‘We succumb to the belief that the way we have grown to see the world is the only way to see it, the right way to see it, and we seldom suspect the conditioned nature of our perception.” James Hollis
Don’t ask me why, but I decided to talk about several major passages in our lives, or at least in mine. Every Sunday morning, I get something called, The Marginalian. Unlike myself, it is for people who are into serious reading and very artful thinking. The author, Maria Popova, is scary bright and half the time it is a bitch to understand.
The lead off piece was all about the Middle Passage, often referred to as a crisis, although nowhere to be found here. It resonated for me personally and I’ll get there in a second. The above quote and the anchor for this story is from a book called, “The Middle Passage-From Misery to Meaning in Midlife”, by the above, quoted author and a Jungian analyst. See what I mean? Jung is up there with Freud. He made a big deal of the masks we wear, which fits right into my story.
It’s about the painful process of shedding the skin of our birth, the world we entered, an inherited way of being that we carry with us and for many, it’s forever. It’s like a life recipe and after many years, it could probably use some new ingredients, ones based on our own experiences. My birth diet got me to a place of highly, serious emotional indigestion.
I had created a world that gradually didn’t feel like it belonged to me. I hit a wall, unable to dance with the rhythm of life I had composed for myself. I grew up in a very conventional environment and I am not stupid enough to criticize it.
I had a flash of something different, when I got a job as a page at NBC, the actual resident of 30 Rock. After bailing on pre-med at Queens College, I started taking all sorts of courses and one of them was a radio/TV production. One day, the teacher asked if anyone wanted to work at NBC during the Johnson-Goldwater election coverage in November ’64. I jumped at the chance.
I worked the rehearsal in a huge studio, called 8H and the election coverage. I was a bona fide gopher, but I thought it was incredibly cool. There were these guys called pages, who wore uniforms and helped out with behind the scenes work. I spent the next bunch of months going back to NBC to get a job as a page. About six months later, I got the job, while a junior in college.
I took the F train to 30 Rock each afternoon, returning in the evening, most every day. I primarily worked The Tonight Show, when it was hosted by the legendary Johnny Carson. The guys I worked with were all older and looking to break into show biz and some actually did. I really felt drawn to the art of the medium, just feeling at home in it and with those people.
Well, that’s the closest I got to a mask change back then. Convention pulled me away from that detour and I found myself wearing suits and walking Madison Avenue, talking about ratings and shares and advertising budgets. I got married, had two children and moved to a home on Long Island I couldn’t afford.
I spent my thirties in therapy, feeling the bruises of a life that seemed like it was being lived for me, but not by me, because I honestly had no idea who I was. Slowly, I felt like I was giving birth to myself for a second run at the world. My passage only had room for one and I made the most painful choice of my life and it will always hurt.
I had started on the journey that was only a tease, around twenty years earlier. This time around, I was going to die if I didn’t become who I needed to be and it was that simple. I also need to be careful about this life passage business. There are plenty of people, who gracefully move through their lives and simply because I was not one of them, doesn’t give me the right to negate how anyone does their dance. In some ways, it felt like I was in a conditioned existence, lacking in authenticity, for lack of a better word.
Without those rough edges, I don’t think I’d eventually be writing. Yes, so I guess I actually had a Middle Passage, but that’s not how it ends, folks. I started on that path around forty years ago. While it had many more detours than most of you, it felt kind of level. I never thought to look at my feet for fear of tripping. I never stopped to question. I just kept moving forward, like I was supposed to be doing everything I was doing. I was living my adventure.
Well, I am still on the expedition, but it is now the Final Passage. When you start out in the middle, there is no end in sight, primarily because it will only slow you down, plus you can’t see that far ahead, nor should you. To me, this time in my life is about throwing out all the masks and just looking for my Original Face. You know, it took hundreds of years before images of the Buddha even had a face. It is always about the journey, not the destination. I will never see that face in my mirror.
Now, I get to look back at my life with a kind of perspective that can only come with time. As long as I keep my shit together, I get to look forward with that same sensibility.
Recently, I have been forced to accommodate a feeling engendered by my numbers. It goes by the name fear and to not recognize it is to ignore the truth. I am not sure I have loved my life as much as I love it now. Finally, I get my grandson to be as real with me as I have tried to be with him. Miraculously, I have fallen in love with someone I had been waiting for my entire life, because I am finally old enough. I am actually going to be getting paid for writing, because of how I write. How’s that?
This Final Passage is just as rich as its predecessor and maybe more so, because of the ticking clock, which I never heard at all, those years ago. Life’s currency has become infinitely richer these days, but over investing can be fraught with caution flags and that’s the rub. It’s about grace and at times, it can be quite elusive.
In many ways, I am the consummate bullshit artist, but when it comes to my writing, I just can’t do it. The idea of the permanence of words on a paper, weighs heavily on me and sharing the truth is the best way to unburden myself. This story has been a part of me for quite some time and I wanted to share it with you.