Man In A Bathtub

I have always enjoyed reading stories about men and women who spend a lot of time in the bathtub. Recently I read a short, absurd, twisted French novel (I can not remember the title or the author’s name at the moment and I can not go search for the small book in my stack of books since I am currently in a bathtub). In the novel the protagonist has committed himself for life to his bathtub. I became fascinated by what this would be like. How would it feel to spend day after day lying around in a bathtub? There would be no water- just a lot of pillows, blankets and books.

I decided to try it out. I am at perfect time in my life where I can actually spend a lot of time in a tub. I have mastered the machinations of my mind enough so that I am confident that my mind can not get the best of me. Most people who would be locked away in a bathroom for days on end might experience a degree of psychological duress that could cause them to tip over into insanity or violence. I, however, am able to keep my calm. Even though my thoughts might be telling me all kinds of things that could make my stay in the bathtub unpleasant, I know how not to believe everything I think.

Currently, I have been in this tub for three days. My goal is to spend at least four or five days in the tub. I have no real desire to leave the bathroom. As I write this now, with my laptop perched on the side of the tub, I feel as comfortable as I have felt in some of the worlds finest five-star hotels. I don’t have many needs (other than to be left alone and to get a lot of rest) and I rather like the solitude that I have found here in my tub.

I am fortunate though. I have a loving and supportive wife who brings me food and whatever else I request. Just this morning I asked her to get me a chocolate bar, the New York Times newspaper, a can of tuna fish, a loaf of bread, some gluten-free cookies, a kale juice and within a matter of an hour I had all these things with me in the tub. I realize that most would not have this good fortune. Most men in their mid-forties with a wife, a house and a plethora of other worldly responsibilities would not receive this kind of support if they decided to drop out of the world and spend their time in a bathtub. I know and I am thankful.

My wife thinks I need the rest. She has been concerned about the amount that I work and the toll my work sometimes takes on my health. When I was telling her about the French novel I was reading she is the one who came up with the idea.

“Why don’t you do that for bit?”

“Do what?”

“Why don’t you take some time of and just relax in our bathtub?”

I immediately thought this was a great idea. I mean why not? I have always been fascinated by people who retire to their tubs. Why should I not go ahead and do the same thing?

“You sure that would be ok?”

“Yes my love.”

“What about work and all the bills we need to pay?”

“My love, your health is much more important than our wealth. Besides you are fortunate that you made all that money years ago. You no longer need to strain yourself in the way you do. You are at a point in your life where you can spend some time in the tub.”

“You are genius. What a great idea.”

I began my stay in the tub that evening. I may decide to spend the entire week in the tub. My back is sore and my body does want to move but I am not worried about it. I am able to meditate, read my books and just contemplate various things in my mind. This tends to keep my mind off of the more uncomfortable sensations in my body. Just this morning my wife scrubbed the bathroom clean and now the lavender scent that was in the bathroom cleaner seems to have relaxed my mind and body. I am quite content here in my bathtub and could remain here for awhile.

In the French novel that I recently read, the protagonist confines himself to his tub because he no longer wants to be apart of the madness of human life. He feels that humans have become the most troubled animal on earth and he wants to disassociate from the human population so that he can find some peace. He never finds the peace that he was looking for because even in the solitude of his bathroom he is not able to get away from being human. Contained within his mind and body is all the madness that he was wanting to flee from. At the end of the novel the protagonist drowns in his bathtub.

I have no intention of drowning in my tub. As nice as it is to be removed from the outside world, it is not without its challenges. My mind and body do generate a lot of difficult thoughts and sensations but fortunately I am able to calm myself down and not get too caught up in all the madness. I am able to recline, relax and read even though my mind and body are sometimes wanting to get out of the tub and go for a walk. “There will be plenty of time to walk, just sit here,” I tell myself.

My wife is an excellent cook. This evening I have requested eggplant parmesan with a side of steamed spinach drenched in garlic and olive oil. I have also asked my wife to get me a nice bottle of red wine. I know that she wants my stay in the bathtub to be without difficulty so I suppose I have been taking some advantage of her kindness. This morning I requested a cup of green tea, three cheese omelet with reishi mushrooms and a side of vegan turkey sausages. She made me much more than I needed to eat.

What should I do with the rest of my day? It is almost late afternoon and I have a stack of books on the side of the tub that I still want to read. Maybe I will turn over and take a nap once I am finished writing this. Maybe I will do some stretching. Maybe I will use the toilet and then take a quick shower. Maybe I should spend some time reviewing some memories that I have been going over in my mind. So many choices. Life in a prison cell can not be all that bad. When a person spends all their time in a confined space the irony is that so much space opens up. The busyness of life no longer squeezes out the space all around. Maybe I will just sit here for awhile and enjoy the space.

Even though I am spending all my time in a bathtub filled with pillows and other things, I realize that what I am really bathing in is all this space. It is what I needed most.

Maybe this is why I am so drawn to stories about people who spend all their time in bathtubs.

 

On Solitude….

I’m sitting here alone at my desk. I’m in the writing/painting room in the backyard of my house. The house that my wife and I bought came with a detached garage and so my wife and her mom and dad and I, converted half of the garage into an extra room. We built the walls from scratch, did the wiring, put in the window, floor boards and an all glass front door. We painted the walls bright white and left the floor, which is a nice glazed concrete with some paint and oil stains. The window looks out onto a teardrop trailer (guest bedroom) that sits on the grass under and extremely large maple tree. My desk is up against the window, which I often getting distracted by looking out of it.

In this room it’s quiet, other than the small pond with a fountain outside the door and an occasional dog bark. In the far away distance if I try, I can hear the mechanical whooshing sounds of the 10 highway. If you don’t know the 10 highway in LA, then I should let you know that it’s probably one of the busiest highways in the world. I grew up in a country club surrounded by gold and golf courses, but I prefer living on the fringe of a ghetto with a busy highway in the distance. Helps me to feel less alone.

It’s almost 9pm and I’m tired after a long day spent sitting with people and listening to them talk to me about their personal struggles. I know that they are paying me a good amount of money, which they do not have a lot of, just to feel better. To find some freedom from the pain which weighs them so heavily down. I can’t help but get teary eyed just thinking about it. Anyways, I feel its my obligation to give them my best. To really be with them in their pain and with all my effort help to guide them towards a more ease filled place. If I’m taking their hard earned money, I owe them every piece of wisdom, insight, heart and soul that I got.

But now at the end of the day and well into the evening at this point, I’m alone in the solitude of my backyard room. The only company I got are the insects that bump up against my neck trying to get to my blood and the flies, which no matter how hard I try I just can’t live with in domestic harmony. I always pledge to myself that today I will not kill a single fly. I want to respect life in all its manifestations. But once I’m sitting at my desk or reading a book and trying to harness focus, the hyperactive buzzing of the flies drives me to quickly revoke my pledge. I find a book or a magazine and I swat at the flies like Jack Nicholson’s character in the Shinning did when he took an axe to that bathroom door.

I’m not sure I remember how to be entirely quiet and still. I’m trying to ease my way into the solitude even though my thoughts want to distract me in every way. I think about watching a movie, or reading a book, or surfing around on-line, or listening to music. But I really want to just sit here in solitude. Why is it so darn hard just to be alone with myself? Why can’t I just sit here and listen to the sounds and ease my way into the solitude? I feel like I’m always trying to push the solitude back just a bit, but as soon as I am done writing and re-reading this for spelling errors (I don’t really give a fuck about grammar errors, just spelling), I’m going to spend some time just resting in the solitude. Alone with or without my thoughts. First I might look around on-line a little, read a few things, but I will eventually get there. For a few minutes at least.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Vegetable Garden

I like to garden in the nude. There is something about doing this that helps me to feel unburdened. Normally I am uncomfortable being naked around anyone other than vegetables. Maybe this is because I know I do not have to look any one way for the vegetables. I don’t have to be fit or muscular. I can let my tummy hang out. I also know that the vegetables do not want me in any kind of sexual way. They are naked, I am naked- there is nothing sexual about it. When I am naked and working in my vegetable garden I am able to feel like I can escape from the age in which I live. Time seems to vanish and I am left feeling like I could be living in pre-agricultural time where things are less insulated. I imagine a world without clocks and deadlines, a world where my email inbox is not filled with emails awaiting my attention. It is just me, the dirt, the earth, the vegetables and my penis, which occasionally gets in the way.

My vegetable garden is located in the rear end of my backyard. You will walk down a long stone path through a large patch of grass. You will walk under a lattice covered in bougainvillea that is currently not flowering, you will make a left hand turn behind the garage and then you will notice the vegetable garden. You may also notice a man who is six-foot five inches working in the vegetable garden. In the nude. He may look like he has a stiff frame hardened by the onset of middle age with a head of hair that is rapidly graying but do not be fooled. This man still feels very young inside, his mind is riddled with a rebellious imagination that would make any four year old jealous and he refuses to accept the various limitations that middle age may bring.

The vegetable garden is covered over by oak trees and currently it is enclosed in chicken wire so that my dog does not have access to the garden. In the vegetable garden you will find arugula, kale, chard, red leaf lettuce, micro greens, escarole, sage, parsley, potentially poisonous mushrooms, weeds, gluttonous caterpillars and worms. I am continually working to keep out the gluttonous caterpillars and worms because they consume entire leaves of arugula and kale. I also try to dig up the poisonous mushrooms because there is something unsettling about eating vegetables that are resting on top of and growing around poisonous mushrooms. But the mushrooms are everywhere. They are all-pervasive in the garden and I feel as if my efforts to keep them out are futile. The goal at this point is just to avoid interacting with these poisonous mushrooms as much as possible because I am aware of the fact that every garden, whether it is a biblical garden or an atheist garden, has its forbidden fruit.

On both sides of my yard there are neighbors who have their yards. My yard is pretty well hidden from view by a plethora of trees and tall plants. I am confident that my neighbors are not able to see me working in the nude in my garden but one can never be too sure. I am always wondering if I have been noticed. Occasionally I will hear one of my neighbors working in his yard. I can tell that he is close to a fence from which he can get a clear shot of my garden if he makes an effort to look through the tall plants. Whenever my neighbor lets his dog run around in the yard the dog seems to like to bark a lot at the area of the fence where I am just on the other side. It can be a nuisance since all I want when working in my vegetable garden is privacy, quiet and calm. I want to feel like I am existing is the solitude of the universe, free from all sense of time and confined space. I want to be free of a world that consumes what is most alive and free about people and turns it into general feeling of unsatisfaction and mediocrity. But the dogs constant nagging bark is a harsh reminder that I live in the middle of LA in the year 2012.

I am mindful of the fact that I may be seen gardening in the nude. I have tried to erect fences made out of bamboo that would prevent an average sized person from being able to peer over them. I do this not so much for my own privacy but to protect my neighbors from what they might see. I spend a lot of time bending over when working in my vegetable garden and I am aware that catching sight of the rear view of a naked, middle-aged man bending over may have a slightly traumatizing effect. I also would prefer not to be seen in this way. If I am seen by my neighbor, then such is life. I can live with what the potential negative repercussions of this kind of sighting can do to a casual relationship. But I take whatever steps I can to prevent this from happening. The dangers of suburban living are not necessarily overt (like gun shots or break-ins), they are more subtle and have a lot to do with what your neighbors think of you. This is why in most suburban communities everything and everyone looks the same. Everything is kept neat and organized. There is not too much expression of individuality. This is because no one wants to stand out for fear of what the neighbors may think and do. Few things can be more malevolent and dangerous than an angry, American, suburban homeowner.

When I am done working in my vegetable garden I like to sit on a wood bench that I made. I will sit there for as long as time and my back will allow. The bench is made out of a long slab of cheap wood and two cinder blocks which keep it erect. In the nude I will sit there quietly, focus on my breath and watch the various things that fill in the space of my backyard. I will watch birds fly around in the big blue sky. I will observe the avocado and lemon trees. I will take pleasure in watching the large palm tree sway around in the LA sky. I will focus my eyes on the green grass. When sitting on that bench it feels as if I am feeding my eyes. I will occasionally tell the barking dog on the other side of the fence to shut up. I try not to think but just watch everything play out in front of me. If it is a warm day I am may try to lay out on the bench and get some sun. If it is a cold day I will usually find a blanket and drape it over my goose bumped body. I will sit on that bench for hours and watch the disappearing sun turn the sky orange and then black. I will watch the moon and stars illuminate the blackened sky and then when I get hungry or too cold I will usually get up and walk back towards my house. Some people may think I am spending my time doing nothing, but to be terribly honest being naked, hanging out around my vegetable garden and being free of any sense of time feels like one of the more worthwhile things that I could do with my life.

The Garage

Dust, dust and more dust. The inside of my garage is covered with dust. Small and large pieces of dust. Gray and tan tendrils of dust. There are also paint cans filled with VOC free and non VOC free paints. A potpourri of various colors- blues, greens, oranges, whites, yellows. All colors used to paint the various walls inside my home. Other things located in my garage: bicycles, tools, chairs, canvas, pieces of wood, a dog house (this is where my German Shepherd hangs out), dog hair, saw dust, buckets, boxes filled with things that I think I need but will never need, a wood table, door hinges, spiders, a television set that I have boycotted and pair of shoes that my dog ate. The garage has many potential uses (painting studio, relaxation room, office). None of these potential uses are in the process of being fully realized at the moment. Instead the garage sits there, a mess.

The garage is detached from the house. It looks like a one room house with a triangular roof sitting alone in my back yard. It is positioned beneath a large oak tree that is currently loosing all of its leaves. The leaves are creating a frustrating mess all over the roof of the garage and on the property all around it. Sometimes I become so frustrated with these leaves that I roll around in them. As much as I blow and sweep them away they keep coming. Dead leaves are like humans in this way- just when you think there was enough, there is more. When I roll around in the leaves I feel like I am crushing them. Crushing them. Crushing them. There is some kind of deep, psychic or supernatural pleasure that I take in doing this. Rolling in the leaves is very satisfying. But anyways back to the garage.

Garages fascinate me. In America they seem to be sanctuaries for the average working/married male. I often notice men, who are usually over the age of 45, hanging out in their garages. It seems to be the one place in the suburban house where they can hang out alone unperturbed by the domestic space that is taken up by all the other family members who live inside. These men often come up with projects for themselves in their garages. Whether it be working on old cars, putting together model airplanes, building machines, or conducting strange experiments- the garage seems like a space where the average American man can have some power over their world. They can be alone and free to do what they want.

I want my garage to be this for me. As I said- my garage has a lot of potential. It is filled with space and high triangular ceilings (I am six foot five in height and it is nice being in a space where there is room between the top of my head and the ceiling). The inside of my garage is lined with old red wood that acts as roof and wall beams. The floor is made of cement and covered in car detritus but this can be easily fixed. I have often thought that hardwood floors would look wonderful in the garage but my wife often raises a good question, “where would we get the money in this terrible American economy?” True. So for now my garage is what it is- storage room and doghouse. But I tried to turn it into something more. So far I have tried to turn it into a writing room and a meditation room. Since it is in the back of the house it is a quiet space- free from car and people sounds. This is what draws me to the garage. It is a place where I can feel as if I exist in solitude even if I am living in the middle of a city. Even if my house is located just a mile or so from a major highway. In my garage I am able to feel alone while knowing that I am not alone. As far as I am concerned- this is the best kind of solitude. Urban solitude.

As a writing room my garage was not a success. I loved listening to the birds that spent the mornings and afternoons singing songs in the oak tree, but after an hour of writing in the garage I would begin to feel dizzy. I did not know if this was a result of all of the dust or the toxic fumes that emanated from the paint cans that sat just behind my back. I tried to tolerate the dizziness because I loved where my writing desk was located. In the garage there is a small little window that looks out into my backyard. I put the desk just under the window so that I could look out into the garden. Green grass, pomegranate and lemon trees filled in the small square space of the window. I could also see the blue sky above. Problem is that I spent more time staring out the window than I did actually writing. You see to be honest, as much as I want to write, as much as I feel compelled to write- I do not like to write. Writing is often a painful process for me. I almost always want to get up and go do something else. As I write I have to force myself to stay put in my seat. “Lets go! Lets go!” my mind yells but I have to force it to stay. Maybe this is why I gave up the writing room and turned it into a meditation space instead. I realized I needed to get control over my own mind.

Let me just specify by saying that my garage is a rather large space. When I say that I turned my garage into a writing and meditation room, what I mean is that I only set up this kind of space in a small corner of the garage. My desk was facing the window and away from all the boxes and junk that filled up the majority of the garage.  It was like a small corner oasis amidst chaos. I don’t want to give the idea that I was able to turn the garage into any kind of organized space because this would be misleading. I only turned a very small section of the garage into an organized space. Is this not what all of us do? We take whatever space we can get and turn it into something that we can feel comfortable in while living in this very uncomfortable world? I think so.

You might be wondering about how I was able to get light in my garage. There are overhead florescent light fixtures hanging from the wood beams. Whenever the florescent lights are on there is this sludgy, bright, reddish, orange, rust color that seems to be oozing out from them. I have always thought that this cannot be a good thing so I don’t use the florescent overhead lights if I do not have to. Instead I plug lamps in to the few electrical sockets that are in the garage and those seem to work fine. As I get older my own eyes require more light to see, so on my writing desk I needed to have two or three lights for night writing. During the days the light from the window was sufficient (I should add that I never did get around to writing in my garage at night. In the evenings I am lazy and do not want to do anything that resembles work. Instead, I want to drink beer, watch movies, read, eat, have sex and/or just lounge around the house. After 5pm my worldly ambitions dwindle away into nothing.)

Once I converted the small section of my garage into a meditation room I began spending smaller amounts of time in the garage. The dizziness that I experienced while writing in my garage would dissipate once I went out and got some fresh air. I decided that if I did only twenty-minute meditation sessions there would be no problems in my head. I found a rug and laid it out. I then put my meditation cushion on top of that. I then found a table upon which I put an incense holder, a pack of incense and matches in front of a rather calming painting of Avalokiteshvara- the Buddha of compassion. My idea was that if I focused on this painting enough it would somehow help me to be more compassionate and forgiving in my life. Currently I carry grudges and can be rather judgmental so obviously the few weeks that I spent meditating in front of Avalokiteshvara did not do what I was hoping it would. But building compassion and forgiveness inside oneself is a process. It takes some longer than others and I am really in no hurry. The meditation space that I created in the garage was a step along a never ending path.

Did I mention the black, furry spiders that live in the garage? These critters can make meditation challenging. I would continually worry about a spider climbing on me or spindling its way down from the over head wood beams and onto my head or shoulders. No spiders that I know about ever did climb on me but I was continually concerned. Every morning I would wake up around ten am, put a blanket over my tired body and head out to the garage for my morning meditation session. I would light incense and sit in the lotus position on top of my meditation cushion. There is a small side door that leads into the garage and I would leave this open as I meditated. I would often look out this door as I sat on my meditation cushion. The garage would be freezing cold but I would tell myself to just let the cold be there without needing to react to it. Let it be, let it be. Slowly I would close my eyes and focus on my breath. Like leaves flowing down a river I would watch my thoughts go by. I would feel my feet falling asleep. I would feel cold. I could hear the birds singing in the trees providing a soundtrack to the plethora of thoughts that dragged around in my tired mind. Just before I was able to get myself into a blissed out state- I would think that I felt a spider.

After two weeks I dissembled the meditation space in the garage. It was getting too much. Every time I would sit to meditate, I would get close to a state of what Zen Buddhists call no self and then instantly think that I felt a spider crawling around on me. It was getting ridiculous. No matter how hard I tried I could not escape from myself and the spiders were there to remind me of this. So I closed up shop and let the garage turn into a space that I would not utilize. Instead my dog and all the junk I own would take over. I now meditate in another, more comfortable room of my house but we will get to this part of the tour later.

 

Floating Around Limbo

Sometimes I wonder about my contributions to this world. What am I doing? What is my reason for being here? For the last month or so I have been in a kind of limbo. This limbo is a comfortable place. There is no rent to pay, no ambitions to fill, no reason really to do anything at all. Day upon day looks the same, feels relatively similar (with some occasional sharp divots in the road). The interesting thing is that in this limbo I float about two feet from the ground. Why I find this interesting is because for most of my life my mother and father made me feel guilty about not having both feet firmly planted on the ground. They have often used the metaphor of floating to describe the way that I exist in this world. Now in my middle age, the mid-afternoon of my life, day after day- I am actually floating. Take that mom and dad.

Did I mention how comfortable this limbo place feels? Imagine jumping inside of the softest down comforter. No even better than that- imagine spending the day lying face up on the softest of white sand beaches. This is what this limbo that I am in feels like. Love materialized. Would you want to leave this place? You float around all day, get tanned by the sun, read in the evenings and watch as the ambitious world runs by. It is really not a bad deal- but like most deals, it does have its downside.

I sat with a ninety-two year old Zen master the other day. To my surprise he was floating as well. Except the place in which he floated he would never refer to as a limbo, instead he likes to call it eternity. Why was I floating around with a Zen master the other day you might be wondering? Feel free to ask. Well, I will just tell you. I went to this specific zendo where I knew that this Zen master could be found. I went to him because of the thoughts that I began this story with. I was wondering about what my place in this world was. If day after day I was just floating around in limbo then what real point is there to my existence? If I was doing nothing constructive in this world, had no ambition to get both of my feet firmly planted on the ground- then how was I going to survive in this ambitious, both feet on the ground kind of world. To be blunt- what the fuck was I doing with my life?

When I asked the Zen master these questions (I am sorry to use the cliche name of Zen master to describe this remarkable man but this man does not have a name. I am not even sure if he exists in the same reality that all of us other mortals do. As he likes to say- “he is here but not here at all.”). What was I just saying? Oh yeah- when I presented the Zen master with my inner conflicts he just smiled at me. I thought that he was going to laugh but instead he smiled and floated, smiled and floated. As we floated together there in the zendo, me in limbo and he in eternity, he kept saying “Weee!! Weeeee are floating!!” He expressed this sentiment in the same way that a child swinging on a swing would express joy. “Weeeee!!” “Weeeee!!!” he kept saying as if he was ignoring the very reason why I had floated over to see him. And then like a sudden earthquake or a stroke of insight he said “when floating just float, be floating– nothing else to do. When not floating then act accordingly.” At first I did not know what to make of his strange statement. I knew there was some pearl of wisdom that I needed to fish out from what he said but I was not sure yet how to get the fish off the fishing line. So I thanked him for his time and I floated back to my limbo.

Today the temperature has been in the 90’s. There is not a cloud in the sky. I have drawn a bit in my sketchbook, I have read a bit and I have been listening to some music. I have eaten lunch and breakfast and even found time to meditate. No one goes hungry or gets bored in limbo. I can hear the rumblings of the outside world in the distance. All the people moving quickly to get things done creates a certain vibration that can not only be heard but also felt in limbo. Sometimes this vibration makes me nervous- as if I too should be marching a long, moving quickly and getting things done. I too feel like I am possibly missing out if I just float around here all day and night in my quiet and relatively safe limbo. It is a strange feeling to wrestle with all day in limbo. On the one hand I feel so blessed to not be apart of that endless march to the finish line to get things done. I feel so blessed to get to just float around my house and garden without any real, pressing worries. But at the same time I feel like I am missing out. That there are important things that I should be getting done now. This strange tension between satisfaction and dissatisfaction is the force that often makes limbo a difficult place to remain in.

Weeeee!! Weeeee!!!! I shout out as I float around the house and backyard. Weeee!! Weeeeeeee!!! I shout out as I listen to music or eat my lunch. The thrill of this satisfaction lasts a minute or two but then, on a normal day, I am left feeling like something is missing. What a pain in the ass. Maybe the Zen master is without a name because in truth- he does not exist. The other day I was not speaking to an actual man as much as I was speaking to a state of being. The Zen master dwells in eternity, which is where we all dwell forever if we just sit down and shut up for long enough to realize this. Why not start now? Granted he is a master and we are not- he got there quicker than most mortals ever will but still Zen master eternity is a place, a state of being in which I strive to dwell. To float around and just float around. When/if the time comes that I am no longer floating around in limbo- then I trust I will act accordingly. Maybe. Weeeee!! Back to my book.

My Brief Love Affair with a Pool Sweep

I am currently going through a separation from my wife. I moved out from our small home in the country and have moved back into my parent’s large home in the suburbs. I am almost forty years old, living again in the room where I experienced my first erection, my first kiss and my first alcoholic beverage. There is even the first pornography magazine from the eighties that I diligently used as a teenager, still stuck in between the mattress and the box spring. My parent’s home sits on top of a solitary hill and is surrounded by century old oak trees, rolling hills, birds and skittish deer. In the backyard there are palm trees (air lifted from Hawaii), a plethora of native flowers and plants, a lot of stones and a large white-bottomed pool.

For six months out of the year my parent’s home is a ghost house. No one lives here. They pack up and go to live in their second home that is situated somewhere in the Idaho mountains. Other than a caretaker who shows up a few times a week to check on things, no one steps into this house. When I moved back in a little over a month and a half ago, I felt like I was moving into a space devoid of life. The furniture was covered in white sheets. The house creaked constantly. I cleaned up cobwebs, killed numerous mosquitoes and turned on the refrigerator and the freezer, both of which had nothing in them. I felt like a middle aged prodigal son coming home to the cruel tricks that time often seems to play on me. What was once my childhood home, filled with life and fervor had become nothing but a four walled remnant of what once used to be. I also could not help but feel like Thoreau returning to his solitary sixty-two acre pond. Except my pond was not a large pond in Concord, Massachusetts- my pond was the pool in my parent’s backyard.

Every morning I would wake up at eleven and rain or shine, the first thing that I would do is go out into the backyard. When I began this minor ritual a little over a month and a half ago I was an emotional mess. I would pull a chair up besides the pool and in the clothes that I had fallen asleep in I would cry. I would cry and cry and feel gut churning sadness for losing the life that I had with a woman whom I deeply loved. I cried for all the grief and suffering that I had caused her. I cried for days on end and after three or four days of continual grief, my grief began to ebb and flow in unpredictable tides. I would be fine one moment and then a thought or something that I noticed reminded me of my wife and I would fall into grief again. I felt like (and still do to a lesser extent) my heart strings were being played by a careless, manic musician.

In my parents backyard the silence is so palpable that I often could not help but to talk to myself. I would console myself out loud, talk to my disappearing wife and push slightly beyond the borders of sanity. Then one afternoon while I was lamenting my fate, a stream of cold chlorinated water sprayed directly into my face. Up until that point I had not noticed the small, amphibious pool sweep that spent its days rummaging around in the pool. With its four wheels, and two long hoses that danced around the pool floor, the pool sweep selflessly had been keeping my parents pool clean for years and I had barley noticed it. With chlorinated pool water stinging my eyes I watched the pool sweep makes its way around the pool, joyfully diving and surfacing, as if my grief meant nothing at all to it. By the end of the day I had forgotten all about the solitary pool sweep and once again was lost in my grief. The following morning while I was sitting besides the pool in what must of looked like a near catatonic state, the pool sweep again sprayed me directly in the face, mixing my tears with chlorine.

I’m not proud of what happened next, but please understand that I was not in my right mind. It is strange how quickly grief can turn into rage and turn a man from sweet to sour. At that moment a rage came over me so strong that I lost all logical reasoning. I was convinced that the pool sweep was mocking me, disrespecting my grief and making a target out of me for its own fun. My rage took over control of my body and caused me to jump head first into the pool, where I proceeded to swim after the pool sweep. But the weeks of grief had weakened and atrophied my muscles and the pool sweep out swam me into the deep end where I was unable to reach. I cursed the pool sweep and told it to stop fucking with me or else I would break its hoses and wheels. I then waded my way out of the water, short of breath and cold. I dried off in the sun- a man defeated by love and the world. A middle-aged man who could not even catch a pool sweep.

I sat there for a while on one of the pool chairs with my wet clothes sticking to my body and watched the pool sweep dance around the bottom of the pool floor. It looked so happy and carefree. It reminded me of distant times where I had felt a similar way. I thought about some of the more meaningful times that my wife and I had shared. The time that we bought our first dog together, the day I proposed to her by a pond in the graveyard, the time we went to an old bathhouse in Spain, the walk on the beach in Australia that was shortened by my fear of the wild dingoes and all the pleasurable times we spent sun bathing in my parents backyard and swimming in the pool. I remembered our days gardening and drinking coconut water in our backyard, the time that I taught her how to ride a bike and the five-course meal that she made for me on New Years Eve. I cried as these memories filled my mind but as I watched the pool sweep make its way around the pool, I felt the thorny edges of a smile crack the rusted sides of my lips. My tears gradually dried and dissipated and I spent the rest of that afternoon falling in love with a pool sweep.

Something about watching the pool sweep made me suddenly feel less alone. I gave it a name as all people do to things that make them feel less alone. I decided to call the pool sweep R2D2 and I even began to anthropomorphize it by asking the R2D2 questions. I told myself that when R2D2 sprayed one time that meant yes, when it sprayed two times that meant no and any more than two sprays meant stupid question. I would ask simple questions, being sensitive to the fact that R2D2 had not had the same opportunities as I for a good education. I would ask questions such as: “would I ever be free of this tormenting grief?” “In the long run are my wife and I doing the right thing by getting a divorce?” and “will we be better off in the future because of all of this?” I specifically asked questions that required more of a heart than a head but I never received much of a reply. Then one morning a few days later while I was sitting by the pool feeling the heat of the early afternoon sun dry my tear agitated eyes, this realization came into my head: Emotion is an energy. It is right to feel pain. Embrace it. Learn. Life is but a blip and time shows the way. I did not need to think about this very much because it immediately made perfect sense to me. Immediately grief seemed to be blocked from colonizing my soul. I felt a sense of unfamiliar calm come over me and when I looked at R2D2 it was resting in the center of the pool staring straight at me. It was then that I realized that my sudden realization had come directly from a pool sweep.

For the first time in months I was overcome with joy. R2D2 communicated to me a wisdom that seemed to patch the holes that were causing love to leak out from my heart. I stood up, walked to the side of the pool and dove head first into the unheated, over chlorinated water. With a smile on my aging face I swam over to R2D2. I lifted R2D2 and held it in my arms. I thanked it profusely for the insight that it had given to me while kissing it from head to hose. Never underestimate the power of a much-needed insight to unite man and machine. Together we swam around the pool until I was not strong enough to swim any more. For the first time in weeks I felt a sense of relief, I felt the possibilities of a new life and the reassurance that my broken heart was not going to kill me. The idea that I could have a new life, the potential to feel good again imbued my body with a detoxifying energy that was slowly bringing me back from the dead. Now looking back on this paradigm-shifting afternoon, I cannot help but attribute it all to my beloved R2D2.

The following day I felt the motivation to begin re-building my life. For the first time since I had moved back into my parents home I did not get out of bed at eleven and go sit out besides the pool for the rest of the afternoon. Instead I would get out of bed at around eight in the morning, do a thirty-minute meditation and then take a long walk. I would go out and get something to eat and then come home and begin looking for a job. I started listening to music again and took daily showers and shaved for the first time in months. Sadness would still come up in me at unpredictable moments but rather than allowing myself to fall into a near catatonic state I simply followed and embraced the energy that was moving through me. Days went by in this semi productive state. I went on a few job interviews, took some yoga classes and went into San Francisco where I began visiting a few friends. I was slowly getting back into a less grief filled life. I was embracing my heartache and learning from it- but while doing all of this I forgot about R2D2.

A few weeks passed by and the bouts of grief were getting less and less. I was smiling more and crying less. I had found a job working as an after school tutor for inner city junior high students and the solitude of my parents home was no longer as frightening as it once was. One morning I awoke early and after my meditation I decided to go sit out by the pool and check on R2D2. I looked forward to visiting with R2D2 and thanking it for healing wisdom it had imparted to me. When I walked out into the backyard the first thing that I noticed was that R2D2 was not moving. I walked over to the side of the pool where ten feet underneath R2D2 sat lifeless. I got down onto my stomach and looked deeply into the water where I noticed that one of R2D2’s hoses was wrapped around its wheels and net. I did not notice any of the usual bubbles that spewed forth from R2D2’s happy head. Immediately I stood up and dove head first into the pool. I do not know if it was the absence of chronic grief in my life and the healing that was resulting or the adrenaline that is released from a person in crisis situations- but I was suddenly strong enough to swim down ten feet to the bottom of the pool, undue the hose from R2D2’s lifeless body and swim back up to the surface with the R2D2 in my arms. I was not hyperventilating or gasping for air but instead I was begging R2D2 not to die, to hold on and to breathe. I swam over into the shallow end where I placed R2D2 on the side of the pool and cleaned out all the leaves that had collected in its net, blocking its air passages. I used both my hands to move its wheels hoping that I could somehow re-simulate life into R2D2. Minutes passed and I felt a few tears begin to fall down the side of my face. I still remember the rhetorical question that ran through my head at that moment: how could God be so unfair as to so cruelly take the life of the one thing that gave me life? I blamed my grief and guilt on a God that not even I believed in. I tried to do everything I could to bring R2D2 back, I even asked this illusive God for help. But the more time that passed the more I realized that R2D2 was never going to swim again.

For those of you who have never fallen in love with a pool sweep before, the ending of my story may sound a bit ridiculous to you. But how can I expect those of you to understand something that you have never experienced before? I understand that I run the risk here of being perceived and judged as a man who has become mentally ill as a result of the grief caused by getting a divorce. I expect some of you to conclude that I am not fit to be functional member of society. But I have always spoken honestly in my writings and I do not want my fear of how you may think of me to get in the way of being brutally honest here at the end of my story. So despite my concerns, I will proceed. After I realized that R2D2 had passed I sat in one of the pool chairs and held R2D2 in my arms. I cried like a child who has just been abandoned by the only two people he knows in the world. I cried out all the grief that could ever exist in the world. I cried so loud that I scared all the birds out of the trees and all the deer out of the surrounding hills. In losing R2D2 I now realize that I was also deeply mourning the loss of my wife. When my wailing seemed to subside, I put R2D2 down on the pool chair and went inside the house and changed out from my wet clothes. I put on black jeans, a black t-shirt and did not have the energy to put on any shoes or socks. I then grabbed a towel from the closet, a shovel from the garage and went back into the backyard. I covered R2D2 in the towel and then I walked into the hills where I began to dig a deep hole underneath an old oak tree. While I was digging my tears fell onto the ground and seemed to moisten the earth, making it less difficult to dig into.

Once I finished digging a hole that would be large enough for me to place R2D2 into I walked back down to where R2D2 lay covered in a towel. I picked R2D2 up into my arms and walked back up into the hills. I placed R2D2 into the dark hole and then stood there for a moment staring at R2D2. My tears momentarily ceased as I thanked R2D2 for its wisdom and friendship. It has never been easy for me to let go of things and people in my life and burying R2D2 felt to me like I was also burying a very important part of my past. I took a few deep breaths and remembered the times that I would watch R2D2 happily and carelessly swim around in the pool. I remembered the time that I tried to chase R2D2 down but it successfully out swam me. I remembered the time that R2D2 gave me a sudden realization and freed me from the shackles of chronic and crippling grief. I felt very grateful for R2D2’s existence in my life and as I took the shovel in my hand and began to bury the R2D2 into the earth I felt at peace with the truth that nothing lasts forever. Once I had completely covered up the whole, I smoothed out the dirt with the shovel and then stuck a large boulder onto of the spot where R2D2 was buried so that I could return to this spot whenever I needed. A few tears leaked out from my eyes as I looked down at my bare feet and toe nails that were covered in dirt. I then looked up through the branches of the old oak tree and stared into the sun that hung in the sky. I closed my eyes for a minute or two and felt the suns warm breath heat up the skin on my face. I could hear the sounds of wind chimes and dried leaves rustling in the light breeze. It was at that moment that I knew that everything would eventually be okay. My wife and myself, eventually time would show us the way. With the shovel in my hand, I avoided looking at the pool and walked back down the hill towards my house. I imagined that it was mid-afternoon and I needed to get dressed for work.

The Bathtub

I have been spending a lot of time sitting in my bathtub. I do not fill the bathtub with water nor do I take off my clothes. Instead I climb into the bathtub fully clothed and sit down. Sometimes I will light a candle or a stick of incense to create ambience, however it is not often that I do this. Instead I just climb into the bathtub like a man retreating from the noise of the world. I shut the tub doors and burrow myself between the white walls of the tub. I stare at the silver waterspout covered with grime and at the ceiling that seems to be slightly water-logged. My tub is not a fancy one. It is a humble tub; a bathroom not fit for kings or even princes- instead it is a tub for a man who is not quite sure how he fits into this world.

Often times I will stay in the bathtub for hours. When my wife is not frustrated with me, she will bring me a snack, tea or a glass of water. She will sit down on the leaking toilet besides the tub and try and make conversation with me. She will ask me questions such as “What is wrong?” or “Why are you laying in the tub again?” When I am in the tub I am not in the mood for conversation. I do not feel like explaining myself to anyone and I will often try and evade my wife’s questions by denying that there is a problem. I tell her that I am just trying to relax. “I need to take it easy because my heart and stomach hurts,” I tell her. How can she argue with a man in distress? She cannot, so she just pouts out a quiet “okay” and tells me to let her know if I need anything before she leaves me alone in the bathroom.

The bathtub is a safe place for me. In the tub there is nothing that I have to get done, no one that I have to become and no place that I am needing to go. It is as if the tub freezes all time and space. I do not find myself worrying in the bathtub like I do in the outside world. Instead I think about my life, my past, present and future. I review my life with a microscopic attention to detail. I listen to the wind chimes outside the bathroom window and imagine what the clouds must look like as they float across the sky. I am never really able to fall asleep in tub- but sometimes I slip into a state of nirvana so wide and deep that I am no longer a resident of my physical body.

I got the idea to spend time sitting in my bathtub after I read the short novel “The Bathroom,” by Jean-Philippe Toussaint. In the novel, the main protagonist who is around my age spends the great majority of his time meditating in his bathtub. His girlfriend and friends, who all come and visit him in the bathroom, support his eccentric quest for immobility.  When reading the novel I was in a rather distressing place in my own life. I was unemployed, imbued with chronic anxiety, haunted by feelings of failure and depressed. The idea of a quest for immobility while sitting in a bathtub appealed to me so much so that I decided to give it a try. I would see if spending my time in a bathtub would be as helpful for me as it was for the protagonist in the novel. In many ways it has been. I have become calmer, more present, less ambitious and grounded. I have been drinking less and I feel much more excited about my life. Unfortunately my family has not been as supportive of my quest for immobility as I would like. My wife is worried about me and my mother calls almost every day. She leaves messages on my answering machine, telling me that I need to get off of my ass and find a job.

Sometimes I write while in the tub (like I am doing now) but it is not easy. My intellectual faculties are not as keen in the tub, my writing is not as sharp and my spelling is poor. Today I asked my wife if she would bring a radio for me into the bathroom. She did so against her will and I appreciate that she was willing to martyr herself for me. I have been listening to the classical music station on my radio all afternoon. There is something about the sounds of a violin or piano while lying in a bathtub, which makes it easier for me to write. The words seem to get along and all I have to do is conduct them into the right place on the page.

I do not know how much more time I am going to spend in the tub. As of now, I spend my afternoons and evenings in the bathtub. I may even start to sleep in the bathtub if my wife will not mind. It seems to me like the current world is a pretty mixed up place. With the recessions, wars, greed and environmental catastrophes that are raging out there– it seems to me like the bathtub is the safest and most sensible place to be. If the apocalypse is soon to come at least I am spending my time wisely, happily. I am a satisfied man in my bathtub and I think this is a grand accomplishment in our world that is so riddled with deadlines, desire, dis-satisfaction and dis-ease. It is windy today and outside the bathroom window the wind chime are playing my favorite song. My wife has just left the house and now I get to sit here all evening, quiet and alone in my bathtub.

My Idea Of Fun

“I am worried that you are not having enough fun in your life,” my wife said to me. “I have had too much fun in my life and now I am having fun not having fun,” I replied. She looked at me like one does when they know that you are lying to yourself. I considered what I had just said to her and then realized that I did not know what I was talking about. “When you go out and have fun, it sustains you into the future. It makes your life a little easier to handle.. a little more enjoyable to live,” my wife said. ” I have fun staying home and reading, writing or watching a movie. I don’t feel the need to go out to have fun,” I replied- but then I thought about what I said. “Am I really having fun staying in all the time, do I really even remember what it feels like to have fun?” I asked myself. “I think you are afraid of fun,” my wife said as she kissed me and left for another evening out with friends that I once again elected myself out of.


I have been staying home a lot lately. My wife goes out and has fun quite often but I stay in. I make up excuses and tell my wife that I have work to do. In reality I am avoiding the world. All through out my twenties and early thirties I indulged in the world. I went out night after night and indulged in what people like to commonly refer to as fun. I socialized, drank too much, smoked weed and went off on insane adventures that lasted until the sun came up. When I turned thirty I decided that friends were a waste of time and I began having fun alone. I spent my weekends and a few weekday evenings and afternoons in various strip clubs where I knew no one and no one knew me. In the darkness I somehow felt complete in my solitude and as I watched naked women dance for me upon a red lit stage- I was the happiest man alive. I would end my evening in massage parlors where I received shiatsu and a hand job- and then return home early the next morning and sleep until noon. This was my idea of fun.


Now that I am married I have lost touch with a feeling of fun. No longer can I hang out in strip clubs and massage parlors without ending up with a twelve pound suitcase filled with guilt and shame. It ain’t worth it. I hate keeping secrets from my wife so I have broken up with my idea of fun. I have few friends that I enjoy spending time with and solitude has become my favorite form of company. Last weekend when my wife and I went on a dinner date with another couple I felt like a man who was wasting his time. I drank too much so that I could force my self to have fun. All I really wanted was to be at home swimming around in the pages of a book.


“You are becoming reclusive and a curmudgeon,” my wife told me the other day. “Why because I don’t like to have fun?” I asked. “You don’t like to do anything,” she said. “That is not true!” I protested quickly. ” “Though doth protest too much…when was the last time that you had fun?” she asked. “I had fun last night being at home alone watching a movie and doing some writing,” I said. But then I thought about what I said. Was I really having fun being home night after night watching movies, writing and reading? Or has doing these things become my idea of fun because I have forgotten how to have fun? Have I given up on fun because I know that it only lasts for a brief period of time before you are right back where you were before that fun began? Fun drops you off right where it left you- stuck in the middle of your life (and usually with a hang over). Is this why I have given up on fun?


And then I realized that my idea of fun was no fun at all. I have become discouraged with fun, I have lost hope in fun. After decades of having fun I am still stuck in the realities of my life. I got tired of the fun ending. No matter how much fun I had the night before my life was still awaiting me in the morning. By refusing fun, I have learned how to stay present in my life. This way I am not disappointed, I am not let down. Fun for me is kind of like a lover who is always making you feel bad in the end. After years and years of this maddening relationship I have broken the cycle. I have left fun for the reality of my life. I have left fun for quiet evenings at home- a relationship that I feel is more dependable and certainly more consistent. “That’s my idea of fun,” I told my wife as I tried to describe why I was no longer interested in having fun.  “Well do not forget,” my wife replied, “tomorrow night is your sister’s birthday and we are going to go out illuminate ourselves out from this funk you live in and have some damn fun!”