Showing Up!

When I arrive on the train platform in NYC subways I am sometimes reminded of what it means to show up. I want the train to show up now that I'm ready to go. Sometimes I'm already engaged in conversation and just want to gauge the time we have left to finish talking. Other times I might be concerned about how long I have before the train shows up and I'll have to switch gears and prepare to board and begin my trip. 

All along the journey to the station, even when I get on the train I have the opportunity to continue my conversations or thoughts but there are always those transitional moments where I have to first show up to even be a part. Those are the crossroads that affect the destiny of my life, where do we plant I seeds, my gifts? Where do I need to be to get where I need to go? Where you show up says a lot about where you're headed. 

My fire sister Diane reminded me of that lesson about community around a fire during the end of a ritual once. "Kevin, It's all about showing up."  That was some of the wisdom

 she shared from her experiences and now I'm experiencing an example of it. The roads that led me to the places I've shown up were first walked by me. I made a choice to tell someone my dream or sharing my vision. I showed up.

The other factor of your showing up on the train platform is the responsibility of the teams of people required to keep that system running safely. You know to wait because you have reliable proof that what you want expect will happen, even if it might be delayed. The freedom that I'm now given is to ability to engage in other affairs, I now know my place. I can now continue my conversations, if I don't see the train in the tunnel and I know it should be here within the next ten minutes. I can relax and return to the matters of my life. Now I can show up for me.

If for any reason, the train doesn't come. Time passes, no word, no notification of what's wrong. First 10, then 15, then 20 and then 30 minutes passes and no train, those who are in a hurry might move on to find other routes of transportation leaving the others to wonder on the platform. We've showed up but our train has not. Those are times when I feel a sense of fear and nervousness in the air. What could have kept the train from showing up.

Everyone is affected by the experiences we have when we show up and interact together. The train could have been delayed because of all sorts of reasons but they only serve to demonstrate how the choices of a few affect so many, good or bad. It is our choices that open our eyes to the possibility of new paths and new opportunities. It is our choices that can keep us engaged in the conversation of scarcity and disease or give us a true experience of abundance and wellness.

Today I spoke with a former lover who is hospitalized and having his legs amputated below the knee down. I met this man having fun, it was his dancing that was his freedom, his dancing gave him joy, he showed up on the dance floor. They are removing his legs. He once took a butcher knife to me and threatened to kill me. We weren't honest with each other and with ourselves. We danced together...he's having his legs removed today.

The condition that set this amputation in motion is still under study. He didn't have time to prepare, this came on suddenly and he's found a great sense of acceptance and determination to move forward. He's in a tremendous place of courage and honesty that many of us never find. He's humbled, and showing up.

When I got the call that he was sick and in the hospital I had no clue what I would hear when we spoke so to hear about what he was facing I was floored. Now consider that at this time I'm watching my partner burrow deeper and deeper into a pattern of drug abuse, a life long friend who has been struggling with his health is back in the hospital. My mother and father are both working through health challenges, my 92 year old grandmother is finally showing that, yes, everyone eventually slows down. 

When we spoke, I could hear his sluggish speech, his exhaustion, I could hear the foundations of what was coming. His being in DC would work fine since I could visit some other friends and family. I could make a weekend trip out of it. I said I would go see him. And I did not show up.

I was focused on caring for my own little deaths that I could not be there for him during the time of a major death in his life. I did not show up and as he lay in his hospital bed hungry from his pre surgery fast, groggy from the pain medication that keeps him out of pain yet further from living. As he lay in the hospital bed he reminded me of how it feels when I didn't show up.

Today, I am reminded that what is on the horizon in my life is as big as what is on yours, both of our realities are real. It is only when we show up that we can witness the depths of it. I missed an opportunity to share hope and to empower a friend, a brother. Now that might sound like it's of little value in our material  based culture. However, having been the one who's laid in a hospital bed facing my own mortality I know how something so simple as just showing up can mean so much. 

This lesson comes to me at a time in my life when I prepare to venture out to offer something to the world. When what was my life and what people knew must be removed, a new layer of who I am revealed, so that I might learn how to show up better. I've hidden behind fears and abuse, allowing the experiences I've endured create habits that isolate me. I've affected his life but on a larger sense I have the same effect in other places. The lesson in this today is about really showing up...on a simple, one to one, keep your word to yourself first. 

Before I told him I would come down there to see him, before I got to the train platform to even look I had to know where I was going. Showing up happened when I got a plan, when I made a choice. My problem came when I isolated parts of me that defined where I am going in my life right now. Living in the closet so to speak limits what I'm able to do in the world. 

While I listened to him give me great wisdom. Or as the kids call it, while he read me, I realized that I would not be able to defend my bad choice. He was due to begin surgery today and I had not shown up like I said I would, that read was going to come so I got over the pain and listened to what he was really saying. Why this platform this day waiting for this train?

You have to know where you're going, you must get focus about where you need to be and what you need to be doing...get there...and do nothing, just show up. It sounds crazy, all mixed up, find out this to do that to get somewhere to do nothing but be there, be me. I found out he was sick, I needed to call him to find out what was the situation, I promised that we would get together and if I had I would have had nothing to do but be a friend, be myself.