raspberry

still in a marvin gaye kinda mood.

I’m feelin’ em.

I’m feelin’ the 80s right now. Bad.

I mean, Michael, I wish I had you and Wesley Snipes to help me defend myself against elementary and high school bullies. I always wished that guy who lifts himself off of the ground by his own shirt collar on roller skates and all those other cool 80s dudes in the Bad video would come to my aid at a snap of my finger. It just would have made life easier then.

And now too. I mean imagine if you had this group of people who all came out of nowhere everytime you’re in an alley or parking lot alone. Damn.

That’d be goooood.

I was in Manchester, New Hampshire this past week. And guess who was coming in concert? JOURNEY. Yeah, like, Journey. As in the one from the early 80s. The ones who sing “open arms”. The ones I always get mixed up with Foreigner. I can’t even figure out which one sings Eye of the Tiger…. Foreigner, right? I have to go watch the Rocky credits to see.

I thought this is Foreigner too, but it’s not. It’s Paul Young…..I think it’s the overuse of the word “girl” and the waiting and all that stuff…that “sad” sound and moaning they both do.

oh man, this guy’s ugly.

not to be mistaken with John Paul Young.

Who sings Love is in the Air. He’s hot.

Ok, but I’m lying. I’m like so about the 70s. Soooooo much.

I love Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Stanton. It’s my song of the moment.

And let’s just read some of the ingenious lyrics.

What’s the sense in sharing
This one and only life
Endin’ up just another lost and lonely wife
You’ll count up the years
And they will be filled with tears
Love only breaks up, to start over again
You’ll get the babies, but you won’t have your man
While he is busy loving every woman that he can, uh-huh
Say I’m gonna leave a hundred times a day
It’s easier said than done
When you just can’t break away
(when you just can’t break away)

[Chorus:]
Oh, young hearts run free
Never be hung up
Hung up like my man and me
My man and me
Ooooh, young hearts, to yourself be true
Don’t be no fool when love really don’t love you
Don’t love you

It’s high time now just one crack at life
Who wants to live in, in trouble and strife
My mind must be free
To learn all I can about me, uh-hmm

I’m gonna love me, for the rest of my days
Encourage the babies every time they say
Self preservation is what’s really going on today
Say I’m gonna turn loose a thousand times a day
But how can I turn loose
When I just can’t break away
(when I just can’t break away)

Oh, young hearts run free
They’ll never be hung up
Hung up like my man and me
You and me
Ooooh, young hearts, to yourself be true
Don’t be no fool when love really don’t love you
Don’t love you

Oh, young hearts run free
They’ll never be hung up
Hung up like my man and me
You and me
Ooooh, young hearts, to yourself be true
Don’t be no fool when love really don’t love you
Don’t love you

Oh, young hearts run free
They’ll never be hung up
Hung up like my man and me
My man and me
Ooooh, young hearts, to yourself be true
Don’t be no fool when love really don’t love you
Don’t love you

Sometimes it feels like someone is everywhere to you. It’s a delusion that happens when you get obsessed, or when you miss someone, or maybe when you think you’ve fallen in love. Even after someone passes away, it’s easy to think you see them everywhere. So I dedicate this post to those who have a feeling that they see their loved one, whoever she or he may be, everywhere.

Sometimes when a loved one is lost, it’s easy to be reminded of them through the places you used to go together or the physical remnants they’ve left behind. Their smell may still be in the air, and this poem, is written by Amatu’l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum, originally Mary Maxwell, a Baha’i Hand of the Cause about her husband, the Guardian of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, after he had passed away.

ALL THINGS REMIND ME OF YOU

All things remind me of you,
The rain and the sun,
The treads of the stairs
I came up a bride, long ago,
The pebbles in the paths,
And the streets of many cities,
The steps in your beautiful gardens,
Each flower and rose and tree.

I myself remind me of you,
For your words and your looks
Catch me up in a thousand ways,
Homely, tender ways of daily
Life lied long together.

Like a planet I revolve in my orbit
Around and around and around,
And my centre is my boundless grief,
And my insatiable longing for you,
My love that flames all my breast.

9 December 1957

There are many songs that have been written about this concept of seeing someone everywhere, or having a feeling that everything is that person. Here are a few.

And also Everything by Michael Buble.

Sometimes you look everywhere and you can’t find what you’re looking for.

Whether it’s your baby (you may consider that the dingo ate your baby!), or looking for something undefined in your sleep. And you may get closer to fine when you stop looking, then again you may still never find what you’re looking for.

It makes me wonder, what is that Promised Land that we’re all looking for? Or the peace we all seek to find?

Seek and you shall find, they say.
But really, do you find what you seek when you seek it? Or does it find you by surprise when you’re not looking for it at all?

One of my favorite stories from ancient Persian literature is Attar’s Simorgh. Here is a short synopsis. from Indopedia.

Besides being one of the most beautiful examples of Persian poetry, this book relies on a clever word play between the words Simorgh — a mysterious bird in Iranian mythology which is a symbol often found in sufi literature, and similar to the phoenix bird — and “si morgh” — meaning “thirty birds” in Persian. The stories recounts the longing of a group of birds who desire to know the great Simorgh, and who under the guidance of a leader bird start their journey toward the land of Simorgh. One by one, they drop out of the journey, each offering an excuse and unable to endure the journey. Within the larger context of the story of the journey of the birds, Attar masterfully tells the reader many didactic short, sweet stories in captivating poetic style. Eventually only thirty birds remain as they finally arrive in the land of Simorgh — all they see there are each other and the reflection of the thirty birds in a lake — not the mythical Simorgh. It is the Sufi doctrine that God is not external or separate from the universe, rather is the totality of existence. The thirty birds seeking the Simorgh realise that Simorgh is nothing more than their transcendent totality. This concept has been compared as being similar to “Universal Pantheism” in western philosophy.

It makes me think that what we are seeking is really ourselves, and that who we think we are as a totality transcends the uniqueness of one entity, our own self, but encompasses the world at large.

In Baha’u'llah’s book, the 7 Valleys and the 4 Valleys, He talks about the Valley of Search, and compares the one who is seeking God to a lover seeking his/her Beloved.

On this journey the traveler abideth in every land and dwelleth in every region. In every face, he seeketh the beauty of the Friend; in every country he looketh for the Beloved. He joineth every company, and seeketh fellowship with every soul, that haply in some mind he may uncover the secret of the Friend, or in some face he may behold the beauty of the Loved One.

- Bahá’u’lláh

And He goes on to say, in the Hidden Words,

O SON OF MAN! Wert thou to speed through the immensity of space and traverse the expanse of heaven, yet thou wouldst find no rest save in submission to Our command and humbleness before Our Face.

- Bahá’u’lláh