HELLO
This is my third attempt to write consistently and share my thoughts as a blog. I’ve attempted this before and bailed for various reasons, but after sharing so much around Lisa’s cancer journey I have a renewed interest in this form of communication.
For those who have followed my posts regarding Lisa’s health, this is where I will continue to share progress, but more from the perspective of life, love, nature and creativity than the medical specifics. I’ll include some details on Lisa’s health, but we’re not staying stuck in the “cancer” mode. Those early, very scary and urgent emotions have given way to acceptance and a full dedication to living every moment we have together with as much joy and appreciation as possible. You’ll have to read through and/or around my other ramblings to get to those gems, but I’ll do my best to make them easy to find. For anyone who isn’t familiar, but curious, those posts are “Updates” and can be found here: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/od6891.
INTENT
I don’t have a focus for this blog. Perhaps over time one or more will develop, but I’m very unlikely to wade into politics or other highly charged subjects. I have no space for online confrontation. I’ll simply be sharing what’s on my mind and in my heart with no real agenda. That said, I do have deeply held values around equity and inclusion, particularly in the area of race and racism. I’m hardly an expert on this topic, but my lived experience has included the gift of interracial love, family, community and deep learnings about what this all means. While I don’t have answers, I do have insights and I can see sharing them in some form along the way, or not.
Saturn returns…again
I’m not strongly attached to astrological interpretations, but there’s no denying how accurate I’ve found my chart and readings to be over the years, and how closely I resemble the characteristics of a Scorpio. I’m thinking about this now, as I am apparently in my second Saturn Return, a planetary alignment that comes around every 29.5 years.
This is my final trip around the sun in my 50s. I earn my next decade, the big 6-0, come Fall this year, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t significance to this. It’s not that I fear aging. I don’t. In fact, I feel amazingly fortunate to still be here and appreciate deeply all the wisdom and lessons I’ve accumulated. I feel foolishly young at heart still, and like many of us at this stage of life, I don’t “feel” like I’m getting older, I just look like it in the mirror. On the inside, I have most of the same desires and interests as I’ve always had. Gratefully, some of those more, lets say, urgent desires have given way to something more manageable… and ok, at times this makes me feel old, but I appreciate being far less distracted than the younger version of me was. I’m not racking up the mileage as a runner that I used to, and there’s some bulk to my body that wasn’t there a minute ago, but par for the course as they say.
So, right. Saturn Return, again. The first one, at around age 29-30, coincided with my move to NYC, the sudden death of my father, who succumbed to an inoperable brain tumor, and my first marriage (which ultimately suffered a similar “inoperable” fate). The following 3 decades were intense, complex, and easily the most demanding period of my life. There were countless hard truths learned over these years, thankfully all leading to deeper understandings and a better version of myself.
There was pain and those years left a mark for sure, but they were also indelible in their significance and meaning. Lived almost entirely in Brooklyn, these were the years I learned to be a NY’er, a man, and a father. These were the years I let go of my creative path to provide and be responsible for others. These were the years I learned what was holding me back from happiness. These were the years I learned to truly love and be loved. I developed a second career out of nothing. I fought hard to be a father to my son and gave him everything I was capable of. I made peace with his mom and we became strong co-parents and good friends. I met the love of my life, a true soulmate, married her, and made a life together. I helped take care of my aging in-laws through the end of their earthly existence.
These past 30 years brought me the most intense emotional experiences of my adult life, both happy and sad, so I enter this next phase curious and open to what comes next. I don’t love that it kicked off last Summer with Lisa’s cancer diagnosis. That’s some seriously unwanted déjà vu for me. To add to the dimensions of similarity, we’re relocating next month to New Hampshire where I am starting a new job. Some repeating themes here I’d say. Flipping things a bit, I’m thrilled to see that my creative life is coming back to the forefront after all this time. I believed this would be the case over all the years. I just knew I wasn’t done creating, and it never died off completely thanks to our band, Luck & Senses, working with Steve Horowitz, and some other odds and ends musically speaking. What’s different now though is I’m returning to my own personal projects finally. I have new music coming out of me and a renewed mission to complete some works that have been in progress for, I kid you not, over 30 years in some cases. Mostly though, I’m concentrating on new material and learning to record my own work to a degree that will be acceptable as professional quality. Don’t hold your breath… this might take some time, but I will share when ready.
I’m grateful for the last 30 years and am excited for these next 30. As a bonifide old man, I hope to be sharing in retrospect the wonders to come, sometime around age 88.5 years young, but if I don’t make it, that’s ok too. My life is full and I honestly believe I’ve learned the most profound lessons I came here for this time round. I’m happy, truly, at a level I’ve never felt before, and I know the meaning of life, of my life anyway, and it’s Love. Nothing else will matter in the end but how I learned to love, the love I gave, and the love I received. Experiencing love in all its forms, dimensions, meanings, and expressions, will be the measure of my life, and I’ve already won in that category. The rest will be gravy.