PERSONAL HISTORIES
My personal histories, per se, are plural in nature but unquestionably interconnected. A quiet, somewhat withdrawn childhood gave way to the fluctuations and searches for identity that marked my adolescent years. This is one history; that of the waste and turmoil, ego and lust, craving and loss, of those distant times. I ask that those who were taken advantage of have forgotten, and moved on. Also, I ask that those who were hurt by my own lost confusion have healed, or at least have gained wisdom through their scars.
Another history arrived at the messy progress I managed to make between this indulgent and selfish youth to manhood, a process that involved marriage to my now ex-wife, Trace. Looking back, I see two good years that we had. I seldom look back and see the end. Nevertheless, it served as a turning point in my life, and an important insight into the nature of impermanence. Although loss is inevitable in all things, so is the magic bliss of memory. I remain thankful for that. The end of the marriage, on the surface, was an immediate reaction that I had to her adultery; she fell out of love, as she put it. But deeper currents tend to run in situations like this, ones that perhaps I still fail to recognize.
After my divorce came a long period of isolation, about four years of living through manual labor. As I worked in kitchens and on carpentry and landscaping crews, little lessons sprang up from these work experiences that I can see in myself today. To get by with such simple and low-paying work, it had to be continuous. I could not falter, or take vacations, or slack off. I had to create a mindset in which I could get to work, get it done, and keep it going year-round. At the same time, I read voraciously. I kept returning to books of philosophy, and religious texts of a mystical nature pulled me to them. I was drawn towards getting old used books and reading them in the place that I lived during this time, a little cabin up on a ridge. Patterns of quietude and reflection, mixed with the dogged effort required to sustain the work I was doing, settled into my life.
At this time, I got a used copy of a book called Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy, by Katsuki Sekida. The book argued for a Zen practice that could be self-taught, so I began to meditate in the way that the book described.
Later, a second turning point occurred when a hurricane struck my little ridge. The cabin was decimated by a large tree. The running water and electricity were gone. And the landlord, safe in Florida, informed me that I needed to fix the place first, and then send him the bill. I didn’t have the money for this, and was very stubborn about getting help from others. The work I had going on carpentry crews dwindled at the time to a halt. I kept warm by a fire build from the fallen limbs of trees, and melted snow for water. I ate the trout from a nearby stream. The turning point was not that life was full of hardships, or that things were hopeless; it was actually an exhilarating freedom. It was a moment in which I was staring into the coals of the fire, and I felt in my bones the transient nature of the events in my life. Everything that had happened was just a long series of fluctuations, like the coals and smoke of the fire, constantly changing and shifting, impermanent.
After I saved some money to move, I left the little cabin and came to Boone to room with my younger brother. He fell in love and left, moved away to another town, while I stayed and got by the same way I had before, various manual jobs. I eventually stayed with a young couple and their baby daughter in a big house in Deep Gap, a tiny satellite town of Boone. It was through their gentle urgings and advice about the Pell Grant that I finally gave Community College a shot. Because of my age, the Pell paid for everything, and I began to go full-time. I found a way to believe in even the most basic of the required courses, and I began to be driven towards the absorption of knowledge in an academic context. After the general requirements were fulfilled, I transferred to Appalachian, the four year state university in Boone. The couple divorced, the lease ended, and I moved to Boone in my current home, a little battered apartment in a house dating back to the 30’s.
Since living in Boone, I was a supporting member of a nearby Soto Zen Buddhist Temple where I received lay ordination. I also left the Temple, a story filled with lessons in itself. Now I have three semesters left at the University, and am going to get two majors, Asian Studies and Philosophy & Religion. I have a 4.0 GPA, not out of sheer perfectionism, but out of a drive and a thirst to do my best; I essentially brought my work ethic straight to the classroom.
As always with autobiographical writing, there are surely things I have omitted. I will add them as they come to mind.
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