POEMS

Marriage
It was a good story
Boy meets girl 
Fall in love
Happy ever after lasted 15 years
Who was she really?
I never knew her.
Just the story.

Sunset
The red globe fixed above the horizon
Mountains rising up up up, covering the lower edge and creeping up to the middle 
I feel myself falling back, back, back
And then the mountains have risen up, covering the red globe completely
I’m still falling backward.

Culture
I grew up in America knowing that all people are created equal, that is, the same
Such a shock to land in France and find such different people, kissing on park benches
And cross the border to Germany where no one kisses but every rule is obeyed
And cross another border to Italy where grown men stand toe to toe and shout at each other in
A friendly political conversation

Experiencing the Bible
I lived in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains for two years when I was 22 
I expected Shangri-La
I got the bible
Women at the well
Holy men, sadhus, begging in village
Arranged marriages
No one wondered what they would be when they grew up

Love 1
Mostly, when people say I love you
They mean they like the way they feel when they are with the other person
Mostly hormones
Mostly addiction
So hard to love someone to  act in ways that help him or her be themselves most completely
Not the cultural story at all

Love 2
I’ve talked to hundreds of people who threatened suicide
Because their lover doesn’t love them any more
A large part of romantic love is a mental illness, as Shakespeare observed.
Learnings
My feelings about someone is not who they are.
My thoughts, my beliefs, my feelings are not what I am.
Who I am is a part of what I am
How other people respond to me is who I am
My story about myself is who I am
What I am is so vastly different and more than who I am.

I am my experience.  
I intend, and succeed sometimes, to experience my experience.
Verisimilitude is the experience of truth.
Truth is a delusion
Thoughts and feelings are as complex and beautiful as the experience of trees and oceans
But much harder to observe and attend to.