April 2, 2005

• The Breaking of Invisible Threads….

  
  

  I left the vet’s office late yesterday afternoon, feeling– as I tend to, after leavetaking with a loved one– a bit like I had been run over by a bus. People don’t talk that much about the impact of pet loss, but many of the same feelings that go with losing a beloved family member or friend also come calling when you lose a four-legged friend.

  
  

  Because it was rush hour, I found myself not wanting to face the freeways, so I took a familiar side street that was once “the road home” to the house where I lived from 1985-96. It felt odd, going that way– the hill by the Lutheran church seemed steeper than I remember, and I almost missed my left turn because the empty plot where scrub juniper and weeds once grew had become a three-story glass office building; the home of some nameless software company.

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  Over the crest of the hill, a left turn, and I found myself on the street where I once spent so much time. I was married, when I moved here. Not necessarily “happily,” but at least tolerably. By the time I left that neighborhood, my then-soon-to-be-ex was already living in another state.

  
  

  “My” house looked familiar, but it didn’t really “pull” at me, as I drove up. I suppose I was waiting for some kind of “memory rush” to hit me, but there really wasn’t much there. It looked like the same house, but some things had changed. A couple of trees I planted as small saplings have turned into 25-foot shade trees. I turned around on the cul-de-sac add headed towards the small park at the top of the street. I used to come here almost every day because the park marked the starting point of my jogging route. It looked no different on this day; the signs and fences still delapidated, the paved path full of potholes– undoubtedly, I could have walked a little further up the path and found the usual complement of empty cans and used condoms, pitched under the bushes.

  
  

  I got out of the car and threw away the soiled pillowcase that had been at the bottom of the dog carrier– and as I looked around, the late afternoon sun briefly reminded me of Thanksgiving afternoons of days past; of walking here to escape the emotional chaos brought by my in-laws and family. I realized that there was nothing for me there, anymore.

  
  

  I got back in the car and drove on, loosely following the route that used to take me to work. Past the condo I almost bought; now turned into apartments. A little further down, past the house where that girl… Julie? Amanda? had a family of raccoons living practically in a wading pool in her back yard. Further up the hill, to the 4-way stop, and across to the 300-yard stretch of road we used to joke about as having the worst surface of any city street in North America, year after year. I guess the City of Austin finally got enough money to fix it. The deli where I used to buy Austin’s best bagels long gone, replaced by a mega grocery store.

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  I took a left, heading more or less west, towards the setting sun. In another life, which now seems a thousand years gone, I had “aspirations” of eventually living in this neighborhood. Had I followed my original path and remained on the frenetic hamster wheel powered by a need to “accomplish and succeed,” I might have ended up here. Sometimes I just have no idea how we end up on the paths we do– but sometimes we stop and ask a simple question that changes everything that lies ahead.

  
  

  I drove past my friends Jim & Ann’s house; in all truth, they were more my ex’s friends than my friends. They were nice people though, and for a while seemed to make more effort to stay in touch with me, than with my ex. They fit a common thread that ran true through duration of our marriage– they were about a generation older than us. As I look back, I really don’t think my ex thought anyone our age was “mature enough” to be with. As I look back, I realize that my life in those days was defined by her needs, and not by my wants. I had no “truth,” then.

  
  

  Further down the road, I passed the church where both Mindy and Betsy were married. Not sure why they came to mind then– they were sisters and “friends of friends” and I really didn’t know them well, but somehow my ex and I were invited to their weddings. Maybe what made them memorable was the way they were so different that they seemed like they had been raised by different families.

  
  

  Another left at the traffic light… the old office buildings on the corner have been replaced with a shiny new 24-hour Walgreens; molding wood yielding to neon and steel. My first therapist– around 1990– had her office there, and I would go on Thursday afternoons and we’d talk. I had no idea what I was doing, or trying to accomplish– but my life sucked, and I had a notion that “I needed to be in therapy.” Seems I was always her last appointment of the day, and we’d talk way over the hour. It took me a few months to figure out that I was being more her therapist, than vice-versa, so I quit going– there was really no reason to be paying $50/hr to talk to a friend. A few years later, I ended up building her web site, and we had some more good talks. A few years later I accidentally noticed her picture in the obituaries– cancer. She helped me find my humanity…..

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  Around the curve, the formerly swank apartment complex where Jeff and Charles used to live– back then, it was practically “in the country,” now it’s walled in by ugly concrete office-lumps calling themselves names like “The Overlook” and “Canyon View.” I also spotted the not-so-swank apartments where my friend Jen and her roommate used to live. The roommate– whose name escapes me– used to spend about three hours a day on the Stairmaster and had (WARNING! Sexist male comment ahead!) absolutely the finest rear end I have ever seen, and she knew it, and knew exactly how to dress so as to make sure that everyone else knew it, as well.

  
  

  Jen, on the other hand, was my friend and living proof that men and women can be “just friends.” We spent so much time together most people thought we were married, yet the closest we ever got to “anything” was an occasional back rub and holding hands– simply because we liked each other. I think the friendship worked because we had “the sex thing” out in the open and on the table, from day one– somehow the freedom to be able to say “you look really good to me, today” served as a way to “defuse” the need to act on it. Not sure if that makes sense, but it worked. I miss Jen– she moved to Illinois a few years back with her husband, who was also a friend. It seems all my fleshspace friends have moved away.

  
  

  I put up with a little stretch of bumper to bumper freeway, and dove back into another neighborhood. This time, the road took me to the shopping center where I used to have a store that was associated with my import business. Over its 15-year life, the store occupied two different spaces– one is now a Baby Gap, the other a Quick-Photo of some kind. It was strange to look in the window of the photo store and realize that I built the front sales counter they are now using. Wandering around, I recognized practically none of the other stores, and none of the employees.

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  There’s a green park-like space with lawns, fountains, tables, and some lifesized marble cows. There were kids playing on and around the cows– just as there were, 15 years ago. At one point “The Cows at the Arboretum” were a well-known landmark… I doubt anyone knows what they are, anymore. The whole development was supposed to be old Mr. Crow’s (of Trammell Crow development fame) “signature project” before retiring– with a luxury hotel, park, upscale retail shops, luxury offices and more. Alas, the dream was killed by the mid-80′s real estate bust; the mix of quaint local specialty stores quietly giving way to the usual bland parade of national chains. The development was dealt a second blow when the Highway Department upgraded the adjacent road from “street” to “freeway,” first cutting off access on account of years of construction; contruction that eventually resulted in vastly reduced traffic flow. The once state-of-the-art first run movie theater turned into an “Art House” after a few years, and eventually became the “Cheesecake Factory.” I gave 15 years of my work life to be part of something that had an eternally hopeful future, but a perpetually abysmal present.

  
  

  It was odd, standing there by those marble cows– knowing that I once was a limited partner in those office buildings; knowing that I used to work there; remembering how the very first photo I ever had on the Internet was of me, next to the cow where I was now standing. They used to have outdoor concerts there during the summers– “Blues on the Green” they were called– and as I looked down, I realized that I was wearing an old “Blues on the Green” T-shirt. Life is so strangely small, sometimes. The “neon blue” fountains are still that color– the absolutely brightest blue-green you can imagine; a color not found in nature. We used to call them “Diane’s Folly,” after the property manager who got them painted that color.

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  Feeling strangely empty, I headed for the Barnes & Noble, where I used to get coffee and brownies at the cafe. I passed the next couple of hours in a daze– and not even buying a book. Most of the time, I just watched the people, and wandered around, thinking. On some odd level, I think I was experiencing Nonduality– there was no “me,” no “identity” separate from just a general “awareness.” Two hours passed in the blink of an eye.

  
  

  I realized something, as I walked back to my car. This whole little “time traveling” journey was about visiting the past and looking for some “feeling” to arise. But none came. I was the Ultimate Observer– aware, but feeling no sadness, no regret, no anger, no loss, no connection. And I also understood that whereas Raddish’s and Ivy’s passings involved the loss of beloved family members, they also represented a different kind of loss– the loss of “threads to the past.” I felt the genuine loss that goes with the departure of a loved one, but there was something beneath that was lost, as well.

  
  

  Sometimes I think we have these threads, and they attach to us in subtle ways, because they are reminders of a former life, a former life paradigm. Even when we “let go” of something, we keep it alive through a set a subtle choices and reminders. Although there would never have been a doubt that my animals would have come along when I move to another part of the country, it somehow feels like some invisible psychological chain that has bound me to this place, and my past here, has been broken– threads have been clipped. And the thought of moving away became a little easier. It is almost as if there is nothing here, anymore, that reminds me of “here.”

  
  

  Impermanence.

  
  

  In the long run, everything is impermanent. We are all running towards some “goal,” or hiding in, or running from some “past.” We wear a million different masks to ensure that our true nature is not revealed, and does not transpire– but the irony is that we are all running towards the same end. Nobody gets out alive. Meanwhile we get trapped in a trance that keeps us from seeing that everything we need already exists; it is already here. But we’re too blinded by stress, endless routines, ambition, destructive materialism, PTA meetings, addicitions, careers, new religions, meditation…. to just stop, and be still, for a moment.

  
  

  Underneath it all, love is the answer……

  
  

   

  • 2:02 pm
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