First Date #2

Today I went on a "movie and dinner" date with a widow whom I'd met through the local widow community. It was really easy to talk about our experiences - and she told me all about hers. I shared what I'd been through, while thinking that this was *way more* sharing than you'd typically do on a first date. It did occur to me later that I was fifteen months out and she was only seven. After the movie she said she'd miscalculated the time and had to go home to make dinner for her kids, so we ended earlier than expected (possibly a relief to each of us?)

Details, details

Well folks certainly have had some interesting reactions when I tell them about my "dating plan". The first question seems to revolve around whether I feel the need to sleep with a dozen women. Uh, no. The plan is a "dozen first dates", not "a dozen liaisons".

Next up is the question "What happens if I meet someone who seems perfect for me before I get to number twelve". Well, the thought had crossed my mind but I figure that's simply a detail I don't have to resolve ahead of time - I'll deal with that issue if/when it occurs!

"Self-Learning" to fly

I've been working with one flying student since last Fall. Accompanying him as he learns to fly by reference to the instruments in the panel (e.g. attitude indicator, heading indicator, airspeed indicator, altimeter). He already has a pilot's license and now he's working on the next skill level -the skill which will permit him to fly through clouds without reference to the ground below. I say "accompanying" the student in a nod to the concept that we are all born with the innate knowledge of everything we need to know. The act of teaching is simply creating the opportunities for the student to discover the knowledge that's already within him (or her) self.

This student is particularly reflective. He can be very focused and performs exceedingly well at tasks, but as with all of us he continues to make errors as he is learning. He's usually pretty tough on himself. After a flight he'll focus on the errors and he voices concern that he still makes mistakes. It seems to weigh even more heavily if it's a mistake he has made before,

Surprisingly, at this stage mistakes are OK. In fact, he is so far along in training that mistakes are encouraged. In the early lessons I gave constant immediate feedback to help him focus on the basics of simply flying the airplane straight and level. When he had gained mastery of aircraft control we moved on to flying procedures through which he can guide the plane down to the runway in cloudy or low visibility conditions.

Nowadays I don't point out errors anymore - the student has reached a point where he discovers the errors on his own. But why have I reduced the amount of feedback as he flies? Am I being mean? Am I being inconsiderate? Neither! The student has attained a level of skill in which he has become "self-monitoring" and "self-learning". It's now my role to expose him to new situations while continuing to ensure that we conduct our flights safely. I guess what it boils down to is that I am his "training wheels". I give him room to lose his balance, but without the risk of tipping over.

That he is *self-learning* is important because soon he'll be alone piloting the aircraft through the clouds. I already have confidence in his abilities to recognize unsafe situations, to recognize mistakes before they become critical. In fact, one of the final lessons on the plate here is for him to recognize those same truths for himself. For him to recognize that he has attained a mastery of the airplane and the environment that allows him to operate within safe parameters.

You ask "how could this be such a big lesson, isn't it obvious to the student how much he has improved?"

Well no, it's not immediately evident to the student. We've completed about thirty flights together and on every one he has made some type of mistake. So after every flight he relives the lesson and the most recent errors he has made, often without seeing them in the broader context. The student doesn’t (and can't possibly) have the vantage point that I do. Each and every time we get together I can see *the mistakes that he is no longer making*. If students treated themselves with the same patience, the same confidence that I have in them, many of their fears and concerns would be allayed. But I guess, that's the final lesson for the student, mastering himself.

I love flying. I love teaching. I love learning.

As is typical for a student, insight sometimes dawns on me slowly. As I think about my own personal journey I consider how Alex has served as my guide. Then it dawns on me that I've probably come along much, much further than I can imagine. However it is that you see me as you read this blog, I still focus on my errors. I still focus on what I think I have yet to achieve. If I could learn to treat myself with the same patience, the same confidence, the same love which others bestow on me, I just might take another step in mastering myself. ;)

Growing excitement

Lately I feel a growing level of excitement. I left work headed to the airport and for no particular reason I feel a sense of fun, humor and adventure.

Somehow while I wasn't paying attention it appears my mind has been dreaming good dreams again.

Rainbows

My drive home from work involves a short passage through a tunnel which goes under office buildings. Today as I emerged from the tunnel I had a view of low clouds in the distance framed by blue sky above. It was raining low and to the East and it created something I don’t recall seeing before. There were two perfect sections of rainbow formed on the low clouds - one section that curved up from the earth on the left and one section that curved up from the earth on the right. Because the clouds were low the two rainbow sections stood independent of each other, the connection visually missing at the top.

The analytical side of my brain instantly processed the information and brought forth an explanation of why I could see two partial refractions of sunlight, and why they would not have to appear connected at the top.

In a casually dismissive air, the creative side of my brain brushed aside the analytics. In what seemed like indifference, the creative side knew that just because I couldn't visually witness the connection didn't mean that the connection didn't still exist.

In my mind the whole rainbow was still there.

I mulled over the thought as I drove Northbound for about five minutes. As I took an eastbound exit I was again presented with an incredible view.

Now there was just one short, perfect, glowing section of rainbow emerging from the earth on the left, gently arching upwards.

I considered whether the single remaining rainbow represented me or represented Robin, but even as the thought popped up it was snuffed.

In an instant it didn’t matter. I knew with certainty that the whole rainbow was still there, that the connections didn't disappear just because they were no longer visible.

Tofu!

Well, just because I'm using internet dating doesn’t mean that I'm not going to also pursue other interests or avenues. Tonight I'm signed up for a class in how to cook tofu. Well, at least you figure the other attendees will be health conscious.

Internet dating?

I've been thinking it's been slow getting dates through friends, it might take years to get a dozen first dates! And hey - with the Date #1 we couldn't have been a worse match so I probably don't have anything to lose trying the Internet!

I guess ideally you just go on with your life and some day you bump into your soul mate somewhere. For now I want to try dating a little more regularly, so I'll give it a try.

A Dozen First Dates

I've been mulling over what happened over the weekend. How could a woman and I talk for an hour or two and have completely different experiences? She found herself increasingly attracted to me and yet I found myself progressively less interested in her. Why did I let the conversation continue when I sensed the rising negativity of her stories? When she asked if there seemed to be a connection forming between us why did I find it difficult to simply say "No" - well, you know, even in a polite way 'no'.

I mulled over my experience as a shy teenager - shyness which continued into young adulthood. I considered the fact that I had very limited dating experiences when I was younger. Eentually I came to the realization that I really don't have strong dating skills. I mean - I think I make a good impression one-on-one but I don't think I consider very well the "couple skills" that my date and I may (or may not) have. In summary, I seem to overemphasize whether we feel a physical attraction and I tend to de-emphasize whether we have the interpersonal skills to make things work in the long run.

I also recognize that I'm still struggling with self-esteem issues that have colored my previous relationships and that appear to be continuing to effect my communications with women. Though I'd begun to consider myself a "good" communicator the last few years, I'm starting to come around to the fact that maybe my communication skills are lacking when it comes to personal relationships.

As a result I've developed a "dating improvement" plan. I've concluded that what I need to do is to go on a series of dates with different women, with the intent of becoming comfortable with the dating process. I thought five didn't seem like a very large number, and twenty seemed like way too many. For no particular reason I've decided I will go on "first dates" with twelve different women.

Birthday disconnect

I was invited to a birthday party over the weekend. I've been 'single' for a couple of weeks and I thought - here's a chance to socialize!

I ended up in a conversation with a woman who was about fifteen years my senior. Over the course of an hour and a half she told me her life story. I'm a good listener which usually seems to make people comfortable talking about themselves. Over time I started getting a weird vibe from her. She eventually started intimating that she felt a connection between us. Maybe I could have felt a connection with someone else whom I'd just met, but over the course of telling me her life story the undertone had been increasingly negative - life was unfair and men were not entirely trustworthy.

I decided it was time for us to get up from the table and mingle a bit with other guests! After a period of time I found a good friend and suggested that he and I go for a walk down the street (rather than have me get corralled into further conversation).

We had an interesting walk - talking about women, about relationships, about investing, about life. Now this was engaging conversation! Upon our return to the party, the woman I had been speaking with passed me her phone number as she left the party.

End of the innocence

Lately I've been feeling that I lost my sense of "naivete" about life. As I thought about it, the word didn’t seem quite right. There seemed to be too much connotation of "learning a hard lesson", of "losing a sense of humor".

Then I heard a Don Henley song and the title felt right, "The end of the innocence".

I thought about what happens when someone loses their innocence. They don’t necessarily lose their happiness. They don't necessarily feel as if they've been slighted. When they firmly grasp new knowledge they don't necessarily feel destroyed.

Well, I suppose a person could feel destroyed. I suppose they could feel betrayed. If they take it as a personal assault they could hang on to their anger and their frustration. Human beings have a lot of energy which they can choose to focus on negative thoughts and negative actions.

Somehow it seems those emotions are associated with not accepting that it's simply a change of perspective. You are seeing more than you could see before. You achieve a new outlook - one you could not have imagined before.

It occurred to me that this wasn't necessarily all bad news. It might seem sometimes like stinky news, but labeling it as "bad" is simply labeling it. (OK, I think I just changed the label from "bad" to "stinky" - at least it's a step in the right direction!)

Alex once stated that I could never love the same way again because that love had been based on the idea that people don't leave, people don't die. At the time I had felt let down. I had felt like I'd lost a crucial ability.

Now I'm beginning to understand that Alex wasn't simply conveying that I'd "lost an ability". In his words was also the lesson that I'd gained new abilities. It's quite true that I don’t view relationships the same way that I used to, but the new vantage point is not all bad, in fact it feels pretty good.

The train of thought also seems to expose a larger lesson - that no matter how far we progress there is still much more of which we are not yet aware. So many more things to learn!

How's Robin?

Got a call today from one of Robin's old clients. They didn’t leave a message, but I recognized the number so I called back. They asked how Robin was doing. I'm thinking to myself ….not very well - she died 15 months ago!

I explained what had happened and that Robin had died in the previous year. (Well, at least Robin's no longer concerned about the cancer….) They caller had been afraid to call because they feared the worst. I guess intuitively they were right on that account…

In the past when I've gotten inquires I call people back right away. I don't think I can stand the idea of having to mull over the conversation to come. There's no way to chit-chat before going into it. I usually just start with "well, I've got some sad news" and then go right through the story.

I don't know if it’s bad or if it's good. It's still gets me choked up to tell the story. Tears in the eyes and all. I guess it's better than if the feelings had gone away....

Think like a child!

The last couple of months have been pretty busy. My meetings with Alex were getting to be once a month, partly due to scheduling and partly because there were some things I wanted to get done on my own - actions I wanted to achieve knowing that I'd worked them out myself.

These days we talk both about my issues and also about issues that I observe in other people. I'm at a point where I feel confident approaching people in public who I don’t know and beginning a conversation. Alex explained that everyone should be able to interact in that way but often issues such as self-esteem interfere. As he is apt to do lately, he pointed out that children rarely have difficulty approaching others to talk or to play. In an "aha" moment I said that must be because children haven't yet learned that there is supposed to be something "wrong" with them that interferes with their openness.

All the years we think we're "growing up" maybe we're just piling on negative behaviors. Maybe we'd be better off remembering how to "think like a child" once in a while.

The Circle

Today I was visiting with my relatives from "Robin's side" of the family. I brought along photo albums which Robin's mother had owned and which had been in closet storage for years. There were many old family photos which I expected folks would like to have. Personally, I had gone through the albums last year and picked out a few photos of Robin to keep for myself - luckily there were plenty to go around.

I was only slightly surprised when my aunt suggested we look through the albums - sure, why not? A few turns of the page and I suddenly realized I was going to be reliving my past. There were photos as far back as my first visit with Robin's family. The grieving side of me stirred and I closed that door thinking "not now".

In my mind I remember portions of that first visit clearly. My niece Amanda was a toddler and my niece Alison was about six weeks old. There were the photos of me sitting on the couch feeding a bottle to Alison who I held in one arm - my forearm longer than her swaddled up body.

As we flipped through the old family photos I saw the faces of Robin, her mom and her dad - all of whom are gone now. How odd, it seems as if they were just here a moment ago and now they're nowhere to be seen.

I wondered in five years, ten years, twenty years which of us will have joined them, our forms reduced to memories and photographs.

As we perused photos at the dining room table, Amanda sat in the adjoining room with her infant daughter Lily. I stood and walked toward Alison who was facing away from me with her toddler son on her shoulder. In a flash my mind suddenly grasped the continuity for the first time.

I had entered the family when Amanda and Ally were the two young children (Nick wasn't there yet). Now they were each mothers. The two individuals who I'd met as a toddler and an infant were now at the family gathering holding their own children.

I felt momentarily stunned. So this is how it goes. Years from now the babies, Dillon and Lily, will likely be attending a gathering with their own children and us older folks will be the fading memories.

Forget a lot of things?

I was thinking about something a co-worker had said years ago about marriage. He theorized that to make it work you had to *forget a lot of things*. At the time I had translated it to mean that it worked best if you learned not to get hung up on things that your spouse did.

Anyway, my train of thought had been that to get over loss you also had to "forget a lot of things". Mainly you had to forget about the painful periods and learn to dwell on the positive times before things went downhill. Well, maybe that's not it? Maybe you simply have to learn to accept things? Maybe that's the essence of what makes marriage work too - learning to accept things and not let your ego get in the way.

First Date #1 (with friends like these...)

(retroactively labeled First Date #1) - I asked around and a friend suggested someone to date. It's someone his wife used to know from high school and sees very rarely. The only input is that she may not be too athletic, but I don't really have any limiting criteria - I thought I could simply use some generic dating experience.

I talked with the woman on the phone a few times (since I was traveling out of town for a week) and she seemed like a nice person. She talked about riding her bike and swimming for exercise. I suggested we meet for sushi - she suggested TGI Friday's. Hmm…guess she's probably not a sushi person?

We finally met for dinner. Someone had suggested I should take a girl to the bar first then if we don't seem like a match I could just politely say I had to leave. When this woman walked into the restaurant it was immediately obvious that she was not at all athletic but when she asked if I wanted to have a drink at the bar I replied "We're meeting for dinner, why don't we just sit down?" Guess I'm not scared of spending time with someone, even if we don't seem like a match physically.

It became apparent over the course of the conversation that we were quite different people. We liked different kinds of food, we put different amounts of energy toward exercise and keeping fit but we were having fun chatting. Finally she said with a laugh and a smile, "OK, I know we're not supposed to talk about politics or religion, but we already seem like a mismatch so what have we got to lose?" So we covered a few more topics. Well, we were complete opposites in just about everything (music, politics, religion, how often we drink, etc.) The one thing we shared was we both seemed to be pretty happy individuals who laugh easily and smile a lot. We left it up in the air whether we would talk again, but we had recognized how different we were so I wasn't expecting to really see her again.

Well, it was nice to be out on a date! :)

Robin revisited

Ever since my perspective about Robin's life changed I seem to have a newfound ability to ask her questions. Yeah, makes me wonder about the "mental health" aspects of grieving. Now I feel like I can call on her to talk and I feel a friendly, empathic, understanding, happy energy. Mostly I feel like she laughs at my concerns, smiles and points out that everything's going to be OK.

I figure she'd be proud of how I've been dealing with grieving. I was proud of her for how she handled cancer.

Robin's life

The way I think about Robin's life shifted significantly recently. A few weeks ago I remember thinking about her and thinking about her life. I felt a new clarity in understanding that she'd lived and died and that I’d been privileged to have shared so much time with her. I think maybe the biggest change was a shift from feeling that we'd been cheated in some way, to simply accepting that the world keeps moving forward and people continuously keep being born and keep dying.

things have changed

Some of the recent stabilization comes from changes in relationships. I was surprised last Winter to find myself in a relationship in which I could sense many of my tried and true dysfunctions but they just didn’t work for me anymore. The toughest part was wondering, "if I'm not the person I used to be then who am I now?" Before I could change I had to trust that there is a new me to experience. Kind of like a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon - things are drastically different, but then there are new adventures ahead.

It's tough to become aware of your dysfunctions and then still live with them. Guess now I'll have to develop new ones. ;)

More connected?

These days I feel more aware than I've ever been. When I think about the relative naivety with which I lived a few years ago I can't discern whether I was simply disconnected then, or whether I'm just more connected now.

Stabilization

I remember a past life of mine in which there was continuity. A rhythm to the days, months and years. Even then I wasn't sure what my purpose was in life, but I was content to wake up every day and do it again. Now it seems naïve in many ways. A life lived with the underlying idea that things can't get screwed up too badly. Situations changed and improved but rarely did things go wrong. Mostly things just kept getting better.

Like the movie the matrix I feel like I now live at a different level of awareness - snapped out of soma-like dreams. I guess maybe in my earlier life things weren't really so simplistic - there were stages of growth and times of change, but changes occurred relatively slowly. But now I find I'm even more in the moment, able to think more clearly about what I'm doing and why.

The last fourteen months I've felt off balance much of the time. The one time I felt like I had it most together was at the end of the bike vacation last summer. I guess at that point I had started to feel physically reconnected to my body. Kind of like a gyroscope spinning up and stabilizing. This past Winter I felt off balance again but with the arrival of Spring I feel like I'm getting emotional underpinnings - again feeling like I'm going through another process of stabilization.

In that earlier lifetime I recall the end goal was to grow old with a partner, but there was never any concern that growing old also meant moving toward the end stage, moving closer to the last milestone of our lives, our own deaths.