You see things; and you say "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Bridge Across Forever
"Boredom between two people doesn't come from being together, physically. It comes from being apart, mentally and spiritually."
So I bought this book, second-hand... Out of all 400 pages in the book only the page with this quote was folded, before I got to that part I wondered why but once I got there and read it...
... How wonderful (truthful)!
Who wrote this?
Dawn's peaceful, luminous blue
Intensified with the day
As did happiness,
Blue. . . bluer. . . bluest,
White puffs of delight,
Joy overflowing,
Until sunset
Wrapped us in tender pink
And we fused in a
Passionate magenta goodbye,
Earth-soul and Cosmic-soul
Bursting with beauty.
When night came,
A baby moon
Laughed sideways in the dark.
I laughed back
And thought:
Partway across the world
Your sky
Is filled with this same
Golden laughter,
And hoped that you,
Twinkling Blue Eyes,
Saw and heard,
So that somehow we three
Were joined in our gladness,
Each in our own space,
Together apart,
Distance meaningless.
And I slept
In a world
Full of smiles.
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Bridge Across Forever
Wednesday evening 12/21
Dearest Richard,
It's so difficult to know how and where to begin. I've been thinking long and hard through many ideas trying to find a way...
I finally struck one little thought, a musical metaphor, through which I have been able to think clearly and find understanding, if not satisfaction, and I want to share it with you. So please bear with me while we have yet another music lesson.
The most commonly used form for large classical works is sonata form. It is the basis of almost all symphonies and concertos. It consists of three main sections: the exposition or opening, in which little ideas, themes, bits and pieces are set forth and introduced to each other; the development, in fullest, expanded, often go from major (happy) to minor together in greater complexity until at last there is: the expression of the full, rich maturity to which the tiny ideas have grown through the development process.
How does this apply to us, you may ask, if you haven't already guessed.
I see us stuck in a never-ending opening. At first, it was the real thing, and sheer delight. It is the part of a relationship in which you are at your best: fun, charming, excited, exciting, interesting, interested. It is a time when you're most comfortable and most lovable because you do not feel the need to mobilize your defenses, so your partner gets to cuddle a warm human being instead of a giant cactus. It is a time of delight for both, and it's no wonder you like openings so much you strive to make your life a series of them.
But beginnings cannot be prolonged endlessly; they cannot simply state and restate themselves. They must move on and develop - or die of boredom. Not so, you say. You must get away, have changes, other people, other places so you can come back to a relationship as if it were new, and have constant new beginnings.
We moved on to a protracted series of reopenings. Some were caused by business separations that were necessary, but unnecessary harsh and severe for two so close as we. Some were manufactured by you in order to provide still more opportunities to return to the newness you so desire.
Obviously, the development section is anathema to you. For it is where you may discover that all you have is a collection of severely limited ideas that won't work no matter how much creativity you bring to them or - even worse for you - that you have the makings of something glorious, a symphony, in which case there is work to be done: depths must be plumbed, and separate entities carefully woven together, the better to glorify themselves and each other. I suppose it is analogous to that moment in writing when a book idea must be/cannot be run from.
We have undoubtedly gone further than you ever intended to go. And we have stopped for short of what I saw as our next logical and lovely steps. I have seen development with you continually arrested, and have come to believe that we will never make more than sporadic attempts at all our learning potential, our amazing similarities of interest, no matter how many years we may have - because we will never have unbroken time together. So the growth we prize so highly and know is possible becomes impossible.
We have both had vision of something wonderful that awaits us. Yet we cannot get there from here. I am faced with a solid wall of defenses and you have the need to build more and still more. I long for the richness and fullness of further development, and you will search for ways to avoid it as long as we're together. Both of us are frustrated; you unable to go back, I unable to go forward, in a constant state of struggle, with clouds and dark shadows over the limited time you allow us. To feel your constant resistance to me, to the growth of this something wonderful, as if I and it were something horrible - to experience the various forms to resistance takes, some of them cruel - often causes me pain on one level or another.
I have a record of our time together, and have taken a long and honest look at it. It has saddened me, and even shocked me, but it has been helpful in facing the truth. I look back to the days in early July, and the seven weeks that followed, as our only truly happy period. that was the opening, and it was beautiful. Then there were the separations with their fierce and, to me, inexplicable cutoffs - and the equality fierce avoidance-resistance on your returns.
Away and apart or together and apart, it is too unhappy. I am watching me become a creature who cries a lot, a creature who even must cry a lot, for it almost seems that pity is necessary before kindness is possible. And I know I have not come this far in life to become pitiful.
To be told that canceling your date to help me when I was in state of crisis "Wouldn't work for you" brought the truth crushing down on me with the force of an avalanche. Facing facts as honestly as I can, I know I cannot continue, no matter how much I might wish to do so; I cannot bend further.
I hope you will not see this as the breaking of an agreement, but rather the continuation of the many, many endings you have begun. I think it is something we both know must be. I must accept that I have failed in my effort to let you know the joys of caring.
Richard, my precious friend, this is said softly, even tenderly and lovingly. And the soft tones do not camouflage an underlying anger: they are real. There are no accusations, no blames or faults. I am simply trying to understand, and to stop the pain. I am stating what I have been forced to accept: that you and I are never going to have a development, much less glorious climactic expression of a relationship grown to full blossom.
I have felt if anything in my life deserved departure from previously established patterns, going beyond all known limitations, this relationship did. I suppose I might be justified in feeling humiliated about the lengths to which I have to gone to make it work. Instead, I feel proud of myself and glad to know I recognized the rare and lovely opportunity we had while we had it, and gave all I could, in the purest and highest sense, to preserve it. I am comforted by this now. In this awful moment of ending, I can honestly say I do not know of one other thing I might do to get us to that beautiful future we could have had.
Despite the pain, I'm happy to have known you in this special way, and will always treasure the time we've had together. I have grown with you, and learned much from you, and I know I have made major positive contributions to you. We are both better people for having touched one another.
At this late juncture, it occurs to me that a chess metaphor might also be useful. Chess is a game in which each party has its own singular objective even as it engages the other; a mid-game in which a struggle develops and intensifies and bits and pieces of each side are lost, both sides diminished; and end-game in which one traps and paralyzes the other.
I think you see life as a chess game; I see it as a sonata. And because of these differences, both the king and the queen are lost, and the song is silenced.
I am still your friend, as I know you are mine. I send this with a heart full of the deep and tender love and high regard you know I have for you, as well as profound sorrow that an opportunity so filled with promise, so rare and so beautiful, had to go unfulfilled.
It's so difficult to know how and where to begin. I've been thinking long and hard through many ideas trying to find a way...
I finally struck one little thought, a musical metaphor, through which I have been able to think clearly and find understanding, if not satisfaction, and I want to share it with you. So please bear with me while we have yet another music lesson.
The most commonly used form for large classical works is sonata form. It is the basis of almost all symphonies and concertos. It consists of three main sections: the exposition or opening, in which little ideas, themes, bits and pieces are set forth and introduced to each other; the development, in fullest, expanded, often go from major (happy) to minor together in greater complexity until at last there is: the expression of the full, rich maturity to which the tiny ideas have grown through the development process.
How does this apply to us, you may ask, if you haven't already guessed.
I see us stuck in a never-ending opening. At first, it was the real thing, and sheer delight. It is the part of a relationship in which you are at your best: fun, charming, excited, exciting, interesting, interested. It is a time when you're most comfortable and most lovable because you do not feel the need to mobilize your defenses, so your partner gets to cuddle a warm human being instead of a giant cactus. It is a time of delight for both, and it's no wonder you like openings so much you strive to make your life a series of them.
But beginnings cannot be prolonged endlessly; they cannot simply state and restate themselves. They must move on and develop - or die of boredom. Not so, you say. You must get away, have changes, other people, other places so you can come back to a relationship as if it were new, and have constant new beginnings.
We moved on to a protracted series of reopenings. Some were caused by business separations that were necessary, but unnecessary harsh and severe for two so close as we. Some were manufactured by you in order to provide still more opportunities to return to the newness you so desire.
Obviously, the development section is anathema to you. For it is where you may discover that all you have is a collection of severely limited ideas that won't work no matter how much creativity you bring to them or - even worse for you - that you have the makings of something glorious, a symphony, in which case there is work to be done: depths must be plumbed, and separate entities carefully woven together, the better to glorify themselves and each other. I suppose it is analogous to that moment in writing when a book idea must be/cannot be run from.
We have undoubtedly gone further than you ever intended to go. And we have stopped for short of what I saw as our next logical and lovely steps. I have seen development with you continually arrested, and have come to believe that we will never make more than sporadic attempts at all our learning potential, our amazing similarities of interest, no matter how many years we may have - because we will never have unbroken time together. So the growth we prize so highly and know is possible becomes impossible.
We have both had vision of something wonderful that awaits us. Yet we cannot get there from here. I am faced with a solid wall of defenses and you have the need to build more and still more. I long for the richness and fullness of further development, and you will search for ways to avoid it as long as we're together. Both of us are frustrated; you unable to go back, I unable to go forward, in a constant state of struggle, with clouds and dark shadows over the limited time you allow us. To feel your constant resistance to me, to the growth of this something wonderful, as if I and it were something horrible - to experience the various forms to resistance takes, some of them cruel - often causes me pain on one level or another.
I have a record of our time together, and have taken a long and honest look at it. It has saddened me, and even shocked me, but it has been helpful in facing the truth. I look back to the days in early July, and the seven weeks that followed, as our only truly happy period. that was the opening, and it was beautiful. Then there were the separations with their fierce and, to me, inexplicable cutoffs - and the equality fierce avoidance-resistance on your returns.
Away and apart or together and apart, it is too unhappy. I am watching me become a creature who cries a lot, a creature who even must cry a lot, for it almost seems that pity is necessary before kindness is possible. And I know I have not come this far in life to become pitiful.
To be told that canceling your date to help me when I was in state of crisis "Wouldn't work for you" brought the truth crushing down on me with the force of an avalanche. Facing facts as honestly as I can, I know I cannot continue, no matter how much I might wish to do so; I cannot bend further.
I hope you will not see this as the breaking of an agreement, but rather the continuation of the many, many endings you have begun. I think it is something we both know must be. I must accept that I have failed in my effort to let you know the joys of caring.
Richard, my precious friend, this is said softly, even tenderly and lovingly. And the soft tones do not camouflage an underlying anger: they are real. There are no accusations, no blames or faults. I am simply trying to understand, and to stop the pain. I am stating what I have been forced to accept: that you and I are never going to have a development, much less glorious climactic expression of a relationship grown to full blossom.
I have felt if anything in my life deserved departure from previously established patterns, going beyond all known limitations, this relationship did. I suppose I might be justified in feeling humiliated about the lengths to which I have to gone to make it work. Instead, I feel proud of myself and glad to know I recognized the rare and lovely opportunity we had while we had it, and gave all I could, in the purest and highest sense, to preserve it. I am comforted by this now. In this awful moment of ending, I can honestly say I do not know of one other thing I might do to get us to that beautiful future we could have had.
Despite the pain, I'm happy to have known you in this special way, and will always treasure the time we've had together. I have grown with you, and learned much from you, and I know I have made major positive contributions to you. We are both better people for having touched one another.
At this late juncture, it occurs to me that a chess metaphor might also be useful. Chess is a game in which each party has its own singular objective even as it engages the other; a mid-game in which a struggle develops and intensifies and bits and pieces of each side are lost, both sides diminished; and end-game in which one traps and paralyzes the other.
I think you see life as a chess game; I see it as a sonata. And because of these differences, both the king and the queen are lost, and the song is silenced.
I am still your friend, as I know you are mine. I send this with a heart full of the deep and tender love and high regard you know I have for you, as well as profound sorrow that an opportunity so filled with promise, so rare and so beautiful, had to go unfulfilled.
Leslie
Who are you?
Who is anyone?
Everyone?
Where does the self resign?
Are you born with it?
Or is it something you are grown to be?
Nature or nurture?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
New Year....
(taken on my birthday - 31st of December of 2008)For everyone that reads my blog (and visits it by circumstance) I hope you all had a Peaceful Christmas and a Great New Years eve.
Best Wishes to the Year of 2009!
Best Wishes to the Year of 2009!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
7 Signs of a Troubled Relationship
When couples wait too long to ask for help, the relationship may be beyond repair. The sooner help is sought, the better chance there is of recovering, saving and actually strengthening the relationship. This includes issues dealing with affairs or other types of betrayal.
The longer we wait, the more entrenched we get in destructive patterns and resentment and all hope for change is lost. At a certain point we don't even want change... we just want to be done.
The seven warning signs that a relationship is in trouble are:
1. Fighting has become the rule rather than the exception to the rule.
2. You find yourself looking outside the relationship for comfort, care, and understanding.
3. You can't remember what attracted you to your partner in the first place.
4. There is little or no intimacy in your relationship -- sleeping in different rooms or different beds, lack of interest, anger, and hostility so that intimacy is out of the question.
5. Spending very little time together, friends seem to be more important than your partner.
6. Reactions to situations are disproportionate to the content of the disagreement (i.e., feeling your partner doesn't love you because she/he didn't like the meal you cooked).
7. Feeling helpless and hopeless to change anything. Feeling done with the relationship, but unclear as to where to go and what to do. Feelings of anger, resentment, pain, and desperation are predominant.
If any or all of these describe you in your relationship, your relationship is in trouble and it won't be long before something more drastic happens, such as an affair, arguments get worse and inflate with intensity, increased jealousy, silence for longer periods of time, and sometimes even physical and/or verbal abuse.
Before your relationship reaches that critical crisis point, look at the warning signs and do something before it's too late:
- Seek psychotherapy
- Read books
- Talk to a spiritual/religious adviser
Without help, the relationship will never get better with time; once a certain level of resentment, anger, and hostility hits, it will simply get worse and worse. Avoiding a total crisis and saving the relationship is done by knowing when you're in trouble and taking immediate action.
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