FROM ONE FRIEND TO ANOTHER

The heart makes it own decisions and I trust it makes the best ones for me. Love doesn't come without pain. And pain is both an impetus and a  result of growth. We stretch toward light; the light without and the light within us. Zorba refers to this experience of living as “the whole catastrophe”. I think that about sums it up. We don’t get to pick and choose-it’s all or nothing and it’s taken me most of my life to realize this, and to finally choose to accept it all into my being. Nothing is black and white. The color of wholeness is gray; that is the truth of what we see when we turn our awareness to our own shadows. As Whitman has said, “We are large. We contain multitudes.”  

Perhaps the greatest evidence of love is the ability to endure and transmute the pain we at times elicit from one another without retreating from the relationship. If this is so, then you must know that I will love you forever. 

FATHER'S DAY

My dad was a very good man. I wish I could go out to breakfast with him today like we’d done many times before. Now that I have sons of my own and they are out there making their own way, I understand why he was so happy to see me the infrequent times I showed up visiting. If I knew then what I know now, I would have spent a lot more time with him. Hidden under a bed in the Ukraine as a child when the Cosacks raided the villages looking to kill Jewish boys to first generation immigrant to America- our gap was more than generational. No wonder he didn’t like the Beatles! Love you pops!

WHAT IS "PROFITABLE BUSYNESS?"

It occurred to me recently that in elementary school although my academic scores were good, my report cards always showed two checks under discipline: Conforms to school regulations and Keeps profitably busy. It got me to thinking (everything does..), exactly what is "Profitably Busy?"

KEEPING PROFITABLY BUSY

I have been dropped into this world

Like a stone in a pool of water,

Now I am a random ripple 

Rolling into and over other random ripples

In this thing we call life.

 I feel the pull to do something meaningful,

Something that makes the whole world

just a little brighter and warmer

and safer…

In elementary school I always got two disciplinary checks on my report cards:

conforms to school regulations

& keeps profitably busy,

ironic.

It seems that keeping profitably busy 

is what we do or don’t do.

Who decides what is profitable,

What is worth doing?

When our separate ripples collide,

Is it profitable for both of us,

Or one of us,

Or none?

What do you think is Profitable Busyness?

LOVE?

LOVE?

I would lie awake next to her and trace letters on her back as she slept. I would write the words “I Love You” again and again lightly as if the love I felt for her would penetrate her skin and caress her soul. I wanted her to know my love for her deep in her bones.. My loving her was no secret to her or anyone. I showed her in many ways: in poems, unexpected gifts and bringing her to special places. 

I loved holding her hand in silence. We might be walking slowly through the park or sitting looking out at the lake. I felt closer to her and surer of her love in our silence. There was no room for lying or confusion in the silence.

We were lovers from a world that didn’t exist except in our making of it. It was I who was the true romantic though, not her. She enjoyed the Walt Disney love story I wrote for her each day. We talked quietly on the phone from our separate rooms in our separate homes. Hanging up was too much like letting go and neither one of us was ready for that so we’d fall asleep cradling the phones.

Each time she began to leave me for someone else it would break my heart and each time just as I began to get over her she reeled me back in. I was her love trout; she was fishing “catch and release”  but I wanted to be kept and taken home for dinner. Without my knowing and until I did know it-we were playing different games. My game had an end and it was “happily ever after”.  Her game had no ending-just a loop of catching and releasing again and again and again.

Finally it ended and ended badly like all first loves’ do. How else could it end? The heart is never given so fully nor broken so completely than the crushing disappointment of that first true loves’ demise. 

And then there is the silver box containing all the real and unreal memories of how “perfect” it had once been. And this box is pulled out again and again to compare with each new possibility of a  relationship. But by comparison, all attempts to recapture the innocence and trust to love that freely had to fail. There is only one silver box.  

The only hope for the future was that someday the silver would begin to tarnish and reveal the dark foreboding cloud that was there all along. Others saw it and warned me but I was too blinded by the romantic fantasy I created and fueled. Maybe I never really did love her and if I didn’t love her, maybe I have never loved anyone. Maybe what I really loved was “love” itself. 

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A NEW DAY!

The New Day

is ablaze with possibilities,

this is light beckoning light,

stop resisting your self,

shine bright!!