This is 46...tomorrow

I made it another year

I've lost:
My stamina
My mother
My friends
My job
My family
My Health

I've gained:
Love


There you go.  Happy Birthday to me.

Reflections on Love

As someone who tasted the sweet wine of what I thought was love before and realized it came with a very bitter pill at the end....  I've a few things to say on the subject of love.

I once was a romantic.  I dreamed of a man who would somehow weave his way into my heart with both charm and vitality.  A man who would speak to my mind and whisper secrets of the beauty inside that he saw.  Someone who would respect that I was strong and shelter me when I was not.  Someone who would hold my hand through the storm and catch me if I fell.  This man, in his unwavering way would peel away all the layers of what was a broken heart and diligently show me the mirror image of myself in his eyes as he looked on each tear I've shed and loved me more for having them.

It's a beautiful image this one.

The world for most of us has a tinge of jade to it.  We've played with the marbles and cards and for some of us realize there is nothing more than this.  We live, we work, we find some happiness we may even think we love... but this is all.

Then out of the blue, amid all the constant repetitions of "I dont need love", the firm belief that love would interrupt our "PLAN" or change us into some raving lunatic....It happens.

And suddenly the film of our life gets more colorful.  Flowers smell divine instead of just nice.  Problems are never insurmountable and handled with a smile. And even the most insurmountable... death can be thwarted by the power of this love.

I was heading down this road.  I had lived alone successfully for a long enough time after my divorce that really I was ok.  I made a few bad decisions in my heart but i was otherwise ok.  I knew how to find joy and I could find whatever I wanted on MY terms.  My mother was getting older but still somewhat spry.  I was successful in my job (though I hated my job).

And in he walked...and my world turned upside down.

They say fate or divinity works in mysterious ways and sometimes the two intertwine.  I think this was just such an occasion. I wasn't even prepared for it.  And when the flowers all of a sudden bloomed brighter, richer, larger than before even then I wasn't aware.  But when food suddenly tasted better and the energy of my youth came to me and said "Go ahead try that new thing it's ok" I started to realize something was different.

Just when I realized, and started to open up to this love unlike any love I'd ever felt my world crashed down all around me.  My mother got worse very quickly and I got very sick nearly overnight ALL AT ONCE. I was literally treading water in a sea of sharks because the pier I had been standing on not only dropped out from under me, it just disappeared.  And into the deep I fell.

My sickness was pretty bad.  My mothers....worse.  What began for both of us in October of last year continued into this year.  In January we lost her while I was deep in the throes of my illness. This man who brought his heart to mine, stood by me the whole time. He became my beacon, my anchor, my rock.  He was there during chemo, during hospital stays where we weren't sure I was going to make it, during funerals, emotional upheavals, more bad news, staggering weight gain from meds, worsening states of health from the disease... He built a pier of love right under me while I flailed about in fear and reassured me that no matter what, it would be ok.  I mean I could go on and on but now I'm so filled with emotion that I can't see the screen.

The point of all of these words, is he stayed. He came and brought my world to a completely different place. He took fear and panic and gently massaged them away with love and helped me to even laugh on occasion. And when others like my family, my friends, pretty much everyone, left me; he stayed. He held my hand.  He held my heart. He wiped my tears away and shared in them too. He cradled my soul when it fractured under the weight of it all.  And when I could have died, he held me close to his heart and simply told me how much he loved me.  He shook his fist in the face of all of this and somehow perhaps through sheer will alone, helped me survive.

So many years ago 1993 to be exact, I said I do to someone.  I don't regret saying I do, or subsequently saying I don't 10 years later. Because in the very thin wisps of the threads created by divinity that bind us in life; those which began so long ago is where this love started.  He didn't know it then, we didn't know it then; but now on that same day 23 years later in a place only a handful share with us; we created our own memory and came home. And on that same day this year we share in that memory again this time physically in our home now, together.

I'm no expert on love.  I've lost more than I've loved and I've been deeply hurt; the scars of which sometimes still ache.  But for the first time in my life starting a few years ago now if I'm being honest; I can finally say I really do know what love is.  Love is unconditional (yes it really is), love is transparent (always), love is making someone smile, and when life is difficult being sure to love with all your heart even and absolutely always in the face of adversity.

I know this writing isn't my best but if there is only one thing you get from reading it....   It is that I love you with every cell of my being, with my soul, with every thought, every smile and every tear. I love you.  Lets plant our roses and walk our path together because that's our home.

Our dance last year in the Golden Touch Theater production "Reflections" a piece so dear to my heart.

LLFH-The Fireplace

My love,

I’ve said those words a thousand times and never known what they meant until there was you. Every moment this pen dipped in the ink and shared its emotion it was just a shadow of what really was.  Scratched on the surface in shades of grey without the brilliance of color. 

Today I sit in front of the massive fireplace that brightens our nights and warms our flesh. The rich and warm colors of the curved, carved wood seem to generate the warmth they’ve inherited from our evenings together. As I trace my fingers over the wood surface memories spring to life under my fingertips.

I remember a night not too long ago and yet it seems like a lifetime ago where we discussed the very real and terrifying prospect of the health issues that plague me. The night shivered in the cold of the fear around us and you, desperate to warm me kept me close to your heart holding me, whispering to me.  This fireplace bore witness that night to the explosive growth of our hearts, how in a moment of fear we shared a moment of deepening love.  That somehow our love found another passageway deeper into our souls and we dove in together hand in hand.

I shiver at that memory because it reminds me of how much love we have. It tells me when I remember it how we went from lovers, to so much more if that were even possible. How you held me, whispering to me that it would be OK, that you would be here, would never leave.  I clung to those words my love, they were my lifeline in what you didn’t know was an encroaching darkness.  They were the singular glow in my life holding me up sustaining me, holding me, sometimes even carrying me.

In the nights to follow, and the months now we sat in front of this fireplace telling each other of our love, pushing the darkness away by our voices, and our light shared. The darkness tried so hard every night to claim what it wanted but it never succeeded; because you, because of us, because of our love.

Those words and actions have become my permanent beacon leading me always to you. Even now when I sit here alone thinking of you I feel you here.  Because I hear you.  I can hear those words as if they were whispered just now, and I touch my ear swearing your lips grazed my skin…

Love makes no sense my beloved, but in my life where I have wandered, wondered and doubted; it finally makes sense to me because it’s you. I throw another log on the fire making sure it burns warmly waiting for your presence.  Because every night we are together even when we’re apart; and my heart will for the rest of my life, welcome you home.  My beloved, my protector, defender, angel, love, lover and best friend.  You are my everything, you are truly “My Love”.

Forever your Muse in all worlds,

Cal

This is 45

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I came here to write and as usual my mind went blank.  But just then my eyes flicked over to my other monitor to where an image that inspires me resides.  And suddenly I knew what I wanted to write about...

From a post I put on facebook 9-4-16:

I've spent the better part of 25 years beating myself up because I didn't have this, or look like that.... It's a sad sad world we live in that even still in this day and age a woman's worth is dictated by how she looks, or how well she ages. No I don't speak globally I have no message for "the world" but I speak today just for me. I give up the arguments of the past, the thoughts that held me down as to my appearance. I appreciate all those who tried to tell me I was ok before, but I couldn't listen. I was too weighed down by the ghosts of others thoughts. This month I turn 45 and I think this might be a good year for me. Love me, or don't but I'm finally beginning to love myself. That's all that matters really (and if we ever figure out time travel i'm going to tell that to my 18 year old self). A special thanks to one person in particular for letting me see through their eyes. Sometimes that is all we need. **hugs**

Yea.... that.  There is a person out there who has decided that he wants to be with me.  That despite my best efforts to sway him otherwise with my terror stories of all my faults and deficiencies that the whole package makes up a person that he loves, adores, wants to be with.  And when I realize somewhere along the journey we've been on that I want to be with him too I begin to see the thread that binds us.  That so many years ago began with a chance meeting, and kept us in the same circles all these years until the time was right to pull us together.

It seems that later in life, divinity has found a way to provide some peace or love to me. My goodness I've been through a lot (so have many), but to come through it on the other side relatively unscathed and with love as well?  I'm amazed by it.

I wanted to write some great tale packed with all the wisdom that I've accumulated over the years.  I wanted to say some brilliant thing that when someone comes here and reads they're bowled over by the profound understanding my words have given them. I wanted to pour my soul out and let people see inside so if they needed to see something real they could.

But all I can manage tonight is a thank you.  Thank you to the person who loves me without question, sees me as I am, and for who I am...and doesn't run away. The one who makes my heart sing and my spirit soar.  The one who looks at me with such passion that I'm left feeling naked and vulnerable and loved and warm all at once.  Thank you for giving me my life back.  For giving me my heart and for climbing right in there and sharing that space with me in all worlds...and for being here on my birthday; The best birthday ever... 

I love you so. 

(and as per my usual, the birthday pic... )

Enjoying Life...

Tentatively I've started writing again.  Recently I've had some inspiration and help in this endeavor.  As the picture shows, everyday when I open a new tab on my browser I'm presented with a beautiful image, and an opportunity to put what I want to focus on for the day.  Today, I chose "Enjoying the day".

Sometimes I come here and work out my darkness.  Sometimes even when I intend to be the bearer of light those little whispers of what lurks in the corners of my mind sneak out and I look and the whole post is about some anxiety or drama.

Not today.

Today I slept in until well after 8am, having slept the whole night through.  I haven't done that in ages. I woke to the sound of a name on my lips and to love in my heart.  My mind woke up energized and ready to begin creating.  I woke up without pain, without fear, without dread.  And I realized that this has been the way of things lately.  And I am grateful for it.

For a month now I've wanted to come here and post how joy in my life has manifested itself.  But in the way that overwhelming emotion will do, I come here and stare at a blank page hoping my hand can accurately paint what's in my heart.  And my hand is not so expressive at art as my heart is... so the page remained blank.  But my heart sang and remained full.

What joy there is to be had.

To have the simple pleasure of sleep embrace me and surround me.  To have love in every cell of my being.  To give love to everyone I meet because for the first time in a very long time my heart is overflowing.  To have no expectations of deeds, perfection, or lofty goals....  To just "BE" is an exquisite treat.

Love can be a beautiful thing.  I think we, as a society, have grown afraid of it's expression.  Because in that there is a naked honesty that leaves us vulnerable.  But I am not afraid.  That's not to say I haven't felt the nagging fears that have been my companion all my life whispering at my ear.  But those are fears of me, of my body, of my experiences, not of sharing love.  The love that is offered is so genuine even those whispers stand in quiet awe of that pure expression I receive daily in my heart.

I have no plans.  There is no rush to "end game", there is just this moment.  And when I woke this morning fully in the moment, I realized I have been blessed.  And like a child whose mind begins to soak up all the goodness without the fear that chokes so many, I let myself revel in it.  I played in the field of emotion laid before me.  I sang silly songs and found silly pictures gushing with loves profession.  And when I realized tomorrow is my birthday I came here immediately to say to you all....   Life is good.  And even if this is just for a day or a month or whatever; it is good.  I accept it and I reciprocate.

I love.

This is 44

When I want to write, nothing comes; when I have no time to write I am inundated with all the things I would say.  Eloquent phrases and literary works of art spring to mind to torment me knowing I have no outlet to express them.  At least not at that minute.

I visited a site today that I've been on for 12 years now (holy crap!).  It's called Allpoetry.  And since 2003 I've been posting poems there.  Granted I've been absent for a few years here and there but I always go back.  I was quite prolific back in the day.  I don't find the time/energy/look a new shiney!/writers block gets me/space to write as much anymore.

But I wanted to today.  And I fear even this post, on paper as it were, will be lacking the creative perfection that these same words seem to carry as they careen about in my head.

Two years ago, I took a picture or two or 10 displaying for all who would see what my version of 42 looked like.  No, I wont post them here.  I'm not going to take pictures this year.  In fact I have no CLUE what I'm going to do to ring in 44.  It's not a particularly special number now is it?  It's not even halfway to the big 5-0.  But you know, I never really celebrate my birthday anyway.  I learned early on that it really didn't matter (and not because it didn't matter but because people never showed).  It wasn't until I met people online who showed me the importance of the day of my birth. I've yet to bring that special feel, here outside, in reality.

Jesus I sound so melancholy.  *erases everything*

Right fuck that age crap.  yes I'm turning 44 but god damn do I feel good!

I still suffer depression
I still suck at getting in touch with people who are not online
I still suck at sitting down and writing that damn novel
I'm still overweight (which really sucks honestly)

But I have love.

^ Yea that.  So what could be wrong? Right here in this moment, where I sit typing away at my computer there isn't a damn thing wrong. I'm not melancholy, I'm not angry, I'm actually happy.

So all you guys get is my random sputterings, but hopefully you get the message.  All is well, and I have love.  And that is the single most important thing to me.  (Well that and bacon...)