Tag: emotion

Posted on

Colors of the Heart

When Heather sent me the Fourth of July picture, it shone brighter than any firework.

Heather had gone to her sister’s to enjoy a holiday get-together, while I stayed home with a headache. That meant that our Unwritten Family Protocol #23 was in effect: when one half of the couple is absent from a family event, the other shall send photos whenever possible. It keeps us both there in spirit. And it gives us endless opportunities to crack each other up.

Like now.

I looked at my phone – and burst helplessly into admiring laughter. Heather looked like she had been mugged by a Hawaiian edition of the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Around her neck were a solid curtain of rainbow-colored leis, setting off the dazzle of her tie-dye shirt perfectly. Another array of multicolored hair decorations completed the ensemble, along with an over-the-top “Don’t you wish you had all this?” expression on her face.

She looked absolutely beautiful.

Heather’s colors were back. And nothing on earth could have been better medicine.

***

We’re an interesting pair. We have been for almost 21 years. (The big day comes later this month.) Of the two of us, I’m the “social introvert” – the one who makes phone calls, acts in plays, and generally knows how to break the ice without falling in. But I’m also the somewhat conventional one, the guy in slacks and a button-down who reminds our ward Missy not to keep the radio cranked too high.

Heather … well, she may be the quieter of the two of us when it comes to setting up a vet appointment or having to order pizza. But she’s also the more fearless – curious, challenging expectations, and completely unafraid of looking silly. (Does it surprise anyone that she was originally going to be a teacher someday?)

And when she’s on, she wants color. It might be a brilliantly patterned skirt, a tie-dye with Bob Ross on it … she even once carried a book bag that had butterfly patches from corner to corner. She can be more restrained when the event calls for it, and every bit as lovely, but she’s at her best when she can truly enjoy herself.

Which makes it really unfair that those moments can be so rare.

** *

Heather has MS. And Crohn’s disease. And ankylosing spondylitis (which sends my spellcheck into a coma). And a host of allergies to a long list of foods and medicines. And … well, you get the idea.

We’re not sure whether to blame aliens, Rocky Flats, or a script writer who got addicted to movies-of-the-week. But the net result is that Heather’s batteries only allow so much, while her pain sensors allow much too much.

There are good days. Or hours. Or minutes. But she has to measure herself, conserve energy, rest often, pick her times.

In short, she often has to mute her colors.

And I know it drives her crazy.

It’s been an ongoing lesson for both of us – the kind that makes you grit your teeth and wish for the end of the school year, but a lesson all the same. One about endurance and patience and going through a lot of gray to get back to the colors again.

And especially, that it’s OK not to be OK with it.

Most of us are going through something we don’t want. You don’t need the list. You know the list, and which item belongs to you. And most of the time we find a way to deal as best we can.

But it’s OK to not like it. It’s OK to know it’s not fair. It’s OK to let yourself go sometimes and get upset about it, to refuse to be a passive piece on the board.

It’s OK to feel and not just be a shade of forgotten gray.

And when the better times come, it’s OK to enjoy it. To be a little wacky. To let your colors shine at last.

Rare things are precious. So treasure a rare joy when you can seize it. Maybe even take a silly picture or two.

The smile it creates just might be your own.

Posted on

Discovery

This is not a column about Ariel Castro. Not directly, anyway.

In all honesty, I think most of us have given more mental space to him than we really wanted to. And when word came this week that Castro had killed himself in his prison cell—well, the response was about what you’d expect for a man accused of kidnapping and long-term sexual slavery.

“About time.”

“Now he’s facing real justice.”

“He held those women for over 10 years and he couldn’t take a month in jail? Coward.”

I understand, believe me. When someone tied up in that kind of enormity decides to save everyone the trouble of deciding what to do with him, there’s a certain grim satisfaction for many. Probably not so grim for some.

But something’s bothered me for a couple of days now. A worn spot of sympathy, where my heart has been quietly pacing, over and over.

In all the hoorah over finding Castro dead … we’re forgetting that someone had to find him.

Someone discovered the body.

And I can’t really imagine being in that situation at all.

Discovering a suicide is traumatic enough for anyone, of course. The human mind doesn’t readily let go of a death, especially a violent one. It puts the event on replay, maybe trying to make sense of things, maybe just unable to turn away, like a driver passing a traffic accident.

But this wasn’t just anyone.

This would have been a prison guard.

And that has to introduce another level of mixed feelings.

On the one hand, guards aren’t immune to revulsion. They would have read the same news stories the rest of us did, would have seen the same photographs and heard the same statements. They would have known who they had and likely – no matter how professional they might be – known the same disgust any of us would.

But a guard is responsible for a prisoner’s safety. The first duty is to make sure the prisoner stands trial, that he doesn’t flee the people’s justice by whatever method.

And so, finding this hated man dead on your watch, having to try to revive someone the country despises, having to think afterward about how it happened, about what crack in the wall of attention let it happen … well, layered on top of the usual trauma, that’s a potential emotional storm to rival Katrina or Sandy.

I’m not saying Castro will be missed. I am saying someone will be scarred.

And isn’t that often the way of it?

Nothing we do happens in a vacuum. As the saying goes, you can never do just one thing. Every action has its consequences, its ripples, its people touched and affected though never seen.

When I was a teenager, I talked a friend out of killing himself. I’m still not sure how. I look at his life now and his wonderful family and realize how many lives that touched, many of whom I still haven’t met.

When I was in junior high, I was regularly bullied. That shaped my life, too. And but for the actions of others in that life – parents, teachers, friends – that life could have fallen into a shambles, with consequences for every friend I’ve made and life I’ve touched since.

I don’t want this to turn into a remake of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” But it’s worth thinking about. There are always people standing to the side who will feel a decision that was never made with them in mind, from the personal to the geopolitical. Who receive the gift or bear the price for what someone else has done.

We need to stand ready for those people, whether to recognize or to aid. They may have been unintended, but they cannot be forgotten.

Whoever the guard was, I hope his friends and family are there for him tonight. I hope his boss and his co-workers are. I hope he’s less shaken than I fear, more resilient than I hope.

Because there’s a person in this column that I’ve thought quite enough about.

And I refuse to let him have one more victim.

Posted on

A Life in Harmony

I’ve waited seven months for this. But now, I can finally get back to unreality.

Granted, some of my friends might argue that I never left.  After all, I live in Colorado. This is the land where May Day welcomes you with seven inches of snow in her arms, where residents petition Washington to build a Death Star, where someone can actually say absurdities like “the first-place Colorado Rockies.”

But until you can sum that all up in a two-page monologue and a baritone solo, I’m afraid it simply can’t compete.

Yes, I’m back to acting after a long break. Too long, really. Ever since childhood, it’s been the perfect refuge: a chance to throw off shyness and uncertainty and dive into another life, to say and do and be things I had never dreamed.

And this one’s special.

This time, I’m back in a musical at last.

I know, I know. Believe me, I’ve heard the jokes. And no, I’ve never walked down Main Street and suddenly seen the passing crowds break into a perfectly tuned chorus number, complete with precision choreography. Well, except maybe on ArtWalk night.

But musicals are a second home to me. I came into community theater through “Oliver!” and never really left. I’ve lived in the vanishing towns of “Brigadoon,” stepped to the plate for “Damn Yankees,” even signed up to sail with “The Pirates of Penzance.” Now, thanks to a re-located Colorado Actors Theatre, I even get to don sword and armor and join the court of “Camelot.”

But it’s more than just familiarity and nostalgia. In a real way, I think musicals speak to a part of the soul that no other story can.

We’re feeling beings, as well as thinking ones. We’ve all had moments in life that were too powerful for words – tragedy, ecstasy, total hilarity or utter peace.

It’s those moments that music was made for.

Through it, we remember the feeling of  trying to hang on to who you are in a world changing too fast. (“Fiddler on the Roof.”)

Or recall the moments when the convictions of your childhood run into the certainties of your heart. (“South Pacific.”)

Or maybe, just maybe, we take hope again that we can make the world a better place – or at least, inspire those who come after us. (“Camelot.”)

These are not small things. Or trivial ones.

And to see them all around you, to give them concrete form – that’s a special power indeed.

That’s the world I love.

I hope I see you there. We’ll be re-establishing Arthur’s realm throughout May (the details are online at coloradoactors.org) and I’ve never turned down an audience yet. If you’re too far away – well, feel free to turn on the stereo and dream with me.

And if you’re not quite sure about entering this strange land, consider this. We feature a King Arthur who promises that in his realm, “The winter is forbidden ‘til December/And exits March the 2nd, on the dot.”

If that’s not appealing these days, then what is?