Burden of Proof, Gift of Forgiveness

I just got home from the health club. I had gone with the singular purpose of sitting in the steam room in alternating periods with the hot-tub, in an effort to purge myself of the every last trace of this flu that has been working me over for a few days. I got there at 7pm, and the club closes at 8pm on Sundays, so I’m thinking I have a solid hour to soak and steam, rinse and repeat! I get in there, the steam is nice and thick, and life is good. About three minutes into my bliss, this guy comes walking in with a spray bottle in his hand – for anyone not accustomed to steam-rooms, there is typically available, a spray bottle of eucalyptus oil that gets sprayed into the steam emitter to vapor the air with a pleasant and soothing menthol.

This guy thinks it is eucalyptus in the spray bottle, and I can see by the bright yellow color that is probably Zep commercial cleaning solution (I’m a handyman…I know this kind of stuff.) Before I can say anything, he unscrews the spray-top, and dumps the entire bottle of stuff into the steam emitter, which would be a bit of an overdose of eucalyptus, even if it was in fact. Within about a minute, the place is gagging me with the smell of cleaner. He is sitting silent and still, apparently comfortable, with his eyes closed and oblivious to what peril he has just unleashed. I’m like, “Dude, that is cleaning solution – we gotta get outta here and let this place air out!” The guy tells me he got it from the “cabinet where they keep the stuff,” as I am exiting with my towel over my mouth.

It sucks when we press the wrong button, and the shit hits the fan - When we as men, “drop the ball,” or “miss the mark,” or “fail to deliver the goods.” Shall I continue? There are plenty of tired metaphors to describe the many ways that we can botch things up.  You know the cliché – “everybody makes mistakes.” It is a tough row to hoe, to feel that feeling in our gut that says “I don’t want anyone to know what I just did” and to deal with it in a healthy way. Yikes. I have a particular defensiveness that I have had to work and practice with my entire life, a specific sensitivity around accusation and blame.

I mentioned in my first installment of this blog that I was accused of murder when I was 6 years old. That is the kind of statement that begs a bit of explanation is it not? I’m more than happy to blow the suspense and reveal that obviously I was not guilty. I was in 1^st grade, and there was a girl in my class named Harriet Riley – a chubby, funny, vivacious black girl that I used to play tetherball with during recess. She used to kick my ass in tetherball. She lived around the block from me, and I had a couple of friends up the street – two brothers named Jerry & Kevin – and we used to play sometimes after school. They were kind of toughies, and it was clear that, while we could have a nice time, I never felt like getting too deeply chummy with them, because their home was not at all warm and welcoming. It is funny how we know this stuff even when we are young. I clearly remember knowing that.

See, I clearly remember feeling different from the kids that did not have moms waiting for them at home. I did, and it felt like home, and I felt a bit less like a “toughie,” and a bit more like just a goofy kid. I think that Kevin & Jerry were already loosing their ability to feel like goofy kids. They were becoming toughies.  

Well, one day Harriet disappeared. She simply never made it home from school. Of course, after a couple of days, it was all over the school, it was on the news, and so on. I was not really into watching the news much at that age, but my mom called me to the TV when that story came on, and it scared me to see Harriet’s mom on the screen crying. It was not more than a day or so more before they found her body in a dumpster in the neighborhood. She had been found with a plastic bag over her head and signs of trauma around wrists and ankles. Everyone in my class was pretty freaked out. I was in the same 1^st grade class as Harriett. I was especially freaked out the next day, when a couple of guys from the FBI came and fetched me out of an assembly that we were having for Abraham Lincoln’s approaching birthday. I didn’t know what the FBI was when I was 6, but I knew it was bad that two tall guys in black suits & ties wanted to talk to me behind closed doors – I started crying immediately, and didn’t stop the entire time I was in their presence. Even once my mom and dad arrived at the school to provide my alibi and be at my side, I did not stop crying. I think I even peed’ my pants.

The agents had received a hot tip from my pals Jerry & Kevin that placed me as the last person seen with Harriet Riley. These kids told the cops that they had watched from their front yard after school, as Harriet and I strolled across Watt Avenue (a busy four-lane thoroughfare) to grab a burger at Lou’s Burgers one day after school. Now, I was pretty independent in 1^st grade; I used to dress myself in the morning, tie my shoes, make my own bed – heck, I could even fix a pretty mean PB&J. But, even though you could see Lou’s Burgers from my front yard – it was right over yonder, just across the street – energetically it was like going to the mall or something.

The FBI had decided to interview me a 2^nd time – which is a good thing when you are trying to get a job, but doesn’t feel very good at all when you are being asked about a kid’s body in a dumpster.  They set up big spotlights and a white dropscreen in our livingroom, so that they could take a few mugshots for my file. They didn’t ask me to smile. Thankfully, it only took the one more encounter with me and my parents, and a few more of my tears to convince them that I didn’t really have it in me to wander on over to Lou’s Burgers with a friend for dinner, and then you know…kill said friend and leave them in a dumpster.

Actually, by then Jerry and Kevin had caved in and confessed the truth of what had taken place. Harriet had been over at their house playing after school, as she often was. They were playing cops and robbers – and Jerry & Kevin were the cops. They had tied Harriet up to the tree in the front yard, and then placed a bag over her head. When she suffocated, the kids went and got their dad, who was home most of the time because he had recently been released from prison. Do you see where this is going? Well, he decided that the best solution was to dispose of the body. In a dumpster. Around the block from his house. I know. It’s hard to imagine.

When it was all said and done, the father went back to prison, the mother of Jerry & Kevin had come unhinged and Child Protective Services was racking up visits to the house. Before long, the kids were placed into foster-care.

Now those guys – Jerry & Kevin – they really made a mistake. The bag over Harriet’s head – that was a mistake. For whatever reason, they didn’t know the potential consequences of their game. That is what I was told, and I believe it. Back in 1973, there were no warning labels on plastic bags, just like there were no warning labels on hot cups of coffee, or cigarette packs, or commercial cleaning solution. We just kind of needed to know that stuff was dangerous. I can say this; my mom pretty much hammered into my head the potentially fatal hazard of any plastic bag that entered our household. Not that I needed any reminders.

I have learned that it is my shadow of accountability to feel and act defensive, and likewise, it is also my shadow of forgiveness, to harbor blame and hatred. This applies to the plentiful ways that I can turn blame outward, and it also applies to the way I carry the message within. Usually, if we are quick to blame, it is because we have some self-forgiveness that we need to do.

I have wondered if Jerry & Kevin have ever felt sensitive to accusation themselves, defensive or secretive about their mistakes like me. It is clear that I have remained connected to them on some subtle energetic level, as a result of the experience I had with the FBI, and that of being wrongly fingered by Jerry & Kevin. Their father told them to lie, and to falsely implicate me in the scenario involving Harriett. How would that feel to be 6 years old, and have my father to force me into that?   

It was such a tragic rippling outward from a fairly innocent center; three kids playing in the front yard. I have often wondered what life has been like for those two, having set into motion with a thoughtless mistake born of play, a whole series of events including the death of someone and the devastation of a family, and of course the destruction of their own home life and family. Maybe their play was modeling some hostile things they had been exposed to. Maybe their home life was not that great to begin with, and this whole situation was caused by crappy parenting anyway – it doesn’t matter – it probably still felt like home. Maybe the two brothers got placed in a home that was more nurturing and loving than that which they been born into. It I wonder if they have understood how their childhood ignorance offsets their burden of guilt.

Has any of this weighed on them, or have they completed blocked the experience out of consciousness? I won’t ever know, but I do hope they have embraced themselves with some form of self-forgiveness.

A Bigger Cage - Part Two

One thing I am discovering as I step out onto this path (blogging,) is that my intention to "set up" my premise for the reader, is potentially over-intellectual. It is at least indulgent, possibly born of insecurity, but also possibly very helpful to the reader ( He laughs out loud.) Either way, I aspire to speak from the heart, about what I know and what I feel, as I am making lists in my head like a diligent Buddhist. In terms of validating the premise of this blog…They say the chase is better than the catch, right?

This first installment - A Bigger Cage - is really feeling like this is all about identities. In preparing to expand that as an idea, what quickly comes forward for me is a three-pronged set of questions, and possibly dilemmas; that of gender roles, that of soulful living, and that of legitimacy.

Clearly the last four decades have ushered in a period of deep revision for gender roles, coupling a changing career landscape for both men and women. With new demands, as well as new possibilities at home, in relationship with lover, family, and community, this new cultural dynamic is a combination of unfamiliar freedoms and responsibilities – Forcing some changes in our understanding of basic ideas like success and legitimacy, fulfillment, and self-expression. The degree to which we choose to engage these dilemmas, and allow our truest expression of self, is the extent to which we are living soulfully.

With regard to identities, it is just so damn easy to bump into them. They are inescapable, and on some level, necessary it seems like. They surround us and demand our emotional energy - box us in, and then require constant revision like some kind of pugnacious imaginary friend. But they also allow us to formulate a coherent response to our circumstances and experiences, without reinventing the wheel every time. But alas, subscription to these identities can be cumbersome, because then the identity we take on is potentially inaccurate or inadequate. For example, a creative barrier for me in terms of writing this blog, is the fact that I have no "credentials." I am not a Reverend, or a psychologist, or even a movie star that has been through rehab.

However, I do know myself well, and I know what a cage looks like. Right now, that is good enough for me.

Maybe we all feel like we are living in a cage? Men and women – like that couple in the film “Revolutionary Road.” Some in my current social circle exist in that realm, and some do not. It's so subtle that it creeps up on even the most awakened of us, and subtlety invites an ongoing practice of gradual awakening. The image of a bigger cage is really an invitation and a manifesto. We can ask our lives for a bigger cage. Maybe we need to demand a bigger cage, or even build it without asking. Don't take out any permits, or call your wives for permission. We have to start somewhere.

I credit Men's work with helping me to make the cage bigger, by teaching me that I am responsible for the condition of my cage, and that my cage is a reflection of what is going on side of me. My cage can be exactly what I want it to be. I also credit men's work with teaching me how to nurture sincere, substantial, and satisfying friendships with other men.

I have been a practicing Buddhist for some years. It's safe to say I'm something of a feminist, and by extension, a pacifist really. Where the quest for legitimacy is concerned, pacifism definitely qualifies as nonconformist, and in fact, true pacifism is a pretty radical proposition. The truth is that values like pacifism are regularly challenged in American culture, and set aside rather quickly as the situation warrants.

I had a Christian friend back when I was one myself – and he used to say that Jesus was a pretty radical fellow for his time. Clearly that is the case, and it gets back to what I mentioned in part one about how the true visionaries historically have bucked the system and dispensed with their need for legitimacy. Especially since our culture does not widely endorse the idea of pacifism. If one is seeking legitimacy in that realm, well then brother, one has got some work cut out. Survival is a form of seeking legitimacy, I would argue. And survival, in all of it’s many forms, is hard-wired.

When I was a kid, some friends and I were bored on a Friday night - it was springtime, and there were bugs everywhere. We had found a black widow in the garage, and then a praying mantis earlier out in the yard. We decided to have our own version of UFC cage fighting with these critters. We placed them both in the same jar, and began ferociously cheering and yelling in anticipation of a nice juicy brawl, insect-style. But the little fellers didn't fight right off - they just sat there looking at each other. finally one of us began to shake the jar in frustration, and poke them each with a stick. What a strange experience for a bug to have? To be placed into this desperate and surreal situation. Do bugs experience surreal?

Anyway, they finally had no choice but to defend themselves and their "honor" or something. Maybe they just became so agitated that their biological fear-responses kicked in. Survival is hard-wired. Well, it was not long before the praying mantis was tearing those little black legs out of the black widow's body like they were little strips of bacon. It was a crushing victory, and awesome to watch, like something on PBS. But it was short-lived. One of my friends - whose garage we were standing in - had grown rather partial to the black widow, and decided that the grand prize for mantis winning this match was going to be DEATH. He grabbed his dad's little propane torch, fired it up, and submerged the blue orange flame into the jar, live-roasting the praying mantis in just a few seconds, but continuing for a minute or two, just to be sure. There was cheering and yelling by all of us boys - none older than 12 at that time. The seeds of our crude masculinity had taken purchase in fertile soil.

There is a difference between the masculine that feels compelled to defend his honor, and the masculine that recognizes the power of functioning from a higher place - By nurturing a solution, offering a strong repose in the face of confrontation, and choosing to diffuse that confrontation with the love of true presence. Bugs would probably call that bullshit, although those bugs were trying in the beginning - not that they were both men - who knows? I recall that the black widow was probably female, because the males usually have yellow and red bands and spots on their backs, and there were none. Who knows about the praying mantis. How could I remember?

And who knows about honor? What a strong projection that is, to imagine that there would be some vulnerable ego for a spider or beautiful insect, to retain one's sense of legitimate self. The John Wayne spider meets the Clint Eastwood praying mantis. Maybe so. This primitive impulse downloaded into our software via both nature and nurture, but mostly nurture - which really means our socialization. Just a footnote that I don't think honor is the same thing as integrity - Honor is an archetype.

The scary part is that we boys made them fight, because we wanted to see a fight. Sure, in nature's wild kingdom, they probably would eat each other for lunch anyway...toot sweet. The point is that we injected confrontation into the situation, and indeed, reveled in it. We embraced the competition, and screamed for the gooey insect blood to be shed.

I am convinced that this experience for me was part of an unconscious conflict, born of rejecting the masculine model that I was given by my culture, and at the same time hanging onto it for lack of something more genuine. There is no pointing fingers here - I bought into the impulse. I took the bait and swam with the hook in my mouth.

Some of us grow up knowing what a hook smells like, and the truth of who we are. Some of us don't.

At some point, 20 years later, I was walking the earth with my crooked-headed, softened gaze, trying so hard to be Mr. New-Age Nice Guy, and wondering why all the women wanted from me was friendship. I had over-corrected, and the quest for legitimacy was well under way. I had embraced the reluctant masculinity...not the feminine, but this kind of half-baked trojan-horse masculinity, trying to "sneak inside the compound" by seducing the women in my life with sweet, poetic sensitivity. I espoused the evils of football and my love of pretty things, and would have claimed that my farts smelled like daffodils in order to get laid, if not for the contrary evidence.

In my folly, I advocated against the masculine – against the classic masculine that was given to me. I don’t feel like I was wrong to reject the “John Wayne” version of manhood, but I understand now that it was kind of silly to create an identity out my opposition to it. But that is what we do sometimes.

And it’s kind of like the fear of creating. It's always about something else.

What is most important is that all of our experiences shape who we are today, and that is powerful shit if we are willing to own it. My intention is to shine my light, and brighten the corners with some inquiry and exploration.

A Bigger Cage - Part One

This is my first blog entry. Ever. Kudos for finding me. My name is Michael Feliciano.

I am Mr. American Man, and this is my bigger cage. I am committing with this blog, to share the unfolding story of my quest for legitimacy. I am also committing to fully expose my soft white underbelly. This is intimacy, the tight camera shot on my spaghetti-stained t-shirt…this is the truth. This is also a special venue for the female readers...a chance to grab a sneak peak inside the head of someone similar to the man they are trying to love.

I am Mr. American Man, and I know what I want...kind of. I want a bigger cage.

Many men are claiming a bigger cage these days – at least the courageous ones. It’s part of becoming truly alive I believe. Gender roles are changing, careers are being redefined, and life-aspirations are being realigned with the heart-based wisdom that invites us to live our deepest purpose. The idea of legitimacy is being challenged, refined, or disposed of, by those who have the courage. That is like breaking out of the cage. The question then becomes obvious - Is that something we really want to do? Do we want to dispense with the cage entirely? Does some part of us rely on the safety of a cage?

I know I need a bigger cage than most, and uh…come to find out, it's my cage for the choosing.

I was talking with a colleague the other day about this concept, and he quickly pointed out that most of the historical figures that we can name for their achievements and contributions to society, were indeed, turning away from the “legitimacy” of their time.

The concept of legitimacy may bleed into other threads of concern. It may become apparent at times that this blog is more about gender, and class, and culture. My intention is to investigate these topics with careful regard to how they shape my ability to show up in my life - here, now - with full authenticity. I will be drawing upon significant life events in support of my various points about life as an American Man. In this context, my life fleshes out like some twisted season of Seinfeld or something. I was wrongly accused of murder when I was 6 years old, and ever since then, I think maybe I have been a bit defensive. More on this later, except to state that this event in my life is an extremely brief but oddly significant one. It stands out for me symbolically, as a jumping of point. The beginning of me making my case – Trying to prove something like my worthiness to the world. I have lived as something of a reluctant contrarian, meandering through relationships and careers as I gradually own more and more of my power.

As I write this blog, I will reveal how truly bad I have been at “staying on schedule” with all of the fundamental milestones of American manhood – I have no wife, no children, no house in the suburbs, and no 401K. Boo Hoo, I say with joyful tongue in check, but only after severl hundred hours of therapy, and even more hours exploring my inner-world, developing my spiritual world, and cultivating my community of similar souls.

I need to promptly dismiss the idea of Mr. American Man as this grandiose landscape out of which I am teasing the story of a man and his struggle. That would be allot of Hollywood bullshit. I am writing to untangle the mess of ideas, habits, impulses, perceptions, and emotions that have come to shape my life for better, and for worse. I am writing to expose the faulty muse. There is inspiration and commonality in that, I bet.

The premise is that of my quest for legitimacy. In fact, the premise is that of every American Male's quest for legitimacy. I am not sure there is such a thing as true legitimacy for us as men and women, or what that would mean, or whether it is worth pursuing in dialog or in action. I know that most of us (both men and women) pursue it on some subtle level – in our various clever and conditioned, socially ordained ways.

There will be occasional ironic themes that arise. One irony that I identified immediately is that I am not Caucasian, but rather, Hispanic. My ethnicity is only ironic because the idea of a blog titled "Mr. American Man" somehow presumes - at least in my mind - someone Caucasian - And so my ethnicity might be a surprising twist. Then again, who knows? It might not. I am Puerto Rican, but I grew up with white culture, and completely rejected my Hispanic culture. This was not a well-informed decision, but more of a choice by default. I have no judgment either way about this, but I recognize the absence of a clear cut ethnic identity - Something that historically has provided a definitive identity for so many American men.

I was born in 1968, in New York City, to parents having both immigrated from Puerto Rico. And even though both of my parents spoke Spanish as a first language, they taught me only English. At the age of 5, we moved from the Puerto Rican barrio where two of my aunts lived across the hallway, and three marriages happened between the families of my mother and father, to the suburbs of Northern California, where I grew up as a relatively poor, depressed, bored, and under-achieving "white kid." I developed a deep love for vandalism, shoplifting, and substance-abuse. I also clung to Rock & Roll like a life-preserver and discovered my soul in creativity.

And so the “Mr. American Man” seeds were planted, watered, and fed with the same sense of limitation, the same sick and dying, hollow American dream that fueled my father's ambitions and frustrations. He was seeking legitimacy also - doubling down for his little piece of apple pie.

In an era that has featured so much anti-immigrant sentiment, I have to fully acknowledge my roots. In a zeitgeist of globalization that has spread Western culture like an invasive plant species through nations around the planet, I find myself reflecting more on the elements of my ethnicity that have been flushed away.

Like I said, I don’t think about race much. I think about culture even more. Even more than that, I think about the question of what it means to be a man today - right now, in America. And even more than that, I think about what the fuck I am going to do with the rest of my life.

OK - forget what I said before - That is really what this is about. I have to acknowledge the economic moment in which this blog is occurring. It is truly changing everything. Indeed, in a moment when America is getting to know it's first black President, the idea that there is a quest for legitimacy to be shared by all American men...this feels true to me on many levels.