The Gifts of The Father

       My dad. An amazing man. I loved him with all my heart. Not because of what he did for me. But because of who he was.
       I saw my dad as a human being, as much as I saw him as my father. That perspective helped create my special bond with him. Because he was so much more than just my father.  
       Seeing him as s full human being, instead of just the mighty patriarch, may have made my dad uncomfortable. Because, despite his claims that he had made "all the mistakes", he was a perfectionist. He wanted to appear perfect to all of his children.
       The other day, my siblings and I met with the lawyers who administer my dad’s estate. The meeting went very well. Afterwards, when my focus could afford to shift away from the practical and immediate issues at hand, my thoughts drifted to my dad. I became extremely emotional when I got home.
       Gratitude engulfed me like a warm blanket wrapping itself around a child. My dad worked hard his whole life, until the day he died, providing abundantly for his family. As a boy, during the depression, he worked for his father, traveling to jobs in Maine in a Model T on the weekends.  As a man, he worked tirelessly to give us, his children, a better life than he had.
       And because he ran his own company, my dad was able to provide work for countless relatives and friends. On his death bed, my grandfather, who started the construction company my dad took over, said to him;  “Leon....it’s your turn to take care of the family now”. And my grandpa wasn’t just talking about my dad’s immediate family, although we were obviously front and center. My grandfather was taking about anyone with the last name “Piatelli”.
       Talk about a heavy onus.
       Every fight I ever had with my dad, I regret. Every unkind thought, or hostile feeling I had towards him, I want back. Of course I know that is stinking thinking. I can do nothing about the past. Especially regret it. But what I can do is use the past to teach me about my present. And from that wiser place, I create a more joyful, more fulfilling, more beautiful now. And that upgrade of my present creates an upgrade of my future.
       Thanx to my dad, financial freedom smiled upon me as  soon as I became a young man. Working when I wanted to, at what I wanted to, provided me a life that most would envy. I worked in film production; insane hours, but I loved it. I played in lots of bands; great fun, lots of girls, and wonderful opportunity for expression. Creative projects abounded: I created my own very elaborate Christmas cards; recorded and distributed very professionally crafted Christmas music with my talented family; threw amazing parties several times a year; made my own videos; traveled extensively; wrote a lot and started a blog. All wonderful experiences.
       Blessed with the opportunity to fully express myself, I took it. And took it. And kept taking it. With no apologies. I have lead an unconventional life. A blessed life. Not perfectly. But I have done much, seen much, expressed much.
       The freedom to do all that has given me the experience to know that putting myself out there is worth it. That the benefits for showing the world what I think and what I feel and who I am are worth the risks.
       At the same time, I can also see what I missed by not having to do something I didn’t want to do. Like work at a job I didn’t like. I can see the lessons lost because I did not have to get up and toil at something that I could not just quit without serious consequences. I did not have to work to pay the rent. Or put food on my table. I admit, those very real concerns for most have never been a concern of mine. But just because I never lived it doesn’t mean I can’t relate to it. I’ve never had cancer either, but I am compassionate and empathetic enough to know that it has to be a tremendously difficult burden to bear.
       I realize that I have not fully utilized my talents, abilities, blessings, or opportunities. And because my talents, abilities, blessings, and opportunities have been greater than most, perhaps that fact is more distressful. More distressful not only to me but to others in my life who have seen me go through pain, frustration, and lack of fulfillment because of it.
       Moving forward, however, I understand my journey better. Far better than I ever have before. More importantly, I accept it and I embrace it. That means I am more in touch with both the benefits and drawbacks of the life I’ve lead. That connection to what I’ve missed by doing it this way does not depress or discourage me. It has actually help awaken me. I am thus committed to doing more, and more importantly, to being more. I am committed to being more of Me. I am committed to the possibilities created from being more fully My Self. I am committed to the possibilities created by being more fully engaged in My Life.
       But, before the voices get too loud; the voices, both inside and outside of my head, that tell me that this entire post is nothing more than a justification of what I’ve done (or not done) throughout the course of my very blessed life, let me say this: Please Shut Up. I don’t need your judgement. I don’t need your criticism. I don’t need your conventional wisdom. I don’t need you to beat me up. That does not help me move ahead. That does not help me understand what a wonderful, unique, wild ride my life has been, and how the living of that wonderful, unique, and wild ride can best serve me going forward.
       I am very aware of what I have gained, and what I have lost, by choosing to live my life the way I have. I am clear that it has been nobody’s choice but mine. I am completely responsible for both the rewards and the costs. And with that responsibility comes the realization that the best I have to give this life, as always, is All of Me. My whole authentic self. As best I can. To share my experience. My truth. My love. My unique essence. My Being. My “That Which Makes Me Unique From Every Other Soul On This Planet”.
       Those who want it, I invite you to please take it. All of it. Really. For those who can handle it, come all the way in. For those who just want some of it, take what you want and leave the rest. And for those who want none of it, well the door is right over there.
       Thank you dad, for giving me the space to see all of this; the freedom to live all of this; and the opportunity to capitalize on all of this. Your magnanimous gifts have not been wasted. Will not be wasted. I have once again been propelled forward by the generosity of your spirit, the hard work of your mind and body, the openness of your heart, and the essence of your being. You gave me, dear father, the most precious gift you could have ever given me. You gave me the very best you could.
       You gave me yourself.
       And I am passing it forward.

©2012 Clint Piatelli and Red F Publishing. All Rights (and Selfless Wrongs) Reserved.


        
    
    
    
   

Lord Of The Christmas Lights

    Today, I took down my Christmas tree, and all the holiday lights and trimming that went with it. The process reminded me of my dad. So I dug up something I wrote years ago about him and Christmas Lights...

     My dad, like most truly eccentric people, had several obsessions in his life; his compulsive stockpiling of flashlights, steak knives, and pens, were but a few.  But his most unbelievable obsession, for my money, was his diabolical preoccupation with Christmas lights. 
    The sheer magnitude of this particular yultide infatuation did not become apparent to me until about fifteen years ago, when I was in my early thirties, and my dad was still alive. 
    He and my mother where in New York city, and I was doing some last minute decorating for our annual black tie, gala, highly touted Piatelli family Christmas party.
    A few weeks before (in what had become a highly enjoyable custom between my dad and I), I had helped him light his property for Christmas. The totality of our yearly efforts included the following: two medium size trees at the foot of the driveway; the Japanese Maple and Cherry Blossom tree right in front of the house (and a few straw reindeer between them); the bough over the front porch; the two dwarf pines that bookend the porch: several large shrubs; and the rather massive holly tree in the back yard. Not to mention, the large Christmas tree that I bought for him and my mom each season. 
    All that had been done. Literally thousands of christmas lights had been deployed.  
    Knowing this, but still wanting to add a little more electric festivity to the property for our upcoming party, I was hoping to find a stray set of lights to do up one or two more shrubs at the corner of the driveway. I wasn’t hopeful, because I was well aware of how many lights had already been used. 
    So I went down cellar, hoping to find a spare set of lights in the storage room.  When I entered that room, however, I was met with a surreal sight: More Christmas lights. Thousands of them. I was not prepared for this, and frankly, it overwhelmed me. 
    There were boxes upon boxes of lights, all stacked neatly on the shelves. The boxes could not possibly all be full, I said to myself, so I started checking their contents.  But full they were. All of them. I stood there for a moment, frozen in my tracks, as though I was looking at something that could not possibly be real.
    The number of lights alone were astounding enough, but the sheer variety added an element of absolute insanity. There were funky, round, opalescent lights. Perpetually blinking lights.  Multi-colored lights.  Lights of a single color.  Lights in strange shapes. Small, new, LED style lights. Big, old, C-9 style lights. Lights shaped like Santa Claus. Lights with clear orbs the size of baseballs covering them (known as,  I discovered later, “snowball lights”). Indeed, I found lights of strange and exotic varieties that I didn’t even know existed. I slapped myself to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.  How could one man acquire so many lights in one lifetime? 
    Dazed and confused, I headed to an adjacent room in our cellar to collect my thoughts. This was known as “the pool room”, because it contained a regulation sized pool table. What I saw there sent me right over the edge. Just when I thought that no human could possibly stockpile more lights, I saw the impossible: more lights.  All over the room.  On the pool table.  On the couch.  In boxes on the floor. On the shelves.  And of even more bizarre varieties.  I saw strings of lights that obviously hadn’t been used in years; you know, the big old fashioned kind that would burn so hot they would send you to the hospital if you touched them. 
    Assaulted by this madness, I determined that I had to get the hell out of there.  “This is not possible”, I said to myself. “No human on earth, even my christmas-lights-obsessive-father, could possibly aquire this many christmas lights!”. Faced with this unerving reality, I suddenly felt as though my sanity was at stake.  So I bolted out of the cellar, my eyes fixed in a glaze of disbeleif, my mind a swirling malestrom of disturbing images and impossible visions.  I went outside, sat down, and took many long, deep breaths.   
    After a while, I calmed down, somehow came to grips with what I had just beheld, and went back into the cellar. to get the lights I needed. 
    But I warn those of inexperience to stay away from that place. That cavern of yuletide madness. That place where a man’s mind delves into a sea of insanity, born of electricity and glass.  Where logic is but a rumor, and where reality bends to the whim of a madman.  A madman known as My Father - Insane Lord of Christmas Lights.
   
    As I mentioned, I had this insight long before my dad passed away. I thus had the opportunity, on quite a few occasions, to share this writing with him. What I wouldn’t give to be able to sit with him, in his study, one more time, and read this to him aloud. To watch him smile. And shake his head. And experience how much he loved me. And how much I loved him.

Problem Solving 101

       Growing up, my models for emotional problem solving and interpersonal conflict resolution were virtually non-existent. On every level, conflict in my home environment was something that you tried to avoid at all costs, because the result was usually mayhem. But even trying to avoid conflict was problematic, because virtually anything and everything was fodder for chaos. Like a road that detours into another road, that detours into another road, that detours into a disheveled road rife with unavoidable pot holes, divots, and other obstructions, tension and crisis were the way of things. They were unavoidable.
        And when interpersonal and emotional problems did arise, as they always did, constantly, they didn’t get worked out. In fact, they just got worse. Nobody ever apologized, or had any skills to resolve issues and deal with how each other felt. I quickly learned not to share my emotional problems or have any hope that they would ever get resolved. The only tactics were to avoid these types of problems or get angry. Basically shut off and shut down or get totally pissed. Because anger is power, and that's how you "won". Either way, don’t really engage. That way, I could limit my problems. And if I ran into one, anger would "fix" it.
        My dad, like most men, looked at a problem as something to fix. An overriding male social archetype is the male as problem solver. Men who are able to effectively solve problems are highly valued in our society. Kick ass problem solvers, in virtually every field, get paid well. The bigger the problems they can solve, the more they are “worth”. And thus it’s no shock to see how as a society, we’ve internalized this dynamic as it applies to careers and placed much of our internal self worth and self love on how much we get paid.
        So for most of my life, I’ve never seen myself as much of a problem solver, even though I have have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Because internally, when it came to emotional issues, I had the mindset that my problems couldn’t get solved. So if a part of me bought into the societal archetype - and a part of me did, a bigger part than I was even aware of - my self worth was very small indeed.
        My dad was a civil engineer. A builder. A developer. Problems in this context were constant, and you had to be a great problem solver to be a good builder. My dad was a very successful builder, and therefore also a very successful problem solver. My dad loved to solve problems. As with so many men, it made him feel purposeful. Useful. Needed. So much so, that in his personal life, my dad would unconsciously make something out of nothing and actually create problems so he could solve them. I also believe many other men do this, mostly unconsciously, as well. I know I certainly used to.
        While this ability to solve problems serve us very well in our careers, this propensity to create problems to solve, or more insidiously, to look at emotional difficulties as things to “fix”, don’t serve us well. The general male perspective of looking at feelings being hurt, or the creation of intense feelings at all, as a “problem” that need to be “fixed” is not a useful approach. Because it means trying to “fix” the way someone feels.
        In my experience as a kid, that usually meant trying to convince me that I didn’t feel a certain way, or that what I was experiencing was not what I thought it was. Basically, trying to “fix” an emotional “problem” entailed trying to deny my experience so that I wouldn’t feel sad or lonely or scared or hurt or whatever. It’s all my dad knew how to do. He was a very deep feeling man who struggled with his own feelings. So trying to teach me how to deal with my feelings was not something he was capable of. Not a ton of men are. But that’s changing.
        Denying my experience as a way to get me to not feel what I was feeling never worked. All it did was not allow me to trust myself, because I was always being told by a trusted adult that I shouldn’t feel a certain way, or that what I was feeling wasn’t real. And unfortunately, if I resisted the denial route, as I usually did because it didn’t ever feel good, my dad would get frustrated and eventually get mad at me. So then I would feel even worse. Much worse, because now I was shamed for feeling at all. It was a total mind fuck. And a heart fuck as well.
        I say this with absolute compassion for my father. It must have been as hard for him to see his son in pain as it was for me to be in it. The big difference, of course, was that he was an adult and I was a child. My ability to make any sense of this wasn’t developed yet. So I got taught some very bad lessons about what it was to feel.
        My dad died at age eighty-six, no more aware of how much difficulty he had dealing with his emotions than when he was a younger man raising his son. I would love for my dad to be alive today, and more importantly, for him to be able to hear me when I tell him about the lessons I’ve learned about emotions and feelings and the depths of the heart. In typical father fashion, my dad had a hard time hearing me on lots of things, because I was his kid, and damn it, he knew more than I did about everything, even things he had absolutely no fuckin’ clue about. I was aware of this dynamic, and he was not. So I could roll with it.
        But if I could magically bring my dad back from the dead, and sit him down, and magically have him hear and believe every word I say, I would tell him this:

“Dad, I know you are a deep feeling man. You feel so much, so deeply, that most times, you don’t know what the hell to do with it. So you either explode, or you stuff. That’s what you taught me to do.

But I found a better way, dad. Because, just like you, I feel so very much, so very deeply. And, just like you, I used to not know what the hell to do with it all. But I do now.
Guess what dad? It’s kinda simple. I just feel it. I just allow myself to feel it. I don’t run from it, or stuff it. Or turn it into anger. Or turn it against myself. First , I just honor it. I honor how I feel. I honor myself, and I feel it. As deeply and as much as I need to.

And then, something amazing happens. Just by truly honoring how I feel, embracing it, feeling it all the way in, I somehow know what the hell to do with it. Don’t ask me how, but I do.

Sometimes I express it, right then and there. Sometimes I hold it in and express it when it’s more appropriate. Sometimes I write about it, or let it out in some other form of art. The options are many, but I do SOMETHING with it dad. I eventually release it. I don’t let it sit inside of me anymore and let it eat at me from the inside out.

I know this about me dad. I know it about you. I know it about many.”

        My dad would hear me. Because his heart would now be wide open. Like mine. And, because he’s a guy, and because he’s a builder, he would be thrilled that I exhibited some good old problem solving.



©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and nine pages of change orders) Reserved.

Last Footage of My Father

On October 5, 2006, my sister Cheryl and I visited my dad, my mom, and my nephew at the house I grew up in. I wanted to show them pictures of my trip to California, having returned just a few weeks before. I had my computer with me, because that's where all my pictures were. I showed my dad how I could take video, and immediately play it back, with my computer. He got a kick out of that. He was a civil engineer, and technology of this sort fascinated him. It befuddled him as well, because for years, I would get weekly calls asking me, one more time, how to program a VCR, duplicate a tape, or just turn a damn piece of equipment on.

The day after this video was taken, my dad broke his hip. He was gone sixteen days later. These are therefore the last images ever taken of my father.

I am grateful that I got to spend part of this day with him. How fortunate I was to capture this video of him and I only hours before he began a slow fade from this life. I miss him more than I can say. And I will always love him. In death as I did in life. He isn't physically here anymore, but that doesn't mean he's not still with me. I feel him today, as I do everyday. If I just go inside. And listen.

June 12, 2008: Z-Day

        Why “Z-Day”? Because “D-Day” was already taken. An alternative explanation could simply be, paraphrasing a burping, drunken brother Blutarsky from Delta Tau Chi: “Why not!?”
        Actually, I just like the ring of Z-Day. And although the moniker is silly and arbitrary, the day that it denotes is not. Not for me anyway.
        It was a year ago today that I literally felt something inside of me move. A little explosion happening just in the space of my being that rearranged my mind and altered how I felt, about almost everything, in the course of a single moment.
        I didn’t know it in that moment, but my heart had exploded. Shut down and hiding in isolation within the darkness of my pain since my dad had died twenty months before, my heart finally allowed some light to enter the prison that it had walled itself inside of. And that light caused a blast. A big blast.
        Just like in a real explosion, the second before it happens, things look and feel one way. And the moment after it happens, everything is different.
        Inside of me, I could feel that something big had occurred. But I could not fathom how big. Nor could I grasp how drastically it’s consequences would change my life. I just knew I was different. I just knew that my life had somehow changed from what it was just a second before.
        The heart explosion happened so fast and so powerfully that my mind and body immediately went into a kind of shock. I actually felt myself disappear for a minute, just after it happened. I felt a rush sweep over me, a massive wave of feeling crashing against my insides, and then I was gone. I came back a minute later.
        In a flash too bright for the rest of me to see, my heart was now once again alive. My heart could now once again allow itself to feel. My path had just changed. Drastically.
        The catalyst for this explosion that was to alter my life was my heart’s blinding realization that I was madly in love with the woman I was looking at. And I had been for a long time.
        Please join me on my next post for more gut wrenching honesty and all the gory details....


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and five emotional beach fronts of wrongs) Reserved.