I close my eyes so I can see your face

It comes to me from out of nowhere.

A faint outline and then your eyes,

Your long gold hair, and then your smile.

It’s so dark when I close my eyes.

Is it dark for you as well?

Do you see me like I see you?

Do you feel the way I do?

Is your heart heavy with sadness?

Does it crush you like a winter storm?

I feel buried under the evening snow

And I can’t feel a thing.

All I can do is close my eyes

And hope to see you again.

LISTENIN MAN 

I’m a listenin’ man with an ear to the ground.

Can’t hear a thing. Don’t make a sound

Watching your lips move though I can’t hear you speak

Listenin’ so hard to you while you’re asleep

I’m a listenin’ man and I don’t have much choice.

I can’t hear what you’re saying in that whispering’ voice.

I will leave in the morning and I’ll be on my way

I’ll be a listenin’ man with no place to stay.

Last time that I heard a word that you said

You were turning your back as I was turning my head

I’m a listenin’ man with nothing to say.

I’m a listenin’ man so don’t tell me twice

You’re not being mean but you sure aren’t nice.

I’ve listened to the truth and the lies

I am a listenin’ man with nothing to hide.

I’m a listenin’ man and I choose what I hear

You can cry all you want and I won’t shed a tear

You can keep yourself locked in your room with no doors

No people upstairs.          No people below.

I’m a listenin’ man. I’m the fly on a wall.

I’m the silence you hear when I won’t take your call.

You can say what you want, it’s (all) safe with me

I’m the man in the shadows that you’ll never see.

Last time that I heard a word that you said

You were turning your back as I was turning my head

I’m a listenin’ man with nothing to say.

I’m a listenin’ man and I’ll be on my way.

When the sky above starts turning grey
And you shiver from the cooling spray
Let the droplets fall where they’ll remain
Listen as they call your name
While you’re waiting for The Rain.

Do not despair or fear the storm
The clouds will keep your body warm.
The weaknesses you feel today
Will one day all be washed away.

But if the waters come as the flood lines rise
And they just can’t cleanse the wounds inside
And the waves come crashing at your door
And you can’t keep swimming anymore
And you’re just too far away from shore

Turn your head toward horizon’s light
Keep the daylight in your sight
Then close your eyes; dream of home again…
Where I’ll be waiting for The Rain.

(Read more at www.pawbypaw.com)

What I did find out was that this stranger had touched upon the soul of one of my oldest and dearest friends and that made it a little more personal to me. His close association with someone close to me, in a way, meant that he was not a complete stranger … he was a friend of a friend … which meant that had the timing been just slightly different … he could have been a friend of mine.

I know that he was loved by many people … for his sense of humor, his gentle bear-like presence … he was a big man. He was a pleasure to be around and to be his friend was an honor. His rough and tumble youth and the mishaps he experienced along the way … all formed a foundation for his years of commitment and passion for helping people … especially those with drug or alcohol dependencies.

And his passing did have an effect on me.

When I found out, all I could do was think about – close my eyes and attempt to take in – what must have been terrible grief and pain for my dear friend. How she must have wept. How the injustice of death spares no one … not even the living. I tried to imagine how angry and hopeless she must have felt. I know how she felt. I’ve felt that way, too. We all have at one time or another.

The absolute weakness and smallness we feel when someone we love is gone.

Can we turn this over in our minds and hearts and find something fulfilling about this man’s life … something that enriches us and permits us to close our eyes to think back … and remember what it was like to be with really good friends in a really close and warm, nurturing friendship? Can we find the strength to release the pain and sorrow … let it flow into a river of joy and relief … into an ocean of peace and happiness?

Isn’t it nice if there is a small place in our hearts for the people we’ve never met or known?

Isn’t that the legacy my unknown, distant friend would have wanted?

My edited reply to her is as follows … almost a New Year’s resolution.

Your heart is a nice place to be. I respect your privacy and do not wish to intrude on your life. However, I do appreciate your kind words and thoughts. “Bodhicitta and Tonglin,” (Buddhist) both of which you are so familiar, come to mind as I attempt to understand and subsequently embrace these two beautiful and peaceful practices. My life is good and I do good things. I try to surround myself with good people and I believe that my heart is good as well.

This month I turn sixty. Yes. Sixty. I feel good and go about my life as would someone much younger; and I am involved with several creative endeavors … but there are times when life’s emptiness and confusion 
screams through my soul while hopelessness and frustration crushes me beneath an awesome weight. I often sob to myself and collapse inside feeling physically and emotionally drained. It is at these times when I can talk to no one. I can only sit in silence and let these feelings and thoughts settle onto themselves and quiet down to a point when I can look at them clearly and calmly and understand them enough to get up and continue. It’s the “breathe in – breathe out” exercise. Only then can I openly and objectively discuss these issues.

Some people endorse “breathe in the good and breathe out the bad” which I think is very nice and cleansing. But I think we can also say “share your sadness with others, recognize that fear and pain are real and necessary. Breathe in the sorrow and misery of others … the poor and sick people around the world, the lonely, mistreated, and abandoned animals …  Let it all mingle with your own feelings of despair and then breathe out bravery, courage, and understanding as well as a shared sense of universal fraternity … we are all in it together.”

So, I guess at this time in my life I am re-learning “some” of the ropes. I do not wish to re-learn them all. What I would like to do is understand myself better and accept what can’t be changed as … positive experiences. Maybe shave off some of my rough edges and become a little more compassionate and tolerant of others … and myself.

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Please go to www.pawbypaw.com for more.)

Lately a lot of my reading has been helpful in getting me to organize random, disparate, unconnected thoughts and ideas that had been swimming around for months … maybe years. You know, those morning brainstorms that just flitter away after a few moments but sometimes come back crystal clear with just a simple nudge from a thought, a smell, a voice, a sound … and it’s “Oh! I remember now!” and if we can, we write it down with honest intent to get back to it and explore and study and write and … and … you know.

So it’s very satisfying to finally put one of those into an intelligent discussion and sort out the ingredients and meanings and mystical implications so that it actually makes sense and is communicable and coherent.

This was a multi-tiered discussion where first, we were talking about “hopelessness” from the perspective of self acceptance rather than that of failure or adamant thick-headedness. Next was the notion that understanding the value of hopelessness begets a more socially acceptable personage (what?) and then … we discussed the conscious decision to create multiple personalities (or characters) and how that develops a broader, more integrated social being.

Although spirits were soaring … no alcohol was involved.

I’ve listened to several speakers covering the topic of hopelessness. Personally, I enjoy, at the moment, listening and feel the message but I have a hard time grasping or retaining sometimes .. unable to put it all into a practical, usable form. Yes. It all sounds good but how do I use it? How do I benefit from it? How will I know if I’m benefitting from it? I have to take these etheral concepts and bring them into the real world into a form I can see. And then, after a while, the concepts concretize and become part of my everyday life and then I can see and experience the benefits in the various things I do and the people with whom I interact. And happily, I do lots of different things and interact with lots of different people in different social situations with differing limits or levels of socially acceptable behaviours … and it’s very challenging. On one hand, I may spend time with business professionals on a scholastic, intellectual level discussing global marketing solutions and strategies … or I might be sitting down with fellow musicians over a couple of drinks talking about Keith Richards’ impact on the music business and the benefits of five versus six strings … or having Christmas dinner with the family talking about the kids in school and who’s not feeling well, and … whatever!… they are all very important external social situations … each calling for a finely tuned … me.

At this time in my life, I’m pretty confident that the “core” of me is consistent and is present in each situation. That’s the engine … my operating system … that stores, develops, selects, and arranges all the tidbits in the best fashion to function in a particular environment. It’s simple. For the business meetings I’m going to highlight certain personal characteristics that will allow me to stand out as a professional but also to blend in as “part of the club” … and I’m going to push back those same characteristics when in the music environ because blending in is not what that’s all about … I want to stand out with my rock’n'roll attitude because that’s what works best there. And when I’m with the family … I lose all of that and come out pretty close …close … to the core … but not exactly. Know what I mean? They’re all me … just different.

We all do it. We turn it on and turn it off as the need demands. We become what we have to become in order to function in multiple “roles” … like actors. And that’s what most of the world wants. They want to see – and are comfortable seeing – a certain actor all the time in a certain character all the time. DiNero plays a tough guy, a nice guy, a smart guy, a laffable nerd, a lover, a killer …  and throughout all of those “roles” there is a common denominator, something that always surfaces that reminds us that this is DiNero. So he is always Robert DiNero no matter what he plays. His intellect, his understanding, his honesty, strength, courage and his humaness is always there … his core is always there. Eveything else is polished, practiced, and performed for the benefit of that role on that day. Unfortunately, most of us don’t get invited to Christmas at the DiNero home (well, I don’t) but I think we can be fairly sure we know a bit about what he’s really like as a person … deeper inside.

But this is not really about acting or make-believe. It’s about the choices we make as we work though the various roles we play in the theatre of life. Sure, some might say “Be yourself and all will be well” … and that’s a very nice, warm and fuzzy little point of view that probably works for some people. You know who they are. They are everywhere. You just have to look hard for them … they’re like paint on a wall.

That’s not what I’m about and probably not what my readers are about either.

We are the paintings and pictures; windows and doors.

(to be continued)

Occassionally and unexpectedly this path widens to a broad avenue filled with people and animals, and music, and colors … and many things exciting and thrilling! So many things that it is difficult to grab onto one and hold it and wonder to smell it and taste it … to feel it and love it … before it slips away and is replaced by yet another … and another … and so on and so on until exhausted … I turn a corner and stumble back onto that familiar, quiet road where the vacuum of peace again surrounds me.

I like to think it’s a good opportunity to look beyond the brightly colored lights, the spontaneous – almost mandatory – cheer, the office parties, the shopping, the gift cards, and the feeding frenzy. It’s a time to put aside (temporarily) the nightmares of the suffering masses, the homeless, the starving people around the world, the children in poverty, the hopelessness, the mistreated and abandoned animals, the wars, and the impending collapse of the world’s economy.

(Geez! … when I put it all together like that it’s pretty frightening … but hold on … I have a direction … I think.)

Follow me.

This is a good time to think about ourselves … I don’t mean it’s a good time to buy gifts for ourselves but you can if you want to … I mean … how we feel about ourselves. Are we at a good place “within” … when we’re all alone with our selves are we content with who we are? Is that person looking back at us in the mirror someone we like … someone we understand? Someone we want to be around?

Are we so involved with our jobs, our friends, our families, our “lives” that we fail to involve ourselves with that most important person ever … our selves? Are we taking the time to mend our wounds and get back on track? Are we ready to stop the constant battle of self-improvement … self-denial … that “we are never good enough” … and see the whole being that we are … that what we are is good enough … and we’re okay that?

Being okay with the way we are puts us in a place where we can be strengthened to embrace the arms and limbs of life that continuously reach out to us. Being okay with who we are enables us to respond to love with gratitude … to respond to disappointment with bravery … to respond to confusion with understanding.

I am not suggesting that we should ignore the pleas of the downtrodden … the desperate cries for help that echo endlessly day after day … year after year. What I am suggesting is that maybe … maybe … if we can honestly say, privately to ourselves, that I am good… that I am okay with who I am… that I AM ALIVE!… we will each be better equipped to participate in this living experience … and the important things in life like happiness and love, and sadness and sorrow … will find their proper and necessary places in our lives.

“Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, and energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–you’re just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” – Pema Chodron

Season’s Greetings …

Links to the recorded song appear at the poem’s end.

You’re Always Welcome Here

You’re always welcome here my friend
When your journey’s at an end
There will always be a place for you
There will always be some time for you
We’re holding out our hands for you.
You’re always welcome here, my friend.

There is always a familiar face
Someone to offer an embrace
There will always be your friends for you
They will always take a stand for you
There is nothing that they would not do
You’re always welcome here.

There will always be an open door
No matter what you’ve done before.
There will always be a burning fire
To keep you warm when you are tired.
There will always be an empty chair.
You’re always welcome here, my friend.

You’ll always have a place to rest
To take the burden off your chest
A place to let your feet touch ground
A place to shelter you from harm
A place to keep you safe and warm
You’re always welcome here, my friend.

A place to go where you belong
A place to go when things go wrong
A place to come in from the cold
A place to go when you get old
A place that you can call your home.
You’re always welcome here, my friend.

Will you bring your stories? Fairy tales?
Did you chart your path with tattered sails?
Did you think that there’d be no one here?
Did you still believe we would not care?
Did you look ahead with vacant stares?
There will always be a bed to share and
You’re always welcome here …  my friend.

The song has fewer verses than the poem:
http://www.pawbypaw.com/attachments/File/YOU_RE_ALWAYS_WELCOME_HERE__MY_FRIEND.mp3?SessionID=f491ef94eea0ad31b9be

Here it is.

It’s titled “Thick & Thin” …  the lyrics are followed by a link to the mp3 file.

I will never forget
We were always more than friends.
Though we went our separate ways
I remember where we’re from.

Stayed in touch through all these years
Watched our loved ones disappear
Some things weren’t always said
Even after such a long time.

After all that we’ve been through
I’m still looking up to you
Of all the people that I knew
I’m so very proud of you.

click here to listen to the song: http://pawbypaw.com/attachments/File/THICK_AND_THIN.mp3