My Dream

Have you ever dreamt of something, imagined something for such a long time that, though it once seemed so real and vivid, over time you became convinced it must truly be nothing more than a dream, an impossible vision, an unreachable goal, an unattainable ideal? And then you settled for something so far from your dream, even when you knew deep down it would never be to you all that you longed for, hoped for, needed.

And then what if life suddenly surprised you and presented you with the very thing you thought you'd never have, that you never looked for because you believed it was not there for you to find? What if it turned out to not only be all that you had dreamt and hoped for, but even more, infinitely more wonderful? What if discovering it made you realize you had been sleeping, but now were finally awake, and what you thought was just a forgotten dream was now a reality?

Wouldn't that be beautiful, amazing, incredibly fulfilling - a treasure and a blessing you would never, ever want to give up?



My Dream

Once I had a dream
of a love yet unknown
but only imagined -
and I was alone.


I saw it so clearly
and felt with my soul
that with such a love
I might become whole.


I've walked through my life
simply making do
with a shadow of the love
I discovered with you.


I finally awoke
and the dream has come true -
my soul is complete
for it has found you.


And you are more real,
your love is more true
than all of the dreams
I once had of you.


My heart has now found
what was missing so long -
you forever will be
my joy and my song!

Blue Skies and Smiles

When I woke up today, I was welcomed by a beautiful day here in Maryland. The sky is mostly blue, with some soft brush strokes of cottony white, the air is dry for August, and when I first walked outside this morning, I had that rare summer pleasure of finding it cooler outside than in. Immediately, my spirits lifted a little, even though I already felt somewhat upbeat from my decent night's sleep and my interesting and pleasant dreams. What is it about the weather that affects our mood so much, sometimes on a daily basis, and sometimes seasonally?

I know there are all kinds of theories out there, and I am certain some are even quite scientific, but I just know what's true for me. Greeting a morning such as today's makes me feel more energetic, cheerful, even hopeful. Weather such as this brings to mind a host of happy thoughts and memories. It is easy to contrast that with an early winter day which greets you with its dreary cold, heavy gray skies, a biting dampness that sinks its teeth into your bones, and yet leaves you with no hope of a cleansing, brightening snow. A day like that can send me to a place I hate to go, where gloom descends and life is bleak and difficult, where the minor becomes major, and where warmth remains out of reach all day until late evening, when I find it in my bed under layers of blankets.

Then there are the crisp, cool autumn days where copper treetops become even more ablaze against a deep blue sky. On such a day, you can see your breath in the clear morning air as you walk on crunchy, frost-coated grass, but it warms up to a perfect Indian summer afternoon. The jeans-and-sweatshirt mornings, the bonfire-and-marshmallow nights for me are bittersweet and my spirit is full of contradiction: summer's end is always sad for me, and yet the newness and change of fall brings feelings of happy anticipation.

Perhaps this relationship between weather and mood can also explain why people seem to be a particular way in particular regions of the country. For example, those fortunate enough to reside in the San Diego area are without a doubt more relaxed, flexible, easy-going, and genial. Of course the weather alone could not be responsible for this general impression, but the ease of life that results from living in a place where the weather is almost always wonderful certainly must contribute to a general feeling of well-being. In contrast, I've heard, though not personally experienced, that New Englanders can tend to be more irritable, inflexible, and moody, perhaps due to winters that last from October to April, and the months of gray skies, icy drizzle, raw cold, and snow that eventually steal the smiles from faces and the spring from steps. In fact, I once had a conversation with a woman from New Hampshire while we were both vacationing in San Diego and we both agreed that simply taking winter weather and all that it involves out of the equation of your life would subtract a huge amount of inconvenience and drudgery.

Think about it. If you lived in a place like San Diego, you would never have to do any of the following: scrape ice off your car windshield before you could drive it anywhere; own several coats and jackets, hats, and scarves and have places to store same for every member of your family; find missing gloves (which seem to be similar to the single socks we all end up with); shovel a sidewalk; own a pair of snowboots; have a car that is now grayish white instead of black due to all the salt on the roads; have "snow days" where kids are off school and where you will spend the majority of the day (if you are a stay-at-home mom) trying to untie frozen bootlaces tied into triple knots, drying three sets of clothing per child, removing chunks of snow and ice from winter hats, turning snow boots upside down over heat vents to dry their insides, and making endless cups of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows to be grasped by little bright red, nearly frost-bitten hands.

While there is something about the change of seasons that I like, I often wish the progression went like this: spring to summer to fall and back to spring. The only thing I like about winter is Christmas and snow - I love the beauty of pine branches laden with snow and looking out to see everything in sight coated with white. I love the freshness and purity that snow brings, I love to ski, and I dream of some day staying in a cozy cabin somewhere guaranteed to have snow, and taking a ride on a horse-drawn sleigh. But I can always travel somewhere to find a winter wonderland without having to deal with the daily inconveniences and bleakness of frigid yet snow-less winter days, which never fail to make me long for the feel of the warm sun, green trees and blooming flowers, walking barefoot in the grass, and lying in bed under a light quilt while the cicadas and frogs sing me to sleep.

The Bottom of Our Tears

I had a very interesting conversation with a friend last night about crying. (As a side note, I am constantly amazed at the variety of subjects covered by me and this particular friend). In any case, we ended our discussion trying to answer this question: do we ever get “to the bottom” of our tears? This was not so much a scientific or literal question as it was a figurative question. We were wondering if human beings ever get “cried out,” not just in one particular crying session, but in a lifetime. While my friend initially said he thought that a person can reach a limit to their tears, I think he really meant that a person finally reaches the bottom of their tears over a particular emotional situation.

For example, tears of grief at the loss of a loved one may initially come like a tidal wave, and then, over time, the frequency of tears and the duration of each crying episode are gradually reduced, though there may still be occasional bouts of more voluminous tears or more lengthy crying sessions. These become more and more rare as time goes on, and eventually, the tears are replaced by smiles at the pleasant memories of the loved one. I have been told that this really does happen, but although it's been a year since my mother's death, I am still in the "occasional bouts" stage.

Sometimes, the pattern is completely different – a person may not initially demonstrate their grief with tears, though their sorrow is just as profound and real, and there is great depth of feeling. However, later they are able to express more of their feelings, and the tears come at unexpected times, perhaps, like my friend, when they are able to really talk and connect with someone who has experienced the same kind of loss. In either case, and all those in between, we were questioning if you ever get to the end of your tears.

I decided, just because it is an interesting and rather quirky subject, to do a little research. Tons of stuff has been written about crying and even about the chemical composition of tears and what such data reveals about the nature of crying. Come to find out, it is a well-established scientific fact that emotional crying may be involved in removing waste products or toxic substances from the body. That could explain why so many people report feeling better after crying. Not only is the venting of emotions liberating, but the actual chemical composition of the tears themselves may be involved in an increased feeling of well-being.

Scientists have discovered that emotional tears contain 24% more protein than irritant-induced tears (i.e. tears from onions). Emotional tears contain more of the protein-based hormones prolactin, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and leucine enkephalin, all of which are produced by our bodies when under stress. Interestingly, there are also no differences in the chemical composition of emotional tears of men and women. So it looks like when we cry for emotional reasons, as a response to loss or conflict or death, we might actually be ridding our bodies of excessive chemicals.

Finally, our ponderings led us to this question: “Why and how do we cry?” According to various internet sources, emotional tears require an emotional response or trigger to be activated. Emotional triggers are most often grief and anger, but crying can also be triggered by sadness, loss of love, joy, fear, humor, etc. or from an inside source (self-realization of one's life and others). When emotions affect us, the nervous system stimulates the cranial nerve in the brain, and this sends signals to neurotransmitters and then to the tear glands. The result? We cry. The largest tear gland, the lacrimal gland, produces the tears of emotion and reflex. Again, research seems to demonstrate that in times of emotional stress, the body depends on this gland to release excess amounts of chemicals and hormones, returning it to a stable state. Crying is really quite a complex and fascinating process involving our thoughts, our emotions, and involuntary physiological responses.

As we continued talking, my friend and I both found it pretty amazing that you cannot make yourself truly cry unless you force yourself to think of very sad things, and conversely, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to suppress tears when you feel them coming on in an emotional moment. It seems like once the emotional trigger has been pulled, it is very difficult to stop the physical response of crying and tears, and it is also not something that can be artificially induced.

So, I guess we did answer our original question of whether or not we ever get to the “bottom of our tears.” When it comes to a particular crying episode, I think the answer is “yes.” I think we do tend to “have a good cry,” and then there is a feeling of relief, a sort of de-stressing that takes place, and I have even experienced a feeling of exhaustion afterwards, and eventually the tears come to an end. But do we ever reach the bottom of our tears in a lifetime? I personally think the answer is “no.” Even years after a sad event, certain circumstances or thoughts can evoke such vivid memories as to cause us to cry about it again. And if a person were successful in suppressing any and all urges to cry, the psychological literature seems to indicate that they would not be as emotionally healthy as someone who is able to cry. The general belief seems to be that the ability to cry is an important diagnostic symptom, because it indicates that repression has broken down, intense feeling is returning, and is actually a sign of health. Certainly, there are extremes in either direction, but crying is a normal and healthy response to many types of emotional stress, for both men and women (at least in this culture at this time in history!)

I thought about a lot of things as a result of the original conversation with my friend and our unusual question. Sure, I did some research and learned about a bunch of interesting scientific and psychological things about tears and crying, but mostly, I thought about how true friends talk about all kinds of things, some deep and philosophical, some not. I thought about how close friends can really laugh together and be themselves. I thought about how real friends inspire each other to think in a new way and to learn. But you really have to have a special connection with someone to cry with them, and I’m glad I have that with my friend.

Falling Off My Soapbox

I was thinking about my last post and some of the feedback I got from it, and I thought I might like to add something to it. Though I tried to start out "light" and tell a humorous story of how minor the inconveniences are that sometimes puzzle or annoy us, and then segue into something more meaningful, one response I received said that the serious topic of figuring out how to help needy people around the world presents quite a conundrum, and I certainly agree. Obviously, the band-aid approach will never work, i.e. feed people for a while, hope that some meager amount of food and supplies actually reaches the most needy people in spite of the corruption in that particular country, etc.

I fully understand that the corrupt governments in some of these third world countries are largely responsible for the suffering of their own people. Certainly things like drought and natural disasters add to the problem of starvation and suffering around the world, but most of it is because of wacko political systems and even wacko religious belief systems that instigate genocide and internal wars, adding to the suffering of innocent people. The movie Hotel Rwanda tells such a story. Anyway, I guess the point of my first article wasn't to say how simple the answers are to such hugely complex problems, nor to get people to say, "Oh let's give money so that little children won't die." That would obviously be simplistic and ignorant and naive. The point really was simply to say that: it still breaks my heart; and it still is unfathomable that so many children die every day; and I don’t ever want to be hardened to the suffering of others in the world; and surely making a small difference is still making a difference.

There are still options for us here in wealthy America. First, we can work to make sure that there are no children in our own country who go to bed hungry at night. Second, we have enough wealth to provide some of the indigenous peoples in some of these suffering nations around the world at least some of the tools and resources they need in order to make real, lasting changes, though it may be virtually impossible to ever rid a country of its political corruption and the insane hatred that leads to the destruction of its own people. Organizations such as World Relief try to help people with a long-term approach – for example, they provide small business loans to women to start businesses and provide an income for a fatherless family; they conduct aids education; they help local communities dig wells, improve farming techniques, etc. Are these band-aids? I don't think so. Will they solve all the problems? No. Will they save some lives and make some long-lasting changes? They already have, and I believe they will continue to. But poverty and destitution and suffering always have been, and likely always will be, with us.

Anyway, there are no easy answers, but just because we don't know the WHOLE answer, it doesn't mean we can't start somewhere, can't try something, can't save some lives. I don't ever want to become cynical. I don't want to ever be of the mentality that says, "If I can't give everything, if I can’t change everything, then I won't attempt to fix anything." I guess that was one of the points of my original article. But a very important point was also that when we are faced with very small annoyances, such as getting anemic tomato slices on a sub, we should appreciate how good we have it here, how blessed and fortunate we are every day, and not let the truly insignificant become significant.

Ok, so now I have fallen off my soapbox, twisted my ankle, and it will probably be a while before I can get back up on it again……

The Insignificant and the Important

Today I got a sub from Subway for lunch. It was a Veggie Delite, (or some other intriguing and optimistic title involving vegetables), and it was a pretty tasty bargain at $3.14. When the teenager making the sub asked what I would like on it, I basically went down the line, eyeing each little stainless steel bin of toppings, and pointing out what I wanted, "I'll take some fresh spinach, white American cheese, lettuce, tomato, ummmm...yeah, black olives, some sweet peppers, but just a few," etc. etc. It was uneventful and uncomplicated, although I did have to request that the young man NOT select the pale orange tomato slices with the hard yellow cores in their centers, but instead, I specifically pointed to the more appetizing pinkish-red slices in a different corner of the tomato container. (I wonder how those anemic tomato ends wind up in the tomato container in the first place - certainly whoever was slicing those realized they were the "undesirables," but threw them in anyway). Thankfully, he didn't seem to mind my being particular about the tomatoes, and I left the shop and walked to my car, whereupon I received a call from a friend who had coincidentally just bought himself a sub at a Blimpie's sub shop.

My friend was a little annoyed, but mostly in wonder that his own sub order seemed overly complicated, and it presented one of life's unanswerable (if not monumentally important) questions: If I say I want everything EXCEPT green peppers on my sub, why must I then go on to tell the teenage sub-maker each item that I DO want on my sub? Shouldn't saying "everything EXCEPT green peppers" mean that he is to put EVERYTHING on the sub EXCEPT green peppers and not waste his, nor my, time in discussing it further? Strangely, the young man seemed to automatically assume my friend wanted lettuce, tomato, and onion, but his assumptions stopped there, and for each subsequent topping, he either asked my friend, "Do you want such-and-such?" Or, as the employee mysteriously passed over the pickle bin, my friend had to ask, "Could I get some pickles on that?" My friend's original request seemed simple, direct and clear, but evidently, the sub-maker either (a) did not listen to his customer's request, or (b) did not understand the words "everything EXCEPT green peppers." This would be somewhat similar to a recent misunderstanding I encountered at a McDonald's drive-thru, when I ordered two hamburgers with ketchup and pickle ONLY, and when I got home, I opened up two hamburgers that were topped with MUSTARD ONLY. In this case, the drive-thru employee seemingly did not understand the word ONLY in the context in which it was used, though it seemed clear at the time. If one says, "I ONLY want ketchup and pickles," I cannot for the life of me fathom how that translates in the fast food twilight zone as "Mustard only."

All of this to say that sometimes, what we think is a simple request ends up being a more complicated and tedious endeavor, which takes 4 minutes of our time to clarify, rather than the 60 seconds it should have taken for the requestee to process it mentally and then carry out the task. But I suppose such is the nature of life in the 21st century: fast food is not fast enough; convenient is still inconvenient; instant is a misnomer. My friend and I have discussed this on numerous occasions, while also admitting how ridiculous it is that we find such scenarious to be irritating, in the whole scheme of life, in our brief blip on this planet.

I will qualify my use of the word "ridiculous" when I relate a conversation I had just yesterday evening with a telemarketer named Michele from a charitable organization, with whom I ended up having a significant moment, a sharing of the true human experience. The above stories become ridiculous when I consider what she related to me - that 27,000 children die every day from starvation or preventable disease. 27,000. My mind cannot fathom such a number of innocents suffering and then leaving this earth on a daily basis, and the broken hearts left behind. But my heart can barely imagine the mourning of one mother, whose two year-old gazes up at her with desperate eyes, who has not eaten in who-knows-how-many days, and who cries pitifully in his hunger while his wide, tear-filled eyes look pleadingly at her. Yet she can do nothing but watch this tiny life fade from hers, never to feel those frail arms about her neck again, never to kiss that most tender and beautiful cheek, never to witness the smile that lights that angelic face, and her own, when contemplating a tiny pleasure that only a child can appreciate. It is unthinkable that this happens 27,000 times a day and yet could be prevented.

What binds us together as people, as part of the human race? What is really important? Is it not caring for others, making a difference where the difference means life or death? Is this not vastly more important and significant than our own comfort, our own minor irritations? I was humbled when Michele and I spoke of the immensity of suffering around the world, and my own personal suffering became insignificant. I know that I am not the first person to be moved by such statistics, or by a story or a magazine article or a television special. I know that while my own trials are relative, some are very real to me, and I know that it is virtually impossible to be impacted on a daily basis by such stories. But I do hope that while I am moved, I will keep moving. I want to remember what Michele and I talked about. And maybe by giving out of my excess, or learning more about the world, or reminding myself of this conversation, I will somehow make a difference in the world. Maybe the insignificant will be proven so, and the important will be made known, at least in my own life. Maybe.


For a visual to go with this post, go to google images and search for "starving child". The photographs will break your heart, as they should. They broke mine...