| Previous |
More writing by Bruce Taylor |
Next |
![[graphical bar]](../graphics/mmrbar5.gif){kind=small}
The Magic of Wild Places
"It is the worst of madness to learn what has to be unlearned." -- Erasmus, 1514
January 16, 2007
A snowy day in Seattle; a week of cold, of ice, of snows and early that morning, the snow began early and it snowed. Looking up at the slanting skylight two feet above the bed in the loft where I slept, I couldn't see the sky but rather saw just a cottony texture on the skylight and knew that had.
My partner, Roberta, and I toss off the deliciously warm comforter, get up, and soon, with Roberta on foot, and I on cross country skis, we head north, across Yesler, on 20th, sliding away from the condominium, Central Park East in Seattle, sliding down those silent streets, seeing the trees etched in white and Black against the grey sky, in the falling snow, hearing the muffled barks of dogs and the shrieks of children somewhere. The world of snow and sliding, gliding in several inches of new snow. People out and about, laughing and waving, "Great idea!"
And I shout back, "Never too old to be a kid!" or "Eat your heart out Sun Valley!"
Someone else yells, "Only way to go!"
And I am delighted. Sliding down those silent streets on Capitol Hill, past those houses, some dating back to the late l800's, some new, some Gawd-awful looking and not at all fitting with the neighborhood. Sliding, sliding, gliding in the falling snow, eventually passing the broken skeleton of a tan and white, newer VW Bus, literally bent and crushed in half, by a 100-year-old tree that had fallen in the l4th of December Storm a month ago-- with winds near 60-- on that day so many trees crashed over cars, trees with roots loosened by a month of record-setting rains but today, all was covered by snow, snow gently falling, delicate and dedicated crystals of frozen water.
By 8:00 a.m., we arrive at Madison Market, my "hang out" place in the morning where, on my three to five mile walk every morning, I stop, have coffee, read the paper, talk with the friends I have made at the cooperative. This morning was no exception, except I came by skis, much to the delight and laughs of customers. I take off my skis and bring them into the store, resting them against the wall beside the two by four foot, beige and deliberately washed-out image of Irl LaGrange, "Co-op member #1" and the mission statement of Central Co-Op /Madison Market boldly stated across the washed-out image of Irl. Buying our coffees and the paper, we sit at a marbled green plastic topped table and though I scan The Seattle Times, I'm really thinking about this book, The Magic of Wild Places. Then I find myself thinking about how lucky I am that I was born in Seattle. Would I have been born in Seattle-would I have been born at all-- had my father married the woman who threw the ring back in his face-- had she not done that, would I have been born? As tough and painful as my childhood was, my father did not, aside from spankings which just served to make me terrified of him, physically assault me, save for that time when I was sixteen when he threatened me and when I was struck in the face by his mother, my Grandmother, Maggie, when I was two.
My brother, when he was three, was slapped in the face by my father at Mt. Rainier. As my mother told it, my brother was whimpering in the back seat and my father turned around, and slapped him in the face, in the presence of my mother's horrified parents, Johnny and Charlotte McCroskey.
I shake my head. There is no shame, no guilt, Just The Way it Was. No blame. Just compassion. That's all, in the end there is. Just that. Only that. The Buddha was so right: Infinite Wisdom, Infinite Compassion.
I sit there, coffee in my hand. Roberta reads the paper. Outside, looking to l6th avenue and over that way, Madison Street as it begins its long descent into the valley of Twelfth Avenue, running north-south, then begins a gentle ascent to Boren then down, down again toward Elliot Bay, I sip my coffee and feel a quiet-- joy.
To myself, I sigh and think, It's a wonderful morning and even out here, out here, even here in urban Seattle there is the essence of The Magic of Wild Places. And I keep marveling at how badly my life could have turned out, but didn't-- and indeed, keeps getting better and better.
I sip coffee, watched Roberta read the paper, outside it snows, there was Murdock over there, waving and calling out, "Bruuuuzzze-- ". He's tall, dark-haired, has glasses that have small, rectangular lenses. He always seems to have a mischievous smile and sense of humor to match in addition to a curiosity and gentleness about him.
Michael stands behind the deli counter, helping a customer. He has a high-pitched bray of a laugh that, when you hear it, you end up laughing because it's so wonderfully infectious; you can hear him all over the store. He has a ponytail and is as compact as he was honest, funny and demonstrably loving.
Over there, Ellen, "Ellen in the Dell-ee", as we like to joke, stocking the deli case with organic bean and pasta dishes. Dark haired, glasses, in her fifties and short, she is determined to make a living by opening her own deli and serving raw foods.
Sitting across from me, Roberta puts down her paper and smiles. Roberta, sensitive, keenly observant, award-winning cartoonist, who, like me, and like so many creative people we know, seems disappointed that often it seems that we get so little back in terms of compensation, material and otherwise, given the sacrifices made and the dedication of our life to our art and to honor our craft and talent. I sip that delicious coffee. The American Myth, The Lie; work hard enough and you will be rewarded with fame and fortune. I shake my head again. It's so easy to forget the true nature of wealth-- I live the life my father would covet, I have wealth he would not and could not imagine. I have the wealth of friends, of love, of purpose, intent, of my creativity, fully owned, fully expressed and the wealth of time to express it even though the American Lie chronically whispers, "You're never good enough, never doing enough, no matter how well you do, you should always do better. If you aren't always striving, you're a failure." I sip my coffee. "Sorry," I say to the myth, "I feel good, I'm happy and you really are full of shit." And with all the effort I've put forth, dealing with these issues, addressing them with the help of such wonderful books as, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron-- while I believe the lie less, well, you still can't help but be tainted, second by second, minute by minute, by the culture in which you are embedded and in which you grew up. I am also aware of how much that myth sounds like my father. And it's what he told me, what he told himself, what was told to him, what his father, Clarence, his mother Maggie told him, what they told themselves as was told to them by their parents On and on and on, never ending, how far back does it go?
But there is nothing I can do about that. There is nothing I can do about my father, my mother or what happened to them. I can only examine their impact on me and try to turn down the volume of the stuff that didn't work and know it's more about them than me, and amplify that which did work and move well in that direction.
I sometimes wonder just how much money I've spent in therapy, trying to turn down the volume of the howl of the internal pain of the losses, the "what might have beens" had my folks been happier-- but that's a game you can play forever and it finally gets to a point where, with enough therapy, you can say, "Now that I know what I know, where do I go from here?" We can mourn the past forever, in the unconscious hope, I suppose, if you mourn it long enough, hard enough, with enough pain, it will magically transform into the way it should have been.
Perhaps all therapy is seeing the illusion, letting go of it, and truly discovering not only who you are but who you were meant to be and what your power truly is, and going forward in life surrounded by all that has meaning and having access to it.
Even then it doesn't mean all is finished. I sit drinking my coffee and remembering that it was only a week ago that I finally understood why I took such poor care of my teeth. After losing most of them over the last few years after being told by numerous dentists to take better care of them, after years of trying to get motivated to do that and getting nowhere, after seeing therapists about this as one of the issues I had to deal with, I said to Roberta again, "I have got to get on top of this. I somehow must but-- how? Yet I must." God, I remember thinking, I've been saying this for thirty years-- what on earth makes me think it's going to be any different this time? Why should it change? I'm gonna lose what teeth I have left-- why is all this so eerily like Dr. Morbius and his unconscious Krell-beast coming after him and he knows it but doesn't know it. How fucking weird can this be? But I said it again, maybe to give myself a sense of knowing the problem and maybe if I say it out loud, some part of me will here it and like a snap of the fingers, change? So I said it again. "This as got to change-- "
And how things change and why they change after you've been trying to change them for all your life, how is it so? But with hypnosis, I suddenly, for the first time ever, got access to that part of me that was encapsulated, walled off, dissociated from my consciousness. Something I learned how to do 56 years ago when my grandmother slapped me for wanting another shredded wheat biscuit.
I had to be seen as vulnerable, with illness so that, as I got what I wanted out of my life, I wouldn't be hit, abandoned, Dad wouldn't be angry at me-- hence when I was to meet my editor for my first book, on that day we were to meet, I had an episode of insulin shock, fell, fractured my ankle and so met my editor on crutches. And as I continue to move with my writing, getting what I want, the care of my teeth is so poor I began losing them-- message to that abusive past as I tried to get what I wanted, you wouldn't hit someone wearing glasses would you? The teeth, so much of illness, a shield of protection so I wouldn't be hit or abandoned as I went for what I wanted. Ask for shredded wheat, you get smacked so hard you go flying across the room. I learned too well I learned so well.
In the hypnosis of a few days ago, "Don't hit me! Don't hit me! If I get what I want, I'll be hit-- again-- left again, dad angry at me again. Don't hit me! Don't hit me! Don't hit me again!" And I began to shake and felt terribly cold; the fear so ancient, so present. And after fifteen minutes or so, I began to calm, but still cold, shivering under a wool blanket and the part of me that was present, dominant? Age two and just assaulted.
Finally, the shaking, the shivering subsided and I was left feeling exhausted. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome doesn't understand yesterday nor tomorrow. It only understands the "present" and the conditions which lead up to the pain and if the conditions are too similar to that which is perceived to bring on the pain; it's no longer 2007, it's l947 and the part that takes over is age-- two.
Frustrating? Yes. But it's self protection to the point of self-destruction. When such overwhelming stress is experienced by a child, it becomes perceived as a life or death issue and the child, in it's wisdom, does all that it can do to protect itself from the perception that death is a real possibility-- death through abandonment or abuse and everything must be done to provide that split-off self with safety so that access can be had to the part that one is not aware of yet is there, still frightened, still stuck in the moment of the terror of possible or imminent death.
And when I got to that part of me that was "encapsulated"/ "sealed off" and let the pain out-- wonder of wonders, for the first time in my life, I could not brush my teeth enough, not take care of them enough.
Thursday, January 11th at 2:30 p.m., I touched the pain that I didn't even know I had-- and lo and behold, like a snap of the fingers, all changed. And now I can take care of my teeth.
When my father grew up so abused, what did he encapsulate? What did he seal off from himself of which he was not aware? What did my mother seal off from herself when she gave her brother whooping cough and he died when he was two and she was five?
The coffee warm in my hands, the joking of the people in Madison Market, watching it snow outside.
Compassion. Forgiveness. We cannot know what we do not know; we only know if our lives move toward fulfillment and joy or they do not. And if they do not, that is where the unconscious damage lurks, stays hidden, pulling us back from all that we could be, preventing us from living a full life out of the fear-- out of the fear that the past is to be repeated, that the world is not safe for us to be who we know we are or were meant to be.
| Previous |
Return to Top |
Next |