Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

any kind of happy? June 27, 2012

Filed under: Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:29 pm
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“Being any kind of happy is better than being miserable about someone you can’t have.”

~Leah in Breaking Dawn

Stephenie  Meyer

In the Twilight Saga, Jacob loves Bella, but Bella loves Edward.  However, she loves Jacob, too.  If we were to pull out the Greek words for love, I think we’d be using three different words in this triangle.   Bella’s affections for Jacob are like a family attachment: storge.  Her feelings for Edward are sexual: eros.  Jacob’s feelings for Bella suggest a bit of agape, but also the comradry of philia.  There is a lot of complexity going on as these different kinds of love all simmer together, complicating things.

So Jacob can’t have Bella the way he would like, and Leah thinks anything is better than nothing.  Each of the words above is a fragment of attachment, one can have several of them at once.  What do you think?  Is one better than nothing?  Is each valuable in its own way?  Do you have to have all or a majority of them in one relationship to make it valuable?

 

she says, he says May 21, 2012

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:11 pm
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I’m sad, she says,

her head resting

upon his shoulder.

Words greeted by silence

that hovers

like a malevolent precipice.

Why, he says, are you choosing

to make yourself sad?

I did not choose to be sad, she says.

So then, why did you say, This is sad? he says.

What? she says.

You said, This is sad, he says.

I did not, she says.

I said, I’m sad. She says.

No. You didn’t, he says.

Yes.  I did. She says, sighing.

Silence weaves around them like water

filling between the cracks.

Now,

I’m angry, she says.

 

thriving March 19, 2012

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:31 am
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her mother always said the key to a successful marriage was for each spouse to give as much as they thought they possibly could.  And then, to give a little more. Somewhere in that extra giving, in the space created by generosity without score keeping, was the difference between marriages that thrived and those that didn’t.

(Shilpi Somaya Gowda.  Secret Daughter.  p. 261)

I remember debating the nature of marriage with a male friend when I was a teen ager.  My concept reflected Gowda’s quote above, that each partner had to give 100% to the other.  He argued that that sort of thing was impossible, it would destroy the individual.  50/50 he could maybe see, but giving 100% no.

Some thirty plus years after that conversation, considering who has a divorce under his belt and who hasn’t got one under hers, I may have won the argument by default.

Mind you, he was right as well.  It is nearly  impossible to open yourself up to someone else like that.  Trust is a huge thing, and perhaps the more broken you are, or the more you’ve been betrayed, the more difficult it will be to open yourself to trusting so freely. There are often secrets in a marriage, and some are to protect the spouse.  For example, I protect mine from knowing my shoe budget.  He sees the shoes, and he knows he really doesn’t want to know my shoe budget.  ;-p  Those sorts of secrets are by mutual consent, and do no harm.

Mutual respect and attention is the key here.  One partner can’t do all the giving, it needs to be a reciprocal circle, a single entity.  It’s like an element with positive and negative electrons whirling around.  They must be kept in balance for the relationship to flourish.

The giving means receiving as well.  More importantly, it means recognizing what is within the other to give.  The 100% that they have to offer might not include what you are expecting or desiring.  Accepting the other’s offerings gratefully and genuinely is part of power created in the elements of marriage.  You can not grieve for what the other cannot offer, nor can you blame them for it.   You need to celebrate the spouse you have, and allow them to celebrate you.

 

know what you’re looking for October 27, 2011

Filed under: Pondering — Shawn L. Bird @ 5:25 pm
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“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”
-Jane Austen

Oh my. Poor Jane. I feel so sorry for her, writing these romantic books, setting herself up for trouble. What 18 or 19th century man could hope to live up to her unrealistic expectations. I wonder where she was looking, and what exactly was she looking for?

When I was a teen, I made a list of the characteristics and qualities that I thought were important in a husband. I wrote them down in my diary around the time I was fourteen, and promptly forgot them.

I didn’t have the diary for a few years, and when I got it back, it was a decade later, and I was married with two children. I remember finding that section and being stunned to be reading a very precise description of my husand.

Completely unconsciously I’d sought and found what I’d looked for. And here we are, years later, still happily married, and all those qualities that I valued, prove of even greater value as the years go by.

Poor Jane.

 

what is vs what could be October 20, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:26 pm
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In the acknowledgements at the beginning of Drums of Autumn, Diana Gabaldon observes that her husband says, “I don’t know how you keep getting away with this.  You don’t know anything about men.”  That made me laugh out loud.

Gabaldon might not really know men (though I think she captures them very well, myself), but she definitely understands what women WANT their men to be!  Strong and tender, proud and humble, wounded and capable, physically arresting and self-effacing, full of  desire and faithfully devoted, a gentleman and a serf.  Her main character, Jamie Fraser, may not actually exist, but he is the complex bundle of contradictions that women desire.

This should be a consolation to the men: Jamie’s weaknesses are at the root of his strengths, and he is adored for them.

 

ridiculous love September 22, 2011

Filed under: Pondering,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:30 pm
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“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”

-Agatha Christie

This quote came through my newsfeed the other day, just as I was working on a scene in Grace Awakening Myth, when Grace is appearing quite ridiculous, and Ben is thinking how paralyzingly adorable she is to him.  If you’ve missed it, the third and fourth books of Grace Awakening tell the same story as the first and second, only from Ben’s point of view.  Because he is spending a lot of time in the mythical realm, it is quite a different story, and it explains a lot of the mysteries in Grace Awakening Dreams.

As you remember from Awakening Dreams, Grace spends a lot of time falling apart in front of Ben, while he smirks at her.  Those are the moments he is finding her particularly adorable.  This happens a lot in the first half of the book, of course.

I love those nerdy moments that happen in my household, that make me flood with affection for the nerdy people I love.

How about you?  Are you frequently stricken with affection as you observe the ridiculous in action?

 

fat girl November 29, 2010

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 5:21 am
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The fat girl is crying inside tears under  her laughter.

She bounces ’round the school yard and wants to be what boys are after.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

She might be pretty under that.

They never look at her that way, because they are superficial,

She weeps into pillow then decides to make it official.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

She could be pretty under that.

If boys can’t see how sweet she is beneath her layers of fat

She’ll be alone unless she drops the weight and that is that.

She spends some time and works a bit on losing what she can

She drops a few that thin her face and now she’ll snare her man.

Such a shame that she was fat

She’s mighty  pretty under that.

She lies in wait for just the one Who doesn’t know her past

Before he can imagine what’s ahead she’ll snag him tightly fast.

Such a shame she’s been so fat

Everyone knows it’s under that.

And so it  was, a handsome man came looking for a mate

A wedding day and he is snared not knowing what’s his fate.

Such a shame that she was fat

He sees a beauty under that.

The joy of having kids to love can’t quite remove the loathing

she feels when she looks in the mirror and soon she stops her doting.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

and rather bitchy on top of that.

Her handsome man becomes a source of constant humiliation

She wants to be what she can not Her bitterness infuses frustation.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

She should be jolly under that.

Because she can’t accept herself, she compensates with work

She wants everyone to admire her wherever she should lurk.

With strength of will she bends all ears to make them see her side

They buy from her and sing her praise while hubby sees her lies.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

Her husband loves her under that.

From time to time a program comes along and she drops pounds

The success makes her elated and she tells everyone around.

She is trapped in self-disgust in her body that is fat.

Because inevitably it all comes back and more on top of that

 

There’s only one success in life she’s nothing if not thin

She desperate now to be the girl who always gets to win.

Such a shame that she’s so fat

She’s sure successful  besides that.

.

No matter if she has success and earns a lot of money

The truth of who she really is is certainly not funny.

Inside’s the little fat girl who is self-absorbed and cruel

She’s so desperate for admiration that it only serves to fuel

Control o’er all who come to her thinking she is kind and true

But watch yourself, she’ll take all you’ve got ’til there’s nothing left of you.

Such a shame that she’s like that

No heart is left beneath the fat.

.

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This poem is rooted in that aphorism “Wherever you go, there you are.”  Some people blame a lot of things for their sense of unfulfillment– their weight, their race, their spouse, their circumstances, having kids, not having kids, etc.  Although we all have challenges to overcome, it’s always our own life, and our character is revealed in how we deal with those challenges.  So here is a narrative of a woman who was obsessed by the needy fat child within her and how  she lets that child run her life.  It’s an extended metaphor.  It is a cautionary tale.   Those inner children should not be allowed to run amok!  They are like Stephenie Meyer’s Immortal Children in Breaking Dawn– they destroy all around them, while the creators lose everything in the fight to save them.  Sometimes we have to destroy the inner child in order to save ourselves and our relationships.

 

Love is… October 25, 2010

Filed under: Commentary — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:05 am
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In my capacity as a high school teacher, I often watch kids sorting out their first serious relationships.  Sometimes what I hear alarms me, so I will do a class discussion on love.  My main question is, “What does love LOOK like?” because girls will say, “but he LOVES me!” while they are listening to abusive language and experiencing controlling and abusive behavior.  It seems that they think the behaviors are acceptable if someone professes that he loves them.  My goal is to get them to embrace a new concept: love is shown by an action that is kind, gentle and supportive.  The words are meaningless without the appropriate actions.

Once a girl looked at me as if I had three heads while she announced, “Love isn’t an action, it’s a feeling!!!”  She would not, or could not, get her head around the idea that love reveals itself through behavior.   Saying you love someone isn’t an excuse for a jealous tantrum, controlling them, or beating them, either with words or fists.

Ali McGraw was just interviewed by Oprah and they discussed the infamous line from Love Story, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.”  Ali says it makes no sense.  Of course not!  It never did!  Love means saying sorry and more, it means SHOWING you’re sorry, by eliminating that behavior from your life. 

I remember those adorable “Love is…” cartoons in the 70s.  Kim Casali debuted the strip when she was a newlywed.   One of the most famous ones was, “Love is… saying you’re sorry.”   The strip is still running, although both Kim and her love are written now by their son.   Check out today’s.

I’m thinking that in my life,

“Love is…working toward a common goal.”

“Love is…walking hand in hand.”

“Love is…doing the laundry.”

“Love is… going out in the dead of night to buy your love cough medicine.”

“Love is… sitting in a car for 9 hours just to make sure he doesn’t fall asleep driving home.” 

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So what do YOU think  LOVE IS… ?