I grew up in a mostly rural pocket of northeastern Connecticut. Save for being the home of the state's university, Mansfield was - and is still - a quiet town. With the UConn skating rink and Student Union arcade room, a drive-in theater, and not much else, I was accustomed to finding ways of passing the hours. I explored the woods looking for trails, I attempted to go fishing, I enjoyed sledding down pristine white hills. Though there were many who chose to stay, I, like a lot of kids - many also the children of professional academics - sought to get away just as soon as we could.
Though college only took me to another college cow-town, Amherst, Massachusetts, it was big school in an area with several other colleges within a 20 minute radius. I met hundreds of new people, joined the crew team and was exposed to a whole different set of experiences. I fell under the spell of a fraternity, joining their ranks and living in our fetid house for three solid years of college. There was a buzz and an energy and as a 20 year-old who wanted to be buzzed and energized there was no better place. With the exception of the time I broke my humerus bone in half and got 10 stitches in my other hand (lumber yard accident, different story) and lived back home for a few weeks recuperation, I flew the coop right after high school.
Moving to a Boston suburb and then into the city after college, I have mostly lived in urban or suburban places ever since. And as I moved into more compact and complex environments, my own world got more complex. I had a job now, had to make my own decisions and sometimes suffer the consequences. In my early twenties, I, like many, made - let's see, to put it politely - questionable decisions. Many times given the choice between industriousness and indolence I chose the latter. The party instead of the library, the girl instead of the gym.
A few years later, I advanced in my place of employment. At first it wasn't really any kind of effort. I was likable, reasonably intelligent, and mostly kind. It wasn't long, however, that things got more complex. If I was still going to be in the company's good favor - and just as importantly if I wanted to boost my pay, I had to take on more responsibility. More responsibility requires more effort, more training, more curiosity and diligence. Sure I'd made periodic efforts in my classes. Sometimes I had to put in maximum effort to get passing grades in particularly difficult courses. I often employed determination and resolve as an oarsman in college. In crew I had to learn from my teammates and my coaches how to put forth consistent effort. And in that sport my failure was my teammates' failure; I felt responsible to them.
Responsibility. I have no idea how I came to possess any semblance of it. When I was in high school I worked at the Mansfield Depot Restaurant. I began as a dishwasher. I showed up on time, I did my job thoroughly and conscientiously. If someone called in sick and they called me, I went in. If they needed someone to work a double, I offered. Certainly, I was motivated by money. Though I made less than $4/hr. when I started, those paychecks supplied all my spending money. I saved up and with some help from my dad, bought my first car (1974 Volvo 164E, with a jerky transmission). But not far below money, I didn't want my bosses to think poorly of me. I felt rewarded by how thankful they were that I was able to work and was a diligent employee. I should have said "no" more than I did. I should have spent a little bit of time being still while I could.
When I was in my early 30s, I moved abroad. It had been a goal of mine; it appeared to be the next adventure I was craving. In my several years of city hopping, I lived in London, Amsterdam, Toronto, and Zurich - and that was only where I got my mail. I was using my work postings to go to Italy or Luxembourg, France, Scandinavia, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Poland, and Malta of all places. Though I travelled more than some, there were others I worked with who hadn't missed a continent and had seemingly alighted in every country on them. They lived out of their suitcases, had wallets stuffed with reimbursable receipts, and knew every Irish bar in every non-Irish city they'd seen. I relished the travel, the relative perks, and the opportunity to learn more about myself by seeing myself in different settings.
Year by year, the adventure continued until I moved back to Boston. It was shortly after 9/11 and our country was a different place than the one that had launched me in the 1990s. After the 2000 Election, when Bush 'beat' Gore, it was all and more than we might have anticipated. The country moved right, and became even more partisan. Bush made extraordinary gaffes, both publicly and politically. But it was funny still. The Daily Show and Will Ferrell can thank Dubya (and a lot of talent, too) for much of their success today. But after 9/11 things got pretty serious. War. Terrorists, Global Warming, global political unrest, loose nukes! This was my 30s.
Eventually, traveling began to lose its luster and I had to make different kinds of choices. I chose between a salary and a lifestyle. I tried to strike a balance between what I wanted to do and what people wanted me to do. I'd begun to save for my future. I took time to consider. I got my own financial planner. The more I tried to reconcile what the heck I was doing with my life, I tried to think about what was meaningful to me. My family. My friends. That was about it. I was traipsing around the globe, but had so much time to myself that I had ample time to reflect. I reflected on what was worthwhile. Socializing was valuable, but I grew weary of the repetition. On many quiet Sunday afternoons, I'd wander foreign city streets. I was able to meet up with friends, but I also enjoyed the stillness of being alone in a park, by a river, on a trail.
Stillness. That was the word that my stream of consciousness lingered on. It's the word that inspired this posting. I was enjoying a hot shower after a peaceful run. Both of those things offer stillness, if one permits it to enter you. Sometimes it's an effort, but other times it is spontaneous. In the shower, you feel the warm water beat on your skin, cooling and warming at the same time. You get to give yourself and all over body massage (if you're cleaning all the parts you ought to). In the shower, behind the closed door, you're away from the TV, the kids, the internet and the iPhone. Sure you can have a radio, but that would ruin the stillness, the privacy of the moment. I many wives complain about the length of time their husbands spend in the bathroom doing number two. It's the stillness. Whether in the corporate bathroom stall, or the downstairs loo under the stairs, many a man takes respite from all that consumes him outside that door. Take 10, deep, deep breaths, and you'll feel the stillness seep into you. Calgon, take me away!
I don't know how many millions the makers of Ambien are raking in, but I do know that they are banking on people's inability to find and possess stillness. And in that vein, alcohol, recreational drugs, including cigarettes, are mechanisms whereby many find that confounded, illusive stillness. On the healthier side, many find stillness in yoga, pilates, and various forms of martial arts. When I lived in New York City for an unemployed time, I had a lot of time to walk the island of Manhattan. I'd walk 100 blocks at a time, at all hours of the day and night. For the millions who've done this in any world class city around the globe, you know what it is to be struck by the sheer magnitude of the operation. All those people, all that transportation, infrastructure, food, trash! It's 24/7 because it has to be, because it's alive, it breathes. I am thankful for the time I lived in Manhattan because at that point in my life it taught me that I didn't want to live there. For me, it was too busy. I literally became tired sometimes after just a short walk outside because I couldn't help but absorb how busy everyone else was. I needed more stillness. I am betting there's a lot of Ambien in Manhattan.
In between my second and final European tour of living and that stint in NYC, I disappeared for two months. Long before Mark Sanford made it a popular alibi, I hiked a few hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail. Along with a friend who'd often found the stillness he craved in nature, we hoofed it up and down hills and mountains. We traversed large open fields, scaled rocks, swam in ravines, and spent hour after hour not saying a word. It was exactly what I needed when I needed it. Before that hike, I was living in Zurich and planning on moving to Lucerne soon after the summer. The company package offered wasn't quite what I was expecting and the company was not going to offer more. We were at an impasse. It was not the first time I had to make a decision about what was valuable to me, but it was one of those times where you ask yourself what your life means to you - and how valuable you feel to those you work for. It was a watershed moment for me because it allowed me the opportunity to be true to myself.
I thanked them for the many opportunities I'd been given and gave my notice. In the process of coming to that decision I spoke with many confidants. As I'd done many times before and would do many times again, I used those discussions to comb through the complexity of emotions that accompany a major life decision. As I explained the situation to people in both monetary terms and at what juncture in my life this occured, I began to understand that I'd reached as far as I wanted to go with the company. I didn't want anyone else's job who was superior. As I interpreted it then, to me those people were pawns of the company. If you were talented and completely dedicated to the company, you were 'rewarded' by moving to ten cities in ten years. Or maybe your whole family would have to move from Boston to China, no matter that it's your daugther's senior year in high school. I didn't want to be a cog, however highly paid that cog was.
I knew that even though I knew I could earn more money, I also knew that you either have to be very intelligent or very hard working or both - and even if you are you have to catch some luck, too. Whatever the psychological reasons (and I'm sure they are deep and plentiful), it wasn't enough to make me want to supplant my independence for the sake of the company. I'd gotten what I perceived was valuable out of the relationship. I was paid well enough, I got to travel, I had friends all over the world and a global perspective that I continue to carry with me every day. But the wave had crested and I didn't want to be pulled down into the undertow.
Sadly, many of you - and certainly people you know - are churning in the undertow and looking to come up for air. To breathe. To find stillness. It happens imperceptibly slowly. It's easy to see the second hand on a clock move. If you stare carefully, you can see a minute hand move. But staring at an hour hand will make you insane. And yet, time passes. Before you realize it, you bought a house. You got married. Your kids are almost in, what the F!, middle school! And for too many, you're stuck in a job, town, marriage, relationship, bad habit that you've been in for years. We find moments of stillness. For the fortunate among us hard work leads to vacation and that sunrise on the lake from the deck. A few bottles of wine will stop the mental carousel for an evening. Otherwise, it's very hard to stop the noise. Every question leads to another question and another person perhaps to involve, and a cost consideration, and maybe someone's feelings to think about. With the increase in electronic communication, the immediacy of the times in which we live, presents the need of simply removing yourself from being accessible. We now have the burden of being concerned that if you don't answer a text message in a 'reasonable' amount of time, you're perceived either as an idiot for not having your apparatus with you or as one intentionally avoiding communication. And if you are having an affair, it means you are b-u-s-t-e-d.
My path required that I have a crises of personal conscious and leave the job that wasn't filling my soul anymore. I ditched my laptop and mobile phone and took to the Appalachian Trail. And while there was stillness and I had many pure and perfectly still moments, I had long, long conversations with myself, too. What was I going to do when I came out of the woods? Where was I going to live? Who was going to be my life partner, the ballast for which I was so obviously yearning?
My romantic arc - rated PG - in brief. I didn't have a real girlfriend until college. In high school, I barely kissed a girl outside of whatever spin the bottle game I was fortunate in which to land a seat. College was different. In college I wasn't the person everybody already knew. And girls were different. They appreciated different things. For years being funny meant getting laughs. In college and beyond being funny meant you got to occasionally kiss the girl. This was new to me and after finally experiencing it for myself it was hard for me to just want to kiss one girl. So I kissed a few, had some major crushes, picked up girls, and got dumped by girls. My dad's been married at least as many times as Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president and I used to say - and I think I believed - that I didn't want to get married before I was ready to stay married. I met some fantastic women, smart, beautiful, funny, athletic, driven, compassionate, worldly and then there were a few who weren't any of those things. I was looking for the perfect woman for me and as searchers know the longer it takes the harder it becomes.
It was a void I was looking to fill. And as much luck as I've ever had led Linda Mary LoPiccolo into my life. As they say in life and in cliché, all the others were merely prelude to this. When we finally engaged out in Long Beach, California where we lived in August of 2003, I'd chosen for the first time the kind of permanent commitment that had long eluded me. It was the first time this selfish Sagittarius elected to be responsible for something other than himself. It took me longer than it ought to have to realize it, but I fell in love with Linda and thankfully she with me. I guess I am a slow learner because it's obvious to me now how perfect she is. Not perfect. Perfect for me. But I digress.
There was this moment right after our wedding that I often return to. After the reception and after stopping at the bar where our rowdy friends and repaired to, Linda and I got in the back of a somewhat tacky limo for our ride from Connecticut to our Boston hotel. (We departed to Mexico the next morning. I recommend Hotel Secreto). It was the first time we were alone in several days. Those days preceding the wedding are hectic. There's family coming in, last minute arrangements, weather to watch, and of course, fun to be had. With the wedding and our all our guests behind us, we could breathe. We had stillness and the beauty of it, what was magical was that it was shared. I looked into Linda's eyes and she into mine and in that moment we were perfectly aligned (horizontally, too). It was a moment of stillness and perfection to which I regularly return.
But like that hour hand on a clock, time passes and it's hard to tell how it did, so quickly. You think about all that's happened in that span of time, but looking back months get condensed into a nugget of experience. When Linda and I were going through fertility treatments it went on for more than a year. And then the whole process of considering and then moving forward with adoption is collapsed into a sentence when really that was probably a year, too. And whether you have your own baby or adopt one, you know what happens after it arrives. And for those that don't have kids, you can imagine! Time flies and the 'noise' is as loud as it's ever been. Not just the noise of the kid, which is real to be sure, but now you've got a spouse, a child or two, or three or seven. The dogs need to be walked and taken to the vet. There's the dance recital, your sick parent, the hockey practice, the potential new position, GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN! That's not what we were prepping for. As you get older you realize the calamities of youth were but love taps compared to the punches life has in store for you now.
So much noise. A lot of political noise - everyone's pissed off. They're pissed at their government and they're pissed at the opposition. They're pissed at big business and they're pissed at corruption. Sarah Palin's pissed off, Glen Beck's pissed off. Keith Olberman's pissed off. John McCain looks pissed off even when he's happy. If you're at all tuned in, you can't miss the rancor - it's on the radio, the web and on billboards. I was running around my sister's neighborhood in Texas and many houses had these "No Socialism" placards stuck on their front lawns. I get freedom of speech, am 100% for it, but just because you can say something doesn't mean you should. But hey, it's a free country. I digress again. And it's easy to do because there are a lot of things in this life that are truly distracting.
Television is pretty noisy too. Many of these reality shows capitalize on conflict. If someone's not pissed off, they better be obviously peeved. How much louder are the commercials than the show? I know I am not alone in muting them. Mute. Silent. Still. Breathe. I used to listen to my iPod (which I still sometimes call a Walkman) a lot when I was running. In the cities I used it to disappear into the music and into the rhythm of my stride. I also liked drowning out the sound of my heavy breathing. It's not attractive. But as I got fitter and especially when I ran on quieter routes, I left the iPod at home and chose instead to absorb my environment completely. I smelled the foliage, heard the rippling brook, the chirping birds. When I lived closer to a pool and swam laps, I found stillness in the repetition. I find that stillness sometimes when I'm doing dishes or ironing (yes I do both).
As much as I praise stillness, I cannot help now but hear the word still and associate it with stillborn - and that is what Leo what was. Born still at eight months. Years after fertility treatments failed and after adoption succeeded we got pregnant. That event, too, now is reduced to a sentence. Something years in the making, so much emotional energy invested, so much noise endured, even embraced at times, gets relegated to a sentence. We got pregnant. On our own. Leo brought us tremendous joy while Linda's pregnancy progressed normally and without warning. It was a warm July day, 4 weeks before the due date when we learned that the baby had died. This was the kind of stillness I never sought, never truly considered, and the one that also necessitates the stillness I now perpetually crave. After Leo died, after three long days in the hospital, and after we went to the funeral home to collect his ashes, Linda and I paused as best we could. Our son Max needed and deserved our attention and he got it. But we couldn't breathe and we needed to. We left Max with relatives and went north, to Maine to a cabin retreat belonging to that hiking friend of mine. Those days nestled in the thick woods, next to that long lake were a gift. I went for a few jogs. Linda read. We swam and we napped. And there were tears. We had coffee at sunrise with the water lapping on shores. Then we left.
2009 was especially noisy. The economy tanked, the housing bubble burst, and Obama replaced 8 years of Bush. I was unemployed and we'd made the decision to walk away from our upside down city condo. We lost the baby we longed to raise, suddenly, tragically. And through it all, Linda and I were making choices that compelled us to listen to our values. I don't want to spend two hours commuting every work day. I don't think working that hard is worth either commuting or paying through the nose to live closer. It just makes things noisier. Let me make sure that readers know that I am speaking only for myself. Millions choose to commute or feel that what they get for their hard work is worth that equation. That's fine if it's fine for you. It wasn't for me and we chose to move to the Quiet Corner - what the northeastern part of the state of Connecticut is affectionately called. Through all the noise, the message was steadily speaking. Leo's stillness firmly repositioned stillness to the forefront of my thoughts. I read some Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle. I took some wonderfully long and meditative runs in preparation for my first marathon. I practiced tuning out the noise. I practiced being present.
Please don't imagine me some Buddhist monk in constant meditation. I am not. Despite my green environs and dearth of neighbors, the world too easily penetrates, vibrates, reverberates. Internet, cable television, radio have made access to noise nearly as abundant here as it was in my former urban life. But proximity permits me easier entry into stillness. There's a mile stretch of road that I either drive or run on nearly every day. It's one of the few straight roads around and there's a canopy of ancient and tall trees that form a cathedral vaulted ceiling of branches. This time of year the green is so new and lustrous. Later those leaves will grow richly and deeply green, but now they are translucent; when the sun shines through them the vernal splendor is arresting.
You might imagine me trotting down that shady road, or going to the farmer's market for freshly picked vegetables and those are things I indeed do. But my mind is still too noisy, too many misplaced thoughts pulling me from the present. I've read that it's a good first step that I'm aware of these leanings, that to be conscious of my thoughts helps to bring me back to the present. It's an effort, every waking moment is an effort. I go through phases of wanting to work on presence and in choosing not to, procrastinating being present for goodness sake! Recently though, I was in a bookstore and saw a book about Zen Buddhism, Buddhism Is Not What You Think. I bought it because everything I've ever read - which is not a ton - about Buddhism appeals to me. I bought it because I knew I would find it helpful to have a new reminder of what it is I am seeking to honor, to value. It's not something mystical I'm after; it's not even something necessarily spiritual. What I'm looking for is something practical, a way to be, stasis. There's a more peaceful mind in me - and in you.
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