Still, I Fall

Black is the color

of my true love’s hair

His face is like

A rose so fair

He’s got the sweetest face

And the strongest hands

I love the ground

Whereon he stands…

~ Black is the Color

Irish Folk Song (modified for “him”)

Ah, Amore!  The agony.  The joy!  The blush of new love, the rush of romance; thinking of your beloved each moment of the day, imagining his hands touching every part of your body; anxiously awaiting the next conversation, the next kiss.  Falling in love is the easy part—any fool can do it—but staying in love, I think, calls us to fall in love again and again over the lifetime of our togetherness.   

I want to remember it all—each moment of awareness, each insight into his depth, each time my heart breaks open, just a bit wider, softened by the light of what’s real and true and vulnerable between us.  Like these five moments that pulled me in a little deeper, reminding me why I fell for my sweetheart; f-a-l-l-i-n-g in love all over again.

1. It’s both.  When he met my Grandmother I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  But there he sat, knee-to-knee with the matriarch of our family, as she fired off question after question in her gentle, southern way.  “What do you do for a living?” “How long have you two been courting?” “Who are your people and will we like them?”  He answered each question with patience and care, and when she asked, “Is this a real thing or a play thing?”  He responded, “It’s both!”  Yes, he was serious about our relationship, he told her, but we also played and had a lot of fun together too.  Hearing this, my 80-something Grandmother took his hands in hers and just laughed and laughed. I. Fell. Madly. Deeply.

2.  Bald for a cause.  A participant with St. Baldrick’s Foundation, my sweetheart has been shaving his head to raise money for child cancer research for more than seven years.  This year he will be anointed a Knight of the Bald Table for his many years of service.  I love his philanthropic nature. I’ve known this about him since we first met while volunteering at Children’s Hospital.  But last spring as I watched him on stage getting his head shaved before a cheering crowd of friends and supporters, he glowed.  In that moment I understood what my friend Jenna meant when she described another as being made of “wind and light.”  He was.  It made me love him more.

3.  Minding the mundane.  We had big snow that day so I worked from home.  But under pressure of a big deadline at work, he ventured down the canyon in the dark of morning where he stayed all day.  Yet, after a tiring day at work, traveling in hazardous conditions, he stopped at the market for groceries and picked up dinner before heading back home.  As he helped me unpack the shopping bags, stocking our fridge with fresh organic produce, my heart melted in adoration for the Man who takes such good care of me. They say, in love, we each feel like we're the lucky one. I knew that I was. He minds the mundane with a patient and glad heart. I will never take that for granted. 

4.  Spooning the Furry.  I heard him in the bedroom one Saturday morning, speaking in low tones.  I thought he might be on the phone.  I had been in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast and as I started towards the bedroom I saw them together, lying on the floor spooning.  “You’re such a good doggie,” he said, stroking the Furry’s head; “We love you so much.”  The dog was in bliss! I stood there watching them, bathed in sunlight from the open window, just hanging out together, until he saw me in the doorway and gave me a smile. I thought my heart would break.

5.  The brightest light.  For our first married Christmas together, I found a fabulous tree.  I had been busy that day decorating and making the house more festive when he took off for town.  He returned a while later with excitement.  “Look what I found,” he said, unpacking his shopping bags and lining the counter with two-dozen soft white LED candles.  Then he carefully placed one in each window of the house, even the super high windows close to the top of the cathedral ceiling in the living room that required a ladder to reach.  As I watched him move about with enthusiasm, to me, he was the brightest light of all.  I could not have loved him more.  Or could I?

Day by day, in a thousand ways, still, I fall…

Conspiracy of Love

Blessed is the season,

which engages the whole world

in a conspiracy of love. 

~Hamilton Wright Mabie

Can you feel it—the warm fuzzy glow of good cheer building from the first turkey dinner, jingle-belled advertisement and beautifully wrapped vision of holiday bliss, and reaching a crescendo as we join our families and friends to celebrate the season?  Giddy with the holiday spirit, we’re just a little more kind and a little more forgiving as we move through the days filled with anticipation of . . .

Of what?  What are we looking forward to?  What are we expecting?  What do we really want? 

Kids seem to know with surprising clarity.  “I want an American Girl doll!” “I want a new bike!” “I want chocolate chip cookies!” “I WANT MY MOMMY!”  But how many of these wants are truly needs?  Do they even recognize the difference?  Rarely.  In watching kids flit from one toy to the next we see right through their fly-by-night passions, reaching for this and grabbing for that. 

We forget that adults are not so different, except that we use these long, detailed explanations to rationalize our dubious choices, cleverly disguising the pretenses of our decisions even from ourselves sometimes.  We reach for this and long for that then reach for something else.  Sometimes we get what we want.  And sometimes we reach for what we think we really want only to get it and later discover that it wasn’t so great after all.  Maybe things have changed since we began wanting what we want and we find that it’s no longer relevant when it arrives.  And sometimes when we don’t get what we want it makes us want it even more; an unrequited passion not so easily extinguished.  But how much of what we say we want do we truly need?

Perhaps at the root of every desire is a basic longing—to connect, to love, to be at peace; the hunt for comfort and joy.  Remember this as you move through Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and look for ways to connect with the root of your longing.   

Try this: 

1. Volunteer!  Get out of yourself and give back to your community!  As Rumi says, there are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

2. Keep it real!  No holiday is perfect and few celebrations rarely resemble the cozy gatherings depicted in commercials and our favorite programs on television.  If your family dynamic has changed or tradition is too hard to satisfy, don’t be afraid to do things a little different each year! Get rid of the pressure!

3. Take some time for yourself!  Give the gift of your presence.  You can’t be there for others in any real way if you’re not there for yourself so slow down, take a nap, read a book, get a massage, and take some time to reflect on where you’ve been, where you’re going and what you’re thankful for.

4. Remember what’s important.  It’s easy to lose sight of why we’re doing what we’re doing when we’re so busy baking and buying and wrapping and coming and going.  Take some time to connect with the real reason for the season.

Succumb to the conspiracy of love and you just might find that what you’re looking for has been with you all along.

P.S.  Thanks for sharing the quote Mom!

LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

Why would you give your precious life energy . . .

to something you [don’t] want?

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

The Road Less Traveled
Connemara Region, Ireland © 2013 MHopkins

While learning to ride her motorcycle, my mother decided to practice in their neighborhood.  Having made the loop, she topped the hill and came to a stop, preparing to make a left turn.  That’s when she saw it—the neighbor’s mailbox just across the way—and though she tried not to look at the mailbox and, instead, focus on the road before her, as she turned left, eyes still on the mailbox, she veered off course and crashed…into the neighbor’s mailbox; the very thing she wanted to avoid.

There is a golden rule of motorcycle riding that says “look where you want to go.”  Though she knew it in theory, my mother learned this the hard way.  There are many long and complicated theoretical reasons why this rule of riding might be true, but none that make any real sense except the idea of target fixation, which says, in essence, that what you focus on expands. 

And so it is in our every day lives.  How often do we repeat some aspect of the past or dwell on the negative parts of our situation and then find ourselves faced with more of what we don’t want, instead of giving attention to what we would most like to create and then taking small steps each day to make that vision our reality?  Maybe we’re unhappy in our relationship or we dislike our job or we don’t like the extra weight we’re carrying around like a spare tire, yet instead of creating a positive plan of how to get from here to there we focus in on what we don’t like, complaining or feeling sorry for ourselves, repeating the same bad habits, or avoiding the discomfort of change, and so we keep driving our proverbial motorcycles around and crashing into the same mailboxes. 

It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time.

Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive

and you have the power to choose either.

~Wayne Dyer

Choice is the essence of our free will, and it is through our choices that we direct the course of our lives.  While we may disagree with the actions of others and even dislike our own circumstances, we have the right, power and opportunity to make choices every day—the attitude we adopt, how we respond to the world around us, where we place our attention, the thoughts we entertain, what we take responsibility for, the meaning we give to the events of our lives, and what or to whom we give our power.  It’s all energy, and the lightness or heaviness of that energy determines much about our physical, mental and spiritual health. 

Take another look down the road you're traveling.  Do you really want to go there?

Dogs Never Lie

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

~ W.H. Auden

Madison would be freaking out right now if she were here to see this flood.  She would be tempted to get in the creek but she would hesitate; tuned into the water’s raging energy; connected to the heightened turmoil around her.  She was sensitive like that; dialed in before others even knew. 

 

Like the time she made a big fuss of dragging her blanket and pillow around to my side of the bed so she could sleep next to me.  I noticed the change right away, and I wondered out loud if perhaps I had cancer, or some terrible malaise, because I had heard about dogs that can sense these things.  A few days later I learned that I was pregnant.  She continued to drag her bed around to my side for weeks until one day she didn’t; and, again, I wondered out loud if everything was okay with the baby.  A few days later I miscarried.  She didn’t drag her bed around to my side after that, but she stayed close and loved me through my tears.

 

One time she charged to the edge of the yard and scared the dickens out of our neighbor.  She could be intimidating with her stocky frame—almost 100 pounds and mostly muscle—but Madison just wanted to say hello.  We knew her approach could use some work; still, she went too far that time and she knew better, so when her daddy scolded her bad choice she put herself in time-out; cowering on the little mat in front of the soaking tub in the master bath, shaking and shivering in her remorse.  She wanted to do right, she really wanted to do right, and it killed her to think that she had disappointed us.

 

But she could never really disappoint us, not for long anyway.  No matter the infraction, just one look at her cute little mug and soon we were laughing at her heartfelt expressions.  She could be a real drama queen sometimes.  Mostly, we just loved her and cherished every minute we shared. 

 

Before I came along she was her daddy’s best friend, but she welcomed me with loving paws and big wet kisses.  She even let me paint her toenails in my favorite shades –“Party-in-my-Cabana” pink for the summer and “Fa-La-La-Luscious” for the holidays.  From the way she watched me beautify, I imagined that she secretly wanted to join me in my primping.  And when she walked down the aisle as the honorary ring bearer for our New Year’s Eve nuptials, wearing a big red flower behind her ear, I couldn’t have loved her more if I had given birth to her myself.  I hope she knew that.

 

When she left her condo in the city for mountain dwelling, we teased that she was living the high life in her new retirement home.  More than bacon and eggs—more than anything—she loved being outdoors, and she moved freely between meditations in the sun, chasing sticks and mindless rambling by the creek.  Madison taught me so much about living, about the joy of routine and unconditional love, about seizing each moment and never being afraid to ask for what you want.   I envied her life.

 

Sometimes I still hear the tap of her nails on the hardwood floors and I turn to call her name.  Then I remember.  But like the whispering wind that moves the trees and urges the water downstream, we’ll carry her loving spirit in our hearts forever. 

______________________________

Photos by Lori Kennedy Photography.  (c) 2012 Lori Kennedy.  www.lorikennedy.co

 

An Unlikely Pair

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

~Abraham Lincoln

“You listen here girl, I don’t know what kind of little lawyer games you think you’re playing, but you’re running with the big boys now!”   He boomed through the phone in response to my letter requesting that he produce certain documents to support our client’s deal.  Red-rage raced through my body, from the scalp down, touching my ears, and setting my chest on fire.  How dare he speak to me this way, this two-bit, good old boy lawyer!

Only two years out of law school, I had been thrown into the fire with this deal to help my client purchase a restaurant and nightclub from a well-known business owner represented by none other than this J. Don Ridell, Esquire, now on the phone yelling at me!  What I wanted to do was rip that guy a new one!  Jump up and down and pound him on the head; tell him that I was a lawyer just the same as he and defend my right to vigorously represent my client. 

Perhaps because we didn’t have the luxury of time to dicker over such trivial things, and I didn’t want to get fired, somehow, I found the will to simply restate my request.  “No games here.  My client wants to buy your client’s business and they want to close fast.  Now my guy wants me to give this deal my blessing and I’m not going to do it until you turn over those stock certificates and the corporate books.”  Click.  He hung up on me. 

I seethed.  I knew I wasn’t over-lawyering this stock purchase.  If anything I wanted to slam on the breaks, take our time; what’s the rush?  But they had an agenda and I knew I would be committing malpractice if I didn’t do some basic due diligence.  So I stuck to my guns and called my client to tell him where we stood. 

An hour later Mr. Ridell begrudgingly called back and told us to be at his office by noon.  I had heard stories of this J. Don Ridell and other rogue lawyers who had had the run of the place long before it became a resort town with high-rise condominiums, nightclubs and top law firms.  A criminal lawyer by trade, he was stepping up to handle a stock purchase for his best client, but until that moment I had never met him or had any dealings with him.  Intimidated, I packed my briefcase and headed to his office.

I saw his boots first, wingtip leather all shined up with some fancy studs on them; and as my eyes traveled up to the top of his six foot-five head, I saw his jeans with matching studded belt buckle and bolo tie—the consummate cowboy, this one—made evermore complete by a headful of white hair and small strips of surgical tape in the corners of both eyes supported by bruised, swollen pockets beneath.  I relaxed a little, breathed deep, somehow comforted by the idea that this big bad man had just had a little cosmetic surgery.  He sized me up in my expensive little lawyer suit and off we went to his conference room, with barely a word between us.

As it turned out, his client didn’t own the stock after all because he had transferred it all to his 20-some grandchildren who were scattered, along with the stock certificates, all over the country.  We wouldn’t be closing any time soon, that was certain, but for the first time, appearances and judgments aside, we began working together to make this deal happen.  

Later, we walked downtown to discuss pay-off of the business loans with the bank, only to return to a locked office.  Brilliant!  What now?  My briefcase and car keys were inside, so I had to stick around and help him break into this one-story-brick-ranch-styled-home-turned-office.  Sure, the ice had thawed between us that afternoon, but I wasn’t prepared to shove his Wrangler-wearing butt through the conference room window.  

There he was, stuck and distressed, bossing me around from that awkward bent-at-the waist-crunch position he was sort of hanging in with one leg touching the office floor and the other bent at the knee, jammed in the window sill by that wingtip boot.  I tried to contain myself but soon lost control to my laughter.  I was laughing so hard and crying and pretty much useless to help this guy.  Then he started laughing too…and farting…there, stuck in the window, which made me laugh even harder; him too.  Yet something in his jolly laughter dislodged him from the window and he fell to the conference room floor.  Within minutes I was in the office collecting my things and thanking him for an interesting afternoon.

We closed the deal—everyone was happy—and a real fondness had grown between Mr. Ridell and me in the process.  But I never saw him again until the year that I served as president of the local bar association, hosting an event for our judges and winding up my tenure there.  He made me cry with his compliment, he actually praised my mind and told me that working with me on that deal had changed him.  He apologized for being such a jerk.

This fabulously crazy encounter between a cowboy barrister and a little lawyer girl became one of my great lessons, again reminded that things are not always as they seem.  We think people are one way and they turn out to be quite different.  We make quick judgments based on superficial things and think we know all there is to know about each other, but we don’t.  Yet if we’re open and willing to be surprised, and laugh at our differences, we just might find ourselves part of an unlikely pair.

____________

** Names have been changed.

Don't Forget the Whiskey Whore

I had an inheritance from my [grand]father,

It was the moon and the sun.

And though I roam all over the world,

the spending of it is never done. 

~Ernest Hemmingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

(Artwork by A.L. Childress - year of creation unknown)

My friend Tim took one look at her hanging on my wall and said in his most dramatic, southern drawl, “Well she’s nothing but a whiskey whore…” summing up the scantily clad woman reclined against the sofa with a half-empty bottle of booze on the floor in front of her; and so she became known around our house.  But to my grandfather, she was an erotic gem; painted on a canvas torn from an old World War II military jeep and hidden beneath a bland landscape painted in gray, given to my grandfather as collateral for a $2 loan he made to the artist after the war. 

For years the Whiskey Whore had been concealed beneath that drab landscape, stashed in the basement of my grandfather’s house.  Then one day as we discussed art, I confided that many pieces in my personal collection were erotically inspired from cultures around the world.  He couldn’t resist the temptation to share his secret.  “There’s an erotic painting under there…” he whispered, pointing to the dull gray landscape.  I was certain that I had misunderstood. 

But I hadn’t.  Eager to share his treasure, my grandfather had placed the framed painting face down on the table and removed the back with a screwdriver, gently pulling the layers of canvas apart to reveal the vibrant Whiskey Whore underneath what appeared to be so dull and lifeless.  That’s when he told me the story of how he had won her by default for an unpaid debt.

He gave me the painting that day; he made me carry it out the back door, up the hill and round the house to my car so that my grandmother wouldn’t see.  But she had been looking out the kitchen window as I schlepped through the yard with the painting tucked under my arm and she knew straight away what I was hiding.  A bit of drama followed:  “Why Karl Mason!  What kind of grandfather gives a painting like that to his granddaughter?  I’ve never heard of such!”  Grandpa calmed her down as only he could while I quietly placed the painting in my car.  We never discussed it again.

Yet this controversial work of art has become so much more to me than paint on canvas.  It reminds me of the many layers of life waiting to be revealed—the vibrant colors of the soul—and the gentle wisdom my grandfather shared with me so freely in the time we spent together.  And though I’ve traveled the world and discovered my own great fortunes, this simple painting on tattered canvas hangs above our fireplace as a gentle reminder of the depth and breadth that is life.

It has also become a metaphor for remembering what matters most—is it the painting or the story behind the painting?  As my sweetheart reminds me from time-to-time when I get caught up in the chaos of life:  Don’t forget the Whiskey Whore!