Eric Forbes

oh the things you’d say!
mother of my mother
in your own, inimitable way
how can I forget?

you’ve passed away and yet
you’ve left so much behind
for all of us to share:

your worldly wisdom
stable family relations
enduring and loving friends

we remember you as you were
and will always be

a mother
a baker

a wife
a business woman

a grandmother
an abundant gardener

a great-grandmother
a trusted friend

a great cook
a very funny lady

oh gentle singer of lullabies
sing to us when we need consoling
as you did and always will
our love for you remains
everlasting

While sitting today I discovered an effect I’ll call “separation amnesia” – a novel concept according to Google, with the possible exception of a movie “My Amnesia Girl”. The idea of forgetting certain positive memories after separation from a loved one is not new. Now that I have pointer for it, I can see it everywhere I look, with every past relationship I’ve had.

Once the love is gone, I have difficulty remembering any of the good times.

Once he’s gone, only pain comes into view. Nothing else. Just pain and sadness. And staggering amounts of justified anger, critique, and resentment. It’s interesting how memory is filtered according to my prevailing mood. If I’m feeling happy and secure, I can easily recall memories of other happy and secure times in my life, going back decades. But when I’m feeling depressed, such happy moments are inaccessible, walled off, not there. I have a feeling that they occurred, and can be reminded of them by reading my journal, or by looking at pictures or other reminders, but natural recollection is impossible when my mood opposes the feeling tone of the memory in question.

Example: Did M and I ever have moments of happiness? Of course we did. Lots of them.

Then why do I assume that since we’re apart, it’s best not to remember them? That I can admit that we had some good times, keeping it general and avoiding the specifics, as a way to move on to the real issue: how he left me, how he wasn’t as committed, how I should have seen it coming, etc. If I was able to recall vivid memories of us together, of me laying on top of him, suckling his nipple while he stroked his hard cock, for example, that would fill me with joy, connection, peace, and lots of other positive emotions. And that would be a good thing!

But he’s not here. We’re not together, and so EVERYTHING MUST GO! It’s a fire sale, we lost our lease, these are the final days.

Or maybe I’m more complicated that an expired lease on a failed business. Maybe I can allow – and be with – the passing of M and I as a couple and still have some good memories flash into view once in awhile. Can I relax my need to compartmentalize my emotions and feel the sensations instead? I’ve been trying hard not to think of him at all and harder still not to feel good about the time we spent together.

To spite the entire adventure.
To pretend it never happened.
To turn off my memories in that once spectacular arena.

Kill the lights and still, I can see the blazing night sky filled with distant stars. So why do I fight it?

Separation Amnesia – a psychological defense characterized by the forgetting of positive, happy memories of a loved one after physical or emotional separation.

What will I do with this newfound term? I’ve already tested the theory. I’ve seen what I’ve been trying so hard to do – forget him and us together – and it hasn’t worked out well. But it has consumed an enormous amount of energy. So from now on, I will look for positive memories of us together and allow myself to experience them again without him. Without feeling like a failure. Without any expectations. Just to access a part of my history that I’ve been trying to wall off, as a form of self-preservation and protection.

I appreciate the protective side of myself. The side that wants to protect me from harm. Now I see that I can open the gates of memory – my memory – and be safe there. There is nothing in the past that can harm me now. I’m with friends. I am in touch with my body, with love, with life. Consciousness breeds consciousness. Awareness breeds awareness. And so it goes. To the memories.

I just saw you at the hospital
the first time since last September.
You didn’t look good,
not good at all.

Hunched over in a wheelchair.
With your new boyfriend,
standing at the sterile gates of hell.

He’s the one you ran to,
burning the bridges that carried you.

And for what — Love?
I’ve done crazy things for love.
I’ve packed up and left,
only to leave again.

Nothing lasts.
Not even this connection:
so natural,
so destined,
so preordained.

It was a real tragedy.
You saw things differently.

A few weeks ago
I saw you for the first time
in a long while,
and you didn’t look good.

I wanted to help.
What else could I do?

I wanted to take you away,
I wanted to heal you forever,
to erase your pain once and for all.

Just by sitting next to you.

This heart breaks
wide open with the loss of you.

You’re so close, and yet
I’ll never see you again.

I’ll never see you
the way I used to:
tender,
trusting,
loving so completely.

Memories continue to rise,
impossible embers smoldering
under acres of ash.

This desolate land of lovers
reminds me of us.

The many faces of joy
I used to contribute to,
and now —
try hard not to remember.

Would I forget you
if somehow I could?

Would I rather be smooth
than to see these scars?

Do I care to ignore it?
Could I ever endure it?

Somehow I’ll correlate
the joy and the pain,
the bond and its severance.

A series of tender moments
plowed underground by
slow-motion glaciers.

Watching it all in real-time:
Here. Now.

I just spent 4 days at Strozzi Institute in Petaluma where I completed the Leadership in Action Level I course along with a very important body work session a few days ago. In the span of an hour, on a garden variety massage table, I came to know the power of accessing and releasing a major contraction inside my body. I felt as if the energy from my heart was making an end-run around my gut to get to my legs. The 4-day course created a space of deep learning. My body is hereby transformed.I felt compelled to write some piano music with a vocal track before going to bed.

Updated with better vocal mix and lyrics. [2011.0619]

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

I’ve been thinking a lot about this phrase. “Be the change” seems to be so different, worlds apart from “change the world” which is how I normally think of approaching life.

One step further, for me, is to replace the word change with the word man so that I would:

Be the man I want to see in the world.

Being the change is broad. How does one become the change exactly? In attempting to answer that question, I overlaid my current dilemma – how do I find a man, a partner, a soul-brother who’s walking his path, becoming all that he can be?

Be the change + Find the man = Be the man.

Simple, right? I think so. It’s radical for me to spend time investing in my own well-being first. I have felt more comfortable being there for another person, and being gay, this generally simplifies to another man, gay or straight. That part never matters. I would do most anything for a man I care about long before I’d think of doing the same for me. The idea of giving and being devoted came naturally. I never questioned putting the needs of others – as I saw them – first.

Until lately. I read his books, have lost 15 lbs on his “slow carb diet” – Tim Ferris is on to something. Perhaps there is something profound in the idea of taking care of yourself first: mind, body, sex, lifestyle. Before doing it for someone else. What’s wrong with that. Too self-centered? If I’m sensitive to criticism, I’ll do things to make people love me. They’ll love me until they resent me for doing things for them! Amazing, yet true!

When launching out on my own path, seeking my own rewards and excitement, there’s been some tension and fear. What if I do something and fail? Fail better. What if someone rejects me or my offer? Ask again. Or better, make a proposition. Making proposals instead of asking for permission is a refinement that makes my spine tingle with excitement. I’ll run experiments on myself, and let the results speak for themselves. Or try to change someone else for the better (as I see it) and watch the fireworks light up your romantic night sky. No thanks! [Let's get scattered for awhile...]

Romance is terrific, don’t get me wrong.
I’d trade these lonely nights for red wine and song.
Looking back, a sensual strand of moments,
once bound together on a string,
Now squirreling across the floor.

Hemmed-together-yet-shifting,
each time I visit them.
Mocking my observations.
Shifting, fading, dramatically flaring into view.

Was it the act of penetration,
the silky softness of your skin
the manly husk of your voice?
I’m grazing your chest, after a long night’s rest?

In the end, none of it matters.
It happened and just that fast, it’s gone.
These moments have passed.
And before long, another moment arrives.

Can you see me now? That’s the question.

//

While I’m officially not looking for a partner, a boyfriend, my long lost gay brother, in so many ways, I’ve already met several men who fit these needs, regardless of the fact that they are not bedding down with me now. Perhaps the idea of keeping a man to myself, even in a modern open relationship consumes so much energy, and the rewards for the endeavor are so minimal lately.  My heart remains open to certain things, but not to the idea of giving another man control over my destiny. No [other] man needs that much control. So I’m doing what I always do between relationships: throwing myself back into my work, discovering new ways of being, and resuming some things I put to the side when a wild stallion came to run with me for awhile.

It was a nice break. I happened so quickly, so effortlessly. I miss how easy it used to be. He taught me to slow down. And for those that know me, that’s not easy to do. There’s no doubt I loved him, love him still. And yet, I take from it the spell he cast on me, and bring it into my waking hours. I take the concept of slowing down and hold it, embody it, breathe and relax into it, and sense myself changing, becoming larger, stronger and more expansive.

To write that relationship off the books as a loss would be cruel, and inaccurate. I revise my ledger. I put it back in the assets column, and realize the futility of tallying a romance. It’s not easy. Nor should it be.

But becoming my own man is something I can do. I can use the men in the world I look up to as examples, mentors and guides to doing something better in my own body right now. Instead of hoping to be in a relationship with Channing Tatum (for example) I can sense my desire to dance and do an unsupported handstand like he does. These are simple things. Vain perhaps. But inside me, I sense a close kinship with these men, some I may never meet, and my imagination grasps something tangible and real. Not the idea of having them in a relationship, per se – that is clearly out of my immediate control. But becoming a man like the man I see in them. Taking on parts of their character, of their abilities, of their grace and demeanor, and mixing it with my own flesh and soul. Maintaining control.

Growing and becoming – the man I want to see in the world.

A blogger I follow posted this poem this morning, with Spanish thrown in for good measure:

it sounds romantic (by glitteringsootonhereyelashes)

morir:
it sounds romantic,
rose petals scattered on a bed, or floor,
before
you ravish me
or before i ravish you.

y parece me muero
with your fingers running through my hair.
i wouldn’t have it any other way.
si: eso es.

I had to brush up on some Spanish, but once I did, the piece lit up for me. “Rose petals scattered… you ravish me” coupled with the foreign sense of death and dying. Such a romantic scenario, consuming the ever-present moment until it too, changes tense and dies.

And such is romantic love. I can be consumed by it, obsessed and taken over by it. I lose myself and my center. I become horizontal, ellipted, reaching too far over to one side, compromising the core of my being. As I see this from the outside, looking in, re-presenting what I thought I experienced then, again, and sometimes again, I initially get hooked on the drug I didn’t know I was taking.

I get so used to the feeling of being wanted, loved, and needed that I lose myself in the world when this outer relating changes shape or comes to an end. So there has to be a better way. While I will always cherish romance, it can’t be my sole focus, my everything. That’s out of balance, and inherently unstable. It’s like a cam, a wheel with one side chopped off, spinning and yet throwing everything out of alignment. It vibrates. Just as romantic, sexual love vibrates through me when it’s turning.

And when it’s not? I’m wanting for the maligned vibrations. I want them more than I ever did. Once the numbness wears off, I realize how much I counted on it being there, turning, burning, shimmying and shaking itself and me. How I smiled the whole time! How I knew this was the one! And yet, I’ve been through this before, haven’t I? I’ve loved so hard it hurts and still keep loving, with idle periods in between best reserved for tending to my emotional wounds. Heartache? Screw heartache. My whole being aches when it ends, and yet, I don’t exactly die.

##

Changing tense,
not making sense.
What seemed so durable,
is now moot, unspeakable.

Just saying this makes me
tremble with fear.
My emotional idiocy,
my blind faith in you.

I crumble when I
think of you.

I used to think of you
every time I breathed.

At least, I used to.

You left me
When I least expected it.

You loved me
And I can still feel it.

When you met him
You ran to him.

A quiet time.
I’m going deeper.
In search of me.

Then again (maybe)
I’m on the lonely side of
outside, looking in.

Maybe it’s the fact that Goldman Sachs just invested $450 Million into Facebook in order to create a shady investment vehicle for some of its wealthiest clients. Perhaps it’s the stupid ads for things I’ll never buy. Or the lack of clarity about my privacy and how my messages and posts can be used by other companies. I’m not sure exactly what came over me, but a few minutes ago, I left Facebook. I deactivated my account. I’m not sure if I’m ever coming back.

Leaving Facebook was easy. I logged in, went to “Account Settings” and clicked “Deactivate Account.” In a few clicks, I was done. Well, not quite. I had to enter my password. I had to tell it that “Yes, I really want to leave my friends” some of which it featured with profile pics and ways to message them (telling me “Brad will miss you” for example). Kind of creepy. But I got the idea. Retention is important:

Hold me hostage.
Make me need you.
Did I get poked today?
If so, by whom?
Another friend request?
How do I know you?

I have a blog, and in keeping with my goal of posting more, I’m created more time to do so by inhibiting my Facebook forays. Is wasn’t like I was addicted to it. I checked Facebook every other day or less. But I think of the time leak Facebook presented, and it wasn’t worth keeping.