Comes the Dawn

i first saw this poem in Danielle Steel's collection of Love poems, but my mom handwrote it for me on a sheet of bond paper many many years ago, when i was around 17 or 18, while she was having her own marriage troubles, and a year or two before she finally left...

recently, i've tried to find it in the Net, but what i find in the Net now is the original version by Judith Evans, or Veronica Shofftall (there is a debate as to who really wrote it).

i like this Danielle Steel version better and i'd like to keep it here for Net posterity, as the copy my mom gave me is now yellowed and tattered around the edges.

***

comes the dawn

after a while you learn
the subtle difference
between holding a hand
and sharing a life
and you learn that love
doesn't mean possession
and company
doesn't mean security
and loneliness is universal.
and you learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents
aren't promises.

so you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up
and your eyes open
with the grace of a woman
not the grief of a child.

and you learn to build your hope
on today
as the future has a way
of falling apart
in mid-flight.
because tomorrow's grounds
can be too uncertain for plans
yet
each step taken
in a new direction
creates a path
toward the promise
of a brighter dawn.

and you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much.

so you plant your own garden
and nourish your own soul
instead of waiting
for someone
to bring you flowers.

and you learn that love,
true love,
always has joys and sorrows
seems ever present
yet is never quite the same
becoming more than love
and less than love
so difficult to define.

and you learn
that through it all--
you really can endure,
that you really are strong,
that you do have value.

and you learn and grow
with every goodbye
you learn.

The Death Card

in response to my question in Tarot.com, i get this answer--

Trust that dramatic relationship changes such as these only happen according to divine appointment.

The card that lands in the Challenges position refers to ways that you can turn obstacles into stepping stones.

The Death card in this position indicates the awesome challenge that death and rebirth present. Letting go is not easy, especially when we may be called upon to make a major shift in a potential relationship. Have faith that this change may benefit you more than clinging to the old ways would have. The farmer understands the truth of this card and the meaning of the sickle in the image. There is a time for everything: a time to plant, a time for things to grow and become fat, a time to harvest, a time for things to be cut back or lie fallow.

You may be dying to some part of your past. Accept the letting go of a possible relationship that needs to happen. Release your load. Is it possible that the attachments that have helped you feel secure have, in truth, come to own you? Accept this rebirth into better times. If fear of change or oblivion gets in your way, you may struggle to keep your morale up.

Goddess Treat

it got so bad yesterday, i wasn't only weepy and blue, dragging my heels, listless, unable to concentrate on anything else except him, i felt actually sick, sick with love!

well, at least, now i know how to quickly bring my self out of the dumps. i forced my self to shower, fix my self up, go out and drive to my favorite spa. unfortunately, the spa was closed. i forgot it was a Sunday. : (

so i did the other best thing-- on to the skin clinic for a Diamond Peel facial, and then on to the beauty salon for a complete hot oil, manicure, pedicure, foot spa and even eyebrow trim pampering!!!

i am feeling better today, more like my goddess self. thank Goddess! : )

then, too, his little comment from all my drama and sturm and drang and revelations of the depth of my feelings and passions for him, when i asked him to forget that i made them, made the emotional vortex all worth it-- "Forget? I found them cute."

ohhh, i am worse than a 17-year-old!!!

9

nine times. i have made love to him for 9 times, already, without his knowing it!

this is the first relationship i have ever been where the sexual undercurrent is not at the forefront; no overt sexual flirting and innuendos at all in our conversations, well a shy joke once or twice, but that's about it.

i can even begin to understand that line from that impossible song now, "to love, pure and chaste from afar..." : S

so yes, that's why this-- he, us, what we have-- is sooo precious.

but what to do with my growing and raging passions, aside from my already very sensual and sexual nature???

so on some days after really intense conversations and even heated debates about what we really want for our selves and for the future, about his work and my work, etc.... and when im feeling like he might be having too much of me already, i step back, keep quiet, give him time to “digest” me, and maybe miss me more... but keep my self "merged" to him in some way by doing this .... this "red" magic pleasuring.

heehee. : )

i have read somewhere long ago that this keeps you both united, beyond body, beyond words, where it really counts, despite the distance that temporarily keeps you apart. shhhhh.... : )

it keeps me sane, too, from this terrible terrible missing of him, and longing for him, and of loving him so!!!

i hope the 10th will be for real, though.

i am smoking so, i think i might actually die of spontaneous combustion!!!

sigh.

That "L" Word

i never had much trouble with it before, it seems. it always was spoken too soon, too easily, maybe in the haste to bring in intimacy where there was really none.

nowadays, though, with M... i am feeling like an awkward, gawking, bumbling teen-ager again, and i sense he feels the same. : ) it is almost cute, if it wasn't so torturous. : (

he mentions it indirectly... like he says his mom has fallen in love with me and is now counting the days to our marriage.... i mention it indirectly too, like i asked his mom when his exact birthtime was so we could match up our horoscopes and see if we are really soulmates, according to the stars...

then he lets it slip, as if carelessly, somewhere in a long email about everything and nothing at all... i respond back, by letting it slip, as if carelessly too, by saying "Love," instead of "Hugs," in signing my emails... and then... we go back to being friends again.

last friday was really something, though. in our desperate missing of each other, he finally said those three magical words, and i responded back in kind... only for us to be suddenly rendered wordless for 36 hours!

then, shyly, hesitantly again, we venture out of our shells, and pretend to just be on friendly terms again.

why is it, that now, when feelings run so deep they are scary, we are suddenly at a loss for telling each other how we really feel?

and for me at 38, him at 47, both of us writers and speakers, with Gemini (the sign of the communicator) prominent (his Sun, my Ascendant) in our charts!

imagine that.

Acts of Faith, and Miracles

i remember a line from the film, Under the Tuscan Sun-- "if you build the house, the occupants will come" -- which was similar to another line in the film, Field of Dreams -- "if you build the (baseball) diamond, the players will come"-- or something to that effect, and i marvel at how true they are in my life now.

a year and a half ago, i decided to stop "playing around" with short-term flings and little romances, because even if they were fun adventures, they were not doing any good to my mental, emotional and even physical health in the long run, with the risks i were taking. ive learned what i had to learn, i figured, "sowed my oats", so to speak, and so i thought it was time for me to settle down into my self, and give to me the loving that i sought elsewhere but never seemed to get, just love me and give to me and pamper me as i deserved, at last.

and so it went that as i got used to loving me just as i am, i met friends -- men and women -- who were also more of the giving types, not the taker types i used to be surrounded with before. and their friendships and nurturing further bolstered my sense of value, of feeling more deserving of true and good loving just as i am, without my having to do anything else to earn it or to pay for it.

a little over two months ago, i was introduced by an old college friend to a man whom i connected with so deeply and so soon, it brought that old girlhood dream and mantra... "soulmate"... back to life for me again.

im taking it slow this time, though... making sure i do it right this time. and surprisingly for me (i have been with men before who just pushed and rushed and insisted, never mind what i wanted or how i felt about things), he respects it and abides by it. our friendship's developing beautifully; he is like the amalgamation of all the other friends ive had over the past year and a half. he has introduced me to his mom, and his mom and i hit it off quick too. : ) he told me one time how "bizaare" his feelings for me are-- "i cannot imagine life without you in it, and yet you have just arrived in it!"

what never ceases to amaze me is, in addition to the fact of our quick and deep connection, his life circumstances are in such a way that they fit mine, and mine his, supporting each other's dreams, filling each other's little lacks.... oohhh, almost like a perfect fit. bizaare, indeed. one example is even before i met him, i resolved to my self that i will take a leave of absence from my day job by next schoolyear, to create space for my heart's true desires-- writing and reading and maybe even more travelling through the family business and my burgeoning speaking career. now, here comes a man who is not only very passionate about reading and writing (and his mom and only sister are writers too!) but a world traveler too, who is seeking to settle down at last yet still also wants to introduce me and my little ones to the places he has been! i still secretly glow from his solemn promise-- "someday, we will all travel, including your little treasures." : ) : ) : )

of course, one side of me says maybe it is still too early to know for sure, that time will tell. but so far, things have been growing beautifully, everyday miracles manifesting.

if not for anything else, what i love (we haven't spoken that L word yet...so hush...) most about this man is that he makes me laugh. even when he complains and rants about his day, without his meaning to, they always come out funny, and he just makes me laugh, and feel warm all over. i could live with someone who makes me laugh, no matter what, for the rest of my life!

: D

***

oohh, God, help me be worthy; God help me do it right this time!

my match

i may have found my match at last.

last night, we had our first big argument. i considered it a fight; he just considers it my venting.

so while i trembled and shook, in all fury, he took it all yet held his ground too, gently telling me where i was shooting off arrows off tangent, telling me how im hurting him... but holding his steadfast ground just the same. he didnt quake nor tremble as i did, or worse, break down himself from all my fuming. he just stayed there, held his ground, not so stoically, quite noisily too, but held his ground still.

for the first time, i didn't have to take care of another even as i spit fire. i was taken care of, instead.

i may have found my match at last.