Romeo and Juliet, Love Sweet Love

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she."

"Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun."

The previous two paragraphs are from William Shakespeare's play, Romeo and Juliet. Almost everybody is familiar with the story of the two star crossed lovers who could not bear to live without one another.

The first paragraph is of course Romeo speaking of Juliet and the second one is Juliet to Romeo. Thus are the eyes of love, you are finer and more fair, outshining the sun and the moon. It is said that love is blind which would mean the lover sees none of the faults in the loved one.

Love is not a bed of roses, but rather a bed that you make together, a shared life of the ups and the downs, holding one another's hands through it all. It's accepting and being accepted, it's weak and it's strong and it's enduring. I leave you with an excerpt from The Prophet.

If you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet, On Love

My Trip To Augusta

                                                               lovely rotary

Yeah today was a fine trip to Augusta, which just happens to be our state capital. What precipitated my trip to the great city of Augusta? I needed to buy a new laptop. I cracked my screen on my laptop, let's just say don't ever put anything on your laptop then close the cover, not even something very small. An expensive lesson.
It was a perfect Maine day, the clouds were hanging in the blue sky like gigantic puffs of cotton.
The trees are fully leaved out and are interspersed with the pine and spruce, which stay green year round. I never used to appreciate living in Maine, but it's something I have come to love. Augusta is further inland and I live close to the coast. One of the things I really appreciate is the ocean, you can smell the salt in the air. It is a smell like no other.
Back to my lovely trip. No one in their right mind likes driving in Augusta, there are rotaries, 2 to be exact, one just before you cross the bridge and the other on the other side of the bridge. Basically you pull up, stop, then drive like hell to beat the car coming around the rotary. It can be slightly nerve racking, but if you do it enough you get the hang of it.
I got in and out of Augusta without any problems, big relief. As I drove home, I turned off Rte. 17 in Washington, I started reminiscing. I passed a farmhouse I used to go to with my grandmother. An elderly couple named Carlton and Elizabeth Weaver used to live there. I loved going into their kitchen, she churned fresh butter and the kitchen always smelled like butter. She and her daughter were always making some craft, a new blanket or quilt and they would always get out their project and show us what they were working on.
Then I turned onto the Old Augusta road and as I drove I passed the Robinson Rd. It's the road I learned how to drive a standard car on. My brother-in-law, Chuck, first took me out there and let me drive the VW, later on I bought myself a Triumph Spitfire, I still didn't really know how to drive a standard, but I took that Spitfire out there and practiced. I got so good at driving a standard that when I lived in Orrington and I would drive to Bangor I had to stop on a huge hill in city traffic, I always slid that clutch out enough that when the light changed I could pop it out the rest of the way and never roll back. Quite a feat on a steep hill with cars right behind you.
That's about all the reminiscing I can take for one day. I just want to close my blog entry by saying this, I always love to watch a movie or T.V. show that is supposed to be set in Maine, you can be sure one of the characters will murder the way we talk by trying to imitate a Mainer, Ayuh. A quick lesson in how a Mainer talks, never pronounce your R's, harbor becomes harbah, car is cah. Another thing that amuses me is when you hear a person in a movie giving directions on how to get from one place to another, those people need to get a map because if you live in Maine you can't get there from here. So ends my rambling rant.

Great Minds of Influential Friends

At the suggestion of a great mind I know this is my latest and greatest blog entry. It is a recent event/ lifetime in the making.
I want to preface this story by talking about someone I have long admired and followed, Jane Fonda. When I was younger and a Whole Earth catalogue, Mother Earth News, underground newspaper poet kind of a girl I loved Jane Fonda. If I was out and about and saw Jane on the cover of any magazine, I would buy it. One article in particular I held on to, it showed Jane, during her marriage to Tom Hayden, with many pictures of Jane, out shopping for groceries or in the home they lived in. In that article she became more of a real person, someone I could relate to. Jane, a woman who wasn't afraid to stand up for what she believed in, a trait I greatly admired and very much related to
.I was surrounded by some very strong women in my own life, my grandmother, Sadie, being one of them, a liberated woman before the term became popular. My own mother was a rock, having survived the adversities of life from the age of two, beginning with the loss of her father. She was raised along with her two brothers by a young single mother, my grandmother, Thirsa.
To get back to my original thought, Jane Fonda. The more I listen to Jane, the more I know why I love this woman. She is honest, straightforward, no nonsense, without an ounce of pretension. I listened to an interview she recently posted on her FB page. During the interview she talked about her favorite character that she loved playing, Gertie Nevels, in The Dollmaker. This just happens to be my favorite character also.  Her character is the epitome of strength through tragedy and heartbreak. If you have never seen this movie you should.
As I am wont to do in much of what I write I will pontificate a bit As Jane talks during the interview you get to know a woman whose life has not been perfect, but a woman who has come to know that in the weaknesses of imperfection there is beauty, it is found in love and forgiveness. That is where true strength is found.
As for my recent event. About 11 or 12 days ago I received an email from a friend of mine, Chris. He mentioned Jane Fonda because it happened to be on her page where we met and became friends.Through his email the little seed of thought was that I should post that on Jane's page thanking her and telling her that I had made a friend on her page. Which is exactly what I did. Yesterday I got on FB and saw a notification that Jane had commented on my post. I was so excited I had to share it with Chris. Because that's the way it is, when you are friends with someone and you know something that might please them you want to share it.
Chris has always done that, through our friendship, shared things I never would have thought about. Because of him I have come to love Rudolph Valentino and silent movies, Patti Smith's music, as well as so many other things. So here's my little poem for you Chris, it's very short and called Friends.
    We are friends
    Even though we live
   Many miles apart
   We are friends
   Where it counts
   From our hearts.

Wildflowers

the wildflowers that grow in my yard, I am not sure what the purple flowers are, maybe wild flax. They smell good and look fine in a cut crystal vase. The other flowers are daisies in test tube vases on my buffet. Wildflowers are so cheerful. I would like to share a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I, unlike the author, could not resist picking the flowers.
                                
                                  Afternoon On A Hill

                                I will be the gladdest thing
                                 Under the sun!
                                I will touch a hundred flowers
                                 And not pick one.

                                I will look at cliffs and clouds
                                 With quiet eyes,
                                Watch the wind bow down the grass,
                                 And the grass rise.

                                And when lights begin to show
                                 Up from the town,
                               I will mark which must be mine,
                                And then start down!
                 

                                                       

My Father

                                          My father, Joseph, with my son Adam  
                                                        
Sunday will be father's day. My father passed away 9 years ago. I have a video of my Dad's band performing, in between songs my father talks. It makes me cry because I miss the sound of his voice. My father was a kind hearted person who would give the shirt off from his own back if someone had need of it. He was generous, I do not believe a person can be too generous because I believe that we receive much more than we could ever give. When my father passed away I felt numb, I had to hold it together for my mother, call family to notify them and help make funeral arrangements. As time went by grief became like an ocean, some days the current was strong and would wash over me, filling my eyes with tears. Then it would ebb, moving away from my soul. The hardest part was passing by the house on my way to work each day knowing that my father no longer sat in his wheelchair by the window, the easiest part was knowing that he was no longer suffering. Grief is, after all, for those left, not for the ones who have gone. I want to share in memory of my father, Joseph, the eulogy I wrote.
My Dad, where do I start to describe my Dad.
Daddy was someone I knew I could depend on. He worked hard to provide for our family, long hours of backbreaking labor.
When Daddy went grocery shopping with us he put all the unnecessary things in the cart Mom normally wouldn't get, such as pickled pigs feet.
Daddy helped me pull my first loose tooth, put a bowl on my head and used it as a guide to cut my hair and bribed me with 50 cents to take my medicine when everything my Mom tried failed.
I won the 4th grade spelling bee, when I brought my certificate home Daddy tucked it in his wallet. I remember him proudly taking it out and showing it to others.
Daddy and I shared the love of many things, music, history and westerns being a few. Mama always had a strict bedtime for us on school nights, 8 o'clock, but sometimes, if I was very fortunate, with some begging and pleading, Mom let me stay up on occasion. Daddy and I would watch westerns, such as The High Chaparral, Bonanza or Gunsmoke. I think I was the only kid around that got up at 6:30 Saturday morning to watch Stagecoach.
I recall Daddy telling me that as a young person he would go to the Saturday show at the movies and watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. He wanted to play a guitar and expressed his desire to my grandparents. They bought him his first guitar for Christmas and thus Dad's music career began.
Sunday afternoon was quiet time as Daddy recorded his Saturday morning show for WRKD radio on the Wollensack reel to reel tape player. Daddy and his band played in many places with Mama and us children going right along with him. Daddy played at the 5 J's restaurant for a time and while Daddy played Mama worked making pizzas in the kitchen. One night while slicing pepperoni Mom accidentally cut off a little piece of the top of her finger. Daddy, in his cool collected way, announced, "Folks please don't eat the pizza, my wife's finger might be in it."
Daddy had many sides to him. He loved to joke, but he was also sensitive and caring. At the urging from a message I heard in church on Father's Day, it was suggested that I write a letter of appreciation to my father.I went home and wrote that letter, I gave it to my mother and she read it to him, she later told me that he cried when she read it to him.
There are many things a child learns from watching, as I watched I learned. I learned that love is enduring, love will love you on your worst day as well as your best day, love forgives, when we are the weakest love is the strongest, love serves and love is humbled to accept being served. These are the things I saw..
Two months prior to my father's death I stopped at my parents house daily. Daddy's words to me were, "Have I ever told you that I think you are beautiful because you know that I have always thought you are beautiful."  "Isn't your mother the most beautiful woman." To my mother he expressed his appreciation for her sacrifice of caring for him so faithfully after he suffered his stroke.
Two weeks before he died he matter of factly said, "I'm ready to go, but I know I have to wait for God's time to come and take me." God's time came on December 20, 2003 and Daddy went.
I was thinking that when I go on a trip and I know I'm going to be away for a long time I take extra care to water my plants with more water than they need at the time knowing it will be used up while I am away. Daddy knew he would be leaving soon and he poured out extra helpings of love and appreciation knowing it would be used up while he was away.

Books

Books and I have a history. It all  started when I was really little. My first favorite memory of childhood was my Mom sitting me up on her lap and reading to me. It was our special time and it fueled a love for books that I carry in my heart today.
I don't really like the idea of reading a book on a computer. I want to hold the book, smell it and turn the pages.
As I grew so did my love for reading. Books took me to faraway places where I lived in a castle in England or roamed the open range of the old west, sleeping out under the stars with my horse tethered nearby. I was Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird and my eyes were opened up to racism and prejudice, things I had not experienced in my little town in Maine.
Some of my favorite books were Nancy Drew. I loved that girl detective, loved her so much I lied to some of my classmates and told them my mother was going to buy me a  Nancy Drew book every week.
When I was in the eighth grade I read Valley of the Dolls, one of my mother's books. I took it to school and had it sitting out on my desk, my teacher indignantly asked, "Does your mother know you're reading this book?" To which I replied, "Yes, this is her book."
By the time I reached high school books surrounded me. I always had a book handy to read. One of my tricks when I had been younger was to take a flashlight, hide under the covers with my book and read. If I heard my mother's footsteps I would quickly turn the flashlight out, she was none the wiser.
I devoured books, Herman Hesse, Richard Brautigan, Walt Whitman . I also read books on history,  a passion of mine that I still love.
Books still thrill me, there is something about a well written book that is like no other. A good writer paints pictures in your mind. A book I am currently reading is Dark Lover, a biography about Rudolph Valentino. Emily Leider is such a good writer I was transported to Italy in the year of 1895, I am currently in New York City where Rudolph is working as a dancer to earn a living. He is breaking into the acting business as I write this.

I just ordered a book called Just Kids, a memoir by Patti Smith. When that book comes in the mail, I will be that little kid in school who couldn't wait till the end of the day to get the books that I had ordered from the book flyer, only this time there's nobody to stop me from tearing that package open.

Different Is Good

      My morning walk is my time of contemplation, I think about a lot of things. This morning my mind was turned towards my adolescence, not always a pleasant experience.
       I was out before the game started, my father chose a name for me when I was born, Juanita. Have you ever seen any of those name tags with Juanita on them. You get my point, I hated my name, it was different. I wanted to be Mary or Ann or even Maryann, anything that was, "normal", like everybody else. 
      Then came the joy of school, let's just say my tomboy ways never helped me fit in with the girls at school. I still cared, but not as much. I could not stand that girly thing of girls screaming because they can't possibly jump up and hit that ball coming over the net (during good old phys ed and volleyball). Dear old middle school, one girl in particular liked to torture me, she would sit in back of me in class and deliberately knock my bag off the back of my chair. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes the people who are the meanest to you are also the unhappiest, a lesson that has served me well in adulthood.
       High school was more tolerable, ours served five towns. I became acquainted with the outcasts from other towns. Yes, we formed our own group. High school is probably the worst because you have now passed puberty, which is a rite in itself, especially when you take into account that your mother never told you about such things as menstruation and you thought you were bleeding to death when the big day finally arrived. That's another story.
       I had alot of interests as a teenager, boys being among them, but not the priority. I hated homework, but loved music. So every day after school I had better things to do with my time than  homework, I shut myself in my room, listened to music and read books. I loved to read, Herman Hesse, Richard Brautigan, Walt Whitman, these were a few of my favorites. I staged my own little revolution, I threw out my bed frame and slept on a mattress on the floor. I had everything I needed, music and books. I reveled in being different at school now, who cared anymore. I had a small circle of friends who were different, like me. I also decided to stop combing my hair, which was bad because my hair was thick,  my mother couldn't take that one so I eventually caved and combed. I also fell in love with the smell of patchouli. There were two girls who went to my school, they were from New York. As they walked past me in the hallway the scent of patchouli wafted to my nostrils, I was in love with that strange scent. Later on while living in Brooklyn, New York I would buy a bottle of pure patchouli oil in Greenwich Village. I don't know that I wore it as much as I just liked to open that bottle and smell it. I still have that bottle, holding it in my hands brings back fond memories of New York City.
       By the time I reached senior status in high school I really didn't care that I was different anymore. I found out there's a whole world out there with people who are different, different is interesting. After high school I went to live and work on an island. It was fabulous, there were alot of artists and musicians there. Every night after work I would go to parties, they weren't your ordinary parties, they were different, it wasn't about getting wasted, it was all about music. I had learned how to play the guitar in high school, encouraged by my father, who also played and had his own band. Just like my father I loved music, I still do.
       Being different is good. I march to the beat of my own drum. If there's one thing I have learned in life it is best to be yourself. As this quote says,  “Be who you are and say what you feel because people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind.”

You

This is something I have been pondering on for about a week. Dr. Seuss has a little quote I love- Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. ...
Sometime ago I wrote a sentence I want to share- There are no words that can capture the essence of the soul, I truly believe this.  You are special, not like anyone else, before the foundation of the world your life here was meant to be. Your life touches others who would not be the same if they had not known you.
I love movies, out of all the movies I have ever seen, without a doubt, my favorite is It's A Wonderful Life. If you have never seen it you should. It's about a man whose life is closing in on him, in his despair he wishes he had never been born. His wish is granted by an angel and he sees the lives of those he has loved minus him. How their lives changed without his presence. I love this story because it is the demonstration of how each life is valuable and precious, not to be taken for granted. I want to finish my little blog entry with a poem I have written.
               YOU
      You were meant to be
      To share everything
      That you are
      The breath that you breathe
      Your wish upon a star
      Every night in my heart
      I will think of you
     Thankful for your life 
     My heart filled with gratitude.