Tag: love

Opposites Attract

Forty-one years ago Studly Doright and I exchanged wedding vows in a small Baptist church in Dumas, Texas. We were young, dumb, and totally in love. We were also poor, a fact I didn't fully comprehend until I began counting the funds we had remaining after spending a quick honeymoon in the dubious luxury of the Camelot Inn in Amarillo, Texas. 

We'd gotten married on July 30, 1976, and I remember turning to Studly on our 45 mile drive back to Dumas, Texas, and the rental home we'd signed a six month lease agreement on and saying, "This can't be right. We only have a hundred dollars left and you won't get paid again until the 15th." 

Thus began my understanding that my life had changed forever. No longer was I under the financial protection of my mom and dad. I was now a partner in a brand new relationship that extended beyond romance and into the arena of money. I was woefully unprepared for this new reality.

Thankfully, Studly was barely more prepared than I had been. Did I mention how dumb we were? The difference between the two of us was that he never doubted his ability to provide. I worried, but he never did. 

Somehow, we always managed to scrape enough money together to pay the rent and buy groceries.

Nowadays, the money isn't as tight. I still worry, though. Studly still doesn't. I guess that's the whole opposites attract theory in action. We've made it this far and that's no small feat. I think we'll shoot for at least another twenty years.

Peace, people.

Hey, Today’s Our Anniversary!

Forty-one years with the same man. Inconceivable!

Happy Anniversary, Studly Doright.

Learning to Fly

First, unclog your mind
Rid yourself of weighty thoughts
Then simply exhale

Open up your heart
Invite the whole world inside
That's the best advice

Now, leap fearlessly
Behold the wide world below
Yearning to embrace

A Battered Soul

The blows never came
Even though the winds raged in gusts
Threatening her peace

She sheltered alone
Away from the crashing waves
Still, she gasped for breath

What would she gamble?
Her scarred heart, her battered soul,
To challenge the wind?

Tell Me Two Things

Studly and I have been discussing pop music as we drive the back roads around Doright Manor. Well, I’ve been discussing music while he pretends to listen, just occasionally asking, “What?”

I recently told him that I think the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby has the finest lyrics of any pop song from the 60’s, perhaps the finest of all time. 

“What?” Studly asks, then after I repeat myself, “Oh, yeah, it’s got a catchy tune.”

“Don’t you even listen to the lyrics?”

“Not really,” he said.

How have I managed to stay married to this man for 40+ years? Oh, I guess there is that crazy little thing called love. 

So, readers, tell me two things: 

1)Which pop song from the last five decades has the best lyrics? 

2)Does your significant other understand what lyrics are?

Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles

Lyrics

Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there’s nobody there
What does he care

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Songwriters: John Lennon / John Winston Lennon / Paul Mccartney / Paul James Mccartney

Eleanor Rigby lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

He Loves Me; He Loves Me Not

Little white daisies
Sweet petals to pluck in play
He loves me, or not


Lovers of the light
Faces turned toward the sun
Bathing in its glow


Demurest blossoms
Woven in virginal wreaths
On a summer’s day


 

The Pull Of Time

The Pull of Time
by Leslie Noyes

Nothing matters now,
With the exception of love
And the pull of time.


A hushed, unrushed love,
Long minutes, long limbs entwined;
Sweet slippery hours.

Time always intrudes,
Pleasures turn to promises
Measured in drab days.

I Have Love

I Have Love

I have love, ill-defined and tenuous,
Hollowed out and scurrilous.
Jealous to a fault,
Impervious.

Brittle love, strained and anxious,
Stretched too thin, dangerous.
Pushed past the limit,
Hazardous.

Save me from love, rude and ridiculous,
Martyred and meticulous.
Grasping for straws,
Ludicrous.

Calling Home

Mom weighed next to nothing as she lay dying; the hospital bed displaying the decreasing

Pounds like a stopwatch ticking off seconds. I couldn’t take my eyes off the digital

Readout, like maybe if I concentrated hard enough the numbers would reverse themselves.

One twenty seven would read one seventy two and the cancer cells would be rubbed out like

Misspelled words on a fourth grade composition. Little pink eraser dregs lingering,

To be brushed away by pudgy fingers. The marks still visible, but inconsequential. A week 

After she died I dialed her number to relay a student’s amusing comment about 

The complexity of simple machines, but realized after the third ring that I’d lost her forever.

I could not concentrate enough or erase fast enough to bring her back, to hear her voice. 

When Love Hangs Around

Impossible, she thought, that decades later the love still held. No one had ever cared for

Her this long and this well. Surprised after the first year when he still woke up beside 

Her. Didn’t he know she had so little to give in the way of affection? And yet he mined

Every modicum of goodness, prying tiny pieces and holding them beneath a magnifying

Glass until they caught fire and everyone had to acknowledge their presence. Even her.