Love

Love is….

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

This morning I sat in my chair in front of the computer thinking about what to include here today.  A number of ideas came to me, yet none were ones I felt like delving into.  Consequently I went searching in my “idea file” where I save things as I think of them or come across an item.

I settled on a poem by Susan Polis Schultz.  After reading it through slowly I was reminded why I had saved it in the first place.  Within her words there is wisdom to be had and direction for a good life to be found.  I hope you find it as meaningful as I do.

Love is
being happy for the other person
when they are happy
being sad for the person
when they are sad
being together in good times
and being together in bad times
Love is the source of strength.

Love is
being honest with yourself at all times
being honest with the other person at all times
telling, listening, respecting the truth
and never pretending
Love is the source of reality.

Love is
an understanding so complete that
you feel as if you are a part
of the other person
accepting the other person
just the way they are
and not trying to change them
to be something else
Love is the source of unity.

Love is
the freedom to pursue your own desires
while sharing your experiences
with the other person
the growth of one individual alongside of
and together with the growth
of another individual
Love is the source of success.

Love is
the excitement of planning things together
the excitement of doing things together
Love is the source of the future.

Love is
the fury of the storm
the calm in the rainbow
Love is the source of passion.

Love is
giving and taking in a daily situation
being patient with each other’s
needs and desires
Love is the source of sharing.

Love is
knowing that the other person
will always be with you
regardless of what happens
missing the other person when they are away
but remaining near in heart at all times
Love is the source of security.

Love is
The
Source
Of
Life
Today

Ms Schultz 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.

Today my gratitude overflows for beautiful arrangements of words like that of Ms. Schultz.  While a love of poetry and an appreciation of language well used are in decline today, that is not the case with me.  Just as flowers brighten a room or art can give meaningful depth to a wall, good poems and eloquent sayings are meaningful embellishments of my mind.  It is the knowing of such beauty that serves as a balance for all the less appealing portions of  what I know.

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.  Leonardo da Vinci

One More Chance

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

A little over a week ago on cable I stumbled across the movie “The Accidental Tourist” just as it began on a night when I had the time to watch it.  The story is just odd enough to be interesting to me and I have always enjoyed William Hurt and Geena Davis’s work.  The 1988 movie also features Kathleen Turner in her years before rheumatoid arthritis and alcohol abuse took their toll on her. 

“The Accidental Tourist” revolves around Macon, who writes travel guides and had a son who was killed in a shooting at a fast-food restaurant. He and his wife Sarah lose each other in the grief of the loss.  With their marriage  disintegrating, she eventually moves out.  Macon meets Muriel, a unique young woman with more than a few quirks who has a sickly son.  He hires her to train his unruly dog, and before long finds himself drifting into a relationship with the mother and son.   

The movie version of Anne Tyler’s novel has a generally somber tone about it, but there are some very funny parts.  The main character’s middle aged sister and two brothers all live together and have odd habits including alphabetizing the groceries in the kitchen cabinets and ignoring the ringing telephone.  That’s makes for some very entertaining moments. 

There’s also some good observation humor in “The Accidental Tourist” that brought a smile to hear it again:  “Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul – chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we’re the greatest hunters on earth!”  There’s more including:  “Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”  And one more:  “See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.”

While the humor and uniqueness of the characters in the movie is interesting, it is really the love story portion that caught and held my attention.  I recalled enjoying the film back in the late 80’s, but had forgotten specifics as to why.  It was great to be reminded that even for the odd and eccentric there is someone out there who is a match for them.    

There is one specific line of dialogue from “The Accidental Tourist” that rings true for me and continues to kick around in my head. 

“I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you’re with them.”

Looking over my shoulder at my life I can see clearly that statement rings true for me.  The realization is sobering to accept I was often more of what I thought others wanted me to be rather than who I really was.  That old and tired inward “self talk” of thoughts like “if you really get to know me, you won’t like me” kept me from allowing myself to become emotionally intimate in any love relationship.  

What I frequently presented in the past was a facsimile of myself that had been adapted in ways I thought the person in my love life wanted me to be.  This always worked for a while, but became frustrating in the long run.  Over time the façade became more difficult to pull off.  As more of the real me was allowed to show, it bewildered the person I was involved with.  I seemed like a stranger to them.

The lines that bring the movie to a crescendo for me are:  “You don’t need me anymore. We both know that. But I need her.”  It is at the point in the movie a very man who has completely lost his way in life finds clarity and purpose again.  Through starting to fall in love again and coming to grips with how he feels, he rediscovers himself.  There is one more Anne Tyler quote that sums things up: “I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get” 

I stayed up later that usual to finish the movie the night it was on, but I am glad it did.  It was a good reminder that no matter what one’s history or age, love is always possible.   Even for the quirkiest, there is another who can love just such a person as they are.   There is always “that one more chance”. 

This morning I am grateful for the message that remains with me from seeing “The Accidental Tourist”.  It was just the right thing at the right time.

Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be, because you have only one life and one chance to do all the things you want to do.  Anonymous

 

Emotions Like a Woman?

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

Several years ago in a session with my therapist she said to me, “you feel emotions like a woman”.  At times I have valued what she said as recognition of a gift to be able to, at some level, relate to and interact with women on their emotional level.  Then I think of my sorted track record with relationships and conclude that the ability is apparently not contributing to having successful  love relationships with women.   With that realization thoughts begin about feeling emotions as deeply and fully as I do being a curse.  Then again maybe the ability is not the issue and it actually is a great gift.  Then maybe it isn’t.  Confused?  Yep.  Me too.    

From “10 Big Differences between Men’s and Women’s Brains” by Amber Hensley:  Emotions. Women typically have a larger deep limbic system than men, which allows them to be more in touch with their feelings and better able to express them, which promotes bonding with others. The down side to this larger deep limbic system is that it also opens women up to depression… 

After reading that paragraph my quandary continues.   It does shed a little light possibly on why I have a tendency towards depression here and there.  But my primary question remains unanswered.  In regards to relationships with women, am I better off with my heightened ability to feel that my counselor sees in me?  Or would I be better off to function more like a typical American male? 

Michael G. Conner, PhD, clinical & medical Psychologist:  At the heart of sensitivity is our capacity to form, appreciate and maintain relationships that are rewarding. For men, what demonstrates a solid relationship is quite different from that of most women. Men feel closer and validated through shared activities. Such activities include sports, competition, outdoor activities or sexual activities that are decidedly active and physical. While both men and women can appreciate and engage in these activities they often have preferential differences. Women, on the other hand, feel closer and validated through communication, dialogue and intimate sharing of experience, emotional content and personal perspectives. Many men tend to find such sharing and involvement uncomfortable, if not, overwhelming. 

Maybe that hints at something I can wrap my mind around.  Having never cared much for sports I really don’t know if that is because of my diagnosed “feminine” way of feeling or simply the fact that I was blessed with hardly any sports abilities.  Conversely, I know many women who love participating and watching sports, so clarity on this “feelings” subject is still elusive.

My confusion grows as I read what Dr. Tara Palmatier wrote in an article to women about how in the last few decades society has attempted to change male emotional expression.  She concludes her article with a section titled “The Lie and the Truth”:  In this confluence of events, men tried to become the sensitive guy modern women claimed to want, but did they? In reality, most women don’t want men who cry when they watch “Beaches.” In fact, most women don’t want to be with men who would willingly watch Beaches or a Lifetime network movie.

 (If this is true, then I may just be an odd-ball.  I like typical male shoot ‘em up movies but contrary to Dr. Palmatier I also really do enjoy “chick flicks”.)

They don’t want men to be unfeeling robots, but want them to be men–strong and reliable, yet capable of tenderness. The result? American men, once stalwart bull mastiffs, turned into angry confused Pekingese drowning in a sea of mixed signals unleashed by women.  I sympathize with men. As a group, they were put into a no-win situation by women who didn’t understand their changing roles or what they wanted.

Accept and embrace the differences. Why swim upstream?  It’s a lot easier to appreciate and desire men in all their glories and faults, then to try to make them become “like us”.  It makes relationships easier. It makes life easier. It makes it easier to forgive and to love.

My conclusion is, I am what I am.  Whether I feel emotions like a man or a woman really is irrelevant.  There is no intention within to want to be different than I am.   Even with the heavy weight the attribute to feel deeply can bring on occasion I have a deep appreciation for me just the way I am.  So what if I went to see “Time Traveler’s Wife” or “One Day” by myself at the theatre.  That’s me and I am good with it.  There is nothing to figure out.   What is, simply “is” and that’s that!

It’s great to slowly but surely become more comfortable in my own skin and to not care (much) what others think.  Finally I am becoming grown up enough to accept myself (mostly) just as I truly am.  For that I am profoundly grateful.

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away. 
Raymond Hull

I Did Not See Her Coming

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

Since 2007 I have been writing a book; a love story.  Working on it has been good therapy for me through some very difficult times.  There have been days and nights when it contained the only shred of belief in love between a man and woman I was able to hang onto.  Over time I have fallen head over heels for the story and that love has kept hope alive within me.

The book is fictional with bits and pieces borrowed from my life and others, yet included in ways far different from reality.  The story is about a man and woman, who have both been hurt to the point they have little belief in love, but down deep a tiny spark remains.  They meet unexpectedly in a foreign country, due to chance and fate, and begin their unlikely love story.  Their pasts block their way to each other and the story is their battle against their own histories and conditioning.

Today is the time for me to step past my hesitance and thinking the work is not “good enough”.  It matters not if it is viewed as wonderful, awful or somewhere in between.  By letting others read a short portion of the story I am being true to myself.  I am thankful for the courage to do that.

          I did not see her coming.  There was no way to anticipate how my life was about to change.  It’s challenging for a depressed man feeling sorry for himself to see much of anything outside of his self focused indulgence.  So there I was on Monday morning, engrossed in trying to read my Amsterdam map and did not even see her get on the tram.  When I looked up she grabbed my attention.  I stared at her just three rows away until she glanced up at me and I looked away embarrassed.  I tried to be sneak more peeks at her, but every time I looked up she glanced at me a moment later.  After the third or fourth time she smiled and red-faced, I smiled back. 

         Within a few minutes the tram started to slow to its next stop.  She got up, took three steps closer to the door and ended up right by me.  In American English (which surprised me), she said “What are you looking for?”  I said “the Van Gogh Museum”.  She smiled and said, “Oh that’s easy.  Get off at the third stop after this one, go across the bridge and keep walking to your right.  You can’t miss it.”  Before I could even muster a “thank you” the doors on the tram opened, she smiled at me and I watched her step off the tram.   

          As the doors closed I stared at her as she walked away.  Tall and slender but not skinny and she was about five foot seven or eight.  Hair below her shoulders pulled back with a knit hat on top of her head.  Dark pants were tucked into high boots that came up to a few inches below her knee (young or old, the women in The Netherlands all seem to wear boots in the winter. I had noticed on previous visits that no two pair seemed to be alike in the whole city).  As she walked away I studied her.  With a well-fitting below the waist length leather jacket, a scarf wrapped around and around her neck with an umbrella in hand my mystery woman looked typical for a casually well dressed female in the Amsterdam in February.  

          The blue and white tram slowly began to continue south as I watched her finish crossing the street.  I was staring straight at her when she looked over her shoulder in my direction and smiled.  Was she smiling at me?  I wasn’t sure.  I smiled back just in case. Then she turned away and three steps later disappeared into one of the city’s numerous alley ways that tie the town together.  I was lost in my thoughts as the little train gained speed headed south toward the museum section of the city. 

          She was gone.  I felt like a junior-high-school’er who develops a crush at first glance.  This woman had made a distinct impression on me.  Yet she was now lost in the sea of humanity.  I was pissed off at myself for not saying something to her.  I did not even thank her for her advice about finding the museum.  But my chance was gone.  I was left only with just a distinct image of her in my mind.  It was her face most of all that seemed burned into my psyche.  Hers were not the features of a beauty queen.  Instead she was more real and attractive in an honest and non-assuming way.  

Today I am grateful for the courage to post a little of the opening chapter of my book as it is today.  There are 182 pages of the story completed so far with a conclusion coming in the third of the book I have yet to write.  I am appreciative to anyone who took the time to read the opening paragraphs.  It gives me encouragement.  Thank you!

 The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
“The Minute I Heard My First Love Story” Rumi, 1207-1273

What Is Love?

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

“What is love” is an ancient riddle that has been pondered for centuries without anything near a comprehensible answer.  I have no clearer explanation to articulate than the generations before me.  My best explanation contains only three words: “love just is”.  

Indian guri Paramahansa Yogananda who introduced many westerners to Eastern teachings and meditation, expressed clearly why trying to define love is like attempting to nail Jello to a tree when he said “to describe love is very difficult, for the same reason that words cannot fully describe the flavor of an orange. You have to taste the fruit to know its flavor…” 

Twenty years ago in a study done jointly by the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Tulane University they found examples of romantic love in at least 147 of the 166 cultures studied. This discovery in one swoop wiped out the idea that love is an invention of the Western mind rather than a biological fact.  Romantic love is a universal phenomenon and a human characteristic stretching across cultures.

Children have an almost clairvoyant ability to know and express the unabashed truth.  In their naïveté and innocence there can be a perceptual clarity that becomes largely lost with age.  A list of thoughts about “love” from four to nine-year olds has floated around for a while and it lends about as much accuracy as is humanly possible to the question “what is love?” Here are a few from that list:

”When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.” Billy – age 4

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”  Chrissy – age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” Terri – age 4

“Love is when my Mommy makes coffee for my Daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.” Danny – age 7

“Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.” Noelle – age 7 

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” Tommy – age 6

“Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.”  Elaine – age 5
 
“Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.” Chris – age 7

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”  Jessica – age 8

 “It’s better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need somebody to clean up after them.” Lynette – 9

“If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long.” Leo – 7)

“I’m in favor of love as long as it doesn’t happen when “The Simpsons” is on television.” Anita – 6

“”It’s love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire. They like to order those because it’s just like how their hearts are on fire.” Christine – 9 

Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I have been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.” Bobby – 8

Albert Einstein, said “How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”  Trying to answer the “what is love” question is a completely impossible undertaking.  If Albert Einstein says so, it must be true.  I may not be able to describe love with precise detail but I sure know it when I feel it.  That is enough for me and I am grateful. 

Love is a temporary madness.  It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides.  And when it subsides you have to make a decision.  You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.  Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not a decree of promises of eternal passion.  That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are.  Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.  Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. 
St. Augustine

Soul Mates

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

If one goes looking for a definition of ‘soul mate’ you’ll find something like: two persons compatible with each other in disposition, point of view and sensitivity. Someone for whom you have a deep affinity, similarity, and compatibility and they for you.   

In his Plato’s dialogue “The Symposium”, Aristophanes presents a story about soul mates.  In it humans originally had four arms, four legs, and a single head made of two faces, but Zeus feared their power and split them all in half, condemning them to spend their lives searching for the other half to complete them.  It is from just such a lovely story that the concept of “split-aparts” and “soul mates” likely grew. 

Years and years are frequently spent by many searching for that one “soul mate”.  A deep yearning drives those for a near perfect match.  The common assumption is, if and when, that ideal counterpart is found; “happily-ever-after” comes true until parted by death. 

Over time my beliefs about soul mates has evolved and changed.  For years I labored under the concept there was one, and only one woman in the world that was meant just for me and I for them.  My belief in soul mates is still strong, but now it is clear to me some people may have several soul mates in a lifetime. 

My perfect fit in my 20’s ended up being quite different from the soul mate that fit me in my 40’s.  While the basic underpinnings of whom I am remained relatively constant, true needs and wants evolved and morphed over time.  It is that changing and growing, sometimes in different directions that can make what was once a union of soul mates into a union of two near strangers that ends a relationship.   A person may come into my life as a mutually perfect fit for a time and then not be later. 

Hindsight has a certain clarity that a short-term view does do not.  In retrospect I can see that my first wife was my soul mate at the time we met.  She brought to my life stability, compassion and my first real experience with adult love.  In many ways I flourished with her and that stability helped me to build a successful career and some degree of contentment.  There was seven years of a good marriage.  Things change, people evolve and relationships drift.  We did just that.  Habit and comfort replaced the originally shared intimacy and joy until there was no glue to hold us together anymore. 

My second marriage was also to a soul mate.  She brought to my life a sweetness of love with a sort of innocent and beautiful naïveté.  With her I learned to have good old-fashioned fun which I had mostly denied myself previously.  It was in this relationship I was able to let go and love with all my heart and soul, something I had been unable to do before.  The roller coaster manner of the relationship came from dysfunctions that were conditioned into us as children.  In some ways we never really had a long-term chance, but for a time joy reigned between us.  It is ironic that the destruction of the relationship ended up being the motivator to get the help I needed and to get into recovery from my childhood junk.  Life and love are both highly mysterious journeys.

For times more brief I believe there may have been others that I can look back on and honestly say we were for a time soul mates.  Some were not lovers and instead the truest of friends.  It is the concept of having more than one soul mate during a lifetime I have come around to seeing.  That brings me great encouragement as it opens the door to believe yet another soul mate is out there waiting for our mutual discovery of each other. 

Maybe if we humans were only spiritual beings, two could find each other and spend a blissful eternity together.  We are flesh and blood though, with our imperfections, quirks, accumulated pain and narrow perceptions.   We change, grow up and grow old.  We mature and evolve.  We find wisdom through the trial and error of experience and those lessons transform us.    

This morning I have a happy heart with bright hope in my soul.  For those who have walked my path with me on a soul level, I am deeply grateful.  I thank you for your love, kindness, support, caring and all the good we shared.  I will never forget it.  For the future, I have hope that another that moves my soul will once again find me.  I am grateful to be the most ready for such a gift I have ever been.

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants.  But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.  A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.  A soul mate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so out of control that you have to transform your life…  Elizabeth Gilbert

My BIG Wake Up Call

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

 As I walked from the secure area of the airport, there was a man holding a sign with my name on it like a limo driver might do.  It made no sense to me.  I was arriving home and expecting my wife to pick me up.  Having texted her after I made my connecting flight to let her know I would be arriving on time she had responded “OK”.  

My body language gave me away as I neared the man with the sign.  He looked directly at me and asked me “are you him” while pointing to my name.   I was bewildered as to what might be going on and my first thought was that something bad had happened to my wife.  I answered “yes, I’m him”.  He handed a large manila envelope to me and simply said “I’m sorry” and walked away. 

Quickly putting my bags down and opening the large envelope I started to read the note on top of a stack of legal looking papers.  It said:

The Aviator (car) is at Airport Parking under James Browning.  They have your keys.  I’ve moved your meds, closet belongings, stuff from your drawers, etc to the warehouse – right inside the door.   

Good-bye.  I do love you but am not able to trust you again after knowing what you have done.  I just can’t get over it.  I will hopefully be able to forgive you someday, but I will never be able to forget.  Good luck with your recovery, A.

Lifting the note underneath I saw “Petition for the Dissolution of Marriage”.  

The relationship preceding the marriage was troubled and the first year of the marriage was difficult as well.  The time ranged from near euphoric good moments to long days and nights filled with great anguish and pain.  We truly loved each other but our dysfunctions made coexistence arduously challenging.

Although I was faithful for five years while we dated and lived together, during a period of extreme pain and frustration I lost my direction completely and began an affair that I later partially admitted in marriage counseling.  My wife found that behavior unforgivable and I don’t blame her for feeling that way.  Had our roles been switched I would likely have felt the same.  

Looking back there is no complete explanation within of why the sex focused affair began and  the growing darkness surrounded me except through counseling I came to know I was sexually compulsive.  I learned that under duress an alcoholic drinks, an addict takes drugs and one sexually compulsive medicates with sex.  To each one the substance of choice is used to numb pain and alter reality, even if just for a short while.  Sharing that here is not intended as an excuse.  There are none for my actions. Rather, by public admission I am shining light into a dark corner of my life.  It is my hope by sharing my missteps I can find further relief for pain I still carry inside for the agony caused to my now ex-wife.  

The date I was legally served at the airport was Saturday, May 27, 2006 and I honestly don’t remember much specifically about the day.  Everything was surreal and felt if I was drifting within a very bad dream.  My recollection is that I went home to find the locks changed and no response to my knocks on the door.  After numerous tries I sat on the porch step for a good long while and eventually left.  The only place I could think to go was my office at work.  Thankfully it was a Saturday and no one saw me arrive.  I locked myself in my office without turning on the lights.  The next six hours were spent staring at the walls and changing passwords on-line with a good deal of crying interspersed.  

Somewhere near sundown the realization hit I had no place to spend the night and checked into a budget motel near my work which became my refuge for the next two weeks.  I slept little that night and those following with rest only coming when exhaustion overtook me.  

Since that time five years ago I have been deeply involved in counseling and recovery including five weeks at a wonderfully healing place in Arizona called “The Meadows”.  My time there was life changing beyond my ability to explain it.  Just before leaving my primary counselor there said to me “you came here to change your life.  Everyone can see it”.  She was correct and I am proud that growth continues today. 

The longest I have ever lived alone has been the last five years.  In a local recovery group I am active and attend two Codependence Anonymous meetings per week ( www.coda-tulsa.org ).  Today I am well, growing and happy and have healed a lot from the trauma of my difficult childhood where my dysfunctions are rooted.  I see my therapist only rarely.  She tells me I don’t need to see her anymore but I continue to check in with her a couple of times per year.  There is much gratitude for the great help she has been to me. 

Thinking about the day I was served divorce papers at the airport still conjures a hurt that is yet not completely healed.  Sharing here is a way of  letting go of “secrets” that are “poison” to my soul.  I thank you for being my witness.  There is much gratitude for the healing that has come into my life in recent years.  While I can find no specific thankfulness for the day I came home to find I had no home anymore, there will always be vast gratitude for the healing it served as a catalyst for.  

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.  Kenji Miyazawa

Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Other Poetry I Love

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

A love of poetry seems to be a rare thing today.  If I mention enjoying a particular poem to someone, almost always that person will tell me they love poetry too.  When I ask what their favorite poem or poet is ninety five out of a hundred can not name either.  So I am doing my part in keeping poetry alive by all the books of poems I have collected which are frequently picked up.  There is always joy to find within those old volumes many beautiful words expressed from the heart.  The best poems for my taster are lyrical in nature with relatively even lines and balanced rhyming words, although there are exceptions like the Apache poem below.

My favorite poet is Elizabeth Barrett Browning. There is something unique and extraordinary about how her words touch me and stir the heart.  I hope you find meaning in the work of  Mrs. Browning and a few other favorites I have put here to share. 

How Do I Love Thee?”  By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861

How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight,
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with passion put to use
In my old grief’s, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seem to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!  And, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death. 

 If  Thou Must love Me” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only.  Do not say
I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day,
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee, and love, so wrought.
May be unwrought so.  Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,
A creature might forget to weep who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

“The Years” by Sara Teasdale 1884 – 1933

Tonight I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me.
The years before I saw you face
Go by me with wishful grace.
They pass, the sensitive shy years,
As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears.
The years went by and never knew
That each one brought me nearer to you.
Their path was narrow and apart
And yet it led me to your heart.
Oh sensitive shy years, oh lonely years,
That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears

“A White Rose” by John Boyle O-Reilly 1844 – 1890

The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud,
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

From “Sudden Light” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882

I have been here before
But when or how I can not tell.
You have been mine before
How long ago I may not know.

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet 1612-1672

If ever two were one then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife were happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Of all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere
That when we live not more, we may live ever. 

From “Shall I Compare Thee” by William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

‘Wedding  Prayer” – Tradition Apache Prayer date unknown

Now you will feel no rain,
For each of you will be shelter to the other.
Now each of you will feel no cold,
For each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there is no more loneliness,
For each of you will be companion to the other.
Now you are two bodies,
But there is only one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place,
To enter into the days of your togetherness
And may your days be good and long upon the Earth.

My heart swells with gratitude and feelings as I read these poems again.  I have read them so many times each has have become a dear old friend.  The newest of the poetry here is almost a hundred years old and yet the words can reach across the years from the writer if one is receptive to the poet’s message.  I am grateful for the beauty in word these writers left as their legacy for me to discover and enjoy…. very grateful!

What Do Men and Women Want?

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

I ran across some information a couple of days ago that sheds a little light on the question:  “What do men and women want?” Researchers at the University of Iowa have conducted a study every decade since 1939 that asks participants to rank a list of 18 characteristics they would want in a partner on a scale ranging from “irrelevant” to “essential”. The data increasingly shows men and women are mostly interested in same things:  attraction, love, character, stability, intelligence and ambition. 

Discernible differences between the sexes in the research last done in 2009 are:  1) women’s desire for men who care about home and children, 2) men’s hope for financially competent women and 3) men’s importance placed on looks.  However in the latter, male preference about a woman’s looks was rated only marginally higher than the importance women place on men’s looks.  For both sexes over the 70 years of this research, looks have come to matter less and less. 

It’s important to note that ‘mutual attraction and love’ was an overwhelming top choice for both sexes in the data.  In 1939 when this research began it was not even in the top three.  Also, worth noting, chastity is unimportant to men and women.  Today’s adults are not particularly looking for virgins or angels.  Political beliefs don’t matter either.

For more than four years previous to this last March I lived on a street of nothing but duplex’s owned almost exclusively by old people who lived in one side and rented the other for income.  Living around and getting to know some of my mostly 70 and 80-something neighbors was enlightening. 

Clear in memory is a conversation at an informal Christmas gathering when I talked to an 80-something untraditional ‘couple’.  I knew each had their own place catty-cornered across the street from each other and they spent a lot of time together.  Bill and Evelyn told me they were what they called a “committed couple” and loved each other.  I learned both had been married to other people twice in their long lives, but had no intention of getting married to each other.  It was just too complicated they explained because of their families and the separate long lives each had lived.      

Each time Bill and Evelyn looked at each other their smiles and sparkly eyes told easily how much they cared for the other.  Before our conversation broke up, they told me they spent a few overnight’s together each week,  much to the disdain of some of their family members.   There is no cloudiness in my memory of Evelyn’s comment “I’m old enough to do whatever the hell I want to do.  Bill and I love each other and that is all that matters”.  Even writing those words today they sound like something young lovers might say.  In the love department I think that’s exactly what this couple is in their hearts.

As long as I live I will remember one more thing that came up in my conversation with Bill and Evelyn near Christmas in 2009.  Their blunt explanation about sex embarrassed me a little at the time. I learned age and infirmity kept them from sharing sexually, but was told they had found something both thought was even better.  Evelyn said something like “we just lay down, kiss a little and then hold each other very close for a long time”.   What a beautifully sweet thought and one I am grateful to have logged away in memory. 

Do I love you because you’re beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

The Flame in My Heart

/ James Browning / 6 Comments

What a range of emotion this past weekend contained.  Friday evening through Sunday morning contained an abundance of good times including three delicious meals and other quality time with a total of six friends.  How very richly blessed my days are to have such caring people in my life and I am exceedingly grateful. 

Being positively charged from the comradery in the first 2/3’s of my weekend, Sunday afternoon I felt poised with equilibrium mentally and spiritually.  Feeling strength and balance I decided to spend the afternoon doing a serious introspective meditation of the sort that digs down deep into the underpinnings of my emotional self.  While these journeys are always good, getting this real and close with one’s self can be painful.  Rarely have they hurt as much as what I encountered yesterday and into the night. 

The subject of my contemplative hours yesterday revolved around a central theme including questions such as:  why don’t I date, why won’t I allow any woman to reach my heart romantically, what holds me back, what am I afraid of, will I ever fall in love again and so on.  An answer came, but it took a good while to peel back the layers to get at it. 

For close to three hours I floated along in meditation without much consciousness of time.  In the opening up to my deeper self came realization of how much I value my friends.  They are my modern-day family.  Digging deeper I contemplated past romantic relationships until I arrived at realization that stunned me.  I came to know that even after much pain and sorrow and the passing of several years, the love for my 2nd wife still burns brightly in my heart.  Yes, I knew I still cared about her but discovering the depth of what remains astonished and humbled me.  

The answer to my self inquiry of “why” is simply in my heart I am still married to A., my second wife; nothing more, nothing less.  There is enormous irony in realizing that is probably truer at this moment than we actually were a wedded couple.  

There is a line that comes to mind which I included three weeks ago in a blog here titled “Unclouded Wisdom” https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/08/05/the-unclouded-wisdom-of-youth/ 

Never stop loving someone because you never know when they might start loving you back. But if that person won’t change, wait until your heart voluntarily quits. 

Now I realize I had feelings stuffed down deep within me and had ceased to recognize them.  Of course, that did not mean they were gone.  I had hidden my feelings away in a sort of misguided self-protection.  What was in my heart was waiting to show itself if I ever cared to look.  Now I will continue on with the knowledge that given time the point will come when my “heart voluntarily quits” or resolution will come in whatever form it arrives in. 

So I openly acknowledge what I now know to be true.  The first step with moving forward with anything is to accept what is.  In spite of the pain acceptance brings me this morning, I know it is a big step toward healing in a way I did not realize I was still wounded. 

What poured salt on an exposed wound yesterday was when I went to my jewelry box to find my wedding band from my second marriage only to find it gone.  Somewhere in my recent move and with workers in and out of my home the ring, along with a few others things, was stolen.  I have no idea when or by whom and can only guess.  There are several possibilities.  There would be no purpose to filing a police report and I care not to go though an insurance claim.  Just too painful.  Maybe it is life’s way of starting me on the break that I need to make to heal my heart.  That at least is how I find a silver lining in a dark cloud. 

Yesterday was a time of tears and the release of great pain.  While it was all healthy for me, this morning I am exhausted and running on the fumes of a few hours sleep.  I know I will be better for the experience but also that it will take a little while for that goodness to come over me completely.  

Of course, you can guess who I reached out to at the peak of my misery yesterday.  Yep, my ex-wife.  In spite of her having moved on with her life, she was exceptionally kind to me.  It had been well over a year since we had spoken and we talked for a long while.  It seemed neither of us wanted to get off the phone. I am grateful to her. 

Life goes on.  People change.  Things don’t work out.  Life is full of disappointment.  But living is filled with enormous goodness as well.  As long as I shall live, life is full of possibility.  I accept fully and openly whatever life has in store for me.  Always I will do my best to live my days well with deep grateful for the joys I am blessed with and thankfulness for the lessons I am taught.  

Change is never easy, you fight to hold on, and you fight to let go. 
from the TV program “The Wonder Years”