how does it feel

 Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you ?
People'd call, say, "Beware doll, you're bound to fall"
You thought they were all kiddin' you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone ?

my friends pictured above have known me since 1978 or so. they represent what is good about our generation as well as my youth- smart, funny, hardworking, talented, and with huge and kind hearts. i am sincerely humbled when i consider all the distances they have traveled in this life while still living in one big-shouldered city. we had dinner last sunday and  my life took an unforseen turn.

i am smack dab in the middle of a change of heart. not sure how i know this, or how i actually mean this, but i still know this is the truth. i have been seeing so many people from previous times in my life. they are all sweet, wonderful people who have been living life on its own terms and are doing the best they can. i love them for this probably more than i loved them before. mostly because i am able to love them now in ways i never knew how previously.

here i am walking an ancient labyrinth and retracing the cave drawings i encounter. there is joy and freedom in this for me. i am actually connecting with the power to grow up and the desire to do so. no matter my age. no matter the lack of grace, it is the desire and the ability- not to mention the need- that prods me onward.  i am not sure where i am headed next, but i know i am going and with anticipation.

this time away from my daily routine has done something i wasn't sure i needed. it has confirmed for me that i okay. i measure myself next to my past and i feel engaged and empowered. this feeling may last a week or a decade, but it feels so freeing that it is not of consequence today.

i love my friends. they hold my history in their hearts and minds. they remind me who i was and who i am. i need to be reminded of all this as i sometimes forget who i have been and only see who i am.

i am posting a version of this song from one of my favorite current bands- anberlin. this cut is happy-go-lucky, easy and breezy and helps me wanna bop my head back and forth. it mirrors how i am feeling today.

pema chodron on living from the heart

Ani Pema Chödrön was born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown in 1936, in New York City. She attended Miss Porter's School in Connecticut and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. She taught as an elementary school teacher for many years in both New Mexico and California. Pema has two children and three grandchildren.

While in her mid-thirties, Ani Pema traveled to the French Alps and encountered Lama Chime Rinpoche, with whom she studied for several years. She became a novice nun in 1974 while studying with Lama Chime in London. His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa came to England at that time, and Ani Pema received her ordination from him.
Ani Pema first met her root guru, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, in 1972. Lama Chime encouraged her to work with Rinpoche, and it was with him that she ultimately made her most profound connection, studying with him from 1974 until his death in 1987. At the request of the Sixteenth Karmapa, she received the full bikshuni ordination in the Chinese lineage of Buddhism in 1981 in Hong Kong.

Ani Pema served as the director of the Karma Dzong, in Boulder until moving in 1984 to rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to be the director of Gampo Abbey. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave her explicit instructions on establishing this monastery for western monks and nuns.
Ani Pema currently teaches in the United States and Canada and plans for an increased amount of time in solitary retreat under the guidance of Venerable Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche.
Ani Pema is interested in helping establish Tibetan Buddhist monasticism in the West, as well in continuing her work with western Buddhists of all traditions, sharing ideas and teachings. She has written several books: "The Wisdom of No Escape", "Start Where You Are", "When Things Fall Apart", "The Places that Scare You", "No Time to Lose", "Practicing Peace in Times of War" and most recently "Taking the Leap - Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears". All are available from Shambhala Publications.

watching the colors change

~ Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile. ~

this october has seemed to be one of the more golden ones in my memory. there have been many many beautifully warm days. the colors came early in september in the mountains, but in denver as well as here in chicago, there are massive natural displays of autumn color. the trees, the skies, the warmth, the vibe has been spectacular and memorable.

just like this, life is evolving and i am evolving as best i can to keep up. i am reminded here that i am remembered, and that it is with laughter and joy. i don't necessarily see myself like this. but this is how i am seen and this is as much truth as my own perception. go figure.

dinner and some fun with friends last night, a friend tonight, tomorrow, and the next. each day, no doubt, will peel back another layer of hidden treasure and light a corner of my soul. i loved. i didn't really remember that i loved. i still love. i didn't think myself capable. i didn't think.




If you are lucky, you live in one of those parts of the world where Nature has one last fling before settling down into winter's sleep. In those lucky places, as days shorten and temperatures become crisp, the quiet green palette of summer foliage is transformed into the vivid autumn palette of reds, oranges, golds, and browns before the leaves fall off the trees. On special years, the colors are truly breathtaking.
How does autumn color happen?
For years, scientists have worked to understand the changes that happen to trees and shrubs in the autumn. Although we don't know all the details, we do know enough to explain the basics and help you to enjoy more fully Nature's multicolored autumn farewell. Three factors influence autumn leaf color-leaf pigments, length of night, and weather, but not quite in the way we think. The timing of color change and leaf fall are primarily regulated by the calendar, that is, the increasing length of night. None of the other environmental influences-temperature, rainfall, food supply, and so on-are as unvarying as the steadily increasing length of night during autumn. As days grow shorter, and nights grow longer and cooler, biochemical processes in the leaf begin to paint the landscape with Nature's autumn palette.

you can read the rest of "why  leaves change color" here

will you still love me tomorrow

finished packing this morning and will be heading to chicago after work. i go there every couple of years just to clear some of the cobwebs out of my head. i lived there until 1986 and met the individuals who really shaped much of my adult brain (what little i had then). i moved there in 1974 and spent the next 12 years immersed in a culture and a city that still stirs memories.

the fact that i have been living in denver 20 years seems quite unbelievable. this city has been very good to me. it has helped me find grounding and stability - both emotionally and financially. my health has really thrived. but for as long as i can remember, i have always missed the array of "communities" and diversity that Chicago boasts- culinary, the arts, jazz, classical music, theatre- and i have especially missed the matter-of-fact honesty and up-front friendliness of midwesterners.

so i will immerse myself into an updated version of this city once again. i have plans for 6 of the 9 nights i am there. dinner, 2 plays, 2 parties, etc.. much, much more than i normally do in a week. plus i am attending a conference for work and have 4 full days of activities with that. i will be learning much more about opiate replacement therapy- i.e. methadone, suboxone- and the parameters and pitfalls of that therapy. this is the godfather of all harm reduction models as hiv and hep c are understandably spread through the sharing of needles. reducing that particular practice by individuals indeed cuts back on the chances of infection as well as the wear and tear that iv drug use takes on a persons body, mind, and soul.

iwill be staying at my best friend's condo on north lake shore drive. i am still considering a last minute cancel of my hotel downtown for the 3 nights of the conference and just commuting from lakeview. it could save about 1k and be less transient for me. i need to make a decision today. but i know i am going to have some really big moments that my heart opens a bit more this week. my friends there have really stuck by me during the darkest and most difficult times i have had. of course, they did not have to be around me either, which i am sure has an influence. 

no doubt i will post once or twice from there. there are many giggles and ghosts that still swirl around me there. and i hope i will remind myself and my hometown friends that some things really get better with time.

a chemical romance

there was a boy who spent a lot of his time running. he had been running for as long as he could remember. and if you asked, he would be hard pressed to tell you when it really began. he knew that he was different and part of him thought that was special and another part of him viewed himself as revolting. but his libido and his chemical makeup consistently created urges that propelled him forward as a sexually active youth who could be considered deviant.

he left home at 16 because the battle inside was too much to bear feeling isolated and trapped in his suburban existence. just like the lou reed song directed, he had to take a walk on the wild side in order to breathe. he ran to the nearest urban mecca he could find. he had already been scoping it out and knew there were similar vibratory souls around. he was very young, but he didn't care. he knew that anything that could happen could be no worse than the nothings that continued to happen in his life as it was.

he became a rent boy as it was almost a perfect next step. he had already been sexually active for quite some time and had learned to communicate with men on this level. and getting paid for this activity seemed only too good to be true. as it turned out, it wasn't that good at all. he found himself being objectified in ways he could never have dreamed, and a return of sadness bubbled up now and again amidst all the drugs, alcohol, and recreational sex that averted much of his attention.

a symptom of youth for him was perhaps that he so often got what he wanted. sadly though, this synchronicity was heavily low lighted by his constantly numbed demeanor and his inability to think even slightly big. or maybe it was that he had switched on survival mode early on and hadn't had the where-with-all to get beyond instinct. it seemed he was bright, but not really smart. and he was hurt, but never really cried. and he barrelled through this part of his teens just like he was endlessly running with his head tucked and his arm out trying to find the goal.

he would pick up tricks for money now and again for the first coupla years he arrived.  and he made himself available for free fun, too. on more than one occasion he emerged from situations which chipped away at his naivete and his sense of wonder. he was used, he was abused, he was ridden hard, and he was discarded quickly. he didn't lose hope. because this myriad of abrasion he lost himself in,  felt somehow deserved and familiar. he had hated and hidden so much of his nature, that by this stage of the game, he was conditioned to expect very little to actually put in his pocket. by the same token, he had no reason to think that life would not continue to reveal opportunities. he developed a deeper sense that he had little or no real value, and as long as he could numb, he could continue,,,, really..... no problem. at least not yet.

experience and self-worth are strange things. they link in ways that we rarely suppose. and the path we choose to survive our pain often defines life's challenges as our road is mapped out and paved. this is a truth for this boy. assumptions and conclusion made during these formative years still tend to line the birdcage of his soul. lined with the discarded copies of his chemical romance.