IN VARYING DEGREES, WE HAVE LOVED

people through finding something beautiful
think something else unbeautiful
through finding one man fit judge another unfit
life and death, though stemming from each other
seem to conflict as stages of change...
difficult and easy as phases of achievement,
long and short as measures of contract,
high and low as degree of relation
but since the varying of tones gives music to a voice
and what is is the was of what shall be
the sanest man sets up no deed,
lays down no law,
takes everything that happens as it comes.

-Lao-tzu, Chinese mystic 500 B.C.


We're all just ships that pass in the night. All we can do is cross each other's horizons. We will never have enough time, enough resources, enough sense, and enough love to light up each other's harbors.

I have enjoyed your coming, and I have smiled when you waved hello.

But I know that the sea holds no bounds, and other harbor lights beckon.

Still you have allowed me to know you and in your wake, you have touched my being. So I will keep a light on... should you find yourself passing this way again... and wave, in remembrance.

VIRGINIA SAID IT FOR ME

'I want to love you without clutching,

appreciate you without judging,

join you without invading,

invite you without demanding,

leave you without guilt,

criticize you without blaming,

and help you without insulting.

If I can have the same from you

then we can truly meet and enrich each other.'

- Virginia Satir

WORDS

You said that maybe I should stay close because when I am, it makes you want to write...

Don't you know that I cannot have you any nearer than when I hold you in my thoughts... that I cannot hold you any closer than when I keep you in my heart?

When you write... when I read what you write... there's a settling that happens in me that tastes so much like peace. And if there is certainty in contentment, if it wasn't the ethereal notion that it is, or if it didn't elude our discernment with such furtiveness, there would be that, too. Your words touch me like nothing ever has before. I can lose myself in them and just as you would not want to breathe out again, I am hoping never to be found.

You said that I am your muse...

That is flattering, but not necessarily a happy thought. Muses come and go and when they go, they are gone a long time.

I don't want to be.

I'd like to be here... for you.