(E:springfaerie) turned me on to a book titled: "something borrowed" by Emily Giffin. It was on the New York Times Bestseller List. This book was a complete page-turner! I was hooked after I knew the characters in the book. I had a friend just like Rachel's when I was in high school. I obviously identified with Rachel, the main character. I am not a successful lawyer in New York City. I do have a profession, Teaching in Buffalo. Just as tough!

    I read this in two sittings of long hours in air conditioning while trying to ignore the dreaded heat index in buffalo. Rachel went through tough decisions, indecisions, realization, letting go, allowing things to happen in her life, let go of he control factor, remembering her dreams and trying to believe and deserve them in reality. Tasking risks in life are not always in the areas we think they need to be in, usually more in the areas of our life that we have difficulty with and hold onto tightest!

    This book is about friendships, the evolution of friendships as we grow older and how they change us or help enable us into behaviors; good or bad! I have known a few friends through grammar school and high school and it is really hard to let them go or even evaluate them unless you have time to step back and analyze, evaluate, and assign them their true worth. Not the ideal but the reality of what that friendship is worth to you.

    Giffin also gives us a real life drama to deal with that could happen to any of us girls. There are several male main figures and they too have a real life drama they are involved in, but it is written from the female perspective. I would love to know what men really think and feel about the women in their lives. I was recently privy to young men ranging from early 20's to late 60's discussing the women they love. They have the same worries, the same feelings, the same heartache, the same depression, the same hurts, the same joy, the same excitement, the dame happiness; it is just we express them differently in different environments. I was honored they let me stay present, but I was happy to know this basic fact. Since we here so much about how very different the sexes are, sometimes I would like to know more about how the genders are the same. No, it is not always obvious to us, male or female!

    She brings up the issue of ethics within boundaries of relationships. I think in the end she tells us to follow our heart. I wouldn't have made the choices Rachel did, but then I am not Rachel. Yet she went for it, she held on, she was disappointed and she made her decision and stuck to it in the end. She also discussed the boundaries in relationship among friends. Darcy her best friends from back home and grammar school, was filled with as many good qualities as bad qualities. Darcy was concerned for Darcy versus Rachel. Friendships are a blessing when they are balanced and have good foundations to survive growing older and dealing with bigger and bad-er problems.

    What does engagements and marriage mean to us? What is the purpose of an engagement? Why does engagement take long periods of time for some and less for others? What does marriage mean in today's society? Does each person have a different perception from the majority of the population? What does it mean to become married? Why do some people decide to get married? Are they for the right reasons? Is it peer pressure? Does it seem like the next logical step in the relationship? Is it because they are in love? Can both partners see each other growing old together; in sickness and in health? Is this the person I want to spend the rest of my natural life with? Or do you just know he or she is the one?

It was a well-told tale of the heart and about relationships. Good Book. I never guessed the ending, yet I hoped, I just had to keep reading.

I have returned from 25 days on Retreat Camping as one of my best friends calls it. It never fails how I have managed to grow and become a new person in a little less than a month. I came home to many changes in my mundane daily existence. I am still trying to get my head around it. This heat is unbearable! I am having problems completing the simplest of tasks. I need to unpack and complete an unbelievable amount of work to be ready for the work year. It is amazing how fast time moves and days turn into weeks into the blur of a whole month!
Serendipity pays me a visit. I decided to splurge and by some very cool jewelry that I have been jonesing about for 3 years. Here is there website if you want to see their very cool products: . I decided that I liked the wolf pendant the best. I have been feeling very close to my family and other kinds of family like groups of people with a shared or common interest. I know the wolf is a symbol for family. Later in the week I speak to my elder and he asks me if I know the story of the wolf to the Lakota people. I said no, I did not know. He asked me "Why did you choose the wolf?" I told him that I know wolves mate for life, they travel in packs, the work together to hunt and survive, they have a highly complex social structure, and they have a strong sense of community and most importantly are loyal to their family! He smiles. With a twinkle in his eyes he said, "You are also teaching now, a new phase in your life, yes?" I nod affirmatively, confused with what that had to do with the wolf pendant. He begins the story: "The Lakota people were having a particularly hard winter and their people were dying and hungry. A wolf came to the medicine man and said "eat my flesh, wear my skin and follow my spirit." The medicine man took this to the Lakota people and they did as they were told. They killed the wolf and ate his flesh. They wore his skins to keep their people warm. They then follow the spirit of the wolf to find he led them to a valley rich in plants, and other animals to hunt for food. The wolf is known and respected to the Lakota people as a teacher. The wolf also teaches us that sometimes we have to sacrifice something precious to survive and learn to live.

There are some things that you spend a lifetime wishing for. From a corvette, house, the perfect furniture, true love, employment that is enjoyable, good health, dreams to come true and to get everything done in one day.
    I am reading a book called "Black Elk Speaks", the realization that I can live without anything except food, water, shelter and heat. I would say those are the essentials. There was a time when the place I call home used to be the home of another group of people. So what is home? Is home that place where you sleep? Is home the place where you keep all your worldly possessions? Is home where every your body is? Is home where your friends are? Is home where your family is?
    I have always looked at home as a sacred space to call my own. Home for me being a kind of sanctuary to be who I am. Is that place always an edifice? I do not think so. House is the building, but where do we come home too?
    I have been home at special places, some far from home than the place where I grew up. Some in other states where my life called me to walk very far from home, the state where I grew up. Home has been my Grandparents house. There is a light that comes over me when I think of my family. Home has been a church. Home has been my body. Home has been out in nature with nothing but a thin layer of tent to protect me from the weather. Home has been a hug from a good friend. Home has been a look of pride in my mentor. Home has been my voice singing at the top of my lungs, my favorite song of the moment. Home has been completing a scholarly degree. Home has been taking a trip away from where I live. Home has been someone else's abode. Home has been the floor in a living room of an acquaintance. Home has been dancing 'til dawn.
    I think home is a place I once described at the Happiness Garden. I think home is living life in the moment to the fullest of your ability at that time. Sometimes my ability to do this varies. Happiness was something I once knew well, a friend who would always be there. I could always find happiness in breathing; a scent of a flower; the rhythm of the rain; the silence underwater; another person smiling; another person dancing; freedom of expression; completing crafts; knitting; crocheting; singing; praying; painting; dancing; sports; talking with my friends to all hours of the night; sunrise; sunset; poetry; reading; movies; comic books; food; cooking; hugs; kisses; cuddling; and the list goes on...
    I met someone years ago that I have never written about because of the negative emotions that dwell in those memories. He reconditioned me to see the world from his eyes. I lost a great deal in the process. I forgot how to be happy. I forgot how to enjoy life. I forgot the simple things. I was always a force to be reckoned with when I was young. I had one weakness I wanted to be loved and love someone in return. Not everyone equally, just one person to fill an empty chair in my hearth fire. The problem with youth is your desire to be loved and return that love is specific. This person got in and sat in that very chair.
    I am who I am for all the people who I have loved and who have loved me in return. For the people who believed in me gave me a much bigger heart than I thought possible for myself. They showed me their life experiences, they let me into their hearts, and they loved me to the best of their ability.
     Did you ever wonder why you liked a piece of art? I always dig deeply to find the answer. I then went to college and learned to dig, as deeply for art I did not like. Here's the thing I've learned about art and life. It is the imperfection that we truly love. See we are attracted to what we like, what we see as similar to ourselves, what we understand, what is comfortable. See my key to happiness was the perfection in imperfection with a positive perspective.
    I had met my opposite in a male and I thought we could make each other happy. There were two mistakes with that premise. First, know what your partner REALLY wants. The second was making another person responsible for my happiness. In the process I learned how he saw things, I hope I taught him something he values, for in the end I have a strange aftertaste from knowing him. It is not horrific, but it wasn't wonderful either. There were good times and bad times. It is the overall summary that I am speaking of.
    Home is where the heart is. I understand that phrase just a little bit better from having my heart farther away from me than I am comfortable with. I remember the knowledge the child in me has always known about living life. Love is not conditional. We put ourselves in cubbies and label them. We separate and categorize. Anything that cannot be neatly explained in our lives lives in a land of grays and wastelands. We put so much into our illusions, our masks, our stories, our beliefs, our ideals, but without a reality check why is it that the negative side flows freely? That unconditional love seems so hard to put our faith into. See the snag lays in the fact that we need structure, that we need boundaries, that what we want and desire the very things that limit the true expressions of freedom and love. Human nature the walking contradiction that it is! Bless our perfection through imperfection! We may never be perfect. We are the epitome of imperfection!

Have you ever had to put something down and never meant to not get to it but life ran away from you and it was another lifetime, another incarnation, and at least 5 years before you had or needed to look at it again? Recently, I have had to revisit some intense journaling and healing I had been working on myself over five years ago.
    
    First, I need to say it is a strange experience something surreal and straight out of Dali's imagination. When I was younger I never much cared for Dali's work until another artist gave me a unique compliment about an overview of my artwork. "Your work moves me. I feel a connection to the mystical with Dali sensitivities with his surrealism and Mucha with the Art Nouveau style and there is a definite ethnic flare or taste to your work. It is nice, refreshing and unique." Of course I still didn't get into a gallery on that statement, yet it gave me something to think about. I loved Mucha and hated Dali. Imagine, both in the same comment. I am learning to love Dali, but maybe never as much as Mucha. Yet I have seen some of Mucha's work I didn't like or felt he didn't articulate himself well in. Enough about art when I a speaking about writing.

    I realized all the goals I set for myself, all the plans that I had started... I am currently living. Some with a high degree of success and others could have more energy and need more work. It is unreal! The power of the mind to create and recreate, to make something into a reality is amazing. An idea occurs to you, you give it time and energy. The idea becomes part of your processes of thinking you now have a mental awareness of this thought. As your brain processes your thought you begin to have feelings about it, positive or negative. There is now an emotional connection to the original idea that has been transformed into a thought, which now gives you an emotional response. UNREAL! It doesn't stop there. You begin to believe or connect with this energy or not! You begin to dream about the idea, the thought and your emotions. Your subconscious begins a conversation with your conscious mind and now we have CONTACT! You begin to generate new ideas from this idea, which has transformed itself again into your reality, you have given birth! You create something. You say something. You do something. Your physical response is acknowledging its origin and development. If you believe it, it has the possibility to become reality. DIVINE!

    Do we even begin to understand the powers of our minds? We only use 20% of our brain? WHY? How do we access the rest of brain? What is it used for? How does it work? What functions does it relate to? I can ask thousands of questions all on this very thought alone. Once we begin to know something, there is a myriad of knowledge we barely remember or can replicate or have learned about our species.

    Is it possible for dreams to come true? Do you need to believe in Peter Pan? Do you need to click your heels three times? Do you just trust your super hero will save the day? I think belief is the end result of an imaginary spark. Be very. very careful with your divinity. When fire burns there is a lesson to be learned! Fire is dependent upon a spark to ignite flammable earth, fed by air to consume anything in its path. Destruction is a necessary part of evolution and growth.

I remember my great grandmother telling me, the ten years old me, that you will just know. That there is this feeling in your gut and everything feels natural, like it was always meant to be. She smiled and kissed me on the forehead "You will know here" and then took her hand and put it over my heart and said "and here."

A friend of mine says it is like color to everyone else's black and white. Another friend of mine tells me that it is persistence and perseverance, and what do you believe?

I believe as all little girls that there is someone out there that is my complement, my equal, my friend, my lover and that it is meant to be. I believe I deserve that love to consume me so that there is a kind glow about us both that everyone around us will know that this is forever.

Recently, I was invited to a wedding. I am so proud of the two of them for getting over whatever may have held them back and honored each other's spirit, because they are beautiful together. Their love radiating out to everyone they spoke to, touched, it truly was a fairy tale come true and they invited me! HOPE!

I have fallen in love more than once, and there is something different this time. My heart feels like it is ready to explode at the thought of him. Yet I am very much aware of our lives, thoughts and experiences, an intellectual connection. I am myself around him. I believe him to be himself around me. We speak the truth, even if it may offend. We explain our thoughts and feelings. I feel like I have known him my whole life and yet there is so much to share, to get to know, to experience. There is a comfortable -ness when we are around each other. A fit.

I had to let him go. He is engaged. I really hate having ethics! There are women who aren't, but I am. I need to honor that commitment. Maybe it was my family upbringing. If the engagement doesn't work out then that is a different story. I have to trust he knows how I feel because I have told him. He needs to figure out what he wants. I would fight tooth and nail for our love, but it is at a point where all I can do is be his friend. Love his friendship in return and look out for his best interests. I do not think she is the one for him. Yet I cannot honestly see past me loving him to see a future. So in the end, it will be his decision and I need to trust he will do what is right for himself and for whom ever his partner will be.

Another friend told me after seeing us together she was amazed that the engagement was still on. She believes that if we could have that kind of connection that it is only a matter of time before we have a chance to explore that connection. I have a firm belief in letting one thing end before beginning another relationship. Timing can suck, but there is the need for patience. I ask myself, what if I were in his shoes, what would I do? I to would need to make sure what I had was over. I would probably work on the friendship. Even staying alone for a time to make sure I wasn't putting any residual feelings into the new possibility and then follow my heart. I can only hope he is who I think he is. If not, then I need to revise my perception of him. Either way when you truly love someone, you love them for their strengths and weaknesses.

Love would seem to have many layers and depths that we have only begun to understand. Simply stated that all emotions are felt through the possibilities of love. Love as often as possible for when we leave this place, love is only echo of what we can feel here. Enjoy living life and loving as often as your heart will allow you too!