Where there is no love, put love – and you will find love.
– John of the Cross
In other words, where you hope to find love you should surely plant it. Not a romantic, dreamy kind of love. A substantial, broader kind of love that feeds your roots, calms your soul, brightens your life. (more…)
I was privileged to attend a beautiful wedding in the weekend, proof sure enough that love still blossoms and people are brave enough to say vows (altogether different to promises) and stand up in front of friends and family to make that commitment to one another. Especially privileged was I, when Paula and Mark asked if I would write a poem to be read at the wedding. Which it turns out, is a beautiful opportunity to put down in words some of what I’ve been reflecting on; the goodness of marriage and the process it is.
More and more, I think that marriage isn’t about finding someone who ticks the boxes, with whom your life fits and feels complete – but choosing someone who you can build a life with. So the image of a garden seems appropriate – we don’t marry because we’ve discovered something beautiful, but because we want to create something beautiful. So this is the poem that I wrote and read for my darling friends. (more…)
I’m currently in one of my favorite writing spaces; facing south west as the Pacific Surfliner cruises out of Los Angeles and towards San Diego.
The airport today was a flurry of businessmen rushing off the plane, followed by exhausted parents of small people giddy with dreams of stars on Hollywood Blvd and the theme parks of Anaheim. The NZ Maori rugby team were in transit to London. And I, a tapestry of weaving emotions felt like I was both leaving and coming home.
What is home, anyway? I’ve been defining and redefining home my entire life. I’ve found home in places, events, moments in time, music, bars. But home is people too, so maybe the old adage is true, home really is where the heart is and the heart can only be found with people. (more…)
“…Thus, our humanity became defined by the collection of transactions in which we traded peace, war, love and chaos.
We hoped for triumph, we landed in despair. Then we began again.”
We are in the wild days. Not the wilderness, or a desert or a walkabout gone on too long. No, these are the wild days and the wild nights – it’s we who have become the untamed, the unleashed, the unhindered, the uninhibited. We have loosed our bonds or had them loosened so we have redefined ourselves without boundaries and cast ourselves out into the endless wondering of possibility, the freedoms of being unconstrained.
We have hoped to be brave enough to say “nothing is forbidden” but we are bound in by fear, regardless. We are in the wild days but our hearts are wrestling for constraint.
Wild/wīld/
Adjective: (of an animal or plant) Living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated.
Adverb: In an uncontrolled manner: “the bad guys shot wild”.
Noun: A natural state or uncultivated or uninhabited region.
Synonyms: adjective. savage – mad – feral noun. wilderness – waste
We live in boundaries, in a series of social norms that provide a sort of governance. Beyond these norms, when they are stripped away and discarded, no longer functional or necessary – we fear and risk losing ourselves. We try to replace boundaries, to redefine and reestablish them in hope of finding our secure footing again.
But often the last time we were on the loose without these boundaries was adolescence. In adolescence we treated boundaries with disdain but discovered ourselves by them. Too harsh and we rejected them, too soft and we bowled them over emerging somehow into our first adulthood. So now, we seek out our new rules, our new fences by the same methodology we employed then. Sensationalism, expression, exploration and extremism. We live on high alert, our senses ready and receptive. Still, now is not the time to re-imagine our awakening into adulthood. Once landed there, despite an absence of the boundaries we knew – it’s time to redefine ourselves into adulthood.
Perhaps the final stages of growing up, is redefining yourself into adulthood the second time around. It might be your quarter-life, mid-life crisis, your divorce, a faith crisis, the death of a loved one, an addiction or just boredom that launches your redefining moment. But never have you been more ‘be-coming’ than in that moment of coming home to yourself, in the last rendition.
We are fearful of the wild. The wildness within us, the wildness around us, the wildness of others. Our boundaries, social or otherwise, are our great defensive blockade against the wild. As husbands and wives, we harness each other up to prevent the wild from breaking loose. We employ rules like, “don’t a say a word, if it won’t be nice”, because in the unloosing of our tongue – the wildness might escape.
But I am not afraid of the wild. I long for the wild.
late in the night
i wake, dreaming
saying to myself over and again
‘don’t try to tame the wild one’
then i dream on waking
asking myself which fence to build
which gun to load and thus
hear the lion roar, feel the tiger’s claw
no one ever tamed the wild one.
Don’t build fences, dig deep wells. That is my philosophy of love, loyalty and passion. The concept is self-explanatory – don’t make rules to keep, control or constrain people just create places of deep refreshment that draw people back to the centre.
Here’s why I’m not afraid of the wild within. My well is deep. The tiger in me is well-satisfied. I am at home. Be at home with yourself and the wild within. Don’t build fences, don’t rely on the boundaries. Learn to live from deep within the well. Learn to live in the wild, with the wild, out of the wild.
She looks frazzled and tired, he looks frustrated but calm; trying to maintain patience. They’ve walked off a 21 hour flight to Australia to begin the adventure honeymoon of a lifetime. Their rings are glistening under fluorescent light and both are still fidgeting, getting used to the weight of warm metal against skin; twisting and admiring the statement it makes on each of their hands. Then the too-warm air of the airport arrivals terminal clouds in, the groaning luggage carousel clanks along and other passengers swarm in.
She pushes then pulls their luggage cart to a stop beside a queue of people pushing themselves towards the customs line. He tries to steal a kiss but she pushes him to one side and gestures to the carousel. He struggles his way through the crowd and back, one suitcase at a time. Now he’s made three trips and is torn between anxiously looking for the next bag and glancing back at his wife, tapping her foot and waiting for her iPhone to find signal. By the time he returns with the fourth bag, those over-packed full size suitcases perilously stacked on the cart, she’s done with the phone and marching through the lines towards fresh air.
Now it’s his turn to sigh and hustle, creeping closer to people slightly ahead of them in the queue.
Maybe he’s anxious to shower and change or just to get his wife into more comfortable surrounds but now it’s his frustration that claws at the atmosphere. Here’s where I learn their story – he’s from Oklahoma, she’s from Los Angeles. They’ll be here for two weeks. I look at the luggage, I look back to them. She explains one bag is shoes, and I laugh – embarrassed but amused at the easy cliche. Their itinerary is jam-packed, they’ll cover New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, not to mention a flying visit to Uluru and she has a pair of shoes for every occasion. She pulls him close, looks up into his face with a moment of calm. I feel relieved; they were making me anxious but I run out of time to tell them why. I hit the security fast-track lane and leave with my hopes for them heavy in my head.
“Dear American Honeymooners,
Please slow down. You’re running the risk of missing each other in your rush not to miss a thing. Don’t fall into the trap of writing a to-do list that doesn’t leave you anytime to make memories of what it was like to be together in that place. Don’t set a pace for your life you can’t maintain. You’ll leave one another behind.
Please pack less. I’m not sure what you were planning on doing, but life just doesn’t need that much baggage. Love is only helped with great hair and nails, it isn’t made. Buy more lingerie and fewer pairs of jeans. Be light on your feet. We carry each other – learn not to be too heavy when you are expecting someone else to carry your bags.
I hope you have a wonderful time, see all sorts of things you’ve never imagined before and have your childlike wonder engaged with creativity, nature and breathing the air of the one you love. Love each other well – you deserve it. You came a long way to get here.
Oh – one last thought. I’m a big believer in shoes. They’re glamorous, enigmatic, practical, empowering and often necessary. But they’re also the difference between staying home and going out. A great shoe isn’t a personality that you put on, but it expresses something of your persona. Learn to wear your lover like one great pair of shoes. The ones that become an extension of who you are. The ones you can’t live without. The ones that make you feel strong enough to climb mountains and fast enough to run for cover. Warm like slippers and a fireplace, easy like Chucks you wear everywhere. And keep walking in them. Live in your love the way you live in your shoes. You’ll need less of them, you’ll take better care of them, you’ll nurture and protect them, you’ll take a lot of pride in them when they’re the only pair you’ve got.
Wishing you all the best,
T.”