"I'm so happy to be with you." ~ Early Morning Thoughts

I have written about and thought about and prayed about two people that I have never even met - but they have impacted my life and I am sure the lives of many others. They have done this by being completely open and honest about what it going on in their lives. I'm speaking of Yen and Jesse of Two Lucky People.

Their love has been such an inspiration - regardless of your orientation. As I have said, it stands as a monument to the truth AND the power of love.

Yen wrote in February that: "When hope to rekindle memories starts to wane, when your lover is changing, deteriorating, it becomes a challenge to keep loving. Every day is a lesson in patient loving. Every day you relearn how to love again."

And it's that relearning to love again I mentioned before. There are three stages of Love. The first is the infatuation, the second is the romance. The third and most difficult is love - because that is a conscious choice. You can't go to a mall and find a store for it, or get it from an email. Love is a choice. Sometimes the three stages blend, and we can move between them almost instantaneously, but in the end - it is the conscious love of two people that seems to hold everything together.

As I have said before, they epitomize to me the power of the wedding vows that people seem to take so casually today. These very old words, that seem so old fashioned carry tremendous power - and truth.

I take thee ... to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish ...

To my mind, that should cover a true love relationship. And, each part requires choice - better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and health - to love and cherish. This is from Yen's latest post:

This cancer continues to pick at our lives like a vulture.

At home, Jesse is in constant discomfort. He eats like a bird, yet vomits bagfuls every night. Walking down a block is impossible. Whether in the day, or at night, he drifts in and out of sleep, in a cycle of painkillers.

I wonder if there isn’t a moment that he wakes up, and for a few seconds, forgets that he is dying.

For the survivor, forgetting is a difficult conundrum. In wanting to capture every moment, what one recalls in searing detail only renders the loss more acute. Though love and pain make poor partners, each is inextricably twined with the other. Love gives pain comfort. The latter legitimizes the former.

How do we forget one without the other?

I cried hard today in the town car on the way back from the hospital. It did not last long, probably for less than a minute. The tears stopped as suddenly as they had come. It happened soon after we got into the car, when Jesse took my hand and said to me: “I am so happy to be with you.”

Hopefully, you will read the entire post for all that was said, but the wonder of their love shines as a beacon during this very dark time. It was during all this time I realized just how much of an illustration of the vows these two humble people are.

I spent much of the afternoon and evening grieving for them and with them. It started with the title of the post: Love to pain: Don’t forget me...

Jesse summed it up in one sentence: "I'm so happy to be with you."

Once again, (as I looked at what would be a lover's side of the bed covered with magazines) I want that kind of love. A conscious choice - that no matter what we would carry on...until it was time for the last part of the vows - till death do us part.

But I also want what is right...and for now, it's better for me to be alone for the right reasons - than with someone for the wrong reasons. I'm not sure I've mentioned this before - but someone in England wrote me one time that they were not looking for someone to go out with - they were looking for someone to come home to.

As I looked back over the vows, I realized that there is a part of them that means: in the long run - shouldn't we do that with everyone we care about? What a change that would make...personally.

As usual when I'm upset or grieving, I turn to poets who can say things much better than I can manage.

Full Consciousness

You are carrying me, full consciousness, god that has desires,
all through the world.
Here, in the third sea,
I almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,
filling entirely all movements;
eternal colors and eternal lights,
sea colors and sea lights.

Your voice of white fire
in the universe of water, the ship, the sky,
marking out the roads with delight,
engraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:
a black body
with the glowing diamond in its center.
--Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)

Oceans

I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...

--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
--Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958)


--exchanging vows miniature by David Gregory
www.grime.net/dive/miniatures.html
--crashing waves 1 by Mark Henspeter
www.markhenspeter.com/index.php?showimage=209

And In A Flash ~ Early Morning Thoughts

I discovered a type of writing called flash fiction. (if that's the wrong title, hopefully someone will let me know.) It requires some pretty impressive skills as you have to accomplish your story with the least amount of words possible. I have tried my hand at it, and it is very difficult to do. I have no idea where it started. In one of my classes in college we had to do stories using only one sheet of legal pad paper, but I don't think flash is related to that, as the amount of words authors use varies.

This is one of those cases where I was on my way to somewhere else (which can be dangerous) and ran across these two short tales, that I believe are flash fiction. They continued to stay with me the entire day, and I decided that I would share them.

Wrong Number

She stepped outside, equipped, if needed, with the lame pretense of retrieving something from the car. She walked leisurely, stopping to admire a flower, pull at an imaginary weed, rub the shaggy yellow head of her sweet mutt Roscoe, the more faithful male in her life.

Through the bedroom window she could see him, casually dialing the phone. He glanced once in her direction, or maybe not at all.

Good, she thought. Standing parallel with the dogwood tree is the perfect cover.

He hung up, looked down at the crinkled slip of paper in the palm of his hand and dialed again.

He's calling that—woman, she concluded, resigning herself to the familiar pain and fear usurping her stomach.

She saw his mouth moving as he shook his head and replaced the receiver onto its cradle. Looking again into his hand, he made a quick fist, then re-assigned it to his pocket.

They entered the kitchen at the same time. Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he sat at the table with a smile.

"Guess I'll stick around tonight, if that's okay. My brother wasn't home, must of forgot," he explained. He awkwardly fidgeted with something in his pocket, then laid his empty hand on hers.

Only then did she breathe again.

"Sure," she chirped, trying hard not to show her happiness, or uneasiness, or guilt.

"Want something to eat?" she busied herself in the pantry.

Deep breaths she told herself. You've won, don't be a wuss about it. Concentrate. Don't cry!

Standing straight, she blinked back the tears, swallowed the lump in her throat, lowered the neckline of her blouse.

He's mine tonight, she smiled as she fluffed her hair and reached for the ingredients of his favorite dinner, ashamed but grateful at what changing one digit could do.
---Elaine Drennon

Nero Caesar

He's an ugly little bugger. His chalky silhouette leaps from the red brick behind the mantle. Lyre in hand, he stares. Greg feels him, knows he's staring.

"You want some more wine?" Harry asks.

"I'm good," Greg says. "Why him?"

"Why who?" Harry answers, playing the twenty question game Greg offers.

"Nero," Greg says.

Greg thinks he's a pro. His style is smooth and unrehearsed. Harry likes to be daddy. Greg knows the schoolboy approach will boost the tip. He presses the glass to his lips, curls them in a slight smile and winks at Harry.

"Nero was my kind of fag," Harry says.

"Why is that?" Greg shifts to a more reclined position and takes off his shoes.

"He was openly queer and in charge of Rome," Harry says. "On his wedding night, he dressed as a woman and consummated his nuptials in public. He was brash, daring and everything I'm not." Harry runs his fingers through his gray hair and gives Greg a visual once over.

"How did his story end?" Greg tilts his head to expose more of his slender neck. He knows that it drives Harry wild. He looks again at the little statue, feeling a chill as he connects with the sightless eyes.

Harry has Greg over when his wife visits the grandchildren. It's the same every time. One night costs a thousand bucks, plus a tip. Greg is discreet, clean and looks like Harry's oldest boy.

"His own Praetorian Guard did him in," Harry says.

"Being queer has its drawbacks," Greg says. He pulls the tiny bag of cocaine out of his pocket, reaches in to draw out a small portion with a fingernail and takes a bump. He rubs the remainder over his teeth and gums. Harry frowns.

"He was killed because he was a lousy ruler," Harry says. "I wish you wouldn't do that here."

"It's performance enhancement," Greg replies. "Anyway, you like it when I'm a naughty boy."

"Don't give me any lip," Harry says and then smiles.

Harry leans over and begins to rub the inside of Greg's thigh. Greg sets his wine glass down on the coffee table and works his way into the corner of the couch. Greg's not gay, but he needs the money to keep the juice coming. He looks again at the statue. Somehow, he thinks, that little bastard secretly nods in approval.

"What are you thinking about?" Harry asks.

"You, of course," Greg lies.

Harry turns the lamp off. Greg can see the silhouette in the darkness. Nero is still peeking, Greg thinks. Greg is resigned to having an audience. Assassination or uncontrollable hepatitis, dead is dead. Greg and Nero have something in common.

Only Harry hasn't made the connection. He will soon enough. Greg reaches down and unbuckles Harry's belt. A job's a job and he never really bought into the wages of sin anyway. In the darkness, Greg winks at Nero Caesar.

He's almost positive that the little bastard winked back.
---Bill Turner

Another Triplet ~ Early Morning Thoughts

This weekend spent at D&D's was interesting, enjoyable (mostly) and somewhat thought provoking. I'll share more tomorrow, but while there I ran across these three stories, that had quite a bit to do with the weekend - and I wanted to share them. Unfortunately, I could find no authors for the tales.

--------

One night three horsemen were riding across the desert. When they came to the dry bed of a river a voice came out of the darkness, and said, "Halt!"

The men obeyed the command of the hidden voice. the voice then said, "You have done as I commanded. Now get off your horses, pick up a handful of pebbles, put the pebbles in your pockets, remount your horses, and continue on your journey." The the voice added, "Since you have done as I commanded, tomorrow at sunrise you will be both glad and sorry that you obeyed me."


Mystified, the three horsemen rode on through the night. when the sun arose the horsemen reached into their pockets and found that a miracle had happened. the pebbles in their pockets had been transformed into magnificent diamonds, rubies and other precious stones. They remembered the warning, that they would be both glad and sorry; glad that they had taken some pebbles, sorry that they had not taken more.

-------

A spider built his web in a barn, high up among the rafters, where he started by spinning along think thread attached to the end of one of the beams. With this thread still attached to him, the spider jumped off the beam and spun out more thread on the way down, until he reached the place he planned as the center of his web. From the center he then spun out other threads like the spokes of a wheel, attaching each of them to the walls and other places. finally he had an exquisitely made web, that helped him catch many fine fat flies. but he grew fat and lazy and vain.

One day he was admiring the web he had spun and he noticed the long fine thread he had first spun from the top beam and said, "I wonder what that is for? I can't imagine why I ever put it there -- it doesn't catch any flies."

And so on a sudden impulse he broke it. but as a result, the whole wonderful web collapsed. The spider had forgotten that the one thread -- the link to the beam -- supported the whole web.

-------

A series of reverses had deprived him of money, possessions and finally of self-respect. He turned despairingly to begging -- extending an unsure hand with a few pencils in it at subways stations in downtown Manhattan.

One day an elderly banker dropped a quarter in the beggar's trembling hand, turned to go, hesitated and then wheeled on the beggar with: "I want to apologize for treating you as a beggar. You are a merchant, or course, and I came back to get the pencil I paid for." The astonished peddler handed the banker five pencils and thanked him with wondering warmth.

Many months later the banker stopped into a small stationery store on the outer fringe of the Wall Street area. He was about to leave after make a few minor purchases - the proprietor stopped him and said? "I'm sure you won't remember me, but I will never forget you. Some time ago, I was a subway beggar with a handful of pencils and you treated me as a business man - a 'merchant' you called me. that remark gave me back my self-respect. From then on I refused gifts and really sold pencils -- lots of them and good ones, too. From this sidewalk business I saved my money, borrowed a bit more, and then opened this little shop. I'm beginning to make a go of it. and all because of a few words from you."

F.Y.I. ~ Houses, Puppies and Something New

I'm going to be house AND puppy sitting for the next few days. I've written about D&D before, and they have asked me to watch the house and "mother" their two puppies (read: small horses!) while they are away. I will be gone from today (3.29) until Sunday evening (4.1 - no NOT an April Fool Joke). Unfortunately, there is no Internet connection at their place, so it is doubtful that I will post during that time.


As this is Spring and all, I want to mark it as a time of new beginnings. A time of hope, laughter and ... love.


I vow to remember that today is a new day
Full of new beginnings and fresh moments
Today, I will not cling to events of yesterday nor yesteryear
But stay connected with what today brings.
I will not madly pursue my desires at the expense of others
Nor flee from challenging tasks.
I will remain true to the unfolding process of today
Without losing myself in thoughts of what was or what might be.
I will treat today with awareness and sensitivity
Even in the most ordinary of tasks.
I will apply myself wholeheartedly to the fullness of today
For I know that today holds the resource for authenticity.

You, Too, Can Be A Banker To The Poor ~ Early Morning Thoughts

I decided that I wanted to expand on this original post from earlier this evening. I just couldn't get the idea out of my head. When I was growing up my parents were very giving to many people - some who had no idea where the "help" had come from. I enjoy helping in any way I can. When I had nothing a short time ago, it was amazing where help started coming from.

I had read about the concept of micro-lending to ordinary people overseas. The statistics of pay-back for instance have been phenomenal. Most of the micro-loans are paid back. As in, the 95+ percent range. I then ran across this article which shows how anyone can make a difference for as little as $25 dollars at at time. Nicholas D. Kristof wrote this article for the New York Times and also put it on his blog. I must have read it a dozen times - getting more intrigued and excited each time. After I post the original recap, I went to the Kiva site and have now decided where I am going to "lend" some money. I'll post more information on that Tuesday or Wednesday.

As a "lender" there will be some expectation of being repaid. However, as a "lender" I have to realized that the business might fail ... but that's part of sharing in this unique way. There is another website that accepts donations, but I decided that I liked the Kiva approach - much more business-like.


Welcome to Pottersville: Nicholas D. Kristof: You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor

KABUL, Afghanistan

For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.

That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.

So on my arrival here in Afghanistan, I visited my new business partners to see how they were doing.

On a muddy street in Kabul, Abdul Satar, a bushy-bearded man of 64, was sitting in the window of his bakery selling loaves for 12 cents each. He was astonished when I introduced myself as his banker, but he allowed me to analyze his business plan by sampling his bread: It was delicious.

Mr. Abdul Satar had borrowed a total of $425 from a variety of lenders on Kiva.org, who besides me included Nathan in San Francisco, David in Rochester, N.Y., Sarah in Waltham, Mass., Nate in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cindy in Houston, and “Emily’s family” in Santa Barbara, Calif.

With the loan, Mr. Abdul Satar opened a second bakery nearby, with four employees, and he now benefits from economies of scale when he buys flour and firewood for his oven. “If you come back in 10 years, maybe I will have six more bakeries,” he said.

Mr. Abdul Satar said he didn’t know what the Internet was, and he had certainly never been online. But Kiva works with a local lender affiliated with Mercy Corps, and that group finds borrowers and vets them.

The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.

“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”

Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.

In poor countries, commercial money lenders routinely charge interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Thus people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. And partly because poor people tend to have no access to banks, they also often can’t save money securely.

Microfinance institutions typically focusing on lending to women, to give them more status and more opportunities. Ms. Sadat’s group does lend mostly to women, but it’s been difficult to connect some female borrowers with donors on Kiva — because many Afghans would be horrified at the thought of taking a woman’s photograph, let alone posting on the Internet.

My other partner in Kabul is Abdul Saboor, who runs a small TV repair business. He used the loan to open a second shop, employing two people, and to increase his inventory of spare parts. “I used to have to go to the market every day to buy parts,” he said, adding that it was a two-and-a-half-hour round trip. “Now I go once every two weeks.”

Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is www.globalgiving.com, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.

A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.

“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”

Here is the link to read the entire blog post: Welcome to Pottersville -

And here is the link to Kiva: www.kiva.org

I have decided that I am going to lend $25 dollars to three businesses. I won't be as fortunate at Mr. Kristof and be able to travel to see each business, but just knowing I have had a part will be wonderful!

Anyone else up for some grass roots banking?