Tag: pain (Page 3 of 4)

In the End…

January 18, 2013 / Tom

In the end, it just became too much.

He kind of knew that the end was inevitable. There were just too many stories, too many challenges, too many things that did not seem real. He remained committed to an ideal that simply did not exist beyond his own mind, and in the end when his heart just could not bear the burden of the stories told by the mind, he had to go his own way.

He can’t blame her. No, he had tried to tell himself that what he saw was not real. He had tried to tell himself to believe, but in the final minute his heart gave way to the fact that the mantra no longer worked. No, this was all his fault. He could just not believe.

So, he let her go. He would miss her, and he would hurt for eternity. He would suffer. But he would grow from it all and find freedom. Even in the sadness of the moment he find an excitement in what was to come. He could feel it like an electricity flowing through his body tempered only by the desire that she could come along for the journey.

Human love seems to be an unpredictable animal within the experience of man. It bites his flesh and tears at his mind while it soothes and protects him. It ebbs and flows like a blue mechanical wave in a tiny glass box. When it flows it can be the most beautiful of experiences, and when it ebbs it can take the very life out of a man’s body. It can make him feel strong and weak at the same time. It can give him breath and strangle him. In its flow we feel invincible, but when it ebbs we search for strength from any place we dare look in the very discourse of untold weakness. We may pretend to be strong, but when the love of our life falters we all search for strength in the darkest of places. Eventually, for the weathered among us, we return to the light.

He felt weakness even in the strength. In that weakness he desperately tried to find something to hold on to. He would close his eyes and feel the warmth of her body next to his and hold on to that. Eventually that vision would fade, replaced by another sight that would challenge his heart again. He would tell himself it didn’t exist, and then he would turn to her because she was so good at convincing him it didn’t. He’d hold on to that truth until the next time. There would always be a next time.

He could never tell if she actually fought for him. He knew certainly that she fought with him, but he could never tell if she ever fought for him. He wanted to believe she had, that she hadn’t simply placed every burden of transformation squarely on him. He eventually just had to believe that those shadows he saw in their relationship would always be there, that the mysteries and the stories and the issues would continually come up. Eventually he had, had enough of it and he simply caved. He knew his own wounds well, and he could not withstand the flirtations and the issues that seemed to always come up in the middle of their story.

In the end he couldn’t expect or ask her to change it. She didn’t appear capable or willing. He was incapable of overlooking those things. He had changed quite a bit, but those wounds such behavior opened were simply too much for him to overlook. They were perfect together in every way other than the one he needed the most. His every effort went into changing that part of him, and in the end he failed and in the end he could not get up from falling yet again even as he prayed again for the voice that comforted him, the dream the sustained him, and the light he felt just by hearing her name in a crowded room.

In his fantasy she fought for him. In his dream she recognized this part of him and eliminated the shadows. She stood up, she caressed his face and told him it would be alright. In the mist of his heart she said “enough, what do I need to do for you” and then did it. In the fog of his mind she said “none of them matter, only you do. I will do whatever it takes to be with you.” That was his dream, and in his heart those words would have exploded into a warmth never seen before.

In the end she laughed at his assertion. In the end she said “goodbye”. In the end she simply walked away. No fight, just silence. In the end the silence spoke louder than any word she had ever said to him. In the end the absence of protest said more than any story she had ever told him. In the end it was simply the end. Nothing more.

So now the lights go out and the eyes close to squeeze out yet another tear. His lips allow another sigh and another sob as the silence reigns in the evening air. His mind journeys to where she is and his heart holds her one more time. She never knew these moments, and she may never discover them. He wanted to succeed here like he never wanted to succeed anywhere before in his life. He couldn’t, and in the end he failed his vision and his love. That’s his burden, and he would carry it for a lifetime. A great story was over, and in the end he cried his cries and sobbed his sobs as a testament not only to the failure, but to the great love in his heart.

In the end the love was there as it always would be. In the end he would scream her name and in the end he would see her once again. He knew it, he felt it, and it was a truth he could not escape. In the end it was truly all that he felt was real. In the end he wished there was no end at all.

I wish you could feel how I feel

And I wish I could feel how you feel

I wish I could know the truth through your eyes

And taste the taste from your lips

So that the next heartbeat, the next breath

Would be the only questions I would ever have.

∞

Gun Control is an Act of Love

December 15, 2012 / Tom

Remorse. Sadness. Grief. Disbelief.

And anger. I can’t forget about the anger regardless of how much I want to.

Those are just some of the very human emotions that overwhelmed me as listened to the news about the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Just some of them. To list them all would create something unreadable.

As I sat on I-95 near Philadelphia heading home from a long day at the office, I wept openly. Visions of my own children danced in my head. Visions of children everywhere flooded my mind. Those smiling faces, those wondering minds, those innocent souls. I could hear the banter flowing through those classrooms on what should have been just another Friday as children transformed into students eagerly anticipating a holiday season. I could imagine parents not unlike myself rushing around that morning, trying to get their children ready for a school day while trying to get themselves ready for a busy day at work. I could imagine parents who, had they known this would be the last time they would see their babies, may have forsaken all worldly endeavors for those final few moments of complete presence in lives they had a large part in creating.

Yes, our worldly endeavors seem a bit silly in those moments when we are faced with the loss of innocence and the finality of death. The Eagles losing yet another game is forgotten. The need to make end-of-year sales numbers seems meaningless when the idea of a tiny casket flashes across your mind. The arguments between lovers becomes very unimportant when the knowledge that one day you will not be with her and that one day physical and intellectual separation will be permanent. In truth, very little seems important when faced with mortality, particularly when it is the mortality of our children, our innocence, our posterity.

We fear permanence even more than we fear impermanence. The only thing that is permanent in our human experience is death, and we seem to fear that more than we fear anything else. It rattles us, not only because we don’t know what is coming afterward, but because it is so final. We not only fear our own deaths, we fear the death of our loved ones. Yet, it wasn’t death that found me weeping on a busy highway during rush hour, it was the death of innocence and of promise. It was knowing that each and every one of those children senselessly killed likely had no idea of what death was. It was knowing that each and every one of those sweet angels was left relatively unprotected despite deserving our fiercest shelter. It was knowing the fear they must have felt, and it was in feeling the ultimate betrayal as the shooter did the Devil’s work. How utterly devoid of compassion he must have been; how much hatred he must have held on to. It is quite unimaginable to, fortunately, the vast majority of us.

Now, I’d rather not focus on the man who destroyed so much in such a small period of time. Instead, I want to focus on the reaction many of us had to his horrifying actions. Many of us found love overflowing from our eyes. We found compassion pouring out of us. We found empathy, sympathy, and new-found purpose in each tiny droplet of salty water that made its way into air. We found that piece of ourselves that sometimes gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the illusion in which we “live”. We discovered a piece of truth in the lie, and will hold on to that truth at least for a little while. We will hug our lovers tighter tonight. We will be more present with our children. We will be more present with ourselves.

So, when I am asked “why?” I know what to say. I have no idea why a 20-year old man would lose his grip on his own humanity and divinity. Yet, those children did not die in vain if we, even for one second, pause to be more present in our lives and in our loves. Those children did not die in vain if the final words I say to my own loves is “I love you”. This understanding gives the very thing I can’t understand some understanding. It gives the senseless some meaning. It gives those of us who are doubting some sense of hope. That’s “why” my friends. So, get to it and don’t let those beautiful souls leave our consciousness while we have a chance to make good on the very thing that makes us who we are.

Make love like you have never made love before. Embrace each other like it is the last time you will feel those arms around you. Absorb the “daddy” and “mommy” moments fully as if they will be the last. Don’t live in fear of the end, embrace it and make it meaningful in your daily experience. Don’t go to bed angry with those you love. Don’t do anything that will sour your epithet. Don’t hug anger, hug love and don’t let go. Fight for it. Feel it. And cherish every moment you get to share it.

Love, laugh and live fully. Help others love, laugh and live fully. Let’s get rid of the need for instruments of death in our lives. Let’s cherish life and the living more than we cherish material things. Start saying “no” to your boss and “yes” to your family. Get high if you want. Whatever. Just start fucking living.

This is not an admonition to you. This is an admonition to me that I simply want to share with you. You are free to do as you please. Me, I want to have no regrets at the end of the last day I share with someone. I want to know I lived it all fully, even the bitter moments, and that in the end I’ve loved more fully than I’ve feared.

I am sure that soon enough we will see the smiling faces of those beautiful babies flashing across our televisions and computer screens. We will hear wonderful stories of victims, their families, and their own unique promise. We will cry again at the sight of young, smiling faces and we will make resolutions to end lunacy and seek love as our shelter. We will live, even for an instant, in the warm and loving embrace of knowing ourselves as more than money, more than ideology, and more than nationality. We will find our own promise and potential before settling back into our very human roles of forgetful man as the memory of those smiling faces fades.

I will also remember that the killer himself was once one of those smiling faces, and I will wonder what drove him to such darkness. I will wonder because I don’t want any other child to lose that part of himself that makes him both human and loving divinity. We all deserve our own sense of innocence, and it is time we start treating our children like they remind us of our own innocence and freedom. Children are not afterthoughts, they are not nuisances that keep us from work or our favorite reality shows. They are not weapons, and they are not punching bags. They are wonderful creations that we had some part in, and as such deserve not just the best of who we are as individuals, but also the best of who we are as a society. We owe it to them to pass laws that ensure that it is far less likely that they will be staring down the barrel of a firearm as they cry for a mommy and daddy who aren’t there to protect them.

Yes, I am done being on the fence about gun control. I’m done seeing the “right to bear arms” as equally important to the right of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Those children lost their rights to life. They lost their rights to liberty. They lost their rights to happiness as a madman pulled the trigger over and over again of a weapon he had the right to own. Gun control is not about the erosion of American rights, it is about the guarantee of them. So, fuck you, fuck your need to own a semi-automatic rifle and multiple handguns. You only have two hands, and I doubt Nancy Lanza could have shot both handguns while handling a semi-automatic rifle in the process.

Face it, 27 people, including 20 innocent school children, could have been alive today if our government and We the People had the balls to get rid of guns as a “right” and, instead, made it impossible to get them. End the War on Drugs, that failed social experiment that only ensures more of us spend time in jail than ever before, and begin the War on Guns. Empty our prisons of drug users and fill them with gun owners who fail to see that they have absolutely no reason to own firearms if no one else does.

See, Nancy Lanza was not going to go hunting. She obviously did not find protection in the guns she owned as her son gunned her down. In fact, the guns she owned ended up killing her, so I’m sure if given a Mulligan she’d probably take them back even without a refund. I’m sure she loved the children in her class, so I doubt she felt the Second Amendment worth the lives of 20 of them as well as 6 of her colleagues. I doubt as she faced her end she thought of Charlton Heston and his famous “out of my cold, dead fingers” pronouncement.

I will not use the term “rest in peace” for those children and brave adults who died on December 14^th in Connecticut. That’s offensive to the very nature of the crime committed against them. Rather, we should have been blessing them with a “live in peace” on December 13^th. We should have ensured their safety then, not given it lips service now. Prayers and love and compassion are meaningless to them now, but how much could it have meant to them Thursday? Yeah, that’s what I mean. Tomorrow is too late. Now is what matters.

And for Pete’s sake let’s stop being married to an ideal written 250 years ago in a document that was meant to be changed when necessary. It is necessary now, more than ever, to rid ourselves of the scourge of firearms in this nation. Our children deserve it, and we, as loving, caring, and intelligent adults need to ensure we protect them within a society that demands change. Yes, our society is demanding change. That is evident in the gun violence that is destroying us from within.

It is so evident that all we need to is review the gun violence over the last 10 years and ask, “how is that Second Amendment working out for you?” I’d say not at all. It’s time to move beyond the ideas that violence is the answer (that isn’t really working out for us either) and toward something a little harder to do but much more rewarding (as Gandhi and the independent India he helped give birth to without firing ONE SINGLE SHOT proved). I love Gandhi and his example because he was a tiny, diminutive man who successfully rebelled against a world superpower without ever owning a gun. It’s time we follow that example and bury Charlton Heston’s somewhere far away where we never need look at it again.

For now, I will follow other people who are crying, praying and empathizing with those victims of gun violence who decided to follow the pursuit of happiness rather than the right to bear arms and were shot in the process. Yet I will not let this fire within me be buried with those victims. Instead, I will use it to work toward ensuring that we create no other victims for the stupidity of a few who love the power of shooting something so dearly. It’s time to end the lunacy, and never forget those who died for nothing more than an ideal.

Geminid

December 14, 2012 / Tom

As I watched millions of years of existence end in a flash across this evening’s sky, I felt small, impermanent and grateful for the realization.

It all ends sometime, someday. In an instance what was ceases to be, and what is becomes the new reality. Across the darkened sky of our existence everything ends in a flash that, to some, is but an instant but to others is an eternity. In a moment of intense flame it ceases to be, and the sky again becomes dark save the few diamonds left to prove its existence. Everything returns to darkness; everything returns to light.

I walk to the darkest spot I can find, feeling the emptiness in my hands highlighted by the hope in my heart. Am I but a Geminid in her evening sky? Am I but a flash in the night sure to exist in one moment but be gone before the her eyes open again? Am I but a cold rock floating aimlessly in the nothingness sure to die in the heat of her atmosphere? Am I destined to be but a bright flame across her darkness, across my own darkness; a flame that burns intensely but for only a short period of time?

I look at those lonely hands, opening and closing them as if to prove they are mine. I can see her hand resting nicely in my own, warming the skin left cold by the evening air. I can feel her lean her head on my shoulder and I know. I am not a cold rock floating aimlessly in nothingness. I am one of the diamonds, burning brightly and lighting the way. If only I choose to be, and if only she lets me. Her and I are not them, those strange vestiges of past pains left to scramble in the light of love. We are the light, the source of contrast between the blackness and the timelessness of love. We are what we choose to be, either to be lost in the mix of the mind or found in the millions of suns proving to us that even the darkness is temporary.

So tonight as I am surrounded by the darkness and the destruction of travelers who simply got too close, I am warmed by the heat of love cascading through my soul and the light of the love we both share. Perhaps it is time for us both to take the past and turn it into a chunk of stone and push it into nothingness. Maybe it is time for us both to watch that rock burn in the air of love and vanish into space. I can almost see it, her hand tightly in mine as her head lies softly on my shoulder watching with a smile as those barriers burn away. I can see her smile as I turn to her and say, softly,

“I love you.”

We both know. We have always known. The Geminid is not the love that we share but the barriers we have created keeping us from it. We both surrender in an instant, and utter a silent vow that this time we will know the truth and it will be ours. We make it ours, we own as if it is all we will ever own, and it becomes the reality we cherish. Even as I close my eyes to dream this lovely dream, a prayer escapes my heart as the beautiful mediation begins.

Yes, my love, my fears are in that rock you just watched disintegrate. Yes, my love, I feel the truth around us. Yes, my love, I know you are here, and that you love me.

I have heard her say it in my ear at least a hundred times. “I love you.” So, I vow to her this moment a truth that speaks from that part of me only she can see when her mind is silent and her heart is open.

Yes, my love, my doubt has just burned away in that streak you saw across our sky. Yes, my love, I am here. Yes, my love, I believe in you. Yes, I am ready.

Such truth brings tears to my cheeks. I have never cried in my life combined as much as I have now. Cleansing, releasing, forgiving and, finally, surrendering. Like any good fighter just at that moment of surrender I find renewed fight to continue on. Now, I am finally on the canvas, staring up at her beautiful face thankful for the knockout blow.

Yes, I am done baby. Yes, I am ready to end the battle. Yes, I want to leave this place and walk alone with you. Let me, please. Thank you.

Soon, the Sun will rise above that place where the ground meets the sky. I’ve always loved that place, and it is there that I ask her to walk with me. I deserve the chance and so does she. A chance to smile in the light of love as we push the Sun above the horizon. A chance to walk together without the rocks falling all around us. A chance to know one another without the voices telling us stories that don’t exist here. Yeah, it’s time to walk my love…

♥

The End

December 2, 2012 / Tom

He had stood there before her naked many times. He had shed tears of joy and doubt, and had stripped himself down to the bone often in the need to get closer to her. In ecstasy he wanted to not only be inside her but exist inside her. He could feel her throughout his existence, in every breath and every whimper of his heart as time and space devoured them whole.

Now, as had often been the case, he stood guarded against her. She had asked him to believe too much, and he just couldn’t believe the essence of her stories. He had often tried to wipe the dust of her stories off of him, but they smeared against his sweaty skin leaving trails of mud in their wake as his mind sought to find some semblance of cleanliness. Soon, he was lying to himself, making the mud clean and the chaffing of the sand against his skin a beautiful experience. In the end, as the chaffing turned to bloody, open sores that the mud infected he could do nothing but fall to his knees, rip out his heart, and throw it into the River she had suggested was her.

It was then he discovered that greatest lie of all. She did not love him truly. No, love does not see a naked warrior struggling and let him die. Love does not lie to him, pretending to be here when there. Love does not seek approval in the minds of others. Love does not hide itself from any part of any world known or unknown. Instead, love knows itself, and it knows its home. It comforts, it provides security, and it renews life within the tired beasts who strive to know it.

In the final act of the tragic play that had taken its toll on his mind, body and soul, the lies had simply become too much for him to bear. The mud no longer smeared upon his skin. Instead, it caked on him, making it impossible to breathe. Her ultimatums had worn him to a faint shell of himself, and her threats had turned him against even himself. He was beginning to feel weak, pathetic, and defeated even in the face of the great light they shared. He no longer looked like himself, and he no longer felt like the proud warrior he was when they had first gazed into each other’s eyes.

She had once given him a light and taken his breath with the sight of her. Now, she was blinding him with his own tears and choking him with his own hand. He had a feeling that she had been down this road many times before, but he had not, and he had no desire to travel with her toward the graveyard she deposited the bodies of those who dared walk with her too long. No, he would end the journey before his own demise, and he would no longer pretend the mud felt like gold and the open sores felt like freedom.

Once he stopped blaming himself for the fear she offered him he began to see the truth. The many untruths, the many stories, the unusual demands and requirements, and the box she built for them was way too much to bear. She had suggested that their box was special, but he knew better. Their box was designed to keep them from being special. It was there to protect her from the inevitable failure she knew she would create. It was there to appease some childish notion of ownership of others, and to deny the “special” relationship she said she was creating from the very breath it needed to survive. He had tried to live in that box, but freedom was his goal in this life and as he struggled to inhale under the weight of walls and lies he could not bear the confinement. He moved on in no uncertain terms.

His love would be one that lifted him up, not held him down. It would display him with pride, not hide him in some idea of security. It would include him, not lie to him in order to exclude who he was and what he would do. He would give his life to and for his lover, and in return he simply asked for the complete openness, honesty and consideration that he would so readily extend.

He had learned much in his life. He now valued honesty, respect and openness above all. They were gone from her some time before their last breath together, and it just took him time to see it, understand it, and move beyond the torturous thoughts that leaving her created. It took a great sense of courage to finally end it, but as he sat alone in his dark room and cried tears of great anguish he know that he had done all he could and simply had nothing left but those tears to give.

At the end the final bell had been struck, and he walked away battered, bruised and bloodied but with a sense of success that exposed an inner truth. He had given her his all, and though the lies and fear in her had proved fatal, he was returning to himself and to the truth he had learned was all that mattered. He loved her deeply, and with a passion he doubted would ever exist again. That was the truth, his truth, and although he could not move beyond the pain of deceit he would hold his head up high knowing that he had fought without fail and nearly died in the attempt to honor that truth. In the end he could not have lost, for he had discovered within him something he never thought existed, the capacity to love without fail, trust without fear, and know the beauty of living for someone other than himself.

He was far from perfect, but he tried to overcome his imperfections for the love he had discovered. He worked hard on her behalf, and that in itself had proven a victory. He could now know that with a woman who could love him equally well he would never need struggle again. That, however, is for a different story yet to be written.

The End.

Go There, Be Happy (Poem)

November 11, 2012 / Tom

Who you turn to

In your time of need, that’s the One.

When lost in your sea of emotion

When the mind takes over

And proves to be an absent friend

The arms that comfort you

Are the arms where you should remain.

Who you talk to

In your moments of turmoil

When the world closes in on you

When the journey seems its longest

And peace seems some distant dream

That mind is the one you need know

The thoughts that should be cherished.

Comfort is not an illusion

It is a message.

A message from one heart to another

From your heart to the rest of you

That tells a simple story of love

and of where you need to be

And where you should return.

Go there, and be happy

Know it every day, every minute, every second

Even in those moments when very ground you tread

rumbles with its dissatisfaction.

Go there, and be happy

Knowing I go there with you

Sometimes with tears, sometimes with a beaming smile.

Go there, and be happy

Like flowers and grasses, bow your lips to the stream.*

And quench your thirst within the River.

I will see you there, someday.

*Rumi “Eternal Joy”

The Black Wall

November 7, 2012 / Tom

This was a vivid dream as real as any waking moment he had ever experienced. He walked alone a field so dark there was no form, and with each step a fear that there would be nothing which would hold him steady until the next foot fell. In the darkness he wondered, and there in the space within space he found himself questioning everything.

Off in the distance something shined like a star contrasting brightly against the emptiness. He approached warily, unsure not only of what it was but also unsure of the safety of the journey to it. In this darkness there was no security, only insecurity, and in this walk toward the light there was no guarantee that his feet would fall on steady ground. He couldn’t even see his feet, or the rest of him, let alone the ground that lie ahead. He just knew he couldn’t sit still, that he needed to move forward toward the star lit against the abyss. He wanted – he needed – to get to that spot where the light would show him all there was to see.

Slowly, almost painfully, he neared the light. He could now make out the form of a wall. It was a dark, black brick wall highlighted by a brilliant white mortar which reflected the light brightly. He could not see the source of the light, or the size of the wall but as he looked away the light only make the blackness surrounding him darker and more ominous. Somehow the wall itself made him feel both lonely and loved, as if somehow now he had found a purpose in the loneliness he had always felt and the hope that soon it would all end. So he pressed onward, painfully afraid of each step while joyfully hopeful in the journey.

The brightly-lit wall appeared to move toward him as he got closer as if it somehow sensed the fear he had in each step. It seemed to want to end his suffering although he thought it couldn’t possibly relate to such emotion. The wall could be nothing other than a wall, it had no ability to know him or his condition. It was just there, lit, tall, strong and unable to feel.

Soon he had to stop walking as the light began to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be harder to see in such bright, beautiful light than it was in the darkness. He had become so accustomed to the darkness that the light actually hurt him. He looked away, searching for comfort in the darkness while still desperately wanting to see the light. It was a slow, painful process, but soon he could look into the light without reaction. Then he could see a message written boldly in white scrawled across the wall. It wasn’t long from then that the message was clear.

“You may not live to see the end of this.”

He stood, frozen. The fear created within a lifetime came flooding to his face as his eyes began to let go a torrent of pent-up suffering. He dropped to his knees and sobbed. Yes, the end was near, and there was no certainty that he would live to see it.

As he sobbed uncontrollably he noticed through his blurred eyes the field in which he had walked. There were such beautiful flowers that extended as far as the eyes could see. Yes, he could see! Butterflies fluttered around him, some landing on his shoulders, others on his arms, still others on his head. They seemed to caress his soul, telling him “it will be all right, you are loved.” He looked out across the horizon not believing he had never seen any of this. The darkness wasn’t the only truth, there had always been this field, these flowers, the butterflies and the beauty that reached as far as the eyes could see. He had simply closed his eyes to it all, and when the smallest crack in his own blindness presented itself he found a light that lit the world. The journey hadn’t been a simple walk at all; it was his eyes being opened to the truth.

He turned to the wall that had given him hope and had inspired him toward his present moment. The light that had once lit it now lit everywhere. As he wiped his eyes and stood he read the message scrawled on it one final time. It had changed, and with a sigh and a swallow he read what it now said aloud.

“This is the end of it.”

He half-cried half-laughed at the revelation as a lone butterfly landed on his chest right where he now felt his heart beat loudly. He looked at her as she him and both seemed to know.

Love.

♥

The Gift of You (The Beach and the Ocean)

October 19, 2012 / Tom

“Touch me there, my love, and discover a truth worth finding” ~Tom Grasso

Sometimes he was like an island beach, and she was like an enormous ocean. He would hold on to his fears and she to hers. She’d be consumed by her identity of independence, of power, of depth and he his identity of pain, experience and a fascination with the destiny that left him here, as this island, longing for the sea. Both were so consumed by who they were that they failed to realize what happened when they touched at that place we call the “shoreline.” There, the ocean and the beach become one, and it is there that the greatest magic in the Universe turns water into a bit of sand and sand into a bit of water.

There is not much magic being the beach or the ocean. All it takes is an illusion and a desire to put that illusion above all others. Yes, we often put the illusion of who we are above the reality of who we are. We so identify with our waves, with our dunes, with our depth and with our coarseness that we neglect the wonderful experience occurring where the two meet. We are so dependent on the dream that we often tell ourselves that we love the dream and in the process destroy a dream far greater. We even suggest that there is nothing else as important to our existence as our identities and that we are done experiencing this existence beyond the boundaries we have created for ourselves.

There are times when I am so in love with being the beach or the ocean that I can not truly experience the shoreline. I will be so attached to the hot sand or the water’s depth that I will never fully know the experience of the place were the depths cool the sands, and the sands warm the water. If I hold fast to this notion, I will never see how much I love the ocean, or the beach, and I will never fully get to know that beauty that I AM.

We forget that many times the real strength, power and depth aren’t just found in the illusions of who we are, but in the ability to allow ourselves to enjoy the shoreline outside the box of who we think we are. It takes real courage and strength to give ourselves to another, to become the Lover, when we have created the idea of strength in only ourselves. It’s easy to pretend to have strength in separation when we find comfort there. It’s comforting to dream about truth in the separateness of I from you, of him from her, of me from us when that is what we have created. It takes no real courage to stand on your own two feet and stare the Universe in the eye when that is who you think you are. The real courage comes from stepping off the sand into the mud, of rising out of the depths into the that place that is neither water nor sand but a bit of both. We step out of our box into the wet sand and often feel fear we want to run from. It gives us great comfort to hide in our secure box and somehow suggest that it takes remarkable strength to be there.

We are free to experience this existence in the way we want. Free will, the beauty and the bane of the human experience, is the sole mechanism by which we convert our ideas and thoughts into a tangible reality. We can lie to ourselves that we have no shame there even as we put the proverbial fig leaf on our most private of areas and hide ourselves from one another. We are free to profess our strength and our power and our independence even as we display none of it. We cater to fear, some of which shows itself as unreasonable anger and some of which shows itself as unbending inconsideration. Other times that fear is demonstrated as pain, the sand suffering in not meeting the water, and the ocean suffering in not meeting the sand. So we attach ourselves to what we know…pain, fear, or some other false sense of security. We all seem to relive our chosen stories when we simply fear walking from the beach to test the waters where the waves kiss our sandy feet.

A chosen few seem to find great pleasure at the shoreline. They take a great risk in giving themselves to their Lover, but with that risk often comes great reward. There is Heaven in that place where Lovers meet, a certain paradise fraught with undertows, riptides and strong currents. Heaven can certainly become hell from time to time, but to those who brave their minds and their fears to walk in the surf ecstasy is the answer to the challenges of their humanity. Because they speak a language only their Lover can understand, those souls indulge their fears and find solace in one another. They learn to not only give to each other, but to take from each other. They can still be who they are as individuals, but they also find that the line where they meet one another is a place where they find a source of great strength both inside and outside of themselves. See, the shoreline doesn’t just exist where two souls meet, it is also the place inside ourselves were our fears meet our love, where our minds, hearts and souls all mesh into an undeniable passion for another person.

That passion is beautiful. That love is Divine. That expression of human fear creates such a wonderful manifestation of human potential in love. Take a chance if you will. Express it freely if you can. Give in to it if you are able. Even while we are fine in being alone and even as we love who we are, there is a certain wonderfulness in offering yourself completely to another being who is doing the same. Trust is the result. Faith is the byproduct. You are a gift, and it would be such a shame not to offer that gift to someone who would do the same for you and to someone who breathes you in with each breath, and who lives to be by your side.

Live this truth and find a foothold in the ocean tide where fear can’t last for long and faith abounds in the gift of love, companionship and of who you are.

The Leaf (Poem)

October 16, 2012 / Tom

I’ve done my job

And as the end slowly comes

I will do my job again

And fall lightly to my Home.

I’ve rustled through the breeze

And sang loudly through the winds of change.

I’ve given you shade

When you needed a break from the midday Sun.

You’ve given life to me,

So that I could give life to you, my Tree.

Now the seasons are changing

And it’s time for me to change as well.

I’ve grown old to you

Another spring I shall not know

In your embrace.

You once held me so that I knew I could touch the sky

You once lifted me up so that I could see it all

And held me firm when the storm clouds came.

But now you’re letting go

In your release I cry shades of red

Of yellow and hues somewhere in between.

Where we once held firm against the storm

Now the slightest breeze tears us further apart.

Where I once danced in the Sun

I now wilt and seek refuge.

Where I was once supple

I am now dry and brittle to the touch.

Yet I have done my job.

And I will continue to do my job

As I fall lightly to the Earth

To feed you once again.

Part of me in the decay will spawn another leaf

In another time

In your place, the place I loved to be.

And you will dance in the breeze, and sing a song

I’ll Stand By You

October 13, 2012 / Tom

I’ll stand by you

I’ll stand by you

I won’t let nobody hurt you

I’ll stand by you

Take me into your darkest hour

And I’ll never desert you

I’ll stand by you

So the song goes. A beautiful expression of true love, a woman vowing her allegiance to her man. Equally beautiful is the man seems to have suggested a need for such help, for such devotion. His Angel has responded, and now he can heal without fear that she is abandoning him or judging him as so many others have throughout his life. He can focus knowing that his love is by his side, and will not leave regardless of the circumstance.

Wow. And yes, I am projecting. I know that, no emails need be sent to show me that wonderful light. So what, I’m a man who would love to have a woman who would stand by me regardless of the circumstance. Because I have been one who has not wanted it, and has pushed it away vehemently, I realize the beauty of wanting it. Maybe even to someday have it.

I also wonder if the singer is singing it to herself. What a better gift to oneself than to know you will never desert you. Yes, I’ve deserted myself many times over my life. I’ve abandoned my intuition, my beliefs, my values and my inner truth many times. I’ve left the love I feel within me at the door and acted like a moron in the quest of a security that could never exist anywhere but within me. I’ve clung to the cliff when all I wanted to do was jump off of it.

So, part of having someone standing by you is living in the knowledge that you are that someone too. You stand by you, you walk with you into your darkest hour. You sing love songs to you, and you adore the person you are. Someday, with a little luck and a lot of passion, the person you are in love with will stand by you too.

Don’t give up, never give up. Know with some practice that there will always be one person who will stand by you no matter what, and that is you. You are that special. As for that other person you’d love to share your life with? Well, that person is out there waiting for you. What you are searching for is searching for you. It will come. Somewhere there is someone wishing they had another person standing by them, and one day your paths will cross.

Be vulnerable. Be open. And when those paths cross for Pete’s sake embrace the moment.

If Only You Were Here

October 4, 2012 / Tom

A pink-hued sky announces the end

Of yet another day

The empty seat, the empty bed

What is there left to say?

To you…if only you were here.

We’ve walked here before

I see your footprints in the sand

I’d set the world on fire

If that was your demand

If only…if only you were here.

I sit here watching time

As I sit here wishing you were here

With your hand meshed in mine

There’d be nothing I could fear

If only…if only…you were here.

♥