Episode 027 - The People Are Right In Front of You

I spoke to Andrea Rudnick, one of the founding members of Team Brownsville via Zoom in July. They are a group of Brownsville citizens who are doing necessary work in even more difficult circumstances now under the challenges of COVID-19 than they were facing over the last two years. If you are moved to support them, please do. They spend close to $100,000 per month in feeding, clothing, and sheltering a couple thousand people in a camp in Matamoros who are waiting their chance to request asylum and enter the United States legally. You can read more here about the cynically named Migrant Protection Protocols, and the other new U.S. policies designed to essentially eliminate asylum seeking. The U.S. signed the 1967 Protocol, agreeing to provide asylum to refugees, and has stayed in compliance with it for half a century. Since then, a process has been in place to verify refugee status for asylum seekers. Recently, that process has been cynically manipulated to eliminate it in fact if not in law.

Andrea references the Department of Homeland Security page about Migrant Protection Protocols, here.

Our theme song is Our theme song is “Start Again” by Monk Turner + Fascinoma. All other music was made by me on Ableton Live, except for the outro music, which I made on Soundation.

Here’s the transcript:

Andrea: Transformation. Transformation comes slowly. You can't really seek transformation. It comes to you. It comes to you because of what you do, because of the ways that you put yourself out there. I could say that all of us that have started with Team Brownsville, that we've all been transformed in ways that we never would've expected, that our eyes have been opened to things that we just never knew about. I don’t know. Your priorities change, I think, when that transformation happens.

We started in July of 2018, and we've gone through a lot of changes, certainly more changes than we ever would have known about. We continued just by trying to meet whatever the needs are that day. Because if we had known what we were going to be doing for two years, we might've said, nah, we can't really do that. That's just too much. But this way, just, just one day at a time, let's see what today brings. OK. What are the needs today? What needs can we meet? That's really how we continue, just every single day.

You would think it would give people more compassion, more understanding of that situation, that the crisis was here. It wasn’t somewhere else, and so it was a lot harder to throw up your hands and say, well, I can’t do anything, because yeah, the people are right in front of you. There are people here that ignore that and go on with their business as though there are no people sitting in an encampment in Matamoros. I guess my biggest surprise has been that aside from Team Brownsville and a few more people, there’s a lot of people that kind of choose to ignore the whole thing.

I think each of us has slightly different creation stories of how Team Brownsville was formed, and the truth is that we came to the same work in different ways. We came in just as teachers and administrators from the school district here in Brownsville. The skills that we bring in, our skills that we've had from being teachers and administrators and working with kids with special needs, working in a community that's a high poverty community, the community where you do have a lot of kids that are undocumented, kids that are families that struggle a great deal. We came in with that more than anything, just that background of, these are our people. They're not different from the people that we'd been working with all along. For me, what inspired me was going to the big march, the March Against Family Separation and just, I knew about it. I knew what was happening. And then I went to that march and it was a really big march for Brownsville.

So I would say that was just a catalyst. And then the next thing that happened for me personally is one of the organizers, one of the people that works for the ACLU, his name is Mike Seifert, he sent out a message saying please do what you can, because we have people that are sitting on the bridge with nothing. The truth is if you feel called to this work, and you see people sitting on a bridge with nothing, with no shelter, with no water, with no food, you have to do something. You can't just ignore it. Or at least I can't. And I think that the people who eventually came to be Team Brownsville, couldn't ignore it either.

We started with five or six people and pretty quickly we got up to maybe 10 or so. We kind of had to come up with how are we going to do that work? And we did have good models to go by because there are other organizations that have been doing the work, especially in the bus stations. Like there's an organization in San Antonio and I'm sure there's one in Austin as well that meet and greet people at the bus stations. So this would be the starting place because we have three detention centers in the area of Brownsville. They would bring people that were released from the detention center to our bus station. I mean, we were getting people from here to wherever and we just had this network of people that would meet and greet at bus stations all over the country. The numbers have gone up and down. Right now because of COVID, I think that they're releasing more people because they have had many COVID cases in the detention centers. And so there's been a big outcry to release people.

And we talk to a lot of people and horrific stories and the stories affect you. You realize that there's so much you can't do. And I don't know, for me, that's just, my drive is just to keep doing what I can do. But just knowing that I can't do everything and I can't meet every need and I can't, there's many things that go on, in the encampment that we have no control over. There’s cartel activity everywhere in Mexico, and that doesn't exclude the encampment. Those are all things that we don't have control over.

I really don't know how these families got here, but they're getting here at a really bad time. But it was really metering that set these people on the bridge, because that stopped them from crossing into the United States to request asylum.

Rod: The population that you’re serving isn’t illegal anyway, right? They’re following the legal procedure for seeking asylum, right?

Andrea: They are, and a lot of people don’t understand that. But that’s also the rhetoric that comes through from the current administration, that these are illegals, they’re coming for the wrong reasons. It presents these people in the worst possible light. Hence the Migrant Protection Protocol. It's not protecting the migrants at all. It's protecting the American people against the migrants. Look it up. I think it's on The Department of Homeland Security webpage is where they have like a write up about what MPP is and you'll see, you'll be shocked. I was.

Because the rules say that if you're on US territory, you can request asylum. But if you put the checkpoint right at the midpoint, kind of straddling the line, and you don't allow these people to cross the line, well, then I guess it's fair game. It was making sure that asylum seekers did not get through to request asylum. As long as they keep them back in Mexico, you know, they haven't, they haven't requested asylum yet. So we never had people sitting on the bridge like that waiting to, to request asylum. They were, they had always been able to cross freely.

And so it was kind of like go back and take a number and then very, very slow crossing of people to request asylum. Where before, they would arrive, and they would cross, now they would arrive, and there might be 50 people ahead of them. And they were crossing people, they might cross two men one day, then they might wait a few days and then they might cross a family. And then a couple of more days would pass and then they'd cross a few more, you know, it was never very many. And so just had this effect of more and more people arriving and not being able to get across, and so just kind of building up and building up the encampment.

And it's frustrating and infuriating to think about, you know, you're serving these people that have been through so much, and our own government refuses to let them in. And we have people now that have been there a full year because MPP started near the end of July in Matamoros. That's when they started the policy, and we had our first family cross and come back to Matamoros. We almost didn't believe it when we heard it, almost thought, no, it just can't be. But when we got the first families back, everybody was devastated. All the people that were waiting were devastated because of course they had kind of heard about MPP and the possibility, and they knew that it might mean that they weren't going to their family in the States, that whoever was waiting for them in the US wasn't going to receive them because they weren't coming. And so now we have people that have been there a full year. It's heart wrenching to see people go through so many different things. And COVID is just another thing thrown on top of everything that was already really terrible there, just makes everything that much worse.

But how are we going to meet the needs of these people? Because at that point, which was the fall, it was growing and growing and growing and growing. So we went from about 150 people prior to MPP to by, let's say October, November, there were probably 6 or 700 and it was just growing by hundreds every month. So now, there have been up to 2000 in the encampment, and then there's been another 2 or 3000 they say in the city of Matamoros, there's a lot of people under MPP.

I think if we get a new president, I'm pretty sure that things will change. I think that MPP will end quickly because it's such a horror. I just cannot imagine that it won't change, be one of the first things that does change. I just, and if that happens, then the encampment will empty out. There won't be an encampment anymore, which is great. I mean, I'm actually looking forward to the day when I don't have to cross into Mexico multiple times a week with, and I don't have to receive numerous calls because this one needs that and that one needs this. These people have suffered tremendously and deserve a chance to come into the United States. These are not bad people. These are people that have suffered and have gone through terrible traumas, many of them, and they just deserve a chance to live.

Because right now the numbers say less than 1% are actually going to get asylum as it is. And then if they, and if they pass that new round of rules that they're trying to pass, it's going to be a tinier fraction of 1% that are actually going to get asylum, which means that the majority of the people in the encampment will never get to come into the United States and they've waited for a year for nothing, suffered for nothing, gone through traumas in the encampment, as well as back in their home countries, and now it's not going to come to fruition, and they've done it the legal way. That's the thing that gets to me. These people have actually done it the legal way. They've followed the process. They've followed the rules. They haven't crossed the river, like so many other people have.

Rod: Do most of the people who come, come knowing that the rules have changed and that their chances are extremely slim, or are they still operating under the belief that things are the way they were before Trump?

Andrea: You know, it's interesting. I see most people, and you cannot convince them that they're not going to get asylum. They just kind of hang on to that. You know, God's gonna let me, and I have suffered a lot in my own country, and God's gonna be with me and lead me to the promised land. And even if you put it down to statistics, you'll still hear people say, well, then I will be in that less than 1%. That will be me. And I guess when you've gone through as much as they have, that's all that you have left, is that hope.

Rod: How many, you, I saw on the website, you have a dinner program, a breakfast program, the bus stop program and a school program. How many meals do you think you, I, I don't, I'm sure everything has changed with Corona, but how many, how many meals do you serve in a day?

Andrea: So the breakfast meal is about 6 or 700. Not everybody gets up. Dinner meal is about 1200, but we also are providing food staples because a lot of people prefer to cook for themselves. And so they've made clay stoves in the encampment, out of the dirt that's there. It's full of clay and they mix it with water and they know how to do it. And they make stoves, incredible stoves that you cannot believe that somebody could just take a shovel and mix it with water and make a stove like that. But they do it. At this time we’re purchasing kindling, what you would think of kindling wood. That's what it looks like to me. And we pay someone to do that. And so they bring three loads of that wood a week and distribute it to everyone who has a wood stove so that they can cook.

Our funding goes in a lot of areas, and a lot of areas that people wouldn't even know about because you see, OK, they're funding food, clothing, shelter, all that kind of thing, but you don't see the other funding that we do, which is transportation costs to asylum seekers that come to the bus station and don't have a ticket. Buying phones, we've bought many phones, because when people get out of detention, and they have no way of communicating with their families, and they're crossing the country, sometimes we just feel like we need to do that, but that's an expense that most people wouldn't know about. We also help funding the shelters in Matamoros that take in asylum seekers, because there are people that definitely don't need to live in the encampment, that shouldn't live in the encampment, people that have chronic illnesses, people that have newborn babies, there's all kinds of reasons. And so there's two shelters in Matamoros that will take asylum seekers in, but limited numbers. Right now they're full, and they're not taking anybody, again because of COVID. They're scared, don’t want to take new people in.

When we could go into Matamoros, I was going into Matamoros three or four times a week, and each time I would go, I would be there for hours of the day. Now we're not, we can't really go into Matamoros like we did. We've been delivering supplies and leaving them, having some of the asylum seekers come down out of the encampment with their wagons and pick up supplies and delivering things that way. But we have chosen to stay out of the encampment really since this all broke, because we don't want to be the ones that take the virus in.

So it's hard, it's hard in the encampment. It's hard to get them to wear masks until there actually was the first diagnosed case in the encampment. I think they've been hand-washing, and well, social distancing is another thing. When the tents are wall-to-wall tents, it's kind of hard to say that you're socially distancing, but they're trying to keep people apart in lines, like lines for dinner, for breakfast and things like that. But we know that people get together. They just do.

So I actually retired from the school district three years ago. So, but I retired to help my daughter take care of her young son, who's now, he just finished kindergarten. We ended up homeschooling him from March on because there was no classes. So I didn't cross at all during that period of time. And my daughter is a nurse, and she's very opposed to me crossing, because she knows how the asylum seekers live close together and things like that. And so she's... 

I mean, I don't like just putting responsibilities on other people and not doing it myself. I don't feel right about that. But yet at the same time, I also have to live in the reality of, There is no winning. There's no… Either way. If I say, OK, well, you know, I need to do this. I'm going to do this. Then she says, OK, well then I guess you won't get to take care of him because you're going across. So that's kind of a big threat, isn't it? You're going to get your one grandchild that you have in Brownville, you're going to get cut off from him.

So, yeah, it's a stressor. I mean, it stinks. But as far as other things pre-COVID, it definitely affects you. And I'm the volunteer coordinator. And up to the point that COVID stopped people from coming, I was receiving probably 10 to 20 calls or emails or texts a day about people wanting to come and volunteer. And so that was in a way taking up every bit of my time that I wasn't across, that I wasn't in the encampment, or I wasn't at the bus station. That was taking up a lot of time, and I didn't really know how to stop it. I couldn't really come up with a way of both addressing people's desire to come and volunteer and my own need to actually have some time where I could think about something else other than this work.

Well, as it happened, COVID kind of cut all that off because we can't accept volunteers right now. So, I'm sorry the volunteers can't come, but in a way it was like a relief for me because I didn't have to deal with all those calls and letters. Looking at the positive here, I would say that because we have to rely on the Team Brownsville people that actually live here to do anything, we have become closer and perhaps more organized because we're the people that we have to rely on.

Rod: Do you think you were in danger of getting burned out before COVID kind of put the brakes on some stuff?

Andrea: Not, not burned out from the work. Where I was feeling burned out was from that job of volunteer coordinator, because it just, I had no way of reining it in. I didn't, maybe I needed some professional person that says, hey, I have a degree in nonprofit management or something. I know how to do this. Let's come up with a better system. And so it was always, you know, contact Andrea, contact Andrea, contact Andrea. And I certainly didn't mind talking to people or telling them about the work that we do and all that. I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. It was really more of the unending quality of it. There were like six different ways to contact me. And sometimes people would contact me like in three or four different ways. And they would get irate and like, well, I called you and you didn't respond, or I sent you a text and you...  and I just, I did my best is all I can say.

Everybody always thinks of retirement as, Oh, OK, well now you'll be able to do all... now you'll be able to travel, and now you'll be able to do all the things you wanted to do. And now you’ll be able to relax, and you'll be able to do nothing, and any number of responses. But that's not been retirement for me at all. I think I'm actually working harder now than I did when I was working a paid job. It's just constantly thinking about what is the next thing? What is the next thing I need to do? What have I forgotten?

In January, so we had been doing it for, already for a year and a half. I had been talking to World Central Kitchen about coming because I said, what's happening is that we're getting a lot of volunteers, but nobody knows how to cook for a thousand people. Nobody has experience doing that. And so when I say, well, what we need volunteers for is to prepare a meal for a thousand people, people would often say, we can help in whatever way possible, but I don't know how to do that.

And we, because it's an all volunteer organization, we didn't have a person that was assigned, that was hired to, OK, you're going to be the head chef, and you're gonna lead all these volunteers to make the meals. We didn't have that. So we had to kind of work around ourselves and trying to find someone in each group that maybe had a little more experience with cooking and just giving people menu ideas and talking about budgets and how much. And the thing is, so we expected them to, if they were going to come with a group, we expected them to come up with a meal plan if they were cooking, one night, two nights, OK, you gotta come up with a meal plan. You're preparing a meal for a thousand people. How are you going to do that? And we would give them some resources, other people that had come and cooked.

 And it worked very well for some, pretty well for some, and not so well for some, but everybody managed to get a meal across anyway. I mean, even if it was hot dogs and store bought cookies. Occasionally people did that, they said, OK, well, we'll just make hot dogs and buy carrot sticks or something like that. OK. All right, let's go with it. Or sandwiches. Sandwiches was another thing that a couple of groups made.

But so finally, World Central Kitchen came, and they have their whole setup. They have, I mean, they cook for 10,000 and 100,000 people. They know what they're doing. So they came in January of 2020, they started. And so they set up in the parish hall of a church, and it was great. We had to kind of let them tell the volunteers what they needed to do and how to help. It was tricky, and we were just really getting used to it when COVID stopped everything, and they had to leave. And so they really only cooked for two months, and then they had to leave because we couldn't cross the food anymore.

So right now we are paying a restaurant. So this restaurant is now cooking both meals with a little assistance on a few days from a church that cooks some meals. But right now we are not cooking and crossing because we can't. And so we are totally relying on this little restaurant, and we have brought them a lot of PPE. We have supported them in whatever way we can to try to just let them do the work, and of course they've had to hire more people, just from going from a little mom and pop restaurant, which would maybe have, I don't know, at the most 10 people in it at any one time to now having to cook daily meals for over a thousand people.

Rod: How do you think you personally have changed over the last two years? How has this affected you?

Andrea: Well, As a person of faith, and that's challenging in this environment, I think that I’ve seen how other people's faith has carried them along through this process, and I feel like that has, well, it's made my own faith grow in a lot of ways. I am a seminarian at this point. I am an Episcopal seminarian in the Diocese of West Texas, and so as one of the other things that I do, I have to go to classes and study and do papers and all that kind of stuff. And so I am now in my, going into my third year. So it happened to be, and I never, ever would have planned it this way, it happened to be that I started seminary, and I started working with Team Brownsville, almost at the same time.

And I have been told that maybe I shouldn't be doing this because it's taking too much time away from my studies and the work that I, the seminary work that I have to do. And I have just said, look, this work drives the seminary. If I don't have this work or some work, some meaningful work, some work where I can actually see the whole point of the Bible and the gospel and all those things, if there's not something tangible for me to look at and say, this drives me to that there, this is the meaning of that, then I might as well not go. I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to not do, I'm not going to be part of Team Brownsville, I'm not going to do the work because I need to study some or other theologian’s book.

I mean, I get the work done. It may be at midnight and it may be last minute, but I always get things in. I mean, I'm very driven in that way. I do the reading. I watch the lectures, I do the papers. I attend the classes. I do what I need to do, I guess is how I see it.

I think my call is to work in this ministry, work in migration ministry and to work with families in a colonia here. I don't see myself being placed in some church that they might want to place me in, because I already know what those churches are... They’re churches that are, well, I don't know if you know much about the Episcopal Church, but we have a long history of being a mostly white church, and not just white, but also the people that had money. I don't want that to be my church. And so I have presented and am going to continue to present the argument that my call is to migration ministry. And I live on the border. And even if the encampment closes, that's not the end of migration ministry. Migration ministry has been, there've been people migrating for forever, and they will continue to migrate. And there will be people in my community that are undocumented, people that are struggling, people that need to hear that  there actually are people that care about them and are concerned for their well being. And that's really what I want.

Rod: Well, I did want to ask you, what do you need, what do you want from people?

Andrea: The needs we're facing are we spend close to $100,000 a month on food, clothing, shelter, all the different things, wood, water, paying the people that bring that stuff in. I mean, there's so many different facets, all the bus station stuff. We just have a high outflow of money, and now because of the new people that are coming that don't have a place to go, we need to try to address that. How are we going to come up with a place? Do we have to buy, build, rent a building, make a shelter of some kind? I mean, how are we going to meet their needs? And so every one of those things costs.

Luckily before COVID started, we had gotten some fairly large size donations, and that's carrying us because we've been able to do the things, like kind of make the transformation from carrying the food across to having to buy all the supplies for the encampment. Right now, Team Brownsville is buying everything, every bit of everything that is supplied to the encampment. All food, all clothing, all is either donated, I mean, we take across things, donate directly like through Amazon, and we use the money to pay for all the things that we're buying. But the Mexican government does not buy anything. They're there. The immigration people are there. They’re more like a police force in a way you could say for the migrants. But they don't buy anything, and we sometimes say, what would happen if we weren't here? What would these people be doing? What would they really let them starve?

Rod: I've heard when people really want to donate after a weather disaster or something like that, that relief organizations would rather have money donations than material donations, because it creates a problem of sorting and storing and distributing. Is that true for you? Do you accept material donations?

Andrea: It has been true, and not so much now. We cannot accept any more used clothing. They're not allowing us to cross used clothing into Mexico, and we can't take it. And we got some good donations, don't get me wrong. We also got a lot of really junky stuff that we had to just literally throw away or get in there with gloves, because you never knew what you were going to find, clothing that was just so dirty and stained and ratty that were you really gonna give it to someone in the encampment? No. But so in a way it was kind of a relief when the Mexican customs people said, well, you can't cross used clothing anymore. You have to bring receipts. You have to have tags on the clothes.

So now pretty much what people send is stuff from our Amazon wishlist, which is stuff that we use and we need, or they send money, or we've gotten donations from CWS which is Christian World Services, which is kind of a ecumenical organization of a lot of different denominations. And they provide blankets, and they also provide some other things, some other like disaster relief kits and things like that. And we've gotten other donations from other organizations in the United States. There’s one that's called Baby to Baby that would send us just a lot of nice things, diapers, wipes, bags with baby clothes, things like that. This one group raised money for lanterns, for solar lanterns, and came down, and we got to distribute those with them. Then another time they raised money for Crocs, Croc-type shoes, cause people were saying they needed things that weren't flip-flops, things that had toes because of the mud and everything.

So people have done that. People have, yeah, lots of different kinds of donations, so we're grateful for that. We're grateful for people making donations, continuing to actually think about these people right now in this COVID time, because it's hard to think about anything but yourself. What am I doing now, or am I just staying in my house all day long and can't go anywhere? 

We have had very strong outreach from Austin to Team Brownsville, and there's a large group of Episcopalians. I guess I attract Episcopalians. But no, we've had really a lot of denominations like that, but this group just happens to be from a number of different Episcopal churches in Austin and they've come down. They actually started coming every month, and they would come and they would bring donations and they would work at our escuelita, which is, was, on Sunday morning. And they would cook, and it was great. It was great. We're sad to not have them coming right now.

Well, I could talk about Christianity and things that were meaningful to me as far as the teachings of Jesus and what all that is about, but doing this work has made it much more concrete, has made it much more tangible in a way. So when people talk about things about, well, what are the teachings of Jesus? Or what did he say about this? Or what did he say about that? For some reason, migration ministry always seems to fit right in. There's never a moment when I can't in my mind think about, well, he said this, and it relates to that. And I actually have to kind of hold myself back on more than a few occasions, especially when I'm around church people, because I know that you can bore people, and you can piss people off, and you can make people think that you have dementia because all you can talk about is asylum seekers. The eye-opening aspects of doing migration ministry have also opened my eyes to the fact that so many people that go to my church have zero interest in this. And actually they don't want to have anything to do with it.

Well, the other thing I discovered is that probably the majority of my church are Trump supporters, which also floors me. I guess I never would have, I mean, this is Texas, this is Bush country. And not a big fan of Bush either, but now he kind of seems like a saint, unfortunately. If there's anything positive that I could say about the Trump presidency, it's that it has brought enlightenment to a lot of people, their eyes have opened to, oh my gosh, what is he saying? This can't be. No, this is all kinds of wrong. He's driving people that are not supporters of him to action. He's driving people to reach out to others in a way that we haven't done in a long time. I mean, really since the Civil Rights Movement. That’s really the only positive thing I can see about the Trump presidency, really. I want to believe that, I want to believe that five years from now, we will look back and say it was a transformational moment, and not just another moment.

They keep trying to call me. I’ve had like 3 or 4 calls from the encampment just in our little talk here. I don’t know what they want, but anyway...

Episode 023 - Let Loose the Bird

Today we have Clay Boykin, a Marine, a retired business executive, and a New Compassionate Male. He was called to servant leadership in his professional life and in retirement has made connecting and helping others connect on a heart level his mission. My favorite quote of his from this interview is, “And this whole idea that once one is committed to one’s path, and they’re in line, and they’re on purpose, that providence moves, the divine will of God moves… Well, let me tell you, that’s not a metaphor. I’m learning that every day. The next thing happens, the next thing happens, the next thing happens. And I’ve got more uncertainty financially now than I’ve ever had, and I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been because I’m on purpose.”

The word “heart” appears 17 times in the transcript below, and Clay is definitely living his life completely in touch with his heart. My sincere thanks to Clay for all the time he spent with me on this project, literally hours before boarding a plane to Kenya. He is something to behold.

Our opening theme is “Start Again” by Monk Turner and Fascinoma. Other music that appears in this episode:

“Redwood Trail” Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com at 7:26

“Tiny People” by Alexei De Bronhe at 11:27

“Rastafarian” Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com at 13:46

"Almost New" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License at 17:16

“Marathon Man” Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com at 21:08

“Living in Hope” from Purple Planet at 25:24

"Laid Back Guitars" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License at 28:01

“Haunted” from Purple Planet at 31:21

“A View From Earth” Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com at 33:05

“2 Above Zero” Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com at 39:23

"Carpe Diem" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License at 44:25

Here’s the transcript:

I went to Texas A&M, and I got a Marine Corps scholarship there and took a Marine Corps commission, and that was in ‘76. When we were freshmen, they marched us over to the Memorial Student Center, and they said, “You memorize these lines.” It was an inscription. It was a Bible inscription. It was John 15:13: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” And that’s the heartbeat of A&M. And so I went into the Marine Corps. I served 4 years there, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. If a person is looking for an example of leadership, and leadership from the heart, it’s there in the Marine Corps.

In the Marine Corps, they teach us about servant leadership, and that really was ingrained, although they never used that term. So leadership begins there. Old gunnery sergeant back in the Corps, when I first checked in as a second lieutenant, and I said, “Look, Gunny, What can I do to help clear things out in front of you, from in front of you, so that you can do your job?” He’d pull me over to the side sometimes when I was heading off in a direction, and he’d say, “Lieutenant, don’t do that.” And he’d kind of keep me on the straight and narrow, and I’d support him.

When I got out, and I got into the corporate world, that spilled over. And I brought that into Motorola. I’d have supervisors and lead production operators, and I didn’t know about semiconductors. I didn’t know about test floor or anything like that, so I really had to rely on them. And so it was the same principle. What can I do to help you do your job and clear the stuff out of in front of you so that you can come through and be successful. Today I would say that I brought heart and spirit into the organization, but back then, we called it leadership, and I thought about it as servant leadership.

Motorola had gone through a quarter where it had lost money, the whole corporation, because of the downturn in DRAM prices. Well, it was a $250 or 260 million organization. I got there mid-year, and we ended up at $300 million. And so it’s time for forecast. I’m the marketing director. And I said, “Well, I’ve done an analysis, and based on this chart and numbers here, I just want to grow the business wisely, just add $100 million a year to it, and that’ll be good. But you know, I’ve done a little bit more study, and I think we could really do $460, so let’s forecast $460, but let’s budget on $400.”

They said, “Well, that’s fine. What are these numbers.” I said, “Well, it’s funny you should ask. I was looking at the Austin American-Statesman this last weekend, and there was a chart in there, and I found a correlation between that chart and the trends in that chart and our business, and so I’m using that as a guide.” “Well, what was that chart?” “Well, it turns out it was the history of rainfall for Austin, Texas, by month, for the last 10 years.”

Well, you could hear a pin drop. “What?” You know, “what?” And this really happened. The point being is, nobody can forecast, and you can’t forecast DRAMs. Sales guys were like, “Did you hear what Boykin did, forecasting on rainfall?” During the year, the sector president would come poke his head in the door and say, “How’s the rainfall forecast doing?”

Now, here we are in the semiconductor industry. High tech. And it was fun. There’s so much stress. And we had this crazy vision that we were going to forecast our business based on rainfall. It was crazy. But it was something to rally around.

Well, we missed the forecast. We did $461 million. We beat it by $1 million. Now think about that. A volatile market goes up and down, and bingo. You hit the number. Now how do you do that? It’s not by analyzing things. It’s by people putting their heart into something. People seeing something greater than themselves, being part of a bigger picture and getting some good energy out of it.

People noticed that. People engaged with that. People felt connected. And to notice that, and to bring that out within a group of people, within an organization, is to connect on a deeper level and aim at something greater than yourself. That’s the formula of success from my standpoint. About 3 years later, the organization was about $750 million.

So fast forward. I left Motorola after 22 years and went with a couple of startup companies. I ran one here in Austin for about 3 years, and then I was with one that was based in New York City.

I was running pretty fast and hard. I was pretty worn out. In ‘07, we took some vacation with Laurie’s family to Jamaica, and while I was there… You know, I like to get off into the woods by myself and just enjoy the peace that’s there, and I had my little Swiss army knife, and I would make things, just using whatever’s out there. And I started to realize that I was really not feeling well, that I was having symptoms that I thought were heart attack symptoms. But they would come and go. As long as I was calm, I was fine, but if I exerted myself, I would start feeling really bad. And I thought about going to the doctor, but then I thought, mmm, we’re in Jamaica. I don’t know that I really want to do that.

So I just stayed calm, and I also contemplated that really this is, these are heart attack symptoms, and this really could be it. And then I continued to work on my crafts. I don’t know what it was, but I went into an incredible peace during that time. It was leaning against the veil, as they say. Part of it was, gee, there’s a lot I don’t have to worry about anymore. But the other was just, I don’t know, it’s hard to put words to it. And there was almost a mystical experience, the things that happened there before we came home.

Well, sure enough, 24 hours after we got back to Austin, I had a quintuple bypass. I had 3 months of convalescing, and so I had a lot of time out on the patio reflecting on that and asking the questions. Who am I? Why am I here? And where am I going? And really thought hard about that and had a lot of confusion about that point.

Because you know, we guys, that’s what we’re taught to do. We’re taught to go to school, get out, climb the corporate ladder, so that someday you can retire and do what you wanted to do in the first place. Well, that sets up a real anxiety. I’m always looking over my shoulder as I’m climbing the corporate ladder, and that’s a way to trip up. And so I was reflecting on all that.

Well, I went home. The market was crashing. A few days after I got home, I got laid off. First time since I was 16 that I wasn’t earning a paycheck in some way, shape, or form, and I panicked. I really did, and began working desperately to get work. I barely got an interview for 2 years, and it took me down, hard. And I was just questioning my worth in the world, and goodness, I was deep depression, extended, eventually hospitalized.

So coming out of the hospital, I thought, “OK, maybe it’s time to go get back into church or something like that.” And so I would go down to church downtown on Sunday for 8 o’clock service, and I’d run up to the Unity Church for 9:30 service, then I’d head across town to the Austin Recovery Center for an Episcopal service over there, and I called that churfing. And I remember specifically, it was about 9:20 in the morning, January 3, 2010, I walked into the Unity Church for the first time, and if you’ve ever talked to anybody that goes to the Unity Church, and they’re talking about their congregation, they say when we walk in, we feel total love, total embrace, no judgment. And for me, I felt like the prodigal son. And it really, really touched me.

I remember early on, I’d sit in the pew talking about making notes and mind mapping everything, and I’d cry. There’d be tears. Something Reverend Steve said that really struck deep, but you know, one day he was talking, and I don’t remember the overall talk, but at one point he said, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don’t have to build a condo there.” And I slapped my forehead. I thought, “Oh! I have choice! I can choose to move away from this victim mode. I can choose to do something different, take a different path. It’s well within my power to do it.” I was 54 learning that lesson.

After I’d been there for about a year, Reverend Donna came up to me, and she said, “You know, I think you’d make a good prayer chaplain.” And I got this big old lump in my throat, and I said, “Well, that scares the heck out of me, and so I guess I’m supposed to say yes.” And I did.

I became a prayer chaplain there, and I’d make hospital visits periodically, which I never was comfortable with earlier. What do you say to the person? What is there to say? Well, I’ll tell you what you say: nothing. You just show up, and the right thing will come, and it will come from the heart. But more than anything, it’s just the presence, sincere presence, to stand there and basically, “I see you.” To be their witness that they are going through something. At a certain level, that’s healing in itself. Those are the experiences that, and the opportunities to really connect on a heart level that I found over at the Unity Church and being a prayer chaplain.

A couple of guys, there were only like 3 or 4 of us out of 30 prayer chaplains, you know, 3 or 4 guys, and we started getting together to say, “OK, well what does holding space really mean? What is prayer really about? How do we show up? How do we make hospital visits?” And so, we decided to meet every week and talk about it. And it was a very formative time for me because I grew up not trusting men, and so I was beginning to step into being, it’s OK to be vulnerable. It’s OK to speak.

And I look around the foyer after service, and all these men are out there, and they’re not talking to anybody. And I said, well, if I have this feeling and this drive and this curiosity, and I’m afraid to talk to another man, I bet you there’s another guy out there that’s like that, or maybe there’s a few of them.

So in one sense, it was self-serving. I said, “I’m starting a men’s circle. I’m going to do it once a week, because that’s what I need. I don’t care if anybody shows up. I’m putting the word out, and I’m going to be there and set a drum beat. I’m going to show up.” And I did, and we had 12 guys show up.

So we started there, and we’ve been gathering every week for 7 years. And we may take off a week or 2 during the year, but that drum beat is there. And we’ve got a different mix of guys every Monday night. We’ll have 18 to 20. We had 37 one time this last year. And it’s so fascinating how we figured out how to set a container that’s safe, where people can, men can step away from everything that’s going on out there, and they can sit with other men.

And that’s really the essence, and I’m not teaching anything. I’m facilitating. And it’s interesting to watch the dynamic, especially when trust is built that a man can speak his heart, and nobody’s going to try and judge him. Nobody’s going to try and fix him. But he’s going to be heard by other men and accepted for where he is in life. Where can you go and do that? This is the one place for me where I can safely do that.

And that’s another thing. At the very beginning, I would say, “I want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to speak.” So I’d go around and make sure everybody had spoken, and then I pulled away from that because there are guys that are coming in there, and they’re wounded, and it’s enough for them to be in a circle of men. That’s a big step, and then just to listen and hear the experiences of other men. And they will assimilate themselves, and at some point they’ll say something. So that’s sacred time, and I can almost see the wheels turning when somebody is silent in there. And to hold space for somebody because they’re on their path, and there’ll be a time when they’ll share. More times than not, somebody that’s been silent for a long time, I mean weeks and weeks, first time they share is incredibly profound, and we all come out better for that.

Here’s an interesting fact: last year, 49.4% of the people who went to that website were women. And I was talking out in Bastrop, Texas, around the table at a luncheon that I was at, and I pointed that out, and they said, “Well, why is that?” And I said, “Well, the most obvious is that they’re women looking for a resource for their man.” A woman sitting next to me, very seriously looked at me, and she said, “Clay, I’ve been following your website for a long time now, and let me tell you why. I’m a man in a woman’s body. Where do I go? Where do I go to figure this out?”

You know, I knew intellectually, but to look into her eyes and see the pain, and to hear those words was very sobering to me and reminded me that we have no idea of how far our ripples go. And if we’re putting good energy out there, you have no idea of all the good we’re doing in the world. It’s still men, OK; on the website I also point out that it’s anybody who gender identifies as male.

And that’s the other thing is, I don’t ask anybody to commit. Guys will come up to me and say, “You know, I’ve been going and stuff, but a few months ago, I kind of got sidetracked, and business, and life and stuff, and I really need to commit to come back.” And I said, “No no no no no no. Don’t set yourself up for failure. You’ve got enough commitments in your life. You don’t need another thing that you’re going to beat yourself up for when you don’t show up. Set an intention. Set an intention. My intention is to be there. And I’ll be there, it turns out, when the time is right.” That’s how it plays out. It gives much more latitude because there’s so much going on in life. This is a place to relax and go within. It’s a contemplative circle. We can be pretty shallow at times. We pride ourselves on being shallow at times. But we can go really deep as well.

Back to the job side of things, I had resumes everywhere, and I got this phone call, and it was a young fellow at Office Max. And he said, “Clay, you’ve got a resume as long as my arm. What are you doing applying for a $9 job part time at Office Max?” And I said, “I just got to reconnect. I just got to reconnect with people.” And this was right after I’d started going to the Unity Church. And he said, “Come talk to me.” So I did, and he said, “You’re not going to be here long, are you?” And I said, “No, but I’m going to be your best employee that you ever had. You see, I’ve got to reconnect with people. I have to have that energy, that interaction.” And so he hired me.

So I went from the top of the Empire State Building, at the top metaphorically, and my next job was $9/hour part time. But that $9/hour job was so enjoyable, to observe myself learning again and observe myself connecting again, and just the energy made a huge difference. And then about 6 weeks later, an old Marine Corps buddy heard of my circumstance, and he called me up and said, “Let’s have coffee.” So we did, and he described what the position was, and I said, “I’ll take it.”

So I eventually became general manager of that company, then moved on, did some business development work, and then this past October, I decided that, you know, reflecting back on Jamaica, sitting in the woods, at the end of my life, doing my arts and crafts, doing something creative and being at total peace, that’s what I was doing at the end of my life. Well, what’s to say that today’s not the end of my life? And am I doing what’s mine to do? Am I on purpose? And it was at that point, I got home, and I said to Laurie, I says, “You know, I’ve been doing this for 42 years. I’m tired. It’s time to change. If I don’t do it now, when am I going to do it?” And so, the 1st of October, just a few months after my book came out, I left the business world.

When I was a kid, that I would catch birds with a box and a stick and a string. I caught one one time, and I had it in my hands, clasped down, and I could feel its wings fluttering in my hands. And my Mother said, “What do you got there?” And Dad’s like, “Let it loose.” And I was a little kid, and I ran off with it. Well, in the process of running off with it, I didn’t realize that I was squeezing down on that bird, and I killed it. And that fluttering that was in my hands, that I could feel, translated up into my gut. That twinge, that anxiety, I felt like it had been transferred into me, and I was filled with guilt and shame. And metaphorically, I grasped that anxiety, that flutter, with my hands, my one hand was guilt and the other was shame. And I held it tight.

And that flutter is the divine energy. And guilt and shame is what I’m holding it in. And you know something? It’s stronger than we are, and it’s going to come out one way or the other. So when I can turn loose, open my hands up, turn loose of that guilt and shame, that divine energy, that light can integrate with us.

So yeah, October 1, I said OK. You know, I said it in my book, I’m committing the next 20 years of my life to men’s work, and I mean it. I put it in print. I guess I need to do it. Well, a couple weeks after that, mid-October, a woman called me up and said, “Let’s have coffee.” And so we did. Turns out that she was the local director for Charter for Compassion, Karen Armstrong’s organization. And she and I talked, and she said, “You know, Clay, you really ought to go up to the Parliament of the World’s Religions. It’s in Toronto, the last week of this month. And if you decide to go, would you represent me up there?” I said, “Well, yeah, is there any budget?” And she said, “No.” So I thought, “Well, OK, this is another one of those things where this door is opening, and I need to walk through it.” And I did.

Well, Karen Armstrong had an influence on me in my book. Just look up Charter for Compassion, and one, sign the charter saying, “I as an individual believe in these principles that are about the charter.” IPeople think about compassion as being the soft side of things. Some people say, well, that’s the bleeding hearts club. It’s anything but that. I say compassion is not for sissies. Sometimes you have to do hard things. And the president of the Charter says that a compassionate city is an uncomfortable city because they are leaning into the norms to affect change, and that’s uncomfortable at times.

So I set my intention to meet Karen Armstrong and give her a book. And there she is, and to get my picture with her holding my book. It’s pretty cool. But I also had looked, and I said, “I want to meet the board chair for the Charter.” And I kind of ferreted out where he was, and I went and talked to him, and I shared with him what we were doing with our men’s circle. And I pointed out to him and said, “You know, I’m just looking around here at the Parliament, like 10,000 people, 80 religious traditions, countless sessions going on. Do you realize that there’s not one session on men?” He said, “My goodness, isn’t that something.” I said, “Yeah, and furthermore, the Charter for Compassion has got 12, they call them sectors, their initiatives. And the last one, they’re in alphabetical order, the last one I saw on the website was Women and Girls. Where’s the Men and Boys?” I said, “My vision for the Charter is that there be a Men and Boy....” Well, I said just men. And he said, “Well, if you add boys to that, why don’t you write it?”

And I said, OK. Another door opening. No, I’m not going to sit down and write it. But I’m going to create the conversation. He said to me, “OK, why don’t you introduce yourself to the woman who leads the Women and Girls sector? and you’ll see what she’s got going on, and learn from that.” That’s what we’ve been doing. And the truth of the matter is that in a way, the Women and Girls sector are giving birth to the Men and Boys sector. I’m translating what I’m learning. It’s not going to be the same. We have different things going on with us. We have different issues and stuff.

So I’m still up there at the Parliament, and I run into an organization called Gender Equity and Reconciliation, International. In a nutshell, they are about deep healing between men and women. And it’s recognizing that both men and women are wounded by the patriarchy and creating a space for women and men to come together and do that deep work. And I spoke with them for just a few minutes, But he said, “Why don’t you come out? We’ve got a facilitators workshop. I said, “Well you got any budget?” He said, “No.” I said OK. So after the Parliament, I flew home, changed clothes, and flew to Seattle, and I spent a week out there. And it was a transformative week for me.

And for men and women to come in together, a group of 20 or 30, and to go to that level, and to hear each other’s wound, to connect on that level, there’s an alchemy that happens. And it’s eye-opening. It’s one thing to generally know, but when a person really gets down to it, and they’re sharing that most intimate fear, that wound, you can’t walk away and be the same person. It changes you.

But this is what is so exciting to me about the Gender Equity and Reconciliation. We’re doing our work. We men have got to up our game. We’ve got to come up here and meet women where they are, and that work is work that men have got to do with men. We’ve got to get over this “I don’t want to be vulnerable” business. You know, there’s half a dozen different models for men’s work, and there are hybrids and stuff, but you’ve got the Jungian model, you know, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. You’ve got Robert Bly, which is mythopoetic. You’ve got Mass Movement. You’ve got neopagan, drum beating in the woods. You’ve got the traditional, you know, Knights of Columbus. And then you’ve got this integrative reflective.

All those models are kind of an outside-in approach except for the integrative reflective. These are “break the man down, get him to his heart, and then grow him from there so that he can connect head and heart.” What the Circles of Men Project recognizes is that there’s a whole population of men out there that are already in their heart, and they’ve gotten there because something is broken. They’ve been broken open. They don’t need somebody to break them open; they’ve already been broken open, and they’re in shame, or they’re in fear, or they’re in guilt, and they don’t know where to go because they’ve gone through their recovery program, and they’re looking for something a little bit higher level, maybe something a little more positive. And I can speak with my wife deeply, but there’s still a level underneath that that she just doesn’t have a frame of reference to connect. So I need to go to another man, but we’re raised, “Don’t trust other men. Don’t show your underbelly.” So where do I go?

So if we can create a circle of men where we can begin to open those hands up, connect with one another, then we can do our work. That will enable us to then be ready to move into something like Gender Equity and Reconciliation.

Now, that’s not to say I don’t agree with those other models. I do. Matter of fact, I’m in conversation with the board chair for the Mankind Project. Mankind Project is a big one, and it’s about rites of passage, and it’s about breaking, I want to say it’s productively, but it’s opening the man to examine himself. But it’s coming in from a different frame of reference. Absolutely valuable, and the Mankind Project is also connected to Gender Equity and Reconciliation.

And it turns out that one of the women who is a trainer for the Gender Equity and Reconciliation organization is from Kenya. And when I was out there, she said, “Why don’t you fly down to Kenya and do some work here. Do a men’s retreat here.” And I was going to do that, but a rocket attack on a hotel in Nairobi kind of shut things down. The State Department said no go. But tomorrow, I’ll be on my way to Kenya. I’ll be running a young men’s retreat. It’ll be a 3 day retreat. The first evening at least is going to be one question: what is it to be a man in Kenya? Who am I, this western white male, to come over there and think I’ve got the answer? You guys gotta teach me first. Help me. Assimilate me in, so then I can take my wisdom and share it. Not teach it, but share it, after we’ve built trust, after you’ve heard my story, after you’ve seen me open and share, stand in my truth with an open heart. It’ll be 30 or 40 young folks, and I’ve got 2 gentlemen that are there from Kenya who are my co-facilitators. I’m just thrilled with the opportunity.

So things like that are unfolding and unfolding and unfolding. Every day something’s unfolding. And this whole idea that once one is committed to one’s path, and they’re in line, and they’re on purpose, that providence moves. The divine will of God moves. Well, let me tell you, that’s not a metaphor. I’m learning that every day. The next thing happens, the next thing happens, the next thing happens. And I’ve got more uncertainty financially now than I’ve ever had, and I’m more at peace than I’ve ever been because I’m on purpose.

So in years past, I’d be a bucket of nerves right now. I’ve got to get my PowerPoint slides. I’ve got to get this thing all nailed down before I go, and I’ve got to go blah blah blah. Well, no. I’ll show up. And it’s how I show up and recognize that so much of life cannot be scripted. It’s all about showing up.

So I’m thrilled to be doing that. After that… Let’s see. I come back, and a few days later, I go up to Baldwin City, Kansas, and there’s a men’s retreat there that I’ll participate in. And then I come back from there. I go to Houston, and the Unity of Houston has invited me down to work with their team to give them a workshop on doing a men’s circle. And they had some budget to spend on that.

Rod: Somebody finally said, “Yes, there’s a budget.”

Clay: Yeah, all of this has been out of my own pocket! Yeah, but so I do that, and I get back from that, the first couple of days of October I fly to Atlanta. I get picked up there to go to North Carolina to do another Unity retreat. And I come back from there, have a little bit of a break, and then October 16th is an alchemy event in Seattle, where the woman who heads up the Women and Girls sector and me and a group of people are coming together to put on a day-long event, and there’ll be men coming and using circle principles to get a sense of what it feels like to speak on a heart level with other men. Women running circles, doing the same work, and then in the afternoon we’ll come together and have a mini-taster they call it. They’ll get a taste of what the Gender Equity and Reconciliation work is all about. There will be, we’re anticipating about 300 people to be at that. So it’s blossoming.

In May, I was invited to join the Gender Equity and Reconciliation team at the United Nations. And we put on a workshop for the Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns. The first step into the United Nations. And what an incredible experience that was, to be part of that, women, men and women from all over the world. And the common theme is the patriarchy system around the whole world, and it’s wounded the whole world. And to be in that, immersed in that, with the United Nations of all places, again, I would’ve never dreamed that. And to make that, just those few days, it moved the needle just a little bit.

I go back to servant leadership. To create an inspired vision, to model the way, to enable others to act, to encourage the heart. That’s… To set a vision for something greater than yourself. It’s connecting at the heart level with another person, connecting on a level of compassion, bringing that good energy into the environment. And that’s not la la land, that’s the real deal.

Why not connect at a deeper level? I spent my career chasing a paycheck and had my chest cracked open and was reminded that there’s a little bit more to life. And look at the stark difference that I’m witnessing within myself since the first of October. I am connected to something greater than myself, and I’ve got a passion for it. And it’s helping me heal along my path. And I’m trusting that to make it sustainable, that the funding will be there, the part-time consulting work will happen. But I’m not focusing on getting this job or getting that job. I’m aiming at something higher.

Rod: Well, it’s good to know that you’ve really slowed down for retirement, have a nice relaxing time sitting on a beach. You’re a busy man, and I really appreciate that you committed the team to me and my little project.

Clay: Well, I appreciate the opportunity. I really do. And I want to thank you too. Well good. Are we complete?

Episode 020 - We're All Real Nice, and We're All Assholes

A very Merry Christmas Eve to you all! Here is our last episode of the season, an interview with Curtis Myers, longtime Austin sound engineer and shredder. He’s the perfect person to represent goodwill toward men this holiday! I had a great time talking to him, and I’m grateful to get to work with him day in and day out. All of our best to you and to yours, from me, Flora, and all of ours. See you next year!

Our opening theme is “Start Again” by Monk Turner and Fascinoma. Except for “Pick Up On My Mojo” by Johnny Winter and “DOA” by Blood Rock, all music for this episode comes from 1 by Cave Pool, which you can find here:

https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/cavepool

Here’s the transcript:

Curtis: That’s when I started recording, when I was 10. And I just had like a two-track machine that I could do ping ponging. You record on one track, and then you take that track, and play along with it, and then record onto the other track. So now you have two things on the one track, and then you play that one back and record on it, while you’re erasing the… And you just keep… And then you have three things on that track. And then… And as you go, you sort of lose stuff in the quality.

That’s pretty much how I started in recording and figuring out how to lay down recordings and make sounds and stuff. The guitar just became natural to me. I just sort of understood it, you know. I could look at how other guys were playing, and I said, “Oh, I can do that.” And so I understood that, and then I just was into the guitar like crazy. Then I heard Johnny Winter. Then I heard Jimi Hendrix. The day I bought my first Jimi Hendrix album, the guy at the record store, he said, “Oh, that guy just died today.” And I was pissed at the guy for telling me that. I just was like, “What’d you tell me that for? You just ruined it. He’s my favorite guitar player.”

And then that was in the Philippines, so I bought it at the PX, on base. I was just a military brat. 14. 9th grade. And I was really into Hendrix, and Johnny Winter. I thought everybody else sucked. I kind of liked Clapton a little bit. Thought he was OK, but…I just was into the faster guitar players. Shredders. They didn’t call them shredders back then; they just, guitar players. I don’t know. But I liked Roy Clark, because he was fast. And I liked Glen Campbell, I thought he was pretty good, too. If they played fast, I liked them. I probably didn’t even know who Chet Atkins was at that point.

Rod: So how did you turn it into a professional gig?

Well, I first went to the Teen Club on base, and I played with my band. At first we were called the Thunderbirds, and then we found out there was another band called Thunderbirds. Of course, there’s been probably a lot of Thunderbirds. And then one guy said Blueberry Doorknobs. So that was our name for awhile.

Rod: Must’ve been the ‘60s.

Curtis: Yeah, well, that was about turning into the ‘70s, yeah, about that point. And all I had was, I had a some kind of weird turntable that I’d turned into an amplifier, and it had a 10” speaker that I would set out, and that was my amp. And we just played the shit out of it, you know. We only knew probably four or five songs, and none of us would sing because, you know. But I mean, we’d make a little bit of money. They’d give us french fries, and they’d give us Cokes for playing and stuff.

So then I moved back to the states, here to Austin, and the first band, I mean, within two months, I was playing in a band. I loved playing guitar. I just, I would skip school and go play guitar. And I went to this place, and I met this drummer, and I liked the drummer.  He was 14; I was 16. And he was huge. He was like 6’, and he swole up like, he just started, I don’t know if he was taking steroids or what, but he got real musclebound. And his brother was a guitar player, but I didn’t like him because he was shitty. I thought he was shitty. And then we found this bass player, and he was great, and he was like sasquatch. And I was just a little bitty guy.

And so I played with these guys. I didn’t like standing up when I played, and I didn’t like, and I was writing music, but I didn’t like vocals. I really didn’t like listening to vocals. I’d rather just hear the guitar. So all the music I wrote was all instrumental. And I found out that after I learned a song by Hendrix or Johnny Winter, I didn’t like it anymore when I’d listen to it. So I quit learning other people’s songs because I figured if I learned it, then I wouldn’t like listening to it anymore because it would just kind of, I don’t know. It just did something to me if I learned the song, then it wasn’t any fun playing it or listening to it anymore. It was kind of weird. Now it’s different. Now there’s certain things I like learning, as I’m older now. I’ve learned to appreciate learning other people’s songs, but back then, it was kind of like, “Eh.” It takes the, I don’t know, the fun out of it, once you learn it.

So I basically went playing and playing with these guys, and we got some gigs. We got a Battle of the Bands at the Sacred Heart Church over there on the northeast side of Austin. And we ended up winning it, and I didn’t, we just packed our shit up and left after we played. And then everybody came back to the drummer’s house and says, “You guys won! You guys won!” And said, “Won what?” We didn’t really think of it as… We were just wanting to play. Anywhere we could play, we’d play parties and stuff. And we just had a blast.

And by the time I think we were, the summer was over, the band sort of fell apart because the parents were getting tired of the, the bass player’s parents were telling him, “You’re going to college. You ain’t doing this shit.”  We were all dedicated musicians for about a whole summer. It was hard finding musicians that I was happy with. I had, ended up hanging out with this one bass player for the next two summers, and during school. And we formed a band. We found four guitar players. I was teaching them all the parts. So I was trying to do like orchestrations of my music, and the only thing we had to record was an 8-track. Not an 8-track like in a professional studio, an 8-track tape, you know, and I’d buy blank 8-tracks and record on that, and we had two microphones, we’d stick them in there. And it sounded like shit. It was god-awful. And I took that down to Armadillo World Headquarters, and a matter of fact, Carol was the lady that took my tape. And she listened to it, and she said, “Eh, you guys need a little work.” And so we never did get to play there, but I kept at it.

Then I got to work for, I was, Johnny Winter was coming to town. It was about ‘75, I think. And he was playing with Floyd Radford, another badass guitar player, and it was probably my favorite lineup with Johnny Winter, just because it was a really rockin’ outfit. And I got there at like 9 in the morning, and it was nobody there except the roadies. And I was there, and one of the roadies came up to me, and he goes, “What are you doing here?” I says, “I’m here to see Johnny Winter.” He said, “Well, you’re a little early, aren’t you?” And I said, “Well, I wanted to make sure I got good seats. I’m here to see him.” He says, “You want a job?” And I says, “Sure!” So he just put me to work. He said first thing, he says, “OK, see this thing? Write on this piece of paper ‘Winterbago.’ OK? Just make it big letters. ‘Winterbago.’ One piece of paper.” And so I just took that pen, and I wrote “Winterbago,” and then I says, I started writing all this other stuff on it. “Cool man! Far out!” You know, stuff like that. And the guy comes back, says, “What the hell is this? I said just write ‘Winterbago’ on it.” He flipped it over. “Write ‘Winterbago’ and that’s it.” So I did that, and I said, “OK, I’m sorry man. I’m just excited.” And he says, “OK, what else you want to do?” He says, “How many tickets you need?”

And so I got tickets for all my brother and everybody. I called them up. So we had four seats right there in the front, man. And Point Blank opened up for him, and they kicked ass, and then Johnny Winter came out and just tore it up. And just smokin’. And I was like, “This is the coolest.” We were right up front, had the best seats. And then at the end of the show, the roadie that was put me to work and everything, he says, “Come up here. Come on up.” My little brother came up with me, and we looked kind of alike. And Johnny Winter’s cross-eyed, right, so I had noticed it, because that was the first time I’d seen him up close like that, and so I stuck my hand out to get my hand shaken with Johnny Winter, and my little brother, and Johnny Winter reaches over to my little brother and shakes his hand, and then walks off. And I’m like, “What the fuck?” That’s just the way it was. But it was cool. I still, I’ll never forget that. It was just the greatest day of my life, I thought.

I got more involved into different things, and playing music wasn’t really my big thing anymore. I was trying to support myself, looking for jobs and stuff, and I found out it was hard to find bands that would stay together and really work hard, find dedicated musicians. And so, it was kind of tough, and I ended up doing odd jobs and stuff. But later on, about as I hit about 19, 20, I started really working harder on the music thing. And we went into this one band, and we were called Tough Luck, and we started getting gigs where we were opening up. We opened up for Bloodrock. I don’t know if you remember them. They had the one song, “D.O.A.” “I remember we were flying along and hit something in the air,” and then it would go, “Doo doo doo doo...” They had this big hit. But they were sort of regional. They had a regional hit, you know. And then we opened up for, let’s see, Bloodrock, Bubble Puppy, Leslie West of Mountain. We opened up for them. And we got to play the Armadillo World Headquarters, and so we actually did some stuff, played around, and then our bass player got shot in a drug deal, and then we got all our equipment stolen, and sort of things just went to crap at that point. And that’s why were called Tough Luck. No, that wasn’t why, but we thought Tough Luck was actually a cool name, you know, when… But it wasn’t.

And we sort of had a pretty good following for a local band and stuff. And we did as good as we could, went as far as we could, but they, the paper wrote an article on, the Austin American-Statesman wrote an article, and it was called “Glitter Punk” is what they called us. Our vocals were just really weird, because I had a real low voice, and then the other guitar player had a real high voice, I mean higher than Geddy Lee. So when we sang together, it was kind of neat, but it was just, we just weren’t that great of singers, I think.

But after that, I went to a recording studio. Back then, there was like maybe 4 or 5 studios in town. One of them was Earth and Sky, and it was ran by a guy named Kerry Crafton. And he took me under his wing, started showing me how to record, and how to use the mixing board and stuff. And he used my house for a pre-production studio. He’d come over there, and he’d do his bands. He’d say, “Rehearse over here, then we’ll go over to the studio and lay down some tracks.” And so he started teaching me that, and from there, I got into, I was going to electronics school at the time, and I said, “Oh, I really like electronics, and I might as well get into it,” because I was figuring computers were just about to happen. This was about 1983, ‘84, and all this stuff was happening.

And so I just got into that, and I learned all about electronics, and I learned to record. And then I got an offer with Radio Shack to work on their computers, Tandy Computers, after I finished school, and I moved to Houston. And there I met a guy who had just retired. I got a gig playing this one homeless shelter, and his wife’s sister liked me, so she told him about me. He came and saw me, and I was trying to run live sound and play guitar at the same time, and he says, “Do you mind if I help you out? I can adjust this for you.” And I said, “Sure, go ahead. If you know what you’re doing, that would be great, because I’m having a hell of enough time just playing the damn guitar.” So he started twisting my knobs, and we just started sounding great. And I was going, “Damn, this guy knows what he’s doing.” So I said, “Where’d you learn to do that?” and he goes, “Van Halen.” I’m going, “What?” He says, “Yeah, I used to work for him, but I don’t do that anymore. I got out of the business.” And he sort of showed me a few things, a few tricks here and there, and I learned from that.

Then, after, oh, I guess about three years in Houston, I had had enough of working on computers for all the prisons. There was one day that I walked in, and one of the prisons, I was on death row, and I’m working on the computer, and one of the guys, one of the prisoners walks in, and he goes, “I like computers.” Two guards rushed in and grabbed him, and they came in and said, “Oh, Mr. Myers, we’re sorry about that.” And I said, “OK. That’s all right.” But after that, it was just, I just said, “You know what? I think I’m going to go back to Austin and get out of this business.” And then I moved back to Austin, and I started a little, I built a little recording studio, and from there, it just, I started getting gigs there. And then one day, a friend of mine says, “Hey, Curtis, can you come to the Back Room? Their sound man left.” So that’s how I started getting into live sound. I started working at the Back Room. And that, and the studio, and then I started getting gigs with Johnny Hernández, that’s Little Joe Y La Familia’s brother, and I just started getting all kinds of gigs, and people started hiring me here and there, and I just went crazy after that. I just started doing sound. But I still liked to play guitar.

Curtis: Well, I got to work for Jimi Hendrix once. But he was dead.

Rod: He was already dead!

Curtis: But it was, you know, it’s a pretty cool story. I entered this contest. It was the Jimi Hendrix Guitar Competition. You had to mail in a tape and everything, so I was like, “Cool.”

Rod: Did you mail in an 8-track?

Curtis: No, it was actually a cassette, and I thought it was a pretty good tape. And it said, just record a couple Hendrix songs and send it in, and I sent it in. And then, the sound company I was working for called me and says, “Hey, I got you a gig. You’re going to be doing sound for the Jimi Hendrix Guitar Competition.” And I said, “Shit! That means I’m disqualified. I can’t work...” So, but I had, that’s how I made my money. I had to do it. But I got to work it, and I’m sitting there, I ran the sound for everybody in the whole competition, and I was like, “Oh, man. I’m better than all these fuckers.” You know how guitar players are. We can all do that better. So I walk in, after it’s all over, I walk in the green room, and I’d met Jimi Hendrix’s dad. That was cool. I got to meet his dad, talk to him for awhile, and I met his sister. So I got to know them, and that was great. And then, so I walk in the green room, and they’re, all the judges and everybody’s in there,  I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know y’all was in here,” and one of the guys, one of the main judges, I think he was from Fender, he goes, “Wait a minute. What did you… Who did you think was the best?” And I said, “Ah, it was that Italian guy.” And so I walk out, and thinking nothing of it, and then the Italian guy wins.

Two months later, I’m getting ready, I got a gig, and I got my bass player and drummer, I’m calling… I call up my bass player, and I says, “Hey, you ready for the gig? Are you going to come pick me up, or how are we going to do this thing?” or whatever. And he goes, “Oh man, I was going to call you, but I just got this gig. I’m going over to Italy. This guy that won this Jimi Hendrix Guitar Competition just hired me to be a bass player.” And I said, “Son of a bitch!” And the guy that it was was the guy that I said, “It was the Italian guy.” So he ended up winning the whole thing worldwide.

Rod: Wow. All on your vote, huh?

Curtis: Yeah, and then, my bass player, I lost my bass player to that guy.

Rod: Casual word in the wrong ear, and all of a sudden you lost your bass player. You’re a dad, right?

Curtis: Yeah. Yeah, I have two wonderful kids. And I found out I have a third kid a couple years ago from when I was out on the road. And the lady finally got a hold of me and told me that we had a son together. He’s 38. He went to Rice University. He played football for Rice. He’s doing fine. He did fine without me, and she did probably a lot better without me than…

Rod: Did you get to meet him and everything?

Curtis: I haven’t met him yet. We… I’m waiting for the opportunity when it’s, when he wants to know about me and all that.

But yeah. And the best I think that I’ve learned as, because I set out to be a rock star, the best guitarist in the world, set all that in my head, but I feel like as I went, I think I learned that the best things in life are just the best things in life, just doing it. And there’s failures and there’s highs and lows, and I think I’ve had a good life at this point. I’m 62 now. I don’t regret a lot of it. There’s things I do regret, of course, but I don’t regret not being a rock star, because it probably would’ve killed me, and I don’t think I would’ve lived to be 62, because I was pretty wild. I had my wild streak. You know, I don’t want to use the names to protect the innocent. But I’m pretty mellow, I think, as far as it goes, and I think it kind of kept me on an even keel.

Rod: You got any other, any other stories? Ones where you don’t protect the innocent?

Curtis: I could say some things about, you know, but there would be times where I would meet musicians, and then they would be, just turn out to be complete assholes. But I think of it now, as I look back, and I think, “Well, they probably were having a bad day, and no telling what they were going through on the other side of it,” and what I could’ve done maybe to make them nicer. And I could mention names, but I don’t want to do that, because a lot of people will have, it could’ve been a bad day they had, and they’re probably really nice people, because we all are. We’re all real nice, and we’re all assholes at the same time, so I don’t want to say any of those bad stories. And I could say some good ones, too, but I think I’ll leave it with the Jimi Hendrix and the Johnny Winter, I think it’s better that way.

Episode 019 - Nothing Out Here Can Stop Me

Today we have a conversation with Brandon Foster, a coworker of mine. Brandon’s has a charisma and energy that I really like and admire. Despite everything he has been and continues to go through, he keeps a positive attitude and a focus on growth. As he says, he’s always grinding. Thanks for taking the time, Brandon.

As always, please rate and review us in iTunes, and if you have a story you’d like to share with us or you’d like to be interviewed about a transformative experience in you life, let us know! i’m at rod@rodhaden.com.

Our theme song is “Start Again” by Monk Turner + Fascinoma.

Other music used in this episode:

4:14: “Far From Home (and feeling bad)” by Squire Tuck

8:01: “Home at Last” by John Bartmann

17:47: “Get Out” by Jahzzar

24:55: “Get Out of Dodge” by Frenic

32:38: “Roaming the Streets at Night” by Daniel Birch

35:08: “Back Up The Truck Jam” by Podington Bear

39:45: “Homebound” by Audiobinger

Here’s the transcript:

Rod: So where did you come from? How did you get to Austin?

Brandon: I moved to Austin 6 years ago. Unfortunately, the police of Buffalo, New York killed my father, and my uncle came for the funeral of his brother’s death. We sat for the couple of days that he was there, and we vibed, and we had a chance to talk and everything, and he told me about opportunities out here. So, while I was back home in Buffalo, New York, surviving, I had a chance to get online and look for jobs out here. So the first job that offered me an opportunity to come out here, I explained to them that I had tattoos on my face; would that prevent me from getting a job? And they told me no, no problem, come on in. So I winded up calling my uncle, down, calling him, and let him know that I had got a job offer sooner than what we planned for. So he brought me down here. It was all because of my uncle. I stayed with my uncle for the first 6 months when I moved down here, and by me having the mentality that I have, I was already in the “grind and go get it” mode, be on my own, so within 6 months, I kind of was looking for a place, and he was helping me look for a place. So we found a place, and he helped me co-sign the first lease. He helped pay the rent for the first 2 months, so I was rent-free for the first 2 months. I had to get on my grind and do what I do to keep myself out here, unless I would’ve been back on a plane going home. So here I am. If it wasn’t for my father passing, would I be here? Would I not be here? You know, that’s the question I ask myself.

Rod: Do you want to talk about what happened to your dad?

Brandon: My father, the night before he was in jail, me and my father was together. And he wanted me to go out to the club with him and hang out. My dad was a bar owner. He owned a couple different bars, and that particular night, I didn’t want to hang out, so I winded up going back home. And the following morning, I get a phone call from my grandmother saying my father killed himself. My dad was tied up to a pole on his knees by his t-shirt. And Buffalo, New York, the Erie County facility, you have to do your rounds every 15 minutes to check on the inmates. And it took them 45 minutes to do CPR on my dad.

Rod: Were you living with him at the time?

Brandon: No, I wasn’t. I never lived with my dad. I was always with my mother. Him and my mother had always had their differences, so we’d always go to my dad’s house on the weekends.

Rod: How old were you?

Brandon: When he passed away? I was 23. So they did the 45 minutes CPR and brought him back to life, but he was basically like a vegetable. The hardest thing was sitting at the table with nothing but doctors, and my mother, and my uncle, and all eyes on me. They wanted… I’m the one that has to answer the question of pull the plug or not on my father. And it’s like, do I let him live? Look at him, like he is? Or just let him go? So at the age of 23, that was the most hardest thing for me.

Since I’ve been here, I lost my father. I lost my brother. I lost my sister. I lost my niece. My niece hung herself 2 years ago. She was found in the closet by her mother. When I got that phone call, it was very crazy, very crazy phone call.

After my niece, I buried my other brother. So I lost about 6 people since I’ve been here, in the past 6 years. It’s hard being away because it’s like when you get certain phone calls, and people need help, and you can’t do nothing because you’re so many miles away, and it’s like, what do you do? What do you do? And you try to make phone calls to other people to see if they can get to the situation and handle it for you. I just really hate getting phone calls and not knowing if it’s good or bad or not. In the past 6 years, no matter, I tell myself now, no matter what phone call I get, early morning, I’m always going to think bad, always going to think it’s something bad happening because it’s been going on for the past 6 years, and that’s what haunts me. No matter what, 2 o’clock in the morning, 3 o’clock in the morning, if my phone is ringing, I’m always jumping up thinking something bad is happening back home. It’s crazy that I feel like that, but I do. So I don’t necessarily miss home. There’s nothing there. I miss my family, that’s it. If I could bring them all down, then I feel like I did my job. They still surviving. I’m living.

Rod: Are you the baby?

Brandon: No, I’m the middle child, so I have my oldest brother. He was 32. He passed away, he just turned 33. So he was back home at a club, and a fight led from inside the club, and it led to outside the club. A couple guys left; they came back, and they shot the bar up, and my brother winded up getting hit by a stray bullet in his head, and one in his neck. That was hard as well, getting that phone call at 3 in the morning.

So my sister, I say it’s my sister because my brother’s wife, so my sister-in-law if you want to technically say it like that. So she passed away first, and a couple years, two years later, he passed away. She died at the age of 29. She was fighting cancer all her life. She had her foot amputated at a young age, so all her life, she was going back and forth to the hospital, just treatments and treatments. And it was falling to a point where she knew that she was going to be taking her last breath in a couple months. So we just basically prepared ourselves for it, because she knew that, we knew that she was in those stages. So, you know, you got to prepare. You’re just hoping for the best, but you’re prepared for the worst. It was sad, but I was prepared for it. That’s all I can do.

My second oldest brother was 31, or 30, when he passed away. He was in jail for 25 years to life, and he did 15 before the cancer got the best of him. He was facing cancer for eight years and never told nobody until he was on his deathbed. That was an unexpected death, so that kind of hit hard.

Rod: Do you think him seeing her go through it was why he didn’t tell anybody? Like he didn’t want to put people through what…?

Brandon: Probably, but my brother always been a quiet person. He never really was into the social media kind of things, or he was never into the limelight, but at the same time, my brother spent most of his life in jail, in and out of jail, so he didn’t really have a chance to be on the streets of Buffalo, New York. Probably a year or two, he had a chance to be out, but my brother was in and out of jail his whole life at a young age, I mean literally. When he went to, when he was facing 25 years to life, he was young. He was about, I want to say almost 18, 19 himself. He died in the hospital of cancer, stage 4 cancer, some kind of skin cancer. It was hard. It was hard.

And my little brother is 28. He’s been incarcerated for the past 6 ½ years due to a robbery. He came home for 10 months, and he violated parole, so he’s back in jail now. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to come home, try to do something with his life.

I don’t talk about my problems, or anything like that, so I may tend to shed a tear or what not, but I’m OK. I can talk about it. I just don’t know who, you know, how people are going to take it. And it’s like the things that we talk about, it may be some things that people may not want to hear, or people may be scared, but I don’t want you to take that and make your perspective on that. Just look at me now. The things I’ve been through is what’s making me the man I am today. Every day, I’m trying to change, some way, somehow, shape or form. If that’s helping somebody else, then so be it. So I’m really open to whatever, it’s just how open are you to hear the things that you want to hear?

Rod: Do you ever get down, like “Why me? Why all of this in my family?” Do you get like, “That’s not fair?”

Brandon: I ask that every day. I’m not one of them guys that go to church every Sunday. I didn’t grow up in church. I believe in God, but I don’t believe you have to go to church to be surrounded by colorful windows and hear praises and everything to believe in the Man. So we have our talk. God gives his worst battles to his strongest soldiers. I’ve been through a lot in life, and I’m still going to go through things in life that’s going to be bad, worse, so I feel like if I can get through the things I’ve been through back home on the streets of Buffalo, New York, then nothing out here can stop me.

Rod: Is it strange to you, like getting older? Getting, like thinking about someday being older than they were? Like you’re the oldest now?

Brandon: Yeah, I’m the oldest now, living. So it’s just me and my little brother left. That’s why I work hard every day and try to better myself, so that way, I could try to get him down here with me.

Rod: That gives you a sort of sense of responsibility being the oldest one now?

Brandon: Yeah, definitely a responsibility. I was always the… not say always, but I was more of always the caretaker, like taking care of everybody back home when I was home. So now it’s like even more hard trying to take care of everybody being so far away. I just try to take it one day at a time and stay focused. I just grind hard every day, trying to come up with a master plan to figure out how can I make more money a positive way.

So it’s just a blessing to be here, having opportunities to sit right here with you and have this conversation, and people get a chance to see a different side of Brandon, not knowing the B Boy. That’s my nickname, B Boy. But I kind of stopped calling myself that because I don’t consider myself B Boy no more. B Boy was somebody who was in the streets heavy, who did a lot of activity that wasn’t right. As I get older, I’m just realizing that that’s not my name, and I don’t want to carry that on no more, so when people would call me that, I’d tell them, “Don’t call me that, because that’s not me.”

Everything happens for a reason, but it’s all about timing. Anything lost can be found again except for time wasted. So I try not to waste time on things that don’t benefit me or what I’m trying to do.

Rod: That’s why you left?

Brandon: I left because I just had a, you know, I had the opportunity to get a better chance at life and to just stop doing the things I was doing and living the lifestyle I was living. I didn’t have a pretty good childhood growing up. My father was around, but he didn’t teach me how to ride a bike. I didn’t learn how to play basketball. I didn’t learn how to do fatherly things with their son. Like when I went to my dad’s house on the weekends, I learned about different kinds of drugs and things that kids shouldn’t learn at a young age.

Rod: When your uncle talked about you coming here, were you already looking to get out, or that hadn’t even occurred to you, or…?

Brandon: Before my uncle talking to me, no, I wasn’t looking to get out. I was, I had a job. I was working for a private security company, and we traveled throughout the United States, so the job can last for a day, it can last for six months, it can last for a year. And we did things such as fire disasters, rural response, strike work, you know, things like that. So I was doing that on and off for like a year or two before I had the opportunity to come out here.

Rod: Wow. My brother worked, when he was in his early 20s, he did clean up after fires and all that kind of stuff. He said that was a horrible job.

Brandon: It was, but you get paid good money, though. I was loving it. I was young. I don’t have no kids now, I didn’t have no kids then. So it was an opportunity to see other things, even though I was stuck in the streets of Buffalo, New York. I had an opportunity to get out and see different things. I wasn’t really fully developed as far as trying to get out what I was in, but it did give me a chance to open my eyes up a little bit more. But at that time, I still wasn’t fully ready to just switch my whole life around.

I mean, I always had goals. I always wanted to be my own contractor, but I never really took the steps in going to that direction. But I’d love to remodel houses and do construction and landscaping and things like that. That was always my goal was to be my own contractor. I’m different in ways of not doing the things I used to do. I don’t hang around the same crowd of friends that I used to have. The friends I have now are amazing. They’re all doing something positive in their life.

My job gave me an opportunity to go on a business trip, and on that business trip, there was over 65 people in that conference, and there was only two black people. And I was the youngest one. And when I went there, I went there with the perception of, how was I going to be able to uphold conversation with some of these big people in high positions? I didn’t really have the qualifications, or it felt like I didn’t meet the criteria to be at this conference. So for the week that I was preparing myself, I was really trying to figure out, was I going to be able to handle it? And when that time came, all I can do is just be myself. So that’s what I did, and within those 72 hours, I took notes. I asked questions. I was being proactive. And a couple of different big people in high positions pulled me to the side, and they didn’t have to do that. So when they pulled me to the side, they’re talking to me about different things in life, and goals, where I want to be, where do I see myself. And it really dawned on me when I got back to my bed, and I asked myself, “Well, Brandon, what do you really want in life? Where do you see yourself?” And the only thing that’s really holding me back is myself, because I’m a young black man with a tattoo on my face. I have no felonies, by the grace of God, or anything like that, so really, it’s really me that’s holding me back. So I said, “You know what, Brandon? You’ve been here for six years. You’ve been closing chapters of your life since you’ve been here. You need to take this step and close this one.” So I just got online one day and looked up Eraser Clinic, and I gave them a call. And I’m taking my steps on getting my tattoo laser removed from my face. So going to that conference really gave me a different perspective on life. So I have 12 treatments altogether. They do my treatments every 6 to 8 weeks to give it time to heal. But hopefully by the end of next year, March, it’ll be completely gone. So it’ll be a whole new Brandon.

Rod: Were you afraid at that conference that that tattoo was shaping how people saw you? Do you think it did?

Brandon: Honestly, yes. I was afraid that people was going to judge me. You know, they say, “Never judge a book by its cover.” But there’s also a saying, “There’s no second chance at a first impression.” So I was going there being myself, but at the same time trying to be distanced because I didn’t want nobody to just stare and look and say, “What is that?” And you know, people asked me. They did. “What is that? What is that?” I tell them, “Everything is for a reason. Some things are just not meant to be talked about.” So I left it as that. And you know, people, at the end of the day, they loved me because I was being myself. I was being very talkative, and I was going around just being proactive and being in the mix of everybody and asking questions and talking and mingling and being very open with everyone. And so when I got back, and I called that tattoo laser removal, I just was ready. I was more eager then than I was last year or four months ago, prior to the conference. Before the conference, I wasn’t even ready to remove it. So within those three days of me being there, it just really gave me a whole outlook on life and said that there is more. You can do more. You can achieve more. The only thing holding you back is yourself, so I’m taking that next step, trying to close that chapter and elevate.

Rod: You having any feelings about it? Like you feel like you’re betraying who you used to be, or betraying people you used to know, or…?

Brandon: Not necessarily. Not at all. At the end of the day, it’s still with me. I know that. But I don’t have to show it, people don’t have to have a second judgement on me, or just figure out what does that mean? Because there’s been times I done walked into places and instead of getting a hello, I’m getting a what does that mean? What does that tattoo mean on your face? I mean literally, the first thing that’s coming out of people’s mouths, so I just don’t want that no more, for them or for myself. I was 17 when I got it. I wasn’t expecting to live, so I really didn’t care about it. I didn’t really care about the consequences. I didn’t care about what people say. I didn’t care about what people anything. I didn’t care about nothing. So now that I’ve had this opportunity to be out here, it’s all about growth. And that’s what I’m trying to do. Just grow day by day, some way, somehow, and I’m taking the steps with that.

Rod: What’s the chapter that you were closing? What does the tattoo represent to you? Like why did you get it?

Brandon: I was young when I got this tattoo. I was about 17. I wasn’t expecting to live past 21 the way I was going. I used to be in a gang. I used to sell drugs. I used to do the whole 9. That’s the way I was going, dead or in jail. I dropped out at 9th grade. I got my GED. And I wasn’t expecting to live past 21, so I didn’t care about nothing. I did some things in my life that I wasn’t, I’m not proud of, but when you come from where I come from, you have no choice but to do what you have to do to survive. So I managed to still get through it, and by the grace of God, I’m still here. Some people don’t get a chance to make it, to see 30. So I’ve done some things in my life that made me who I am now. I’m not the best, but I am a better man I am today than I was six years ago.

Rod: You talk about closing that chapter by having the tattoo removed. What are you taking with you from that chapter, from those days? What are the good things that came out of that that you still carry with you as part of yourself today?

Brandon: It just gives me a chance to look back and say, “Damn. If I can make it, and these young guys made it through the things that they’ve been through, then we all can make it. We all can make it. So just the fact that I can get on social media and look at some of the guys and see them doing positive things in the Air Force and meeting counselors and different lawyers and senates for the New York State, it just gave me a different outlook, like there’s more to it. So I say, “You know what, Brandon? You need to go ahead and close it.” I wasn’t ready then. I wasn’t ready.

Rod: What do you think are your strengths, like the characteristics that are part of who you are that are going to help carry you where you want to go in the world?

Brandon: I want to say everything I’ve been through is my strength. I still go through things to this day. For six years, I’ve been getting phone calls every morning, and it’s always been something bad. Someone has died. So I think that is what scars me, is going to scar me for the rest of my life, getting those early morning phone calls. But at the same time, it’s motivation, because it gets me up to knowing that I have to strive and grind every day to make it better for myself. Having my father in my ear and my brothers on my back. Knowing that I got nieces and nephews to take care of, and a mother to take care of. Knowing that I have a little brother that’s incarcerated that needs to come home one day. Hopefully I can get him a chance to come out here and make a better life for him as well.

I was always born to be a leader, so I kind of take that and try to mold it into my work ethic, and grind hard, and show them that just because I have this tattoo on my face, don’t judge me by that. Let my work ethic speak for itself. I love to work. I’ve always been a working man, no matter how much I was in the streets back home. I always kept a job for myself. It always just kept me going. I love to hustle. I love to work. I like to get my hands dirty. I don’t like just sitting around not doing nothing.

I’ve been through a lot. It makes me the man I am today. I come from a place where it’s a jealous city. It’s a bad place to grow up. There’s no good schooling for kids. There’s no opportunities for jobs out there. I mean, you can’t be doing good and let someone see you doing good, because instead of it being motivation for them, they want to go try to rob you, to take your stuff or what you have and what you’ve been working on. And it’s just sad. It really is sad.

Rod: You said you don’t have any kids, right?

Brandon: No, I just turned 30. No kids, no girlfriend, no wife. Nothing like that. I thought I would.

Rod: Is that important to you?

Brandon: It is important. I do want kids. I do want a wife. I want a family. I’ve been to more funerals than weddings. So I’m definitely not trying to go that route. I want to have kids. They can have different lives. They don’t have to go through the things I go through or deal with the things I deal with or seeing the things I’ve seen or anything like that. I want them to have normal lives, be a normal kid, do what kids do. Kid things. I want a son, so I can show him how to treat a lady by the way I treat his mother. I want a daughter, so I can know what she can look for in a man by the way I treat her mother. Until I have that, I’m just going to continue working and grinding hard and try to secure my bag, until that lady comes.

I don’t know. You know, when I was younger, I was always scared of rejection. I used to always thought I was the ugly fat kid, or being around my friends. So I would never talk to girls. I didn’t go to clubs when I was younger. I wasn’t doing the club scene. I wasn’t going to parties or different things like that, so I just really stayed to myself and my area.

Rod: You just talk to everybody. You’re not shy any more.

Brandon: Yeah, that’s why I am who I am now, because you just, you’re either going to get somewhere, or you’re not. You’re going to gain something, or you’re going to be back where you started. So that’s who I am now, very forward, just straight forward, just trying to get in and get somewhere. So I’m growing. That’s all I’m doing. Growing.

I like to get out and do different things, try different things. Being here in Austin, there’s all kind of things to do. You can do something every day. Where I come from, there was nothing to do. There’s nothing to think about but trying to live. But being out here, you can go… I go tubing. I go water rafting. I go jet skiing. I like to go to the mountains and go hiking. I want to go see the Inner Space caves out here, that they have out here. I like to do indoor skydiving. I’m down for adventures. I like being open to new things.

Rod: You seem like you’re good at making connections and making relationships. It’s always about who you know. It’s always about who you know, who you can help, who can help you, and I think you’ve got the skill.

Brandon: Yeah, you know, that’s crazy, because I was just telling somebody that last night. In this world nowadays, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. As long you know the right man or woman in the position, you can get the things that you need to get done. I want to start getting more involved in it. I don’t have to just be secluded in my area. I want to be able to mingle and talk to different people. I used to work at nights when I first started there. I used to work night shift, 10pm to 6:30am, and being on nights, you don’t see nobody in the day, so nobody knows you. By working nights, when you have meetings in the daytime, and you got to go to these meetings, and everybody’s talking to everybody, but you’re stuck at a table with your group of night crew, and nobody’s not mingling to you. So when I had the opportunity to come on days, I made sure that I was going around to different departments, showing my face, talking to them and being open and just showing them I’m here. I made it. Don’t nobody know, didn’t know me or know my story or anything like that. I was just trying to get more open within the company myself, because by me being myself and going around and being proactive.

Just trying to stay positive with the things I’m doing, trying to stay with positive people in my life. So I’m just glad to be here, having an opportunity to come to Austin, Texas and open my doors to people if I can and show them that there is a better way. You know, my dad always told me, “If it’s going to make me mad, don’t do it.” So I still think about that. If it’s going to make him mad, I don’t do it, even though he’s deceased. So I carry that with me throughout my day to day basics or what I do and how I go about it. I’m just trying to better myself at every aspect that I can. Hopefully this will reach out to somebody young, old, who knows? Just get them a different perspective on life as well. There’s more to life than just doing the same thing that you’re used to doing.

Episode 017 - The Comeback

At the age of 27, Travis Mann got a crash course in Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a neurological disorder that started as what he thought was just a lingering respiratory infection. Suddenly, he found himself in a Critical Care Unit too weak to function. This is his story of facing his fears, the long, slow recovery, and the depression that followed.

Our theme music is "Start Again" by Monk Turner + Fascinoma. Other music in this episode is:

5:33    "Out of Paradise" by Lobo Loco

11:32    "Anxiety" by Kai Engel

15:29    "Peace Within" by Peter Rudenko

19:03    "Somber Heart" by Lee Rosevere

22:37    "Marathon Man" by Jason Shaw

26:33    "Peace Flower" by Ketsa

32:49    "Travel Light" by Jason Shaw

Transcript:

Travis: My name is Travis Mann, and I’m a teacher. I teach Business and Technical Writing, which sounds boring, but I make it fun. At least I think I do. There’s no wood around here to knock, but… I do that. I also do contracting a lot right now to train some medical assistants to become medical assistants, and I’ve got three kids, one beautiful wife, a dog, and my two chickens, and a cat that’s driving me crazy, so…

Flora: Chickens!

Travis: Yeah.

Flora: And you’ve always lived over here? Or in Texas?

Travis: Pretty much in Texas. I grew up in the military. My dad was in the Army, and we traveled all over, from California to Georgia to South Carolina. And my parents divorced when I was 12, and we moved back to Weatherford, which is a little town outside of Fort Worth, and then I came down here to Austin after I fell in love with my wife.

Flora: How did you get into teaching?

Travis: I got into teaching not on a whim but just on a… I was in higher education fundraising for the longest time, where I raised money for colleges, and I was working at a medical school, and I have always wanted to try my hand at teaching something. So I knew one of the presidents of one of the community colleges there, and she sent me down to the English Chair. And I went and met with her, and we talked for about 20, 30 minutes, and there was only one class I could teach, which was a developmental class, Developmental English. And after 30 minutes, she pushed the books across the way to me and said, “Go get ‘em, tiger.” That’s all the training I had to be a teacher. And I’m like, “Oh yeah, I got this,” and… The first day I woke up, and I thought, “What the heck am I doing? I have no idea how to teach.” And by the third day, I walked out, and I found myself saying aloud, “This is what I want to do. I can’t believe they’re going to pay me for this.”

Flora: Wow. That’s awesome, to discover something accidentally.

Travis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially something I love to do. It’s not always perfect, but it’s so fascinating to me. So, and here I am.

Flora: And here you are. When I emailed you, and I asked you what transformation story would you like to tell, and you, I hope I’m going to pronounce this right. Guillain-Barré syndrome?

Travis: Exactly. Guillain-Barré is exactly what it was.

Flora: And you had that in your late 20s, and you said it was the worst thing and the best thing that ever happened to you, so please share.

Travis: Yeah. OK. So I was 27, and one Sunday I took a run, and I ran about six or eight miles, and had a fantastic run. Felt good, felt great, that kind of stuff. And within two weeks after that, I was in a cardiac care unit, a critical care unit, and I could barely move. And so, it was a weird juxtaposition in my head to see I was able to run here, and then all of a sudden, I’m in a critical care unit. After that Sunday run, a couple days later, I started feeling bad, got an upper respiratory infection, coughing, all that kind of stuff. But something was different about this, and I kept feeling weaker and weaker and weaker, and the doc just said, “We think you’re sick with a cold.” But then I got up one Friday morning, and you know, a gallon of milk, how you have to pop the top off? I couldn’t do it, and I thought to myself, “Something is really, really not right.” And so I called my best friend who was a doctor, he said, “Come to the hospital.” He was working in the E.R., so…

Flora: Were you living by yourself at that time?

Travis: No, I was married to my second wife, Malisa. And went down there, and they ran all these tests, and they brought in infectious disease people and all that kind of stuff. It was actually my best friend’s nurse who says, “I think you may have Guillain-Barré.” And then my friend the doctor said, “Wow, I never even considered that.” So what they do is they do a spinal tap, and they check out fluids in your spinal tap, and sure enough, that’s what it was.

Guillain-Barré’s a strange syndrome. It’s not something you can catch. It’s something where the body turns on itself, and the immune system starts attacking cells. And it’s the long nerves that run to your hands and fingers from your brain. They’re covered in a tissue that’s called myelin. And the, your white blood cells and all that kind of start eating away the myelin on the sheaths, and so you don’t conduct electricity down to your hands and your feet, and it goes from exterior extremity in.

Flora: At this point, did you know what that syndrome was?

Travis: I had heard of it, and we had looked it up online, but that’s about it.

Flora: How were you feeling at that time?

Travis: Scared. I was very afraid, mostly because out of ignorance. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what would happen, what could happen. Then of course, you know, when you hit that spot, you begin to look like at worst case scenarios. And worst case scenarios is in a wheelchair and all that stuff if you don’t recover well. I’m like, “Great!” Guillain-Barré made a big appearance in the United States. It’s typically, 90% of the time, it’s kicked off by an upper respiratory infection, but sometimes vaccines or shots can cause the body’s immune system to turn on itself.

Flora: What are some of the, I guess the first physical symptoms that you felt?

Travis: Weakness. You know, walking was difficult. Picking stuff up was difficult. As it progresses, you get weaker and weaker, and the one place you don’t want to go is when your diaphragm gets affected, and it becomes difficult to breathe. They put you on a ventilator. And if they put you on a ventilator, the outcomes are not as good as doing without a ventilator, and so I was just like determined not to go on a vent. I was in Critical Care Unit. I was there between, a little over, right under three weeks. What they do is, there’s two treatments for it. One is a steroid injection, series of steroids, or what they call plasmapheresis. Plasmapheresis, they use a dialysis machine. They pump your blood out, and they remove the plasma. And then they put all the cells with fresh plasma back in. Which sounds weird, but by the second time, I could tell it had arrested my fall, my slide down.

And nights in the Critical Care Unit were the hardest because I don’t sleep well. Never really have. But in a situation like that where they close your door a little bit, but they leave it open so they can check on you, and there’s always people moving and that kind of stuff. And it was middle of the night, so it’s like, “What happens if I don’t…” You know, it’s the what ifs that occur.

Flora: Like what if you stop breathing? Like that kind of fear?

Travis: No. What if I don’t recover? I wasn’t too concerned about myself in the moment, because I had read enough. By the first week, we had a really good idea what it was and had it arrested, and that kind of stuff. But some people don’t recover as well, and I was like, “What if I’m one of those people that doesn’t really recover from this?”

Flora: And who was your biggest support during that time?

Travis: It was my wife, Malisa. Very supportive. And the funny thing is, people would come in and see me, and because of how the disease process works, and it takes away the ability to conduct signals between your brain and parts of your body, my whole face was, I looked great, because there were no wrinkles, there were no nothing, because of the disease process. People would come in and go, “You look great!” And I’m like, “Ugh. Thank you. I appreciate you telling me I look great, but I don’t feel great.”

But it was about the second week in that I woke up from a dream, and I can’t remember the dream to this day. I just remember that it was something that was going to happen, and I really had this feeling of, I had a feeling of “It’s going to be OK. I don’t know why.” I’m not a religious guy. Fairly agnostic. But something beyond me let me know that it would be OK.

Flora: Oh, wow.

Travis: And in that moment, I thought, “Wow. This is absolutely horrible, and this is absolutely great.” Because it really taught me about myself, my world, and the world itself. Yeah, it was a transformative experience. It wasn’t all good, but life is never all good.

Flora: No, it isn’t.

Travis: You have to take the pieces as they come and decide how you’re going to look at yourself and look at these things that happened to you. So, yeah. And then they finally moved me out of Critical Care when I finished my plasmapheresis, there were five of them, and that was odd because it’s a strange feeling to watch your blood come out and circulate through here and then come back in through another tube, and it was kind of weird, and it was cold. Freezing cold. So after five treatments, they moved me out of Critical Care, and because I was an employee at the hospital, and fairly high up in the rankings, they gave me this big, beautiful room, right? The VIP room. And that was nice, but after a week, I’m like, “I gotta get out of here.” Because I just had to get home and get some sleep. You know, they come in at 2 in the morning and draw blood, all that kind of stuff, and you wake up, and just, I just wanted rest. So my wife picked me up. Everybody knew I was going home, so they were like, “All right, if something happens, you call us. We’ll come get you.” And I’m like, “Yep. That’s fine.”

So we went out to get Mexican food, because I had eaten hospital food for the longest time, and I could barely cut the stuff on my plate, but I was determined to eat. By the time I was done eating, I’d only been out of the hospital for 45 minutes, I was wiped out. Malisa had to help me up the stairs, we lived on the second floor in an apartment, and it was a realization that I’ve got a long way to go. I was so tired just from leaving the hospital, getting in the car, and walking in the restaurant. And that was a strange feeling. Again, I kept thinking, “Wow, six weeks ago, I was running six to eight miles and getting ready for a marathon. And now I can barely walk.”

We lived on the second floor, so I started taking the stairs down to the landing and going up. I’d have to go back to bed. It was, your muscles, it’s fascinating how much strength you lose by laying in bed doing nothing. I mean, it was just really hard, but Malisa would get up, and we’d walk down to the stop sign and then come back, and then walk down this road, and you know, I just kept doing it over and over and over.

And I wasn’t back at work yet. I guess it was about right at three months that I went back to work. And I didn’t want to go back. I just was like wanted to just hide. And little did I know, I was suffering from pretty severe depression at that point. Depression just because even though I knew, I felt myself getting better, it was a depression like, “Dang, why did this happen to me?” And even though I had that feeling that I’d be OK, it’s still a depression.

And there was one time that I realized I was, not contemplating suicide, but thinking about suicide, because there comes a point where sometimes you just want whatever you’re going through to end. And I was coming down a road, and I was coming over a hill, coming down the hill, and it was a four lane, and I was in the left lane, and this 18-wheeler was coming at me, and I thought, “Wow, it’d be so easy just to drift over in that lane.” And I had to pull over and say, “Wait a minute.” Because that was, that scared me. And so, got some help. Started taking medication. I’m a big one for therapy.

Flora: Oh yeah, me too.

Travis: Yeah, because it does wonders. They usually tell you what you already know, but you know how that works.

Flora: Yeah, so when you were in that moment, thinking about taking your life, what made you decide not to do that?

Travis: It scared me that that thought even came into my head. And it wasn’t a thought of, “I’m going to do it.” It was a what-if. “What if I did this?” And that frightened me just to be thinking that way. And I know throughout life, some of us do the same thing, you know, we think, “This is just not worth it.” That kind of stuff.

Flora: And this moment came after, how long has it been since you left the hospital and back at home?

Travis: I was about a month after I was back at work, I was still, I was trying to go to work full time, and I would make it until 11 or 12, and I just was wiped out. I had a boss who was, we got along pretty well, but every once in awhile, we’d tangle. And he kept telling me, “You just gotta come back to work. You just gotta come back to work.” And he wasn’t doing it for the job; he was doing it more from my perspective. And he was absolutely right. After awhile, I figured out, “Yeah, I gotta get back in this routine. I need to have that routine of coming to work.” And he was absolutely right.

Flora: Did you have physical therapy? What did you have to do?

Travis: Yeah, I had all kinds of physical therapy, and putting my fingers together, and that kind of stuff.

Flora: And then you also had therapy for your depression as well.

Travis: Yeah.

Flora: And did it help?

Travis: Yeah. It took about two years before I got off of meds, and that’s kind of classic for depression. But the nice thing that happened was almost a year from the day that I went in, I ran a marathon. And it wasn’t great time, but I completed the marathon. That’s what I’d wanted to do anyway. It was my first one. And it was a lot of fun. I felt closure at that point.

Flora: That’s awesome.

Travis: Still wasn’t back all the way. My feet still bother me, because the extremities, it’s neuropathy, there and in my hands sometimes too. So, but I’m, I would call myself completely healed.

Flora: Wow. And there is no cure for it, right?

Travis: No, there’s just treatment. And some people don’t do well, and for about seven years after that, every time somebody was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré of any form, there are different forms, I’d get the call. “Can you come down and talk to this person?” “Yep.” So…

Flora: And how long would you say it took you to fully recover?

Travis: Probably about three years. About three years from when it started.

Flora: And you ran the marathon how many years?

Travis: A year after.

Flora: Wow, you weren’t even fully healed, but you still did it. Wow.

Travis: I still did it. So I am happy, healthy. I feel great. It was a transformative experience. Sometimes I find myself forgetting about it, and that may be a weird way to say it, but I’ve been thinking about it since I knew I was coming to see you, and I look back and can’t remember the bad stuff as much as I can remember the good stuff. And that’s good for me, because I’m one of those, not really doom and gloom, but it’s like, “What if this goes bad, and this goes bad, and that goes…?” And I’m trying to teach myself not to think that way. I don’t think you can unthink something, but you can recognize when you’re doing something that’s detrimental to yourself.

Flora: Yes, for sure. Especially at our age.

Travis: Yeah, especially at our age.

Flora: Yes. So what are some of the good things that you thought of that came out of this?

Travis: My wife at the time was just fantastic. She was my best friend, and she was my wife, and she was really good to me. And I had so many people that came out of the woodwork to offer help. You know, everybody says, “Let me help. What can I do?” That kind of stuff. And nine times out of ten, there’s nothing anybody can do, but then there would be that one person that would come along, and they’d say that, and you’d say, “Yeah, this is what I need.” And man, they’d do it right then, which is cool. So, yeah.

Flora: Yeah. And what would you say is, obviously the worst part was thinking that you will, might not recover. But was there anything else?

Travis: I guess maybe most of it is mental at that point. That you’re thinking, you can “what if” yourself into a corner really quickly. And a couple of times in the middle of the night, I found myself painting myself in the corner, and I had to stop and visualize that this was going to be OK. And so, that taught me a little about myself in terms of recognizing to step back and look back at what I’m thinking, and why am I thinking that, and is it doing me any good. And if it’s not, I need to quit and do something different. Think something different.

I did tai chi after Guillain-Barré for about four years and loved it and would like to get back into it again, but it just takes a commitment. But there was one time that I was doing tai chi, and it’s just slow movements up and down and that kind of stuff, and I turned to do another movement, and inside my head, this big void opened up. And it was black and darkness and quiet, and not scary, but it was something that I still don’t understand. And it just stayed with me throughout the whole series of movement and then kind of receded. I still don’t know what it is. And I was asking the tai chi guy. I’m going, “Dude, this is what happened to me,” and this kind of stuff, and he goes, “Yep. Sounds like something happened.” And that’s all he said. So it was a strange, comforting, you know, it wasn’t scary. It was just there. A feeling of a void, of complete blackness, of emptiness. But again, not scary, and not a void that needed to be filled, just a presence of something.

Flora: What did you take away from that experience? I mean, what did you learn about yourself?

Travis: Probably the things I learned the most were that no matter what, it’s going to be OK. Had I ended up in a wheelchair, it would’ve been OK. That’s just the way life goes, and we’ve all been around the bend a couple times, and you learn to... Not giving up, but accepting how things are going and how things are. I also learned to depend on myself more, to trust myself. I trusted my reactions more. I also learned that people step out of regular life many times, meaning, you know, you go to work, you go to work, you have three weeks off a year, you go on vacation, whatever, and you come back and go to work. And here was a moment where I didn’t work. I didn’t work for almost three months, and it was a weird feeling. But it also was like, “What if I didn’t work? How would it be?” Well, wouldn’t have as much income, and that kind of stuff. But how… We get stuck on treadmills. So what would it be like not to have to work like that? And so I built that in, my wife and I have a plan for, we’re going to work for five more years, and then we’re going to look around and say, “What do we really want to do? Do we want to keep doing this for the sake of doing it, or do we want to do something different?” And so we’re both leaning toward doing something different, like moving to Mexico, buying a small place on a little island off of Cancun, staying there for six months and then going to Portugal for six months and living there. So I can still teach. I can teach online.

Flora: That’s true.

Travis: And if I taught two classes a semester, that’ll cover our living expenses. So I don’t know. We’re toying with these ideas and stuff.

Flora: And I love that, the way you can switch your perspective to something positive, or think that, like you said, acceptance, that “Yes, even if I am in a wheelchair, it’ll be OK.” Now, were you always like that, or is that from there on you became that way?

Travis: No. I think that was the turning point, when I was, this happened when I was 27. I look back, and 27 was one of my favorite ages. Everybody’s like, “Oh, I want to be ‘X’ again.” Never want to go back to high school; never want to go back to teenage stuff. But 27 was pretty cool, except for Guillain-Barré. But you know, it was pretty cool.

Flora: What advice do you have for the next generation about living their best life?

Travis: I’m a college professor, and what we are doing poorly as a society is, we’re demanding that 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds make a decision on what they want to do for the rest of their life. That is frickin’ wrong.

Flora: Yep. I agree.

Travis: That is just… Yeah, I mean, you see it. You know, we’re like, “OK, what are you going to do?” Like my oldest son, he graduates from UT next year with a Computer Science degree, and the first year he was at UT, he lived on campus. I’m the one that helped clean his dorm out, so it was just me and him, and we’re pretty close. And we were driving back home, and I said, “How was it?” And he goes, “It was OK.” And it was at that moment that I realized, he really, he can do this work, but it’s not going to really excite him. So I started asking him, I always ask people, if you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do? Anything in the world, what would you do? He goes, “I think I’d be a writer or a journalist.” And he’s a very good writer, and I teach writing, and you know, I always look through his papers, and his papers were well above what others were writing. And I said, “Well, do both. You can be a writer about or a journalist about technology and that kind of stuff.” So my advice is, if you want to do something, do it. I would also encourage everyone, especially young people, 16 to 25, whatever: travel. Go overseas, so how other people live. Come back, and you’ll appreciate things like our toilets, our dishwashers, that kind of stuff.

Flora: Central air.

Travis: Central air, yeah, no kidding. Oh my God. But I traveled when I was a teenager, because when my parents divorced, my dad moved overseas with the military, and so we’d go spend summers with him. So I went to Turkey and Germany and other places in Europe, and it was just eye-opening, even as a 14-year-old. The travel to learn different cultures and see different cultures and see how people live is imperative to our success as a nation at this point. I’m afraid, you know, this is not doom and gloom, this is real fear of our nation changing coming up. You know, I won’t get into political discussions, but it’s just frightening.

Flora: It is.

Travis: We’re an experiment. Democracy is an experiment, and in two years, we could be, it could be totally different.

Flora: I asked, this is something that I want to ask in all my interviews, my last question. What is your superpower?

Travis: I love that question. I use that same question in my class as well, too.

Flora: Oh, cool.

Travis: I think my superpower, and this is really weird. This is kind of the third time I’ve articulated it this way. I build doors and windows. When I teach, I build doors and windows. And my students, everybody’s like, “Wow, you’re a great teacher. You’ve taught me blah blah blah,” and I’m like, “You know, I didn’t do anything. I built some doors and windows, and you decided to look out, and you decided to go forward. And you…” I always say my students do it on their own, because they have to. I mean, we used to think of education as like empty brains, and you’re pouring something into the brains. That’s not how learning works, right? And so, I have come to the conclusion that that’s what I do. I’m a carpenter, and I build these things, and the students love to go through them sometimes. So my superpower is recognizing when students are ready for that light bulb to go off.

Flora: That’s great. That makes you a great teacher. I love that answer from a teacher. That’s great. Wow.

Travis: As I said, the third day I walked out of class, and I found myself saying aloud, “I can’t believe they’re going to pay me for this.” And I was like, right then I knew I’d become a teacher. And I did, and I’ve loved it ever since.

Episode 012 - The Pupating Is the Hardest Part

Rod Haden

Today we have an interview with Amy, talking about what she learned about herself, life, and love from marriage, divorce, and dating. She has style, charm, and humor, and it was a lot of fun hanging out and talking with her. Thanks, Amy!

This is probably the last interview for a little bit of awhile, until we can find more people willing to share their stories of transformation. If you're one of those people, drop me a line at rod@rodhaden.com. I'd love to hear from you!

Also, if you're willing, please send me a recording of yourself, your friends, family, and pets saying, "Caterpillar Goo!" I want to use them in intros and other fun with audio.

Thanks! Here's the transcript of Amy's story:

Got divorced in, that was the spring of, or summer actually, of 2003. It’s odd. It seems like a lifetime ago in a way. I was married for 4 years, and we were together/shacked up for 4 years before that. I was living in Houston, and he was living in Austin at the time, and one night I was headed out with my friend Jennifer, and of course what precipitated my meeting him was me and my friend saying things to each other like, “Ah, forget guys!” You know? “We’re just a couple of single gals!” The plan was just for us to go and play a game of pool together. Well, we go out to play pool, and who’s at the table next to us but 3 guys who we started talking to and then playing a pool game with.

I met Jeff that night, but he and I didn’t actually date until almost a year later because I started dating another guy in the group for about 9 or 10 months, and during that time, Jeff would come travel to Houston quite a bit, so I got to know Jeff a little bit. Kelly and I were, long story short, definitely not a good match, and not too long after he and I broke up, I had Jeff’s number, and I was like, “Ringy dingy! Hey, this is Amy! Kelly and I broke up. And how you doing? And did I mention I’m single?” And so, we went on a date, and that was that. And we had a long-distance relationship for about 9 or 10 months. And I had lived in Austin before and was just itching to move back, and this was, “Wow, what a great excuse to move back to Austin.” And so we, I moved back to Austin, and we moved in together. Mistake!

I had dated a little bit in college but didn’t really take a deep dive anywhere there. So I was quite inexperienced in dating even though at the time I thought that I had plenty under my belt. I thought that I was well-equipped to wisely select a compatible mate. So I would have been in my mid-20s at that point, and oh, I was so mistaken. 

My parents divorced when I was 11, and their divorce was pretty awful. The only way it could have been worse is if either one of them had had any money. And the fallout of it was just so huge and extreme for the family that through that experience alone, I thought that that alone was going to provide me good lessons in terms of what to do and what not to do. How to pick a mate. What to look for, what not to look for. And of course that’s not what happened.

There were a number of reasons why I selected Jeff as a mate, and I didn’t figure it out until afterward, but one of those reasons was envy. I was fairly isolated as a kid. I was a loner. In high school. I mean I had 1 or 2 friends but was very low-key. Jeff at the time, I idealized these characteristics that I felt like he had in terms of, he had been very happy throughout school and had a lot of friends and had maintained a lot of friendships, even from when he was a very small child. And then his family also, I met them, close to San Antonio where his parents lived in this lovely cabin, and they were just lovely people, and went there and had just this great time with his family that seemed at the time to me almost like a family that you might encounter, you might see in the movies. And I didn’t feel like the black sheep or the ugly duckling like I had even with my own family. With my immediate family, I definitely felt that way. And so in dating him, my world was opening up, and it was opening up to this entire area and this potential new family where I felt very welcomed and appreciated for who I was and what I brought to the table. I grew up in Louisiana, so I of course was a great cook, and his family really appreciated my cooking, and they loved to cook, and so that was something that we had a lot of fun kind of bonding over in their respective kitchens.

I think I had ideas about feeling like I was a likeable person, and almost felt like, Oh! I’m in this relationship with this guy who is very well-liked, well-loved, and if he loves me, and especially once he proposed, if he wants to marry me, then that must say something about me. I must’ve turned a corner, and I must be more likeable, and maybe I’m taking on some of these characteristics or traits. So, envy was a big old part of it, that I failed to see or acknowledge at the time.

He was raised Jewish. I hadn’t been raised Jewish, but I was born Jewish, and I found out when I was in high school and started to take an interest in that. And then when Jeff and I met, and, oh, you’re Jewish? Wait, I am too. That to me provided an additional opportunity to really become a part of something. And so that was definitely part of the appeal too. And Judaism, the more I learned about it, those were things that made sense to me. I had gotten kicked out of Sunday school in third grade because I asked a question that the teacher didn’t like, and I got kicked out. And so when I started to learn about Judaism later and how philosophically it embraces the idea of asking questions, that really appealed to me. And so I loved that we were both of the same religion, and it seemed to me that we appreciated the same things about the religion.

My vision was blurred by envy, idealism, and admiration of traits that I thought were there. Not to say that they weren’t, I mean, he was a funny guy, great sense of humor, and we could always find things to laugh about together. I overestimated humor’s role and its ability to carry a relationship. That only takes you so far. I would definitely advise anybody, don’t get married in your 20s. Don’t do it. My mom and dad, they got married when they were 19 and 20, so by the time I got married at 29, I thought oh yeah, I did such a great job in biding my time, and I thought that I was just all prepared for it.

And I mean, Caterpillar Goo. Talk about gooey, you know? I mean, come on, you know? You’re getting married, and you haven’t even pupated yet, you know? It’s just, how is this going to fly? I do remember the night before the wedding, having the cold feet and thinking, part of, like, feeling conflicted about it. Part of it was, oh, this is just cold feet, and everybody has that. But there really was another part of me that thought this, I don’t, you know, I haven’t been married before, but this does not feel, it doesn’t feel right to me. It doesn’t feel like something that is sustainable. I definitely played down the red flags, which I think is probably number one mistake, right?

It took a couple of years. It might have happened faster if not for events that cropped up that I think probably were distracting in a way. We had started work on building a house. And building a house is one of those things that unless you’ve talked to someone else, you’re really in no way prepared for what an involved and high maintenance process, and frustrating process, it truly can be. And our house was supposed to built in 6 months; it took 3 times that. Also, a month after we got married, I lost my job. And I got a new job quickly, but between that and the fear about losing a job again, that created a whole focus on my work and my career. It probably kind of distracted away from things that later on got more of my attention. We were living in this house, very close to the lake, and had made friends in the neighborhood, and were leading a lifestyle that was, you know, really happy and adventurous and comfortable at the same time. We didn’t have a boat, but we had friends who did. And so, it was really a comfortable and pleasant time despite little things in, what seemed like at that point, little things in our relationship that started to kind of creep up.

It was almost like if you imagine a pool of water, and you’ve put your hand in that little pool, and it’s just muddy. You don’t see through. But then, when you keep your hand still, eventually, the dust settles, and then you see clear through. Once we started to kind of get settled in as a couple, like ok, this is what our path actually looks like, that’s when things started to unravel. And I’ll bet you now, there were things that were going on that I wasn’t paying attention to. I was selling myself short by not acknowledging that and pulling some threads that needed to be pulled. I let it go. Of course communication issues come up for everybody, but I was not, I wasn’t doing the due diligence. I wasn’t being fair to myself. And the issue in the end wasn’t not trusting him. The issue was me not trusting myself.

I’m a lifelong student, and there are lots of things that I always wanted to learn, like while I was in college for example, that I never really had an opportunity to because I put myself through school, and I just reached a point where, yeah, I would love to do this forever, but I’m broke, and I gotta get a job and gotta do these other things called life. But wherever I could take like a drawing class, or a painting class, or a sculpture class. I got into gardening and set up a garden, and then before you know it, I was astonished to find that, would you believe it, deer were eating, and so figuring out, well how do we set this up so that we can actually have the vegetables that we’re trying to grow here? But we found little things here and there to jump in on together.

We had a lot of areas of agreement. We even agreed in areas where we were more vague or noncommittal, like with kids. We both felt like, well we don’t know. We don’t know if we’re going to have kids or not, but we both felt confident in our relationship that we would agree on if and when that would happen, but we felt like we would be on the same page about having kids. Physically, yeah. I mean, our, we always had had a good sex life, so that wasn’t an area of tension or issue. That only started to deteriorate after other areas started to.

He started to get interested in these TV shows that were on cable access in Austin. I don’t remember the names of them, but they were, the hosts were conspiracy theorists.So I remember he would watch them, and at first he would laugh about them, and I mean, there were some that were, there’s no other way to slice it. They were absurd. I mean there was one guy who wore a toilet lid around his neck when he was delivering his monologue. I don’t know what that was supposed to symbolize, but yeah, take him seriously. But at first, you know, he’d watch these like, “Oh, this is kind of a freak show. Check this out.” And then that changed. That changed to, “You know, I think this guy might have a point.” I mean, his interest in conspiracy theories built up quite a bit. His interest in that to the point where that became very much a second job. He made some friends who were producers with Austin Cable Access, and before you know it, he was producing his own show. And I wanted to be supportive of that because that was in many ways a creative effort, and it was interesting to him, and you always want to support, you know, your mate’s interests. The subject matter was really troubling to me.

About 2 ½ years in, that’s when things started to come apart, and it was a confluence or merger of several things at one time. The, his interest in conspiracy theories had, that had fully matured and developed. And I didn’t at all mind the amount of time that it took. Like have all the time that you want for the things that you want to pursue. It was that he was bringing those things home with him, those topics home with him. And so our interactions and what we really could talk about, that was narrowing in a way that was unfulfilling for me. And at the same time also, there are things that you must do as a married couple that aren’t necessarily demanded of you when you’re living together, when you’re dating, and so for example with the filing taxes, you know, filing taxes jointly, that kind of deal. And that called for a greater level of communication between us that we just clearly weren’t equipped for, and there were things, there were other areas where the trust was being eroded. I was keeping to myself a whole lot. I started to shut down. And I started to not be at home so much. Not going out and partying or anything like that, just kind of going to a neighbor’s or staying at work a little later.

And so, Jeff and I got to the point where our everyday interactions were very kind of vanilla and garden variety. Like he would call me at pretty much the same time every day to ask me what was for dinner. Yeah, things got boring for us just because we weren’t finding new things together to enrich and inform that relationship, and so our interactions with each other got pretty anemic. And I wasn’t sharing, and my feelings of trust, I was starting to tap into that as a need, that I need honesty.It’s not just that we love one another, but we are friends to each other, and we are supportive of each other, yes, but we are also protective of each other. And I was feeling more and more like my best interests were not being regarded or protected. And in my head what I saw, the analogy that I draw is almost like, you see footage of when a space shuttle goes into orbit, and it detaches, it just kind of unlocks from I guess it’s the booster, it just detaches, and the 2 units are never to be united again. They’re just off into their own spaces on their own paths. 

And we had gone to counseling once. We went to a counselor, and we talked about things, and then afterward, you know, we walked out, and Jeff was like, alright, well that was cool. Glad we got that taken care of, like it was something to mark off the checklist, and yeah. We talked about it a little bit more after that, but I don’t remember making like a big, concerted push for joint counseling after that. I went for my own, just for my own individual counseling after that point. I think probably just talking things out and processing things out loud rather than having them just hamster-wheeling, pent up in my own headspace, getting them out and really exchanging with someone probably helped me to process things a little bit more clearly.

So, things got a little bit more clear for me in working with a therapist, but I didn’t know when or how or if divorce was going to happen. I was afraid to pull the trigger, not really sure how to go about that, or what that would look like, and we had this whole life created and built and were set, you know, like we were just going to keep on as we had been and probably could have in some ways. And I knew that Jeff was unhappy, because I mean, sex is a part of how you communicate together as a couple, and we just weren’t communicating obviously through sex or through anything. I mean, we’d really and truly shut down in a lot of ways. And I had shut down. I wasn’t opening up about things that were frustrating me, and I was letting it build up and up and up and up and up. Just letting it build up, but not even perceiving it that way. And my uncertainty about the future and my feelings of investment into our life and our lifestyle just kind of kept me in a holding pattern for quite some time. It was just kind of this murky gray area where I felt like this doesn’t feel at all good, and I don’t see it improving in any way, because I don’t see a path toward things getting better. But I wasn’t ready to take action in any way. And then it just snapped.

The decision to divorce was another off-and-on switch that all of a sudden got activated. That day at work, I had gotten news that my job was more likely than not on the chopping block. So there were rumors about that going around, so it was like, oh, ok, so I’m on the precipice of needing to find another job again, and I don’t know what or how that’s going to look like or how long it’s going to take. So I had a whole lot going on in my head about that and was pretty troubled about it. And so he called me on his way to the studio to check in with me, and I said, I have a request, and it’s important. And I told him what had gone on that day, and I said, when you get home tonight, I just want a peaceful, tranquil night. Maybe we’ll watch a DVD or something, but I need you to not talk at all about this stuff, conspiracy theories, how the show went, anything like that. I don’t want to hear a thing about it. Please, no. I need recess from that tonight. He agreed.

He gets home, comes through the door, sits down on the couch. I’m sitting in the easy chair. He sits down and goes right into regaling me with all of the details about the show’s production that night, and the topic du jour, and I just sat there, and I looked at him. I just stared at him. And finally he sees the look on my face, or recognizes it, and says, what? And I said, I want a divorce. It just switched off. And it was like my mind and my body just went into autopilot at that point. I was no longer troubled about an uncertain future. I wasn’t troubled about anything at all. I just knew what I needed to do. You can’t unring a bell. You said it. Now you have to follow through. 

So Monday night we split up. Tuesday night I was in a hotel 2 nights, and then the night after that, I was in my new apartment. I had barely been able to pick up anything from the house, so I just had sheets, my pillow, just a couple of other things, and I slept on the floor of my new apartment and cried. I remember like bursting into tears at certain times where it was very unpredictable. It just came on all of a sudden, like when I was signing the lease papers of the apartment complex. I burst into tears, and I remember the apartment manager, of course I bet she’s seen many separated people in her time, and she was consoling me. And it felt very disorienting. Just all of a sudden, like what’s my path now? Everything was different. I mean, I got set up with my new apartment, in pretty short order, and on the outside things looked just fine, and they were shaping up. But on the inside, I felt very, that was a very gooey time.

The whole process of marriage and the dissolution of it, it took a long time, and even now, I still have revelations about it. I definitely question things a lot more. I question things about myself, but I also know to trust myself and to consider myself. Hopefully I understand a lot more about what the necessary ingredients are in order for a relationship to make the long haul. I don’t think longevity is, that in and of itself does not necessarily, it doesn’t reflect success. But the quality of the relationship, how are you with each other over time, how will your lives naturally and also through effort mesh well together? You know, what are the components of compatibility that really serve people the best? Humor is still definitely a part of it, a shared sense of humor, but shit, it’s certainly far from the only thing. You know, it’s a matter of figuring out like what areas, like, there should be compatibility, like in terms of things that you have in common and areas that you complement each other, but there can also be areas where you’re too much alike. It’s a matter of how do you identify and figure out that sense of balance where your differences and your similarities fit together well.

I see the early part of a relationship, all those feelings, like the butterflies in the stomach, kind of seeing like, oh, you’re feeling this way. Well, you know that your body is being bathed in all of these chemicals that are supposed to kind of goad you into or kind of lead you down this path. There’s the giddiness and all that that’s, you know, really fun and enjoyable. But I also know your vision gets blurry because of things like that.

So after I separated, I got into dating, and I felt like there’s still a lot I need to understand about who I am. But I jumped into it. God, online dating was really weird and still pretty new I guess at the time. So I got into online dating for a little bit and thought, oh, I’m backing out of this because I was getting into these very short-lived kind of things where I would meet someone and we’d feel this kind of giddiness, and then I would get ghosted before ghosting was even a thing, you know? Hey, I’m a trendsetter. Or, you know, things would just come an abrupt halt, or all of a sudden I’d realize, oh no. I took a big old break.

It was 6 years before I dated anyone. I was strictly on my own and just determined, you know what, I’m going to focus on living like the kind of person that I would want to date. And so I did acting classes and just anything that I got a lark for, that I wanted to learn about, I did. I took acting classes. I went to ACC and started on a second degree in graphic design because that’s, you know, I had things, things in that area that I’d always wanted to know how to do even if I didn’t make that into a career. I just went about fulfilling my intellectual curiosity as I went on the exercise of making friends.

There’s a part of me that would like a relationship. There’s part of me that would like a relationship right now. I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to have kids or not, but it wasn’t like I had any biological clock ticking or anything like that, but I didn’t want to put myself in the position of not dating at all until it was too late.  But I’m glad I allowed myself some time there just to be on my own in the world, and focus on making friends, making and sustaining friendships because I didn’t see that Jeff and I had done a good job of being friends to each other. And I really wanted to come at it from the standpoint of, if I date someone that’s wonderful, but I want to be sure that we are friends first.

I always had an independent streak, but I’m not sure that I ever gave myself a chance to really explore everything that truly being independent had to offer in terms of benefit, but also growth through challenge. I had lived by myself throughout college, but this was my chance as a fully-fledged adult, to work on something resembling a career, buying a house. I wanted to pursue goals, and this was an opportunity to do those things without needing to partner or compromise or negotiate with someone.

When I re-entered online dating years later, I tried out a couple of sites concurrently. But Jesus. Like I was on OKCupid for less than 5 minutes before I got propositioned by a couple. It was like, uh huh. Wow. Is this what this whole scene is like? And Match, it’s almost like for each of these sites, like each one seems to have its own brand or characteristic or group of people that it tends to attract. Match was like the playing ground for married men from Houston who wanted to make it seem as though they were single and just in Austin for the weekend. And yeah, there was a lot of that. There was, like on OKCupid, there were propositions from couples, or I remember getting a message from this one woman who posted pictures of herself in various states of dress. And I indicated that I was only interested in boys, so I’m not sure why she thought this would be something I’d go for, but she sent me pictures of her in various states of undress, down to lingerie, covering herself in chocolate syrup. And I was on eHarmony for 24 hours, and I was like, no no no no, I’m crawfish-tailing my way out of this one. That one was strange. It was like a whole lot of questions, and then it offered you up your matches, and I had no idea how my answers lead to the profiles that I got. And so I left that. But yeah, lots of nice people. A few jerks in the mix there. I remember a lot of just online chats, online conversations, and then just never getting to the point where I was meeting someone initially in real life, at least not at first. I tried a couple of dates, and it was like this initial giddiness and fun, and then crash. 

I tried PlentyOfFish also. PlentyOfFish was what I used that lead me to my next relationship, my next serious relationship after my marriage, and that lasted for a year and a half. What I learned from that one, though, was that I had intentionally chosen someone who I wouldn’t be able to have a long term relationship with. Sometimes the only way out of something is through it. But I recognized that about myself in that relationship, while I was in the relationship, and took some time off from that and then dove back in, and I think my approach at that point was improved. I took kind of a more playful stance about it. And I took the approach of, well, you know what? Either I’m going to have a great time, or at the very least I’m going to have an interesting story.

But I approached everything like, ok, it seems like we have a couple of things in common in this conversation, ok. Let’s meet up. Let’s have a cup of coffee, or let’s just see what happens. I knew that I would meet someone, and based on the little conversation we had, if we could find something in common, something that was interesting for both of us to talk about, it was usually like writing or art or something creative, I would learn something, or I’d have a good story about it. So I wasn’t necessarily going into it for like, is this the one? It was just a matter of, let’s just meet up in the light of day and see how it works out.

 And it worked out everywhere from I met up with a guy where about 15 minutes into the conversation, and he asked me to wax his mustache for him. Nah. To I met a guy who was operating his own, he called it a porn site, but it consisted entirely of only photos of women fully clothed smoking cigarettes. But it was just interesting, you know, like meeting different people from all walks of life. I just took it on as just a way to meet new and interesting people and just having a, just being exposed to different frames of mind.

And whenever I met someone who was creative, it was always fun to talk about and see what they were working on. I’d meet someone, I’d think oh, well this, we’re attracted to each other, and this has a real possibility, but we just ran into a failure to launch, like where things just got too accelerated too quickly. And then I hit the point where that was getting a little bit painful, I met one guy where I was really interested and really hoping that things would develop, and then he made it clear he wasn’t interested in really continuing to date or anything like that. And that was a painful experience for me, and after that I thought, you know what? I need to change.

And I felt like, ok, this is where I need to become more intentional. And if it’s a relationship that I want, if it’s a boyfriend that I want, if it’s something that really can have a chance of standing the test of time and being good for me and good for the other person, then I need to articulate exactly what that looks like. And I wrote down, these are the things that I’m looking for in a partner. This is what I would ideally like for a relationship to really look like, and these are the things that are important to me, like a shared sense of adventure and an emphasis on having that as a part of life. And even like describing like physical characteristics, not having the expectation that I was going to meet someone who would fill all those things to a T, but just as a way of kind of reflecting back to myself, well, these are the things that I have in mind. By virtue of putting those things down on paper, it helps to kind of start the path to creating it more real, like from wooden boy to Pinocchio. And I didn’t know if that would be effective in bringing it closer to me, but I thought well, what’s the harm? You know, at least I’ve got this more clarified to myself, but I mean, I wrote stuff down, and then I put it on top of my mantle, where I would see it. And just by having it in front of me where I’d see it in passing and review it and reflect on it, that helped. 

And so, I met Steven a couple of months after that, and the trajectory, the path of our early relationship I felt like there was a lot there that we got right. We were friends first and spent a lot of time talking and sharing and being, just truly being friends to each other before we were boyfriend and girlfriend. And that felt really good. We got engaged about a year and a half into the relationship, and that’s one of the ones, that was one where I really, like there wasn’t any kind of feeling of cold feet. Like when we got engaged, I thought, here we have all the ingredients that we need to last. I was wrong, but I feel like I got more right about that one. And that one, the dissolution of that relationship was emotionally a lot harder than my marriage.

The list that I put together continued to evolve, or really I would just make new lists, you know, like progressive elaboration. There were also things that I realized, like ok, so how do I feel about myself in this relationship? And so I would add things or I would write down a list of  you know, how do I want to feel? And more about what kind of adventures do I want to experience with someone?

But I’m engaged now, and it’s a leap of faith in a way, but that’s not, it’s not like a leap of blind faith. It’s figuring out the right questions to ask yourself and not taking things for granted. It’s important to have shared interests. Having shared projects that you talk about and want to work on together is great, and that’s something that Greg and I have. So he’s an entertainer and a mentalist, and I’m learning, I love, I just love being with someone that you learn from. He’s accomplished in but also, he has very much that attitude of, like learning as a lifelong experience. It’s just part of what’s exciting to be human. And we’re both big-time bookworms. And so he’s sharing a lot with me, and I’m learning a lot from him and taking advantage of all of the literature that he has around mentalism. So I’m getting into that and also doing things like card reading, and so I do readings using playing cards rather than tarot, so I’ve gotten the skills down now, and I do readings for people. In fact, if you want one, you’re, I’m happy to give you one. But I don’t have anything like marketing-wise set up yet, so I don’t have a website to plug or anything like that. I’m still coming up with my stage name, as it were. So, I identified a stage name, but then, wisely I Googled it, and it came up as the name of a popular porn star. And I was like, oh, uh, no to that. That could, yeah, confusion around that could be interesting, so I’m going to avoid that. So I’ve got to figure out another name.

I would love to get to the point where I feel very comfortable about being in the moment and extemporaneous. And like with my current job and with previous jobs, they have involved public speaking, and I’ve gotten better at it, and I’m not at the point where it leaves me feeling catatonic anymore, so that’s good, so that’s progress, but I sometimes, like I feel like I plan too much in advance or maybe lean onto that too much as a crutch, which then might result in it feeling a little bit more, seeming a little bit more stilted or scripted or something like that. And I would love for it to feel a lot more natural. Like Greg, I mean, he’s very comfortable with being on stage and in the moment. You know, he’s very well-practiced at it, and he’s great at it, and see, to me that is the healthy kind of envy, for lack of a better word. You know, like I admire this in this person, but it’s not like I’m idealizing that. The things that I admire about him are just one facet of the many reasons why I am with him.

It’s not like I could pass myself off as, you know, hey, I’ve got it all figured out. I mean, I have more figured out than what I did, and I imagine there are blind spots that I’ve got now that maybe, maybe not I’ll realize later. But I, it’s a practice, right? Relationship is a practice, and I feel like I’m getting better at that practice. I’ve had a hard time in the past with, like I’ll have an emotion, like I’ll feel frustration or I’ll feel anger, or I’ll feel just kind of a nagging feeling, but elucidating why I feel that way, feeling anger, without being able to explain why it was. Well then, my reaction would be delayed because I wouldn’t share that I was feeling an emotion much less why. And then it would take me some time to figure out the why. But by the time I figured that out, it was really too late to go back, in my mind I felt at the time it was really too late to go back and say, hey, you know, when I was seeming pissed off? Well, this is why it was, and let’s talk about. And again, that’s practice. I mean, I still have those moments when I feel upset about something, and I don’t know why, but I bring that up, even if it’s not something that I can explain, just to get it out there and even just talking through it. And being with someone who you can talk through those things with, you know. For me I think it’s just a matter of considering yourself. Be selfish in love. I don’t mean selfish as in being regardless of someone else’s needs or feelings, but I mean it’s, you gotta consider yourself as much as you’re considering the other person. Think about what you need.

I’m digging the 40s. I am totally digging them, because I feel more childlike and free than I ever did. And I feel like embracing kind of having the beginner’s mind. And I don’t know what I don’t know in some areas, and being ok with myself over that. Being among other adults, other divorced adults, talking with other adults who have been in, you know, marriages, divorces, significant relationships, and sharing all of those things, it’s like, yeah, nobody really has it figured out. And that is a tremendous relief. Tremendous relief. I don’t know what it is about being young that makes you so worried about what’s normal. Why does it feel important to feel normal? And what is that anyway? I don’t know what my hangup was about feeling normal or fitting in, or anything like that. But one of the wonderful things about getting older is that you find out nobody really fits in, but that said, we all kind of find our tribes in a way.
 

Episode 010 - Deep Thoughts: Mohamedou Ould Slahi

Rod Haden

I keep coming back in my mind to WNYC's On the Media and their interview with Mohamedou Ould Slahi. I haven't read his book yet, but I will. Maybe it will answer the question I have. I don't know what he went through, or how long and how much work it took for him to get to where he is now, but I wonder: how can he not blame? How can he not hate? What was done to him was unforgivable, yet he forgives.

EPISODE 008 - DEEP THOUGHTS: PARENTING

Flora Folgar

I've been thinking about something universal to parenting in relative safety and comfort: that an easy life might not be the way that kids grow into strong, resilient, and creative people. And of course there's always the universal parenting fear that we're failing, even when we know we're not.

Episode 006 - Deep Thoughts: What's Up Size 14?

February is a good time to throw away those New Years resolutions. Or is it?