Oh sure, why not, a new slam...

It's been a while since I've written a slam and I figured it was time!
I churned this one out on my commute from Chicago to Boston today, but the idea of it has been brewing in my head for a few weeks.
Enjoy!
--

The sliding door to my 14^th floor balcony was cracked open
and the humidity of the evening air was heavy,
filling the room like invisible smoke breathing down my neck.

I could hear the restless Atlantic just a few hundred feet away
masked by the sound of a departing jet thundering into the black abyss above
and the occasional giddy laugh of a girl who has had
one too many vodka y jugo de chinas to drink.

As the clock passed midnight, the intoxicated laughter gave way
to waves brushing the sandy shores and sweeping away
remnants of sand castles that once stood tall in the spots
where only memories of towers and sand pales remain.

A text message vibrated on the pillow
telling me to meet him on the beach.
It was an easy decision to make because the sound of the water
under the deep night sky
brings me to a spiritual place
where I remember the crashing waves
along the southern coast of India and the faint smell of
sandalwood incense burning
as the evening prayers were chanted.

Laying on the beach there is nobody around and nothing to see
but the glow of the city reflecting off the ocean
and the crescent moon illuminating a cloud
we’ve likened to a greedy monster ready to attack.

He points to the figurative arm of the unnamed cloud alien
and I’m caught off guard when he lowers his hand onto mine
in a way that was coy but intentional
as if he needed to test the water before jumping in.

It should have been every bit exhilarating as romantic
but in retrospect it was neither.
It was the awkward exchange of two souls misunderstanding
what romance is and could be
for the comfort of companionship in a place
thousands of miles away from home.

And that was perfectly okay, too, because it was, after all,
late in the evening and we both had long days of work
waiting for us in just a few short hours.

Still yet, I wanted to kiss him.
Actually, I wanted him to kiss me.
Who doesn’t want to feel wanted?

The cloud monster passed,
offering a clearing in the night sky where
two or three shooting stars
reminded me that in this world I should never
feel small, but instead,

feel big because those stars
are where I came from and are
in every way
me.

I looked at my friend in the eyes and saw
the reflection of the sky in them
and as we locked our lips under the moonlight
I realized that in the right light
I could see the stars in anybody’s eyes
as long as I was standing at the right angle.

I knew then that home could be found in any one of us
so long as I was willing to keep the door open.

High Anxiety

When I set out to start writing this blog, I wanted to talk about my experience as a flight attendant.  I wanted to recant hilarious memories of questionable passenger behavior; the type that is hardly dangerous, but good for a belly laugh.  As I write this entry from seat 10A on a flight to Newark, my attention is divided between a passenger struggling to open the overhead bin a few rows ahead and the person directly in front of me ogling at the complicated mechanism that is the window shade.   It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that the window shade only moves in two directions (that’s up and down for those of you who are mechanically disadvantaged).  I’ve not flown much in the past few months (only a few flights) because I’ve been wrapped up in some other projects within the airline, so I don’t have many stories to share.  And then, when I witness the miracle of the man figuring out that the window shade will actually go all the way down, I realize the ultimate paradox of my job: I've missed it so much and yet not at all.

In lieu of telling tales about others, I shared a few slam poems I’d written and I wrote candidly about my experience with antidepressant withdrawal.  I thought nothing of it so I was quite surprised when e-mails and private messages started arriving to my Inbox that said it was “brave” and “ballsy” to openly discuss behavioral health conditions like depression and anxiety on the Internet.  Surely, one wouldn’t do that – such a topic is far too taboo to be discussed like it’s the common cold.

I wrote how beautiful it was to feel real, raw emotion and how that would, in some way, be my ticket to happiness in a life free from pills.  In a recent, unexpected twist of fate, I relapsed into my condition after less than a year without medication and quickly relearned that just because what you’re feeling is real, doesn’t mean it’s tolerable. I had forgotten how powerfully somatic anxiety and depression can be and the reminder came like a train blasting full steam ahead through the glass walls I’d built around myself to stay safe.

When an invisible devil has his hands gripped around your neck; when your body jolts awake at 2:00am in a cold sweat and feel like you can’t breathe; when the entire world constantly looks like it’s tilting to one side… you realize quickly that something is wrong.  When you wake up and instantly dread the day; when insomnia robs you of your dreams; when it feels like electricity is pulsing through your veins instead of blood; when an unending sea of nostalgic memories about what your life was like before your brain broke floods your conscious mind… you have no choice but to get over the stigma society has created for your condition and get help.  There is no other alternative if you believe that life is worth fighting for.  And life is always worth fighting for.

This is not a call for help or a cry for attention – it’s just an introduction to what will become a very honest x-ray look into what has become my emotional baggage.  I lucked out and got depression and anxiety in my genes, but at least my baggage is a match set.  If there is one thing I know for certain, it’s that living with a depressed and anxious mind can be the loneliest experience a person may ever know.  If this helps just one person to know they aren’t alone, then writing this down will have been worth every second spent.  And if this helps nobody, at least it will have been cathartic for me to take the words out of my head and plant them in permanent marker to a world that knows this condition is real, but just doesn’t want to talk about it.

Sorry, world, but I'm going to talk about it. 

An Ode to Cymbalta

Sometimes people come into your life and strike up a conversation with you that invokes memories you forgot the significance of.  The memory doesn’t ever leave you, but the importance of it gets lost in the greater scheme of your life.  Tonight, I was reminded by a new, but already dear friend Andrew, about the tipping point in my life when everything went belly-up for what has ultimately become the greater good. 

Some of you know me quite well and know what I went through after coming back from India.  Others may have an inkling.  Most probably have no idea.  And really, to be honest, it doesn’t matter... if you want the full story, you can ask.   Let’s get on with it.

So yes, I did study abroad in India and yes, it was a life changing experience in so many more ways than I could ever succinctly write here.  India was my coming of age in that it opened my eyes to spiritual growth that didn’t require religion along with it.  At the same time, India opened up a Pandora’s Box of emotions and instability that, at the time, I was ill-equipped to handle.  I’m better at it now, but still not perfect, nor will I ever be, no matter how many years or lifetimes I get to practice.   

By the grace of modern medicine and a semester’s break from college in 2009, I sorted myself out enough to function in society.   I’d be remiss to ignore those first few months home, though, because they were flanked with a lot of crying, a lot of not understanding the world and a never-ending cycle of antidepressants and other drug cocktails.  It’s amazing, in retrospect, how every medical specialist knows exactly what is wrong with you and exactly how to fix it.  Tee up about 10 prescription medications all at the same time and you’re either going to be medicated into tolerable ignorance or just plain bent out of shape.  For me, it was the latter, but I stayed on one drug (Cymbalta) because I knew it was the right thing for me to do in a time when I needed something stronger and bigger than myself. 

About a year ago I promised myself I’d get off medication, if for no other reason than to understand how I felt without any kind of chemical intervention, be it pharmaceuticals or vitamins.   I wasn’t as worried about the stigma of taking these types of pills – if I was, I’d never write this entry.   Roughly six months ago, the process of tapering off medication ended, and so did a reign of 4 years under the chemical veil.   I needed to do this for me.  Mostly because I wanted to see if the medication was really necessary and if it was, I wanted to understand exactly what it was doing for me.  I was nervous to experience withdrawal symptoms that are often equated with the worst kind of hell…  more nervous, though, to have to bear the thought of actually needing the pills and knowing that whatever triggered in India was going to result in a permanent lifestyle change. 

It’s only been six months without and I do feel different, but not necessarily worse. Just different.  I’m a little more anxious, a little more achey in my neck and shoulders.  I sleep more, which I didn’t know was possible seeing as how I sleep a lot as it is.  But in this rebirth comes the opportunity and the challenge to approach life and health from an even more holistic perspective.

I was reminded that the spiritual essence of what you learn in emotional strife stays with you no matter where you go and who you become.  I gained a tremendous amount from yoga and meditation, from understanding my body and its connection to my mind and to putting a concentrated effort into the importance of positive, healing energy.  Still, I am unsettled lately, largely because of the stress of my work, but in a smaller sense, I am getting my first exposure to the raw emotion that I relied on medication to hide. 

The theme for me going forward is to do better and be better.  This year, I promised that I would be a better friend and coworker.  I am grateful for the new opportunities my job has presented me with this year.  They are time consuming and, for lack of a better way to put it, taking over my life, and this is a path that I chose and accepted.  I do truly love what I do.  However, on the corporate path, my spiritual path has fallen by the wayside at the expense of some inner peace and quality time with friends and family.  In the quest to do better, I need to relearn balance and make it an active, real part of my life.  This will be my m.o. going forward.

So there you have it.  The happy-go-lucky, cynically sarcastic guy on the plane (and now in the office, too) has a story you didn’t expect.  The truth, however, is that the story is still being written.  If we really do choose our direction and attract things into our lives by the energy we exhale, then yes, the story is most definitely still being written.

I can give you a teaser into the next chapter though and it goes something like this…

He found balance in a semi-backwards way that somehow worked for him.  He was happy; happier than he'd been in a long time and happier that he didn't give up in the darker days of years past.  He still devoted an unreasonable amount of time to work, but invested much more time to be with his friends and family.  He challenged himself to make the most of the “up” days and to accept the “down” days with as much grace and poise as is humanly possible.  Above all else, he rested at night knowing that he was free from medication and this was valuable to him for one reason alone: whatever emotion he was feeling was real.  That, to him, was the truest indication of life and it was, in every sense of the word, beautiful.

Priorities

This admittedly has absolutely nothing to do with airplanes, aviation or giant hunks of pressurized metal, aluminum and composite materials blasting through the sky at sickeningly fast speeds.  Instead, I've been spending time thinking about college and how I felt so connected to the arts then... and how uncultured I've become since graduating.

I have a very fond memory of my friend Maggie and I going to the Slam Poetry World Championship that happened to be held in Charlotte, NC one year.  It was, in a brief synopsis, mind-blowingly amazing and awe inspiring.  Through my recent harping on times-gone-by, I remembered a slam poem called "Like" by Mike McGee.  The other day, I watched a clip of him performing the poem on YouTube and that has set me on a newfound course to reconnect with my creative, more artsy self.

So, for you today, is a slam I wrote about understanding priorities in life.  It is by no means good, but I'd like to think it's a pretty solid baby step into a literary world I don't fully understand, but can't wait to learn more about.

Fly high and stay safe :)

----
Prioritize.
A possibly-awful, maybe semi-decent slam by Ben Kaufman.

I decided to start doing some things for me.
It’s not that I don’t want to do things for other people
it’s more that I’ve been doing things for other people my whole life.
I have the chance, so I’m making some changes.

I rise with the sun now
and diligently set my place at the kitchen table.
The coffee maker drips and I slip cream into a mug
that’s been patiently waiting empty next to piping hot pancakes.

I don’t know if this is the breakfast of champions
but I do know that there is nothing to win here except
my own heart so I’m going to eat what it tells me I’m feeling.

In the car I roll down the windows and scream along to the soundtrack
of my life that is playing on the radio.
These days I think I can relate to
any song I hear and
I get lost in the music maybe a little too easily since

I don't actually remember where I am

or where I am trying to go.
The beauty, though, of getting lost in sound is

that when I find myself again, I understand, if only for a moment, that the
meaning of true perfection
is realizing that when I felt discontent in the past,
it was only my mind’s way of saying
“Hey, it’s time for a new song.”

I think – and I’m scared to admit it -
that this is the happiest I’ve been in a long time.
Because anger and disappointment are
just paradigms that paralyze
and I’ve been paralyzed
but I am not paralyzed now.

You have to understand this:
I’m up before the sun because I don’t need its rays to be enlightened.
This whole thing called life is worth the sometimes-struggle.

Somewhere, I know that it’s in people to do what’s right
Even if they have to fight for it and
even if they can’t see it in themselves,
I know that it’s in there.
And you know how I know?
Because I force myself to remember.
I remember that for every moment of inexplicable bullshit, there were a few moments that were so inexplicably beautiful
that it was worth every wrong turn I made to get there
just so I could see it with my own eyes
and feel it with my own heart.

I call those moments near-life experiences.

They don’t happen often, but I sure as hell remember when they do.
When I recall one, I relive, regenerate and revitalize
I simply redo
and it remakes.
Because that’s what it takes, after all
to make the good seem great to someone like me.
There’s just no room for hate and
back in an instant I’m staring at my very full plate…

…of pancakes, that is…
And so I eat.

You know, sometimes it’s worth it to be a little unhappy…

I decided I’d start doing some things for me lately.
I had the chance, so I made some changes.
I didn’t know it then, but the changes made me.

Role Play

Sometimes I’m with people for just a quick minute, answering a question about how to find their departure gate.  Other times, my connection to a customer might be for five or six hours jetting out west to California, confined in a pressurized tube hurdling through impossibly cold and thin air.  The only aspect of this job that is more constant than Newark being on a ground delay program is that the people I serve always change; they come and go with every take off and every landing.  I am a part of their life for a very small amount of time, especially in the greater scheme of their existence, but I still have the opportunity to make a positive influence on their spirit and this is a personal challenge I do not take lightly. 

This is all to say that when a customer blows up at me, yes, I take it personally. Believe it or not, I do so by choice, not because my company or I have failed to provide a service, but because I would like to believe that for better or worse, I can stand to gain something out of the experience and maybe you, the upset and angry customer, can gain something, too. There are, however, limits. 

Slam poet Taylor Mali said in his award-winning work “What Teachers Make” the following words of brilliance:

“I have a policy about honesty and ass-kicking and that policy is that if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.”

Consider the following interaction that occurred on a flight of mine a few weeks ago.  While I’m taking a case of water from the Provisioning truck supplying my flight at the forward service door, a middle-aged woman traveling with her mother and more baggage than is legal to carry-on grabs me by the shirt sleeve, turns me around and with a very agitated, demanding tone says, “You know, you could take a bag and help.”  Yes, hello to you too ma’am and welcome aboard.  I bite my tongue and instead start the following conversation:

Me: Oh, I’m sorry, I was getting a case of water for our flight.  Did you need assistance?

Woman: Um, yes, I do. Take this bag and put it in the overhead.

Me: Ma’am, I’m happy to assist you.  We can put the bag up together, you take one end and I’ll take the other.

Woman: No, you need to put it up, how do you expect me to lift it? It’s huge for God’s sakes and it weighs a million pounds.

Me: Well, if it’s too heavy for you to lift and you can’t do it with me, I’m afraid I’ll have to check it to the carousel. 

Woman: I don’t think you heard me.  Put it up. After all, it’s your job, isn’t it? I mean honestly. 

Cue that Taylor Mali quote about honesty and ass kicking. You asked for it and now I have to let you have it.  Of course, I could never say what I wanted to say on the plane, so to the woman whose bag I refused to lift into the overhead, this is for you. The answer I gave you was, “I’m sorry ma’am, those are our options today.  We can do it together or I can check it, and I apologize for the inconvenience.” This is the answer I wanted to give you:

First of all, I’m not sorry because there was no inconvenience.  You should apologize to me for treating me like your slave.  After all, it is 2012 and I believe that in this day in age, we treat each other with respect at the very least even if you forgot to pack your manners.  You should apologize to your fellow travelers for holding up the boarding process, making them wait in a 90-degree jetbridge that has no air conditioning pumping cold air into it.   You should apologize to your elderly and disabled mother who is sitting in 2D with her hand on her forehead, sheepishly apologizing for your behavior to everyone around you because she is embarrassed that she has to rely on you to help her get from point A to point B.

And no, ma’am, my job is not to put your 60-pound carry-on bag into the overhead bin.  It is not my job to endanger my health and well-being for you to have your bras and travel-sized lotions above your head instead of under your feet.  Nowhere in my job description did it say I’d get paid for putting up with your unreasonable demands.  I have no choice but to deal with your bad attitude, which I will acknowledge professionally and with a smile, but I will not tolerate your selfish and demeaning remarks.   It is not my job to ask the person in 1E to put their seat forward during the flight because you don’t like it reclined and no I will not let you cut another customer in line for the bathroom just because you feel like you’ve already waited long enough.  Your glass of wine is not on the house because I wouldn’t lift your bag during boarding and no I can’t tell you it’s okay to get a book out of the overhead while the seatbelt sign is on. 

But enough about what my job isn’t.  Let me tell you what my job is. I am a highly trained and qualified professional.  It is my job to welcome you onboard and assist you with your baggage, not stow it for you.  I have agreed to graciously provide you with all the tools my company offers to make your travel experience a pleasant one; whether or not you choose to partake is your choice and yours only.  I will gladly offer you a soda and a bag of chips and will explain all of your food and drink options even though we just told you there’s a menu card in your seat.  I will of course sell you a pair of headphones so you can watch the in-flight entertainment and smile when you try to pay for them in cash even though I just told you it was debit or credit card only, for no less than the 3^rd time this flight.  I will say “you’re welcome” any time you thank me.  I will apologize for our maintenance related delay even though the inconvenience was not my fault and was with your safety in mind.  I will empathize with your delayed travel plans and sympathize with your missed connection.  I will help you find a space for your luggage even though you were late to boarding because you had to go buy a bag of pretzels just as the gate agent called for all rows and all passengers. I will pull your broken body out of this burning airplane even if it kills me because it's the role I've agreed to take to protect your life and value it as if it were my own.  

Let me break it down for you ma’am so it is very clear to you what my job is and is not about, and yes, I’m getting personal. Let me tell you what I stand for and who I am.  I believe that I am blessed and I do not question this.  I am not religious, but I am spiritual.  I believe in the mind and body as one and I believe that soulmates can be partners and friends or maybe even both and I witness acts of bravery and chivalry every day between people who don't know each other at all, but believe in the human connection .  I honor your right to choose and I will concede to your opinion if it seems more logical than mine or if it’ll just really make you happy.  I don’t necessarily know you, but I have chosen to love you regardless because I believe that’s what humans should do.  I still choose to love you even though I think in all actuality that your behavior on this airplane depicts you to be a heinous bitch and it horrifies me that I'd have to breathe the same recycled air as you.  To put that all aside is what it means to me to be a global citizen.   All I am asking for in return is your respect, which I promise to afford to you at all times nevermind what my inner dialogue wants me to say or do. 

Now, with that being said, would you like something to drink?

A skyward slam

A slam poem is verse meant to be performed; a poem that lends itself to oral presentation.
I've always been enthralled by this art form and so today, for you, is a slam about why I love aviation.  I'm not sure if it makes perfect sense, but that is the beauty of art... it doesn't have to :)

--

I think to myself as I greet the flight attendant at the boarding door that none of my friends or family would have suspected that my sixteen-year-old self would have been incredibly afraid right now.
Not afraid to fly, more afraid to die in a situation I can’t control.
Like a plane crash.

The sound of air rushing by dulls the music in my headphones
and the last rays of sunlight catch the silver lining on the engine.

There is an attitude about the sky tonight.
Its orange is an airborne flame
Its red is screaming for attention
And the dark blue it fades to pacifies the temper of the heavens, like a blanket draped over a newborn child that wants nothing more than his mother.

Time passes by as effortlessly as the endless crop circles and swimming pools below and I remember the days when I was ten years old and would lay down across the trunk of my mom’s car in the driveway and wait for the sound of a jet engine.
The clouds would be moved by a wind that brushed my brown hair over my forehead and
there was a blue afternoon sky that’d get deeper the higher I stared.
There was a time I thought I could stare skyward forever.

Without warning, the sound of the jet I’d been eagerly anticipating would rattle the calm afternoon air…I could hear the plane coming so my eyes would dart around the sky to find it.

My grandma would tap my shoulder, point to the plane and ask me what kind it was.
Boeing 737-500. Continental Airlines.
Easy.

Grandma would walk away, content I knew the answer, and my eyes would quickly refocus above waiting for the next airborne thrill.
She died not long after that.

“A beverage for you, sir?” asks the flight attendant.
I smile and take a cup of water.

Out the window, the last bands of color tell me that daylight has been tucked in to bed and I wonder what it will dream about. 
The smooth ride tells me that the heavens don’t mind us visiting tonight and
I wonder if my grandma knows that I came to say hello.
My sixteen-year-old self wouldn’t have been afraid anymore. 

I remember how small I felt on the trunk of that car and I consider how small I feel now.
I remember all the times Mom and Dad took me to the airport to watch the planes and they sat in the car reading a magazine for hours while I’d eagerly scream, “Look, a Continental 757!”
They would act excited even though it was no less than the 20^th one I’d seen that day.
I remember the facts I made up in 5^th grade, like a Boeing 727 having 900 seats, just to make my friends think I knew what in the hell I was talking about.

I drift in and out of sleep as I flip through my mind’s photo album.

My grandma would ask me if I had seen any planes on the way to her house and I’d say yes and go into elaborate detail about the Saab 340 that came in so low over Northern Blvd I thought it’d clip an apartment building. 
I felt her tap on my shoulder to point out another airplane and I was suddenly startled awake.

“Dude, the plane landed… time to get off.”
The man in 20C seems amused that I somehow fell into such a deep sleep, the landing didn’t even wake me up.

I knock on the aluminum frame of the plane on the way out as if to say
Thanks for the visit.
And as I drive home from the airport, the flashing red lights in the night sky
remind me that perhaps
I should call home more often.

Day One: Epic Fail

NicoDerm aired a commercial that encapsulates what I am well on the road to becoming if I don’t catch myself and set course for higher ground.  If you haven’t seen this spot of advertising genius, give it a quick watch here:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I am trying not to become even though it’d be so much easier and so much damn funnier if I did.

The worst part is, some of this – most of this, actually, is entirely my fault!  I should have known better than to pick up a trip that had a 3-hour sit in JFK and a 3-hour sit in Syracuse on the same day.  Really, I should have known better.   And I should have run for the hills screaming bloody murder when my first customer interaction of said trip went as follows with a twenty-something hipster girl wearing no shoes, black spandex, a pink t-shirt and a torn orange moo-moo with wilted flowers in her hair:

Me: Good morning, welcome aboard.

(Customer freezes and stares at me blankly, not moving)

Me: Did you need help with something?

Customer: What do I do now?

Me: You sit.

Customer: Where?

Me: In your assigned seat.

Customer: How do I know where that is?!

*Let me just point out that this was asked with an exasperated sigh and arms flailing in the wind, as if she was expected to also explain to me the meaning of life while balancing on one foot and juggling seven oranges on a tight rope over the Grand Canyon.

Me (after looking at boarding pass): Your seat is 17D, it’s the window seat on your left side at row 17.

Customer: Where is row 17?

Me: It’s between 16 and 18.

Customer: Is it far from here?

Pardon me while I place my head into an overhead bin and attempt to slam the door shut approximately twenty times. Empathy, Ben, empathy. Breathe. Maybe she’s nervous.  Maybe she doesn’t fly much.  Maybe, just maybe, she never learned to count. These are all possibilities I’m pondering to give Lady Moo-Moo a pass when a middle-aged woman boards our Charlotte-bound flight and breaks my train of thought.

“Hi, good morning,” I say, noticing her denim Mickey Mouse hat and instantly wishing I had gotten a second cup of coffee.

“Yes, hi, hello, how are you?” she responds.  “May I have some water? I need to take an anti-diarrhea pill. I get awful stomach cramps when I fly.  I keep the pills right here just incase I get the poops,” she says, joyfully pointing to a black leather fanny pack slouching sideways off her figure and simultaneously giving me a thumbs-up with her other hand.

Let me go try that overhead bin door one more time…

This is going to be much harder than I thought.