Giving-Making People Happy

So today I am deciding to be silent because I can feel my voice needs it as does my soul. I so love to please people. But instead of beating myself up about it I am going to explore the love part of it. I know all the rest, the part about me needing to please other people and how that isn't healthy. But public servants make it their life's work to please, they exist to be in service to others. Now intellectually I know that the balance is that this giving does not take away from them it actually expands them. So I am not sure my role in service but I will explore that part that loves to give; the part that expands me. Just to have a lookie lou.

I perform partly because I love to see all those joyous smiles out there. It brings me joy. When I see fans crying I do not understand it, I am intrigued and want to know more about them. What made them cry? Are they crazy? Are they projecting their love on me am I just a mirror reflecting love back to people. They think its me or something I am doing or any person that is idolized but really it is our own love reflected back to us. Or maybe the singing actually touched them. I know I am touched by words.

I was watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" and this character named 'Daddy' died. Anything about daddy's and death touch a chord with me. So they read this poem at his funeral. Okay its a television show but I was floored. Weeping at the beauty and melody that the words sewed together - like a beautiful piece of lace on my grandmothers couch that was covered in plastic to protect it. Okay I made that part up but if I had a grandmother I figure she would be the kind that would have those lace doilies and she would have a living room full of plastic. The words moved me. Someone's art changed me, echoed the love that I hold in my heart for my father and healed my heartbreak just a little. Did the writer have some experience of pain that he was working through or was he writing for the love of writing. Either way he touched me. What I can garner from this is that whaterver the reason I perform; to get noticed, because I feel alive, because it is cathartic for me to live and learn outloud because that is the example that was mirrored to me every Sunday watching my father work out family differences on the pulpit, or just simply because something touches my soul in a particular way.

I like mothering people. I love to cook. When I cook my food is so wonderfully a part of the creative process and it tastes darn good to! I want to share this goodness with others. I love that they say, "Matt you can cook!!" or "you should open a restaraunt" or "oh my God" and I also love sharing a piece of the God in me with them. This is what I have to offer. I sometimes throw delicious food away because it is too much for me to have all to myself. Part of the love in making it is giving it away- I love sharing my love through food with others. I love that people appreciate what I share.

I enjoy helping people. And again my ego is here as well. Do I feel a bit of "yeah I helped them see that" of course but the real joy comes in the spark that you see in someones eyes as they come closer to home, closer to themselves. I witnessed a live birth once in my life. Not that I haven't cried many times watching "A Baby Story" on TLC but when I saw that baby I was convinced of 2 things. 1. We are aliens (half a joke) 2. That their is a spark of life that is ignited at birth. I have been blessed to see this birth spark many times in my life with people. In audiences, in a meeting room at a Weight Watchers session, in private counsel with friends and loved ones and it moves me, it gives me such joy.

They all connect me to me and me, to the humanity of others; they all connect me to God who is LOVE. Sometimes, not always I feel that when I am doing these things I should be no other place doing no other thing than loving in the present moment as I see fit. Maybe that is the place called heaven.

Japan

I have made 4 major moves in my life. When I was 17 I moved out of my family house in the suburbs of farmy south Jersey. I say farmy south Jersey because when people think of NJ they often think of the butt-hole of NY or The Sopranos. But South Jersey is different. One of my favorite memories as a child was going to farm for fresh churned ice-cream. The cows who produces the milk for the cream where mooooing and grazing and I might add stinking as we walked into the little farm store. We could buy fresh peaches or Jersey tomatoes or corn from the little stands on the side of the road behind the rows to corn or the little corner orchard. Not like the corner liquor store but a corner orchard store. One, Heals was the name of it right before you get into Burlington off of JFK way used to have the best pies during the holiday season. Everything was always fresh.

I moved from this suburb to an even more remote and farmy Lancaster County in Southeastern Pennsylvania to go to undergraduate school at Lincoln University. If we were ever able to get a ride from campus into town you knew your 10 minute drive through the back windy roads- that turned into a house where a witch was fabled to live- if you got caught behind the Amish horse and buggy that frequented the roads as much as the cars. I lived there for 4 years never changing dormitory's or floors only room numbers and room-mates. First it was Kia-I met her in junior high, then Dia-I met at Lincoln and finally Bev- I have known her all my life.

My next year of life was spent on the road traveling with Up With People. So I basically lived out of my suit-case. For 12 months starting in Tuscon, Arizona I went all over California, Montana, Idaho, the Southern states and then to Germany, Portugal, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain. I didn't really have a central address, I was a nomad I guess. So I don't know if that counts for moving. I moved every 3 days for 12 months.

Upon returning from Up With People I was at home for approximately 12 weeks before I knew I had outgrown the farmland of the ever changing Willingboro. But I was ready for the pace and style of a big city. So I moved 25 minutes south to Philadelphia. I remember my first night in our apartment on Pine street in West Philly my room-mate Erica and I were too afraid to sleep in our own room in our beautiful wood floored, 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment so we slept on two pallets side by side on the floor in the living room. We both wondered that night of all the sounds out of our window if we made the right decision. Even though Erica went to Temple she grew up in Ambler, PA which was even more grassy and suburban than Willingboro. While in Philly I moved around and learned the side and back streets of that city like the back of my hand. I went from West Philly which hosts the Ivey leauge University of Pennsylvania to the upper crust Chestnut Hill area of the city which is where one of the most prestigious prep schools in the city. Then to the Art Museum area where I was walking distance from the steps that Rocky made famous. My last stop in Philly was Spring Garden Street right down the street from my first apartment.

I left Philly for Los Angeles not knowing a thing about the city. I had only heard stories, 'don't be fooled by the palm trees, you could be in south centrals 'jungle' or "don't wear red or blue because you could get shot if you find yourself in the wrong part of town. And the projects in Los Angeles are not like the cracked out projects of Philadelphia." I also heard, "Oh Matt you are not a Barbie Doll and you just won't make it in that fake place" My first few months I only knew 3 streets and if I traveled anyway I needed to know where it was in proximity to Roberston, Sepulveda, or LaCienega. Soon I knew this city the famous 405 and its horrible traffic and also started to understand the 101, the 10 the 5, the 2, the 134 I mean really so many highways in one city???

And now Japan. At the end of the day, the players change only in race and/or ethnicity but it is another place. Beck who is also one of the BBB singers was our tour guide and we clung to her as I clung to Erica the first night in my first apartment, or my first night as a freshman at Lincoln. I couldn't possibly comprehend how I would ever in the whole 9 months of my contract ride the subway alone. I really can say I know the complex Tokyo system better than Philly's SEPTA or the subway system of NY. Well I can always go to the information booth at the station and ask, "I am going to Chelsea Studios on West 26th street which train do I take" and get directions. I guess my senses are more heightened I pay attention more, imprint things in my mind for later use more than in the US but even so vastly different Japan and the experience of moving here is filled with the exact same excitement, sense of unknowing and fear as anyplace. I suspect this is true anywhere in the world.

Guilt Free Goddess

What would it be like to live a life that you feel good about, a life filled with integrity, a life filled with choices not made as a reaction to anyone or thing but choices made from the center of you? This is the life I seek, a life without guilt. I realized today that I feel guilty about one thing or another almost every single day of my life. Several times a day in fact. Oh I should do this because of that, or if I decide not to go it will make her/him feel bad. I don't want them to think __________ so let me go ahead and do this thing that I don't want to do. Fill in the blanks please, "if you are out there, then sing a long with me if you're out there....." It is like an old, heavy, wet coat that I have on as I try to swim across a lake. It's weighing me down, it's weighing me down.
Please comment on the guilt you would like to release! We can release it today.

US Election Day in Japan 2008

People have been asking me what the climate has been for those of us not in the US. I know that this is one of the few moments of homesickness that I have felt. I wanted to be there in LA where I volunteered on the campaign to celebrate in my country. But it was nice here. I have made a clip to capture some of the feelings of what went on.

One small detail an addendum of sorts

Okay so I woke up early this morning and went down to the seawall. I was looking over the Pacific in my silent bliss and remembered that I kinda left out something. I mean about the surgery, well before the surgery. You know I was talking about the nurse and how nice and kind she was and how sweet and all and how she ushered me in so gently, well all that is true. I kind of left out how scared I really was. I don't know looking at the ocean all safe and sound it all came back to me. The translators had just left me with the NYU nurse. She walks me into the operating room. I didn't know you just like walked in and laid down on the operating table! Everyone had on masks and they looked like aliens. Saying things to me that I couldn't understand. They lifted this thing up that looked like a giant bubble wrapped heated blanket and the thought 'you will be technically dead and they will bring you back' just kinda floated past my mind. I tried to lie down but I couldn't, then the most embarrassing words started coming out of my mouth. "What if you relax my muscles so much and I am in such a deep sleep that I go on myself?"
"What?"
"umm"
"You have to go to the bathroom?"
"Can I?"
"Of Course"
Then I started thinking what if I set of some time clock of perfection and now I postponed something in my destiny, oh my maybe I should lay down. But the sweet nurse had me by my arms and was ushering me to the bathroom.

Okay carry on.

Day 4 of silence

Uhhhhhhhh. I don’t know what to say so I am just writing. My body is tired and I am whoozy but full of joy, full of bliss. Happy. Happy that my surgery went so well and I feel at home in a foreign place. Feel more welcomed here than I did in my cozy but somehow cold apartment in luscious Westwood, CA. Westwood is really Los Angeles but a city in itself. It was featured in the movie Crash where Jennifer Bullock’s character got mugged. UCLA is there, many students, a lot of wealth and suspicion. Accepted but more tolerated I think in Westwood. In Japan this is a lack of sophistication about bigotry that I love. There is honesty there. If they don’t like you they will stare spew words that you know are not kind. And if they love you and are curious to know more about you, you will know. In LA I felt safe enough but always aware, on edge not comfortable not me.

Emma, one of the “girl 2’s” in our show asked me why I acted like a baby one day. I remember in college, Mr. Z, I’ll call him, told me that I needed to grow up, stop acting so childish. In reclaiming a part of myself I lost listening to others definition of who I am, in finding my little girl again, I feel there is a wisdom in this behavior I celebrate the carefree, childlikeness of me and I believe it is the thing that keeps me young, will keep my youth and why my innocence is somehow still in tack. Mr. Z didn’t take it, though he tried. No one can really. But it happens everyday, innocence lost and the dying process quickens. I will leave this earth in my time.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Well what else. I like silence. I don’t feel silence is silence. There is a lot of talking going on. I enjoy hearing other people talk. I can also tell that I make excuses for people and they make excuses for themselves. One on one people are somehow able to hear themselves in a one sided conversation. I notice they will say something, hear what they said and evaluate it for themselves. So interesting.

My mom called me this morning. It was 6:11. Me and 11- I like that number. 11. I went into the hospital 11.11 at 11am. I did something else that added up to 11 but I can’t remember it right now. But my mom called at 6:11, I wanted to yell in the phone but since I have sworn myself to silence I just pressed the answer button on my Japanese phone. My phone is white and I have two charms. The Japanese like to wear charms on their phones. It is a very big thing here. I have a heart and a head of corn. I don’t know that you say head of corn. Stalk of corn? It ain’t a corn kernel. Corn on the cob? I have a corn on the cob charm on my phone. Danielle is a mixed girl from Australia, she gave LaTeefah a watermelon charm and me a corn on the cob charm. She gave Emma a yellow pepper, and Beck something like a carrot, go figure.
Well anyway I answered my corn on the cob, heart charmed phone and said nothing. My mother quickly started in, “Mattilyn I know you can’t talk, I just want you to know I am thinking about you and I love you and I am praying for you, goodbye!” That was it and she hung up. I could tell she thinks I am suffering. I could feel her suffering though. I wish she knew that this silence is heaven for me. I love it actually. I must admit there are some times I feel the need to clarify or to ease a conversation, a point of view that seems so obvious to me but eludes those in the conversation. Inside I am yelling, “noooooo!!!!! Have you ever thought about it this way????” That is the only uncomfortable part about being silent.

It felt something like what I am now recalling that happened during surgery. I think they were trying to wake me up. But the breathing tube was still in. I was aware, I could hear them but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breath. I was trying to tell them, “I can’t breath, I hear you but I can’t do what you are asking me to do, I can’t move!” the translators were not in the operating room, I could hear my heart rate raise a little on the monitor beside me. I want to say so badly “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” They are patting me, oh yeah I hear English, the NYU nurse, she is yelling, “breath, breath, breath!” But there is something in the way, I can’t talk, I can’t swallow, I start to panic. All of a sudden I feel all these hands on me and they pull something out of my mouth from deep within me and my ass is awake now. “Breath!” And boy do I ever, “Good! Matto-san” she says and I slip away again. This also is a side of silence.

コエヲダスコトガデキナイ

KOE WO DASU KOTO GA DEKINAI

or I can't speak/talk

No fretting here I actually can speak but for the healing process of the chord I am advised not to speak for at least a week.  Then very little speaking the 2nd week then I should have the 25%  that I have lost in the past couple of months BACK!!!   

I must say even though the wing of the international hospital that I stayed in must have been the non-international side and built circa 1970 I felt very well cared for.  Like an honored guest.  I had one room-mate who was in for some sort of gum surgery and she stood at my bed and cheered me on as I went down to surgery.  My surgical nurse spoke perfect English and went to NYU and lived in NY for 7 years.  I remember her holding my hand and looking softly into my eyes as the general anesthesia began to take its affect.  I said, "I'm going" she said, "remember me"  such an odd thing to say but I do remember her and how kindly I was treated in a foreign land having surgery.  Without Jason, or my mom or my friends, my BBB family sent me text messages and Brian, Naoko and Ebony came to visit and I didn't feel alone.  

My room-mate kept giving me oranges and urged me to come to her side of the room.  Our room divided by a dingy pink partition.  She pulled it back and said, "dozo" which means something like, 'it's yours or be my guest or go ahead take it'  She pattered on in Japanese but i knew she was talking about the amazing view of Shinjiku outside our window.  I looked and oooed and ahhed but was more touched that she wanted me to feel at home.  She suspected from the translators that accompanied me and made clear all that was not, that I was alone and wanted to do all she could with her limited English to ease my comfort.  

I heard her cry out in between quiet snores during the two nights we shared a room.  Her surgery was scheduled for the day after mine and the day of my release from the Shinjiku International Medical Center.  In the morning when the translator came they told me she was amazed at my bravery and that she was terrified.  I wrote on my board, since I am no longer speaking for 1 week, "gambatte ne"  she beamed.  I think it means something like good luck, gods speed I really don't know but I know it means well and she got the meaning.  

My surgery went better than expected.  The polyp had shrunk a bit.  I told everyone this and they thought I was being silly.  So the 10-20 minute surgery ended up being 5.  There were absolutely no complications.  It took me a while to wake up though.  I believe that my sweet nurse was off helping another scared soul.  I was in the usual expected post surgery pain.  My upper lip was busted.  Not quite sure how that one happened, guess I will never know that one.  Jaw hurt from being pry ed open so far.  Throat was sore from the tubes, but other than that I was pretty genki.  

Back in my room my roommate was waiting anxiously.  For her I know her concern was two-fold.  The first I already mentioned but the second; if I made it, if I came back alive somehow it meant she would.  She wanted to talk to me and the translators, angels in their own right, urged her not to talk too much that I was unable to talk to heal my chords.  "Ah big singer!"  I saw her eyes brighten as she backed up and I drifted back into the ether's of my surgical bliss.  I was having a dream or was in a happy place when they aroused me.  I couldn't quite get back there.  

Slowly as I came two she came and gave me two tangerines.  I nodded and smiled.  

I left the hospital before she got out of surgery.  But in the same way she rooted for me, I rooted for her, am still rooting for her speedy recovery.  Last night as I lay in my comfortable bed in Shin-Urayasu, I thought of her and the dingy room we shared for two nights.  Was she alone in that room, was someone there to replace me?  I wanted her name or something but I don't think I will ever see her again.  For me she was my angel of hope and she helped get me through.  Deshta my friend!