Sirvice sex is fun's blog: "My poor mistaken friend."

She asked me to talk to him. So I did. I drove past the gate, parked in “employee only” section (my defiance still flares), signed in, wore a visitor badge, buzzed through two doors, carded through double sliding, got let in a enclosed courtyard cage and finally buzzed through the entrance: “Adolescent Unit” the sign said (nothing looked adolescent about it) and I talked to him. Most people saw the perfect child (“The Perfect Child or T.P.C. is what THEY used to call me) such a quiet and polite boy who keeps to himself and knows just what to say. Quiet and polite people who keep to themselves are in the news lately. Quiet and polite people who keep to themselves dress up as Santa Claus and kill people on Christmas Eve. Initially, I saw a quiet and polite boy who kept to himself and knew just what to say. I didn’t see any more than I had to probably because I didn’t want to look. I try not to go there anymore. Whatever the reason, I didn’t see what was staring right back at me. I didn’t see me. I didn’t want to see any more until I had to and then all I saw was fury. Everybody had talked to him about him. I chose a new topic. One he wasn’t familiar with. I talked to him about me. I told him I knew him shortly after we first met. He asked how. I said “I see me.” When there was a pause, he thanked me for coming, told me how he knew he needed to change his ways and that he’d learned his lesson. I told him to shut up. I wasn’t there for bullshit. I could spread my own. I’d been doing it for years. He didn’t interrupt me after that. I told him more of my story, my story that resembled his own. He said he didn’t know my past. I said “Not many do. Not unless I tell them. And that’s the way I like it.” I told him how I beat my mom, bit my mom and kicked my mom when I was a child. He stared at the floor and flinched with each detail as though I were reading a list of his crimes. He beats his mom. He bites his mom. He kicks his mom. His mom is 6’2” (my mother was 5’6”) and he is me. I told him of the many homes I’d lived in. The juvenile detention centers, the children’s homes, the group homes, the aunt’s and uncle’s homes. He told me of his hospitals. I wept as I remembered a past I rarely visit and avoid reliving. I told him of the terror, the anger, the rage, the fear, the hatred and the loneliness I felt. I stared at the floor. He stared at me. I told him how it took 32 and 36 years to forgive and that forgiveness doesn’t remove the wounds or erase the feelings. I told him forgiveness heals, absolves and understands. I told him I needed a hug and thanked him for seeing me. As I left, I stared up at the fencing above my head, silver strands separating blue sky. I asked my staff escort/manager on duty how my friend was doing, remembering I always knew just how to tell them what they wanted to hear. He said he’d talked to him once in the past two days since he was admitted but from what he could tell he was doing great. I said “That’s the problem.” He looked at me as though he were surprised “What do you mean? He’s doing great.” I said “If he were doing great, he wouldn’t be here.” I talked to me today and I didn’t hear a word of it.

She’s fine. She’s witty. She’s intelligent. She’s attractive. She’s my friend and though she’s drinking herself to death, she’s fine. Months ago, we talked daily, for hours on end. She is easy to talk to, quick to listen, quick to make me laugh. When my mother was dying, she was there. Listening, comforting, consoling and joking. She thought she didn’t have anything to offer. She offered more than most. If we had nothing else in common, we did our drinking. She does what I did and she does it just as well. Without explanation, without excuse, she stopped talking to me and she blocked me. Last week, she contacted me asking for help. She described her symptoms: convulsions, puking daily, nausea, itchy/rough dry skin, fatigue, sweating, etc. I suggested she get help. She said she would…until the next day. “How are you?” I asked. “Fine. Don’t call, don’t text, don’t contact me. I’m fine.” Considering she’s half the country away and won’t answer her phone (I didn’t respect her wishes) there’s little I can do. I’m powerless, powerless over people, powerless over places, powerless over fine. Btw, I’m fucked-up, insecure, neurotic and emotional. In other words, I’m fine and so is she.

An update: Yesterday, I went in to lay down track for the parts I auditioned for (and passed). I wasn’t pleased. The appointment was at 3 PM and at 10:30 that morning until 5:30 that night, I didn’t get a breath. My other job, normally dry, rained. And when that job rains, it pours; a seven hour torrent. Needless to say, I was anxious and over extended and I could hear it. I finished the copy, two takes each, and apologized for not being on top of my game. She thanked me saying, “Sirvice (not really), your worst is better than everyone else’s best." Bitch.

I went to my first audition today. (I hate the term “audition.” It sounds so “yes, I’ll eat Top Ramen and wait tables until I make it big.”) After years of hearing people suggest it to me, I finally did something about it; I took a class, took the suggestions of my professor, mixed my delivery and recorded the material for my demo CD (still in the process of being edited). Last week, I took another suggestion. “Here. Respond to the ad. Call the number on the city’s flyer,” a friend said. I called. I backed out after being told I was one of hundreds of respondents. I took another suggestion. “Come anyway,” she said, “I have a feeling we’ll use you.” “We?” I asked. “I,” she said. “The auditions are to be fair. I make the decision and I think I just did.” I took the suggestion and came anyway. I went to my first audition today. “Take one,” she said. “5, 4, 3, *, *” I smiled for warmth, kept my mouth open for enunciation and let ‘er rip. After the first take, I paused and asked, “Shall we do another?” “No. Thank you. That won’t be necessary. There’s no improving upon perfection.”

I friend of mine just gave birth this week. Another friend of mine killed himself this weekend. Last Wednesday, he was sitting in a meeting describing how doctors had just saved his life. He had had a heart attack and didn’t know it. The doctors did. They cut his clothes, cut his leg, inserted tubes and told him to shut up and lie still. Less than a week after doctors saved his life, he took it. He was a father, he was in his forties and he spent most of his adult life in prison. The man I met, after his release, was a frightened, scared and lonely child. I would imagine, he wasn’t much older, in terms of maturity, than when he went in; a man on the outside covered in tattoos, a child on the inside cloaked in hurt. This man was identical to me, in all ways except appearance. This week, a new life came into this world as one went out. The irony does not escape me, nor does the pain, the innocence or the significance of each. What I am witnessing is the cycle. This cycle has existed for centuries. And it’s this same cycle I thought I was immune to. It is the cycle of life and as it exists for others, it exists for me. *Congratulations, Kerri! Rest easy, Carl. Thank you both for showing this to me.*

It seems I’m still not done. What I thought would take a year, took a week. What I thought would take a week took a month and what I thought would take a month has taken well over. This process is a process. I’m not fond of processes. I’m fond of finality, finish, complete, destination and done. I never enjoyed the journey and as a result, I’ve enjoyed very little. Little in life is finality. Most in life is change. In fact, the only constant, other than God, that I’m aware of, is a change. Bah! Miserable. Misery, a not new and most unwelcome friend. He visits often. More often than I’d like and much more often than I care to admit. Tenacious bugger. He’s not done either. Talk to me in ten minutes and I’ll speak of hope and optimism and growth and other nonsense. Talk to me now and I’ll tell you of pain. Enduring, everlasting pain. The pain that always was and the pain that always will be. My kind of pain. The kind of pain that my head advertises as eternal. The kind pain that doesn’t really exist. Grief, just grief. I’ve heard there is one reliever of pain that is 100% effective 100% of the time and that’s time. Time I have too much of. Time I never have enough of. Time that lingers long. Time too, that's not done.

So, I’m not really good with grieving. I’m not good with any feeling but particularly grief because grief is many emotions, many conflicting emotions swelling and breaking in waves. I hate it. Grief is what overtakes me in the middle of a meal, when I’m backing out the driveway or listening to a friend tell me how well their children are doing. It’s not keeping it together at the grocery store and wondering why tears are falling when I’m in the middle of a sentence. Grief is not particularly predictable (other than in the wee small hours) either. Listening to a voicemail of my mother was no sweat. Not being able to call her after completing my demo CD? Killer. Fucking vacant killer desperate loneliness. I hate it. Sometimes it’s all consuming. Other times it’s almost entirely unnoticeable. Not a blip on the screen. Not a hint. Just gone. And still other times, its all there is: an undercurrent weaving its way through whatever I do. Grief. Not so good grief. Did I mention I hate it?

19 July 2008 I've never lived a day without my mom until today. At 4 AM this morning my mother died. Her death comes some 82 odd years after her birth. While I wasn't there at 4, I was there until 3 and I'm convinced had I stayed with her through the night, she wouldn't have left my side. My guess is she needed her space and, like most mothers, didn't want to burden her son. The irony is near the end of her life when she needed my time and attention the most, she was nothing like the imposition I felt she had always been before. Instead, she was a blessing. And, she was the most beautiful I ever recall her being, save perhaps her wedding day (as illustrated in my photo section). The parallels of birth and death have never been more apparent than in this process and the beauty of birth is the best illustration I can give of the beauty I've mentioned I see in her death. Though visually, the birth process is painful, bloody, mucusy and traumatic, I normally see the bigger picture as being amazing and miraculous; a moment where the supernatural and the natural collide, where the hand of God touches the hearts of men resulting in the miracle of birth. For me, specifically with my mom, death has been no different, absolutely glorious and startlingly beautiful, a moment where the supernatural and the natural collide, where the hand of God touches the hearts of men, where I cry "Goodbye" and God beams "Hello." In short, my mother witnessed the miracle of my birth and the beauty of my life. I witnessed the beauty of her dying and the miracle of her death. And, as beautiful as both have been, they both fucking hurt.

*I thought an update was in order. Last week, my mother lost the ability to swallow and, as her will expressly forbids the use of a feeding tube, the doctor gave her a month to live. Yesterday, hospice gave her seven to ten days. Today, hospice gave her no more than three. In the meantime, this is what’s happened…* If there's one thing I never would have expected to see in death, it’s beauty. If there's anything I do see in the death of my mother, her gaping mouth, her laborious and sporadic breathing, it's beauty; delicate, graceful, overwhelming and radiant beauty; glorious healing, gentle forgiveness and a little thing, with which I felt previously unfamiliar, love. I don't make my own decisions in my life. Had I, I wouldn't have witnessed this beauty. I wouldn't have witnessed this love. I wouldn't have witnessed any of this magnificent process. I would be doing what most of my family is doing, keeping a careful, cautious distance. This is a painful process and my first reaction was to avoid it. I wanted to keep away and keep clear. I wanted to love from a distance. What I was told was love is not distant. Love is near. Love is involved. Love is intimate and vulnerable. What I was told was love is an action. Love is reading and talking and listening and reflecting. And I was told that my mother and me needed me to be there. I am not an expert on death. In fact, I've rarely witnessed it. The experience I am having is my own (as this experience does not appear to be the experience my family is having) and I've never had it before. But evidently, death isn't to be dreaded or feared as I have thought for so long. Instead, it's to be embraced. And if my death is half as lovely as my mother's, I can't wait to be there for it, to be present and available and loved. My mother has tried to teach me many lessons, most of which I have yet to learn. It’s ironic that in her death, my mother is teaching me a lesson for living, which I may actually be learning. This lesson in love and this magnificent beauty is my dying mother's gift to me.

For years, I’ve looked for a meditation. Either I didn’t know what it was, didn’t have the patience to practice it or the follow through to stay committed and reap, what I was beginning to feel were, the imaginary rewards. As a result, I suffered. I didn’t suffer in the sense of pain or ache, I suffered being ill at ease, disquiet, discontent. Some years ago, a priest (and I’m not catholic) gave me a book he recommended from a Cistercian Monk (much the way Money recommended a follow up). I was interested in investigating mediation again, it was suggested of me and it was the step I was on. I take my steps (though little else) rather seriously. I committed time to this gentle, paradoxical practice and never got “it.” “It” being a joy, an excitement, a reward. What I got was that I didn’t notice when I did it. Instead, I noticed when I didn’t. Meditation gave me a gradual, sense of balance not a sense of euphoria at all. I’m a euphoric type of guy. Before recovery, balance didn’t appeal to me and I had never had enough of anything. I wanted more, all the time and I wanted it yesterday (patience is still not one of my strong points). This, “do a little now and notice a little later” thing was very foreign. Starting a few months ago, my life environment (rather than me) began to change. My mother’s health began to rapidly fail, a move was in order, an expected and much needed vacation plan fell through, and family contact and thus friction (at least in my family) were on the rise. All this causes a lot of pain. You recall I said my environment changed and I didn’t? That’s what happens when I resist change, I am in pain. I am frequently reminded pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress. And, in my life, there is always room for more of both. What to do with this pain and how to cope was a question. Over two and half years ago, I gave up smoking. I loved smoking. I still do. I just don’t smoke anymore. Call it a conviction. I gave it up not because I didn’t enjoy it but because I didn’t enjoy the consequences of not giving it up more (a lot is my life is like that). In the two and half years since I gave up cigarettes, I have never been repulsed by smoking. Instead, it remains beautiful and alluring. Fuck the cough, the smell, the stains and the shortness of breath. Totally worth it (I never claimed to be wise). If you haven’t smoked, you may not understand. Insane, I know. [Trust me, I haven’t forgotten this started about mediation. I will end up there] Having, said that, I didn’t obsess about smoking either. Didn’t think much about it… until a few months ago. Coming to grips with the fact that my mom is dying is difficult for me. And, one day, on the way home from visiting my mother, I felt the urge to smoke. Desperately. I did something I don’t normally do…I didn’t act on it. Instead, I made a phone call, and talked about my pain and didn’t smoke, for if I do, I’m back to a pack a day. This I know. What did cross my mind was a cigar. Years ago, I would, on occasion, enjoy a cigar. I stopped. I don’t know why I did. I just did. It had been about a decade since I had made a point to smoke a cigar. I wondered if a cigar might quell the urge and not upset my conviction. I bought one and revived a forgotten pleasure. Cigar smoking is ceremonial; heating the foot, clipping the head, gently taking the first draw and patiently enjoying the rest of the tobacco's smoky fruit. It teaches me patience (so do long lines in supermarkets. Funny. I pray for patience, God gives me a line to stand in). Indeed, it did quell the urge but did not disturb my conviction. More than that, it did something totally unexpected, it not only relieved anxiety, it also acted as a gentle, soothing, balm on my emotional upset. It quieted my head and relaxed my dis-ease. It restored a sense of balance. The other day, I ran into a friend in the smoke shop. He was picking up cigars for after his softball game. I said I could do without the game. He agreed. He said his favorite part were the cigars after the game. “It’s a mediation,” he smiled. And that’s when I knew…cigars are MY meditation.