Remembering a letter...

Maybe it's because I'm watching "A Room with a View", where letters fly back and forth across Europe and England.  Or maybe it's because I've just written some Valentines to mail instead of sending electronic hearts and flowers.  But I am thinking about letters...real letters, not e-mails or text messages or IM conversations.

No, I mean a real paper letter in an envelope, that arrives in the mail, amid the ads and bills.  A letter awaited, and checked for day after day, or a letter that arrives unexpectedly.

A letter can be tucked in a purse or pocket, and taken somewhere to read later...or ripped open and read on the spot, and then re-read again and again. Yes, there are a few letters one dreads to open...a note that's sure to be a "Dear John", or a letter that is sure to hold bad news or anger. But most letters, even short ones, are wonderful to find amid the otherwise dull mail.

Upstairs in my bedroom, there's a large binder filled with letters -- letters from friends while I was in high school and college.  They pretty much stop at that point...e-mail took the place of letters.  But there are wonderful treasures there...descriptions of new adventures, new boyfriends (or the dumping of old ones!), letters from two friends who were living in Europe and sent me descriptions so vivid I felt that I was there, exploring old streets and new works of art. Each letter carries the writer's handwriting, many are decorated with little drawings and last-minute added thoughts around the edges, with arrows pointing to where they would have gone. Had those letters been e-mails, they would have been long since deleted, or at very best (and even this is so rare) printed out and stored as impersonal print on a page. 

I miss letters.  I miss writing them, and I miss receiving them. I miss holding them, and re-reading them for details missed the first time around -- or the second. In the movie, at this moment, one of the characters, is reading a letter -- she's tucked in bed, pillows piled up high behind her, the lamp lit. She opens the envelope and with a wonderful sound of paper cracking, smiles and settles back to read.  No Netbook or iPad on the planet can match that moment.

Into the moment....

On Sunday, I went to the Jazz Brunch by the water in Fort Lauderdale. I had posted this on Facebook nearly a month ago, so it was on my calendar and well planned. On Sunday at just after 9 a.m., we were there, sitting in a beautiful spot under a tree, right by the water, watching boats going by, talking, relaxing, waiting for the music. All part of the plan.

The music started, we sat back and listened and started on our picnic brunch. Peaches so juicy it took two or three napkins each to deal with sticky hands and juice-soaked chins. Cheeses. French bread. Nuts and dried fruit. Yogurt. Ice-cold bottles of water. A good book at hand. Music. A breeze. What more could we want?

Then a friend came by with some friends of his. Would we like to join them for lunch? We had our lunch with us -- had been eating. So why would we go? But then they said, just come for drinks...and why not? A few minutes out of the sun. A few minutes away from our plans. No problem. So we went. And we sipped iced tea and other cool drinks. And we talked. And the friends of the friend went from strangers to people we connected with. A couple that lives just down the street from me. Another who graduated from the same university. People with common interests and goals. Families with kids at home or at college who shared birth years or majors.

The guise of strangers fell away as connections were added to connections. The few minutes planned stretched into an hour.

"Do you want to go out on the boat with us?"

For a brief moment, the thought crossed my mind...what about the jazz? The plans? But the offer of a sunny afternoon on the water quickly won out. We walked back to our space under that shady tree and packed up books and brunch and blankets and headed for the boat.

On-board, the one hour sail tuned into 3 or more. Strangers no more, I chatted with women and men who I had never met before that afternoon -- how could it be? They felt like friends! What a treat this day had become!

In the middle of the fun and laughs and great conversations, I stepped back from the moment and thought about the day. It had begun amid plans. Good plans. But the offer of new directions and new friends had drawn us away from those plans and into the unexpected.

And I realized that this wonderful day held a great message for my life.

I had planned. Prepared. I had the things I needed for the day at hand. I had direction. But I also accepted the offer of positive change, and shifted plans to accommodate the new opportunities. Easy to do when the choices are among jazz by the water, lunch and an afternoon on the water. Now the trick will be to remember that lesson in life when the choices aren't quite so delightful.

Plan.
Prepare.
Prepare to change.

Working on it!

A day at sea, a dance on the deck

We need balance in our lives. Not just want it, or think it might be a good idea, but need it.

We need to learn, grow and develop our spiritual muscles. We need to pray and study.

And we need to spend an entire day playing in the water like kids, then dance under the starlight on an otherwise empty dance floor.

We need safety and we need to close our eyes a take that big leap of faith.

We need time alone on a Shabbas afternoon to think and grow, and we need time with friends around a big noisy table in a waterside dive bar in the Keys.

We need to float on top of the water and take in the view.

And we need to dive down deep, and almost reach another world.

Saturday afternoon, I meditated on some wonderful ideas, amid the peace of Shabbas. Yesterday, I spent the entire day on a boat or in the water about 10 miles off the Florida Keys...and I finally understood balance. A life lesson amid a day of fun and love and friendship. Not bad for a weekend!

A holiday gift for someone far away....

There is someone special, but far away this holiday season. I know he reads this blog once in awhile, so I am sending this song as a gift across the miles. Know that the words come from my heart....Yes, I do mean you.



And just in case the video isn't working (it goes on and off on YouTube, here are the words...

For Good


I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you:

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend:
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you:

Because I knew you:

I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for


But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share
And none of it seems to matter anymore

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes the sun.
Like a stream the meets a boulder halfway through the wood.
Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better?

And because I knew you:

Because I knew you:

Because I knew you:
I have been changed for good.

My 70 year old friend's new boyfriends

I spent the evening with my girls and a very special friend. "T-" will be 70 next month. She's a musician, a guitarist, a singer, an avid karioki participant and my best friend for outdoor concerts of all sorts. She's become an adopted mom/grandmom to us.

She is my advisor on questions about raising my kids, dealing with friends and matters of the heart. And when I was dating several different men last year, she would often claim she needed a score card to keep track. But she always listened, and always had some insightful advice to offer.

Well, guess what, T-? Now that I have narrowed my own field down to one special guy (I smile just to think of him...always a good sign!)I need the score card for you!

Popular wisdom says that love and romance are for the young. Old age, we are told, is for memories and preparing to move on. Thank goodness my friend is wiser than popular wisdom!

Just weeks before her 70th birthday, this amazing woman spent over an hour tonight telling me about the new men in her life! She smiled, laughed, described and wondered. She enumerated their talents and even commented on one's especially nice buns in a pair of jeans he often wears. She radiated happiness as she talked about the possibility of a future with one or another.

Thank you, T- for showing me that love and affection and even excitement don't end at some arbitrary age. That there is no "manditory retirement" for matters of the heart. And that happy-ever-after love can come at absolutely any age.

Anam Cara

Anam Cara is a Gaelic word meaning “soul friend”. It symbolises a spiritual friendship that is not affected by time, distance, or separation. In the old Celtic tradition, the Anam Cara was someone you could share your innermost self, mind and heart. This soul friendship was an act of recognition and belonging helping us return to the heart of our spirit.
--- from the website of the Anam Cara Retreat Center in the Scottish Highlands

If we're very lucky, we have one or two of these special people in our lives. If we are blessed beyond measure, we have three or four. You know who they are. Weeks, months or even years can go by between meetings, but the moment you are together again, it's as though no time has passed. There is no feeling of strangeness...and if the truth be told, even the first time you met, the feeling of familiarity is instantaneous. We "know" one another from the start, recognizing some indescribable spark of familiarity.

They may have come from around the corner or around the world. You may meet them on the first day of kindergarten, on the biggest day of your life, or when divorce, financial challenges or one too many birthdays have left you feeling that the best of life has passed you by. And sometimes, we come to know an Anam Cara before we ever meet in person, sharing that spark across telephone lines or within the lines of letters and postcards and e-mails.

It doesn’t really matter where or how or when…there is that feeling of connection. A bond that forms instantly and feels as though it has always been there. You find it hard to remember a time before you knew them – how could you ever NOT have known them? You know you must have met them somewhere before --- in this life or perhaps somewhere (or some-when?) before. The feeling is too strong to be new.

You may agree on everything or almost nothing but somehow it doesn’t matter. You know you can trust them with the things you have in common and the things you see from opposite sides, and still not lose their friendship.

When you have an Anam Cara in your life, you know you are blessed. Your soul has found a friend. And that is far beyond friendships of the head or even the heart.

I have a few Anam Caras in my life…they stretch across the country from the northeast to the Rockies, to the deep south and to sunny Florida. They are each so different I have a hard time imagining them together in one room. An urban jewelry and clothing designer in Chicago, a Mormon mom of four in Southern Utah, an engineer from Syria, a retired firefighter from orginally New York, a woman seeking her path in life with a new start in Colorado. Each brings blessings into my life. Each is someone I know I could see tomorrow, regardless of how long it’s been since our last meeting, and feel as though no time has passed.

I came across the concept of an Anam Cara today while I was working on a Celtic catalog. How sweet to discover that I already had these wonderful people in my life...I just needed the word for them.