When love finds you, it is a heart changing, mind altering, soul opening, life changing experience. I loved this man from the very start. He walked into my life, all heart, full of a capacity for love I had never before witnessed. There was never any question that he loved me, but as I settled into the realization that love had found me, instead of being filled with joy and expectation, I was filled with trepidation and a fear that left me rooted in my safe place, unable to move. Will my love be enough for him? When he sees me for who I really am, will he still love me?
"You cannot love someone before you truly love yourself." We've all heard this truth at some point in our lives, and so while we wait for love to find us, we love ourselves, as best we can. We forgive our mistakes as learning experiences that make us better people. We embrace our less lovable places in hopes that if we embrace them, so will the love of our life. But there is something missing in that exercise. While we must be aware of, and embrace, our own uniqueness, it isn't until our singularity is reflected back at us that our place in the world has any real meaning.
Love is more than a warm fuzzy wave of emotion, it is an act of faith. Trust, a component of love, is not an act to be performed solo. It implies that there is an object, whether it be your god, your parents, your self or another human being who is offering you love. For your love to tell you that he loves you, and because you see him the way that you do -- perfect from head to toe -- you ask yourself, "How is it that this enlightened flawless human being can love me?" After a quick inventory of yourself, one you're well versed at after so much practice, you are reminded that yes, you do love yourself.
But then, it hits you, loving yourself was something you did all alone. It might have required some serious work, or maybe it was the easiest thing you ever did. Letting someone else love you, on the other hand, may be the hardest thing you ever do. It requires faith, trust, and most of all -- an acceptance of love from your beloved. Another word for "acceptance" is "permission". When love finds you, and you open the door of your heart to love from another human being, you give yourself permission to be loved. Permission implies freedom, freeing the demons that would drive you to darkness, unlocking the depth of your soul and giving your heart, just as it is, to another. These acts of release are simple, yet we deny them in exchange for a heavy burden.
Love does not come with extra weight, or anxiety, it happens in the moment we allow it to, in the moment we get relief from our own self doubt. Love does not come with fear of letting go, it happens in the moment we believe in the love being offered to us. Love happens when we accept that we are enough, when we quiet all the questions. When love finds you, nothing is ever the same.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
For My Beloved
My love has the heart of a child. He delights in the world around him and sees perfection in the smallest details. He moves through his day unimpressed by title or position. Rather he would see wisdom and beauty in the people and places others pass by. He is curious by nature, and like a child, one word answers are not enough. He must know why and how until an infinitely more lavish world unravels itself at his feet.
Hidden in the folds of his arms are the scars left by demons, but they belie his innocent spirit. These scars are woven into him like a vein of ash is interlaced with fine cheese. From this fertile place comes colors and flowers; they are etched on the fleshy parts of his arms. These are the arms that hold me, love me -- keep me safe.
My love has the eyes of a child. They are wide and full like pools after rain. Like the night sky, when there is no moon and the stars have hidden themselves, the darkness of his eyes have have pulled me in. I can see into them and know there is a depth I may never fathom. They are the window to his soul -- a soul of boundless love and compassion, generosity and grace.
I love him for everything that he is and everything he is not. Because of him, I know what love is. I've always believed in grace -- the idea that life is full of it and it's our job to embrace it and then let it flow through us into other people. He is the grace in my life.
Hidden in the folds of his arms are the scars left by demons, but they belie his innocent spirit. These scars are woven into him like a vein of ash is interlaced with fine cheese. From this fertile place comes colors and flowers; they are etched on the fleshy parts of his arms. These are the arms that hold me, love me -- keep me safe.
My love has the eyes of a child. They are wide and full like pools after rain. Like the night sky, when there is no moon and the stars have hidden themselves, the darkness of his eyes have have pulled me in. I can see into them and know there is a depth I may never fathom. They are the window to his soul -- a soul of boundless love and compassion, generosity and grace.
I love him for everything that he is and everything he is not. Because of him, I know what love is. I've always believed in grace -- the idea that life is full of it and it's our job to embrace it and then let it flow through us into other people. He is the grace in my life.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Grace
Every day I am greeted with grace. He wakes me up with kisses to my cheeks and forehead. When we can't be in the same bed, he sends me the same virtual kisses and hugs by text. He has learned my strange ways and accommodates them accordingly, the bedtime rituals and the morning routines. I am beautiful at my worst, and humbled at my best. In these graceful gestures he is easy. Grace is his love in motion.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A Father and Daughter Encounter Death
My father was a true cowboy. I didn't see him as a cowboy, let alone a man. He was just my dad. In his hands he held my world and lifted me above its sadness. This was our fragile, unspoken agreement. A sliver of time when a father's magic was the answer to all a daughter's questions.
We lived in a small town, essentially the middle of nowhere. I knew there was a larger world beyond my safe boundaries, but I had no desire to go there. The world I knew included a huge backyard for playing any kind of game you can imagine, full run of acres and acres of cemetery for playing hide and go seek with all the neighborhood kids. And we had horses.
My dad hadn't figured out how to live his life without them. My mom had laid down one law early in their marriage. She would not be left at home in a rundown farm house with no real heat or decent running water. My mom understood my dad's need to tinker in the barn, take care of his horses, make fences and build corrals, but he would have to understand there were limits to what she could endure. This was their first compromise. That we would live in town and the horses would live on rented property just beyond the city limits. Everyone was happy.
Sunday afternoons were always reserved for going out to the horses. There was always one very gentle horse for me to ride, and for a time, one I called my own. Sometimes there would be an unfamiliar one in the barn because my father was often paid to "break" a horse. A horse has to be tamed and taught to be ridden. He had a very gentle touch, my father, with a magical way of turning an untamed animal into a reliable riding horse. In his mind, if you had the skill and the patience, you could break a horse without breaking its spirit.
Most Sundays I sat perched on the fence, cowboy boots donned, watching him at work. There was no mistaking how much my father loved and revered these beautiful creatures. They must have seen it too. If I wasn't watching him break a horse, I was riding alongside him, through the pasture, looking for breaks in the fence or places that needed mending. Sometimes there were medications that needed to be administered or shoes that needed trimming. Looking back, I can see why this place was such a refuge for him. There was no end to the work that needed to be done, but his labor was love and in this world he was king. He was needed by the animals he cared for and loved by the little girl in pigtails who still wanted to hold his hand.
On the day my horse, Beauty, had her colt, I had been around my dad and our horses for so long I never imagined being without them or the routine he and I shared most Sundays or any other day of the week we were able to escape. But this would be no ordinary day. We knew the colt could be coming at any minute, or perhaps had already been born. We were headed out to the horses with excitement and anticipation. I was about to witness a miracle.
The day was bright, one of those glorious, cloudless days. We parked the pickup in its usual place and headed for the barn. The barn was dark and dusty, filled with the unmistakable odor of a horse's skin, that intoxicating smell left on your clothing after a day of nose rubbing and post-ride curries. Beauty was there, but she wasn't my horse just then. She was a frantic mother, exhausted. Agitated. She had the look of a beast who would give her very life to protect the helpless spindly creature she had borne.
The vet was already there. Explanations were exchanged between he and my father. I knew without asking that something had gone terribly wrong. The colt lie on the ground, over the strewn hay, at the feet of her mother. A colt will stand just after she is born. But there was something wrong and the fresh new shiny beauty would not see the sun go down on her very first day.
I sat down and wanted to be near the warm and struggling creature. My father explained to me that there was a rare discord between Beauty's blood and what now ran through her colt. The very thing that had given life to her colt in the womb was going to be her certain death in the dusty, dimly lit barn.
There was my father, in his realm, with his gentle creatures and his daughter, helpless. I suppose he could have removed me from the scene, told me to go sit in the pickup while he and the vet took care of things. But, he didn't. This was my colt and right now she needed me. You don't run away from a dying animal. You face it, pick up its body and hold on to it. You love it while you can, you whisper to it and you stroke it. You kiss its nose and you be there with her until she breaths her very last breath.
I suppose this is the first day I stepped just outside the world he had crafted for me, perhaps the first crack in our agreement. The sadness of that day would swallow me up and I would choke on this cruel death. I wouldn't get the answer I wanted that day. My father was a real cowboy, full of compassion and care for the animals whose daily lives depended on him, but he was also a man. He was a man, and a father; sometimes being a father means facing death with your daughter.
KJJ
Dec 2009
We lived in a small town, essentially the middle of nowhere. I knew there was a larger world beyond my safe boundaries, but I had no desire to go there. The world I knew included a huge backyard for playing any kind of game you can imagine, full run of acres and acres of cemetery for playing hide and go seek with all the neighborhood kids. And we had horses.
My dad hadn't figured out how to live his life without them. My mom had laid down one law early in their marriage. She would not be left at home in a rundown farm house with no real heat or decent running water. My mom understood my dad's need to tinker in the barn, take care of his horses, make fences and build corrals, but he would have to understand there were limits to what she could endure. This was their first compromise. That we would live in town and the horses would live on rented property just beyond the city limits. Everyone was happy.
Sunday afternoons were always reserved for going out to the horses. There was always one very gentle horse for me to ride, and for a time, one I called my own. Sometimes there would be an unfamiliar one in the barn because my father was often paid to "break" a horse. A horse has to be tamed and taught to be ridden. He had a very gentle touch, my father, with a magical way of turning an untamed animal into a reliable riding horse. In his mind, if you had the skill and the patience, you could break a horse without breaking its spirit.
Most Sundays I sat perched on the fence, cowboy boots donned, watching him at work. There was no mistaking how much my father loved and revered these beautiful creatures. They must have seen it too. If I wasn't watching him break a horse, I was riding alongside him, through the pasture, looking for breaks in the fence or places that needed mending. Sometimes there were medications that needed to be administered or shoes that needed trimming. Looking back, I can see why this place was such a refuge for him. There was no end to the work that needed to be done, but his labor was love and in this world he was king. He was needed by the animals he cared for and loved by the little girl in pigtails who still wanted to hold his hand.
On the day my horse, Beauty, had her colt, I had been around my dad and our horses for so long I never imagined being without them or the routine he and I shared most Sundays or any other day of the week we were able to escape. But this would be no ordinary day. We knew the colt could be coming at any minute, or perhaps had already been born. We were headed out to the horses with excitement and anticipation. I was about to witness a miracle.
The day was bright, one of those glorious, cloudless days. We parked the pickup in its usual place and headed for the barn. The barn was dark and dusty, filled with the unmistakable odor of a horse's skin, that intoxicating smell left on your clothing after a day of nose rubbing and post-ride curries. Beauty was there, but she wasn't my horse just then. She was a frantic mother, exhausted. Agitated. She had the look of a beast who would give her very life to protect the helpless spindly creature she had borne.
The vet was already there. Explanations were exchanged between he and my father. I knew without asking that something had gone terribly wrong. The colt lie on the ground, over the strewn hay, at the feet of her mother. A colt will stand just after she is born. But there was something wrong and the fresh new shiny beauty would not see the sun go down on her very first day.
I sat down and wanted to be near the warm and struggling creature. My father explained to me that there was a rare discord between Beauty's blood and what now ran through her colt. The very thing that had given life to her colt in the womb was going to be her certain death in the dusty, dimly lit barn.
There was my father, in his realm, with his gentle creatures and his daughter, helpless. I suppose he could have removed me from the scene, told me to go sit in the pickup while he and the vet took care of things. But, he didn't. This was my colt and right now she needed me. You don't run away from a dying animal. You face it, pick up its body and hold on to it. You love it while you can, you whisper to it and you stroke it. You kiss its nose and you be there with her until she breaths her very last breath.
I suppose this is the first day I stepped just outside the world he had crafted for me, perhaps the first crack in our agreement. The sadness of that day would swallow me up and I would choke on this cruel death. I wouldn't get the answer I wanted that day. My father was a real cowboy, full of compassion and care for the animals whose daily lives depended on him, but he was also a man. He was a man, and a father; sometimes being a father means facing death with your daughter.
KJJ
Dec 2009
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