Diary

May 3, 2023

I awoke to an imposing To Do list, so many things so little time. Leading myself by the nose to read John O'Donahue, I was able to coax myself into a more contemplative frame of mind, glimpse at least the wonder of the morn he so eloquently writes about, and invite myself to meditate on the chakras, gratitude to Mary Maddox for guiding me. 

May 6, 2023

I awoke this morning to a sense that I am wandering off, becoming preoccupied with my my more pressing, practical concerns and losing touch with the part of me that wants to experience adventure and joy. The practical concerns create anxiety which I try to allay by obsessing about them and taking some action, even if the actions themselves are not particularly helpful or advancing my agenda in a productive way. 

I am going to 3 open houses today not because I want to see the places, but because it quells somewhat my anxiety by “doing something”.I have turned the weekly meetings with Joyce into a business meeting, which was not my vision when I suggested them. At the same time I am dismissing my dreams of adventure by not giving the idea of going to New Zealand its proper consideration. The question I need to ask, and answer for myself is:  why is it that I find the idea of adventure so paralyzingly risky, and the idea of joy so emphermal?

The vagabond is rapping at the door and I am not letting him in. 

May 10, 2023

A trip to Casa de las Campamas in Rancho Bernado has prompted me to reconsider my aversion to retirement communities. The occasion was a show case of all the various clubs and activities that are available there. There's an association for everything from spiritual counseling to sky-diving. The table were hosted by residents who are involved in these things. I found myself responding well to the residents I talked to, they seemed friendly and approachable. I liked the units as well: roomy, nicely appointed, well-insulated from sound, very functional and comfortable. I am warming to he idea of having all your everyday needs taken care, and to having an active community to do things with. 

Perhaps I set a target date of 80 years old and direct my efforts to that end.  

May 11 2023

I awoke this morning in a different place, frustrated, because the “good mood” that I awoke with yesterday, a sense of optimism and well-being, had left me, or rather abandoned me, and deposited me back in my consternation

Then I chanced to pick up “to love and be loved“ and began reading the chapter on desire. Ah! The mind goes there it is: clinging. No wonder I spent yesterday lusting after clothing (shoes, socks, at, parkers, and pants) I was in love, my desires in bloom, awaiting only, and not from my permissive parent to spring forth.I was in love, my desires on bloom, awaiting only a nod from my permissive parent to spring forth.

I had forgotten that lust can attach itself to things as well as people in my heart- aroused spirit, I imagined buying, renting, or even building a casita, even downloading pictures of the one in Tucson that I was so smitten by.

All of the pipe dreams receded as I spent the afternoon buried in the minutia of personal finances, trying in vain to understand the arcane numbers and charts and feeling helpless when the one chart showed me running out of money at age 86. Despite not understanding, I took this as a curse, a Greek tragedy to which I would be inevitably drawn. My mood plummeted, and it was not revived by the Thursday night sit, which I sat through with my anxious, obsessiveness intact. 

Today I reflect on my experience, and I am grateful for the relief that Sam keen provided me this morning. He reminded me that “the roots of our desires are mostly hidden from us“ showing up unexpectedly in passing as quickly as a Breeze, only to return at a time and place we can never anticipate or planned for. 

He also reminds me of the difference between like, love, and lust.

May 13 2023,

I begin this day with another quote from Sam Keen’s chapter on desire. “Freud founded modern psychology on the clinical investigation of the cacophony of desire produced by the clash between the conscious and unconscious mind”. I picture my unconscious as timid and  easily startled and reacting to threats, real and imagined, with fear. The fear undermines the dreams and aspirations of my conscious mind. The issue is courage, as it has been right along. Fortitude. Does one learn to accept the timidity or try to overcome it?  The timidity is tied to humiliation. the battle is internal. The situation requires dialog. 

May 15 2023

Whistling past the graveyard...

I'm not sure why this phrase popped into my head this morning as I was out for my walk, but it seems to have something to do with my search for a new place to live. Lately three people have become central to my waking hours: my financial advisor, my real estate agent, and my mortgage broker. The latter two are new additions to my life. 

All of this center's around my wish to find a new home where I can nestle in and enjoy my "retirement". The process is astonishingly complex, at least to those of us who haven't spent our adult lives acquiring and discarding residences. So far the procedures have left me with a sense of pessimism and futility, as if I'm looking for Shangri-La in the middle of an industrial zone. I'm feeling a little bit like a rat in a maze, where the people who surround me are checking in frequently to see if I've found the right pellet, indeed any pellets,  that would induce me to continue with my efforts, all the while reminding me, if unintentionally, how little I am bringing to the table. 

I am being encouraged by some of my friends to see this as an adventure and a chance to have some fun, but I am not feeling the love. In fact this feels like a task located somewhere in between doing my taxes and getting dental work. Most of them seem to have planned for this eventuality, and have made the kind of financial arrangements that have secured their sheltering requirements. I on the other hand, feel like I'm out of sync with my life cycles. Taking on a mortgage seems more appropriate to when you are starting out rather than winding up. And it's a lonely proposition with no one to share the hopes and anxieties the process raises. It seems to have little to do with the things that really matter.

May 30, 2023

I heard yesterday that Jack Clements died. In a fall in his bathroom. This first thing I thought is “he was probably drunk”.

I am sobered by this news. It’s been a long time since I spoke to him and even longer since I’ve seen him. He was appreciative of my calling him las time we spoke - it was January 2022 I think- and he was severely drunk and the call ended abruptly when he (I assume) dropped the phone or fell. 

I thought of him as a quintessentially Southern man: looks and drawl. He introduced me into Gestalt therapy. Floss and I visited him with some frequency when we lived in Atlanta. One night he prepared a gourmet dinner that, by my recollection used every pot, pan and piece of silverware in the house. All of it left overnight to be cleaned in the morning.

He knew his assessments and even mastered that most bewildering and arcane of all tests, the Rorschach. He was generous, ironic and funny. I recall being put out with him one time because I panic after turning over in a kayak and had my head underwater. He said “as long as we can can hear you there’s nothing to worry about”

I had it in mind to call him and it’s been on my Reminders list since January. There’s perhaps a lesson for me in that. 

Sam Keen writes:

“compassion begins with the acknowledgment of the single inescapable truth. That is the foundation for the possibility of love between human beings, and awareness of the tragic sense of life. In that final surrender that marks the egos defeat in the hard fought battle to defend its illusions, we are forced to confront the implications of our mortality. many small differences separate us from one another but one large thing unites us. We are all citizens of the earth household, destined to dwell together in a democracy of death, in which there are no distinctions of race, color, creed, class, or gender. Without our consent, we are formed by the iron laws of corrosive time, prey to decay and disease, and haunted during our brief days by the anxious knowledge that we are like the grass of the field…

…in place of romance, compassion introduces us to the necessary suffering of love, and therefore, to abiding passion. To feel others pleasure we must be able to feel their pain. Only those who recognize each other as fellow strangers in the night can forge the bonds of true kinship, and learn to be kind. And kindness, not wild abandon, is the essence of an abiding passion”.