100 Words

ALL THAT FALLS Do you love things that cascade? Do you adore rain falling in sheets or over the ledge, splashing clear joy? Do you love velvet drapes plunging into a royal red pile on the stage of life? How about wisteria, how it drenches spring in ribbons of lush lavender, how the breathless beauty falls through cracks, over fences, how it softens the edges of anything? Then there is the matter of the knees. Slowly, willingly they descend into the dark depths when all is lost, or seems to be. What falls calls you unfastens you opens you. With time, lifts you. WHAT'S COOKIN' IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP KITCHEN? My daughter strolled to the kitchen to get a snack and returned crestfallen. "There's nothing to eat," she reported. "There are only ingredients." A love relationship is a kitchen full of sweet, savory, salty and spicy. I have ingredients (beliefs, personality, habits). You have ingredients, too. But how will they blend? Are we good cooks? With what you've got and what I've got, will we create a wonderful sauté? Will our relationship be sweet? Or will the cake fall? Today, I've got anchovies and you -- rocky road ice cream. This will be interesting. It's OK. There's always another meal coming. ON LOVE Kindness grows in any climate, any time of year. Kindness has the strength of a flower growing in the crack of a rock, rooted and vibrant. Suspicion and blame take root in acidic soil. They easily overtake a garden not tended to or weeded regularly. Fear grows in clumps, banding together for a show of strength. Then there is Love. And where? Walk into fear, you’ll feel Love’s hand reaching. Love lives everywhere. Even in uncertainty or apparent loss. Especially in the harshest territory where you cannot imagine its existence. Love breathes you, moves you. It’s what built your heart. (The following is an excerpt from a short prose piece, the last entry in the book.) A LIGHT STORY The day was winding down. It had been overcast until the last few hours when the sun re-appeared to add its touches to the evening. I had just finished my dinner in the room with sky-high windows. Taking the last bite, I turned toward the mountains for a fuller view, dessert if you will. The landscape had been scrubbed clean from the last few days of downpours. Now, with a bright nod from the setting sun, the colors below and beyond the mountain ridge turned especially dramatic. But something felt different than usual. There was, yes, the standard backdrop of mountain midnight blue, deepening as evening approached. And tonight the blue was so strong, I closed my eyes to invite the depth of that blue into the center of me. This is the blue I welcome when I most need reassurance and strength. Confidence. A strong foundation. Some days the mountains offer deep sky blue or dark slate blue. Other days, Dodger blue, cornflower blue, steel blue. There's plenty of blue in these mountains and these mountains share. Across the valley, each blade of grass, every tousle-headed bush and tree was dressed for the evening in a favorite spring shade of green. And thanks to the generous sun, the green finery was awash in spectacular light. As the sun slowly descended to the mountain ridge to my left, a colossal pile of brilliant white clouds moved in with unusual speed and accuracy, setting the stage for a possible grande finale, a last call for luminosity. The process seemed faster and showier as if to say, pay attention! So I stood and waited. And watched. There was a bright tension developing. Cloud after cloud moved swiftly in front of the dropping sun, harnessing the light, holding it back, reigning it in, creating a light gate -- one which began almost immediately to strain mightily at the seams. There was, after all, unlimited light pushing from behind. I wondered about capacity. Did the light gate have its limits? Would it burst? I noticed I was holding my breath. (END OF EXCERPT)