MARK'S... ------------------------------------------------------------ * * * *** * * ***** * ***** ***** ***** ***** *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** * *** * * *** *** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***** *** * ***** ***** ***** * * ***** * * ------------------------------------------------------------ Volume 1 ~ Issue 9 ~ 8 January 2000 (C)2000 Mark Krell ------------------------------------------------------------ 7 January... This issue was going to be dated 6 January... I was writing late at night when my phone rang... The lady who started to talk with me told me that we had never met and that she dialed my number at random because she was feeling down and needed someone to talk to... she says that mine was the first number she dialed. I offered to come get her with the promise of just being a friend... she accepted and we spent all night awake and talking... I lent her a t-shirt so she could get into the spa with me (I wore a bathing suit)... She turned out to be 41, a nice looking lady who had been through several kinds of hell in the past several years... her latest was living with a guy who had not touched her for more than a year... she left him temporarily and was with friends who had their own craziness going on (some people live that way) and she was feeling miserable. Why did she dial my number? I don't know... she doesn't know... Should we chalk this up to the "God works in mysterious ways" department? Whatever the reason... she turns out to be a nice person... there's nothing cheap about her, but she does seem to need to drink more than I'd like... her reality does not look encouraging--to the point of my saying to her, "While I don't like your drinking, I gotta admit that I understand why!" People deal with cruelties received at the hands of others differently. People deal with being diagnosed with lung cancer differently. She is not dealing well... What can I give her? She'll have to decide for herself... maybe it will just be experiencing the behaviors of a reasonably sane loving man towards her... I am sad because this lady is nice enough to make me wish I could do more. Mark gets lucky... At 9:30 am after spending the whole night chatting, she decides she likes me (figure it out!)... She gets lucky... I have some very nice qualities which I don't talk about to ladies who do not decide to get close enough to me. After she experienced some of them, she is now challenging long held concepts about men... I can see it in her eyes... she doesn't know what to do with me... Luckily for Mark, she has figured out that she's going to enjoy whatever she can with me. So, you see... I've been sorta busy which explains the delay in this issue... Every dog has his day! Why am I writing this now? She's finally tired enough to have crashed and is sleeping... I usually send these early morning... I may need to focus my attentions elsewhere then, so I sending tomorrow's now. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Very late 5 Jan... Actually Very Early 6 Jan... I wasn't going to write an issue today... I worked hard earlier and I'm tired... My plan was to clean up the kitchen sink (there's NEVER a pile of dishes here, I mean the counter and the tray under the disk drying rack)... make a couple of gallon pitchers of green tea and honey (antioxidants are healthy for you)... get into the spa (hot tub) for a bit and get a good night's sleep... Then it hit me... I realized WHY I know what I know and that my knowledge comes more from my experience than genius, and that you deserve the explanation which is embedded in todays issue... So, here is Issue 9... ----------------------------------------------------------- HOW PEOPLE LEARN... A few years ago, there was this guy named Plato... he wrote a book, "The Republic"... While his main theme is demonstrating the timeline similarities of democratic states with an accuracy that has proven too true over time, there is in this volume a story called, "The Alegory Of The Cave", which gives a good demonstration of how people learn. No doubt some of you have read this. If you are a serious reader, I heartily recommend this to you. Plato's Republic is easily found at college book stores, bit I'm sure any bookseller either has it or can order it for you. I'm going to present a simplified explanation here... All through your growing up years, every time you were given ice cream it was vanilla... As an adult, somebody offers you chocolate... Many people will refuse the new flavor because of its unfamiliarity... Some will be adventurous and try it, but not the majority... How many of you have had the experience of having a friend rave about the way their mother cooked a particular food... Then you are given an opportunity to taste it with their declaration, "It's just like mom made it!"... You taste it and you know you've had better! Try treating a person who has never experienced kind, gentle and loving people in their lives, and they will view you with suspicion and distrust for some time until they can figure out that you're real. Most people know that they learn from their experiences... Some limit their lives to what they think they've learned (rigidity)... Some allow themselves to experience new and very different things and people (flexability). People also learn things they don't even know they are learning. A toddler is ambling along and heads from the sidewalk into the street... The toddler is thinking, "Ga, ga, everything in my world is OK!"... The mother sees the danger and panics... she rightly rescues the toddler from the street... if she does this gently, no problem... if she then starts spanking the toddler and yelling the things a mother in panic might yell, all the toddler learns is, "my world was OK and suddenly it's not OK!". Handling situations in this way teaches anxiety. Many people who never had affectionate parents are now unable to enjoy loving behaviors. --------------------------------------------------------------- HOW MARK LEARNED WHAT LOVE CAN BE. She was only three years younger than me... not a Hollywood beauty... If you talked with her for a short time, you knew she was beautiful... During the two years I knew her, I never could take my eyes off of her... This because she moved with a gentleness and grace which reflected the person she is... she showed her appreciation for my attentions in ways that made me know she would never take me for granted, but were never "gushy"... she was as directly honest with me as I was with her... the only thoughts and feelings she failed to share were those she had not been able to define for herself... making love to her was easy and an every waking moment thing... and when we did make love to each other, it was always several hours of gentle immersion into each other. She is a class act! Don't get the idea that she was perfect, nobody is. She had good reason to hate her job and wanted change, but was faced with some rigidity in herself coupled with understandable concerns for her own security. I sometimes had to be very patient, understanding that she needed to deal with frustrating issues in her own time. By now you might be asking, "So... What happened???" At the time we got together I was in a marriage that had been deteriorating for many years... there had been no physical or emotional intimacy for more than five years... still, I would not have left the lady because I once promised her that as long as she loved me I would never leave her. When I approached Ms Class Act, I was honest and told her I was not completely available... that was OK with her. When my "wife" made it so untenable to continue our marriage (had nothing to do with Ms Class Act) that we divorced, Ms Class Act got really scared... Her father made her think that true happiness was impossible because of the way he treated her mother... Her two husbands didn't help her to feel any differently... When I became completely available, Ms Class Act found herself experiencing less joy. Considering that, she understood what was going on in the bad marriage and she understood that I was not the author of anything that happened to my ex-wife, and, that my behavior towards Ms Class Act did not change... And, from what she was able to tell me... I can only conclude that the change in Ms Class Act's emotional position was due to her "not wanting to experience the disapproval of another man". I failed to generate within her the understanding that I loved her so much that I would have laid my life down for her at any time. ---------------------------------------------------------------- THE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITIES OF A LOVE RELATIONSHIP. When your partner has personal qualities you admire and respect, and you know that you will never stop looking at them with appreciation... You have no problem sharing your innermost feelings and thoughts with them, and you know they are sharing theirs with you... Your time together is the kind of peaceful and pleasant that can only be borne from a complete trust in each other... Your love making is best described as being in heaven... You both work together to make your lives the best possible... And, your partner feels the same way about you... That'll do it! Settling for less is NOT the way to go. And, letting yourself be "tied up" in agenda from past relationships and experiences so that you are not completely open to finding the partner with whom you can relate to as above is also NOT the way to go. ------------------------------------------------------------- Previous LoveLetters can be read at http://eiw.com/loveletters/ Feel free to recommend LoveLetters to those of your friends to whom it may be helpful or entertaining... http://eiw.com/loveletters/ If you no longer wish to receive LoveLetters, send an email to me with "No More LoveLetters" as the subject. ----------------------------------------------------------- end of issue. |