Comments on: Showing some love

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:39:08 +0000

V. ~ I couldn’t agree more. That balance of identity and space. Him. Her. The Marriage. They each have their separate identities, but too far away from each other, and they lose that magic that happens when the stars are aligned just right. Finding that balance . . .

Pool ~ You surprise me. I would never have guessed that about you in a million years. I think you’re a poet who doesn’t know it. And I believe that everyone who starts a blog is an English major at heart.

By: Pool

Pool — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:17:50 +0000

I am not a poet and I barely survived English. But, I do have an appreciation for words on a page. I like how these words remind that a marriage is a unit, singular in what it is, yet, not forgotten is the two individuals that make up the unit, kept to remain individual. Very nice.

By: Voyager

Voyager — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 05:47:40 +0000

I had my father read that passage at my wedding to my son’s father in 1984. We took it too literally I think. Five years after the wedding we had so much space between us we could not see each other over the horizon.
Interesting that Gibran wrote it when he was 15. I still like the lovely cadence of the words, but I don’t completely agree with the advice any more.
V.

By: Angela

Angela — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:46:20 +0000

Hi Jim ~ As Buffy the Vampire said with a huff, “That is soooo five minutes ago.” Marriage for me has been a different relationship than the live-in relationship I had. I don’t know if it’s that way for everyone, but it’s a different dynamic for me.

By: Jim Thomsen

Jim Thomsen — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:25:35 +0000

Who gets married anymore? I thought that was out in this year’s fashions.

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 23:57:20 +0000

Hi Ian ~ Aren’t we a strange group? And I mean that in a complimentary way, of course. But we’re different. Just as engineers are different. Heck, I guess we’re all different, but you get me. In reading a bit more I realized that Gibran wrote The Prophet when he was 15. No wonder I enjoyed it so much when I was younger. I still like it very much, but I don’t connect with it the way I did when I was younger, sadly (and joyously all at the same time). You understand.

By: Ian Lidster

Ian Lidster — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 22:37:15 +0000

As another (ahem) English major, I must say, dear friend, I agree with your assessment of us all. Especially found interesting your changing tastes as time has gone by. Gibran I recall reading thoroughly in my 20s, and likewise Dylan Thomas. Somebody once said that Dylan Thomas is best left for college coeds because most mature people have grown beyond him. I think there’s probably truth in that. And, now I’m rambling, mainly because I really like conversing with you, and also because I’m an English major.

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:39:07 +0000

Beth ~ What a wonderful question! I only wish I had thought of it. Apparently his father was a thief and jailed; his mother moved the family to America sans dad. Not a great example of what marriage should be.

Wikipedia says he wasn’t married but had a friendship with a woman named Mary Haskell that was publicly discreet and privately intimate. She helped his sister arrange for him to be buried back in Lebanon. (Though I just read on a separate site that she married someone else and their friendship waned. Their correspondence seems to span about 15 years, as far as I can tell.)

“You listen to so much more than I can say. You hear consciousness.
You go with me where the words I say can’t carry you.”
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal June 5, 1924.)

By: Beth

Beth — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:23:52 +0000

Funny how words expressed “just so” are so convincing – especially when we’re young.
Parts of this poem do ring true.
Question. Was Gibran ever married?

By: Angela

Angela — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:28:22 +0000

Thanks, Seventh Sister. I love to post what comes to mind and throw it out there to see if it finds root with anyone else (no pun intended). That’s a fascinating bit of redwood information. I do love those forests so.

Chani ~ Thanks so much for your comments. Yes, yes, yes. I can’t remember who was talking about how we go from dependence to independence to INTER-dependence, but the cycling through it is important to be able to reach the stage where we are capable of truly giving to others in a meaningful way. A part of me hurts for every person who thinks/feels that he or she is alone. And how marvelous when we realize that we aren’t!