Referred Pain

During a recent visit to my doctor, I learned about this wonderful concept of referred pain. After he'd pounded on my liver and kidneys to rule out any obvious problems there, he explained how abdominal pain can be hard to diagnose, since the gut tends to refer the pain elsewhere.

That seems to be a pretty good descriptor of many people's emotional coping strategies. Angry at your boss? Yell at your wife. Frustrated by your credit card bill? Engage in some road rage.

(Drawing by Aidan)

I'm not a Buddhist but I have tried to let go of a lot of negative emotions in recent months and just live moment-to-moment, feeling whatever I feel. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to share these feelings rather freely with others, who don't always know how to interpret what I say.

In any event, my memoir class for Boomers wrapped up tonight, and we discussed one of my writing rules -- that a story is never over until you have located its life-affirming aspect. This is a controversial rule among artists -- after all, not all stories end happily, as all of us can attest.

But by life affirming, I don't mean to insert gratuitously positive material into your story. For me, the life affirming is the aspect that keeps us going, growing, and willing to continue to experiment with this condition of being alive.

Go Tigers!

After all, we all share the ability to end our particular experiment whenever we choose. And, those of who have experienced serious depressions know how easily suicidal thoughts can enter our brains in the most tortured moments, when we feel hopelessly isolated and abandoned.

But, according to my rule, suicide is almost always a mistake. (I have to make an important exception for the terminally ill.) The reason is obvious -- something new and potentially exciting lies around the next corner in your life, at any age, and no matter what your situation.

Life-affirming story telling is the only kind I will allow myself to indulge in. Otherwise, I'd have to kill myself. (Just kidding.)

***

I'm a happy man tonight. My daughter sent me a photo that shows how her baby son is growing inside her, and pushing her tummy out. The doctor says he could arrive anytime from mid-December to early January. This is a holiday baby, clearly, who is on his way. His Dad is distinguishing himself in med school. His Mom, a cognitive science graduate of U-C, Berkeley, will prove to be expert, both intellectually and emotionally, I believe, in raising him. His Dad loves kids and is great with them. His Mom has deeply held principles and is one of the most ethical people I can imagine.

This is one lucky kid on his way into our world!

***

When I think about growing old, many years from now, I think about some very basic things. I imagine a large house that can accommodate lots of comings and goings. My current home is rather small, but well-configured, so when we utilize the outside space, we've had no problem hosting parties of 50+ people, as we've done the past two summers and will again next summer, here or wherever I am living at that time.

So that's one thing -- a big enough place for my prodigious progeny and their progenies to roam at will.

Then, I think a lot about food. I want to be able to grow food on my land. I love to garden, even if the results are mixed (witness my failure to produce pumpkins this year), because it makes me feel connected to the soil, which is made up of the bones of our ancestors. They (and all life-forms) nourish us long after they have died, and in that way, they never really die at all.

Relying on my friend Howard, who grew up on a farm, I could have chickens as well, and this would be nice. Maybe I am imagining turning into my father's father, finally, by becoming the farmer he was, until he died in the 1920's, decades before I came along. My namesake; or more properly, I'm his namesake.

I wonder what he would have thought of me. In photos he appears stern. But maybe he was just nervous at having his photo snapped. Some people are. I know a pretty woman who refuses to let anyone photograph her, although she did let me take her picture many times. I gave copies of these photos to her parents, who were grateful to have a record of her recent life to show their friends.

Another part of my image of old-age has to do with art -- photography, film-making, acting, music, painting, drawing, and of course, for me personally, writing. I've written many thousands of words in this blog, but there is an unlimited store of so much more I want to write when I grow older and wiser than I now am -- a fallow youth by comparison to the wise elder I imagine myself some day becoming.

Today, alas, I am little more developed than the average teenaged boy. My head turns at the sight of an attractive woman. I love to eat all sorts of foods to excess.
I'm an unrepentant sports fan. I love to play my music so loud my poor upstairs neighbor has to ask me to lower the volume when she goes to bed.

Nevertheless, I have to admit that having a pinched nerve in my back plus a few other aches reminds me that a certain critical amount of time has passed, regrettably, since I was mathematically a teenager.

Lamb chops, garlic, brussel sprouts, green pepper, mushrooms.

But, I was so miserable most of my teen years that I've never once wanted to go back there.

Except in this one way. I'd like to be able to start it all over again, with what I know now, and live my same life in a more conscious way. Have you ever felt that? Just if only I could rerun this movie, and do it right. So many mistakes, so much pain, so many losses, so many bad decisions.

But it appears that only the Gods get to do this more than once. So, my mission, whether I get there or not, is to imagine a future where I am not only at peace, but able to provide an environment that nourishes those around me, even before taking my rightful place in the rich black topsoil that sustains us all.

Some people want their ashes spread in certain special places. That would be fine with me, since I have so many special places -- Rolling Hills, Sanibel, Pt. Reyes, Golden Gate Park, all of the yards I've ever planted or buried a pet in, and, of course, the streets of San Francisco.

But it would also be fine to just dump me into any piece of soil anywhere on earth. I'll happily rest with the ancestors that brought all of us into being -- their hopes and dreams and flaws and failures and loves and hates and beginnings and endings all result in the same outcome.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. (Thanks, Dad.)

p.s. Actually, now I think of it, I wouldn't mind part of me going into Mud Lake with Dad, and part of me going into the roots of the Blue Spruce with Mom. The rest of me could be tossed up into the global atmosphere with the words: "May the Circle of Poison finally be broken!"

All of this is after I get my old-age dreams to come true, mind you. The perfect ending to a pretty good story.

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