Happiness

Getting what you go after is success;
but liking it while you are getting it is happiness.

        Bertha Damon, A Sense of Humus

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorial Day

England
Tuesday Night
May 30, 1944

My Dearest Sweet Darling Bette:
        (Good-I like it)

Sweetheart this isn’t going to be much of a letter. Surprise, I said I wasn’t going to write tonight but the situation changed. So I will keep up my good record.

I am writing this by flashlight so it probably won’t look like much as it is turning out to be a quite difficult job.

Surprise, it’s raining, and I happen to be wet from my feet up to my waist. It isn’t bad, though, after you get used to it. It’s the easy way to take a bath I guess.

The packages are starting to roll in. So I should be getting one before long. Will that ever be a happy day.

If I remember correct, today is Memorial Day. It hasn’t seemed like it here, but I suppose you had the day off today. That was one holiday I always enjoyed. I wish that I could have been there to spend it with you darling.

Gosh, but I am lonesome tonight. I don’t know what I would do or give to see you or be with you tonight. I guess anything in the world. Even swim the ocean for you. Do you know something honey – I love you.

Darling, this probably won’t make sense, but I have thought of you so much that I had to write whether it makes sense or not.

Dear I must stop and hit the bedroll. I do miss you darling very, very much, and I love you more than anyone else in the world. Take care of yourself & write soon. I Love You Darling.

All My Love & Kisses,
Goodnight
Larry

I Love You Sweetheart.

Reasons to meditate, if you need them

Meditation is always becoming. Meditation is always transformation. Meditation always moves us from one place to another; from unconsciousness to awareness, from tension to relaxation, from being scattered to being centered, from a shallow relationship with our environment and ourselves to a deeper one, from sleep to wakefulness, from a sense of God’s absence to the sense that God was in this place all along and I didn’t know it!

Alan Lew, Be Still and Get Going: A Jewish Meditation Practice for Real Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem: Most of the Warriors

Most of the warriors I knew
Have settled down to gardening, and the morning Times,
Tired of stalking ghosts
and the melody of secret rhythms
above the sound of traffic
and other monotonous voices,
Finally content to stare and wonder.

Most of the warriors I knew
Have unsaddled stallions and built a fence in the backyard,
Weary of studying the clouds
And the shadows creeping across mountains
beyond the flash of neon
and other pretentious symbols,
Finally content to stare and wonder.

Most of the warriors I knew
Have died before their time and are forgotten
Save in the memory of their sons
And the dreams they seldom share
beyond the taint of time
and other unimportant measures

Finally content to stare and wonder.

                        James Kavanaugh 

 

 

 

 

From up there

There is a famous story that you and Springsteen were invited to a dinner party at Sinatra’s house around the time you did that TV tribute to him. Had you met him before? Did you feel like he knew your stuff?

Not really. I think he knew “The Times They Are a-Changin’” and “Blowin’ In the Wind.” I know he liked “Forever Young,” he told me that. He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, “You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,” and he pointed to the stars. “These other bums are from down here.” I remember thinking that he might be right.

        Bob Dylan, Q&A with Bill Flanagan, March 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small steps

People seldom see the halting and painful steps
by which the most insignificant success is achieved.

        Anne Mansfield Sullivan, Helen Keller: The Story of My Life

 

 

 

 

One reason to wake up

That of which we are not aware, owns us.

        James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life