Found Weekend

(I am writing this in a text document, as the internet seems to be unavailable again.)

I am back from my extended visit to Santa Fe. Somehow, heading out, it felt like a mission, a task, a plan. While there, I realized it was a sort of vacation. Not a bad change of mind, there.

It was frustrating to have run out of time in which to visit people, but good to know I have so many good friends in Santa Fe that I cannot visit all of them in 48 hours.

Conversation was good all around. I feel uplifted by the whole experience. I often wonder if I'm not living fully - I felt very full the past few hours.

Back in Albuquerque now, I am very tired today. (I might actually have caught a cold). It's a good tired.

I have of course gained some perspective on things. I am thinking intently on the conversation I had with one friend at the Lucky Bean Cafe - it lasted around 3 hours and could have gone on longer. We touched some very deep issues, as we always do. We talked about the difficulty in being male. It helps to be reminded that being male is something you need to practice at. I think that is because of and not in spite of the fact that we are all, at heart, just people, not male or female or what have you.

But whatever sexual persona you are born with, you are then tasked with responsibilities that others don't have; and you must face them if you want to be fully human.

I realize I don't face my male challenges very well.

The friend, who I'll continue to keep anonymous, says that in an ideal lifetime, a boy is eroticized by the fierce love of his mother and goes out into the world, brimming with the confidence that everything he choses to do is utterly important. At some point he is kidnapped by his father or a father figure and the boy in him is ritually removed from his mother - which is death - and then he is remade a man.

I don't think my Bar Mitzvah was an adequate transition to manhood.

What can I do to address this situation?

I can't go back in time and become a more fiercely-eroticized boy. I do notice the lonely, unsatisfied boy inside me, obsessed with large breasts and wanting to be mothered like so many males in my country, in my generation. Notice is too weak a word for a constant awareness of something I have never quite found a place for. The image of the strong, overpowering mother haunts me and fractures my attempts to have a healthy relationship.

What can I do for this boy? Is there something I need at this stage, or do I just need to get rid of it and move on?

Meanwhile, I am learning to endure pain, to be a fighter. I am taking my small steps, but I am moving somewhere, and I feel I'm just on the cusp of being somewhere new. Early waking, cold showers, 5k runs, push-ups, lack of television - all these things are preparing the way, but only preparing the way.

I need to be more active: more of a volunteer and less of an applicant. I am now, for the first time, truly questioning and trying to understand my need for comfort throughout the day, rather than just accepting it or denying it. I am toying with teh notion of looking at life as a constant pressure cooker and learning that there is no point that is not moving, boiling and at no point am I not responsible to observe and respond. This is a tough one, and it is just as much a part of my Zen training as it is a life design issue.

So that will need to be all of it tonight; I'm going to bed super early (though I will have awoken already by the time I write this) to wake up super early (4:00) and get tons of shit done before the afternoon, when I might be getting back to work on a dugout greenhouse.

Dream well, all. I hope we all wake up wanting more.