In the Time of Love and Corona

I caved and bought the complete “Murder, She Wrote” series on Amazon, and the four-movie set on ebay. When in times of great stress, I turn on the easy-watching T.V. shows. In the end, you know the mystery will be solved. Or in the case of The Dick Van Dyke Show, that no matter what shenanigans Rob and Laura get up to, no matter what fights they get into, they are going to be ok.

The real champion of soothing television right now is The Repair Shop. It’s so pleasant. Nobody is mean. People have beloved treasures and skilled artisans lovingly restore them. The people bring in their ancient teddy bear, Victrola, sled, you name it. They bring it. They leave it, a little worried usually, in the hands of The Repair Shop. Then they come back and get the unveiling of their restored family treasure. It’s perfect T.V. for such a stressful time.

One thing I wonder is how single people who are falling in love are faring in their mostly virtual worlds.

I wonder how marital partners who were having some trouble before all of this are faring. Healing? Growing further apart?

I have seen a lot of gardens growing, home renovations, and side-projects pop up all over my friend’s feeds.

What are you growing? What are you letting go of?

Love is Complicated

I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Beyonce and Jay-Z for opening up their personal marital struggles to the world. So often we look at celebrities and we only see the money and the beauty without the struggles the rest of us seem to face. They are breaking down those barriers by talking about stuff that is, well frankly, freaking embarrassing as hell. Being cheated on. Breaking vows. Giving in to baser desires and hurting your loved ones. This is deep stuff we are all looking at here with the release of Jay-Z’s 4:44.

Quiet a Spectacle

I will hold you, quietly. I can be still long enough to listen to your pain. I’m not good at being still. You know this. You know. I think that’s why my embracing still moments mean so much to you … because you know.

I had an epiphany about myself yesterday. A realization. And it was such a simple answer, I was certain I must have realized it some time in the past. I thought about the times I’d been embraced by somebody, only for them to get close long enough to see my utter humaneness, and then walk away. I thought this meant I was bad at love. Now I realize it’s more about the ideal of me not matching up with the reality of me. And you never did that to me. You always understood. It’s amazing to be truly seen that way.

The essence of it all? You understand why the things that matter to me–matter to me. You also understand that I am an embodiment of celebration. Even my quietness can be a spectacle. I think that comes off like obsession, or possessiveness, to some people. And in all truth, I was possessive in my first marriage. I was jealous in that life I once led. I was a teenager when we met. And that was a difficult twenty years. I grew in that time, particularly starting around my early thirties. I know the difference between excitement and jealousy, between celebration and possession. I know it for myself, even if others don’t. And you know, maybe that’s why I can appreciate the abundant trust I am now the recipient of, because I know how rare it is.

I’m trying to get over that fear of being misunderstood. You really help with that, did you know? Because even though I’ve read that Anaïs Nin quote a million times, it really sunk in yesterday. It isn’t that my love is wrong, it’s that my love is viewed through the filter of others. It’s about the way they experience my love that makes it work, or not work. Its about their past relationships and what they learned.

Maybe at some point I can stop writing and vlogging about being afraid to be misunderstood, and that will be the measure of when I am cured of that concern.

 

Whisper to the Wind

Sometimes I say it here, whatever it is. It’s a whisper into the wind that maybe catches an ear or two. It’s of no real consequence. Ok, maybe it’s of little consequence, but only to me. But I need to…well, at least I find it helpful to, write things down. Helps me work it all out, ya know?

I wonder about words like “whore” and “wrong.” About what the measure of success is. Where the concepts of grief and jealousy came from. Is grief learned? Or is it born into the ancient parts of our brains? Jealousy feels so primal, like it’s hardwired into our DNA, unless you’re one of those miraculous people who does not suffer at the gaping maw of jealousy. People who don’t watch themselves aging and wondering if it matters enough to try and recapture youth, or just let things happen naturally. If you do fight it, what exactly are you fighting? Being seen as old? Losing your sex appeal? Sex and love is for everybody – not just for the young and thin among us.

It was an up-down sort of night. Emotions were observed, like cards in  a deck. Choir singing, lost friends, found adventures. Smiles and stories from the young and old alike.  Laughing friends. Storytellers. Moments my heart listened to – either for the better, or the funny little hurts that inform it.

I’m so sleepy. Going to try and go to bed now. Off you go, whispers–see if you can find an ear.

 

The Origin of the Sacred

He climbs onto the bed and lays his head on my lap. He says, “Here I am at the origin of the world. I don’t understand why women are not considered innately sacred in our society.”

 

Juicy Peach

“They had apples. Honeycrisp. Some other kind, too…I forget what–well, they’re all new apples.”

I smiled. “Thanks.” It was the closest I would get to the market that day. I love choosing my fruit and veggies from the farmers who grew them. The dried mud on a mound of small potatoes, flaking off around the little crate that contained them. The weight of a fat tomato in my hand. The smell of a bundle of herbs. Feeling like a Duchess as I peer at each package, choosing which would serve me best. But I wasn’t feeling my best that day, so he went alone. He delivered, though–Honeycrisp is my favorite. Pink Lady, second.

“I got some peaches, too.”

“Ohhhh.” I tiptoed to the kitchen to peer inside the bag. There they were, three perfect peaches.

I selected my favorite, though they all looked lovely. I turned around and let water run over it, washing the fuzzy skin gently. I gave her a little rub with the dishtowel on the counter, to dry her off. I put the fruit to my nose and inhaled, to my satisfaction it was delightfully fragrant. I bit into the fruit, grabbing  a paper towel to catch the juices. Sweet, wet, divine–the last taste of summer.

“This peach is perfect. Come have a bite.”

He poked his head into the hallway, peering at me standing near the sink. Eyebrows up, “Well, alright.”

I watched him take the four paces to me. His light brown hair in want of a trim. His green tee making his eyes more green than ever. His eyes are magic that way, pulling green, light brown, or hazel–depending on the shirt.

I held the peach up, about breast high. He stood in front of me for a beat and looked at the peach, put both of his hands around my hand, cupping it from beneath and raised the peach to his mouth. He looked me in the eye as he bit into the flesh, I was transfixed. Any words that had begun their journey to my mouth were halted in their tracks as I watched him take another bite, his eyes locked with mine. Juice running down our hands. I forgot the paper towel in my other hand. I forgot that I could look away, if I wanted to.

He released my hand, smiled and chewed, still looking me in the eyes. I felt a chain of electrical tingles run down my spine, then back up again. He made a sound that indicated the peach was, indeed, as perfect as reported. He then turned and walked back into the bedroom to sort books, and fold laundry. I enjoyed watching the back of him as he went. I stared at the space where he stood as I finished the peach in four bites, then made my way to the bedroom as well.

The Choice You Make – Sensual Sunday

I don’t know if I would undo it if I could. Your shirts are here. And your toothbrush with the fancy nubby side. I actually folded socks today (not my specialty). They weren’t mine. That’s how you know I care.

When you lift your head and put your feet on the cold hard floor, I swoop in and grab your favorite pillow, hook my arm around it and pull it in tight. I watch your naked back bend forward, the valley of your spine is perfect and I reach out and run a finger down.

You wipe the sleep and look over your shoulder, peeking through a mop of messy hair.

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“Me too.”

It doesn’t matter who said which, because we trade off these sentences, depending on what day it is.

I don’t know what force on this earth got to decide what love is or how it manifests, but I know what it is for me. Love is in the Don McLean song that crackles out the same line every morning, “The auctioneer saaaaaaaaid, I’m not through yet…” from your alarm clock. Love is around the edges of your iris, where light brown gives way to hazel. Love is in scrambled eggs and toast next to the window, on a single plate with two forks.

“I like ketchup on mine, do you?”

And now, even after what happened, we’re still here and maybe a little less sorry about it than the two years that followed, because love can also be an opportunity to choose somebody every day. We keep making that choice. I can’t undo it, so I will take solace in this.

 

 

How Love Grows

The tenderness that comes from the mercies we grant, and the pain we bear, and the wounds we salve, will make us more bonded for the trouble.

My Worth

There is a place. I am better there. Golden, and moonbeams shoot from my fingertips. I am right, but not the way you think I mean. Right like ocean waves. Right like an old book that hasn’t been opened in years. Right like ink-stained fingertips gripping and rubbing the linen until it’s perfect. There are truths in me that reveal themselves before I know their value. In anger, perhaps. Or fear. Today somebody wise said to me, “Pain is instructional.” And he is the center of that thought. He is the place I am right. From a pink hair on top of my head … or a grey one, to my heel, standing on a hard cold floor, waiting. And I will wait until the answers come. Until I know my worth. Until my voice is as loud as I need it to be to know that what I have done matters.

Reading in Baltimore – 3 and 4 of 4

These are excerpts from the book Red August, by H.L. Brooks – read by actors Erica Smith and Will Hardy. It is available at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Nobel and iBooks, among other places. Links can be found at http://www.hlbrooks.com

In this scene Red/August has been meeting her handsome neighbor near the stream that runs down their properties. They read books and discuss them.

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This reading took place at Scarborough Fair Bed & Breakfast in Baltimore, Maryland.

http://www.scarboroughfairbandb.com/

*This is an abridged version meant to be read out loud.

Book Synopsis

What if you found out that you were descended from a long line of clandestine fighters, and that your family was still at war? Or that the love of your life was something other than human? August Archer thinks she’s a normal teenage girl—even though she has been having disturbing and erotic dreams about wolves lately. Still grieving over the loss of her bookish, charming father, and wondering over his final gift of a red hooded cloak, August is uprooted from her New York City apartment to a tiny town in Maryland, and the rambling Victorian house where he grew up. There she meets a wise woman with a gift for herbal medicine, the gentle old man who keeps the house in repair and the grounds thriving, and her new neighbor: an enigmatic, irresistibly fascinating man who refuses to talk to her, yet who seems to know her better than she knows herself, and fuels her most intense romantic fantasies. But it’s when August begins to coax her feisty Scottish grandmother out of her self-imposed catatonia that a strange tale of werewolves and hunters emerges—one in which the man of her dreams may be her family’s oldest enemy—in this modern-day telling of the Red Riding Hood story.