A Song For All Lovers (John Denver – The Wildlife Concert) – Part 4 of 5

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Pat

Today’s the day – Valentine’s Day! I’ve been talking about Love all week and the different facets: from Love being a common denominator to a deeper connection to counting the ways that you deeply cherish and love one another. We’ve talked some on the lines of our physical connections but for Valentine’s Day, I want to talk about our heart and soul connections.

There is something magical the moment your eyes meet. With our eyes being the windows to our souls, we first glance into each others’ eyes and without a word being spoken our hearts touch each other for the first time. When this is nurtured and treasured, love grows into deeper connections. This love is something that’s not seen but felt; something that’s incomprehensible but intuitively known. When you see this love expressed in relationships, you’re drawn to it because it’s genuine.

I have a favorite aunt and uncle and as a child I remember the energy of their love whenever you were around them. You could feel it and couldn’t touch it because it was something so beautiful reserved just for them. You watched them interact with each other and how their eyes filled with love the moment one of them came into the room. In a crowded room you would see my uncle glancing and the minute he saw my aunt his gaze would glisten as if he had found his angel. They had joined on a heart and soul connection and when it came time for my uncle to pass on, it was devastating for my aunt to be left behind. She is still learning, albeit difficult, how to love as Elizabeth Barrett Browning spoke of in her poem (see my previous post How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways – Part 3 of 5) “….With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death”.

John Denver wrote and sang a song in his The Wildlife Concert CD called “A Song for All Lovers” . It touches on the heart and soul connection of love as he talks about Mardy, a 93-year old woman, who inspired this song, who lived in Alaska with her husband. She spoke of her husband as her beloved. It’s a beautiful song of two lovers dancing in each others’ arms on the frozen tundra in Alaska dancing only to the tune of nature, the sound of the wind and their love. The flow of a waltz rhythm lets you feel the love and soul connection for yourself. A couple of lines in the song that John Denver sings are, “will the future remember when the lovers are gone,” and “…a song for the two of us beating only as one”. There’s another song on this same CD called “For You” that touches me so deep I want to reserve it and play it for my husband on our 50th wedding anniversary—just for you, my love.

Are you having a wonderful Valentine’s Day? What have you done today or what are you doing tonight to show the one you love how special they are to you? My husband and I are going to enjoy a lovely dinner at home tonight, just the two of us, and he gave me a beautiful card with a beautiful message and I’ve been sending him Valentine e-cards all week. I’m sure if we did this all the time it would get old after awhile and not mean as much but it’s a reminder that I can do more to show my life’s partner what a joy he is to my life. And, I plan on doing that! And as I play John Denver’s “A Song for All Lovers”, I will think of all of you out there making your own heart and soul connections – ones that will last a lifetime even over to the other side. And maybe, Jim and I will dance to John Denver’s “For You” tonight; I can’t wait another 9 years!

From the kitchen table – Pat
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How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways – Part 3 of 5

Posted on February 14, 2008 by Pat

It’s the day before Valentine’s and I can picture everyone scurrying around shopping and surfing through cards trying to pick the one that best fit their sentiments. How do you effectively express your love to someone that’s meaningful and touches the heart? It’s easy to pick out a card or take your loved one to dinner and why not? It’s fun and it’s sweet. But sometimes you want to do something a little different – something that will be remembered longer than when Valentine’s Day is gone. I know everyone is doing it so I’ll join in and jump on the bandwagon and list some ideas of my own on ways to meaningfully express your love to that special someone. Here goes:

1. Not only on Valentine’s Day but for the remainder of Valentine’s Week, each day slip a note somewhere saying why you love them. It may be on the bathroom mirror or a note next to their coffee mug. Write more than a few words. Give them details on how unique and special they are to you.

2. Cook a special meal with wine and candlelight and soft music. You don’t always have to go out to enjoy yourselves. You can make it special and comfortable right at home.

3. If you’re musically inclined, compose a song and sing it to them. Or, write them a poem. If you’re not good at composing, you could just write them a letter sharing your love for them. On our 40th wedding anniversary, I got a blank, rustic journal from the book store and titled it 40 years and in it I wrote on 40 things we shared together and experienced, the things I love about him and his strengths along with pictures. It was a memorable moment when I gave it to him and he loved it.

4. Surprise them with asking them out on a date and if you live close to where you first met revisit some of the old places you went and recreate the night as if you were first dating. If you live far from where you first met, still call them up and ask them out on a date and plan an evening as if you had first met.

5. Recapture what it was that first attracted you to them and hold it in your mind’s eye and see it in that person now only value how much more they mean to you. Express that to them in some way through word or touch. There’s a sweetness of young love. You can see it captured in Janie’s wedding picture, 22 years ago on her Wordless Wednesday post on Colloquium. Valentine’s Day is special as it gives us a time to stop everything we’re doing and what we’re involved with and remember what’s important and celebrate.

6. Turn off the TV and play some old songs. Sit on the floor in front of the fireplace and cuddle, reminisce and talk to each other again about hopes and dreams.

7. You may be dating or in a long term relationship but not married. These are the times when Valentine’s Day is fresh and real. You’re creating a memory. You may start your own tradition. Maybe it’s a get-away weekend with hot tubs and massages. Just to get away and spend one-on-one time with each other is invaluable. Or maybe you create a memorable Valentine’s Day where you get dressed up and go to an opera or a play or just go out dancing. It’s not so much what you do but how you feel just being with each other.

Whatever you do tomorrow for Valentine’s Day, do it with your soul and heart. Cherish this time that you have to spend with this special someone and share that with them. Take care to show them how much you value them and how they brighten and add to your life.

In his book, Wisdom of the Ages, Dr. Wayne Dyer, shares a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Love – A Deeper Connection – Part 2 of 5

Posted on February 13, 2008 by Pat

Since we’re talking about love this week, I wanted to touch on the subject from perhaps a different perspective. What does it feel like for you to be loved? You want to be valued and know that your love will hold up with the test of time. The love I’m talking about is more than just the physical attraction.

(Photo by Alexander Abolinsh at www.sxc.hu.home)
It’s what you feel when the one you love whispers how much they love you or when they do something just for you to show their love. It’s the little things, the gestures that tell the tale and touches your heart. How do you know you’re in love? Is it what you have in common or the fun you have when you do things together? All of that plays an important role in being in a relationship but love carries it further because it requires a giving of you. When things get tough and it doesn’t feel good anymore you have to draw on something deeper. Let me share with you my story.

My then husband (to be) and I first met in June of 1966 in a small town in Virginia. It was going to be my last summer with my grandparents and then I was off to school in the fall. My husband (to be) was stationed there in the Air Force. In the ‘60’s, a fun evening was cruising around up and down the beachfront seeing who was out. This was how we met, a couple of girls in their girlfriend’s new convertible and a couple of military guys pretending to run out of gas. We soon realized that they weren’t running out of gas; they were just running low and wanted to meet us so we agreed to see them at a local diner. Soon after that, my husband (to be) and I started dating on a regular basis throughout the summer. Being a small town, there wasn’t much to do except for a local theatre to go to once in a while. So, we would go for walks or to the beach just to talk and over the days and months till the end of the summer we shared our hopes and dreams, our values and beliefs and got to know each other fairly well. We had built something deeper than just the physical attraction for one another.

I left in September to go back home in Pennsylvania to start X-ray school at the local hospital and we continued to keep in touch through phone calls but mostly letters. Things changed with school and my living arrangements and I found myself back in Virginia in November looking for work. We were married the end of December only having known each other for 6 months and now we’ve been married 41 years.

Even though we dated a short time before we married, there have been many times that I have drawn on that strong bond we built early on when I didn’t always feel like loving or didn’t feel loved. My husband is not only my life partner, a father, a lover but he is also my best friend and the combination of all of that make up the many facets of love to me.

Do people really know each other today when they begin to start talking about love? What does it take to show that love and how do you receive it? Alex Blackwell gives some One Dozen Out of the Box Valentine’s Day Ideas on some of these things I’ve been talking about, giving you a dozen ways to show your love. It’s something that grows and changes over the years. It has to be nurtured and allowed the space to grow for you to be authentic and ugly, sometimes, so we can learn to be a better person for it.

Can you remember how you felt when you first fell in love with that special someone you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day with this week? Not just the kiss or the caress but something deeper that you knew when you first looked into each other’s eyes. You would have someone to build a life together and a family with, someone to laugh and cry with, someone who saw you at your worst and still loved you, and finally someone to grow old together with and reminisce.

Falling in love only begins with that first spark, and the butterflies in your stomach, and grows through a lifetime when you’re at the other end looking back over your life and feeling the warmth in your heart for that special someone you call your Valentine.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Love – Monday through Friday – Part 1 of 5

Posted on February 12, 2008 by Pat

This is Valentine’s week and I know that love is not limited to a day or a week but I wanted to address all the facets of love I can come up with in this week’s posts. My husband and I have been married for 42 years and I have learned a lot about love and different relationships and that there’s a time to give and a time to receive. I know there are still some new things about love I can learn and the spiritual ways to express it.

Several years ago, in the corporate world I had a talking-stick discussion and we were talking about harmony. I asked them, if given what we know to be going on in the world, did they believe we could achieve harmony? They all adamantly said, “No!” I asked, “Why?” Some of the answers were: Too much hatred; too much distrust; greed; selfishness; power. I agreed it seemed pretty gloomy and then they turned and asked me if I thought we could achieve harmony. My answer was, “Yes!” And this is what I’m going to talk about today in this post on Love – Part 1 of 5.

What has the main theme down through the centuries in all the carvings on the caves, the manuscripts, poems, books, letters, movies, and music been about – Love – in some way or another. If it’s not important to us or something to be desired, why do we think about it, write and sing about it so much? It’s because no matter who we are, where we live, what we do, we have a common denominator of Love. We were designed that way by our Creator, who is Love. No matter how much you deny it, or have been hurt; no matter how angry you are, or how much you hate, deep inside there is a dormant desire waiting to be sparked and felt and that is love. You may have never been taught how to love or have felt love, but it all comes to the surface the moment someone shows you kindness or affection and feelings you’ve never known before appear. Love is a part of you and it is a part of me and as long as we have that common connection there is always the possibility of harmony in the world. What a beautiful reminder each year with Valentine’s Day and the many ways we can express our love to one another.

Last night, I talked to the elderly residents at Morningstar and asked them about True Love. Here are some of the questions we talked about and you may think of how you would answer:

Does Valentine’s Day have any meaning or significance to you and your husband/wife over the years? How are some of the ways you celebrate? Do you go to dinner, give each other cards? Or do you have your own tradition?

How do you maintain love for each other over the years? Do you do something special for each other that make your relationship interesting?

What interests do you each have that are similar? What interests are different? Differences in each other’s tastes and interests make life exciting and new things are introduced.

What was the attraction to your husband/wife? What do you think attracted him/her to you? How did you meet?

What do you think keeps your relationship vital over the years and keeps you together? Being partners is a key to any relationship and being supportive of one another.

If you had a piece of advice you could give people in the world today on love and their relationships, what would it be? Dr. Phil McGraw once asked a couple who had been married over 65 years how they were able to stay together for so long. The wife said they never fell out of love at the same time.

A couple of responses to these questions from the residents were significant to me in how we view love then and today. Pieces of advice they would give to the world would be: to always forgive and forget because if you still remember there’s more you need to forgive; and from my 101-yr old resident who had been married for 70 years said, “If you care for someone, you never do anything to harm them”. This is the kind of love that is nurtured and developed as years add on to each other. Love is to be valued and cherished and remembered even beyond this life.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Silence?

Posted on February 8, 2008 by Pat

When there are a teenager, an 8-yr old and 22-month old, all boys, in the house, visiting, it doesn’t appear that there would be much silence. But, if you listen between the cartoons, the light sabers swirling around, the guitar, drum and football floating through the air, the love that flows constitutes silence. It’s the feeling that all is right with the world and it comes with children in different shapes and sounds.

It seems like I’ve been writing about family and children more in my last few posts (see Making Memories and Jokes, Family and Fun). It’s the invisible force I feel that is ever present when I focus on family and loved ones. Yes, we go through the everyday routine of chores, jobs, errands but what flows in the background, just as the music between the notes, is the essence of life. You learn as you get older having passed some of the trials and witnessed the highs and lows that life gets sweeter and more precious with each passing day. You try not to take for granted the moments of every fleeting day.

So, where is this silence? It never leaves even when all the noise commands attention. It’s the same with spirituality and God’s presence. Going through each day is demanding with the thousands of thoughts to sort through and the physical interactions no wonder silence and spiritual essence is so hard to detect. You’re focus is being pulled in every direction saying, “Pay attention to me – No, pay attention to me.” What do you listen to? You have to choose. You can feel it if you’re aware of it while there are distractions all around. You have to consciously look for it and it will present itself to you.

Have you been up late at night and listened to the silence between the hours of midnight and 3:00 am. It’s different somehow. There’s a hush where it seems that all the world is in slumber. If you’re up in the mountains or out in the woods it’s a time where you hear the wildlife moving around. You might hear an occasional dog bark or the snorting of a horse. Or, if it’s snowing, you can hear the snow as it drifts down and lands on the ground. You feel a deeper connection to the world somehow.

Children, while they may be a distraction with play and noise, have a pure innocence that ushers in, believe it or not, the essence of silence and love. As it says, in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God…” When we can quiet ourselves and be still, we can know there is a God and when we can’t be quiet and the silence seems distant feel the peace, feel the essence of silence as it hums in the background. Soon you will be able to bring it forward.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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