Here’s Something Weird (Blog #311)

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It’s ten o’clock, and the Super Bowl is officially over. This should come as no surprise, but I didn’t see a single second of it, Halftime Show and commercials included. While millions of other people were gathered around their televisions cheering and groaning, visiting with friends, and drinking beer, I was reading a book on customer service, doing laundry, and ordering probiotics on Amazon. It’s a sexy life, I know.

Here’s something weird.

Several weeks ago a friend told me about a healer named Charlie Goldsmith. I guess there was a television series about him recently on TLC, and a lot of people claim he’s healed them either in person or at a distance. (Having read quite a bit about alternative healing methods, I don’t have any problem believing this sort of thing is possible.) Anyway, my friend said Charlie sometimes does group healing sessions for people on his email list, so I went to his website and signed up. (Why not? It was free.) Well, there was a healing session yesterday, so earlier in the day I did as instructed and wrote down my health concerns. Then when the appointed time came, I put away all distractions and simply lay in bed.

Like, I’m waiting.

Y’all, get this shit. A few minutes before the official start time, I felt warmth coming into my stomach. I felt like I was standing in front of a hand dryer. For the next ten minutes (the length of the session), this feeling came and went. There weren’t any instructions about what to do with my hands, but I intuited that I needed to place them on my stomach, heart, and shoulders, which I did. Well, wherever my hands went, the heat would follow. Since this sometimes happens when I practice Reiki, I honestly didn’t think too much about it, but later my friend said she’d had a similar experience, and several people online said the same. (Several people online also said they didn’t feel shit. So there’s that.) Neither my friend or I experienced a change in symptoms.

Last night I listened to a guided imagery CD designed for healing the effects of trauma. Guided imagery is, essentially, visualization and affirmations. There’s actually more to it than that, but I can’t tell you what it is because I fell asleep during the first five minutes of the CD. (They say this is okay, since your subconscious still gets the message, but my subconscious isn’t writing this blog.) Anyway, I was snoring and everything. I think the total program was sixty minutes, and I woke up for the last fifteen minutes of the affirmation section. So I can tell you that part was stellar, and the other part was–at the very least–good for a nap.

Later I was “up all night,” mostly watching Netflix. I think it was three or four before I actually fell asleep. I didn’t set an alarm, but I’d planned on getting up around ten or eleven during one of my “bathroom breaks” to meet some friends for brunch. Well, that didn’t happen. Y’all, I don’t know if it was Charlie the Healer or the guided imagery CD (or both), but I didn’t wake up until one this afternoon. Like, I didn’t get up to go to the bathroom or anything. I slept like a rock. It felt great.

I still have no idea how my bladder did it.

It’s enough.

Despite the wonderful sleep last night, I’ve dragged ass all day. Currently I’m ready to wrap this up and get ready for bed. I think if I could sleep like I did last night more often, it could only help. But who knows what will happen? And who knows what happened yesterday? Today I started to get frustrated about being sick but then remembered that being ill lately has afforded me a lot of time to read and to learn, and I wouldn’t trade any of that. (As if I have a choice in the matter.) More and more, I’m okay with not having all the answers. Like, I don’t need to know why I’m sick or exactly how to fix it. I don’t need to know how the universe works or be able to understand every weird thing that happens. Rather, I’m learning that it’s enough that things happen as they do. It’s enough to be right here, right now. It’s enough to sit in, and sometimes drag ass through, the mystery.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It's enough to sit in, and sometimes drag ass through, the mystery.

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Stronger (Blog #310)

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It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, and I’ve been nauseated all day. My dad was nauseated yesterday. He also had a chill and–as he calls it–The Diarrhea. (This way of referring to things is apparently a theme around my parents’ house, as my mom calls Facebook, “The Facebook.”) Anyway, my aunt was over earlier, and when I told her that I felt woozy, she said, “Oh my god, I hope you and your dad aren’t getting the flu! I saw [on The Facebook, I’m assuming] where another child died.” My dad said, “Well, I feel better today. It was probably the Mexican food I ate last night. And we’re not children.” Seriously, can’t a guy be light-headed without everyone assuming he has the black plague? And could we please talk about something other than the flu? I know it’s a killer virus and all, but like I need one more thing to be paranoid about.

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about the many faces and effects of trauma. Last night, in a book about guided imagery and trauma, I read about a woman who used to count words on her fingers as a way to bring order to her chaotic life. Another woman said she always chose the aisle seat on airplanes in order to minimize her anxiety around feeling trapped. One man, a police officer during the Oklahoma City Bombing, said he was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Personally, I’ve had experience with all of these feelings and behaviors. And whereas I’ve talked about them in therapy, I haven’t talked about them–all at once. That’s what I appreciate about the book and reading other people’s stories–they help me to see the direct line from past events like our house fire, Mom’s being chronically ill, Dad’s going to prison, and even multiple car accidents to my current emotions, attitudes, and actions. In other words, I’m the way I am–for a reason.

I’ve thought about this before, of course. You don’t spend half your life in the self-help section and four years in therapy and not have a few insights. But there was something about seeing all these symptoms listed side-by-side and reading these stories back-to-back that helped me look at things a different way. Rather, it helped me look at myself a different way. Like, I’m not inherently or by-definition fucked up because I get nervous around people. I’m not broken because I need my books alphabetized or ordered according to height.

I’ve just had some bad things happen.

I guess one could get stuck in “victim mode” with this sort of thinking. If you wanted to, you could easily find something or someone to blame your problems on. (If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.) But for me, this isn’t about blame; it’s about the truth. According to the book I’m reading, trauma victims often take responsibility for everything. They think everything is their fault. They feel guilty when they have no reason to. But this thinking is flawed. It’s anything but the truth. Humans don’t exist in a vacuum. Personalities don’t just happen; they’re formed. I’m not saying you don’t have any control over yourself or that circumstances can’t change–you do, and they can. But I also think healing starts by acknowledging the great, uncontrollable forces that have brought you to where you are in life.

Like, Okay, this is where we are, and this is how we got here. Now what are we gonna do about it?

One’s spirit is capable of overcoming anything.

The other thing that I think is healing is knowing that I’m not the only traumatized person walking around on this planet. It’s easy to forget this fact whenever I go to the grocery store, since most of us don’t wear t-shirts that advertise our bad experiences. Like, I was ready to marry my ex, and they were lying to me and cheating on me from day one. But everyone–everyone–has something. You and I are in good company here. Simply put, we live in a traumatized world. And whereas we could think, Isn’t it awful?, I don’t see this fact as a bad thing. It’s just a fact. Now what are we gonna do about it? For me, it starts with realizing that 1) No one is alone, 2) It’s never too late to heal the past, and 3) Despite all the great, uncontrollable forces in the world, one’s spirit is still a much greater force–one that is capable of not only surviving trauma, but also of thriving on the other side of it. Without question, one’s spirit is capable of overcoming anything and beginning again, stronger.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Every stress and trauma in your life is written somewhere in your body.

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Neutral Mind and Cup of Prayer (Blog #289)

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It’s late in the day, even for me, and I’m just starting to blog. I’ve spent most the day in bed cuddled up with my Kindle, feeling generally–meh. I think that’s a technical term. In addition to having little energy, I’ve felt light-headed and shaky. I keep telling myself it could be worse–it could be a lot worse. Whenever I stand up and the room spins ever so slightly, I think, Enjoy the trip, Marcus. People spend money on drugs to experience the world this way.

Lucky me–I get the experience for free.

Yesterday when I went to Walmart to pick up my prescriptions (plural), the pharmacy only had one of them. “I think the doctor was supposed to call in two,” I said. The girl at the cash register checked with the pharmacist, and he said–nope–they only had one listed. “That’s okay,” I said, “I’ll just take the one and call the doctor’s office to see what’s up.” Well, I guess basic human kindness and understanding are in short supply these days, since the girl looked me right in the eyes and said, “Thank you for being pleasant.”

Assuming she was having a bad day, I said, “Are most people not?”

“No,” she said. “So thank you for being pleasant and good-looking.”

Talk about making my day. Two compliments at the same time, from a total stranger. I laughed and said, “You’re welcome.” Still, I thought, I only have control over one of those things, you know.

The book I started reading this afternoon is called Learning to Breathe Again: My Yearlong Quest to Bring Calm to My Life by Priscilla Warner. I’m halfway through, and so far it’s about meditation and other peace-of-mind and trauma-healing techniques the author explored in her effort to stop or minimize her panic attacks. In the beginning of the book, she says that everything started when a lady in a new age bookstore held her hands and told her was a calm person. Her friend that was with her laughed, but she realized the lady was right. Despite her panic attacks, she knew she was capable of stillness.

This part of the book touched me, since I think sometimes someone else has to see something in us before we can see it in ourselves. (Look, Ma, I’m pleasant and good-looking!) Once my massage therapist Rod told me that according to tantric numerology, my soul number is 4, which means I have a “neutral mind.” In tantric numerology, a person’s soul number is the day of the month they were born reduced to a single digit, meaning anyone born on the 4th, 13th (like me), 22nd, or 31st would also have a neutral mind. Whether this theory is true or not, I do think it’s true for me. I didn’t realize it until Rod pointed it out and I’m not always in touch with it, but now I absolutely know I have a neutral mind. I have the ability to be detached from things, other people, and results. I can take life as it comes.

(If you’re curious about what your soul number is and what it means, click here.)

The key phrase for someone with a neutral mind is “cup of prayer.” This means that if life hands you a cup, you don’t argue about whether it’s too full or not full enough–you’re simply glad that it exists and has been given to you. This can be difficult to do, of course, especially when life kicks you in the nuts and your body feels like crap. Like, Can I give this cup back? Is there an exchange policy? I’d really prefer something different.

A couple days ago I had dinner with my friend Marla, and during a conversation about difficult childhoods, I said that I often compared myself to friends who grew up “better off,” that sometimes I felt “less than.” Marla said, “Consider how deep and kind your childhood has made you, Marcus. It turned you into who you are, in a good way. Not everyone can say that. I think you were given a gift.” I said, “I like thinking of it that way–a gift.” Since then, I’ve been trying to see the gifts in my current circumstances, like all the time I’ve been given to finally get myself sorted out and heal on the inside. Sure, my body’s been sick lately, but I’m getting good help, most of it’s being paid for, and I don’t have other demands on me, so I can give this problem my full attention. This is the cup of prayer thing, being grateful for whatever your circumstances are, knowing that even if the cup you’ve been given is full of sour lemons, it can still be turned into something sweet to drink.

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.

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Road Trips, Reunions, and Rise and Fall (Blog #196)

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9:06 AM

Believe it or not, I’ve been awake for an hour. I got to Wichita last night around 10:30, visited with my friends Megan and Kevin for a while, and crashed pretty hard sometime between midnight and one. My friends stashed me in the apartment above their garage, so I’m currently fighting the temptation to play with all the Legos in here that either belong to their two boys or to Kevin. Before I passed out last night I checked the distance I have to drive to Denver today, and it should take about eight hours, provided I don’t stop to eat, get gas, or go to the bathroom. So we’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty sure Tom Collins (my car) and I are going to need a few breaks.

Rather than write today’s blog in one sitting and therefore postpone my departure time, I’m trying something different–a play-by-play. Basically I’ll be writing “live” as I stop for lunch or whatever. Or maybe the next timestamp will be tonight when I get to Denver. Either way, think of this as an adventure. You can even imagine yourself on the trip with me if that makes it more exciting for you. Now that we’re up and dressed, our first stop is inside the house to see about breakfast and caffeine.

Here we go.

10:18 AM

Jackpot. Megan hooked me up with breakfast–fruit, toast, coffee. She has some sort of magical device made by space aliens that attached to her toaster and makes hard-boiled eggs. What will they think of next? Now I’m getting close to leaving. Just need to pack up the rest of my things, throw them in Tom Collins, and Denver, here I come.

Here’s a picture of Megan and me at breakfast. That little guy she’s holding is a Lego dude with a sword. Hello!

1:40 PM

After about three hours of driving, I just stopped because my gas tank and my bladder told me to. Now my gas tank is full and my bladder is empty, whereas it was the other way around just a few moments ago. So far the only thing to report is that one of the gentlemen in the restroom didn’t wash his hands before walking out. Otherwise, all is well. I’ve been listening to “Despacito” on repeat (bom bom), as well as a lecture by psychologist James Finley on the relationship between trauma and transformation. In part of the talk he used the phrase, the holiness of ordinariness, which I love. It’s the idea that within each moment, there’s something of the sacred. Since things are always changing, today’s particular sun will never shine in quite the same way. In this light, even the flat plains of Kansas look beautiful, each windmill its own miracle.

4:22 PM (MST)

Okay, now I’m in Mountain Standard Time, so it feels like I woke up an hour earlier than I actually did. I’m starting to get tired. For one thing, all the driving. For another, I’m all a mile high and there’s not a lot of air up here. Thank god my brain doesn’t need oxygen to function. Oh wait. I just got gas and am about to run through Taco Bell and hit the road again. I just have a couple more hours to tonight’s destination, and I just realized Tom Collins is a murderer–there are hundreds (hundreds) of dead bugs on the front of my car. Maybe if I’d left that Jesus fish on the back of Tom Collins he’d have better morals. Regardless, I hope he feels good about himself. Anyway, time for a burrito.

12:32 AM (MST)

I arrived in Denver about six hours ago and am just getting to my laptop. I’m staying with my friend and dance mentor, Maggie, and one day I should probably write an entire blog–or book–about her. She’s short, loud, Italian, and good as gold. Her dance studio is connected to her house, and this honestly feels like a second home to me. Not only is it the place where I learned it was okay to cuss in front of dance students, but it’s also the place where I’ve learned most of what I know about ballroom dancing and been encouraged more times than I can count. Last year when I was thinking about closing the studio and moving to Austin, Maggie’s the one who said, “If you’re not happy, you gotta start over.”

Anyway, when I walked in the door, Maggie gave me a big hug, then I watched her teach waltz for half an hour. Afterwards she taught a group class in swing, so I got to watch and participate. I always forget how funny Maggie is. She’s like a drill sergeant, a stand-up comedian, and Mother Teresa all rolled into one. Outside her studio she has a huge water fountain where she’s added a sign that says, “Ryzan Falls.” Get it–rise and fall? (It’s a dance thing.)

After dancing, Maggie and I went out to eat with her roommate, Jon. Oh my god, y’all, we had so much fun catching up, sharing our dramas, eating carbs. Maggie told me that last year her boyfriend was learning a dance move from YouTube, and when he showed it to Maggie and asked if she knew the instructor (because all dance instructors know each other), she said, “Yes, actually–that’s Marcus! He’s my student.”

Isn’t that wild?

Now I’m wishing I had more time to spend here. Maggie and her friends and students are always so welcoming, and Denver has so much to offer. I’ve been out dancing here so many times, and there’s a great used bookstore. Plus, I love watching Maggie teach. I always learn something and never fail to laugh. That being said, I’m in town for different reasons this time, so rather than feel as if I’m missing out on something, I’m trying to remind myself that it’s a treat to simply be here at all. A miracle, really.

Even though, like, I wasn’t born in the Great Depression, it still amazes me that in one day I can wake up in Wichita and fall asleep in Denver, but that’s what happened today. In between were hundreds of miles, moments, and memories. Who’s to say which ones were ordinary, which ones holy? What makes one thing better than another? Perhaps that’s just a game we play with ourselves. Each day the events of our lives, like our moods, rise and fall, and what if the divine is right there in the middle of us like a steady beat, just waiting for us to notice and to get in time with the music?

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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All emotions are useful.

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The Best of Things (Blog #146)

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To this day, one of my top three movies is The Shawshank Redemption, which–extremely briefly–is about a man named Andy who is falsely imprisoned and eventually escapes after years of slowly chipping away at a concrete wall. (If you haven’t seen it, I’m sorry to spoil it for you.) One of the final scenes involves the night Andy escapes. After crawling through the tunnel he’s made, he breaks open a sewage line, crawls through hundreds of yards of you-know-what, and eventually emerges on the other side of the prison walls. It’s pouring down rain, and as Andy stretches his arms out wide, the water washes over him. Finally, he’s free.

The movie concludes when Andy’s best friend, Red, is released from prison and breaks his parole to join Andy on a beach. (It’s very sweet in a heterosexual sort of way.) Previously, Red had told Andy to accept his fate, that he’d be stuck in prison for the rest of his life. He says, “Hope is a dangerous thing.” Andy’s later response is one of the best lines in the movie, maybe any movie: “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things.”

Last week I read a book called Scared Selfless by a psychologist who was severely abused and traumatized as a child. In short, her step-father used her as a sex slave and prostitute until she became a teenager. For several years, she dissociated, meaning her psyche seriously compartmentalized the horrific experiences, and she was able to go about her day-to-day life interacting with her step-father as if everything were “normal.” When she got to college she started having flashbacks, and although the shit really hit the fan, the good news is that she started the long road to healing. That road included a number of psychologists (at least eight), a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity disorder), and discovering that she was a lesbian.

It’s a lot to process, I know.

Today I took the book to therapy and asked my therapist a few questions out of curiosity. There’s a comment in the book that “during prolonged trauma, denying one’s feelings can be beneficial and adaptive” because–why focus on your terrible life if you can’t do anything about it? So I asked my therapist if that was true, if it was “okay” to shut down sometimes, to put part of you in a box until you can deal with it later. My therapist said that in severe cases, it’d be hard not to. But–and she sort of pulled back the corners of her mouth before she said this–she didn’t think it was ever healthy to deny one’s feelings, to compartmentalize. She said, “I think a better response would be hope. Okay, this sucks, and maybe I can’t do anything about it now, but it’s only temporary. Everything is temporary.”

Although I’ve been through a number of traumatic experiences, I can’t imagine the level of trauma the lady who wrote the book endured. Still, I can appreciate anyone who shuts down or puts things in a box because I know I did that for the longest time. I remember being fifteen when Dad when to prison. I started paying the bills, driving myself to school, falling asleep on the floor at night while I was studying. I kept a four-point average, and after school I’d type up legal work for my dad and his friends. Looking back, I should have been mad as hell, come home crying on a regular basis from all the pressure. But I only remember crying a handful of times in six years.

I know enough now that the reason I fell in love with The Shawshank Redemption was because I felt like I was in prison too, trapped in a situation I couldn’t get out of. More specifically, I both knowingly and unknowingly took parts of myself and put them behind a concrete wall. In particular, I took one rather large part and put it in a concrete closet. For years I played the roles of the dutiful son, the teacher’s pet, and the nice boy. And whereas I can’t say that those roles were disingenuous, I can say that they didn’t represent the whole of me.

Here’s the deal–if you’re not whole, you’re in prison. 

My therapist says that hope is real, that she’s seen it change people’s lives. In my experience, it seems that hope has been, as Emily Dickinson would say, the thing with feathers. Some days it’s been right there, others so far away. And yet it’s always returned, sometimes in the form of a book, sometimes in the form of a movie I can’t stop watching, sometimes in the form of my therapist. When I consider the last twenty years, it’s amazing to me that I didn’t fully recognize the prison I was in. Like Andy’s friend Red, I guess I’d simply gotten used to being there. And yet part of me obviously knew there was more to life. Hey, get us the fuck out of here. We don’t like all this concrete. This place could use some color and a new set of curtains.

The last few years have often felt like tunneling my way through a thick wall–little bit by little bit. Like Andy crawling through the sewer, my therapist says she’s in favor of digging into and dealing with all your shit until it’s under your fingernails. (Then you can clean it up.) In short, healing hasn’t always been a pretty process. But I do think it’s been worth all the hard work. Even since starting this blog, I’ve felt like a lot of walls have come down. Yeah, I’ve been through hundreds of yards of shit, but I’m more complete now than I ever have been. Last night–at four in the morning–I went for a run, and it started to rain. Rather than go back, I just decided, I’m in this. So I spread my arms out wide and let the water wash over me like a baptism. I wish I could describe it better. My feet were hitting the pavement, my lungs were working overtime, my heart was beat, beat, beating. Several times I splashed around in puddles as if I were a kid again. It felt like every piece of me was there–it felt like freedom–it felt like the best of things.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Sickness and health come and go, just like everything else. It's just the way life is."