What one writes about after taking the Landmark Forum

I awoke today with a sense of sadness. A feeling like I was missing something in life...something deeper than what it is I now have. And don't get me wrong, I have a pretty great life. But it is a sense of loss that I can't seem to shake. The unremembered dream I had must have something to do with it. I was walking through the streets of San Francisco and wished I had the sense of camaraderie that the gay community seems to share (and no, I'm still not gay). There was an invisible wavy barrier (like in Star Trek when someone walks into a force field) between me and all the buildings as I walked down the Haight Ashbury and I knew that if I were gay...if I belonged, that barrier wouldn't be there. And yes I do realize that the same barrier exists for the gay community looking out from those buildings at the rest of the world...but this is my rant and this isn't about being straight or gay but about belonging. A sense of being in the tribe. I've looked for it my whole life and even when I'm in the middle of a community I still feel like I'm on its edge. I used to blame the different groups I was in for being too exclusive or too clique-ish. Whether it was an anti-nuclear protest group in college, or a sweat lodge group I attended years ago, or a group of actors working together on stage, or a professional group of RN's I work with in every ER I've been in, I just never felt like I belonged. I never felt comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation was. Now I get it...I just don't feel that comfortable in my own skin no matter what the situation is! Um...DUH! It's not the group James belongs to but James! I'm not just now coming to this understanding, and there is no 2-by-4 smack-to-the-head moment for me, but there is a light shining in a dark cob webby place in my psyche that has been under-examined and hiding out. It wants to stay dark and undiscovered and unruffled so that I can continue to whine about how no one loves me and no one understands me and no one feels my pain. It's really destructive to me yet feels so right, so normal and it allows me to actually believe in what "I know is real" instead of what is real. What IS real is that the only constant in all of my groups/activities/involvements my whole life is ME and my cob-webby fears and self abusive voice that knows I'm truly unlovable so of course no group would fully accept me (hell, I don't even fully accept me!). So once again I ask the question, "where is that invisible thread I'm looking for?" "Where is that communal fire or drum circle or tribal dance inside that lets me know I belong to something bigger than me and my immediate family?" And through writing in this public journal of insecurity and self exploration I have come out with the answer I already knew of course...that I am that invisible thread. I am that communal fire and tribal dance that must love himself so that I'm able to accept the love of the community that already does love me. What a block-head! I'm kind of altering the quote (without changing the meaning of the quote) "you can't really love another until you learn to love yourself" to "you can't really know the love of another until you learn to love yourself". If I don't really love me then the love I feel from others gets put through my filter of "oh but if they knew the real me they wouldn't love me, or I better act a certain way or they won't love me anymore. Conditional. Fearful. Lonely. Time to remember to love myself and let in the love I feel everyday from so many awesome people in my life from family, to my love Sheryl, to people I work with like Jim Cole and Weyshawn, to people who actually read this blather like Margaret!

The Pro's and Con's of Cycling in Sleet

First of all...THERE ARE NO FREAKING PRO'S OF CYCLING IN SLEET! I know, I just rode in sleet this morning...again. But to be really honest, I'm from California. I'm not even sure what sleet is. I've heard the Inuit people have something like 32 different words for "snow". In the bay area and Santa Cruz area we had one. That word was snow. It was wet snow or dry snow or heavy snow. There was hail of course (not that I ever saw it) but it was kinda like snow only more icy... like a "snow"cone without the neon blue flavored topping. But I digress. Snow pellets were, or sleet was, falling from the sky as I got on my bike and rode downhill for my morning ritual of pouring caffeine into my body before going to work. As I started the steep descent, thinking of my still-warm blankets, the sky opened up and visibility dropped to 30 meters or so. All I could see through my squinting eyes was the stop sign scream past me on my right. I would have loved to stop. Loved to have just turned around and crawl back in bed and not have to contemplate why the hell I put myself in these ridiculous situations. But then I looked down at my body and noticed that the sleet balls were bouncing off of my jacket and pants. Cool. That is a plus, this isn't getting me wet at all! So I started thinking about the pro's and con's of cycling in sleet. The next thought was that cycling in sleet is akin to cycling into a swarm of bees. Even though I had glasses on, the stinging sensation in my face kept my eyes to mere slits as each ice cube from a cold dark hell bit into my cheeks and nose and lips (how's that for subtlety). My mind went back to the "pro" side of the list and faltered in it's search...but at least my legs are dry I thought. My gloved hands were starting to numb at the fingertips and I added that to the negative column. Then I thought of a solid good thing that cycling in sleet affords...a certain smugness. A sense that I'm better than all of these weak people driving by in their #$%*! SUV's staying warm and dry and sipping their lattes and listening to nice music and having warm conversations with loved one's inside. The longer my mind stayed on that tack the more I realized that smugness was just a cover for resentment which is just a smokescreen for envy. So I had to move my smugness from pro to the con side. But at least my legs (which by this time were cold and numb) were still dry. "OK", I thought, "I'll go back to the place I always go when I'm riding and begin to question my sanity or at least my intelligence". NO CARBON FOOTPRINT!! I can feel ecologically smug if nothing else! I am good because I am ecologically conscious and aware and living more in concert with nature than these polluters all around me. Of course I immediately scratch this reason off the pro side of the list as I see the absolute hypocrisy of my thoughts. With my all wheel drive Subaru wagon, with my electric heat at home and my washer dryer and my water heater and my lifestyle of traveling around the world when ever I can and...
And yes, I do see a pattern here for the need to be better than everyone else! There is a smug factor here born of low self esteem, being vertically challenged at 5'7" (calling it short is so politically incorrect), and the continual need to compare myself to Gandhi, Einstein, Lance Armstrong, Verdi, Michelangelo, and everyone else who seems to have grabbed life by the balls and achieved their true potential. So many of us settle for comfort and adequacy, and mediocrity. It feels like a stone in my shoe. It feels like a boil on my ass. It feels like a toothache, that mediocrity. What's worse is that I don't even take off the shoe or lance the boil or go to the dentist. If I did, the responsibility of being pain free, or truly free, limitless to achieve my potential, would be devastating. It IS devastating and so I create limits for myself or blocks or walls or reasons or fears to keep me from reaching some state of grace. Some greater good. Something perfect. I feel like I chose mediocrity or at least if not chose it then stay stuck in some loop that says I can't have it...that perfect state of Grace.
And it's not an egotistical thought, like "I have GREATNESS in me that the world will never know, poor me." No. It is the crystal clear knowledge that we all have it. We are here to live in our fully actualized state. We are here to express our totally unique perspective and to do it fiercely and fearlessly. And so few of us do live like this that it saddens me and freaks me out. But really, I'm not sad for everyone else...to wake up is their own responsibility. I hope everyone achieves it. What an amazing place this planet would be without all the blocks we create to achieve our own greatness. I'm sad that I can see it just in front of me, almost taste it, yet am either too afraid or too confused as to how to get there.
And right now it hits me. On the pro side of the list for cycling in sleet is the amazing opportunity to naval gaze. Not literally of course as severe hypothermia would ensue. But the opportunity to once again go to that place where I can ponder what is the reason for being here. What can I do to achieve Grace. Do I need to do anything to achieve it or am I already there? Am I truly mad in a world I don't belong to? Am I awakening to a new place and realizing once again that it doesn't fit with the paradigm we all seem to have created?

My hands are frozen. My face is all red and puffy. My eyes can't stop tearing. I can't feel my feet and even though the sleet didn't stick to my pant legs it did kind of roll down onto my ankles and into my shoes collecting there like a mini snow drift of frostbite gnawing at my lower extremities. Those are all on the "con's" side of the equation. On the positive side? Naval gazing and a pair of dry pants. If I were you I'd stick to driving the Escalade.