Tag Archives: Valentine’s Day

The Road to Diamond, Day 77: Heart House

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 14, 2025, Manila- This woman I love looked appreciatively at the roses I had given her for Valentine’s Day-and gave one each to two of her friends who had not received flowers of their own. This is the mark of a human who has the true sense of what matters most in the world: No person needs to be left alone. This is but one example of why I am so close to leaving a comfortable life of fourteen years’ duration and adopting a simpler, but still salubrious, life, halfway around the world.

Anywhere K is, is a heart house. A group of six of us went to visit the home of the construction engineer, who managed the renovation of Manila Regional Baha’i Center. It was an exquisitely- crafted lunch of stewed barbecued chicken, with potatoes and eggplant. There was also a creamy dish of salmon belly, which I had never known was a dish. White rice, of course, was present, but neither K nor I took much of it. She was much more thrilled to have fruit cocktail in chilled milk curd, which I rather enjoyed as well. Earlier, K had asked me about three workers in the project, who were not riding with us to the event. Lo and behold, the three men showed up on their own, having been invited by the boss.

She leaves no one out, ever. After touring the boss’s home, we all went over, at K’s request, to visit a Baha’i friend who has been hospitalized. He was thrilled to see everyone and we spent almost an hour, before the Head Nurse announced it was time for him to rest. K and our hosts went to a nearby Jollibee and bought our friend his favourite chicken, as well as a dozen bananas and some over the counter medication that was approved by the Nurse.

Tomorrow, a small group of us will visit museums that are associated with Malacanang Palace, the residence of the President of the Philippines. Since I have never been in the White House and only on the grounds of Palais de L’Elysee, this will be yet another milestone that I’m sharing with the resident of my Heart House.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Seventy Years Ago….

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Posted by on in collaborating, Education, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

September 30, 2024, Puerto Princesa- An ecstatic woman, in Long Island City, NY, screamed with delight, at the news she had just been given. Her first granddaughter, after two sons and a grandson, was born. For the Fellmans, of Long Island City and Jamesburg, NJ, the birth of little Penny righted a top-heavy ship.

She would go on, transcending a congenital defect, for over 45 years, building an Intelligence Quotient of 161, graduating summa cum laude from the University of Virginia and earning three Master’s Degrees-all in the field of education. As a member of the Baha’i Faith, from 1977, she would serve with distinction, as an educator, on the Navajo Reservation, in Jeju, South Korea, and in El Mirage, AZ. In the latter town, she would be led out to retirement, gently and with gratitude from the Superintendent’s Office, even as she was attacked by those within the school who had no understanding of her struggles.

I met Penny in December,1980, as the snow swirled around Zuni, New Mexico, as a house blessing ceremony, called Shalako, took place in a cozy, but crowded home. We took turns sitting in a single chair and became enamoured of one another. We would date, off and on, for eighteen months, and married in June, 1982. We met some auspicious milestones-Valentine’s Day engagement, marriage on the sixth day of the sixth month-and welcoming our son on the seventh day of the seventh month. Marriage was often stormy, but never rocky, and through her final eleven years, she had her men beside her-to her last breath.

Penny missed joining the Seventies Club by thirteen years and seven months. I could tell that she would have loved this day, though she was adamant about not making a big deal of her birthday-or mine, for that matter. There was always that twinkle in her eye, when she was honoured. I feel her light, shining through the veil-telling me to continue on my path. So, on I go.

Three Times in Love

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Posted by on in collaborating, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 14, 2024- I read, on the back of one of my baby pictures,of all that coursed through the young woman’s heart, as she gazed upon her first born child-yours truly.        Thirty years after that photo was taken, a winsome, effervescent young woman came up to me, and started talking about the event where were both in attendance.            Forty-three years after that night of rain and snow, a winsome, effervescent and mature woman came over to me and began talking of her family, smiling broadly with pride in her daughter.

It’s said that one only falls in love with three people, in this life: The love who looks right; the hard love and the love that lasts. This theory takes in an adolescent crush, as its notion of first love, but leaves out the obvious person: One’s opposite sex parent. My mother was my first love, and set the ideal for anyone who came along later. I learned my code of conduct, love of learning and attention to detail, from that diligent and sometimes exacting woman. A boy sees, hears and feels the love of his mother, above all the other females in his young life. I didn’t always listen to her, and bristled, as often as I acquiesced, to her dictums and rules. A man ponders, internalizes, and often passes on to his own progeny, those same precepts-along with what was learned from his father.

I had my share of adolescent crushes, none of which came to anything, and as an emerging, but still immature, thirty-year-old I started to feel something stirring within myself-after living a hard twelve years of struggle with alcohol dependency, a fairly obvious place on the autism spectrum and a pretty serious level of self-loathing. That stormy night, in December, 1980, I came face-to-face with the woman who would be both the love who looked right and the hard love. We worked through a lot, raised a child, and raised each other, past a lot of lingering adolescence. She brought a renewed Faith in the Divine, into my world, and refined my idea of unconditional love. It could be said that she made a man out of me-and certainly impelled me to cast out my lingering demons. That was a process, though, that lasted beyond her own time in this world, and caused me some grief, for a few years after death did us part.

The third love is the one we don’t see coming. I certainly was taken aback, having resigned myself to living out my years surrounded by friends, but essentially alone. Yet, there she was, captivating me more than anyone had, in a good many years-and certainly as much as Penny had, on that night in Zuni. This time, we were part of a group, which went to some places together and, right up to the day I left their company, did not consciously strike me as an agent of the change that was to come. I was cavalier about when I would come back to visit them. Yet, underneath it all, feelings began to bubble to the surface. Before a month had passed, from my return to Home Base, I knew I was in deep.

The love we don’t see coming is said to be the love that lasts. I personally think all three last. I will always be looking out for my mother, as long as she is alive, even though she is safe and secure-and 2,655 miles away. I will always be praying for the well-being and advancement of Penny’s soul, even as her spirit continues to guide me. I will continue to communicate, often daily, with the woman for whom I feel a welling of love, and carefully build a lasting friendship, based on mutual respect and devotion.

All three are strong, independent souls, capable of fiercely defending their loved ones, their values and their own persons. That strength, independence and ferocity, as I mentioned yesterday to a distant friend, are what bound me to my mother and drew me to Penny, and to K. Only a strong woman can truly bring out the strength in a man.

So I wish my third love a Happy Valentine’s Day, and can only hope to be as valued in her heart, as she is in mine.

Here’s Tommy James, offering a take on the notion.

Looney Tunes

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Posted by on in Community, Entertainment, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

February 8, 2024- I love February, in spite of itself. I love it, despite the lingering cold, the slowly receding dark and the icy roads of morning and late night. I love the second calendar month because we humans respond to dreariness, with festivity: Lunar New Year, Super Bowl Sunday,Mardi Gras (I will never willingly say “Fat Tuesday”, anymore than I would say “plastic silverware”, “six-month anniversary” or “Feb-yoo-ery”. -but that’s me.), Valentine’s Day, and Ayyam-i-Ha (Days of God’s Essence, or Intercalary Days), which are the Baha’i gift giving period. This last is called Intercalary Days, because the Baha’i devotional calendar consists of nineteen months, with nineteen days each. That leaves four days (five, in a Leap Year), at the end of the year. 

It is also a month when I see an increase in behaviour, of the kind that the late President Reagan would call “Looney Tunes”. Maybe it’s a reaction to lingering cold, slowly receding darkness, icy roads, or All-American malapropisms, but I have to ask: Why insist on driving 60 mph, in the dark, on an icy 35 mph road, with heavy snow coming down? Why refuse to shovel one’s section of sidewalk, or at least have someone else do it, when there is 5-6 inches of snow on it, and the Sun isn’t coming out for quite a while? Why make such a furious mess about Taylor Swift?, and my fave-Why go against your own bill that would restore some sense of order to the Mexican border?

I will leave those questions, and the proper pronunciation of “February”, to those with intelligence quotients that are several points higher than my own-people like Taylor Swift, for example.

On a more serious note: My sincerest wishes that there be a dry period in California, so that our western neighbours can get on with repairs to roads, bridges and beach fronts.

Love Means Energy

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, impediments, Personal goals, Personal Values, Service Activities, Striving

February 14, 2020-

It’s been quite a few years, since Valentine’s Day meant taking time for romance.  The last such day was in 2011, and it was to prove the last such day,ever,-at least as far as I know now.  Penny wasn’t so much connected with us, but on that day, she was home.  She would have about 1 1/2 more weeks, living in the house that we struggled to keep.  I got six carnations, placed them in a vase, and made sure she knew they were there.  I felt her happiness, at seeing her favourite flowers.  The last time I placed carnations in a vase, six months ago, it was at her grave.

The woman closest to me now is not huge on flowers in a vase.  She prefers things she can plant.  She is also more careful with romance, for good reason.  We are  the best of friends, and that works well for me.   The key is always to meet such of the needs of another person, with which s(he) entrusts you.  We are one another’s most fervent well-wisher, sounding board and healer.

There are many other friends in my life, as my readers know-many of you are among them, in real time.  In any case, you are friends in spirit, and that has made all the difference, in times of setback and low energy.  My friends are a good part of what keeps me going.

Then, there is the purpose-the driving force behind each day, for which I draw breath.  Now, it is the life skills development of  a young lady, who has spent her brief life working mightily to learn things which so many of us take for granted.  She reminds me of my youngest brother, gone these twenty-six years.  She is the primary reason for my work, from now until the third week in May.

Love is also putting stock in the Will of God-that things happen for a reason, or for several reasons, all having to do with relationships, with personal development.  Some things happen, or don’t happen, according to our human, finite plans-but they always happen for reasons found in the Cosmos.  I had planned to visit a friend, whose husband is seriously ill, at an event in her business, this evening.  Instead, whilst I was driving to an earlier event, a tire blew and I made it to said earlier event-barely.

Friends there helped me, and thanks to the AAA, my car is at the regular mechanic’s shop.  Tomorrow morning will thus be spent with the mechanic and getting the two new tires I seem to need.  The tax returns will wait until next week.  I will stop at the other friend’s business, tomorrow afternoon.  I’ve learned to see even  mishaps as blessings.

Love means putting energy into the betterment of those around you, as well as taking care of self.