From suffering to Compassion

A special thanks to The Moth and especially Phil Caputo.  I listen to The Moth almost everyday.  I intend to so for the foreseeable future.  This morning while I was working it was playing in the background.  I got caught up in Phil Caputo's story.  His struggle at the end "Why me? Why must I suffer?  to move from suffering to compassion." moved me.  I went for a run this morning and turned my radio off to contemplate this thing.  How has my suffering aided in the growth of my compassion?  How has it helped me?  How has it helped all sentient beings?
In typical Rover fashion, I wrote this paragraph a little more than a month ago and dropped it. In atypical fashion I have been going back and cleaning up my drafts.  I have always loved this paragraph because it reminds me of that morning.  It was a bright, cool morning in what has become on of my favorite places on earth, my park.  I began with thinking about myself.  The suffering that I had been experiencing was the only way for me to become introspective enough to feel compassion for myself.  I think that some of you call that grace.  I had to learn to forgive myself and to love myself unconditionally.  Once I had begun that I realized that it was imperative for me to push that love outside of myself to those that I come into contact with.  I began helping to care for the homeless, I tried to express a more unconditional and deeper love to my boys, I tried to express compassion to even those that I hated.  As I was running and contemplating all of this I began thinking beyond people.  How has my suffering helped all sentient beings, all of the earth?  I realized that it had.  I had been moving to a more vegetable based diet.  Of course if a thing is not being killed to into my belly that is certainly helping it, but also choosing less impactful foods helps us all.  I drive less personally. I can't help the mile I drive for work at the moment, but personally I only drive a few days a week.  I do the rest on foot or on my bike.
The reflection on all of this is one of those things that helped me move toward closure on this chapter of my life.  I feel as though I am in a new chapter right now.  I think that there will be flashbacks and slip ups, but I am turning the page and I feel good about it.
I wish you all happiness and I truly love you even if I have never met you

I fell in love

This winter I fell in love with a nerdy librarian.  Of course, I am referring to my new city of choice St Louis.  When I came all she wanted to do was discuss the cold world of Pre-revolutionary Russian literature.  For weeks and months the cold bound her tightly in layers snow and rain.  Luckily for me, I like Russian literature.  I didn't get frightened off by the introduction of new characters or unfamiliar story lines.  I stuck with her because she began to accept me.  But lately she has begun to let her hair down and take off her glasses.  The spring growth is mind blowing.  It  reaffirms my new found love for this city.  The occasional cold wind or uncomfortable conversation doesn't cause that love to wain but rather increases my curiosity about this place.  As I explore more and more of the city and get more comfortable with the people I meet, I know that this is the right place for me right now.  In true 80's movie fashion, she is a full on foxx.

Trying to find beauty

I enjoy finding the beauty in everything I do.  I don't remember if this is something that I have always done.  I know that since my AT solo hike it has been a big part of my life.  I have no idea why I try search out beauty.  But no matter where I am, I am constantly on the prowl for the killer view.  I try to stop and enjoy them even if it's just for a minute or even a few seconds.  If I can just let off the gas for a few seconds I can soak in the scene.

 I cannot reproduce these scenes in any meaningful way.  I cannot really find a way to share them with anyone other than myself.  I have tried painting, that didn't work out well trust me.  I take pictures, but that doesn't do the scene justice.  I tried poetry.  That got good reviews at my poetry reading, but it still pales in comparison to the grandness of the world.

Wandering through the city has given me a whole new setting to try to soak beauty from.  It doesn't matter to me whether I am in the city, the middle of nowhere or in a hospital.  I see the wonderful combination of light and shape as a living work of art.

The Burial Vault

As the sun begins to beat

Through the canopy of the forest

The warm, moist earth begins

To release the fragrance of decay.

The leaves and trees and insects and animals

All feed upon on another.

All rot into the ground, all are joined as one.

Are we not part of that "one?"

Why have we decided

To place ourselves in a concrete box?

Because we have removed ourselves from nature.

We no longer see ourselves as products of this world

But producers of things from this world

We have allowed ourselves to be separated

From the cycle of life and decay. Why?

It reminds us that we will rot,

we will become food.

Don't place me in that concrete box!

Let my body nourish all those

Forests that have nourished me

Let my rot bring new life

Let the smell of my decay have a purpose

Let me join myself to nature

One last and lasting time!

The fun house mirror

One of the things that all of the upheaval in my life has done is make me wonder who I am.  I have always thought of myself in one way.  When I look in the mirror I still see the 26 yr old Seth.  I see a young, attractive, outgoing, gregarious, friendly person that can make friends any where and feel comfortable in any setting.  When I moved into an entirely new set of surroundings I took this view of myself with me.  I am realizing that I am an older, less outgoing, even shy introvert that is having a hard time fitting in in my new locale.  I had started being able to talk to random people in relatively quiet settings.  Some had even started calling me by name, but I found that I could only strike up a conversation after a couple of beers to loosen me up.
I guess this whole "questioning myself" was brought forth on Wed.  Wed was May Day, or International Worker's Day.  I heard on the radio about a picnic in my park on Wed afternoon.  I walked down there after work.  When I got there, the cops were there with video cameras and still-frame cameras taking pictures of the people that were there.  It was mostly a bunch of hippies that were laying in the grass or talking at picnic tables.  When I showed up the tension was already pretty high.  I started talking to one guy that didn't really want anything to do with me.  I knew that I didn't really look like anyone there, and I had made a mistake in wearing a MO Beef Council race t-shirt (don't advertise beef in a group of vegans).  The leader eventually came over and began asking where I was from, where I had heard about it and stuff like that.  That is when I realized they thought I was a cop.  So now, not only are the cops taking my picture, but the group I tried to go hang out with was too.  I was there for a while, but felt really out of place.  Eventually, I had enough.  I went and shook the hand of the guy that came over and talked to me and told him that I didn't really fit in just left.  As I was walking back to my apartment I really began to struggle with who I thought I was.  The only friends that I have are out in the burbs.  They don't think like me.  They don't act like me.  They don't eat like me, but they don't care.  I love city life, but I'm pretty sure most of the people on my block think I'm a cop, too.
Maybe, I have been part of a family for so long that, when that is gone, it can really mess with one's own identity.  For 15 yrs I have identified myself by who I was with.  For 8 yrs I have identified myself as a dad and husband.  I am still a dad, but for 5 days a week I am just me.  Being me at times can be scary.  Not because I am manic or depressive, but because it is a struggle trying to figure that guy out.  In all of my new pursuits this week, I just kept feeling more outside.  I struggled to try to connect.  I kept seeing flaws and things I didn't like in everyone around me.  Am I going to be the crazy guy rocking in his chair while he scribbles poetry down?  Am I the crazy lady that gesticulates wildly while reading a work that is a random selection of words crammed onto an index card?  Am I going to be the crazy religious people loudly proseltyzing any non-believers or "sinful" people?  Am I going to want more and more crap and space even though I have no need for it?  Am I going to let myself fall back into a consumerists mindset? (that is if I ever even got out) But I figure that if I keep thinking that everyone around me is crazy, maybe it's not everyone around me.  Maybe it's me.  I just want to find peace and happiness again.  I want to feel comfortable and relaxed and joyful.
I guess I have no choice but to keep doing what I am doing.  Trying new things and not giving up when I feel discouraged.  Other than the socialist picnics, I am going to poetry on Wed, Help the Homeless on Thurs and going to free shows.  I feel like I have lost sight of my inner self temporarily.  But if I just keep trying, it will emerge eventually.  I am 37.  I am divorced.  I am a father to 2 wonderful kids.  I am living in neighborhood that I love.  I am a RUS.  I am figuring out the rest.  Anything worth having comes with effort. That includes me.  One bad day or week isn't the end.  It will pass.  Everything passes.

"death is not happening" - some Tibetan monk

My year of "firsts"

I will be passing many "firsts" this year.  It started on New Years Eve when I celebrated by myself at a bar in St Joe.  It has moved through Valentines Day and Easter and many more to come.  Today is one of those.  It is the first time in 13 years that today became just another day.  I am surprisingly saddened by that.  I have always tried to do a good job celebrating this date.  It seems bizarre that it has just blended into the calendar with all the other 28th's of the month.  But alas, that is the nature of the year.
As my year moves forward, I will get caught by more.  There will be holidays alone, or just me and the boys.  Never again will the old foursome take to disk golf course or bike trail or any other spontaneous event.
This seems to suck me dry today.  I stopped in a park today and scribbled this onto a yellow, post-it-note.

There are days when words no longer ease the pressure,
I open my veins into my fountain pen,
But my soul that so often spills out is dry.
The pressure is so great that the suffocating feeling
Seems to have no beginning or end
No breath, no gesture, no rest,
No run, no bite, no vice can ease the pain.
Just breathe to know that I am still alive.
This is only one day of many.


I clearly started this yesterday.  I have fallen back into an old pattern of withholding myself in incomplete writings.  Sometimes I am afraid that the sullen tone of the writing will give the wrong impression.  My life is not a sad, dreary experience, but those are the times that I need to write the most.  I have started working on some poetry of other things and times and I find that to be cathartic, but they don't flow as easily as the more negative feelings.  That is a good thing.  It turns those works into a more structured art, rather than a passionate rant.  I will post them after I read them out loud.  I don't want to only post the crap and none of the fruit.   
As a side note, feel free to comment on my poetry.  I would like literary criticism to help me make it more readable and flowing.  Often it feels that poetry is just an excuse to write a run on sentence.

Cutting ties

The storm has passed.

I missed the time for cutting ropes with axes

To free the ship from the moorings.

In the calm, the labrynthian  knots of a past life;

Confusion and pain and miscommunication

Are now the only thing holding me to fast

To a port that was once my home.

Can I exist beyond this safe haven?

The destination is unclear,

But the ship has been repaired.

The stores have been laid below decks.

The ship is prepared for the storms and

 Long weeks at sea before sanctuary will be found again.

The crew has passed the new muster.

The sails burned by my own apathy,

Replaced with stronger cloth.

Untie the knots one by one

Freeing myself one step at a time.

With heavy heart hoist the anchor.

Turn my back to this past anchorage

And put my face into the wind.

Watch as the sails are filled with confidence.

Feel pride as I steer my own vessel

Into seas that have been uncharted.

The sea is calling.

A new life beckons. 

A broken heart

I have been struggling with whether or not to share about my broken heart.  To me it is the most personal aspect of my divorce.  It is the point at which I can feel myself liquefy. It is the pain that I feel the most.  I have a really hard time putting what I feel into words.  In the past poetry would help.  Three years ago I wrote this:
I have wandered too far into the ocean
Oblivious to the danger, I have gone too far
The waves begin to crash down on me
Each wave brings new depths of sadness
Each tug at my feet pulls me deeper into the abyss
Soon I am in over my head
Breath is precious to me now
Is there no chance to return to shore?
Is my love gone forever?
Can she not see me bobbing for life?
Is there no help?
Is it over, Is it over?

I wish I had disappeared that day
Shown up on the shores of Cuba
A lifeless corpse to feel no more
To never have known this pain
To never have known this loneliness
To never have known the feelings of loss
That I now feel


The dire feelings of death are no longer with me, but the sorrow and pain and loss linger.  This is the one thing that "work" does nothing for.  I can work on me to try to be the man I know I can be, but the broken heart can't be worked on just felt.
Today, I was trying to put this into words while I worked.  I tried to keep a running journal through the day to see if that could help.  This is what I wrote today unedited:

Dealing with codependency can be a welcome relief from the hearbreak involved in a divorce.  It can act as a distraction, something else to focus on besides the gaping hole in your chest.  It can be the thing to which I cling to give myself a way forward.  There are days that I am like a zombie.  There are no words to describe the hollow, empty feeling that can up at any moment.  The mention of a city, a song, a text, a stray thought can open the valve in the bottom of your feet and drain you in a heartbeat.  Your pain takes the shape of tears on your cheeks and the motion of a quivering lip.  The beauty that I see around me every day melts into the darkness of a cave where light can never reach.  The pit can swallow you whole.  There is no way out, there is no way to stop it.  You just have to ride it out. 

Today my broken heart is like a lead vest.  It weighs me down in everything I try to do.  It saps my energy.  It wants to drag me to the floor.    

I am lucky that she and I had never done anything in this city.  The things I am doing and experiencing are my own and can be used to buoy my spirits.  Even though I am on the greatest adventure in my life, I am doing it alone.