A message to my dear friend Sharon Parish on her 50th birthday
Dear Sharon,
I’d put the date of your 50th birthday party on my calendar early this year, planning to be with you in Austin on October 28—your special day. Since that didn’t come to pass, I’m writing today to let you know of your significance in my life and how important you continue to be. I’m writing to express my love for you and my gratitude for your impact on who I am today. For though you are no longer here in your physical form, you remain a potent force for me and for so many others whose lives you’ve touched.
I remember my first experience of you at the initial Way of a Warrior (WOW) in Dahlonega, Georgia in 1988. Late in the week of this intensive week-long workshop, you and I were paired in an exercise during which we were to look one another in the eyes for what seemed like an eternity. As I continued to gaze at you I felt an extraordinary connection, an overpowering sense of love that I clumsily endeavored to relate to you as we shared our experience during the last part of the exercise. You thought that my sexual energy somehow tainted the experience, and maybe it did. But I know from that time on, your dynamic and spirited presence was imbedded into my being and remains there today. (more…)
Saturday, October 28th, 2006Monday morning post-LEAF post
Shonnie and I spent the last weekend at Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), a gathering of the tribes that takes place each October and May at Camp Rockmont in Black Mountain, NC. Though this is usually a pretty white crowd, I notice more people of color at this festival than any previous. Shonnie and I led a trail run on Saturday morning and a hike on Sunday morning as usual. And, of course, we partook of the music, arts and crafts, healing arts, poetry, dance and the genial camaraderie of the weekend. If I were King of the Universe, daily life would look a lot more like a LEAF weekend.
We caught a few tunes by Richie Havens, including “All Along the Watchtower” and “Here Comes the Sun,” the first time I’d heard this folk legend live since a Vietnam peace rally in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s. I was visibly moved by the power and passion of Richie’s renditions of the Dylan and Beatles tunes. As I remembered the vision of a new world that many of us had during the Civil Rights era and during our efforts to end the Vietnam War, I wondered how many of the 60 to 70 million baby boomers have retained some of that idealism, how many of them could be called back into action today.
We also saw Bruce Lang, the leader of the band that played at our wedding, doing a Beatles sing-along. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64.” Those lyrics are certainly beginning to have a lot more meaning for me than they once did. And the poetry slam, well, what can you say except engrossing, evoking and powerful. You had to be there. By the way, Rhonda Taylor of the D.C./Baltimore Slam Team took first place and the $1000 prize money.
If you’ve never been to LEAF, my recommendation is that you get yourself to the next one May 11-13, 2007.
Monday, October 23rd, 2006Monday morning in Asheville
This morning I woke up just before daylight. And, as usual, a few minutes later I heard the cat door open and my kitty, Bandit, enter the house. I don’t know whether I sense that he’s coming back from his early morning forays into the woods around our home or he senses I’ve awakened. Likely the latter. Nonetheless as he’s done for years now, Bandit leaps onto the bed and licks me on the lips, his morning greeting—a sign of affection as well as his request for his first meal of the day. Unless he was successful in his hunt for mice, rats, squirrels or other feline prey, that is.
Today, I finish making final edits on my book, Walking Our Talk, and order some copies for the book fair at Jubilee! scheduled for later this month. I guess it’s time for me to get the book fair organized. It’s open to all Jubilant authors, published, self published or otherwise, and I’m doing it single-handedly at this point. What I know about myself is that I like projects like this—a definite beginning, a definite end, no meetings, no one to answer to, merely connecting and drawing folks together to achieve a common end. Ad hoc groups have always held a much greater appeal to me than organizations whose primary purpose sometimes seems to be to stay in existence even beyond their usefulness. Bureaucracy, meetings, top-down leadership, inability to rapidly respond to the situation at hand. All reasons I prefer a small group that’s clear about its purpose, works flexibly to achieve it, celebrates its successes, then happily disbands.
Our friend from NYC, Carolyn, Shonnie and I headed for the mountains after the celebration at Jubilee! yesterday. We drove up to a portion of the Mountains to Sea Trail, a foot trail that parallels much of the Blue Ridge Parkway, near Mt. Mitchell. The portion we hiked and ran on goes from around 5300 feet in elevation to 6300, more than a mile high. The autumn leaves were past their prime on this sunny day, but the spruce trees along this route were glorious, a different ecosystem entirely from Asheville proper. And with the wind and temperatures of 50 degrees or so, we definitely got a harbinger of the weather to come in our part of the world.
On the run Shonnie and I got to talking about something Howard Hanger, minister of ritual and celebration, had to say at Jubilee! earlier that day: What are we called to do, how are we called to be with regard to the hungry, the homeless, others who are not as privileged as we are? Is it writing a book and attending to white, middle class couples? Not that there’s anything wrong with that. We believe that by supporting couples to connect at a deeper level that we help create a more compassionate world. But is there a way that we serve folks whose needs are greater. Is there a way in which we don’t merely give our money and lip service to those who lost their homes and livelihoods in New Orleans, but in which we actually get in the trenches and get our hands dirty? I don’t think I’d ever felt more alive when Shonnie and I did some volunteer work at the local Red Cross right after Katrina. But after a few days, it was back to our same routine. It’s a good routine. We’ve created a fine life for ourselves—a comfortable home, healthy food, a simple lifestyle, a loving relationship, connections with friends and family, a progressive community, a compelling spiritual home. I’m happy in the midst of all of this. But there seems to be something calling me forth, calling me to be more, to do more, calling me to fulfill my destiny, to live my calling, to get off the sidelines and out into the game.
Monday, October 16th, 2006Hard Rain by Tony Hoagland
From my new favorite poet, Tony Hoagland.
After I heard It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there’s nothing
we can’t pluck the stinger from,
nothing we can’t turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people
quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.
You can’t keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,
one day at a time—
and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.
Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.
I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,
but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—
whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.
Brandon’s 40th birthday today!
Brandon Newton turns 40 today! Brandon is a cherished member of our family via marriage to my daughter, Lilla. She and the kids, Molly and Jack, are eagerly anticipating Brandon’s return from Iraq soon after Thanksgiving.
We’re all looking forward to seeing you soon, Brandon. As you complete your tour in the Middle East, our thoughts and prayers are with you.
By the way, you can click here to access Brandon’s Amazon.com wish list and wish him a happy birthday with some of his favorite stuff.
Saturday, October 7th, 2006Since this is my third marriage, how can I write credibly about the importance of marriage vows?
Good question. And given the fact that I coauthored I Do! I Do! The Marriage Vow Workbook, I figure sooner or later someone will ask it. So here’s the answer:
Both of my former wives were lovely and loving women, and my time with them was filled with periods of deep connection as well as periods of great challenge. However, being immature and irresponsible, I knew very little about commitment–what it meant to be faithful to a significant other. In addition, there were no basic agreements in my first two marriages about how we would be with one another and how we would sustain our relationship. It was like trying to play a baseball game without any rules. How many outs per inning? Three? Four? Five? Is catching the ball on one hop an out or do you have to catch it on the fly? Without such an essential element of a successful long-term relationship, it’s really no wonder that we ultimately grew apart and divorced.
After my second divorce, I retreated to a little cottage in the hills outside Austin, Texas. I had been with an uninterrupted stream of women my entire life—first my mom, next my girlfriends, then my two wives—and now was a time for me to focus on myself rather than the other. I lived there the better part of five years, with my cat, Chocolate, as my only companion. I got clear about who I was—not the macho, tough guy I sometimes pretended to be, but not the wimpy, new-age guy either. I got clear about my purpose in life. And I got clear about the kind of woman I wanted to share my life with. And wouldn’t you know it: As soon as I put my explicit intention out to the Universe, the woman of my dreams showed up.
Though totally unaware of one another’s existence, both Shonnie and I serendipitously joined a marathon training program during the hot Austin Texas summer of 1995. Based on a time trial, we both were placed in the intermediate runners, a group composed of approximately thirty runners. As our group’s numbers dwindled in the months preceding the race, a handful of us continued to train together at Lake Austin every Saturday morning, completing the Austin Motorola Marathon together in February 1996. And though the remaining members of our group sometimes went out for pancakes at the Magnolia Café after our weekly runs, we typically didn’t see each other outside our workouts. So one Saturday we made plans to go out for music and a few beers. When the appointed time arrived, however, only two runners showed up—me and Shonnie. And the rest, as they say, is history.
A few months later when Shonnie and I entered a committed relationship with Shonnie, we decided we would create commitments and an intention for our relationship before we moved in together. Thus we had agreements about how we would be with one another that served us right from the beginning, agreements that still hang on our bedroom wall. When we were preparing for our marriage, we devoted a lot of time and attention to the creation our marriage vows and our intention for our marriage. With these sacred commitments in place, we’re clear about which behaviors are acceptable and which are not. We’re assured that neither of us has any intention of deliberately doing or saying anything disrespectful or unloving. We give each other permission to speak up when he/she sees something that’s incongruent in the other’s words or actions. We support one another to grow, to expand, to fully be oneself. We acknowledge our individual and joint successes and commiserate when things don’t turn out as we’d planned. We envision our future together and work to create it. All of this from our steadfast love for one another and these sacred vows we are pledged to uphold.
Saturday, October 7th, 2006Birthdays with WNC connections–John Ross and Thomas Wolfe
From today’s Writer’s Almanac a couple of birthdays with Western North Carolina connections:
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006It’s the birthday of John Ross, (books by this author) born near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee (1790). Though he was only one-eighth Cherokee, with a Scottish father and a part Cherokee mother, he served as the Chief of the United Cherokee Nation from 1839 to 1866, the period during which the Cherokees were forcibly removed from their land.
John Ross challenged the Removal Act in court. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Cherokees won their case. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall wrote in his opinion that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign, and that its treaties had to be respected by law. But President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the Supreme Court ruling. Jackson famously said, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
The actual removal took place under President Martin Van Buren. In 1838, 17,000 Cherokees were forced out of their homes at gunpoint by American soldiers. They were gathered together in camps and then forced to walk to the new “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi. The camps had horrible hygienic conditions, and an epidemic of dysentery killed thousands of the Cherokees. No one knows exactly how many people died, but estimates range from 2,000 to 8,000. John Ross lost his wife on the journey. The event has since become known as “The Trail of Tears.”
It’s the birthday of Thomas Wolfe, (books by this author) born in Asheville, North Carolina (1900). He wrote autobiographical novels, including Look Homeward Angel (1929). He died of meningitis and left behind him an eight-foot-tall crate of notebooks and manuscripts.
