Boston harmonies

I love cities. I suppose growing up in a practically virginal valley in the western edges of the Catskills shouldn't set me up for this but it did. But even now I live on the main street of a small NH town and I can walk out my door across a couple of yards and I'm back in the woods from where the deer sometimes glide out and eat the yews around the houses.

I love the hustle and bustle, I love the traffic confusion, I love looking at huge buildings and looking in the window trying to see past the drapes and wondering who lives their life up there?

Recently I've been in Boston more than usual as I am having dental work done at Tufts Dental School to save money and also to support students who need practice.

As I stand waiting near the windows of the 12th floor I look out over Chinatown and can see lots of roof tops. This reminds me of one drapery job I did in Cambridge just over the river from Boston was installing a 30' wide motorized drape (into the concrete ceiling!) into a penthouse the building owner had built on top of his apartment building so that his daughter could live there while she went to Havard or something. Just threw a penthouse up on top of his apartment building! For his daughter to live in while she goes to college! Hey, presto; empty rooftop now penthouse.

This is what I'm talking about. Another world, another way of living.

So I had been to the dentist and was driving away when I looked out at the scene ahead of me; Chinatown stores, tall residential buildings, people scurrying around, construction going on and suddenly I was elevated by having this urban scene overlaid in my head with this section from The Message;

"From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone. 
So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross." 
 Colossians 1

It was a surreal moment. I felt a kinship, a joy in this huge, gritty, intimidating world. A vibrant harmony.

In Reaching Out, by Henri Nouwen, Nouwen describes the ability to engage in solitude anywhere you are, people or no people, quiet or no quiet. It's an inner attitude that I can choose. And in so doing be where I am for others.

This is in contrast to the emotion of loneliness I'm sure I would have felt in a big city a few years ago. Sad, anxious, and always living in the future of getting back to where my partner in co-dependency, my wife, was. Taken up with the impossible assuaging of my own feelings of loneliness that I was choosing.

Now in this celebration of vibrancy in the midst of the ebb and flow of traffic and bustling people I was able to engage a God's eye view. What could be seen as "broken and dislocated pieces" fitting together in smooth harmony. All the diversity and activity flowed as a beautiful river through the canyon walls of brick and mortar and glass.

And I was part of a larger whole. 

40 year time warp

Yesterday I attended my 40th High School reunion out in the beautiful hills of New York. I had connected recently with a few of my classmates on Face Book and had enjoyed the connection so I wanted to follow up on that.

High School was miserable for me. ADD and belonging to an obscure religious group and living out in the country in what could be considered a commune of sorts set me up for all sorts of weirdness.

I always felt that I was a geek or outside bouncing around everyone else's world. I had for religious reasons very little social interactions with classmates so I seemed to have very little in common with them.

One thing I was very clear about. I didn't want anyone to notice my ears (which are not all that pronounced) but I noticed how someone else received the name "Ears (Last name) and I was petrified that that would happen to me.

So with all of this trying to be invisible I'm sure that I created some of the awkward relationship dynamics that existed. Classmate now tell me that they just thought I was shy. I was certain that they would have used the word "weird". I haven't checked with Gordy Temple about that. He I'm sure, would honor my request for honesty! He and Bill Briggs were just a much fun to be around as they were in HS.

So, the reunion was fun because I had fun meeting everyone and hanging out. I actually miss being closer to them. And now it's interesting to me that I so could wait to get out of High School and move on.

What I didn't expect was driving by some depressing place along the road on the way and having a groundswell of emotion from the past. Self-loathing, disgust, embarrassment, shame, you name it it because fully present to me. All the mistakes I made, jobs that I didn't finish, High School projects I barely finished or got a zero on all the negative came up and smacked me like a dead fish.

I was able to notice it and move on by it but wow, was it not fun to be reminded of what I lived in emotionally for so many years.

No wonder at some point when my wife started to recover from her emotional issues and she wanted me to be "present and available" I was confused and scared"

I was used to hiding out and had no idea what the heck she meant when she said "present and available." I'm sure I must have looked blankly at her and said that I'm right here!

So here I am 58 years old, feeling ageless really and enjoying the process of living life in the moment, present and available for myself and others.