Matthew Sanford @matthewsanford - Tumblr Blog

Finally, A Face-Off

Just the other day....right outside my window...

This has been a long time coming. Our relationship has spanned years, probably even generations….this woodchuck and me. I live on a wooded lot that is blessed with ample wildlife. There has been the mystical owl that has hooted for twenty years. I have only seen him a couple times at dusk but hear him at moments that matter. There have been the mating wood ducks and baby ducks living on the end of my driveway; the two albino squirrels that I think were lost to the owl; the pileated woodpeckers; the time-challenged possum wondering through daylight; the deer that put her nose on the window in my front door while I was interviewed on the radio; the baby fawns that nap on my lot; the buck that helped me process our last election. And the frogs…I can’t forget the frogs. We even had one wake up in the dead of winter and we kept him till spring. But no wildlife has been as mythic as the woodchuck that has been secretly running around my lot for years and years.

There’s something about this woodchuck. I only see him in spurts. I love the way he runs; he usually seems happy and in a hurry. One time I drove up my driveway and he was sunning himself in the middle of the cement. He rolled over and darted away. He too also came to my front door once and peered in the window, but only for a look-see. He was gone in a flash. This woodchuck is mythic because I see him just enough to keep him on my mind and to wonder about him. But I have never really seen him for more than an instant and only when running away. If I am honest with myself, I have been seeing this woodchuck for so long that I am probably interacting with his progeny. Their lifespan is only about six years.

Something changed. The woodchuck and I have been getting closer. I have been writing my book for the last couple years at a desk in my bedroom. During this time, I have figured out that he lives under the narrow deck that wraps around two sides of my room. Last year, I had to have the rotting deck boards replaced. We found the entrance to his tunnel system and den right next to the house. Apparently, there could be up to 50 feet of tunnels. I have come to realize that this woodchuck has been sleeping about 10 feet from my bed every night…close enough that we have probably been affecting each other’s dreams.

Of course, the trained homeowner in me kicked in. I had to research the dangers and threats posed by Mr. Woodchuck. He could eat vegetation. He might be unfriendly. He could have rabies. Worst of all, he could compromise my foundation with his compulsive digging. If I were a self-respecting homeowner, I would control and regulate my domain better. Then there is also the secret suburban maxim: messy yard, weak person.

Of course, I chose to let him keep sleeping next to me.

This spring I think I might have seen him wake from his hibernation. I watched him lethargically emerge from under the deck and stumble around for quite some time. This week I have been watching him collect leaves and sticks under his chin and bring them back under the deck – I am thinking babies are not far off. Suddenly yesterday, he emerged from under the deck, jumped on it, turned toward me, and we had our first ever face-off. It lasted quite awhile and kept repeating all afternoon.

Maybe he is now a she. Maybe she is telling me that she is having babies and could I please keep the music down when I am writing. It didn’t feel like a warning though….more like a welcome. Maybe I can be the baby woodchucks’ surrogate uncle. I would be honored. I just know that our encounter was more than nothing, more than a coincidence. It was the culmination of years and years of courting. It cemented an agreed-upon co-existence pact between us. It definitely made us more like companions. I am so relieved that I did not fall prey to the trappings of the human need to control or our tendency to feel threatened. All I know is that my faceoff with this woodchuck made me feel grateful and hopeful about spring.

I am glad for warmer weather.

Starting Anew

Starting anew…is one of the secrets of living a good life. Thus far 2017 has been a little rough. Two serious infections, weeks of bed rest, and I have yet to have a day this year where I have felt completely well. Add in some re-tenderized shoulders and I have been feeling my age lately. Needless to say, my yoga practice has taken a hit. I need to start anew after nearly twenty-six years of practicing. I need the wisdom of a fresh start again and again. Yoga has always and will always meet me wherever I am…that’s part of its love promise to its students. I have been practicing intermittently but I haven’t been starting anew. I have been trying to maintain and hold on over some rough waters…a losing battle. Surrender and begin again.

I have to say this morning it was easier. The day was fresh, the sky was blue, and the sun was shining. I hate to say it, but it’s harder this afternoon. The sun is gone; the clouds have snuck in; and a Sunday afternoon melancholy is taking form. And yet a smile breaks across my face because I know how to start anew. I know what lies ahead. When the old meets the new, there is always heartbreak at first. Then you let go of what ails you and it begins again. I have been here before.

One of my favorite stories of surrender came from a healthcare professional in one of our trainings. She was having a horrible day. She came home to her two-year-old daughter who was having an epic meltdown, the kind of meltdown that, as a parent, you pray never happens in public. This mom found herself getting angry, a sensation that is dangerous to have around a misbehaving toddler. In that moment, she remembered our training and utterly surrendered with her body. In the middle of her kitchen floor with her daughter still screaming, she lay down on her back, spread-eagled, and didn’t move for moments on end. It took some time but daughter suddenly stopped crying, lay down next to her, and spread-eagled in solidarity. After a few more moments, the daughter raised her head and asked, “Mama, are you okay?”

This is the quintessential moment – the mother and the little girl. Starting anew is not starting over. It is not an act of tolerance. It is realizing the power of surrender, of allowing things to land and thus begin again. Surrendering is not an act of submission. It is an act of innocence. When there is nothing left to do, innocence must lead. I will never forget that story. I love the toddler’s sudden ability to let go of whatever was ailing her, and in that moment of quiet, to realize that she was not the center of the Universe, that her mom had feelings too. Consciousness.

I am not kidding you…the sun just came out as I am writing the end of this blog. I am ready to move forward, maybe even with a little attitude. My yoga practice will be just fine. In fact, it will remind of all that I need to know. I wonder if there is somewhere in your life that you can start anew….a love relationship perhaps, a relentless job, a stubborn family member. Remember the little girl, start anew, and be the frog.

Living with Dirt

I keep thinking about a line from David Whyte’s interview with Krista Tippett on her radio show On Being. In his work, David argues for what he terms the “conversational nature of reality.” By this I understand him to mean that reality occurs at the frontier of where you end and the world begins; and vice-versa, where the world ends and you begin. Reality, then, is an utter and direct interplay between our selves and the world, a conversation so to speak. David argues that one of the fundamental disciplines of sincere living is to engage in what he calls “essential conversations” of reality. He also says mysteriously that no self survives such a conversation intact, that the truthfulness and honesty of such an encounter is transformative.

He says the first step in having an essential conversation is to stop having the one you are currently having. His believes that we must stop, become deeply silent, take time, and feel the frontier between ourselves and the world. Only this can set the stage for an essential conversation. He then says what I find so haunting and daunting. He says that having such a conversation is hard enough for an individual, but collectively it is infinitely more difficult. As an example, he references the collective conversation America is currently having in response to globalism. We are stuck in an old conversation. Think about the whole “America First” platform. This is an idea that we wish were true. It is not on the frontier of what is actually before us.

There are so many ways to go with David Whyte’s idea. What are the essential conversations that we need to have, both personally and collectively? There is one I want to briefly have here. I have spent most of my adult life profoundly dismayed at our culture’s relationship to the earth and to the environment. Collectively, we seem to fail to recognize the interdependence between nature and ourselves. The depth of this fundamental truth is apparently beyond the current capacity of our collective consciousness. Using David Whyte’s perspective as a lens, a long time ago during an essential conversation with reality, human consciousness created story that the earth was created for us to have dominion over. At least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, this creation of reality even gets expression in the Bible. In other words, it is a very old conversation.

The often unconscious assumption that the earth is here for our consumption, that it is here to satiate our needs, is so entrenched in our collective psyche that an environmental movement cannot succeed if it leads with morality and political correctness. You cannot successfully shame an ancient conversation that formed the reality in which human beings live on this planet. A moral appeal comes too late to the conversation and thus does not reach deeply enough into our psyche.

What would it look like if we had the courage to once again have the reality-forming conversation about our relationship to the earth? Could I sit in the dirt with an oil-drilling executive and stay quiet? Could I let go of trying to convince him of my perspective? Could we find the beginning again? Could we touch the dirt and reforge our reality? Remember no self survives an essential conversation of reality and remains intact. Are both of us ready to transform?

Obviously, I am not just talking about the environment. I am musing about how to heal a great split in our collective psyche. We must forge a connection between us that precedes our differing beliefs. We must sit quietly in the dirt.

As If Simple Images Don’t Tell Us Everything

As if sad stories aren’t hopeful. As if simple images don’t tell us everything. Above is a photograph taken today in Long Lake, MN on February 16. A fragile little sapling shielded by a dead leaf from season’s past. Out of place green strong enough to melt the surrounding crystallized snow….but only with help. The early, early coming of spring.

This has been an arduous beginning to 2017. I have been slowly and methodically recovering from a septic infection. I spent most of six weeks on a version of bed rest and am just now re-entering full days…barely and preferably with a short nap. The sensation of time slows down when one is healing; and yet somehow, the days pass quickly. Being expansive with non-busy time is both an art and a discipline. I have been listening to my favorite episodes of On Being with Krista Tippett. On one show, the famous poet/philosopher David Whyte says sympathetically, “This is another delusion we have – that we can take a sincere path in life without getting our heart broken.

The honest, almost optimistic, truth of this line came with me to my weekly yoga class. It was my sons’ birthday. Near the end of class, I thanked my sons – Paul for being the object of my undaunted affection for seventeen years and William who died at thirty-four weeks in utero for showing me how to love through unthinkable heartbreak. The birth of my two sons at thirty-seven and a half weeks – one living, one dead – was the waking moment of my life’s purpose. One month later I started writing my book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence and two months after that I formed my non-profit Mind Body Solutions. Life and death traveling beautifully through the same belly drove me to share my story and help others.

When we lost William, my now ex-wife Jennifer and I (but mostly Jennifer) planted a loosely Asian-styled garden in memorial to him. Stillborn children leave a strange imprint of loss. We watched a seemingly healthy son grow in Jennifer’s belly through multiple ultrasounds. (We had a lot of ultrasounds because our twin pregnancy was considered high risk.) We named him at twelve weeks and even gave him a nickname of Sweet William because he seemed a gentler presence than Paul in Jennifer’s belly. But then to not have him make it to the ‘outer’ world, to never touch his living body directly makes him a mystery, a raw encounter with love’s transcendence. He never leaves me because he was never ‘here.’

So here I am now, entering once again the stream of a busy life. The fearful snow of serious illness is melting away and my innocence is rekindling. I feel fragile and hopeful and a little anxious. Then comes this image of the sapling and the shielding leaf, a reminder of my sons, and the waking of my life’s purpose. Of course they are growing William’s garden, as he is whispering directly into my secret ear. He tells me that I am not alone, that both my sons walk with me on my path, that both my sons are teaching my heart to love.

As if sad stories are not hopeful and simple images don’t tell us everything…

More Faces of Humanity: Looking Each Other in the Eyes

There are quiet, subtle spaces where people living with disabilities are marginalized. This is not usually done intentionally, but sometimes occurs when people mean to say something empowering.

This weekend I was at my son’s hockey tournament. The arena had a pretty good option for both people standing and people in wheelchairs. In one of the corners, there was a built-up concrete platform behind the plexi-glass. This meant I could sit in an elevated position without my view being impeded by the boards. The game was about to begin and the Orono team did what they do every game: they skated into the corner, jumped into the boards and each other, made a big pile of young, excited bodies, and did the Orono Spartan chant. With this arena set-up, the players seemingly skated right at me and the two other parents standing next to me and crashed into the boards. It was strangely intimate because their screaming monkey pile was only a few inches away from us through clear glass. I turned and wheeled away. This was a sacred team moment and they did not need a parent staring directly into their mass of humanity. The brief moment passed and the hockey game began.

Later between periods, I was talking to one of the other hockey parents Amy in the hallway. Suddenly, a man interrupted our conversation space and said with a big, affected smile, “Were they doing that for you?” I was at a loss and he saw my incomprehension. He continued, “You know…when they jumped into the boards right in front of you and cheered.” Suddenly it dawned on both Amy and me. He imagined that I am the Orono team’s inspirational mascot, not simply a parent. I realized his set of many-layered assumptions and gently responded, “No, actually they do that every game. They were just being who they are.” There was a slightly awkward pause but kindness carried the day and he walked off. Amy and I are friends but we have not shared any such encounters. I said to her with a smile, “Do you get what just happened?” She burst out with incredulous laugher and said, “Does that happen to you often?” I simply nodded and chuckled with her. She gained a glimpse into the absurdity and subtle marginalization of my every day life. This gave our friendship a deepening moment.

The next day I was sitting in the same spot, next to a parent from the opposing team. We had seen each other a couple of times throughout the weekend. After a whistle and stoppage of play, he turned and asked with a look of admiration, “Do you come to a lot of games here?” Again, I was momentarily befuddled. Then it dawned on me. He was assuming that I was a guy in a wheelchair that just liked attending hockey games…that somehow I came with the rink. It didn’t register that I might be a parent of a hockey player just like him. After a slight pause, I gently replied, “No, I am just here watching my son play. He plays for Orono.” I watched the confused look move across his face. I stayed open and friendly so as to protect him from his gaffe. A minor conversation ensued.

Both these marginalizing faces of humanity came out of kindness, a heartfelt, albeit preconceived attempt to make connection with someone (me) who they perceived as ‘different.’ Although I accept such encounters and can even chuckle at them, they still me pull on a tender spot. They make me feel ‘other,’ and push me to the margin. People feel sorry for someone living with a disability. The ‘otherness’ projected at me is mixed with sympathy and a desire to empower. But now imagine ‘otherness’ that is not meant with relatively harmless but misguided good intentions. Imagine instead being a person of color or an immigrant obviously connected to another culture. Imagine this projected ‘otherness’ is mixed with distain or threat or fear and a projection that you don’t belong here. Imagine absorbing this every single day.

I can tell you that, even in my case, such encounters don’t feel good. Especially now, our work is clear. We are living under leadership that intends to marginalize big segments of our population. I suggest we start looking each other in the eyes.

Wisdom from Africa To My Hospital Bed

Photo credit: Jen Eudy

I was in the hospital last week with a septic infection. This means that bacteria jumped to my bloodstream and the doctors pounded me with high-powered IV antibiotics in an attempt to protect my life. Sepsis is a slippery slope where patients can, in a matter of hours, fall into a coma and die. I caught my infection relatively early so I was really sick but never in an acute battle for my life. Still, with every fever spike, the threat was in the faces of my caregivers. This unsaid tension was present for all of us to drink. In this severe place, a clarifying and insightful vigilance took hold in my mind. I was aware of the smallest fluctuations in my bodily state, but also of beauty and hope and purpose. I would swing from the powerlessness of watching my rising high blood pressure, pulse rate, and body temperature to weeping in the next hour while listening to David Bowie deep, haunting voice sing a line from his song, Sound and Vision, “Don’t you wonder sometimes about sound and vision.” I was popping with the expressions of both fear and gratitude.

I had great nursing care while at Methodist hospital, including Shannon, Angie, Caitlin, David, and Timeus. There was also a nurse named Walter. He was from Kenya, having moved to the US after high school. Now in his mid-thirties, Walter was quiet, strong, hardworking, a husband, and father of two. He spoke with an accent and a sparkle in his eyes that was clearly not from this country. I was lucky to get him talking during his double shift with me. Once fully heard and truly acknowledged, Walter lit up with stories.

I asked a standard question and received an unexpected response: What do you miss most about where you’re from? Walter’s eyebrow rose as well as his eyes as his gaze met mine. Now for the first time, two humans beings were truly making contact. He said, “Really?” I nodded. Then with a smile and a laugh, he said, “Okay, let me think about it,” and he left the room. He came back a couple hours later and said something like, “Don’t take this the wrong way but…this is a country of opportunity and I love it here, but this is not a country of freedom.” As he said this, he looked away from the IV tubing and saw the quizzical look on my face. He continued, “It has taken me years to figure this out, but what I really miss is the feeling I have when I land back in Kenya. When I step off that plane, I feel freedom. I do not feel that freedom here.” Clearly, the puzzled look remained on my face. He laughed again. “You have so many rules here, both visible and invisible…who you can talk to and who you can’t. Everyone is so distant here, so occupied. And everything is monetized. Everything costs. I have to pay for more things here than I ever could have imagined.” He looked away and said, “What I truly miss is a simpler life.” And yet Walter said he would never want to move back to Kenya.

There are so many unspoken, invisible, intangible rules, nuances, and labels that constrain our lives. Later in the evening, Walter rhetorically asked me, “How can a number tell you who I am?” He was referring to a credit score.

In the clarity of sepsis, I thought about the sensation of freedom. Here I was sitting in a hospital bed with the protection of my own life seemingly out of my control. I stared at the plastic IV bags, the bruises on my arms from failed blood draws. I felt the cold saline solution entering my veins. I looked at the call button and the control panel that raised and lower my bed in a myriad of directions. I felt my heart racing from the sepsis and the fever coursing through my body. Underneath all this, I started to feel an ease, a lightness, an ambiguous mixture of possibility and hope. I remembered like falling into bed that I preceded it all….me, my hum, my boundary…me. I imagined Walter stepping off that plane into the African sunlight.

A Reminder for the New Year

A hug from the British comedy DEREK.

I heard a fantastic line this week, so simple but so true. I’ve started watching the British series called Derek on Netflix. Written, directed, and starred in by Ricky Gervais, the show is hard to describe. Gervais plays a probably autistic, sweet, caring man that works/lives in an elderly group home, but he is only 50. I guess I would call the show a comedy and a poignant drama. The episodes are only 25 minutes long and are done as a reality tv/documentary…sort of.

The main character Derek is phenomenally acted and the portrayal of the group home and its residents feel so realistic that I find myself wondering if the elderly people are not really actors, but playing themselves. The characters are a combination of so sweet and so weird and sometimes so disturbing that Gervais has created an incredibly eclectic context to pass on strange and haunting truths to the audience. We are all aging and our ending years may not be graceful and full of glitter, but I hope we all can be cared for in such a wonderful mess of people caring for each other.

In the pilot episode, one of the residents dies. She is Derek’s favorite and he is beset with grief. Derek has a simple and incredibly kind heart. There is a remarkable scene where he is talking about Joan and why she meant so much to him. He looks directly into the camera while holding a scrunched up tissue to dry in wet eyes and says something like, “Joan would always tell me that kindness was magic….it was more important to be kind than clever or good-looking…I know I am neither of those, so….” He bows his head and looks off into empty space.

Kindness is magic…what a simple and profound piece of wisdom. Think of what kindness does. What it creates. The little pockets of beauty that it passes between living things. Try adding true kindness into a difficult situation and watch the world change its shape for the better. Kindness can charm any problem. It truly is a most powerful form of magic. Unfortunately, kindness is also a word we use so often; and quite frankly we practice enough so that we don’t feel its magic as deeply. This is a great loss.

Kindness is magic is my favorite line for the year. It has been a strange and unsettling year, especially in this country. It is easy to feel powerless, disillusioned. Quite frankly, I’ve been worried about the direction we’re heading for many years. That is why I do the things I do. There is so much that I cannot control. There is so much to worry about, especially when I think about the world we are handing off to our children…and even worse what our children’s children will inherit.

But kindness is magic strikes me as so hopeful. I can do this magic in the coming years. Maybe not every single day, but I can do more….a lot more. I can listen more. Touch more. Feel more. Give more hugs. Help people become whatever they are becoming. And most of all, I can feel it when I’m doing it. I don’t mean that I can feel good about being kind. I mean that I can share kindness and know that I am participating in the greatest magic that human beings have ever created.

Happy New Year!

Beyond Morality: Conversations About Compassion

Picture taken during my in-studio radio interview with Krista Tippett.

In your life, every once in a while, you get the inkling that something important is happening, something that will change you. You don’t know exactly what or exactly how, but you are no longer the same. There are no bells, no whistles, no drama in your reaction, but rather a feeling that is somewhere between an ache and a tickle.

This was how I felt upon leaving my in-studio, radio interview with Krista Tippett almost 10 years ago in the summer of 2007. (See photo.) My book Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence had come out the previous year. Krista’s show was then called Speaking of Faith. I often tell people that this interview was the best one I have ever given. Krista is that good at interviewing. (Here is the link: http://www.onbeing.org/program/matthew-sanford-the-bodys-grace/185 )

At the time, I had no idea that this interview would be the single most important launching of my work into the world. They have played it countless times over the years. The interview was also important for the arc of Krista’s life. Our interview inspired her to start a serious yoga practice. This change in her personal life led to the changing of her show from Speaking of Faith to its current name On Being. Krista and I have also becomes friends over the years. I feel very fortunate.

There was a moment during the interview where Krista asked me about a quote from my book, “I have never seen anyone become more aware of his or her body without also becoming more compassionate.” I remember struggling a little to respond but knowing in-my-bones that this observation was a cornerstone of my life’s work and that of my non-profit Mind Body Solutions. I have spent the years since working to communicate and teach what I meant by that line. I have developed an approach to teaching yoga that can reach anybody regardless of his or her level of trauma, loss, or disability. I have also developed breakthrough training to help healthcare professionals deal with medical burnout and compassion fatigue.

This is all coming full circle on Tuesday, December 13 in an event hosted at Saint Catherine University, beginning at 7 pm.. It is the 3rd annual Mind Body Dialogues, a program created by my non-profit. Krista and I will be interviewed by Cathy Wurzer, the host of MN Public Radio’s Morning Edition. The topic will be “Embodied Compassion.” The evening’s festivities will air in the New Year both on MPR and on Twin Cities Public Television (TPT).

We are living in a time of great mistrust and disillusionment. Never has our country felt more divided or more fractured in my generation. Never has compassion felt more needed. We cannot let our different beliefs divide us at the deepest levels of our humanity. Compassion is not a moral insight. It is a graceful, deeply felt sensation that connects us to each other and the world around us. I hope you will listen in, watch it on TV, or come join us in person.

Beliefs as Fences

Beliefs don’t bring unity. They bring conflict. This is especially true of beliefs based on values or morality. Our human history is littered with examples. One group comes to a belief (or system of beliefs) and imposes it on another group. Pick any religious, cultural, or power-driven conflict – they almost always boil down to a conflict of beliefs. On a personal level, ask yourself honestly, how many times has someone changed one of your personal beliefs? How many times have you changed someone else’s? A disagreement of entrenched beliefs creates a standstill and violence becomes the easiest option to move things forward.

Beliefs are typically not open-ended. They are fences placed into the ground, differentiating one person from another, one group from another. They are claims within an invisible territory, a way to offset the immensity of the inward and outward expanse in which we all live. They organize our experience so we can function.

There is insight here for our country in this post-2016 election reality. How deeply we are willing to learn from this election will define the future of this country and perhaps even for other parts of the world as well. This is now the time to be as truthful and honest and open as humanly possible. We owe each other that. There is a great schism within our country and we need to get serious about it. We are injured, limping; and most of all, mistrustful.

So how do I move forward? Do I plant a fencepost and vocalize my particular beliefs? For example, I cannot believe that so many people seemingly do not appreciate the importance of the earth, our environment, and our climate. We are destroying the very hand that feeds us…and we keep doing it in unnecessary ways. So do I speak louder so my beliefs are heard better? Do I organize and rally against the ‘happenings’ that I do not agree with? I think not.

I wrote in my last blog that, when the strongest people stand, they do not stand in opposition. Instead, they stand for larger, more fundamental truths. In our current context, what are those truths? Connection is one. We have to find ways to connect with each other in a manner that precedes our particular beliefs and values. We need to remember what we all share. Remember that sharing is very different than agreement. We may be very far from agreement about a number of issues, but we all share fear and uncertainty about the future. We share the need to love and be loved. We all share a level of humanity that connects us. How do we foster these fundamental connections when so much divides us?

I have to admit that I find our choice of President to be incomprehensible. I literally cannot make sense of what so many of my fellow citizens were thinking. Going forward, this is an important fact about me, not necessarily about my peers. I have been lost in the level of beliefs and values. I forgot to see the faces and the hearts of the people who do not agree with me. They all have stories. They all have wants and needs and this is what led them to make the choice they did. I will do better if I open to their stories and not just disagree with their choice. I have work to do.

I am a teacher of mind-body truths and how they connect us. I work to show people how to access the level of their mind-body relationship that precedes physical disability and pain, that precedes trauma and loss, and that precedes an impossibly busy workplace. I show people how to feel more connected both to themselves, to other people, and to the world around them. I do this because we are better when we are more connected, when the humanity between us fosters caring, not judgment.

I was teaching last weekend in Kansas City. I had the students sitting on the floor, back-to-back, supporting each other without making eye contact. I wanted them to feel the sensation of being supported while supporting another person at the same time…giving and receiving simultaneously….from body to mind. I said out loud, “Imagine if opposing party members in Congress had to sit quietly back-to-back each day before they started politicking with our future. Imagine if direct human connection preceded policy debate.”

Of course, everyone laughed at what seemed a ridiculous image. But we all ached as we laughed. We have work to do.

Election Wisdom from a Deer

The deer outside my window that made me feel better about the election.

When the strongest people stand, they do not stand in opposition. They stand in congruence with larger truths. They stand to demonstrate the possibility of transcendence within a given situation. This is one of the profound truths revealed by Gandhi.

I felt lost the morning after the election. I would say I even felt scared. This was not the country I thought I lived in. I wanted to jump ship. I was wondering around my house aimlessly, close to wringing my hands. I came through the doorway to my bedroom and was suddenly face-to-face with big deer right outside my window. He looked up from eating and we both startled. There was something amazingly contradictory about this spooked deer – absolutely silent, absolutely still and yet those hind legs were bulging with strength and power, ready to leap and bound in an instant. We continued to stare motionlessly at each other for a few moments. Then he simply put his head down and started eating again – he assessed the potential threat and then returned to matters at hand.

I sat there for quite a while. For the deer, the world was exactly the same as it was before Election Day. Nothing had changed. Fall was ending; the winter dearth was coming, but his food source would reappear in the spring. In short, the work of being a deer was still the work of being a deer. I felt a rush of relief fill my body. Things were going to be okay. The world was the same as it always was. Human beings have darker reactions to difficult times and they have lighter ones. This was part of the ebb and flow of human consciousness.

I have dedicated my life to helping myself and other people heal. This is the work I do. I will not leap away like a spooked deer because of what has happened. I will not hold distain either. This is the country I live in and these are my seasons. I need to set back to work.

As a healer, if I am really honest, this election shows me that the American psyche is deeply injured. I mean more than the amazing fact that we are seemingly divided straight down the middle between two political parties. We (and I mean ‘we’) ultimately voted for an underlying vision of fear, blame, aggression, and a nostalgic view of past American greatness. This is not who we are or who we want to be. But it means that we are scared. There is so much change in this global economy. There is so much change in our social institutions. And there is an ever-widening gap between the “Haves” and the “Have Nots.” Many of us want a simple solution and go back to the way things were. Of course, this is not possible.

On top of that, no one being honest can deny that our two main political parties are deeply flawed, even corrupt. The result is that we get leaders that don’t lead, but rather are obsessed with winning and maintaining power. There is ample reason to be cynical about our current political system. I understand the impulse to vote for a darker, more reactionary vision for moving forward. I’m too am disgusted and feel disempowered.

So I stand but not in opposition. I do not stand in opposition to those friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens that voted for Trump. In fact, I have to share in the underlying suffering that led them to make such a choice. If I do, then the collective healing can begin. If there is one thing I know about healing, it’s that healing does not occur through fear and blaming. If we fall to this path, we will lose not just the country we love but also our humanity too. I refuse to do that. So I step toward my neighbor and not away.

It’s time to get serious. Our political leaders will duke it out the way their inbreeded sickness demands. But in day-to-day life, we need to get serious about some basic things: love, laughter, compassion, and community. We need to do this across what divides us and on the grounds of our daily lives. We cannot wait for leadership in Washington D.C. We need to share and live the humanity that we all have within us. This is the larger truth for which we stand. It transcends politics. We must not lose our country to a collective psychic injury. We must find each other and our humanity in the touches of everyday life.

All this I learned from a deer returning to his work at hand.

Good Stories Matter: More Faces of Humanity

The new gateless gate at Orono Stadium

When I was a teen, my mom gave me some very wise advice: When in a conflict or disagreement or power-struggle, always leave your adversary a graceful way out, always let them leave with dignity. I cannot tell you how often this advice has proven invaluable.

I wish I could claim such was my intent when I wrote of my impaled wheelchair in my last blog. It was not. I was not trying to bring about change at the Orono Stadium. I was not thinking of the Orono school administration as the adversary. Instead, I was just telling a funny and beautiful story about the caring “faces” of humanity that I encountered. I was especially telling this sweet and absurd story on the heels of my previous blog about not being helped to pee on a transatlantic airline flight. I wanted to write a true story about encountering the good in people.

Imagine my surprise when my phone rang just days after posting about my impaled wheelchair. My caller ID said, “Orono Schools.” As a parent of a school-aged kid, there is always a sinking feeling when ‘the school’ calls in the middle of the day. To my relief, the call was from the director of facilities. Someone had forwarded him the picture from my blog and he thought, “Boy, that stadium in the background looks familiar.” He clicked on the link and read my story….much to his horror. He was calling to apologize and did so gracefully and vociferously. He was also calling to inform me of his solution. He removed the fencing from “the wider, more utilitarian” locked gate. It took less than ten minutes. He told me I should have not problem attending the section finals the following night. (See picture above). We had a wonderful conversation, both hopeful and apologetic.

I was surprisingly tickled by the result. I did not set out to shame Orono facilities management. I did not tell my story to point out an injustice. I wrote that story because of the touching humanity that ensued when a simple injustice was encountered and solved by caring faces of humanity.

I believe in the power of story. We need good stories, not just painful ones, to help us change. As I listened to this man’s heartfelt apology and his immediate solution, I felt proud to be my mother’s son.

The Invisible Fringe: More Faces of Humanity

A re-enactment photo of the impalement with the help of my son Paul.

Some images you just can’t get out of your head. I am rushing to my son’s soccer game. He is playing for the two remaining spots on his high school varsity team and I am running late from leading a teacher training. I finally pull into a parking spot and my ramp jams coming out of my van. Three troubleshooting steps later, my wheels finally hit pavement. I feel really late.

I quickly roll the two-blocks to the stadium only to find the wire fence is locked. For people that can walk, there is a very narrow opening – much narrower than my wheelchair – into the stadium. In addition to that, there is another piece of square fencing, about two feet in front of the opening that creates an even narrower aisle. (See photo below) This forces pedestrians to step down the aisle and turn ninety degrees abruptly in order to pass through the doorway. Apparently the designers of this fencing really didn’t want bicycles to enter....or wheelchairs for that matter.

Of course, I am frustrated and disheartened. Someone has forgotten to unlock the wider, more utilitarian gate. I can see the game being played off in the distance from about two hundred yards. I try calling the Orono Athletic office but to no avail as it is after 5:00 p.m. I sit there quietly, contemplating whether it is worth staying regardless of my bad view. I really want to share this game with my son.

A mom of one of the players walks up. She processes the implications of the intentional barricade and the locked wider gate. She looks me in the eyes and whispers, “This sucks.” I nod. We share a silent moment of outrage. “I’ll try to find a key,” she says and hurries away.

A soccer dad walks up. He too processes the information in front of us. He lingers, not knowing what to say or do. Suddenly two men emerge from inside the stadium. It is the captain of different Orono soccer team and his father. The father says, “We can carry you through this gate.” My eyebrows rise. “My wheelchair can’t fit through the doorway,” I say. “But your body can,” the dad retorts “and we can lift your wheelchair up over the wire fence and then sit you back in it on the other side. See, problem solved.” I look up at the wire fence – about 7 feet tall – and think, “Oh my goodness.” I start to smile.

I am encountering the very best of humanity. The mom is trying to right the injustice her way. The men are ramming their wills right through the absurd barrier. They know how much I want to see my son play and they feel the unfairness of the barricade. How can I say no? The moment is beautiful.

The scene becomes comedic. The first dad and the soccer captain each grab an arm and a leg and turn me sideways. The aisle is so narrow that the distance between my back and my knee is almost too wide. But I am a yogi. I make myself really small so we can fit and make it through both the aisle and the doorway. I enter the stadium in the arms of two good-hearted men. But now the next problem….the wheelchair. The other dad snaps into action. He hoists my wheelchair up and starts it over the fence. Now there are multiple problems. The fence is high and he is barely tall enough get the wheelchair onto the top of it. Suddenly, all four of us realize the biggest problem. We need a fourth guy. As the second dad is holding my chair tenuously on the top of the fence, we need another guy on the other side to grab it and lift it down. A flurry of brainstorming ensues. We rule out dropping the chair and letting it crash to the ground. Seven feet is a long way and my wheelchair costs over six thousand dollars. The two men that are continuing to hold me up in the air are beginning to falter…I am not a light load. In a feat of deft ingenuity, the second dad wedges my wheelchair on the top of the fence so it stays on its own.

This is a quintessential moment of absurdity, comedy, and beauty. This is the image that I cannot get out of my head – my wheelchair impaled on the top of a wire fence. It is the perfect image for our troubleshooting humanity in the face of an ridiculous barrier.

The second dad scoots through the opening and grabs the wheelchair before it falls. All together, we get me back into my wheelchair. We all pause to regain our composure as well as our breaths. We might even feel a little proud…male stubbornness and brawn has solved the problem…I am in the stadium. At that precise moment, the mom comes running with the key. All of us share a round of laughter. Quite frankly, we are relieved we do not have to reverse the process. Thanks to the mom, there is an easier way out.

As my champions walk away, I call out after them, “You’ve done a kind thing today…thank you.” I turn and watch my son play. I feel grateful for people.

Living on the Invisible Fringe: Two Faces of Humanity

A painting by Patrick Sean Kelley entitled “Two Faces of One Day.”

As a paralyzed person who gets around in a wheelchair, I live on the invisible fringe of our society. Sometimes I forget this. Right now, I am flying over the Atlantic Ocean and thinking about two encounters that have served as reminders of my position. I am returning from six days of teaching yoga in London. I taught a three-day yoga teacher training on trauma, PTSD, its effect on subtle body, and how yoga can help people heal. I also taught three days on yoga and the sensation of unity.

After the second night of teaching, I am waiting outside of Triyoga in Camden. My taxi is late. As a person in a wheelchair, I am not a desirable pick-up, especially because the ride is not a great distance. My friend Jonathan is calling and recalling the cab company, trying to hurry them along. At one point, I am sitting alone, on a corner of an alley, waiting quietly. I suppose I might have been a slightly odd site: a guy sitting alone in a wheelchair, facing outward, gazing nowhere in particular, in the relative dark.

A car pulls up and parks a little distance away. A family gets out and walks past me on the deserted street. The driver is lagging behind but starts walking a line coming straight at me. It feels a little strange, but I figure he is a family man. He walks by; we make eye contact; everything seems fine. He looks of eastern European descent, maybe Albanian. Then he stops, pivots, and starts to walk back toward me. I go on alert, not scared, but only alert because his steps feel gentle. We make eye contact as he approaches. He reaches out his hand and offers me money. Surprised, it takes me a moment to realize what is happening. After a slight pause, I tell him, “No, I’m good…thanks.” He shrugs his shoulders, turns, and says, “Okay,” and starts to walk off. I smile with disbelief. This is the first time in the thirty-seven years I have been injured that I have been confused with someone who is down and out. The man takes a few steps away, stops, turns, and says through a thick accent, “You sure?”

However misplaced, I am encountering a tender point in this man’s conception of humanity. He sees the scene in front of him; he interprets; he feels; and he decides to act in the moment by offering money. Perhaps he has a disabled relative. Perhaps he knows from experience how hard it is to navigate London in a wheelchair. Perhaps he just feels sympathy for what he does not know. Anyway, I am not offended. With receptive kindness in my voice, I reiterate, “No, I’m good…really.” When Jonathan returns, I ask him, “Do I look like a panhandler?” I motion to my kaki pants and red rain jacket and say, “Am I missing something here?” We have quite a laugh. It also made for a great story the next day for the people I was teaching.

My other encounter happens when I board my nine-hour Delta flight back to Minneapolis. I am put on the plane first as I need to transfer to an aisle chair and then be helped by two attendants to navigate the impossibly narrow aisle. In the quiet before the storm of general boarding, I tell the Minneapolis-based flight attendant that I will need some help during the flight. I cannot get to the bathrooms, and even if I could, they are so small that they make transferring into them impossible. I tell her that mid-way through the flight, I will catheterize my bladder in my seat. The urine will go into a bottle and could she empty it for me? I tell her that I will be discrete and it will be simple. I say this with confidence as I have gone back and forth to London six times and never had a problem. She gives me a vague nod and leaves.

So starts the show. Soon another flight attendant solemnly sits next to me and asks me about my request. She informs me impassively that she will comply with what I need. Her wife recently had a hysterectomy and had to use an indwelling catheter so she understands what I ask. But she also tells me that my request is beyond the scope of a flight attendant’s job. They are required to help me gain access only to the door of the bathroom by using an in-flight aisle chair. (This scenario would take a lot of effort for everyone involved.) If I need anything beyond that, it is my responsibility and I should be traveling with a companion. On an exhale she says, “But I will help.” She leaves.

Then the gate agent comes. He too asks me about my request. He needs to confirm that I am asking for something I cannot do. I tell him that all I am requesting is that someone walk down the aisle of an inaccessible plane, into an inaccessible bathroom, and empty a bottle of warm liquid into the toilet….there will be no mess. He shrugs helplessly. He is caught between a rock and a hard place. He sees the simple nature of my request, but he is not a flight attendant on the plane and cannot be the one who actually helps me. With a grave expression on his face, he says, “I will have to call headquarters.” I can tell that Delta is considering not letting me stay on the flight.

The gate agent returns. He has a look of relief on his face. He tells me that he has found a flight attendant that has agreed to take the tenuous journey down the aisle with the completely contained toxic liquid. He looks a little sad and informs me that Delta is only required to get me to the bathroom door. Beyond that, I would normally need to buy a companion ticket (about $1500). Today, however, they will help. I ask him about the other eleven Delta flights I have taken and been helped without question. He looks down and ashamedly says, “This is a different crew.” He leaves.

Again, for the second time in a week, I sit in disbelief. This time I am not laughing. I am hurt. I have been pushed to the invisible fringe. At first, I am angry. I consider not teaching people in Europe anymore. Then I try to understand. I get why the rule is the rule. Where would Delta draw the line? My request is relatively simple. But what if someone else had a colostomy bag or needed a flight attendant to give an injection. They have to draw the institutional line somewhere. Their rule must cover all cases. My situation is subject to the humanity of individual flights attendants. I feel humiliated.

I am strong, able, and willing to deal with this society while living on the invisible fringe. This is not the case for many people living with disabilities. It hurts to be pushed to the fringe. So they don’t fly, let alone across the Atlantic. I may be tough but today’s encounter leaves me deflated. I definitely feel the “outsider”….the one who not only doesn’t belong and but also isn’t completely wanted.

I end up solving my own problem. I have a bottle of water in my backpack that has a lid. I will ask the flight attendant to empty the acceptable fluid. My plan is to cath myself in my seat, into this bottle, put a lid on it, and carry my own water off this plane. I will grit my teeth and ask for no help. We all lose.

Singing “Dream Weaver” by Gary Wright

Very early the other morning, I was sleeping and dreaming. You know those just-before-you-wake-up dreams that are haunting and poignant at the same time. I often dream crazy just before I wake.

In this dream, I was teaching a workshop on pranayama (the yogic art of breathing) at a yoga conference, but I didn’t know where. It was dark and there were very few people attending and no faces that I recognized. My particular class had only two students. Both were flaky and wanting to play the role of esoteric yogis who claim to know a lot about intricate and complicated breathing techniques. One guy was wearing a turban. I remember thinking that both of them were weird and that their extreme breathing practices were possibly making them extra bizarre.

I started teaching and presenting my motivations for practicing pranayama. I was explaining how my motives were not breath control or the effects on my nervous system, but rather the exploration of direct unity with both the ‘space’ around my body and with the universe at large. I remember feeling impressed with what I was saying, like a chord being struck perfectly on a musical instrument. You know, that confidence that can only come in a dream state because you are only aware of the feeling and not the actual words you are saying. Of course, I abruptly woke when I started feeling too confident.

As I opened my eyes to wakefulness, I remained still, trying the savor the feeling of this dream-driven sensation of unity. Then, out of nowhere, I started singing the refrain from the song Dream Weaver by Gary Wright. At that precise moment, my alarm music turned on: it was Dream Weaver by Gary Wright. I was singing exactly in sync. I lay there and smiled.

So what happened? Was it pure coincidence that I was singing the exact lines from the song as they came on? Or was it rather a stunning occurrence of transcendent unity, an example of directly touching an unknown part of the present moment. Or did the song come on a fraction of a second before it was consciously audible and my subconscious brain instantaneously turned it into my singing? How would I prove anything either way? Does it matter?

I know the scientific method would want me to repeat the phenomenon to determine if I wanted to claim such instantaneous unity with my surroundings as an ability. As I write this, I am supremely confident that I will never again experience something so perfectly and impossibly in sync. Does that mean my experience is not a ‘real’ example of the sensation of unity? It’s so funny that science follows only what’s repeatable as the measure of what is meaningfully real. But so much of our lives is unrepeatable, including the particular event that is you and your particular lifetime. The irony inherent to science is staggering.

I do not claim that I have some remarkable prescient ability. Or that my sense of unity can move backwards and forward in time. I can just let the experience make me smile and know that the Universe is a wonderful place.

Your Canoe Awaits

Photo credit: Sparky Stensaas/ thephotonaturalist.com

I never knew my father very well. He was killed in the car accident that rendered me a paraplegic when I was thirteen. I knew him as a child knows a parent, a wildly incomplete picture at best. I was lucky because, as the youngest, I got to spend more time with him than my two older siblings. He had passed the ‘test’ of financial success and was beginning to realize that he didn’t need to work 70 hours a week. This translated into more catch in the backyard, more hoops in the driveway, and attendance at most of my athletic events. Still, I didn’t really know him.

He loved to canoe. He especially loved canoeing trips in the B.W.C.A. (Boundary Waters Canoe Area) in northern Minnesota. When I was physically strong enough to carry a pack and paddle (around 8 years old), my dad starting taking the whole family on canoeing trips. Each successive year, he wanted to go for longer and longer periods of time. Once up there, he would tease that we were staying an extra week. He was very convincing. He loved riling us three kids up. My mom would bite her lip and smile. As kids, we had important lives you know…baseball games, friends to see, our bedrooms to stare at…you know, important things. We always came home from these trips as originally scheduled. My dad would finally acquiesce but he would be sullen, his feelings a little hurt, and I never understood why. Such were the places in him I never fully knew.

My father died when he was forty-seven. As I write this, I am fifty. Somehow, I have seen more life than he did. I know why he teased us. It was about him, not us. He grew up as a son in a poor, farming family. He went to college, then law school, then landed his first and only legal job at 24. My sister was born when he was 26. On those trips into the outdoors, he wanted to escape. The American dream of a middle-classed life had found its hollow point. My dad’s spirit wanted a different adventure, one that was more akin to the boy in him who loved being outside and who was not afraid of hard work. One thing about a canoeing trip in the B.W.C.A. is that everything is earned – the maps, the compass, the paddling, the portaging, the packs, the pitching of the tent, the gathering of firewood, the boiling of water, and the making of dehydrated food.

Do you know the feeling of carrying your pack over a portage, of repacking the canoe, and then launching it? There is a quintessential moment. The canoe packed, the carefully getting in, and the pushing off of shore. There is a sound of aluminum vessel beginning to cut and glide through water, the sound of wooden paddle entering the blackness, and the sound of water drops falling from paddle back into lake as it moves for the next stroke. In this moment, you are an explorer, starting a new adventure, moving from land into an unknown expanse, with only your wit and the strength in your own body as your guides.

I was sitting by water the other day, thinking of my dad as it was recently his birthday. I was remembering the sensation of him launching our canoe onto the next lake and toward the next campsite. I know now that this was his best escape while living, while being responsible for the family he loved. I lament not being able to be a true companion. I could do it now though. I know what he was trying to escape. I know the feeling of his spirit yearning for something different, something quieter, and something simpler – the sound of wood paddle pushing through pristine lake. I could look him in the eyes and nod. I could revel with him in the sound of expansive freedom surrounding us. I could smile and say, “Where to next dad…I am right here.” We would paddle off quietly without words. I might even stay that extra week.

A Lost Garden and a Lost Son

Where the garden was...

A real hard thing happened today and I’ve been flooded with grief. I stayed up very late writing last night. I got up early because my sixteen-year-old son Paul had soccer practice. Paul had his buddy Jackson spend the night. This morning they were like little boy zombies.

The landscape/gardening people arrived and started working as I went back to bed and the boys limped out to the car. I live in a virtual jungle of Minnesota summer vegetation. It’s amazing how quickly my lot gets overgrown. On a monthly basis, my house virtually disappears into the beautifully encroaching green of Mother Nature. The workers came to hack me out.

I tried to re-rack another hour of sleep as the weed-whackers were grinding their way through some of the foliage. Of course they seemed to be right out my bedroom windows the whole time. After an hour, I gave up and fully greeted my day. As I looked out the window, I realized a twenty-something kid had just finished weed-whacking the garden my ex-wife Jennifer had painstaking created in honor of our dead son William.

William died at thirty-four weeks in-utero. I watched the birth of William and Paul at thirty-seven and a half weeks. This experience is described in the closing chapter of my book, Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence. Witnessing their births was the catalyst for my outward work in the world. I started writing Waking the next month and formed my non-profit Mind Body Solutions two months after that.

The only way I knew William while he was alive was through rubbing vitamin E on Jennifer’s pregnant belly. I would try to touch each of my sons and, if I was lucky, I might get one or both of them to move. We started to notice that William didn’t move as much as his brother, so much so that we called him Sweet William. Holding William lifeless in my arms after he was born is the only time I will ever touch him directly. Otherwise, I have only known my firstborn son through loss.

Today that loss was ignited. It’s hard to stay connected to a son that you never got to touch while living. This garden was our symbolic way. Jennifer and I split up six years ago but we are still friends. She lives six blocks away and we still very actively parent together. Unfortunately, I am not a gardener and the garden did not get the attention it deserved. It would get overgrown with the rest of the awesome jungle. To any outward eye, it might appear that William’s garden did not matter. Judging from my tears today, this is not the case.

As human beings, we charm things. We can put ourselves and our magic into and through objects. Those plants were not just growing in that garden, but they also occupied a secret place in the center of Jennifer’s and my heart. Those plants are an outer manifestation of an inner reality, an inner secret….a love that lives only through our sensation of loss.

Today those plants went down and a rupture of emptiness and rawness cascaded through my chest and eyes. We are amazing creatures. The hope is that those plants will grow back next year. There is no way to undo what is done and there is no one to blame…certainly not the blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy who is now wearing sadness on his face. The whole crew will help me rebuild this garden. They can all feel the sadness and loss they unknowingly tripped. We will find the secret heart of what was in that garden and build something new. Jennifer will definitely have her input. Even charmed gardens have a way of keep-on-keeping-on.

When I awoke this morning, I did not expect to feel my son William so profoundly today. I did not expect to realize the depth of the charmed energy that exists between those plants and me. I am grateful on both counts. But today I write to the world a remembrance: I have TWO sons – William and Paul – and they both have changed and continue to change my life. I am better for both of them.

Grace, Age, and a Rock & Roll Band

The band Hippo Campus....photo credit to pressefoto: Peter Jamus

Do you ever hear the lyrics to a song that you really like, only to find out you were wrong about them. I just did this the other day and it made me smile on all sorts of levels, including the common ground between generations.

My son Paul is listening to a lot of alternative music. As a dad, I try to share things with Paul that interests him and not just me. Since I love music, this is an easy intersection. I can happily report that there is still a lot of good music being made. I have become fairly smitten with a particular band from Minneapolis/St. Paul. They are called Hippo Campus. (The hippocampus is part of the brain that plays an integral role in memory, emotion, and the autonomic nervous system.) It’s cool that Hippo Campus is local. What I am sharing with Paul is the fun of watching a local band emerge nationally. Local music is a great way to feel regional pride. Somehow it feels deeper when the music is coming from closer within your periphery. I remember my local bands were Prince, the Suburbs, the Replacements, Trip Shakespeare, and Husker Du.

I love the story of Hippo Campus as much or more than their music. They are very young. They met at the St. Paul Music Conservatory at age 15 and are still younger than 20. I love the idea of kids figuring out how to be rock stars and adults simultaneously. This fact also makes Paul light up with confidence – his generation is already making its mark. Hippo Campus’ music is poppy, light, and feels like summer; but there is also a deeper feeling in it. They’re probably not going to be the next U2, but who knows. Both their music and their youthfulness make me smile.

They have a song called Opportunistic.( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N-kIIIvH4M) It is about going to a party and its aftermath. Some of the lyric highlights are: We just fight to be the ones we hate AND Do me the favor she said…I’d like you to savor the taste of me on your lips….I swear it’s the last that you’ll get. I think you get the picture.

The refrain is where it happened. At first, I heard, “grace in the morning…grace till you die.” At age fifty, I love the idea of grace in the morning. It is a time when feeling grace makes so much sense….that pocket of time before the day unfolds into its busyness and responsibility. Then the hope of grace till you die. I so want to feel and realize the grace of being alive, especially as I approach death. I remember when I first heard the lyrics in my mistaken way. I thought, Wow, this group Hippo Campus is seeing some wisdom at a very early age. It made me happy to be led into a wise sensation by people so much younger.

Of course, the actual lyrics are different. It goes: Grace do you WANT ME…Grace till you die. I laughed out loud at my mistake. It’s a perfect example of generational difference. I want to feel grace in the morning. The band Hippo Campus (the center of memory, emotion, and autonomic body response) is wondering if Grace wants them…if Grace will share the adventure and hope of sexual intimacy. That is a journey that everyone should take, including my son Paul. I love the youthfulness and urgency of their question. I love that I now sit in the morning and the hippocampus part of my brain helps me remember the same youthful question that they are asking. I think I might love this band. And quite frankly, I don’t really see a difference of wisdom between grace in the morning and Grace do you want me. I only feel the graceful passing of time.

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Matthew Sanford