A Caterpillar Year
I’m grateful for chances for renewal. I’m grateful for seeing the things that are. I’m grateful for living my own life. I’m grateful for the way the game slows down when I let go. I’m grateful for sunny mornings and the chance to be myself. I’m grateful to be sober today.
song of the week:
Do you want the long or the short version? hahaha As though you have a choice.1 Let’s say that I became intimately familiar with the contours of this song after a break-up back in the 2015 time period. I wrote about this recently:
I would walk around the neighborhood we shared, late at night (usually after a fair amount of drinking), and this was on the playlist that accompanied me. It should have been called something like “Adventures in Melancholia.” She lived about four blocks from me, so every day presented an opportunity for the random, atomic collisions the universe employs to produce beauty and uncover truth. Well, I’m pretty sure that’s not how she looked at it. I often had this song on repeat and it so captured my mood.
I want to tell you, baby
The changes I've been going through
And then the best line in the song (and you should listen to this one, I’m asking you personally):
Missing you, Listen you
That is very Burt Bacharach-esque and I think I assumed that he maybe wrote this song (It was Stevie Wonder!). When I listened to this song in 2015 I was focused on the persuading part of this song—I was going to persuade someone so hard that it was just a matter of time Until You Came Back to Me.
I so wanted to explain that I was not the lying alcoholic that she had just uncovered. I was actually thoughtful and earnest and turning over a new leaf and coming to understand what was really important and understanding how I got to the spot where I would do things like that and of course that could never happen again because of how much I’ve changed. Sound familiar? She didn’t buy it either, wasn’t even interested in talking about it.
Fine, I’m just going to walk around the neighborhood at night and be sad and bide my time until you’re ready to see me again.
I'm going to walk by myself
Just to prove that my love is true
All for you baby
I did that part of the plan for a while and then I moved on—as usual, it involved a lot of drinking and probably a new girlfriend.
On Tuesday night, when I could no longer watch the news, I decided to start the search for the song of the week. Somehow, this is the song that popped into my head, in the same monstrous manner as the Sta-Puff Marshmallow Man spontaneously appeared in Dan Ackroyd’s in Ghostbusters. I listened to a lot of versions and I am going to tell you, I was very into this project and definitely singing along.2 A lot of versions got disqualified because they botched the “Missing you, Listen You” line. In the end you get the incomparable Aretha Franklin, accompanied by Stevie Wonder.
About a year or so after that break-up, I was at some black-tie thing where they were going to unveil Aretha Franklin’s portrait at the National Portrait Galley. She actually walked out, sat down at the piano, put her oversize purse on the bench next to her and knocked out her greatest hits, finishing with this song. Poetic justice somehow, I thought, gazing at the new girlfriend.
I landed on this song Tuesday night and it doesn’t have the same feel or meaning as it used to. I’m not trying to win anybody back, not trying to prove anything to anyone. My day-to-day philosophy is to show up and see what happens; Accept what I must, change what I can. You know the deal.
The sotw resonated the way it did because it really captures my mood and outlook—it strikes me now as a “bide my time” kind of song and I think that’s kind of where I am. In a funny way, my life empties and fills on a very unpredictable schedule and is driven by events in ways I don’t really understand. I lead a pretty solitary life these days and it feels comfortable and right for it to be that way. But it definitely feels like things are changing, evolving right under my feet.
I will turn 62 on Thanksgiving Day and I celebrated five-years of sobriety on October 22nd. I’ve been given the chance to build a new law practice at a pretty swanky law firm, my children are off pursuing exciting and purpose-driven lives and while my alcoholic brain tends to see the glass as always half-empty (seriously), the bottom line is that the universe not only gave me a new lease on life, it gave me the green light to decorate the new digs however I want.
This week gave me the occasion to look out at current events and decide how I want to lead my life in this quickly-changing and very challenging world.3 I spent a fair amount of time thinking about where I want to invest my energy going forward and I think I decided to buy back some shares. I was talking to a good friend on Wednesday and said:
This is going to be my caterpillar year.
You know the deal with caterpillars. They are ungainly and definitely not appealing to everyone.4 They find a sturdy, secure place and they anchor themselves to it. They spin out a gauzy cocoon, build a safe place for the evolution that is about to take place. And then they wait.
There’s probably some other weird stuff taking place in the cocoon and somehow I think sprouting wings probably hurts a lot. But this is my caterpillar year. That doesn’t mean I’m going to hide, it means I’m going to focus on evolving and changing. I’m going to be intentional about how I spend my time and where I invest my energy.
I think there is a dangerous philosophy that has emerged in the world, it’s not limited to any political persuasion, but it’s the idea that if everyone pursues what makes them the most money, then everything else will turn out great for everyone. I think this confuses the building blocks for highly-efficient markets with the foundations of civilization. I think these people are not very familiar with game theory or the prisoner’s dilemma, or what economists call “externalities.” Or really understand or value art and beauty in the world.
It’s actually people contributing goodness to the world, without expectations of outsize returns, that have created most of the beauty in this world and the things that have lasting value. Or at least the things I value. To me, celebrating things you can buy with money usually heralds creative emptiness rather than sophistication. For sure, this is part of my professional-life mantra for the new era we’re entering:
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But personally, I’m in building mode and this is my caterpillar year. I’m going to focus on deepening and widening my spiritual life, I’m going to let go of what doesn’t serve me or isn’t meant for me. I’m going to be open to what the universe sends me and will try and remember that a lot of what the universe sends my way is not lasting, but meant to teach me something, take me from point A to Point B. I need to accept that things are meant to be transitory for me now.
I don’t have expectations about where I will end up or even what I’m building. I’m going to pay attention to the simple prescription in the Serenity Prayer, accepting what I must, changing what I can and investing myself in people and situations in accordance with my own values and principles. To thine ownself be true, like it says on the AA coins. Over the years, I’ve identified the things that actually make me happy, that get me vibrating in a way that is expansive and opens doors. For whatever reason, I never stick with those things. But I’m doubling down for my caterpillar year.5
I’ve spent a lot of time watching the news and I’m taking a break from that, and a bunch of other things, for now. As I sipped coffee in the pre-dawn darkness on Wednesday, I realized the universe had just freed up a lot of time for me, cleaned the slate, in a way. Emptiness is a necessary precondition for fullness; As I turn away from what is not meant for me and doesn’t serve me, the things that are have room to land. Those are things like writing and art and music—that’s what has always fed me. And that’s where I’m going to turn now.
I’ve had “Until You Come Back to Me” on repeat this morning. It is a perfect song for my caterpillar year. It’s optimistic and hopeful and has a strongly-voiced work ethic. I’m going to make myself the best person I can be and see what happens. Until You Come Back to Me. I don’t have expectations for the final product—moth or butterfly are both possibilities. I believe that joy and serenity come from letting go of notions about the end state or the destination, and embracing the beauty of what is.
I don’t know who or what I’m waiting for. Mystery and uncertainty are essential elements of the caterpillar year. There is little to be done except devoting myself to the work and seeing what emerges, what happens. There is quite a bit of uncertainty in my life right now, but strangely, there is something I know, and I know it deep down. I think it’s the secret the caterpillar knows, as they weave their cocoon and ready themselves to leave behind what they were, preparing to become what they are meant to be. As a consequence, I have to take issue with the second line of “Until You Come Back to Me,”
I may be sitting and waiting, but I know it’s not in vain.
That’s the secret of the caterpillar year.
Happy Friday.
I mean, you do have a choice, you could stop reading and I hope you don’t do that.
I would definitely karaoke the crap out of this song, even though it’s kind of a tough key for me.
By the way, I highly recommend Dune II- which I watched on Wednesday night. It’s all about eventual victory over the evil, bloated (and kind of stupid) Harkonnens and provided the adage I will live by for the next year: Bad-Assery always eventually defeats Dumb-Assery.
Birds and fish very much enjoy eating them, but that doesn’t really count, does it?
I keep saying caterpillar year, but it could be anywhere from 3 months to 5 years.
Awesome post. So true in life to empty oneself to be able to fill it…so many great words of wisdom and depth. Thanks for Sharing.