greenstorm (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenstorm) wrote2010-08-20 10:58 pm
greenstorm) wrote2010-08-20 10:58 pm
Meditations on Love, Originals
Went wandering through my past after my hopelessly incomplete writing before. Found these. The quotes are there to remind me which post is which, but I've tried to choose important and beautiful passages. I feel closer to myself than I usually am. I feel thankful to have had so many loving experiences in my life.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/510284.html And I think this is the well my love comes from. The soil is deep, here, and it supports that sort of generosity. I feel replenished. I know I was feeling stretched, before, losing sight of what precisely love meant, and what it meant to give it-- I was getting the details confused with the thing, as so many of us do. I was going through rote actions in the hopes that the ritual would bring the feeling, but no, it's the other way around.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/384834.html ...When I was young (oh, Kynnin) I had wanted someone to go through all my intense life experiences with so that we'd know each other, we'd see each other change, we'd always be there with each other. That passed away reasonably recently, the desire for that folding under the reality that it cannot happen. It's too late, much of my life is behind me... Now I am a person singular in the universe, associated with others by very strong webs indeed but alone in my own skin...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/307731.html ...I want to be a poet, and write something that begins, "and I have known your smile."...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/413186.html And I'm learning, here, that love is not a difficult thing. Not even usually. Love is simply the element in which we move but pervasive to the spirit and the soul like air is pervasive to the body. Love is not a matter of posession, although it can be. It's not a matter of sex or attraction, although it can be. It's not a matter of protectiveness, although it often is. It's a matter of joy in another, although that is not all, or even usually, the sum of it. Love is a natural response to humanity like sweat is a natural response to warmth. We choose what to do with this response-- to wear another sweater,\ or to strip down or to ignore it. We choose our actions and our commitments with this knowledge, but not without free will.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/415029.html I was going to come home and write that my interaction with people involves me asking, over and over again, who are you? Who are you? With people who are close to me, the answers are big and clear. CrazyChris' identity is a big scream, gloriously inconsistent sometimes like all humans are. Juggler's self-ness is like an alarm clock in the neighboring apartment when they're on vacation-- it's there, always, in the background if you listen. You can't turn it off. I take such joy in these people. I love the way the shape of them folds out into their world in such prominent, intense detail. There is a fringe of interaction where their edges meet the world and a mutual shaping process occurs, and this is what I see when I look at them. I think I may come to be one of these people someday. I think I'm partway there. I feel like a counselling course on how to use "I" statements.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/501516.html From the last ten years, my years of relationships, I've learned that people are what they are. To distort them by percieving them through more of your own preconceptions and fears and desires is a disservice to them and to yourself. To them, because then you leave them alone and speak to the shadow around them. There's no connection. To you, because then life becomes solitary confinement in a box of funhouse mirrors. If you are so busy attending to the way smeone's actions interact with your expectations, you have no time or attention for their actions themselves-- and a person's actions are a person, really. And a person is a wonderful complex thing that is so often a joy to behold.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/517914.html No person has ever been just a pattern to me. No person has been anything other than deeply exciting and new and different and interesting. Still, en masse they create this echo. The weight of the endings presses down on beginnings. The weight of beginnings sets certain things apart, gives details an odd significance or obscures them. Sometimes memory fragments whisper through, fairly often in fact, and I find myself thinking with a bittersweet whisper this one reminds me of Jan's idealism or Sasha was that eccentrically charming or, most devastating, Kynnin was this sweet...
I remember moments, lying there, where I thought to myself please let me remember these few seconds that hold such transcendant beauty and I can never be sad or lonely again, having lived through this. I even remember some of those moments. I still have them, and I still want to etch them onto the uncertain mass of memory that I carry with me. I no longer take them to mean anything about my future, though. It makes them perhaps more precious, things whose purpose is *now* and not *later* so I can immerse myself fully, but...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/563524.html You know how to love people. You're good at it. Love them for what they are, because you can stand on your own; don't love them for what they can give you, what you need from them, for what you wish they were. You learned to do this a long time ago, to let go and just love people. Do it here and though you've lost a lot, though you've lost a beautiful shining dream, you've still gained so much. You know very well the value of a friend like this. You know very well you can trust him. Don't throw this away in a temper tantrum because you can't shape another person to your own desires. That's not what other people are there for-- they're there to be other people, to teach you to flex and adapt and keep from that rigidity you default to so well.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/572605.html You know the thing when you're upset but you're covering and you know that, if someone in the room knew you well, they'd be able to tell and might make a sympathetic face in the split second when no one was watching, and let you get back to your act thereafter? That. You know the thing when you're sad and someone doesn't need to talk you out of it, doesn't need to ask you how you're doing, they just hug you like they're really right there until you want to pull away? That. You know the thing when you're falling asleep and you know someone is watching your face or touching a little piece of you because that contact with eye or skin is a treasure? That. You know the thing where you're lonely and you go over to see someone and don't know what to say and instead of saying 'cheer up' they make you a milkshake or take you to see a blooming cherry tree? That. That's what I love in my life where I have it, and I do have it, but crave more of.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/556432.html I could look at him for hours. Sometimes I do. I've seen this feeling in other people's eyes when they look at me but I've never, quite, been this far in. I didn't used to understand how my presence made Jan so peaceful, how it didn't matter to his desire to be with me what my mood was or anything, how he was just happy to be by me. I understand now. Back then I couldn't meet Jan even halfway. Now I'm the one going more than halfway.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/562604.html He was upfront and straightforward. He made no excuses. He doesn't love me, he wishes he did, but he doesn't. He's not the sort of person who can continue on just like that even so, despite my many wonderful qualities. It's maybe the second time in my life someone's been so upfront about a breakup with me, and the first time was when I was thirteen. He held me, he cried, I cried. He said in the next couple weeks I could go to him for comfort if I needed. I said don't do this to me-- I didn't mean to say it, because he was being so good about it, but I had to, just in case it helped. He said he really wanted to be friends. I said when I get over the angry phase, I'm not there yet but I'll let you know when I get to it, so yes, comfort, but please could he not do this to me?
...It was private. I called him babydoll, puppy, my love, sweetie, Mister, every pet name seemed to fit him. He called me ma'am and my tummy did bellyflops. I beat him with a cane for the first time and he liked it. I cried sometimes, after sex or during, because it was like god coming down. His body was built for mine-- ribcage fashioned to fit the length of my arm, his arms designed to curl around me just right to trigger all my safe feelings. His cock was exactly right. I loved the little bit of soft on his belly, the way it pooled out a little. I loved the flame tattoo on his arm, and the grapes. I loved the way he looked at me when I hurt him, his eyes got so big and soft. They were usually blue eyes, with a ring in the middle the colour of his year. He's a redhead. I notice redheads more on the street now, and people dressed in construction-worker clothes.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/237702.html ...that there is so much joy in the perfect belonging that happens when you eat, consume, take into yourself something which has been given to you from the earth for nothing, for the price of a little bending and a little scratching in the dirt or even, sometimes, for simply the price of not pulling something up. You interact with something bigger than you, not by dominating it, but by studying and learning and inserting yourself as helpfully as possible into the huge complex web you wish to join; you submit yourself wholly both to the idea that there are things you cannot change ever, and things where you are very powerful and influential...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/536553.html
Storm: Cruel how?
Haven: To see (relatively) a whole lot of each other when I'd be bound to leave. To make the missing keener, the absence bigger...
Storm: Life is change. Foregoing something because it will change later means foregoing all your life. You know that, traveller.
Haven: I also know how it feels to always be reaching out for someone who isn't there, and have distant loved ones reaching out for me. Now I'm needed 3000 miles away
Storm: Fair enough. I've never been so cautious. I guess that's why I'm Storm and you're Haven. Be well whatever happens
Haven: I've never been cautious either, which is why I've had the chance to be Haven. Also 'wrought havoc'. Why am I starting now? I guess cause I care and foresee more
Storm: Reaching for things is part of the divine in us. Loss isn't damage, just a sadness sometimes coupled with the joy of memory. Then again, I am sometimes afraid I may forget how to care, not often taking time off to do it
Storm: You open me, you know.
Haven: I feel it, and reciprocate it, and would write beautiful stories with you. Is the only tragedy the life untried? I wish I could show you the wild forests I love
Storm: You will sometime :)
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/585116.html I'm a gardener...
I'm a writer...
I'm a bit of a sex goddess...
I'm a worshipper and an en-joy-er...
I'm a critic and an analyst...
I'm a lover. I love people...
...I love food...
I love complex systems...
I like having control of some things, and completely surrendering control in others. I'm an extremist any way you look at it...
I adore being taken care of...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/510284.html And I think this is the well my love comes from. The soil is deep, here, and it supports that sort of generosity. I feel replenished. I know I was feeling stretched, before, losing sight of what precisely love meant, and what it meant to give it-- I was getting the details confused with the thing, as so many of us do. I was going through rote actions in the hopes that the ritual would bring the feeling, but no, it's the other way around.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/384834.html ...When I was young (oh, Kynnin) I had wanted someone to go through all my intense life experiences with so that we'd know each other, we'd see each other change, we'd always be there with each other. That passed away reasonably recently, the desire for that folding under the reality that it cannot happen. It's too late, much of my life is behind me... Now I am a person singular in the universe, associated with others by very strong webs indeed but alone in my own skin...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/307731.html ...I want to be a poet, and write something that begins, "and I have known your smile."...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/413186.html And I'm learning, here, that love is not a difficult thing. Not even usually. Love is simply the element in which we move but pervasive to the spirit and the soul like air is pervasive to the body. Love is not a matter of posession, although it can be. It's not a matter of sex or attraction, although it can be. It's not a matter of protectiveness, although it often is. It's a matter of joy in another, although that is not all, or even usually, the sum of it. Love is a natural response to humanity like sweat is a natural response to warmth. We choose what to do with this response-- to wear another sweater,\ or to strip down or to ignore it. We choose our actions and our commitments with this knowledge, but not without free will.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/415029.html I was going to come home and write that my interaction with people involves me asking, over and over again, who are you? Who are you? With people who are close to me, the answers are big and clear. CrazyChris' identity is a big scream, gloriously inconsistent sometimes like all humans are. Juggler's self-ness is like an alarm clock in the neighboring apartment when they're on vacation-- it's there, always, in the background if you listen. You can't turn it off. I take such joy in these people. I love the way the shape of them folds out into their world in such prominent, intense detail. There is a fringe of interaction where their edges meet the world and a mutual shaping process occurs, and this is what I see when I look at them. I think I may come to be one of these people someday. I think I'm partway there. I feel like a counselling course on how to use "I" statements.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/501516.html From the last ten years, my years of relationships, I've learned that people are what they are. To distort them by percieving them through more of your own preconceptions and fears and desires is a disservice to them and to yourself. To them, because then you leave them alone and speak to the shadow around them. There's no connection. To you, because then life becomes solitary confinement in a box of funhouse mirrors. If you are so busy attending to the way smeone's actions interact with your expectations, you have no time or attention for their actions themselves-- and a person's actions are a person, really. And a person is a wonderful complex thing that is so often a joy to behold.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/517914.html No person has ever been just a pattern to me. No person has been anything other than deeply exciting and new and different and interesting. Still, en masse they create this echo. The weight of the endings presses down on beginnings. The weight of beginnings sets certain things apart, gives details an odd significance or obscures them. Sometimes memory fragments whisper through, fairly often in fact, and I find myself thinking with a bittersweet whisper this one reminds me of Jan's idealism or Sasha was that eccentrically charming or, most devastating, Kynnin was this sweet...
I remember moments, lying there, where I thought to myself please let me remember these few seconds that hold such transcendant beauty and I can never be sad or lonely again, having lived through this. I even remember some of those moments. I still have them, and I still want to etch them onto the uncertain mass of memory that I carry with me. I no longer take them to mean anything about my future, though. It makes them perhaps more precious, things whose purpose is *now* and not *later* so I can immerse myself fully, but...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/563524.html You know how to love people. You're good at it. Love them for what they are, because you can stand on your own; don't love them for what they can give you, what you need from them, for what you wish they were. You learned to do this a long time ago, to let go and just love people. Do it here and though you've lost a lot, though you've lost a beautiful shining dream, you've still gained so much. You know very well the value of a friend like this. You know very well you can trust him. Don't throw this away in a temper tantrum because you can't shape another person to your own desires. That's not what other people are there for-- they're there to be other people, to teach you to flex and adapt and keep from that rigidity you default to so well.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/572605.html You know the thing when you're upset but you're covering and you know that, if someone in the room knew you well, they'd be able to tell and might make a sympathetic face in the split second when no one was watching, and let you get back to your act thereafter? That. You know the thing when you're sad and someone doesn't need to talk you out of it, doesn't need to ask you how you're doing, they just hug you like they're really right there until you want to pull away? That. You know the thing when you're falling asleep and you know someone is watching your face or touching a little piece of you because that contact with eye or skin is a treasure? That. You know the thing where you're lonely and you go over to see someone and don't know what to say and instead of saying 'cheer up' they make you a milkshake or take you to see a blooming cherry tree? That. That's what I love in my life where I have it, and I do have it, but crave more of.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/556432.html I could look at him for hours. Sometimes I do. I've seen this feeling in other people's eyes when they look at me but I've never, quite, been this far in. I didn't used to understand how my presence made Jan so peaceful, how it didn't matter to his desire to be with me what my mood was or anything, how he was just happy to be by me. I understand now. Back then I couldn't meet Jan even halfway. Now I'm the one going more than halfway.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/562604.html He was upfront and straightforward. He made no excuses. He doesn't love me, he wishes he did, but he doesn't. He's not the sort of person who can continue on just like that even so, despite my many wonderful qualities. It's maybe the second time in my life someone's been so upfront about a breakup with me, and the first time was when I was thirteen. He held me, he cried, I cried. He said in the next couple weeks I could go to him for comfort if I needed. I said don't do this to me-- I didn't mean to say it, because he was being so good about it, but I had to, just in case it helped. He said he really wanted to be friends. I said when I get over the angry phase, I'm not there yet but I'll let you know when I get to it, so yes, comfort, but please could he not do this to me?
...It was private. I called him babydoll, puppy, my love, sweetie, Mister, every pet name seemed to fit him. He called me ma'am and my tummy did bellyflops. I beat him with a cane for the first time and he liked it. I cried sometimes, after sex or during, because it was like god coming down. His body was built for mine-- ribcage fashioned to fit the length of my arm, his arms designed to curl around me just right to trigger all my safe feelings. His cock was exactly right. I loved the little bit of soft on his belly, the way it pooled out a little. I loved the flame tattoo on his arm, and the grapes. I loved the way he looked at me when I hurt him, his eyes got so big and soft. They were usually blue eyes, with a ring in the middle the colour of his year. He's a redhead. I notice redheads more on the street now, and people dressed in construction-worker clothes.
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/237702.html ...that there is so much joy in the perfect belonging that happens when you eat, consume, take into yourself something which has been given to you from the earth for nothing, for the price of a little bending and a little scratching in the dirt or even, sometimes, for simply the price of not pulling something up. You interact with something bigger than you, not by dominating it, but by studying and learning and inserting yourself as helpfully as possible into the huge complex web you wish to join; you submit yourself wholly both to the idea that there are things you cannot change ever, and things where you are very powerful and influential...
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/536553.html
Storm: Cruel how?
Haven: To see (relatively) a whole lot of each other when I'd be bound to leave. To make the missing keener, the absence bigger...
Storm: Life is change. Foregoing something because it will change later means foregoing all your life. You know that, traveller.
Haven: I also know how it feels to always be reaching out for someone who isn't there, and have distant loved ones reaching out for me. Now I'm needed 3000 miles away
Storm: Fair enough. I've never been so cautious. I guess that's why I'm Storm and you're Haven. Be well whatever happens
Haven: I've never been cautious either, which is why I've had the chance to be Haven. Also 'wrought havoc'. Why am I starting now? I guess cause I care and foresee more
Storm: Reaching for things is part of the divine in us. Loss isn't damage, just a sadness sometimes coupled with the joy of memory. Then again, I am sometimes afraid I may forget how to care, not often taking time off to do it
Storm: You open me, you know.
Haven: I feel it, and reciprocate it, and would write beautiful stories with you. Is the only tragedy the life untried? I wish I could show you the wild forests I love
Storm: You will sometime :)
http://greenstorm.livejournal.com/585116.html I'm a gardener...
I'm a writer...
I'm a bit of a sex goddess...
I'm a worshipper and an en-joy-er...
I'm a critic and an analyst...
I'm a lover. I love people...
...I love food...
I love complex systems...
I like having control of some things, and completely surrendering control in others. I'm an extremist any way you look at it...
I adore being taken care of...