Cornelius...

I miss your smiling hazel eyes tenderly acknowledging my existence. My heart would skip a beat when our eyes met with adolescent bashfulness. Both of us gangley versions of our future selves. You with smooth almond skin that tanned to my complexion, wavy brown hair with summered blond streaks. I enjoyed chasing you to punch you for tugging my brown braids, and other such childish silliness.

Still really miss our discussions, planning sessions, trips to the library for our next acquisitions, and sketching our version of the good life. Science, History, Geography, Geology, Travel and our plans to go to University in Hawaii to be around people who looked more like us so we could blend in and not stick out like sore thumbs. You were a gentleman and a scholar beyond your 16 years. Most of our walks to the library included picking mulberries when in season and resting  under the trees with closed eyes so your head wouldn't ache from too much sun. Only later learning it wasn't the sun that was causing your headaches. For the next year and a half there were medical tests, hospitalizations, operations and rehabilitation which seemed to leave you worse off.  We shared an unspoken knowing that your time was short even if our parents weren't letting on. I tear up to this day as I recall when the sparkle in your beautiful hazel eyes dimmed,  even though your welcoming smile remained.

Our special closeness hasn't been replicated, those teen years were tender and sweet yet tinged with the bitterness of loss and life. You sharing the illness portion of your journey helped me handle the death of my favorite Grandmother to cancer. You taught me the value of sharing one's inner most thoughts and dreams with someone special and I still cherish our special love.

It's Been A While...

My pre-9/11 churn is another stamp on the passport to my inner journey back to the essence of me... still "a stranger in a strange land". I'm multi-cultural, multi-ethnic POC (person of color) with a prismatically global view of the world.

My prism is "colored" by:

• Dad's Native American family, traditions and experiences colored his Dutch roots in these United States,
• Mom's immigration from Costa Rica complete with her Afro-Caribbean-Latina heritage intact,
• Benedictine Monks who converted my Dad from Protestant religion, before they could marry; guaranteeing Catholicism as the family religion. The monks' accents blended well with the Ukranian, Jamaican, Filipino, Italian, Portuguese, French, Cantonese,  and "American" ones of parishoners. Thereby sealing my global view of the world, human-kind and religion at it's best,
• Irish Catholic Monsignor who let my parents know "your $5000 building fund contribution is peanuts" AFTER both my parents were hospitalized for life threatening injuries from a car accident. Injuries with life long effects physically and a couple years impact financially on the family business,
• International neighbors during childhood and University...their experiences in their home countries and treatment here in the USA. I saw my neighbor's Nazi internment camp tattoo and her tears as she gave me piano lessons explaining them. Only to see them on another, the book store clerk at University. 
• My Dad's family history has military roots dating back to pre-colonial America with relatives buried in The Old Tennent Graveyard in New Jersey. He and Mom are interred in a U. S. Military Cemetery. They believed in America warts and all. 

I share this information to illuminate my internal churn about the 9/11 and remembrances...

As a POC, Dad served in the SEGREGATED military in World War II, fighting for others' freedoms he nor Americans of color were afforded. I was at University before I figured out why we always had a picnic basket for each family road trip - no guarantee we'd be served at restaurants. I have childhood memories of Spring Hope, North Carolina standing in line waiting and waiting to purchase an ice cream cone while white kids were served before me. YES in the good old USA!

The 9/11 attack was a painful national tragedy. However, the same HATE and arrogance that powered those airplanes is ingrained in our own national fabric. To use the tragedy as a mechanism to rally and  push forth the war-mongering agenda is disgusting. I take no pride in being an American when the 1st, 2nd responders and demolition teams are FIGHTING for health coverage for 9/11 related health problems OR the shoddy treatment of our military veterans and their families.

I may not totally agree with the Occupy Wall Street Movement, yet I agree  the USA has to change the current version of the American Dream.

Psst...Post-racial America is  figment of someone's imagination...not mine. 

Gratitude EACH Day

I hope today is a day of gratitude, beauty and love NOT one of manipulative consumerism. Enjoy this video WHENEVER you need to be reminded.

http://www.ted.com/talks/louie_schwartzberg_nature_beauty_gratitude.html

Live...Love..Learn,
Hugs,
Lyn

Jumbled Thoughts...

Today my thoughts are jumbled... I've jotted some thoughts after US President Obama's America's Job Act speech which only complicated my 9/11 emotions and jumbled already whirling feelings.  I grew up in New Jersey across the Hudson River from the World Trade Center Towers and there is a bit of family history about their construction.

Today more tears than words are coming. As soon as I can sort it out I'll put some words here about that inward journey.

Finding Joy

I'm grateful for the experiences that come my way; the people, the places, the things that trigger a smile, a tear, an  idea and a fond memory.  Some are not happy, yet they're not sad either, they just are. Accepting, without placing a value judgement on it, just being aware to revel in the present moment. Feel it all and enjoy it to the fullest, being thankful  for the experience and  opportunity to acknowledge the joy.  Letting the joy ricochet off of others that cross my path each day, encouraging them in their efforts, listening with my heart and ears, relaxing in the joy, and expanding it for them and me.

Enjoy your day, find your joy  and for goodness sake share it.  Be well :)

Piesporter and ...

"L" is a fun smooth operator given to surprising me with my favorite cuppa green tea, with honey and cream when I least expect it. Sometimes he makes it or Starbucks does.   He nuzzles my neck, massages my shoulders as I hunch over my laptop reviewing the latest draft of a bid proposal. We brainstorm and gather information to assist each other's work efforts and joke that we're having an "office romance".  Our inside joke because we don't work for the same entity, were not in an office, but we're working on business projects. We give each other space and enjoy the outdoors, horse back riding, fishing, tending to chores on his ranch, my house or his.

He's tender, affectionate, intelligent, accomplished with a pretty secure sense of himself. An engineer by trade who works internationally, a native Texan by birth, and a wine enthusiast. His warped sense of humor can make me laugh til I cry.  He's like his very own Marlboro Man, tall, tanned, sinewy and sexy. His sweat glistened torso is a turn on as are his wicked eye smiles. With his deep and melodious voice,  phone interludes are precursors of fun times ahead.  He dotes on his Mama and takes her shopping every week that he's in town.  He's an all around good guy except for one thing.

His heart is guarded, he'll only let me so far in, which is fine. I enjoy him and  have no desire to "own" him.  His heart and soul still belong to his high school sweetheart who died.  She broke up with him rather than tell him the grave nature of her terminal illness.  Only finding out the truth  AFTER she died.  It  cemented a deep seated anger and no relationship or belief in any god ever since.  He "lost it", blew his academic scholarship, drowned his sorrows with pub crawling drunken blackouts; three years of self-inflicted hell by his accounts.

There's an unfillable hole I tiptoe around, almost regretting having asked the question that unraveled that mystery.  His last interaction with her were angry words at the break up.  He'll never see that she in her loving way was trying to spare him. I can't/won't compete with the ghost of that love; 2 other wives have tried. I choose to enjoy our time together, it is what it is.  I can accept those terms of engagement because I too have lost my first love to brain cancer; I went to the convent to lick my wounds.  I still don't know what or how he recovered himself and got back on track.

He tells me of the Piesporter he has in the fridge, it's German origin and how well it goes with dessert. He'll thank me again for the engraved corkscrew I gave him for his birthday like always.  I enjoy being his student and his tender instruction. Now I wonder what's in the picnic baskets.  For now, I'll settle for his tender embraces, the Piesporter and chocolate covered strawberry kisses while we listen to the Corrs  and Corrinne Bailey-Rae.  

More Than I Could Offer

"L", a past love interest, turned up and promptly read me the riot act.  My memory tapes were spinning trying to remember what I had or hadn't done to merit this tongue lashing but I listened.  He had been such a "smooth operator" and this outburst was so out of character, I knew it probably was something he'd been stewing about.  When he finished, I realized what I perceived all  along as a guarded personality was his defense mechanism in the midst of a health scare.

Through tears he told me I had abandoned him when he needed me most.  Interesting, I thought "our thing" had run it's course and thought nothing more of it.   I was post-divorce, playing the field and NOT putting down ties with anything or anybody; you know the "love 'em and leave 'em" mode of operation.  His emotions were raw as he explained he'd undergone treatment for prostrate cancer. I could feel the blood drain from my face, all I could do was listen because I knew if he had told me before now I probably would have been of little moral support.

Years ago. my Dad had been through a successful round of treatments for the same malady with me as his sidekick. Just thinking about it makes me cry to this day.  It was one of the few times I'd seen my all-powerful Dad weakened. I don't know if I'll ever be able to offer that level of support to anyone else in this lifetime.  I began to cry, I'm sure "L" thinks it's about him and his situation. In truth, I realize he needed more than I could ever offer.