Hate: Where Does it Lead?

 image purchased from CanStock.

After writing about love in how it impacts life and my books, it seemed logical to look at its opposite and how does it impact life and fiction. What is the opposite of love? Some have claimed it's fear but I think it's hate. I thought it'd be easy to write about hate. Not so fast.

First of all, I have never personally felt hate for anyone or anything. I thought about this, long and hard after I decided to write about it. I am not sure I ever had anyone hate me either. If they did, I didn't know it. I do experience dislike and some claim that is on its way to hate. If it is, I never let it go that far on a personal level. I also don't worry too much if someone dislikes me unless they would take it to a physical level.

So what makes someone go to the point of hate? I see examples of it happening a lot in what I read is going on in the world and my own country. When people kill strangers, is that a product of hate? Do wars come out of hate, maybe of one nation for another. How about terrorism? Or even saying bad things about another, who may not be personally known but who the person hates? Does emotional abuse come out of hate?

Every so often, we read of a husband or wife killing their partner. How does love turn to hate or was it ever love? Was it possibly narcissism?  Using the pretense of love to get what one wants from another? We do see that a lot with frauds, but does that come out of the perpetrator's hate?

I looked for definitions of hate and found extreme dislike, among a few others, possible synonyms. What makes someone or even a whole nation go from dislike to the point of killing what they now hate? Or even someone resembling that object of hatred?

Probably I won't come up with defining hate, other than a recommendation. Do not let dislike turn to hate. Hate is generally more damaging to the hater than to the one they hate. I believe, like with love, hate is an internal feeling where one can enrich someone's soul and the other eat it up until they become effectively soulless.

If someone moves to hate from dislike, can they go back? I believe so when they realize hate is bad for themselves and the world. Unfortunately, some find hate empowering and don't want to go back to what I'd call the light and a healthier view of life. But if they wish to get rid of their hate, first stop going where hate is sold as a virtue. Beware of pundits who might claim they care about others, but who constantly spew anger and rage. Also avoid such people or groups. Look for where love, which is not remotely a weak emotion, is taught and expressed. You can't be fed one thing and hope to project another.

Where it comes to my writing, I often have villains in my books but rarely go very much into what turned them into one. I don't go into their backstories as I do with other characters. There was an exception in two of my novels. The character was in Beyond the Broken Road where he felt abused and constantly blamed others for whatever went wrong.. He returned in The Beckoning Flame where his hate and self serving (as he thought anyway) behavior had gone to another level entirely. That beckoning flame can be for good or not good. We decide what to follow. Sometimes, I think there can come a time when there is no further choice. The hater has lost any desire to change.

Next Saturday's blog will be out of a chapter showing how a flame that beckons us can lead to positive or negative results-- both for what love can do and unfortunately hate.

 

what love is

When writing romances, it's part of the deal to care about relationships and the subject of love itself. With a romance, the requirement is a happily ever after-- in short, it has to work out in the end. An example would be Pride and Prejudice where however unlikely it might seem, they're going to be with each other at the end of the book. 

image purchased from Deposit Photos.

With love stories, this is not necessarily the case. An example of that would be Gone with the Wind. One might hope he'd come back but didn't seem likely when the story ended.

Romances are fantasies, not to say love stories cannot also be, but one is satisfying even when it might not feel realistic. Still, does it seem believable that this couple would fall in love to begin or did the writer just throw them together and tell readers that it happened. The best romances make the reader believe, yep, it could make sense. 

I wrote one of my contemporary romances where it began with a couple divorcing, which one wanted and one did not. Divorces do sometimes end with a couple back together in what we call real life. Not always and definitely not needed in a love story.

Always when I begin a romance, I have in mind at least one of the protagonists. Then who seems likely for that happily ever after, with, of course, some major glitches along the way. That is required or there is no interest. When I come up with the second protagonist, I have to believe it's more than seeing each other and bam. If I don't believe in it, the readers will not.

Music speaks a lot about love-- sometimes as a romantic fantasy and sometimes with sad endings. I particularly like this song from the 80s where it speaks of someone wanting to know love, wanting to find someone to teach them.

I want to know what love is

Here's the thing about love. It's within us. Relationships in romances can begin many ways, from friends to lovers or even enemies to lovers, but the real life deals, which last. love for each other, and not in the romantic sense of the word but more the in depth caring for that person and what is good for them as well as one's own self.  

People looking for love in their lives have to be logical as well as emotional. Do I share life goals with that person? Do our backgrounds make it likely that we will understand each other? It can't be just lust, though that might be a beginning. If that's all it is though, don't expect it to last. Real love goes through good and bad times with a desire to work together for a good life. I try to write romances where that seems likely for the protagonists.

Romantic love is lovely in books, soothing to read through dark times, but the kinds of relationships that last take genuine love and that takes the emotion and logic to make it through the dark times-- and I believe all relationships have those. I know something about those long term relationships as I am in one. Not that I don't have dreams that add to what I write.

Choices

This subject began with a dream. I saw three men vying for a post at the Air Force Academy (remember it's a dream and hence does not have to be historically accurate for names or anything). The obnoxious one, with a terrible smile, won the opportunity to get his education there. These were high school age guys btw. 

I woke up thinking how Ranch Boss had done that and lost out to another guy, though he'd gotten close before that happened. I hadn't actually thought of this before; but his choice to try for that school would have meant we'd have never met as we did in our reality. If he had gone elsewhere, both of our lives would have been so different without the same children we later had after marriage. So much would have been different for him especially with likely a career in the Air Force.

I'd have married someone else, as there had been someone else before him, who was still around in an off and on sense. My life though would have not been the same. There'd have been a different family, and it'd be unlikely I'd be typing at this house in Arizona right now. 

Choices are what life is about. Many are tiny. Others big. We often have no idea where a choice will land us. Turn down one road and we get where we're going. Turn the other and some idiot runs as red light. 

Often, we have no idea how choices will impact our future. Marry wrong person and divorce or worse. Marry right person and celebrate over 50 years of marriage. Do we totally know when we make that choice. We try to make it on facts and experience. Sometimes though, it's emotions or even limitations based on our culture.

Writing romances is a lot like that, other than we might have more control over the outcome, but not if the characters dictate the results. I've mentioned how themes play into what we write, followed by a plot to get our story there. Characters are a huge part of that. With that theme, what kind of characters will work with the plot. Will they feel right to us or the later (hopefully) readers.

I do generally have a theme in mind but choosing the right characters, especially the primary protagonists, that's where real thought comes into play. There are several ways the need for a certain type of characters emerge especially in romances. One of the popular tropes is enemies to lovers. I don't use that, but it could work for me when it's two different cultures or tribes-- something outside the couple. When it's though supposed to be between the two of them as enemies to lovers, I don't buy it for what I will read. I think it's a big mistake to write a romance where one person 'fixes' the other. It doesn't encourage healthy ideas for life as it doesn't tend to work out there. People fix themselves, or it doesn't happen from what I've seen.

For my books, sometimes it's friends to lovers. As in, couples who grew up together and then realize-- wow, it's more than friendship (Round the Bend). I have some where the couples broke up and come back together-- or not (Bannister's Way) Mostly, when it's a case of meeting for the first time, physical attraction is a factor. Let's be honest, that begins a lot of so-called real life relationships. It might not be what someone  else regards as good looking (happened in my Desert Inferno) but it's attractive to the smitten one. 

What attracts us in the beginning is not what makes a relationship work. Physical attraction only carries the relationship so far in real life or books. There has to be something else that cause a couple to make it work for a happily ever after. Books need that to satisfy readers. I read a lot of negative reviews for books and that's a big one to irritate a reader.

Ranch Boss and I are very different for how we see things. He's the scientist ,and I'm the artist. When the kids asked once what makes fog. He went into a scientific explanation. I said it's clouds stuck on trees. 

If we didn't respect each other for our differences, that could have been a big problem in our choices, but we did. Something else became important. We want the same things out of our life together, the same kind of life. We just came at our choices different ways. We had another advantage in that we came from similar backgrounds. Different backgrounds can make for interesting stories but also can make for a lot of complexity in what we call real life.

With romances, I think there has to be some similarities and differences for the two primary characters to be believable and interesting. How, as writer, does someone pick those people and then make what they go through work for them. Romances usually have difficulties from outside which could be the black swans of life, a villain, but also those differences between them where compromise has to happen or it's all over-- in fiction or life.

Next blog, I'll discuss some of my characters and how I decided on them as well as how it would make sense they would get a happily ever after, which romances require. I should add-- on only one of my 30 books did my hero and heroine not get that guaranteed happily ever after as I just saw too many problems for them in the future. That book was Sky Daughter. It ended well but with the understanding it might not be permanent due to major lifestyle differences for where they could live or do their life work.

manipulation

 

Something stirred my interest this week (though, it should not have) and finally I realized I had to write about it or it'd not let me go lol. I tend to be that way with a lot of things. If they are on my mind, I can finally go on, once I do whatever the feeling had me needing to do... even when I had other things to do that 'I' regarded as more important.

This one related to a 'trans' group in Norway that decided Aretha Franklin's song, Natural Woman was offensive to trans and they wanted it taken off Spotify, etc. For reasons beyond my understanding, the media picked up the story from what I gather was a 'new' group. The group doubtless knew that and hence tweaked it. The media is so easy to manipulate. I have no idea what Spotify, etc. did about it, but I know what they should have done-- ignored it.

Whether you are sympathetic to trans causes, are trans, this should have been ignored as it's not about trans at all-- not in its message or its timing (came out in 1968). I think they pushed it to get their group known. Maybe it worked and maybe not but wish it would not and wish our media would be less gullible.

I had to listen to the song again as though I remembered the melody, I'd forgotten the words. If that is your case, here's a link to hear it on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCFzreP1ng

Listen to those words and do you hear anything about a man becoming a woman? You do not, as back then it was far less a 'cause' than it has been recently. But if a man wants to become a woman, does he not want to be a natural woman? 

What the song speaks to is this woman finding someone who makes her feel all she hadn't felt before. She has found the one who brings out the female in her. Could not a trans-woman also feel that way when they had the 'right' person come along? It's about an emotional reaction to loving the right person and what it did to the writer's heartstrings. 

A feminist might disagree with that message-- feeling we should not need someone else (notice song never said male or female lover) to feel all our own inner strength and being. We should do it for ourselves as most recently Miley Cyrus sang about in her new song-- Flowers. I can do it for myself was her message. It is probably the strongest way to be when we don't need someone else, but when we do, is that bad when it's the right person? When other people bring out the best is us, isn't that a good thing?

From Here to There

 

For the holiday season we often put books on sale that relate to it. I added one this year that introduced some of those characters and explained from where they had come. It will stay on sale longer than the others (until January 3, 2023) as it has a different set of purposes. 

From Here to There is the story of two romances-- one told through an old journal and the other alive at the time. It's also the story of a romance for Montana and ranch living. Today, not many know about ranch living as our culture is so urban oriented. That is logical, but it means many have no idea from where their food even comes-- other than the grocery store.

We redid the cover for the book (for the umpteenth time) as it seemed to never quite catch the zeitgeist of the book. It's not easy to capture a book's deeper purpose when it's a romance and a novel (over 90,000+ words). So if you decide, give it a try for 99¢ for another week. It's not like a novella in that there is a LOT more story to it that depicts what that life is like as well as the relationships. Still, I think for those who enjoy love stories, it will satisfy. For a family, as well as two individuals, it teaches something for the characters and the reader!  

It's a fun read. Although it is tough, I "much love" that life, and have lived it many years.

 From Here to There

Holiday Sales

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, we once again have put the books I've written, regarding this time of year, on sale for Kindle at 99¢ each. They'd be free except that is not an option when writing for Amazon and not in Kindle Unlimited. Still 99¢ isn't much for fun reads on what the holiday can mean for people in various relationships.

First comes Diana's Journey-- about a woman who gets a life-rewrite when her husband wants a divorce. She sells what she has, shocks her grown children, and takes off in a small Class C RV with her two chihuahuas to explore places she's only read about. What about Christmas though?  She doesn't even want it to come, but it always does She decides to spend it in Utah, far from where she expects memories could ruin her day-- except, what she finds is the meaning of Christmas when it comes to community and friends-- another rewrite for her life.

Second is not about Christmas, but is included because it introduces the characters where it is. From Here to There -- When a wedding doesn't lead to a marriage but instead to a bride leaving her new husband before he can be one, the story moves to Montana ranch country, and two romances-- one in the past as the bride learns more about love from an old journal and when her groom follows her to the ranch to convince her she made a mistake. Ranch living and Montana are key to this story.

The third was written because I began to think-- how'd it work out for these characters and can the holidays heal family rifts or can its expectations make them worse? The story delves again into the reality of ranch living-- holidays or not. A Montana Christmas --  uses the beauty of Montana against the difficulty of family dynamics. New relationships are developed with others deepening-- will some be totally destroyed?

Diana's Journey and A Montana Christmas  are novellas with  From Here To There a full length novel. It is a romance, the other two are about the healing energy of relationships, holidays, love, and the celebration of the earth's regenerating cycles. 

      There used to be an ability to create links here but whenever I click on that, it sends me to another blog. grrrrrr.  So, below are the books and their links. The first two are novellas, with their correct links behind them. You have to copy paste to make them work given what's going on with my ability to create live links. The last one is a full length novel that introduces the characters in A Montana Christmas. At worst, you can look alongside here where the links will take you to the books... I haven't used Blogger for a while for linking, hence, not sure what's going on. The books are fine though...

Diana's Journey -- https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M5IA26Y

A Montana Christmas -- https://www.amazon.com/Montana-Christmas-Rain-Trueax-ebook/dp/B00AOU0IQ2

From Here to There -- https://www.amazon.com/From-Here-There-Rain-Trueax-ebook/dp/B006PNS7EC

The sale lasts through December 31st.

A lifelong friendship

 by Rain Trueax

Oregon Coast at Yachats

There are things that a person just does not know how to write. Losses are among the hardest of those. Sometimes we prefer to let such times pass without words. Sometimes words are needed.

We have had a long time friendship with a couple that goes back to 1962 (we think) for one of us and him. Fisherman and Ranch Boss met as freshmen through a combination of working for a chemistry professor at the college and a fly fishing class. The class required taking some fishing trips. Twist their arms. From that time, they formed a friendship that lasted until he died this week. 

In the fall of '62, I met what would be my future husband from my making up a dance class due to schedule change. We were pretty instantly attracted with dating, though not going seriously for a few months at least-- neither of us remember the exact date. I though, of course, met his fishing friend through him and later his girlfriend, Diane.

The relationships processed though the usual stages from engagements to our wedding in September-- theirs in June. That summer, we got together at their town apartment to discuss future plans since both men had applied at University of Arizona to work and study for a Master's Degree. In Tucson, we found an apartment complex that suited us all (can't remember who found it either). 

From Oregon, we caravaned down the small roads of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon where we shared a cabin along with our small black cat, Sheba.

 Once in Tucson, life settled in very comfortable routine. They'd go to class and after a while, Diane and I would meet every morning at either her apartment or mine for coffee and to talk for a while on politics, culture, life, art-- not always agreeing but always stimulating. Then we'd break for the day while she painted and I wrote. 

 

A painting Diane did down there and gave us for Christmas.

We each had a small patio, which they did theirs one way and ours another. The four of us played in the desert washes, even took an Easter break to rent a log cabin on the Rim (along with our black cat, of course), which led to this painting, which we have in Oregon.

Diane painted this one in the White Mountains on that trip. We bought it at a price she generously made possible for what we could afford.

Eventually, the four of us headed back north for jobs-- us first to Oregon-- later, them to Washington. We continued to get together as our babies were born. We shared interests and differences. It worked. Then he also got a job in Oregon which led to more opportunities to get together. For years, it led to sharing cabins on the Oregon Coast, going for hikes, and a lot of dinners together. And then he got sick and...

When you lose one half of a partnership like that, it's a hole out of your heart. You basically have shared your lives and done so much together-- always free to have other friends and other interests.We didn't expect it to end this way until we learned Fisherman had ALS. It is a disease that isn't easy to diagnose in the beginning. Later it meant an inevitable end. He fought it though as bravely as he did everything else. Finally it ended his life but not his spirit. He smiled to the end.

He was a good, strong friend. He contributed to the community by his volunteer efforts to help more people find joy in nature and fishing. He was a mountain climber, part of rescue teams, a scientist his whole life, and of course, always a fisherman to the very end as he shared its satisfaction and joy with others-- especially his family, which was always at the heart of his life. 

Sometimes saying someone was a good man just isn't enough to describe all that means. He expanded his life with travel and always with his life partner, Diane, with whom he shared a long marriage from being virtually kids to old age. They were the kind of partnership; where he encouraged and helped her with her art as she did him with all his outdoor interests. To say he will be missed isn't to say enough. It's a loss but also a blessing to have had him in our lives.

I decided to  create a small video of the photos we had with them. I don't have all the pictures I would have liked as most are still in Oregon but this represents part of a long friendship. Three of us go on, but he will always be part of who we are.

https://youtu.be/lho-dgzDnJs

 

We were no longer in Arizona when Diane painted this one. Years later I had told her my regret at not having one of her big cactus paintings. It turned out one of her family members was redecorating and this one didn't work. We bought it. Later we brought it back to Arizona where it is hung in the living room.

 

 

Beauty, Truth and Love

by Rain Trueax

Denton Lund giclee, Echoes of the Old Ones, now hanging in the bedroom

While I don't generally discuss politics here, the US has just been through one of the most brutal election seasons I can remember-- and that goes back a long way. For many, the attacks weren't based on issues so much as evil vs. good; Nazi vs. Communist; stupid vs. smart; and on it went. The attacks were not just against a candidate but against anyone who voted for him.

Those of us in the middle tried to keep our heads down to avoid being hit by the shrapnel as it flew from both directions...

Beltane

by Rain Trueax

Here we are at another Celtic festival-- actually this one is April 30-May 1 and it's a May Day celebration for many cultures. I still remember May poles, where the pole had streamers and children danced around it. I don't know if that is outdated or now seen as occult. It has another meaning for me-- my father's birthday in 1910. 

Beltane

 represents the peak of Spring and the beginning of Summer. Earth energies are at their strongest and most active. Where I live, it does seem more like the beginning of summer than Summer Solstice when we are already in the heart of our summer. There are rituals to welcome the summer. Beltane is known as the time of love as well as hand-fasting. Anytime is good to be a season of love.  

I've used Gaelic or Celtic festivals now in three of my books. Beltane became important in the climax to the most recent one, A Price to be Paid. Lammas (Lughnasadh) was in the contemporary paranormal, Sky Daughter. Samhain was in the Oregon historical Going Home). I have Solstices and equinoxes when they fit. I always note these days in my own life, sometimes do a little ritual with them. They are about nature and the earth more than any religion.

In terms of historic meaning in Celtic lands, Beltane was when the cattle were put out onto the wild pastures. Ours are already be out on theirs (as well as beyond where they were supposed to be) as the ground hardened up enough for them a little early-- despite all the rain we've had. The grass though is growing, and it's a good time as summer is my favorite season.

Reflections in our creek 

Romance and my recommendation for worst such film of all time

Valentine's Day and I wasn't planning to write anything on it because I am a bit bah humbug about such holidays. Symbolisms always leave me cold. This is a day supposedly to turn on the romance and make money for merchants? Leave some people sad because no valentines? Remind others they didn't get what the 'dream' was all about? I have never liked this holiday. I dislike it more as I get old.

And where it comes to romantic films, well they are worse than Valentine's Day. They are aimed at presenting a view of relationships that might exist for a fleeting second, for a few, but basically isn't how life is for the majority of couples. However, for reasons I cannot figure out (can I blame it on astrology? I should see where Venus is), I dug out a romantic film that I had bought years ago in one of those $5 bins and had put off seeing because of-- see above.

Spoiler ahead so you are forewarned if you go forward that I will reveal the plot and ending to the 1980 film, Somewhere in Time starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer. I am doing this review partly out of disgust, partly as a rant, and partly to do my part to keep someone else from wasting their time on it. Better an umpteenth viewing of To Have and Have Not or Key Largo. Now those folks knew what romance was-- even if it wasn't.

And, if this happens to be one of your favorite love stories, you can make your case in comments.

As the film opened, I thought I can handle this. A little reincarnation maybe. Some time travel. Endless love. It's not like I never have watched or liked romantic films. I have some that I enjoy-- whenever I need a good cry. Its stars were very appealing and its theme music even more so (I had to buy an MP3 of the film's arrangement)-- Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. That has to be one of the most romantic melodies ever written. The location it was filmed on was lovely-- big old hotel of the sort they don't build today with a grand history and beautiful location on Mackinac Island, Michigan.

So I stuck with the film despite a few misgivings. With a less good cast, less beautiful setting, less good music maybe I'd have wised up sooner; but it took right to the end before I realized how much I'd been had. I was so furious at that point that I took the movie out of the DVD player and threw it in the garbage can. I have only done that once before. For anyone who hasn't seen it, it is the most disgusting take on romantic love that could be out there. If you don't know what romantic love is, this won't help you figure it out!

Here's the plot's gist. It opens with Reeve a college student who had just seen his play produced and was at the beginning of a fabulous career. Was there a handsomer man ever? A very old woman has been sitting watching and then walks up to him, puts her hand on his shoulder, gives him a watch and creepily says -- come back to me. She walks off. He is perplexed. She goes back to where she lives in The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, starts some music and sits back to listen to it. Fade out.

Eight years go by. He is now a successful playwright, has made a good living, others want his next play but he can't concentrate. He is playing some music-- that music. dum de dum dum. Romance is on even if he has yet to meet her.

So he goes for a little vacation which coincidentally ends up being the hotel where she had been eight years earlier. He feels something but isn't sure what until he comes across photos of a famous actress who was playing there in 1912. She is gorgeous. He wants more information on her which he quickly gathers. He finds his name in a guest register for that very time where he now is.

In the rooms where she lived, he finds a book she has read often. The woman who had helped care for her tells him that the watch he has was precious to the old woman, Elise, that she died the very night she must have given it to him... and that she had her whole life changed in 1912 on a certain date. From that time forward she didn't do much and became reclusive.

The book he looks at is by this time not surprisingly, on time travel and conveniently the professor who wrote it lives nearby where he can learn how you do it-- basically it's meditation that involves body travel but it is very hard on the body.

You know how on movies, you pretty well can figure where something is heading at certain points. The assumption he has and us too is that she wants him to come back to 1912 to that date and maybe this can all be changed from whatever went wrong. That was my expectation anyway. I assumed he would not come across the young man version of himself there but that would have worked also if he was just a spirit back there wandering around and watching.

Possibly if he did that he'd see the previous mistake and find her again in today's time. Okay that's not likely given she had only died 8 years before. Anyway the feeling is he would learn something beneficial to his life when he went back-- or he'd be able to stay there and that would change what happened. All valid romantic possibilities. Unrealistic but possible in a fantasy. I do not remotely demand happy endings to my favorite romances like Casablanca or Bridges of Madison County.

He gets back there after making sure he has cleared his pockets of anything that might remind him of from where he has come. He meets her. They have obstacles (Christopher Plummer), overcome them, make love, and then... he finds a penny in his pocket from 1979 and is instantly thrown back to from where he came.

All right, I could have taken all of that. A viewer of romances must be forgiving. It's not like I really expect it to be realistic. I might have not valued it enough to watch it again, but it would not have found its way to the garbage can. What happened next though was not okay even in a romance.

Back in his hotel room, he sat there, glassy eyed, looking out the window, unable to move. When the hotel went to check on him, he was dying.

I thought-- oh no, they wouldn't. They did... He died as she waited for him to walk to her in the sky.

Now when Titanic had Rose meet up with her lover who went down with the ship, it was fantasy but it came after she had lived her whole life in a healthy and full way. She died an old woman.

So this story basically had the old lady draw him to his doom when she said come back to me. She wanted him to not get a whole life? She gave up on life when he disappeared in the poof of a 1979 penny and he let himself die (the doctor thought of starvation) when he couldn't go back to her again. Weak? That was pathetic. I think the audience gets sucked in to watch the whole thing (unless they are wiser than me) because the actors that play these characters were/are strong people; and so you have them looking like the kind who'd never do such a thing while the script makes them do exactly that.

So I give my warning here for anybody who has not already wasted an hour and a half or so on this movie. Don't take any romantic movie too seriously. Don't spend your life waiting for that fairy tale romance and for heaven's sake don't watch that movie unless you enjoy movies about beautiful, total losers.

The only reason I can think that it doesn't appear on lists of the worst of all romance films has to be sympathy for Christopher Reeve and his tragic end as well as a liking for the cast. It's not enough.

(Interestingly William Macy had a small part in it before he became a star. Also it was based on a book where the hero had a brain tumor and the whole set of illusions might have been a result of that.)

Love and Being in the moment II

 "Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed." from The Rose

Where writing about love got dicey the first time was right here, exactly in this spot. Love just sits there and it is, but life goes on. We make choices. We want to find love from others. We want to feel it for others. We find it or think we do and then something goes wrong. But what goes wrong is with the relationship. Love can't get screwed up. I am not sure real love can even be destroyed. But-- the emotion of love can lead us to not live in the moment probably as much as anything could.

There is nothing wrong with reminiscing about good times with a loved one when the loved one is no longer with us. Everybody does it. We remember how they looked, the time they said this or that, maybe a touch, and that's where it all gets dicey for being in the moment. Emotions flood into the heart (and scientists now say there are some brain type cells in other places in the body including the heart) and we lose touch with where we are or what we are doing. Come on, we have all done it.

Sometimes the kind of love we are bringing up is more the lustful type and other cells in the body are also activated. It all feels pretty good. It's riding on past experiences for current emotions. Does it hurt anybody? Probably not when it's done briefly or infrequently but what if it's not like that, what if it's all encompassing? Then there is no way to live in the moment with ourselves or anybody else.

Now this doesn't have to be about a romantic love. This could be about a place. We loved it so intensely, wanted to be there so much (I have a place like that from my childhood) and no new place can possibly be as beloved by us. What it can do then is not let us be in the moment where we are and it can block any new place from being ever as beloved. Worse, those 'memories' tend to get perfected over time to make no reality capable of matching them.

Love regarding our children is possibly one of the places that being in the moment matters most. First of all who would even have a baby if they thought ahead, anticipating all that can and does go wrong? Nobody in their right minds for sure. Then there is how we love a child, a child who is constantly becoming something new. We have them but only for that moment. They start out very tiny and totally in our care and protection. Little by little the world enters their lives and takes more and more of them. Finally the world takes them all-- and that's what happens when it all has gone perfectly.

There is only one healthy way to be a parent (yeah that sounds dictatorial and I mean it to) and that is to live in each moment as we are raising our children. Experience each thing fully and joyously (sometimes not so joyously) and not anticipate what is coming nor live in what already happened.

To raise children with fear of something bad happening to them would totally incapacitate us to doing anything. We would hold back on truly loving. We'd be missing all the precious moments as they came. And one thing about those moments-- they don't last. Growing means they are going. So love and raising your children is probably the biggest example of being 'in the moment' so you miss nothing, you savor it totally and you release it completely as someday you will do with them.

Releasing them or anything else from your moment does not mean you stop loving them. This is what makes love so complicated to write about as the love just stays there and never goes anywhere with all this changing of outer circumstances. It might deepen but it doesn't require someone else doing anything to hold it to you inside. It's there. But, if you hold onto that so tightly that you don't release it as you move along, as they move along, then where you are with them is never enough. You aren't really fully there.

This might be even more so when it's love of what we would call the romantic or sexual kind. Now love of the romantic kind is often mistaken for lust. There are some clear differences even though love of the romantic kind can lead to those other cells getting all excited. It really isn't the essence of love though. You might call it a fringe benefit. It is not, in my experience, the heart of love.

When we truly love, we are free to be in the moment because nothing else is needed from us. We don't have to dwell on the beloved, the past with them, it's all about what we feel now and what we are doing now. That kind of love doesn't demand anything; so it's in the moment with what is happening. It also is not limited to only loving one person at a time-- even romantically. Now life might force changes in relationship but love that is in the moment is not about relationship; so it expects nothing. It is the most free kind of love.  It also is where living in the moment can be most fully lived.

There is no amen to this topic. I am always learning more about what being in the moment is, what love is. But I write what I know from where I am. Next year, I might know something more and write about it again. Hopefully next year I will be even better at living mindfully, living each moment fully.


Photo is Boulder River in Montana from a few years ago...  a place I love as I do all of Montana (that I've seen so far anyway).

Love and Being in the Moment

This is true love. You don't think this happens every day? from The Princess Bride

When I started out to write this particular blog, intending it to be the last one in this little series on living in the moment, I just started to write which I sometimes do. The first thing I wrote was how basic and simple this was and probably everybody already knew it all.

Then I wrote more words and it got more complicated. If I had had a pencil, I'd have been using an eraser a lot. I went in circles; and if I was doing an abstract, those circles would have wandered all over the place.

Love and being in the moment turned out to not be simple at all and when I got finished with what I had written, I thought, well this whole thing is very important.  I'll let this go anyway but maybe somebody else can straighten it up.

That lasted until I woke up one morning, one of those early ones where I get the chance to lie there awhile, and the whole idea of what I was thinking was circling around in my head until it began to coalesce in a very different way than my first effort. I knew I had to start writing immediately or I'd lose it all. I had to start over without knowing where it'd go and I did just that.

There are many kinds of love and some things that we call love are not at all. The true deal, the kind of love, that really means something, goes beyond an emotion, and it goes beyond action. It is centered deep within us and it can be 'felt' for many things and people all at the same time. Love doesn't get used up and it's not limited.

To think of how love impacts being in the moment is where it all gets touchy and difficult. Although I do 'know' some things about it but not how they fit together, I am not sure there is one big puzzle, where when I put the last piece in, it can be seen as a whole. Love and how it impacts us with being in the moment may not be that simple but love itself is.  And, love itself could be another whole blog, heck a book, just on it. I will leave it that love is not relationship. It doesn't even demand relationship. Love just is.

Love and being in the moment though, that isn't always 'just is.'  So I am going to try again with this and a following blog. This one, about love itself, is a prep for the second one.

To begin at the beginning, love is to feel an emotion inside when a person thinks of the beloved which could be a person, a place, an animal, a spiritual entity, pretty much anything where there is this sensation we call love. Scientists tell us, or used to tell us, that all such thinking and feeling is in the brain; but when we think of love for something/someone, that is not where the emotion centers. It's in the heart.

Those who study chakras won't find that surprising because they have noted where the chakras, energy points, are in the body and the heart chakra is right where we feel this surge of love when we think of our beloveds. If the surge is lower, that's not the same thing and it is more likely to be lust (there is a chakra for that too). I personally think like is more logical and brain centered (Farm Boss disagreed with me). To me love isn't based on logic nor does it even have to make sense. It is not centered in the brain.

True love is concern for the other over ourselves. It is unselfish (that does not mean stupid about it). True love actually looks to what is best for the other and that goes beyond doing what they want automatically. True love sometimes releases the beloved to go on without us. True love is unconditional and forever.  Relationship, even with the beloved, is neither of those things.

True love is both the easiest thing in the world and the hardest. It is hard to explain in words-- hence all the poetry and books about it-- because it's not based on something that can be laid out logically. When it is experienced fully and in the moment, I think it is one of life's greatest pleasures. Where lust might not want to live in the moment, unless that lust is being satisfied (and then it's anxious for when its next satisfaction will come), love doesn't have that problem.


Love is not about an action. It is not about owning or even attempting to own. It's not about what we do or do not do about it. It just is. And what it is, is basic to human and I believe animal survival. Without love, life is not as full and sometimes ceases to exist at all. It's not about others loving us but our capacity to love period.

Where it all gets tricky for me is when I try to think how love fits to being in the moment. And that will come in the next blog as thinking about what love is (comments are welcome with possibly other aspects that I have missed or amplifications) is quite enough for one short blog.

And not that it should be necessary to add but this is all just my opinion. It is what I have experienced and what I bring to it is almost 67 years of living where sometimes I have thought about it deeply and sometimes just let it lie. I have known a diversity of kinds of love in my life (and a few things I called love but weren't), but I don't know it all and likely never will.

The photo is from Montana, at a house we rented there a few years ago which unfortunately ceased being a rental later but was a great spot to be in  Montana outside of Livingston. The rainbow though seems apropos for the way it's this goal and ethereal with all kinds of spiritual connotations to it and yet at the same time a real phenomena.  The myth is we find its start, and we get a pot of gold. We see a lot in life that way that seems to offer that pot of gold one way or another but the beauty of the rainbow never really is about its end.

The Elizabeth Gaskell Collection

Appropriately for Valentine's Day would be this DVD series that I found in early January inspired by an author I had never heard of before. Because of how much I had been enjoying all of the different versions of Jane Austen's stories made into mini-series and movies by assorted producers, I thought I'd take a chance on buying, at Costco, the Elizabeth Gaskell Collection of a similar time period and set of themes.

Elizabeth Gaskell was a writer of the mid-1800s who was married to a vicar and took up writing originally as a way to deal with grief at the loss of one of her children. Her writing was originally intended to be portraits of a culture and lifestyle which she knew intimately. She ended up writing some lovely romances but they are more than romances at least in so far as the miniseries go.

Although Jane Austen wrote her stories before Elizabeth Gaskell, you cannot help but think they are soul sisters for the way they connected with their characters, the life they put into their stories. As much as I love the Jane Austen stories, and I do, I think the ones by Elizabeth Gaskell are better but mostly because they portray more of a slice of life at the same time as a romance.

I liked all three miniseries adaptations in this collection, North & South, Cranford, and Wives & Daughters. My favorite, which didn't start out that way, ended up being North & South which is about the industrialization of England and its impact on the people.

In the mid 1800s, the south represented gentility, closer to nature, quieter life. The north was raw dealing with the challenge of mechanization, poverty, education, and environmentally caused disease. The story illustrates the difficulties of the poverty stricken, but also the problems of the rich. It even addressed questions about unionization and economics. The love story rivals that of Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice.

One true love... or not

One of the greatest mysteries in life to me is love between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman. There is no logical explaining of sexual love as it's not just about sex even though sexuality is clearly a part of it. Writers have tried but in the end it defies words or logic. This particular article inspired me to think about it once again.

The love letter-writing beauty who left her heart on a bus

If you read the story, you see a woman who could have had anything in terms of men but the one man she could not have apparently was the one whom she could not emotionally release. She could not go on. How do you explain that?

What makes it possible for some to go from love relationship to love relationship (think Coco Chanel) and others cling to one that is lost to them forever (think Elizabeth Custer) or wait for that one perfect love that never comes?

For that matter, what makes people want that 'soul mate' love at all? Does everyone? I came across this review of a book which is being discussed by other writers:

The book that will outrage women

Will it? The argument is made by author Lori Gottleib that women should settle rather than hold out for mr. perfect. They should opt for mr. good enough which some women agree is the right approach-- Just Marry Him.

My question is more (and it's not the first time I have asked it): What makes us want this at all? Is it that we are not tribal? Would being tribal change anything? Is there something written in the DNA of humans to make them desire the perfect love, the mated relationship that lasts a lifetime or is it taught? It is not about sex. That's lust and more temporary in its nature.

It's also not new. You know that from reading Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell type romances from the 1800s or even Shakespeare from further back. In women's case, as soon as they had the ability to choose for themselves, they apparently wanted this dream relationship which a few got and many spend a lifetime lamenting. Do men want the same thing? We do all seem to desire that two hands coming together with a perfect fit kind of mated relationship that lasts forever.

Stories from the desert

More than probably anywhere else, when I am driving through deserts or what one might call big country, places where the sky sometimes seems to overpower the land, my mind is full of the potential stories. The clues to what they might have been remain where the people have long gone on-- an empty mine shaft, a nearly fallen down shack, a deserted trailer, a bordello in the middle of nowhere its doors now shuttered, a hotel that never manages to get renovated because some say there are ghosts, cemeteries, trails that lead to who knows where, and even the infamous Area 51 where alien bodies are preserved-- maybe.

I always knew one of the more fascinating stories was that of Scotty's Castle, which lies in the northern part of Death Valley. It isn't really a castle and didn't really belong to Walter Scott, more popularly known as Death Valley Scotty.

Many years ago, when we came south with our small children, we had all gone on the tour of what is more a lavish hacienda than a castle. I loved how it was inside, the intriguing touches that made the home something special. I still remember the stories we heard on that tour. My favorite touch had been a waterfall on one wall in the living room used to naturally cool the house.

On this trip down, although we drove into the parking lot and hiked around a bit, we didn't take the tour as we had miles to go before nightfall. After I got to Tucson, I took advantage of the Internet to look for more information of the story behind the castle.

Superficially, here is the mostly known version: [Scotty's Castle]. Albert Johnson built the home to give his wife, Bessie, a nice home when she came for the winter along with him. He had found the place thanks to his friend, Walter Scott.

But when I kept looking, there was another story, a more personal and intriguing one that didn't involve Scotty: [Albert Johnson], [Bessilyn Johnson], and [Mat Roy Thompson]. Who's that last guy, you ask? Have you noticed how things are often sooooooooo seldom what they seem on the surface?

The story begins with Walter Scott, born in 1872, who was a horseman, would-be prospector, but a better conman. He had come to Death Valley in his youth working as a cowboy. He got a chance to ride with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and did that for over 10 years as he made valuable contacts and came to realize there were better ways to make money as in selling interests to non-existent gold mines. A thousand here or there and the dollars add up. Somewhere in there, he was married, had a child but more or less deserted both. He was, after all, a ne-er do well and adventurer.

As he conned this one or that, eventually that led to Albert Johnson, a very wealthy, Chicago businessman also born in 1872. Johnson, married to Bessie in 1896, had fragile health. (In 1899, on a trip west, with his father, to explore possible mines for investments, his father was killed in a train accident and Walter tragically injured his back; so badly that he evidently was never fully functional as a man again. He did, through willpower, get back his ability to walk.)

Johnson, interested in the idea of investing in mines, had made quite a bit of money in the past doing such, and he began to fund Scotty's mine. After a few years of no gold showing up. (look back at links for more details), Johnson decided to come out to see about this gold for himself. He spent time with Scotty riding around the desert, camping, enjoying the story-teller's company, and not finding the mine, of course; but he found something more valuable to himself-- friendship and better health. He returned again and again.

The simple version of what came next is the very religious Bessie, curious about what her husband had found, decided to come out, wasn't fond of roughing it which led to Johnson building her the castle where they spent every winter until she was killed in a car accident in 1943. When Albert died in 1948 of cancer, he willed the castle, to which he had never returned after Bessie's death, to a gospel organization. Scotty lived out his life in the area, continued to tell his version of its story until he too died in 1954.

That doesn't answer, of course, who Mat Roy Thompson was. He was the man Bessie had fallen in love with at Stanford University when both were students. He evidently was not considered a suitable candidate to marry the daughter of a wealthy man; and in 1893 when his family lost what fortune they had in one of those financial crashes, her father demanded they end the engagement.

Bessie left Stanford and went to Cornell where she met Albert, married him; and maybe she was happy until he had his tragic accident which probably ended their sexual relationship and any chance of her having children.

Through the years, Bessie kept in touch with Mat, who also married and ended up having 6 children. When a home was planned for Grapevine Canyon, the Johnsons contacted Mat to ask him to plan and build it for them. Although evidently Johnson also discussed a possible architectural plan with Frank Lloyd Wright, someone decided that would not do; and his ideas were never used.

When Thompson realized the scope of the project, he gave up his job with the government. As many civil engineers do, he left his family, sending them money as he was paid, and for the next 6 years planned and arranged for the building of what would come to be known as Scotty's Castle.

Why don't we ever hear Thompson's name in connection with the building? Not only did Scotty claim it was his home, whenever anyone asked, but Albert went along with it. It appears Mat's omission on all the drawings was thanks to Albert, who didn't much like his builder, spoke poorly to him (according to Mat's son), and erased his name from any document connected to the building.

Now why would that be? Possibly because Mat and Bessie were soul mates and their love, although probably, due to her religious beliefs, never consummated, also was never ended? Mat's son believes the eventual divorce of his parents was due to that love. He also said Bessie told him how to her he felt like the son she had never had. Probably he also reminded her of the life she never had. And did Thompson build her a home that looked so much like the buildings at Stanford as a testament to that love? It wouldn't be surprising if Albert had some mixed feelings about all of that, would it?

Sometimes the brightest dreams have a way of not working out. A crash in the stock market in 1929, took a lot of Johnson's money. Thompson left Death Valley with the estate not finished (a year later, he married again). More complications on the castle ensued when it was discovered that due to surveying errors, the land on which it was built wasn't actually owned by Johnson. He bought that land eventually, but doing it sucked up even more of his fortune. Some of the estate remains unfinished today.

There is one final question about the tragic threesome. When Bessie was killed on the highway in Death Valley, Albert was driving. Supposedly she was killed outright; but some did not think so. They thought, because things seemed to have been moved, that Albert either killed her or let her die. Personally I tend to doubt that although who really knows. Could he have been bitter at knowing his wife loved another man all those years? Did he feel he had been cuckolded in the building of the castle? If so, for a powerful man, there would be easier ways to dispose of her and why wait so many years? Given his own religiosity, more likely if she broke her neck in the accident, maybe, at her age especially, he didn't want her to go through what he had endured and finished what the accident started. Maybe but who knows.

None of that involved Scotty, who lived out his life peacefully in Death Valley. His actual home was never the Castle but rather this: [Lower Vine Ranch]. He did visit the castle to tell his stories and contribute to the atmosphere. Walter Scott is buried on the hill above the castle, his dog Windy alongside him.

For more tidbits from these interwoven lives, check the links above. All photos are from our recent trip.

On Walter Scott's tombstone is the epitaph: "I got four things to live by: Don't say nothing that will hurt anybody. Don't give advice-- Nobody will take it anyway. Don't complain. Don't explain." Not bad advice!

Romance or something like it

Valentine's Day-- Is there a day more set up to make those who don't have a soul mate kind of love feel sad? How many couples end up with arguments or disappointments over expectations not met! Who gains by days like Valentine's Day? Card/candy/flower sellers? Is it cynical of me to be suspicious of such days?

Here's the thing. If you have a lover, why isn't every day a good day to say I love you and every now and then send a card or flowers? If you don't have someone special in your life, what does Valentine's Day do for you?

For me, romance itself is suspect because it's one of those emotional, heart tugging things that doesn't necessarily lead to a quality life for any couple. I know there must be men who are inherently romantic and love doing special little things for their women, but not many have crossed my path. :) To be honest, I doubt I am the type of woman to be wooed by romantic gestures and most likely if I came across one of those men, I'd find something else wrong with him and go on my way.

Still I like romance when it's in the fantasy realm... kind of. I thought I'd write this blog about some of that romance, the kind that melts my heart. Is it real? Who cares.

Romantic films:
Well there are many great ones but one of my favorites is The Notebook because it is emotional, heartwarming, and covers love at both ends of the age spectrum. There are James Garner, Gena Rowlands as an old couple facing the end of life while at the beginning are Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams-- incidentally, who tried to make love work with each other in real life but unfortunately (for romantics) weren't able to make it last.



Romantic song:
There are many that make me sigh, but at the top of the list would be Unchained Melody which is an oldie. It's about a love that transcends life. This particular video uses Ghost which is a film about a love that reaches beyond death.



Romantic flowers:
Pick me a bouquet of sunflowers or any wildflowers from along a road or in a meadow. Nothing has more meaning, certainly not a bouquet of hothouse roses. And if he just came in from the field with them, well that's at the top of my romantic list.

Romantic places:
The Oregon Coast in a storm, a small motel (ideally with a fireplace) and a view of the churning surf. Or how about a campfire and tent high in the mountains with a stream nearby?

Romantic books:
I had to think about this one for awhile. These days I don't read many romantic novels; but reaching back in time, it'd be Bond of Blood by Roberta Gellis. It's an historic romance about a man who had never learned to love and the woman who taught him.

I read this book when I was in my 20s and loved it so much that I wanted my own copy. It was not in print at the time. I thought about pretending to the library that I had lost it, pay for it, and keep it. I knew I'd never really enjoy it if I got it that way. I went looking for the author's address (not easy in the days before Internet), contacted her with my desire to purchase her book, and as luck would have it, she had some that hadn't sold (a bit musty from being in her garage) sold them to me (at a very good price) with her signature no less. A few years later those first two came out again in paperback with more following. Maybe my letter encouraged her to write more. Who knows but I read many more by her after that first one-- none were better.

Romantic poems:
There are many that make me catch my breath. I thought of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.' That's very romantic but it doesn't make me cry. My criteria for what is romantic apparently is does it make me tear up? This one does it:

Walk Slowly

If you should go before me, dear, walk slowly
Down the ways of death, well-worn and wide,
For I would want to overtake you quickly
And seek the journey's ending by your side.

I would be so forlorn not to descry you
Down some shining highroad when I came;
Walk slowly dear, and often look behind you
And pause to hear if someone calls your name.

Adelaide Love

['Walk Slowly' is in The Best Loved Poems of the American People, one of the first books I bought as a young married woman, and for me still a standard where it comes to popular poetic anthologies.]

Twin Souls: When Love Incarnates

They say this is a full moon (December 12, 8:37 AM PST) with much power which lasts from two days ahead of its being full, to two days after-- a time to make real dreams, to do something to honor your intentions. Do something you love doing or that you want more of in your life in these days. (Photo taken last night from the farm).

On the rather mystical side of what I wrote about yesterday, I found the following YouTube. If it goes too fast, go back to the blog 'Two by Two' and read the link on Twin Souls as it says pretty much the same things.

I find it hard to come up with logical reasons to explain something that seems illogical but is hard to deny exists. Do music, films, books, mythologies explain it or are they the result of it?

When Love Incarnates.