”The secret to change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new” Socrates
I wrote the above title right after posting my last story, which was all about where I’ve been. it closes a chapter in my life, but unlike a book, you carry it forward always. Life’s recipe doesn’t shrink with the passage of time, it keeps growing, the taste uniquely your own. Change is a constant in all our lives, taking us to where we have been destined, unknown until we get there.
i’ve had a Zen practice for many years and have written about it before. I have always found it to be intellectually intriguing, with many concepts challenging to throughly digest, which is part of the idea. More than anything else, life is meant to be fully , experienced, which trumps understanding. I was drawn to it, because so much of it just makes sense. Impermanence is a building block in its foundation. Every inhalation carries with it the prospect of constant change. Exaggeration is key to many of its basic tenets.
The change I am referring to in the title is more of a sharp turn in overall direction. When I think about my 81 year history, there have been tent pole redirections, usually hard earned. Losing my Dad when I was only nine years old is at the head of the list. I was one parent away from being an orphan and for a little kid, the darkness of night fall was a time to share my bed with scary thoughts. It kept me closer to the ground going forward. It also marked the beginning of my propensity to over think and over worry, always festering just beneath the surface.
You know, when you’re hiking on a trail, it is a good idea to leave an occasional marker, so you can find your way back. I know the loss of my father indelibly marked my life trail forever. Through the magic of hindsight, I learned to understand the fork in the road and a choice I made. There was a non-conformist and truth seeker, lurking in the shadows of my awareness. The closest I got back then was working as a page at NBC beginning in my junior year at college and the excitement of being around artists and entertainers. My co-workers were all older and this job was known for birthing talent. I felt completely at ease around them, like I belonged in their world.
After a stint of active duty in the Army Reserve, NBC was required to hire me back. I opted for the security of being in an industry, as opposed to exploring those latent feelings of creativity. I suppose I enjoyed the idea of being a grown up, wearing suits, carrying an attache case and having a window in my office. Before the magic evaporated, sucked dry by conformity, I was living on the lower east side of Manhattan, wearing a bomber jacket at night and riding my Honda motorcycle. I felt the schism within, but the road less traveled would have to wait many years.
The next twenty years of my life were spent being a servant to expectation. I felt the discomfort growing with time, until it found a place to make its home. It was on my shoulder, close enough to always whisper in my ear, an internal dialogue with only one solution. The life I found myself living became a nightmare and there was no simple extrication either.
My marriage became untenable, for reasons not to be shared. I became a single dad to my two sons, a role that took precedence over my own silent dilemma. Somehow, I got the idea a new life was waiting for me to reach out and embrace it, simply a matter of time.
I have always believed in a conspiracy of events regarding pivotal moments in my life. Knowing I had to leave the City didn’t have a destination until it was provided for me. I ended up visiting Santa Fe, NM toward the end of ’86. The reason for it would take us on a road I don’t feel like sharing at the moment. The instant I found myself walking on its streets, I knew I was home. I love using Fred Astaire as an example of grace, no matter the years. My very first step suddenly felt like gliding into this adobe enclave. I came back to the City, but that place found a home in my heart. So, a couple of months later, I returned for a handful of days to reaffirm the magic. Guess what, I bought this little adobe womb, the first place I looked at, which blew the realtor’s mind.
Back in New York, I had this idea I would visit periodically, which didn’t last more than a few months. The most painful part was saying goodbye to my boys. I really loved those guys, but the need to start over was truly a matter of life and death, my spirit longing to fully inhabit my body. I spent many nights on the brick floor of my little home, crying my eyes out, the labor pains of true change.
Finally, I felt free to be me and it was worth the wait. My fifteen years there were a bona fide adventure, too rich for a handful of sentences. More importantly, it has left me with so much more than I ever could have imagined when I headed my little blue Dodge Colt westward. I was no longer pretending to be Larry, I owned it and never looked back. When the whole idea of leaving took hold, I was fearless, like returning home, after having been away for too many years.
I need to stop here for just a second. It would be all too easy to get lost in my professional and personal adventures there. I could feel myself falling into the trap, because I have incredible stories about that time, but that is not why I’m writing this story. Frankly, the idea came from my recent wrestling match with full-on anxiety and coming out of it, having left its indelible imprint on my psyche. I don’t want to get ahead of myself now either, so back to Santa Fe for just a minute or two.
I fell in love with life in the Land of Enchantment, doing more things than a person could do in three life times and I am not kidding. It was incredibly rich on so many levels, finances always taking a back seat to the wealth of experience. I became fully convinced life is a journey and have held it deep within for many years now. I always had this idea, even when I was a kid, that I’d be rich and retire to paradise somewhere. Even after being forced to shit-can the idea of monumental wealth, the idea of the promised land never left. I had done everything I wanted to do in Santa Fe and it was time to move on, my fearless folly.
I can’t recall where the hell the idea of moving to Hawaii came from. Like most people, even today, I didn’t know a damn thing about the islands, not even their names. I set aside a week to visit both the Big Island and Kauai. I didn’t get a good feeling about the former, because it was too big. How do you like that? Kauai spoke to me when I first caught sight of her from the plane. It was like, “Welcome Home”. Everything fell into place on my 3 day visit. I even made a deal to rent space from a guy, whose name I was given to me by Santa Fe friends. I ended up paying for two months before I even got there.
I drove my red truck to LA to be shipped the next day. All “cowboys” drove trucks back there. My brother called that night to tell me our mother had a massive stroke. I ended up flying to Kauai for a few days, then back to New York for a singular experience, with our mother being in hospice for about ten days until she passed. While it doesn’t qualify as starting over, my childhood fears of being orphaned after my father died came to pass around 50 years later. I returned to my new home carrying the loss and being changed by it.
I have been here 23 years and if I start recounting my experiences, this story will become dangerously long. I actually got my first writing job right before leaving Santa Fe. I wrote short vignettes that went on Yogi Tea boxes for a company owned by the commercially oriented Sikh community, just north of town. Once here, I began writing stories about the farming community, which were published in a long gone, local paper. This was a result of becoming part of the Kauai County Farm Bureau early on. My professional adventures continued unabated from my time in the southwest. Once again, I will spare us both from a litany of each.
Around 15 years ago, I chose to write a memoir for my young grandson. I wanted him to know me when he was old enough to read it and begin understanding the Life of Grandpa Larry. The project took a year and a half of a disciplined recounting of my life and the adventures. Well, I was hooked and officially became a writer, at least in my own mind. The barely detectable kernel of creativity from my early years, finally took hold and took over. Now, that is a change!
My age was beginning to catch up with me and exploded into my consciousness when I hit 80. I was loving the life I made for myself here and absolutely nothing changed about it, except my perception of my limitations.The next think I knew, I was sleeping like shit, accompanied by frightening thoughts in the middle of the night. Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce you to anxiety, a crushing phantom that visits whenever it senses the smallest opening, devouring the spirit in the process.
Anxiety is one stealth motherfucker, jamming you into a corner with no room to escape. I began taking medication, feeling goddamn hopeless. The same feeling that smacked me in the face when I first caught sight of this paradise, resurfaced just when I needed her most. I was writing stories for the County about people and organizations making a difference. My fate collided with a Hawaiian healer for a story and I knew we were destined to meet. Under his tutelage, I performed a life changing ceremony, releasing all my crap to the ocean. It started my crawl up and out of this strangling malaise.
There is no cure, because it never truly disappears once it steps on your chest. However, I am now eliminating the meds. So, here I am, feeling it’s time to share this journey called life. I know I am not who I was before the darkness blinded me. I am a survivor. In a way, those were labor pains once again, birthing an ever so slightly altered embrace of tomorrow. When you have been where I have been, nothing is quite the same.
Please, don’t ever give up on life. I am now crying uncontrollably for both us!
Blessings.
LISTEN TO IT HERE:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/19408493-starting-over-again-again