THREE MEN

... well, four, counting myself.

It has been a special pleasure to reconnect with men these past few days. There is something about being in touch with members of one's own gender--and this has nothing to do with sexuality--that is important and different from contact with the other. Women definitely know about this, and act on it, much more than do we men. They tend to have more intimate friendships, sharing more of their inner lives, particularly matters of the heart. Men tend to skate across the surface of experience, avoiding the risk of showing too much about themselves to other men. We learn from an early age that there are things that are better kept hidden, especially emotions: it can be dangerous, in the school yard, to show fear or anger; worse still, to show affection. Safer to keep it all bottled up inside.

So, yes, then, a special pleasure. Sunday my friend Brian stopped by, to enjoy a cigar in the sunlight, out on our back patio. (I allow myself one a week; for years I was addicted to cigarettes and, though I quit more than thirty years ago, I'm much aware of the power of that addiction. But I do enjoy my once-a-week cigar.) With Brian I share the experience of having a grown daughter, and we talked at length about the kind of responsibilities we incur and the kind of father-protectiveness we find it hard to let go. It did not come out, perhaps, in so many words, but that lay at the heart of our long, easy conversation. Brian is well-informed about real estate, too, and I was able to pick his brains about some current concerns about property and financing. Thank you, Brian!

Then my friend Ben had suggested a walk together, and we finally made it happen this past Monday. No dogs--though we both have one; that would have been a distraction. Ben introduced me to one of his favorite walks, up behind the local Catholic church, through a nicely tended meditation garden from which you can look out over the church roof and past the tower to a great vista of the Pacific Ocean, with Catalina Island far off in the distance. It was approaching sunset time and though we did not stay for long enough to witness the event, we could enjoy the waning hour of sunlight. We found a bench, where we sat and talked for a good long while, about age, and the approach of death, and the need to be prepared for it--not in any lugubrious or depressing way. To the contrary, we laughed a lot, mostly at ourselves. Ben has had a long-standing interest, too, in Buddhism, so we have that in common. We talked about the need to be living in the present, though also about the need to understand those reactive patterns from the past--the ones that can control our lives without our knowing it. So, thank you, Ben!

And then last night, Wednesday, we agreed to get together with our friend Dan for a long-promised glass of wine and dinner. Our daughter, Sarah, called as we were about to leave, so I walked down early, leaving Ellie to catch up a little later. Which allowed Dan and me the opportunity for a little man-to-man, and he asked about the progress of my "Boyhood Memories" project. With led to a deep conversation in which Dan shared some of the painful experience of his own childhood. We all have our childhood wounds, of course, and it does the soul good to revisit them once in a while, if only to bring them back to the surface where they can do less harm than down inside, where we tend to bury them. Down there, they fester, and resurface only in unwanted ways--bad relationships, bursts of anger, hidden fears... Not that most of us don't "get over them." We learn to live our adult lives, despite what may have happened in our childhood. But now and then, at least, it's good to get those memories out into the open. So, thank you, Dan!

Amazing, really, that all three of these men live within a block of our Laguna Beach cottage. Each of us is very different, and each interesting, evolved as a man, and powerful in his own way. So, yes, this week was a special pleasure. And a reminder of the value and importance of these relationships. They too often get neglected in the busy-ness of life.