Nobody Wins by a Nose.

Hold Your Horses. We've Lost Sight.

"Out of sight, out a head"

The call-by-call announcer identifies the race by horse by position and progress. The jockey is never mentioned. Of course, the rider reins and reigns the horse for the best chance to win. At the finish the whiny cut their losses while the winner whinnies wonderment and receives most of the attention and adulation. But what we, the viewers, can't, don't and probably don't want to see or hear the behind-the-stall shenanigans. But it is vital we understand that all horses have a stable of support that feeds their hopes.

If we really heard the real race, it might it sound something like this:

"Coming around the turn, Hopeful Reality and Mounting Enthusiasm trail Prideful Prejudice, Anger Unreigned, Arrogance Unchained. Then Bridled Party is followed by Sucker Society.  A few lengths back are Corrupt Interests, Capital Investment and Political Might, waiting for their opening. On the outside are Truth Speaker, Justice Selection, Constitution Keeper, Righteous Indignation, Ego Maniac, Special Interests, Conservative Agenda. Still keeping pace are Common Sense, Common Good and Public Concern trail the leaders by lengths and are slowly falling back. Coming down the home stretch it app a two-horse race now, folks." 

The neigh-saying "cant-her" banter denies and derides Momentum Seeker and Public Interests, uneasily saddled or sidelined along the rail. While powerful private Pony Pander pails the pace.  Horse Scents and Hoarse Nonsense rail the trail; Horse Cents rides the track. All of the rhetoric-mud and muck slinging stinks to high heaven, While the polls may have portrayed the race as running neck and neck pole to pole, the stench smells like nose to nose.  Is it anybody's race? No, of course not. No one really knows what's behind the No's and nonsense. But the smell sure sticks.

Hopeful Wishing won't win. Rational Thought and Common Sense have an outside chance, but only if Honest Voting and Human Rights finish strong. With such a confused and convoluted field of backers, benefactors, beraters, bankers, betters, it is difficult to envision a finish line where dooms-dayers don't de-riders win. When we all ride round and round, Nobody wins.

Aren't we on a so-called "merry" go round?

Can any of us truly see ourselves? 

Look who we have become!

In the ancient Greek epic poem The Odyssey, Odysseus blinds the one-eyed Polyphemus to escape the giant's man-eating hunger and the cave Odysseus found his crew and himself trapped inside. What Odysseus did not realize at the time he had led them to their destruction. Their hunger blinded them to plunder what was not theirs. His crew followed him faithfully as their blind trust and collective hunger led them to their downfall.

Many of us are asleep and then blind when we think we are awake and aware.

The sightless giant cyclops howled his wounded anger...

"Who poked out my eye?" 

The crafty culprit, Odysseus cunningly replied with a untruth...

"My name is Nobody."

When the wounded giant heard this, he urged for his cyclopic cousins to seek revenge. When they answered his pleas, they questioned him... 

"Who poked out your eye?" 

Of course, Polyphemus responded...

 "Nobody poked out my eye."

...and, of course, when his gigantic relatives heard this, they returned to herding their mindless sheep flocks.

But Odysseus could not leave well enough alone. Thinking he had escaped any retribution by having outwitted a simple dimwit sheep herder, he arrogantly proclaimed... 

"My name is Odysseus, King of Ithaca. It is I who blinded you."

Hearing these words and the direction from which they came, Polyphemus hurled huge boulders towards Odysseus almost destroying Odysseus' ship and crew.

For all his previous heroics, Odysseus revealed he was still a flawed leader.  Regarded as a Greek hero. He was a master of disguise and deception; he had designed the Trojan Horse. He was the King of his domain - the Greek island of Ithaca.  He was even Athena's favorite - the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice. When Odysseus just barely escaped with a victory over the blinded, one-eyed giant, his words and actions revealed his all too human failings, flaws and vulnerabilities. His hubris hunger - an arrogant, self-centered and superior-minded attitude - was just the beginning of the hardship and destruction that lay ahead for his followers. So, in many ways while his success was revered, his ego and arrogance will lead him to lose almost everything.

"Man, when are you going to learn? You are nobody in comparison to me! You are nobody until you pay your respects to my power, not yours." 

"Get over your Self, voters, 
Your head may be stuck inside your self-importance."

"Those who do not learn lessons from the past, are doomed to relive them." 

~ George Santana

With the 2016 national political election on the horizon, it seems obvious to almost NOBODY that NOBODY will win.  The election results will not produce ANYBODY or SOMEBODY or Yes, we are all going to lose come November.

Toxic finger-pointing and blame-gaming never serves society.   

Nobody wins when nobody is running for election. 

I'm nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody, too?

Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!

They'd banish -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public like a frog

To tell one's name the livelong day

To an admiring bog! 

~ Emily Dickinson

Losing our heads loses our brains 
closes our eyes and minds to the highway ahead 

Nobody wins when power and superiority reign.  Nobody wins when deception and disadvantage rules. Nobody wins when people's voices are ignored or disregarded. Nobody wins unless they become somebody.

The lessons for humanity have been on display for centuries.  Human history, literature, religions, movies, mythology, art and poetry all speak to the messages and ethics we need in modern society. We forget that we need to be reminded and reminded. 

When does anger and exclusion ever serve the people?

When entertainment enamors, the public fails to recognize reality! 

If we are so programmed, the clown in a horse outfit will win!

Everyone can become everybody.

A spirited body spirited for the goodwill of all
becomes a much stronger nobody.

Nobody can become some body.

One of my favorite spaghetti westerns where NOBODY always triumphs.

Finding a Cure

Tossing a Key Away

Around 10:15 am yesterday morning, as a couple came to view my house, I drove to Port St. Lucie's Botanic Gardens near the headwaters of the St. Lucie River to sell my home.  

Since my house has been up for sale since last August (that's 7 months ago), I felt I had to do something more to attract a serious buyers.  During this time my house in Port St. Lucie attracted approx.14,000 online views, 3 open houses and about 60 couples + realtors visits and viewings over a span of close to 210 days.  And only 2 serious offers that came anywhere close to asking price and 2 "joke" offers less than the purchase price from 18 months ago. And dare I forget the 2 couples who were "semi-interested" (is that even a word like sort-of-pregnant??) only to cancel or pull their offer soon after making it????.  This whole ordeal has been a parade and carnival since the start.  I wish I could utter the words "joyride".  But yesterday was the beginning of something new.

Most civilized people would probably conclude: "There must be something wrong with the house." And that was what I was curious about despite the home being problem-free, has all $30,000 of new hurricane-proof doors and windows and a new reverse-osmosis water filtration system. In reviewing all prospective buyer feedback, not one couple repeated any thing complaint anyone else had. The were many compliments about the house and many people stayed longer than 30 minutes because they said they liked its spaciousness, openness and clean appearance. The only comments: master bedroom closet was too small, the pool may need repainting, a tree is in the way to park our RV, it is not to our taste, one couple said the price was to high, the grass could be greener (I added this last one as a joke!).

Obviously something was holding back a serious buyer. After numerous conversations with my realtors who could not be more helpful and competent, I decided to take another step. Not a drastic measure, but a move towards recognizing and taking into account the house's energy as well as mine.

A close friend suggested I try something else:

http://www.knowfengshui.com/feng-shui-cure-sell-your-house-faster/

I had bought the house with high hopes and dreams, but none of those materialized and little seemed to work to sell it.  Clearly some impediment was delaying this sale. Certainly my house had some residual sorrow and mixed emotions surrounding it. Though I really liked the house for it's beauty and practically, it became impractical and not as warmly welcoming as a fully-furnished family home might be. So at the encouragement of a good friend, I decided to convince some powers and spiritual forces that I was indeed serious about letting it go to move on with my life.  

So I decided to use gratitude with the law of attraction - the maxim that "like attracts like" - the idea that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts a person brings positive or negative experiences into their life.  I knew I had a house full of thoughts that needed cleansing.  

Releasing this house symbolically / ritualistically / psychologically is vital so I finally made a conscious choice yesterday to communicate with the universe that I was really, really, really really, REAL ready.  It felt so suddenly reassuring finally hopeful and reassuring to speak and hear my loud and clear message once and for all. So I drove to the nearest body of water, the St. Lucie River, adjacent to the St. Lucie Botanical Gardens only two miles away from the house for my ceremony.

Today's house key tossing event took place on and in the river.

Most of you who know me, whether through my writing or personal interaction, know how meaningful water's forces and power are for me. So this fung shui suggestion really resonated with my core.

The pine cones reminded me of trees dropping / spreading / planting their seeds for renewal.

I was there at the gardens doing the same thing!

Seeding and planting my intention. 

Moving on!

I didn't see any alligator!

Hanging plants...hanging around waiting for visitors going by-ers.

The garden art...
Always chuckle when I observe humans planting their art work next to nature's.
Do we humans think their art enhances nature's?
or is it the other way around?

 During this beautiful walk my thoughts centered and focused on the beauty of my letting go completely!

Before I toss the key, I wade shoeless to a partially- submerged ledge!

After the key toss!

My house

Heard from Mary, my realtor, soon after I drove back to the house. She told me she expected an realistic offer from one of the recent visitors tomorrow or the next day.

I'm thinking and calling out "Law of Attraction, do your thing"!

When I woke this morning, I noticed my realtor had texted me two more house showing today and Thursday! 

"Bidding Contest", anyone?

Of all 300+/- posts I have written in the last 2 years, the most popular is entitled Let Go or Hold On. 

So I have pledged to myself I need to return to the St. Lucie Botanical Gardens every day until the house sells. It is only two miles away and such a perfect place for lunch and reflection. Maybe I will finally see the alligator!

Standing Pat

Southerner's Voices Tribute 

I awoke early Sunday and soon to a sad announcement.  So as I often do, I turned to the Floridian sunrise to write and record my early-riser reactions and responses to this news. Writing always lightens and brightens my thoughts and feelings. I knew I had to reflect and share how a talented, troubled soul influenced my life.

As I contemplated Pat Conroy's passing away, I revisited many memorable moments I had spent with him and his stories.  His magnificently marshy, muddy, mucked mind made me pause and ponder my own life unlike many other authors.  Though most of his tidal waters tales touched my being, I can only say he did so from afar afar. I never actually met Pat in person, but his semi-autobiographical South Carolinian voice resonated with me deeply for decades.  Somehow knowing an author through his stories, gives me some kind of permission to announce I knew him and could relate to him.  I imagined meeting him or writing him while he was still alive, but for some reason I never did. Maybe I did not want to alter my impression and image of him.  To me he was victim and survivor but mostly part hero for his words echoed honesty, insight and pure art.  I remember many years ago selfish yearning for his vocabulary and articulation somehow miraculously to appear in my blogging.

  

His novels Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, The Water is Wide and My Losing Season profoundly reached me like few other narratives from a single author ever have. When I read them, they all seemed profoundly timely and touching. Almost as if he and the universe had co-authored these stories as personal reading assignments over the span of 40 years.  My ego at one time even imagined he had written them for me as some juicy nuggets of wisdom I could apply to my life.

Few of us can tolerate an unhappy ending.  And I never felt Pat Conroy sugar-coated this stories for his readership; he told his tales with his unique style and slant. Using fiction as his literary device, Pat recounted his family's dysfunction, he reminded me of Eugene O'Neil's powerful portrayal of family discord in his Long Day's Journey into Night.  Sharing and baring his battered and beaten boyhood was sometimes difficult to bear. But his blatantly honest substance and style were so intoxicating for me, I felt I was part of his family. Ah, the talents of a powerful writer to transform his readers into identifying with and relating to his characters. This was one reason why the movie was a disappointment.

The mere fact I had encountered an author opening his own troubled life's window became not only a story-telling adventure, but also a type of therapy session for me. Every good writer makes the reader identify with one or more characters.  His voice as author and protagonist almost always spoke to me. I somehow experienced my childhood and adulthood in a clearer light because of Pat's graphic words and imagery. He was a master story-teller.

Though refreshingly flawed, his fictional characters appeared so realistically fleshed-out that his fiction was anything but.  His characters always seemed so authentic while his voice echoed an almost confessional quality within his irony and sarcasm.  In that vein, his voices became cathartic for me. I had heard and felt his experiences and emotions.  

Here was an articulate writer sharing his personal sensitivity and angst through powerful fiction that all readers realized he was telling his actual REAL life story.  He wrote about his life using story to defuse and divulge his reality. With such refreshing fluidity and and honesty, his eloquence made me read REALITY within his words.  It was not that his and my family dynamics or history were that similar, but it was his dynamic dialogue and human understanding.

Here are the opening lines to The Prince of Tides: 

~

As the oldest of four baby-boomer boys, I was raised and satiated by the humid, marshy, tidal tributaries and winds of the Chesapeake Bay's and Maryland's Eastern Shore.  I grew up plainly and simply on a 100 acres of flat, fertile waterfront farmland.  Parented by an confident, ex-merchant marine, successful chicken-farmer, only-child father and his dutifully dedicated wife in the post WWII 1950's and 60's, I conformed to the small rural world into which I was planted.  At first I was primed and subsequently perceived as a responsible, golden boy oldest son, until in my late teens I found myself as something of a southern rebel - not a confederate, but more family renegade and nonconformist.

Lane family portrait 1971 taken during Christmas vacation in Sea Island, Georgia.

As adulthood approached, I became the only brother who did not march to the proverbial parental drum. I was always curious, but rarely satisfied with simple answers like "because it is" or "because I say so" or no answer at all.  I grew up in a Quaker family where silence and meditative Friends's meetings were once revered.  But at home that all changed when inevitable conflicts arose and silent treatments or shallow explanations were employed.

When I was in 3rd grade I asked my father a math question and he wouldn't show me how to find the answer. When I was 10, I questioned my parents about the boy who drown in our pool one summer day and was told not to ask such questions. When at 17, I spent 9 weeks camping through Europe with two classmates and a teacher/coach, my mother asked me upon my return if I were "gay".  And she gave me no explanation when I asked her why she asked. When I chose education as a career, my father immediately proclaimed "You're taking a vow of poverty", but never asked why or ever queried my calling. When I lost my vision in my right eye in water polo accident and my parents brought me home to recover, my mother "farmed" me out to the next door neighbor friend to keep me company and entertained.  Never explaining why. My father ended up embarrassing me in front of a house full of relatives and guests after that accident by drawing everyone's attention to my eye injury.  When at age 27, I sailed across the Atlantic with 7 others, my parents thought I was crazy.  One day I by my father's slip of the tongue, I discovered my family had not invited me to pre-Xmas family gathering for 9 years.  In that 9th year when I was finally attended this "family" charade, a year after my mother had passed away, I witnessed and comprehended "the family" dynamic like never before. It was then that I realized I had denied and buried much of my family rejection wound for too many years.

Though at the time, I felt saddened by this realization, paradoxically I also experienced incredibly surprising relief and exuberance. At first disappointed my family had excluded and alienated me, I realized I had excluded and alienated them.  My being soon felt lighter and freer. On one huge level I felt enormous relief that I no longer felt emotionally attached to them.  Facing my father and 3 brothers and their wives and my fears felt so odd, yet so reaffirming and reassuring that I "free-floated" the 3-hour return drive back to Connecticut in a cloud of comfort.  Ironically, I somehow felt secretively overjoyed they had not invited me to partake in the previous eight gatherings. Somehow being disavowed by my family had became a blessing.

After my father passed away a few years later, I had mixed feelings.  But when I shared my remembrances at their memorial services for how they had contributed to my life, I honored them  with respect and memorable.  It was my words (not some famous poem) and that gave me some closure. Both had given me life and had done the best they could to give me a strong foundation. So I did appreciate accept them in many ways. While giving voice to my truth was important, it also felt forgiving. This acceptance seemed part of what amazed me about Pat's stories. He loved his family and father despite everything.

When I read the Death of Santini, I realized how devoted Pat Conroy was to his family despite all the battle wounds caused by an alcoholic and abusive father.  Like Pat, as I matured I challenged the "family line".  I veered off course according to parental plans and expectations. But I did not know what love; it never seemed unconditional. And that was what amazed me about Pat. No matter what he kept his family in his life. That was foreign to me.

Me, Bill and Tom
Innocence personified!?

Somewhere in me I wanted to help people more than help myself. As I discovered in college, my thirst and drive was to come alive. I had a insatiable hunger to learn. And I found as I educated and coached others', I actually educated myself.  But I did not accept or endorse the Lane family materialism so I faced the inevitable consequences of not being loved unconditionally. And over the years I have slowly come to terms, though not always comfortable, with the impact of alienation. What has helped is that I have learned exclusion is always a two-way street.


Unlike Pat's, my childhood experiences were not saturated by physical abuse or drunkenness.  My memories were mostly "do as we were told" without much dialogue.  Mundane conversation was more the norm; ideas or conflicts rarely shared or questioned.  Rarely was there any acknowledgement about anything meaningful in our family.

When I began to realize how ignorance and isolation had stifled and stunted my growth, I began to speak my voice.  When I reached college in 1968, it was like a light bulb flashed on for the first time. But what happened gradually was I alienated myself from my family.  As a result, I became their odd duck, black sheep and scapegoat. I did not see myself that way at the time, but I could tell I did not fit into this bubble.

I did not grow up in a physically abusive and intimidating family like Pat's; I did not experience that kind of trauma.  My weighted youthful yoke felt so much more peaceful and serene in comparison. I have found any kind of comparison rarely clarifies clearly. Bernie to David T. Comparing lives diminishes both to mere compare one life to another subtle and secretive. Silence, isolation and 

I related to Pat on a number of levels.  The obvious similarities between homes located near lowland waters in southern environments amidst racial undertones of a turbulent time in American culture. I connected with him through his experiences as an oldest son with a dominating father, his wanting to defend his mother and his resentment for her subservience...the sibling rivalries and conflicting family values, but mostly his intense love for teaching, coaching, words, language and learning.

In my father's arms with my 94-year-old name sake.

Romance often distorts reality. Movies and novels frequently entice and seduce audiences. and readers. Many of us viewers are plain suckers for dreamy romantic tales / themes of love, recovery, restoration, redemption, rescue, glory, heroism....good conquering evil. We all, however, love a success story.  Of course, whether we want to accept it or not, we all change over time.  Thinking the truth is one thing; telling, divulging and sharing one's truth or reality with the world is an entirely different thing. Many people, after all, have difficulty hearing the truth, seeing or much less facing truths. For some reason Emily Dickinson's words come to mind when I think of Pat's story-telling truth-telling abilities.

Pat knew his sharing his southern slant would open eyes and hearts. It helped him process his pain and his wounds. That is what he did for me. Thanks, Pat, I really appreciate your sharing you stories and truth with the world.

I love this story so much I used it when I was teaching a high school english classed entitled Relationship in Literature Course

Remembering Pat Conroy, A Master Who Used His Tortured Life To Tell Stories

It's been a profound passage for me these last two weeks with the passing of two men who made a profound difference to my life.