Brian D. McTear to me

May 14, 2009

Hey -

Thinking about dying is weirdly comforting, and I am sure you know I am not trying to sound morbid. Every time, for instance, that I get on an airplane, I press my forehead against the window and think about it for the entire flight. It’s not depressing, and it’s certainly not about self-pity. It’s just interesting to contemplate, and since it’s at least a somewhat familiar topic, one that normally brings a lot of fear to others, I don’t know…it is nice that it doesn’t, sometimes. Does that make sense? Regardless,  it still makes me a little sad hearing you talk about it, even though I know the obsession.

You mention “borrowed time” and I know what you mean, but what an array of counter-concepts there are on this one! I mean, on one hand you could say that science is only giving us back what’s been “unfairly” taken away! I can almost say with certainty that this is how my parents would feel, or our friends, or Marianne and Giovanna, Dr. H and Dr. H! I don’t like this one, because I don’t want to feel like a victim.

And while life can be romanticized as being a gift that really implies God as the giver… I don’t know why this makes me slightly wince. I guess I want God to be inside me, and inside you….inside everyone (the “collective” you talk about). Not just “I’m thinking about this thing, his name is God… HE’s in my heart” etc, but “I did this!”… “I make my existence”… This is not exactly a choice or anything, but I want to feel that some part of me, really deep down and really objectively aware, decided on this life for some reason. I want to trust that, and do my best to “go with it”, even though a lot of it really sucks sometimes.

I fully agree with you about relationships. Knowing and loving is so important, and I have to tell you that this relationship you and I have made is so incredibly important to me. I feel so lucky that the two of us, never having met in the flesh actually know each other and care about each other in such a unique way! And I know what you mean about relationships with our caregivers. Marianne and Giovanna must wonder why I used to come in once a year, and maybe went a couple years without coming in at all, but then a couple little things happen and I want to come in all the time!

On a somewhat related note, any time I hear people say bad things about doctors, nurses, receptionists, etc., it makes me terribly angry, as I feel like I can attribute my very survival over the last ten years to these very people!  Don’t get me wrong, the system has a lot wrong with it, but there is simply no way I am going to say bad things about our doctors!

Part of the thing with “Jesus” as opposed to “God”, and the reason the concept is not fully transitive (ie. If a=b and b=c, then a=c) is that even the purest of heart want to retain “ownership” of their God concept, and God in general. I think it’s a great innovation of Christianity that “WE ALL should know and love Jesus”, but secretly, “ONLY I KNOW Jesus, really”… And maybe “Jesus” is sort of a brand name when it comes to God. Jews, Muslims, and Christians all believe in God, but Jesus is the special brand of Christianity.

I hope I don’t sound like a jerk, or dismissive. Again, for me I want to believe that we’re all part God… Both the same God, and our own little unique God as well. I guess that’s ME wanting to retain ownership of my God concept, too!

I hope you feel good today! Let’s talk soon! I want to show you the songs we’ve recorded for WV. They were just mastered yesterday!

Love, B

Brian D. McTear to me

Apr 1, 2009

Hey man,

So supposedly you and I can chalk up another near encounter, as I went to see Marianne this morning! I think they probably have a special wink or nod that says you and I are there at the same time, so “move’em out!”. Dr. H came in to tell me that you and I need to put the fear of God in Devin about not being too huggy (touchy feely, might have been the term he used) and making sure he washes his hands and such between seeing me and you.

I am sorry about this and I  hope this isn’t a hassle for him or you.

I am Sorry to hear about the rough patch with you and _____. Devin did tell me you were looking to move in. I like that place, and you really couldn’t have nicer people around, so I think it will be a good thing! Keep your chin up! Sometimes, change gets you to stand a little straighter and be a little more active, and that’d be a good way to steer things if you have any control over it.

From that house, could you walk to work and stuff? Or is that too far?

After the Goldrush is a great record for hard times, and while I love Bob Dylan, I think Neil Young is more sympathetic/empathetic with his subjects and listeners. Bob Dylan’s more “mildly amused, slightly annoyed”.

Seth Speaks is tough to read fast. When you start hearing about these extra senses, it’s like trying to explain a sphere to a circle in Flatland. I read that book and The Seth Material in 1995 or so, which got it all across to me. A friend of mine went on to read ALL of them. He probably just finished recently!

Were you a St. Christophers kid? Or did you go to CHOP? I was at CHOP.

I’ll try to get the blog together. I liked the names we had, but what is funny is I can’t remember any of them! Ha! Even so, I really want to pull together our emails and then edit them for the Blog. We could just always communicate via email then edit after the fact. Because I like the idea of it revolving around correspondence, you know?

Okay, like I said, Keep your chin up! Try to take this is a time to realign and maybe find bits of enjoyment in the little fresh starts that come about here and there!

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

Mar 29, 2009

hey.

that’s funny you saw that picture of me. i forgot that they had it up there. it was when i was really sick and dr. holsclaw had me on the Bi-Pap machine. i was so bored in there that i had my friend bring me in a helmet and sunglasses to make me feel like a pilot. everyone got a big kick out of it and i felt kind of cool in the process. i bet they have in my chart somewhere, “a bit odd”. i really like giovanna. she has helped me a lot. i think i call in a lot for things. i wonder if people call in as much as i do. that would be insane. her and marianne and dr. H are super-people.

times have been tough recently. _____ and i are going through some stuff and i might move out of our house for a while and in with devin actually. i’m all crazed out about the whole situation. i could write a whole book about it. “blood on the tracks” and “after the goldrush” are the soundtracks for my life right now.

i am slowly reading “seth speaks”. i think it’s taking me longer than normal because i have to re-read a lot of confusing sentences. but it has helped in little ways with meditation and looking at the functionality of my body.

ok talk to u soon,

b.

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 10, 2009

yo brian!

how are you? how are you feeling these days? i see a lot of the flu-bug going around. i got the flu-shot but over the past few years i’ve become somewhat of a germ-a-phobe.

i’ve talked to a bunch of musicians who’ve mentioned how they recorded with you over the past year, hows the studio doing? devin always talks about you too. the weeds just had a pretty successful fundraiser show on the 31st. it helped pay for part of our record, hopefully we’ll have it finished in the next few months or so.

have you ever read the book, “many lives, many masters”? i think you would like it. it’s about past lives and reincarnation and touches on a lot of theories on wisdom and answering the eternal question, “why?”.

anyways i hope you are well my friend. talk to you soon.

bobby.

Brian McTear to me

Feb 10, 2009

Hey Bobby!

I am doing well. I too had a flu shot. ‘Never miss it! I’ve become a germaphobe as well. We’ve got a lot of cats, so I imagine the place is not totally clean.

Yes I love working with Devin. He’s a great great guy and enormously talented. More than anything, he’s just becoming a great friend.

I never read that book, but I feel like I’ve heard of it? I dig thinking about past lives, for sure! When I was in college I found a book called The Seth Material. It was by this woman Jane Roberts who was channelling this being named Seth. Sounds pretty kooky, but it turned out to be a pretty awesome read. It was mostly about Seth’s view of the nature of reality, a view of existence outside of physical reality. It had a lot of past, future and concurrent life conversation. It was fun stuff.

I hope you are doing well, too! Are you? What’s been going on with you?

Thanks for checkin’ in!

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 11, 2009

Hmm i will have to check out that book, sounds right up my alley right now. I’ve got a lot on my list to read. it’s an endless list, really.

i’ve been doing relatively well. right now i pulled these muscles in my chest from coughing that hurts like crazy, but it happens all the time to me so i’m kind of used to it. in “many lives, many masters”, it talks a little bit about how people who suffer physical pain and hardships in this life are atoning for mistakes in past lives, or learning through these hardships lessons they need to progress in the next world. i think about that a lot when it seems like i just can’t handle having CF because of all the bullshit. I feel as though making up for past lives somewhat gives meaning to it. at least if i’ve done something in a past life to deserve this or if there are larger lessons to be learned there’s a platform for me to explore the bigger meanings.

sorry to go off like that, sometimes my mind just wanders. in a nutshell i guess my own experience is making my life pretty full.

a’ight talk to you later.

b.

35.

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 12, 2009

yeah there were have definitely been two schools of thought in my family life: the catholic/christian side and the more eastern philosophical side. needless to say the catholic side does not jive with my beliefs but the influence it’s had on certain relationships has been interesting to say the least.

ive done very little reading about jung’s “collective consciousness” theory but the little i have has fascinated me. it kind of speaks to the ideas about time you were talking about, because i have the same beliefs on time. in the end, what is it? it’s simply a measuring tool we use to facilitate our actions in this reality.

i haven’t really gotten into yoga, but my cousin is a yoga instructor who lives in new york. we always have this standing date to do a private lesson when she comes down here but haven’t been able to get together, but it is starting to become a priority. i was thinking about the pain i have and was surprised that i thought i would miss it once it fades away. you know how when you live with something for so long it just becomes a part of you, and when it leaves you really notice it. i guess it speaks to how people cope with it. but i am definitely happier when i feel like i can run at top speed through an open field.

i would love to get together, but you know i have b.cepacia, right? i would never forgive myself if somehow you got that bug. it is the bain of my existence and you CANNOT get it. i had this funny thought of you and i meeting in a place where we’re separated by a pane of glass (like in prison) and talking through phones. ha! then ____ said i should wear a totally germ-free bio-suit. i’m not sure how easy it is to pick up cepacia or germs or anything but maybe if we maintained a certain distance? i wonder what dr. holsclaw would think.

i bought some of the books you reccomended, can’t wait to dig into them.

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 22, 2009

No, not at all! I love talking about all of this stuff. It’s been on the forefront of my mind a lot with all the different books I’m reading. I think a lot of my friends are like, “uh-oh here he goes again…” when I start talking about it with them. I have a feeling they think I’m overly concerned about death because of my situation. Obviously it serves as a catalyst for why I’m thinking about it but in general I just love the topic.

I actually do have a blog! It’s a dream blog that I haven’t updated in almost a year, but there is some good stuff in there I suppose: http://robertcwolter.blogspot.com. We should totally blog it out! I wonder if these conversations could be of use to other people with CF or other similar illnesses. (on another note, I’ve always wanted to give back to the CF community somehow and one of the ideas I had was to have adults with CF made available to newly diagnosed kids parents to answer questions and just have some sort of correspondence. Everyones situation is different but not knowing what to expect must be pretty terrifying for new parents. I know my parents would have probably liked to have had some kind of support, especially since I was diagnosed so late.)

The conversation with my friend really didn’t lead anywhere. He keeps his emotions pretty close to his chest. It’s exactly like you said, until you’re confronted head on with your own mortality it’s hard to speak on, it’s not a reality for him.

Although I’ve been really close to cashing it in, I can’t say I’ve had any kind of near death experience or anything like that, but what I do have is a feeling that this isn’t it, that my body is just a body and this is just my “earthly” experience. What is after this life, I can’t say for sure, no one can, but I know there is something. I think that humans will constantly progress and evolve. If you think about technology and forms of communication, it is constantly getting smaller, faster, smarter. One of the things my friend said was that it was a shame to waste so much brain power in this life. I think that’s true, there is so much that can get accomplished. I’m a firm believer in if you can think it you can create it, like you were talking about in previous emails. So I do think humans are part of nature like everything else and constantly evolving and will reach different levels of existence as “time” moves “forward”.

I also wonder if relatives mean anything in the next life. Does blood translate to the next life? Does it mean anything? Like you were saying, can we choose who we can live in this world with? I definitely think that there are lessons to be learned in every life we live. I really do think dreams are little windows into what the mind can truly accomplish. I think they also serve as recycling centers for our daily experiences but if you really dissect them you can learn a lot about yourself and others. They’re like your super-intuitive instincts.

Do you blog it out?

Brian McTear to me

Feb 23, 2009

When I was 18 I was pretty sure that I was going to be a rock star, so I wanted to take a year off before college and make that happen … skip college all together. Some of my closest friends, including one of the guys in my band, assumed I didn’t have long left, and that’s what I was doing! It was weird because, especially back then, I was SO healthy. I mean, arguably a lot healthier than those guys! People just project their fears all the time. It’s one of the things that sucks about having an illness is that people are sometimes ready to project their fears for you before they need to.

I am psyched to read your dream blog. I have just started writing a blog for Weathervane Music, the non-profit organization I am trying to establish. If you are interested, the address is wvmusic.tumblr.com. I am just getting started with it. And we should totally put something together. Even if we just take our emails and upload the correspondance to a blog… We could edit out whatever we don’t want people to read, but I bet some people would like to read it. I’ve been rereading our emails, so I know someone out there would be interested!

Regarding the mentoring: You know, when I was 19 I was at one of my last doctor visits at CHOP. While I was waiting this young couple was getting the results from their kid’s CF test, and I saw them just moments after finding out. It was unbelievable. I actually wrote a letter to them right there and asked the receptionist to give it to them since I was sure they weren’t in the mood for talking. I said I basically didn’t know much about other people with CF’s experience. I was pretty sure that I had a milder case than many, but that I had a promising and happy life, and they shouldn’t assume any less for their child. I am not sure what I said was well informed, or mature, but the receptionist read it and wiped a tear. It was a touching moment.

So I like the thought of making something like that. Adults with CF talk to parents of and/or children with CF.

I sort of suspect that dreams are actually momentary insights into another reality or existence that is most likely not on the time line, and maybe in many cases not even attached to the physical world. Again, If you can entertain the idea that time is not real, then a thread of connection between lives that would seem to be on different parts of the timeline really could be as simple as opening a momentary channel between those lives. Dreams would be a perfect place for those threads to expose themselves to each other. Imagine how crazy it would be to exist in another life, and in a dream that boy or girl, man or woman …or Trafalmadorian… is getting glimpses into playing drums, walking through a house with different animals in each room, and having CF!

I like thinking about these things.

And for what it’s worth, in the Seth books, they talk about people very commonly keeping close to their loved ones…in one existence you are brother and sister, in another you’re mother and son, best friends, etc.

Here’s a crazy related story: My sister Nancy is 5 years older than me. Her mother in law died in 1994 or so. About 2 years later, she had her daughter Molly. One time after she took Molly to see her grandfather (Nancy’s father in law), just as they were driving away from the house, Molly (maybe 3 at that point?) said to Nancy, “I used to live there, exept when I lived there I was the Mommy and Daddy was the little boy!” Nancy said the hairs on her neck stood on end for the whole ride home.

B

Robert Wolter to Brian

Feb 23, 2009

That is a crazy story. I’ve had a couple of experiences of “seeing” things, what I think were spirits. When I lived in Northern Liberties, the house I lived in was owned by this lady who had actually died in the house (I didn’t know this until after the fact). But one night I had fallen asleep on the couch and when I woke up I saw someone walk up the stairs, but not really walk, it was very quick and then just kind of faded away. At the time I was really tired and maybe I was just seeing things but Jen, my roommate at the time, had also had a similar experience (also unbeknownst to me at the time). The second time is saw something was in the hospital. I was pretty sick and not only was I running a little fever, but I was also on some pretty heavy duty pain medicine. Again, it was really late maybe around 4 a.m., and the nurse had just given me a dose of pain medicine. I dozed off for a few minutes and when I opened my eyes there were numerous (this is really hard to describe) “energies” in the room. I want to say kind of like lights or something. I couldn’t communicate with them or anything but it was like I was acutely aware of their presence. Both instances you can maybe chalk up to tiredness, drugs, or both, but those were the only times I’ve ever experienced something like that so while I don’t take them too seriously i think they are noteworthy nonetheless.

I had this other experience about six months ago (sorry i’m kind of rambling here). I had pulled some muscles in my back and after about two weeks I was still in really bad pain. I was just starting to turn the corner, but kind of at the end of my rope. Now, I wouldn’t say that I am a religious person, but a spiritual one, and over the summer when I was in the hospital (the same stay where I had the experience that I just told…) I got into the habit of saying prayers for things. I try not to pray asking for things, but just acknowledging my good fortune. But this night I felt like I was going to freak out so I just prayed for my back pain to go away and to be able to finally get some rest and to be able to experience normalcy again. When I woke up it was like my prayer was answered. My pain was SO much better and i could get around a lot easier. I don’t know what that all means, if it was just mind over matter, the natural course of my healing, or truly was an answer to my prayer. Maybe all three combined, but if something outside this physical world helped me then maybe I’m not so crazy after all. Like I said, my step-mom is Catholic and her mom and all of her mom-friends have a prayer list that they put me on when I’m in dire straights. This doesn’t make me any closer to the Catholic church per se, but it does make me believe more in the power of the mind.

If you are ever with Devin for a while talking about these things he has some CRAZY stories. I’ve wanted for the longest time to collect all kinds of these types of stories on tape and make an audio essay of sorts.

What if we did like a weekly blog post? We could each do every other week, so we’d do two a month. Maybe we could set it up so that we’re riffing off of the last blog post that we each make. And if we want to switch it up we just start a whole new topic. Totally like our emails…conversations.