Tag Archives: kindness

Love-Birds of a Feather

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I’m as much a sucker for a good bird-brained, glutinous, weepy love story as the next guy. But I only like that stuff in fiction, and only in small doses. It’s not enough for me that a love story should have a meet-cute first act and an upbeat dénouement–it’s the stretch between that ought to be uplifting and exciting. Yes, it’s a rather charming sounding concept, at least on paper perhaps, that love would be perfectly lifelong (a lot riding on how long the lives happen to be) and all-encompassing. Yet aside from the exceedingly rare few seemingly flawless pairs for whom there is no apparent need for a world outside of them at all, most of the best relationships I’ve seen or known happen because they comprise two actual individuals, with all of their own unique characteristics, their daily existence intertwining intimately without losing the color and clarity of those individual souls shaped by their distinct thoughts, actions, experiences and inspirations. A true partnership, with all the challenges of give-and-take, beats cloning any day.

That popular book-and-movie of my younger days, Erich Segal‘s ‘Love Story‘, may by now be better remembered for its tagline ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry‘ than for its actual story of an opposites-attract kind of couple barging and charming their way through thick and thin, plucky and witty and utterly devoted to each other [because of course his haughty family has disowned him for linking up with One of Them, not of Us], until she dies–but very prettily, mind you–of leukemia and her grieving spouse is reunited with his estranged father. The whole story I could take reasonably well, but that one phrase really stuck in my craw, negating all of the negotiations it took to get the fictional couple from their meeting to the bittersweet end of their partnership at her death. Never mind that Segal himself seems to have had a great marriage that defied the glossy sentimentality of such a thing, it always struck me as cheapening the very joy of learning each other’s ways and enriching each other by simply being flawed and odd yet willing to figure out how to fit the two brands of strangeness together well. If I interpret the slogan as regarding regrets rather than apologies, it’s less distasteful to me, though I still think if there’s no risk of hurt, there’s little chance of reward either. The ultimate hurt, in this case, being not death (the old inevitable, despite the dramatic awfulness of its being untimely and painful in this heroine’s case) but the possibility of the relationship failing or being destroyed.

I guess it boils down to this: if a so-called love is so flimsy and flighty it can’t withstand mistakes and the necessary if clumsy duct tape and chewing gum sort of repairs we make on it, how can it be worthy of the name love at all? I much prefer the sort where feathers do get ruffled occasionally but the draw of true companionship and care and hilarity and comfort and adventure all together makes it well worth smoothing them back down.digital illustration from a photoMore than anybody else I know, I have been lucky in love.

I have never suffered through ill-treatment, being dumped or neglected or abused or any of that terrible stuff. I was raised by kind, loving, enjoyable parents–who still seem to think I’m worth keeping around–and have three wonderful sisters who have also kept my coffers filled with affection and excellent companionship. I’ve had a raft of kind friends who have been constant in their warm and encouraging presence throughout my days. Even the teachers, co-workers, postal carriers and shopkeepers peopling my life’s paths have generally been of a goodly sort. Best of all, I am lucky to know just how lucky I have been. And am.

No, that’s not exactly right: the true pinnacle of all this is that I found a best friend I could love, and be loved by, in the truest sense, for the rest of my life. It’s his birthday today, and I can’t help but be reminded how wildly blessed and fortunate I am in having him as my partner and daily companion as well as my great love. Being the best of friends makes all of the rest of it possible, the love and joy and kindness and life challenges faced together. We are birds of a feather, my love and I, and I wish him a long and marvelous series of birthdays yet to come. And a deeply happy one today, to get the rest of them started.

See you back at the ol’ nest by evening, my Sweet.photo montage

Hands

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What is more beautiful than the hands shaped by devoted work? The marks of time and trial make wonderful maps of all the history and care that make each hand unique, every capillary the path blazed on the journey of toil or triumph.

An elder’s hand might be craggy both with age and strength and a dancer’s, always artful, even in repose. A farmer’s and a gardener’s might both have creases full of long-embedded earth, looking like furrows in the plant-rich soil. Craftsmen’s hands are often as modeled and sculpted as their works, and the athlete’s power and precision and timing and sensitivity bespeak years of training and focused will. A conductor’s hands, as I happily know, conjure music out of thin air with the way they guide and join voices and other instruments into a whole new thing, a sound that transcends all of the individuals responding to the gesture, transcends the single pair of hands.

But best of all, I think, are the hands that hold. Cradling and offering gifts to those in need, they hold a hint of another, better world. Reaching and taking another person’s hand with kind tenderness or sweet familiarity and love, the message they send for all to see is very clear. Would that every person on earth could feel the touch and know the purpose and meaning of such hands. What a pure and magical message. Send it out to the rest of the world, won’t you?photo

Sonnet for Sisters

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restored antique photoMy Sisters’ Names

Three sisters, three have I, each one a star

to light the night or day with brilliance new,

a spark these shining few, though rare, bring to

the darkest, deepest places where they are–

Fair Wisdom bears a gleaming cup, as thirst

for knowledge waits in ev’ry darkened realm

to sip the learning springing from her helm,

sweet Wisdom bringing in this treasure first–

The next is gracious Kindness, in whose charms

of sympathy and care is safety found

when she with gentle strength wraps all around,

encompassing the world within her arms–

The third with equal radiance inclines

to lighten hearts as much as sun can do;

Laughter‘s her name, and like the other two,

her sparkling wit enhances how she shines–

All three, my sisters light the corners of

The universe: their other name is Love.digital artwork from an antique photo

Learned over Smoked Meat Sandwiches

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Very Delicatesse

A liver-spotted gentleman

Is preferable to younger, when

The latter thinks himself too suave

To say a simple ‘Mazeltov’

Or serve you brisket with a pickle;

Such young bucks are cheap and fickle.

I prefer the well-worn style

That does a mitzvah with a smiledigital illustration

Strange Birds & Iconoclasts

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Nothing particularly wrong with being a strange bird.

Strangeness may be my only truly notable characteristic. I may not be particularly memorable to most people, what with being a mere mortal and all. Superpowers, I’ve none. Standout knowledge or skill or charisma? Nope. But being just a teensy bit weird, yeah, I’m all over that.

So I like to make art sometimes that is as pointlessly silly and eccentrically absurd as I am. I just feel I’m in a larger company of fringe characters than ever. And that, after all, is very probably exactly where I belong. I kind of like it on my perch. From here, the view is quite quirky and therefore strangely appealing. Come on over if and when you like, all you other odd birds out there.

digital illustrationRoom for Everyone

My friends, you are welcome to sit in my house,

admiring my other friends, family, spouse,

each one of us charming, delightful and sweet

as any convention of people you’ll meet,

as brainy and clever and heartwarming, too,

as anyone can be, and that includes you;

come in and enjoy the great company,

come in and be welcome, as welcome can be,

but please keep in mind, while you lounge in this spot:

compatible, yes, but the same we are not!digital illustration

A Moment for Contemplation

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photoWorlds of Peace

In the sleepy little world where

kindness can prevail and thrive

The beasts and people live in peace,

all happy just to be alive

Their gracious ways, generous hearts,

their gentle speech and thought and will

Protect them all throughout the day,

and through the nighttime hold them still—

Would that this dreamy little world

could bloom and flourish here on earth

And that such hopeful tenderness

pursue us all straight on from birth

My wistful wishing is not vain;

this virtue could embrace us all,

For we do know how to be so,

if only we would heed the call

And so each morning as I rise

I make a small and silent prayer

That by the night’s new-darkened skies,

we’ll find ourselves all living there

photo

Tending the Garden of Love

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photo montageIt’s my parents’ wedding anniversary. When they got married 57 years ago, I can only assume that they hadn’t the remotest idea of where they would be in their lives today, let alone all of what would have transpired between then and now. For the most part, I think it’s a tremendous blessing that we don’t know what lies ahead, because the bad parts would probably terrify any sane person out of moving forward, and the good ones would lose some of their savor for having been predictable. But however innocently ignorant my parents may have been in youth, they had the good sense to marry for love.

photo montageThe real kind, of course, not just that thrilling inner swell that is romantic infatuation. That stuff is fantastic and helps fuel and sustain the deeper sort, but without the kind of love that abides when life’s realities are too hard at the moment, when we’re too tired or busy or distracted or cranky to skip through shimmering meadows of happiness with kindness in our souls and sugar cookies in our lunch boxes, infatuation is instantly deflated. I’m pretty certain that my parents had an inkling of this from very early, but it’s something I saw them cultivate and tend like flowerbeds throughout the years. Their modus operandi has generally been one of keeping the mechanics of the operation to themselves, not being the sort to air their disagreements in front of others or to be so publicly rampant in their amours that their companions would fall into diabetic comas in their company, but the depth and intensity of commitment and actual friendship have always been in evidence. The passing anniversaries merely mark further milestones that demonstrate how those gifts have continued to nurture real love. Trials and tribulations and happier adventures all along the way inevitably change the shape and character of such love and its multifarious accoutrements, but the signposts stand firm and the blooms of beauty and kindness never fade, no matter how the path meanders in the garden and no matter where the beds need to relocate or be retrenched from time to time.

photo montageYou won’t be surprised, then, that I think they deserve bouquets of fond recognition on this day, even if they’re only virtual bouquets; they’re all from my garden, which I learned from my parents to tend, and that I hope when I grow up I can be as constant in my love and affection as Mom and Dad are. Let love continue to bloom.

Timid Creatures that We Are

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photoUncertainty of Heart

Amid most fond expressions of affection, endless love,

Devotion and determination to be stewards of

These sentiments and feelings, is that little nagging voice

That tells us it would not be so if we had any choice,

Because we are perfidious by nature, roaming, weak,

And fearful of commitment to degrees we cannot speak,

And paranoid, on top of it, that others are the same,

And so we speak our pretty vows and play our little game,

Attempting to convince ourselves as much as other folk

That our desires and adoration aren’t some flimsy joke—

The shocking Surprise Ending to this tale is that at death,

Some of us finally realize upon our final breath

That all of it was true, and that our hearts were so inclined;

Too bad we take so long, we fools, to see that we have lived as blind.photo

A New Day

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A beautiful rarity changes everything around it. The appearance of the exquisite anomaly transforms all proximal life into a sweeter reality. I have seen occasional scissor-tailed flycatchers since moving here, but these marvelous creatures clearly love to fly, and that means the sightings are fleeting and I am seldom fortunate enough to see them, let alone agile enough to record the moment photographically. But after constant misfires and long stretches of not seeing the pretties at all, I finally got my moment. Besides making me euphoric, it felt epiphanic.photoWhat if, I thought to myself, I could become like those lovely birds? Is it possible for ordinary people to be the beautiful rarities that break through mundane reality enough to spark others’ anomalous joy? Of course we can. It’s not easy, to be sure. But if we can be stirred so deeply by pretty little long-tailed birds, by an intricate mathematical equation, by a magnificent ocean wave, or by a rusty gate creaking open to a secret courtyard, why then, an act of kindness bestowed on a stranger or a smile lighting up a dark moment for a friend might in fact be just enough. And more might be better.photo

Luminosity

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To my beloved youngest sister on her birthday:

Taking life from the real to the magical and from drabness to brilliance, luminosity is the agent of glorious change. Little Sister is such an agent in many lives as well, bringing beauty and joy to us solely by existing, let alone having the sweetness and humor and wisdom that fill her with the warm inner light I so treasure. Simply, my world would be far smaller and more limited to the dull version of reality if it weren’t for the presence of her gracious illumination!

With that in mind, here is a series of illustrations of that progression of luminosity to celebrate the gifts of sisterly love.

graphite drawing

digital illustration

digital illustration

digital illustration