Seeing Clearly: ah, love...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

ah, love...

Hello, All,

I was looking through my blog a little while ago, especially the first part. This blog means so much to me, not only as a record of the events, but reading and looking through it makes me feel full (some would say "full of it":)), and lucky as heck. Here is this woman who gets cancer and cracks up her car and has her eye removed after her stupid boyfriend dumps her, and what do we see? Incredible people who love her and look after her, not a small amount of good fortune, renewed connections from people from long ago, new connections with people I have met through this...all that was good in my life remains, and some crappy stuff has fallen by the wayside (mostly attitudinal in nature.)

Lately I have renewed my membership in an online matching thing, and have communicated with a couple of men ("matches", in online dating parlance), and this has brought up the issue of how and when and if to talk about all of this to a potential date. The big issue for a long time has been the alcoholism--but I could always hastily add : "but I have been sober for 17 years", which very quickly turns a liability into an asset. Makes me sound all discliplined and mature, when truth be told, it has been more a matter of luck and stubbornness than anything else. On the second tier is the vegetarian Buddhism issue. By now, the potential date is putting it together that I will not be going out for burgers and a beer after Mass with him. Still, this might be appealing to the right tree-hugging boomer sort who maybe owned a bong or at least tells people he was at Woodstock.

Now, I have this fake eye, and I am thinking that since a-this has been a very recent (and life-altering) experience, it seems odd NOT to bring it up, and b-it is a FAKE EYE, I need to be forthcoming and frank about it. On the other hand, I don't want to scare some great guy off (though how great would he be if this WOULD scare him off?? )

Today I told a handsome guy named Steve, via email, the main bullet-points, and I am at peace with whatever comes of that, because I have learned that this is the only thing to be done. I learned from that last relationship, that long, laborious and often very painful one, that the greatest gift I can give myself and you is the truth. I didn't do that with him and it didn't work. Go figure.

I don't know where I am going with all of this, except to tell you all that I love life, and though I would welcome a lovely man in to it, I am one happy woman right now, with things just as they are (ok, maybe minus a few pounds and wrinkles--truth, right?). Let me tell you about my friends and family: they are sterling people, and they love me real good, regardless of anything that might be present of absent in or on me. I have been spoiled by this devotion. Lucky woman.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: I sense spring in the air:) I was just thinking of the interest I seem to always have for matchmaking...would that I knew a handsome rogue for you!

Have you checked out Ganges? I know there are many jewish matchmakers...but any Buddist singles groups? Hmmmmm...could be the new and peaceful way...http://www.vedantasociety-chicago.org/ganges_hist.htm

and the Mother's Trust...? http://www.motherstrust.org/

And your truth... well, it might just set you free;)
Love you,
Susan; May 23, 2008 at 4:55 PM

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The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala