Across the miles

It's so rare I open my mailbox to good mail..receiving a card or note out if the blue from a dear friend that says they miss you. (Picture) I love days like that. Times like this let me think the world is not all bad.

I had two friends leave encouraging words today. The other left a voice mail about my magazine article. Thank you Betty for the card and Denny the compassionate voicemail.

I left work today wondering why my family does not hold me in the same regard? I can count on one hand the encouraging, loving, supportive comments they've shared with me.

So it makes me ponder why my family cannot accept me the way my friends do?

Danny Dries August 28, 1941 ~ November 7, 2010

Danny was a very special friend I met through the web. Unfortunately, I never met him in person, but always felt I knew him through our postings and emails.  I heard he passed on yesterday and my heart sank, I cried. I knew he was fighting with health issues and always wondered if anything happened to him, would anyone contact me. I was so honored when his family did so. He was a very special friend to me. I will miss him dearly. I wrote this letter to him shortly after I heard he finished his earthly journey. 

Dear Danny,

I heard today that you passed away. When I read the words I cried. You'd think that was silly. I know. Probably ask me why? You lingered in and out of my mind this weekend. Was that you saying goodbye? 

We never met in person. Yet still, I felt I knew you all my life. I found you surfing the web awaiting my granddaughter's arrival. I read your blog and emailed you and found a sincere, loving friend. You asked me once how we knew each other, because it seemed we always did. You were surprised when I said no, just through the web. 

Time went by, wrapped up in life. I'd visit your blog to see how your life was. I'd email and you, and surprisingly you always remembered who I was.  We exchanged emails and shared our lives. You turned me into a mac user, and for that I am eternally grateful! You tried to be a curmudgeon, but I knew better. I shared my road trips with you, and you promised to join me sometime. I guess that is out of the question? But you were always with me and always will be. Friends would ask who you were, and I'd always say 'my dearest friend.' 

I loved your street scenes, I loved your full moons over the Brooklyn Bridge. I loved that your family was so important to you. I loved the pride you had in all of them. I loved your old photographs. I loved your spirit. 

Time passed on again.

I found you on Facebook and we reconnected. I tired of Facebook, as I often do. I still went to your blog to read and muse. I loved the music you posted. I loved your rambles and insight. Your political views, and your art.  What you were eating seemed so important. The photographs of your family. And your comments about American life. I was amused when you blogged about me disappearing. You made me laugh without even trying.

I ached when you were ill, and they couldn't find a answer for you. I felt the joy you felt when your daughters graduated from high school and were accepted into universities. And then became successful women, who you were so proud of. You wrote to me once: "I'm amazed at the unique talented children I've managed to produce from two failed marriages. " I always felt it was because you were such an amazing father and friend to them. 

You are an amazing friend, an amazing father, an amazing artist, blogger, human and curmudgeon. You are missed. I know you're in a better place, more than likely looking down shaking your head at all the insanity. It's lonely not having your physical being here, or just knowing it is here. But I know you're here in spirit. 

Rest now my friend and know how deeply you are loved and missed. 

Deb

The Cat's Song

Mine, says the cat,, putting out his paw of darkness

My lover, my friend, my slave, my toy says

the cat making on your chest his gesture of drawing

milk from his mother's forgotten breasts. 

Let us walk in the woods says the cat.

I'll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,

to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.

Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat. 

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,

says the cat, although I am more equal than you.

Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?

Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies together and talk of touch. 

My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.

My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings

walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance as naturally

as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.

I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.

Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be still as an egg

and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

Marge Piercy

Friendship

Friendship By Henry David Thoreau

I think awhile of Love, and while I think,

         Love is to me a world,
         Sole meat and sweetest drink,
         And close connecting link
            Tween heaven and earth.

I only know it is, not how or why,
         My greatest happiness;
         However hard I try,
         Not if I were to die,
            Can I explain.

I fain would ask my friend how it can be,
         But when the time arrives,
         Then Love is more lovely
         Than anything to me,
            And so I'm dumb.

For if the truth were known, Love cannot speak,
         But only thinks and does;
         Though surely out 'twill leak
         Without the help of Greek,
            Or any tongue.

A man may love the truth and practise it,
         Beauty he may admire,
         And goodness not omit,
         As much as may befit
            To reverence.

But only when these three together meet,
         As they always incline,
         And make one soul the seat,
         And favorite retreat,
            Of loveliness;

When under kindred shape, like loves and hates
         And a kindred nature,
         Proclaim us to be mates,
         Exposed to equal fates
            Eternally;

And each may other help, and service do,
         Drawing Love's bands more tight,
         Service he ne'er shall rue
         While one and one make two,
            And two are one;
In such case only doth man fully prove
         Fully as man can do,
         What power there is in Love
         His inmost soul to move
            Resistlessly.
               ______
Two sturdy oaks I mean, which side by side,
         Withstand the winter's storm,
         And spite of wind and tide,
         Grow up the meadow's pride,
            For both are strong
Above they barely touch, but undermined
         Down to their deepest source,
         Admiring you shall find
         Their roots are intertwined
            Insep'rably.


HDT

Ellery on Henry

"His journals should not be permitted to be read by any, as I

think they were not meant to be read. I alone might read them
intelligently. To most others they would only give false
impressions. I have never been able to understand what he
meant by his life. Why did he care so much about being a writer?
Why did he pay so much attention to his own thoughts? Why
was he so dissatisfied with everyone else, etc? Why was he so
much interested in the river and the woods and the sky, etc?"

Something peculiar, I judge.

- Ellery Channing, friend of Thoreau's


I have often wondered this, what would Thoreau think of us reading his journals? I love reading them and getting into them they are so thought provoking. I love his observations and the way he thinks about every intricate thing. He thinks so deeply, and looks so far into and examines very part of life down to the cellular level. I get into that. Such a brilliant mind. But I'm not certain he would approve of the world reading his thoughts, also I'm not convinced we interpret them as he meant, even the greatest scholar I believe is flawed in some way. I mean really how could you know what he was thinking, feeling, enduring, what was pressing on his mind, who was he thinking about, was he thinking about anyone, when he wrote his thoughts down? What was his mood, the weather, what was he looking at, where was he, what was on his mind? I have such deep respect for Thoreau. I believe him to be a very private, intelligent, deeply loving and caring person. I have enormous respect him. As did Ellery.


And of course I could be completely off track here.