heart warming

The Year’s Last, Loveliest Smile

/ James Browning

The first day of fall was a week ago, but until today the weather was still very much summer like. Today is the first ‘fall like” day we’ve had. It’s overcast, rainy and cool. The following originally posted almost a year ago on October 8, 2012 shows a true ove of autumn. 
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The first chill of fall has hung around for three days now and there is change in the air. Lawns and bushes are still holding their green, but leaves are coming down. The time of autumn’s grand display is not far away when frost turns most everything into bright yellow, vibrant orange and brilliant red.

The seasons have long suited me in a different manner than is typical where Spring is the first season, Summer comes after, Fall arrives third and Winter comes at the end. Autumn is the season I love best and comes first in line for me. Fall to me is the awakening; a new beginning. Winter comes afterward as a time of growth, study and reflection. Spring growth comes with a general bursting forward followed by Summer which is just Spring in old clothes; over-grown. After all a season with two names, Fall and Autumn, must be special!

Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale. Lauren DeStefano

Squeeze your eyes closed, as tight as you can, and think of all your favorite autumns, crisp and perfect, all bound up together like a stack of cards. That is what it is like… the wonderful brightness of Fairy colors. Catherynne M. Valente

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. George Eliot

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter’s deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined streets are set ablaze, our kitchens filled with the smells of nostalgia: apples bubbling into sauce, roasting squash, cinnamon, nutmeg, cider, warmth itself. The leaves as they spark into wild color just before they die are the world’s oldest performance art, and everything we see is celebrating one last violently hued hurrah before the black and white silence of winter. Shauna Niequist

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus

Gratitude overflows on these cool days and chilly nights of Autumn. Feeling the fresh air of Fall on my skin and seeing the landscape unfold in an abundance of color is truly one of my favorite things. It is some of God’s greatest art.

Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.
William Cullen Bryant

Cannot Be Seen or Even Touched

/ James Browning

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The truth: “This poem made my eyes mist up”. Somehow when Ana Castillo wrote “I Ask The Impossible” she managed to string words together with an urgent honesty and patient clarity that speak to me.

I ask the impossible: love me forever.
Love me when all desire is gone.
Love me with the single-mindedness of a monk.
When the world in its entirety,
and all that you hold sacred advise you
against it: love me still more.
When rage fills you and has no name: love me.
When each step from your door to our job tires you–
love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me.
Love me when you’re bored–
when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,
or more pathetic, love me as you always have:
not as admirer or judge, but with
the compassion you save for yourself
in your solitude.
Love me as you relish your loneliness,
the anticipation of your death,
mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.
Love me as your most treasured childhood memory–
and if there is none to recall–
imagine one, place me there with you.
Love me withered as you loved me new.
Love me as if I were forever–
and I, will make the impossible
a simple act,
by loving you, loving you as I do.

Proof that the kind of love Ms. Castillo wrote about exists or has ever existed can’t be concretely found. Yet, I believe, but see it as uncommon and a stroke of fate far more than intention. Within me is certainty that most ‘impossible’, but lasting loves are lived quietly. Such people need no glamor or recognition for they have already won life’s most sought after prize: true and lasting love.

My softness of heart was a weakness years ago, but has grown into what appears to be fairly rare, or at least rarely shown by others. There is nothing I am more grateful for than my ability to feel deeply.

The best and most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched.
They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller

Song in Your Heart

/ James Browning

Originally Posted on January 13, 2012 by 

From “Give Me Roses” by Marvin L. Cartee

If I am due but one little rose
While living upon this earth,
Let it be given while I’m still alive,
As a token of what I’m worth.

Give me my roses while I’m still alive,
Don’t sit there and hold them and wait,
Don’t wait until the day I am gone
Because then it’s a little too late.

If you love someone don’t hesitate
To tell them you love them today.
Don’t put it all off for tomorrow
‘Cause tomorrow may have passed away.

So if I am due one little rose,
While traveling along life’s highway,
Don’t hold onto that flower too long,
Please give me my roses today.

Dear ________,

I have been unsuccessful in fully expressing how much of a difference you make in my life. The scope of what is inside is difficult to form into words, but I will try anyway. In written form I have put down here at least a little of what I want you to know.

Thank you for being kind to me and noticing when I just need someone to listen. When I have no wish for approval of my feelings, but just need to be heard you always pay close attention to what I had to say. You honor me with that kindness and often help me often bear what you or even I do not understand.

All too aware I am of my shortcomings and faults. Certainly you must see them too, yet you rarely acknowledge them and chose instead to see the good in me. You have always seen more than I have ever believed about myself and tell me so. Never will I see me as you do, but my view of self is far better than it ever could have been without you.

Together with you over time I have learned the joy of doing nothing. Just being together gave hours great value and there was nothing we had to do to make it so. I learned with you that wasting time with a friend is one of the most meaningful ways to cash in minutes of my life.

You have always given me good advice although I have not always followed it. At all times you have my best interest in mind and no other intention. I thank you for your counsel and for never trying to push it on me.

Never was I able to openly express my love of someone as a friend until our friendship. I learned how to hug each time I see you and again when we part. Never was that something I could do before, but through you such expression of affection has become natural and easy with all that I care about.

You have been kind to me when I was not being so to you.
You have been patient with me when my patience was gone.
You have helped me without questioning or without even being asked.
You have been there for me when I needed you to, but could not ask.
You have been my friend even when you did not like what I was doing or saying.
You have never made a practice of saying “I told you so’ although there have been many times you could have.
I have deep admiration your honesty and directness.
I have great respect for your power to think beyond what others see.
I marvel at your ability to express your feelings to others.
I think a lot of your multiple talents and how you put them to good use.
I marvel at how you are kind and never rude, even to those who are to you.
I have high regard for your beliefs and practice of them.
I am often astonished at how much you love and am loved by your family and friends and how those feelings are openly expressed.
I appreciate you just as you are: once single measure of flaws and imperfection and a hundred measures of quality and character.

I am privileged to have you as my friend. I am fortunate to be yours. Without hesitation or reservation, I love you clearly and freely as only a true friend can love another. Thank you for being in my life.

A friend is someone
who knows the song in your heart
and can sing it back to you
when you have forgotten the words. 
Bernard Meltzer

Feel ‘Em and Let ‘Em Go

/ James Browning

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Laughter entices and draws others near.
Crying repels all but those who love us dear.
Feasting brings the hungry to left hand and right.
Hunger brings teeth a’ gnashing to hand a bite.
Love looks of peace and sets others at ease,
Heartbreak appears disbelieving, lost and displeased.
Joy is the soft morning light bathing every thing,
Sadness is late night with its sad songs to sing.
Happy, Sad,
Joyful, Mad,
Uncomfortable, Pleased,
Jubilant, Ill-at-ease.
Excited, Let down
Glad, Wearing a frown.
The faces of my face,
As I run the human race.
James Browning

Things change and friends leave. And life doesn’t stop for anybody. I wanted to laugh. Or maybe get mad. Or maybe shrug at how strange everybody was, especially me. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people.

You can’t just sit there and put everybody’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can’t. You have to do things. I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to be who I really am. And I’m going to figure out what that is. Stephen Chbosky

Today I wish for you and me to feel all that is given to us to emote. May the full breadth of your emotions be within you. Take happiness from the good and lessons from the bad. I am grateful that day by day the full spectrum of emotions is mine simply by not fearing nor grasping any of my feelings. I feel ’em and let ’em go.

Even if we don’t have the power
to choose where we come from
we can still choose
where we go from there.
Stephen Chbosky

They Get Better When You Get Older

/ James Browning

friendship-kids

A Friend
by Edgar A. Guest

A friend is one who stands to share
Your every touch of grief and care
He comes by chance, but stays by choice
Your praises he is quick to voice.

No grievous fault or passing whim
Can make an enemy of him
And though your need be great or small
His strength is yours throughout it all.

No matter where your path may turn
Your welfare is his chief concern
No matter what your dream may be
He prays your triumph soon to see.

There is no wish your tongue can tell
But what it is your friend’s as well
The life of him who has a friend
Is double-guarded to the end.

Friendship comprises of many human values such as sympathy, mutual understanding and compassion, but above all it is about honesty, trust and love with a degree of intimacy. Friendship is undoubtedly a central part of our lives, due to the concerns we have for our friends and also because our friends can shape who we are as a person. Most of the times we need friends for companionship, conversations and laughter, but the real virtue of friendship lies in the support that we get from our friends, and the concern that they show.

The value of friendship is something that not many people take time to ponder over and appreciate… we often take our friends for granted. Often we only realize the value of friendship when we find ourselves in need of a friend: when we are confined with problems and need a shoulder to rely on and to get advice for our complicated issues. If we find ourselves to have lost a close friend we understand what we have truly lost, and understand the importance of friendship in our lives. We have many people entering our lives, some for a short time, others longer, each on a varying scale of personal relationships from associations to intimate love and marriage. We form a bond of true friendship with only a select few, those that move with us through the stages of our lives. Mahfooz

The gravitational pull of individual friendships can have an enormous cumulative effect on the quality of our lives. Friends can link us to broader social networks, and help enrich our lives. A friend can be the emotional oasis that makes all the difference. The good news about friendships is that they get better with age, says Karen Fingerman, professor of human development and family science at the University of Texas at Austin: “It almost doesn’t matter what relationship you’re talking about. They get better when you get older.” Chicago Tribune

I will be spending the day with a dear friend of many years. A genuinely true friend like him is rare. His presence in my life is a true blessing I am enormously grateful for.

In poverty and other misfortunes of life,
true friends are a sure refuge.
Aristotle

Searching For ‘Forever Love’

/ James Browning

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Everlastingly. Eternally. Continually. Incessantly. Always. Endlessly. Permanently. Perpetually. Enduringly. Infinitely. Without end. FOREVER.

Is it the American relentless search for ‘forever romantic love’ actually seeking something unattainable? American culture is filled emphasis on youth, sex and wealth. We are taught to seek those when deep down other things matter more to us. Seems that conflict could be one of the sources with the dissatisfaction with love in the United States and the elusive search for romantic love that lasts ‘forever’.

Researchers no long ago surveyed 1,157 adults from the United States, Russia and Lithuania. Participants were asked to write a free-list answering the question, “What do you associate with romantic love?”

Americans used words that describe feelings like comfortable, mutual, friendship, happy, secure and love.

Russians chose mostly ways a couple can be together such as walking, beach, travel,  candlelight dinner including only two “feelings”: joyful and unreal.

What both cultures have in common is believing the number one most romantic notion is “being together”. Both have ‘sex’ as a top ten most romantic word with Russians rating it #2 (25%) while those in the U.S. placed it down the list at #7 (13%).

russians and americans romantic love top 10

The researchers said, “The idea that romantic love was temporary and inconsequential was frequently cited by Lithuanian and Russian informants, but not by U.S. informants. Furthermore… expressions of ‘comfort /love’ and ‘friendship’ were frequently cited by the U.S. informants and seldom to never by… Eastern European informants.”

The responses from the survey indicated that most of the Eastern European participants viewed romantic love as fleeting, in contrast to U.S. participants, who saw romantic love as more enduring. The Eastern Europe participants also referred to romantic love as “a stage,” “unreal” and a “fairytale.”

Wanting romantic love to last forever has been a contribution to having been unsuccessfully married twice. What is emerging in my thoughts now is how romantic love begins is not where ‘forever love’ must settle to survive in the long-term. All I have to do to confirm that is look at the U.S. list to realize ‘forever’ is forged in fire of romantic love but the flames must settle into other feelings to last. To expect anything else creates a delusion I lived with for many years. Now that’s an insight I am truly grateful for.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce,
but still only light and flickering. As love grows older,
our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals,
deep-burning and unquenchable.
Bruce Lee

Even the Best of Things

/ James Browning

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Halfway home, the sky goes from dark gray to almost black and a loud thunder snap accompanies the first few raindrops that fall. Heavy, warm, big drops, they drench me in seconds, like an overturned bucket from the sky dumping just on my head. I reach my hands up and out, as if that can stop my getting wetter, and open my mouth, trying to swallow the downpour, till it finally hits me how funny it is, my trying to stop the rain.

This is so funny to me, I laugh and laugh, as loud and free as I want. Instead of hurrying to higher ground, I jump lower, down off the curb, splashing through the puddles, playing and laughing all the way home. In all my life till now, rain has meant staying inside and not being able to go out to play. But now for the first time I realize that rain doesn’t have to be bad. And what’s more, I understand, sadness doesn’t have to be bad, either. Come to think of it, I figure you need sadness, just as you need the rain.

Thoughts and ideas pour through my awareness. It feels to me that happiness is almost scary, like how I imagine being drunk might feel – real silly and not caring what anybody else says. Plus, that happy feeling always leaves so fast, and you know it’s going to go before it even does. Sadness lasts longer, making it more familiar, and more comfortable. But maybe, I wonder, there’s a way to find some happiness in the sadness. After all, it’s like the rain, something you can’t avoid. And so, it seems to me, if you’re caught in it, you might as well try to make the best of it.

Getting caught in the warm, wet deluge that particular day in that terrible summer full of wars and fires that made no sense was a wonderful thing to have happen. It taught me to understand rain, not to dread it. There were going to be days, I knew, when it would pour without warning, days when I’d find myself without an umbrella. But my understanding would act as my all-purpose slicker and rubber boots. It was preparing me for stormy weather, arming me with the knowledge that no matter how hard it seemed, it couldn’t rain forever. At some point, I knew, it would come to an end. From “Finding Fish: A Memoir” by Antwone Quenton Fisher

Since childhood the rain has been one of my absolute favorite things. It soothes and calms me like few things can. Quite by accident I discovered a word for people like me who love the rain: pluviophile. It’s borrowed from the science of biology where it means “thriving in conditions of abundant rainfall”.

Enduring the flooding that followed a category four hurricane on a Caribbean island makes me sympathetic to those enduring the aftermath of flooding right now. In spite of the twelve to fourteen feet of flood water that came with my Hurricane Ivan experience in 2004, my affinity for rain remains unaffected. I’m grateful to grasp that even the best of things can be bad in excess.

I don’t just wish you rain…
I wish you the beauty of storms…
John Geddes

An Illumination of Words

/ James Browning

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There’s a young author whose work I have come to enjoy and admire. C. Joybell C. may be youthful in years but on a spiritual level she strikes me as a “wise old soul’. Her writing covers a myriad of topics, but centers on life and love more than anything else.

The two paragraphs just below were selected because I have a heart that has been broken many times. Some times a woman hurt me. At others I did things that ended up hurting me. A broken heart feels the same no matter who the villain is.

I have met so many heartbroken men. It’s a catastrophe. Women are easily overcome by the process that happens when a boy falls in love and becomes a man. Men’s hearts are so often broken. Still, you have to leave your broken heart in a place where… when the woman who knows how to see what a gift is, sees it… your broken heart can be picked up again. I think that it takes a very strong woman (inner strength) to be able to handle a man falling in love with her, without morphing into a monster (the process is a very potent process, it can poison a woman, really).

A woman thinks she wants a man to fall in love with her for all the perks that come with it; but when a real love really does happen, when a real man shows his manhood; it’s often too powerful a thing to endure without being poisoned. Hence, all the heartbroken men. But, I do believe that there are strong women in the world today. A few. But there are. You could say, that the mark of a real woman, is a woman who can handle a man… a man falling in love with her. A woman who can recognize that, and keep it with her. C. Joybell C.

Too much life energy gets spent on trying to sort out where I’m headed. More and more I am learning to just sit back and enjoy the flight.

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you’re going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you. C. Joybell C.

“All Things Lit Like Fireflies: An Illumination of Words” is C. Joybell C.’s new book and I am looking forward to getting a copy soon. She has a special way of expressing feelings that speaks strongly to me. Thanks ‘My Lady’… I am grateful for you and your work! http://cjoybellc.com/

I think that we are like stars.
Something happens to burst us open;
but when we burst open and think we are dying;
we’re actually turning into a supernova. A
nd then when we look at ourselves again,
we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful
than we ever were before!
C. JoyBell C.

No One Gets Too Much Love

/ James Browning

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The loneliest days are the ones where you keep company with someone you love who can’t hear you. Holly Robinson

It’s become a quirk of mine to watch couples and how the two interact. What I see all too often saddens me. Many hardly interact at all. Watching a middle-aged couple in a restaurant recently words like indifference, boredom, faded love, apathy and even coldness came to mind. Wedding bands said they were likely passionately in love once upon a time, but apathy and inattention looked to have taken their toll.

…no eye contact…

…no talking…

…no touching…

…no stolen kisses…

…no smiles…

…no eye contact…

…sitting without a word spoken…

…feeling numb…

…feeling lost…

…feeling alone together…

Life is hard. Love is harder. Both are highly worth what it takes to live them well. What I learned with experience is all love is priceless, but amazingly simple to lose. The type that causes two people to want to make a life together is among the most precious. It is also love lost the easiest.

Loving and losing is the classroom where the value of love is taught. My living regrets have over time morphed into hard learned knowledge I am grateful for. No one gets too much love. Most of us barely get enough to get by. If two people truly love each other there should be no restraint in its expression to keep love alive. Love is a fire that must be fueled continually to stay strong and lasting.

Indifference and neglect
often do much more damage
than outright dislike.
J.K. Rowling,

Mother and Father of Love

/ James Browning

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In 1987, a 74-year old rickshaw puller by the name of Bai Fangli came back to his hometown planning to retire from his backbreaking job. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees.

Bai returned to Tianjin and went back to work as a rickshaw puller, taking a modest accommodation next to the railway station. He waited for clients 24 hours a day, ate simple food and wore discarded second-hand clothes he found. He gave all of his hard-earned earnings to support children who could not afford education.

In 2001, he drove his rickshaw to Tianjin YaoHua Middle School, to deliver his last installment of money. Nearly 90 years old, he told the students that he couldn’t work any more. All of the students and teachers were moved to tears.

In total, Bai had donated a total of 350,000 yuan to help more than 300 poor students continue with their studies. In 2005, Bai passed away leaving behind an inspiring legacy.

If a rickshaw-puller who wore used clothes and had no education can support 300 children to go to school, imagine what you and I can do with the resources we have to bring about positive change in our world!

It is beyond my wildest dream to be as giving as Bai Fangli. It is humbling to realize in comparison I am selfish. But I can become more giving and with inconsistent starts and stops I see myself becomes more so.

Practice giving things away, not just things you don’t care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don’t bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. Robert Thurman

Once upon a time there was a little boy who grew up to be an introverted, inwardly troubled and unsettled man. Over time, life and intention taught him peace, openness and a sense of self that could only be learned through much heartache, grief and challenge. That man is deeply grateful and lives today with a sense of happiness beyond any he dared once imagine. I am grateful to know about him. I am that man.

Gratitude is the creative force,
the mother and father of love.
It is in gratitude that real love exists.
Love expands only when gratitude is there.
Limited love does not offer gratitude.
Limited love is immediately bound by something,
by constant desires or constant demands.
But when it is unlimited love, constant love,
then gratitude comes to the fore.
This love becomes all gratitude.
Sri Chinmoy