Will you teach me how to ride a bike

Most who read this blog have never met me, have no idea who I am or where I come from. I guess growing up, I didn't really think much about it until maybe after high school. In high school, most of the families were lower middle class, wearing the same clothes, sneakers worn out, maybe something nice once in a while. Public schools, state funded lunches, punch cards, bad facilities, good, but tired teachers, many of the families in my town were at or around the state poverty line. Five to ten miles radius, people were living in half a million dollar homes,, going to private and catholic schools...unaware of what happened on the other side of the tracks. I took my lumps....countless times being harassed, a 45-lb plate dropped on my chest in sophomore year of football, threatened to be shot junior year by my fellow secondary teammate, loading guns and driving around.....I guess it would still be referred to as "the hood" back then....and I can definitely say it was. Row homes for days, broken down cars, SEPTA buses coming through like jet engines, dumpster diving for expired Tastykakes, Mom always scrounging....even a few quarters so I could run up to 7-11 for a Snickers bar. One great thing was the ties we did form as friends there. Many lived and died for their friends. Some still do. We had a big community pool. Looking back, the best days of my mom and my sister's lives probably. Their "piece of the world"...I cherish it to this day. 

With that being said, we are coming to that time when we're having to clean my old house out. 988 Grant Rd. Folcroft, PA 19032. You can Google it. It wasn't much, but it was home until I first moved out. We are starting to remove any memory that my family lived there as no one really does any more. We are starting to erase a lifetime of what happened between those walls. We are starting to close the door on the past; some good, some bad, some all over the map. I guess that is also part of the hood a lot of people just don't talk about. Parents becoming parents too young, unsure, broke, addicted, hard-headed, stubborn, wanting to still be young, but wanting to try the parent thing. I closed the door on even discussing a lot of it for decades. I don't feel the need to tie it in here cause this is supposed to be a positive story. 

So as I am packing stuff up and going back and forth to my truck, I notice a bunch of young kids playing. Football in the alley. Soccer in the alley. Taking a leak in my yard (you will see). Jabbing at your buddies. These 6-7 kids all see me. So I was cleaning out cabinets and there was a box of our favorite crackers growing up, Lance Toastachee. A true hood treat. ha. I gave them all a pack. Some didn't like them, but the ones that did really enjoyed them and said thank you. So most of the group goes up half to the alley. Then one kid, a larger kid of the group, he is sitting on a bike and he's not going far, if at all. If you look at this kid and me, we couldn't be more different. Me, 47 yr old white guy, fairly chill, tees and shorts, backwards trucker cap, broad, unfiltered. Him, about 5ft, 130lbs, head to toe in gray sweats, medium fro, very dark skinned black boy. He quietly approaches me and looks me in the eye and says, "Hey, do you think you could teach me to ride a bike?" I still get chills typing it. This child, of all the people he could've asked, well, he asked me. My heart both broke with pain for him and it also felt good that he had the comfort to ask. I say comfort, not confidence. I also think of, "not one man in this boy's life til now could've stopped and taught him??" And then I got angry. Angry that he had a man help him even do this in life. So I said to him, "I have 5 mins until I have to leave.....let's do it." I grabbed the back of his sweatshirt, echoed many times to pedal, pedal, pedal...he kept saying I'm gonna fall. I said you're not, I got you. This 40 something white goofball and this 10 or so black kid.....bonding over learning how to ride a bike. In the alleys....where I rode my bike 40 years ago...where I hung with my friends...where my dad or mom helped me....We went up and down the alley several times before his other friends started to ask. I said I would be back some time, but that is just a maybe. 

I drove up the alley way, saying bye, thankful for a moment that helped me get through the pain of what I am going through and what is happening to our past life at 988...he was about halfway up on my ride up the alley. So I stopped. I said, "you did great, you just keep pedaling and gravity will take hold...you're really getting it..." Instead of a "thanks" or short quick comment. He looked at me and said, "Thank you very much..." held out a fist for a "fist pump" as we call it in the states and we parted ways. 

I always say, there are good people all over. There are people who want to have someone to look to. It is as much present in adults as it is in heaven. My one good buddy said, "you need to stop being so nice....and just keep going on your way". I think the day I would ever stop to help a child who asks for help, I am letting myself down as much as them. Granted, my buddy isn't wrong. Given the wrong view of the "white guy" holding on to the "black boy" from eyes who didn't have context; something easily could've happened that day. I take that into consideration.....but most days, at my mid 40's, all I want to do is just pedal my bike.....and let the wind take me to better places. 

"Teach the children, so it will not be necessary to teach the adults." Abraham Lincoln

A picture of my "new 988 crew". Folcroft4Life. 

The Untethered Soul - Letting Go of False Solidity Pg 132-133

     Why do we let this happen to us? Why dp we care so much whether other people accept the facade we put out there? It all comes down to understanding why we are clinging to our self-concept. If you stop clinging, you will see why the tendency to cling was there. If you let go of your facade, and don't try to trade it in for a new one, your thoughts and emotions will become unanchored and beging passing through you. It will be a very scary experience. You will feel panic deep inside, and you will be unable to get your bearings. This is what people feel when something very important outside does not fit their inner model. The facade ceases to work and begins to crumble. When it can no longer protect you, you experience great fear and panic. However, you'll find that if you're willing to face the sense of panic, there is a way to go past it. You can go further back into the consciousness that is experiencing it, and the panic will stop. Then there will be a great peace, like nothing you've ever felt. 

    That the part very few people come to know: it can stop. The noise, the fear, the confusion, the constant changing of these inner energies--it can all stop. You thought you had to protect yourself, so you grabbed onto things that were coming at you and used them to hide. You took what you could get your hands on, and you started to cling in order to build solidity. But you can let go what you're clinging to and not play this game. You just have to let the risk of letting it all go and daring to face and fear that was driving you. Then you can pass through the part of you, and it will all be over. It will stop--no more struggling, just peace 

    This journey is one of passing through exactly where you have been struggling not to go. As you pass through that state of turmoil, the consciousness itself is your only repose. You will just be aware that tremedous changes are taking place. You will be aware that there is no solidity and you will become comfortable with that. You will be aware that each moment of each day is unfolding and you neither have control, nor crave it. You have no concepts, no hopes, no dreams, no beliefs, and no security. You are no longer building mental models of what's going on, but life is going on anyway. You are perfectly comforable just being aware of it. Here comes this moment, then the next moment, and then the next. But that's really what has always happened. Moment after moment has been passing before your consciousness. The difference is that now you see it happening. You see that your emotions and your mind are reacting to these moments that are coming through, and you're doing nothing to stop it. You're doing nothing to control it. Just just letting life unfold, both outside and inside of you. 

    If you take this journey, you will get to the state in which you see exactly how the unfolding moments bring up a sense of fear. From this place of clarity, you will be able to experience the powerful tendency to protect yourself. This tendency exists because you truly have no control, and that is not comfortable to you. But if you really want to break through, you have to be willing to just watch the fear without protecting yourself. You must be willing to see that this need to protect yourself is where th entire personality comes from. It was created by building a mental and emotional structure to get way from the sense of fear. You are now standing face-to-face with the root of the psyche. 

One Picture of Us

You often pop into my head. I guess cause I am back where it started. I am about 5 miles from where we met. I laugh at the "me" from then, but then, maybe you laugh at the "you" from then. I think what should've been a happy-go-lucky 18 yr old at the time, was a hardened egg with a soft shell....waiting to be seen. I remember seeing you, months before we even met. I remember how you use to clown me about the parties I would go to. I remember you asking me if I hooked up with any trashy girls. Part of me wants to find those discs and read those emails. haha. I wonder if it's even possible. You also got to know a guy who was working his ass off every night to pay for school. That definitely hardened me....along with a roller coaster home life that was moving at light speed. I remember how good it felt to say good night when I was going to work and you were going to sleep. Those things, they really made me know, someone cared about me in this life. Small things you didn't even know you did...they stayed with me forever. I laugh at how bad I was in those years. I really didn't prepare for all that attention. How could I? I didn't know how I became someone that really, I was not. Many times, behind closed doors, you saw the real me. I always get memories sent to me...about those days. I remember you getting your license and driving your brand new Alero over to my house. Telling me, "you're going to be the first one I take for a drive...so be ready Mr. Malin."I never threw anything you wrote to me away. You really were just so sweet in them...you even had plans for the future.....you knew what you wanted out of life....but you had chosen the right guy at the wrong time. Part of me didn't really know that. I mean, I was 18! I know we've talked about my transgressions and I am SO happy you could joke/laugh with me about them. You were always more mature than me emotionally. For some reason, I remembered those corny Kodak disposable cameras today. I remembered, God knows why, that someone came to me while I at Penn State Main, and gave me a picture of us at one of those corny dances. I put it away and never really thought to show you. I know I still have it, but it's packed away in my storage unit. I think what got me about it, given the times, the 90's, no cell phones really. It was really the only picture we ever got taken together. It was a nice time and we actually slow danced. So American. Ha. I have a vivid image of the picture and my long ass belt and cream shirt and pants like I was some horrible rapper who was outfitted by Tommy Hilfiger. I laugh. It's crazy....college relationships...you sure do end up spending tons of time together. I mean, we even took some classes together at Delco and Main. I remember always seeing you walk home and that time when the snow was falling. Of course, the entire time, I was juggling a life of uncertainty. How was I going to afford the next semester...thank you UPS. How was my family going to be able to afford living at Main? Thank you Suburban Materials. How was I going to afford just day-to-day....thank you MBNA, or not. 24.1% was great. There are so many details about our relationship that just stayed stamped on my head. Even the bad times, I can even replay them. Little Tom! Ha. It's just so imprinted on my memory. Not to outdo other women in my life, but I guess your mind, your emotional mind, your heart, it's all so tender during those years. 17, 18, 19, 20.....you're literally just growing still....well....I guess we always growing. Y

You know what you never did to me? You never really blamed me. Part of me wishes you were harsher on me. Part of me wishes you just said, "Bob, don't you love me more than this or that?" "Bob, what about all the time we spent together? Bob, what about the plans we had? Bob, where is the guy that was crying in the doctor's office with me that day? I don't know where I got lost. I just did. 

I do realize that guy back then, he was like playing a part. He was influenced by a hard life at home, a hard life at work, being angry at his spot and his family's place in life, wanting SO badly for things to be easier...just once. They never got easier. If anything, they got so hard, I became a broken glass of a million pieces. Hard for my mom, hard for my sisters, hard for many reasons....reasons I typically never discuss cause they are just too painful to replay. Ironic cause the hard times we had, I can replay them and chalk them up to "being a dumb college kid". The other hard times, well I can't. I hope somewhere in your heart, you knew that I was a good person that was growing thorns of protection during those years. Protection from being hurt, protection from pain, protection from love, protection from the one girl those years who was all in. I admire and respect you so much for that. A time when I was happy to have 5-10 bucks in my pocket. A time when free food at work was such a gift. A time when cereal was much of what I ate except for the cafe before practice. I remember that one "date night" we had at Allen Street and that gift I had made. I at least did some good things. I wish I could've done more. I was running to catch my tail and always hearing, "we don't have money for that". it would've been great if I would've stopped, asked my mom if I could've had you over for dinner. You're Italian and she's a great cook and she sure did love you and you were always so nice to her. I know she was dealing with her own things at that time and I guess the "why don't you stay for dinner?" thing didn't pop into her head. Granted she was raising 4 girls. So many things I remember about those days with you. I am thrilled to see that you met someone and are living your dream life of raising a family. I knew that was so important to you and you're a hard worker who has carved out a nice career. I saw your husband one time at the bar, but I just wasn't going to go up to him. He don't know me. I laughed thinking about seeing him and you right next to him and just that funny moment. I use the excuse, "We went to Penn State together....she was my tutor cause I was a big dummy..." And I laugh as you smile and come close to laughing. You always gave me shit for testing out of English 015. hahahahahahaha. " "You went to Academy Park.....how the hell are you that good at English that you get to skip it?" I remember just laughing at you when yous said that. 

I think you live in my present mind as much as you do is because you knew what I was going through when I wasn't with you. Things I never shared. Things a young guy shouldnt see or hear or have to experience. In another life, things are normal, I dont work so much, I get to be a normal guy growing up in the suburbs who meets a great girl and....happily ever after. And maybe a little self sabotage, but at 47, I realize I was covering so much pain with so many things I shouldn't have. I should've just said, "Can we just go for a walk and talk?" Your home was a safe haven for me. Always cared about your parents. I know your bro wasn't about you dating a hood rat, but I think he got over that once we talked. idk. 

It was almost 30 years ago, but the memories stuck with me. Imagine thinking something is so special when you have nothing. I guess that makes it real. You didn't need anything from me except my love and attention. Your birthday is coming up. Part of me wishes what changed me never changed me during those days. I was perfectly happy with you. I just couldn't stop time. I couldn't stop two people who were headed in different directions. I wish I did a u-turn, but it was too late. 

At least we have one picture of us. 

I know you're going...

I never wanted to be good at this "death" thing. I think since I was in the third grade, I remember being pulled out of class for my great grandmother's death. Then it was Mike in our Jr Year. Suicide. Then it was one after another. Tommy DeStefano on our baseball team, suicide. Then a long break. Then Tommy, that one changed me. He was so full of life. Dead in his early 30's. Then year after year. John, Pop Pop, Mom, Kathy, Pop. I became numb and I surely numbed myself. Hidden in the darkness was my bright soul. A fire burning in a blizzard. Now I face that again. I face that same fate. At 47. I am close to death. He is my shadow. I watched so much the last 15 years. I knew this was coming. You did as well. I just wish you chose to stop it when you could.....I couldn't. I am numb again. I am melancholy. I have the blinds closed and I am letting the cold in. "I don't feel pain, but I feel more than you'd ever know.....I dont have highs but I got some lows...I feel I've been cursed....I've been numb and been sinking like a stone..."

Death....you can get in line to beat me. The line has been long my entire life, but I'm still fucking coming for life. I'm still here. You won't beat me yet!!!

Older, but nothing's any different

Right now feels the same, I wonder why

I wish they told us, it shouldn't take a sickness

Or airplanes falling out the sky

Do I have to die to hear you miss me?

Do I have to die to hear you say goodbye?

I don't wanna act like there's tomorrow

I don't wanna wait to do this one more time

One More Time - Blink-182

So long it's been

Even after so many years. Decades really. If I fall asleep during some strange time, I enter a dream and you're always in it. God sure does have your back to "torment" for so many years. I always wake up smiling regardless and I laugh. Dreams are funny that way. It's always a close moment or a passing moment. I have no idea why you still linger. Granted, it was a very impressionable time in both our lives. We wanted different things. We probably want different things now. I guess the paths opened up as they were meant to be. No regrets. No looking back. It's funny that I am closer now. Not that it changes anything nor would I allow it. I just always find the dreams funny. I know God gets a kick out of it. Oh, you done messed up kid....30 years of seeing her face in your sleep!!!! Eh. I ain't mad. At this point I've been through it all. A few dreams can't do much at this point. 

 "Don't look back; something might be gaining on you" Satchel Paige.

Inside the cold

I don’t think of it much these days. I can still hear the howling wind of a cold winter night. The wind whipping down the street and objecting across the siding. It was as if the place had only a few dim lights. I realize maybe impossible to use for reading or anything but eating and getting out the door. The wood in the house, a patchwork of things. The darkness comforted me. The silence even more. I stopped thinking about the difficult parts of my life. The parts I couldn’t change, nor run from. The unknown of what might come. As if protected from what could hurt me. Not yet immobile from anchors that got attached a long time ago. Anchors I had not yet learned to drop so I could be free. I had many at the time. Maybe I still have a few today. I couldn’t really imagine what was behind me. What was in front of me, well, it was blank, but possible. I tend to never forget that room. You didn’t know I would look over at you and wonder. I would smile. I wish the two of us smiled more about what we were experiencing. Then again, I wish I smiled so much more about life in general. I lost that part of myself from so many sad times. Sadly, I would also look over and know that some day, you’d be gone. I knew it. I expected an end to all good things in my life. I think it got programmed in my brain around 8. The beginning of the violence. I knew it would end, yet there I laid, on the bed, a wry smile across my face. I cried one time. Ironically, it was her, Mother Nature, who protected me during those days and nights; the many hours spent away. The wind was her voice, her emotions, the cold brutal air. Unbeknownst to me, both, protected me, from what was happening miles away. I remember that. She was there as were you. Both of you couldn’t have known I was plummeting through life and my bliss was temporary and I knew it. So many open doors I had passed through. There are some I choose to leave closed, a part of my heart still alive inside. Inside the cold….

Far, Far Beyond - Ch 13 - Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

If anything happens that challenges how view things, you fight. You defend. You rationalize. You get frustrated and angry over simple little things. This is the result of being unable to fit into what's actually happening into your model of reality. If you want to go beyond your model, you have to take the risk of not believing in it. If your mental model is bothering you, it's because it doesn't incorporate reality. Your choice is to either resist reality or go beyond the limits of your model. 

In order to truly go beyond your model, you must first understand why you built it. The easiest way to understand this is to study what happens when the model doesn't work. Have you ever built your whole world on a model of life predicated upon another person's behaviour or the permanence of a relationship? If so, have you ever had that foundation pulled from under you? Somebody leaves you? Somebody dies, Something goes wrong, Something shakes your model to the core. When this happens, your entire view of who you believe you are, including your relationship to everyone and everything around you, begins to fall apart. You panic and do everything you can to hold it together. You beg, fight and struggle to try and keep your world from collapsing.