By the third step out the front door a growing bead of sweat gathered just above his eye.

It began its lazy journey downward, around the eyebrow, through the valleys of the cat’s claw and onto the soft skin of the cheek above the beard line.  By that time, other traveling beads joined it, a slow, steady flow that continued onto his neck.

He wiped his temple and shook the drops from his fingers.  “Phew,” he thought. “It’s ridiculously hot.”  He crossed the parking lot to his car, turned the key and opened the door.  The furnace blast from within caught him by surprise, caused him to step back.

As quickly as possible he started the engine, rolled down the windows, threw the air conditioning on full and tried to ignore the hot vinyl that seared his back only to convert into a thin sheen of perspiration that made his shirt cling to him like a wet rag.  Even the steering wheel singed his palm.  “Disgusting,” he spat to himself. “I’m nothing but a sweat ball.”  The outside temperature read 97.

In due course, the cool flow made the drive bearable and allowed him to take his focus briefly away from his soiled clothes.  He gazed through the windshield at the outer world as if it were a movie passing by in slow motion, trees, lawns, houses, the occasional gathering of children jumping in and out of a sprinkler.  The steam hung above the asphalt like a low-hanging fog bank.

The whole neighborhood seemed tinged with a slight haze, a pea soup humidity so thick you could taste it in the filtered stream of air that blew on him through the vents on the dashboard.

“When will it end?” he complained inwardly. “How much of this can we take?  Day fifty-something with the heat index over 100—not a new record though painfully close.  He felt for those who worked under that torrid sun.  “How do they even do it?” he wondered, though only for an instant.  “How has anyone stood it for the past several millennium before the advent of A/C?”

A smile began to shape his lips.

He fought the urge to resist it and let his countenance lighten gently, a gradual shift from woe-is-me to life-ain’t-so-bad, that transition that so many of us want yet deny ourselves in the face of this or that natural circumstance, a momentary challenge or unpleasant exchange.  He passed a utility truck and watched a man in orange overalls take off his helmet and mop his forehead.

He waved.  The man grinned and waved back.  He glanced upward at the hanging ball of fire and winced at its intensity.  This time, it didn’t break his smile.

That’s A View From The Ridge…

In his arms, he carried a clipboard full of papers.  He approached the podium, set down his materials, paused, reached inside the pocket of his jacket and pulled out his eyeglasses, a thin pair of wire rims that perched on a huge beak of a nose.

He hurried not at all.  At his own pace, he collected himself, shuffled through his materials and reviewed a few notes.  Finally, he cleared his throat and looked up.  I noticed a large mole under his chin punctuated by a couple of long, gray hairs.  When he smiled, he revealed a set of crooked teeth stained by too much coffee.

“What’s the rage?” I asked myself, not the slightest bit taken by the rave reviews of my peers.  The old man reminded me of an absent professor from a forgotten age, a character that stepped out of an old black and white movie and seemed decades misplaced.

He panned the room twice, methodically, then leaned forward and began a story.  From that moment forward, time stood still.  The man’s deep baritone voice took me on a human journey so engaging that when he grinned one final time to say goodnight, I felt a vast sense of sadness—as if my best friend were offering last goodbyes.

“How could it be over?” I puzzled in disbelief, almost depressed.

The old man ambled down the corridor and out the door—gone.  I sat in my chair and allowed my sorrow to slowly morph into wonder.  For 90 minutes, I witnessed greatness, a story telling giant, with a knack for painting pictures and evoking emotions unlike any other, a true master.  I felt an inner glow as I recalled the hilarious moments when I had to grip arm rests to avoid falling on the floor from laughing so hard.

I chuckled, again and again, unwilling to leave the auditorium.

I looked around and saw many others still glued to their seats.

As I walked through the parking lot to my car, I reflected on how mistakenly my first impression had type cast this man.  I chastised myself for jumping to judgment prematurely.  In self-reflection, an insight flashed through my mind.  Most great people lack perfection.  They don’t fit the made-for-TV mold.

Rather, they possess one driving enthusiasm, one profound passion that makes all faults seem insignificant, all blemishes unimportant—unnoticeable even.

No one cares.  What one thing could you and I develop with such zeal as to render all shortcomings irrelevant?  What makes our juice flow freely, our blood boil with excitement, our muse dance and scream, our contribution worthy for all?  Can we pounce on it, build it and throw it out to the world?

I flashed back on the yellow-toothed man with a hairy mole and started chuckling.

“Your father had a breakdown,” she blurted. “Your brother took him to the hospital.  He’s on the sixth floor.  Go.  Go. You need to go to him right now.”  “Wait a second, Mom,” I gently asserted. “What happened?  What hospital?”  “He didn’t eat anything, like he’s supposed to.  He started flailing himself around, threatening to kill himself.  Your brother had to hold him down. Go.”

“Okay, Mom.”  I squeezed her tight. “We’ll take care of him.”

I remembered earlier that morning how Dad disappeared from the kitchen. I sought him out to say goodbye and found him curled up in a fetal position on his bed.

“Hey, man,” I razzed. “Taking a little nappy?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’ll be alright.”

“Strange answer,” I thought to myself as I gave him a kiss and left.

I found Dad on the sixth floor of the Medical Center, sitting in the corner with my brother, Laird.  His seeing eye dog lay curled at his feet.

“Hey guys,” I smiled. “What’s the word?”  “I guess I got kinda’ depressed,” Dad confessed. “I forgot to put food in my system.  I’m alright now.”

I looked over at Laird, who shook his head—a telling communication. I’d hear the details later.  “My blood sugar must have really dropped,” Dad added.  “Gotta’ eat,” I empathized.

Diabetes, selling a house, leaving the state of his ancestors after 69 years to move to Florida, learning to cope with blindness—any one of these might trigger a meltdown.

I knew my Dad would resist more than a trifling of professional help.  Too much shame.

Wait a second.  Where did the judgment start?  Who decreed our superhuman nature?

What happened to compassion, for others and ourselves, the soulful cry that recognizes our humanity, faults and shortcomings included, weaknesses acknowledged, differences celebrated?

Does another person’s struggle bring us down so much that we teach and preach denial as an alternative?  “Buck up. Tighten your chinstrap.   Get a grip.”  A grip on what?  We stuff emotions, squelch our feelings and put up false fronts of courage for the sake of appearances.

We deny our right to sit with our own suffering and reflect, grieve or cut ourselves any slack.

Like a dormant volcano, our insides churn with prejudice and bias, slanted views painted by others, seldom questioned or examined.

Rampant dis-ease.

When the volcano blows, the lava takes the form of cancer, heart attacks, depression and other illness.  What if we poked a few holes in that mountain of pride before it swelled to explosion?  What if we forgave and accepted, praised and lauded our crazy diversity?  Could we release the steam before it gushes and burns?

Try today, at least once to pick a moment and notice someone else’s struggle—without mental commentary or your idea of a fix.

Reach out without expectation.  Then do the same exercise on yourself.

You, too, deserve untainted appreciation.  Give yourself a break.

Thanks, Dad, for showing us your human side.  It helps us love you even more.

“Not my fault,” she said.      “Not my wood,” he answered.
“Joe didn’t do his part,” she added.
“Neither did Pat,” he tacked on.

What’s wrong with this picture
Finger-pointing has evolved from isolated instances to standard fare.
We have grown mentally fat.
I’m sick of it.

I doubt we would ever hear George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Abe dishing out blame like short order cooks flip hamburgers.

Nowadays, “he said, she said” has become a mantra, passed down from parents to children.

A few weeks ago I heard a child claim that they couldn’t do their homework because the teacher didn’t make the assignment clear enough.
Huh?  Here’s the kicker—the parent agreed with them.
What?  Oh, the shame.

Disgusting.  Where’s our grit?
My image of America conjures up Teddy Roosevelt charging the hill or the New York Fire Department rushing into ground zero, not a bunch of namby-pamby blame casters suing fast food joints for stuffing their own faces.
What’s up with that?  Take a look at your hand.

Every time you point a finger, three fingers point back at you—as it should be.
You are in charge of you, nobody else, not now, not ever

I love it when I ask someone how they’re doing and they reply:
“Can’t complain.”  My response never changes:
“Wouldn’t do you any good if you did.

Complaint and blame focus our attention on the problem and away from the solution.
Sure, sometimes passing the buck may appear easier.

It’s not.
All it does is delay confronting the issue that invariably compounds and gets worse.
Pull up your chin straps, take a shot of courage, whatever.
We need a serious dose of personal responsibility.

I once had the privilege of attending a speech by General Norman Shwarzkopf.
He shared with the audience the creed by which he governed his troops:
Rule Thirteen—When in command, take charge.

Guess what?  When it comes to your life, you’re in command.

So take charge, total charge, of all aspects.

If you don’t like your boss, acquire some new skill sets and get a better job.
If you don’t like your body, set the alarm for 30 minutes earlier, park yourself into your favorite tennies and start walking.
If you don’t have a great relationship, work on your listening skills and go meet some folk.

You’ll need to do something different if you want a different result.
Enough of the bad-mouthing, lamenting and singing the blame blues.
All it does is get you down and keep you there.

Do me a favor.  Just once today, stop yourself.
As the words form on your tongue, swallow them.  Gulp hard.
Instead of looking for an excuse or a culprit, ask yourself the question:

“What can I do…?
How can I change…?”
Your own response may surprise you.
It might even bring a smile.
Solutions generally do.

The boy’s eyes follow me around the room.

His thinly painted lips purse nary a hint of a smile, only a telling, a knowing far beyond his tender years—or maybe he does know, maybe he knows everything, staring out from the portrait with generations of patterns and sufferings pouring through him.

The mother next to him beams with soft love, a genuine, warm radiance that sends a message of forever, her head tilted into his, nestling her precious treasure.

She makes it so easy to look at
her, the glow that never stops, the frozen moment that cries out with gratitude for the child, passion for the man and the fulfillment of her, the woman, the creator, the giver of life.

Her eyes, too, boast great depth, dark, brooding, a vacuum that pulls me in and keeps pulling, alluring, intoxicating, like a dangerous ambrosia that breeds unquenchable thirst and leaves me thirsty no matter how much I drink.

Still, in her, I don’t see the haunting.

Has it been transferred?

Have the frightful nightmares that originated in yesteryear moved from parent to child, an endless perpetuation of the tired tale, one more frayed mooring that set another ship adrift without a sail, a tiller, or a captain?

What does he think or does he only feel?

He wears the eyes of his grandmother, and his grandfather and their mothers and fathers before them.

The same crash, burn and compromise story, the cycled heartbreaks, the settling and search for some measure of solace in predestined lives that let the youth drivel out like blood through the small teeth of a leach, one drop at a time, almost unknowing, until it disappears.

Would he mirror their fates?

The unblemished baby skin mocks the notion of reliving the old.

Not a single wrinkle signals the
pain or pleasure of experience.

The possibilities for a thousand different outcomes seem so real.

Maybe she can make magic.

Maybe she has broken the cycle and the boy’s gaze hangs on the wall as a reminder.

Maybe she has cracked the code, dug a deep groove into her karma, reached in with a lantern and lit the way.

Maybe he doesn’t need a light but rather a hand along his journey, a support, the encouragement of a trusted figure to keep him empowered when he stumbles and picks him up when he falls.

Maybe he will surprise us all and forge a new path, a revolutionary track that leaves the perpetual misgivings of his ancestors behind.

Maybe he will reject the same mistakes, boldly stride forward without attachments.

Maybe.

I wonder if she knew how much she herself spoke when she painted those haunted eyes.

]]> http://aviewfromtheridge.com/ezine-archive/haunting-eyes/feed/ http://aviewfromtheridge.com/ezine-archive/happines-fleeting/ http://aviewfromtheridge.com/ezine-archive/happines-fleeting/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:13:56 +0000 admin http://aviewfromtheridge.com/?p=433

“You cannot capture happiness no matter how hard you may chase after it.  Happiness is something that follows you.”The words of the old sage echoed in the young man’s heart, sounding a constant beat like the song that plays over and over without reprieve.

“What does that mean?” he asked himself. “Time to walk,” he continued, trapped in his own inner dialogue.

He thought about how many ways he tried to find lasting joy—from the cheap thrills to the bigger emotional investments that still left him bankrupt, at square one, with no more to show than a few scars and wrinkles and perhaps a tiny glimpse of what to avoid—far from any solution, more like a the-pain-will-stop-when-you-stop-smacking-yourself-with-the-baseball-bat approach that moved nothing forward.

At least it didn’t move back.

Or did it?

“The pursuit of pain avoidance will never lead to happiness,” he mused inside his aching head, an ache that scratched his soul, dug deep into his bowels to trouble and torment him, turned his stomach green, a sickly, hungover nausea that clung like ivy smothering a chimney. “I’ve gotta’ figure this out,” he demanded, “I wanna’ be happy.”

He kept one foot in front of the other, as if the forward march would somehow will the understanding to step forth and make itself known.

No such luck—though he vowed to keep on.

His slow gait opened space for introspection—plod, seek, plod, seek.

The mental wheels spun, though he wrestled with a vague notion that only in stillness would answers emerge or materialize.

“I can’t capture happiness but I yearn for it.  I try to do the right things yet it eludes me, like pushing a string. When do the right things add up? When is enough enough? How do I reel it in? Or can I?”

His legs carried him while his mind churned.

“I know I can’t look outside myself but how do I look within?  How does looking help anyway? What do I do with what I see?”

He tripped over a protruding stone and found himself falling, a gash on the knee, a burn on the palm of his hand.

He sat for a long while, watching the wounds leak, a queer smirk across his lips.

“What’s that about?” he pondered.

Despite his stuff, he felt a smile creep upward from his chin.

It spread into a grin, like the sun rising between two mountain tops, filling the space with pale light that gains strength with each passing moment, a space that floods with pinks and reds and causes the valley between the crests to stream awakening to all below.

He suddenly knew, as we all know, in that profound and knowing place, that the rock that sent him tumbling spoke a universal truth.

Only he could pry open the creaking, groaning door that hid his darkest secrets as well as his enlightenment and build a pathway for happiness to alight and embrace him.

He licked the blood from his wrist and tasted himself, glanced down at his torn jeans, the naked flesh speckled with bits of gravel, glanced up and discovered an emerald green tree line, a blue sky, a stray cloud, a soaring hawk and a glowing eye that stared back at him and gave him, for a hushed moment, a tiny piece of happiness.

When I made the appointment, they asked me at the front desk if I would kindly refrain from discussing the situation, per her request. Of course, I agreed.
I took a seat at her station and waited.
She stood behind the chair and began to cut my hair.

“I has been a week of firsts,” I began, “one after another.”
“Oh,” she sighed, not ready to talk.
“I capsized the sailboat with both the kids in it,” I continued. “That was a trip.”
“Were they scared?”
“Terrified. They shrieked and clung to me like marsupials.  I had to pull them off and let them float before I could flip it back up.  That was a first.”

I paused.
“Yesterday, I went to a retirement community for the first time—a pristine place full of older folk, many of them just waiting to die.” I shook my head. “Weird.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
Despite her quiet, I sensed a yearning to share or release or vent or perhaps a blending of the three, a space I could not possibly fathom.
“Then I walked in here and saw that huge rack of nail polish,” I said. “It must take some clients half an hour to pick what color to paint. Never noticed one of those either.”
“That’s not even all that big.” She answered, a few more words.

“Are you eating?” I queried.
“Trying,” she stated. “I’ve been able to do chicken soup—that’s about all.”
“That’s good,” I remarked. “I can’t even imagine,” I continued.
She began to open up.
“What kills me is that it was so unnecessary.” She stopped cutting. “Twenty people stood around and did nothing.”
“Unbelievable.” I glanced at her gaunt face in the mirror. “Tragic. How’s the family?’

“Who?”  She furrowed her brow.
“Wasn’t he married?” I questioned.
“Oh,” she repeated. “Not too good. She’s young, though. She’ll recover.” She looked down at the floor. “Me…I’m not too sure.”
I held my tongue.
“Now I have to get ready for the lawsuit—so ridiculous. Do you know anyone who would like a dog? As much as I love him, I don’t think I can keep mine with all this stuff going on.”
“Give it a little time,” I suggested.

She finished the cut and pulled the apron from around my neck.
As I stood to hug her goodbye, she reached into her breast.
“I have a first for you,” she declared. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
She pulled out a pendant on a chain, a golden heart, more plump and rounded than any I had ever seen.
“Beautiful,” I admired.
She handed it to me and I cradled it in my fingers.

“It’s an urn,” she shared. “A jewelry urn.”
As the tears welled in my eyes, I read the inscription that captured everything, every emotion, every feeling, every ounce of pain and every memory—two words that simply stated: “MY SON.”

That’s A View From The Ridge…

NOTE: This column was written in tribute to a dear friend who recently lost her son, under tragic, unnecessary circumstances. I intentionally omitted any names to protect her privacy. May he rest in peace.

“The last year of hard work has finally paid off,” he said. “Your delivery, presence, modulation—all of it work.  I’m proud of you.”

I beamed.

“Of course,” he continued. ”This is only regional theatre and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Many speakers make excellent money doing regional theatre.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, sensing a set up.

“Well, Ridge,” he went on. ”I don’t know if you want to, and I don’t know if you’re good enough, but if you want to be great, you’ll have to dig deeper. No one on Broadway does other people’s stuff. Top speakers write their own materials.”

“Of course I want to,” I answered, fired up.

“Then I’ll help you.” He paused. “It won’t be easy and I’ll be tough.  We won’t stop until it’s done and we’ll pull in experts to evaluate you when the time is right.”

“I’m ready,” I asserted vigorously. “Whatever it takes.”

“Start walking the beach in front of your house. Think and reach.  Find your message.  We’ll soon find out if you can handle this or not.” 

Ouch. Ugh.

He knew exactly which buttons to push, what to say to drive and motivate me. 

Mentors always do. 

I hit the sand.

Recently, I attended a seminar hosted by Mark Victor Hansen, the founder of the Chicken Soup empire.  He assembled an all-star cast of speaking giants, the elite of the industry.

At an intimate luncheon, Mark shared his story of emerging from bankruptcy 30 years ago, with little more than a dream and a burning desire to become a speaker—oh, and a tape—his first mentor.

He listened to that tape repeatedly, until the principles began to internalize. 

He sought out and found a mentor in the flesh, spent months perfecting his skill set, speaking anywhere and everywhere at no charge. 

Throughout the process, he checked in:

“How is this working?  What else do I need to focus on? Am I ready?”

His mentor offered advice, pushed him to continue, suggested corrections and improvements.

Finally, he got his first paying gig.

You know the rest.

To this day, Mark seeks out mentors in everything he does.  He reads two books per week and has for over twenty years.

His enormous success has nothing to do with coincidence.

Mentors guide and show the way. 

They convey more than simple information.

They light the path based on proven experience, stand behind us and ferret out mistakes, find a balance between encouragement and tough love.

Mentors expose myths, help us challenge the personal growth necessary to fight the demons that stand on our shoulders and whisper in our ears:

“You can’t do it. Quit. It’s too hard.”

I began to succeed, ONLY when I adopted mentors as my teachers and life coaches.

What about you?

How much do you want your dreams to come true?

Do you care enough to have a mentor?

Ban excuses from your mind. 

If you don’t know anyone, buy a tape set. 

Pick up a book. 

Adopt a mentor, even if you can’t speak with them.

Eight months of hard work finally got me a green light.

I like Broadway a lot better.

That’s A View From The Ridge…

• Here’s the town of Altafulla—when I was a child, that arch had a wall attached to it and was the only way in from the North, dating back to Roman times.

• 

  Here’s the mayor’s office, the Ayuntamiento. The square in front is where we played marbles.

• 

  Here’s the famous cross on the hill, where the Boy sits with the fresh picked asparagus—remember?

• 

  Here’s the church where the priests gave out mint candies after mass (the "menta" from the story?)

• 

  Here’s the monastery that my mother sent me to where I was raised by the monks (the door you can see is the one where the priest would come out and ring the bell—giving the Boy 60 seconds to make it back into school or face a beating):

• 

  Here’s a broader shot of the whole, massive building—pretty amazing to think that I went to school in that monstrosity.

• 

  And finally—here are the rocks where the Boy sought refuge and the situs of the story’s final climax.

I’ll have a lot more for you when we release the product—a full pictorial tour—even the statue of Saint Agustin where we kneeled on the stone as the bats hovered around our heads (no, they don’t do that anymore, by the way—health department cleaned that up, even in Spain!!!)

More later…Ridgely

Torredembarra, Spain, 1964—

The Boy heard the scuffle from his bedroom at the end of the upstairs hallway.

His mother and father screamed at each other, not surprising to him as it happened almost daily, though the routine of it seldom masked the pain that tore at his heart.

As usual, he burrowed his small body into the covers and buried his head beneath his pillow, as far into the recesses as he could hide.
Underneath the anger and the angst lurked that other familiar feeling—fear.

"Will he come for me next?" he thought to himself.

Quietly, he began to hum.

• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV