MsTiara’s Thoughts

Alliance
by Maya Stein

“You have to make an alliance with your anguish,” he said,
“not wage war against it.” And I thought of all the fists
I had shaken at misfortune: games lost
because the shot clock ran out,
a good meal scorched in a forgotten oven,
money dropped on a dress worn only once,
the bully in 6th grade, the math test in 9th,
the wrong outfit at Halloween.
But of course, this isn’t what he meant.

If I were brave enough, I’d tell you how my heart
has raged for love, stretched thin as a high wire.
If I were brave enough, I’d tell you
how my body has been fighting to stay upright
on every precipitous downhill the city
throws at it. If I were brave enough,
I’d climb into your lap and weep with longing.
All I can say is that any attempt at beauty and hope
is land-mined with failure.
And so the perilous track-making begins.
Wending our way through,
there are possible clutches at sunlight, at windows, at yes.
We are each of us inches from death.
We are each of us inches from life.
We are each of us inches from one another.

The most important power we have is the power to help select the lens through which we see reality - David Brooks.

Sometimes I go through life wishing I had the view point of everyone else, wouldn’t that be nice to just be able to fit in with the norm.  Other times I go through life wishing I had the great insight of the geniuses of our time, the ability to see beyond the mundane of reality and express my views in such a way that it touches everyone I come into contact with.

Each and every day we make choices, choices of who we are and what we are.

Out of the blue, his wife did a very bad thing to him and we were discussing it. Why had she done it? How could she? I said maybe there’s something you missed or forgot; some word or significant event you overlooked that triggered her selfish, cruel act. He shook his head and snapped at me, ‘No, I’m not doing that this time. I’m not going to try and search for some logical, acceptable reason because there isn’t any. What she did was wrong, that’s all: flat-out, black and white wrong. We’re always trying to find reasons to rationalize others’ awful behavior. Well, sometimes it isn’t justifiable—it’s only *bad*, pure and simple. Sometimes people are just 100% shitty and their actions prove it.’

Jonathan Carroll

From Jonathan Carroll’s blog:

An excerpt from a letter. Friends and family were discussing an extraordinary woman who, for some mysterious reason, has had only medium luck in love. Someone who knows her very well said this:

“She wants what very few people know how to give. She wants all the simple things. Not many people know how to do simple anymore. She wants grilled cheese sandwiches at home dipped in ketchup served on a paper plate, not dinner at an expensive restaurant. She wants to sit on the beach at sunset, not some far away exotic vacation. She wants a handwritten note that says I care about you, not some piece of jewelry that was financed over three years. She wants you to brush her hair, not send her to some spa for a day.

“And she wants things even simpler than that. Simple things that it seems like we have all forgotten. She wants you to hold her hand while you’re watching re-runs together on the couch. She wants you to look at her when you talk to her. So many guys have it all wrong. You think it is about where you take her and what you buy her for her birthday and for Christmas and you think it is about figuring out how her mind works. You think it is about being the best lover she ever had and you think it is about what she thinks of your career and your friends and your families and you think it is about all kinds of things that would never matter to her.

“As far as she’s concerned, you can go out with the guys as often as you like. She *wants* you to have fun and enjoy yourself. You can have a job that keeps you and calls you away from home. She wants you to be happy with your work and she wants you to succeed. You can be so-so in bed. She wants to learn your body and have you learn hers. You can be greedy and selfish and demanding from time to time. She wants to work things through with you. You can see her once a week or once a month. She just wants to make the most of the time you get together.

“What does she want? That’s what someone asked. All she wants is to be loved, simply. Just like she loves everything in her life. There is no complex formula to the way she lives. Everything for her is simple and easy because everything comes from her heart. She wants to be loved from your heart. And no one in her life has done that yet because people spend way too much time over-thinking things and over-analyzing things and doing stupid or manipulative things and finding reasons not to just love from the heart. ”

And then he got up and left. And no one said another word.

Take a moment and change perspective…

from Jonathan Carroll’s blog

“The broken guys, the sleazy creeps, the lost, the haunted, the aimless. The ones who lived like you and me once upon a time but for a million reasons left Planet Normal and now exist in an almost-touching parallel universe with its own gravity and color spectrum. Have you got a dollar, a dime, a cigarette, a light, a heart to help me–they ask, plead, demand. A hat in their lap, some of them stare at you with an extraordinary mixture of hatred and help-me in their eyes. The ones on the sidewalk or in a corner of the bustling railroad station. crouched with a hand out and their heads down, unable or unwilling to look at the world. Shakily handwritten cardboard signs on the ground in front of them. “My heart is broken. I am homeless. Will work for food.” You glance at them for a moment, maybe two. Sometimes you reach into a pocket for spare change. If they look scary or dangerous, you pick up your pace. Now and then it’s a woman. Often overweight and strangely sexless, sometimes it takes a moment to even realize it *is* a woman. Alone, these people look sullen, despondent, or dead but with a pulse. Yet when a bunch of them are standing together they are often happy and exuberant. Their mood is festive. Some of them are drunk but some not. They just seem happy being part of a group. For the moment they are among people who listen to them, people who look at them without disapproval and distrust. There is often a confidence in their eyes then. They look at you like who’s the fool now– me or you?”

Now you can go back to the world as you saw it before.

“You know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
For the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to
create.”

No baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

Baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.”

I want to write like this, the ability to sit down and capture a moment so perfectly and poignantly. A couple of strokes written on a piece of paper that changes your perspective, opens your mind, or even causes just the little bit of whimsy to bring a smile to your face.

From (of course) Jonathan Carroll’s Blog:

“You see them now and then in bookstores that have chairs. They often wear huge unkempt beards that appear to have been growing untended for years. Their clothes are often inappropriate for the season– for example they’re wearing winter getups on 80 degree days.That’s how I noticed him today– a big beard and a thick wool jacket. He was sitting in a puffy lounge chair off in a corner of the store. Several books were lying next to him and one was open in his lap. He also had a notepad out and was writing furiously in it. I guessed it was in response to whatever he was reading because he’d read a while, impatiently turning the pages. Then he’d write fast and hard in his notebook– like he had important or relevant ideas that had to be recorded right that second. Those singular loners in bookstores, prophet beards, a stack of chosen books nearby, their faces very serious, so intent on what they are doing. Whenever I see them I want to ask what it is they’re writing– their own stories, or arguments to whatever it is they’re reading? Madness or brilliance being scribbled page after page. For whom?”

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written.  My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more.”

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37.. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day.. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s,we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.”

There is a beautiful creature living
in a hole you have
dug.

so at night I set fruit and grains and little pots of wine and milk
beside your soft earthen
mounds.

and I often sing to you,
but still, my dear, you do not come out.

I have fallen in love with someone
who is hiding inside
of you.

We should talk about this problem,
otherwise I will never
leave you
alone!

“He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with time he has learned to consider the matter with great serenity. Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addresses to put on the envelopes: but he has a life to recount. And to whom, if not to her? He thinks that when they meet it will be wonderful to place the mahogany box full of letters on her lap and say to her, ‘I was waiting for you.’

“She will open the box and slowly, when she so desires, read the letters one by one. As she works her way back up the interminable thread of blue ink she will gather up the years– the days, the moments– that that man, before he ever met her, had already given to her. Or perhaps more simply, she will overturn the box and astonished at that comical snowstorm of letters, she will smile, saying to that man, ‘You are mad.’ And she will love him forever.”

– Alessandro Baricco