Mall Mayhem Day

       Tomorrow, Friday, December 5, is a very special day. For twenty years, a few friends and I have honored the first Friday of December as faithfully and festively as the pagans honored the winter solstice. Indeed, part of the definition of “pagans” reads as follows: “ones who delight in sensual pleasures and material goods; hedonistic”. And that’s a rather apt description of how we’ll behave.
        Tomorrow, we’ll descend upon countless retail shops to sample, enjoy, and purchase their wares, feeding the material beast. We’ll clandestinely indulge in the mind bending consumption of alcohol. We’ll carry on and frolic about in a suburban holiday fantasy play land. Tomorrow, the first Friday of December, is Mall Mayhem Day.
        Since the late 1980’s, virtually every major mall in Eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island has been sacked by our merry band of holiday revelers. Fueled by deep friendship, holiday spirit, and a water bottle full of Sambuca, we immerse ourselves into the land of Christmas make believe. And we shop. Inevitably, we end up buying as much for ourselves as we do for anybody else. But that’s part of the fun. Picking out things for yourself with friends around makes the gift...more festive. More communal. More memorable. Virtually every gift I have ever purchased on Mall Mayhem Day comes with a story. And with a memory of who I was with when I bought it. That makes the gift very special to me. Because while the gift may be the physical manifestation of the experience, the experience itself is worth infinitely more to me than whatever I bought.
        Mall Mayhem Day is not a foray into what some would describe as a decayed suburban wasteland. It’s a chance to get together, for a WHOLE DAY, with people I love and who’s company I feel blessed by. It’s a day of festivity and fun, as we create new experiences and new memories. It’s an opportunity to totally immerse oneself in the holiday spirit. With over the top decorations, Christmas music, bright lights, shiny things, and yes, Santa Claus. It’s one of the few days of the year that I would ever dream of having a belt by 11 AM. And I end up with some new stuff as well. What’s not to love?
        This year, we’re returning to the Natick Mall, in Natick, Massachusetts. The new part of the mall, the part that houses stores like Needless Markup and Sex Fifth Avenue, is called the Natick Collection. I suppose they felt as though they had to differentiate the stores that charge $400 for a shirt from the stores that sell the same shirt for $39.95. If your store is part of the “Collection”, and not the “mall”, the cache justifies the absurd price differential. It doesn’t matter, though, because we have fun no matter what store we’re in. Or what store we get kicked out of.
        Shopping with friends on Mall Mayhem Day is a luxury that I am fortunate to enjoy, especially these days. As much fun as it is (and man, is it fun), it is also a day in which I experience profound gratitude. I’m grateful that I have such wonderful friends to spend time with. Grateful that I have the flexibility to take that day and do exactly what I please. Grateful that I enjoy this time of year, when so many do not. Mall Mayhem Day is one of those days that honestly reminds me of how blessed I really am. Another reason I love it.
        Now dude, please pass the "water". I thirst.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a mall full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Round Mountain

       When I was a kid, I had this recurring dream. This recurring nightmare. There stood in front of me a rock. Actually, it was a boulder. No, it was more like a mountain. A round mountain. I was expected to push this round mountain, to move it. All by myself. Nobody in the dream told me I had to move it. But I knew I had to just the same.
        I also knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying, alone, in vain, to move that round mountain. I knew that I would never get any help, and that it would never budge. Not one millionth of an inch. Every moment of my entire life was henceforth going to consist of trying to move this round mountain and never making any progress.
        Staring at this round mountain and contemplating the rest of my existence, I experienced downright suicidal hopelessness and despair. When I woke up, always in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, my relief that it was just a dream knew no bounds. I was grateful beyond measure.
        That dream recurred from the time I was about seven until late in my teens. Up until a few years ago, I had never told anybody about that dream. Not my parents, or my siblings, or my friends, or my teachers, or even my stuffed animals. It was too horrible to contemplate. So like almost everything else I felt then, I kept it inside, and tried to forget about it.
        That nightmare literally scared the life out of me.
        I’ve often thought since then what a sublime and subtly horrific dream that was for a child to have. What I’ve understood since then, is that although I was just a kid, I had already developed adult sized fears. I skipped right over the G-Rated phobias and went right to the R-Rated ones.
        What I didn’t realize as a child was that my waking life resembled that dream. An overall sense of hopelessness, despair, frustration, and melancholy pervaded me as a kid. The dream just reflected that, on the subconscious stage of my sleep.
        I don’t have that dream anymore. But I still remember how it felt, and sometimes I can go there while I’m awake. Sometimes, I still feel that nightmarish level of despair and hopelessness. And, just like it did then, it scares the life out of me.
        I’m good at procrastinating. I’m a pro at letting certain things build to a point where it’s no longer just a deed to be done or a problem to solve. Now, it’s a project. A huge, messy project. If I do that with enough things in my life, I can get that awful feeling again. What I call the “round mountain syndrome”.
        Not again, I tell myself. Not after all the work I’ve done. How the hell do I periodically keep coming back to this shit? Despite all my progress and growth. Despite the profound breakthroughs and awakenings and shifts I’ve experienced over the past six months. Despite all that, this fuckin’ waking dream will not go away.
        It comes up for a reason. It comes up because I still need to work on it. I know that, but that doesn’t help me when it shoves itself into my life. When that happens, I feel crushed by that round mountain. It takes up the whole sky. It takes up all my space, both inside and out. It looms omnipresent. It is both the immovable object and the irresistible force. Like the song by the band Boston, this is more than a feeling. It’s a pervasive, underlying attitude and perspective that still occasionally rears it’s butt ugly head. And I hate it. It goes against my natural enthusiasm and passion and energy. It feels like a cancer that I just want to cut out of me and be done with.
        But I always move through it. I take much better care of myself now, especially when I'm in trouble. I’ll work out more, and let the endorphins kick into hyperdrive. I’ll pray more, and meditate more, and do some yoga, even though I’m as tight as a piano wire. I’ll get in a few extra al-anon meetings, and talk to people about where I’m at instead of keeping it inside. I’ll write about it now too, and share it here. It all helps. And I move out of it much quicker than I used to. I don’t stay there long anymore. That alone is reason to be hopeful and buoyant.
        Maybe someday this feeling will go away and never come back. And then again, maybe I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life.
        If it does keep coming back, though, I’ll tell you something I’m actually looking forward to. And that’s being in bed some night with a woman I love and telling her about this dream. Sharing, for the first time in my life with my lover, this positively awful nightmare and that positively awful place that I can still sometimes go. Because I’m no longer afraid to be so vulnerable. I’m no longer ashamed to admit that some nights, I need to just crawl into her soft embrace and absolutely melt into her warm, loving body. Letting myself completely go. Breaking down if I have to. Crying if I need to. While she holds me, listens, and loves me back to the present. Back to a time and place where I can share the nightmare of the round mountain with the woman I love. Back to a time and place where I don’t have to go through this alone, and I can finally ask somebody for help.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Round Mountain full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Tree

        Scared. Anxious. And lonely.
        These feelings go deep. These feelings go old.
        I know this, because they don’t require any conscious thought to surface. Like a big old maple tree in the back yard of my mind, they have been present for as long as I’ve drawn breath.
        Fear, anxiety, and loneliness took root right out of the womb, when I was separated from my twin brother and stuck in an incubator for he first three weeks of life. Like the maple tree in the yard that’s always been there, those feelings have created a formidable presence. They show up in the corner of my emotional eye even when I’m not looking at them. Like the tree, they can feel omnipresent, even when I’m not playing in them. Even when I’m not near them. They cast a long shadow. It sometimes feels as though no matter what I do, or where I go, or who I become, I can not get out of that shadow.
        If I look closer at that tree of fear, anxiety, and loneliness, I understand that it has a consciousness. And just like a real maple tree, we’re not always aware of this consciousness because, as humans, we can’t understand it. Or we don’t believe it exists.
        But It does. Just like a real maple is saying something to me when I look at it, my tree is communicating to me as well.
        What he’s saying to me is that, more than anything, he needs something. He wants something.
        He wants Connection. Community. Love.
        But he is deathly afraid that he will never get it.
        So the tree grows himself bigger and stronger and more beautiful. Because he wants to attract people. But at the same time, because he doesn’t believe he will ever get true connection or community or love, he’s trying to prove to himself, and to everybody else, that he’s so big and strong and beautiful that he doesn’t need or want any of that from anybody else. He can give it to himself just fine, thank you.
        That tree is the part of me that never knew what I wanted because to know what I wanted was synonymous with not getting it.
        As long as I kept myself in the fog of not knowing what I wanted, or as long as I consciously just didn’t want it, there was nothing to worry about. You can’t worry about not getting something if you don’t want it. That was me, my whole life.
        But by finally acknowledging that I don’t want to play life as a game of solitaire, that I don’t want to be a lone warrior anymore, I become vulnerable.
        No shit.
        Excluding material possessions, which were always plentiful, as a kid I learned not to want or need anything that I couldn’t give to myself. Perpetually lonely, anxious, and sad, at some point I stopped asking for what I needed and wanted because I wasn’t getting it. Unconsciously, I decided it was better not to want or need much of anything. I also decided that I better learn to give to myself, because nobody else was going to.
        So I set myself up for a troubled existence. I was created to give love, to receive love. To connect to others and build those connections into all types of intimate relationships. I was created to share what was inside of me, and to welcome what was inside of others. I was made to be part of communities that serve their members.
        When I was a kid, that’s all I wanted. That’s all I needed. And quite frankly, I didn’t get much of any of it. So I went the other way. Not socially, but emotionally. Not on the outside. On the inside. I blocked off all those precious things I wanted because I didn’t believe I could ever have them.
        And those walls came tumblin’ down this summer. So now, what I’ve always needed and wanted is staring me right in the face saying “It’s about time you saw us, and heard us, and recognized us. We didn’t go anywhere. You did. You’re back. Welcome.”
        But now I’m petrified because I want again. I need again. And I’ve spent most of my life running from that and denying it. And at the same time, a part of me doesn’t believe I can ever have what I really want or need. That part screams to me, in a voice so loud sometimes it’s all I hear; “You’ve been that route before! It didn’t work then! It won’t work now!”
        But now I can’t do what I used to. I can’t fight what my heart truly wants anymore. I can’t fight that part of who I am anymore. Not because I’m not strong enough. I’m stronger than ever. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. No. It’s because I’ve experienced the most profound shift of my life. The shift to fully embrace what I feel. To live from my heart and not my head. I don’t want to run away anymore. I want to run towards.
        And maybe it takes even more strength to embrace all of who you are, what you want, and that which you were made for, than it takes to fight it. Fighting it certainly takes strength. In fact, it’s exhausting. But embracing it takes strength and courage and faith and trust and belief. And it gives me energy, rather than suck it from me. Embracing takes a true warrior spirit. It takes more. So I have to be more. And I am more.
        And if I can own that I am more, I can speak to the tree in my mind. The one who’s scared and anxious and lonely. I can connect to that kid in me who’s cynical about ever getting what he really wants. What he really needs. I can connect to them and say “Trust me. I won’t let you down.”
        And I won’t.
        Because my heart knows better. My soul knows better. And that’s what I try to listen to now.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a tree full of Wrongs) Reserved

Jordan Kelley

       My body has always been my last bastion of strength. Metaphorically, I used to hold it as a fortress that protected what was inside of me. Now, I see it as the sturdy vehicle which carries precious cargo. Nevertheless, when my body hurts and needs to heal, it leaves me in a supreme place of vulnerability. Because if all else failed, I could always turn to my body to take care of me.
        But not today, because my back is temporarily not cooperating with the rest of me. I’m lying down, resting, icing, and heating it. So I feel particularly vulnerable right now. And I need to share something.
        I just got back from a funeral service.
        A woman who I have come to know, respect, and love lost her son in a car accident last Friday. Karen Kelley is one of the most beautiful, caring, loving, warm, accepting, healing souls I have ever known. I didn’t know her son Jordan. But from knowing Karen, and from what I heard and saw today, it’s clear to me that her son’s short life impacted many people in profound ways.
        Because he was loved. Deeply, and by many. Because he made a difference in countless people’s lives by being himself. He gave his unique gift of self to anyone who wanted it. And it showed.
        So forgive me if I sound preachy. I don’t mean to be. But at this moment, the only piece of anything I can glean from where I’m at and what I’ve experienced is this: if you love someone, let them know it. If they can’t hear you, say it a little louder until they do. If they can’t see it, make it a little clearer until they can. If they can’t feel it, find ways to touch them so that they will.
        If you feel it, deal it. If you know it, show it. If you know it’s in you but you can’t find it, look harder. Find it if it’s there. No matter what.
        That’s it.

Love to all,

Clint

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights Reserved

Day Before Thanksgiving Day

       I love the island I’m on. Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Cape Cod. I love the little town around me. Edgartown, as quaint and picturesque as any place I’ve ever been. I love the hotel I’m in. The Harborview. I’ve spent over fifteen Thanksgivings here. I love my room. The one I’ve come to request and feel so at home in. Room four-twelve, tucked away on the top floor, decked out with Christmas lights, an aromatic candle that smells like a balsam fir, and a view of the ocean
        From my room to the chunk of earth I’m on to the very time and space that I inhabit, I am literally surrounded by what I love.
        And that’s causing me some anxiety.
        The kind of anxiety I’m talking about here is akin to the proverbial kid in a candy store. There is so much I want to do here. And I can’t do it all, nor will I have time to do enough of any of it. So I end up feeling overwhelmed by excitement, joy, and anticipation. All this good energy leaves me over-stimulated, like a little boy running around trying to play with every single toy in the store. I can pressure myself into wanting to experience it all, all at once, all of the time, and end up missing the moments as they pass me by while I’m whirling around in this over-zealous stupor.
        Sometimes I refer to myself as an “experience junkie” (making sure to leave off the “d” at the end of “experience”). Meaning that I want to have all these different experiences, spend plenty of time reveling in each one, and not have to choose which one’s I can’t do.
        Like the movie “Groundhog Day”, except I’m on Martha’s Vineyard, at The Harborview Hotel, the day before Thanksgiving. This movie could be called “Day Before Thanksgiving Day”. A pretty lame title, but you get the point. In it, I’m a character who loves where I am and when I am. I use each repeating day to do one thing I really love. That would be a slice of heaven. A month of the day before Thanksgiving. Ripe with all of the anticipation, unique ambience, good vibes, magic, love, joy, and peace.
        My day(s) would look something like this.
        I would make the twenty mile pilgrimage to Aquinnah, where the cliffs explode in vibrant colored clay. I’d meditate on the cliffs and talk to my friend Ron. I’d remember when him and I, along with a few other close friends, came here to bathe in the clay pits, swim in the pristine ocean, paint our naked bodies like crazed warriors with the colored clay, get stoned, and ogle all the naked women.
        I would ride my bike all over this quiet, peaceful island, getting in an entire day of cardiovascular exercise and sightseeing.
        The hotel I’m in is so beautiful, and the staff are so friendly, I would walk around it all day and just talk to people. Soaking in, and giving out, the positive holiday vibes. The next “day”, I’d sit in the lobby, in front of the fireplace, sip coffee, and read. And write. And read. And write. Repeat.
        I would go to South Beach and walk along the surf, having a conversation with my dad. He loved being on the Vineyard at Thanksgiving. Sometimes the memories of him here are so thick, I can feel him on my skin. His touch is beautiful, but it hurts. Because I miss him so much.
        My inspiration is so high, I would sit at my computer and write from sunrise to sunset.
        I would visit each and every little shop and boutique on the island, getting to know whoever worked there. I would ask them about their Thanksgiving plans, and make dozens of these precious little connections. I’d do lots of my Christmas shopping in these exclusive, unique stores, buying special one of a kind gifts for each of the special one of kind people in my life.
        My room is festive and cozy, so I would love to lie in bed all day and relax, watching every pre-Thanksgiving special on television. If I was with the woman I loved, we would order room service and fool around. A lot.
        Alas, I don’t have the ability to repeat this day ad infinitum. So I have to choose a small fraction of what I want to do, and only do it for a small fraction of the time I’d like to do it.
        Want, want, want. Love, love, love. Do, do, do.
        Maybe I need to just be.
        I hear that all the time, but I usually don’t know what the hell it means. I can try to just be, but I can’t try too hard, because then I’m not “being”. Then I’m “trying”. It gets very confusing.
        This scenario of wanting to do it all, and spend as much time as I want doing it, plays itself out whenever I’m assaulted with massive amounts of excitement, joy, and anticipation. For example, when I throw a party and want to spend every minute of the event with every person there. It happens on Christmas Eve. It happens on Christmas Day. It happens on...hell, there’s quite a few days like these.
        The ability to properly channel this delirious enthusiasm is something I still need help with. So I open up to it. I pray for it. I meditate around it. I talk about it. I write about. I share it. And I need to do all that. Because that’s how I want to move through life. That’s how I want to live.
        I have faith that I will get better at this just “being” thing without losing my maniacal, lovable, boyish enthusiasm. That I will learn how to relax into the moments of my life without losing my unique zest and personality. That I’ll learn to let go of the pressure I feel to do it all, all of the time, and surrender my resistance. I have faith that I will get better at living my life from the place I want to live it from. As I grow. As I practice spending less time in my head. As I learn to touch my soul. As I develop a more conscious contact to my higher power. And as I keep opening my positively over-flowing heart.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a stuffed turkey full of Wrongs) Reserved

Note: To see the pictures related to this entry, go here.