We lead such stale and passionless lives. Caught between childhood dreams and the realities of adulthood, we surrender ourselves to the mundane circumstance of living; held prisoner by the truths we think we know … seldom understanding that truth, like beauty, is often in the eyes of the beholder. (Excerpt from a Love letter 2003)
There was a time when I believed in the romance of images. The image of the perfect woman...my “soul mate,” so to speak, and I was very adamant about how I expected her to look; how tall she was ... the color of her eyes and hair and even her ethnicity. But the universe (always underrated for its sense of humor), kept delivering up an entirely different package.
It took me a while, but I finally got it, and came to understand that you can be in love with anyone that you open yourself up to. I doesn’t matter whether they’re young or old, short or tall, wealthy or without means; a different color, race, religion or Scientologist.
You find yourself seated next to him at a luncheon. Stumble across her in a crowded room. Lock eyes in all the silly ways described in popular songs and old Harlequin romance novels. You’re taken by surprise, because they’re everything you imagine and wanted but different in a major way. Sometimes we miss them because we’re still looking for the fantasy in our head, and don’t see the real person standing right there in front of us.
And so, I continue to hold out for love. It’s not a perfect love that I seek, nor an all consuming love—but rather a knowing and familiar love. I have known it in the embrace of my mother when I was a child, and in the shoulder hug of my father for a job well done. I have known it in the uncle who bandaged my bleeding knee and the sister who attended my first broken heart. I have known it in the gentle/rough house play of my brothers, and later in the friends who helped me move on the last day of the month when it rained so hard we couldn’t see the new address.
It is a familiar love…felt in the handshake of the husband who trust me to be alone with his wife and kids. It is a familiar love … found in the eyes of my first true love and the look of newborn babies reaching out in the dark.It is a spiritual love … a worldly love … a human love.
How will I know if it’s real?
I will know.
Love Letter # 3
Beautiful Dreamer
Where have you been, my Lady?
I have searched for you … down cobblestone streets … through the dark alley ways of despair where dreams lay overturned and thrown about like so much garbage.
In the vacant gaze of passersby…in the reflective glare of storefront windows; I glimpse you once all bright and colorful and full of light ... you smiled at me...but it was just a dream.
Since that day, I’ve searched you out on Westport Road. Eyes covered, nose press against the rain stained windows of back-street cafes … in checkout lanes … down country roads…on the freeway in cars zipping by.
I though I knew you ... but all I really know is the way you smile ... and the way you make my heart race every time I watch you climb the stairs and disappear.
Who are you really?
I thought I knew … but all I really know is the way your laughter hangs like scented flowers in rooms where you have been and me always one step behind. If I could I would know you beyond the laughter of your smile...in secret places kept inside the heart that only you would know.There ... inside that heartland...is all my want to wander, and unravel the mystery of who you really are.
To gaze into your bright-eyed skies and dance beneath the moon of your aspirations…to see you freckled and fresh in morning light...caught up in arms’ embrace and the silent surrender of words spoken in a moment’s passion.
If I could I would touch you in all the hidden places not known to any man ... and kiss you in all the special ways unknown to any woman. If I could ... I would know you in all the ways of love.
For I am older; though young in body and spirit blessed; word/wise ... a believer in dreams to come. Open of heart and mind … stolen long ago from a land across the sea, the warrior blood of the Motherland pulses proudly through my veins. I am nothing but a man ... a boy ... a child … a poet in a world that no longer suffers poets gladly.
Beautiful Dreamer.
I thought all the dreamers were dead.
Who are you really?
I will know you by your smile ... by the way you say ... “Hello.”
