Alexandersmap

    Category: Relationships

    • Love Is Touching Souls

      Oh, I am a lonely painter
      I live in a box of paints
      I’m frightened by the devil
      And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
      I remember that time you told me
      You said, “Love is touching souls”
      Surely you touched mine
      ‘Cause part of you pours out of me
      In these lines from time to time
      — Joni Mitchell, A Case of You

      Joni Mitchell, 79 as I write this, recently played live for three hours with Brandi Carlile and a host of other very talented people. I thought about doing a “Joni Mitchell in Five Songs” blog post as I’ve done with other artists, but this isn’t the time to summarize a career that’s once again active. I think I’ll leave it with this one brilliant lyric from A Case of You. Do you wonder who she’s writing about, or reflect instead on your own ghosts? She remains an inspiration for those of us who are forever stacking words together to find the meaning hidden deep inside of us.

      We are, each of us, influenced by ghosts who reveal themselves now and then in moments of clarity. Some are profoundly important souls who reverberate long after they’ve passed (I think of a certain Navy pilot as I write this), and some reveal themselves in a vision replayed from time to time. A gesture or something said that caught your attention in a conversation long ago, which rewards you now as a nod of approval for an evasive line you didn’t know you had in you. What carries these memories even now, after all this time?

      We are each in the business of touching souls, and making something of our time with others. It would be bold to say that we’ll ever be a highlight in someone else’s memory playlist, for being memorable was never the point at all. Too many focus on cleverness, when it’s bringing meaning to another life that ripples beyond our time.

      So what has meaning in our moments? Isn’t it feeling connection with another, for an instant or a lifetime built together? Touching souls begins with revealing our own to another, that they may feel liberated to rise beyond themselves. It’s a flicker of light in the darkness, fragile yet forever illuminating. Prompting reflections that shine beyond their genesis.

    • We Are All Potentially Free

      “To move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, the great crime of not living life to the full. But we are all potentially free. We can stop thinking of what we have failed to do and do whatever lies within our power.” — Henry Miller, Sexus: The Rosy Crucifixion I

      Cleaning out some old files recently, I came across an old letter I’d received from a woman I’d once dated. It was the last communication I’d ever had with her, and the only letter she’d ever written to me, stuck inside a funny greeting card. Reading it again for the first time in a few decades, I smiled at the memories and returned the letter to the box it was stored in. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon it again in a few decades more. It’s nothing more than a time stamp of who we both once were.

      I know another woman who married the man of her dreams. That groom decided that he hadn’t married the woman of his dreams and they separated. He moved on with his life, she never did, and clings to the illusion of who she once was. She never had children, never met another life partner, and is forever in limbo. Friends and family can’t shake her loose from the illusions of the past. She’s a lovely person who inadvertently became a cautionary tale for the rest of us.

      Do you wonder what memories of today will stumble back into your mind in a few decades time? What will we cling to, and what will fade away? Are we like farmers, perpetually working the same land, or hunter-gatherers, endlessly moving forward towards something new? We’re a bit of both, aren’t we? Perhaps the better analogy is a weight-lifter. Each lift breaks something down within us but may strengthen us over time. If we were to forever carry that weight we wouldn’t go very far at all.

      I mentioned before on this blog that I gave both of my adult children Some Lines a Day journals for Christmas, that they might have moments like the greeting card moment I had, but every day going forward. The trick is to regularly write down what was important in any given day. It forces you to observe, but also creates desire to do something worth writing down. The magic comes in subsequent years, when you can look back on what you did on that day and compare it to who you’ve become. May it be growth.

      We can’t live in the past, but we can surely use our days to build a strong foundation, that we may reach higher in our days to come. The people who come and go from our lives, the people we ourselves once were and never will be again, are all memories of a lifetime. They ought to be building blocks, not a ball and chain, and not nails in our coffin. Growth is nothing more than learning who to be next. We’re all just figuring this life out, aren’t we? It’s okay to hold on to memories, but shed the past and go be who’s next. I bet it will be quite a character.

    • Stories, and How We Interpret Them

      “Be careful how you interpret the world; it is like that.” — Erich Heller

      “We are defined by the stories we tell ourselves.” — Tony Robbins

      Our beliefs do have a way of defining us, don’t they? Tell a story enough times and it begins to feel like our truth. Stories about who we are, the type of lifestyle we live, the work we do and the people we spend our time with. They usually have similar stories to ours, don’t they?

      Listen to other storytellers. This can be dangerous and disruptive. Wars have begun over stories that don’t jibe with another. Entire cultures have been crushed by stories. There are whispered cries in history for the injustice and pain of a bad story, implemented. An entire lifetime can be wasted when hooked to the wrong story.

      There’s friction in changing stories. How do you shake off the grip of long-held beliefs? The first step is to get out of the echo chamber of reinforcement. Digest new information, find new places, reach beyond what is comfortable.

      Given the stakes, it’s fair to question what we believe to be true in the world. It’s fair to choose to change our story. This is where boldness comes into our story. To be bold is to step away from our previous self and begin the long climb to a better view.

      The trap is to try to pull other people along who haven’t changed their own story just yet. Rarely does another soul want to hear that their story is wrong. Telling people anything is a sure road to resentment and conflict. Let them see instead. When we see we begin to change ourselves, and step towards a new story previously unimagined.

      As with any great story, the first draft is nothing to celebrate. We don’t arrive in this world perfect in every way, no matter what our mother tells us. But we must keep editing. With time and patience and more than a little effort, eventually we’ll arrive at our masterpiece. At least that’s the story I tell myself.

    • The Moments Between Us

      Most people search all
      of their lives
      for someplace to belong to
      as you said
      but I look instead
      into the eyes of anyone
      who talks to me
      — June Jordan, Poem For a Young Poet

      We know how this works when we’ve lived awhile. People come and go from our lives, some never to return, and we move on without them. Some people we will barely recall, but others remain unforgettable. What do you remember most about a person? A tilt of the head and a shared laugh? Something said or done to punctuate the day? Often it’s nothing more than lingering in a gaze, and reaching deep connection with another soul, if only for a moment.

      I have little interest in transactional conversation. If the barista or waiter is expecting to take my drink order and move on with their lives they have another thing coming. I seek connection, even in those brief seconds, that will create a ripple of positive energy in an otherwise mundane exchange. Most of the moment will surely fade away for both parties, but what lingers?

      We are but a moment’s sunlight
      Fading in the grass
      — Chet Powers/The Youngbloods, Get Together

      Knowing everything fades away, wouldn’t the most generous thing we can do in this world be to then reflect light back to another? To illuminate and radiate, one-to-one, in this moment shared. It’s a form of upping the ante, because when the other soul is willing and aware they reflect right back to you too, magnifying the positive vibe.

      This is the opposite of the negative energy seen in the comments section of any social media platform, where darker forces prevail. Do you wonder why? I believe it’s because fellow humans aren’t making eye contact with one another, and thus not feeling the stakes of the game they’re playing. We can’t make real connection with another through words typed in reaction to someone else’s words. Darkness only consumes, it never illuminates.

      So where do we find moments of light? Awareness matters a great deal in building a life of connection and love. We all want to belong to something in this world. We all want to find meaning and purpose and maybe a bit of joy in the rush from there to the next. And there’s the answer, hiding in plain sight. So often we miss the opportunity for joyful connection standing right in front of us, awaiting our response. Look connection right in the eye and shine your light.

    • Aware in the Moment

      “Später ist zu spät.“ (Later is too late) — Peter Altenberg

      This morning I’m driving my daughter to the airport. Once again our time together was all too brief. We each pack a lot into our days, which means never enough time in the same attentive moment, but we make the time that we do have matter. None of us is perfect in our efficiency: We all waste time on unimportant things at the expense of the essential. But awareness helps with prioritization.

      Memento mori—Remember we all must die, one day hopefully many years from now. Or perhaps sooner, we simply don’t know for sure. But we ought to embrace that realization and do something about it. If not now, then when? Anything but now is a fool’s game.

      Whatever we are deferring that matters a great deal must be done now. There’s simply no guarantee for tomorrow. What would we do if we knew this was our last day together? We’d up our game, linger in moments, hug harder and be hyper-aware of everything. Let’s all hope for a longer timeline, but live with that urgency today anyway. Be aware in the moment. For it’s all that matters.

    • Heaven, On Earth

      “When conditions are such that life offers no earthly hope, somewhere, somehow, men must find a refuge.” — Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way

      Everybody wants to go to heaven
      Get their wings and fly around
      Everybody want to go to heaven
      But nobody want to go now
      — Jim Collins / Marty Dodson, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

      Heaven is sometimes believed it to be the light at the end of the tunnel in an otherwise bleak and miserable life. It offers hope when there’s no reason to believe there ought to be any. Others describe it as a place to aspire to—an exclusive club that only the truly enlightened amongst us will ascend to. I’m not sure I’m buying that. We’re already in an exclusive club having been born at all. Do we accept the miracle of being alive each day we wake up? If we don’t celebrate this miracle, what makes us believe we’ll behave any different if we reach Heaven?

      “I don’t feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it’s here. And I think anything good that you’re going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.” ― Katharine Hepburn

      I fall in Hepburn’s camp on the idea of Heaven. It’s all very nice to talk of an afterlife and being happy then, but we live here and now. This is our time to fly. We’ve each hit the birth lottery, and thus far have evaded the grip of the Grim Reaper. Isn’t that cause for celebration? We might think of this lifetime as an apprenticeship for whatever comes then, should we be so bold as to believe we’ll ascend to such a place.

      Simply put, when we defer to this “someday when” we do a disservice to ourselves and the universe. Sure, we can’t always control whether our lives at the moment are heavenly or hellish, but we can control how we react to it. And most of us can do a lot more than that.

      “Take care to create your own paradise, here and now on earth” — Omar Khayyam

      Stories about heaven and hell offer guidance that historically helped keep society together. But the same stories can be used to pull people apart. We see a fair amount of that divisiveness in the world today, with people using stories of heaven and hell to justify horrific behavior and violence. If there are indeed Holy Gates I’m not sure I’d walk through the same way some of these characters believe they’ll be going. So maybe save the preaching for someday when. Nothing speaks louder than action. Give me fairness and love and living by the Golden Rule. Celebrate and honor the miracle right here.

    • To Be Joyful and Full of Love

      The longer I live, the more
      deeply I learn that love —
      whether we call it
      friendship or family or
      romance — is the work of
      mirroring and magnifying
      each other’s light.
      — James Baldwin

      We’re in the business of amplification, you and I. Our life’s work is accretive in nature. The longer we’re actively engaged in this world, the more we can contribute of ourselves to the greater good. But we must be engaged.

      Our children are a product of our presence or absence their lives, just as we are a product of our own parents engagement with us. This ripple extends to family and friends and those who become more than just friends. We’re each muting or amplifying the best and worst of each other.

      The last few years, I’ve seen some people change in profound ways. Maybe it was the pandemic, or maybe it’s their stage of life, or it’s the sum of everything the world dumps on us piling up inside. I remind them that we do have agency. We either shed ourselves of the bile or let it sink into our pores. Of course, we do the same with love. The question is, what do we mirror and magnify?

      When I find myself becoming angry and more cynical I find that person repulsive and force that tide of darkness to recede back inward. We all have reason to be angry in this maddening world, but we also have reason to be joyful and loving. Whoever we are will surely be reflected back to us. Choose wisely.

      Life is about building momentum. We see this in our careers and work, in our health and fitness, and surely, we see it in our relationships. When we are consistently present and offering love, we build deep relationships with others that carry us through the challenging times and amplify the good times. So reflect on this: we are the sum of our active engagement with others, and when we live well, that sum will resonate long after we’ve left the room. How do we live well? By choosing to be joyful and full of love.

    • Accumulating Life’s Treasure

      “Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.” ― Robert Brault

      A week ago, hearing extraordinary live music on a beach in the tropics, we danced to the last note of the evening. The thing about dancing on beach sand is there’s only joy and motion. Nobody is stepping on another’s toes. You simply dance and celebrate the moment for all that it offers.

      The next morning, walking out on that beach, you’d hardly know that there was buried treasure there. The band was long gone. So too were the dancers. All that was left was the beach sand and the surf in the distance. Each trained to keep their secrets. The moment was gone, but the memories remain, at least for now. Another memory, to be treasured.

      We tend to forget, in the passing of the years, that we’re accumulating memories and experiences on our way to becoming who we are now, who we will be tomorrow. Life is a brief dance, but it is surely a dance. The treasure we accumulate in a lifetime is made up of moments that become invisible but for our memories and a few photographs. Shouldn’t we wonder, as we begin each day anew, what will we add to our treasure today?

      Buried Treasure

    • Living a Noble Life

      “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” ― Marcus Aurelius

      Despite a list of imperfections and shortcomings longer than it ought to be, most of us strive to live a noble life. Being a good person in this world is surely something to aspire to, but we might look at it as a foundation to build upon instead of our sole objective. Put another way, being good should be a verb: yes, we are each good people, so what do we do with that?

      This action-oriented application of living a noble life is an evolution born of awareness. We grow into proactive goodness at our own pace. Some people are there from the womb, some never quite release themselves from the reflection in the mirror, the rest of us fall somewhere in between. A noble life is reaching beyond ourselves in service of the greater good. Surely something to aspire to in our quest for a life of purpose and fulfillment.

    • Juggling Less

      “Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” ― Gary Keller, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

      We all juggle so much in our days, and prioritize the things that feel most urgent in the moment. Sometimes these are the most important things too, but often they’re simply the most urgent. Living in a state of urgency is no way to go through life. Sooner or later we’ll drop the ball on something central to our core. Deep down, we know what we’re losing our grip on while we try to juggle everything else.

      Coming back to the central questions helps: what is our why? Why are we here? What is the point of our being, here and now? What are we building towards—what are we becoming? And in the process of becoming, what are receding from? For we simply cannot stretch in every direction, we must choose what to move towards and what to move away from.

      Taking the time to reflect on these things is a lens that clarifies what to prioritize. When we see what is most essential to us it makes our daily choices obvious. The chorus of urgent will always try to steal our time, our momentum, our health and our identity. We have to prioritize our essential. The answer may be less juggling.