Bibliography XVI

 “Shattered Love” – Richard Chamberlain

My best friend in junior high was a huge fan of Richard Chamberlain, otherwise I would have little to no idea who he is. In case you don’t know, he played Dr Kildare on TV in the 1960s, graduated to leading man status on film in the 1970s, and was king of the TV miniseries in the 1980s. Handsome, charismatic, and possessed of a voice like a blend of milk and dark chocolate, in his day he earned the admiration and adulation of fans – particularly female ones – pretty much everywhere.

His autobiography was published in 2003. Media around its release seemed more focused on his coming out than anything else he had to say, and I confess the press combined with the book’s title conspired to have me avoid it like the plague. I mean, “shattered love” in the context of a celebrity coming out could only mean one thing: a “poor pitiful me” tell-all where the intimate (sordid?) details of his hidden life were finally revealed.

I did the man a severe disservice by thinking those things. Turns out the book is more about his spiritual journey than it is about secretly being gay in his line of work (though he tells some dandy stories about his career, too). There is nothing whiny or pitiful about it. In fact, he gives an objective, completely honest account of life as the younger son of a difficult man, of growing up and living for decades with a major inferiority complex, and of his continuing path to inner peace. And he tells it all with a gentle, self-deprecating humour that in no way negates his eventual discovery and acceptance of his true self.

This guy is practically a guru. I related to much of his story, from his description of a complicated Life with Father right down to his faith in a loving, friendly and generous Universe. The title “Shattered Love” reflects his belief that each of us represents a shard of one singular love so immense that it shattered itself in order to experience its own existence. Or something like that. He certainly subscribes to the same theory as me, that we are as divine as we are connected to the Divinity who created us. God exists around us and apart from us and within us all at once.

I learned a lot from reading this book, especially about the nature of forgiveness and when it applies. I actually learned a whole lot more than I ever expected to learn from a movie star’s memoir, and I am eternally grateful for the lessons.

I do wonder, though, what my junior high bestie would think ...

Born to be Alive

Life sometimes sucks. Lately I’ve thought it would be easier if other people weren’t involved.

On the other hand, life is often glorious, and the people in it make it easier.

Contrast, right?

But, you know, that’s the point. Life is meant to be lived. I don’t mean by extreme measures either, thrillseekers. Finding peace in everyday routine makes for a generally pleasant existence if I stop to appreciate one very simple fact:

I am able to breathe.

Joy will always be countered by despair. Grief will always be matched by delight. In no way am I advocating for a boring life—it won’t likely happen and if it did, we’d complain about it. I merely suggest that patience be employed in shadow and bright moments be seized because neither state is permanent. Life itself is temporary; at least, this life is.

That’s why we’re here. Sometime, somewhere, someone decided it would be fun to try mortality and everyone else agreed. We existed then and we’ll exist again, but we’re here right now.

I don’t know what happens next because I don’t need to. I’ll know as I go. I’ll figure it out and find my way and all will be well no matter how I choose to perceive it. In fact, all is already well. It’s always well even at its worst; trusting this universal truth gives me hope in my dark moments.

Yup, life is hard. It’s also a gift. So pause for this one second:

Take a deep breath in—and I mean deep—then let it out slowly, through your nose.

That’s how it feels to be alive.

Relish it. Treasure it. Above all, be grateful for it, because it will not last forever.

With love,

A Brief Word with God

I sat with God. Together we watched the moon rise over the ocean, splashing butter-coloured light over opalescent waves.

I asked him for nothing and he gave me no direction. Eventually, I told him that I’m happy. I love my life, but if I want to change anything, I trust him to help me.

The moon ducked behind some cloud and the sky was suddenly dappled, deep blue and pale gold. God said nothing, but I felt him beside me, close and comforting in a way that made me feel safe and loved and not alone.

“I know you’re there,” I said, my gaze yet on the water. “I’m glad you’re there and always will be.”

Though he said not a word, I felt him smile.

Over and Under

We might as well face it: we’re doomed. This mortality gig is designed to try our strength of spirit, and when I really think about it, I get suspicious that being human has set me up to fail. I can’t always hear my little voice, and when I do hear something, I question whether it’s my connection to spirit or my own duplicitous intellect pretending to be spirit. I am distracted by noise, overcome by sensation, drawn into drama, goaded by fear, and occasionally wonder if no one is listening when I speak to my imaginary friends.

In short, I think too much. This despite my best efforts not to employ what the Japanese warriors in The Last Samurai refer to as “too much mind”. I try not to overthink my life, but when I want something to materialize and it ain’t happening on my timetable, it’s easy to forget my Jedi training and start wondering if I have been duped by my New Age gurus.

I watched a podcast of Professor Ekkles some months ago, in which he warned against the perils of overthinking. He suggested that one’s aim should be to underthink, which will result in greater trust of life’s process and the universe’s grand plan for each of us. More importantly, the stilling of one’s mind, the silencing of the chatter, is the way to inner peace. Inner peace opens the channel to the higher vibrational energies beyond this realm. It brings us closer to the collective force of creation and thus more in tune with our true (spirit) selves.

But how to accomplish this, when everything about our compostable container is confounding? As recently as yesterday morning, I thought, How can I possibly succeed when I’m foiled by being a carbon-based unit? Never mind that pretty much everything in my life is miraculous. I might be grateful, but I still have these annoyingly human moments.

Time for a metaphor.

Consider the mortal coil as a suit of armour. Its purpose is to house and protect you during your deployment to this alien country. At first, it’s a novelty—it has all these cool features like sensory perception and a logic processor—but the longer you wear it, the heavier it becomes. If you don’t maintain it, the showroom shine tarnishes and the joints rust out. The surface gets pockmarked and parts need replacing. It gets bogged down by the things you added to make it more impressive: plumage for the helmet, nipples on the breastplate, gold-encrusted greaves and talons on the gauntlets. For better protection, a newer, bigger shield. A longer sword. A snazzy dagger with a jewelled hilt. A newer, even bigger, shield. Yup, it looks good, but man, it weighs a ton and is harder than ever to humph around. And there’s no earpiece in the helmet, so you’re pretty much deaf to anything that isn’t right in your face—which is also all you can see because of the nifty-but-impractical visor you put on in your twenties. How did this happen? How did this thing get so cumbersome?

It’s not too late to simplify. You need the armour, but you don’t need the accoutrements. They were only acquired to impress all the other knights anyway, and the other knights were too busy trying to impress you. Lighten the burden by shedding what you don’t need—including the mental baggage that fooled you into believing the additions were what mattered. (They weren’t.) Sand off the rust and polish up your helmet; if you keep it clean and shiny, you’ll hear better when your little voice says something. And get rid of that stupid visor. Broaden your perspective. Open yourself to the true miracle of this existence. Don’t worry so much about how long it’s taking to get where you’re going; just enjoy this moment on the journey. You’ll get there when the time is right. Besides, being present helps to quiet the frantic chatter in your head. Mind is good, but too much of it—like too little—can be harmful to your sanity.

I quit overthinking as soon as I realized I was doing it. It won’t stop me from doing it again, but that’s the joy—and perhaps the point—of being human.

I’m off to polish my tinfoil suit now.

With love,

Inner Silence

My father asked me one day if I ever stop talking. He meant it literally, but I was lying when I replied, “Sometimes.” In truth, my internal chatter rarely shuts up and it’s starting to annoy me as much as my external chatter annoys Dad.

I’ve been anticipating the Easter weekend for many reasons, one of which is my intent to slow down and be quiet for an extended period of time. For weeks, my brain has been revving at an unhealthy pace as I try to keep up with office nonsense. On my spare days off, shutting it down has been almost impossible. Today is utterly, completely mine. I’ve planned to write solidly, nonstop except for tea and pee breaks, but do you think my mind has allowed me to focus on anything for more than a heartbeat at a time? A thousand other things, disguised as pleasurable alternatives, have popped up to distract me from my chosen path. Sifting through them has sucked up more time than doing any or all of them likely would.

So this morning, admittedly out of desperation, I tried an experiment. I picked up Ter’s copy of Your True Home—the Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh and sat with it for a minute. I laid the book on my knee, folded my hands atop it, closed my eyes, and pushed everything from thought but a single question: What do I need to know for today?

Eyes still closed, I tipped the book onto its spine and ran both thumbs across the edges of the pages. My left thumb “felt” louder, so I concentrated on the pages comprising the first half of the book. My thumb ran over and over until, finally, a break in the pages appeared. I opened the book, eyes still closed, and thought, Don’t look to the right. Look to the left. I turned my head, opened my eyes, and here is the wisdom that greeted me:

Inner Silence

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn’t mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside, there is no talking inside. If you’re truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in, you can enjoy the silence. There are moments when you think you’re silent and all around you is silent, but talking is going on all the time inside your head. That’s not silence. The practice is to find silence in all the activities you do.

Did I need to hear that? You bet your sweet bippy I did. It’s the best advice I could be given, a Zen version of the paternally ubiquitous “Shut up, Ruth!” that has given me focus, something to remember as I move through my day. Achieving inner silence will help me to be here now, to find joy in each moment, and to follow my heart—at least until my hockey game starts at 4:00. After that, all bets are off.

Until then, however … silence.

Happy Birthday to Ru!

Ru at 52

Finally! My birthday is a statutory holiday! Of course it should be so every year, but once every 5 or 6 is better than never, and it makes up for the occasions in childhood when it landed on the first day of school. 

Birthdays don’t mean the same to me as they once did. As a kid, they were all about cake and prezzies. In my 20s, they were more about parties than prezzies. In my 30s, they were more about prezzies than parties. In my 40s, prezzies began to lose their power and the parties got way smaller. Now that I’m officially in my 50s, the parties are lunch with my parents and I only think about prezzies to placate the people who want to gift me despite my insistence that I haven’t thought about them. I’m lucky. I have more than I need and all I could want … except for that restored ’66 Mustang, of course. 

Along with a quieter celebration of what my dear friend, Treena, terms “Ruthie Appreciation Day”, I’ve come to view my natal date as my own personal New Year’s Day. Rather than wreck my winter holidays with short-lived resolutions on January 1, I use September 2 as a gauge to determine where I am against where I was and where I want to be. If I’m off the mark, it’s time to readjust. Compared to where I was twelve months ago, today I’m in pretty good shape and the future is lookin’ gooood. 

If life hands you no more than you can handle, I must be pretty fragile because I haven’t had to handle very much. Or maybe it’s just that the love of my family – which includes a friend so treasured that my parents call her “the adopted one” – has freed me to focus on whatever struggle has engaged me at the time. Childhood was easy. My teens were uglier than was fair because I had the bones to manage as well as stupid hormones and the horrors of high school. My twenties were more fun and educational than school certainly was. I got my mid-life crisis out of the way at 30 and spent the next ten or fifteen years writing more stories than I had produced in all the years preceding. I am now a bit past the halfway point since I’m unsure that I want to live to be 104, so I guess I’m experiencing a pair of late summers: that of the current year, and that of my present existence. 

My fifty-second year has dawned serene and peaceful. I recognize my good fortune and hope it will continue as I work on my present challenge of “letting go”. I have a terrible time believing (incorrectly) that I have to fix everything, that everyone has to be settled before I can relax, and that my happiness relies on the happiness of those whom I love. Make no mistake: I love more deeply and more loyally than I appear – my favourite Virgoan trait is the assumption that people know I love them so I don’t have to say it aloud. Fussing is not in my nature. It’s not to be confused with fretting, either. Fretting, I do, and very well, thank you. But I’m working on letting that go, as well. I can do so much more for the people I love if I’m at peace, myself. 

These aren’t resolutions. I am a work in progress, so every day is another step along the path to wherever I’m going. I don’t give much thought to the destination these days – I reckon I’ll get there whether I anticipate every move or not. I’m learning that life happens in the moment, not in the future, and whatever my purpose was when I set out in 1961 will find me rather than me having to find it. 

Today Ter and I are going out to peruse the produce at the farm stands in the rural part of the world. We’ll do lunch and drive back along the twisty-turny backroads where the trees are at their nearest to the road – I’m taking the camera to snap some pics of the late summer foliage. It’ll be a fun day. The perfect birthday, really. 

I have always loved September.