"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...