The Well-Adjusted Life
Lifestyle Management in the Age of Technology
by
Will Nelson
Smashwords Edition
Vitalogy – Buford, GA
2011
* * * * *
Copyright 2011 by William J. Nelson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without permission form the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. For more information contact Vitalogy, 3515 Ontario Court, Buford, GA 30519.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Disclaimer
This book is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information on health. It is published with the understanding that neither the author nor the publisher are engaged in rendering medical services. No attempt is made to diagnose or treat health conditions. If expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.
Also by Will Nelson
The Real Truth About Health
Taking the Work out of Being Healthy
1987, Kaptur Press
Listening To Bodies
Restoring Vital Living through Vitalogy
1999, Kaptur Press
Vital Body
Proven to keep you movin’. . . for life!
2006, 2-DVD set
Vital Mind
Where success is a system, not a secret
2007, Online Course
Quote
“Damn everything but the circus.”
P. T. Barnum
To Bessie Mae Evans
The times we walk through life with others are wondrous. The moments they help steer and guide us along our path are extraordinary. The instances where they reveal and widen the path through their actions, not their words, is truly inspiring.
Bessie Mae has been all this, and more, for me.
She has been my spiritual teacher and fellow traveler of matters not pertaining to this world.
She has strengthened my resolve that we should never give up, regardless of circumstances.
She has demonstrated a level of forgiveness towards others that has been unrivaled in my experience of humanity.
She has reinvigorated my sense of wonderment of the joys of expression through the body.
She is a most “Well-Adjusted Person.”
Acknowledgements
When spirit moves you, you can move mountains. Or spit out 100,000 words in about eight days — the time it took to write the first draft of this book. (I took a long time getting ready.) From that point, to the point of your reading it, involved the direct contribution of four uniquely talented people.
Lynne Rogers is a valued friend who became interested in my work and the story behind it. I call her “House Money” ’cuz working with Lynne is exactly like playing with house money. She did all the typing here — acting as the go-between “out of my mouth” and “onto the paper.” We have fun with words, which is how writers keep it real.
Beaupré Preston had a lot of bodies talk to her during her many years in a variety of nursing positions. She now practices Healing Touch, a far cry from conventional nursing, though upon further examination, the similarities are beyond ironic. In a former life, she was a speech writer and editor, handy skills of which I took full advantage. We dubbed her “Red Penpré” as she furiously took to the manuscript with great glee — and her little red pen, of which she has several.
Daniel Schwartz is hopefully what this world is coming to — a twenty something so far ahead of himself he doesn’t even know. I nicknamed him “The Cloner” because the world needs more of his blend of science and sensibility. To me, Daniel represents the metaphorical bridge from yesterday and today to tomorrow.
Joseph Martin is known to a few people as "The Oracle of Edit." He brought his extensive background of the English language and organizational skills together for this project. Nobody can connect the dots like he can — and there were a lot of dots to connect in the writing of this book. He provided the critical voice that all creative projects need to keep them on track and ensure that the intended outcome is, indeed, achieved.
Introduction
What motivates you to examine your life? Do you want a better understanding of yourself or better results out in the world? Do you want peace of mind? What do you want in your life?
The Well-Adjusted Life is a book about understanding your individual restorative process in today’s technologically driven society. In this book, I reveal how you can develop a mindset of conscious decision making and adaptability to changing life goals and conditions. It’s about getting out of your way so you can find your way.
This book is about what can happen when you change your mind, believe in yourself, trust your path, and enjoy the ride. It’s about taking the good and the bad, the meaningful and the mundane, and transforming them into your own self-intervention. The result is fully leveraging your abilities, realizing your passions, becoming more proactive, and removing some of the drag of living. The result is a well-adjusted life.
My primary passion has been the quest for a well-adjusted life: what knowledge makes that possible and what’s the bridge to get there. To do this, I utilized an insatiable curiosity and a commitment to observing and learning from others. Growing up under difficult circumstances, I was immersed in the perfect classroom for studying, up close and personal, what is and what is not well-adjusted.
As the result of my experience, I have created a therapeutic approach called Vitalogy. This concept comes from “vital,” full of life and vigor, and “ology,” the study of. Vitalogy is the study of living our lives fully engaged with thought and purpose. A vital life describes what most of us are seeking — not a perfect life — a vital life.
Over the past thirty years, I developed Vitalogy with the help of hundreds of clients. It has been an honor to listen to their stories. Their intimate sharing, through their own words and as manifested in their bodies, became essential for interpreting my own journey. Along the way, I gained a perspective on our collective story as well.
I chose to start this book with my early childhood, moving through the process that led me to spend my entire life working with people and developing a most unusual approach to working with the mind and body. My goal is to share what I have learned. I anticipate some of your story connecting with mine: seeing your own patterns as I relate my triumphs and tragedies.
My work with clients is a unique combination of helping them adjust both their minds and bodies. My goal is designing a more positive outcome, both in their attitudes and lifestyles. My relationship with clients is very intimate. Essentially, they leave their clothes on, but take everything else off. I call this experience being in “session.”
I prefer to know very little about a person before I first “session” them. I begin by sensing their current condition. From that, I piece together their “story” — life, as they see it. Then I start to connect their positive aspects, attributes, and abilities. Each of us needs to understand our essential value. That’s job one.
Clients then begin to see themselves in an authentic way that is both solid and tangible. Understand that while most of us are wounded, we also possess greatness. I seek to affirm that greatness in others. After a point, their own self-recognition takes over. They begin affirming their own greatness themselves.
The challenge is not to get stuck in our “story” (the woundedness) where we create a life based on those wounds. Being stuck in our story results in not seeing, or otherwise neglecting, our greatness. This must be nurtured, just like flowers in a garden. We must be able to connect to our greatness in a tangible way — as easily and seamlessly as the skill-sets involved in performing our occupations.
Shedding your story allows you to pivot your mind slowly away from your wounds (the problems of your life) and towards the expression and ownership of your greatness (the possibility of your life.) This book clearly defines the steps along the way, how you can get from point A to point B. I have yet to work with someone who is without greatness. That includes you!
The uniqueness of my method is that I take a person, fully clothed, and I start to move them around on my massage table. I let their body talk to me, not just their mind. Having a conversation with a person’s body comes as naturally to me as having a conversation with a friend does for you.
Your body doesn’t lie. It has no defense mechanisms like your mind does. What it does have, however, is the capacity to reveal the truth of your life. Your body has been recording each event — because it has been there every step of the way.
Your body remembers what events and emotions left you in balance or left you depleted. Consequently, your body knows what you are happy about and what is pissing you off. I work with the mind and body simultaneously — a seamless interplay. I look for the manifestation of core life issues — the mental aspect — as they are held in the body — the physical aspect.
Throughout the book, I share a variety of “sessions” that I have had with clients. I believe hearing these stories will help you make more sense of your life experience. These “sessions” also provide a foundation for the three pillars of Vitalogy covered in the second half of the book: VitalBody, VitalFood, and VitalMind.
VitalBody is the “new movement” movement. Our bodies are having difficulty keeping up with the pace of modern life and technology, the effects of stimulation overload, and the impact of the food we eat. The exercise paradigm of the last forty years has reached its zenith. While a small percentage of people faithfully attend gyms and exercise classes, most people today are too restricted by their lifestyles and day-to-day responsibilities to do this.
People need something they can do anywhere, any time, and in almost no time. VitalBody provides exactly that. The movements are designed with the understanding that technology’s impact has acted to underutilize the body. This requires careful consideration and lifestyle modification. Then you can consider “pumping iron” or getting “washboard abs” — if that’s what floats your boat.
VitalBody is about achieving a quality of life, an ability to function with less pain and more comfort. VitalBody makes everything you do with your body easier and more fun. This runs the gamut from getting out of bed, to playing with your kids, to dancing and jumping around, to having hot sex with your partner, to being able to sleep well at night. It’s all part of the package.
Then there is VitalFood. I am not going to tout the magical efficacy of some new-fangled vitamin or miracle food. What I am going to do is teach you a different way to look at food that will allow you to manage and control your biochemistry. Your biochemistry, the internal chemical balance of your body, is the most important part of your diet. I say that because it greatly impacts how you feel and your outlook on life — moment to moment.
I’m going to help you with kitchen management and your ability to gain a more complete understanding of food. This includes shopping, bringing the food home, putting the food away, preparing it, cooking, cleaning up, storing the leftovers, and managing your kitchen. You want to lose weight? Start by cleaning up your kitchen. Start by getting a handle on what it takes to have a functional kitchen that allows you to have access to healthy food — all the time.
Finally, there is VitalMind. Virtually everyone has experienced moments where their life made sense. After hearing hundreds of these stories, I have categorized the essence of these moments into a series of principles that have become a system. I will introduce you to that system in this book. It will allow you to manage your life from a position of strength and connect the dots in your life.
You will notice my frequent references to “the elephants in the room.” Pretty much every client I’ve worked with had some. You could go so far as to call them “skeletons in the closet.” The elephants in the room are there to protect the skeletons in the closet. That’s their job. Nobody does it better. The problem, though, is that elephants are big. They leave little room for other activity — like getting on with life, for starters.
When we are ready to address the elephants in the room by way of the skeletons in the closet, we become free. Our behavior is no longer predicated on past events that dominate our beliefs and attitudes. We may think we can conveniently keep those events neatly tucked away. Yet they have a penchant for reappearing, out from under the woodwork, at the most inopportune times.
Some people say they “tell it like it is,” or are “up front.” But, what exactly are they up front about? Is it their judgments of others? If so, there’s nothing really powerful going on here. Now, if they were to talk about their motives and agendas — the kind of elephants they have in their room — then we have somebody who is indeed “telling it like it is.”
The tangible benefit of finding truth amidst chaos is the joy of living a well-adjusted life. You probably have your own impressions of what your ideal life would look and feel like. My goal is to turn those impressions into reality. It starts by looking at ways to improve your lifestyle management. It continues by understanding your assets and liabilities, what you have going for you, and where you might consider bringing your game up in life.
Being well-adjusted implies that you can easily shift to changing circumstances, conditions, needs, and desires. This is a most critical element, since life isn’t going to slow down. The demands on us are constantly increasing, as are the possibilities. Your only choice is whether you want to drive the car or ride in the back seat.
Being well-adjusted means having balance and mindfulness about the care of oneself and others. This engenders a level of natural discipline that, practiced on a daily basis, creates a wonderful consistency both in your mind and body and out into the world around you, a world you are creating. Being well-adjusted requires a commitment to life as an ongoing work in progress.
In the end, we are all repeating much of the same story — different person, different day, different details, but same essence. My goal is to help your story make sense. My ambition is to help you improve your lifestyle management so you can eat healthier, live better, and enjoy yourself more.
I can help you achieve what you want on your terms. I can lend a hand in simplifying care of your body and your diet. The outcome is to enjoy your life more, work at it less, and manage it easier. My greatest desire is that you have an experience that is as profound and cathartic as if you were on my table. What do you say? Are you ready to start your “session?”
Contents
Your Body Knows What to Do and What It Needs
Shaking is Your Best Move: Simple, Easy, Powerful
Exercise Equipment: to Buy or Not to Buy
You Won’t Lose It if You Use It
Exercises to Increase the Range of Motion of Your Senses
Your Body Moves in Three Primary Ways
Lateral Flexion is the Movement that Keeps You Young
Lifestyle Management Begins with Adding Lateral Flexion
Lateral Flexion for Your Hips, Feet, and Wrists
Incorporating Movement into Your Day
Improving Movement by Improving Posture
The Three Qualities of Movement
Keeping Your Body Warmed Up is a Snap
Enhancing the Benefits of Walking
Who’s Got Your Back: Your Spine
Spinal Curvature Gives You Balance and Coordination
Technology Underutilizes the Body
Life Today Has Become a Planned Event
The Youth Have Mastered Technology
Unique Challenges for Kids Today
Your Body Requires Random Movement
Reasonable Methods for Realistic Fitness
Easy Fitness for Life Long Benefits
Invest Smartly in Your Quality of Life
The Ten Principles of VitalBody
The Importance of Biochemistry
How Modern Agriculture Affects Our Diet
Let’s Give Up the Dietary Gimmicks
Think of Food as Fuel for the Body
Kitchen Management Is the Foundation of a Healthy Diet
Shop and Cook for Tomorrow, Not Just Today
Proteins and Carbs Are Better Together
Simple and Effective Meal Modification
The Ten Principles of VitalFood
VitalMind’s Unique Psychological Model
Six Steps that Facilitate the Learning Process
Technology and Nature: Two Sides of the Coin of Life
Life Was Based on Nature and Now Is Based on Technology
Technology Reinvents Itself and Us
Stimulation Overload Makes for Chronic Overwhelm
Relating to Your Body in the Age of Technology
Memories Are Stored in the Mind and the Body
Heredity Is Both Physical and Psychological
Our Scripts Are Reflected in Our Relationships
Seeing Our Reflection in Others
The Defining Moments in Your Life
True Freedom Comes from Forgiveness
Running Your Life Like a Business
The Ten Principles of VitalMind
1
A sort of life expeditionary, I was born with an agile mind, an insatiable curiosity and thirst for information, and a serious case of wanderlust. I vividly remember much of my childhood because it flowed from one startling experience to another. With the steady pulse of commotion in my family and the hushed undercurrent of uncertainty, I observed and learned from an acute sense of hyper-vigilance.
My earliest memory is the morning an ambulance took Daddy-O to the hospital. He had an episode of severe swelling as if a tire pump had been attached to him and started going to work. The incident happened overnight, so he was rushed to the hospital. He underwent multiple tests before there was finally a diagnosis.
I was always fairly attuned to the felt state of a room, the dynamics of a group, and ultimately other people’s minds. Consider the difference between walking into a funeral home and a football stadium on game day. After Daddy-O’s ambulance escort, I felt the change reverberating first in Mama Florence.
She was a short woman of slight build with a graceful walk. She smiled easily and always kept a neat appearance regardless of her circumstances. In keeping with the style of the time, she wore those classic “house dresses.” Those long one-piece numbers weren’t particularly flattering, but their numerous pockets were highly functional and quite fitting for those conservative years.
At the age of three, as short as I was, the best embrace I could manage was clutching her house dress around her knees. But now when I reached up to her, I noticed she didn’t feel the same any more. I sensed she had gone somewhere, leaving behind a distant, hazy awareness of me and her surroundings, but nothing more. In the years to follow, her separation would become a permanent condition.
2
Childhood is the sum of three parts. First is the native or innate personality, abilities, and non-abilities present at birth. Second is the environment you’re born into: people, circumstances, and the dynamics of the social, economic, and family structure. The times themselves and the impact of the dominant culture is the third.
All the disjointed aspects of my childhood, sometimes painful but never boring, ultimately pointed me in the right direction. Talk about sucking the sweet out of the gum. I was into heavy chewing and the supply was seemingly endless — though the gum got stuck in my throat a time or two. There were long stretches when I was young and even into early adult life when I did not think the events would coalesce into a positive outcome.
Life lessons manifested quickly and poignantly. Motivation was the subject of one early lesson. My friend Cindy B. taught me that. We were four or five and played together when she occasionally came over with her mother, who was divorced. Back then divorce was a dirty word along with sex and mortal sins, all of which the Catholic Church incessantly harped on. At that age, I had no choice but to go along, since Mama Florence was 100% Polish and Polacks were Catholics. That much we were secure about.
Turning up with her divorced mother added a pinch of drama and intrigue, not that Cindy herself needed any. Cindy was “talent” — the kind of little girl that melts little boys’ hearts and makes their minds go blank. Then we gush over trivial matters and assorted nonsense, until the girl warily looks at us and says, “Uh, shut up.”
Well, Cindy observed that I could not tie my shoes. On that basis alone, she saw absolutely no future for us. Guess who learned to tie his shoes that day? That was motivation at work. She wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
Once past the shoe-tying episode, our meetings followed a routine. Our mothers would get together for coffee and klatch while Cindy and I scurried down to the basement. The play area had a comfortable sofa and floor space for our toys. But the toys were just a ruse.
We were only interested in pulling the couch forward enough to squeeze our little tushes behind it. Then, in the secretive darkness we engaged in the most delicious hugging and kissing. (Wasn’t it great when you didn’t know anything about sex and potential consequences? There wasn’t any right or wrong — just total presence in the moment.) Occasionally, the conversation upstairs got quiet. This alerted us that one of our mothers was creeping down the stairs, about to peek around the corner and check on us. We quickly scrambled back to the toys, while looking and acting nonchalant, the faces of innocence. (Don’t think we took our clothes off pal, we didn’t. We just messed them up a little along with a bit of “bed head.”) We played with the toys until the parent went back upstairs, then we got back to the really fun stuff. Ah, Cindy B., my first love.
3
Fortunately for me, I grew up during the transition from the Baby Boomers to the Gen X’ers. While I could extol the virtues of this ad infinitum, it would likely turn into ad nauseum, so I’ll just hit a couple broad-strokes. I was among the last of the generations of the “free roamers.” In those times, we didn’t contend with the safety issues so prevalent today. We had, “Get out of the house, go play, stay out of trouble, and don’t come back till dinnertime.” I loved it.
My neighborhood was street upon street of modest, but neatly appointed one-story homes with basements. The neighbors knew each other well, providing the glue that formed the basis of our community. Here existed the last remnants of conformity, right as Viet Nam and the peace movement came along, forever obliterating that innocence.
Years later, I went by our house and thought, “Criminy, this is tiny. Six people lived here?” It’s all relative, and the smaller you are, the bigger everything else appears anyways. Back then, everyone around me lived this way. That was the lifestyle of the lower middle class: the men worked and the women stayed at home; there was one car per family as well as one phone and one TV.
The most abundant commodity in my neighborhood was other kids. Like everyone else, I wanted to fit in, and it took a while to formulate my approach. Soon I discovered that I could become invisible, not draw attention to myself, and observe. This was my best strategy, along with an occasional pithy comment. Invisibility was effective both inside and outside my home. I had no idea what an asset this was, but I’d find out soon enough.
Growing up where I did, I could simultaneously watch all the developmental stages of childhood: what a 6 or 12 or 18 year old kid talked about, their chores, what they could get away with, and the “privileges” they had earned. It was clearly apparent that I would go through all those stages too. I thought it best to get a head start and so I studied in advance.
Kids rarely want to be around kids younger than themselves. Instead, they want to be around kids their own age, or better yet, older ones. Having three older siblings, I recognized this only too well. So how could a mere lad hope to have quality time with sixteen year olds? This was my dilemma. While the other boys in my neighborhood were more focused on wrestling and GI Joes, I was more interested in gathering information in general and what the older kids were doing and thinking — especially, of course, the girls.
4
Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. That’s the definition of invisible. This became my passport, how I got seamlessly included in neighborhood activities, as well as tolerated by older kids. I always had the pulse of my surroundings as I wandered about from house to house. My goal was to forge a relationship with both the parents and their children so everybody found me at least tolerable to have around. I tried not to overstay my welcome.
Critical in my development was discerning when to be quiet and simply watch, versus asking questions to draw people out. This was a delicate balancing act. Older kids in particular didn’t want inquiring minds around. Their parents already fulfilled that job description.
Now, with adults, I had a different strategy — ask as many questions as you can and get people talking about themselves. Boy, they loved that! I often surreptitiously worked in open-ended questions, hoping to be enlightened by some great philosophical profundity. Or, in the absence of that, a practical morsel at the very least would do.
I was absolutely a hunter and gatherer. My prey, though, was other people’s minds. Understanding body language would soon follow. That was necessary in order to recognize subtleties and avoid the response, “I’m sick of talking to you right now.” I fancied myself a sort of itinerant bee gathering his pollen all day. Luckily, I had more adults at my disposal than just those in the immediate neighborhood.
Mama Florence came with a large extended family. In my early years, there were frequent gatherings in our basement, where alcohol flowed freely along with the bullshit, the cigarettes, and the pizzas. I lived for those moments, because I cruised from one adult to the next, asking my twenty questions. I explored their jobs, their passions, their opinions of God. Loved bringing up the government: that got a rise out of everybody.
Pretty quickly, they tired of my incessant grilling (amazing how many adults had to visit the bathroom right after I entered the room). In my obtuseness, I hadn’t realized they had a threshold and I lived in a culture of children seen but not heard, especially little pipsqueaks. Treading lightly was the key.
When I was six, my oldest sister married a man who represented a new adult, the first addition to our nuclear family — Larry, the son-in-law. Since Larry was relatively untapped, I pumped him every chance I got. Once we got into a hellacious discussion of calories and British thermal units. At one point, he looked at me and said, “Why the hell do you want to know this?” I thought, “Why the hell do I?” I just had a million questions in my head and they all needed answers.
Larry was a smart cookie though. When he drove up and I greeted him, he’d shake my hand and respectfully acknowledge me. Then, in a nice flat voice, he’d say, “Please, I can’t answer any questions this time, but I will next time.” The problem was he said that every time. Never did figure out a comeback for that one.
While the other kids were trading match boxes, dolls, and lunches, I was more interested in gathering information. Adults had information at their disposal that strongly appealed to me. I urgently believed that information was my best means to sort out the ongoing matters in my own home. Knowledge is power, but only if you can utilize it. Short of that, there’s a modicum of safety and security derived from it. I had some serious analysis ahead of me — more than reading, writing, and ’rithmatic was going to provide.
5
Daddy-O’s diagnosis finally arrived after a series of conditions where he swung back and forth between perfectly healthy and sick as hell. He had rheumatoid arthritis, a progressive disease characterized by swelling and inflammation of the joints. He was forty and I was four. It was devastating and demoralizing for all of us, like he had just received a prolonged death sentence, now hanging on him like a heavy coat and wearing him down.
The diagnosis was exacerbated by Daddy-O’s volatile personality. Mama Florence referred to him as “easily excitable.” Others thought it went a great deal beyond that. All this was compounded by his imposing physical presence: a one-time state swimming champion, he stood about 5’ 10” with a barrel chest, long sloping shoulders, and arms that could easily bury a 16 penny nail with one blow of his hammer. With Daddy-O, I had to be a fly on the wall, carefully picking and choosing my interactions with him.
The hope phase — the “we’re gonna beat this” mindset, the “medications will fix this” thinking — all that lasted a couple years. After that came resignation. His life was over, as he knew it and we knew it. The impact was universal in scope. As time passed, the remissions came less often and for shorter durations. More frequent were the occurrences where the disease literally attacked his body.
There wasn’t much help for him — or us, for that matter. After first rallying around Daddy-O, we then drifted into a quasi-quarantined state, the family beginning a slow but steady isolation from the rest of the world. Here I discovered the concept of “daily defeats.” I witnessed them firsthand.
Many of you remember the TV show, All In The Family with Archie Bunker. Daddy-O was Archie with a debilitating, painful, chronic disease; and when he was not a happy camper, essentially the whole camp ground had to shut down. You might recall, too, that Archie played quite the racist. That adjective, however, did not describe Daddy-O at all.
When I was growing up in the suburbs of Detroit in the 60’s and early 70’s, racial epithets were tossed around like cigarette butts out of moving cars. But in our house, we rarely heard any of those deprecating terms. Daddy-O grew up in New York City — Harlem specifically — a dangerous neighborhood with tough people. Yet black, white or whatever, people there stood together. That’s what he saw; that’s what he knew — a fundamental respect.
6
My first specific, intuitive experience surfaced about age six. By now, it was evident that Daddy-O’s pain and suffering was permanent. In the way that children are sensitive to the afflictions and infirmities of their parents, I was deeply saddened, not to mention frightened, by the emerging unrest that permeated our home.
Could anything be done to overcome this adversity? A seminal moment in his life and mine was about to occur. In retrospect, we had reached the end of the line, given the circumstances. It was time to go out of the box, formulate another perspective, attempt to make sense of it all, and strategize for the future.
On the downside of the disease cycle, on the bad days, my older brother and Mama Florence helped Daddy-O out of bed. Then they lowered him into the tub with a series of chains and mechanical devices, as the hot bath stimulated his body to loosen up and move more easily. Next, he sat at the sink and soaked his hands in hot paraffin wax. His combustible nature was significantly ramped up by the pain of the disease and his fear of not being able to work. I had mastered my invisible act, because when he focused on you and was not in a good mood, feasence (a catchall word I use to describe something bad or otherwise not a beautiful thing) was in the air.
This particular morning found him engrossed in his own thoughts, oblivious to my presence observing his profile close by. His breathing was a bit labored as he sat stooped over the sink. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes and then fell down his cheeks like light rain sliding down a window. I was completely enthralled by the moment, a multitude of thoughts and feelings swirling in my head.
Suddenly, we were surrounded by an exceptional silence — the way a room gets quiet right before something important is about to be announced. Everything else — objects in the room, thoughts in my mind, time of day — all that became irrelevant and fell away. It was just me and him and his hands in the wax and the tears on his face.
In the deep void that is beyond thought, I started hearing bits of dialog coming from his mind. He was mourning the loss of his future with no hope for his own personal achievement. He was struggling with how to support his family in the midst of intense pain and dwindling mobility. The bottom line was his resignation and coming to terms with “Arthur,” the name my parents used to describe Daddy-O’s illness and all that went with it. Yes, Arthur was part of the family now, the guest who wasn’t invited and never left.
Right then, I knew something within me had shifted — my awareness and ability to perceive. Something else, the family dynamic, was also about to change. At that moment, the course we appeared to be charting did not look so promising.
Life sometimes demands more than you feel capable of grasping so you have to reach for something more, maybe even access abilities you didn’t think you possessed in the first place. You have to transcend your ordinary and rudimentary faculties. You have to dig deeper in order to extend your capabilities.
I was extremely invested in the evolving circumstances of my family. What I felt that day seemed so patently clear to me, yet I instantly knew its importance extended beyond my immediate measure. But through his mind, I got a glimpse of what lay ahead. That event was in and of itself quite staggering. Even more stunning was the manner in which I received it. There emerged such certainty, clarity, and an understanding that felt more like a knowing, yet no words passed between us.
What do you do when your whole world capsizes in the blink of an eye? When suddenly, all bets are off and the rules are changed forever? I will always remember that moment because it symbolized the beginning of the end for Daddy-O — and the initiation into a new dimension for me.
7
As the family adjusted to accommodate Arthur, I shifted into a mode of thinking that somehow, heroically, I could figure all this out and fix Daddy-O. We would all go back to the way we were before. Just get on with it then, just like in the movies. I occasionally engaged in bouts of acting out, a reaction to my difficulty handling daily circumstances. But mostly I was still trying to help out.
It was a transitional period in many ways, as soon my oldest sister would get married and leave home, followed a couple of years later by my brother entering the military. This left the bulk of my childhood spent with my other sister, two years my senior.
Lacking other solutions, the doctors started pumping Daddy-O full of the latest wonder drug, cortisone. Wonder drugs are like beauty queens — one shows up all bright and impressive at first. This lasts a while, but is less exciting later on. Eventually it falls off the map and is replaced by the next one. Like it or not, the whole situation necessitated a fair amount of trial and error.
The first few years of my education, I attended Catholic school. Later, after Arthur rendered Daddy-O’s income less than steady, I went to public school. But those years in the classroom with the nuns in full habits proved very insightful, a unique and rigorous experience never again duplicated. I wondered how the nuns scratched themselves when they itched, especially in summertime when tiny beads of sweat emerged upon what little uncovered skin they showed.
By second grade, I sometimes took matters into my own hands, with results consummate to a second grader. I was, though, fast becoming accustomed to unusual circumstances which resulted in my having to make it up as I went along. I later discovered what a great skill-set that was. But in the beginning, lacking enough time-on-task, the outcome varied widely.
Once I got into trouble and was sent to Sister Principal, a woman far too busy with more important matters than my feasent behavior. Cautiously walking down the hallway to her office I thought, “I need to come up with something good here.” I had drawn attention to myself, violating one of my principles. I concocted a story that seemed plausible enough. By the time I reached her office, I felt quite sure of myself. No slinking into a chair with guilt written all over me. No sir.
I strode in like some conquering general, looked her right in the eye, and confidently proclaimed, “When my father finds out what happened here today, all of you will be in so much trouble.” I let the statement resonate in the air a moment, thinking it would further empower it. I had, though, conveniently forgotten that she didn’t know my father like I did. Interacting with him, when not on his terms, was never a good idea.
She studied me for a moment, her lower lip extending forward slightly. Casting an ominously distrustful look, she said, “Let’s just call him up right now, shall we?” She proceeded to hand me the phone. Ah, we shall not call him up right now, or any time. Now what? I didn’t know that with bluff comes call your bluff. I had left myself without options, never bothering to consider the need for Plan B. I had just played poker with a woman who knew my hand in advance. Bad idea!
I started crying, my posture no longer resplendent in its confidence, my head slumping down over my chest. She looked at me, nodded knowingly, and said, “I think it best you wait till after the paddling before you start that.” Case closed.
8
Music was an integral part of my childhood. My parents played music regularly, though neither could carry a tune. They enjoyed a lot of Big Band stuff and Sinatra (the first artist who went by only one name mind you — everybody else was first name-last name; he was Sinatra). There were also appearances by Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald. Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust” was their song.
Once, Daddy-O was taking a deep breath in preparation for a diatribe about the horrors of Rock ’n’ Roll and its meaningless lyrics. I cut him off right below the knees by a smart-ass request for an explanation, please, behind Jimmy Durante’s “Inka Dinka Doo.” (Survival tip: always have your information ready.)
My oldest sister was fourteen years my senior. When I was coming out of diapers, she was going to sock hops. Cataclysmic changes were in the offing. I was young, but I sensed the impact because of the emerging buzz in the neighborhood, like a loud speaker humming overhead. Elvis and the Beatles were taking over. There was no going back.
One night Elvis was scheduled to appear on national TV. I went to bed willingly, knowing that once the adults tuned in, there likely would not be any bed check that night. I guessed right — the adults were glued to the tube. Peeking out just enough into the living room, I saw that pelvis a-movin’ and those hips a-gyratin’. Daddy-O started foaming at the mouth, spinning ’round every which way, arms flailing about like a baby bird first learning to fly. Finally he yelled out, “FLARRRRENCE, what the HELL is this world coming to?”
“Well, I don’t know, Bob,” she replied in her best sit-com voice. “Well, none of my kids are gonna listen to that shit, because that’s not music,” he groused. Daddy-O could make you sit up and pay attention, but he was no match for one Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley. Not even close.
Soon after, my oldest sister frequently played a 45 record of “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog.” By this time, emulation had become part of my great learning adventure. It’s actually a fun and inventive way to clock some time-on-task. One day when my sister went to school, I took to playing that record and tried dancing like I saw Elvis dancing on TV.
That’s the day I fell in love with the magic of movement itself. I had always enjoyed expressing myself with my body, typical of a kid. But I sensed a higher purpose now, because whatever gyrations Mr. Presley was doing, people were paying close attention.
That was also the day I got on Mama Florence’s last nerve. She generously let me play my sister’s record at least a half dozen times, then came in and suggested I play something else. But I didn’t want to. Oh no, I was busy working up that pelvic movement. A few more plays of the Hound Dog found Mama Florence coming back into the room a bit agitated, more direct and succinct now.
“Let’s please play something else or nothing at all.” I didn’t listen — and kept right on. She came back once again. Third time’s the charm.
Her face was expressionless. Not being able to ascertain her intentions concerned me. Gently she removed the needle from the record, placing it carefully on the spindle. Even more gently, she lifted the 45 off the platen, saying, “Nice record, isn’t it?”
I responded with a vigorous, “Yes, great record.” I was about to say, “Let’s play it again, Mom,” but she preempted. She presented the record to me like they do a prize that you’ve won on a game show. Then she promptly broke it in half over her leg and said, “Well, we’re all done listening to that now, aren’t we?”
Well, hell yes — that’s exactly what I was thinking. She got up and strode back down the hallway confidently knowing that the matter of playing “Hound Dog” — well, that was behind us now. I was overcome with a huge crying jag, caused in part by what my sister was going to do with me as well. She, too, would no longer be listening to Hound Dog. At that point, the best I could muster up was a meekly muttered, “You’re a mean mommy.”
9
A few years later came the next defining moment which had a major impact on my life. Some defining moments are obvious, like births and deaths, or marriages and divorces. But it’s been my experience that often, it’s the seemingly inconsequential ones that act as change agents. People are going to live and die, they’re going to get married and divorced, but how many people are going to meet Aunt Theresa?
Daddy-O planned to go out of town for a couple of weeks to set up an exhibit for his company and Mama Florence was going with him. That was the only time in my childhood they ever took a vacation sans the kids. Even though he had to work part of the time, there was a little buzz going on nonetheless, because our routine was changing, if only for a little while.
My parents asked Aunt Theresa to come and look after my sister Mary Beth and me during their absence. I had met her a couple of times before, but as the days leading up to her arrival grew shorter, Mama Florence saw fit to inculcate us with proper respect for one’s elders.
Theresa was old — near eighty by then — and needed to be treated with honor and respect. Given that she would be running the house instead of my mother, forty years her junior, some adjustments were necessary. Talk loud and slow so she can hear you. Don’t expect her to move too fast. Be quiet while she naps in the afternoon. Don’t pester her for any special favors. Here I’m thinking, “For heaven sakes, I’m getting rid of one invalid to be replaced by another.”
Theresa arrived, suitcase in tow, and my parents left. Immediately our routine changed. For starters, Theresa brought her own bottled water. This was around 1969. We had water already, right at the faucet. What’s up with her?
Thinking perhaps she had only recently immigrated to the U.S. from some poverty-stricken part of Eastern Europe, I announced, “Aunt Theresa, America’s a great country. See the faucet? There’s water there! You turn it on, put a cup under it, fill it up, drink all you want!” I then reflected on that statement, as though somehow I had taken her out of darkness and into enlightenment.
She measured me up and down and said, “No smart-ass, you don’t understand. That water’s got rat poison in it,” as she pointed to the faucet. ”That’s why I drink this,” now pointing to her bottles of water. “Some day, everybody will be drinking bottled water.” Well, alrighty then.
Clearly, we had either a nut or a prophet on our hands. My curiosity had met its match. I began a full scale assault, a relentless bombardment of this woman for two solid weeks. It was question upon question. Theresa had a good answer for everything. She continued as eager to tell as I was to ask.
Theresa was old and looked her age, what with her wrinkled face, slightly thick midsection, and gray hair. She certainly didn’t have a pinup’s body any more and she also liked her occasional bratwurst and sauerkraut. But Theresa didn’t grunt when she stood up. She didn’t shuffle when she walked. Her hearing was, in fact, very good. (Too good at times.) She took no afternoon naps.
But what I noticed most was her efficiency and speed. She tackled the daily drill — laundry, cooking, cleaning, all of it — as fast as Mama Florence, who was half her age. This woman still brought it, both in physical ability and overall energy level.
The other startling difference between Theresa and others her age was her posture. Theresa had great posture. She wasn’t all stooped and hunched over with the posture commonly associated with Father Time and old age. Undoubtedly, this went far beyond “sitting up straight.” Theresa paid attention to her posture, including doing little floor exercises each day to, as she would put it, “keep gravity from taking over.”
We assume that we get shorter as we get older, and yes, the discs between the vertebrae in our spinal columns do thin out as the decades go by. But that’s not the foremost culprit in our submission to gravity. Poor posture is.
10
Theresa cooked all her food from scratch. She wasn’t big on opening cans. Every morning, she started us off with cottage cheese — a big clump on a slice of tomato nestled on a bed of lettuce. I wondered where she had stashed the Fruit Loops. Now that was breakfast! Mary Beth and I stuffed our faces with Theresa’s version of breakfast, and then we took turns excusing ourselves to go to the bathroom to spit it all out. To this day cottage cheese, cream cheese, cheese cake — uh, I’ll pass.
My sister and I came home from school one day. For a change, Theresa asked us what we wanted to eat. Mary Beth immediately chimed in, “Chef Boy-R-Dee ravioli.” This was accompanied by a big, hopeful smile, which was immediately and summarily wiped off her face by Theresa’s objectionable look.
“You really eat that?” Hell, I was thinking we ate fine before she came along.
OK, so the food was a bit rough to handle: mostly raw or only slightly cooked and bereft of seasoning, not to mention much flavor. What was missing here was food’s great triumvirate: sugar, salt, and fat. This was pure and simple food, absent of any pizzazz, which exemplified Theresa’s entire lifestyle. I had already witnessed the elderly in the family becoming infirmed and dying off. Though their contemporary, Theresa did not appear to be infirmed at all, nor did she plan to die off this five minutes.
Theresa explained that decades ago she had attended a lecture by Paul Bragg, the father of health food in this country. Bragg was a pioneer, along with Bernarr McFadden, of what was called the “physical culture movement.” These two planted the first seeds of healthy, organic food and healthy, lifestyle concepts, now solidly positioned as stalwarts of mainstream America. Theresa and her sister Mary became instant and lifelong converts. Even today, Bragg’s books and those of his daughter, Patricia, are still big sellers.
According to Theresa, inspired by Bragg, the health problems in this country all started with sugar — way too much sugar. While candy bars and treats were a rarity rather than a certainty in my childhood, Theresa aptly pointed out that when I ate a candy bar, it was like having three as compared to her having one. This was due to the difference in our respective weights. Alcohol’s a good corollary: a one hundred pound woman typically gets blasted on way less alcohol than a three hundred pound guy.
Theresa was convinced we were becoming a society of sugar addicts, especially the young people. (It’s always the young people who start the trouble.) In her estimation, sugar represented the first addiction. From there, we simply moved up the scale to caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and drugs. But her list always started at the same place, with sugar.
Well, I had a conflict. I liked sugar. But I could not overlook Theresa’s robust attitude. In terms of ability, she remained way ahead of others her age. And forget Alzheimer’s. She was sharp as a tack and more than held her own in terms of verbal jousting. How could you not stand up and take notice? I started wondering if perhaps Arthur resulted to some degree from nutritional issues or other lifestyle management factors. It would be some years, though, before that Pandora’s Box got opened.
Theresa impressed me as so unconventional, so out of the box, it caused me to re-boot my hard drive. I had been to the mountaintop. What it looked liked was a craggy faced woman who liked too damn much cottage cheese and needed to work more spices into her culinary arts. Aside from that, she was the bomb.
Theresa lived to be eighty-eight and even drove a car up until the last few months. One night she simply got out of bed, went into the kitchen, had difficulty breathing, and laid down on the sofa until an ambulance could arrive. She died peacefully on the way to the hospital. She truly lived a well-adjusted life and set me on a course toward another aspect of positive and essential, lifestyle management.
There was no medication, no assisted living, no nursing home, and no life support. No nothing. According to Bragg, this represented the natural design of life, but because of sugar and other poor dietary habits, more people were experiencing a lot more sputtering and a lot less burning brightly — especially in their golden years.
Theresa’s life was a candle burning brightly from start to finish, flickering once or twice, and then going out. Guess how many other people I have come across that I could say this about? How about you?
11
Up till now, I hadn’t really personalized the family situation much. Since I was so young when Daddy-O took sick, I accepted circumstances as they unfolded and did the best I could. But then an event occurred that affected me deeply.
When we take events personally, count on some sort of a grievance coming along for the ride. Life — the world, or a person, or a group, or a government agency — has foisted an injustice or malicious circumstance upon us. Or so we think. Taking events personally is the glue that binds together past grievances with future behavior which is rarely flattering.
Our grievances ultimately take us down a hellacious road. It’s a mindset of attack and defend — I was attacked, therefore I will defend. This fosters an attitude of “This was done to me, so I’m doing this as a result.” Grievances manifest as either deleterious actions and/or behaviors directed towards others or ourselves. The essence though, the drive that generates the motivation behind the behavior is, “I am entitled to.” Whenever we feel justified or entitled, rarely do we willingly call our resultant behavior into question. In our minds, our conduct is beyond reproach, for it is justified. We will fight tooth and nail to hold onto our position as long as the grievance or sense of entitlement exists in our minds.
I was in fourth grade and money was tight since Daddy-O now worked intermittently. We could not afford the luxury of a Catholic school education much longer, but I was a thirsty little bugger — fairly precocious and highly motivated. To me, knowledge held the secrets for sorting out the family’s condition and Daddy-O’s behavior in particular, not to mention the impact of all his meds.
I craved more mental stimulation than the nuns were giving me. To this end, I started doing other kids’ homework, making myself an unofficial teacher’s assistant in the process. School officials called my parents in and said, “You have two choices: move him up a grade or two where he can be better challenged, or send him to Cranbrook,” a prestigious local private school. Now that was a wonderful choice.
Cranbrook meant long hours away from home — the perfect double-dip. Of course, the tuition represented a lot of dead presidents on paper, didn’t it? Where exactly was that coming from? I had heard about it “raining cats and dogs,” but never raining money.
My parents, Daddy-O in particular, were extremely proud people. He collected exactly two weeks of unemployment in his entire life. Forget about welfare — as bad as it ever got, that was never an option. Daddy-O’s motto was, “The help you need is at the end of your arm.” While nobody in Mama Florence’s family was particularly flush, there were enough relatives who possessed a generosity and family spirit of support that was common in those times.
Whether we could somehow scrape the tuition together and what it would take to make that happen, was never brought up for discussion. There was no advocating on my behalf and therefore, the whole matter became a moot point. Nobody had my back here and no one ever discussed my skipping a grade or two to improve my education. The whole matter dried up, shriveled away, and died. A part of me died with it.
The part that died was replaced by my grievance. I reacted negatively as a result of the entire matter. Soon it became an anathema to me. I took it personally and, as a result, I developed some “grievances” towards authority figures and the establishment. Family life had already morphed into a sort of “us versus them” mentality as we vainly struggled to keep Arthur at bay and Daddy-O on a good page. Now, instead of “us versus them,” it turned into “me against the world.”
The unwillingness to look at somebody else’s side of an issue is a major factor in the formulation of grievances. Certainly, going to private school was high on my list (no, it was on the top). By necessity, it was much lower on my parents’ list — after coping with Arthur and keeping a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. A great way to get over something that happened in your childhood is to see it through the eyes of the adult you are now. All too typically, we instead keep bringing the child’s point of view forward, thus maintaining and even building upon childhood grievances.