"If it (love) is to save us, we must look at it as clearly as we should learn to look at death. Should love be taught in school? First, term: friendship; second term: tenderness; third term: passion. Why not? They teach kids how to cook and mend cars and fuck one another without getting pregnant; and the kids are, we assume, much better at all of this than we were, but what use is any of that to them if they don't know about love? They're expected to muddle through by themselves. Nature is supposed to take over, like the automatic pilot on an aeroplane. Yet Nature, on to whom we pitch responsibility for all we cannot understand, isn't very good when set to automatic. Trusting virgins drafted into marriage never found Nature had all the answers when they turned out the light."

"..What else can love do? If we're selling it, we'd better point out that it's a starting-point for civic virtue. You can't love someone without imaginative sympathy, without beginning to see the world from another point of view. You can't be a good lover, a good artist or a good politician without this capacity (you can get away with it, but that's not what I mean)."

"..It gives us our humanity, and also our mysticism. There is more to us than us."

"..What is a violin made of? Bits of wood and bits of sheep's intestine. Does its construction demean and banalize the music? On the contrary, it exalts the music further."

Julian Barnes

A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters

This is something to think about when negative people are doing their best to rain on your parade. So remember this story the next time someone who knows nothing, and cares less, tries to make your life miserable.

A woman was at her hair dresser's getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:

'Rome Why would anyone want to go there. It's crowded and dirty. You're crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there.

'We're taking Continental,' was the reply. 'We got a great rate!'

'Continental exclaimed the hairdresser. 'That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they're always late. So, where are you staying in Rome.

'We'll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome's Tiber River called Teste.'

'Don't go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks its gonna be something special and exclusive, but it's really a dump, the worst hotel in the city! The rooms are small, the service is surly, and they're over priced.

So, whatcha' doing when you get there.

'We're going to go to see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope.'

'That's rich,' laughed the hairdresser. 'You and a million other people trying to see him. He'll look the size of an ant.

Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it.

A month later, the woman again came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.

'It was wonderful,' explained the woman, not only were we on time in one of Continental's brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28- year-old steward who waited on me hand and foot.

And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it's a jewel, the finest hotel in the city They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us their owner's suite at no extra charge!'

'Well,' muttered the hairdresser, 'that's all well and good, but I know you didn't get to see the Pope.'

'Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me.

Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.'

'Oh, really! What'd he say?

He said: 'Where'd you get the shitty Hairdo!

Mist is rising and slowly being burned off by the sun. Fog covers everything. I can hear, though, what I am told is the neighbor's rooster. At first it is very cool and I am totally fascinated as the sun rises and reveals to me the incredible otherworldly beauty of my great aunt Lola's vegetable garden.

I am now 45 years old and I can still vividly recall this experience when I must have been only four or five. We have just traveled from Midland, Texas to Madill, Oklahoma the day before and arrived after the sun went down for what will be a weeks visit. This is my first experience, too, having come from the desert of such exuberant greenery and insect life. Looking back, I compare my first glimpse of Aunt Lola's vegetable garden to the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy has just been plopped down house and all in Oz and she first opens her front door to that magnificent Munchkinland.

I leave Aunt Lola's screened-in back porch to go among what I now know to have been black-eyed pea bushes and okra bushes and squash vines. The black-eyed peas and I were about the same height and I was enchanted with the vining tendrils and most delicate of blossoms. The okra blossoms, so beautiful with their violet centers. I discover, however, that though beautiful to look at they are most unpleasant to touch--all spiny and sticky. And, of course, what were to me, the breathtakingly beautiful squash blossoms (for years when asked my favorite flower, I would reply -- a squash). Then to be told and shown that these blossoms wilt and face and become a squash or an okra!

I remember, too, how absolutely taken I was with the rich insect life. The butterflies flitting seemingly aimlessly just above it all and dipping down occasionally for a sip of nectar. The lazy wasps droning in the air with their legs dangling beneath them adding a startling element of danger. Ladybugs were here and grasshoppers, too -- "They'll spit t"baccy juice in your eye", my grandpa would tell me. They always seemed so dressed up in what looked like a vest and coat, I couldn't believe they would even chew tobacco.

It must have rained in Madill recently as the mysterious red-spider mite was here with his magnificent red velvet. How in the world did that bug get covered in such perfect red velvet? he looked like a living ring box!

There was the tiniest lizard that was always tormentingly just outside my reach. it seemed he was playing with me as he darted in and out of my sight.

Right after breakfast, my grandmother, my mother, Aunt Lola and I all sat under the garden tree, drank iced tea and shelled back-eyed peas. I was given my own little bowl and after much fervent labor, I had a little over a whole handful of peas to show for my efforts. Dinner preparations began about mid-morning. Aunt Lola roasted a hen and prepared a pastry crust for what would be a lemon-meringue pie. Aunt Lola was a master pie maker and most amazingly of all (I remember my mother commenting on it at the time, but didn't fully appreciate it until much later) she whipped her meringue by hand! This was no limp little meringue that I, as an adult, could whip up with an electric mixer. Oh, no! Aunt Lola's meringue was a good two-inch thick affair that just glistened with drizzled egg whites and sugar.

This week would prove to have a lot of firsts for me -- a chocolate coke, throwing rocks at coke bottles lined up on a fallen tree trunk in the back of Aunt Lola's combination store and gas station, chasing lightening bugs, seeing up close a mule.. But I have never forgotten that first morning in her vegetable garden. The experience and memory have formed me and I continue to be awed at this wondrously diverse world.

If someone were to tell you and I that we were going to a place that had the most beautiful emerald green carpet that was alive, and above it an azure ceiling with ever-changing colors and lights that were miles and miles above our heads; this place would be furnished with an absolutely endless parade of organisms with all manner of blooms, vines, leaves, fruit; this world would be peopled with an infinite variety of creatures all sizes and shapes and habits that would fill the air, ground and waters, would we believe them?

We do live in a world just like that.

For anyone interested in mental health or addictions I highly recommend Dr. Drew Pinsky's new book "Cracked". For me, this books explains as nothing I have ever read or heard the way the brain develops through traumatic events or rather doesn't develop and how doctors go about putting lives back together.

From the book jacket:

"Dr. Drew Pinsky is best known as the cohost of the long-running radio advice program Loveline. But his workday is spent at a major Southern California clinic, treating the severest cases of drug dependency and psychiatric breakdowns. In this riveting book, Pinsky reveals the intimate and often shocking stories of his patients as they struggle with emotional trauma, sexual abuse, and a host of chemical nemeses: alcohol, marijuana, Ecstasy, heroin, speed, cocaine, and prescription drugs. At the center of these stories is Pinsky himself, who immerses himself passionately, almost obsessively, in his work. From the sexually compulsive model to the BMW-driving soccer mom. Cracked exposes, in fast-moving, powerful vignettes, the true scope and severity of addiction, a nationwide epidemic."

I heard him long before I saw him. For weeks the neighborhood dogs had been constantly barking. Every morning when I let out my two dogs, they chased something off the patio. A cat. They passionately loathed cats. I could only catch a glimpse of him now and then as he flew to safety .. underneath a pile of things at the side of the house.

Then one afternoon as I was taking out a dead tree in the front yard, he came running in to the tree as though in the movement there would be some prey. He was hungry. My husband drove up about that time and saw me greeting the cat and knowing me well, said, "So, I guess that is your new cat". Well, I had pet birds at the time and two cat hating dogs.. I didn't need or want a cat. But, I brought him inside and fed him. I watched the newspaper every day for someone who might be looking for him. I really thought someone had dumped him off into the neighborhood.

He seemed most grateful for a safe place and insisted on being by my side at all times. He couldn't seem to get close enough.. stayed right underneath my chin when I sat down. He Loved me with a capital "L" *sigh*. Who could resist that? I Loved him back.

After several days and no sign of anyone claiming him and my assuming he was dumped there AND the fact that there were several non-neutered toms around who will kill kittens and juveniles given the chance, I realized I had a cat. He had adopted me. I took him to the vet to get his shots and discovered he had ear mites that needed to be treated a couple of times a day.

School had just started and the kids were making the rounds selling things.. my doorbell rang and there stood two of my little neighbors hawking their wares, when in came the cat twining around my legs. The oldest little boy said, "Where did you get that cat?" I said, "Well, he just came up. He's been here for awhile". He said, "That looks like my friend's cat who has been missing". My heart sank. We were so in love.

I told him to have his friend come take a look at him to see if it was the same cat. The little boy came and verified, yep, sure enough, it was his cat and reached out his arms for him. *big sigh* Since he needed to be medicated, I asked the little boy if he would have his mother come and get the instructions for the medicine and at that time he could take him. He said, Yes, he would be back. They did not come that afternoon and the next morning we went on vacation with someone coming in to care for the pets.

I knew when I got back home I could expect to lose my new love but they never came for him and he has been with me for 11 years now.... very close..