Seize the Day

I was persuing one of my somehow strangely becoming a favorite hangout spot and I saw a tagline that actually inspired me. I thought I'd blog about it and invite insight from you all, if you'd care to share. Here's the tag: "Life is too short for drama ; petty things, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly."

My mama (may ALLAH forgive her sins and grant her Paradise) used to have many sayings. Among those that are foremost in my mind are these [and jump in where you feel you can, because I know you've heard them too]:

People talk about Jesus and no one walking around has ever seen him.

If you spend 6 months out of the year minding your own business and 6 months staying out of other people's business, you've filled up your whole year.

If people are talking about you, you're doing something right.

If people are talking about you, they're leaving somebody else alone.

There are a ton of others. Most, I will confess, didn't make a lick of sense when I sat at her knee many years ago, but something strange occured. The older I got, the smarter, wiser she became. How is that possible? How could this old woman who I had to assist get through her college courses when I was in junior high because she came from a time when our people didn't need an education to work the fields end up with more wisdom forgotten than I would gain in a lifetime?

More often than I care to think about, I find myself becoming her. I think as she does. I hear her words pour from my lips, roll off my tongue. I stir her cuisine in my pots and pans and teach those recipes to my daughters. I sing the songs she sang to my children to my grandchildren, still unsure of the meanings but knowing no one to ask. I miss her. Oh, I can't tell you how much I miss her. I long for my mother's touch. But that's not what we're talking about today.

Carpe diem! Seize the day! Life is too short for drama and petty things.

Who gives a good damn? Who will remember in 5 years? in 20 years? I would beg to ask and answer who will remember this time tomorrow? How important is it really? Get over it. Nothing is so important that is should consume your very being. If you must obsess, let me give you a list to guide you. Consider this journey to healthy obsession.

So kiss slowly...

I love my husband. I compare him constantly to Brad Pitt, Sting, Michael Ealy and though other people might not see the handsome, sexy beast contained within that 6'2" 270-plus chestnut-blonde blue-eyed broad shouldered frame, well there's just something wrong with your eyes. (Forget for a moment that I wear bifocals, okay?) He moves me. I mean not like picks me up and puts me down in another spot. Of course he can do that. But he stirs my soul, moves me. He pulls me close when we sleep and there is security in feeling his breath on my neck, the weight of his arm around me, his other arm becoming my pillow, his chest my wall against the chill. We fit. There is comfort in knowing that I get to hog the covers because I run cold and he's always too hot so I can put my feet on him to warm them and he doesn't mind.

He has always, always that I can remember, with few exceptions kissed me the same way. No, let me restate. We have always kissed the same way in 20 plus years. Slowly, deliberately, passionately, methodically. Whenever possible, he bends to me as he takes his hand and raises my chin to meet his lips. And just before our lips touch, he inhales as though to draw me in closer, to pull me there, to hold me. Then his arm goes around my waist and he pulls me close, holds me tight Our tongues search out each other and dance. Then we pull apart. He kisses my nose, then my forehead. And smiles. And then... and then... well that's how you do it. Doesn't everybody? The warmth, the touch, the coming together. It is truly a spiritual experience.
We have not always been masters of this art of imtimacy. It does take practice. And practice involves a certain amount of investiture. There is a saying in English "Practice makes Perfect", but it's really a poor translation of the German axiom that I love much much better. "Continuous repetition makes the master". Thank God for REPETITION! (And let the church say AMEN and AMEN again!)

Laugh insanely...

Nothing even close to a pun intended, but we both have a dark sense of humour. It is forboding, insane. We laugh, deep and heartily. Sometimes, the laughter is uncontrollable. More often than not, it is infectious. Tears stream down our faces. Our sides hurt. We have difficulty catching our breath. We fall onto each other. Excuse ourselves from the presense of others so that our sniggering won't cause others to wonder what has us in such a tizzy. It is the private jokes, the moments that we shared months or years or even moments before-- between us-- that secret that only we share. Rolling around in a bed of leaves, spraying each other with water hoses, walking in heels only to have one break as you walk up a reception line to meet the president of the company. Those gloriously priceless moments that you simply cannot recapture (not that you would want to recapture them) but that must laugh in order to stave off tears of humiliation. Laugh from the depths of your soul to the out reaches of the heavens. Enjoy each moment as though it were the last.

Love truly...

As yes, wholeheartedly, without reservations, as though it is the first time and that you've not been made aware of any pain, heartache that could possibly be wrought in the future. Be honest in the relationship. Pray and hope for honesty reciprocated.

The best way to sum up love is in the poem by one of the great poets Khalil Gibran in his work "The Prophet". Here is his Passage titled ON LOVE :

Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love."

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.

And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

And forgive quickly.

It is always hard for me to be the bigger person, to have a thick skin, to recognize -especially within the digiscrapping community, that there are some really silly, petty bitches that have no purpose save to pick and pick and harass and bother, and molest the peace of others. Constantly, incessantly baraging with lies and mistruths and innuendos. There are days, when the stalkarazzi, the cyberbullies grate on my sensors to the point where I want to scream "Enough!" and then show up on their doorsteps and give them the opportunity to spew their jealously and madness to my face. Ah, but, they try to remain anonymous so it is difficult, but not impossible to find them. I can make it to SATX, to Wash State, to Aussie-land and anywhere else I have to go to put an end to this drama. But I have a forgiving spirit, I really do. Even so, my patience can be worn thing and at this point, it is thread-bare, practically none existent.

I am old. I am ill. I am tired. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. I have no desire to spend what time God has graced me, worrying about insignificant chatter. All the world is too beautiful, my heart is too full to harbour ill. And as I am able to look past the faults of those that I don't know, I am certainly capable of looking past the quirks of those closet to me, to those which I am bonded by marriage, DNA, familial ties. If pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth, then the people that surround me, those that are in closet proximity have sent me to the prescibus of Nirvana and I am the Buhddah.

With my hubby, we don't go to be angry. Oft-times, this means that we stay up all night "discussing" a topic, but we do get it out in the open. And we do forgive. But another saying from my mama (because she didn't raise no fools). "Forgive all you want, just don't forget. Even so, it's hard to forgive, not forget and not bring up on a reasonably regular basis. Mom never told me how to get around that one.

But I'm supposed to forgive quickly. Regardless of the other person's actions or inactions. Animals react. Humans act. I don't have to wait. I shouldn't have to wait to see what someone else is going to do to determine my course of action. So I will forgive with a quickness, those who are close to me, forgive time and again for infractions against my personhood. I won't always forget. I am forgiving because I have the capacity for unconditional love.

And to think, this all started because I was perusing a site and ran across a tagline:

"Life is too short for drama ; petty things, so kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly."