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A Date With Beautiful Sorrow
Hi All ~
Your recent conversations have been so compelling and thought provoking. I haven't joined in for fear of bringing everyone down...but I find myself needing your beauty today. Today is my Dad's birthday. He would have been 72 had he been able to hang on long enough to create a new Tribe. More than ANYTHING, I wish I was sitting with him, sharing a spread of amazing vegetarian food and drinking tons of wine and laughing about the old premie days...
Five months ago, my mother decided to move from our beautiful Colorado Mountains to the Mystical Desert of Nevada...and because I've made such a mess of my own life I had no choice but to come with her. On one hand, I'm more than happy to do so. Her whole life was spent living for me, and now it's HER time, this is her retirement and I know the only reason I'm on this planet is to make sure her final decades are amazing. On the other hand, I am now suddenly without tribe. We originally thought this move would happen in a year or so, but once the thought was put out there it happened in two months...just like that I lost everything that comforts me and found myself having to adopt her tribe...the baby boomers that I'm now surrounded by...lucky for me, I adore the boomers  ! And lucky for me, I found you. You guys are the only ones I can share this stuff with today...
Recently, the conversation was about photos of the guru, and how they've progressed over the years. I found myself wondering which photo my Dad was looking at when he took his life. It was 1981, so he had to have been young...probably in some god like way...but the sad truth is, is that it doesn't really matter. It could be the most beautiful picture anyone's ever seen, and now it's the most horrifying one because it's covered in my dad's blood... I have yet to see a picture of the guru that doesn't give me a guttural reaction of sickness...they're all covered in blood to me.
But what remains beautiful to me, is my Dad. He is SO forgiven...so missed. I have the only picture that exists of him smiling...(he looks so serious and troubled in all the rest) and I want to share it with you all. It's 1974, my mom and I are just a few months away from leaving the guru...I was 4 1/2 years old.
Happy Birthday Daddy
Thank you thank you thank you...EPO! Love, Genny
Well...I tried to attach the pic but am apparently not smart enough to figure it out, so, just the txt 
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Genny, My love to you, and to your mother and father. I know what you are feeling all too well. I hope you find your tribe and a new set of friends there in Nevada.
Many hugs, Marianne
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Thanks Marianne, so much...working on it, the folks here though not my own are just lovely. Once I get used to the god awful heat I think I may survive
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You are welcome, Genny. You are not so far away from San Francisco now - closer than the Rockies! If you end up coming this way, we could meet for coffee or something. Your post made me reflect a lot about my own parents yesterday.
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Now my wheels are spinning Marianne...that would be so cool, and probably quite doable! I'll keep it in mind as something to shoot for. Hope your thoughts of parents are good for you...love G
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Hi Genny. You've got my email. If you start thinking about doing this, email me and we can discuss. I'm really busy with work - always - but I'd be really happy to meet you in person and spend some time together. I'd love to hear about your move and how things are going.
Marianne
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Hi Genny - hope the move works out. Regarding the picture, you need to put it in the 'attachment' field.All the best, John
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Thanks J...I'll keep trying, it might be my device...I had no trouble posting a pic of an owl last winter from the same iPad so idk...keep getting an error message, but it's not at all unusual for my electronics to do weird things!
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When I link anything in the attachment field I have to erase one of the "http://" as one of them is already there.
A beautiful post Genny , so sorry about your father....wishing you and your Mum much happiness in your new home.
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I'll have time later to try again ...big hug
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Hi Genny, thank you for sharing your dad's anniversary with us. And for liking us baby boomers!
hope you get your pic up. xox Lesley
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Yeah, I really want you guys to see him, I'll keep trying...you are awesome Lesley, I admire your freedom of spirit...and here's to the beautiful boomers...you changed the way we do everything and we owe you a debt of gratitude!
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"I haven't joined in for fear of bringing everyone down..." Fat chance!! -- Never. "...but I find myself needing your beauty today." My wish is for you is to drown in all the beauty that you are and that you deserve. "...the only reason I'm on this planet is to make sure her final decades are amazing." Justification and support for my humble, factual assessment of all the beauty that should be poured on you, but please don't short change yourself on the amazing front. Ditto what everyone above said! As for feeling isolated from your tribe... eegh! That's a tough one. Here's all my support -- you will make it!
Modified by lakeshore at Tue, Aug 30, 2016, 20:04:43
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Biggest hug ever! I can always count on you Bob for cleansing tears of gratitude and heart smiles...you're the best and I really mean that
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Nothing to do with guru, dad, or suicide...just coping with loneliness...a lil piece I wrote...thanks again Bob for your beautiful words...G
Antidote
When in Rome, do as the Romans do St. Ambrose
Elvis or The Beatles...which one are you? There's a whole theory of personality based on which of these super star entities you prefer. Just ask Mia from Pulp Fiction...you may like both...or neither...you probably know most of the songs from both...but you definitely like one more than the other...you're either an Elvis person or a Beatles person...which one are you?
My mother is a Beatle. If you've ever seen footage of their infamous 1964 Red Rocks concert in Colorado...by the way, best place EVER to see a concert...you've seen my mom. She was one of those crazy, crying, screaming, passing out, throwing shoes girls, who thought they just might die and go to heaven that night. Her BFF at the time (my aunt Karen) was a few years older, her current BFF (my aunt Mike) is too, and they are both Elvis people. So last night when the Elvis impersonator contest finals came to our small town (that has three huge casinos), my mother had no desire to go...Mike could barely contain her school girl excitement and invited me to go with her. Really, I'm not either...Elvis or Beatles...they're both the same to me, great icons of the recent past. I used to watch Elvis movie marathons in my childhood summers and I know most of his songs, he's super handsome and looks a lot like my dad, and you can't deny the massive influence he had on an entire generation. I remember the day he died and how devastated people were...I'm no fanatic, but I like him just fine. But, if I HAVE to pick one based on Mia's mandate, I'd have to stick with Mom and choose The Beatles. When I heard the Millennial on TMZ say that The Beatles are irrelevant I about shit! (No, context didn't help). I can't believe they didn't fire her right on the spot. I hope someone at the very least gave her a proper education on the matter and showed her the reality of their influence. She probably had no clue that a good portion of her own play list has more than a few Beatle references and covers. If by "irrelevant" she meant "most covered band ever", then yeah, The Beatles are irrelevant.
Anyway, the Elvis impersonator contest was definitely a "when in Rome" situation. It's one thing to cover your favorite music, another thing entirely to cover their whole being. I've always kinda rolled my eyes at the impersonators...a silly Vegas novelty at best, totally ridiculous and sort of annoying at worst. If I'd have been home in Denver and the invite came, I'd probably have declined. Having roughly a million other choices of good music to go see, well...I'd have passed on ridiculous Elvis...thanks anyway. But here I am, completely isolated from friends and Denver or anything familiar...I'm practically in Vegas with nothing better to do and an open mind and an utterly broken heart. The Pulse shootings in Orlando just happened last week, I haven't heard from anyone I love save for two souls in the almost three months since I was displaced and my loneliness really hurts...the only antidote is a night of crazy, silly, wildly fantastical and freedom to be as ridiculous as possible entertainment. It was one of the best things I ever did.
I let the empath in me take over, and she soaked up all the joy in the room full of 70 year old 15 years olds. All the joy of the 12 Elvis finalists who truly love him, what they do, and their fans. All the joy of the adorable MC who was a showgirl and sang a song she wrote as we waited for the winner announcement ~ PMS Blues ~ it was fucking hilarious and Mike and I were cracking up, sure she wrote the song for ME! The youngest contestant was 20 years old...he did '50's Elvis in the black and white suit. The oldest was the one who spotted me in the casino restaurant where we had dinner and came over to chat with us and make sure we were going to the show. He was '70's Elvis, in his white fringed and beaded leather suit, all the jewelry and glamour you'd expect from the real Elvis...and if you were one of those people, you'd suspect that he was...hmmmmm. We found out later as they announced the winner, that he was from our little town of Mesquite, and that he was 81 years old, born the same year and for a moment I thought, 'maybe...just maybe...' He was adorable, it was a great time and I'm sorry that I ever judged them...silly silly men...bring so much joy.
The other antidote for my desert blues was found in a movie theatre. Our tiny town has two large movie places and I always thought it was a bit much. The two times I'd been before when we vacationed here before moving, we were the only ones there...a huge theatre all to ourselves. We saw no reason to go to our movie any more than a few minutes early...I had no idea how many young families there are here in our new desert home. I found out when "Finding Dory" came to town. If you find yourself with a case of the blues, go see a kid movie with all the town's kiddos. No way will your heart not melt. Now, the theatre had probably never experienced anything like it and they were totally unprepared for the massive crowd that descended their normally peaceful movieplex...they did their best I'm sure, but it was a fiasco. It was a sold out show, and they had to assign seating which of course no one stuck to...families were split apart, no one was where they were supposed to be, and they actually had to pause the movie for about 5 minutes while they figured it all out. I ended up taking on the role of surrogate mom for two sweet little sisters, probably about 7 and 10 years old...their other siblings were younger and stayed with actual mom, and the girls were happy to sit with me.
The older one was next to me and the younger one was next to her. They were both so brave to be away from their mom, and they trusted me completely with their excitement at the 3D visuals, their comments and questions about the movie, and the bloody nose. The younger one had a little nose bleed during the previews. Big sister helped her at first, but she became consumed with the pre show mini movie about a baby bird, and forgot about her little sister. I glanced over and she was just sitting there holding a huge wad of movie napkins under her little nose, waiting for someone to tell her what to do. I was overly concerned and preparing for the worst, ready to find mom in the sea of people...only because I was plagued with horrifying bloody noses until I got to my 30's. I asked how she was, she said, "I don't know", and I just melted. I told her to check the napkins and asked, "a little or a lot"? I didn't see any blood, she said it was just a little and we decided together that she was fine and ready to enjoy the show. The movie short ended, "Finding Dory" started and all was well. Until the big sister leaned over and asked, "How do animals have their babies"?
It took every ounce of energy I had to contain the raucous laughter happening inside of me and I'm just thinking, 'oh shit, oh shit...what do I say to this child'? I wasn't at all prepared for this kind of surrogacy and I was grateful for the 3D glasses that hid the strange combination of terror and laughter in my eyes. I didn't want her to pick up on the fact that the question was loaded or one generally reserved for mom...or someone she actually knows...it was so sweet and innocent. Thinking of the short and the feature, I leaned over and whispered, "birds and fish both lay eggs", and she nonchalantly said, "cool" and we settled into the movie. Not sure how long it took for my belly to stop shaking...god she was cute! At one point she asked me if I knew that Dori was Ellen Degeneres, we agreed on how cool she was, and then she said that I looked like I had been on her show...like a movie star. I melted again and I can't believe I didn't squeeze her to death. It was the summer dress and hair scarf and glasses I had on...if that doesn't chip away at the blues I don't know what would.
We all cheered at the end of the sweet tale and I left the theatre with a huge smile on my heart. It was 10:30pm and we walked outside to a cool 100*...compared to the 119* we peaked at a few hours earlier it wasn't so bad. Oh God...I could've gone my whole life happy not knowing what anything above 101* felt like...ugh...just keep swimming...just keep swimming.
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It's 5:30 a.m.... I've had trouble sleeping lately -- been up since 4:00. Perhaps due to ageing combined with being immersed in a hugely complex project at my part time job. So I had a chance to read your post slowly. Thank you for taking me along on such an uplifting adventure! All beautiful, poignant and positive... perfectly capturing the life stolen from me while I was in a cult. The little things, the thoroughly enjoyable subtleties that help keep me grounded. When we moved from Southern Connecticut where I worked in Times Square to a small town in Maine, I was enamored by those small things. Then the novelty of it all wore off and I found myself back in a bit of a rut -- ran into enough rotten people to tarnish it. Then my eyes opened up again with a new found genuine appreciation for so many of those small, sublte gems. A new post cult life built in a much better place and especially with a much better frame of mind, the best of it all being my new found tribe mates! I hope you find your new world to be like that: therapeutic, healing and satisfying... or simply without loneliness or isolation. PS, Although I love them both, I'm neither Elvis or Beatles -- nostalgia makes me mildly nauseous, no matter how great the music is/was. I'm embarrassed to admit to much of what I listen to, or at least pay attention to. Suffice it to say that it helps keep me young at heart!
Modified by lakeshore at Thu, Sep 01, 2016, 04:55:45
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Such a sad and beautiful post. I hope we do get to see the photo but so touching to read your feelings. Thank you Genny for sharing this with us.
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I feel the love Susan...thanks so much and it goes right back to all of you!
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