Learning how to love. Not to take, bait, wait or fake something resembling love. It was my belief, at least from my particular earlier perspective, that some could not love innately. My personal experience has been on a huge learning curve. And without dragging you through a slog of my rather bland biography as a suburban, white boy with a guitar and a lifelong belief that he was “ special“….well, let’s just say my dream was fueled for a long time by overconfidence. Apparently, my parents did a pretty good job of not letting my self-esteem be damaged by the institution of public education or the ne’er-do-wells who do dwell those hollow halls. I was not without my challenges, but none so overwhelming, or insurmountable that an arrogance of rebelliousness couldn't overcome. I wore my non-conformist martyrdom well in my adolescent years. Trenchcoats, boots with spurs, unconventional facial hair, gaudy vintage clothes, cheap rent in “bad neighborhoods“ with some of the best people I ever knew in my life. I wore all my hearts on all my sleeves, my pant legs, socks and shoes. Though this was before I discovered such sartorial splendor as I have now, I did have a style that spoke to society at-large. Sloppy, mostly upright, righteous indignation, an overly cautious goodtime Charlie was maybe how you might describe my style then. But unlucky at love.
I was a monogamous man before I was even a man. Though, I had no interest in being married at such a young age. I did have an interest in being married at such a young age. I just couldn’t admit it to myself. I thought I had a lot of problems. But, I had a lot of things I couldn’t easily admit to myself. And that’s what growing up is about. Or should be about, used to be about. Growing up, as I remember, used to be about putting away childish things. And I’ll just say to that, this is a problem in society today, yesterday and tomorrow. We are a society built upon a collective sorrow for lost youth, for a lost cause, we are lost souls longing for a universal golden age, the pearly white staircase to the static heavens of a loving stable home in the arms of our father. This is how I was raised in southeast Texas, which is the bottom of the hill or the heel of the old south, where we gaze longingly into Louisiana waiting for the Mississippi Queens to spoon feed us the Dixieland pudding of our dreams. But our loyalty was always to the great Lone Star, the Empire of the Alamo, that bigger than life 10 gallon-hat, boot-scootin, spit for spat, martyr of the western Plains; yippie tie yai yay yo motherfuckin cowboy! Yes we grew up and were groomed under the symbols of American pride and glory. By the time I got old enough to marry, I had had a few girlfriends, some that I lived with, all good friends still to this day. I thought I was prepared. I love women, beautiful, lovely creatures with natural grace and thoughtfulness; Intoxicating, refreshing and inspiring. Some are sexually attractive to me for whatever reason, a mystery is some are not. Yet they are beautiful, I don’t seek to possess them. They are my friends. They are my beautiful friends. I have many beautiful friends And, I can only think of a couple that are not. It’s no problem to carry on normal friendships with attractive people. I find it more interesting to see beyond their beauty. When I was young, I could not. I would fall in love at the drop of a hat. And I was bald at young age. So i dropped a lot of hats. This is a direct result of growing as a man understanding the value, the worth of other humans for who they are. Still, it took being married for nearly 30 years to learn these lessons that women are not to be possessed, they are not to be collected, they are not my servants. Though they are easy to objectify, indeed it may come as a surprise to some men and some other women that other women are indeed human beings. Without betraying our privacy, I would say that my relationship with my wife has been mostly stable with a few major impasses. We have spent our life together raising three kids and a home. We have spent these years in a long, strange, mostly protestant sort of dance. And through that decades-long dance, I have hurt her, been hurt by her, been on top of the world with her. We have been deliriously happy and miserably unhappy and everything in between. From day-to-day sometimes we didn’t know anything about who we were, what we were doing or why we were doing it. But when things get tough we stick together and get through it. No one teaches you how to be married, no one teaches you how to raise children, no one teaches you how to do anything. In the past when we had a more agrarian lifestyle there may have been specific roles that were taught. That is part of what appeals to the, I pause to call them conservatives, because these are not conservatives anymore, this is a new breed of sectarian American. What shall we call them? nostalgia whores? romantic fascist? Dixieland STANS?
I’ll stop with the name calling. But, this is what I do. You see I go on tangents, especially when I am talking about or thinking about personal things. I make jokes, I have ideas, I explore my imagination. It’s something I do automatically. I believe this inclination is a survival mechanism that I leaned on early when my family life seem chaotic, confusing and stressful. As all family life will be at times. (I say that for my mother so she will not feel any worse than she already does) In this chaos of family children will find their own ways to cope. When they do not feel safe they will find ways to insulate themselves emotionally, if not physically. But let me get back on track.
What’s Love Got To Do With It? asked Tina Turner,
“what’s love but a secondhand emotion. “
We’ve all been there. We all know what it’s like to be through with love. I’ve been there many times. But when you throw love away, it still has sway. Love will always be there all around you whether you want to see it or not. Because love doesn’t come from above. Love doesn’t come from below or from anyone you know. Love, as cliché as it may be for me to say, comes from within. The love you feel comes from you. There is a taboo against you loving you. There are entire schools of unwritten rules, that tell us we are fools for loving ourselves. And in this nation, we have Victorian tendencies; shame of our bodies, sexually afraid of masturbation, fornication and education. Vacations make us feel guilty! Generational shame and self loathing, especially among men is beyond pandemic proportions; it’s very well become part of our DNA at this point. So I don’t take this lightly when I suggest we can learn how to love. The key to know, love is a verb. Love is actionable! Love is something you do first! You don’t wait for it to come to you. There was a family loat in a desert dying of thirst. No one else had the strength to serve the water. It
fell to the father. Though he was not strong enough to lift the ladel, he laid his head on the table and tipped the bowl over onto his head. Then he gave some to his daughter, he gave some to his son, to his wife and his neighbor, to anyone he encountered from that point on. Love is the water and you are dying of thirst. I’m here to tell you before you can swim in that ocean you've got to serve yourself first. And I know you hope you’re gonna go to that great ocean, you’re going to be accepted into the ever loving arms of your Poseidon Papa. But i want you to know tonight what you are building here in this life will follow you to the next. If you believe in an afterlife, well then by God, you better get it right. Make love. Dont fake love. Do love the way only you can do. And the first place you gonna start with is with you!
Here’s a meditation:
close your eyes deep breath into the nose out to the mouth that 45 times slowly slowly breathe. You’re the wind here the cars wheels on the road you’re the bird singing hear the airplane high above flying through the cloud here the lawnmowers dogs barking let come and go. You are all of these things. You are everything everything you let your fingertips relax just focus on letting your fingertips go. Let go control of your fingertips follow that releasing feeling as it spreads like up your arms, let it go let all your body, all the tension. All the stress come up into your shoulder your neck into your body into your torso your heart, lungs, ribs relax your whole body let it all go stomach kidneys. Just let it all open up and let it all out growing penis balls, legs, all the way to your knees, just let it all release your toes your feet I’ll take all of that and let it all come up into your head contemplate that ball of energy that is your body. It’s now in your head. You can see it in your eye take deep breath, exhale think about something think about someone you love without question the first person that comes to your mind someone you really love your child friend someone you truly love our pet love unconditionally you love, no matter what and when you think of them, you think of that that you think you think your mind think about them good things for them good energy love that you have for them and directed out yourself with that same love you have for them is your this is the same love you’ve had for everyone you’ve ever loved and it’s within you and you deserve it to be around you you deserve to feel it whenever you wanna feel it’s there this is you this is love.
So that’s what I’ve learned lately, love is within me. It’s not something that I should expect to be given by anyone, though what you’ll find when you give it to others is you get it back anyway. It’s not something you have to long for. It’s something that you were born for. It is indeed innate within you. We’ve been taught, many of us, that it comes from without, not from within. It could be Christianity and Islam believes self-love is sacrilegious, is spiritual arrogance? I don’t know. I don’t think that’s what Christ or Muhammad were teaching. I think Christ was trying to preach to us what God has been trying to teach us all along, that love comes from within:
“On a good day, enjoy yourself; On a bad day, examine your conscience. God arranges for both kinds of days So that we won't take anything for granted.” Ecclesiastes 7:14
Or
Proverbs 19:8 encourages us to love our own soul so much that we find goodness and truth. This goodness and truth is freely available in Christ.
Maybe this is just Buddhism 101. I might be like the college kid who comes home and tells her mother she’s discovered a new way of doing laundry,
“you just hang your clothes on a line outside and they dry in the sun isn’t that rad? It’s called solar drying”
I feel like we do all have to find our own way. We can read and follow sacred texts all day, but the authentic experience of our spiritual selves is ultimately what the goal should be. It does seem religion in and of itself somehow discourages having an actual religious experience. We are trying to expand our consciousness, our souls, we are trying to become one with God, the universe, with all things. If there is an afterlife, it’s perhaps something that we haven’t even detected within the universe, like dark matter and dark energy. We may never have the scientific instruments capable of detecting Love. Dark Love? And yet we were born with God’s own super computers in our skulls. We are tied to a hell of a thing called the human body. Just add food water and love
Great writing very profound. My husband is home on hospice. I only thought I knew love. Sometimes......just sometimes I feel grateful like I am in on something deeper than most people will never experience. When you think your in love ask the hard questions....would you sleep next to a hosp bed, would you do tube feedings, diaper changes. Watch your love one hallucinate and pain. Our whole day revolves around this and still we laugh and talk. Anyway thats my love experience, its helped me love myself more.
Thank you for this. I'm amazed that you write so much and I'm so glad you do. You share a personal side of you besides the incredible poetry and music that I appreciate so much. It's nice to get a glimpse of the personal compassion of artists. Jon Dee Graham draws bears through all his ups and downs. I treasure all your stories and comments. Yes, compassion is key to happiness according to gurus of happiness. I'm working on it. I'm glad you're on Substack and Threads.