An Excerpt from the Upcoming Book,
Where Regret Cannot Find Me

I have a crack in my windshield. Somehow a single pebble escaped the suction of the fresh asphalt on the Interstate by my house in Los Angeles and launched itself towards the glass of my truck. What started as a single bullet shaped scar soon gave way to a free flowing line that worked its way across the glass like the outline of the surrounding Southern California Mountains. It wasn’t the first time that this cosmetic “flaw” had paid a visit. With a modicum of regularity, it seemed that every car I’d ever owned eventually displayed this. Yet, this time, there wasn’t the urgency to have it fixed. I even stopped apologizing for it whenever I had a guest passenger. This thin, prism-like crack, with its peaks and valleys, became both mirror and messenger to my aching heart.

“Stop trying to cover me up,” it seemed to lament. “Don’t be in such a hurry to replace or fix me. So what if I’m not perfect. Let me be your teacher.”

My imperfect windshield and I made our way to a lunch with one of my oldest friends. Hope and I first met in sixth grade and bonded through our love of journalism and theatre. We stayed best buds from high school graduation through our years of living in New York City and Los Angeles. Yet, even though we lived only fifteen minutes apart now, there were times when our schedules were just crazy enough to keep us from seeing each other. This lunch was our new commitment to at least make the effort once a month to sit down to a meal together and catch up.

She called before to let me know that her four-year-old daughter, Sophia, would be joining us.

Sophia was at that stage of independent exploration where she insisted on dressing herself. Greens with purples, stripes with plaids, and in this case a black feather boa. Hope wanted to warn me ahead of time.

“How brave,” I laughed, “I would never consider a boa in daylight.”

There really wasn’t much “catching up”, as Sophia innocently demanded much of her mother’s attention. Even with a bag full of distractions from books to games to dolls, she still wanted to be a part of our discussion. I marveled at what Hope had assembled to keep her daughter entertained, finding myself mentally reciting a phrase that was quick to age me.

“In my day…” “Well, at least I hadn’t ventured into the time segregating commentary about the number of miles I had to walk to school,” I reasoned.

The established toy choices available to me at that age were Hot Wheels and G I Joes. If fortune smiled, an Etch-A-Sketch was thrown in—a far cry from the electronic, high tech gadgetry that blankets today’s shelves.

Mine was a generation that played games outdoors. In the neighborhood of my adolescence, it was not uncommon, as the sun went down, for our mothers to be calling and calling. With sweat from the sweltering humidity as layer number one, dirt and pinesap nestled into the creases of our necks, arms and knees creating a zebra effect. We were hard pressed to give up tree climbing, fort building and the multiple uses of spare tires. However, the most popular game by far was always Hide and Seek. There were myriad’s of places to hide—under the house, in drainage ditch openings, in trees and on rooftops. As I became a seasoned Hide and Seek professional, I realized that I would much rather be the one who was “it”. Hiding became boring fast and I always drew attention to myself so that I could be found. Being the seeker meant freedom to explore and search, and at those times when I felt exceptionally mischievous, I’d go inside and make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while the others hid.

In retrospect, I can appreciate the parallel of that game with my spiritual path. There is that part of us that abhors hiding. To deny any part of the full spectrum of life—the disappointments as well as the victories, grief and joy, times of doubt as well as faith—is to hide from our feeling nature.

Now, the message of the windshield seemed vitally clear. Stop judging how you feel.

I was experiencing the mental exhaustion that comes from standing in front of the dam of disappointments, pressing my hands against the cracks to keep the regrets and sorrow at bay—so much energy expended in the denial of feeling and yet thinking I was doing the admirable thing.

I knew now I’d reached the point on my life path where I could no longer hold up the dam. It was time to let the walls crack, crumble and fall.

Days later, staring again at my fractured, yet freshly washed “illustration”, I began to weep. You know, the sobbing kind. Yes, if you look back at the cover it will confirm that I am a man. It isn’t that men don’t cry, it’s that men don’t seem to cry very neatly. And this was one that had waited for 42 years to hit shore, an uninterrupted current that was extremely messy, spilling without tissue, Starbuck’s napkin or moist towelette in sight. I had just started the drive from Los Angeles to Napa and was resolved to get to the wedding rehearsal I was officiating at by early evening. But the tears had started free of even radio sad song stimulus. I could no longer hold it in.

The romantic break up from someone I loved dearly followed a litany of failed occurrences that seemed to plague my life in that past year. Everything I touched did not turn to gold; instead, it resembled mold.

Feeling like some cosmic delete button was eliminating everything I planned both personally and professionally, the waves of disappointment were crashing in on me like the hurricane surf I had watched as a child. Somehow the turbulent Gulf of Mexico seemed mild compared to this.

Honestly, I don’t remember driving the six plus hours or the fact that I must have stopped for gas. I remember only the overwhelming grief that propelled the release. Anyone passing me on Interstate 5 in California who looked my way must have gotten an eye full.

These heartbreaking sobs were not just about the sadness of the relationship changing form. That was merely the catalyst. These tears seemed laden with the death of my father, the loss of so many friends and colleagues from AIDS, the struggles from my show business years, family issues, financial pit falls—even pimples in high school.

All I remember is that I allowed myself, once and for all, to be held by the arms of sorrow.

I’m not sure why I was always so apprehensive to venture into her arms or, when there, wish to wriggle my way out like a hug from an over-perfumed aunt.

I flashed onto a scene from the movie version of A Chorus Line. The director asks one girl after reviewing her resume’, why she hadn’t worked in over a year. You could tell by her face that she was searching her mental index to come up with something appropriate or appealing to respond with. Instead she told the truth. “I had a nervous breakdown,” she softly confesses. I started crying one day and I couldn’t stop.”

I thought that would happen to me. If I tossed out that emotional line I might never be able to reel it back in. Experience has taught me my fears were unfounded.

Months afterwards, I attended a reception to honor a publisher in the field of metaphysics. It was held at an exclusive hotel in Los Angeles in one of their finest banquet rooms. There was a sit down dinner with several introductions of visiting dignitaries and a congratulatory speech from a well-known author preceding the honoree. During the opening remarks, loud band music began to filter in from a wedding being held in the adjacent hall. The music was distracting and it was difficult even to hear what was being said about the publisher. Yet, no one said anything about it and the speakers kept plowing through their part of the program. Finally, when the honoree took his place behind the podium, he joked, “I’ve been excited about receiving this award for months but I never knew it would come with a rendition of Wasting Away Again In Marguaritaville. The tension relaxed, and the entire banquet hall exploded with laughter.

Just as the speaker finally acknowledged the “white elephant” in that room, releasing the tension, so does acknowledging sorrow. We then begin the move towards healing it. Denying it seems as useful as a Band-Aid over a gaping wound. It’s better to let the wound be looked at, washed and salved.

Deepak Chopra wrote, “Pretending they (regrets) are not there is accepting the idea that they are somehow unhealable, unforgivable. Our greatest insight is that everything is all right. Our greatest delusion is we have made unforgivable mistakes.”

However, the reverse of this acknowledgment reveals those who are professionals in being the walking wounded. They collect their victim charms and wear them on ID bracelets, shaking them in our faces. What would they talk about if they worked towards resolution? To me, that is stagnation, making a mantra out of “ain’t it awful”. What I’m referring to is simply acknowledging the regrets and taking actions to heal and cleanse them from becoming our identifiable calling cards.

Allowing our feeling nature free reign to express deepens our ability of understanding and strengthens our compassion.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing.”

I arrived in Napa, the front of my shirt soaked from tears and the accompanying runny nose. I quickly changed, wiped my face as best I could and approached the door to the wedding rehearsal. The bride flung open the door, took one look at me and said, “You look so peaceful. Thank God! We’re all nervous wrecks!”

My first thought was, “If you only knew.”

After the festivities, I spent some time walking around Napa. I love the area and I strolled from shop to shop stopping at my favorite used bookstore. At that moment I remembered a phone call I was to make and opened my day planner to find the number. The calendar section stared back at me and in the squares for the present weekend was written my partner’s name and mine.

More tears.

Even in one of my favorite places, I couldn’t seem to escape regret and sorrow. I remember thinking; “I just want to go somewhere where regret cannot find me.”

I looked up at the bookstore window and realized I had found the title for my book.

It encompassed the great paradox, for in order to discover such a place we must first let it find us and invite it in, acknowledge its meaningful but temporary visit, creating the healing ability to move on. Just as in Hide and Seek, it felt better to be found.

The thirteenth century Sufi poet Rumi wrote:

This being human is a guesthouse.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
She may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Opening the door to sorrow revealed a lady of sweet understanding. The depths of her compassion are comparative to God’s own. She is the mistress who accompanies everyone in secret but longs to stroll side by side even in the light of day. Her beauty and vulnerable gifts are never fully appreciated unless they are brought into that light. It is the divine paradox of sadness and joy, dark and light, tears and laughter that turn our inward dial of life to the setting called “full experience”. With senses so heightened we cry in the light and watch as our tears cascade and collect into pools of diamonds reflecting the rainbows of our souls.

The great Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “I have been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. I have stood on the mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.”

Beginning to explore this new mountain, my hands hold on to vulnerability and courage as supportive companions.

Now that sorrow was here, I no longer feared her for she had whispered to me that her arms were inviting. I had to agree. No longer was I focused on the energy of keeping my hands pressed against the cracks of the dam. I had freed them, watched it collapse and began floating in the collected tears of my lifetime. I no longer became concerned about when I’d stop or who could see because sorrow now stroked my hair, cradled me and rocked me through the night like the Eternal Mother.

The biblical metaphor reminds us we cannot put new wine into old skins. My prayers to be a bright light in a darkening world seemed attainable, for this metamorphosis delivered more compassion and clarity than I had ever known. I could feel, at last, new growth forming for my highest purpose to find its home.

The windshield still maintains its elongated crack. For now, it represents a map of an illuminating journey.

I thank sorrow for that. As she leaves to make room for joy, she softly kisses me and I know that we will meet again.