CREATIVITY AND OTHER LIFE QUALITIES: For the Pretty Woman in You--Or For Someone You Care About

Sunday

For the Pretty Woman in You--Or For Someone You Care About

I get these sensitive letters from women and men who have been reading my poetry or essays at the magazine over the years and some who've just discovered what I write about here. Some tell about their quests for the right person. Perhaps my writing reminds them of something they used to dream about. Or perhaps they're starting over and want to get going on the right track this time. Some tell about hurts they've experienced in relationships with taker after taker, and how hard they've been looking for a serious relationship with someone who's solid and real, genuinely compassionate and kind.

(These photos are from the trip to Alaska, Copyright D.M. Solis, 2010.)

Here’s a summary of what I tell them. It’s what I’d tell a friend or my own nieces and nephew if I sensed they were looking for something “out there,” when the love and depth they’re hoping to find is as close as their own thoughts and the beating of their own hearts.

My Dear,

What a time you've had. My life-partner and I hope you will find, as we have, the love of your life one day, when it's right for both of you. Meanwhile, you now have a wonderful opportunity to do the good and meaningful work of coming home, alone, to you. Savor this season, no matter how long it lasts. It will seem very short when you look back on it. This is truly a precious time in your life.

(This looks tiny, but it's actually large enough to step through, although you have to hunch down a bit. Quite a "portal," we discovered, moving through a number of them on this voyage.)

You wrote quite a lot and I want to honor it. So, I hope you won't mind my responding. If you get a minute, you might think of all the energy you've put into giving so much to the "takers" in your life. Now, what if you were to spend that time and thought and caring and giving...on you? This time between relationships can be a sacred, Grace-filled time to compassionately discover the deepest desires of your heart, not just for a relationship, but in terms of the experiences you want to have in this life, and steps you can take to make them real for you. Think about it.

Finally, I believe the message from contemporary stories and movies, like "Pretty Woman" and "Thelma and Louise," is true, "We get what we settle for." Try to reconnect with the child within you. Honor her, cherish her, be her best friend, and never let her settle for someone who will use or be anything less than kind to her again. You seem like a very good person. You're a human being who deserves respect and sincere love in a healthy relationship of mutual giving, sharing, understanding, and care. I hope you will have a beautiful, sweet life, and, as the movie further advises, that you will always “take good care of you.”

With great hopes for your happiness and peace,

Diane

Diane Solis

The poetry of Diane Solis has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, excerpted in Expressive Writing: Classroom and Community, and has been published or is forthcoming in literary journals and magazines, including, America, Big Muddy, The Healing Muse, Hobo Camp Review, The Lost Country, Psychological Perspectives, Sinister Wisdom, Slink Chunk Press and elsewhere. Her chapbook ART SPIRITS, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. A science writer and technical editor by trade, Solis practices contemplative and Zen forms of meditation and travels to remote places to photograph and write about the "wild" she encounters there. She resides on the Central Pacific Coast with her partner.

www.dmsolis.blogspot.com

The Latest Quotes for Contemplation:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. --Annie Dillard

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, age after age, forever. ~ Tagore

I look at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world.... ~ Frank O'Hara

Of all fires love is the only inexhaustible one. ~Pablo Neruda

Prophets are so dangerous because they cry in season and out of season, politely and impolitely, loud and long. ~Joan Chittister

When I say be creative, I don't mean you should all go and become great painters and great poets. I simply mean let your life be a painting, let your life be a poem. ~ Osho

There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier? ~ Mary Oliver

Without warning, as a whirlwind swoops on an oak, Love shakes my heart. ~ Sappho

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
T.S. Eliot, from "Little Gidding"

Love many things, for therein lies your true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well... ~ Vincent van Gogh

I have found that to love and be loved is the most empowering and exhilarating of all human emotions. ~ Jane Goodall

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone--we find it with another. ~Thomas Merton

I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.
~John F. Kennedy

I cannot write convincingly about anything that I am not passionate about. ~Darrell Bourque, Poet Laureate of Louisiana

In the lover's heart is a lute which plays the melody of longing. ~Rumi

But perhaps the most important thing about my father was that he taught us the simplest things -- Navajo things -- like how to just sit and be quiet, to blend in and watch, or to move so silently we'd become a part of the forest. My father taught us how to live the concepts of our culture, especially the importance of communicating with the natural world. ~Lori Arviso Alvord, M.D.