Places for the Third Act

There are worse places to set the scene for the third act of your life than Boulder, Colorado.  The Chamber of Commerce promises 300 days of sunshine a year, a statement that if not true at least isn't much of a boast.  You can hardly turn the corner without running into another brew pub serving really good beer.  Restaurants abound, and the norm is for them to serve organic and/or local food to the extent possible.  You can hike, bike, walk, run, ski, and enjoy beautiful and sometimes rugged nature.  You're 30 minutes or less from Denver, 45 minutes to a few hours away from stunning mountain towns.  Entertainment, meditation communities, education - all that and more is here.

I moved to the Boulder area last September after living in the Lansing, Michigan area for more than 20 years.  I miss the people and communities (theater, church, yoga) I left behind, but have otherwise not looked back.  Boulder has called to me since I was six years old, a phenomenon I wrote about in a post in 2009.  That it took me more than 50 years to answer the call is the stuff of life.  But when I turned 60 last month and took my place for the third act of my life, I was in Colorado.  I was home.

I've taken the first nine months here as a sort of "self-funded sabbatical" to make the transition.  It takes a lot of work to move.  You have to transfer licenses and registrations, find new doctors, discover where to shop and where to go for other services.  I'm on my second dentist, my second hair stylist, and my second yoga studio.  I've bought some new clothes more appropriate for a climate where the weather changes four times in a day.  I've joined some groups to help me meet new people and to learn the ropes of hiking the open space, the Flatirons, and the front range.  I've broken into the local theater community and will perform in "Spoon River Anthology" in a couple months.  I've grieved the end of my marriage to a woman I still care about deeply.  I've gently begun the process of looking at what meaningful work I can do to make a living, work that will pay the bills and help make the world a better place.  And I've spent lots and lots of time with my daughter and her family who moved here a month before me.

 I'm not sure how exciting my third act will be.  I hope to work and write and act and do yoga and hike and fall in love again and travel and do any number of things.  But a lot of the act will feature me not doing, but being - resting into the beauty and wonder of a universe that has been there all along, hiding right behind the busy-ness I constructed for most of my life.  The third act will be about resolution, love, and service.  The critics might not approve, but they had too much to say about the first two acts for me to bother with them now.  (Especially harsh was that judgmental bastard in my head.)

"Wherever you go, there you are," so the saying goes.  Well, yes and no.  Some places support you in ways that others cannot, help you live more authentically.  Since moving here last fall this has happened to me more times than I can recall:  I turn around for one reason or another, see the mountains spread in front of me, feel a fountain of gratitude rise up in me, and spontaneously say, "Thank you."  Maybe it's just the sentimentality of a guy getting on in years.  Or maybe it's the sound a soul makes when it is finally home.

Doing it Write

For 2012 I resolved to meditate for at least 10 minutes every day, work out for 45 minutes or more at least five days a week, and write for an hour or more at least five days a week.  In order to keep myself honest, I've set up a "resolution tracker" in my Bento data base library. There it is, every day, three boxes to check (or not check) and two explanation text boxes to describe what I wrote, if I wrote, and how I exercised, if I exercised.  Here at the midpoint of February, I can proudly say I'm still on track.  The biggest challenge, I've found, relates to the exercise resolution, not because I don't want to exercise, because I do, but because of travel or illness.  I'm not a runner at heart, especially in really cold or really hot weather.  Running would be pretty easy to do while traveling.  But workout facilities in most hotels I are not that great and room carpets are gross enough that I hardly want to walk on them, let alone get down and do calisthenics or Pilates on them.  I've needed to count long walks as exercise to meet my goals while traveling, a small concession in the overall scheme of things.


Of all my resolutions, my writing resolution has surprised, and delighted me, the most.  I started out the year working on a one act play that had been kicking around in my head for a few months.  By following my resolution, I had a very credible first draft done by the end of January.  I'm now moving ahead with a private reading, to help me hear my words and make the next round of edits, and planning a public reading later in the spring and a full production in the summer.  An hour a day, five days a week, is all it took.  But it took a commitment to do that, a discipline.


I like to describe myself as a writer, even when I don't write often.  I come up with lots of great ideas for plays, sermons, essays, blog posts, and so on, and turn them around in my head endlessly.  That's writing, isn't it?  Well, no it isn't.  I came up with a great idea for another play nearly two years ago and, as of today, not one word of it is on paper.  Admittedly, I've done a lot of "pre-writing" work on it, including research on religious fanaticism, bible quotes supporting violence, and so on.  I've done an outline of the plot and come up with character names.  But I haven't started writing the play.  Why?  There are several good reasons, reasons that I bet I share with other budding writers:

• I'm afraid the words I put on paper won't be as good as the concept I have in my head.  This fear probably has a lot of truth to it, but if I'm committed to improving my writing, the fear is no excuse for not getting started.
• It is a lot easier to read than to write.  I love to read.  I read novels, newspaper columns, non-fiction books, spiritual and self-help books, you name it.  The effort it takes to read 75 pages is roughy equivalent to the effort it takes to write about five. Right now I'm reading "The Devil's Star" by Jo Nesbo, one of a fantastic series of crime novels featuring a brilliant alcoholic Norwegian police inspector named (unfortunately, in translation) Harry Hole.  I could have read at least 25 pages in the time it's taken me to write this much of this blog, and don't think I wasn't tempted.
• Knowing good writing when I see it, I'm afraid I'll never measure up, so what's the point?  A side effect of my voracious reading habit is that I know good writing when I see it.  I know I'll never write the "great American novel."  This blog can't hold a candle to what Gail Collins, Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and Paul Krugman write in the New York Times every week.  My plays do not make Edward Albee or Tracy Letts look over their shoulders.  But I don't need to be a huge success or make a lot of money for my writing to be of value to myself and others.  There is something about the endeavor that is its own reward, and reaching only a relatively few people with my writing, and affecting their lives with it, is enough for me.

So the resolution has made me write despite my excellent excuses not to bother.  As always, the process is teaching me something valuable about myself, my fears, my insecurities, and also my capacity for joy.  The challenge of staying on track will go up next week when I start rehearsal for a new acting endeavor (Peppermint Creek Theatre's upcoming production of "Next Fall").  I'm looking forward to seeing if time spent at one passion can give me energy for another, rather than stealing energy from it.  I think I already know.  Some day, in order to honor my commitment to write, I may even share the answer with you in this space.

Why Real is Better Than Perfect

Last Thursday, March 26, was the 17th anniversary of my Mom's death. It was also the opening of "Macbeth" at Riverwalk Theatre featuring yours truly as the "fiend of Scotland" himself. All day long, and during the performance itself, the events felt related. So much of what I am, as a man, as a compassionate person, as an enthusiastic performer, and more, I can source to the influence of my parents. But when it comes to my need and desire to be perfect, the influence is mostly my Mom's. Dad was accepting of the middle way, the great compromise, in himself and in others. No such middle way for Mom. In fact, she used to call my Dad a "middle of the road bastard." Most of the time she even said it lovingly.

And so I grew up with the belief that the pursuit of excellence was a moral matter. If one had "God-given" talent or ability, one had a moral duty to live up to the potential of it. To leave something on the table, to fall short of perfection, was wrong. Not murder and mayhem kind of wrong, but wrong just the same. And this was the case even if what was accomplished was pretty darned good in its own right. So Mom viewed an A- in math with a raised eyebrow when she knew I was capable of getting an A. Being elected Vice President of the class wasn't much of an accomplishment, because she "knew" in her heart of hearts that I had more to offer my class than did the boy elected President (even though she was wrong in this assessment).

My Mom loved my sister and me fiercely. Her desire to have us excel stemmed from her belief that if we excelled we would succeed, and that if we succeeded we would insulate ourselves from the many hardships she endured in her life. It reminds me of a mother bird stuffing her hatchlings so that they will be strong enough to leave the nest. But I'm guessing a mother bird has the innate sense to not over-stuff her babies, realizing that to do so would make it impossible for them to fly and cause them, rather, to fall to the ground.

I act because I love to do it. I love the challenge of wrangling words and emotion into a real-time experience for myself and the audience. When I am doing it well I can feel an actual exchange of energy between myself and the audience, each of us enlivening the other. I act on stage in large part to forge that connection - the feeling I get from doing so is pure bliss, better than any drug. And so the other night, on the anniversary of Mom's death, I invoked her spirit to be with me, to give me strength and courage to pull these beautiful words of Shakespeare into something that would touch others. And she was with me.

In my heart I believe that my Mom, or her essence, now knows, as I know, that in using my talent and ability there is a moral imperative, but that imperative is not to be perfect. It is to be real. To be present. To connect. And so while one small part of me was shaking its head at itself the last couple of nights for switching a few words around or failing to pluck exactly the right phrase out of the memory bank at exactly the right time, the bigger part of me was enjoying the moment and the connection. For real. It turns out my Mom got what she wanted after all. At least for the time I am on stage, the hardships of the world cannot touch me.

Something Wicked

I was raised to be a good boy.  From my earliest days I was taught by my parents to tell the truth, be kind to others, "keep my nose clean," "keep my gun in my pocket," and more.  For the most part, it worked.  (Okay, by the time I was 13 my gun came out of my pocket a lot, but at least I had the good-boy decency to feel bad about it when, starting at 17, I started aiming it at others.)  In fact, it worked so well that I have struggled as an adult to do some of the things that any psychologically healthy adult should do: establish boundaries, act without undue regard for the approval or acceptance of others, disappoint others (with integrity) in order to be true to oneself, be assertive (not rude) with others so as not to be run over by them.  Time and again I have struggled with these healthy behaviors because the "good boy" in me is afraid I'm doing something wrong.  Over time, the "good man" in me has come to see that they are not only useful, but essential if I am to live authentically.

One problem with trying to be good all the time is that our "bad" stuff  must find expression one way or another.  In my case, the short-haired teenager who got straight A's and was an alter boy secretly smoked.  This was one way I could be "bad" without being too bad - my parents did it after all, so how bad could it be?  As an adult I carried this habit forward for many years and added over indulgence of spirits to the mix.  Through the years my good friends, Beer and Wine, and occasionally their nasty uncle, Scotch,  came to my aid in two ways: they helped me slow down my hyper-active mind and, more to the point, they loosened me up so my "devilish" side could come out to play.  I was not generally mean, but bolder, more flirtatious, raunchier, and so on.  Another way the "bad" stuff came out in me was through sulking around, fighting with, and criticizing those I loved the most (while generally being funny, bright and supportive to the greater world).

Robert Johnson, in his wonderful little book, "Owning Your Own Shadow," explains all this in terms of the Jungian concept of "shadow":

 The shadow is that which has not entered adequately into the consciousness.  It is the despised quarter of our being.  It often has an energy potential nearly as great as that of our ego.  If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as overpowering rage or some indiscretion that slips past us; or we have a depression or an accident that seems to have its own purpose.  The shadow gone autonomous is a terrible monster in our psychic house.

 Johnson asserts that there can be no light within our psyches without dark to balance it.  So if we try to be good in our lives, live in accordance with our highest selves, is it necessary that we must act out the dark stuff in a harmful way just to maintain this balance?  No, says Johnson, for the following reason:

It is possible to live one's ideals, do one's best, be courteous, do well at work, and live a decent civilized life if we ritually acknowledge this other dimension of reality.  The unconscious cannot tell the difference between a "real" act and a symbolic one.  This means that we can aspire to beauty and goodness - and pay out that darkness in a symbolic way.

I am well into rehearsals for Macbeth - in fact we open four weeks from today.  I have to say that I am greatly enjoying playing the "hellhound" Macbeth.  That dark side of me that needs a way out finds full symbolic expression when I stare at my sword onstage and growl, "The castle of Macduff I will surprise;/ Seize upon Fife; give to the edge o' the sword/ His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls that trace him in his line."  Oh, yeah.  It feels good to act bad.  But does it make me a better person the rest of the time?  I don't know for sure.  But it feels good enough that I might just have to find some other bloody, symbolic, act to embrace once the play is over and I am once again just a mild mannered attorney.  "Something wicked this way comes..." - at least in my ritual life.  And the good man smiles.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

A week ago this evening my wife and I braved the cold to drive to Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing.  I tried out for the part of Macbeth - one of the great roles in classical theater.  I had studied the script, let my pretty much all-gray hair grow out, pumped up a bit to add some musculature to my lanky frame, and practiced standing and moving without my patented slouch.  I read well and did my best to generate at least a little spark of sexual tension with the sometimes much younger women reading for Lady Macbeth.  (My favorite tryout moment came when a stone-gorgeous young woman in her mid-20's approached me before we read and asked, sotto voce, "Is it all right if I touch you?"  I mumbled out some mature response, but inside I was thinking, "Is this a trick question?")  I found out later in the week that I got the part.  Yippee!

Holy crap!

All I need to do between now and March 26 is learn a butt-load of lines, attend rehearsals five nights a week, learn the choreography for then practice five stage fights (at least I get to kill four others before the worrrrthy Macduff takes my head for a trophy), continue to pump up, and, maybe, get the old dye job on the noggin.  I also have to overcome my fear of "going up" (forgetting lines) on stage, something I never used to worry about when I was younger and the lines stuck easier.

So why do I do it?  Because I love it.  There are certainly times in my life when I question whether what I'm doing is in integrity with my personal mission, whether I am putting positive energy into the universe or just getting by, whether I am living life with bliss or waiting to do so at a later, more convenient or less scary,  time.  But when I am preparing for and acting in a production, especially one like "Macbeth" in which I will get to push myself to the limits of my talent in order to forge a visceral connection with the audience, I don't question any of this.  I know this undertaking is right and I am delighted to do it.

Back in 1992, when I was 38 years old, I returned to acting after several years away from it.  With the then recent death of my mother, the break up of my first marriage, financial and career reversals, and back-to-back physical relocations sending me reeling, it was a delicious treat to rediscover this pastime that had been lost.  It was a great balm to sooth all the loss I had experienced.  At the time I thought it provided me with something else as well - a chance to let my young daughters see me doing something that made me happy, and by seeing that know that it was okay for them to do the same.  In some respects I'm sure it did.  But looking back at it now I understand that the chance to see me happy and present with myself didn't mean as much to them as I thought it would.  They would rather I had spent more time with, and been happier and more present with, them.  I understand this now, even if I misjudged their needs then.

But regardless of the uneven steps that brought me here to this "bank and shoal of time," I now get to immerse myself in a crazy, passionate, challenging undertaking "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" until April 5.  It will be an experience, as Mr. Shakespeare says, "full of sound and fury," but not, as he also says, one "signifying nothing."  At least not for me.

Masks and Creativity

In the last few years of his life my dad wrote what he called his "non-poems."  He called them that because he was not a poet, he was a structural steel draftsman.  It wasn't his place to write poetry, so he wrote "non-poetry."  From time to time he would recite one or a few lines from one to me.  It was only after his death in late 2006 that I found his whole "non-poetry" oeuvre.  Some of them were sprinkled with his unique brand of humor, "Grandpa Humor" my daughters called it.  Consider this short one: "Some people say I'm indecisive, but I don't know if I am or not."  But others showed a sadness behind the humor, as did "The Mask" which I reproduce below in his own hand:

Although my dad had friends and family, he spent much of his time in solitude.  In many ways he enjoyed this solitude, but "The Mask" showed that he was fiercely lonely, too, and in many ways afraid to show what he felt to those of us who loved him so much.  If you were to have asked me about him I would have told you my dad was introspective, aloof in many ways, and an only child who turned into an old fart who liked his privacy and space.  Shows you what I knew.  

My dad's "non-poems" also showed that behind another mask he wore - that of skilled, old-school draftsman (no CAD for him) - there lived a strong urge to be creative.  Not just to experience creativity of others, but to create something of his own.  In his wonderful book, "Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet,"  theologian and spiritual rabble-rouser Matthew Fox writes: "To speak of creativity is to speak of profound intimacy.  It is also to speak of our connection to the Divine in us and of bringing the Divine back to community."

In one respect I guess that my own creativity is more apparent than my dad's.  I speak and write and act on stage and share all of this with my family, friends, and community, if not the world at large.  Tonight, for instance, I will try out for the role of Macbeth in the upcoming production of Shakespeare's classic at Riverwalk Theatre in Lansing, Michigan.  If I get the part, the product of my creativity will be evident for many to see and not tucked away in a notebook (like my dad's "non-poems").  But here's the thing.  The act of creation is a very private and as Fox says, "intimate" thing.  From a cosmic perspective, my dad's using the energy of the universe to create his "non-poems" is no different from my using that energy to create a character on stage.  In each case, the act of creation is, it seems to me, a form of prayer, an act of great reverence for the eternal and the transcendent, a small nod of thanks to the entity, the force, the ever present energy (it's okay, you can call it God) that has for whatever purpose, grand or random, loaned this spark of energy to us.  Now, I also think it's true that by sharing our creativity with others we have a great opportunity to spread and magnify the energy inherent in our creation.  But that is a subject for another day and another post.  No need to get too bogged down in philosophical reflections when I need to be preparing for auditions.  As my dad said in another of his "non-poems":

"Life isn't all that complicated, as long as you don't let something jump up and bite you in the ass."

Well, there you go.