Mele Kalikimaka

Have I mentioned how blessed I feel that my family will be on Maui for Christmas? It’s unreasonable—the practical thing would have been for my brother and I to fly to the mainland for the holidays, rather than Mom, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my niece flying to Hawaiʻi; two plane tickets are far cheaper than four—but also wonderful. I’m beyond glad that I’ll be spending the holidays this year at home and with family. I get to have my cake and eat it, too!

It’s a funny thing; last Christmas I (reluctantly) flew to the mainland for the holidays. While I was glad to be with family and friends, I was terribly homesick for a place I’d only lived for five months. In future I will be happy to travel if need be to share the holidays with family, but this year I am thrilled to spend Christmas at home.

It’s a first, and firsts are important. Whether it’s the first round of holidays as a couple or the first round of holidays after the loss of a loved one, firsts are momentous; they mark a new reality and begin to establish a “new normal.” I think that’s why this feels like such a big deal to me. Christmas at home makes it home.

“What if” is a sucker’s game; I can pose the questions—“what if” I’d stayed in Lancaster, “what if” I’d ended up on Oʻahu, “what if” I’d done Les Misérables instead of Rent, “what if,” “what if,” “what if”—but I’m not interested in imagining answers. The glorious life I’m living has nothing to do with “What if…” and everything to do with “What actually happened was…”

I am grateful that my family chose to come to Hawaiʻi for Christmas this year. I know it’s a significant hardship—this is peak travel time, or close enough that it might as well be—and I won’t take it for granted.

So lucky I live Maui!

What Grows

In any high-pressure situation—from a kindergarten classroom through a community theatre production to an international crisis—tension is sometimes high and tempers short. This is normal and we survive, although in the (unpleasant) moment, we may wonder.

Every experience contains both pleasant (even pleasurable) and unpleasant (even painful) moments. It’s normal to be frustrated, hurt or angry when things go “badly,” and to be happy and pleased when things go “well.” Where we get into trouble is when present experience passes into memory: memory is not a perfect record of experience; rather, memory is a perfect record of how we think and feel about our experience, and we have a choice—a choice we make in the moment and remake every time we recall a memory.

You see, our memories are cast and recast by our choices: our attitudes, our attention, our focus. If we focus on the “bad” and how it made us feel and we choose a self-righteous or defensive or offensive attitude, our memories take on the tone and tenor of that attitude, and every time we recall that memory to mind, we will reinforce the negative and push the positive further into the background. If instead we focus on the “good” and how it made us feel and choose an upbeat, optimistic, accepting attitude, our memories take on the bright hues of that attitude. Either way, our attention shapes our memories to fit our chosen attitudes.

Attention is to memory (and experience) as sunlight is to plants; a necessity and a nutrient. We can choose to shine the light of our focus on the weeds of negativity or the fruits and vegetables and glorious flowers of positivity, and whatever we focus on will grow and grow.

What are you growing in the garden of memory?

Don't Cry For Me (Argentina)

Once upon a time, I was a mess, especially with respect to romantic love relationships. If you want to argue that I’m still a mess, well, I won’t dispute the assertion, although I will argue that I’m a much more interesting and pleasant mess than I was before.

Once upon a time, I chained my happiness to my romantic circumstances; if I was in a romantic relationship, I was (ecstatically!) happy, and when (usually) I wasn’t, I was miserable. I held others responsible for my happiness (unfair!), and then made it nearly impossible for potential romantic partners to care about me—I was (am) shy, I had (but no longer!) a terrible self image, I was deathly afraid of being hurt so I erected walls around me that effectively kept others out—then I bemoaned the “fate” I’d made for myself.

This went on for decades (yes, literally decades). Over time, I came to understand intellectually what was going on and how I was sabotaging myself, but it wasn’t until quite recently that I broke through all that and made not just a new understanding but a new experience. Since then, I’ve reclaimed responsibility for my happiness, begun really loving myself, and opened myself up to all manner of possibility.

Make no mistake, I still long for a romantic relationship—I have always been a sappy romantic—but the changes that have, I believe, made a romance much more likely have also made me much more comfortable with whatever will be. I am a great and worthy guy—given the opportunity, I will be a very good partner—but if such a relationship doesn’t manifest, I’ll be fine. I love and will go on loving, whether my love is requited or not, because it is the right thing (for me) to do.

Thinking about it this morning, I saw a parallel between the way I now see love and the way I have long considered the afterlife. A simplistic theology suggests we should behave well and do “right” in this life in order to win a reward (or avoid punishment) in the next. I reject that idea; I choose to do “right” because it is the right thing to do, without thought of reward, and I believe that is the very best reason for doing the right thing.

Likewise in love, I do not love in hopes that my love will be requited (okay, part of me hopes for that outcome, but not the greater part). Rather, I love because I am loving, and because loving is the right thing to do. I think it likely that the more loving I am (romantically or otherwise), the more likely I am to be requited, but it won’t necessarily work out that way, and that’s okay.

I am currently “in love” with someone (in fact, since I’ve no actual romantic relationship with anyone at the moment, I’m “in love” with more than one “someone”). I harbor some hope but no expectation that I will be requited, and while it would be wonderful if it were, it isn’t necessary to my joy and satisfaction. I enjoy the giddy flutter in my stomach, I enjoy the passionate yearning, I enjoy the state of being “in love” and it hurts no one, not even me.

I am sometimes a little sad at the thought that I may love unrequited for the rest of my life, but that sadness passes quickly; I know that my life is ephemeral—I’m not guaranteed so much as the next moment—so I will love while I can.

Dearly Beloved

(An open letter to all I love and all I ever shall.)

You may not know I love you, and that’s okay; the important thing is that I act out of love, not that I be recognized for it. You may know I love you and not like it, and that’s okay; I don’t love you with the expectation that you love me in return, and since my love makes no demands, it does no harm. You may know and be glad that I love you, and that’s great; it’s a pleasure to be the cause of gladness in another. You may know I love you and may also love me, and that’s awesome; love requited is a blessing. No matter what, I love you.

I don’t love you because of what you do, have done, or might do for me. I don’t love you so you’ll love me back. I don’t love you and expect anything in return; my love is not a commodity to be bargained with, but rather it’s a gift, freely given with no strings attached.

I love you because I am a lover. I love you because my heart could not help itself (and I don’t know and don’t really care why). I love you recklessly, I love you passionately, I love you steadfastly… I just love you.

Because I love you, I hope for what’s best for you, in your judgment, and it’s not my place to tell you what’s best for you. Sometimes that means separation or even estrangement; it never means I love you less. I am on your side, even if I’m not at your side.

I don’t put my hopes for our relationship (whatever it may be) ahead of your well-being or your desires. If your desires (or mine) cause our paths to diverge, I’ll be sad, but I won’t be mad. I would never want my love to bind you to earth when you are meant to fly. Rather, I want my love to be steady, rising air that lifts you up even if it also carries you away.

It may also be that I choose to separate myself from you. Perhaps our lives or lifestyles aren’t compatible, or maybe our values clash. Maybe too close an association feels stifling or painful or harmful. If I choose to separate myself from you, it doesn’t change my love for you; it simply means that I love myself, too.

I freely offer to serve you—to serve your interests, to do good on your behalf—with the following qualifications:

• I will not support actions that risk significant harm to you, others, or myself
• I will not act in ways contrary to my own values or nature
• I will not serve spite
I will not act unlovingly

I am imperfect, so my expression of love is likewise imperfect. I promise to strive always for excellence and improvement in love, and commit to learn the lessons the Universe offers when my practice of love falls short.

This is how I hope to love in all loving relationships: collegial, filial, familial, romantic. This is my manifesto.

Aloha,

David

Dear Child

Dear Child,

It’s rather an odd thing I’m doing—writing a letter to someone who hasn’t been conceived and in fact may never be conceived—but you are and have always been very real to me, and loving you has made me far better than I would otherwise be. And I do love you, beyond all reason.

Back in the bad old days I dreamed of being your daddy and that dream helped me endure when it seemed ending was my best choice. Back in the bad old days, what kept me striving to be better than I thought I could be was the desire to be the daddy you deserve.

Loving you without condition—what condition could I possibly impose?—made me love the other children I encountered; indeed, you are the reason I love being a teacher. Loving you is the reason I cry when I hear the song “These Are My Children” or “Zoe Jane.” Loving you paved the way for me to someday finally love even myself.

And in these good new days I love you still; love you more, if that’s even possible, because in these good new days I finally believe myself worthy to be your daddy. I always believed (or wanted to believe) that I’d be a good daddy, but that belief was, in the bad old days, more a forlorn hope. In these good new days, I am confident.

I do not know if we will meet in this or any life—I do not know anything, really, about what is to come—but I know this: I love you. I will always love you.

Love,
Daddy

Fragility and Resilience

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For most of my life, I’ve been emotionally fragile. A passionate and deeply caring nature makes me vulnerable, while a profound lack of confidence and a terrible self image have in the past made me “delicate.” I am smart enough to have realized quite early that my insecurity and poor self esteem weren’t grounded in “reality” (whatever that is), but my emotional state was not amenable to “reason.”

Because I had low confidence, a negative, unrealistic self image, major insecurity, and poor self esteem, I was deeply wounded whenever things didn’t go the way I thought they should, especially in romantic relationships (the aspect of my character still most powerfully affected by insecurity). When a relationship didn’t manifest the way I thought it should, or when a relationship ended, I took it personally, as confirmation of the serious flaws I saw in myself. I perhaps-understandably assumed that it was my vulnerability that made me so fragile, and I bent my efforts toward reducing that vulnerability.

Time and again I swore that I was “done with relationships, done with women, done with vulnerability, done,” only to find months later that the barriers I’d erected so painstakingly accomplished nothing except to give me a false sense of security; come what may, I would fall in love again, and the cycle would repeat. And the story I told myself was that my vulnerability was the problem; that if only I could erect sturdier, more impenetrable barriers, I would finally be “safe.” I invested enormous effort in raising walls around my sensitive heart, and the world could see those walls—there’s a reason some have judged me aloof or arrogant—but my walls never protected me; love would fly over or tunnel under or seep through. I could no more help being vulnerable than I could help being left-handed.

In retrospect, I realize that it was never vulnerability that made me fragile; on the contrary, that vulnerability may be my greatest strength. No, it was the insecurity, the lack of confidence in my worth as a person (and as a romantic partner) that made me fragile. As I’ve begun to be more secure in myself, more confident of my (infinite!) worth and worthiness, I’ve handled the nicks and scrapes—inevitable when one is open and vulnerable—with much greater equanimity. No longer do insecurities and lack of confidence magnify them out of all proportion; rather, I see them as what they are—inevitable consequences of living with my heart exposed.

For me, then, resilience is the product not of traditional Western models of masculine strength—every time I tried to emulate those models, I found myself more fragile, rather than less—rather, resilience has come (very recently) as I finally love myself, accept myself, value and treasure myself, believe in my objective and relative worth.

I am good. I am worthy. I am awesome! Furthermore, I am respected, I am appreciated, I am loved. Knowing these to be true, not just in my head but in my very marrow, gives me confidence and security which in turn give me resilience. No longer am I devastated when someone doesn’t see things my way, doesn’t understand my choices or practice, doesn’t feel about me the way I wish she would. I may be (am!) disappointed when things don’ go my way, but disappointment is a long way from devastation. And I am confident that because I am happy in myself, the relationships I long for will manifest.

It seems to me, then, that the “recipe” for emotional resilience begins with self love, from which rise security and confidence—faith, if you will—which allow me to see disappointments as ephemeral rather than eternal and to believe that the opinions and choices of others, even when those opinions and decisions are in regard to me, are not ultimately about me! but rather about those others.

Resilience is awesome!

Hard Gratitudes

Hard Gratitudes

I woke this morning still melancholy—not depressed, not joyless, not demoralized...just a little “blue”—and as I reflected on what I’m feeling, I found myself face to face with what I once called my “demons” and now simply call “feelings.” They aren’t evil and I’m not their victim; rather, they are part of me and help to make me who I am. They, too, painful as they sometimes are, are worthy of my love. They, too, are things I can be grateful for (although it’s hard).

In the spirit of love, then, I want to express my gratitude for the hard things:

Loss

We all know loss, and it’s a hard thing to be grateful for. Even small kine losses—lost car keys, broken cell phones, a misplaced twenty—powerfully affect us, I think because, rightly or wrongly, we associate our belongings with ourselves. The loss of a cell phone is the loss of a part of us.

Without getting into whether or not this is “good” or “bad,” I just want to acknowledge it; when we lose even “small” things, we feel the loss.

How much more do we feel the loss of loved ones? When friends or family move far away, when important and meaningful relationships break, when pets and friends and family die...these are times that try our souls. Few would dispute that family and friends (and emotionally, pets are often “family”) really are part of us, and their loss—whether through a broken relationship or mortality—is, I think, as devastating as the loss of a limb or organ. We do lose a part of ourselves when we lose a family member or friend or pet.

How can I be grateful for events and experiences that cause such pain? Why would I even want to be grateful?

Loss is universal and inevitable. It is utterly democratic; all of us—rich or poor, powerful or powerless, respected or despised—suffer loss. Nothing—not money, not power, not honor—can insulate any of us from the experience of loss. And loss (and our response to loss) shapes us in powerful ways, but we can choose how we respond to loss and thereby choose how we will be shaped by it.

I choose to be grateful for loss; not that I’m glad to suffer it, but rather that I’m grateful for what it has to teach me.

Loss has taught me to treasure every moment I have with those I love. Loss has taught me the importance of those I’ve lost. Loss has taught me the value of relationships. Loss has helped me be more human.

Loneliness

Let me begin by saying that I am not lonely in the “I don’t have any friends” sense. I am rich in friends, rich beyond the dreams of Croesus, and I am grateful to be so blessed. I know no greater treasure than family and friends. The loneliness I’m talking about is very specific—it is the longing for a “companion” with whom to share awesomeness—and it seems inconsolable. It is my experience and I own it; your mileage may vary, but this is what I feel and it hurts, all the time. I don’t believe this makes me weak or flawed or damaged or foolish. Please try not to judge.

My two most persistent, lifelong, deeply felt desires go together:

1. the desire to have and be a companion
2. the desire to be a daddy

Neither desire has ever left me, and the longing is a constant ache. I know at least some of the reasons why I’m “alone”—in the “companion” sense—and have done what I can (consistent with my nature) to address those reasons and achieve my desires, yet here I am.

I am not (any longer) miserably lonely. I am deliriously happy with the life I have, and take great solace in my amazing family relationships and friendships. And while I don’t want to be this kind of lonely, I am grateful for my loneliness.

I’m grateful for my loneliness because its persistence—I’ve never fully resigned myself to companionlessness, not even for a moment, not even when I said I did, not even when I desperately wanted to—tells me something important about who I am and what I value. I’m grateful for my loneliness because it fosters empathy for others who are likewise alone. I’m grateful for my loneliness because (finally!) it makes me powerfully vulnerable to love in its myriad forms. I’m even grateful for that persistent ache; I think it’s what kept me grounded in humanity for all the years I shut the world out.

Betrayal

I can hear some of you mumbling already. “How can you be grateful for betrayal? Why would you even want to be? Betrayal hurts, and isn’t gratitude for something that hurts perilously close to masochism?”

Let me ’splain.

In choosing to be grateful for betrayal, I’m not excusing the action, nor am I justifying the pain or loss suffered. What I’m doing is reclaiming my love for those who betrayed me.

That’s right: from my perspective, I was betrayed by people I love, and yet I love them still. In order to get past the pain—in order to keep it from warping me into someone I don’t want to be—I must forgive, must find compassion for my “betrayers,” and must choose to be grateful; if not for the betrayal itself, then for the good that has come of it. Doing so lances the boil of festering resentment that might otherwise poison my being. I would rather love my betrayers than hate them (although they’ll never know either way) because loving is good for me.

There are other reasons for being grateful for betrayal: it’s good to know who you’re dealing with, sometimes the unintended consequences are amazing (it was a betrayal that brought be home to Maui), it is empowering to learn to deal with treatment you know you don’t deserve, there is dignity in maintaining equanimity in the face of undeserved ill treatment, and many others; we all know that good can come of adversity.

Yeah, I never thought I would be (despite ample reason to be), but I’m grateful for betrayal.

Disappointment

Disappointment is another universal. We all face it regularly. Once upon a time, I thought that I endured more disappointment than others, but I no longer think so; whether it’s true or not, it’s irrelevant, and comparisons do me more harm than good. Each of us has our own experience with disappointment, and (since each of us is at the center of our experience) our individual disappointments are the ones that matter most to us.

I’m grateful for disappointment because of what it teaches me: perseverance, acceptance, and adaptation, among other lessons. I used to allow disappointment to stop me in my tracks—“If ‘it’ didn’t work out,” I reasoned, “it isn’t meant to be”—but I’m learning that while there is yet breath, nothing is final. The new lesson—the one I’ve just begun to learn—is that disappointment is a product of expectation, and expectation (at least, expectation of specific outcomes) is not something I need in my life.

Disappointment, then, is another of my teachers, and I’m grateful for the lesson, even when I don’t enjoy it.

Just Because It’s Difficult...

...doesn’t mean it’s bad. The practice of gratitude, like so many spiritual practices, is ongoing and sometimes demanding. Melancholy drove me to reflect on these “Hard Gratitudes,” and reflecting has brought me a measure of peace. I wish you all peace and all joy and all gratitude this Thanksgiving Day.

All...the...aloha!

Location:Wailuku, Maui, HI, United States

Maui 2013 Summer of Love

When I moved to Maui, I had no idea what to expect; I’d visited on a couple of occasions (and I hadn't really liked it, to be honest; compared to Kauaʻi and da’ Big Island, it seemed pretty “touristy”), but I didn’t have a real feel for the place as its own place.

When I moved, I had some rather vague hopes that I would be somehow “different” in a new place (and Maui certainly qualified); that by moving somewhere where I didn’t know anyone I would be magically transformed into something different than I had been in Lancaster, that I’d behave differently just because no one I met would know how I’d behaved before.

It isn’t the stupidest thing I’ve ever thought, but it isn’t the brightest, either.

Oh, there were little differences—I smiled a bit more, didn’t avoid eye contact quite so much—but I was still the me I’d always been. The radical transformation I sought was going to require more than a mere change of venue, but I was impatient and wanted results now!

Even though a change in venue didn’t change me the way I thought it should, it didn’t take long for Maui to capture my heart. Away from the resorts, I met the same small-town Hawaiʻi with which I first fell in love on my first visit to Kauaʻi in 2000. I fell in love with the place, with my students, with the people, with the culture, and (of course!) with the theatre ʻohana. And as I settled in, I went back to work on me, courting I knew not what, unwilling to stay as I was.

Mind, it isn’t that I thought I was terrible, or a mess. In my head, I knew full well that I had a lot going on. But because knowing isn’t the same as believing and what I’d always believed wasn’t nearly as nice as what I “knew,” what I had in my head wasn’t nearly enough. My affect and my reactions manifested my beliefs (that I was unattractive, unworthy, foolish, etc.) rather than my knowledge (that I was attractive, worthy, smart, etc.)

So I worked, and I made progress; not nearly fast enough to suit my impatient heart, but still progress. My self-perception has always been notoriously intransigent, so it should have come as no surprise at all that progress was slow; the real surprise (at the time) was that I made any progress at all. Progress, however slow, and being where I (somehow!) knew I belonged added savor to every day. And thankfully, the Maui theatre community is vibrant and alive and loving. just as I had done in Lancaster, here I dove headlong into theatre.

And, just as on the mainland, people somehow saw past my poor self-perception and pitched in to help me see myself more as they did. Just as on the mainland, they became coaches and cheerleaders and exemplars; they applied themselves for my benefit. As slow as my growth seemed, at least I was (am!) loved, and knew (and know!) it.

Then came Rent on Maui.

It’s a show I love dearly, one of maybe three musicals that are rooted deeply in my heart. The theatre company, Maui On Stage, chose their Production/Facilities Manager—a gifted actor, musician, and all-around theatre artist—to direct, and selected a phenomenal musician and teacher as music director. They in turn assembled a passionate, committed, gifted, and above all else loving cast which (to my then-surprise and now-and-everlasting joy) included me.

It’s an unwise but deeply human thing to compare oneself with others. I found myself among talents that (in my perception) towered over mine and I wondered, “What the hell am I doing here?” In my self-doubt and self-consciousness, I felt seriously out of place, but Oh! How I wanted to belong!

Because, you see, each and every member of that cast is brilliant and gorgeous and amazing and awesome and hip and cool, and I always want to hang around with the cool and brilliant; I’ve always imagined that if I could just win their acceptance, some of their brilliance and beauty and awesomeness and hipness and coolness might “rub off” on me.

Spoiler alert: this time, it did.

There’s something very special (to me) about Maui On Stage at the Historic Iao Theater. I did my first Maui show, The Wizard of Oz, with them last fall, beginning to weave that network of like-minded friends that remains the most important (but far from the only important) reason I do theatre. I feel at home in the Iao—which is not to say I don’t also feel at home with MAPA (the Maui Academy of Performing Arts), with which I did my second show on Maui, Man of La Mancha, in which I made more dear friends, but firsts are always special—there’s something about the Iao that suits me like a well-worn pair of slippahs.

And the amazing cast and crew of Rent more than accepted me. They embraced me, they loved me, they forgave me my awkwardness, they made me theirs. Love is the fabric and substance of our Rent ʻohana, and I am woven into that fabric not because of who or what I am so much as because who and how we are. We are lovers, and that’s what lovers do; they love each other.

When you don’t love yourself, though (or don’t think you do), it can be hard to accept the gift of love when others give it. That was me; I wanted the love I was being offered, but I was afraid...a formless fear that encouraged me to keep up my defenses. This tension ate at me, hope sustained only because my desire to love and be loved was (barely ) stronger than that fear.

Love changed me. Love changes everything.

Over the course of the rehearsal and run we became so very close. I trusted more and more and relaxed more and more and (oh, so gradually) came to accept the gift of love my cast mates offered, to offer my own love to my cast mates, and (finally!) to begin to believe that I was not an interloper, but rather a rightful member of this family I love.

For me, that’s a big deal, but it’s not unfamiliar territory; I’ve been here before. It’s a good thing—in fact, it’s a great thing—but it wouldn’t be growth if I went no further.

It seems I was close to a breakthrough; that breakthrough came just two days after Rent closed, and the trigger was courtesy of one of my Rent ʻohana.

I got a text Tuesday morning: “‘The Vortex’ by Esther and Jerry Hicks. I just started reading it on the plane to Boston, and it’s kinda blowing my mind. Thought of you instantly. xoxo”

On the strength of that recommendation and still marinating in the rich broth of our own Rent “Summer of Love,” I began to read. What I read resonated with the love and compassion I’d come to expect this summer and with all the hard work I and others had done before, and suddenly, in the course of one day, I was transformed. I see things differently. I see myself differently.

All at once, my focus has shifted from that which I always bemoaned as missing to all that I have. All at once, I’ve gone from self-loathing to self-loving. All at once I believe what I once only “knew”—that I’m attractive, that I’m worthy, that I’m smart. All at once I believe that what I choose to focus on affects what I encounter in life. I am not a victim; I am the author of my fate. I spent my whole life up to this point focusing on what I lack, but from this point forward I focus on what is coming to me.

Notice I said “what is coming to me,” not “what the future might hold.” I am confident that the universe and I are working together to make my dreams come true; to manifest them in my life. This I both know and believe.

I don’t claim to know exactly what form that manifestation will take, and I don’t care. No matter what, it will be perfect. It is the product of my focus—what The Vortex calls “Vibrations”—and the natural response of the universe to that focus, and I focus on good and worthy desires and aspirations that will—that must—come to pass.

In just one day I changed—I am a new creature—and when I changed so did my world. And this, which has been my hope for so long, is now real.