Simple Pleasures

The Supreme Excellence

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

Occasionally a particular happening  comes along to grab my sense of gratitude. Something happens, a meaningful insight comes, or a particular event takes place to cause my thankfulness to rise and surge within.

There are many other times when awareness of simple every-day living becomes more acute and my gratefulness grows from a mixture of directions.  For specific reasons unknown, during the last twenty-four hours I have experienced a heightened awareness of being grateful for my life.  At least for a short while, so much less has been taken for granted.

Driving into the city last evening, the skyline sparkled distantly in the cold and clear nighttime air.   From the top of a few hills our view was of city lights that twinkled to the horizon.  I saw beauty and gratitude swelled within.

Arriving downtown we were able to find a good, close-in parking space by waiting our turn and being patient.  The walk to the arena was arm in arm for a few blocks.  The calm night air felt good on my face. I felt completely in the moment and gratitude swelled within. 

The performance we attended last night was my fourth year in a row to see The Trans Siberian Orchestra do their annual Christmas show.  The cast of many did not disappoint and while the material is much the same year to year, I enjoyed what they played as one enjoys the company of a well-known friend.  I was dazzled by the music, lights and performers and gratitude swelled within.

My Sweetie and I like to hold hands in the car and last night was no exception.  There was joy in my heart as we drove toward home on a beautiful night, after an impressive show.  I felt contented and gratitude swelled within. 

Sleep came easily last night after a long, wonderful day.  I slept well.  There are even a few moments of a whimsical dream I still remember now that make me smile and blush when those remnants come to mind.  I woke rested and gratitude swelled within. 

Each Saturday morning I attend a Codependence Anonymous meeting and while the groups are always good, today was exceptional for someone.  A fairly new member who appeared a bit lost before had breakthroughs and seemed to see a difficult but do-able life path forward.  I benefited from hearing someone talk about a path similar to the one I have walked and gratitude swelled within.

This afternoon I met my best guy-friend at a movie theatre.  We took in the matinée screening of the new Muppets movie.  When the weekly Muppets TV show was on I was hooked and the new film is much like those great old programs.  I laughed a lot and gratitude swelled within. 

Being short of pocket-cash late this afternoon I stopped at a ‘green machine’.  As I waited for the machine to process my withdrawal and whir through the moments before it spit out money there came an abounding sense of plenty.  I lack for nothing money can buy!  I felt richly blessed and gratitude swelled within.

Tonight the woman in my life is coming over to watch a movie and share the evening with me. Being with her enriches my existence in a way never dreamed of.  We laugh, talk, kiss, hug and enjoy each other so very much.  I feel love for her and gratitude swells within. 

Today I am aware of simple things like lights that come on when I flip a switch, music playing out of the stereo on my desk and running water for the shower I will take in a little while.  All around me, every day I live a life that is spectacular in ordinary and common ways.  My days do get great value from an occasional momentous event that happens and sweeps me off my feet.  My greatest joy comes from being aware of how fortunate I am to have the life I do:  My Life.  I am truly blessed and humbly grateful.

In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Seeing Beyond What is Visible

/ James Browning

Left on our own without stimulus or reminders, living can fall into a rut easily. Without reference points our days can appear bland and lacking the bright color engaged experience can provide.  One lesson taught to me frequently which took a long to absorb is my life is mostly what I make it out to be.  It is my choice whether I see being alive as a miracle or a burden.  It is a choice whether I choose to embellish life to its most positive aspect or diminish life to lowest possible meaning.  Where on that scale I choose to spend my days is in majority within my control.

On a lark this morning my love and I choose to watch a movie from a decade and a half ago that has been taking up space on my DVR.  Having seen a portion of it before when I decided to record it, I already knew I would probably enjoy it.  How could I not; Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando together! 

“Don Juan DeMarco” is a 1995 romantic comedy/drama set in modern times starring Depp as a man who believes himself to be Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world. In his cape, mask and typical 17th century garb DeMarco ends up being treated by Dr. Mickler, a psychiatrist (Brando’s character).  In the work to cure Depp’s character of his apparent delusion an unexpected effect on the psychiatric staff appears.  Many are inspired by DeMarco’s delusion.  The most profoundly affected is Dr. Mickler, who rekindles the romance in his complacent marriage and rediscovers life in general.  Now that the general story line has been revealed, I want to share a few wonderful pieces of dialogue from the movie spoken by Johnny Depp’s character, Don Juan DeMarco:

There are only four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love. 

Have you never met a woman who inspires you to love? Until your every sense is filled with her? You inhale her. You taste her. You… know that your heart has at last found a home. Your life begins with her, and without her it must surely end. 

Every true lover knows that the moment of greatest satisfaction comes when ecstasy is long over and he beholds before him the flower which has blossomed beneath his touch.

There are those that do not believe that a single soul born in heaven can split into twin spirits and shoot like falling stars to earth where over oceans and continents their magnetic forces will finally unite them back into one. But, how else to explain love at first sight?

By seeing beyond what is visible to the eye. Now there are those, of course, who do not share my perceptions, it is true. When I say that all…  women are dazzling beauties, they object. The nose of this one is too large; the hips of another, they are too wide; perhaps the breasts of a third, they are too small. But I see these women for how they truly are… glorious, radiant, spectacular, and perfect… because I am not limited by my eyesight. Women react to me in the way they do… because they sense that I search out the beauty that lies within until it overwhelms everything else.

If none of those lines touches or moves you I encourage you to immediately head to the nearest emergency room as most likely your heart has stopped beating.  Or else, you and your soul have fallen so out of love with each other and have become complete strangers for which I can only suggest therapy.  It’s quite alright if you don’t want to admit it to anyone that the movie dialogue touched you.  As long as you know is what matters! 

The movie, “Don Juan DeMarco”, is not “reality” based and that’s just fine with me.  Frankly sometimes I have way too much reality in my life.  Constantly there is a barrage of news about bad economic conditions, crime, pollution, political corruption, global warming and things of the sort that sow enough negativity to choke a masochist.  While I attempt to avoid what I can, and focus only on what I can help change, the whole mess drags me down sometimes.  To balance the all too real segments of life since childhood I have held on tight to what inspiration I can find from others. 

Mark Twain, Jack London, Hemingway, Kipling and Tolkien long before he was well known are writers who took me to grand new places and inspired me as a child.  In my adult life Thoreau, Huxley, Orwell, Vonnegut, Clarke, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Forster are among those who pushed me to see a world broader and deeper than I could have otherwise known.

Movies have had a parallel affect on me and many have served to help me see beyond my range of life experience and become enthused, contemplative and even inspired about living.  From “The Wind and the Lion” to “Gone with the Wind”, from “Groundhog Day” to “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, from “Love Me Tender” to “Love Story”, they all left a  mark within me.  And now on my list is “Don Juan DeMarco”, a movie about inspired love that comes at a time when wondrous and unexpected love has come into my life.  I am grateful to know beyond a shadow of a doubt I would rather live delusionally inspired than realistically dull and bland.  For that small grain of wisdom my gratitude is too tremendous to even try to state.  

Imagination is more important than knowledge.  Albert Einstein
 

To Laugh Often and Much..

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

I found a used copy of the book pictured above a few weeks ago:  “Bedside Prayers, Prayers and Poems for When You Rise and Go to Sleep” collected by June Cotner.  It has found a convenient home on my night stand.  With decent regularity it finds its way into my hands just before lights out at night to put some meaningful thoughts to put into my head before sleep. 
 
“Bedside Prayers” has these words of description on its dust cover:  a marvelous collection of prayers, meditations, sentiments, and quiet celebrations.  Drawing from a rich spectrum of traditions and writers – from Rainer Maria Rilke to Robert Louis Stevenson, and from Buddha to contemporary writers with fresh insights… for spiritual seekers of any tradition… a charming companion that encourages us to recognize the divine gifts all around us each day.  I find something meaningful every time I pick the book up and read a random page.  
 
Among my favorites found in “Bedside Prayers” is thirteen lines by George Eliot that encourage me to be grateful for each day and to live with courage and intent to leave the world a little better than I find it.

May every soul that touches mine—
Be it the slightest contact—
Get from there some good;
Some little grace; one kindly thought;
One aspiration yet unfelt;
One bit of courage
For the darkening sky;
One gleam of faith
To brave the thickening ills of life;
One glimpse of brighter skies
Beyond the gathering mists—
To make this life worthwhile,
And heaven a surer heritage. 

In a poem written almost a hundred years ago Ranier Maria Rilke described the power of being in the moment long before it was a popular notion.  Being aware of one’s “aliveness” is the message he left to be printed in “Bedside Prayers”.

You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
The darkness of each endless fall,
The shimmering light of each ascent.
So many are alive who don’t seem to care.
Casual, easy, they move in the world
As though untouched.
But you take pleasure in the faces
Of those who know they thirst.
You cherish those
Who grip you for survival.
You are not dead yet, it’s not too late
To open your depths by plunging into them
And drink in the life
That reveals itself quietly there.

First time through the following eight lines by Joseph Byron seemed to be only be a play on words.  Then as I read them a second and third time it became apparent that simply changing the order of words added great meaning. I get the most from Byron when I read his forty-five word poem slowly and savor each line before moving to the next.  

Feeling strong and strongly feeling.
Being glad and glad of being.
Care for need and needing caring.
Sharing self and selfless sharing.
Full of spirit spirit filling.
Will is warm and warmly willing.
Give joy enjoy the giving
Life is love and love is living. 

Those eight lines really touch me! 

There is nothing new or original in what I offer gratitude for today.  What is stated, I have written about before.  Here again is my thankfulness expressed for the work of others that touch my heart and spirit and make me think.  The canvas of an artist can have that effect on me and so can the notes of a musician.  A script well acted can move me deeply as can the words of a writer, but few things touch me as quickly or as profoundly as a well written poem.

Maybe I am old-fashioned. Maybe my soul has remnants within of the Victorian Era.  Or maybe I feel deeply which allows my sensitive self to receive in great dimension the feelings, thoughts and sentiments in poetry.  Whatever the reason may be, my gratitude is deep for the writers who put pieces of themself into measured word for me to discover, for my ability to feel what the poets left behind and for books like June Cotner’s “Bedside Prayers” that bring poetry into my life.

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children;
Earn the appreciation of honest critics
And endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better,
Whether by a healthy child,
A garden patch,
Or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
Because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
This old favorite by Ralph Waldo Emerson is included in “Bedside Prayers”

A Marvelous Day

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

The commitment I made to myself seven months ago was to write here each day, no matter what!  Today is number two hundred fifteen.  My time is slim this evening and the content I offer is hastily written.  To keep my pledge to write daily, this post is arriving just before midnight.  Why so late?  Today was one to be filled with living, not writing.

The marvel of this day just spent, humbles me.

All is well…
Very well. 
I have had a wonderful day…
A marvelous day…
A memorable day…
A good day…

It began with sleeping in for an extra two hours.  I woke rested, ready and thankful for the new day. 

An hour later I was having breakfast at a favorite place with the woman who has my heart.  Afterwards we spent the majority of this rainy Saturday in each other arms.  I love her and she loves me.  How incredibly wonderful!

Tonight I took my best friend out to celebrate his birthday over dinner.  We ended the evening by watching “The Wizard of Oz”. 

I can’t imagine a day ever being any better than this one.  I am content.  I feel loved.  I feel safe.  I am happy.  I am  thankful…. so very thankful!  

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice.  Meister Eckhart

 

My Prayers for Thanksgiving

/ James Browning / 4 Comments

Tomorrow is the nationally sanctioned American holiday for thanks; for gratitude.  Beyond the Thanksgiving holiday, the family gathering, the food and the plenty it is thankfulness for all the goodness in my life I want to express my humble gratefulness for.  I have so much to be thankful for, especially this year.  I have health, love, friends, family, good work and hope.  I am humbly and deeply grateful.

Gratitude:  To recognize the quality, significance, or magnitude of life; a warm and friendly feeling awakened by thankfulness.

During the Civil War in 1863  Abraham Lincoln set the official U.S.holiday of “Thanksgiving”.  At the time he said: 

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that [the gifts of God] should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens… to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” 

Taken from “We Thank Thee” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
For tender grass so fresh, so sweet,
For the song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see.
For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees.
For this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee.

“Help Me” by Samuel F. Pugh
O God, when I have food,
help me to remember the hungry;
When I have work,
help me to remember the jobless;
When I have a home,
help me to remember those who have no home at all;
When I am without pain,
help me to remember those who suffer,
And remembering,
help me to destroy my complacency;
bestir my compassion,
and be concerned enough to help;
By word and deed,
those who cry out for what we take for granted.
Amen.

Taken from “MY THANKSGIVING PRAYER TO YOU”  by Judy N. Marquart
My Thanksgiving prayer
to you from me;
Is for love strong and true
that you hold within thee.
A house filled with love
and the light how it shines;
Showing all of its beauty
till the end of time.

Kindness towards others
for all of your days;
To be returned I pray
in many a way.
A good job to keep you
and pay all your bills;
That you spend it all wisely
and not on the frills.

A family around you
that is loving and true;
That you all stand together
for there are so few.
Dreams of pure beauty
as you lay there and sleep;

Through the peaceful night
when darkness is deep.
An angel to guide you
through morning and night;
To protect you and love you
till the end of your plight.

“Iroquois Thanksgiving Prayer” adapted by St Joseph of Peace
We return thanks to our Mother, the Earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs,
Which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and stars,
Which have given to us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to the sun,
That has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in Whom is embodied all goodness,
And Who directs all things for the good of Her children.”

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. 
Thornton Wilder

Once Upon a Time in the Hills of Alabama

/ James Browning / 2 Comments

An old book of rhymes I bought for two dollars by a forgotten local Tulsa poet stirred some distant memories as I thumbed through the pages this morning. He wrote of things before my time I often could not relate directly to like when the ice man brought ice to his house, sleeping on a feather mattress or the conductor on a night train. Some of my grammar school year memories from around five decades ago will be just as unfamiliar today to any “young’un”. Even to me some seem far-fetched or made up when I tell the stories, even through they are truth or at least truth as I remember it.

Clearly I remember the old alcoholic who would buy bottles of lemon extract flavoring at the country store. Being high in alcohol content he’d be plastered from drinking it and be laying in the weeds singing within a quarter-mile from the store happily lost in his oblivion.  Eventually the store stopped selling the stuff to him.

My 5th grade teacher was Miss Pittman and as the prefix implied she had never married. At least 60 years of age, she lived in the rundown teacher dorm behind the high school with one other “old maid” female teacher. By the time I got to high school she had passed on and the dorm was torn down. I wonder how she would feel today about me recalling her as the meanest teacher I ever had!

There was Dick Butterworth who liked us kids. Weekdays he was a local laborer and on weekends he was a professional happy drunk. On Saturday when he was high on booze we kids could convince him of just about anything. Once my brother, two cousins and I had him believing there was a little man who lived in the well by the store. He had a flash light and was looking down trying to find him in the well. Thinking back I am glad here was a cinder block housing around the well or he would have fallen in!

When I was six my father, mother, little brother and I went on a Sunday to visit my Mom’s first cousin in prison where he had been sent for moon shining. Clearly I recall a bucket on a rope being lowered by from a guard tower for car keys to be placed and surrendered during the visit. And inside the fence in the outdoor family picnic area the barbed wire at the top made me uneasy even as a child. That experience probably has a little to do with why I have never been arrested and kept myself straight with the law.

There was a milk cow my grandparents had they called “ole three tit”. There should have been four on her and I never knew if the missing one was from an accident or genetics. I had been told the cow did not like kids. Being the bull-headed boy I have always been there was no problem going against what I had been told and heading to the barn at milking time. I will never forget the cow coming after me and my grandmother protecting me with a two by four she wacked the old girl with! I got in trouble but did not get hurt. My Papa (grandfather) took “ole three tit” to the cattle sale within a week or two.

Raising chickens was big business on the farm and there were two “chicken” houses longer than a football field and probably forty feet wide. In between grown ones being taken away and chicks being delivered was a few weeks where the fertilizer laden (OK chicken poop laden) sawdust on the floor was changed out. On a rainy day during such times my brother and I would hunt rats that fed on the ground corn the chickens were fed. And I mean RATS not mice! When we got one, which was not often, you’d think we had bagged big game in Africa.

A clothes pin and a piece of cardboard or playing card placed correctly could make a bicycle sound kind of like a motorcycle. At least we thought so. But to get a temporary throaty engine sound nothing worked better than tying a balloon so it interacted with the spokes. It lasted only a short while until the balloon wore through, but in those moments I felt like I was on a Harley!

Or there was George Parker who spoke with a speech impediment and dipped snuff. I saw him many times spit the nasty stuff in the top breast pocket of his overalls. That’s makes my face scrunch up even now thinking about it. Or I remember the time Bud Stansell and his wife were robbed by escaped convicts that the police caught in a cornfield within sight of my grandparent’s house. Bud’s head was bandaged up from where they had hit him and I learned a new “cuss-word” or two as he spoke his mind while the highway patrolmen loaded the prisoners up.

Memory is clear when my Dad ran a country store and after closing time some of his buddies would show up so they all could drink beer and play bluegrass music around the wood stove heater in back.  Another relic of times past is “The Lord Provides Shinebone Valley Country Store” pictured at the top.

Growing up, all I wanted was to leave the rural south behind as far as possible. As an adult I made that wish come true. I have come to realize that as a child I was witness to the last of a way of life in rural Shinbone Valley, Alabama that had not changed much in a century and a half. That old way of life is almost completely gone now. Interstates, TV, air travel and the like helped bring about rapid change that I have embraced and enjoyed. However, I will always be grateful for the unique memories I have from my childhood that for their time were as good as anything Mark Twain ever wrote about.

Don’t you wish you could take a single childhood memory
and blow it up into a bubble and live inside it forever?
Sarah Addison Allen

Boys of Shinbone Valley

/ James Browning / 1 Comment

You won’t find anything about him on Google. If you ask around at random in Clay County, Alabama your inquiry is not likely to be met with one who has heard his name. Only a handful of people will even be able to remember he lived at all. His life was obscure but he lives durably in my memory although it was over forty years I saw him last. “He” was Willis Johnson and he was a childhood friend to my brother and me.

There is little I knew about Willis. He did not talk much. He had two older sisters and the three of them lived with their mother in an old rented house. Their origin was not there in rural Shinbone Valley, Alabama and I never knew where the family came from. Willis was a year older than me and for two summers in the early 1960’s we three boys were together frequentlyriding our our bikes and exploring as young boys like to do. We had many fun adventures and vivid memories from those time are catalogued securely in my head.

While my family never had much, Willis and his family had far less. They always seemed to get by though. No one was over-weight in his group because I suspect food was never plentiful enough to allow such a thing to happen. During the school year when Willis still attended he wore the same few clothes over and over but they were always clean. While he suffered from a general lack, I never got the feeling he was abused in any way. We did not share classes and at school he stayed off by himself and spoke little.

We three boys of Shinbone Valley, Willis, my brother and I, rode our bikes over all the country roads within five miles or so of the main crossroads of our community. We also journeyed down miles and miles of dirt logging roads, pasture cattle trails, hillside paths and did our share of “mountain biking” long before anyone had ever heard of the term. Willis knew the woods and about most everything in them. Being the only male in his household he was hunting and bringing home food from the hills at a very young age. My brother and I were always impressed with his knowledge of the land in ways that pre-teenage boys could especially appreciate.

One particular skill Willis had was making an “Indian owl sound” from his cupped hands. With thumbs side by side and hands tightly together like holding something round inside he could blow across the creases of his thumbs and get a “hooting” noise. For two summers I tried and tried and tried to create it. Over and over Willis showed me how to hold my hands but for the longest time all I ever got was the sound of my breath blowing rapidly over my fingers. It easily could have been the one hundredth time he showed me how to hold my hands when I first made a little of the right noise. Rough and inconsistent at first, over time I became proficient at making this prized “Indian sound”. Later Willis showed me how to alternate lifting the fingers of one hand to change the pitch.

When I was eleven years old my family moved much closer to town and Willis was no longer a part of my life. Once in a while when visiting my Grandparents and my Mother’s family in Shinbone Valley I would see Willis and say “Hey” but never much more. By then those innocent childhood years before puberty were fast-moving deeper into the past. He quit school to work as a manual laborer before he was sixteen.

I moved two hundred miles away to live with my Father at seventeen and never saw Willis again. I lost track of what happened to him for a long while. My Brother who kept in touch with family and folks in the valley told me years later that “Willis went wild”. He took to living in the woods by himself living off the land and only coming back to civilization occasionally. No one seems to know exactly why he did that. Willis was always a bit odd and some say he had a mental breakdown. I like to think he simply lived where he was the most comfortable, out in the woods in the highest mountains of Northeastern Alabama near what I call “home”.

I heard they found Willis Johnson’s remains at his “home camp” about 20 years ago. No one knows what happened. I like to imagine he simply joined the spirit world and was taken in there by the Native Creek Indians the valley belonged to for hundreds of years. I am grateful to have known such a unique individual who could easily have been a character in a Mark Twain novel, but instead was very real. Thanks Willis! I won’t forget you.

Whimsical to Imagine

/ James Browning

Last night I spent several hours listening to records. That’s right I said “records” meaning “LP’s”, “vinyl”, “albums”, etc. Remember those? I am not stuck in the past and exhibit that by my large CD collection and several thousand digital downloads. On my iPhone lives around a thousand songs that travel around with me all the time. However, there’s just something special, warm and personally reminiscent about the sound that comes from my LP collection of around 3,500 LP’s.

Music matters to me far more than television or movies and even a little more than books. That is saying a lot since reading is a highly favorite way to spend my time. Some of the music I love best is poetry set to music. Last night while listening to James Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot, Prince, The Beatles and Concrete Blonde I looked through a couple of my poetry books. The notion struck me of wondering how some of the old poems might sound set to music that matched their meter and rhyme. I can almost hear the melody of poems like:

“The Years” by Sara Teasdale 1884 – 1933
Tonight I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me–
The years before I saw your 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.

Kisses Kept Are Waster by Edmund Vance Cooke (1866-1932)
Kisses kept are wasted;
Love is to be tasted.
There are some you love, I know;
Be not loathe to tell them so.
Lips go dry and eyes grow wet
Waiting to be warmly met.
Keep them not in waiting yet;
Kisses kept are wasted.”

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet 1612-1672
If ever two were one then surely we.
If ever man were loved 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.

It’s whimsical to imagine such old poetic work having a modern musical score. Yet when I read some of it, there is a melody about the poems that is just out of reach of my ears. That phenomenon is one of the things I love most about well written rhyming poetry. While I appreciate works that don’t rhyme, like Whitman, I just can’t hold any of it to the high level of esteem I feel for even metered, rhyming work.

This morning I am thankful for all the music I love that has been a soundtrack for my life. In like kind, there is deep gratitude within for the words of the poets that stir my soul and heart so much I imagine music set behind them.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. 
Berthold Auerbach

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

Holding on for Dear Life

/ James Browning / 3 Comments

What a sinking feeling it was to realize I had lost my iPhone.   Being away on business yesterday, my morning in the hotel room was filled things to be grateful for like getting to sleep later than usual, room service breakfast in the room, leisurely having some time to write and catch up on news on the internet.  

My mood was fabulous as I checked out and met my two associates in the hotel lobby.  We drove to the airport, dropped off a rental car and said our goodbyes before heading to the gates for flights to our individual home cities.  A short while later just after making it through security I was putting things back into my pockets when I realized I did not have my phone.  Oh, crap!  Where could it be?  I frantically looked around the security area.  A helpful security agent ran my computer bag through the scanner again to see if I hide it from myself inside.  All the while my mind is bouncing around thinking about the loss of photos and data, the process of setting up a new phone and all the numbers not included in a backup made months before. 

Slowly logic and reason returned as I focused myself on the mystery of my missing iPhone.  I was able to remember entering a phone number on the way to the airport and began to think through where I might have lost it.  Did I leave my phone at the kiosk when I was checking in?  Did I put it down on some airport seating where I stopped to clean out my pockets just before security?  

Mentally working back to where I knew I last had my phone, I hurriedly reversed direction.  Walking as fast as I could out of the security area and down the concourse I soon was outside the airport and walking up to the rental car return area.  I asked if an iPhone had been found and the young woman who had checked the car in quickly went to ask the clean up crew.  I convinced myself I was going to have to get a new phone upon arriving home.   I was lost in thought about which one I was going to get when the rental car agent came running toward me, smiling and waving my phone in the air.  Being a sweating mess from hauling butt through the airport was quickly forgotten as the happiness about my found phone overtook me.  As I walked back into the airport I was felt blessed and lucky and made a mental note to keep closer tabs on my phone! 

On boarding my flight a short while later I found my seat was in the very last row of a completely full airplane.  My assigned aisle seat was next to a young woman who appeared to be in her early to mid twenties.  She was a tiny little thing and looked to be about five feet tall at best.  As the man in the window seat made conversation with her I focused on my book, but noticed she spoke with accented, but good English.  As the plane taxied to the runway she got her Walkman ready.  Once in the air the young woman disappeared with closed eyes into her music whose beat I could hear faintly.  She squirmed a bit and seemed to have difficulty getting comfortable for the next hour and a half.  A while later I found out why. 

Two hundred miles from Denver the pilot announced very high winds were limiting the number of runways in use at theDenverairport.  He said our arrival would be delayed and the last part of our ride was going to be very bumpy.  Soon the turbulence got worse and worse and in our holding pattern it was as bad as I ever remember.  The young woman beside me was very scared and getting more agitated with each big shimmy and bounce of the airplane.  The 30-something buy in the window seat was talking and trying to calm her, but her fear was growing fast as beads of sweat began to run down her face.  On her face was pure fear. 

The first I spoke to the young woman was to tell her that everything would be OK, that I was a small plane pilot who had lived and flown in the Denver area.  I had encountered turbulence like this before in my plane (even though 25 years earlier, that was true).  I told her I knew from experience that what was occurring was uncomfortable, but we were safe.  On one particularly rough bump she grabbed my left hand and gripped it tightly with her right hand.  She was holding on for dear life and did not let go until after we had landed.  For 20 minutes not only was she gripping my hand with her right, but her left hand was holding on tightly to my arm as she leaned against me.  From time to time I continued to talk to calm her, saying everything was going to be fine.  Just as we landed the plane bounced around quite a bit and I though she was going to break my hand her grip was so tight.

There is not a time I can remember encountering someone more fearful that this young woman was.  Only when we were on the ground did she began to talk to me.  She was so grateful to me and was gushing with gratitude.  She kept apologizing that flying scared her so much and thanking me for helping her.  I learned her name was Gabriella and she was from a country that was formerly a part of the USSR.  With her accented but very well spoken English we made conversation as we taxied.  She told me she was a Master’s Degree student headed to Chicago to see a friend (a boyfriend I think).  Her flight connection was tight and others like her were allowed off the plane first.  We hurriedly said our goodbyes and in just a matter of moments another “temporary friend” was lost into the sea of humanity.  

As I walked up the jet-way I was struck by how much helping another enriches one’s life.  For the rest of my trip it seemed everyone was nicer than usual to me, yet I know it was largely my frame of mind being reflected back to me.  I felt joyful and the sense of it continues within today.  It began with finding my phone when I was certain it was permanently lost and continued with helping a frightened young woman.  I doubt either of us will ever forget the other for the rest of our days. 

What I experienced yesterday were little things certainly, but the type of happenings that enhance life and give it little splashes of color that make living worthwhile.  I am thankful for the experiences, but to an even greater degree I am grateful for the awareness that allows me to notice such abundant richness in my life.     

For today and its blessings, I owe the world an attitude of gratitude.  Unknown