Why Does A Dog Lick His Balls?

       I wanted to do a post today for the same reason that a dog licks his balls; because he can. After being unable to post for so long, I have a yearning to do so, simply for the sake of doing it. In the process, I’ll hopefully say something that you can relate to. If not, you’ll never see this, ball licking ability or not...
       For the past few months, as in this very moment, I’m having trouble executing the manifesto of this website. That is, I’m experiencing lots of trouble sharing what’s really going on inside of me, on the very deepest of levels. By owning that, here and now, I suppose I’m trying to at least share something real - my struggle - even though I’m not coming out and saying what it is. Admitting that you’re in turmoil within yourself is at least a step in the right direction.
       In a way, this feels like a cop out. Telling you that something big is up, but not telling you what. But it’s the best I can do right now.
       I’m not closed down, but I’m not terribly open either. I’m kind of in this murky soup of emotion. One thing is for certain, however, and I know that it holds the key to my release. I’m feeling lots of shame. Tons of it. I even feel shame about feeling shame. As long as I’m here, I’m lost. Trapped in a prison of my own design.
       My hope is that through sharing this here, I can touch a place in you that feels the same way. A place where you want to share what’s going on, because you know it will help. A place where your burning desire to heal comes up head on against the most formidable fear and shame you can imagine. A place you have to get past, but can’t see how.
       I’ve been here before. So have you. We’ll get through it.  

Re-Inhibitor

        One of the things so many of us love about children is their ability to surprise and even astonish us with some of the the things they say and do. I was around a gaggle of my little cousins last weekend, ranging in ages from six to sixteen, so I was witness to an endless stream of entertaining behavior. I started asking myself why we as adults are so enthralled with what children do and say.
        One of the reasons I came up with hits very close to home with me. Children are usually much less inhibited than adults. A child will do something, like get wet, roll in the sand, cover their head with seaweed and put on a diving mask so that they resemble an alien, simply because it’s fun. Simply because they want to. Simply because they can. They’re not worried about what people are going to think of them. And if they are, it’s most likely along the lines of “Oh boy, this is going to make people laugh. I’m going to get some juicy attention for this!”.
        This sort of attitude allows children to be much freer in their range of behaviors. Obviously, they have to learn how their behavior effects others, and therefore develop boundaries and governing systems. But I’m not talking about behavior like that. I’m referring to the kind of stuff like looking like an alien at the beach. Behavior that is undertaken simply because it’s fun, simply because it's self expressive. Behavior whose environmental impact is limited to people’s opinion of it.
        In children, it’s all about fun. It’s all about being yourself and doing what feels good. Children know how they feel, and they express it. They express what they like and what they don’t like. Self expression is a key element in being a kid. What they do. What they say. What they wear. It all screams “Here I am! This is me!”. That sort of outgoing, innocent, somewhat irreverent, self expressive energy is a beautiful thing. And something we lose so much of when we “mature”. Maybe that’s one reason people find artists, particularly rock musicians, so fascinating; that gonzo-out-there-this-is-me energy is so alive and well in them.
        I’m focusing on the attitude here, not necessarily on a particular behavior. As we get older, we learn all types of lessons regarding how to act and what to say. Many lessons are valuable, and help us with our self control, develop our boundaries, and make us cognizant of the rights of others. And some lessons are rather worthless. These are the lessons that create so much inhibition and fear in us that we literally forget what it means to be ourselves. Lessons that raise our self consciousness to such dizzying platitudes that we won’t do things that are harmless but loads of fun strictly because we’re afraid of what people will think of us. Lessons that completely alienate and stifle the child within.
        In my case, when I was a child, I was much more like an adult. I was very self conscious. Prohibitively so. I was incredibly inhibited. More than even many grown ups. I didn’t like myself much at all. In a way, my life has run in reverse. I feel more like a kid now than when I was a kid. I have more fun now than I ever did as a child. I’m exponentially more expressive. I’m more myself. I’m far less self conscious or inhibited. I very much want to be loved and liked, but I’m far less concerned with who doesn’t like me, or even if they do or not.
        By no means am I suggesting that I don’t have these self conscious inhibitor gremlins inside of me. I do. I’m very aware of them, and sometimes, their voices are loud. I struggle with them constantly. But I’ve had some success in taming them. I’ve had some success in realizing where they absolutely do me no good. I’ve had some success in telling them to shut the fuck up.
        What I encourage people to do is get in touch with the kid inside of themselves and rediscover who that kid is. He or she has much to teach you. Not only about who you really are, but about who you really aren’t. If you’re willing to get to know that kid intimately, he or she will help you re-ignite fun and joy and uninhibited energy. That kid will tell you a lot about what you really love. And about who you really love.
        And that child will also tell you a lot about the pain you are still in today. If you truly open up to your kid’s unbridled joy of self expression, then you will also open up to whatever residual pain still lives inside you. Pain that still effects your behavior today. Pain that still effects who you are. And who you aren’t. Maybe that’s one reason why so many people shut out that child within. Because of the pain that’s still there. Because they are afraid that once they rediscover that kid, it’s not going to be all fun and games.
        And it usually isn’t. My own journey involved opening up to the pain first, which is usually how it happens, and another reason people are reluctant to re-discover the inner child. The pain usually comes before the joy, and who the hell wants more pain.
        But I can tell you from experience; it’s unquestionably worth it. The payoff for dealing with ourselves is a fuller life. The freedom we gain in our emotional lives is invaluable. We are able to access energies in ourselves that have been dormant for years and maybe weren’t even aware of. Our self expression flows through us and out of us and back into us again like high voltage through a cable of high conductive copper, re-energizing our lives. We start recovering who we really are. We become open to pain as well as joy, true. But that is so much better than being numb, which is where so many of us reside, so much of the time. I know. I was there for a long time.
        The child within will teach you about your latent pain, and help you get in touch with that ache deep inside of you that hasn’t yet healed. But once you’re in touch with it, you can start the process of releasing it. The child within can teach you about love. About unconditional love. About joy and self expression and fun. They will teach you about feeling. About being. About living. Ultimately, getting in touch with your inner child is about freeing yourself, on many levels, about many things. And how the hell can that be bad?


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a house full of very self expressive Wrongs) Reserved.

Love Me Through Glass

        Placed in an incubator just moments after I was born, I got comfortable being looked at through glass. I got comfortable being loved through an invisible wall.
        From the first seconds of life, I learned how to love and be loved using walls. These walls were a fact of life for me from the very beginning. The barriers were in fact physical before they were metaphysical. I didn’t have to learn how to put them up. They were already there. It’s all I knew, right from the start.
        Because a person, especially a new born, needs love to live, I had to detect the love coming through the glass, or else I’d perish. So I immediately developed the ability to feel love and affection and connection right through the wall. And right after I developed this ability, because I was in there for three weeks, I got used to it. I got comfortable with experiencing love through a wall. So that’s how I did it.
        I’m still most comfortable being loved from afar. Being adored through some sort of wall. But now it’s a wall of my own creation. Or at least it has been. That’s all changing now. But it’s a work in process.
        I’ve noticed that what’s easiest for me is to be aware that someone is looking at me, maybe even talking about me, and letting it go at that. Being noticed and smiled at from across the room is a great feeling. It is most often an invitation to at least say hello, and maybe strike up a conversation. But I notice my reluctance to do so, and it makes sense. Because as long as all you can do is look at me, adore me from afar as it were, I’m comfortable. I’m safe. You don’t know me yet, so I’m still okay. I get to bask in the knowledge that you find me somewhat attractive, and that you’re curious about me. And all too often, that’s enough for me. Because after that, it starts to get unsafe. After that, a little of the wall has to come down so that we can talk. And that, believe it or not, can be very scary for me.
        In an intimate relationship, the wall is still there. It’s a lot thinner, and the glass is spotless and pretty transparent. But it’s a still a wall. Because I still feel the need to keep myself safe. I can’t let you all the way in. I never have. Even right after I was born.
        This is not a unique trait. In fact, it’s all too common. Now that I’m acutely aware of it, I see it everywhere. Not only in myself, but in others. But that’s the way it always is. Only when you become finely attuned to your own experience, your own pain, your own struggle, can you so deftly pick it up in your relationships with others. That’s one reason I believe that some of the best sports coaches were not necessarily the best players. They constantly experienced the struggle of their limitations, and therefore the pain of their professional existence, much more than their super-star counterparts. Therefore, when it comes time to coach, they are able to more readily relate to the struggles of the average player, who make the majority of the team. You can learn to massage egos, and stroke the bellies of the stand outs, a lot easier than you can learn to relate to the painful experience of the common reality.
        When I was released from the incubator chamber, the physical glass walls were soon replaced by emotional ones, but they still weren’t mine. I developed my own from mirroring what I saw, and instinctively knowing that I already knew how to construct them in order to protect myself. So I did. And I got better at it the older I got.
        I’ve chosen to unlearn this way of doing the love dance, a way that I was taught since my very first moments of life. I’m grateful that I’ve become so aware of this and that I’ve chosen to work at doing it differently. My walls are coming down now. With so many of us, the walls get bigger and thicker and stronger as we get older. We can become more closed off as we age, we therefore age quicker, and it makes the aging process far more difficult. Even cruel. I’m going the other way. I feel younger than I have since I was a teenager.
        Like an addict who hit his bottom, I started the slide after my dad died, and I hit the ground with a life shaking thud. After bouncing around on the bottom for a while, I realized that I was in love with a woman who just left me. And that’s when I started to climb out. After I finally faced myself and could not run from the pain anymore. That’s usually how it happens. We come up against ourselves after a trauma, like a death or a divorce or an accident or a series of heart breaking losses, and we start living. Or we start dying.
        But as I’ve said, it’s a work in process. If I were standing, half naked, on stage in a room with thousands of people all staring at me, I would be more comfortable than I would be if I had to approach one of those people and talk to them. Even if I knew that they were liking what they saw. I can often overcome the fear of approaching someone and striking up a conversation, and I’m a lot more at ease with myself than I used to be, but what I notice is that the fear is still there. The fear of not having a wall of glass through which to connect. A wall that’s been there since I was born. A wall that’s coming down.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and The Wall by Pink Floyd of Wrongs) Reserved.

The Body As Canvas

        One toy that re-appears each generation is some sort of humanoid figure, less than a foot tall, completely made of white resin, that allows you to paint on it. Sometimes the paints come with it, sometimes you have to buy the paint separately. Curiously, the closer it looks like a human being, the more clothing it usually has on.
        I remember seeing these as a kid and getting incredibly excited. In fact, when I see them today, in whatever modern form they have evolved into, I get...incredibly excited. Because even as a child, the idea of having a blank slate upon which to create myself filled me with a light that made me glow from the inside out.
        Before I knew what it meant to not like myself, I didn’t like myself. I always remember wanting to be somebody else. I had a very active fantasy life where I was always pretending that I was some other thin, cool, popular, attractive, happy kid, instead of the fat, melancholy, socially awkward boy that I was.
        These little all white figures were tabulae rasae that I could paint as brightly and as beautifully and as outrageously as I wanted. It was much different than painting on a piece of paper. The little statue that looked like a human body was far more symbolically evocative of who and what I could become. It was like I was painting on myself. It was as though I was re-creating myself whenever I painted one of them. I obviously wasn’t mature enough to be aware of that then, but I see that connection clearly now.
        Even now, just thinking about a three dimensional human form upon which to paint and adorn however I choose fills me with a child like joy and excitement that only the possibility of full self expression can conjure. As a child, my opportunities for full self expression were extremely limited. And when the opportunities arose,there was always a ceiling or a limit on just how expressive I could be. Even if I was just painting a toy.
        Not now. As an adult, whatever limits I place on my own self expressiveness are, ultimately, of my own design and choosing.
        What I’ve come to understand is that, like that little white statue, I see my body as a canvas upon which to paint whatever I choose. But, unlike the statue, it’s not a static canvas. It’s a vibrant, dynamic canvas that I can sculpt into the shape I want. I have a certain amount of control over the shape of this canvas, and through exercise and nutrition and discipline and knowledge and desire and hard work, I can make it into something I like the looks of. Something I like the feel of. I don’t have to fantasize about being somebody else. I can become the man I want to be. “Sculpting” and “Painting” this canvas called my body is one piece of that self-actualization.
        The clothing and the jewelry and the hair color and whatever else I adorn to present to the outside world are like the colors and designs I paint on the little white resin statue. I have become that magical canvas upon which to paint. And I don’t want to limit my colors or my designs. I want to use the colors and the styles and the designs that I like. I want to combine them all to create a unique presentation. I want my physical form to look as unique on the outside as I am on the inside.
        It doesn’t make any sense not to use whatever colors or styles or designs or accoutrements excite me to create this. Certainly not because somebody else is telling me what’s acceptable or normal. As a child, it was parents or teachers or other kids setting the rules on self expression. Now it’s societal norms.
        No thanx. Been there. Done that. It’s not a whole lotta fun. I’m going to use whatever colors I like. I’m going to go with whatever designs and styles move me. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t you?
        This reminds me of a conversation I had with my neighbor’s mother about the color of my house. When I first painted it, I saw her sitting alone on her lawn and went over to say hello. I hadn’t seen her since the previous summer. After a few minutes she said to me “You know, I really don’t like the color of your house. Purple?”. She’s an outspoken, old school Italian woman. Her candor and directness I find refreshing, very unlike her female offspring, who just stopped talking to me one day after I painted the house. Anyway, without skipping a beat, I replied to her “Well you know Mary, I don’t like the color of your house either. It bores the hell out of me.”
        We both laughed. Ah, truth. Nothing like it.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a massive tabula rasa of Wrongs) Reserved.

The (Sparkly) Chart Room

        The other night, I was at a locally famous restaurant and watering hole called The Chart Room. The Chart Room is one of those places that’s been here as long as people have been vacationing on lower Cape Cod. It’s a physical establishment that has magically transcended the physical and woven itself into the ethereal fabric of the area, the very same way the water and the sunsets have. The Chart Room, and everything that’s ever happened there, is a vibrant part of the Cape Cod collective unconscious.
        It overlooks a beautiful cove that houses Kingman’s Marina. There are boats of all shapes and sizes everywhere. The boating crowd loves the place, as does just about everybody else.
        I don’t have a boat. I have a jet ski. My shorts aren’t pleated, or even khaki. They’re more the surfer type. My shirts don’t have a collar, or usually even a neckline. And if they do, they are of colors and styles that would never appear in a Ralph Lauren, Polo, or Nautica catalog. Very few of the men who frequent The Chart Room adorn any sort of jewelry, save for a wedding band, while I practically rattle when I walk.
        Superficially, I don’t fit in here. I dress differently. My quasi mohawk haircut is unlike anybody else’s. My sense of style is about as far away from these people as can be. But beneath all that, there is a commonality that for me at least supersedes such differences. When you get further down to it, these people are here for the evening to socialize, to connect to other people, and to enjoy life. And so am I. It is through that unspoken commonality that our sensibilities meet and mesh.
        During the course of the evening, an attractive woman in her early fifties approached me and said “I have to ask you; What is up with that belt?”. She’s referring to a sparkly belt that often adorns my waistline, a belt that I have written about in this very blog. Her query was genuine and curious, not at all confrontational, and I’m sure that added to my immediate sense of ease.
        “Are you familiar with Michelangelo’s sculpture of David?”, I asked her. She said “Yes. In fact, I’ve seen it. It’s fabulous.” I continued “Do you recall the artist’s response when he was asked how he was able to sculpt such a thing from a hunk of shapeless marble?”. “No. I don’t.” she said. “What Michelangelo said”, I replied, “was that David was already in the marble. All he had to do was take away what didn’t belong so that David could be revealed.” There was a slight pause. She understood the comment, but didn’t understand what the hell it had to do with the belt I was wearing. I let this fester for just a moment and added “Well, this belt was already inside of me. All I had to do was strip away from me whatever didn’t belong, and there it was.” She looked at me, still somewhat perplexed. She obviously wasn’t expecting a philosophical answer to her question about my fashion choice.
        I continued “I love bright colors, flashy clothing, sparkly things. I’m drawn to them like a moth is to a flame. That preference is inside of me. I just follow it. And it leads me to find and wear stuff like this.” After a moment or two, as my words sank in, she got it. And then she smiled at me. I could see in her eyes that she not only understood what I was saying, she understood ME. She was asking about something on my outside, and I gave her something from my insides, and she heard it. I took this simple opportunity to share this about myself because she asked a question. Her curiosity prompted my openness and we were able to connect through a wonderful little exchange.
        In those moments, it didn’t matter what we looked like, or how we dressed. All that mattered was that we got each other. We connected. Which is why I go there. Which is why she goes there. Which is why so many of us go there. Or anywhere, for that matter.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a collective unconscious of Wrongs) Reserved.