Because I Love You ~ by Terri Plewa

Because I love you
as a friend
or as a lover
as The Friend
or as the Beloved,
I will give you privacy.

We blast so wide open
in LOVE.
There is a violence
in some that comes
after the blast.
A violence that says
“You must stay open to me
all the time.
You must tell me everything.
You must give me everything.”

But no.
This is not love.
This is invasion.
And when Love blasts,
so much shows up.
Maybe we don’t
want to share it all.

Know this,
Dear One,
we are under
no obligation
to share the riches
of our hearts.
We are under
no obligation.
We always have
a right to our privacy.

Love is to say,
you can have the privacy
of your Heart, Dear Love.
It is yours, yours, yours
not mine.
I love you.
I take what you choose
to give.
Each offering
a sacred treasure.

We all need
a place
to hide
sometimes.
You needn’t lock the door
of your heart.

I will not take
the treasures
of your heart
for granted.

I won’t barge in.

~Terri Plewa

Permission to share graciously granted by the author. Please visit her blog.

Chocolate childhood memories
Hints of some dark, rich future unknown
Sweet wetness melting languid
It goes down merging within
The child-woman
Touch this softness, pure white
Tactile dream that smells of clean linen
Clothesline, sun-dried
Swaddled in that reverie
The earthy scent of that wood
Where I got lost that summer
The timbre of that caliginous night
Spent alone, like every night
Of this dreamscape calliope
The rush of alchemy
Bittersweet, as life’s melting
I go down
In soft white
Like the sound of snow under boots
Touch this softness that is me
Before it melts into memory.

(c) 19 November 2011

No Expectations

Tell me whom you love

Something recycled from the interspace but cozy nevertheless.

The Rose

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose.

His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She now lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen.

I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:
A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.

"I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me; may I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what
this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She
said it was some kind of test!"

It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom. The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive.

"Tell me whom you love," Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are."

Surrender ~ SoulCollage®

Surrender
sur- means high / above / over
-render means to melt

Essentially surrendering is melting into our higher self.

I am the One who seeks to find surrender.
I am the One who surrenders to this art with exhaustive abandon. I am the One who peacefully surrenders to the mortal fang of the viper as it deals a deathblow to intangible ideas.

I give you endless frustration of trying and failing. I give you the ability to hit rock bottom and to rebound in faith and trust in your higher source.

I want you to realise the futility of spinning your wheels and swimming against the currents. I want you to surrender your expectations of yourself and of others.

You will remember when you finally wake up to the truth that you are in control of nothing other than the moment when you place your trust in the Supreme wisdom of the Divine.

Thy Will be done. ~Matthew 6:10

La petite mort

je peux toujours me souvenir...

11-11-11

"We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don't make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace."

"Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free."

~ The XIVth Dalai Lama

My dreams of perfection are the bridges that carry me into the realm of pure ideas.
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Haiku

A dream arises
Like mist from a lake at dawn
Departs in silence

I Kissed Jeff Beck...and I liked it

A few of the more faithful readers of this blog may be aware of my sincere love as well as fanatical obsession with my personal guitar god JEFF BECK! Perhaps, you might even be sick of hearing about it, but I can no longer resist the telling. I've savored the moments privately in my mind for over 24 hours now. Dreamy memories I'll always have.

Halloween night. JEFF BECK! In my home town. How magic is that? Despite my continued semi-unemployment blues we managed, by the grace of the ghost of Les Paul himself, to obtain the coveted tickets to the show this past July. Then the quiet waiting. Stuffing down the anticipation while catching reviews of preceding shows. Halloween talk is in the air. The bewitching hour arrives.

The security at the Wells Fargo Center, still affectionately called the Luther Burbank Center, is often "friendly", and the walk back to the car relatively short, so I opted to try to get the Canon through the door despite their posted policy prohibiting photographic equipment. Success as we sail by the smiling security sentinel. The atmosphere is typically wine country uptight (read $10 plastic flute bubbly - keeping me at a respectable limit of two) with a cutting edge of rock and roll fantasy and Halloween fright.

The opening act, Tyler Bryant, was a cute kid born in the era when parents named their kids Tyler and Emily (read practically a baby) put on a solid solo acoustical set. The kid must be in possession of some gigantic sized balls to share the stage with the legendary likes of JEFF BECK! And he did so entertainingly. Okay on with the show.

I don't have the set list notes and I never remember those things but there were moments I was weeping. Moments of sublime ecstasy. Even though this was my tenth grateful opportunity to see the Guv, he never fails to please or impress. I managed to get a few pictures despite the kindly usher lady tapping my shoulder once and shaking her bony finger at me and across her throat. The pictures will win no awards but there is a certain psychedelic flavour to them that suits my tastes (remember my taste for bubbly, not champagne from France, mind you, which is more to my true tastes, but decent Sonoma County "bubbly") still I post them for your enjoyment and ridicule of my photographic skills.

I call these Blur Wind 1 and 2

Classic JEFF!

Goin' Down

Flaming trails

Nope, that's not a zombie photo bomb, it's Jason Rebello, JEFF's keyboardist.

JEFF with the sexy, Goddess of Funk, bassist Rhonda Smith in witch hat. Which hat? (sorry)

This last photograph, the one in focus with moody spot lighted shadow was taken by my talented husband and date. I think these photographs may also illustrate our (sometimes) differing views on life.

I did however manage to capture a great video of JEFF performing the seraphic Nessun Dorma (translation: None Shall Sleep) one of his encore numbers. (With grateful acknowledgment to all concerned, most especially the maestro himself).



After the show, knowing from previous experience the set up for artists to exit the venue and since there was some mix up at the box office failing to locate my backstage passes, we decided to wait for JEFF to board his tour bus. After about 90 minutes, after having waited out all the other die hard fans and autograph seekers, during which time I saw a flaming comet shooting star fall from the ether, the musicians finally begin to emerge. First, the multi-talented Narada Michael Walden who took the time to say hello and exchange a few pleasantries. Then the vivacious Rhonda Smith, looking way too good and too stylish for this cow town. I think I saw her return our smile as she passed us by.

Now, I'm starting to get a little excited. I see him through the glass. He's walking towards me talking to his entourage about whether he will ride on the bus or in the van. JEFF says he's 'on the bus'. I interject, "Can I get on the bus?" JEFF turns to look at me and smiles and says "Sure", in his inimitable impish sort of way. I take his arm and we stroll toward the bus under the stars and moonlight. I hand him an envelope of stories and such I'd written for him. He teased "It's not going to blow up is it?" I reply "Of course not!" and reminded him of the story I told him when we met before about Roy Buchanan which sparked a brief look of recognition from him. Such a sweet and humble and affable man in a rascally roguish rock and roll way. I hugged him and I kissed his scruffy cheek. My only regret is that I did not get a photograph of us together. The moment passed so quickly. I didn't want to bother him more than necessary. But I have the memories of strolling in the moonlight together, and looking him in the eye, beyond the sunglass rock and roll veneer, right in his eyes and told him that I love him. And that is worth more than everything.