Chapter 19: Finding a Holy Place In the Left Field Bleachers

Chapter 19

Finding A Holy Place In the Left Field Bleachers

One step forward, two steps back.  One step forward.

October became a memory and the holidays rapidly appeared on the horizon in its place.  I had worked hard on relaxation and meditation techniques for months now.  And the jury was far from in on the results.  My well-documented failures were still in charge of day-to-day operations and they showed no signs of early retirement from their posts.

Some real internal frustrations were building up inside.  And along with those deviations came increasingly regular return visits from my very own personal pusher of anxiety and fear, my dear old friend  doubt.

Doubt.  Doubt in myself.  Doubt in what was doing and more accurately doubt because of what I was not doing.  Accompanying doubt, I experienced a re-occurrence of stomach discomfort for the first time since I was hospitalized the year before.  To be sure, these pains weren’t brutally severe and they came and went without a real incident. They served as a sort of reminder of my earlier life, a tattered business card from a past associate that you would much rather forget that you find in an unused drawer.

As doubt took hold every obstruction that I met in my odyssey towards a peaceful centered life was now met with an equal reaction of plain old-fashioned I don’t give a shit behavior.   I regressed quickly into old comfy and unproductive ways, all too easily embracing the ease of falling into familiar darker paths.  Days would pass when I just gave up, pushing the breathing exercises aside as soon as they didn’t feel right, which was pretty easy as they didn’t work very well any more.  I let go of any and all attempts at meditation and quit my work with the coach. In other market news, soon a day was a success when I just passed the time without having a drink before 4 pm when I started cooking and pleasantly burned through the rest of that afternoon.  Or was that 3?  I began to lose track.

The Internet returned to reprise its previous Oscar-winning role, starring as the senseless time waster that only it can be.  Where else could you pass the hours in such semi-intelligent fashion and feel that you were accomplishing something when the opposite was so true?  Hours wasted on sites you can only imagine (and those that you probably shouldn’t). And thank god Macs don’t attract viruses and I know how to erase a history, it could have been much worse.

The tension on the home front returned with a vengeance and began to rise to new heights as we hit new lows punctuated by uncomfortable silences and suspicion of what I was “doing all day long” and how often she found me at the end of the day with another gourmet meal ready to eat and a serious buzz on.

When she asked what I was up to I relied on the old warhorses, “ Oh you know, looking for work.  Great networking lunch.  Spent some time meditating.  Beautiful day to walk the dog up in the hills.”  She was growing impatient with me. Believe me, I knew that she expected more and I wish I had something to say.  But there was nothing new to report on any front. Some mornings it just felt like I was walking in thick thick mud covered with a central valley ground fog at the speed of a zombie.

I had made a vow to myself to read a book about Eastern thought every day for an hour.  At least.  That time was shrinking fast, some days I would skip the readings entirely, preferring to bury myself in Gourmet, Bon Appetit, old issues of the NY Times and Sports Illustrated.  And then I guess I just got lucky.  When reading one of the texts I hit upon a concept that would help to bring me back on course or at least buy me some cover. It showed me a faint but clear sign that helped me get back on the road to balance that I so wanted and get the Power back on happy street with us.

So just what juicy transcendental trinket did I find that was M.I.A. in my flailing attempts to find inner peace between quarters during the commercial breaks?

Here is how the recovery played out. To help with my breathing challenges I knew that I needed to practice more.  One of the texts suggested that to practice effectively, I needed a regular place of my own where I could get away, a personal space where I can be left alone to leave one world and enter another. That is what hit me. I immediately and intuitively understood what needed to be done! I would create a modern mancave.

OK, my approach was a bit out-of-order. From what I read that I was supposed to master the breathing and the meditation stuff first.  My problem was that I was so easily distracted.  I thought that maybe a finding a regular place to unwind would help me to focus.  Yes, if I had a place to practice regularly then the breathing might come easier.

And there was another simple goal that revealed itself during construction.  To find a place in the house where I could, well, hang out and ignore everything without judgment or rebuke.  With some luck, if I played this right my wife would learn to actually adore me for doing nothing.  Now that was not a bad concept at all.

But back to the work at hand, the Mancave.  When this idea hit me I got stoked.  Mancaves have existed throughout history.  Yet they have recently fallen into disparagement as a result of continued (and in this case misguided) feminine and feminist attacks on this critical aspect of our male well beings (sorry girls, it is just true you have driven us out of these safe spaces as the demands for gourmet food pantries, children’s playrooms and family viewing rooms took their place).

There are so many wonderful historical examples that come to mind when I think of the great mancaves of the past.  Workshop.  Garage.  Wood paneled den.  Pool hall. Fraternal orders. Orthodox synagogues (just kidding but less so than at first blush).  The rectors of the priesthood.  I close my eyes and I see images our collective fathers, Jackie Gleason with his raccoon hat, my dad fixing a broken appliance in the garage, a neighbor overhauling the engine of his car underneath a fluorescent light.

Yet there was always something missing in those holy spaces of mandom:  Her unconditional seal of approval. And how to get that precious stamp?  I found the answer through the simple study of the way the opposing team built their she-nests.  Just what had she done that I could co-opt in the construction plans for this new impenetrable male environment?

I had the breakthrough one evening as I contemplated this dilemma lying next to la sweets just watching her, she already deeply sound asleep on the other side of the bed, eyes closed, breath heavy and obviously happy to be (a concept that has always honestly always evaded my comprehension.  What male enjoys sleeping the way that they do?).  As I lie there looking over her and at her side of the bedroom, I saw that she had created a she-nest right there in our bedroom space.  That ruled the bedroom out for me, there just was not enough room left over to create a holy space where my work on manful meditations to continue.

I studied her tools of the trade, a ganesh (the holy elephant), some candles, incense burners a variety of wooden buddhas, and some polished stones.  Books, a prayer rug and a shawl. These were the symbols of meditation to her.  I needed to borrow them to lend credibility to my version of this trip east.

Living in a small but sweet bungalow didn’t allow for many alternatives as I ran the floor plan of the house through my head and thought about where I could hole up for this holy work. With no office, a garage regularly attacked by rats and full of slowly molding paperwork, unusable clothing, my tools and my wine cellar; there was no easy spatial solution that came to mind.

Then it hit me.  What about my daughter’s room? Someone had to take one for the team and what were we hanging on to anyway?  She was the one who grew up and left for Boston to go college.  Now the room sat uncomfortably between her past and the present, full of stuff she wouldn’t be needing anytime soon and a collection of odds and ends that the Power couldn’t store anywhere else in the maison.

The next afternoon as I looked over her room and laid out the dimensions of my new manspace. I took a quick mental inventory of holy images and symbols I wanted to surround myself with to encourage my inner search.  Heroes I could relate to.  A black and white photo of Bill Walsh and Joe Montana taken in 1981, god did Montana look young and happy.  A baseball signed by Barry Bonds. A black and white photo of three bottles of Chateau D’yquem that I took in Paris so many many years back, portraits of Bill Graham, David Byrne and Bruce Springsteen.

Now, I needed a black stone buddha and an incense burner for cover, I could always get those from the other side of the bedroom.  Let’s see put a few of my real holy texts on the desk and maybe get a prayer rug to hang on the wall.

More importantly I need to move in the holiest embodiments of the peaceful spirit of all men, my comfy chair and a TV.   I knew that the chair would be an easy explanation (it is about relaxing isn’t it?), but the TV was the wild card.  I had already spotted a 21 inch flat screen on Craigslist for $150 that morning and was going to pick it up later that day. It was going to need some creativity to make that move fly, but I had a some time and her wonderful indifference to details to work that out.

The next day after La Sweets left the house I purchased the TV without incident (or question on my part) at a run down but clean home just off of San Pablo Avenue after seeing it work no questions asked. Paid cash.  Then under the faithful but somewhat confused supervision of white dog Kelly, I began the process of converting the daughter’s room into my new modern man cave.  After moving her bed I had enough space to put the TV on the desk and surround it with my holy symbols.  The comfy chair went right between the desk and the wall so I could settle in.  I thanked my spirits that we had wired her room for cable when she demanded it while she was in high school. As I worked I rehearsed the introduction of the new man space to her that evening, angling for maximum effect.

This didn’t solve the bigger issue of why I needed a TV as part of this path to Eastern holy thought.  But I was working on it.

The installation took less than two hours, easily done before lunch, a prosciutto and mozzarella panini with some aged balsamic which was particularly tasty that day.  I passed the afternoon in the comfy chair watching the Food Network and reruns of South Park just to be sure that everything worked right.  It did.

When SHE arrived home late as usual and tired from work that evening I had a margarita in hand waiting for in the kitchen.  Normally she would welcome this but her fem-sense went into high red alert instead. This was not a good sign.  There were dark clouds covering the emotional horizon. Before saying hello she looked at me standing there with her drink and stared at me silently.  She finally started in. “Ok, so what is with the margarita tonight.  It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?”

I ignored the obvious bait and stayed positive. “I thought you would enjoy it.”  She didn’t budge.

“Did something go wrong today?

“No.”   Not enough.

“Did you get another job rejection?”  Another bad sign, she didn’t remember that I hadn’t applied for a job in over a month and nothing was pending.

“No.”  Keep it short.

“Have you been drinking?”  Well I had, but that wasn’t going to help anything now.

“None of the above,” I answered.  “Nothing went wrong today and believe me nothing is happening on the job front, good or bad.”  I couldn’t resist that one.  “I just thought you would enjoy a cocktail after work.”

She looked at me skeptically.  She still hadn’t taken the drink from my hand.

“Come on now have a drink with me, I have some good news”

She took it and just stared at me with the drink in one hand and her clutch in the other, sort of pursing her lips and furrowing her forehead without saying another word. I was beginning to worry about how she might react.  Was this a mistake or was she just making me feel uncomfortable? Why I was feeling so anxious about what she would do when she saw what I had done to daughter dearest’s room when I knew this was a good thing.

No, I wouldn’t let that happen. I knew that this was it, time to go deep with this idea, either my mancave theory was going to work out or it wouldn’t. This was a sort of coming out for the concept of manful meditation.  I needed to declare my new space to my wife, just like some roaming Fido leaving his mark on that tree outside the house. I wanted to lift my spiritual leg up high and say:

“Honey this is the space where I am most comfortable with my meditation practice.”

Five minutes later I opened the door to the bedroom and said just that. When I opened the door and turned on the lights she just smiled.

“What the hell is this?”  I knew from her tone that the worst was over.

“This is my new meditation space.”

She smiled.  “Did I give you permission to borrow Ganesh?”  There was enough a tease in her voice to let me know that she didn’t really mind.
Would you like me to get you a new one?

“No, you can use it until you are ready to give it back. I can’t believe you did this.  You know, it makes me feel good that a part of me is down here with you when you meditate.”
This was going really well. So I went for the jugular.

“Fantastic. So when I am here meditating, I would really appreciate it if you let me do this alone. It helps me focus on my personal growth.”

Hey, I will admit it.  I had always imagined a moment when I could tell her to leave me alone and she would want to do so!

“Of course honey,”  and yes, she smiled again as she  replied, “just don’t spend all of your weekends in here.  I can get lonely.”

Wow! This was a 4 star experience.  She walked out of the room and went upstairs without another word. Or a mention of the new TV that sat on the desk.

So here is what I learned on this occasion. Every home has a space that a man can carve out for himself and every woman will let him create one as long as she believes that it is part of a journey to inner peace. Yes, before getting ready to engage in the practice, the student must retire to his holy space. All you need are the symbols and the space to do it.  Once you close that door you are in control.  No one knows what the hell you are doing except you. And what possibilities existed for further exploration.

A few days later, as I enjoyed the mid-afternoon repeat of the English first league match between Leeds and Manchester United, I felt just wonderful.  I sat, well more slouched than sat, deeply rooted in the comfy chair with a cold Sierra Nevada in hand enjoying the rhythmic passing and stout defenses.  Things were dandy, wife was back in the fold, I had a new TV and no commitments on the horizon.

Somewhere during the second period I absolutely spaced out for a good 20 minutes.  I mean I must have missed 1/2 of the period and when gradually I came out of it I felt refreshed, focused and relaxed.  I knew that I hadn’t fallen asleep yet my beer had spilled on my pants and I hadn’t even noticed.  Just what the hell had happened?