Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

Falling in love (an interview)

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– Do you think you’ll fall in love again?

– (Smiling) I don’t know that I have much say in the matter.

– How’s that?

– I don’t think falling in love is something you choose. It just happens. It’s like one of those exquisitely delicious moments life offers, like, for me, the first time birds find the newly placed birdfeeder. The breathy gasp of joy is out of me before I know it. Like falling in love, it just happens. Your experience of the moment or the person simply happens.

– So a person’s powerless? Defenseless?

– What would you be defending? As for powerless, you’re not. You have a lot of say over what you do in response to falling in love. You can pack up and run. Some do. Or you can allow the experience.

– What about rushing into it?

– I’m not sure you have, speaking for myself anyway, that you have much choice over the intensity of feelings.  I think there is such a thing as moving to quickly. Remember to breathe, enjoy the beginning of things. There are a couple of things I’ve learned over time. The hard way in some instances. First, never give up who you are for someone and second, allow yourself time to be sure the person you’ve falling in love with is really there, and, if you they are, that they’re able to be fully present as real intimacy expands its reach.

– Giving up who you are would be?

– For me it would be, say, someone doesn’t like that I’m a writer or love to read or that I jump into the fray when I see someone’s rights are being denied.

– And people being who they really are? Allowing intimacy?

– There’s healthy compromise and there has to be in relationship, but if you begin to give up the essentials of who you are, resentments build, the relationship becomes toxic and then you’re done. As for people being who they really are or being able to continue to be present when the intimacy becomes real on all fronts… Sometimes I think people present themselves as someone they’re not, not so much because they want to be deceitful or dishonest, but because at some time being themselves openly was a dangerous undertaking. Connected to this, at least in my mind, is the person who flees, runs, disengages – you pick the word – when the relationship really begins to be fully intimate. Some run because when you are fully with someone it can feel as if your very existence is at risk. It’s not so, but God knows it can feel that way.

– Are you a runner?

– No. Other way around, there are times I should’ve disengaged and didn’t. And then, one more thing.

– And that is?

– In order for any relationship of any kind to be a healthy one, each person needs to be who they really are safely with the other. Absent that, there’s no point.

– And so when it comes to you falling in love again?

– (Smiling) If there is the possibility of being in a loving healthy relationship with someone, I don’t want to miss it. Cool?

– Cool. Thank you.

 

Søren Kierkegaard and weather conditions

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I suspect I am one of many who looks for and sometimes finds clarity and support and assurance that the path I’m on is  life as it should be. Poorly phrased, this. Best I can do at the moment.

Lately I’ve read some of Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s work. A couple of  salient lines reflect some tenets in my state of mind, all to the fore now given my current life experience (going back on stage): “Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own,” and, “Be that self which one truly is.”

Both guidances underscore the fierce allegiance one must have to honesty. Honesty with self. Honesty about one’s being. The unflinching or flinching capacity to accept the reality you’re in. Flinching is okay as long as you reach acceptance. Trust me; I’m a flincher from way back.

We are each our own “weather condition,” never still, always moving, always changing. Our planet, our armature, is our being. Any quest to move through our “weather conditions”absent pain, sadness, fear, confusion and so on, is doomed. It’s simply not possible. Those “weather conditions” along with delicious ones like love, joy, laughter, wonder, ecstasy, and so on are all part of  life – and that’s okay. It’s as it should be. The sooner one recognizes one’s very being is (unless one seeks confirmation of one’s worth in the “weather conditions” of others) is the fountain of self, the freer we are to live, to be. And was not Oscar Wilde right when he said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken?”

Far too many of us, me too for a time, rely on the  “weather conditions” of others for our sense of value and worth. That’s like leaning on smoke and hoping not to fall.

Don’t fall. Be.

Søren Kierkegaard and weather conditions

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I suspect I am one of many who looks for and sometimes finds clarity and support and assurance that the path I’m on is  life as it should be. Poorly phrased, this. Best I can do at the moment.

Lately I’ve read some of Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s work. A couple of  salient lines reflect some tenets in my state of mind, all to the fore now given my current life experience (going back on stage): “Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own,” and, “Be that self which one truly is.”

Both guidances underscore the fierce allegiance one must have to honesty. Honesty with self. Honesty about one’s being. The unflinching or flinching capacity to accept the reality you’re in. Flinching is okay as long as you reach acceptance. Trust me; I’m a flincher from way back.

We are each our own “weather condition,” never still, always moving, always changing. Our planet, our armature, is our being. Any quest to move through our “weather conditions”absent pain, sadness, fear, confusion and so on, is doomed. It’s simply not possible. Those “weather conditions” along with delicious ones like love, joy, laughter, wonder, ecstasy, and so on are all part of  life – and that’s okay. It’s as it should be. The sooner one recognizes one’s very being is (unless one seeks confirmation of one’s worth in the “weather conditions” of others) is the fountain of self, the freer we are to live, to be. And was not Oscar Wilde right when he said, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken?”

Far too many of us, me too for a time, rely on the  “weather conditions” of others for our sense of value and worth. That’s like leaning on smoke and hoping not to fall.

Don’t fall. Be.

Confessions of a Goofball – April 21, 2015

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On or about the time I moved Massachusetts someone I love and care about called me a Goofball April 2015goofball. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed being called a name as much as I enjoyed being called a goofball. 

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines goofball, in part, as one who is “silly”  and defines goofy as “being crazy, ridiculous, or mildly ludicrous : silly <a goofy sense of humor>.”  Guilty on all fronts, particularly that last part about having a goofy sense of humor.

I am firm in the belief that a sense of humor – even a goofy one! – is a sibling of courage. I know no one who is functioning well in life after taking some of life’s more formidable beatings who does not have a sense of humor.

These past three years the goofball part of me has seen a lot of action. First, I was determined to give community life another go when I moved here. Ever since the shooting – I was held up and shot in the head in 1984 – and the attending brain damage and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that ensued, living in isolated fashion has been my preference.

Re-entering community life has at times been terrifying. The thing is, each time I’ve climbed over or broken through a “fear wall” I am always glad I did. Now, three years since my arrival in Berkshire County I am more involved in community life than I thought was possible, for me. So much so that I find myself in rehearsals for a play by Samuel D. Hunter called “A Bright New Boise” produced by Mill City Productions.

Returning to the stage for me has, in more ways than I ever imagined, brought a large part of me back to life. I danced with the Joffrey Ballet years ago and was a member of the Quena Acting Company, an offshoot of Joseph Chaikin’s, The Open Theatre. By returning to the stage I’ve reclaimed a cherished part of life. Last night as we arrived for rehearsal the house lights were down and the stage lights were lit, the set well on its way to completion. There’s magic in them there lights.

When I got home last night I danced around the house with Charley, my black-lab mix, doing a rather admirable job of following suit. He’s a goofball too. Once a goofball always a goofball.

I’d have it no other way. 

Confessions of a Goofball – April 21, 2015

Posted on by
1

On or about the time I moved Massachusetts someone I love and care about called me a Goofball April 2015goofball. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed being called a name as much as I enjoyed being called a goofball. 

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines goofball, in part, as one who is “silly”  and defines goofy as “being crazy, ridiculous, or mildly ludicrous : silly <a goofy sense of humor>.”  Guilty on all fronts, particularly that last part about having a goofy sense of humor.

I am firm in the belief that a sense of humor – even a goofy one! – is a sibling of courage. I know no one who is functioning well in life after taking some of life’s more formidable beatings who does not have a sense of humor.

These past three years the goofball part of me has seen a lot of action. First, I was determined to give community life another go when I moved here. Ever since the shooting – I was held up and shot in the head in 1984 – and the attending brain damage and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) that ensued, living in isolated fashion has been my preference.

Re-entering community life has at times been terrifying. The thing is, each time I’ve climbed over or broken through a “fear wall” I am always glad I did. Now, three years since my arrival in Berkshire County I am more involved in community life than I thought was possible, for me. So much so that I find myself in rehearsals for a play by Samuel D. Hunter called “A Bright New Boise” produced by Mill City Productions.

Returning to the stage for me has, in more ways than I ever imagined, brought a large part of me back to life. I danced with the Joffrey Ballet years ago and was a member of the Quena Acting Company, an offshoot of Joseph Chaikin’s, The Open Theatre. By returning to the stage I’ve reclaimed a cherished part of life. Last night as we arrived for rehearsal the house lights were down and the stage lights were lit, the set well on its way to completion. There’s magic in them there lights.

When I got home last night I danced around the house with Charley, my black-lab mix, doing a rather admirable job of following suit. He’s a goofball too. Once a goofball always a goofball.

I’d have it no other way.