SoulScript (eBook)

Chapter 1

January 4, 2003: A New Journal

A New Year! No, I have not made a list of resolutions to be forgotten, ignored, or discarded within the next week or two. But I have made one: to spend some time every morning with this journal recording my thoughts and feelings, my hopes and fears, and my struggles with making decisions.

Six weeks ago today Patsy died, and I realize that I am beginning not just a new year but a new life—another one. It seems that I have been blessed with that opportunity several times during my seventy-four years; I am both grateful for that and aware that I have not used those opportunities to change myself along with my life. I hope and pray that this time it will be different.

I am amazed at the tremendous effort I have put into not grieving over the past six weeks, although there were certainly moments when the grief hit me in spite of my busyness. I don’t want to avoid the grief, at least that’s what my brain says. I know, intellectually, that it is essential that I work through the grief process, and that may take a couple of years. But my unconscious is saying what so many men say in this situation, “Keep busy and it won’t hurt so much.”

Yesterday I did take some time in the morning to start a pattern of daily reflection. I unearthed a book Patsy and I had used for daily meditations ten years ago: Touchstones: A Book of Daily Meditations for Men.1 I read the pages for January 1-3. Then I turned to Romancing the Ordinary: A Year of Simple Splendor2 by Sarah Ban Breathnach (pronounced Bon Brannock.) I was surprised, but not turned off, to find that it is written specifically for women to encourage them in a sensate life. The author calls them “sensuists”—people who revel in life’s sensory experiences. I can go with that!

This morning’s reading from Touchstones was on getting in touch with Spirit/God by being receptive—keeping one’s senses open to see and hear (and, adding some input from Sarah Ban Breathnach, to touch, smell and taste). It ended with the affirmation, “I will be open to the Spirit on its own terms.” That is, however Spirit is manifested to me this day. Sarah Ban Breathnach’s message for today was “Throughout the day… echo as a private Psalm: ‘And yes, I said yes, I will. Yes!’” So yes, I will…what? Be open to Spirit. Yes, I will. And I will use the daily readings from Touchstones and Romancing the Ordinary for inspiration.

January 7, 2003: On Risk

This morning’s passage in Touchstones is about the necessity of risk-taking in order to fully live. The author questions, “Does an opportunity seem like a problem because of the risk involved?” I think that some opportunities do. If I had the opportunity tonight to sleep with a woman, it would be a problem for me because of the risk of involvement. I would not take the opportunity because of that risk.

Well, what about all of my efforts so far this year to balance my income with my projected expenses, my new budget? I could have decided to forget all of that and take the risk of having to dip into capital that I want to conserve, taking the opportunity to relieve myself of a lot of work and yes, worry, in order to live more fully. But I am not much of a risk taker. I tend to minimize risk in my decisions.

The religious/spiritual aspect of the risk issue is summed up in the simplistic dictum: “Let go and let God.” Touchstones is somewhat less simplistic: “Let me not be so tied to what I have or to what I want that I cannot lean on God’s love and take a risk for growth.” I just realized, while writing that quote, that I have missed the point! The risk to take is the risk for growth.

I am remembering some thirty plus years ago quantifying risk as a mathematical function of probability of occurrence and magnitude of potential loss; i.e., what does one stand to lose, and what are the chances of losing it?

What if I tried to apply that analysis to involvement in a relationship? The potential loss seems to be of some degree of freedom. Why is that so? Do we not have control over how much freedom we give up? For me, it seems that I have always felt powerless to maintain my freedom in a relationship. Looking back at even my best relationship, my twenty-one years with Patsy (this is hard, trying to be honest here), my need for her to love me drove me to be much more concerned for her wishes, her pleasure, her happiness. I tended toward the romantic “your wish is my command” attitude, even to the point of my deciding (without asking her) what her wishes were. Over the years she taught me that “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you” is self-centered and destructive to a relationship because it assumes what others want is what you want.

Going back to “let go and let God,” I think I understand this phrase to mean that I must let go of fear and trust God to be with me while I take the risk involved in opening myself up to growth-promoting experiences, i.e., moving me along toward becoming all that God created me to be. I sense that is the truth.

That leaves me with the question, “In what way do I want to grow today?” How would I like to move toward becoming just a little bit more of what God created me to be? I don’t know. I think I need a compass.

February 16, 2003: Falling in Love

I’ve been reading Sarah Ban Breathnach’s book every day, and this morning she continues with the romantic theme for February. She is speaking specifically to women, of course, but I can relate to her message. She asks about our feelings and actions when we are falling (or have already fallen) in love. How do we feel when we do what we want to do for ourselves in order to enjoy our beloved? Then she points out that we don’t need a beloved in order to do those things. For instance, I can dress attractively, put on aftershave (as I did the other day) and enjoy how I smell, go to an intimate restaurant taking along a good book for company, file my nails, floss my teeth, use a scented deodorant, listen to love songs and sing or hum them to myself. And as Sarah suggests, find myself smiling “at strangers, doing extra good deeds or being kinder, because you just feel so good that you want everyone else to feel that way too.”

I am remembering my feelings and actions when I was falling in love with Patsy twenty-three years ago, and am trying to separate out what I can re-create that does not depend on her or some other potential lover. Those things that I listed above certainly do not depend on someone else for the doing; but which comes first, the feeling or the doing? The chicken or the egg? My addition of “the chicken or the egg” suggests that I know there is no answer. The question is irrelevant.

I remember almost dancing down the street in Manhattan after my last meeting on a Friday afternoon in 1980 repeating to myself, “I am going to see Patsy.” I was headed for my hotel to check out and catch a plane for Denver where she would be waiting for me. A weekend together!

And I remember driving east on I-10 in my old VW camper, singing “Desperado” along with Judy Collins (“He’s driving in tonight from [California]”). I sang “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye” with Roberta Flack, and with Linda Ronstadt, “Love Is a Rose.” (“...and you’d better not pick it; you lose your love when you say the word ‘mine’.”) This singing was accompanied by feelings of both anticipation and desire, as well as wistfulness from the realization that this affair might not work out for the best in the long run. But it was so exciting in the present. Riding my bike up the hill on the way to work in Santa Monica I imagined Patsy waiting for me at the top (although, of course she would not be there; she was hundreds of miles away in Tucson), but I used my imagination to drive my legs to mount the hill.

I just noticed that my eyes are wet from the remembering. Which reminds me that yesterday, as I was deleting some old letters from the document file on the computer, I came across one that contained enough of Patsy’s thoughts about her life with cancer that I couldn’t delete it. It had “Floating in the River” appended to it, the essay Patsy wrote for The Cancer Monologue Project. And as I re-read it I cried hard, again. Reading her words has always generated tears.

I am tired of writing, but reluctant to give up the feelings. Also, I am reluctant to stop without coming to some conclusion. I can’t bring back the past. I couldn’t bring it back even when Patsy was alive and with me every day. But those feelings of being in love are such highs—so sweet, and often bittersweet. How I would like to have them again! How they would enrich my life!

So what if life is the sweetheart? Can I fall in love with life? Sarah suggests I can. All I need to do is to begin to woo life. I will probably have to act before I feel the feelings. But if Sarah is right, the feelings will come if I act as if I already felt them.

So how do I start? First, yoga. I have to keep my body in good shape if I am going to be an effective lover of life, to get the slouch, that aged stoop, out of my posture. Then the shower I was not going to bother with today. No, a bath—a long, luxurious, soaking bath with fragrance in the water and bubbles, and candles burning. Yes, that will take more time, but what the...