A Little Bit Biff, A Little Bit Larry

        Biff is a buff, athletic, gym rat. He’s there every day for at least two hours. From across the room, he spots a guy he doesn’t know, but sees there all the time. He doesn’t say anything to the guy, ever, but the monologue in his head about him goes like this:

        Repulsive. Absolutely re-fuckin-pulsive. Fat droops everywhere, draping over you like an enormous, saggy, flesh cape. The very ground seems to grunt trying to support your mass. People practically scurry out of your way, probably afraid that they’ll be unable to avoid your girth and brush up against you. That can’t be pleasant. Even the air avoids you, appearing to rush away as you move, as though it were escaping from a balloon. Your movement looks unnatural, your very bones moving in ways unintended by God. I refuse to call that a body, and obese is too kind a word. Inhuman is more accurate.
        No self-control. No discipline. No life. You spend your nights gorging yourself on pizza and ice cream while watching Star Trek reruns. Then you call whatever few pathetic friends you have and argue with them over who’s better, Kirk or Piccard. Why bother coming to the gym? Save your money fatso. Spend it on ring dings. At least you’ll enjoy them. You can’t possibly like being here. And you have no idea what you’re doing. I watch you go through your half-assed excuse of a routine, barely breaking a sweat, not using proper technique or form. I hope you live close by. Any more than a twenty minute round trip commute would officially qualify your experience here as a colossal waste of time.
        And I can’t understand your expression. A peaceful smile plastered on your face, from the moment you get here to the moment you leave. Even while you’re working out, if you could call what you do here that. I don’t get it. Where’s the struggle? Where’s the pain and sacrifice? You talk too much while you’re here, saying hello, striking up conversations with the person next to you on the treadmill. You mock this sacred ground, where people come to work and change their bodies.

        Larry is a large, heavy, reluctant exerciser. He doesn’t like being in the gym, but he comes anyway, because he knows it’s good for him. From across the room, he sees a man he doesn’t know. He never talks to this man, ever, but the monologue in his head about him goes like this:

       Stop staring at me with contempt. I feel your eyes boring through me, struggling to get through all this fat and reach the other side of judgment. You probably hate me. You don’t even know me. But I know you. A thousand times. God smiled on you, blessed you with genetics and motivation, and physical fortune. Be grateful.
        My outsides appear hideous to you, but how I look is not who I am. I know that. But you don’t. So while the world is at your feet, you kneel before a false god.
        I did not choose this body. It chose me. My will power. My desire. My pain. None of it has been enough to free me from this biological prison. My prayers remain unanswered. But I still pray. For the act of prayer soothes my soul. I learned how to leave this body a long time ago. I learned to go away to a safe place where the words and the stares and the stones would not hurt so much. I still leave, but now I leave for a different reason. When I meditate. When I pray. I travel to a safe place within myself not to hide but to heal. And now I choose to go, instead of just suddenly finding myself someplace else without even realizing I’ve left.
        You move so stiffly my friend, as though your own body resists itself. Every movement seems strained and calculated. Every action reeks of pretense. Posing as a maverick, as a man who is beautiful and free, I see through the façade. I know your prison: unbridled vanity.
        I recognize your pain. I grasp your story. Because your story is my story, just turned on its head. An upside down quarter is still a quarter. I know that, but you don’t. Ego clouds your vision, and truth remains a hidden treasure.
        I will pray for you. I will pray that you see yourself, and free yourself. Then maybe you will see me.

       We're all a little bit Biff. We're all a little bit Larry.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Biff & Larry amount of Wrongs) Reserved.

The CVS of Broken Hearts

        Saturday, I was at a local CVS picking up a prescription for my sister. In front of the store, there stood a couple having a discussion. From the look on their faces, and their body language, it looked pretty intense. I had to walk past them on my way into the store, and I really didn’t want to hear what they were saying. But it was impossible not to, unless I pulled the old third grade audible denial technique of putting my hands over my ears and making loud, inhuman sounds with my mouth. I knew how to do that, physically and metaphysically. I’ve watched people in my family do it for decades.
        I heard a little as I walked by. “Relationship”. “Love”. “Lies”. The rest of what they were saying was a blur, and that’s the way I wanted it. But those powerful words leapt out at me like frogs from a lily pad. And right before I got past them, the guy walked away, and the woman turned into the store. Without knowing anything else, it appeared there was some serious hurt going on. I felt this energy as I walked through their collective space, and it literally plucked a heart string that resonated in the key of pain.
        The woman was in front of me, and happened to be going towards the back of the store, just like I was. In another life, I stopped her and asked her what was wrong. Sensing my infinite empathy, compassion, and healing abilities, she broke down, opened up, and told me everything. I held her, wiped away her tears, put my hand on her chest, and instantly mended her broken heart. She walked away smiling from ear to ear, now crying tears of joy.
       That was in another life. In this one, I said a silent prayer for both of them and kept walking.
        It was now official. This was The CVS of Broken Hearts. Eight months ago, my heart got broken there too. Even now, every time I go by the place, I think of that night. God knows how many more hearts have been shattered within the negative love zone of that seemingly innocent pharmaceutical and beauty supply store.
        Last summer, the night before the Falmouth Road Race, which I was running, I had gotten together with my ex-girlfriend, principessa. During the course of the evening, I drove her to this same CVS to fill a prescription for her because she wasn’t feeling well. On the way to the store, I said how madly in love with her I was, even though we had been broken up for two and a half months. I hadn’t been in the situation of being in love with somebody I wasn’t with since I was twenty years old. And just like then, this discussion wasn’t exactly flooding me with dopamine.
        This conversation on the way to CVS was probably the most painful discussion of my life. It continued on into the store, where she started to cry. I tried to comfort her, and then through her tears she said the worse six words I’ve ever heard: “I’m not in love with you.” Actually, it was the worse twelve words I’ve ever heard. She said it twice.
        As I reeled from this machete through my heart, I turned away, the look on her face burned indelibly into whatever area of grey matter is responsible for the storage of devastatingly painful memories. That area’s retention ability was pushing maximum density by now, having received trillions of synapse shattering neurotransmissions within the past hour. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I wish I could say that I was able to find humor in the moment and respond with “Oh Yeah?!” But no, I couldn’t. I had to process what I just heard. It was the first time she had ever said that to me.
        All of sudden, my whole insides caught fire, and I felt like I was being cooked from the inside by the flames of agony and despair. I walked around the store because I had to keep moving or I would have burned to a crisp right there in the make-up isle. Nothing I had ever felt hurt like this. I would have preferred the pain of a white hot, razor studded catheter jammed through a raging erection.
        Previously, throughout the course of the evening, no matter what she said to me, even if it hurt like hell, I didn’t shut down. I didn’t resort to my normal protective M.O. I didn’t get defensive or put up a wall. In fact, I returned whatever she threw at me with words of love. With understanding. With kindness. With nakedly vulnerable honesty. And I have to admit, it felt good to do that. It was different. I was different. And that was wonderful. Even if everything else about that night totally sucked ass.
        So as I walked and burned, my course of action became clear. Just go back and tell her the truth. So I walked up to her, pushed her soft hair away from her head, and whispered in her ear “I still love you. Whether you love me or not doesn’t affect how I feel about you.” Now those were some words that I had never said to any woman before. Ever. Even if it was how I felt.
        That’s all I could do. I was done with not showing how I felt. I tried that, thinking it would save me from heartache. It didn’t. It just kept me further away from whoever I was with. I had nothing to loose now anyway. Even if she was lying about how she felt, what good was it going to do if I lied about how I felt? Then all you’ve got is even more space between us. And if I was ever going to pole vault over this emotional chasm, I’d rather do it over a shorter distance. I had no control over how far she’s going to push me away. But I didn’t have to do the same just because she hurt me. I had done that before too. It didn’t make me happy either.
        So I kept her close, even if it was just in my heart. That was a lot more difficult than putting up a wall, or staying mad at her, or any number of defense mechanisms that I got good at. More difficult, but it didn't suck energy from me. It gave it. It’s like working out. Going for a run is harder than staying on the couch, but it fills me with an energy that affirms my life. Not diminishes it.
      I got absolutely no sleep that night last August, but I still ran the Falmouth Road Race the next day. All 7.1 miles of it. Like I said, life affirming energy.
        But I still don’t like going into that CVS.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and, you guessed it, a CVS full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Dancing Queen

        At around 5:30 this morning, on my way to train a client, my radio spit out “Dancing Queen” by Abba. It had been a long time since I heard that song. But it instantly transported me to a specific night in my life.
        It was early in 1977, right around this time of year. On this Saturday night, I was doing some homework in my father’s study. This room was my dad’s private sanctuary, decorated in Ornate European Testosterone. Lots of dark, heavy wood, some of it colored. A crest of swords over a marble fireplace. Hardwood floor. A desk covered in red and black leather. Masculine trinkets everywhere, like a replica of an 1800’s sailing ship, and an eighteen inch ceramic red bull with gold horns. Lots of old books. The room had a great energy, and I spent as much time in there as I could.
        So I’m doing some homework, and my mind is drifting towards girls, as is often the case with thirteen year old boys. The radio is on. I even remember the station: WRKO. At the time, the AM top forty hit machine of Boston. The one song they were playing to death was Abba’s “Dancing Queen”. They must have played it a half dozen times during the three hours I spent in that room. But it worked. Half way through the night, I was hooked on that friggin’ tune.
        What’s fascinating is not what happened that night, because let’s face it, it wasn’t terribly exciting. No, what’s fascinating is that through the connection of music, a memory is burned into my consciousness. Actually, more than a memory. A feeling. Not as in “sadness” or “joy”, but as in a way I felt. An atmosphere. An ambience. A Sunday Effect sort of thing. I remember exactly what it felt like to be me experiencing my life on that night. And because of my physical environment, namely my dad’s study, because of who I was in those moments, and because of the music, that night felt uniquely different than any other night of my life. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of these little events. Where my experience feels similar to, but subtly unique from, any other experience of my life.
        This morning, I briefly got taken back to that night. And of course, it made me miss my dad. I remember him coming in to check on me a few times that night back in 1977. He would open the doors to his study, stand at the top of the three stairs leading down into it, and ask me how I was doing. He was probably very happy that his thirteen year old son was at home doing homework on a Saturday night instead of out causing trouble. It wouldn’t always be this way, and he probably knew that, so there might have more than a hint of gratitude in him about it.
        Education was very important to my dad, and he passed that onto me. More important than even education was an insatiable curiosity and unending desire to learn. My dad had those seeds in him, and he planted them in me. I grew those seeds into trees that still flourish within me today. And will until my last moment on this earth. Another gift from my father. Thanx dad. I love you. And thirteen-year-old-boy, do I miss you.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and Dad’s study full of manly Wrongs) Reserved.

Walls & Windows

Some
Will never know what is in my heart

I give them a window to my soul
But they choose to try and look through walls

Walls that I help build
But no longer do

I constructed a window
Through which I wanted them to see me
And I asked them to look through

Those who look through the window
See my true self
In all it’s splendid humanness
In all it’s glory
In all it’s light and love
In all it’s pain
In all it’s flawed openness
In all it’s naked truth

Those who see through the window
And into my soul
Are the people who know me
Are the people who love me
Are the people who know I’m not perfect
But don’t expect me to be

Some choose not to look through that window
And instead choose to look at the walls
The walls we both built
The walls that I have removed
But they have not

If they look at the walls and not through the window
They will not see me
They will see something different
They will see what they themselves have written on those walls
They will see the images that they themselves have created
Because walls don’t stay bare for long

They take what’s inside of them and project it onto those bare walls
So that they have something to look at
Never realizing that those projections
Are theirs

They think they’re looking at me
But all they’re really seeing
Are themselves
All they’re actually looking at
Are they’re own faults
And flaws
And fears
That they can not own
That they can not take responsibility for

Because if they did
They would have to acknowledge that
It’s not me they’re seeing
And judging
And criticizing
And hating
And hurting

It’s themselves

It’s not my walls they see anymore
It’s their own


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights, Walls, Windows, and Wrongs Reserved.

Tool Me (Mistress Music part 4)

        If I say that I’m into the band Tool, I sometimes get strange looks. If the look could talk, it would say “Aren’t you a little old for that stuff” and “Those dudes are weird. You must be weird”.
        Tool’s music is heavy, dark, and reeking of angst. The band doesn’t sing about love, but about the planet’s lack of it. Lyrics call out the hostility of the universe and the darkness of human nature. The world never sounds like very much fun by the end of a Tool song. They expound a rather bleak world view. The songs are hardly ever less than five minutes long, with many quite a bit longer. All in all, the music is about as far away from the chart topping three-and-a-half-minute-top-forty-flavor-of-the-week as you can get.
        Not everyone’s cup of tea. So why is it mine?
        My love of music breaks down to the emotional connection that a song makes to me. Or doesn’t. Some songs reach me, and some don’t. Some artist’s resonate inside of my heart and boil my blood, while others can’t get a rise out of me with a crowbar.
        Despite the all important emotional connection, I still like to analyze why I like some songs and not others. I like trying to figure what about the music moves me. What touches my heart, and why? What does it bring up for me? How does it make me feel? And why?
        I’m naturally extremely curious and very analytical. It stems from a deep desire to understand, which can occasionally get in the way of me actually enjoying something. Growing up, I developed those skills in part as a reaction to my environment, which was often chaotic, unpredictable, thick with tension and anxiety, emotionally repressive, and usually didn’t make much sense to me. Come to think of it, not much has changed in my family since then. In fact, it’s gotten worse. A lot worse.
        Anyway, I somehow got the idea that if I could understand something, I could protect myself from it. Life doesn’t always work that way, I sadly discovered, but I did develop excellent analytical skills as a result. For as far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to know what, why, and how. Where and who always seemed like petty details.
        Back to Tool and why I dig them. On a purely emotional (and completely inexplicable) level, their music reaches me. This is one thing I love about music. Some of it, for reasons that remain a mystery to all of humankind, just slams me right in the solar plexus, lights a fire between my eyes, and emotionally kicks ass and takes names. Sometimes it happens after one listen. Sometimes it takes a while.
        Explicably, I can tell you that I find their music powerful and mesmerizing, with killer riffs and more hooks than grandpa’s tackle box. They create monolithic, syncopated grooves that are like sonic pile drivers. I don’t feel like I’m listening to their music. I feel like I’m being assaulted by it. And I love it. It’s Brutal and Beautiful, all at once.
        I don’t share their bleak outlook, or their overt pessimism, but I can relate to it. I’ve become much more optimistic and happier in the last year, but I still love their music. When I was much angrier, I liked them, but I like them no less now that I’m not so angry. I don’t have to be angry to like songs that are angry. What I relate to is the feeling of anger. The power behind it. I identify with the the pain that anger wraps itself around; like an iron cannonball around a soft, tender center. No longer vulnerable, now, thanks to anger, the pain is a weapon. A projectile. And I’m the cannon.
        I’m not suggesting that’s the way to handle pain, but I certainly understand it, and I’ve been there plenty of times. I believe that if I ever stop being able to relate to that, I’ll have lost some of my perspective, some of my compassion, for the anger and the pain inside of myself; inside of all of us, to varying degrees. I don’t want to come from anger. But I don’t want to lose touch with it either.
        I’m forty-six and still love heavy metal and all sorts of loud, aggressive, powerful music. I don’t find that the least bit unusual. Because seriously folks, who the hell started this horse shit about music being age specific? People don’t usually speak about outgrowing a painting, but they apply that dynamic to music. I’m not talking about honest changes in taste, where you one day find yourself emotionally un-reactive to music that once got your groove happenin’ or your head banging. I’m talking about mentally convincing yourself that you no longer like a song or a band because you’re “not supposed to” due to your age or social status.
        On the contrary, I find it absurd that people stop liking bands or songs because of subversive societal peer pressure, or because they “should be over that by now”, or because they think they’re too old, or because a band’s no longer chic or hip. That to me is far crazier than liking songs that fuel adolescent sex fantasies, explode with youthful exuberance, flirt with violent imagery, or light up the sky with aggressive energy. All conjure up very human experiences and very human emotions. Even if we don’t succumb to all of them, we can relate to them.
        My taste in music has become more eclectic as I age, which is a pleasant reversal of what I see happening to many fellow music lovers. I encourage you to rediscover the music that once ignited your soul and brought your emotions to a fever pitch. Maybe the old tunes won’t do it anymore. But don’t let that be because they “shouldn’t” do that to you. Let it be because you just honestly don’t emotionally connect to the music anymore. Being able to make that distinction means knowing the depths of your own heart, and owning it. And if old music doesn’t do it for you now, find music that does. It’s out there. Go get it. Don’t lose that spark. It’s still there. Maybe now it just takes a different kind of fuel to feed it.
        Even though I’m a different person now, music of the past often allows me to sink into the best of what I was at the time. Old music can ignite long dormant ideas, passions, and shades of emotions that I may have left behind in my growth. The beauty is that re-discovering that music doesn't necessarily cause us to regress, but can energize elements of ourselves that may need a good kick in the pants. Or gentle pat on the ass, depending on the music.
        As we age, far too many of us experience a narrowing of the mind, a closing of the heart, and an expansion of the waistline. I’ve worked hard at reversing that for myself. I find myself in better condition today than ever before, with a more open mind and a more open heart. I believe that capability is in all of us. Being thinner now than you were when you were twenty may be more work than it’s worth to you, and I understand that. In fact, all of it might seem like more work than it’s worth. But I encourage you to challenge that. You could find that getting older means becoming more emotionally available. You could find that an open, constantly expanding mind gets easier to manifest as you age.
        I did.

To hear a sampling of Tool songs, go here.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Wall Crumbling Merciless Barrage of Heavy Metal Wrongs) Reserved.