The Gifts of The Father

       My dad. An amazing man. I loved him with all my heart. Not because of what he did for me. But because of who he was.
       I saw my dad as a human being, as much as I saw him as my father. That perspective helped create my special bond with him. Because he was so much more than just my father.  
       Seeing him as s full human being, instead of just the mighty patriarch, may have made my dad uncomfortable. Because, despite his claims that he had made "all the mistakes", he was a perfectionist. He wanted to appear perfect to all of his children.
       The other day, my siblings and I met with the lawyers who administer my dad’s estate. The meeting went very well. Afterwards, when my focus could afford to shift away from the practical and immediate issues at hand, my thoughts drifted to my dad. I became extremely emotional when I got home.
       Gratitude engulfed me like a warm blanket wrapping itself around a child. My dad worked hard his whole life, until the day he died, providing abundantly for his family. As a boy, during the depression, he worked for his father, traveling to jobs in Maine in a Model T on the weekends.  As a man, he worked tirelessly to give us, his children, a better life than he had.
       And because he ran his own company, my dad was able to provide work for countless relatives and friends. On his death bed, my grandfather, who started the construction company my dad took over, said to him;  “Leon....it’s your turn to take care of the family now”. And my grandpa wasn’t just talking about my dad’s immediate family, although we were obviously front and center. My grandfather was taking about anyone with the last name “Piatelli”.
       Talk about a heavy onus.
       Every fight I ever had with my dad, I regret. Every unkind thought, or hostile feeling I had towards him, I want back. Of course I know that is stinking thinking. I can do nothing about the past. Especially regret it. But what I can do is use the past to teach me about my present. And from that wiser place, I create a more joyful, more fulfilling, more beautiful now. And that upgrade of my present creates an upgrade of my future.
       Thanx to my dad, financial freedom smiled upon me as  soon as I became a young man. Working when I wanted to, at what I wanted to, provided me a life that most would envy. I worked in film production; insane hours, but I loved it. I played in lots of bands; great fun, lots of girls, and wonderful opportunity for expression. Creative projects abounded: I created my own very elaborate Christmas cards; recorded and distributed very professionally crafted Christmas music with my talented family; threw amazing parties several times a year; made my own videos; traveled extensively; wrote a lot and started a blog. All wonderful experiences.
       Blessed with the opportunity to fully express myself, I took it. And took it. And kept taking it. With no apologies. I have lead an unconventional life. A blessed life. Not perfectly. But I have done much, seen much, expressed much.
       The freedom to do all that has given me the experience to know that putting myself out there is worth it. That the benefits for showing the world what I think and what I feel and who I am are worth the risks.
       At the same time, I can also see what I missed by not having to do something I didn’t want to do. Like work at a job I didn’t like. I can see the lessons lost because I did not have to get up and toil at something that I could not just quit without serious consequences. I did not have to work to pay the rent. Or put food on my table. I admit, those very real concerns for most have never been a concern of mine. But just because I never lived it doesn’t mean I can’t relate to it. I’ve never had cancer either, but I am compassionate and empathetic enough to know that it has to be a tremendously difficult burden to bear.
       I realize that I have not fully utilized my talents, abilities, blessings, or opportunities. And because my talents, abilities, blessings, and opportunities have been greater than most, perhaps that fact is more distressful. More distressful not only to me but to others in my life who have seen me go through pain, frustration, and lack of fulfillment because of it.
       Moving forward, however, I understand my journey better. Far better than I ever have before. More importantly, I accept it and I embrace it. That means I am more in touch with both the benefits and drawbacks of the life I’ve lead. That connection to what I’ve missed by doing it this way does not depress or discourage me. It has actually help awaken me. I am thus committed to doing more, and more importantly, to being more. I am committed to being more of Me. I am committed to the possibilities created from being more fully My Self. I am committed to the possibilities created by being more fully engaged in My Life.
       But, before the voices get too loud; the voices, both inside and outside of my head, that tell me that this entire post is nothing more than a justification of what I’ve done (or not done) throughout the course of my very blessed life, let me say this: Please Shut Up. I don’t need your judgement. I don’t need your criticism. I don’t need your conventional wisdom. I don’t need you to beat me up. That does not help me move ahead. That does not help me understand what a wonderful, unique, wild ride my life has been, and how the living of that wonderful, unique, and wild ride can best serve me going forward.
       I am very aware of what I have gained, and what I have lost, by choosing to live my life the way I have. I am clear that it has been nobody’s choice but mine. I am completely responsible for both the rewards and the costs. And with that responsibility comes the realization that the best I have to give this life, as always, is All of Me. My whole authentic self. As best I can. To share my experience. My truth. My love. My unique essence. My Being. My “That Which Makes Me Unique From Every Other Soul On This Planet”.
       Those who want it, I invite you to please take it. All of it. Really. For those who can handle it, come all the way in. For those who just want some of it, take what you want and leave the rest. And for those who want none of it, well the door is right over there.
       Thank you dad, for giving me the space to see all of this; the freedom to live all of this; and the opportunity to capitalize on all of this. Your magnanimous gifts have not been wasted. Will not be wasted. I have once again been propelled forward by the generosity of your spirit, the hard work of your mind and body, the openness of your heart, and the essence of your being. You gave me, dear father, the most precious gift you could have ever given me. You gave me the very best you could.
       You gave me yourself.
       And I am passing it forward.

©2012 Clint Piatelli and Red F Publishing. All Rights (and Selfless Wrongs) Reserved.


        
    
    
    
   

Everybody Wants To Rule The World

       As my college days were winding down, I experienced a peculiar sadness that grew in direct proportion to how much fun I was having. Which is to say that I was simultaneously feeling deep sorrow and great joy. I was whooping it up at party after party. And soon, I would be leaving a group of people I had come to love dearly. People who I had shared the last four years of my life with. There was a palpable pain in that.
       Some say that you can only experience one emotion at a time. Bullshit. If life were that simple.......
       The tune “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” was very popular in the spring of 1985, the period of my undergraduate swan song. Like my overall life experience, that music evoked both boundless joy and deep grief. Maybe that’s why I connected to it so strongly. That connection remains. Whenever I hear the song today, I am compelled to crank it up, sing to it, and feel. Driven by some mystical force that only music wields, whenever I hear “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, I want to laugh and cry at the same time.
       But I don’t feel like crying out of sadness anymore. The sense of loss of my college days has long passed. Today, the complex overall experience is different.
       Have you ever seen something so beautiful you wanted to cry? A baby perhaps, or a wondrous spectacle of nature. Music is often that spectacle for me. I find many songs so beautiful that I want to cry. They touch me so deeply, move me so profoundly, that tears are the only form of expression that makes any sense. In fact, it’s happening to me right now. “April Come She Will”. Simon an Garfunkel.
       It’s a good thing. No. Actually, It’s a great thing.
       The other night, my nephew’s band ended the night with “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”. As soon as I heard the dissonant opening notes, I felt a wellspring of emotion bubbling up inside of me. Now, picture the environment. I’m dancing in a very crowded club, with a few hundred people, all of us having fun. And at the same time, I feel like balling because the song is so sonically rapturous.
       But instead of crying, I channel that energy into physicality. I sing louder. I dance more energetically. And I feel more deeply. The tears of joy and beauty are there, right below the surface. Nobody can see them. But I feel them. And I use the power of that feeling to propel my experience and transcend the moment. I’m engaged in a very deep, very intense experience at the same time I’m just listening to music and dancing in a club. Total Zen. Music is therefore transcendental, for it creates a sense of being that is beyond ordinary or common experience. And music does that to me all the time.
       While this is happening, I’m wondering if anybody else in the club feels like this. Or am I so far out in the stratosphere that I am completely alone up here? It doesn’t really matter I suppose. It reminds me of that line in Full Metal Jacket, when the soldiers are talking about their rifles: “This is my experience. There are many like it. But this one is mine.”
       The beauty of music is akin to the beauty of the woman I’m with. All I have to do is hear that song, or look at her, and I’m at once someplace else and completely present. Lost in the moment while at the same time being absolutely enveloped by it. Great art does that for me. And a favorite piece of music, or the woman I’m in love with, are nothing less than magnificent works of art.
       This rapture comes from deep inside the heart. From the center of my being, near the middle of my chest, where my heart is physically located. No coincidence. The other night, as I was dancing to “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, my chest felt full, like it was going to explode. Rather than weighing me down, however, I felt like I was floating. This fullness of chest acted like a balloon, bringing me levity of being.
       The intensity of the experience may have been heavy, but the experience of the intensity was lighter than air.


©2012 Clint Piatelli. All Rights Reserved.
          
    

Sans Hands

       Riding a bike hands free with any proficiency remained a skill that eluded me until just recently. Actually, very recently. Like, yesterday.
       The inspiration to ride with no hands came from my then girlfriend a few summers ago. We were cruising down the bike path in Falmouth and she was in front of me, happily peddling along sans hans, looking very beautiful and free. I wanted in, but didn’t know how to do it. So I decided to try it on my own first, lest I take a digger and ruin what was shaping up to be a wonderful afternoon with the woman I loved.
       Over the course of the next few months, I would occasionally try to take my hands off the handlebars and pedal. I had some success. But It was intermittent and sporadic. I hadn’t mastered anything, just met occasional moderate success.
       There’s a reservoir next to my condo, circumnavigated by a path used by cyclists, joggers, and walkers alike. It’s unpaved, uneven, with lots of curves. The wind whips around the reservoir in unpredictable patterns. And there’s usually a fair amount of people on the path, going both ways, at any time of day.
       Being a beautiful sunny, seventy-five degree end of summer day and with my early afternoon free, I decided to do my cardio outside,. The last vestiges of a shirtless summer were fading fast. I wanted to take advantage of every moment of it.
       The path around the reservoir is flat, and I’m always looking to make the ride more challenging and cardio-rific. After a lap or two, I started riding without my hands. Slowly at first, and only on the straightways. As I gained confidence, I sped up and started taking corners with my hands off the wheel. When somebody was headed my way, I would grab the handlebars again, because I didn’t want to slip up, go careening into them, and create a major lawsuit. Soon, that was no longer a concern. By the last three or four laps around the mile and a half route, I was completely hands free, all the way around, grabbing the bars only a few times when I felt discretion was at that moment the better part of cycling valor.
       Riding sans hands proved a potent metaphor for what’s been happening to my life over the past few months.
       It’s inspiring to realize that I can manifest newness and change in my life, no matter what my history or my age. I firmly believe that we all have that ability. In fact, I hold that humans are like trees; we grow until the day we die. If not, we’re already dead.
       Bike riding without hands may seem like a silly example, but for me it hit home. My concept of what’s possible for me has expanded. I see opportunity where before I just saw a problem. I’m experiencing opening after opening, effectively creating space, both inside of myself and in my world around me, to manifest more of what I want. I’m slowly taking more and greater risks, especially in areas where I was previously most cautious. And, believe it or not, I’m even more expressive, putting myself “Out There”, in explosive fashion.
       Stripping away what isn’t me to get to what is me, and then taking what is me and gradually putting that pedal to the metal. At the same time, expanding that concept of “What Is Me” to include a wider range of behavior, responses, possibilities, and experiences. Expansion means getting bigger, and that’s what’s been happening for me. Except in my waistline. That’s actually gotten smaller. I wore a pair of pants the other day that I bought for a wedding in 1986. Fit like a charm. But I digress.
       My life has been and continues to be a most unconventional, unique path. The drummers I follow and the rhythms I dance to have always been my own. The danger in hearing those sounds that others do not is that I sometimes lose the beat or can’t hear the song. And I have a poor frame of reference when that happens, because what I hear seems so different and strange. At the same time, I can learn a lot from being with those who follow a more traditional route. They provide a stability and a grounding that I sometimes struggle with. As much as I am drawn to the fringe, I am drawn to the middle. I can integrate both to create a life that is mine and a life that I love. I guess that’s what I’m really working with now.
       And riding hands free is also a shitload of fun.


©2012 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and Positively Expansive Wrongs) Reserved.

Fifty Thousand Shades of Clint

       Sexual role playing is, literally, fuckin’ fun. Like Halloween. Every night. In your bedroom.
       You get to dress up. You get to be somebody else. You get to act up and act out.  You get to free yourself of restrictions and constraints (or get yourself in them - either way, it works). When you fully engage in sexual role playing, you give yourself permission to radically expand your spectrum of behavior. And, as if all that were not enough....you get to orgasm. Sometimes, more than once. Sometimes, so powerfully that you peel the paint off the walls.
       Please tell me. What about that doesn’t work for you?
       Let’s face it: when you love someone, sex is serious. There’s a lot at stake. There are emotional and mental and physical consequences. Our beautiful and tender feelings are on the line. That seriousness is part of what makes sex with the one you love so intense.
       Allow me to make an analogy between sex and professional football. In both, emotions run high. There’s lots of action. There’s lots of passion. Your whole being is engaged: body, mind, heart, and soul. There’s an abundance of excitement. And you ride a tide of emotions that leave you exhausted at the end.
       And within that....it’s a game. Meaning that it’s meant to be played. Played. Not worked. Like music. And I better stop with the analogies and metaphors, before I become crippled by them.
       When sex is playful, while existing in the realm of genuine love and intimacy between two people, it takes on a beauty and a power and an intensity that can only be manifested by fully embracing that sense of play.
       Role Playing is just that; it’s playing. It’s about accessing deep inner passion while simultaneously getting far enough out of yourself to really let loose. It’s about completely giving yourself over to whatever scene you and your partner have mutually created. It’s about behaving with a barely controlled reckless abandon that flirts with the “out of control” but never reaches it. That’s what happens when kids really play. And that’s what happens when adults really do too.
       So take this controlled reckless abandonment of play and put it into the electric environment of sex. What you have are all the ingredients for a super charged experience that allows couples to literally transcend the ordinary and enter the extraordinary. That sounds like a tall order, but it’s not. If you fully throw your whole self into your sexual play, the extraordinary is actually a natural outcome. And completely repeatable.
       Within the world of role playing, there exists infinite possibilities. Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to play? What were your limitations? Just your imagination. Why the fuck does it have to be any different now? It doesn’t. Unless you decide it has to be. It’s your call. It really is.
       To fully engage in play, you have to let go of your self consciousness. At least temporarily. If the voices in your head are screaming at you “This is silly! What are you doing? Grow up!”, and you listen to those voices, you can’t really play. Tell those voices that you appreciate their sharing, but you are going to choose not to listen to them. Or just tell them to shut the fuck up. Try either method. It works.
       As kids, we completely embraced our playfulness. If we do the same as adults and bring that embrace of the playful into sex, then, just as when we were kids, we have a natural defense against boredom. If we find out what we love to play at, we can keep ourselves happy for vast periods of time. And when it’s time to play something new, all we have to do is use our imagination and make something else up. And we’re there. You. Me. Us.
       Both partners need be willing to explore, to open up, and to remove their limitations and barriers. Both need to to use their imaginations. If both partners approach play in the bedroom with the same intensity and passion and commitment that they bring to whatever else is vitally important to them, then their sex lives can be a magic carpet ride. Maybe not all of the time. But lots of the time.
       Tonight, I’m a robber who breaks into your place while you’re asleep, ties you up, gags you, and makes you watch as I steal your most valued possessions. I ask you where your best jewelry is, and you won’t tell me. So I fondle you and caress you and turn you on until you are about to climax. But I deny you that sweet release over and over again until I break you, and you’ll tell me anything. Including where grandma’s pearls are. Then, after I make you beg me, all that tension within you gets released, and I bring you to orgasm. You come so explosively that you have an out of body experience. Sound impossible? Nope. Just a Wednesday night in my bedroom, with a lover who completely throws herself into the scene and shares a mutual commitment to the imaginative creation of our romance. Tomorrow night, we switch roles. And we haven’t even gotten to the weekend yet.
       Paradoxically, to fully express ourselves playfully as adults usually means that we need to do some work on ourselves. And when I say work, I mean any number of a slew of modalities, all designed to help us free ourselves. Of our past. Of our inhibitions and hang ups. Of our judgements. Of the horrible stories we tell ourselves. The more work we do to be free, the more intense and enjoyable and transformative our play.
       There is a world within us, locked away in our hearts and minds, all too often mysterious to our very selves, that is worth exploring. Ironically, when we access this deeper place, we are able to more fully and completely engage in play. Play may be executed on a field of apparent frivolity, but it’s roots run to the center of who we are as human beings and who we are as individuals.
       Society may define us by what we do for work, but we don’t have to buy into that. That traditional “You are what you get paid for” is a grossly incomplete picture. What and how we play tells us much more about who we are than we realize. So go play. In the bedroom especially. All of us have the capacity to super charge our sex lives with a healthy overdose of play.


©2012 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Massive Bedroom Full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Ride The Lightning

       The mutually negotiated sexual landscape between two intimate partners is not a static environment, but a dynamic one. Sometimes that landscape looks and feels like a beautiful walk through a mountain meadow. And sometimes it’s a a virtual reality thrill ride. And everything in between.
       All too often, couples' sex lives are not all they could be because time and space are not created to explore it. It’s taken as a given. But I see each partner’s sexuality, and thus the sexual universe created by their unique relationship, as a beautiful realm that positively begs discovery.
       When you’re pushing the envelope of mutual sexual exploration, you will come to wonderful places together that work for both of you. And you may come to places that won’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t keep exploring; it doesn’t mean that the sex will hit a dead end. The erotic world is vast. And most people’s erotic worlds are indeed far vaster than they even know. If you both stay open and dare to keep digging and exploring together, you may just find plenty of beautiful, fun, hot, sexy places to meet.  
       Figuring out what really turns you on, finding new places that drive you wild, and places you won’t go, is a process. It’s mutually negotiated. It’s not an ultimatum based dynamic. The very act of discussing and sharing and figuring it out builds intimacy and trust and excitement. No matter where it ends up. And if there are things that make either one uncomfortable, then you move away from that and go somewhere else with it. It’s a process. Again, it’s not static, but very dynamic.  
       There are few discussions I would rather have with my lover than one where you share sexual fantasies, open up about deep desires, and just explore your own and each other’s sexuality. Just like anything else, the deeper you dig, the more you are going to find. And sometimes what you find scares you. Or your partner.
       Fine. Bring it on. What would you rather talk about? The weather? The economy? Not me. Give me a juicy discussion about what you want to do to me, what I want to do to you, and how we can make that happen, any day of the week and twice on Saturdays and Sundays.
       Such discussions, however, require that each partner has a certain degree of self knowledge. Not everyone has done the work to know themselves like that. And even if you are in touch with your own hearts’s sexual desires, you also have to be able to risk sharing that. Again, most people have big trouble with that.
       I’m not saying it’s easy to get to that place. But I assure you, it’s worth it. It is so worth it. Self knowledge, and being able to risk exposing yourself, are in fact the building blocks of true sexual intimacy.
       Just like our hearts, I believe our sexuality is a treasure of riches that you usually have to dig for to get to. Life has thrown so much dirt and shit on our sexual desires, on sex itself, telling us what is right, what is wrong, what is “normal” and what isn’t, that we develop crippling inhibitions that block us from getting to that which truly makes our blood boil.
       Sometimes we get to a place where we discover something we like, or love, and tell ourselves that there is something wrong with us for liking it. So we don’t allow ourselves to like it too much, lest we believe we’re fucked up. That’s very real, and I’ve been there. But now I know that line of thinking is bullshit. If whatever you like or love is completely consensual by both parties, and does not harm another living soul, then there’s nothing wrong with it. And there’s nothing wrong with you for liking it.
       Human sexuality is unfortunately a poorly understood, indescribably vast universe that is still grossly under-explored by most. Our sex lives would serve us better if they were more like the rest of our lives - an adventure. Intimate relationships are the most beautiful arenas, and the most fertile grounds, for self exploration that we have. Can you think of anything more charged than sex? The word itself, and certainly the act, are literally a fucking bastion of electricity. It’s a world on fire. It’s made to be plugged into. It’s designed to set us ablaze. So plug into it. Feel the heat. Ride the lightning.
        Many prefer the darkness. It’s easier to hide there. It’s safer there. And I have a lot of empathy and understanding for that sentiment. But my life, across the board, is all about coming out of the darkness and into the light. I’m talking metaphorically here, not whether you use a 10 watt bulb or a 100 watt bulb. But sexuality proves to be a wonderful metaphor. Sex is electric, and that electricity begs us to use it to shed light. To illuminate. To enlighten. And to burn hot and bright.
        I’ll put my money where my mouth is and share something very personal. And relevant to this discussion. I have never been a fan of having sex in complete darkness. I like a little mood lighting, like the soft glow from a candle or a colored bulb. But when I'm co-creating sexual intimacy with my lover, I rarely close my eyes. Even when I kiss. And that’s not because I’m not into it. I don’t need to close my eyes to be into kissing, or fucking. I’m into it. Period. It is s giant turn on to look at my partner when we’re kissing; I love to see what she looks like. It’s even better when we look into each other’s eyes when we kiss. And the creme de la creme is to look onto each other’s eyes whilst making love. That’s magic, baby. That is in fact nerve rattling intimacy. And intimacy can be incredibly scary. But so are roller coasters.
        I have come to value intimacy in all of my special relationships, as a sacred thing. It’s vital to me. For those closest to me, from my best friends to my lover, it becomes the air I breathe. And with each person, that intimacy looks and feels different. And sometimes it scares the crap out of me. But it’s worth the risks.    

©2012 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and an Intimate and Naughty Amount of Wrongs) Reserved.