Love

Like the Misty Rains…

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Sometimes precise explanation, clear reasoning and crisp logic have little advice to lend.  When thought can be put aside or at least ignored to a large extent, the best way forward is almost always to be found in my heart, gut, intuition, spirit or whatever that gentle awareness that lives in my chest is.  Feeling can often light the path forward much better than thinking.  And so like a blind man, touching walls to find a doorway it is with feeling I move forward today… to be able to do that I am humbly and profoundly grateful. 

Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river. 
Malagasy Proverb

No Guarantees, No Time Outs, No Second Chances.

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

My Mother imparted very little wisdom to me in my growing up years.  A person can’t give their children what they don’t have themself.  Mostly I learned from her what not to do.  I know she meant no harm, but the legacy she helped to create for me made adulthood challenging at times (OK, truthfully… hell at times).  Forgiveness was hers from me long ago.  I bear no ill-will or anger toward her today, but even after all this time I wish to have nothing to do with my Mother (nor does 3 of 4 of my siblings).  One of the best self-care moves a person can make is to sometimes keep another out of their life.

When I was sixteen years old I do remember one jewel of wisdom my Mother shared with me.  The time was my first real heartbreak and I was sitting on the living room couch crying a little but trying to hold it back so no one would notice.  My Mother walked through the room, saw something was up and asked what was going on.  I told her my girlfriend had broken my heart and did not want to be with me any more.  Her reply was something like “there will be lots of girls in your life until you find the one you are able to give your whole heart to.  It’s a process of elimination.  You’ll have to go through the ones that hurt you and aren’t a good fit in order to find a girl deserving of your whole heart”.

I am confident she was not thinking I would be in my 50’s, single and still waiting for the experience of giving my whole heart to someone.  There have been a few women who loved me and were deserving of my whole heart, but I was unable to give it.  In recent years I have done well dealing with my “stuff”.   Being healthier mentally and shaking off most of the childhood crap has opened up to the world to me as never before.  My chances are getting better each day such a thing as giving my whole heart to someone can yet happen for me in this life time. 

What brought all this up in my thoughts was a passage I came across that most often has the author noted as “anonymous” but sometimes the thoughts are attributed to Matti Nykanen, a ski jumper from Finland who won several Olympic medals in the 80’s.  No matter who wrote it, there is raw truth and deep wisdom to be found in the following seven sentences.   

As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let us down, probably will.

You’ll have your heart broken and you’ll break others’ hearts.

You’ll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you’ll cry because time is flying by.

So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you’ve never been hurt.

Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances.

You just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone’s hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts.

Don’t be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all; live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.

Had someone asked if I was being true to these thoughts twenty years ago, I would have said “Yes”.  From the perspective of today I know such a statement would have been delusional.  While I can’t speak for anyone but me, I know for certain my 20’s, 30’s and my 40’s were fraught with misapprehension.  That’s the thing about delusion… it can only exist if one can’t see it.  Here at 50-something I don’t pretend to have shaken the foggy filters off completely, but I do have much better clarity than ever before.  Truly I am the most ready for what life brings.  I am grateful to be standing in the doorway of the life I have waited for!

It’s not who you are that holds you back,
it’s who you think you’re not.  
Unknown

It’s Never Too Late; There’s Always Time

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Years ago I read Mitch Albom’s book “Tuesdays with Morrie”.  The novel touched me deeply and I eagerly bought Albom’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” when first I came across it in a book store.  Last week I bought a copy of the movie made of the latter from a bargain bin.  I previously did not recall the book was ever even made into a movie!

There are those little moments when just what I need comes to me at the moment I need it. Whether such times are the work of God and the Universe or pure chance and coincidence does not change the effect (although I like to think it is some combination of both). Watching “The Five People You Meet in Heaven” last night was one of those times.

I left work during the mid-afternoon yesterday because a bout of moderate depression was about halfway through its usual 2-3 day run.  Little was getting accomplished; I could not concentrate. Depression has a unique way of accentuating all I feel has not been right about my life and lowering hope for the future to a dim and distant light.  From experience I know intellectually what is going on, yet that does little to hinder the torrent of clouds and dark feeling that come over me.

OK… all you macho types are not going to like this, but to borrow a bit of a phrase from Rhett Butler “Frankly I don’t give a damn”.  Watching the “Five People You Meet in Heaven” movie last night caused a tear at several points as I allowed myself to be absorbed into some of the emotions being expressed.  In the main character’s sadness and grief for what he perceived as his wasted life I found an evening’s solace for what ailed me.  Better than any pill or distracting activity I was righted from being depressed by a good dose of my own emotions.  How very grateful I am this morning to feel “It’s never too late; there’s always time”.

It’s never too late
There’s always time.

It’s never too late to change.
There’s always time to begin.

It’s never to late to say I’m sorry
There’s always time to start again.

It’s never to late to let the past go
There’s always time to start a future.

It’s never too late to be happy
There’s always time to stop being sad.

It’s never too late to fall deeply in love,
There’s always time to reopen one’s heart.

It’s never too late to write your thoughts
There’s always time to speak your piece.

It’s never to late to find what you’ve dreamed of
There’s always time to learn to do something new.

It’s never too late to connect with one you left behind
There’s always time to be lost and to get found.

It’s never too late to try again when you failed before
There’s always time to grow and learn from mistakes.

It’s never too late to hope no matter how old you are
There’s always time to have foolish fun like a child.

It’s never too late to have much more than you need
There’s always time to make your life more simple.

It’s never too late to live the way you want to live
There’s always time to find yourself if you look.

It’s never to late to stop feeling old regret
There’s always time for hope for the future.

It’s never too late to find happiness
There’s always time to laugh more.

It’s never too late to forgive
There’s always time to be forgiven.

It’s never too late to change.
There’s always time to begin.

It’s never too late
There’s always time.
James Browning October 10, 2011

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.
Mitch Albom 

“Five People You Meet in Heaven” trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrLMtmvHYy0

To Be Loved a Little More

/ James Browning

“Before Sunrise” is a movie made in 1995 starring Ethan Hawke as a young American named Jesse and Julie Delpy as Celine, a young French Girl.  They meet on a train and end up getting off together in Vienna where they spend the night walking around the city getting to know each other.  Celine is a romantic with doubts and Jesse is cynic when it comes to affairs of the heart.  Thinking they will never see each other again both are more revealing about them self that they normally would be.  “Before Sunset” is a sequel that picks up the story nine years after the events of the first movie.

I am grateful for the hapless romantic in me that is brought to the surface when I watch these favorite movies.  The dialogue runs the gamut from insightful and revealing to touching and amusing.   Here are randomly selected pieces of the movies.

Jesse:  I don’t know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that’s what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I’ll just be glad when something nice happens. 

Celine:  If there’s any kind of magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone, sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed, but…who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt. 

Jesse:  You know what drives me crazy? It’s all these people talking about how great technology is, and how it saves all this time. But, what good is saved time, if nobody uses it? If it just turns into more busy work. You never hear somebody say, “With the time I’ve saved by using my word processor, I’m gonna go to a Zen monastery and hang out”. 

Celine:   The reality of it is that the true work of improving things is in the little achievements of the day 

Jesse:  Maybe what I’m saying is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don’t know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was whacked with insecurity. Now I’m older and my problems are deeper, but I’m more equipped to handle them. 

Celine:   Isn’t everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more? 

Jesse:  You realize that most of the people that you meet are trying to get somewhere better, they’re trying to make a little bit more cash, trying to get a little more respect, have more people admire them. It’s just exhausting. 

Celine:   I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away. 

Jesse:  I don’t have any permanent place here. You know, in eternity, or whatever. And the more I think that, I can’t go through life saying that this is no big deal. I mean, this is it! This is actually happening. What do you think is interesting, what do you think is funny, what do you think is important? You know, every day is our last. 

Celine:   Now, it’s almost impossible to succeed, but…who cares, really? The answer must be in the attempt. 

Jesse:  I heard this story once about when the Germans were occupying Paris and they had to retreat back. They wired Notre Dame to blow, but they had to leave one guy in charge of hitting the switch. And the guy, the soldier, he couldn’t do it. You know, he just sat there, knocked out by how beautiful the place was. And then when the allied troops came in, they found all the explosives just lying there and the switch unturned, and they found the same thing at Sacre Couer, Eiffel Tower. Couple other places I think…
Celine:  Is that true?
Jesse:  I don’t know. I always liked the story, though.
 
Almost at the end of the second movie, “Before Sunset” Julie Delpy sings a song portrayed as being one Celine wrote about their first meeting nine years before.  

Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my thoughts
Let me sing you a waltz
About this one night stand
You were, for me, that night
Everything I always dreamt of in life
But now you’re gone
You are far gone
All the way to your island of rain
It was for you just a one night thing
But you were much more to me, just so you know
I don’t care what they say
I know what you meant for me that day
I just want another try, I just want another night
Even if it doesn’t seem quite right
You meant for me much more than anyone I’ve met before
One single night with you, little Jesse, is worth a thousand with anybody
I have no bitterness, my sweet
I’ll never forget this one night thing
Even tomorrow in other arms, my heart will stay yours until I die
Let me sing you a waltz
Out of nowhere, out of my blues
Let me sing you a waltz
About this lovely one night stand

Neither movie reaches a conclusion and one watching must fill in that blank the way they imagine it to turn out.  With a short visit to what is said and sung in “Before Sunrise” and “Before Sunset” my morning is a bit brighter.  I am grateful for the sweetness I always feel when exposed to these two films.  They portray falling in love as imperfect, yet at its very best.  

True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about,
but few have seen.  
Duc de la Rochefoucauld

My Penance, My Restitution

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

The moment my fingers begin on the keyboard today I can only conclude it is my penance, my restitution for breaking her heart.  The days become weeks that become months that have now become years, but in my heart she lives still.  There as a watchman to any who might enter my heart she stands vigilant to question and interrogate.  Is she there to prevent a new love’s possible entry?  Is the presence a self-created protection I use her memory to maintain?  Is what I perceive as love instead just compulsion or obsession?  Such things she does not do to me.  I do them to myself.  It is me only who keeps this fire within.  I swear I don’t have control and instead the feelings control me.  But WHY?

Is what resides in my heart love and a wish it was still practiced today?  Or is it self-punishment for the pain and darkness I feel brought to her?  Have I ever known truly what love is?  What is the answer?  What is it I feel?  Have felt?  I know yearning and desire have been my companion, friend, enemy and foe.  There has been great joy and moments of grace that make me shiver with the sweetness of their memory:  and when I write those words I can only think only of her.

Having mistaken lust as love and for so long not being able to discern the different, I came to her trying to molt the skin of my past.  But those ways were strong and in weakness they took me over once again.  Those ways of being allowed me to blame her for shortcomings and dysfunction, and while factors, were not the cause of my behavior.  Admitting that gives some slight relief and solace today.

There are no answers.  I have searched for them for a long time now.  In prayer I have beseeched God to either help me understand or to relieve me of this burden that is rooted in joy that once was.  Even as inconsistent as it existed and was shared, that love lived large in an all-consuming way.

With a melancholy spirit I humbly give thanks to have known love that was so deep and strong, I grieve for it yet.  On one hand, I wish still to wait in hopes her forgetting catches up with her forgiveness.  Yet, she has made clear, so vividly clearly, she could never do that.  Over and over it was said.  There might be another and it is that slight crack in my heart that brings the battle for me with the watchman of my heart; the sentry of love that once was.  Patience with myself and understanding from another is my hope today with gratefulness expressed in advance for such grace and blessing.

Weep Not Too Much”

Weep not too much, my darling;
Sigh not too oft for me;
Say not the face of Nature
Has lost its charm for thee.
I have enough of anguish
In my own breast alone;
Thou canst not ease the burden, Love,
By adding still thine own.

I know the faith and fervor
Of that true heart of thine;
But I would have it hopeful
As thou wouldst render mine.
At night, when I lie waking,
More soothing it will be
To say ‘She slumbers calmly now,’
Than say ‘She weeps for me.’

When through the prison grating
The holy moonbeams shine,
And I am wildly longing
To see the orb divine
Not crossed, deformed, and sullied
By those relentless bars
That will not show the crescent moon,
And scarce the twinkling stars,

It is my only comfort
To think, that unto thee
The sight is not forbidden –
The face of heaven is free.
If I could think (she)
Is gazing upward now –
Is gazing with a tearless eye
A calm unruffled brow;

That moon upon her spirit
Sheds sweet, celestial balm, –
The thought, like Angel’s whisper,
My misery would calm.
And when, at early morning,
A faint flush comes to me,
Reflected from those glowing skies
I almost weep to see;

Or when I catch the murmur
Of gently swaying trees,
Or hear the louder swelling
Of the soul-inspiring breeze,
And pant to feel its freshness
Upon my burning brow,
Or sigh to see the twinkling leaf,
And watch the waving bough;

If, from these fruitless yearnings
Thou wouldst deliver me,
Say that the charms of Nature
Are lovely still to thee;
While I am thus repining,
O! Let me but believe,
‘These pleasures are not lost to her,’
And I will cease to grieve.

O, scorn not Nature’s bounties!
My soul partakes with thee.
Drink bliss from all her fountains,
Drink for thyself and me!
Say not, ‘My soul is buried
In dungeon gloom with thine;’
But say, ‘His heart is here with me;
His spirit drinks with mine.

Anne Bronte, 1777–1861

A Crack in Everything

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

With hours on airplanes and in airports last week I was able to finish a hard to put down book titled “Flourish” by Martin Seligman, PhD.  I have read several of Dr. Seligman’s books on the subject of optimism, happiness, character strengths and innate virtues including his books “Learned Optimism” and “Authentic Happiness” (both of which I recommend).  Over and over in multiple studies he continues to prove that attitude and belief shape our lives more than we imagine.  Here’s one example noted in “Flourish”:
 
Sandra Murray, professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, has done an extraordinary set of studies on good marriage.  She carefully measures what you think about your spouse: house handsome, how kind, how funny, how devoted and how smart he is.  She poses the very same questions about your spouse to your closest friends, and she derives a discrepancy score: if you think more of your spouse than your friend do, the discrepancy is positive.  If you are a “realist” and you are more pessimistic about him than your friends, the discrepancy is negative.  The strength of the marriage is directly a function of how positive the discrepancy is.  Spouses with very strong benign illusions about their mates have much better marriages.  The mechanism is likely that your spouse knows about your illusions, and he tries to live up to them.  Optimism helps love, Pessimism hurts. 
 
So how do you like “them apples”?  I found those words to be informative and bittersweet.  Today I realize readily that my attitude and thinking has a great deal to do with the outcome of things.  The bittersweet comes from acknowledging within each of two marriages my pessimistic thoughts about my wife were a sizeable factor in the eventual end of those unions.  I have no specific idea why the crazy compulsion of wondering if there was someone better out there for me remained so consistently pervasive.  Each time I loved and was loved within one of these meaningful long term relationships, my thinking was part of their undermining.  Yes, there were other factors,  ones that on their own might surely have caused the demise of the marriages, but my thinking was certainly fuel on the fire.
 
There is a line of thinking that goes something like “why do people allow what is known to be met with contempt, while holding the unknown with desire and admiration?”  Stated a different way; “why does someone new look more attractive than one that is known?”   Certainly this is human nature, but why is that?   (That’s  subject for a future blog).

In the lore of love and tales of romance, initial attraction and love at first sight are scattered consistently.  That imagining combined with some physical, shall we say hormonal, attraction seem to me to be factors in people wondering if there is more outside marriage.  Real life counters such thinking. An important part of a compatible relationship is ensuring that each partner’s values coincide, and to learn that takes time, discussion, observation, and interpersonal interaction, not an initial impression based on superficial cues, says James C. Piers, Ph.D., professor and program director of social work, at Hope College in Holland,MI.
 
From an article attributed to Match.com called “The New Rules of Attraction”:  You can check off the attributes you want—appearance, background, education, career, salary—but unless you’re building your lover in a lab, you’re missing out. Of course, you should have standards and not settle for a two-pack-a-day smoker who doesn’t want kids when you’re allergic to smoke and eager to start a family. But settling for nothing less than perfection is unrealistic. “Wish lists are a classic recipe for unsuccessful dating,” says Fleming. “They’re too limiting and don’t allow for chemistry, which is more intangible and valuable.” Try to be flexible, especially when it comes to physical or material attributes like someone’s height, salary, or hair color. After all, just because someone’s 6’2”, blonde, or makes six figures doesn’t mean he or she will make you happy, so do yourself a favor and treat your ideal-mate wish list as just one factor in deciding who’s right for you.  So “what glitters is not always gold”.
 
One of my issues (of the past hopefully) has been a lengthy “wish list” that I am now doubtful anyone could ever fit into.  I have mellowed and been able to sort down to the “must haves” that make my future prospects more realistic for a lasting relationship.  No, I won’t settle for less that those items in a partner that I must have.  That simply is good caretaking of my self, but I no longer search for near perfection.
 
The single factor that did the most in helping me see past bad habits, irritating behavior and bothersome traits in others was to begin to come to grips (at least somewhat) with my own imperfections.  It still amazes me how gaining clearer view of one’s self allows a person to more accurately see others.  When kindness and understanding is self-applied it is easier to use that insight in one’s view of others.  I am very grateful for the knowledge I have today that was learned the hard way.  Mistakes are made worthy when wisdom is gained from them.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen

To Melt into the Sun

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

Last night I spent the evening and into the early morning with my best friend Mel who lost his father the night before.  His Dad was eighty-six and even with waning health, the passing was a surprise with its coming sooner than expected.  To a son, this father was ‘Superman’.  While I met this man only once I know him so very well through the stories I have been told.  Those stories are wonderful and told of a loving father by a loving son.  

It was an evening of tears and laugher mixed together by two old friends being wholly themselves during time shared that will not be forgotten.  

From the “Propher” by Kahlil Gibran 

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heath of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. 

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? 

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance. 

“I Did Not Die” by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

I am grateful to have a good friend to who I get to be a good friend to.  Thankful is my feeling for all the times we have shared knowing always we are “there” for each other.  The more years that pass the more my gratefulness for our friendship grows.

When we honestly ask ourselves which people in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.  The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. 
Henri Nouwen

I Can Not Promise…

/ James Browning

This morning’s time is short due to business travel and time to express morning gratitude is limited.  Sometimes meaning can be lost in a quantity of words and better understood when less is stated.  In that spirit today’s offering is short and clear in its meaning.   
 
I am grateful for the love I have known with a woman in the past and for my heart that maintains its hope to love again.  Given the chance, I will come closer to getting love right next time.  I am certain of that.  Much of what Susan Polis Schutz has written harmonizes with my heart and puts a glow of hope into my soul.  Here’s a favorite: 

“I Love You”

I can not promise you that
I will not change
I can not promise you that
I will not have many different moods
I cannot promise you that
I will not hurt your feelings sometimes
I can not promise you that
I will not be erratic
I can not promise you that
I will always be strong
I can not promise you that
my faults will not show
But –
I do promise you that
I will always be supportive of you
I do promise you that
I will share all my thoughts
and feelings with you
I do promise you that
I will give you freedom to be yourself
I do promise you that
I will understand everything that you do
I do promise you that
I will be completely honest with you
I do promise you that
I will laugh and cry with you
I do promise you that
I will help you achieve all your goals
But – most of all
I do promise you that I love you. 

Today my gratitude is for the simple chance of love visiting my heart again; a woman to love who loves me in equal measure.

Hope is mine! 

I don’t wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.  Javan

Susan Polis Schutz is a documentary film producer and director and an American poet. She was associated with the start-up of bluemountain.com, one of the very first on-line greeting card sites (now owned by American Greeting). She is also the mother of U.S. Congressman Jared Polis of Colorado.

Who Lingers in Your Heart – Part II

/ James Browning

A while back I wrote a piece here as a response to a question a friend asked me in an email: “I often wonder in your heart, who it is that lingers there, who it is that still has your love but does not know it.”  https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/08/19/who-lingers-in-your-heart/ .  I replied with the most top of mind people who occupy good-sized real estate in my heart.  An interesting phenomenon happens when as idea is planted and allowed to percolate over time; memory and response continually come from deeper and deeper recesses of my mind. 

Now sitting here writing and opening the door on a further reply to the question “who lingers…” those who occupy smaller, yet treasured, scraps of memory surface. 

Linda, the first girl I kissed when I was 13, immediately comes to mind.  Actually she surfaces with some regularity.  On June 21st I wrote about her and our magical afternoon in a post called “ Only One First Love”:  https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/06/21/993/

Buddy H., my big friend and protector from high school has his own special place.  He and I were the most unlikely friends.  Music was our only real common ground and I liked him because he was a little “nuts” like me.  Ever tried listening to “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” on 8-track going 120mph?  We did!  Buddy died in a boating accident when he was 20. 

Ricky S. was one of my best friends in 10th and 11th grade.  He was Mr. Studdly Cool and one of our favorite things was to go to dances.  We specialized in going to dances in towns where we did not know anyone and ending up with a date to hang out with before the evening was over.  His was a special manner with girls and attracted them like a magnet does iron.  I benefited from that magnetism when we did our thing and always ended up with a girl on my arm.  Vivid in memory is some steamy heavy petting in Dadeville, Alabama with two girls we had met one evening.  Ricky and his date were in the front seat and I and mine were in the back.  I smile as I remember those sweet moments. 

Dale H. became my best friend in Jackson, Ms for the year and a half I lived there that included my senior year of high school.  For better or worse, he was the person I smoked pot with back in the day.  We almost giggled ourselves to death or overdosed on munchies on a number of occasions. 

Marcia was the makeup artist assigned to me when I had a part in a school play.  “Look Homeward Angel” which was a fairly racy selection to be performed at that time.  She became my girlfriend for a good part of my senior year.  How innocent and tender what we shared was.  I’d run to get to the part of the school she was in so I could walk her to class and then run back to get to my class trying hard not to be late.  Most of the time we’d trade little love notes on scraps of paper.  I wish I had some of them today as my heart swells with the sweetness of the memory. 

Carol was the “older woman” I got involved with when I was 19 (she was 23).  We worked together and she was engaged but that did not stop us, even though it was wrong.  She was the first woman I ever loved with the depth a man can love with. Our relationship was tumultuous and troubled, but also wonderful and ground shaking.  The wounds that hurt then ended up being some great teachers for me.  We went our separate ways after about a few months, but will always remember reconnecting for our last time together.  Close to a year passed without seeing each other.  Then one night came the knock on my door two days before she got married.  We spent the evening in bed and said goodbye at my front door well after midnight.  I never saw her again.  Today I see the wrong and contradiction of of the night we shared, but also relish the memory of the passion we shared. 

Michael was the man, who for six months, I thought was one of the best friends of my life.   That was 13 years ago and he was charming, educated and intelligent.  We were together doing things or hanging out often.  The end result was deep hurt as I came to know that he was just using and manipulating me.  We worked together and I was his boss.  The friendship ended badly with me firing him for very wrong things he did thinking our camaraderie gave him special latitude.  The lesson for me was difficult, but a necessary reminder that it is not just love of a woman that can blind.  Friendship with a man can do the same.  

One the lid on my heart is lifted and a peek is taken within, the many who have been players on the stage of my life begin to surface in ever greater quantity.  My life has been a rich and colorful mosaic of experiences, for which I am deeply grateful for all.  I am thankful for the joy, the good times, the love shared and the painful lessons that came from knowing and loving people.  Frequently those individuals have been some of my greatest teachers.   

In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.  Abraham Lincoln 

“I Love You”

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your friends are dead.  Fill their lives with sweetness, speak cheering words while their ears can hear, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier by them.  William Congreve

For much of my life there have been only a very, very few close to me to whom I have expressed my deeper feelings to.  My son, two wives, my brother and a lover or two filled that short list near completely once upon a time.  Eventually difficulty, heartbreak and disappointment softened me to be the man I am today who is far more openly expressive about his feelings toward others.  Yet, I am just a “baby” in expressing the contents of my heart.

I am stuck by the realization there are likely two extremes of experience that opens one’s heart to be able to express their love and affection freely to others.

1) Although foreign to me, I believe one method is when a person grows up in an environment of love freely expressed and openly practiced for them by parents and family.  As long as there is no grievous mental or emotional injury a person grows up to realize the ability to express tenderness, compassion and love is a great strength.

2) The other is my path.  It is one of being thrashed by life until one may emotionally close them self off completely from the world and hide inside a hard shell.  There a person may permanently stay or else may find them self cracked open by life experiences as I was.  The realization for me found the hard way is simple to state.  Love is all that really matters.

Neither method always works.  I am at a loss to explain why.  Why a deeply loved person can sometimes grow up to be mean, hurtful and uncaring is beyond my ability to understand.  But I know it happens.  Why the school of hard knocks frequently causes some people to become cynical and uncaring if not completely numb or mean and breaks other’s hearts I have not explanation for.

How much simpler life would be if my realization of method number two was something I previously practiced consistently in all areas of my life.  Without growing up in an environment that nurtured an expressive love instinct to be inherent, I am a child in an adult’s body in areas of emotion and its expression.  It is only by the realization of this that I am able to learn and see myself somewhat clearly.  I can not become more than I am unless I first accept myself as I am.

Raising my son has been a great teacher about open expression of feeling.  For me to open myself lovingly to him has always been easy and natural.  Maybe that comes from knowing how much I yearn to this day to have love expressed to me by my parents.  Though impossible, that wish will never go away.  It is human nature to sometimes learn from the lack in one’s life.  That lesson learned well gives a person the ability to give to others what they them self never had.  It is then a hunger that is sated by reversing the need and expressing to others what is desired.  Growing up I told my son every day I loved him and to this day every contact ends with that expression which is always reflected back to me.

To all the women who have loved me through the years, thank you for what you taught me.  I regret only in retrospect can I see and appreciate you as I should.  Please know what you expressed was not wasted on me in any amount.  While I may have under appreciated your love at the time, today I am deeply grateful for it.  I know in return I said the words without knowing how to give them their full meaning then.  However please know today I benefit from all the kindness, tenderness and caring you ever showed me.  Thank you!

It embarrasses some of my dear friends when I tell them I love them openly and sometimes in front of others.  I can see the befuddled look on their face occasionally but it is always combined with an appreciative gaze.  Somewhere inside I came to the conclusion that try as I might I can never express love to others too much.  In my knowledge there is no one in the world who has ever had too much love in their life.  I have never read or heard of anyone for whom there was excess of love that was hurtful or a burden.  Yes, there are those who through obsession rave on and on with “I love you, I love you, I love you”.  That is far from love and absolutely not a true expression of the emotion.

It is sad to note that most people today live in a lack of love.  The majority of people neither express their love to overs or have it said to them in the amounts they need.  I am glad to be in recovery from that “dis-ease”.  Today it is still not easy for me to tell someone “I love you” for the first time whether it be friend or more than friend.  However, once past the first time I am glad to have learned to be openly expressive.  How much richer my life is because of this!

It is said that what you put into the world comes back to you multiplied.  Maybe that is why life nearly crushed me emotionally some years back.  The trail of emotional damage and mayhem I left behind me apparently echoed back to bring me to my knees.  But “what does not kill you makes you stronger” the old adage goes and so is the case with me.  Today the love of others I send into the world resounds strongly back to me.  How simple, yet how very difficult this lesson was.

I am grateful for all the people I love and for all the love that is shown me whether the demonstration comes directly or in an indirect way.  The type of expression really does not matter.  To go along with saying “I love you” there are a thousand ways to say it without words.  To date I have probably learned about a hundred and eleven of them and look forward to knowing more about the other eight hundred or so other ways to say “I love you”.

You don’t blast a heart open.  You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does a rose.
Melody Beattie