have terrible lung capacity), I do think I want to renew my belief that anything can happen. What’s more, anything can happen even without my having to do something every minute of every day. Anything can happen while I’m just sitting here. I mean, there’s a moon in the sky!

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"The truth is right in front of you."

the person beside me (blog #11)

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Usually, at some point during the day, it becomes clear what I’m going to blog about. It’s like an idea shows up, and part of me just knows—that’s it. Well, it’s two hours to midnight, Cinderella, and so far that idea hasn’t shown up. That being said, it’s National Siblings Day, so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my one and only sibling, Dee-Anne. (That’s her in the photo above. She’s the pretty one. With long hair.)

As I write this now, I’m in the room that was hers when we were children. All of her furniture is gone, the walls have been repainted, and there aren’t many signs of her left, save a bookend of a teddy bear. The bear has its legs spread far apart, heels to Jesus, so I don’t know what that’s about. In the closet, there’s her Teddy Ruxpin, as well as a dry-erase notepad with two more teddy bears on it. Both of them are wearing leotards. (It was the 80s.)

Obviously, Dee-Anne had a thing for teddy bears.

It’s weird being back here, living in the house I grew up in, staying in her room. Even without closing my eyes, I can see where her canopy bed used to sit. I remember getting a spanking in here once, by her nightstand. I remember where in the room she and her friends used to play with Barbie dolls and I wasn’t allowed.

Memories for me are almost always related to space. Like, when I think about things that happened at my dance studio, I always remember the thing and exactly where I was standing when it happened. It’s like that with everything. I remember the spot in my grandparents’ front yard where I was standing when I saw the smoke from our house burning a few blocks away. Just that one memory of the smoke and the spot in the yard is all I’ve got. Nothing else comes back, other than I know that my sister was there beside me.

Sometimes I walk through the house, and it’s like a dream. In reality, Mom and Dad are in the living room watching Days of Our Lives, but I see my sister and me there the night that Dad was arrested over twenty years ago. We watched it on television together.

There’s a wall in the living room with pictures of us, most of them taken about twelve years ago, when I opened my dance studio. Dee-Anne was my first dance partner, and we took a lot of pictures for publicity. But there are also a lot of pictures from when we were kids, as well as one when I was a senior in high school that’s airbrushed more than the cover of Cosmopolitan.

As I think about it now, I realize that my sister was my first friend, one of the first people I met when I came into this world. And I guess we did all the normal things that siblings do—double bounce each other on the trampoline, go to each other’s ballgames and ballet recitals, fight with each other in the backseat of the car. But there were certainly all the not-so-normal things that happened, like the time we walked the streets of El Paso as teenagers, searching for a Western Union, because Mom’s purse was stolen and we needed cash if we were going to be able to visit Dad in prison. (I really should have started therapy sooner.)

After my first nephew was born, I came out to my sister. I think I had just broken up with my first official boyfriend, and I was such a fucking mess that my parents had asked what was going on. So I told them, then decided Dee-Anne should know too.

So we’re driving to the grocery store, and my nephew is in a car seat in the back, and I just blurt it out. “So this probably won’t come as a surprise, but I’m gay—now you say something supportive.”

And then my sister stuck her hand in the air (like a Pentecostal on a Sunday morning) and said, “High five for finally saying something.”

Later that year, for my birthday, she sent me a card that said, “I’m sorry for not letting you play with my Barbie dolls.”

I always tell people that I’ve been really fortunate in terms of my sexuality. My family is over-the-top accepting. Just today, my mom made a point to tell me how handsome she thinks Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper are. More than little things like that, I know that I can be myself. I know anyone I choose to date or spend time with is welcome here. But that’s not always the case, of course. I know gay guys who have been kicked out by their mothers, thrown up against the wall by their fathers, told they can’t see their nephews by their sisters.

And all I can say is that I’m grateful. There’s something special and humbling about being able to be fully yourself around your family, the people who have known you the longest, that have been through hell with you. It’s so easy to put expectations on people you’ve known forever, to insist that they don’t change or even grow up. But I think if you really love someone, you love them no matter what. And it doesn’t matter if they get sick, or go to prison, or come out of the closet because sure, people change, but love doesn’t. That’s the thing that stays the same.

And if someone changes and you stop loving them—well, that’s not love.

So if I’ve never said it before, Dee-Anne, thank you for loving me. Thank you for being my first friend, for standing beside me during the very worst moments of this life, and thank you for dancing with me, and for that high five and the retroactive invitation to play with your Barbie dolls. I definitely would have taken you up on that. But then again, had I come out sooner, I also would have stopped you from wearing those jeans in the eighth grade.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"The heart sings for its own reasons."

a Mexican soap opera (blog #10)

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Late last night, right before I went to bed, I noticed the lymph nodes in my armpits were swollen. Like, one minute they weren’t swollen, and the next minute they were. (The above photo was taken earlier in the evening, before all my pit problems.) I tried to raise my arms to take my shirt off, and it felt like someone had inserted two lemons up in there, one on each side. So I Googled the problem, decided it was cancer, and went to bed hoping for a miracle. (I don’t recommend using Google when you don’t feel well.)

This may come as a surprise, but the miracle didn’t show. I woke up in the middle of the night with chills. So I put on a shirt, grabbed an extra blanket, and went back to sleep. Then I woke up again with a fever.

When I was a teenager, I started getting sinus infections, although I’m not sure that I understood back then exactly what was going on. I just knew that I would feel terrible, gross, and lethargic. For the last twenty years, on average, I’ve probably gotten a sinus infection once every two to three months, each infection lasting a couple of weeks. Looking back, it feels like I have just as many memories of being sick as I do of being well.

For the longest time, I believed that getting sick was a result of sin because, you know, I’m such a terrible person. So I thought if I could just follow the right rules or say the right prayer, I’d stop getting sick. Well, I guess God’s pretty hard to please, since I could never seem to get better.

At some point, I stopped believing that God worked that way. But as I think about it now, I realize that I still put a lot of pressure on myself because I started believing that I could get better if I just followed the right rules in terms of diet and holistic health (which, by the way, didn’t work any better than following God’s rules).

Even now, whenever I get sick, there’s part of me that feels I’ve done something wrong, like it’s my fault. It’s a lot better than it used to be, but it’s the most frustrating thing, this feeling like I’m doing everything I know to do, and I’m still getting sick on a regular basis.

Several years ago, I dated a guy who looked a lot like Buddy Holly. Honestly, he’s probably the kindest, sweetest person I’ve ever dated. But he was also a lot younger than I was, and my therapist says it’s really hard to date someone whose brain hasn’t fully developed, especially when yours has. Anyway, the night before we broke up, I’m sitting up in bed, and he comes in the room and straddles me like I’m horse. (As it turns out, he didn’t want me to run away.) And then he starts wagging his finger in my face and says, “You told me you loved me, and then I fell in love with you, and NOW you’re telling me you don’t know what you want? WELL YOU BETTER FIGURE IT OUT!”

When I told my therapist this story, she said, “Did he think he was on a Mexican soap opera?” So now that’s what we call him on the rare occasion his name comes up—Mexican Soap Opera. (I’m sure he has names for me too.)

So the next day, when things are seriously over, he starts crying. And he says, “I did everything right.” And I start crying too because he did, and I know what that feels like, to work your ass off in a relationship and have it turn to shit anyway. I know what it’s like to spend all your money and time going to doctors and alternative doctors—pharmacies and health food stores—and still get sick. And all of it sucks. All of it feels like failure, like you’re not good enough.

All of it feels like a Mexican soap opera.

A couple of months ago, finally, I had sinus surgery. I could probably write a blog post about that experience alone, so I’ll spare you the details for now. But as it turns out, it wasn’t God’s fault, and it wasn’t my fault either. I’m sure you’re excited to hear about it, so here’s a picture from the day of the surgery to hold you over.

Getting back to my swollen armpits, I spent this afternoon feeling frustrated about not feeling better, about getting sick—again. My consolation was that I wasn’t sick with a sinus infection. This was a NEW problem, which actually made it feel less like a failure. So early this evening, I went to a walk-in clinic, and the doctor squeezed and poked my armpits like he was shopping for avocadoes.

He said that I had a bacterial infection, probably due to the fact that I had sinus surgery recently and two fillings at the dentist a couple of days ago. He said he couldn’t point to one specific cause, that it was “a soup.” (This reminds me of the time my urologist told me that “dilution is the solution to the pollution,” and I said, “Did they teach you that in medical school?”) Anyway, the doctor today said surgery and dental work are invasive procedures, and it’s easy for the bacteria in your body to get out of hand. One minute things are fine, and the next minute things turn into a Mexican soap opera.

So the doctor prescribed an antibiotic, and he told me I shouldn’t wear deodorant for a while, which I’m sure all my friends will appreciate.

Somewhere I heard the story about a mystic or a monk who performed a wedding for a couple, and during the ceremony, he took a stick or something and started lightly tapping them over their heads. He kept saying, “Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward. Pain is not a punishment. Pleasure is not a reward.”

I guess for the longest time, I’ve put all his pressure on myself when it comes to my health (and relationships and money), like, YOU BETTER FIGURE IT OUT. But I think the lesson about pain and pleasure is the perfect reminder on days like today. Just because I feel bad, it doesn’t mean I’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t mean life hates me. Likewise, just because I fell good, it doesn’t mean I’ve done something right. Sickness and health come and go, just like everything else. It’s just the way life is. And even if it’s not, I don’t have to have all the answers. (Obviously, that’s what Google’s for.)

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Nothing is set in stone here.

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don’t put a bird on it (blog #9)

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I spent the day with two of my friends from high school, Kara and Amber. The three of us live in different cities, but we make a point to get together and catch up several times a year. (We all love a good plan.) Our conversations always last a long time, but today I’m pretty sure we broke our personal record–we talked for nine hours. We laughed, we cried, it was better than Cats.

We started our reunion this afternoon at a coffee shop, but five hours later went to a restaurant called Mockingbird Kitchen. Appropriately, there were birds on everything, which immediately made me think of PUT A BIRD ON IT. If you don’t know, PUT A BIRD ON IT is a phrase made popular by the television show Portlandia. It has to do with the idea that you can take something unspectacular (like a simple tote bag) and dress it up and make it prettier than it actually is if you–well–PUT A BIRD ON IT.

I mean, just imagine how boring this coffee cup would be WITHOUT a bird on it:

For whatever reason, PUT A BIRD ON IT always makes me laugh. I like the way it rolls off my tongue. Plus, I have a dear friend who LOVES birds–like absolutely can not get enough of birds–and he’s always rearranging his decorations and knick knacks, so I love visiting his house and going on a bird hunt, seeing if I can spot a bird on a spring throw pillow, or maybe find a new statue of a fat bird he’s put on the back of his toilet. (Since this is my idea of fun, I should probably consider getting out more.)

Anyway, Kara and Amber and I spent a lot of time today talking about authenticity, this goal we all share to be open and honest and real and vulnerable, not only with each other, but also with the world. This goal, of course, is not an easy one. At least for me, I know that it comes in fits and starts. I’ve spent so much time feeling like I wasn’t complete, that a lot of my energy has gone into things like people pleasing and putting forth an acceptable social image, rather than simply being myself.

Whenever my therapist talks about Facebook, she always uses the word “presentation.” Like, it’s so easy to look at pictures of someone online and think that their life is perfect and that they have it all figured out. But the truth is, you’re only seeing what they want you to see, and as Paul Laurence Dunbar says, “We wear the mask that grins and lies.” That may sound a bit harsh, but I think it’s fair to say that few of us present a complete picture of ourselves to those around us, especially on social media. I know I don’t, at least until this blog started.

It’s not that I consider putting your best foot forward to be a bad thing. Most the time, I think what’s actually happening is that we take something we consider unspectacular and PUT A BIRD ON IT. We dress things up and make them look prettier than they actually are. But the problem is that we end up smiling when we’re actually falling apart. We say things like, “I’m fine,” when the truth sounds more like, “I’m fucking pissed.”

Close to ten years ago, I got obsessed with handwriting analysis, and I bought a lot of books on the subject. The theory is you can tell a lot about a person’s personality by studying their handwriting–how it slants, how big or small it is, how large the margins are. Well, one easy thing that anyone can do is look at a person’s signature and compare it to the rest of their writing. Ideally, they should look the same, but often they don’t. The explanation is that a person’s handwriting shows their true personality, but the signature shows the image they present to the world. The signature shows the mask they wear. The signature shows whether or not they’ve put a bird–on themselves.

When I first started therapy, I talked about how great it was. I mean, my therapist is hilarious, and we laughed a lot, and I saw immediate improvement in my life. “Everyone should go to therapy,” I said. Even now, I’m constantly saying, “My therapist says this,” or “My therapist says that.” Hell, I even have a blog about my therapist. But somewhere along the way, I started telling people, “I’m just kidding. Don’t go to therapy. It sucks.” What I mean by that is that productive therapy is difficult. It’s not easy to live an authentic life, to do things like be vulnerable, honor your emotions, set boundaries, and initiate confrontations. It’s much easier to PUT A BIRD ON IT.

All that being said, I think authenticity is worth all the hard work and being real is its own reward. There’s something beautiful, after all, about a simple tote bag that requires nothing but itself in order to be complete.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Our struggles unearth our strengths.

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well, that’s disappointing (blog #8)

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There’s an English slang word that I learned about earlier this year. The word is coddiwomple. It means “to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination,” and that’s exactly what’s about to happen. In other words, I don’t know where I’m going with this blog, but, like any good man, I intend to make good time getting there.

For breakfast this morning, I walked to Hardee’s, and although I didn’t realize it, I had my heart set on a steak and egg biscuit, which was a staple item for me several months ago when I was in the midst of fixing up the old house I was living in and getting ready to move. Well, when I got to Hardee’s, I was informed that the steak and egg biscuit was no longer available. It actually took three people to confirm this fact, and the last one, a lady, said, “That was a seasonal item, and the season is over.”

Well, I almost walked out the door, like, Screw you people. I’m taking my business elsewhere. But I was in a hurry to get to the dentist to have two cavities filled, so I decided to stay and eat a fried chicken biscuit instead. (And yes, the irony of eating fast food thirty minutes before going to the dentist to have cavities filled is not lost on me. All I can say is, make hay while the sun shines.) Anyway, it wasn’t the worst breakfast I’ve ever had, but it certainly wasn’t worth getting a cavity over and tasted a lot more like disappointment than chicken.

Always one to overanalyze, I started thinking way too much about why I was so let down about the steak and egg biscuit season being over. I mean, it’s just a steak and egg biscuit. From Hardee’s.

The first place my mind went was this time about a year and a half ago when I’d asked a friend to do me a favor and host another dance instructor who’d come into town to teach for a convention I used to organize. Well, my friend ended up having some of his friends over that night, and my dance instructor was upset, partly, because he thought they were too loud. My first reaction was to get angry, since I thought my friend’s actions reflected poorly on me, so I brought it up in therapy thinking that I’d be agreed with. But I wasn’t. My therapist said that I’d asked someone to do something for me, and then I got angry because they didn’t do it the way I would’ve. She said that I should have been more clear about my desires, said something like, “I’d like you to host someone, please, but I don’t want you blast Michael Buble music until three in the morning. How do you feel about that?”

I said I could have said that, but this sort of thing had never come up before. And then my therapist said, “You’ve been really fortunate. You’ve been spoiled.” (Spin this however you want, but it didn’t feel like a compliment.)

So after the thing at Hardee’s this morning, I started wondering if that was it, if I was just spoiled. And then I started thinking of all the words that are associated with being spoiled, words like rotten and brat, and then I felt like shit because I was convinced I was an entitled little twit who almost always gets his way and throws a temper tantrum every time Hardee’s changes it’s menu. (Sometimes my therapist says that I’m married to suffering, and looking at what I’ve just written, she may be right about that.)

Then I started thinking what a perfectly disgusting word spoiled is, how we should probably ban it from the English language–at least when used to refer to humans and not eggs–because it’s never used to build anyone up. It’s always used to put someone in their place, like, “Who do you think you are, wanting a steak and egg biscuit from Hardee’s?”

So up until the time the dentist put a drill in my mouth, this idea of being spoiled was all I could think about, and I kept trying to figure out the difference between feeling like you’re worthy of good things (like a decent, fast food breakfast) and feeling like you’re spoiled, ready to be thrown out with the sour milk. I’m still not sure I have an answer, but I think it has to do with the difference in feeling like you’re entitled to something as opposed to just wanting it. And I think how severely you react to the disappointments in your life will let you know which side of the fence you fall on.

By the time my cavities were filled and I could no longer open the right side of my mouth, I decided I wasn’t spoiled. Yes, I’m fortunate, but there are so many things a lot bigger than breakfast that don’t go my way. And I didn’t throw a tantrum this morning, I just felt disappointed. More accurately, I felt sad.

A little over three years ago, I was about to break up with my ex. I’d been convinced we were going to get married, but we were fighting all the time, and it was usually about something stupid, like the fact that I wouldn’t go to McDonald’s a block away and get him a McFlurry. (And no, he was not in a wheelchair or somehow unable to walk or drive himself.) Well, I was fucking miserable. Some days I’d just lie in bed and stare at the wall. Then one night we went out to eat at Ed Walker’s, and all I really wanted was a piece of chocolate cake. I had my heart set on it. Like, my life may suck right now, but at least there’s chocolate cake.

So I ask the waitress if they have chocolate cake today, and she says yes. But then she brings German Chocolate Cake, and I start fighting back tears because IT’S NOT THE SAME THING, BITCH.

No, I didn’t say that, but it was probably written all over my face.

Later my ex said that the waitress probably thought I was crazy, which, of course, I was. But I wasn’t crazy because I started crying over German Chocolate Cake–I was crazy because I was dating him. And I was disappointed he wasn’t the one, and I was sad because I loved him, and there was no way in hell that it could work. So I shoved those feelings down at home, and they all came rushing back up as soon as they had a decent chance and I was too focused on chocolate cake to stop them.

So here’s where we ended up, here’s where we coddiwompled. First, the disappointment over breakfast this morning really wasn’t that big of a deal. But it did cause me to stop and realize that there are actually some pretty big disappointments in my life right now, a lot of things bigger than cheap biscuits that haven’t turned out like I thought they would, things that I had my heart set on. And although I don’t want to start feeling sorry for myself, I think it’s okay to feel sad about those things. I think it’s okay to grieve the death of my fantasies. It’s okay to be sad when seasons end. And maybe that means for a while, I need to spoil myself–sleep in a little later, eat my favorite breakfast even if it’s bad for me, go out for chocolate cake. After a while, I’m hoping, sadness will let me go because I listened to it and didn’t shove it down, and then I can strike out with purpose toward an as-yet-unknown destination with nothing to hold me back.

[As a side note, there’s part of me that feels my ex is largely responsible for this blog. In the first place, he’s the reason I went to therapy. In the second, he gave me this laptop. My therapist says that he doesn’t deserve any credit because it was how I responded to the shitty situation that made the difference. But as Andrew Solomon says, “If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes.”]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We can rewrite our stories if we want to.

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