Off The Clock

The prospect of financial ruin has morphed into radical freedom. Cancer and my communities have liberated me me to live more fully than I imagined possible. Plus a yoga poem from Rowena!

For the first time in 40 years, I'm not worried about work.

Call it a strange gift of cancer.

The disease has severely limited my ability to be a productive professional over the next 12 months.

This seemed like a problem when I was diagnosed with appendix cancer in May. But not being able to work has turned into perhaps my favorite cancer perk--one that has already given me new perspectives. One that is simultaneously calming, energizing and spiritually rich.

My cancer treatment plan is roughly a year long, including chemotherapy, major surgery and more chemotherapy. For much of that time, I won’t be able to think straight, compose compelling sentences, listen carefully to others or speak in wise ways.

But the prospect of financial ruin has morphed into radical freedom.

Friends and family have donated more than expected through a GoFundMe. The generosity, along with my wife Rowena getting a new job and continuing her arts and teaching work, mean that there is now ZERO pressure on me to make money until summer of 2026.

Holy cow.

Or better put, holy cash cow.

Because the big bucks given to us are a blessing–one that’s liberating me to heal when I’m hurting and to find a kind of sacred flow when I’m feeling fine.

It all translates into experiencing life at a new level.

Thank God I'm off the clock.

***

At first I felt a bit of shame about being a “charity case.” And I worried it would be hard to turn off my “provider” mindset after nearly 40 years of earning enough to pay my own bills and be the primary breadwinner for my family.

But I have overcome embarrassment about the gifts from 217 people and counting. I’ve reframed the contributions as acts of love–each unique and the product of a positive relationship with someone from some chapter of Rowena’s and my life.

And I’ve quickly shed the concern that I would have trouble not being a productive provider. These Simon and Garfunkel lyrics keep running through my head:

Got no deeds to do, no promises to keep.

I’m dappled and drowsy and ready for sleep

I’m loving the liberty I’m feeling about my schedule, my lack of required labor.

“I don’t have to do a fucking thing for 12 months!!!” I’ve declared to multiple friends.

***

This outright glee may have something to do with the way work has worked me over–and how I’ve worked on work.

I have spent much of my life employed by less-than-awesome companies. There have been periods I worried about being fired or laid off. I was, in fact, laid off during the dot-com bust 25 years ago. And I experienced the flimsy safety net that we allow to exist in America.

I’ve written about the paltry programs we have for supporting people who lose work in our nation. About the existential fear it instills in us–Americans have a real chance of going hungry and homeless when jobless. Even with a job, many of us are economically precarious. Fully 37 percent of Americans don’t have cash or savings on hand to handle an emergency expense of just $400.

I’ve also studied how workplaces often deaden the human spirit. How they often infantilize adults, are often filled with indignities, often depend largely on fear to motivate effort.

As if to underscore this point, the other night I dreamed I was going to work. It was a cartoonish, archetypal scene of throwing on a trenchcoat with a winter lining–the kind of trenchcoat my dad used to wear to work in 1970s Buffalo.

In the dream, I knew I had kids to feed. And as I kissed my wife goodbye for the day, two emotions flashed through me.

First was relief. Thank goodness I had a job, so I could support my family. Second was dread. I remembered I was facing a task that was daunting and that I had no interest in doing.

A minor nightmare that is all too real for so many!

The dreary dream dovetails with my research on masculinity–studies that also may explain my ready acceptance of so much free time. I’ve documented the way men frequently focus myopically on being providers and climbing the career ladder--winning the rat race. The obsession with “success” at work is part of a cramped, unhealthy kind of manhood.

We men often work ourselves to death.

My working too much helped cause a mild heart attack in 2021. I know, better than many, how “living to work” can cut your life short.

***

So I’ve been content to accept loved ones’ financial gifts and to get off the clock.

Good thing. Because the clock has lost meaning as I’ve begun chemo. Insomnia and the hiccups have kept me up much of the night. I’ve slept hours during the day. And woken from those naps still exhausted and sleepy.

Cancer sucks when it sucks. This is why I want to ride the highs when they arrive.

And I’m likely going to be low every other week until the end of August. I’ll get a break from chemo in September and October, as my immune system recovers. Then it will be time for the “mother of all surgeries,” as the New York Times puts it. That’s the 8-10 hour operation to clear cancer from my gut and wash it in hot chemo.

I’ll need 2 days in the ICU after, and another week or so in the hospital. Then recovering at home for two months. Then another three months of chemo.

Over the course of this 10-12 months of treatments, I’ll likely feel ok a fair amount of the time. During the second week after my first chemo session, for example, I felt great. And I’m hopeful I’ll keep feeling at least Ok on those “off weeks.”

Conceivably, I can “work” during those stretches. And I do plan to keep supporting a handful of clients with content needs as well as giving some talks and workshops on masculinity and work culture matters. For example, I’ll be co-leading a webinar on how men can thrive as they age on July 28 through the American Society on Aging.

(Kind of ironic! Should anyone listen to me on the topic of men’s healthy aging, when this 57-year-old guy has had a heart attack, panic attacks and now cancer?!)

But overall, I don’t want to stress about earning even during these “better” times. Stress isn’t good for healing. For example, it can slow wound healing. And I’m about to have the mother of all wounds in my belly.

Stress also isn’t good for another health challenge of mine: anxiety.

***

You might think I’d already be plagued by panic given my recent cancer diagnosis.

But something like the opposite is happening.

I’ve been calmer, with none of the anxiety episodes that periodically have left me physically exhausted over the past few years.

I suspect the lack of panic has to do with cancer being such a mortal threat that my smaller worries have been put in perspective.

My positive mental health also comes from the freedom from “work” I’m experiencing in this moment.

I probably have had less work-related stress than many people. For five years now, I’ve been a solopreneur who gets to serve amazing clients, doing work that is deeply meaningful to me.

And in the wake of my heart attack and panic attacks, I’ve taken healthy steps like creating “spaciousness” in how I work. Rowena helps me “de-bunch” my Google calendar, spacing out appointments when my schedule gets too packed and I start feeling overwhelmed.

I’ve also set boundaries around the kind of collaborators and clients I want to work with. And I’m pretty good about knocking off at 5 every day–sometimes enjoying a Manhattan with my lady at that time.

***

Still, I’ve worried plenty over work in recent years. Two years ago, I parted ways with a major client, one that accounted for about 70% of our family’s income. My revenue plunged the following year.

To get out of credit card debt and pay off hospital bills related to a panic attack earlier this year, we raided one of our 401(k) accounts–getting hit with a 10% early withdrawal tax.

Even with the buffer of the 401(k) money, these questions persisted: Am I landing enough gigs? Am I keeping my clients happy? Am I charging too much? Too little? How do I weave together earning enough for our family with my calling to create a more soulful world, especially through helping men and workplaces evolve?

All those questions have been answered for the coming 12 months. The gofundme monies have rendered them moot.

What peace of mind I’m feeling as a result.

But it’s more than just mental health. I’m experiencing a kind of mindset enhancement. A consciousness lift. A spiritual growth spurt.

I’m seeing people and systems in a different way.

On the systems front, my cancer-caused work holiday has me noticing just how misguided and unfair our economy is. If we were to squint at our human society from Mars, would we not be shocked and grossed by the vast wealth and power hoarded by a few while the vast majority of people struggle? Would we see the latest legislation to lower taxes on the rich while cutting support from the poor as “beautiful”?

Would we not be saddened by how much our relations, institutions and decisions are driven by fear and a mindset of scarcity?

We’ve had wise teachings over the millennia and promising examples of earlier and contemporary societies. Yet we largely accept a might-makes-right mindset, rather than one that prioritizes peace and harmony.

In a future blog or blogs I hope to return to this theme. And to my hope and faith that the current rise of strongmen politicians across the globe is the death rattle of the love of power, to be replaced by the power of love (tip of the hat there to Jimmy Hendrix).

***

I’m also viewing people in a new, better way.

I’m seeing them free of any kind of commercial lens. Without dollar signs floating above their head. Or with an eye to how they can help me gain power or prestige.

I didn’t even realize how much I was doing this. As an independent consultant offering content coaching, many of my encounters with people represented potential business. “Do you need help with your writing or speaking?” I would frequently ask this of people I was meeting for other reasons–such as our shared interest in supporting men in healthy ways.

I told myself I was integrating my passions and my potential to serve others. But even that semi-economic mindset caused me to commodify my connections to some extent. To coat my conversations with a thin salesy veneer.

I see that almost imperceptible ickiness clearly now. Because the exchanges I’ve been having in recent days, without even a trace of money on my mind, are far richer.

One recent example: I had drinks with a new friend who runs a community organization in the Bay Area. This friend, call him Dennis, and I had previously discussed the possibility of me doing a workshop on masculinity matters for his group.

But over beers, I didn’t worry at all about trying to pin down the gig. I felt free to listen more closely to what was on his mind and heart. And he did share from the heart–about struggles and successes he’s had at different stages of his life.

I did the same, telling him about mental health and other challenges I’ve navigated and the joy I’ve experienced helping men break out of confined, harmful notions of manhood.

As we got closer, we got more creative. The conversation organically flowed to how we might serve the mission of his organization with a workshop that included both of us sharing our work and insights.

I left excited. Not only about the deeper friendship we’d cultivated, but about collaborating on “work” that will likely be meaningful for us and for men who join us.

***

Or consider my recent exchanges with my newest client, Christine Hildebrand.

Christine is determined to write a book to share her wisdom about how we must integrate the masculine and the feminine to arrive at a new stage of human consciousness. I love her project, and the way her personal story of trauma, spiritual awakening and a calling to help others embodies her message.

I love it–and her–even more now. The heightened commitment to her and her writing comes from dropping my concerns about charging her or keeping tabs on the time I spend giving her written edits or talking with her.

I don’t doubt Christine will compensate me for my support in a way that is fair to both of us. We have a symbiotic relationship, one that includes her coaching me.

But not worrying about money from Christine in this moment is a relief. It has energized my work with her.

If anything I have to contain my enthusiasm for encouraging her.

The other day, for example, I spontaneously called her up with a set of suggestions. I was playing a role I love: benevolent nagger. But maybe nagging a bit more than being benevolent.

“Deepen your vulnerability!” I all but shouted in what friends call the‘Frauenheim Falsetto.’ “Do what you’ve said you want to do: share what’s in your heart.”

I also told her I was speaking with her while high on a pot gummy.

She laughed. “I love it, Ed.”

Stony coaching isn’t probably something I would do if I were back in my standard professional mode. But there was something magic about it.

***

I’ve felt freer in recent days to take a gummy–usually a small dose of 2.5 mg–because of the way it helps ease nausea from the chemo. A neat side effect is that the drug has helped deepen my connections with people in my life.

It has accelerated the shift to seeing people more fully. Among them is my lady. We’ve never had so much permission to spend time as we please. And we’re having delightful adventures.

These include attending a mesmerizing David Bowie tribute concert by the San Francisco Symphony. Taking a long bike ride along the San Francisco waterfront and treating ourselves to a coffee malted milkshake and garlic fries. And simply walking our neighborhood in search of vermouth.

This vermouth mission was preceded by gummies, and it turned into a kind of saga. Our local grocery store two blocks away didn’t have sweet vermouth. So we decided to continue on another 10 blocks or so to the big Total Wine & More store.

Along the way, we had a lovely conversation with my brother in law over speakerphone and took in the sights of our wider San Francisco Mission District–the many troubled, suffering people living on the streets as well as the beautiful architecture, murals and boutiques surrounding us.

It was dusk, and there was something missing. Rowena put her finger on it: we’d have a picnic at Dolores Park. And then I flashed on what I wanted to do there: I wanted to keep going with the goofy drawings I was making for my last FrauenTimes post.

This little choice felt big. It was like breaking out of strictures from the work world. Boundaries I’d set up to prevent myself from laboring too much. Even on my more personal writing.

But this wasn’t work anymore. I can do whatever the fuck I want for the next 12 months!

So I did. We did. We ate snacks and drank cocktails at the top of Dolores Park. Manhattans in San Francisco. Rowena came up with the brilliant idea of using her Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers as cup holders.

I drew with my 72 colored pencils. Rowena began dancing to Lizzo. I joined her. A middle-age couple gyrating away in public. In love. Alive.

The way I’m seeing people these days reminds me of a Thomas Merton quote. I first saw it on a poster in my Uncle Mike and Aunt Dorothea’s bathroom in Chicago.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation. . . .

I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

***

I’m also seeing myself anew. Especially through my writing.

Writing about my cancer journey over the past couple months has been healing. It has been a way of making sense of this scary time. Of understanding it honestly and seeking the gifts amid the grief.

But there’s something more than healing happening. I believe my writing is evolving into a kind of channeling. Ideas and words are shining through me as never before.

I’m having more fun and finding myself more compelled to write, even as I feel like I’m less in control of what’s coming out on the keyboard.

I also suspect what I’m writing is more compelling to others. And some folks whose opinion I respect deeply are telling me as much.

“Frau, I’ve been reading your stuff for 25 years,” said my dear friend Joel. “You’re on another level now.”

It’s like I’m tapping into a larger stream of consciousness, or unconsciousness.

In my writing, in my relationships, in my outlook on life, there’s a spiritual quickening.

It reminds me of the passage I read at my high school graduation ceremony, 40 years ago.

The passage is from the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Last Battle. The characters in the stories are led by the Jesus-like figure of Aslan the Lion on a mystical journey.

They race faster and faster into the heart of Narnia. And each time they reach the peak of the country, they find a new version of the land open up that is somehow more real and meaningful.

“Further up and further in,” is their cry.

***

I feel like I’m going further up and further in.

Going faster into a richer experience of life, by getting still. By leaving the rat race.

And I don’t think I’ll be back.

Cancer remains a pain. But what a present it is as well.

The illness and the generosity of my communities have freed me from work while I work to heal. Have freed me to live more fully than I imagined possible.

Alleluia! I'm off the clock.

---

Savasana

By Rowena Richie

“Welcome home everybody,” the yoga teacher says as we reach the final resting pose. Corpse pose. “Savasana.” The word drags up a memory:

A lifetime ago, we are listening to a San Francisco Giants baseball game on the radio. John Miller, the enduring, endearing sportscaster, announces Yoga Day at the Ballpark. Smooth as he is, I can’t picture John Miller doing anything like yoga. “I have a favorite pose. Savasana,” he jokes.

Tomorrow is the start of Avastin, a drug added to your chemo regimen. It’s a blood thinner. The risk is bleeding out during the forthcoming “Mother Of All Surgeries.” Like Mother Mary, I cry tears of blood at the thought of you bleeding out.

I can’t unwind, lying here in savasana under my lavender-scented eye pillow. I need a weighted blanket. I hear my friend, Sister Clarice Sevigney, God rest her soul. “Our hearts are restless,” she testifies from the other side.

You wrote about being in savasana and thinking about your death, “Not with terror. But with a kind of peace and appreciation.” I’m trying to hang with that. To hang in this death-life balance. To live peacefully with uncertainty. To claim savasana as my favorite pose.

Ed during one of our Friday Night Candle-lit Yoga sessions

Yoga is a practice, but also a relationship. One you’re at the heart of, Ed. Along with all the teachers, students, prayers and asanas over the years. A spiritual community holed up inside this movable home, my body. Thank you, yoga, for this relationship, my home.

“Now call your life-force back to the body,” the teacher instructs. “Its nature is to flow. It can move through anything.” I nervously wiggle my fingers and toes. Can I move through anything? Live with everything? Die with peace and appreciation? I’ll keep practicing.