Dispatch #4. June 2022.

There will be a dinner and sort of awards ceremony tonight at a local restaurant. They asked me to sing at the restaurant, but there will be too much noise, it being in a public restaurant and not a private event, my ears will not be able to handle it. So I will just sing the national anthem instead. A cappella. No guitar.

My ears are getting steadily worse. Last night I only sang one song, read a couple of pieces I had written about my experience here, And did some talking. I am definitely transitioning out of playing guitar. Just too hard to hear the guitar and my voice and stay on pitch.

So As my hearing worsens, as it surely will,I will either sing a cappella, or just tell stories and do poetry.

Like any loss in life, or any major transition, it’s never easy. Whether transitioning into old age, or transitioning from military into civilian life, or having to give up something we love to do, or giving up a major part of who we are, like expressing ourselves through songwriting and music, it’s never easy.

It’s something that every veteran here can relate to. Transitioning. Loss. Getting used to certain disabilities. Trying to focus on what you can still do as opposed to that which you are no longer able to do.

Yep! I hear my wise old inner cowboy gently saying to me,

“well pardner, you couldn’t be in no better company then these here veterans as you’re havin’ t’ face losin’ your hearin’, doin’ things different. So don’t even think about snivelin’, just dust yourself off and get back on that bronc! Just look around you, you won’t find any snivelin’ among this group of Vets!”

Such wisdom for an uneducated old cow poke! But all so true. There are three Vietnam veterans here, one just a little younger and two just a little older than I am. Our group leader is a really old guy, he’s 77. Looks like he’s in his 50s, I guess all of his years of fly fishing walking up and down the banks of rivers and in water up to his waist has paid off!

I am among fellow veterans. I am among other men who are aging, I am among men who are healing, accepting limitations and loss. I am among men who are supportive. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Next week there will be a new group of veterans here. Chances are really good, that if I did no singing with my guitar, but only sang a cappella, if I only read poetry and told stories, that nobody would walk out. A good chance that nobody would look at me and say, “kilcher you suck!“ Chances are good that no one would feel something was missing, that I had fallen way short of the mark, that I was no longer able to do my job!

In yesterday’s writing, I compared this fly fishing retreat to a feast, where we all brought a dish to share with others. It’s not like I won’t be able to bring a dish to the feast in the future, I will just have to change what I cook, what I prepare, what I bring. Instead of my signature sizzling homegrown steak, I will just bring a stew. As my dad used to say, “ A damn good stew!“ After my mom and dad divorced and my dad lived alone, he basically lived on soups and stews. Nothing wrong with that. When you came to visit him in our old family log cabin where he lived till he died, the first thing he would say was, “are you hungry? I have some damn good stew!“ That has become a family joke. Because some of his stews and soups were a little bit ripe. They had been added to, too many times. They had been sitting unrefrigerated for too many days!

I was going to make a journal entry every day that I was down here. But I have failed miserably. I have never kept a journal. I don’t know how. It’s kind of like asking a marathon runner to run a hundred yard dash. It’s kind of like having to describe the most fantastic vacation of your life in the most exotic place, in only one paragraph. I just can’t do it. It’s just not who I am. So I will just write and not worry about whether it’s a journal entry, a short story, or a book.

I like the Metaphor of comparing this experience to a feast.An important part of any feast, isn’t just eating and enjoying the many dishes, but the important digestive process after the feast. For me, writing about an experience Is the digesting part. It’s the reviewing part. It’s a chance for me to integrate and assimilate and really allow the experience soak in.

I am sure you have all had an experience that you try to describe to someone else with words, and maybe even with photos or videos. And somewhere along the line you either say or think, “you would have had to have been there, it’s just not the same telling you about it”

This experience here at freedom ranch with these fellow veterans, This “feast” as I referred to it in yesterdays writing, it’s not about the accommodations, or the food, or the flyfishing, or this beautiful remote natural setting. For me, the feast is about The healing going on. It is about emotions that are felt and shared . Where your vulnerability is accepted and validated and valued by other men who know what you have been through. An incredible feast.!

How many times have we seen a man start to cry in public, hear his voice break, Only to have them quickly wipe away the tears and wait for composure, and then apologize. Not here! Voices quaver. Lips tremble. Tears flow. And these men keep right on talking. No one feels uncomfortable. That’s part of the magic.

As I said in Yesterdays writing, we all bring a dish to this feast. Weather I sing a song or read something which I wrote, whether another veteran shares what he has been through, his lowest point of putting the barrel of a pistol in his mouth, or shares a secret he has discovered to help himself get out of the dark deep pole he still finds himself and at times, it all contributes to this feast. End it doesn’t matter if one of the veterans says nothing, shares nothing in these group settings.His presence, his tears, his spirit is the dish he brings and shares with us.

Case in point. There’s a guy here four months older than I am. Also a Vietnam veteran. I have shared some amazing time with him hearing his stories, what he has been through, challenges he still faces bravely. Yesterday before our eivin and get together he told me how someone once asked him why he didn’t talk in groups, and he told them that he just didn’t feel he had anything to say and would rather just listen. He did go on to say however, that when he does share in smaller settings, he always feels deeply heard and understood and listened to and validated, not by professionals, not by trained therapists, not by the VA, but by his fellow veterans. I hear this all the time.

So last night as I was singing and reading, and doing my schtick, I was watching this guy. His eyes were teary most of the time. I heard him. He didn’t need to say a word. He was contributing to the feast.

Last night, I read something I had written about the night before and I shared it with the group. It was about one of the vets who shared his amazing story, and was told by another vet that he was a hero, but he had trouble accepting that assessment. He had trouble seeing himself as a hero. So I talked about times in my life when I did not feel worthy of accepting a compliment from somebody because I could not agree with it, because I did not I feel that I was what they signed me. So I looked at this young veteran and I said, “you know last night when that guy over there said you were a hero you just vehemently shook your head in the negative, like you disagreed and could not let it in. So I want to ask the group if you wouldn’t mind raising your hand if you agree that after he told his story that you didn’t see him as a hero. I believe every hand went up. So I said to him, “you see it wasn’t just one fellow veteran but all of us who saw you, who see you as a hero. Perhaps you might want to start seeing yourself as a hero, and let that hero grow and take a hold in your soul. Later he came to my room and we talked for over an hour. To call and talking is really not accurate. We shared. We emoted. We listened, we heard, we felt, we grew, we healed. We took another tiny step, in a long long line of tiny steps, towards climbing that mountain Which we once thought was far beyond our reach.

In another life, I used to be a clinical social worker. I worked with troubled youth and their families. I worked with corrections and social services. I worked with countless probation officers and social workers and foster homes and institutions and judges and courts. Basically I was in the people business. Trying to make a positive difference in peoples lives. To help them get to a better place.

I spent a lot of years getting my degree. I spent a lot of years trying to help people. I spent a lot of years trying to figure out which therapies, which modalities, which approaches were the most effective towards affecting change. I spent a lot of years thinking about what motivated a person to change or heal. I spent a lot of years grappling with that term, “healing.“

Here is my latest definition. It’s like being in the garden and watching flowers unfold and open, pedal by pedal, in all their glorious colors and shapes and sizes, right before your eyes. It’s a miracle. And healing isn’t just about watching your own flower open and unfold, it isn’t just about watching others, it’s about experiencing it and witnessing it again and again. Each time new. Each time different. Until over time, your garden has more and more beautiful flowers, fully blooming, and fewer and fewer thorns and thistles and bare spots.

It takes many ingredients to make a delicious dish. It is difficult to see one as more important than the other. It’s the same with the healing that takes place on these flyfishing retreats. It’s a combination of a lot of things. But certainly one of the main ingredients is the baring and sharing of human souls in that most perfect environment, in that most fertile soil were seeds can germinate and grow and blossom.