Donde Frijole

 Part I

A polished soul.   I cherish how my grandpa aged.  Describing who he became, can only come with the fortune of knowing who he had been, accompanied by the nostalgia of how he saw himself through his many shared memories.    Remembering is somber, and it feels important to push through painful emotions with urgency because of a fear that the vividness of his memory will fade.  A part of me dies with him now gone. A part of me fights to keep him alive.  I feel the burden of carrying some tradition baring down on me, despite nothing really changing for me.  Getting to know my grandpa's love came with knowing of the painful lessons teaching me to let him go.  The love built up for him and from him was layered with every shared responsibility.  My grandpa worked.  If I wanted to spend time with him it was going to be more often working.  This is how I'll start.

Ricardo woke up  early for as long as I can remember.   His profession required that he was out the door early, far before I was awake.  And his bed covers were pulled up, no sign of him leaving anything messy.  I felt this was an important aspect of what manhood meant.   My grandpa began and ended his day with prayer. Kneeling in his tighty whities, his cotton briefs and white ribbed tank, he prayed in front of his night stand, head bowed. This is as vulnerable as I'd ever remember him.

I rarely saw him leave. As he drove by his childhood home in his truck, column shift changing gears, growling engine slowly warming up, I wonder what thoughts scrolled through his head.  My grandpa's truck was an iconic black 69' Chevy, decorated with wood patterned side trim, and a custom lumber rack. He drove by his mother's house on his commute out into the city and on his return. I have to believe this would make him smile. 

He left his body, lying on an emergency room's bed. His shirt was cut open, his chest red with signs of freshly reddened bruising from the fight his life, the damage left from intense chest compressions. His pants also unbuckled, and stomach bloated, visibily out of sorts, abnormally round. He appeared unconscious with a tube lodged in his mouth. This would be the worst and last I'd ever see him. This commute everything was left messy,  unlike I'd known him to be, and only because this goodbye was out of his control. I buckled up his pants.  I pulled up his sheets.  I put my left hand on his, the other on the crown of his head, and kissed his warm forehead.  I bowed my head and prayed. His work was done.

Richa was called home, November 9 th, freed from his body on a beautiful blue sky day. He was surrounded by loved ones and highly likely greeted in the cosmos by loved ones. And like his black work boots were polished and shiny,  his soul, in my eyes, was polished too. 

Part II

Aging justice

    The ego is a shadow that doesn't have to worry about the social stigma that comes with having white hairs.  Maybe a silhouette of what we think we need to be without the tired eyes.  I walk around looking through eyes that aren't aware of how I appear to others.  I walk around less tuned into what my ego is telling me.  I am curious about this found peace of mind, confidence, or obliviousness.  The idea that I am growing old, invites me to look at what ego means in this stage of my life.  

How does the ego participate in a vulnerable man's heart?  I hope it might be just a piece of me that gets comforted, a restlessness in my head less stirred by all the things I am disappointed by, but definitely the healing of bullied part of my psyche.  A self bullying.  The humility of a greying beard matching a blurring eyesight, feeding a denial lurking around highlighting all of my limits, tiring my sense of self.  Aging is a small reminder of this itchy friend.  The ego, the construct, the psychological scapegoat, steering my selfishness no longer seems ageless.  I might be a little sad about not needing my ego as much as my ego thought it was helping me.  I might even acknowledge or celebrate how it steered me in a direction that allows me to see it as a friend.

    As a young boy, my look in the mirror was a dazzling narcissism with a biting criticism.  As an adolescent the look in the mirror was an exercise in conforming with a confused sense belonging so that I might be satisfying to my elders and leaders.  I might now be an elder.  What also grew in my adolescence was a hope to be desired.  Desired, slightly different from satisfying, I realized that I wanted to stand out in order to be seen, especially by girls, possibly authorities.  My ego is how I describe the boy in the mirror.  Those moments when I look in the mirror and strategize as if there was something I could tweak to be perceived in a profound way.  The ego has been a tool for shaping a self image, cultivating a vanity.  I feel as if I needed to see my reflection to fix the flaws, hoping the adjustments would lead to profits of affection.  

I think my ego, mad at my body for so long, has now tired from the acceptance that humility has afforded me.  I see how time is replacing the angst that my ego once tickled.  The idea of being on the second half of a life's journey removes the need for an ego and emphasizes the hope for legacy.  A legacy seems far different from what the ego steered to. And yet it might have been the recklessness I needed to propel me into adventures that molded me.  My ego is digging through my dreams, hoping to find a place to relocate.  The true self doesn't have to look in the mirror often, a
nd my ego gets a jolt when I do.  A sadness and a madness because this is how glamour dies.          

False summitting is still summitting

 I am sitting on the cement foundation of a ski lift at the top of a false summit in the Santa Fe National Forest.  At the top of the Santa Fe ski basin's Quad chairlift.  Following the tree-line of a beginner run, I have just skinned up my first trek.  It is cold and daybreak, the grey blue filter that slowly unveils the rolling foothills .  This is my first summit on skis.  Skinning is new to me, the act of hiking up hill on skis sleeved with a cloth bottom to eliminate the slick surface.  I had envisioned myself in this adventure called skinning so many times while snow shoeing.  As my interest in being in the wilderness has evolved, so has my interest in accessing the wilderness in any season and in most conditions.  This new skill allows me to get around quicker and with less effort.  Sitting catching my breathe and oddly trying to cool down despite it being in the single digits, I find it still takes plenty of effort.  I am alone on a summit knowing the highest point is still another 45 minutes up.  I am stopping at a false summit.  Something my ego is itching with, ready to reject, and can't hold the idea of not continuing on up. 

    A false summit is the dreaded point on a mountain climb when you feel tired enough to desire that the destination has to be at the top of the upcoming peak, because your legs are telling you it should be.  The lack of anything behind the silhouette of the current horizon gives you that sense of relief that the work is nearly over.  Then as the distance closes, you find as you reach this point there is still so much more mountain to climb.  The false summit today reminds me of the importance of celebrating the journey just as much as I appreciate a true summit.  

    So I like skinning.  Skinning is another way to get into the wild when the weather conditions are truly wild.  I am absorbing that the perspectives I apply in my life are equally a moment in a journey.  Not everything is gonna a climb.  Today it is a false summit, turned destination, and tomorrow it may be a long fall down.  Having the skills to tussle with the paradox while feeling perplexing emotions is the journey.  Being both and is the humanity.  The the memory is the judgment.  And how I choose to implement the experience as a perception, is a skill.  So I continue on my journey.
  

NYC - A capitalist's Mecca

 New York is one of the worlds many union stations transferring money boarding transaction trains destined to finance some believed form of human progress, often creating a sense of American prosperity.  New York is the honey pot people can smell or envision from miles away. The NYC might be the Capitalist's Mecca.  The draw isn't limited to money, prosperity in any elite form might describe its appeal.  I have yet to hear, "I dream of visiting New York to feel the insignificance, view the disparity, and smell the consumption".  If you are an elite then you have some higher level presence in NYC.  There is an allure to New York City that reflects the American angst.  The ambition that seems to have an origin story sprouted in the 1600s through the spread of European immigrant commerce, later to make way for European migrants and refugees. The mercantile trade has been replaced by new modern goods to sell.  The digital age has overshadowed the industrial.  The gentrification still seems the same.  A consequence often ignored in favor of basking in the apparent prestige of luxury, despite the human cost to its inflicted.  

The Dutch called it a New something, the English called it a New York, and every generation since has added their form of New to their perception of it.  A part of me wished the Dutch would have called it shared something, and the English might have followed with Shared York.  Then today we wouldn't have the mentality of turnover and gentrification.  Would immigrants still be drawn to a Shared York.  Would there be such strong desire for individuals to separate themselves from the typical or mundane.  Would there be this illusion of certain types of hard work as inferior to innovation. The melanin rich types of hard work never lead to empires, yet empires are ultimately constructed more often than not by melanin rich laborers.  There is this magical preference for tycoons who have mastered the art of letting their money do the hard work.  These families then carry on a privilege that gets a superior distinction.  It looks a lot like a reasonable competitive advantage, yet they also get to call it earned.  Would we still believe in the lie that some earned a superior lifestyle because of some hard earned path if we measured effort in calories.  

Using a unit of measure that isn't so disenfranchising like currency might make it hard to score hard work in such lopsided ways.  I think we realize that the ownership of many innovations are ignoring much of the collective efforts that establishes the conditions necessary for these break throughs.  I see that New Yorkers along with most American's tend to ignore the sharedness of foundational human technologies galvanized by all peoples.  Ownership of technologies is the new monarchy.  The corporation is quickly becoming the new heritage.  The exploitation of these technologies has become what capitalists like to overlook when advertising to the world their exceptionalism.

Bondability - Who does this mean?

 What is the meaning of each connection we create?  Answering this question will help set the orientation for how we will show up to others.  When a connection is significant we can see the responsibility reciprocated.  There is a positive correlation between effort and interest.  As in our parents, we connect expecting a responsibility, because they provide us with everything we need to survive for such a critical time, likely the most critical connection we have.  Can we survive without parents?  Some people have to, and this does not minimize the need for surrogate families or community when this happens.  The level of responsibility might be associated with the power of the bond.  The covalent strength of the connected parts of our lives synced with the level of devotion and responsibility to the meaning that is rooted in our connection describes what I see as bondability.  The meaning in our connections define the commitment and security of our bonds. 

With meaning I found it easier to understand how to work with reactive children.  What does this relationship mean for this child.  Granted it was usually a best guess, often summed up as speculation, and likely more often projection.  Having an observation in the form of some type of meaning, lets me establish the necessary curiosity that will enhance this guess. The guess evolves into a better informed bond assessment. What does this child need from this relationship and in other words what does this person mean to this child.  Many of the children that I worked with were in foster care or parented by someone other than their biological parent.  So I often had the challenge of working to see what meanings the custodial interactions could mean for the child client.  It is hard to unpack what mom or dad means to a child.  We don't often build that into our culture.  I have never had to think about what my mother means to me. 

As soon as I can start unpacking what I need from the people I know as parents, I can construct an awareness for being accurate with what I need for love.  Mom and dad as archetypes are socially cliché people we dogmatically rely on.  Parents are instinctively vital to our survival.  Through our culture's lens we build up expectations for who we want our parents to be.  Working through the complexities of these influences and how they spill over into less vital, less expectation filled, and more selective relationships is a big part of maturing.  This is what the industry calls "doing your work".  For me doing the work, is the process of understanding what I need in relationship to my environment.  Once I have a strong awareness of what I have needed, I can apply it to the child in front me.  Cultural awareness is a critical component to applying my speculative guesses because my speculation is only as good as my experiences have taught me.  Although I do believe that what we all need is very similar, and paradoxically different enough.  So any empathetic and loving attempt at relating should bring a bondable experience.  This is hard to teach.  

Take a mother and child for example.  There are several hypothesis as to why a mother cares for a child.  And this journal entry isn't revisiting any biological research to interpret any of these, this entry is for capturing my interest to explore the meaning behind a mothers responsibility.  I have to take the child's perspective because I'll never understand what it truly is to be a mother.  As a son I see how the meaning in my relationship with my mother has evolved from being completely reliant and tightly covalent to now becoming balanced or a harmonious covalence. This shift has also help me have new meanings along the  way.  As a youth my mom meant safety, comfort, and home as I have matured this meaning has evolved to become peer, friend, and lineage.  These meanings reveal the philosophical attributes my mother child bond has created, what makes me curious are the psychological reasons and physiological process that get put into play in order for this bondability to cultivate.  

Now how does this apply to navigating a relationship? The fundamental atomic parts of a bond are found in the polarity of what we need!   

NYC Sidewalks are Socialist

The socialist part of New York City appears to be its sidewalks.  All other areas are the trophies of what American championship seems to be.  New York City is like a honey pot for the spoils and booty siphoned from the World's economies.  New York City is one of capitalism's trophy cases.  The only part of New York City that has to be completely shared, are its sidewalks.  And New York City is home for so many.  And it is a rallying point for the ambitious, because it is a launchpad for dreams.  And sidewalks are the path that the modern day Conquistadors, Pilgrims, Rockefellers, and so many other invisibles all take to turn their ideas into experiences.   

I am living in the pinnacle of the economic olympics.  I feel apart of a people who are embarrassed that our lives are not inspiring enough in small towns, to such an extent that some rush off to locations that might help the self worth grow, like a New York City.  We have our aspiring people possibly believing they are the next set of conquistadors, but in this era it's the conquering of the cosmos.  Our countries borders magically keep the riches and opportunities conveniently organized in a way that keeps the American citizen uniquely authorized to play this patriotic pastime of Monopoly, except the 2 dimensional board wasn't ever going to be enough for Rich Uncle Pennybags.  I walked the city this summer and felt the paradox of how marvelous it is while also seeing how saddening the way we have disorganized the shared parts of our communities.  The only part that included everyone was the sidewalk.

I think we leave our home towns out of a fear of facing the existential pause we all have, reminding us of how anonymous we are.  The anonymity that is likely a reminder of what was always gonna be there pointing to a paradoxical yearning for the acceptance of home and yet trying to find it over there, in the big city lights.  New York City provides a metaphor for this.  I now recognize New York City as that city that people hope will erase this existential anonymity.  It is now in my eyes the reminder of what was always gonna point me back to the existential pain of being a tiny moment in a large existence.  Likely a destination that can't erase the human tantrum that happens when we don't arrive at a legendary status.  I am not a celebrity and walking anonymously through New York City was a nice reminder of this.  I don't see New York City as a champion's city, I see it as a pilgrimage for the spirits wounded by not having been seen by those closest to them, especially in their hometowns. 

When walking through the streets of New York City the first thing I hold with tension is how every class of people, at some point, has to share the same grimmey sidewalk.  The wealthy have to share the pungient smells, and walk through the same propagandist advertising.  New York is where the classes are forced to share the narrowest of real estates.  Makes me wonder how long before there are toll booths on Park Ave.  I can't be misled, this caste crossroads does not imply any form of sharing, and no such communal caring, a minor consequence of business, spilled out from profit sharing.  As a metaphor for how much the businessman, person, has any use for the socialist playbook, the sidewalk might fit.  I can picture the New Yorker with the suit and tie tolerating the 12 ft or more of concrete running along the streets. Only the lower castes truly depend on sidewalks.  The moguls only need it for the time it takes them to duck into a chauffeured transport swept away to an elite way of life that probably inspires everyone they've just blew by.  The wake left by these champions are communities and citizens that need more than a sidewalk to grow.  

Are these American champions living a life of civility and prosperity?  The sidewalk metaphor fits for now, I can accept and move more into my financial simplicity because I hope to be one who carves out space where sidewalks become more than a segway.  More like a responsibility.  A reason to look around more than pass through. I don't need assholes in a high-rise penthouses, and I know it is critical to learn about the gravity in the stars pulling these men and women towards the sky.

And like the metaphor of a sidewalk, how does one who has no need for a glamorous high rise make people see there are far better ways to be seen?  How does a small city champion, share the wisdom that comes from having more than a sidewalk to share?  I don't need a sidewalk as much as I need people to see their worth in a life where feet touch the soil, better yet bare feet, and not necessarily on a beach, people who are grounded, without paying $15,000 for a Costa Rican retreat.  Grounded in the natural and simple in a humanistic form.  So here are more thoughts from a Chicano mind in New York City.  I respect the hustle and feel a sadness for the disparity.  It felt a lot like sharing a sidewalk is the only way elite American will tolerate the likes of people like me.  And at the same time I can't see myself in the deep sadness that is shared along the New York City sidewalks, that are the doormats to even more painfilled luxury high rise. I cannot live with the pain I feel when watching homeless people disappearing into the nooks and crannies, desperately hanging onto life, surviving on the concrete real estate they can't be removed from because Sidewalks are socialist.  

Bondability - a synthesis before a condition

  

I feel the categorization by styles found in Attachment Theory is restricting the theory's opportunity to heal.  I am beginning to shape my Bondability perspective because it addresses this duality.  I believe the principles underlying attachment are birthed of the colonial and categorical mindsets that taught us to emphasize the definitive versus paradox.  Paradoxical thinking points to the polar tensions I feel exist between the four styles of attachment.  These polar tensions describe most of nature's important synthesizing processes.  Attachment Theory is used like musicians who see the math in music where as Bondability is the awareness that everyone is a musician.  I am trying to emphasize that seeing the math is important but unnecessary.  How do you tell a musician to ignore the math and tell the child to see the patterns.  Bondability is trying to do this in one sentence.  This is the hope for Bondability. The chemists reached this point when seeing Hardy's paradox.  We have so many counter-intuitive insights and while working with families I found that teaching Attachment as 4 possible styles did an injustice to the dynamicism that neuroscientists were revealing. 

The observation is that all of these styles exist in most people just under different stressors.   I found it hard to teach clients the value of seeing everything in a non-binary way.  I found that parents wanted the sheet music.  I couldn't express how their child was not a song to be learned, but a rhythm, at times a clanging, and yet a sound that was adapting and adjusting to the tempos around them but with a beat that was ingrained in them at conception.  This broke me and still makes me cry.  Some in the industry call it burn out.  I don't I call it awareness for the abusive task of doing a job with the unsharpened tools.  Americans or Spaniards want sheet music when the sounds are in our movements.  Better yet our awareness.  I could not teach this paradox very well working through the model of attachment because the tools it provided me didn't help people accept there isn't an answer, only an encounter.  How do you teach that a behavior is not treatable, the culmination of events and experiences that lead up to the observable event are transcendable. Parents need the steps to change the behavior and I cannot help them understand that the encounter will be the only medicine, so make it a loving one because you don't know how many more loving encounters will be necessary to see a change in the next similar behavior.  The gift of the encounter is how it landed on our history and immediately resolving it to be meaningful in the now is the talent God might have given the Angels.  How do you teach this?  

This is putting paradox to use. The disservice is often times seeing this contradiction as dysfunction, or worse cognitive dissonance.  How can discipline be seen as chaos?  Well that is what love can feel like to an abused child.  Love invites vulnerability and vulnerability is most animals understanding of defenselessness, ultimately becoming the potential for demise.  

I can't overlook the criticality of the science behind the concept of attachment.  Dan Siegle, puts this physiology into a dense yet palatable way.  Neuro scientist are giving us the tid bits of research that teach that the brain isn't compartmental more a well orchestrated nebulous mass distributing energy.  We share our pain in the same fashion we share a smile.  Each being too intense to keep to ourselves.  This is what Bondability tries to highlight.

Bondability Continued

Attachment Theory Misconception Relationship Spectrum