me and e.e.

i have this little poster that my mom gave me when i was a teenager.
it got stashed in my attic at some point and got all rained on or
something...which gives it this great wrinkly character. i love
the looks of it now. old, wrinkled and charactered hmmmm...
perhaps i relate.....

i had dug it out and hung it on my studio door not too long ago.
it's a quote from e.e. cummings and it says 'be of love a little
more careful than of everything.'

i have had this thing for seriously....about 35 years.

and i've been eyeing it lately and wondering about it.
haven't been comfortable with it. keep squinching my eyes
and thinking something isn't right.

then this morning, while i was on the treadmill, i looked over at
it and thought 'okay, that's got to go.'

cause while i love e.e. and think he's brilliant....i think he missed
the mark on this one. and yes, i get the point and understand he
was trying to say something important.

but still....i think he totally missed the mark.
and that feels real daring for terri st. cloud to say e.e.cummings
goofed.

but i think he did.

cause it's not love you have to be careful with.
i don't even think it's who you give love to you have to be careful
with.

cause i'm thinking we should be giving it everywhere to everyone
in any place we can.

it's not the 'love' part that we have to be careful with.

and i've been thinking about this a lot lately.

i have said over and over and over again that i'm not real good
at love. that i want to be so much better. and sometimes i
really seriously seriously wonder if i can do a real relationship.
sometimes i'm just not sure i'm up to the task.

i'm not real good at this love stuff.

people rush to correct me.
and i wish they wouldn't.
cause i have a point.

i understand i have a good heart, and i understand that i can be
loving easily.

but LOVE is so different than being loving.

it's a total and true opening of the heart.
it's a total and true allowing and accepting.

i have a lotta fear.
a lot of it.
and it gets in my way a lot.

i think the quote should be 'be of fear a little more careful
than of anything.'

i have another quote hangin' over my door....
it says 'there is no remedy for love but to love more.'

that one makes SO much more sense to me.

when i goof at love, i start to close down.
self doubt.
discouragement.
not love.

and that only makes things worse.

what makes it all better is when i open again,
when i step back into love.

THAT quote hits really right.

i just tossed my 35 year old poster in the trash.

and i'm grinnin'.

it's been quite a 35 years to get terri st. cloud
to say e.e. had it wrong...and i'm not gonna be more
careful about love than anything...

my hope/dream/plan is to swim with abandon in it
and sprinkle it everywhere i go.....