Love and Eating

Another emotion that can upset the digestive functions is love. Watch this short little film and have a few laughs.  Robert Benchley's humor was an influence on  many modern day comedians. He was a also a friend and lover of Dorothy Parker who shared  his table at  the Algonquin Hotel Round Table with Harpo Marx and George S. Kaufman.

 

Love Conquers All

Hallelujah for Love

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."    ~ Elinor Lipman

Read Excerpt

In the spring of 1962, in response to her inquiry about summer vacation accommodations at a lakeside Vermont inn, Natalie Marx's mother receives a letter saying "our guests who feel most comfortable here, and return year after year, are Gentiles." Feisty thirteen-year-old Natalie, whose heroine is Anne Frank and who is named for an aunt who died in the Holocaust, sets her sights on infiltrating this exclusive WASP establishment and teaching its proprietor, the frosty Ingrid Berry, a lesson. At first Natalie limits herself to a hilarious series of covert actions, but when she meets blonde-haired Robin Fife at camp the following summer, she manages to get herself invited for the Fifes' annual visit to the Inn at Lake Devine. After a week among the goyim—nettling Mrs. Berry and flirting with her handsome elder son Nelson—Natalie returns to her own family and thinks no more of Lake Devine. 

Ten years later, Natalie is a struggling chef trying to break into the world of French cuisine when she meets Robin again, who invites her to attend her marriage to Nelson Berry. So Natalie makes a fateful return to wintry Vermont where, in the aftermath of an unexpected tragedy, she finds herself drawn to Kris Berry, who has emerged from his brother's shadow to become a charming, witty, and undeniably attractive young man. Their nascent romance is cut short by Natalie's meddling parents, whose interference only weakens their influence on their daughter. Expertly combining tragedy and romance in a provocative comedy full of sparkling social mischief, Elinor Lipman has created a truly memorable novel in the vein of Jane Austen."
       Do you feel that love rightly triumphs over religion in this novel? 

         

                                            Leonard Cohen - "Hallelujah"

Magic and Love

The writer George Saunders was asked how he begins the writing process.

He answered, “Well, I don’t do it by willing it. And there’s a mysterious element, a magical element, right? And it’s not reducible. A lot of the process is positioning yourself to receive the moment of magic when it deigns to come to you." George Saunders love of writing is evident.

One of the "50 Books That Will Change Your Life"

     When you feel the magic or taste the magic, that is when love begins.  I recently saw a movie called The Lunchbox. It is a story about a widower in the big city of Mumbai, India who accidentally receives a delicious meal prepared by Ila, a younger woman attempting to rekindle her marriage. One of the characters in the movie describes her cooking as "she has magic in her hands."

The Lunchbox

     We must hold on to magic when it comes our way. It is often the earliest sign of love.

   

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ABC's of Happiness

 

The Buddha said" There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way." I look at the ABC's of genuine happiness (shown above). I like the inscription next to the Letter "L".  Laugh, Learn, Love.
And whether or not you believe in happiness, or think of it as just a "transitory state" like the writer Jayne Anne Phillips has said, it is still worthwhile to take even one step in that direction because it can make a difference in many lives. 
    "In Buddhism, Happiness (sukha) is not the goal. The goal of Buddhism is something more like “peace” (santi), which is something more profound and worthy than happiness. The Buddha recognized that a certain kind of suffering (dukkha-dukkhata) is unavoidable, and that what we really need is to develop the quality of equanimity, which allows us to experience suffering and happiness without lamentation or elation." Because even suffering is impermanent.

Blazing Love

                                                                            Maria João Pires plays Chopin Piano Sonata No. 3  (Largo)                                                

I Remember You As You Were

I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
You were the grey beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Clasping my arms like a climbing plant
the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes traveling, and the autumn is far off:
Grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
Towards which my deep longings migrated
And my kisses fell, happy as embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:
Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

                       ~Pablo Neruda

    The poem above by  Pablo Neruda  seems juxtaposed beautifully with the Chopin Piano Sonata #3. The poet Rilke wrote:
  "To be loved means to be ablaze. To love is to shine with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away; to love is to last."  
     Neruda also feels love as a blaze of light "Beyond your eyes...the evenings were blazing."
Love is a blaze remembered. It is a "bonfire of awe". How beautiful are these enchanting sentiments. Enjoy your time with the ones you love. Let their kisses fall on you like embers of an eternal flame. 

Souvenir

I was on vacation and everyone was bringing home something to remind them of their trip. I wanted to bring home a souvenir too, but so many of the items were overpriced advertising for the company that  provided our vacation cruise.
   Then I heard a song being played at dinner and decided this would be my souvenir. I'm not the only one who recognized a song can be a souvenir. Billy Joel wrote this love song many years ago to represent that sentiment.
 Here's the song I brought back with me:

                             
                                                             "Gabriel's Oboe" by Ennio Morricone 
Pass it on to someone you love.

Flowers in the Dark

  

                                                                               Purkinje Effect

       Due to something called the "Purkinje Effect", the night sky makes us unable to see color. Sharon Olds opens her poem at night, thinking about her grandmother, who is deceased. Her memory of her grandmother is a loving one. The poet reminds us, we don't not need  to see everything clearly or remmeber everything clealy, to remember what we love. For her, "the rose is forever blooming." Loving relationships  endure illness, weakness, and darkness. They persist into eternity.

Birthday Poem for My Grandmother

(for L.B.M.C., 1890-1975)

I stood on the porch tonight–  which way do we

face to talk to the dead?  I thought of the

new rose,  and went out over the

grey lawn–  things really

have no color at night.  I descended

the stone steps,  as if to the place where one

speaks to the dead.  The rose stood

half-uncurled,  glowing white in the

black air.  Later I remembered

your birthday.  You would have been ninety and getting

roses from me.  Are the dead there

if we do not speak to them?  When I came to see you

you were always sitting  quietly in the chair,

not knitting,  because of the arthritis,

not reading,  because of the blindness,

just sitting.  I never know how you

did it or what you were thinking.  Now I

sometimes sit on the porch,  waiting,

trying to feel you there like the color of the

flowers in the dark.

–Sharon Olds

                      Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming - Renée Fleming and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Love Me

If thou must love me... (Sonnet 14)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806 - 1861

If thou must love me, let it be for nought   
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,   
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way   
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought   
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—   
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may   
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,   
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for   
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry: 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore   
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!   
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore   
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.

Irene Molloy sings "Love Me Good"

Love someone not for what is a temporary thing , such as beauty, a pretty smile or some pleasantry. Rather, says Browning, love that person for something more enduring. Only certain loves last through eternity. Those lovers who keep their love "evermore" have something stronger, deeper, and more romantic.