Lane's Back Nine – my online diary as a 55-year old

Conversation.

Empathy.

Humor.

Creativity.

The George Benson/Earl Klugh “Collaboration” album.

A warm bowl of oatmeal on a cold morning.

Great neighbors.

PAYING IT FORWARD.

I am a summer person…..there’s no doubt in my mind about that….there’s never been a documented medical case of someone breaking their back from shoveling humidity, and there’s nothing better than watching the sunset at 9pm on a warm June evening.

This is my least favorite time of the year – it’s grey, cloudy, wind chill is in the air, and it’s dark at 4:30 (4-FUCKING-30!!). Although I’m not diagnosed with seasonal depression, I’m sure I’ll feel that way when I step in a slush puddle by accident come January.

As a kid, I couldn’t wait for the holidays, as I started my Christmas list in September, and I had Halloween and Thanksgiving to look forward to before the holiday season began. The holiday season now starts before Halloween – do we really need to hear Christmas music on Sirius XM while watching the baseball playoffs, its still 75 degrees, and it’s still Daylight Savings Time? For me (and America back in the day), the holiday season starts as soon as I see Santa Claus arrive at Herald Square at the end of the Macy’s Day Parade….holiday commercials used to never air until Thanksgiving afternoon….now the season can’t start quickly enough once the Halloween costumes come off. And holy crap, there should be a law that Charlie Brown Christmas and Frosty the Snowman cannot be shown until at least December 15th!!

I get that retailers are trying to stay afloat (thank you, Amazon), but the holiday season is now almost as “monetary” as Valentine’s Day (thank you, Hallmark). Jesus received gold, frankincense and myrrh…yet there’s a feeling like we’ll let our kids down if they don’t receive an iPhone 11, Playstation 5, and a $100 gift card to Hollister.

My big pet peeve is the need for people to correct others for their holiday greetings….how has something so simple become so convoluted? It’s pretty basic – there’s more than one religious holiday in December, so saying “Happy Holidays” is not a slap in the face to Jesus…it’s a way of recognizing all religious holidays in December. (Is there an XIth Commandment that says “Thou shalt only recognize Christmas, and be judgmental towards anyone of a different religion who believes otherwise?” Did I miss a memo?)

Between the Day after Thanksgiving and January 2nd, I have four days that I especially look forward to – Jenn’s birthday, Katy’s birthday, and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (spending both with family and friends)…as a society I hope that we can eventually get back to the holidays being more about friends, family, happiness and re-connection, and not as much about Cyber Monday, Black Friday (and the idiots who camp out starting on the Monday before Thanksgiving….that’s just pathetic), and how many gifts we buy and receive…this would make the holiday season much more enjoyable across the board…..winter will still suck for me until March, but thank God for warm-weather cruises for starting off the New Year!

How soon until we turn the clocks ahead?

Send a thank you card to Walter Reed Hospital

Stop by your local VFW

Send an email to an active military person

Reach out to family of friends/relatives of those currently serving

Visit a military gravesite to pause and reflect and be thankful for their ultimate sacrifice

#THANKYOUforyourservice 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

“Will you recognize me? Call my name, or walk on by.” – Simple Minds, Don’t You Forget About Me, 1985

Nobody wants to feel excluded, whether it’s fitting in with the popular kids in school, to the dream where you’re the only person to miss the train. It’s human nature.

Part of my journey this year is the realization that I’ve always felt like the square peg – I’ve tried to fit in with groups of people with whom I had little to nothing in common. It’s been my FOMO – fear of missing out, and this can be a very demoralizing feeling.

I’ve lived in the DC area for nearly 8 years, and a lot of my friends have been friends with Jenn for many years, so they’re friends by previous association. Although I’ve tried (too hard, more often than not) to fit in, it has been very challenging at times, and it’s been easy to feel like the fifth wheel. I used to go with Jenn to a lot of her work conferences, as a lot of “our friends” go to the same conferences. In hindsight, I never would cross paths with the majority of these people, not because of how I was treated by any of them, but because we’re incredibly different. It was my fear of exclusion…there are a few people with whom I have genuine friendships, but they are Jenn’s friends first and foremost. (I still go to the warm-weather conferences in Arizona, California and Hawaii, as we make it a vacation around her conferences.)

I had a great opportunity to play music down in Deale Maryland this summer. There are some great bars down on the waterfront, and the people down there are very welcoming. As the new guy in the band who knew absolutely no one, people actually came up and started conversations, and the majority of these conversations were about the things we have in common. There were no feelings of exclusion or having to be someone or something that I’m not.

I played my CSL Metro church gig this morning. They have a part of the service where they encourage members of the congregation to stand up and share the good things they have experienced. I shared a part of my journey, and the genuine compassion was an unexpected surprise. I always feel welcome here, and I hope to get to know the folks here a lot better. One of today’s music selections was “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers…it felt incredibly appropriate!

My focus is to continue to find people with who I have more common interests, but to also treat EVERYONE with kindness…I know FOMO all too well, and I don’t want to make anyone else feel that way. #inclusion 😊❤️👍🏽

Support

Friendship

Healthy communication

Encouragement

Laughter

A fuzzy blanket

The ability to sing

TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.

“New York City….New York City Struttin’…New York City Strut!” – The 24th Street Band, 1980

This is my city…it’s where I come to get refocused and re-energized. Whether it’s going to Sylvia’s Restaurant and walking down 125th Street in Harlem and Spanish Harlem, sitting in front of the fountains at Lincoln Center, or heading down to the Village and to Brooklyn, I always feel at peace when I’m here.

During my separation and eventual divorce from Michal, I spent a lot of Saturdays here, for no other reason but to find some peace of mind. I have a lot of great memories from all of my visits, including spontaneously hanging out and having lunch at the Hello Deli with Tom Wopat from The Dukes of Hazzard, sneaking into ensemble rehearsals at Juilliard, listening to fantastic street musicians in Central Park, and of course, my lifelong dream of meeting Kathie Lee Gifford!

Even though it’s cold and windy today, there’s still something special about being here…and sometimes the phrase “Only in New York” makes perfect sense!

I haven’t watched a single New York Giants game this year….the incompetency from ownership all the way down to the players is beyond pathetic.

I’ve been a fan for 45 years…this is the worst it’s been since the mid-to-late ‘70’s…this team has no sense of direction, and they are truly unwatchable.

Poetic justice would be tomorrow’s Giants/Jets game ending as a 3-3 tie. #TheStuporBowl #shittyfootball #illwatchtheXFLinstead🤬🏈

I had an incredible moment of clarity with my therapist this week. As we were discussing my issues in how I process and work through my mistakes, she helped me to wrap my brain around something that I’ve always known as factual, but I have never been able to accept about myself.

When it comes to our mistakes, there are three types of reactions: Guilt, Shame and Confusion. I have known this, but I’ve always struggled to differentiate between these, feeling two or all three simultaneously more often than not.

As a 9 year-old, I was a victim of sexual abuse. I never told anyone about this until about 10 years ago – because my 9-year-old brain could not comprehend what had truly happened to me, I felt all three of these feelings, and have always thought that this was the “normal” way that I should have felt and should feel when I have wronged someone or felt wronged by someone.

In junior high, I had an incident for which I was teased immensely, and absolutely no one had any idea of how it had a similar correlation to my abuse experience. From that point all the way through my adult life, I’d always felt flawed, and that I was not as good or worthy of the people around me. It impacted my self esteem, my grades, and my ability to make friendships. My temper manifested itself as sarcasm, blatant immaturity, and a constant feeling that I had to prove myself.

I consider my 20’s as my “total fuckup” decade, as my inability and confusion about guilt versus shame only added more gas to the fire, causing me to make even bigger mistakes, where I truly hurt people, and then it just became a vicious cycle. There was one girl (for sake of anonymity, I’ll just call her Francesa) for whom I had a serious crush, and although she was always kind to me, my feelings of not being good enough for her triggered many decisions that did not warrant good judgment. The mistakes I made only made me feel more guilt and shame, which triggered the desire to try and prove to her that she was wrong…..which led to more mistakes, and the cycle just kept going around and around. Francesca did not deserve that, and for the last 25 years, I’ve felt not just the guilt, but the shame (and the inability to forgive myself) for the pain I caused her.

In my head, my mistakes have always “played on a loop” because I remember the majority of these in great detail. As easy as it is to say there’s a difference between guilt (acknowledging a mistake, asking for forgiveness, then forgiving yourself) and shame (the inability to forgive yourself, even if forgiven by others), I still struggle to feel the difference.

I’m not writing this to receive sympathy from anyone. I’m writing this because after nearly 50 years of keeping this all bottled up inside and feeling a level of shame that is off the charts, I can’t do it anymore. As much as there’s a part of me that wishes that I could apologize to everyone that I’ve hurt for many years, the only thing I can do is to finally forgive myself and move forward. #ImWorthy 😊

What I learned from my Facebook-one-day-return-and-leave experience from yesterday…..

1. It was nice to reconnect with people, but I still prefer not being on there, at least not on a regular basis;
2. I’m glad that the blog now has a bigger audience;
3. Zuckerberg still gets the last laugh, as I have to keep the account open to communicate the blog.

I’m sure I’ll reach out to people again on FB at some point….I’m a work in progress (hell, we all are works in progress!), and I like having my own little space to write when I want to write, and not feel like its my job for people to feel entertained by what I post on FB. Although I’m flattered that people have ‘lived vicariously’ through me, if they saw how happily boring my life has become, especially during the week (go to the gym, go to work, come home, put on sweats, watch Wheel of Fortune Jeopardy and re-runs on TV Land), I’m sure they’d think differently.

Be well in all ways.

Thank you, Jaco.

One of the things that drives me absolutely fucking crazy…I’m a passionate musician…there’s a big difference between this and being a show off or an attention whore.

During my online-free summer, I’ve been truly blessed to play with the Ryan Forrester Band. This is truly all about the music – I say this because it has been such a joy to play as a sideman, and be practically anonymous…it’s been refreshing to have people tell me that they enjoy the music we make because they can see the passion we have for the music, and the fun we have making the music.

So here are my “three views of this secret”:

1. Find pure joy in the things you truly love…when I sing and play music, nothing else matters.

2. The smaller the audience, the better….I’d rather play for five people who can appreciate my joy and passion for performing instead of a few hundred people who could give a rat’s ass.

3. Just keep swimming….one of the pure joys of being 50 – I’m not everyone’s cup of tea when I perform…for those whom I’m not, that’s OK; for those that genuinely support me, you have my genuine gratitude.

Why did I thank Jaco Pastorius at the beginning of this post? One of his best quotes was “It ain’t showing off if you can back it up.” To me, it goes one step further….”it’s not bragging, showing off, or craving attention…it’s about having fun doing what you love, and thats ALL THAT MATTERS.”

L Train, 11/6/2019