Luke Ford

I spent a year after high school living in Tannum Sands, Australia, with my big brother Paul, working for a few months at K-Mart and then for seven months as the sole cleaner-gardener at the Boyne Island Shopping Center.

I returned home with about $11,000 in the bank.

I bought my first car in June 1985 through a friend of the family — a 1968 VW Bug. I was so excited to install an AM/FM cassette player in it and crank the tunes.

The first time I went to get gas, I did not know how to pump it myself. The attendant had to come out to show me.

I was initially scared to drive on the freeway. I stuck to surface roads for my first few weeks.

The seatbelt was stained with grease, so I either had to wear a protective towel or my shirts got grimed.

I used to wash my car with great love. I loved the little thing.

One morning in September 1985 while tuning the radio dial, I turned the corner and drove into the sun, colliding with a parked yellow school bus, dinging my head on the steering wheel (despite wearing a seatbelt), getting about 20 stitches, and inflicting about $900 damage on my Bug’s front end.

Once I got my car back a couple of months later, I no longer loved it. It was just a utility. I stopped cleaning it with care.

Still, I wanted a good stereo. I was working construction about 60 hours a week and had some money, so I got a better quality AM/FM stereo installed with good speakers. I could really blast the music now. I hung a Playboy air cleaner on my rear view window. My muscles rippled in the sun.

I did a lot of driving to construction jobs. I liked to listen to talk radio KGO out of San Francisco and to pop music like Kenny G’s Songbird. Whenever I hear the song, reminds me of driving lonely roads in Northern California, perhaps to San Francisco or Chico after ten hours putting in landscaping and slapping myself to stay awake.

The only purchases I’ve made that rival the utility and joy I got from my car stereo are my computers.

When I listen to Kenny G’s Songbird, I feel back in 1985-1987, years when I worked long hours for little money, sustained by the belief that good times and girls were just around the corner.

After the accident, my gas tank leaked fuel when I turned corners, and I lived with that awful odor for about a year before having the problem fix. The fumes will probably kill me young.

I never once made out with a girl in my little Bug.

For my first 18 months with the car, I didn’t know how the heater worked. It took my sister visiting on a trip to figure it out.

I would freeze driving in the winter and I’d stick my head out the window at times to try see where I was going when my windshield fogged up.

In class one cold morning, a buddy said, “I saw this guy sticking his head out the window to try to see where he was going on the freeway off-ramp this morning.”

“That was me,” I said.

After I made a partial recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in early 1994, I returned home from Orlando and bought a 1979 Datsun station wagon for $600, which I drove through a dust storm south on the I-5 to stay with my friend Jules Zentner at his dorm in UCLA for a couple of months while I got on my feet and re-started my life.

In May 1995, driving on bald tires in the rain to the apartment of a beautiful woman to rehearse a scene, I spun out on Kanan Dune road and went straight into a light pole, totaling my car.

Figuring I needed a big enough vehicle to sleep out of if need be, I then bought a 1982 Dodge Van for $2,500.

I don’t need you to worry for me cause I’m allright
I don’t want you to tell me it’s time to come home
I don’t care what you say anymore this is my life
Go ahead with your own life leave me alone

My friend Scott looked at me and said, “Are you OK?”

I said I was, but I wasn’t. I was tired. Still in the grip of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome after all these years.

There were all these people at the party and I’d start to relate to one and then there would be all sorts of different people around and joining in the conversation so I had to keep dumbing everything down to include everyone who wanted to be included. I’d start one conversation and it would get interrupted and so I’d move on to try to talk to somebody completely different and my head started aching. I’m more of a Shabbaton guy than a party guy.

I like how ***** handles herself socially. She reads social cues. I feel comfortable with her. I don’t feel comfortable with drunks. Anybody out of control frightens me.

What rocked was spending time with people from shul outside of shul. Once the rabbi was gone.

Happiness silences me. When I’m content, I usually feel less desire to write. Certainly less desire to write about myself.

As a kid, I stopped writing a diary when adults repeatedly read it.

When I feel squelched, stuffed, stifled, when the community sits on me, that’s when I shut down. The threat of losing relationships or a job can shut me down. A serious threat to my well-being and safety if I say the wrong thing. Illness shuts me down. Busyness shuts me down.

I think that the healthier I get, the less need I will have to write about myself. The more connected I feel to other people, the less need I have to blog about myself. The more I get it out in therapy, the less I need to display.

It’s fine for me to say I’m in recovery. It’s disconcerting to think that I earn less money per hour today than I did at age 18 as the sole cleaner/gardener at the Boyne Island Shopper Center. And then I was working more than 50 hours a week.

I’ve been taking writing classes since the fall of 2009 with Beyond Baroque‘s Artist-in-Residence, Terrie Silverman (CreativeRites.com).

One of my earliest memories of my father finding me at age five flinging manure at other kids and screaming, “I hate you! I hate you!”

I’m rarely out of control, but I can get pretty thin-skinned about teasing. I love to tease others, but I can’t always take it gracefully.

What do I remember about that incident at age five? Just being out of control and reacting with pure rage, trying to dirty other people so that they would match what I was feeling.

I remember that every time my parents put me down for a nap, I would scream and rage until falling asleep.

When I get into an intimate relationship, I have emotional responses that get out of control.

There was that time in seventh grade when my classmates started teasing me. So I got all emotional, stood up in the middle of class, yelled “Shut up!” and walked out.

While I was gone, the teacher asked the kids why they were teasing me. They said, “He teases us all the time.”

I was embarrassed by my reaction, by my inability to take teasing, but even though I knew I should be gracious, I couldn’t handle the ribbing.

Well, my own will is not sufficient. I’m turning my vulnerabilities, my fears, my resentments, over to God.

I’ve done this many times before. Why should now be any different? Well, now I have the 12-step plan for character transformation. I have a specific community me to help. But I could’ve said that 20 years ago as I was starting my Jewish journey. Why is this time any different?

Judaism never asked me to turn my will and my life over to God. It didn’t say that I couldn’t rely on my flawed will power. I can’t rely on just performing my religion. I need a transformation of the heart, even though that sounds Christian. Maybe different strokes work for different folks?

Judaism emphasizes changing specific deeds and that will change your heart. Christian emphasizes changing the heart and then the deeds will follow. The 12-step model is more Christian than Jewish in this respect.

It’s humbling that after my long journey from home I’ve returned to the spiritual emphasis of my childhood on accepting divine grace.

I want to let go of my resentments. They’re perverting my life. I was crude with some girls 18 years ago. I groped them without their consent. Why can’t they let this go? Why do they keep trying to hurt me? I resent the Jews who hate me more than I deserve to be hated. It’s just like second grade when the cool kids didn’t invite me to the cool parties. Why do the cool kids shun me? How do I break into their crowd? I resent being a Palestinian of the soul, living in the Gaza Strip of social opprobrium. I understand suicide bombers. They’re losers who want to feel important. Community leaders come to them and say they can be important, their families can have honor, if they only blow themselves up amidst the enemy.

Resentment leaves no room in my life for God. I can’t be of service to others when I’m full of resentment. If I don’t turn this crap over to God, I’ll remain miserable.

How frustrating I must’ve been for various rabbis and shuls. I flagrantly and publicly violated their standards while simultaneously trying to secure my Orthodox conversion. I was gross. I was crude. I spoiled many a Shabbat with my antics. I just pursued my own will, my own desires, my own wants, my own ends, without consideration of others. I’m constantly grasping for attention. That might get me into more trouble than any other character defect. Self-seeking. That’s the thread that runs through my whole life. Trying to put myself ahead of others usually results in placing me behind them. My bids for glory get me into the most trouble.

What do I fear? Dying alone. Social ostracism. Illness. Death. Waste of my potential. Loneliness. Shame. Harming innocent people. Embarrassment. Being revealed as a fraud. Letting down people who’ve been good to me. Poverty. Homelessness. Dependence. Bankruptcy. Pursuing my own desires without limit, without conscience. When I’m afraid, I tend to lie.