Moving Forward

“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

a Lover from the Heart

I was never known for having a great talent or extraordinary gift for anything apparent. I have always been the steady, dedicated, and utterly simple girl who some people counted on to be there, but who they never looked at as anything remarkable. Just there. I was always happy to be there and pleased to be a person who people could count on. I am still honored to have this reputation. However, there have been times when I have desired something more. But the past couple of days, a new thought has been developing in my mind that has slightly altered the way I view my own simplicity. One thing I have always known irrefutably about myself is that I am loyal and dedicated, often to a fault. When I love, I do not do it halfway, but rather with my whole heart, mind, and spirit. It is for this reason that I am careful who I become attached to. The new thought that has been growing in my mind is this: perhaps this is my gift, my strength. I am not an outstanding musician, remarkable artist, or brilliant academic, but perhaps I just naturally know how to love deeper and stronger than is typically found. Perhaps this is a strange idea. Love, after all, is not generally considered to be a talent in any way, nor do I wish to be seen as boasting of anything like it. I am not even completely sure how to express this idea in a way that matches the feeling of my heart. All I know is that if this is really the one remarkable thing about me - that I love more passionately, steadily, and completely than is common - I can live with that. Maybe this is a simple gift or maybe it is just a characteristic. Either way, it is interesting to consider.

the Common Choice of Unrequited Devotion

Excerpt from: Timothy Shay Arthur, "Lovers and Husbands. A Story of Married Life" 1847

No man is able fully to meet and reciprocate a true woman's love. The best of men, with all their willingness, with all their efforts, fail. There are deep places of her heart unreached--aching voids unfilled. And yet it is astonishing how small a return will seem to satisfy a woman, and make her heart glow with sunlight. A pleasant word, a tender look, a kiss of love--ah! these seem but small returns for the deep tenderness that ever burns in her bosom! And yet, alas! too often even these are withheld--and the selfish, reserved, cold, and at times morose "lord of creation," comes in and goes out daily--never dreaming that by this very coldness, reserve, and moroseness--he is breaking the heart of her who loves him better than her own life!

But it is ever so. Hundreds, thousands, yes, tens of thousands of wives, are performing their round of duties hourly and daily--unblessed by smiles that warm the bosom, or words that make the heart tremble with inner joy; while, all unconscious of their cruel indifference--those who provide fine houses, fine furniture, and fine garments for their victims, proudly imagine that they are the best of husbands!

Maiden--innocent, loving maiden!--do not turn away from this picture now, or else the time may come when you will seek to turn from it, and shall not be able. When one comes asking your love--know well if he is worthy of such love as you can give. Do not look alone at his attractive exterior; seek to know what ends actuate him. It is the loveliness of pure, high principles that remains verdant the longest--yes, forever verdant. These, and these alone, can make you permanently happy. Without them, an angel's grace, an angel's form would lose its attractions; with them, the plainest exterior soon grows beautiful to the eye of a loving wife. Lay this up in your heart; think of it in the morning, and when your head presses your pillow at night. It may save you from a woman's hardest lot--that of being bound for life to a man who does not even try to make her happy!

Carpe Diem

Don't ask what final fate the gods have given to me and you, Leuconoe, and don't consult Babylonian horoscopes. How much better it is to accept whatever shall be, whether Jupiter has given many more winters or whether this is the last one, which now breaks the force of the Tuscan sea against the facing cliffs. Be wise, strain the wine, and trim distant hope within short limits. While we're talking, grudging time will already have fled: seize the day, trusting as little as possible in tomorrow.

- Horace, Ode 1.11 -

We are Marshall

Written in response to the movie "We are Marshall" in January 2011

Hopes, dreams, families, parents, kids, college students…gone. Screams and heart wrenching sobs shake the bodies of every survivor as tears flow unchecked down soot-covered cheeks. Flames engulf those who just hours ago were safe in their embrace. Minds are numbed by shock and unmentionable grief. Pain – waves of pain crush down on countless people. The impact of the crash resounds through the city and is still felt months later – like a fault line whose irreparable damage splits the earth in two. The next morning all that pain is reduced to a single headline in black and white: “MARSHALL TEAM DIES IN PLANE CRASH!!” Newscasters announce the tragedy in crisp, sterile tones. Across the country people acknowledge the news with sorrowful eyes and a sympathetic heart, but that is the end. People move on with their lives…except in one city called Huntington in West Virginia. There time stood still as people try to reason past the grief that threatened to paralyze their minds and senses, perhaps wishing that it would. And no one could share in that pain; no one could join in that mourning. How do you recover from such a monumental tragedy? What do you do to rise from those ashes? As word passed that the plane had crashed, the town found the strength to run to the site, hoping all the way to find that it was all a horrible mistake. As they approached and felt the heat emanating from the plane, their worst nightmares were confirmed. The Marshall play book was the only evidence that could be recovered, but it was enough. How do you turn around and have to spread that news? How do you try to empathize with something so horrific? New words would have to be created to adequately describe the utter agony felt on that day. And in the end, we realize that words will never suffice. There is a groaning that carries an emotion too deep for words. You can offer your condolences, but how hollow do they sound next to the resounding emptiness that is such tremendous sorrow? Yet when there are no words to describe the pain, silent companions can help you carry on. Sometimes that is all that we can do, be there – silent and waiting, praying that someday we will be able to carry on.

A Learned Art

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequence of an unnatural beginning."


- Jane Austen, Persuasion -