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Flags

Posted in inspirational, life lessons, military tributes, nostalgia, Patriotic, people, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 10, 2010| 1 Comment »

I recently drove to Walla Walla, Washington, from my home some sixty miles away, to visit with my oldest friend, an eighty seven year old Chaplain at the Veteran’s Affairs Facility. We became friends this year while I was filling a six-month contract to deploy new computer equipment in the offices and medical facilities on the campus there.

Over a six-month period, beginning in early spring, I drove the stretch of two lane blacktop between the gap at the Wallula Junction and through the winding hills along Washington State Highway 12. This stretch of road is about thirty miles long, cutting a picturesque path through rolling hills and rocky outcroppings along the way.

This is historic country, settled long ago…explored by the likes of Lewis and Clark. The land is used for winter wheat, vineyards, cattle-grazing, horse pasture, and some row crops. Many dozens of old family farming operations mark the divisions of ground with fence lines. Some are new and painted while others are simply weathered post and rusted wire.

This is Americana in the West, the sort of setting described in a Louis L’Amour novel. Today, blacktop leads to gravel roads, streams lead to small rivers…America at its finest in a quiet evolving painting through the four seasons.

This road is kissed, sometimes beaten down by swirling winds that seem to come from several directions at once. I drove the road beginning in early spring, when there is little vegetation on perennial trees, few objects provided in nature to indicate the presence of a wind at all. Driving this piece of history some days became a bit of an adventure, when the prevailing winds were invisible to the eye while I drove. I often had to stop and open a door to see if either I had a low tire or if, in fact, the wind had cropped up from the Columbia River Gorge coming from the direction of Portland, Oregon to the west and out of the Blue Mountains nearby.

The ridges along this road are marked by many dozens, hundreds in fact, of huge windmills to generate power for the regional grid. But on a very windy day, the mills are shut down as the speed of the turning blades can’t be moderated after a certain point. So I might be driving in a gale with no real indication of wind at all, other than the adverse effect it may have on the handling of my lightweight car.

Over the course of weeks in early spring, as I drove this road, my writer’s mind had plenty of scenery to take in, many tales to extract from the farms and old buildings in towns with names such as Touchet, and Lowden. Wooden grain elevators and long ago abandoned buildings– that once housed stores, shops to repair tractor and plow, dry goods, a post office and bus stops– mark the way.

There was one thing sorely absent on the horizons, in yards of homes, businesses, shops…anywhere that patriotic souls reside, work, and gather along this historic stretch of western heartland…Flags. Visible from the highway I am able to count maybe a dozen good old American Stars and Stripes being displayed to mark pride and support of a nation at war for a decade now.

Solitary sentry in the wind…

This road leads to a campus that consists of buildings that existed since the late 1800’s as a military support facility. Fort Walla Walla is also in the vicinity…And now the facility cares for and counsels members of the military from every era beginning with World War II.  Americana is at its finest here…with little display of our country’s symbol to be found on the main road leading up to it.

While looking out over the countryside for indicators to help me gauge the wind as I drove, I was compelled to feel in fact that winds of change have led many of our citizens to inexplicably fold and store away the flags that once marked community far and wide, during times of both war and peace…Peace being earned during times of war…and sacrifices being made by so many to wage war and to preserve peace.

Since 9-11 occurred in 2001, our country has been involved in military operations abroad, attempting to root out the perpetrators of terror and discontent both here and at its source…Hundreds of thousands of military personnel have been shipped out, and into harm’s way, for the better part of ten years now.

I cannot understand why the flag has vanished from sight. I have no clue if folks are less patriotic, scared of our enemies, unhappy with the current political climate, or just too busy to remember to raise the flag…no matter I guess. So I drive with no traditional indicator of the speed and direction of winds outside my car, and the winds of change leave me wondering at the direction and speed of the state of our community and union here.

There are several irrigation pivots used to water various crops along this road. I see each pivot has an American flag mounted atop of it. This is a nice sight for a couple miles near the crest of a stretch of road known as Nine Mile Hill. About a half dozen of these circles are marked by the flag, and I am sure that along with a farmer’s patriotic stance, there is an operational reason for the flags being strategically placed there. It’s nice to see them displayed at the sight of a western extension of the American bread basket.

Nine Mile Hill irrigation circle…

Along this road, I met a recently retired U.S Marine. He was about ten years younger than my fifty years. He’d spent twenty years of his youth serving our country. In those two decades, I imagine he’s been called upon to serve in the first Gulf War, and perhaps the current involvements in Iraq and Afghanistan, to live away from family, and from friends–other than his brothers and sisters in arms. I can guess he’s been deployed to lands where foreign tongues and traditions prevail. I would further venture that a lot of the places and people he gladly protected and defended could have cared little, or not at all, of his sacrifice in their land so far from his home. Still, for twenty years he served, stood in harm’s way for strangers both here at home and abroad. That is after all, what American military members do in this world…

This handsome young Marine had a family too–a dedicated wife and two children, both a daughter and a son. In the midst of his time serving our country, he was busy also living the American dream…All the while, he selflessly stood ready to preserve our right to the American dream…and the dream to provide some semblance of peace, civility and a human dignity in any number of inhospitable places around the globe. That is what our Marines do…what young fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, nephew…and their female counterparts do in this great patriotic country. And today, all are volunteers from day one.

How did I meet this recently retired Marine, along this stretch of road in the middle of a historic piece of America here in the Pacific Northwest?

He and his family were stranded on the side of the road. They were within sight of several of those American flags atop the irrigation circle pivots. It was 107 degrees outside. I was sweating in my car even with the air conditioning laboring on high settings. There was no breeze, no clouds…Just the unrelenting sun. Even the buzzards were grumpy on this day…

I could see, for quite a distance, the back of a somewhat tired Ford Explorer with its hood up. I could see a couple hay stacks several yards off the side of the road. I could see two children in what shade a stack could provide…sitting atop a couple of stray bales off to the side, perhaps set there by dad. I could see a man and a woman several feet away from the kids, between the hay and the stricken car. I could see their frustration, the effect of the late afternoon heat and the fact they had no doubt been out there at the crest of Nine Mile Hill for quite some unforgiving time.

What I saw was a family, stranded in 100+ plus degree heat, many miles from shelter, water, help, safety…I had no clue if they had help on the way, if they were suffering from heat related issues, or of any other issues that might need tending to, in the middle of nowhere, on a God forsaken day. I couldn’t pull over directly because of the speed of my car and the quantity of traffic in the area, so I drove to a safe spot a little way up the road. I turned the car around and drove back to them. When I emerged from my much cooler car and into the heat, I waited to jog across the three lanes of highway there. I could see the tired look of gratefulness and frustrated resignation on the faces of the couple as they walked to greet me near their slumbered Explorer…I inquired into their condition, if they had water, a cell phone. I asked if they had help on the way…how long they had been waiting there stranded. We three adults peered under the hood of the car, discussing the state of repair, the symptoms of disrepair…the usual conversation when a family is stranded with a dead vehicle on a hot day.

I noticed then that the father/husband figure there in front of me wore a ball cap with markings to signify he was a retired Marine. I asked about his service. He replied, “recently retired…put in my twenty…” I shook his hand and thanked him for serving. I acknowledged the sacrifice he, his wife, and young family had obviously made while he served.

For a moment, I discussed the irony of his willingness to serve anywhere and any time since he was barely out of high school…for two decades. He discussed the fact that no less than a hundred and fifty cars had passed by this stranded family, without as much as slowing down. He did say I was the lone soul outside a State Patrolman to stop…but he quickly added the officer was “paid to stop”.

I was shocked and in utter disgust at the scenario I was a part of. I can’t imagine what excuse anyone would have to ignore what was obviously a family of four suffering on a hot day in the midst of little else other than haystacks, a few irrigation circles in the distance…with American flags at rest on a breezeless day…and miles of little else.

I mentioned the irony of his career and his service and his willingness to defend, to the death, total strangers in strange lands, at virtually any time, under any conditions…yet there he, and that beautiful young family, sat in the middle of his homeland, among those he fought to protect for all of his adult life.

The same country that sacrifices life and limb for sometimes unappreciative strangers, appears to be either afraid to stop and help a family today, or uncaring enough to not bother to step out into the heat, or even stop and crack a window to simply inquire as to the state of well being, safety, thirst, and rescue, of a man and wife and their two young children.

I thought about a lot of things in a few minute’s time…about the last six months of travel up and down this stretch of road. I felt my heart get heavy as I walked across the road to my car. Then I turned around and returned to the couple. I shook his hand again and apologized for the state of his country despite his twenty years to preserve our freedom here.

And before I turned away and walked away for the last time…I engraved the scene and moment into my heart and slightly saddened mind…and added a parting thought to the young couple’s memory of the day…I said, (and I said it in good humor) “In case you’re wondering about who stopped to help you in the middle of the heartland of Western America today…always remember…it was a Canadian…”

Matthew L Landsman

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A rose is always a rose

Posted in inspirational, people, seasons, Uncategorized on January 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

In the dead of winter, even ‘neath frigid snow and the dark of the
early arriving night, a rose is still a rose. Though it may appear
lifeless, but a stem, thorns, and ravaged leaf…there lives on in the
ground a slumbered root…fed by the fallen petals of fading autumn,
later…the dripping icicle, and the mere promise of spring.

frozen rose 2

It is hard to fathom an end to an endless night…relief from the need
for constant tending of the fire…for support on the icy slope. Life is
cruel for extended moments in the hard throes of January and the month
afterward…a desolate landscape of hues of grays and mottled whites…Not
a fertile ground conducive to optimism and hope…But even then…a rose is
still a rose.

frozen rose 3

As I did last winter, and the one before…I leaned hard on a dried
blossom from the blossoms of summer…I recalled the first hint of yellow
green leaves straining against the still chilled days of March…the
swell of buds on the tips of infant branch in search of yet feeble rays
of sun…But hope made it’s shy debut along with the signs on the bush
awakening there…

frozen rose1

And so once more I lie wait of a sign of the re-emergence of the rose
in you…of the spring that lies beneath a mantle of snow…and a
sprinkling of the frozen rain…Hope springs eternal in the faithful, the
love filled…the keepers of memories, of laughter and smiles…of promises
and heartfelt wishes…for an early spring…for the hint of green…for the
rose to mark the return of all I have had to only imagine since the
first frost so long ago…MLL

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Thoughts on my friend Terry.

Posted in Eulogy for a Fisherman, fishing eulogy poem, inspirational, life lessons, Memorials, people, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 15, 2009| 4 Comments »

I have always called him Little Terry. It is a term of endearment. Terry came to be a part of my life over 21 years ago. I was young, he was younger. I think we came to be friends quickly…He was dynamic, full of world-changing ideas. He was filled with a soul that defied his few years among us, yet youthful and brimming with wide eyed wonder all at once. He was an honorary big guy in a not-so-large body.

Terry was a fisherman.  He loved the search…the ritual of the chess game between him, the waters, the winds, the weather, the light, the currents, and of course, the fish.

Not long after our meeting, Terry found himself having to prove himself a worthy adversary, not unlike the fish he tried so hard to lure, hook, and draw from the depths beyond the bank or the bow. I witnessed him facing adversity of health, of career, of human frailty, of potentially spirit-sapping misfortune…Terry used these rough patches as incentive to fight against the metaphoric hook and line that seemed to be attempting to reel and steal him away from a good life, a productive life, a normal life… and at times, away from life itself.

But Terry, being a fisherman himself, was well aware of the tactics of the adversary that threatened his own life journey. At times, it seems he had been caught unaware and was nearly hooked and dragged from this world. But as a fighter of the good fight, he always managed to break free, to cheat his moment of fate time and again. Terry fished, and learned from it and grew wiser and wilier through it all.

I felt Terry looked up to me. I used to think I mentored him, set an example, encouraged and incited hope in him. He admired my stature, longed to be my height…to tote the loads I could muster at our place of work. I used to think he wanted to be more like me.

But in truth, Terry taught ME about toughness, about strength, about perseverance, and about overcoming long odds. He taught me about a lot of things after I got to know him. He rarely had two breaks in a row, yet even in the midst of rough times, he rarely missed a beat when it came to friendship. I learned resilience and was inspired profoundly by his will. I soon became an admirer of his, and ours became a friendship of mutual respect and admiration.

I have heard it said that if you feed a man a meal, you feed him for a day. But if you teach him to fish, you can help him to feed himself for a lifetime. Terry was my friend, and he was a teacher in his own right. Terry’s life taught me that life is like fishing…that it is at times heartbreaking, tough, and often leaves a soul hungry and empty-handed. But he also taught me that there is always another day, another spot that holds promise…that there is reason why it is called “fishing” and not “catching.”

It took me all these years to understand he had, in fact, been mentoring me all along. He showed me that a fish could care less if its opponent was taller, stronger, or any other number of self-appreciating traits. He taught me that one needs patience, desire, fair breezes, and a willingness to find that simple joy is in the fishing itself, even when there is little or no catching going on.

To be sure, there have been many occasions when Terry has been caught himself, and perhaps battered, but never outfoxed and landed. He was as much a wily old fish as he was crafty old fisherman.

Terry did finally get beat at his own game, but he did so while planning his next day of fishing. John Lennon said that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I find myself needing to amend that thought with another…while you’re busy making your plans, the Good Lord may be making his own plans for you. In which case, should God’s plans come to fruition, the conclusion of life may be what happens. Evidently, the Lord needed a fishing buddy, so he called on Terry to cast a line out with him.

There was much more to Terry than fishing, but then there is also much to be learned from the simple act of casting a line over water and sending a seeking hook into the depths. Every day we cast out our intentions and aspirations over the water, and every day the life beyond this one is casting out its own, in search of all of us…luckily, we usually elude the bait and tackle for the better part of ten decades…although some simply can’t evade the inevitable but for a short while.

To sit and remember the good old days, one has to have once lived them. And we should be thankful always…even for what was in the past, or has simply been taken away in an untimely fashion. To have been blessed with a gift even if only briefly, is still a blessing…even when it is viewed in retrospect.

I think that Terry might have felt the following regarding his life:

I have fished the very river that has heard my confessions, absorbed my tears, nourished my body, and quenched my thirst for water and for life. The river has become a part of me, and one day soon I hope to become a part of the river itself. I will take parts of you with me to the river I love so. I will see all of you again somewhere down the road. In the meanwhile, I will fondly peer out along the banks of that river and hope to feel you there. I hope you feel my spirit too…

With the last of my breath having left me, the sum of my treasure will be entombed in my stilled heart, and assembled there at my resting place. I hope the assembly is large, and glad to have known me. I hope the bounty of their personal treasure is swelled with my contribution, and that they too see the value is in the life we live and not piled about your properties.

If there is a twinge of an empty feeling that finds you when a cool breeze sends a chill, or when a line in a movie sends you to a desolate place inside, it is just Terry paying you a momentary visit.

Terry has joined with those already gone on ahead of him. He will see the rest of you at the grandest reunion of all. You’ll find him fishing…wearing a baseball cap and vest…nursing a can of something cold, with a pinch of something behind his lip…and a bucket of pan-sized small mouth to fry up for you later on. His hands will be filled with rod and reel, his face will wear a smile…and his heart will be at peace there by the shore of that river. Be happy for him…

As for me, I’m going down to the bank of that river, I’m gonna cast my line out over the swells, and hope for lot of fishing, and regardless of whether I get a bite or not…I will be glad and thankful to simply be convening with the spirit of Terry while he sits next to me there, healthy again, and whole once more…casting out his own line…not just to pass the time, but to make the passing of time a gift, and a lesson on how life ought to be lived…patient, thoughtfully, and with eager anticipation of the nibble or strike at the hook.

Terry is off fishing, he’ll be fine.

Thank you Terry for teaching me to fish and, in turn, how to live life.

Vía con dios my friend.

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growing old with Alzheimer’s

Posted in life lessons, people, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

There are only memories,
where a garden used to grow. Some days I think she’d like to plant
a flower here, a snow pea there. Mostly she just rests and remembers…but
her memory isn’t always clear.

The rows she sowed still
remember her, the touch of her fingers, and the feel of her hands. But
the recollections of springs of the past are fading fast.

You will do well to
find the roses you hung to dry long ago. The connecting again with some
memories will one day be all that’s left to know.

And though the fields
have gone to weeds, long ago forgotten the touch of tilling, the water,
and the seeds…There is the scent of green, of life of love. It lives
on in you…you are the flowers now…grow proud and tall… 

Matthew Lyle Landsman

Summer 2008…

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The Music of Life…

Posted in nostalgia, people, romance, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2009| 1 Comment »

 She gave to me springtime in the dead of winter…and brought hope back to me when I’d misplaced it. She gave me life when mine was faded and splintered.

I gave her a simple compliment from my heart…about heaven-bound long legs and eyes that took me away to an ocean known to me only in magazines…then she took my breath away, and replaced it with music from Jim Brickman. A gift of piano, promises, cello…evening bliss and Sunday afternoon slumber as the keys told our story…

And I…I gave to her three guitars with a sense of southern style and abandon…a Simple Man called Mr. Breeze called on her on occasion…accompanied by piano like only Skynyrd knows how. And we journeyed to Alabama on a Free Bird…and we danced private dances in her living room, without really moving…just a simple swaying to the music…Brickman’s “Secret Love”, or Skynyrd’s declaration that; “go find a woman, and you’ll find love…and don’t forget son, there is someone up above…”

We danced there in the dark without moving our feet…but our souls were moved…and our hearts pounded in unison…while our ragged breathing grew urgent, and in spite of the silence at the music’s end…there were still a thousand drums and five hundred violins that played within…and while the encore raged on, there played a chorus of the tiny deaths that visited both of us when the harmony and acoustics were just right.  She looked at me through the same tears with which I viewed her, and quietly we both spoke at the same moment, as life crept back into us and our heartbeats returned to a survivable rhythm… We said simply to one another; “I hear cellos”…

Matthew L Landsman

 

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Some thoughts not just for the holidays, but to live by every day…

Posted in Holidays, inspirational, life lessons, people, Uncategorized on November 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Please do your very best stay in touch
with each other. Give heartier handshakes, let conversations linger.
Have an extra coffee or two with your loved ones after those too rare
family meals. Let there be an added half hour of goodbye loitering when
two or more of you gather. Hug tighter; be generous with your gifts
of time, with your love too. I am told that you’ll never see a hearse
towing a U-Haul trailer to a funeral, so sacrifice a few dollars earned
thru too many hours working away from family and friends. The only things
you take with you are memories; the biggest things you leave behind
are your legacy, your love and smiles, and the echo of your laughter.
Make sure they are bountiful and always fresh and recently replenished.

Please take good care of yourself, take
one more walk and have one less drink or cigarette. I need all of you,
and we all seem to need more of each other more than ever before. I
Hope we can love one another more deeply, be sincere in our greetings
and farewells.  I pray that Christmas and other faith filled days can
see a return to their roots – and linger past the designated days.
If someone crosses your mind; find them, call them. There are reasons
for those thoughts and memories returning to us. Follow through. You
can never make up for time lost once someone has gone on ahead. And
always part on glad terms, just in case that parting with another ends
up the last that either you or the other is left to live on with. Go
on by leaving folks with a hearty hug, rather than a scowl and a grudge. 

Matthew Landsman

Autumn 2007

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Ours is the story I have yet to write

Posted in life lessons, people, romance, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Ours is the story I have yet to write.
Yours is the hair I yearn to smell after the fading of light. I am yet
to tread the water one sees within the depths of your eyes. I'm still
looking forward to reminiscing over our first dates and seeing the rose
you picked for me hanging over my sink while our fondness grows and
the blossom dries.

I look forward to knowing how you like
your coffee, and whether you are crystal flute or a Tupperware tumbler
kind of girl…and if you know the vessel holds no bearing on the content
as long as the heart is warm and the breezes are fair.

Do you wear a spritz of perfume even
when you're alone…just in case I might happen by? Will you bury your
nose in a pillow that smells of my cologne just to bring me closer to
you when we spend time apart?

Will I be the first call you make no
matter if the news is troubled or glad? Will your waking moments find
you reaching to find me as we are the first thought that fills your
mind?

And will your heart forget its rhythm
when you realize you are hearing what will be "our song" for
the first time? At the moment it happens, will you pull your car to
the shoulder and have trouble dialing my number because of the mist
that fills your eyes?

It is true we have yet to meet, but I
know you're out there searching too.

If these things aren't bad for you to
be around…let it be me…The poet in me awaits you. 

Matthew Landsman

Summer 2008

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Five weeks in France

Posted in nostalgia, people, romance, Uncategorized on November 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Humphrey Bogart said it best in the movie Casablanca,

“We’ll always have Paris…”

I say it today, though I’ve never been to “The City of Light”…nor have I strolled through a vineyard in Provence. I doubt I will ever peer over the cliffs of Normandy, or hear the surf that once pounded the shore with the crimson remains of so many brave souls.

But shortly after the change in the millennium, I fell in love with the voice of a lonely friend as she stayed not far from the shadow of the Eiffel Tower… while her feet left a barely visible set of prints along the banks of the River Seine…and  the fragrance of baguettes teased her nose after a summer shower, and tempted her palate, begging to be shared with a flute of sparkling wine, crisp apple slices, and a stash of cheeses with names I cannot pronounce.

I saw her off for a six week trek across the land and sea, for a trip into the past… into the vineyards, cobblestones, galleries, narrow side streets and country roads that are France…her rite of passage as taken by others before her.

It has been a long while, so the details of her journey are misty to my memory… but not the wonder of discovering our hearts peering into the nights beyond either shore, and far past the horizon… the search for the familiar serenading of the senses, for the familiar scents that had been her and I, then the two of us together.  She was nowhere in sight, but I felt her presence everywhere I roamed in my solitude.

Perhaps as I passed beneath a non-descript overpass, on an unremarkable stretch of highway, she may have been taking a journey through history, while her taxi or walking shoes took her through the Arc de Triomphe. While stranger’s smiles, in the most romantic city in the world, may have tapped on her heart’s door, the reminder of my certain adoration and growing fondness, here in our desert hamlet, pounded with determination for passage to a place neither had been before.

When infant dawn splashed over the morning sky, with hues from nature’s palette of reds filling the eastern sky and giving new shadows to the purple hills of the fading night, I knew that afternoon shadows were growing long in the French countryside.  Here, on the avenues of rustic towns she ventured, while making lasting memories of the beauty at hand, with a sense of history urging her on alone…and with the knowledge she might never wander these paths again…all the while a presence of growing liaison between our two gypsy souls calling her heart home again.

While she broke her evening bread and held a letter from home against her homesick, aching breast, I was greeting the day with weary eyes and an envelope full of fresh words about the day before, and the night of distant intentions, about to be postmarked and sealed with a kiss, then sent off across the cool Atlantic.

While she wandered the Louvre and silently gasped at the beauty and wonder of works by the likes of Rembrandt and Leonardo Da Vinci, perhaps the quiet smile of The Mona Lisa filled her with a sense of mystery and awe.  I am certain I was enamored with the vision of her simple smile and the eyes that nearly vanish when joy invades her being over simple pleasures like “treats” at DQ, or “scenes” from next week’s episode of ER.  To be sure, Paris in July is magic and might come but once in a lifetime, but in the midst of all this worldly travel, the two of us were discovering there really is no place like home when someone you love is waiting there anxiously.

In the heat of the afternoon sun, I busied myself with pulling weeds from her lawn just to be closer to her somehow.  As she strolled through a market in Provence, after an early morning train carried her from the city bustle and left her with a camera full of photographs, and as the wonderful chill of a morning breeze filled the air with conversations it carried and caused the leaves of the olive trees to softly rustle, maybe the breezes were my thoughts and love on the wing, reminding her of all that awaited her when she made the journey home.

And as we both pondered what the other might be doing at a given moment, words for tomorrow’s letter were spilling over in the hearts of the two of us.  Perhaps a pen was being set down momentarily to empty a hand that would wipe away a knowing tear, or reach for another serving of yesterday’s letter…like a sip from a glass of last night’s wine to greet the dawn, clinging to every passage that filled the cup with sappy declarations and promises of hour long hugs upon her return…over and over I would drink it up till I became intoxicated with emotion, loneliness and anticipatory longing.  This was a slightly guilty pleasure since no liquor, ale, or wine had passed over my tongue in over a decade, but the metaphoric spirits, in the form of her words, filled me, nearly drowned me, and left me reeling with familiar warmth and an aching desire.

France and Washington state share nearly the same latitude on God’s earth, lending to their innate ability to produce quintessential wine grapes, amazing sunsets, and inspirations for lovers of all things natural, beautiful, fragrant, tasty, and romantic.  Straining out to the west of Normandy, the granite isle of Mont Saint-Michel stands vigil in the Atlantic waters, reaching out to mariners and all sentimental souls alike…pointing to the British Isles and the last leg of her journey abroad.

When the object of my attentions and desire at last took leave of Bordeaux country for a final time, and spent a week in the green country of Ireland, she toured castles and the sources of legend and Celtic tunes and lore. Then a weary traveler bid farewell to Dublin and, an ocean crossing later, was greeted by first the east, then the west coasts of our fair land.  Finally, as July faded and August debuted, I traveled to a terminal to collect her at last.  I remember the fragrance of airline-conditioned air following her, and accompanying us home, through the mountain passing and safely home to our desert abodes.

The drive marked the end of one journey, the beginning of another, and the eventual culminating of our last summer together.

Now it’s nearly three quarters of a decade later, half past “0 dark thirty,” and I’m still waiting for my phone to ring again. I long to be awakened from the sleep that hasn’t found me yet. I long for the pad of air delivery paper that lay next to my bed, which I penned my heart upon, pouring out prose, poetry and love like Cabernet into a Dixie cup…mailing it off nearly every morning shortly after dawn.

On the shelf in my bathroom stands a long empty bottle that once held cologne she brought to me from France.  I call it “Far Away” because I can’t pronounce the name.  I remember the homecoming and the scent she gave to me.  And I yearn for the swelling of emotion and growing anticipation of her next words, either spoken or written, the journal of her days abroad.  I miss her taking me through the places that for me existed only in movies and novels.  I miss the most romantic, extended moment this poet ever had…when we had only a continent and an ocean between us…but I had never been closer, felt more embraced, never felt more comfortable, even while knowing that our reunion held no promise of forever.  Still I knew that I would forever hold fast to the memories and moments, to the absence of a hand to hold, while I walked at her side some five thousand miles and nine time zones away.

And, oh my God, how that trip we took together, yet apart from each other, has saved me time and again…rescued me when I’ve nearly stopped believing in romancing, walks in the warm rain, and slow dancing.  I step back a few years to the most endearing of times my heart has ever known. I return to a fantasy that invaded my reality, gave me inspiration for some of my fondest work and most
heartfelt intentions to meld with the ink in my pen and the faintly-lined paper that would soon somehow find her and speak softly to her in English among the foreign speaking souls all around her.

I have no regrets, only thanks for the elation and honor of an epic moment shared…for the words that all these years later flow once more through my hands, an old friend revisited, refined, and aged to perfection like vintage wine. Again I enjoy the twinge of pure intoxication, look out over the eastern horizon, and remember when…and thanks to Bogart and Bergman, and a time spent apart from one I loved, I quietly look out into the night…and softly utter,

“We’ll always have Paris…”

Matthew Lyle Landsman, July 2008.

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Estate sale…

Posted in inspirational, life lessons, Memorials, nostalgia, people, Uncategorized, tagged , on November 15, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Hi Boo…I just went to the bank and got out a few of the dollars the job put there. I noticed the avenue by my house was full of cars and folks walking to an unknown destination.  It had to be more than just a yard sale as the volume of the pilgrimage was too large. I saw an estate sale sign as I rounded the corner and headed to the bank.

I walked over there after I got home…to a place a half a block away at the end of a cul-de-sac, nestled among tall trees and rounded drives. I have lived in the neighborhood for eleven years and had never ventured, nor even really looked down that drive. I figure these folks had wanted and earned their privacy. Yet
I ventured down the drive today, curious…

I’m sorry I went.

I feel as though I violated sacred ground…felt my skin crawl a little.  I saw the books and tools, the diversity of life…the places traveled, the art, the worn pan in which she cooked his eggs…the coffee cup over which a soul
pondered the morning and day ahead…the sources of music that may have
accompanied private dances.  I trod upon worn floors that kids, and likely grandkids, had learned to crawl, then walk upon.  I saw a corner with an easy chair and a desk where a lifetime of bills were paid…a collection of ancient tools and instruments with which a living was made.

I saw a house…a beautiful home…a place where lives and loves had grown.  I saw a collection of dusty testimonials to the wondrous circle of life which we are all in the midst of…and I felt both full and empty. I tiptoed through the rooms, aware I was practically treading upon a grave…or an impromptu shrine that was being looted by bargain hunters…

And I thought of my own family…the great house and home my parents shared and cared in…and I thought of you too…then I kept my money where it belonged, tucked away…and instead said a prayer that in the end, my parents’ lives are honored and validated with a little more dignity…

I walked away from that house a slightly shaken and wiser man…and finished the coffee with which this whole journey began.

Matthew Lyle Landsman

August 22, 2008

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Cancer Society Relay for Life essay

Posted in Cancer Society Relay for Life essay, inspirational, life lessons, Memorials, people, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on November 15, 2009| 1 Comment »

Dylan Thomas wrote:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Just after dawn on this relay morning I woke up with that line in my head…woke up with the recent memories of the luminary lighting ceremony, the benediction prayer, the soft strains of “Amazing Grace” sung by Penny…the team leaders carrying the flames that moments later would illuminate the names of loved ones who had fought and either won, lost, or were continuing to fight the good fight against their cancer.

In the time during the struggle my family endured alongside my stricken mother, and the time that has passed in the following years, I came to realize that the patient isn’t the only soul who is forever affected by the indiscriminate nature of cancer. I have been forever touched inside, by not only the loss inflicted by this worst of all diseases, but by the loss of innocence it forces upon us, the loss of sleep it continues to impose on those left behind, and the loss of understanding we search for to somehow justify the senseless suffering that cancer imposes on the victims, the family members, friends, neighbors, and caregivers, both young and old.

Last evening I witnessed a collective raging against the dying of the light…a glow encircling the track not unlike a halo of defiance sending out the message that, despite the heartlessness of the beast, a gathering of names, of stories, of prayers, and of faithful travelers in the still of evening spoke out against the forces of darkness.  We will not go gently into that good night. We will bring our own light; a message of will and determination to break the cycle of impending darkness, of deprivation and sorrow, the anger and time stolen from our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

So we assemble in a show of oneness and undying determination against the never resting cycle of degradation and deprivation of life and lives consumed by this demon called cancer. And we vow to carry our vigil from dusk, thru the spell of darkness, until we all emerge again in the light of the infant dawn. We are a collection of friends and strangers with a kindred spirit and a common bond. We form a family of veterans in the good fight to end this relentless march of darkness looming from beyond the shadows and staring down upon us all.  We are an eclectic combining of individual candles shimmering into a collective raging flame of diligent souls who “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Shortly after the silent lap and as the stadium lights were still doused, I stood at the side of a stranger, peering into the candlelit night and up into the bleachers at the side of our battleground. From a vantage point to left of the bleachers, I could easily make out the word “HOPE” spelled out in assembled luminary bags in front of me.  But the next word appeared as a menagerie of glowing bags without reason or definition. The stranger there with me offered up the explanation that the second word was “hard to see”, but that it read “CURE”.

At that very moment my poet’s heart recognized the gravity of the moment, the irony of the jumbled word eluding my understanding…just as the cure itself lies somewhere out there still…in another collection of nights…other relays…in the misty light of a long awaited and very welcome dawn. Or perhaps cure will debut as flashes of blinding lightning bolts in the velvety midnight sky. Until that day, we will have to rely on each other for the light, lean on God for the light, resort to the lingering light of the memories of our loved ones lost to the celestial discharge. Before the cure becomes a reality, rather than a hard-to-decipher encryption in the metaphoric bleachers before us in a hope-filled night in June, we will continue to circle the track to join hearts, hands, prayers, voices and share stories.

Harry Chapin used to sing of life being “a circle with no clear-cut beginnings, and so far; no dead ends.”  He spoke of having a “funny feeling that we’ll all get together again.”  In the case of our yearly relay and the reasons for our holding it, Harry’s words were sadly prophetic. I love the camaraderie of this annual event. I look forward to us all gathering to reminisce our loved ones lost, of the battles won by survivors, and to just share in the essence of knowing the experience as we do.  But I mostly look forward to being able to look back in retrospect on the day when cures to the multitudes of cancers were found…when our diligence was rewarded with success and we are able to honor the loss of our loved ones with validation of our efforts to find those cures. Right now the circle of cancer in our lives is presenting us with far too many dead ends, and the discovery of the illness presents us with stark and solemn clear-cut beginnings. I join all of you in hoping that the only dead ends we find are the ends of a search for the cure…to the beginning of gathering in celebration and looking on our June gatherings in retrospect, rather than as a vigil continued.

Until then, I will join you in providing the light after darkness falls, in the circling of the track, in the joining of hearts, prayers, voices and well intentions…to rage against the dying of the light…and the circles in our lives ending with sorrow rather than continuing with jubilation. I am honored to join you all in the good fight, and to not go gentle in that good night, but to continue fighting until the dawn brings us victories and validations for the lives perished and rewards us for nights of sleep lost…

Be well, and continue to relay, until we need relay no more.

June, 16, 2007   Matthew Lyle Landsman

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