Nice To Meet You

The person next to you is the greatest miracle

and the greatest mystery you will ever

meet at this moment.

The person next to you is an inexhaustible

reservoir of possibility,

desire and dread,

smiles and frowns, laughter and tears,

fears and hopes,

all struggling to find expression.

The person next to you believes in something,

stands for something, counts for something,

lives for something, labors for something,

waits for something, runs from something,

runs to something.

The person next to you has problems and fears,

wonders how they’re doing,

is often undecided and unorganized

and painfully close to chaos!

Do they dare speak of it to you?

The person next to you can live with you

not just alongside you,

not just next to you.

The person next to you is a part of you.

for you are the person next to them.

Prissy Galagarian

Today at work someone said something that caused a pause for thought. She told me that another server found it strange that I seemed so at ease with students, that they never would have thought I was a "family" man. Of course this person knows me not, other than the guy walking around in the white jacket. And certainly my profession has an image that has been cultivated over a long period of time and truthfully, one that serves me well from time to time...don't be pissing the chef off is all we're saying. So I don't blame him for coming to that conclusion, it just made me chuckle to think what "others" may think. Those that know me will get a laugh at the idea since it's pretty well recognized that I'm pretty easy going, much like my personality doppelganger cat Boots. Life is far too short for all that other nonsense.

Like that person next to you, I have a lot going on both externally and internally. Battles won and lost, battles still going on. But I'm here, next to you and next to many others, just like you are next to many people. It would be quite easy to get overwhelmed with the everyday and lose site of the truly important. Think of what you're going through and consider, just for a moment, that the person next to you is doing the same. Maybe that different view gives you new perspective to consider while eating your banana staring into the world?

10:00 at night and I'm probably not coherent enough to be writing this but I had an idea and I wanted to follow through with it. People next to me and happiness?

Where is happiness born? I'm sure I don't know save to say that the person looking back in the mirror is where I would start. I believe that our happiness begins with us, we can't win it, meet it, find it on the side of the street or along the River Thames. It comes from our own sense of self and our understanding of our place in the vastness of the universe. After that, it can either be enhanced or torn down. Making choices that work towards enhancement is where I place my faith in.

Everyday I am gaining more perspective into my own past and I am coming to understand the insidious nature of not being seen, not being appreciated and not being valued. It takes a lot of time to build yourself up while you can be torn down in a matter of seconds or over a lifetime. Either way, those scars heal hard and slow. We develop our coping mechanisms, our walls are constructed and fear of one sort or another is our biggest obstacle to finding the next rung on the happiness ladder.

"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear"

George Addair

That quote might be a entrepreneurs calling card but I would argue it is as a good a sentiment as any for life in general. In fact if I was inclined to get a third tattoo it might very well be that. In the end we all have our fears to face, you, me and the person next to us. We're truly in it together, warts and all. So in the end I choose hope and love as the guiding principles of my life, with a healthy dose of humour and tomfoolery of course.

Photo courtesy of my friend Margo

Pit and the...

And now for something completely different, at least compared to the past few weeks.

Hidden deep within the bowels of my mind are stories related to "the band." Some of I have written about already, such as our last legendary performance in Dennis' basement as the last summer of our youth wound down. Or when the drummer came home from Portugal and decided that he wanted to get married to someone he had met while visiting the old country.

We had some good times banging the instruments around for a few years, myself as a somewhat willing but untalented participant as I was simply brought along because I was one of the guys. "Sure I'll play the bass, that's the one with only four strings right?" It worked out OK in the end. I had people willing to be patient and teach me what I needed to know to be able to play along, we had a loyal following of friends that enjoyed our escapades into the world of Battle of the Bands and most importantly, for the most part, we had fun. We also had a stupid name, Revelation. Back then and back there if you uttered that word you were for sure a Genesis cover band. Except we weren't of course despite playing a song of theirs, we simply couldn't think of anything better. Well, someone did but as a group we were too scared to use it. But we should have...oh how glorious it would have been for the emcee to announce, "up next, Don Bosco's own Pit and the Stool-drops!!!" We wimped out.

I think it may have been Steve who made the recommendation, since he was always making ass references and had little respect for "norms." But being young and not as rebellious as we should have been, which by the way is quite the thing to say about me and my heathen brothers and sisters, since there was almost no line we wouldn't gleefully cross. But here we chose the safe road so as not to upset the Catholic school hierarchy we all lived under. For the record though, I voted for the Pit moniker, in a losing cause obviously. Democracy at work, three to two in favour of not being labeled Stool-drops, so down the toilet the name went.

Who can say where we would have been had we chosen the other name? We may have been ahead of our times when thinking of the bands that followed in the 90's and beyond. Hootie and the Blowfish, Butthole Surfers, Ben Wa and the Blue Balls. We'll never know. But of course having a great name wasn't the only thing holding us back. The biggest factor to us not having a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that most of us knew it was simply a distraction, something to do for fun and for chicks. As a group we weren't very serious about pursuing a life in music. Looking at where we are now; an investment banker, an engineer of some sort, an insurance executive and little ole me as a chef, we were probably right not to be so passionate about being the next big thing. Me thinks Pit et al would not have gone very far, despite our cool name.

The second and final year we entered Battle of the Bands at our school was really a special time for us all. In many ways we were at the top of our high school game. We came and went as we pleased, we enjoyed a level of notoriety that bellied our disdain for popularity and the little band of misfits made up of my closest friends simply lived out loud pretty well. When we played that year we played for our buddies. It was quite special to be up on stage, not petrified with fright like the year before, watching people sway and sing to the music that we were playing. Were we the best musicians? Probably not. Certainly I wasn't, though Dom and Danny were pretty darn good players of their particular instruments. We played with some heart and had picked some songs that got the crowd involved, which in the end is what music is about, the connection with the listener.

When we won, we won it for all of us. I still recall Dennis and Steve leaping over the chairs to be with us when it was announced. It was elation and we soaked it all in for the rest of the night. Drunk on life was the comment later on when we gathered at a pizza shop to enjoy the spoils. And I was. An au natural high that left me and all around us with perma-smile.

A simpler time with simple goals, simply happy. A few months later we would play together for the last time. Within a year we had gone from friends until we die to a remember when glory days recounting. Who would have thought? Obviously we weren't unique in that way but it didn't hurt any less when one chose to think about it. Last year when I was back in the big smoke for the U2 concert, a bunch of us gathered together for a few drinks at the remnants of a bar we used to frequent. We shared stories and talked of our lives in the present. It was nice and it was fun, and despite promises to the contrary, we went back to our lives as they were before that afternoon. Best intentions aside, life got in the way. It is kind of sad but I would imagine most of us were well aware that it would be that way. Almost 30 years of time having passed between us all.

So Pit and Stool-Drops are a happy memory. Alongside all those other happy moments that formed such a big part of my life for a few years. I'm sure I get a twinkle in my eye when I speak of those days...partly boastful of my own stupidity co-joined with all the other morons and part joyful memories of days gone by.

Cheers to you all
D 

Heart Swells

Hear that? Feel that? Like an ocean swell, both constant and ever changing, there is a rhythm to the world around us. I liken it to the heartbeat of our collective souls, all of us and everything around us, has a a living pulse and I think we are all interconnected on some level.

Amongst all the noise in my life that is ever present, be it work, family, plans or simple serendipity, two things have taken center stage in the past few months. They couldn't be further apart in what they are and what they mean to me. An incredible joyous high and a sad and painful low. My joy at meeting "the one" is tempered in the knowledge that my best friend is dying, sooner than later. While being robbed of future wheelchair races through the halls of a multitude of retirement homes I have met and fell in love with the woman that I plan on spending my days with. Heady and morose times my friends. I feel conflicted. I feel for my friend and his family and it aches to think of going through the rest of my time here without him to bounce idiocy off of while at the same time feeling elated and light as air with my sweetheart. It doesn't seem right. But such is life I suppose. Not to put myself into this equation at all, simply an observance really for context, but can you imagine the joy of bringing a new born into the world? Now imagine it in the middle of war torn Syria. Pure joy and fear in equal measure.

Back to that connection that I think we all share. It isn't about an existential crisis sort of thing, trying to understand the why and the how of simply being. Nor is it a religious thing, under one God we are all united. No it's about being a human being, a living inhabitant of this little blue dot that we all share. I come back to the idea of Ubuntu, "I am because we are." For me it's that simple. We shouldn't need a book to tell us how to act when standing before another human being. But of course, all too often the ugly side of life is what seems to become all we hear about. Darkness never quits and it is oh so easy to fall into it.

"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable

And lightness has a call that's hard to hear"

Indigo Girls

I used those lyrics and an ass kicking from a dear friend years ago when I was slipping into negativity. I was letting someone bring me to where they were and I didn't like what I was seeing in the mirror when it was held up to me. So back into the light I went. And for the most part I stay there, through all the divorce garbage, the struggles we all face from time to time, health scares, emotional scars or simply the day to day efforts of pushing on the ocean. Because I know tomorrow will be better. Look back at earlier posts here and I sound positively stupid with dough eyed naivete. Well, I'm still the same. Maybe more so if you can believe that.

As you can imagine that attitude along with the support of loved ones is how I am moving through these times. I'll look back every so often at the footprints of my life and see the good things and the good times we shared, and while I will miss him terribly, I am feeling quite blessed that we have managed to share some time together. I know he would want me to continue on, as always, pulling at the frayed bits, living out loud and tearing down the things that don't work. Live with hope and live with love...that's all.

Ciao
D