Sunday, March 05, 2006
Week Past 02/27-03/05
Moving On
A college brod is moving from sunny CA to gloomy Seattle. He's one of those affected by their bank's streamlining and outsourcing. They offered him four options where he can transfer: 1) San Antonio, Texas but he'll be stepping down; 2) Albion, NY but he can't stand five months of cold and snow; 3) Jacksonville, FL but it's way too far for him to drive the 3,000 miles from west to east to relocate, 4) Bothell,WA his pick. It is 16 miles north of Seattle and 1,150 miles north of LA. The clincher why he chose the fourth option? He saw in the internet while doing his research that there's a place nearby that "specializes in kilawen and papaitan ". A true blue Ilocano. He''ll be at home. Yes, even I miss those fare and the camaraderie that goes with it while imbibing ice cold San Mig Pale Pilsen.
Author of Letters To My Son: A Father's Wisdom on Manhood, Life and Love published in 1999. I'd say I was late by seven years in taking hold of this book. Or if I ever did came across his work earlier I just didn't give notice.The man is also from MN in Bemidji about 280 miles north from where I live. I came across an excerpt from his work in a peculiar way. A friend forwarded an e-mail about a ADMU professor who wrote an "exceptional" essay when he was a still a student at ADMU under a professor who was known for being a perfectionist. He got an "A" on this essay of which the whole text was part of the e-mail. Curious, I did a name search at yahoo on the professor. True enough he is now in the roster of distinguished professors at ADMU with a PhD attached to his name. But there were also other related entries in my search and one was about the e-mail being circulated that he wrote the essay. To make a long story short, that "essay" was Chapter 26: Partners and Marriage of Nerburn's book mentioned above. I have no idea how it came about that this professor from ADMU is being given credit in writing that essay. Perhaps a "misguided-disgruntled" student of his circulated that e-mail complete with the trimmings of an urban legend tale to put the professor in bad light for allegedly "submitting" an essay that was not his. But it was my gain. It introduced me to the author's work which I find very insightful. I borrowed the book from the County library this week and thinking of buying a copy of my own. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 22: Falling In Love: (to all those who cannot fathom love and to a blogfriend askalfreak who wrote an article in PDI about love on 2/14. You're right it's a mystery)
It is a mystery why we fall in love. It is a mystery how it happens. It is a nystery when it comes. It is a mystery why some love grow and it is a mystery why some love fail.
You can analyze this mystery and look for reasons and causes, but you will never do any more than take the life out of the experience. Just as life itself is something more than the sum of the bones and muscles and electrical impulses in the body, love is something more than the sum of interests and attractions and commonalities that two people share. And just as life itself is a gift that comes and goes in its own time, so too, the coming of love must be taken as an unfathomable gift that cannot be questioned in its ways.
...More often, it will come and take hold of you, celebrate you for a brief moment, then move on.
When this happens to young people they too often try to grasp the love and hold it to them, refusing to see that it is a gift freely given and a gift that just as freely moves away. When they fall out of love, or the person they love feels the spirit of love leaving, they try desperately to reclaim the love that is lost rather than accepting the gift for what it was, then moving on.
They want answers where there are no answers. They want to know what is wrong with them that makes the other person no longer love them...They blame their circumstances and say that if they go far away and start a new life together their love will grow.
They try anything to give meaning to what has happened. But there is no meaning beyond the love itself, and until they accept its mysterious ways they live in a sea of misery.
You need to know this about love, and to accept it. You need to treat what it brings you with kindness. If you find yourself in love with someone who does not love you, be gentle with yourself. There is nothing wrong with you. Love just didn't choose to rest in the other person's heart.
If you find someone else in love with you and you don't love her, feel honored that love came and called at your door but gently refuse the gift you cannot return. Do not take advantage, do not cause pain. How you deal with love is how love will deal with you, and all our hearts feel the same pains and joys, even if our lives and ways are very different.
If you fall in love with another, and she falls in love with you, and then love chooses to leave, do not try to reclaim it or to assess blame. Let it go. There is a reason and there is a meaning. You will know it in time, but time itself will choose the moment.
Remember that you don't choose love. Love chooses you.
...Remember this, and keep it in your heart. Love has its own time, its own season, and its own reason for coming and going. You cannot bribe it or coerce it or reason it into staying. You can only embrace it when it arrives and give it away when it comes to you. But if it chooses to leave, from your heart or from the heart of your lover, there is nothing you can do and nothing you should do. Love always has been and always will be a mystery. Be glad that it came to live for a moment in your life. If you keep your heart open, it will come again.
