And the Various Journeys Continue . . .

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #21

The next morning after I had crashed and slept the sleep of the dead for several hours, I showered and put on the same dirty shorts and a t-shirt given me by Jan, Head of the SLMM mission. I was most anxious to get back to my home base in Mutur to survey the damage, so after breakfast graciously provided by Jan, as he had the evening before dinner, I went to the jetty to see if the ferry to Mutur was running. When I got to the ferry, it was about 20% full, and the Captain said that when they received a delivery of critical supplies in about an hour, they would be going to Mutur. During the interim, I was able to get to an Internet Cafe and make a post on my blog that I was safe. In about an hour-and-a-half we started out into the Bay; then we stopped and went back to the jetty. The Captain said they had been informed by the Sri Lankan Navy that another wave was coming from an aftershock. This happened three or four more times -- leave the jetty, get out into the harbor, and then turn back to the dock. Not having a book to distract me, in somewhat of a fugue-like, dissociative state, I just stared at the always swooping and screeching crows. All of a sudden, I was startled by my cell phone ringing; it was Dharshini, one of the Colombo Administrative Staff, telling me the good news that she had just spoken to Croos, our Tamil interpreter, who said that the NP House/Office was completely okay, unscathed. Thank goodness ICRC and UNICEF had very spurious information about it being destroyed. Finally a little after noon, we got on our way across the beautiful Trinco Bay.

About three-quarters of the way to Mutur, the coastline in full, but still distant view, we stopped again, and the ferry circled about. In the gently rolling sea was the body of a 8 or 9 year-old girl, lying on her back, her arms and legs outspread, hair drifting behind her, eyes open, as if she were watching the serenely passing clouds above her. With great care and reverence, several of us retrieved her from the water and laid her down on some bags off flour, closing her eyes and covering her with a sari that one of the women passengers gave us. Later, I found out that of the some 390 killed in Mutur by the Wave, 60 per cent were children under twelve years old, with a higher proportion of girls dying. When it hit Sunday morning, most of the able-bodied men in the fishing villages were out at sea fishing. Their wives and children along with elders were left back at home. A number of fishermen came back from fishing, unaware of what had happened, to discover that not only were their homes destroyed, but also their whole families had been wiped out. One man in despair later in the week suicided.

As the ferry pulled up to the jetty, the incredible destructive power of the Tsunami was apparent. The Navy facility was totally destroyed, as were many of the houses and stores along both sides of the jetty. A nearby school was devastated, the grounds and floors covered with mud and sand. Boats were broken in pieces; debris scattered about or ensnarled in skeins of barbed wire. Walking up from the jetty I carefully stepped over hand grenades, ammunition and flares that had been retrieved from the washed away police booth at the base of the jetty. For several hundred meters from the seashore, the destructive path was apparent, but unlike the Muslim town of Kinniya, which was by and large destroyed, most of Mutur was a mile from the coastline and was still intact.

It felt very good to get back to my home, to have a shower, shave, brush my teeth and put on clean clothes. There was neither telephone service nor electricity, so I spent the afternoon getting together essential supplies such as candles, boiling and filtering water, and procuring provisions for meals. I also rode my bike around to check on the safety of our main contacts. Almost everyone I spoke with had suffered incredible losses, such as our landlord, Sedak, whose daughter, aunt and several cousins were killed in a train washed away by the Tsunami. They had been on their way to a wedding in Galle. When I encountered him out in front of the Public Market, putting my hand over my heart, indicating to him my sorrow at his loss, I was incredibly moved by his response to me – in the middle of the street in this very public space, this respected Muslim businessman, a leader in his community, openly hugged me and sobbed on my shoulder, me, an American man, whose country has been terrorizing Muslims in Iraq and throughout the world. Another close contact lost both of his parents and some twelve members of his extended family. By nightfall, I was exhausted, but very luckily, the phone service, despite information it might be out for several days at least, was restored. I was able to call my stepdaughter and Momma to tell them I was, indeed, safe. By candlelight I was able to cook a meal for myself and pass out, exhausted by the efforts of the day.

At about 2:30 am, the ringing phone awakened me. It was Dan Marries, a TV reporter for CBS affiliate KOLD in Tucson, Arizona. The previous November, we had spent a wonderful two weeks traveling throughout Vietnam on both of our second return trip there. He conducted a quick phone interview, about which he did a story for the evening news of December 27th. A printed version of the story was put up on the KOLD website. This was the start of a chain of events that resulted in the incredible gift of the Kosmos, which brought LovelyLadyLynn and I together over time and the mere distance of 12,000 miles – there, Annette, a tidbit, just for you!

During the next couple of days I did exhausting work throughout Mutur, walking around the devastated community encountering awful scenes such as this distraught old man, sitting on the front stoop of his destroyed house in which died his wife, daughter and several grandchildren. All I could do was extend to him compassionate Tonglen, breathing in his deep pain, and breathing out light and love:

In the late evening of December 30th, the power, which had been predicted to be out some 20-30 days by the Ceylon Electric Board, suddenly came back on, and I was able to make a long blog entry on the NP Office PC. As I discuss there, I experienced another critical piece of deep acceptance within me, such as those I discussed above in Whooo Whooo – NOT #19. In hindsight, I fully believe that, through grace, the easy acceptance of my G-4 Powerbook with all of my digital life being lost was a requisite part of me becoming prepared for the miraculous love story between LovelyLadyLynn and myself to reveal itself.

I was also able to catch up a bit on the scillions of emails that were beginning to be exchanged among the 79 members of my email list. Included were several emails from an associate, Bart Jones, who is a staff reporter for Long Island Newsday. Bart was busily contacting my stepdaughters, Dawn and Jennifer in Phoenix, and my son, Tommy, in Tucson. Using their comments, information from my blog, and a digital picture sent by Jennifer, along with Dan’s article on the KOLD website, he fashioned this article, which ran in Newsday on Thursday, December 30th:

The confluence of LovelyLadyLynn and my destinies were surely swirling closer together . . .

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #20

It was a beautiful morning for a bike ride, perfectly sunny with billowy puffs of clouds in a perfect blue sky, not too warm with a nice breeze. After stopping off at the Hot Wells at Kinniya, we rode up through the brilliant green fields of elephant grass to the road going east into the jungle where Velgram Vihara, a 2500 year old temple ruin, is nestled. About a half a kilometer along the road we began to notice all kinds of vehicles, tractors, buses, 3-wheelers, motorcycles, automobiles, vans and trucks, filled with people, racing opposite us away from the Indian Ocean about 5 kilometers away. Several people frantically yelled at us, waving and pointing behind them, “Water! Water! Water!” I felt like I was in a Monty Python movie, thinking to myself, “Of course, you fools, the Indian Ocean is out there. When we saw the little chief monk of Velgram Vihara riding on the back of a motorcycle, clutching his Gandhi-like spectacles and holding on for dear life, we figured maybe we better turn back and find out what was happening. Since we were far out of cell phone network coverage we rode back to the nearest checkpoint, but the air force soldiers manning it didn’t have any information, nor did they speak much English. The road leading back to Trinco was filled with vehicles fleeing toward higher ground at Anuradhapura.

After several kilometers, I was able to exchange SMS messages with William, the Sri Lankan NP Project Director, who confirmed that a Tsunami had hit several areas of Sri Lanka. We rode our bikes back to the main road, but stopped at a junction leading into Trinco Town near a portion of Trinco Harbor where several bodies, apparently drowning victims were being removed. Grunun decided to move up to higher ground to a temple because there were rumors abounding that more waves would hit the coast. I, however, decided to ride to the French Garden because I was jonesing to get back to get meMacMojo, my G-4 Powerbook, castigating myself that I had left it in Room 4 along with my entire digital life of 2,000 pages of journals, scores of poetry, articles, essays, 1,500 pictures of various travels in Thailand, Vietnam, England, Sri Lanka, 43 of the 50 states, iTunes with over 900 songs, to include about $300 worth of songs downloaded from the online store, three years of email archives, etc. etc. etc. By the time I was riding north on North Coast Road to the French Garden turnoff, I could see the Indian Ocean off to the right through the palm trees. It looked quite normal, white-frothed waves gently coming ashore. There were people on the road, but I was unaware of any thing seeming out of the ordinary. I guess I was in massive denial, as I turned into the road leading to the French Garden, blithely thinking what all the big fuss was about when all of a sudden I was aware that none of the buildings were standing. In “shock and awe” here is what I saw:

This is the front of Room 4. Several hours earlier Grunun and I had breakfast in the right-hand corner of the porch behind the ledge. There was no sign of my computer backpack or any of the other belongings I had in the room. I walked back into the detritus of the destroyed buildings. Here is what it looked like facing the sea.

I spoke with Raj, the manager and son of the owner, finding out that miraculously none of the guests, staff or his family members had been killed, not even seriously injured. They were just swept away several hundred meters inland and dumped unceremoniously on the ground when the water receded. I was greatly relieved, since early that morning I had watched the 8 year old girl and 11 year old boy of a French couple playing out on the beach. Raj told me that he thought he had my computer bag somewhere, and went off to look for it. About that time, however, one of the SLMM trucks with Alf, a Naval Monitor, came into the compound and offered me a ride back to where members of the INGO community were gathering at the Welcombe Hotel. I told Raj I would come back later for the computer bag, and Alf and I left to try to find Grunun where I had left her up at the temple on higher ground. With minimum hassle we were easily able to find her and went to the hotel up on a bluff overlooking Trinco Harbor. Members of UNICEF, UNHCR, ICRC, and other international agencies were there, some traumatized and injured from surviving the killer waves. Lots of rumors and speculations abounded. Both landlines and cell phones were inoperable because of heavy use. Bits and pieces of information came to us about a massive earthquake in Sumatra, about extensive damage all through out Sri Lanka, about high numbers of casualties.

In the middle of the confusion my cell phone rang. It was the U.S. Embassy telling me to seek higher ground and to call my stepdaughter, Jennifer. I didn’t know whether to be grateful they found me, or concerned. I also got the disconcerting news from two UNICEF workers who had been in contact with the ICRC office in Mutur that the Nonviolent Peaceforce house/office had been destroyed. Geesh, all of my belongings were what I had with me, one pair of shorts, a t-shirt, my bag with wallet, money and credit cards, the cell phone and my new iPod I had bought several weeks earlier in Saigon, but no chargers. I had left them in my computer backpack. Nor did I have any of my books. I had left the Nelson Demille novel, Gold Coast, and Thomas Merton’s journal about his affair with a nurse in Louisville in Room 4, as well as my leather-bound journal with my passport and driver’s license in it. It was hard for me to believe that I was left with so little, and I queried the sanity of the Kosmos wherein in one “act of God” not only would I lose my computer, but also 30 kilometers away across Trincomalee Bay its backup. I had to be grateful, however, through act-as-if, gritted teeth that I had escaped with my life and no injury.

Later in the afternoon, I hitched a ride into the center of town with one of the UNICEF vehicles, and took a 3-wheeler out to the French Garden to see if I could retrieve my computer bag. It was about 5:00 pm when I got to the guesthouse. Raj told me it was not my bag that he thought was mine, that it belonged to another guest. Dejected I turned to walk back to the 3-wheeler to return to the Welcombe Hotel. I happened to look down and in a chair, open, waterlogged was my leather-bound journal. In amazement I picked it up and showed it to Raj, telling him it was mine. He told me it had been found in a mud puddle about 500 meters up the rode. In it were my passport and driver’s license. I was incredibly encouraged by this occurrence and very, very grateful. As bad as it was, I had experienced a bit of the truth that it always works out for the best, and I hadn’t experienced anything yet . . .

An Oldie But Goodie

Link: Vietnam Veterans and Alcoholism.

Whoa, golly gee willikers -- after 21 years, the original article on the correlation of PTSD and Alcoholism in Vietnam Vets that Bro' Friend, Vince, and I published in The Veteran, the official voice of Vietnam Veterans of America, still reads pretty good. We rewrote it and extensively expanded it in the The Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly in 1988, but unfortunately the digital archives of articles didn't begin until 1994.

How sad that as elders, we still have much good work to do for a whole new cohort of veterans returning from the ignoble desert war, just as we did two decades ago for our generation of vets returning from the equally ignoble jungle war. As a species we are like many alcoholics: we sure don't seem to learn from our past mistakes, and we keep doing the same aberrant behavior, expecting different results.

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #19

December of 2004 was a crossroads time of reflection for me before the great change that was to come into my life. In many ways I was quietly, mostly unconsciously, preparing for the next major epoch in my life. During the earlier part of the year I had finally after several years accepted that the relationship with S. was truly over. I made a concrete decision to withdraw my attachment to her and to cease trying to convince her to reconcile. In her place I tried to initiate a relationship with dear friend B., but by December, I was more and more uncertain as to whether or not our relationship had the energy to sustain itself; actually, I was pretty certain it did not. I had also come to accept that any hopes I had had of manifesting a ten-year “career” with Nonviolent Peaceforce were for naught.
As this entry, the last as it turned out in my then journal, indicates, I was in a conundrum of a limbo state, very unsure, uncertain as to what my future would be or whether or not I could continue working for Nonviolent Peaceforce from whom I had become very estranged and most disappointed with:

December 1, 2004, Staff Retreat Weligama, Sri Lanka

I am stuck in a place of limbo where I need every speck of grace and spiritual progress to keep on keeping on despite my at times rampant critical judgments about myself, NP, our work and the environment of Sri Lanka. Though often I feel incapable, unwilling, unable to go on, I have no choice but to continue seeking grace and humility to just keep consciously with breath and constant prayer to keep going on . . . I am grateful for the space opening within to move a bit more out of the shadow of self-battered ego and into the light of “a better place to be.” Can I recommit, better yet, re-inspire myself to “stay the course” here in Sri Lanka with NP at least through the second year? I don’t know, but I sense a shift within.”

In my spiritual reading of Pema Chodron the other morning I came across this passage in When Things Fall Apart, which resonated so much not only with what I have been blessed with during my recovery for the past 32 plus years, but where again I found myself in December:

I had learned this lesson before, and I knew that it was the only way to go. I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.” Somehow, even before I heard the Buddhist teachings, I knew that this was the spirit of true awakening. It was all about letting go of everything.

A couple of weeks later I wrote this poem, which in hindsight I can see was further indication of a deep shift taking place deep within my consciousness in the process of preparing myself for what was to occur.

chant

Buddhist monks
in nearby monastery
drone an atonal chant
through the darkest moments
before dawn

I sit and watch
fall of gentle rain
streetlights shimmer upon waving fronds
sleeping cat startle itself awake
then slink away in shadows

I swat at whining-buzz of mosquito
again lose count of breaths
another blessing to extend forgiveness
starting with myself

Such is my life
as I pray
not to judge it too harshly
instead to smile a mantra
of gratitude for mere
magnificent being

December 13, 2004
Dambulla, Sri Lanka

Christmas Day found me in Uppuveli north of Trinco Town at one of the favorite hangouts of the expat community, The French Garden, a comfortable guesthouse. I was in Room Number Four with a small porch facing the beautiful Indian Ocean with soft waves undulating upon the sandy beach beyond a groove of swaying palm trees. It was a quiet, idyllic Christmas Day afternoon I spent watching the waves and crows, reading Thomas Merton’s Journal about his affair with a nurse in Louisville, perhaps digitally journaling on my now gone MacMojo, I don’t recall. That night was a Christmas Party sponsored by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission up the beach at the Lotus Pond Hotel, the residence for this group of peace workers from Scandinavian countries, Finns, Danish, Swedish, mostly Norwegian, even an occasional Ice Lander, who have been charged to monitor the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement in Sri Lanka. Another Norwegian, a student, Grunun, who was also staying at the French Garden and I walked up the moonlit beach to the dinner party about 8:00 pm. There was a long table right on the beach about 10 feet from the softly cascading waves, where about 50 of the members of the expat community in Trinco and their families had a long meal and conversation in celebration of Christmas, 2004. Grunun and I arranged to take a bike ride the next morning to visit Velgra Vihara, a temple ruin, sacred to both Tamils and Buddhist for the past 2500 years, out in the middle of the jungle. It is one of my favorite places in Sri Lanka, most peaceful and serene. Tired, I left about 11:00 pm and went to sleep listening to the soothing rhythm of the waves, sparkling in the moonlight upon the sandy shore.

The next day, December 26th, was absolutely stunning: clear blue skies, a gentle breeze coming off the sea, a nip of coolness in the morning air. Grunun and I had breakfast out on my front porch. About 8:45 am, we discussed whether we should have another pot of coffee, or go on and get on the road for our bike ride to Velgram Vihara. Since I wanted to have plenty of time to have a leisurely visit to the temple ruins and get back in plenty of time to catch the 3:00 pm ferry back to Mutur, I suggested we better get ready to go, so we didn’t have that second pot of coffee. That was the good decision. As I was getting ready to go, the through struck me that I should put my computer, a Mac G-4 Powerbook, in the backpack carrier and take it with me, but I thought to myself, “Naw, no need, I trust Raj, the manager of the guesthouse.” Besides I had the key, which locked the substantial door. So, I left the computer in its pack back bag – bad decision. Off Grunun and I went on our bike ride, leaving the French Garden grounds at about 8:50 am. The devastating Tsunami Wave hit the French Garden at approximately 9:06 am.

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #18

As many stories go, and certainly most plans of the best laid man – uh, no that’s not exactly what I mean; indeed, it is true, I am best laid, but perhaps you get my drift. Anyway, way back on January 19th, I started this tale of many loves lost, so that true love could be found once again, and I am now ready in earnest to tell our story, the story of how Lady Lynn and I over time and space and through the tragedy of the December 26th Tsunami found each other again. It is quite a marvelous unveiling of two destinies inexorably intertwined.

First, though, some theoretical preliminary considerations: In the ‘70s I read Richard Bach’s bestselling books, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, soon after I was blessed with recovery from alcoholism/drug addiction in 1972. I was intrigued with his premise that we create the reality we deeply believe in. At the time, I was still desperately seeking the reality of manifesting my one and only true love forever and ever. As this Whooo, Whooo sequence of posts certainly and amply illustrates, the gods & goddesses know that up until that time a central theme of my life, endlessly it seemed, again and again, since grade school, had been to find and connect with the one and one only true love. Through a couple of marriages and many relationships, however, this seemed like a most futile quest, as ephemeral as any that Don Quixote and Sancho sought after.

There was another very influential story from another of my spiritual mentors, who I started reading in the mid-70s, John C. Lilly, who dropped bunches of pure Sandoz acid in sensory deprivation, isolation tanks and swam with the Dolphins. He wrote several books, including the most influential, The Dyadic Cyclone, with his partner Toni. In the introduction, he described the circumstances of their meeting, which I paraphrase from long ago memory thusly:

Lilly was invited to a party way back in the Hollywood Hills. He really didn’t want to go, but at the last minute decided that he would make an appearance, out of respect for the host and hostess, and then quickly return home. On the drive to the party just before he got to the neighborhood of the party, he had a flat tire, which delayed him getting to the party for a couple of hours, since his spare tire was also flat. Being so close, he decided to go on and make an appearance at the party. When he arrived the scene was in full swing with raucous music and activity. He entered a crowded room and was instantly drawn to the first person he saw, a petite woman, sitting by herself in a corner. He went straight away to her, knelt down in front of her, looked deeply in to her eyes, and asked,

“Where have you been for the past five hundred years?”

“In training,” she replied.

It turns out that she had only just gotten to the party a few minutes before Lilly arrived. If his plan had prevailed without the flat tire, he would have come and gone before she came to the party, and they might still be searching for each other. They were inseparable for many years until she passed over, and together they wrote The Dyadic Cyclone, describing their adventures and learnings in relationship.

This reinforced and fueled my belief that somewhere out there I would find my soul mate, my true love, my Bersherta, the Yiddish concept for soul mate. When after a number of abortive relationships in the 70s during recovery in Manhattan, I encountered S. in October of 1979, which blossomed into the long relationship and marriage, I thought that she was the Alpha and Omega of this lifelong quest for me. In the mid-80s we read together Bach’s book, A Bridge Across Forever, which described his soul mate relationship with the actress Leslie Parrish. Their love story validated much of what our relationship had been. But our relationship, just as Richard’s and Leslie’s did, as described in this interview that I linked in the first post of this Whooo, Whooo series way back on January 19th, also came to pass. For the last of our ten years together, S. and I grew more and more distant and estranged, eventually crashing and burning on April 1, 2001, as surely as the World Trade Center Towers came tumbling down on September 11, 2001. For much of the past almost three years since I left New York, I wandered in many a lost land of thwarted dreams, believing that the best for me was done. Oh me of little faith, who had forgotten the quote from one of my friends in early recovery who said:

Don’t look back; you haven’t seen anything yet!

Two Womenly Women

. . . to remember and cherish and hold in our hearts on this Mother's Day.

Link: The Real Story of what Mother's day could be all about, if our nation, our world, our species would wake-up and smell the roses instead of lusting after profits for the few, the selfish, the chickenhawked.

A True Hero Marches On

Link: Col. David H. Hackworth Passes Over

One of my heroes passed over on Thursday. I don't have many heroes, but certainly The Hack was one for me. Even though I am a peace warrior commited to nonviolence these few days (42 and a wake-up) left in Sri Lanka, as a former Army officer he is the ideal of what anyone who took the oath of office to be commissioned by act of Congress would ever want to be. He was tough, intelligent, a hard fighter and drinker, a small man larger than any life, and most important he spoke the truth, always standing up for the best for his men, even if it meant great personal sacrifice for himself.

As the youngest full bird Colonel ever in the U.S. Army, he was on a fast-track to become the youngest Chief of Staff in our nation's relatively short history, but instead of pandering to the politicos, both in uniform and civilian life, he spoke the truth on national television in 1971 about the futility of the war in Vietnam. His adversaries, the fawning "Perfumed Princes" hastily drummed him out of service, and even today those much less than him block him getting the Medal of Honor, the only major award for heroism he has not received, even though he was put in for it three times. For the past twenty years he has dedicated his life to keeping the toes of the draconian slouching beast of the Pentagon held close to the fire to be more accountable for protecting it's most precious resource, the men and women in the ranks, instead of investing in more technological starwar toys, which mostly profit the civillian companies who dream them up instead of protecting the fighting men and women on the ground. He shall be sorely missed, but his legacy will live on in the loyalty of the men and women soldiers for whom he lived his whole life, and who shall carry on his spirit and legacy . . .

Yesterday in my Mutur bedroom watching eagles soar with crows over fish market garbage, when I read the article above I cried and cried, sobbed in sorrow at the dumbness of our "fighting machine" while wishing I had been more like him, and now sitting and watching a lizard walk back and forth across the front yard of the Colombo NP Office where I'm hanging today, I sob again with deeply felt tears of missing the Hack and missing the ideals we had, and wishing that fucking war could better be the glorious endeavor all the myths and stories relate about it, but knowing that both he and I know, it ain't and that the final truth is -- "Don't mean nuttin' " goddammit . . .

The Hack is dead, long live the Hack . . .

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #17

The Lost Years: Spring, 2001 thru December 25, 2004

It was a time of loss after loss after loss . . .

With the implosion of the relationship with S., resulting in selling our faux Victorian house in the lovely Hamlet of Islip on the beautiful South Shore of Long Island, where we had lived since 1986, it representing to my mind the zenith of the American Dream, life as I had known and loved it was radically altered. When the house sold and S. moved out in early August of 2001, I spent a frantic several weeks selling everything I could, my second set of Victorian oak antiques, giving the rest away, including my library of over 1,000 books collected since childhood, and generally being in a numbed state of keening shock and rage at the world and the Kosmos in general.

My Father passed over unexpectantly on July 25th, so me and trusty Chutney dog got in my old bomb of a 1988 Pontiac and took off for Jackson, MS. to be with the family and to pay my last respects. My plan to be with him during the Christmas holidays and to stay with him at his bedside in the VA nursing home was as many plans go most thoroughly thwarted. Driving back, pushing like crazy to get back to Long Island to make it in time for son, Tommy's, 21st birthday party were blown askew when the water pump disintegrated all over I-95 just after I passed the North/South Carolinas border. Another plan totally thwarted.

I was sitting in my office browsing the net early in the morning of September 11th when one of my clients, an employee of the then defunct TWA, having recently been sold to American Airlines, called me , screaming at me to turn on the TV, that a plane had just flown into the World Trade Center. The rest of a day was a blur that ended with me trying to help survivors at LaGuardia Airport as described in this post. I spent the next two weeks working in Manhattan as a Red Cross Mental Health volunteer and doing per diem work for United Airlilnes out at Newark Airport, the home station of United Flight 93 that crashed into the Pennsylvannia countryside.

In late September, the house closed and I took my money and went to Maryland where I bought at a good dealer's price, a friend of one of my son-in-laws, a brand new Rialta RV with all the trimmings and moved the last of my stuff from the Islip House into it. For October and November, I lived in the Summer Camp of dear, fellow Vietnam Vet, Bro' friend and colleague Vince and his wife, Ro, in the foothills of the Adirondacks on Woodland Lake. On October 12, 2001, what would have been S's and my 22nd anniversary, I had a divorce ceremony on the spot where we had met in 1979, and a year later gotten married, with a dear friend of ours, Pat, who died later in February of 2002 of the cancer she had been battling for the past several years. In December, I left New York, devastated not only by the implosion of the relationship with S. and life as I had known it on Long Island, but also for the first time in 29 years no longer with my identity as a New Yorker. In hindsight I can say I was more devastated by this reality than anything else.

I spent a week traveling south, visitng my daughters, Rebecca and Jennifer, and their families in Maryland, and driving to Jackson, where I spent my first holiday season back in my childhood home of Mississippi since I had left in 1961. I spent one of the stranger New Years ever, singing hymns at an online friend's church in Bayou Country Louisianna. After my daughters visited us in Jackson for a week in the second week of January I hit the road again and continued traveling through 34 states, Toronto and some 24,000 miles before I hit Tucson, a temporary layover, having many very lonely, not happy at all adventures with Chutney and a Chocolate Labrador puppy, Lady, we found abandoned in one of Abraham Lincoln's homes in Kentucky on the way to Gethsemane Abby, where Thomas Merton lived much of his life and wrote many of his books. I visited my ex-business partner in the Twin Cities, stayed with an online friend in Wisconsin for a week, weathered a snow/ice storm in Iowa and Kansas, visited my machine gunner, Don, from Vietnam in Oklahoma and was very moved crying for an hour by a Huey gunship tilting in to the snow covered mountains of Angel Fire, New Mexico, the first national monument to the fallen from the senseless war of my generation, Vietnam.

After visiting the Grand Canyon, Meteor camp grounds, Taos, Santa Fe, Chaco Canyon, Roswell, and Gila Cliff dwellings near Silver in New Mexico, I went to returned to Tucson, where I made final arrangements before traveling with the TOP Vietnam Vets tour to Vietnam. I spent a most healing two weeks in Vietnam, falling in lust with one of the participants, J., ex-wife of a vet, who fathered her daughter, and a research psychologist with the Tucson VA. Against my better judgement upon our return from Vietnam, she convinced me to move in to her lovely home in Tucson and to sell the RV for a huge loss. I got a spiffy little Miata convertible, got a job as a clinical supervisor, and everything was hunky dory for a couple of months until she decided she wasn't in love with me after all and asked me to move out so she could resume her relationship with another vet she had been seeing before she met me on the Vietnam trip. You've read of men who have trophy wives? Well, J. had a series of trophy Vets. Hey, I knew it was nothing but an illusory attempt to try to get over the still devastating loss of the relationship with S.

I decided to stay in Tucson with the fairly good job I had, and I still had enough money left over from the sale of the RV to set myself up in a fairly nice apartment with my third set of Victorian Oak furniture. Tucson had a very active performance poetry commuity, a good recovery community, and a fairly good group of peace activists. With the University and the stunning scenery it was not a bad place to try to reinvent myself. In November of 2002 I successfully ran and finished the New York City marathon, achieving my goal of finishing under 5 hours, just barely in 4 hours and 53 minutes. Son Tommy, who had crashed and burned again with drugs went to another rehab and I paid for him to move out to live with me in Tucson. We had a pretty good life and in December of 2002 drove the Miata back to Jackson to spend the last holiday season in the old family homestead on Hawthorn Drive, since Mother was selling the family home to move into a retirement community. Another home lost, another ending of a major part of my life.

As 2003 rolled into the New Year, I was becoming more and more unsettled and distraught at the way the Bushwhacks had taken 9/11 and used it as an excuse to go to war forever in the world wide crusade against terrorism, which I am of the mind they support and create more than most. I was at a dead-end with the job, discovering again why the wisdom of my being in private practice for 20 plus years was a good thing -- I don't really play well in organizational settings. Right before my 60th birthday I was convinced that I had to leave not only the clinical supervisory job but Tucson, yeah even the hallowed land of my birth, the USA. So I applied to become a member of the first project of Nonviolent Peaceforce in Sri Lanka, and I was hired.

After training in Chaing Mai, Thailand, a bit of a fiasco, where I got a Chaing Mai Starbucks Coffee t-shirt, and a 13,000 mile drive-around the U.S. attending the Vets for Peace Conference in San Francisco, visiting friends and family and making appearances at local support groups for Nonviolent Peaceforce I flew to Colombo to join the first project in late September of 2003. By Christmas, being assigned where I have lived for the past year and a half plus deep in the bush of Mutur, Trincomalee District, I was seriously questioning the wisdom of my dash to run away from the devastating losses of my life the last several years like some French Foreign Legionnaire, trying to escape the lost of love, the loss of homes, the loss of everything near and dear. On November 29th S. out of the blue called me and we tried to renew our friendship, me projecting mightily again it would evolve into a reconciliation, but by February, I broke it off because I was again putting in much more than she was willing or able to provide to me. I made an effort to develop a relationship with good friend B. from Tucson, who served as a requisite bridge for me to accept finally the end of the relationship with S.

The last year has been hard, harder than I could have imagined, though I did some more traveling to Mumbai for the World Social Forum where I was mostly miserable since I was so alone, to Curnevaca, Mexico as the Field Team Member Representative to the governing council of NP with a week in Tucson where I wrecked the Miata, rear-ending someone getting off of I-5 while visiting friend and first sponsor, Peter, a lovely three weeks in England with dear friend B., whom I tried to make a relationship with, but the best it would ever be was like the old Meatloaf song, "Two Outta Three Ain't Bad", and a second trip to Vietnam in November. In early December of 2004, after being robbed for the fourth or fifth time in Colombo losing the iPod I had bought that summer in Tucson and a silver money clip I had bought in Edinburg, I was in as low and depressed a state of bafflement and utter despair at what my life was about and where I was going as ever I have been in. I knew there was no future for me at NP, and the only choice I had was to return again to Tucson to try to muster up again a new way to reinvent myself.

Then the Tsunami hit Sri Lanka about 9:05 a.m. on the morning of December 26, 2004 -- the results, devasting for so much of the country and so many Sri Lankans, were absolutely miraculous for me.

Whooo, Whooo – NOT #16

The Calm before the Final Perfect Storm

So, long time no continue with this elongated prologue that has rambled through 15 or so posts describing my previous loves of life before I get to the important stuff, the incredible Love Story that wonderfully, miraculously occurred with Lovely Lady Lynn, as a direct result of the devastation of the Tsunami that ravaged Sri Lanka on December 26th, but which has so wonderfully and radically changed my life.

But like a lemming over a cliff – now that’s not a very pro-life, which I am, though not necessarily of the kind that reigns in the red states -- and full living image is it? Oh well. It fits. Yes, like those proverbial lemmings over said cliff, I am compelled to I hope somewhat briefly and thoroughly wrap up this long extended Prologue to the good stuff in this post and the next. Then we shall examine the wonder and the awe of what has been manifested by the beneficent Kosmos Lynn’s and my deep connection across time and space.

But after I get another latte . . .

Ah yes, that is wonderful, as is the good cinnamon stick I have to soothe all my oral urges for the nonce, as the person formerly called Prince, scats about partying in ’99 which I didn’t do enough of then, but shall make up for it during the rest of my life with Lynn, my dearest-ever Darlin’ Bersherta. But, patience, let’s finish the last five years.

* * *

So, what, indeed, was “the calm before the final perfect storm?” For a couple of years, S. and I experienced a renewed honeymoon period of our relationship. We traveled for a week to California, visiting Esalen and renting a car to make the drive down through the Big Sur along the Pacific Coast Highway, seeing friends in San Diego. We remodeled the upstairs of the house making a large master Victorian bedroom with large closets for her and a wainscoted bathroom with lovely wallpaper. We bought bunches of new furniture (for cash since we had no credit) and two Maine Coon cats, Luci and Chelsea, as well as a wonderful English Standard Poodle puppy for a joint Christmas present for 2000 that I got custody of when the final split came.

Eventually, however, by 1999, we were mostly to ourselves, much less to the other, pretending that our relationship could sustain itself. For those years after she came back to live with me in our house (notice I can describe the truth of it, that it ceased being a home for us around ‘94), we settled into a somewhat comfortable, but mostly separate existence, she living her life in the house, and me increasingly living a separate life in the office behind the garage, where I slept, since my snoring bothered her sleep, and where I moved my computer and tried unsuccessfully to initiate an online enterprise, evanta, that became one of the earliest casualties of the dot.com bubble bust in mid-2000. 2000, a new millennium, the start of a new epoch, but as it has turned out it certainly has not been a thousand year time of peace.

In October of 2000, Brinson and Associates, “our” business hit another disastrous period of betrayal financially when one of my “managed care” health insurance companies arbitrarily changed their rules retroactively and disallowed about $7000.00 worth of billings. This was as it turned out right after I had made a trip down to Jackson to visit my family at a mini-reunion with my Father. It turns out this was the last time I had a chance to visit with him before he passed over. This is a prose poem of the last conversation we had, one of the closest and most intimate we ever exchanged as men, as Father and son: Download clusterprecious_moments.doc. I had bought a video-cam to make some videos of him, which as it turned out he did not want to make, charging this on the business Amex card as well as the flight to Jackson. Sara was not pleased, especially when I came back and found out about the aforementioned insurance company snafu, which put us in a bit of a cash-flow squeeze. We were still financially in as good a shape as any two-income middle-class family, and the business earnings were still enough to pay for all of the household expenses. S.’s income was mostly hers to use for herself and the kids, now more or less on their own, beginning their young adult lives.

We made it through the holiday season, including the Y2K celebrations, watching in awe as a new Millennium appeared across the globe starting with Christmas Island in the South Pacific and wending steadily Westward with the rising sun without any of the drastic prognostications of doomsday destruction for computer systems, etc. As a typical long and cold and stormy Long Island winter lumbered toward the new spring of a new era, we were stuck in a somewhat comfortable, but mostly dead relationship of 22 years. Then we began arguing, becoming more and more estranged, over money issues, about the stress of one of her daughters needing treatment, which I got a reduced rate for at one of the treatment centers I worked with, more or mostly less dealing with the strum and drang of middle-class life with lots of goodies, but not much else of substance.

I don’t remember exactly what the exact cause of our last argument or couple of days of estrangement was about, probably something about how I was not safe for her and didn’t meet her security needs, but around 9:00 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, April 1st, -- yes April Fool’s Day – of 2001, I lost it, had a rage against myself, a major blow-out upstairs in the new bathroom we had put in. This was the final straw that broke the back of S.’s camel, so to keyboard, and from then until she moved out the following August our Perfect Storm of the ending of a relationship proceeded to crash and swirl around us, as destructively as any Tsunami. She would not reconsider to reconcile; I would not this time hold together the expenses by myself of the house. Ergo, wee put the house on the market in May, and in one week sold it at our price to the first buyer. The relationship with S. was done. Though as we shall see in the next post, I held on to the illusion of her being the only love for me for too long a time, but as with all else, it had to happen exactly as it had to happen for ultimate highest good to be unfolded.

Hard to believe it's been . . .

Link: Thirty Years at 300 Millimeters.

And a full five years since I wrote this poem on the 25th Anniversary, my first time to visit a nearby nature preserve on my then, now long gone home on Long Island, Connequot Nature Preserve, where I first encountered osprey so magnificently:

April 30, 2000

Difficult to fathom -- it's been 25 years since that morning in Barbara’s apartment, when wracked with sobs I couldn't hug myself tightly enough, watching the two NVA T-55 Russian tanks smash down the gate to the Presidential Palace, while next door on the rooftop of the American Embassy, Huey after Huey landed to be crammed with writhing lines of panicked humanity, frenzied for survival. Straining beyond capacity, one after another, each Huey would clumsily lift-off -- rag doll figures falling from time to time to certain flailing death -- to wobble a short flight to the wide decks of waiting carriers in the South China Sea. Ant-like, their human cargo, confused, terrified, prop wash blown, would scurry to safety. With efficient dispatch their "Freedom Bird", another $2,000,000 or so of our national treasury, tottering would then be pushed to briny burial at sea with no honor, no bugle, no fife, no drum roll.

And so, the American Vietnam War ended, not with a bang -- not even with a whimper -- but in travesty, just as in folly, it was begun.

Was gonna go into the City today
to attend a symposium on the end of my War,
but decided that I've studied war too much.

I go for a long walk instead,
first time at a nearby nature preserve,
to immerse myself in the beauty of creation.

Full of wonder and joy, I glimpse
random egret, heron, deer and muskrat,
sharing a seaside forest protected from progress.

After a brisk-paced while, deep in a glen
light-filtered green solitude diffuses through me
whirring Parkway sounds finally muted.

At the hatchery I am mesmerized
by shimmering kaleidoscopes of rainbowed trout,
roiling cool-blue haven waters.

Wailing skirls rivet my attention,
as the ever-circling ospreys so swift-deadly,
dive sharp for supper in the Connetquot River.

With squirming fish tight in talons, I gaze their graceful soar
to up-stretched beaks of screeching young, safe
in huge-limbed nests on top of tall wind-weathered poles . . .

This splendid Spring afternoon sears itself,
heart-healingly, through locked vaults of memory,
becomes an honorable way to celebrate the ending of my War.

April 30, 2000
Islip Hamlet, NY

And what a different life is my life after the passage of this half-decade increment that I shall continue to blog about this sunny Sunday May Day afternoon in the Land of Lanka, which I shall be journeying away from in 49 days and a wake up, and I can hardly wait for that wondrous, absolutely stellar day to turn into night so that I am once again HOME with my most precious and gratefully incredible beloved, Lady Lynn . . .