WE ARE DEFINITELY "2STR8DADS"...

No, that is not Ben Shaul and me.

I just spent more than 3 weeks taking care of my 94-year old father, and was able to include my 23-year old daughter in this first and unique experience in my life.  Even more than usual, there are many feelings zooming all around the notion of what it means to be a dad, a son…a (straight) man.  A nurturer.  A lover.  As anyone who knows me can attest, so much of what inspires me personally and creatively is the human connection.  Relationships.  Parenting (as in, being a parent).  Kidding (as in being a kid). Sensuality.  Sexuality.  The human condition.  Creating community.  Listening, and connecting, people’s stories.

Ben and I have become deeply connected ever since we met in the past year, and we are proud to be launching 2Str8Dads, with the first episode of our “live talk show” taking place tomorrow, January 10, at 11AM, at Singl, the beautiful lounge located in the new Hyatt Hotel in Union Square (13^th Street/Fourth Avenue).

Ben and I share many overlapping sensibilities, and we also come from life from wildly different perspectives, the combo of which makes for kinetic and provocative conversations.  We both have opinions about anything and everything, we love women and we love men (in a different kind of way!), we are provocateurs, we speak honestly and don’t generally give a fuck about other people’s opinions as a roadmap or guide for ours (while deeply caring about loving people and who they are), we each have chosen to take many roads less traveled, and while we both love to talk, we surely love to listen as well.  Neither of us has ever been accused of being boring.  We are storytellers, and we relish the stories of others.  The human connection.  We are excited about what will unfold at our weekly gatherings in person, as well as through what we will be building online with podcasts, and our website. 

We are going to talk about things that seem to matter to people, to women+men.  The things that separate them (us).  And what draws us together.  We are here to connect and shine a light on the disconnects, on the shadows.  The things we feel deeply about, and are willing to share  as well as the vulnerably naked ones that we may be reluctant to reveal.  We are here to blow up paradigms that no longer hold weight, whether it’s that men are the specie afraid of intimacy, or women are less interested in sex, or men don’t cry, or women need monogamy, or men are not intuitive, or women are the nurturers, and on….and on.  What is true, and what is true for YOU.

Because while the generalities and long-held-beliefs may still apply in many cases, we are not here to be general.  We are (very) personal people, and that’s where we are going.  Because any and all of this IS personal.  Individual.  2Str8Dads are provocateurs and mirrors.  We will speak from our hearts, more than from our minds, and we will engage with our audience.  We will have engaging guests who are interested in not playing games and who would prefer to be game changers instead.

Please join us tomorrow at 11AM, free Coffee provided by our friends at One Five Hospitality, and each Friday thereafter. 

Yes we are 2Str8Dads (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).

(CHOSEN) FAMILY

Dad and I had brunch yesterday with Mitchell and Barry Roffer and their wives in Port St. Lucie.  The Roffer Boys are two of the three sons of my parents' closest friends when I was growing up, they were surely my father's best friends from their earliest days as kids in the Bronx, until they died.  The Roffer home in Yonkers was my second home, often felt more like home than my own, with passion and people around all the time.  It was amazing to see these guys with Dad, his eyes lit up, a connection to him in a deep way, the fathers were members of the Spartan Social Club at DeWitt Clinton High School, and they were simply "The Spartans" throughout my life.  Ten or so couples, they loved each other deeply, partied together often (they used to be "not asked back" from every Catskills Hotel they went to for getaway weekends), and they were the people who were there for my father and mother always, through her sickness and death, and then for him beyond.  Dad and one other guy and one wife, are the sole survivors.  Being with Barry, Mitchell, Carol and Janet yesterday reminded me of how much chosen family has been there for me, no matter whether blood was not always thicker than water.  Why I deeply cherish friendships and powerful connections.  We can choose "family," the people with whom we have each other's backs.  The kind of people who, like Barry did yesterday, make sure that Dad has his phone number, in case Pops needs anything.  Humbling to feel how much love simply transcends everything.  Including time.   

CELEBRATE ME HOME...

The reason that I called this “Man.Kind,” with a period both separating, and connecting, Man+Kind is that it reflects so much about how rarely the notion of "kindness" is rarely at the top of the lists of attributes when thinking of men.  As a quality to be highly valued.  I wonder if it is less about being an aspirational quality, or is it people not thinking of kindness as relates to men, or men not thought of as being kind?  Is kindness thought of as feminine?  Gentle, kind, sweet, soft, SENSITIVE, SENSUAL…are those really female?  In Italian or French or Spanish, are those words F or M?  Anyone would think those are words that are feminine in nature, and I want to be ALL of them, in addition to whatever positive qualities are thought of as being "masculine."  The Dalai Lama.  Thich Nhat Hanh.  These are "real men," all male, in my opinion.  We all have the feminine, we all have the masculine within us.  How do we combine those parts of ourselves, to feel full…to not hide out from who we are?  I love language, I love words, I cherish opportunities to find a perfect word so that an emotion, a feeling, a thought gets communicated.  And language can be so limiting at the same time.  For us to live congruent lives, fully embodied and joyful, I believe we need to acknowledge and EMBRACE all sides of ourselves.  It was always easier for me growing up to honor my "feminine" (it was not about being straight or gay) because I saw that women had "the" power and I looked at men as either being somewhat "weaker" (how I viewed my Dad) or the kind of testosterone-infused maleness that never resonated.  I grew up as the "sensitive guy" for whatever that meant.  It was not until I connected with aspects of being a man in these recent years of my journey that I was able to hold all of those parts together.  Whether I was being called a Lesbian in a Man's Body or a Man with a Period, I am good with it all.  And while I wondered for so many years what, if anything, my Dad actually did teach me - especially about "being a man" - I look at him today and see that his kindness, his softness, even what some may say is his "weakness" are qualities that I took on my osmosis, and am proud that I have.  I don't want to deny any of the light, or the shadows.  Embrace the fullness of our richness, our individual tapestries.  Each of our unique alchemies and stews.  Celebrate me, and all of us, home, in who we are.  

CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN - PART 1,000,000

As Ben Shaul and I create our first joint creative site in the new year - 2Str8Dads - I am compelled to revisit this place of Man.Kind for the first time in so long.  I am deeply in the midst of moving from what "was" to what "is."  Asking myself new questions, one question in particular.  "What do you want, JP?"  It is simultaneously exciting, as well as completely unnerving and humbling to be face-to-face with this, as I often have no answer.  Or it is often, simply, "I don't know."  Here I am, in the early stages of empty nesting that has hit me profoundly.  As a content person, I am a believer that context is at least as important.  And, I have no context for this place in which I find myself.  For the first time in my life - literally - I can seemingly ask this without the very real needs to feel responsible to take care of someone in my life, whether a mother, a wife, a child. And in those times when there was no one there whose needs were, or seemed, more important than mine, I anointed someone with that dominion over what might be best for me.  As if it was easier to do so than take charge, and decide from the inside-out.  Thinking of, and for, myself was never in my DNA in a critical way.  So, here I am learning new ways of being.  Because, in the end, I need to (re)craft this life of mine by honoring who I am, what I have done, and what I have been willing to do and be, yet stepping fully into somewhat of a new emotional wardrobe that I have been working on, and welcoming, for years.  And it is challenging to do so without a foundation of experience.  I am welcoming new tapes, new voices and messages, and I need patience when they don't stick, or find their way home inside.  

So, what do I want?  Having been inspired by the writings of Danielle LaPorte, I can say that, at the very least, I know how I want to FEEL, whether it is from an encounter, an experience, being with another.  I want to feel congruent and joyful, and not so connected to the old messages or the past stories.  I want to feel proud of me in new ways.  To show me (and my kids) that it's never too late to shift.  And, that love is all there is.  So, I chose to enter the belly of the beast.  With my father.  It's not like he's not the beast.  I am.  The beast of my own feelings and challenges, within.  I have come to Florida in the last day, to be with him for a few weeks, I haven't spent this kind of more-than-weekend time with him in more than 30 years.  Just me and him.  Towards the end of his life, there is no more important transition in energy for me to make, than in this relationship.  It is at the heart of my spiritual and emotional growth, I get that it is absolutely essential to deepen the shift that I have been moving through for the last few years.  It's more than simply dropping the past disappointments, or seeing him through my dead mother's disappointing eyes.  It's that he deserves my love fully simply because.  It is at the heart of my realization that fuller compassion and love starts here, my spiritual/emotional evolution is so tied to my ability to heal, as best as I can.  Even, in a way, if I am doing this alone, even if it is the sound of one hand clapping. By choosing to be with him, instead of staying in NYC and missing out on half of Cooper’s vacation, I am making a different kind of choice, one that my father never would have made, and one that doesn't feel natural to me.  This man who has been my only parent for more than 41 years, the man who never was a go-to parent in the way that I wished he could be, the most challenging (well, maybe the second most challenging) person in my life, the pilot light and trigger for some of my deepest shadows and frustrations.  And, it doesn't matter.  It has finally become clear that making peace - with myself more than Dad - is essential.  Before he dies.  I am so grateful that my kids support me in this, they get what maybe I never fully did, how this is a key to whatever is next for me.  And thank you to my friends who have felt my pain and sadness, more often than I am care to admit.  One of them wrote me yesterday with her deep and profound wisdom that took my breath away.  Her level of compassion and love, now taking care of a mother with dementia who never showed up for her, has deepened my understanding of forgiveness, and provides a beacon of light for what is possible.  I share her words here:  

I was thinking about my mom this morning and how when all her held memories and expectations of (and therefore disappointments in) life were gone in her dementia, all that is left is an innocent delight and joy and love.  Our hurt and pain is held memory and our story about our pain and hurt becomes a personalized myth that we hold as our TRUTH. That held memory is all that is in the way of our love, of our innate capacity to just BE in love.  I was thinking how one day I could be in my mother's condition and what a waste of life it would be to have to lose my mind in order to exist in and as love. All of me--my ego-identified me--resists this insight even as I share it with you. Who would I be without all my held memories and hurts and beliefs? I would BE LOVE. But the ego wants none of it..and my higher Self is looking at that and being gentle and patient while I allow my ego to throw its tantrums in resistance to the inevitable.  Inevitable because Love happens spontaneously when we become demented or we die or when we give up our personal myth. I am not there yet by any means--by any of those three paths to capital-L Love.  But I am gently observing myself and the possibility of choosing the path that doesn't require my dementia or my death. All Love to You 

LOVE IS ALL THERE IS.  Happy Holidays.  

"HATS" OFF TO CHARLIE...

Charlie Chaplin wrote this poem for his 70th birthday, he describes the unfolding journey far better than I can...

As I Began to Love Myself - Self Love Poem, by Charlie Chaplin

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering
are only warning signs that I was living against my emotional truth.
Today, I know, this is "AUTHENTICITY."

As I began to love myself I understood how much it could offend somebody
As I try to force my desires on this person, even though I know the time
was not right and this person was not ready for it, and even though this person
was me.  Today I call it "RESPECT."

As I began to love myself I began to stop craving a different life,
and I could see that everything surrounding me was inviting me to grow.
Today I call it "MATURITY."

As I began to love myself I began to understand that at any circumstance,
I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens
at exactly the right moment.  So I could be calm.
Today I call it "SELF-CONFIDENCE."

As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time,
and I stopped designing huge projects for the future.
Today I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things that I love to do
and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in
my own rhythm.  Today I call it "SIMPLICITY."

As I began to love myself I freed myself from anything that is no good for
my health - food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew
me down and away from myself.  At first I called this attitude
a healthy egoism.  Today I know it is "LOVE OF ONESELF."

As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time.  Today I discovered that is "MODESTY."

As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry
about the future.  Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING
 is happening.  Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it "FULFILLMENT."

AsI began to love myself I began to see that my mind can disturb me
and can make me sick.  But as I connected to my heart, my
mind became a valuable ally.  Today I call this
connection "WISDOM OF THE HEART."

We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations, or any kinds of problems
with ourselves or others.  Even stars collide, and out of their crashing
new worlds are born.  Today I know "THAT IS LIFE"!

OUT OF A DARK PLACE, GENTLY...

It's pretty shocking to come to this space, and realize that it's been close to 2 years since I wrote my last piece.  It's not that I haven't been writing, but not here, in this place of (my) self-expression, where some people have been encouraging me to communicate more.  Not doing so is a reflection of a variety of factors, and like so many things that are going on right now for many people, the specifics don't necessarily matter as much as simply paying attention to what "is" (true) for any of us at a particular time - about our emotions, priorities, states of mind, intentions and the push-pull of life.  It feels like a particularly intense time right now.  And not just for me.

A week ago I had what I might be called an existential crisis.  While it was, admittedly, somewhat externally prompted/induced, the feelings and thoughts that came bursting upward, outward and inward were deeply challenging, personally profound and truly distressing, and brought me to quite a place of self-reflection and self-confrontation.  It was as if in one moment, all the old stuff/unfinished business teamed-up to rear their heads in unison.  And in Stereo.  And, once those few hours passed, it was not as though I could suddenly dismiss what had been in my head as just some ridiculous notions without substance.  Those feelingsthoughtsbeliefs were, even if not "factually true," as real as they come.  All too familiar.  They were, they felt, and still feel in the ensuing days at times, completely attached to me, like a body part.  Dark, sad, powerful.  And no matter how many people may poke holes in those beliefs or feelings, we all know the deal with feelings.  They are what they are, and they can stay around for awhile.  The rationale brain is no match for them.

There are MANY people with WAY bigger problems, challenges or issues than I have.  I am sharing here what's going on in my heart and spirit not because there is a pity party going on either here at my house, or in my heart or in my soul.  I am doing so because as a man who emotes, I have often been told that my openness, my emotional nakedness, has inspired others, particularly men, to get underneath those masks (hello Purim) and be real.  With themselves.  To honor the feelings that get inside, and that we all too often hide from others.  In the darkest points of that dark night a week ago, I promised myself that, if/when I came to see the light on the other side, I would recommit to whatever purpose and passion I have with this precious life I have been given.  I am struggling with what has come unearthed (again), and yet I do know that out of the darkness does come the light.  And one of my greatest gifts as a Kind.Man in the world, is to be a mirror and an igniter for others.  For me, there is no greater notion than to be a catalyst for transformation, to inspire others to reach down and transcend their own limiting beliefs.  Men, particularly, need to have men who can "make it OK" to be vulnerable and emotional without the fucked up perceived judgments and beliefs that accompany words like "soft" and "emotional" and "weak" and "female" (among others).  I am tired of this nonsense, and the burdens that remain from the continuation of misguided societal crap about what it is to "be a man" (a "real man"??). Not that I have been a man who ever embraced the traditional notion of (straight) maleness.  It was always easier to honor the feminine within me, because the male paradigm was too limiting and contradictory to how I wanted to be.  And as I have grown into my maleness, as it were, in these recent years, I have come to my own yin-yang alchemy.  Mine, not someone else's version.  We all have it, I cherish shining a light on wherever those shadows and questions may be.  In these last days I have [re]committed to a deeper level of emotional honesty, first between me and me, and then with others.  From those jarring hours of feeling deeply alone, and completely untethered, I have come to [re]connect with places in my heart that need nurturing more than I had come to know.  And that the key to moving through this part of the journey, and to heal, is to dive in to a place called Forgiveness.  Starting with myself, which I have come to learn is not an easy one for me to do.  And it is so necessary.  And thanks to the wisdom and guidance of others, I have pushed myself to express forgiveness to even the most challenging person in my life.  And whether I ever get that back in mutuality, it really doesn't matter.  I sense that I am, again, [re]starting from this new place of utter unknown.  And no matter how many layers I have peeled back in this onion over these last years, there is always seemingly new levels to go.    And while there is fear that rears its head, daily (is it hourly?), I have the sense that with acknowledging my need for support and wisdom and guidance from others, that the best truly is yet to come.  With patience and gentleness and fearlessness.

And what to say about the flow of life, the reminder of Universal truth that is here in every moment...here is what just got sent to me from a friend, the wisdom of perspective of one of my favorite spiritual teachers, Pema Chodron: Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–you’re just there. The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed, discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat an apple. Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the other softens us. They go together.” ~Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön

I do prefer to focus on the needs of others.  So if anyone needs the softness of my heart, please let me know.  Yes, start where you are.  I surely am.  Wherever that is.

With love and gratitude.

YOU DON'T KNOW UNTIL YOU GET THERE...

I have learned that there often is a big difference between what we say we want, and what we actually may want. And, it's often not that we are not clear. Or not sure. Or, on the surface not honest. It's simply that we just don't know how we will feel about almost anything until we get (t)here. About a person, a situation, a dream, a notion. To a certain degree, it's at the foundation of be careful for what you wish for. "I am ready for a committed relationship with someone I adore." "THAT would be the perfect job for me." "I want to live in the country." Whatever is the stated ideal, we can have beliefs and hopes and expectations about what we (say we) want, yet my realization and truth is that we just don't know until we arrive in the moment. When the future idea turns in to the present "reality" (thank you Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth for helping me to deepen my "getting" that the future only happens in the moment). When we get to actually see what is, not what "isn't" or imagined. When we are presented with what, or whom, we have been asking for...imagining...hoping for...the sometimes jarring (to ourselves) response is often, "no thank you." Or "not ready" Or "MAYBE not." Our pre-existing clarity can implode with insane speed. And, that's OK. Because as long as we are being honest in an inthemoment kind of way, particularly with ourselves first, and then with others who may be involved, we are dealing with the reality of being here now. In our feelings, in our emotions, in our truths. Keeping it here and not somewhere out there gives us the ongoing opportunity to actually peel back our own layers and get to what is is that we REALLY do want. Which we can only know when it arrives, and our eyes are open. Here and now.

5-11

Today would have been by Mom's 87th birthday. Each year (39 and counting) since we last spoke, I wonder what it would have been like if she had been around for even a it longer. What it would have been to have that "go-to" person in my life, how many "things" - relationships, situations, character, choices - would have been so different. It's not a mind game I play often, and it IS something that's very real. It's a reminder (to me at least) to stay centered within, to continue to unpeel the layers so that I can be the best go-to person for me and, as a result, those whom I love, those who flow in and through me...to let in the love, and let it flow outward...

Happy Birthday, Mom...

PROPORTIONS...

When Caren Ellis Fried eulogized her father more than a week ago, she talked about how Mike Ellis taught her something along the lines of, "God gave you two ears and one mouth, so use them in that proportion." I knew I had heard some version of this before, that Mike wasn't the first one to verbalize this concept (it seems as though the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, may have been the first to go on the record with this notion, allegedly saying, "We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."), and it doesn't matter. Mike was my messenger this time...as always, when the student's ready, the teacher shows up. I may have heard something a million times before, a concept that (I think) I get, and then one day...WOWZA! "It" suddenly goes from being a miniphany to a full-out epiphany. It's as if I/we are getting it for the first time, simply because the essence of the info, beyond the words, finds a new place inside...because the "all steps lead to now" truth suddenly has guided us to a new place (of wisdom, understanding, belief, knowledge) where the "Oh, I heard that before" words are felt and experienced in a completely new light. As someone who certainly likes to talk AND listen, I am still learning about how to find the right watermark - for me - in those talking/listening proportions. To listen better and better, more and more...another part of, and mirror for, this continuing lesson to allow more, "try" less. Two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion...two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion...two ears and one...

LOVE AND MIKE ELLIS...

A week ago I was sitting at the funeral of Mike Ellis, the father of my dear friend, Caren Ellis. Mike died at the age of 83, while doing his morning exercise ritual, he went out on his own terms, and lived live with passion like few whom I have ever met or known. Maybe like no other. I could write a dozen pieces inspired by what I learned from, and about Mike, I hunch that this is only the first. The story of Mike Ellis - who he iswas - and what, and whom, he put forth in the world, immediately found a special place in all of me - brain, heart, soul - as soon as I met him a little over a year ago. I first shook Mike Ellis' hand when Caren brought him to Romemu one Shabbat evening, but it wasn't until I sat right across from him, and his amazing wife, Honey, at the Ellis family Seder at the home of Caren's brother, Mark, last year. An incredible experience for me, the only person at the table who was not a direct descendant of Mike Ellis, or married to his kids. Three generations of the extended Ellis family, none of whom would be if Mike hadn't the balls, the faith, the courage and the wisdom as a boy to jump from the window of a train speeding at 70MPH to Auschwitz. That's just one of the stories, and the lessons to share, that I Got From Mike.

That one will be for another day. Because today, I am writing about Love. The love that fills me up more than ever before. The love that I've had to learn through my life what it could even mean. The kind of love that Mike Ellis understood. And emanated and inspired in others. You see, as I sat across from Mike in that Spring of 2000, an only child suddenly embraced for even more than that one night as a "member" of that family, I felt the love. I got it. I understood it. All of it. I wanted to make a movie about that family. A sort of how-to kind of movie, simply letting the people, their stories, their experiences show and tell everything and anything that any and all of us need to know. That love creates love. Begets love. Passes it on and hands it down and shows others the way. I was so moved by what I experienced that night - from Mike and Honey, and their Machatunim (the parents' of their kid's spouse), straight through the lineage to ALL of their incredible grandkids. I told Caren I wanted to make a movie about her family, called, simply, The Love Family. Because that's who they are. From wherever and whomever it started, somehow people spread the word. Held on to the notion and put it into form. Out of peoples' darkness came the light. I saw that night a 3-D manifestation of love in a way that I never had before, certainly not within my own family, or those whom I came to know. No judgment on anyone else, this Ellis thing was something special. I'm just sayin'. It wasn't that 3 generations were together, it was HOW they were together. Connected, Supportive. Interested. Engaged. Kibbitzing and loving. Pissers, not a wallflower among them. I saw what happens when you grow up with that kind of unconditional love (regardless of whatever mishigas there may be in any family) and SEE it, and are TAUGHT IT BY EXAMPLE. Experientially. Not by mere words or just concepts. The essence of what I keep aspiring for in my creative work - to "show, not tell." It hit me why so many of us fall into unfulfilled relationships that end up not really being love, despite what we may have hoped for, and WANTED to see. Wanted to have. Because for many of us, as I can tell, grew up not EXPERIENCING a kind of healthy vision of love, one that would be held up for ourselves as a high-bar that we would know it when we saw it. Felt it. Were ONLY willing to have some form of THAT. And we would find potential partners who understood from the inside-out, naturally, what that kind of unconditionality, what that type of family connection, means - first-hand. Or, for those of us who are willing to do the work to UNlearn and UNweave the firsthand lessons notions that kept prompting people like me to look for something from the outside, or in the wrong "places". How can we "look for" something that we don't KNOW what it is? Beyond the word, and what we might read about it...there's a kid's book called "Are You My Mother?", written by P.D. Eastman and published by Random House in 1960. Here's part of the Wikipedia synopsis: "Are You My Mother?" is the story about a hatching bird. His mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest where she left it, leaves her egg alone and flies off to find food. The baby chick hatches. He does not understand where his mother is so he goes to look for her. In his search, he asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No." I won't giveaway the ending, you'll have to go out and get it. I wanted to do a sort-of heartfelt spoof, for adults, something that might be called "Are You My [Partner/SoulMate/Honey, etc.]?" I think it would be a hit. For us to be able to create love, it has to start within. For us to "teach" love to others, it has to start with ourselves. We can't teach what we don't know. What, when it comes to matters of the heart and soul, can only really be experienced, not "taught" with words. So, I started on my path a good dozen years ago to unlearn and rise up, and fall down, and keep rising. To peel back those layers and, as in my fave parable about Michelangelo and his creation of the David, chip away to expose the David that was inside that hunk of marble. I am so grateful to have learned so much from Mike Ellis, who helped me learn to keep the bar high. I am so grateful to be right here.

A QUIETER MIND (WHETHER BEAUTIFUL, OR NOT)...

I grew up being anxious, at least starting at a certain age, for a great part of my life. A low level kind of thing, most of the time, just enough to be vibrating, certainly pervasively. A low hum, on the inside. Never requiring, or crying out for me to get, meds. Just enough, though, to be a conscious part of my reality. As I got older I often wondered, given how busy and "productive" (not necessarily equating with "successful" or fulfilled) I was, how much more productive AND successful AND fulfilled I might/could/would be if I could quiet the mind a bit. Reduce the noise. More. Get out of my way. Better. I've worked diligently on that these last few years, committedly embracing ways to quiet the revving inside, bathe in the pauses, embrace and celebrate the unknown, deepen my trust and faith. This process has allowed me to need less, and thus receive more. I am feeling the wonder of harvesting - the results of the plantings and waterings, and especially the weedings and the waitings and the (apparent) disappointments. All of it. I've never felt more comfy in my skin. Or quieter (Hey, everything's relative!) in my mind. And more open and vibrant in my heart. Or clear about my purpose. And gifts. And, all I can say is, I'm thrilled to be here.

"YOU'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE"

So many times in my life, in my professional life, I have heard this phrase directed at me. Along with "just focus." I am pretty tired of it. Because I always feel the need to have to defend myself, to show that I can focus as well as anyone, on ONE thing, on ONE project, if and when I need to...when it's called for. And when my brain and spirit have the opportunity to travel, to run free, to explore, to be drawn to a variety of sparks and inspirations, I like to allow them to do that. For me, that's where the creative and personal magic emanate from. The openness to see opportunities, and passions, almost anywhere. I certainly understand that it takes focus to manifest anything, to take it from an idea to a 3-dimensional reality. I am all about that, too. Yet I have come to realize that when people "suggest" that I am "all over the place", it is about there stuff...the limitations that can often arise from being, possibly, TOO focused, or playing in a sandbox in their lives that may be more limiting than they would like. It's so easy to happen. Work, life, family, any or all the above provide their own realities and boundaries. Yet it's up to us, for ourselves, to bring in as many of the 64 colors (or is it 128) from the Crayola Box as we want. To me, that's where the rich texture of life comes in, the fabric of my existence. Asking me why I don't "just" work on one thing is like asking a farmer with vibrant fields of many vegetables why he doesn't grow "just" lettuce...or someone with an exquisite garden, billowing with 20 different annuals and perennials why "just" roses are not enough. Our lives become the products of what we plant, and water, seed and nourish. I appreciate productivity and the outgrowth of manifesting results. And I long for even more in my life. I will, however, never lose my deep appreciation for all the gifts that come my way from living a life of passion and diversity on many levels. It keeps my brain, my body and my soul humming...all the time. I am blessed.

"I WAS OLDER THEN..."

"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

-Bob Dylan, "My Back Pages"

I was at a meeting the other day with someone whom I had just met, and a photo of the kids and me slipped out of my book. Taken on a Jersey Shore beach, the three of us enmeshed together, it's one of my favorite family pictures and it became the first holiday card I ever created. As Anna picked it up from the ground, she looked at it - seeing for the first time both my kids and me from another (recent) time in my life. "Wow, your children look beautiful. How long ago was this?" I told her it was 11 or 2 years ago. "You look so much younger now. Your wrinkles, your worry lines, seem to have disappeared." I closed my eyes and breathed her words in.

You see, I often feel exactly like that. Younger. Not Benjamin Button younger, but sort of something like that. Certainly wiser. And less smart. A very special man in my life, coming out of the heartbreak of losing a son in a car accident many years ago, said to me, "Be wise, not smart." It was the first time I had really given conscious thought to the difference between the two. I immediately embraced this notion, realizing how much being smart is a function, I feel, of the brain. Often of the ego. Having kids often is a great reminder of that. "I knew that first," one might say to the other. Or in school, relating how another student had come to the same (correct) answer, although much more quickly, "She must be smarter." As if that was really true, or if any of this actually matters. I actually like feeling less "smart" than I used to feel the need to be. Because at the same time, I cherish being wiser, for me it is reflective of, and more connected to, my heart and my soul, the parts of me that I have chosen to become closer to, to emBODY more, the pieces of myself that take me to a deeper place between me and me, and then to me and others. The more authentic self. To "feel" more than simply to "know."

Anna's comment had no agenda, her words reflected her visceral and spontaneous experience. She was seeing what I feel, and know to be true. That by releasing myself from toxicity in whatever form they may (have) take(n) - in relationships, emotional and professional paradigms, personal belief systems - even gradually, in steps, I have created for myself what feels like a real anti-aging formula. Not the external kinds I see hocked in every form of media. The inside-out kind. The bi-product of what happens when who we are and what we do feel integrated. When we are living passionately, authentically, emanating from within the essence of who we are. The manifestation of what happens when we say "yes" to ourselves first, and not compromise on our personal and emotional non-negotiables. When we continue to pick ourselves up even when we fall down, even if it's every day, because we are willing to be as good a friend to ourselves, and offer the best part of our wisdom to ourselves, as we would do our most loved ones. There's a breeze that blows through me now that never existed before, at least in this way, or as often as it seems to. And I am grateful for the opportunity to keep getting younger.

"127 HOURS"

Every winter I dread the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and yet I recently had the miniphany (miNIphany, a "mini epiphany", my favorite of my made-up words) that Winter is when I am at my most creatively charged. And productive. Within the belly of the quietness and inwardliness has lied, for the last few years at least, opportunities for a kind of "pensive directedness." Finding me quieter and more focused. Clearer and more integrated. Creative and wise. It really just hit me a few years ago that this had become my cold weather truth truth. That while I had come to dread the impending season when the darkness arrives earlier and stays longer, I simultaneously found myself also looking forward to whatever magic seems to happen when I am more Yogi Bear than Yogi Berra. When I am indoors, and within, more. How the senses, all of them, are engaged differently in autumnfallwinter. The mind, the body, the spirit. The smells and aromas, the feelings and the touches, the hearing and the listening, the seeing and the watching, the tasting and the savoring, the cooking and the eating. The seeing and the believing. I knew that we were transitioning into this time of year when I bought a serious set of cooking knives in early October at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Went in for one knife, came back with a set. The salesman didn't even need to encourage me, it was the easiest sale he ever made. On the surface, the purchase was simply wanting better tools to work with, better "brushes" to learn to paint with, in the kitchen. A step up. Yet it really was more than that...a preparation for more kitchening, more creating, cooking, feeding, comforting, nurturing. Brainstorming and soulstorming. All from the inside out.

This season's other constant for me, particularly around Christmahanukwanzakah, is going to the movies as often as possible...one of the reasons to get out when the weather might keep me inside. Finally the arrival of the season when, at least for several weeks in a row, there's never a lack in the movie theaters in NYC for something potentially wonderful to see. Indies and studio films, foreigns and even some Americans, the full gamut. Not just the shit that too often makes many of us wonder if there's anything to go see, the answer often being "no." So I have been on this year's movie-going juggernaut these last few weeks. Most of the films definitely fall in the good-to-great zone, one major disappointment (Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere" should be, in my opinion, retitled as "Nowhere"), and two extraordinary films that absolutely blew my mind, "The King's Speech" and "127 Hours." Each one for different reasons, both deep sensory experiences on multiple levels. Not just two of the best films I have seen recently, two of the best I can remember for a LONG time. I have to talk about 127 Hours though...not simply because I saw it yesterday and it's fresh in my mind, but because the film absolutely rocked my being like no film possibly ever has. It hit me deeply, on a very spiritual basis. For several years, my work/creative mantra has been "entertain and elevate", and no film has embodied my version of what I mean more than Danny Boyle's masterpiece (he is also the director of "Slumdog Millionaire," which also transformed the way I looked at the world). On each and every level, 127 Hours is a spiritual experience. Beyond simply its riveting and inexplicable story about one man's enormous spirit, each and every aspect of the film (whether the cinematography, music, editing, acting, design) was apparently championed by a filmmaker in their own right, one who knew how to tell a story, whether with pictures, sound, pacing, visuals...and, the creative alchemy served to mesh with Danny Boyle's directing, and his clear spiritual and creative awareness, to create the most inspirational, and life-affirming masterpiece that I can imagine. What better way to touch many (if one indeed aspires, or has the intention, to touch many) with so much of the good stuff, with the much needed reminder that there is wonder of all aspects of life, than through a "mainstream" film. With a brilliant actor, James Franco, who has consistently been doing powerful work in his films, a man so beautiful on the inside and out. One who, it is very obvious, is deeply in touch with his spiritual side. 127 Hours embodies mastery and vision and passion with a story whose messages grabbed me in the gut, with undying truth - that there is beauty and love everywhere, that there are opportunities for gratitude (almost) all the time, that we are all deeply connected, and we all need help and support...and, that the possibility of having someone love you, in the highest and must fulfilling and affirming way that you could most imagine, is a dream worth aspiring to, and worthy of being kept in your heart. To not lower the bar. On ourselves.

PINBALL WIZARD? OR JUST THE BALL??!!

It's hard to know whom to believe...about what "life" means, what is important...in the end, the truth is, that no one really knows anything. Except one's own core truths. About what speaks to THEM. We are all just trying to figure it out. And we need to. For ourselves. There's so much judgment going on every day, person judging person, and we all do know, deep down, that judging another is really just pure folly. It doesn't work. The other day I was talking to Marion, she was telling me that I am the classic "orphan archetype"...she had mentioned that to me before...and, it just sat there, finding a place from which I could, when the time was right, really feel what that meant. And like an old car battery around which the acid may have expelled and hardened, not allowing the car to start, I needed to soften it, chip away at it, to get my power (back). Having often felt like a pinball in a game where I was just bouncing about, sometimes actually hitting on some big games, yet too often falling into the "Game Over" slot, I want to be the Player, not the ball. To feel in charge. Yet I generally empowered others (whether they knew it or not) to write my rules, to set my standards, to be MY power source. It didn't, and doesn't work. At least for me. And probably for most of us. Maybe all of us. It is, as Marion said to me, an "inside job." Ours to determine - our rules, our notions, our life. And, how we feel about it. We can run from it, or embrace it. Sometimes run from it AND embrace it. All I have come to realize, is that it's ours.

STAYING OUT OF FEAR...

Fear. It is such the killer of life. Of souls. Of dreams. And often, of Dreamers. I remember hearing for the first time many years ago, a comparative juxtaposition of fear with two competing notions. Faith is one of hem. Love is the other. And I get it in my gut. When I am in a fearful place, it's effects can be - are, for me - all permeating. It infuses everything. Both love and faith can trump fear any day, when we breathe through ourselves with those inner, core truths. Of who we are. Even when we are not fully seeing, or feeling, it...ourselves...in our most full. When we are not feeling, as my dear friend, Claudia Handler calls it, "Me at my Me-ist." No matter what, we need to surround ourselves with those who both help us shine a light in all the corners, even the dark ones, who cry out for truth, while also seeing us in our bigness...not big as in famous, big as in who we truly are.

"IT IS WHAT IT IS..."

This has become one of my new favorite expressions...phrases. Reminders. Of truth. In that way that can be both so personal and individual and yet objective and global at the same time. What I mean is that once any of us come to our realization about the way something "is" - a situation, a relationship, a person, etc. - in a way that gives us complete "aha" clarity, on both the smaller and larger scale, "it is what it is." Embracing that phrase has lubricated some of the gears in my inner shifting mechanism. Gotten me, who has too often been drawn to unnecessary drama - both inner and outer - further into simplicity and "truth" (yes, even if that notion of truth is completely mine). Because once I can look at a situation, an experience, a feeling, a set of circumstances, whatever or whomever they may be, from the perspective of "it is what it is", it removes so much of the stories. That drama that is inherent in the "why's" or the "why not's" or the "how come's" or the "I don't understand's" or the inner clamoring that keeps me from what really is, acceptance. Of truth. Often of facts. And it allows me to step further into the breath of the moment, the space of the heart, instead of being ensconced in the noise in my head. At least for awhile. I am learning to feel and see what can and will occupy that space that would otherwise be filled up by my stories. It's a process. Like any new piece of clothing that may reflect a change in style or self-perception, I feel that I am growing into it...getting more comfortable...

MARILYN AND JERRY...

Monday was the 38th anniversary of the death of a woman whom I have come to realize I hardly knew. My mother. It really just hit me. Obviously not the fact that it's been a long time since I looked in her eyes and had a conversation. Or that it wasn't her death, but her getting sick ten years earlier, that was the REAL game changer for me. It was simply looking at facts...circumstances...in a new way. Not emotionally, as much as simply from a "it's just the facts, Jack" perspective. The realization, from a different angle, that Mom was physically well for such a short time in my life, and that her unexpurgated, as my mother, was so fleeting. I don't remember what she was like, unburdened, whether by the anxiety of sickness, the frustrations of life, the fearofdeath at a time when no one talked about it. It simply struck me, as I was riding on the subway, that this force in my life, this person whose presence, as limited, powerful, loving and dark as it sometimes was/is, is someone whom I not only hardly remember, but really have no idea who she was. At her core. At her most open and/or whatever might be the opposite of that for a woman whose life, and that of her only kid, was inexorably jettisoned into an unexpected place on a Spring morning in 1962. When people really didn't talk about this kind of shit. So, in an attempt to connect with the only other person who lived in that house with us, I woke and called my father, to simply connect, to open up the possibility of calling up the memory of a woman about whom he never speaks, at least in an offering. In an attempt to give his son something, from the inside.

"Good morning, Dad, just wanted to connect with you on the anniversary of Mom's death."

"I don't know when it was, Jon, I'm not sure."

BREATH.

"No, Dad, it's today. The same day as JFK. I just felt like talking about her a bit."

"Yeah, I remember it was around Thanksgiving."

BIG PAUSINGSPACE.

"OK, Dad, enjoy the day, I will speak to you during the week."

"OK, Jon. Feel good."

"Love you."

"Love you"

And, I let go. Not in the dramatic tears flooding out of my eyes kindofway...they simply trickled all day. Simply, in a realization that my 91-year old Dad can't give it to me - the perspective, the grounding, the bridge that might provide some granular connective tissue to a place inside that always is longing for that. And while it's easy to say that "he's 91" as a reason for this shallow, yet kindly-intentioned well, the fact, the truth, is that it was, he was, no different at 81 or 71 or whenever. The difference for me, on Monday, as sad as it may be, is that I was able to simply let this/him be. To have it be what it is. Not get caught up in (T)HIStory, or this disappointment. To accept it. To tell the/my truth. To be able to hold the facts and my father in a true place, and not become angry or (re)burdened. To love him and love her, in any ways that I can. Whether I remember or not.

THE OLD YO-YO...

It has struck me recently - and not for the first time - that in those moments in my life when I have elected to explore a singular romantic relationship with a woman, that person has tended to be someone who isn't what I would call "emotionally reliable." It's not about being good or nice or kind or giving. What I am talking about goes to their ability to hold an emotional space with another, starting with their own. It's a "default" position that prompts a visceral withdrawal from emotional vulnerability when the spark of a beginning, the intensity of possibility, the hope in the draw of the "other" inevitably leads to the reality of self. The work and responsibility within that is required when the mirror reflects back with the message that it's about us, not him (or her). Whether its emotional reliability, or consistency, what I have experienced it as is a "yo-yo" effect. The here now, not here now, back here now, maybe I am here now slippery slope that while at times has been painful and challenging, is something that has felt like "home." What I know. In those ways that I wish I didn't and have to admit is true. My natural attraction to women who can withdraw the emotional connection on a dime. Who (say that they) want to be present. And are for a moment. And can't hold on. Whose emotional bowl seems to turn into a colander in a second. And as the water starts flowing out from the bottom, I am there feverishly trying to pour it back in as quickly as possible. Pushing back against the innate understanding that, inevitably, this process cannot, and will not, work. At least in the longer-term. And each time that I have been drawn like a moth to a flame, I know that it's a painful, and slippery slope. That feels too familiar. That "Hey, look at me, I'm great, I'll SHOW you" trying too hard to get something from another that I know can only be substantively provided from within. Yet the second "yo" part of the yo-yo, the push piece of the push-pull, the maybeoutnotsureaboutthein, is something so seemingly DNA-driven, it's taken deep work to learn to nip that process earlier in the bud. To stay away from that drug that inevitably leads me down a well-traveled path to a place from which the recovery is challenging. The irony, of course, is that in my desire to feel "safe" WITH someone, I have often chosen to put myself in the line-of-fire with those with whom I can never GET that...feel that...well, SOMEtimes, yet not consistently. It's not that it's taken me this long to know that it's not what I ultimately want. It is - simply - that now I seem to be able to "just say no"" at an earlier and earlier acknowledgment of that particular feeling in my belly. In my soul. Surely in my heart. And as that opening to a new truth has unfolded, the reason, the story - about the WHY - doesn't really matter as much. To be willing to take a breath, a pause, and say - TO ME first - "No, thank you" is what has made the difference. It's surely an ongoing process, a step along the way. The notion that our shit, our Achilles' heels, simply disappear at some point, just isn't the way it works. I have often thought that a new 12-step program might be AHA...Achilles' Heel(s) Anonymous, because - as I see it - once a vulnerable place, always a place to breathe through when our internal signs go "here we go again." They don't disappear, hopefully we just figure out healthy ways to transcend the autoresponse. Because as I dove in to what was behind it, and very real, I realized that it's not just in romance, it's in biz too. Attracting people to whom I have often given my power away. When I wanted something from them. Maybe not wanted. NEEDED. Well, more accurately, FELT I needed. It's when that paradigm got created - me with another in that way - that the dynamic got created inside me. Feeling like "home" once again. And, as I noted, the story does not matter. It's what we do for ourselves, to first see, or feel, and then tell the truth. Both about whatever IT is, and that IT isn't working for us. That we don't need IT. Anymore. And then to get - stepbystep, littlebylittle, momenttomoment - that as we stretch our "known", when we lift our comfort zone, when we unbox our own box - that we can fill that space with something better for ourselves. Even if that something, is nothing at all. The sitting with IT. The being with it. Not having to DO anything about IT. To be able to be there for ourselves in a new way, coming from a different angle, and allowing us to possibly even create an opportunity to acknowledge the bounty of our personal journey, harvesting some of what came from the emotional seeds we may have planted. To take pride in our process. To take on, and accept, what may actually be pain (the notion of short term pain transforming into longer term pleasure), as opposed to simply being reactive to my most Pavlovian dogmode reactions (short-term comfort seeming to equate to long-term pain, every time).

All I know, at the end of this day, is that I am way more joyful than I have ever been. The comfort in my spirit, in my skin, is reflective of a willingness to steer clear, as often as I feel in charge of me, of those old smelly blankets in which we find comfort, yet which in the end, keep us where we don't really want to be.h

YINYANGDUALITYCONSCIOUSNESS...

On Monday evening, I hosted at my apartment a committee meeting for Romemu, a planning for the Chanukah bash on December 4th. I shopped. Cleaned. Prepared. Displayed and Presented. Fed. Poured. Nurtured. Hosted. In the way that a woman would...well, at least some. I have been invited to homes of women where there was bupkis to eat...nada...not a something. My point is not to be critical of (those particular) women. Or about typical men's consciousness, way too often, about stuff like this, even among some men who I would think would know better. So this is not about female or male...and it's certainly not about needing a "queer eye", because as anyone who knows me, or has been fed at my house, or seen me cluster pictures on a wall, or light hundreds of tea candles to illuminate a party, understands how the societal stereotypes played out in that show TOTALLY piss me off....as if you (a straight man) needs a gay guy to tell you anything about style, or creativity...or connecting with a woman and knowing what is sexy???? REALLY??? Anyway, I digress....

My point IS that it's not just a female trait, this nurturing, hosting thing...yes, it is more typical, for sure...it doesn't HAVE TO be...and, whether it has to do how one's mother "raised" him, or something else, I feel it is so essential for these qualities that are deemed to be traditionally "female" - sensitivity, compassion, kindness (Man.Kind), nurturing, sensual (and on..) - be simply encouraged as part of who we are as humans...not have them be so limiting in ways that keeps all of us from experiencing all of who we are. And want to encourage and experience in others...it is natural for me to nurture and feed and inspire...I love being, at times, a male muse. And, it can get confusing for others, particularly as a father of a male. About 3 or 4 years ago, Cooper and I were walking to school, and he was pissed off at Maia bout something, that had to do with a sense of entitlement. I told Coop that I was writing an essay about that (it was shocking enough for a then middle schooler to hear that his father was choosing to write an essay...about ANYTHING), about how that plays out often in relationships. In his still-pissed-at-Maia state, he looked up at me and in a tone that I can only describe as dazedandexasperated, he said, "Why are you SO interested in the things that women are???!!!" And in the short moment that it took to have a grin responsively appear on my face, and to understand and get deeply what he was asking below the surface, I responded, "Because I'm smart. And wise." That didn't end the conversation with him, and it surely opened my eyes to what I perceive to be the way that a father like me (whatever that means) might be somewhat confusing to my son, as he is starting to figure out (or already has/had), what it means to "be a man". Or simply a male. A straight male. Or whatever it all means. It can be confusing to males when the words that represent qualities that we seem to crave in men (and lament that they too often lack) are more feminine in perception, demeanor and sensibility. We are yin and yang. Earth, wind and fire. All of us. And we all need - male AND female - to embrace the qualities that reflect our favorite parts of ourselves. So that we can learn to nurture. And be nurtured. To give. And to be able to receive (that one took me awhile to learn, and as with everything, it's an ongoing process). I was thinking recently that while I have always been a man who embraced my "female" side from an early age, it wasn't until I FULLY took and and celebrated my testosterone - in MY powerful way, not as a reflection of the typical male imagery and (lack of) consciousness that prompted me to feel, way too often, so ashamed of being a MAN - that I could really step into my own power and feel the congruence and deep interplay of not only our two sides, but everything in between.

What makes someone seem sexy to another? Obviously there are many things, and it's a subjective answer...at it's core, I believe strongly that it has SO MUCH to do with sensing how comfy someone is in their skin...with who they are. From the inside-out, not as a piece of clothing to be worn for a night out. That's hot. To me. And that emanates from congruence within. From accessing all those parts of us, Ladies and Gentle Men...