The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for January 2011

These Words Are My Tears

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It is well after midnight and the lights in the house are off.  Alone in the dark I continue the dance that I started so many years before. This blog is my companion, confidant and in many ways my best friend. This blog is where I sometimes reveal secrets and or thoughts about my life. It is where I let my mind wander wherever it will and share the contents.

I am a man who dreams about the things he wants, the places he has been and that which he has lost. There is an eternal echo inside my head that links the past to the present. It is a funny thing this life of ours. Sometimes the things we fear the most are the things that find us first. I am no different than any other person. I have my own demons to deal with and sometimes a set of guardian angels who watch my back.

Earlier today a friend called me in great distress. He told me that he had spoken to the woman who broke his heart and asked me for some advice. He wanted to know why she was able to walk away from it all so easily. He wanted to know why she didn’t seem to have shed a tear over their break up and if I thought that she might still love him. I told him that I couldn’t say for certain whether she still loved him or not. I told him that I couldn’t tell him if she cared or if that she never had.

I told him that I couldn’t answer any of those questions because I am not a mind reader. I told him that it was very possible that she was just as upset as him and that her heart had been broken too. I said that she might have hidden that from him and he yelled at me. He wanted to know why she would hide from him and what could he do to make her feel safe.

Relationships are a funny thing that aren’t based on logic and reason. They run on hearts not heads so the gears are more likely to be fouled with muck and mud. I told him that sometimes you have to have the intestinal fortitude to accept that you might not ever get an answer or that the answer you receive might not be the one that you want. I felt badly saying it because I know what it feels like to have loved and lost.

But I also know that we can’t predict the future so anything is possible.

And I don’t know why, but I had this urge to sing”

“We were singing,
“bye-bye, miss american pie.”
Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry.
Them good old boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye
And singin’, “this’ll be the day that I die.
“this’ll be the day that I die.”

It is a song that I have always loved and for some reason I find it to be soothing. I didn’t sing it for him because my voice is anything less than soothing. When we hung up the phone I exhaled deeply and thought about it all and remembered that sometimes these words are my tears.

Why- 8 Years Later

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And the story goes like this:

The worst type of pain has to be mental, there cannot be anything worse than that. Physical pain, chronic unrelenting physical pain can’t be great. It must be a terrible burden, but there are drugs that you can take to minimize or escape it.

But when the pain you feel is located inside you, when your soul screams and your heart aches, that is true misery. I won’t say that I have suffered more than others, many have life experiences that are incredible tragedies, things that make my own look less than miserable, at least from the outside.

And that is part of the problem, when you are truly down and beat up it feels like you are looking at the world from the outside in. Your friends/family are happy and the world in general seems to be populated with people who are so gosh darn happy you want to beat them to a pulp. Can’t they see that there is sadness and misery, aren’t they aware that in an instant everything that they love and value can be taken from them.

Fortunately, the world doesn’t function that way and I think that this is in part how we are able to rebound and heal the wounds that seem to take forever to disappear. The sun that was hidden behind the clouds magically appears and life feels less like a chore and more like a gift.

Eight years later I stare at a face that looks vaguely familiar and hands that resemble mine. The eyes tell the story that the mouth won’t share. There is sorrow in them, Worry lines that didn’t exist accent a hairline that no longer reaches the places it once did. It is not unlike the aftermath of the constant pounding of the surf on the shoreline. Sooner or later the rocks turn into sand and what once was crumbles.

There are memories that roam through my head uninvited and unwelcome. They have borne witness to my folly and stand in front me, silent accusers that only I can hear. They stand in judgment and it matters not if I proclaim my innocence because they claim to have been prophetic. These ghosts of the pasts rattle their chains and moan. I stand there stony faced ignoring the whispers and the dirge that plays in the background.

I take the beating that is meted out against me. I refuse to cry out in pain. I will not acknowledge it nor show any weakness because to do so would be worse. It is a test of endurance and I can take the shame I feel. I bear the burden because it is who I am and what I do. The weight of it upon my shoulders threatens to cause my knees to buckle. I am not Atlas. I wasn’t granted the strength of a Titan.

Yet I endure and I sustain my efforts because the time in the secret world allows no other way. Once you enter you cannot go back. There is no turning around. If this were the Lord of the Rings I would be traversing the Mines of Moriah. But I go without a party of heroes. There is no Wizard to fight the Balrog nor warriors to ward my back from the slings and arrows of the goblins. The demons of the deep are mine alone to confront.

I was bruised and battered, I couldn’t tell what I felt.
I was unrecognizable to myself.
I saw my reflection in a window, I didn’t know my own face.
Oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin’ away
On the Streets of Philadelphia.

I walked the avenue, ’til my legs felt like stone,
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone,
At night I could hear the blood in my veins,
Black and whispering as the rain,
On the Streets of Philadelphia.

Ain’t no angel gonna greet me.
It’s just you and I my friend.
My clothes don’t fit me no more,
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip this skin.

The night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake,
I can feel myself fading away,
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss,
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the Streets of Philadelphia
Streets of Philadelphia– Bruce Springsteen

Real Men Don’t Cry

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“The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.”
Albert Einstein

The words below are among the many that taught me the true power of blogging. I am revisiting them today to set the tone for posts that I intend to write. I have found this to be a useful tool for writing, this short visit to a different time and place. More on this later.

When I was younger I vowed to stop crying. I was 14 and I had decided that men were not supposed to cry. I can remember the events that led to that decision. I was one of those people who didn’t just cry, if I cried it was all encompassing and it just wracked my body.

Not every time, but enough that I felt it in every part of my body. I think that the final moment came as a result of my cousin’s funeral. Typically Jewish funerals have a closed casket, but this one didn’t. I remember seeing my cousin’s body and watching her son cry, he is seven years older than I am and I always looked up to him.

The moment just hit me hard, it rocked my world and I had trouble staying composed. I wasn’t scared, just sad, so sad for my cousin and sad for myself. As my grandfather drove me back to the house for shiva I was crying. He didn’t condemn me or make me feel badly, he tried to make me feel better. But it was enough that he was not crying.

I didn’t understand that his lack of tears was not indicative of a lack of emotion/feeling not to mention that he may have cried, I don’t know. But that day I determined that I was through with tears. And for 21 years I have stayed fairly true to that promise.

I was an idiot.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that I crippled part of myself and stunted my ability to mourn the loss of things and people. I am not an emotional cripple or mental midget, so I didn’t prevent myself from feeling, all I did was make the process of grieving more difficult.

In the last 21 years there have been a few moments where I shed some tears, but there were not many and it happened when I was completely caught in the moment. As soon as I realized that I was crying they began to stop, I learned how to stop myself far too well.

So now I have been consciously working on reversing this, giving myself permission to cry. I don’t want to keep stuffing it back into the cage. I have been known to carry a deep and abiding sadness with me and I think that the lack of tears is part of the reason why.

Some of the women of my past were aware of this and tried to convince me to cry on their shoulders, to let it out. It is not that simple, if it was I could do it on my own. I suspect that some of them were offended that I did not. They took the lack of tears as a lack of trust and I suppose to some extent it was.

But the walls that I built and the towers that maintained their vigil over my mind were not going to be defeated that easily.

I am confident that this is going to change. I think that one of the benefits of maturity and fatherhood is that I see the ability to cry as a sign of strength and not weakness. It still scares me, I haven’t sobbed as an adult, but the day is coming.

Do You Want To Hold Me?

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“I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion –
I have shudder’d at it.
I shudder no more.
I could be martyr’d for my religion
Love is my religion
And I could die for that.
I could die for you.”
~ by John Keats ~

In the time that once was we lived this quote from above. We listened to Whiskey Lullaby and shared our joy/fear in the song because we knew what it meant to love so completely that you felt like you were being consumed by it. We knew the pain of separation and the joy of having found that person that completed us.  There was nothing more amazing or more powerful than that which we felt for each other. It was love. It was lust. It was hope. It was fear. It was magic. It was a fire that burned inside and fueled my imagination about a life that I had never believed to be possible.

In the quiet moments of the day I listened to you breathe and drank up your presence. I stared into your eyes and got lost in what I saw. The thought that we would never be was impossible for me to believe. I couldn’t conceive of that, couldn’t believe of a life that would rob me of my girl. Couldn’t believe that a day would come when you would push me away. I remember talking about World War II and sharing stories about our grandparents. I remember talking about what would have happened if we found ourselves in a situation where I was overseas while you remained behind. I remember thinking about how hard it would have been to have been fighting through the pacific or somewhere in Europe not knowing what was happening back home. I remember you crying at the thought of not knowing whether I was dead or alive.

And I remember kissing your tears away and holding you. My tough girl who would never make herself so open or vulnerable had somehow found herself in a position where all of the walls had come down. I promised you then that I wouldn’t die like that. I promised that I would find my way back to you. Swore that I could feel your love wherever I was and that it would provide a map that I could follow back to you. It wouldn’t matter where I was. Wouldn’t matter how long it took or how far away, I would come for you. It is a theme that hasn’t changed, even if some other things have.

I cannot be other than who I am. Cannot ignore what my heart says or the manner in which it drives me forward. The promises we made are sacred. The words we shared and the experiences moved from the profane to the holy. That is not sacrilege, hyperbole or melodrama. It is a simple attempt to explain and explore the words we wrote upon our souls. It is a poor attempt to provide a concrete description of two people who merged into one. But it is what it is and I am limited in my ability to convey that which lies beneath.

Sometimes I fear that the lyrics were prophetic:

“She put him out like the burnin’ end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart he spent his whole life tryin’ to forget
We watched him drink his pain away a little at a time
But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind
Until the night

1st Chorus
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away her memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength he had to get up off his knees
We found him with his face down in the pillow
With a note that said I’ll love her till I die
And when we buried him beneath the willow
The angels sang a whiskey lullaby

(Sing lullaby)

The rumors flew but nobody know how much she blamed herself
For years and years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath
She finally drank her pain away a little at a time
But she never could get drunk enough to get him off her mind
Until the night

2nd Chorus
She put that bottle to her head and pulled the trigger
And finally drank away his memory
Life is short but this time it was bigger
Than the strength she had to get up off her knees
We found her with her face down in the pillow
Clinging to his picture for dear life
We laid her next to him beneath the willow
While the angels sang a whiskey lullaby

(Sing lullaby)”

But then I close my eyes and listen to my soul. It still sings our song and it still touches yours. It touches yours and tells me that though you may fight it, the connection still exists. So I am reminded that my job is to be your hero. I am reminded that I promised to bear the burden of what might come. I am reminded of these things because I am the fool that believes in the things that he sometimes cannot see or touch. I am the yin to your yang.  Everything has changed and yet nothing has. The foundation of who we are and what we can be remains.  Somewhere in the ether our love continues to burn as brightly as it ever did. That is the kind of fire that can’t ever be extinguished.

Now it remains to be seen whether we can find our way. Now is the great test of our lives and the moment that challenges us. I ask you to give me your hand. I ask you do you want to hold me. I ask you to open your heart to me and to let my heart caress yours. I ask you to open yourself to possibility because to give up without fighting is not something that I can live with. Will you leave me grasping at the air? Will you leave me to chase the ghosts of the past or will you take my hand and join me in trying to build the future we used to see.

You might call me a dreamer but I am not the only one.

Talking About Self Love

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Some of the degenerates that hang out here and around the net are going to misunderstand that headline. This isn’t about pleasuring yourself in that way or the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures although there are elements that pertain to it. Rather it is tied into posts that I have written, read and discussions that I have had with friends about our dreams. It is about our fear of failure and acknowledging that there are things that we do that prevent us from following our dreams.

We love our children and work to give them lives that make them happy. We drive ourselves into the ground to give them what they ask for and to help them make their dreams come true. When your child is in danger you don’t stop to consider whether you will get hurt before you act. You take the bullet, you step inside the burning building or you fight the lion barehanded.  Don’t believe me, threaten a child and watch their mom/dad turn into the Hulk. I can’t think of my children getting hurt without puffing up my chest and clenching my fist.

So my friends I have to ask the question, why don’t we love ourselves enough to fight harder for our dreams. Why do we let the voices in our head pick away at us. Why don’t we show the same faith in ourselves that we have in our children. What is wrong with us? When we look at the people who are living the dream life we think about what do we see that is different about them?

I say that most of them are no different. I say that most of them have the same fears, concerns and insecurities as anyone else. Sure there are going to be those people who are smarter, wiser, better looking etc. Some of them are going to outclass us in some areas, but so what. Why do they deserve it more than we do. Why do they have what you want.

Now mind you that what you want is a subjective question and it is something that changes over time. I have spent hours thinking about what it is that I want. I have put the time in because I have decided that I am beyond ready to go get it. I share some of those things here because they are things that we can all relate to. Some of them I keep to myself because for the moment they are too personal, too intimate to let others see.

But the one thing I know is that I have a plan and I am working on it. When the boys and I talk about our dreams I keep harping on the reminder to show some self love and to respect ourselves enough to fight for what we want. That doesn’t mean that we ignore the wishes and desires of others. It is not a license to be selfish and without regard for others. Instead it is a license to be selfish when necessary and when appropriate.

We only have one life and this is it. I can’t wear the shackles that I once did. I broke those chains and they aren’t ever going back. Sometimes it feels a bit like I am engaged in a Sisyphean effort, but overall I feel good. Progress is slow, but it is coming.

So the question is, do you love yourself enough to fight for your needs or are you going to just lie down and watch life pass you by.

Here are some related posts:
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
A Life Worth Living
Who I Am Now Is Not Who I Was- Atonement
Invisible People
My Thinking Place