Monthly Archives: February 2014

We’re not dark yet

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Listening to John Hiatt singing Feels like Rain thinking so of many battered and bruised by life’s travails, sheltered behind barricades that blind, or lead or to miss or lose the love that’s right in front of us. Were trying again, letting love happen, taking that risk, an act of weakness, then why’s it so hard to do?

Listening to what may be the most beautiful version of Hallelujah I’ve ever heard, remembering dreams lost, lives gone, chances lost, thinking God give me strength to accept the possibilities life offers me, and please don’t let my fears lead me astray. Yes, I know it’s hard when some have had other try to end them,  but do we really want to allow those others to pilot our lives from here on out? Not me, not me.

Listen to Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest … Toughness (strength),  the capacity to allow life’s experience unabridged by history’s wounds, plans gone wrong, the missteps of ourselves, and others. Finding the strength to love sometimes means going through the fear until the fear can’t hold on; it means going through the rain to reach the sunshine. 

Listening to Marc Cohn’s One Safe Place  I find myself still believing love  can be one safe place. If this makes me a fool, well then, fuck it. So be it.  I say dream on, keep the faith. Don’t give up. We’re not dark yet.

Love hopes

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My fingers feather touch

Across your cheek gliding

Your lips on my face

Knowing heaven

Here on earth

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Your breath whispers

Against my neck

Hold me long enough

So love reaches

All of us

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Our words dance joy

In daylight starlight

Laughter jewels the air

With possibilities

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The talon grip

Of history’s wounds

Love’s newborn flesh

Old armor donned blinds

Insight hiding truth

But a moment

Love hopes

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Ratchet up & dream again

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If you want forgiveness brothers and sisters you’ve got to forgive

If you want love in your hearts you’ve go to love no hands asking

If you want someone holding you then do some holding of your own

If life was fair brothers and sisters we wouldn’t be where everything’s real

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If pain sadness tears your soul’s seams brothers and sisters breathe

If kneebuckling heartbreak shoots you down cold shoot love in return

If wounded hearts wound yours  send kindness their way

If the choice is delivering a  blow or offering a hug go with this last

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If like me you’ve been knocked down and blown out don’t give up now

If you’re tripping on shattered dreams rubble trust sunrise on the morrow

If you’re broken sad let the tears come breathe deep gentle and slow

If you think you’re nothing left think again you’re an angel I promise

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If you think you’re nothing you’re wrong I swear

If you’ve stopped hoping for tomorrow rise up and hope again

If you lost the magic child within open up and look again

If you’ve stopped dreaming then ratchet up and dream again

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Great news! I found us!

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Great news! I found us! You’ll never believe where we were! And you’ll never believe that we, so I learned, have the ability to alter our size!

So last night I go to bed and call Charley and he nestles up in bed next to me. I pick up the Tolstoy biography and start reading. Well, you know like when a dog hears something before you do? Well…Charley’s head pops up, ears perked. He hears something.  But not something outside, something from the closet next to your bureau.  Of course the first thing I think is, Sonuvabitch mice! I put the book down and listen. At first I don’t hear anything but Charley’s still all ears perked and head tipped. Then I hear it a faint sound coming from the closet. It sounds like two people giggling. Tiny giggles (which sounds like the song Don Ho never sang ’cause he probably knew better). Then there’s tiny conversation in tiny voices, not unlike the sound of your voice when Skype tampers with it. More giggles, then the giggles stop and again I hear tiny-voiced conversation…then tiny panting, tiny heavy breathing…then. Suddenly I get a little bit scared thinking maybe I’m having an acid flashback and it’s all in my head but I quickly realize that can’t possibly be because Charley’s still listening to the same thing I am and tilts his one way and then the other as he listens.

I get out of bed  and, quietly as I can, go to the closet door, take a deep breath and open it. There we are! In a tiny bed on top of the things in the closet both naked and cuddling (of course we both covered ourselves with a blanket when big me opened the door)! We looked like we usually looked, really happy together. Then I hear Charley from behind me clear his throat. I turn and look at him. Then, he speaks, in a real human voice, “As long as you two remember to live that part of yourselves and not let it disappear when yuz” (He said yuz, he’s got New Yawk roots!) “is working through the hard stuff yuz will be fine and spend the rest of your life together happy very happy! That, and make sure I’ve got me some milk bones or fawgeddaboutit.”  I said, “Say that again.” He just barked. I turned around and we were gone from the closet. I closed my eyes, shook my head, opened my eyes and I was lying in bed next to Charley with the book about Tolstoy resting on my chest. Now…I know it wasn’t a dream. In fact I know it was real, in fact I know it was a miracle. And that doesn’t surprise me because you, my beautiful angel, are a miracle – and so are we.

I love you my whole wide world.

 

A word on friendship & honesty

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Yesterday I had the chance – and very real pleasure – to talk with a woman that used to be my girlfriend and is, I am very happy to say, my friend. It had been awhile since we’d talked because, as happens between friends from time to time, honest misunderstandings stumbled us up a bit. There are certain indelible truths about this woman that anyone who meets her would be wise to make note of. She is intensely courageous. I’ve seen the courage she brings to life’s challenges up close. The specifics of those challenges have no place in this missive because it is not my place to talk about them and, she is my friend, which means I won’t tell you.

It nearly always makes me shake my head with sadness when I see people trying to manage their lives by spinning webs of misinformation (or telling outright lies) rather than staying on the path of honesty. Yes, this latter is not always easy, but I can tell you from firsthand experience that honesty is a powerful ally. As one who lives a sober life, it is an ally I have no intention of betraying. The woman I spoke with yesterday is cut from the same cloth. She is courageous, honest, and, it must be said, the kind of mother to her two daughters that every child deserves.

Those managing their lives with dishonesty often attack and villainize the ones who love them the most because the ones who love them the most hold them accountable for their choices. Those who love them are wise not to lash back in kind. Pray for the person you love and hold them accountable.  Stay out of the poisonous web of deceit. It is not healthy for you. Equally important, it is not healthy for the person you love who may genuinely no realize honesty is one of his or her best allies.  The most painful experience for those of us who love someone who manages life with methods short of rigorous honesty is we  oftentimes need to disengage from them.  And loss, even when necessary, is painful.

Thankfully, none of this holds true with my friendship with the woman I spoke with yesterday. Talking with her was a breath of fresh air, it usually is.

If you love a person who is caught up in an unhealthy lifestyle like this, leave the door open. People truly can change. It is hard work, not easy, and takes courage. But if you love them, they deserve a second chance. People gave me a second chance (and then some) after I got sober.